I snuck out at lunch for another tempo run around the work loop. I didn't feel that good but a gasping-for-air hilly run should sort that out, right? I pushed a fast pace from the start and knocked the first mile out in 6:06. Sadly this was too fast and I didn't even come close to it again for any of the other splits. The hills weren't treating my legs well and I still felt a little sore from Sunday's tempo run. Too much fast running too close together?
My bad knee was a little sore for the middle 3 miles of the run but calmed down after that thankfully. I managed to average a 158 HR for the run which is a little high for me, especially the pace I ran. I need a little rest. Thursday will have to be an easy run.
I tried to pour on all the energy I had without blowing up completely and I came up :30 short of a PR. Still a good effort, finishing in 40:54.
Time: 40:54
Dist: 6.0
AvS: 7:49
In other news, I'm going to try to get my missed long run in on Saturday. I'll still be on track for the 50K race in April and the Redmond trail marathon in late March if I decide to run it. I'm still on the fence about paying $43 for what will be a training run with drop bags. It'll probably come down to scheduling. It's not my "A" race so it's expendable.
I had my body composition tested for the first time ever at the gym yesterday. They don't do hydrostatic (tank) tests, opting for electrical impedance instead. I measured at 8.8% body fat. I don't know what the margin of error is for the various methods of measurement but this really surprised me. I thought I'd be around 12% - 14%. I'm happy about the number. I'll have to work that much harder to lower it though. My breakdown was:
Height: 77.5"
Weight: 189.8#
BMI: 22.2 (tall guys get robbed on BMI)
Body fat: 8.8%
Fat pounds: 16.6
Fat FreePounds: 173.2
It seems hard to believe that I have 16+ lbs of fat sloshing around. Being a competitive person I'm hoping to drop the body fat down a few points by the end of the year. We'll see if I can clean up my diet and keep up the running.
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Sunday, February 21, 2010
Less than expected
I didn't get the long run in today. I was on track to but ended up watching the kids for a good portion of the day after getting little sleep last night. I'll have to try to either get out early one morning this week before work or shift my schedule forward one week. I was smart and left one week of play in my schedule just in case I had to miss a long run.
I did get a break at 5pm to get out for an hour and had to think quickly about what to do with my time. I ended up going out hard for 25 minutes then coming back hard and following up with a slow cool down around a little 0.6 mile loop near the house. I ran hard from the start instead of my usual first mile warm-up. (6:43 first mile) and out to the tunnel trail I pushed hard on all of the climbs today as I think that's a weakness for me. I headed toward Kopachuck on Artondale. I went up and over the hill past Kopachuck and down the other side for mile 3 (6:53 split) then tried to focus on hitting 3.5 miles in 25 minutes. I missed it by 36 seconds but I'm happy to be that close.
I turned around and hustled back to face a long uphill where I tried to hold a sub-9 pace up the hill. I did pretty well keeping a my pace up with fast turnover. I passed Kopachuck again in the other direction and continued toward the tunnel trail. I headed down and tried to keep my tired legs going fast for the last mile and a half. I pulled the pace up a bit but only managed 7:28 and 7:02 for the last two mile splits. When I got home again I ran a slow cool down loop around the block and called it a day.
If I only count the first 7 miles (not the cool down) the numbers are:
Dist: 7.0
Time: 50:52
Avg: 7:16/mi
Alt: 2984 (Garmin claimed) so realistically probably 1500.
I did get a break at 5pm to get out for an hour and had to think quickly about what to do with my time. I ended up going out hard for 25 minutes then coming back hard and following up with a slow cool down around a little 0.6 mile loop near the house. I ran hard from the start instead of my usual first mile warm-up. (6:43 first mile) and out to the tunnel trail I pushed hard on all of the climbs today as I think that's a weakness for me. I headed toward Kopachuck on Artondale. I went up and over the hill past Kopachuck and down the other side for mile 3 (6:53 split) then tried to focus on hitting 3.5 miles in 25 minutes. I missed it by 36 seconds but I'm happy to be that close.
