Running Chick

This was a bit of a cut-back week since the schedule called for a 5k race on the weekend instead of the usual long run.  My 5k was a fail (THANKS DOG), but the rest of the week went pretty well.

Monday -  3 miles easy (@ 10:18)

It was balmy 40-something outside when Josh and I headed out for this (r)unch. My legs were feeling pretty trashed after the previous weekend and somebody (not me) decided to route us up some hills of death in East Houghton which resulted in me taking a walk break or two. Couple that with a nasty headwind, and you have the makings of a not-so-easy run. The pace would indicate otherwise, but this was a struggle.

Tuesday – Hills of Death

I missed the first hill session a few weeks ago due to a bum knee, but I was ready for this one. Or, as ready as I’d ever be.  We chose the hill from the Super 8 to Collect Avenue, which is right around 200 meters long. It’s a steady incline for two-thirds of the hill, turns a corner and then hits a very sharp incline for the last third.

The jog over from campus was quite nice, but all I could really think of was how much this was going to hurt and it sure did.  I was trying to keep my heart rate to a reasonable level for the first part so I wouldn’t give myself a heart attack during the much steeper climb on the second, but I mostly failed on that one.

Each time I rounded the corner, I was already in the Oh God I’m going to die zone and I had all I could do just to hang on and grind it out and keep from puking at the end. I came really close during the second interval.

Here’s some pretty table and graphs that show my misery.

After our repeats were done, we jogged back to campus and I think we ended up with just over 3 miles for the day.

Wednesday -  3 miles easy (@ 10:24)

I was feeling pretty beat up from the prior day’s hills, so Zoe and I just jogged a little out & back on Covered Drive Road.

Thursday – 30 minute tempo (5 miles @ 8:55)

We had a shorter tempo run this week, only 30 minutes, so that was nice. I did a short warm-up then ran 15 minutes out & 15 minutes back, followed by a cool-down jog back home. 

I’m kind of meh about this tempo because I ended up making several mid-run stops for Zoe to do her business. I must not have told her how you need to take care of that before you head out for a run.

Also, this was the first run I took with my new watch. I’ve been running with the Garmin Forerunner 305 since 2006 and it’s been a very reliable device. About a year ago, it started to not want to turn on and I’d have to do a hard reset on it to get it going. Those times were few and far between, so I never really considered getting a new one.  Unfortunately, in the last three months, it’s been doing it more frequently and this last month it was doing it all the time. Then the battery started to act flaky – it’d tell me it was fully charged one minute, then five minutes later it’d be telling me the battery way low. So, I finally took the plunge and upgraded to the Garmin Forerunner 620.

It’s got a ton of bells and whistles that I’m still trying to work my way through, but so far I really like it. There’s a lot of complaining in the Garmin support forums about inaccurate GPS data and the watch being generally buggy, but so far I haven’t experienced any of those issues.

Friday & Saturday – Rest

Rest days, drank some beer, did some not running stuff.

Sunday – 5k race

The training plan called for a 5k race, but it’s not like anybody’s putting on a 5k in the middle of March up here, so I decided I was just going to run my own 5k.

Josh was doing the same, so he, Zoe and I took off at the same time. Josh was doing a longer warm-up than me, so I started my “race” before him. Zoe and I were cruising along well until she realized that Josh wasn’t with us, then she got all worried about where he was.

She spent the majority of her time looking behind her, and each time she’d do that, she’d end up veering right in front of me. Or, she’d just stop completely and I’d have to yell at her to keep going.  After a completely frustrating .75 miles, I finally decided to stop and wait for Josh to catch up. I handed Zoe off to him and took off again, but I could never get my mojo back and I knew the 5k was already in the toilet, so I just said eff this and called it quits. Zoe and I headed back home.  I was pretty ticked off about it at first, but I’d made my peace with it by the time I got home. Sometimes shit happens. What can you do.

If Josh wasn’t being a slacker in the blog department, he’d probably write a post talking about how he ended up doing his 5k in 24:56! Very impressive!

Summary – another week done

I ended the week with just under 17 miles @ 10:22.  This week, we have a full schedule - intervals, tempos, a weekend long run and a few things in-between, like the annual St. Patrick’s Day storm! Go home Winter, you’re drunk.

Two weeks down, ten to go.  The cold weather streak we’ve been having finally broke and we had some nice outside running temps this week. I was a little bit worried that all the time I spent running on the treadmill while it was minus one billion degrees outside softened me to outside running, but I survived.