I turned around and hustled back to face a long uphill where I tried to hold a sub-9 pace up the hill. I did pretty well keeping a my pace up with fast turnover. I passed Kopachuck again in the other direction and continued toward the tunnel trail. I headed down and tried to keep my tired legs going fast for the last mile and a half. I pulled the pace up a bit but only managed 7:28 and 7:02 for the last two mile splits. When I got home again I ran a slow cool down loop around the block and called it a day.
If I only count the first 7 miles (not the cool down) the numbers are:
Dist: 7.0
Time: 50:52
Avg: 7:16/mi
Alt: 2984 (Garmin claimed) so realistically probably 1500.
Friday, February 19, 2010
Great trail run
I Got out for a lunch run today. I ran the first bit of the work route and then continued into the Bridle Trails for a short loop in the mud and then headed back to the gym. I didn't want to run with no plan so I tried to keep what I'd like to be marathon pace, 7:30/mi. I kept on target except for the hilly bits in the middle. I'm loving running on trails these days. It's just a damn shame that there aren't trails around the house that I can run on the weekends.
Speaking of the weekend, the schedule calls for 19 miles on Sunday. Going longer and longer adds another element to the route planning, buying water to refill my bottles. I can't imagine that giving up the bottles and running with a big Camelbak / bladder thing on my back would be comfortable for very long. I see people wearing those gray Nathan bladder vests with pouches but... they're $80, they look like ass and I don't think that they're comfortable. I'll just stick with two UD hand bottles for now. Each one will last for about 6 miles. It just means that I have to plan the route to go by a store after 60 - 90 min.
So far I've been using HEED and Hammer gel for fueling on my long runs with Recoverite after. I need to spend some time finding something else I could use for fuel on my long runs. I like the idea of a liquid diet for long runs / rides but I have a hard time with the reality of it. I want to like Hammer products and I've had success using a mixture of Hammer gel and Perpetuem for long events but it's hard to get past the taste. Chris mentioned using Coffee to flavor the Perpetuem and make it more palatable. I want to try that out soon and see if it's tolerable. I think I still have a huge jug or two of Perpetuem around the house somewhere.
Sounds like I have some planning to do.
Time: 0:42:42
Dist: 5.5
Avg: 7:45/mi
Speaking of the weekend, the schedule calls for 19 miles on Sunday. Going longer and longer adds another element to the route planning, buying water to refill my bottles. I can't imagine that giving up the bottles and running with a big Camelbak / bladder thing on my back would be comfortable for very long. I see people wearing those gray Nathan bladder vests with pouches but... they're $80, they look like ass and I don't think that they're comfortable. I'll just stick with two UD hand bottles for now. Each one will last for about 6 miles. It just means that I have to plan the route to go by a store after 60 - 90 min.
So far I've been using HEED and Hammer gel for fueling on my long runs with Recoverite after. I need to spend some time finding something else I could use for fuel on my long runs. I like the idea of a liquid diet for long runs / rides but I have a hard time with the reality of it. I want to like Hammer products and I've had success using a mixture of Hammer gel and Perpetuem for long events but it's hard to get past the taste. Chris mentioned using Coffee to flavor the Perpetuem and make it more palatable. I want to try that out soon and see if it's tolerable. I think I still have a huge jug or two of Perpetuem around the house somewhere.
Sounds like I have some planning to do.
Time: 0:42:42
Dist: 5.5
Avg: 7:45/mi
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
run, rest, repeat
I Went over the gym at lunch and did the custom intervals program on the hamster wheel to the tune of:
7 min warmup
6 x
3:00 @ 6:00/mi (10 mph)
2:00 @ 13:30/mi (4.4 mph)
2 min. cooldown
I meant to do 6:30 half miles but didn't remember until I'd completed 4 of them so I just kept going at 6:00. It didn't feel too hard but I my HR was definitely getting up there at the end of the 3 minutes running. I measured my HR at 160 at the end of one of the repeats and watched it drop back down to 115 during the rest interval. I wish I had another 20 minutes at lunch to run so I could have done a few more intervals and a longer cooldown.