Monday – 3 miles easy (@10:56)

It was still pretty cold outside, so I plugged away on the treadmill for this one.  I was having one of those days where running on the treadmill seems harder than outside.

Tuesday – 7x400 Intervals (overall 4.63 miles @ 9:41)

Josh and I did these at the SDC over lunch. The track is usually pretty empty around lunchtime, but it was a bit crowded and we ended up doing a lot of swerving around people and dodging errant basketballs.

I was keeping track of the laps manually on my watch at the line on the floor, so I don’t know why my distance is saying .27 miles when it should be .25.  Maybe my footpod needs calibrating again?

Overall, I ended up with a smidge over 4.5 miles for the session, including warm-up & cool-down. Overall pace was 9:41.

Here’s our splits for the seven laps. I probably ran that first one too fast.

And here’s the pretty heart rate graph for those laps.

Wednesday – 3 miles easy (@ 11:00)

Treadmill run, unspectacular.

Thursday – 45 minute tempo (overall 4.51 miles @ 9:17)

I’ve done two tempo runs so far, and I’m still just as confused as ever with how to do them. I read a lot of articles on them, but it seems like every one contradicts the other.

I’m following the Hal Hidgon advance HM plan, and Hal’s recommended tempo is sort of a right-shifted bell-curve where you gradually work toward your 10k pace and then when you reach it, which should be in the final 2/3 of your tempo, you just hold it for a few minutes before slowing down. He includes the warm-up & cool-down in the total tempo time.

Other articles advise to exclude the warm-up & cool-down from the total temp time, and also have you stay at your 10k pace for longer.  Others just recommend doing tempo intervals. Ugh, so confusing.

Since I really don’t know what my 10k pace is, I just try to pick something that’s hardish and hold it for my fast section. Here’s what I ended up doing.

The first mile was my warm-up. Then I gradually worked my way toward 10k pace, dropping my speed each mile. I held my 10k pace for a mile, then started to back off until I hit 45 minutes and jogged back home. I have no idea if this is how I’m supposed to be doing tempo runs.

My overall pace for this run was 9:17 and I ended up with 5.50 miles.

Friday – Rest

I was pretty tired from the pervious runs, so I did an hour of yoga/stretching and called it good.

Saturday -  3 miles @ HM pace (overall 4.39 miles @ 9:02)

This one was a little huh? moment after I was done with this one. I’m shooting for a 2:00ish HM, so that’s a 9:09 pace. I decided I was going to run this on the upper end of hard, but try to stay out of puke territory.

Started out with a .50 mile warm-up, which wasn’t much of a warm-up thanks to Zoe, the dog that can’t go slow. Then I just started dialing in a pace that I felt like I could hold, but wasn’t all that easy. My plan was to do that for three miles, then jog back home.

I wasn’t keeping too close of an eye on my watch, just mostly distance because I was doing an out and back and wanted to not miss my turn-around. I glanced at my pace every so often just to make sure I was keeping it in the range I wanted to be in, but I was mostly going by effort. Every once in a while I’d do the talk test to see how I was doing (full sentences with no problem – too slow; a few words between breaths – just right, and where I was) and confuse Zoe. She’d throw me the strangest looks over her shoulder, as if she was saying “Who in the world are you talking to??”

I finished my miles and jogged back home. My watch said my average pace was 9:02, which was a little surprising. And it wasn’t until I pulled the data from my Garmin to see how I did that I realized I’d overshot my 3 miles and conveniently ended up with exactly 5k at race pace. That ended up being 26:45 which is a holy shit PR for me.

Sunday – 90 minute easy (overall 9.25 miles @ 10:03)

Thanks to Josh doing a downtime into the wee hours of the morning and DST (which I think is officially dumb), we didn’t get started until mid-afternoon. The weather was a balmy 38 degrees, but it was pretty windy.

I started out well enough, but about a mile into the run, my legs started to complain. They were tight, heavy and burning. Hi, lactic acid. The entire run was pretty unpleasant but the absolute worst part was the mile and a half climb up S. Superior Road back home. Hoo boy, I was in the pain arena for that entire stretch. I stopped once and strongly considered giving up entirely, but we were only a half mile from home and there way no way I was going to bail on nine miles in the last half mile. Also, I was with Josh and I wasn’t going to make him finish walking, either. So, I sucked it up, gritted my teeth (literally), and pleaded with the running gods to let me keep running. I made it, but it was pretty miserable.

Summary – I survived; feeling okay

I’m a little disappointed with how I felt on the long run, I was hoping for nice and easy and I got misery and despair, but overall I think this was a pretty good week.

I ended up with a smidge under 30 miles @ 9:53.

Next week, we have hill repeats. I missed the first session because of my bum knee, but I’m ready for these ones. Maybe I’ll do mine on S. Superior Road for a little redemption.

I survived the first week of the Training Plan of Doom (TPoD). Or at least half of it.

I screwed up my knee last Saturday morning shoveling snow (I knew that was a bad idea) and hobbled around all day Saturday and Sunday. It was still bothering me on Monday & Tuesday, so no running on those days. It felt almost back to normal by Wednesday, so that’s when I started.

Monday – 3 miles easy

That was a pass for me, but I was able to ride my bike trainer for 30 minutes at an easy pace. As long as I kept my cadence below 90, my knee felt pretty good. Anything over than that caused me some discomfort, so it was kind of a snoozer of a ride.

Tuesday – 6x200 hill repeats

Another pass on this one, but I did do an interval based trainer ride to compensate, albeit slightly. Josh did this workout on the treadmill while I was on the trainer and all I can say is that I’m not looking forward to doing these.

Wednesday – 3 miles easy

The training plan called for this run to be between 10:30 – 11:30 and I ended up with an average pace of 11:05.  My knee felt pretty good as long as I didn’t go any faster than 10:00. I had a couple of twinges toward the end, but nothing major. Ice packs are my friend.

Thursday – 40 minute tempo

Josh and I headed up to the SDC at lunch to knock this one out. We did a 15 minute warm-up, followed by 20 minutes of slowly working up to race pace, and ending with a 5 minute cool-down.

I was pretty happy with this first tempo, but it was really hard.  Those last two laps were downright brutal.  They were our fastest laps, I think we did them in the high 8s, and I could feel the nausea slowly creeping up my stomach during the last half lap.  Happiness is crossing the finish line and keeping the contents of your stomach off of the track. We ended up with 4 miles in 40 minutes.

Friday – Rest

Rested. Caught up on “Sherlock” and started watching the original “House of Cards”.

Saturday – 1 hour 30 minute long run (3:1)

What do you do when the forecast calls for –25 wind chill and the training plan says a 90 minute long run? Convince the rest of Team /var/run that a long run sufferfest at the SDC was in order. I’d originally suggested on doing the entire run on the treadmill (ugh), but Amy suggested doing it on the track, so we went with that plan.  We got there early, got on the track, and were about to start running when some meathead football dude came over and told us (in a rather assholish manner) that we should go elsewhere. Um, what?  After looking at the online schedule, which said the track was open, and calling to confirm (yep, track is open), it turns out that the football team had the track reserved for the first hour of our run. Hey, SDC – thanks for having your shit together. Hey Football Meathead – thank for being a giant asshole.

Anyway, up to the fitness center we went, grumbling the entire way. We slogged through 60 minutes on the treadmill, which was pretty brutal. I ended up stopping twice, once when I accidentally paused the belt (what can I say, it had a display with a ton of options and I like to press buttons), and once when the time limit was reached and it automatically went into cool-down mode. I had to mess around with it for a bit to get my final five minutes in.

Once that was done, we headed down to the track to do our final 30 minutes. The 3:1 long run is supposed to be done with the first 3/4 at an easy pace and the last 1/4 at or near race pace. By the time we hit the last 1/4, Amy and I were pretty beat, so we ended up settling a pace that was race pace + 30. In the end, we ended up with a smidge over 9 miles for 90 minutes, so right around a 10 minute mile.

Sunday – 3 miles easy

My legs felt pretty heavy following Saturday’s long run, and my feet were sore from spending a few hours in the basement unpacking boxes (yes, still) so I took this one pretty easy. 3 miles @ 11:21. Bonus: ALL BASEMENT BOXES ARE UNPACKED!

Summary – I survived; feeling good

Cycling: 22 miles @ 22 mph

Running: 19 miles @ 10:25

Next week we start intervals (dun, dun, DUNNNN). 7x400 @ 5k race is on the schedule for Tuesday followed by a meeting with a personal trainer. There’s a program at work called SWEAT, no idea what it stands for-too lazy to look it up, and you can either do group workout sessions or do sessions with a personal trainer. The group sessions are right after work, which won’t really work out well now that we have doggie bladders to consider, so Josh, Amy and I all signed up with a personal trainer. I’m not really quite sure what they’re going to do with the three of us, but I think it’ll be an interesting experience.  And bonus – we get to use the SDC for free during the 6-week program, so I’ll gladly take that.