That's tempo and speedwork done so far this week. I plan to run a few junk miles on Friday and then map out a 19 mile long run on Sunday for my first week over 30 miles since before my knee surgery. I hope to hold slightly sub-8 average for the long run despite the hills. I wouldn't mind finding some new routes as well. I'm getting a bit tired of the same streets.
7 min warmup
6 x
3:00 @ 6:00/mi (10 mph)
2:00 @ 13:30/mi (4.4 mph)
2 min. cooldown
I meant to do 6:30 half miles but didn't remember until I'd completed 4 of them so I just kept going at 6:00. It didn't feel too hard but I my HR was definitely getting up there at the end of the 3 minutes running. I measured my HR at 160 at the end of one of the repeats and watched it drop back down to 115 during the rest interval. I wish I had another 20 minutes at lunch to run so I could have done a few more intervals and a longer cooldown.
That's tempo and speedwork done so far this week. I plan to run a few junk miles on Friday and then map out a 19 mile long run on Sunday for my first week over 30 miles since before my knee surgery. I hope to hold slightly sub-8 average for the long run despite the hills. I wouldn't mind finding some new routes as well. I'm getting a bit tired of the same streets.
Monday, February 15, 2010
Smooth sailing
Sunny and mid 40s today. Colder than I'd like but two shirts and shorts were enough that I didn't feel it. I went with the clockwise work loop. After an exhausting 3rd birthday weekend for my daughter and a pile of work to catch up on I didn't have the motivation to chase a new best time today. I settled on running a fast tempo pace that wasn't all out and sprinkle in form accelerations for the last 1/4 of each mile.
I settled into a pace that was faster than it felt (always a good thing) and picked up the pace a tad while focusing on my form (chest out, hips level, butt forward, mid-foot strike, core tight) at the end of every mile. It was nice not to be gasping for breath on every hill then trying to catch my breath while my HR was at 90%+. The trail portions weren't too muddy and I even reeled in another runner who was about a quarter mile ahead of me at the end of the trail.
I ended up just under 42 min for the run which surprised me. I feel like my running has moved up a notch when I run at a fast but not suffering pace like I did today and still come in at just under 7:00/mi. average. I'm only doing 25 - 30 miles a week yet I'm running very well (for me). I used to run 40 - 50 miles a week with a few "junk" runs a week that were neither at a fast pace nor a recovery pace. Not hard enough to improve yet not slow enough to recuperate. I must have enjoyed actually running or something. Strange...
Time: 41:46
Dist: 6.0
Avg: 6:58/mi
The rest of the week will hopefully be:
Tue: weights
Wed: intervals
Thu: weights
Fri: recovery run
Sat: off
Sun: Long run (19)
I settled into a pace that was faster than it felt (always a good thing) and picked up the pace a tad while focusing on my form (chest out, hips level, butt forward, mid-foot strike, core tight) at the end of every mile. It was nice not to be gasping for breath on every hill then trying to catch my breath while my HR was at 90%+. The trail portions weren't too muddy and I even reeled in another runner who was about a quarter mile ahead of me at the end of the trail.
I ended up just under 42 min for the run which surprised me. I feel like my running has moved up a notch when I run at a fast but not suffering pace like I did today and still come in at just under 7:00/mi. average. I'm only doing 25 - 30 miles a week yet I'm running very well (for me). I used to run 40 - 50 miles a week with a few "junk" runs a week that were neither at a fast pace nor a recovery pace. Not hard enough to improve yet not slow enough to recuperate. I must have enjoyed actually running or something. Strange...
Time: 41:46
Dist: 6.0
Avg: 6:58/mi
The rest of the week will hopefully be:
Tue: weights
Wed: intervals
Thu: weights
Fri: recovery run
Sat: off
Sun: Long run (19)
Saturday, February 13, 2010
wipe out
I didn't know what to do with the weekend run on the "between weeks" of my training plan. I increase my long run 2-3 miles every other weekend so the weekend between those long runs didn't have any specific type of workout scheduled. I do speedwork and tempo on weekday runs already so I thought I'd try hill repeats. I've never done them before and today was my first crack at them. I debated doing a bunch of short (10 - 20 second) repeats up a very steep hill vs. doing a few longer (1/2 mi) repeats up a moderate hill.
I didn't see as much value in the short/steep repeats so I went out to 40th ave, a hill that's about a mile long @ 6-7% gradient. It's the closest hill of any length around the house at 2 miles away. I used the run there as a slow warm-up for my legs. When I got to 40th I ran a half mile up the hill at the fastest pace I could hold the whole way then jogged back down and repeated that cycle 3 more times. I held the times pretty consistently until the last one. My times were: 3:11, 3:10, 3:12, 3:19.
I was really gasping for breath for the 2nd quarter mile of each repeat. I felt like I just couldn't breathe deep enough and couldn't get enough air in. The only downside of this kind of workout is that I use the slow jog back down the hill as the rest interval which ends up being about a minute or two longer than I'd like the rest to be. Ideally I want a hard 1/2 mile uphill then a slow 1/4 mile downhill. I'd run out of hill pretty quickly doing that. It was raining pretty good the whole time I was out running but it didn't bother me at all. I was pretty wet but once I got going I warmed up except for my hands.
I really wish I'd worn gloves today for two reasons, 1) to warm up my hands and 2) to protect my hands when I fell on the side of the road. I was jogging downhill after the 3rd repeat on the shoulder facing traffic. There aren't any curbs or sidewalks on 40th, the edge of the paved road meets the dirt/mud/gravel. I moved over to the edge of the pavement to stay farther away from an approaching car and stepped in the mud/gravel. My foot instantly started to slide. I tried to plant my other foot to stabilize myself but both of my feet just slid to my left and out from under me. I went right down, landing on my right hip and hands. The road is pretty rough pavement so my hands stung the rest of the run. (they're still sore.) No cuts or bruising (yet) but a mild abrasion on my hip. Pretty minor stuff.
After the fourth repeat I headed back with two cool-down miles. I've never tried hill repeats before so I hope they're good for my form and pacing.
Time: 1:08:04
Dist: 8.15
AvS: 8:20
4 x 1/2 mi uphill repeats.
I didn't see as much value in the short/steep repeats so I went out to 40th ave, a hill that's about a mile long @ 6-7% gradient. It's the closest hill of any length around the house at 2 miles away. I used the run there as a slow warm-up for my legs. When I got to 40th I ran a half mile up the hill at the fastest pace I could hold the whole way then jogged back down and repeated that cycle 3 more times. I held the times pretty consistently until the last one. My times were: 3:11, 3:10, 3:12, 3:19.
I was really gasping for breath for the 2nd quarter mile of each repeat. I felt like I just couldn't breathe deep enough and couldn't get enough air in. The only downside of this kind of workout is that I use the slow jog back down the hill as the rest interval which ends up being about a minute or two longer than I'd like the rest to be. Ideally I want a hard 1/2 mile uphill then a slow 1/4 mile downhill. I'd run out of hill pretty quickly doing that. It was raining pretty good the whole time I was out running but it didn't bother me at all. I was pretty wet but once I got going I warmed up except for my hands.
I really wish I'd worn gloves today for two reasons, 1) to warm up my hands and 2) to protect my hands when I fell on the side of the road. I was jogging downhill after the 3rd repeat on the shoulder facing traffic. There aren't any curbs or sidewalks on 40th, the edge of the paved road meets the dirt/mud/gravel. I moved over to the edge of the pavement to stay farther away from an approaching car and stepped in the mud/gravel. My foot instantly started to slide. I tried to plant my other foot to stabilize myself but both of my feet just slid to my left and out from under me. I went right down, landing on my right hip and hands. The road is pretty rough pavement so my hands stung the rest of the run. (they're still sore.) No cuts or bruising (yet) but a mild abrasion on my hip. Pretty minor stuff.
After the fourth repeat I headed back with two cool-down miles. I've never tried hill repeats before so I hope they're good for my form and pacing.
Time: 1:08:04
Dist: 8.15
AvS: 8:20
4 x 1/2 mi uphill repeats.
Thursday, February 11, 2010
Trudge mill.
The weather was cold and rainy today so I had to decide where to do the speedwork that was on the schedule. I thought it'd be a pain to do intervals on the roads / trails with my Garmin so I headed to the treadmill instead. I ended up using one of the older treadmills because the model at the gym has this nice feature where you can set up custom intervals. You enter the recovery speed and time, then the interval speed and time and the number of intervals. Today I entered:
Recovery speed: 6.7
Recovery time: 2:30
Interval speed: 9.3
Interval time: 6:30
# Intervals: 4
I started out with 3/4 of a mile of warmup at ~9:00 pace, then set the incline to 2.5% and started in with the first recovery period (you have to do the recovery first for some reason). Doing the intervals at 6:30 pace didn't feel too bad. I couldn't have gone too long at that pace but a mile wasn't bad. By the 3rd interval I was starting to struggle and my legs were getting tired. I kept up for all four, barely hanging on for the last one. Next I did a quick cool down, cleaned off the sweat I sprayed all over the machine and hit the showers.
I would have liked to do more than 4 x 1mi but I just don't have time for it at lunch. I need to see about hitting a local track before work some time soon to get the workout in and see how it feels to run 6:30 mile repeats on a track. Looking back at my training log, I was doing mile repeats at roughly this pace in 2003, only I did a few more of them. My log only goes back to 2000 but I remember preparing for the Portland marathon in 1998 and doing 11 x 1mi. I think I was doing them at 7:00 though. I remember that my pace was really in tune back then and I could run 8:00 miles by feel. I'd time myself and be within 2 or 3 seconds of 8:00 without looking at my watch until the end. That race still stands as my Marathon PR at 3:26:51.
No running tomorrow and hill repeats planned for Saturday if birthday preparations for a 3 year old aren't too time consuming. :)
Maybe now that I'm older and hopefully wiser, I'll have some restraint and run even intervals instead of trying to kill each one and get faster and faster.
Recovery speed: 6.7
Recovery time: 2:30
Interval speed: 9.3
Interval time: 6:30
# Intervals: 4
I started out with 3/4 of a mile of warmup at ~9:00 pace, then set the incline to 2.5% and started in with the first recovery period (you have to do the recovery first for some reason). Doing the intervals at 6:30 pace didn't feel too bad. I couldn't have gone too long at that pace but a mile wasn't bad. By the 3rd interval I was starting to struggle and my legs were getting tired. I kept up for all four, barely hanging on for the last one. Next I did a quick cool down, cleaned off the sweat I sprayed all over the machine and hit the showers.
I would have liked to do more than 4 x 1mi but I just don't have time for it at lunch. I need to see about hitting a local track before work some time soon to get the workout in and see how it feels to run 6:30 mile repeats on a track. Looking back at my training log, I was doing mile repeats at roughly this pace in 2003, only I did a few more of them. My log only goes back to 2000 but I remember preparing for the Portland marathon in 1998 and doing 11 x 1mi. I think I was doing them at 7:00 though. I remember that my pace was really in tune back then and I could run 8:00 miles by feel. I'd time myself and be within 2 or 3 seconds of 8:00 without looking at my watch until the end. That race still stands as my Marathon PR at 3:26:51.
No running tomorrow and hill repeats planned for Saturday if birthday preparations for a 3 year old aren't too time consuming. :)
Maybe now that I'm older and hopefully wiser, I'll have some restraint and run even intervals instead of trying to kill each one and get faster and faster.
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