Training Log 4/16/17 - 4/22/17 - Run for the Ivy 10K

Still working on mileage this week. The speed didn't happen like I wanted.

Sunday 4/16 - Rest

Monday 4/17 - 4 miles. Easy on the county road. I really feel like I need more road work.

Tuesday 4/18 - 6 miles. Run Club day. I had huge hopes of killing this workout but it just didn't work out that way. Part of the problem might have been that it was over 80 degrees when we started, but I mentally lost it after 3 miles of pace work. Plan was 2 mile warm up, 4 miles at 8:20 pace, then 2 mile warm down. Ran my pace miles at 8:20, 8:19, and 8:17 but felt I couldn't hold on for another mile and didn't even attempt it. Only did a mile cool down because I felt so disgusted after that and another mile didn't seem to matter. Ugly details were posted earlier HERE.

Wednesday 4/19 - 4 miles. Easy on the county road. I haven't been running with a HR monitor lately but decided to wear one today because I've felt completely wiped out lately and I wanted to see what my HR was doing. Well... HR was 116 by the time I walked down to the end of my driveway. Hadn't even started running yet. I averaged a 10:45 pace with my HR going into the 160's every time I ran over a roller. Definitely running tired today!

Went and saw the "Boston" movie in the evening.

Thursday 4/20 - 10 miles. Easy on the county roads. Started the run at 8 am and it felt WAY better than the 10 I tried last week in the afternoon. At this point I feel like I simply need more miles on my legs and lungs.

Friday 4/21 - Rest.

Saturday 4/22 - 8 miles. Run for the Ivy 10K in Columbus. Original plan was to try and run 8:00 pace. The weather report on Friday night predicted rain, 45 degree temps, and a 15 mph wind. Thankfully it was not raining the next morning. Still windy though and I ended up struggling to run in the wind. Garmin stats say it was 46 degrees with an 11 mph wind. Only did a 0.5 warm up. Maybe that was a problem too as I felt cold and my legs were really tight the whole race... and I felt a little twinge and pull start to happen in my left hamstring.

Mile 1 - 7:41
Mile 2 - 8:07
Mile 3 - 8:39. The wind was taking my breath away and I think I mentally checked out at this point and decided this was going to be a training run at best.
Mile 4 - 8:42
Mile 5 - 8:39
Mile 6 - 8:29. I kicked with 0.5 miles left in the race as there was someone in front of me I wanted to pass and hoped I didn't kick too early. Ran sub-8:00 pace the rest of the way in.
last 0.2 - 1:52.9

Official finish time 52:09.9. One of the slowest 10Ks I've run. Not too happy with the race but glad it's over. Ended up 5th in the women's race. Won the 40-49 age group but that was a gift. The top two runners got overall awards and were taken out of the age group rankings. The winner was 42 and second was 41. 1.5 mile cool down after that.

Then I felt even worse. I got cold. I felt like passing out by the time I got home. Took a hot shower and was starving but only had the energy to crawl into bed, where I stayed for the next couple hours.

photo parked here so I'll remember what year I got this medal

32 total miles this week.

Not exactly the week I'd hoped for but I got some miles in.

The Day After You Blow Up on Your Training Run

Ever have a run that you think is going to be great and then it totally blows up? ... or at least it feels like a total failure in the moment? That was my run yesterday.

My run club workout yesterday was as follows... 2 mile warm up, 4 miles at half-marathon pace, 2 mile cool down. Simple enough. My plan was to run the pace portion at 8:20 pace. In my mind it was totally doable. I'd already run a 10K and an 8K at 8:10 pace. I should be able to do this!

Plus, I felt like this would be a good indicator as to how ready I was for my half on May 6th. Still, admittedly, I was a bit nervous about maintaining pace. In my races, 8:10 was my average pace by virtue of fast miles 1 and 2 and then hanging on until the end. I don't think I've done enough pace runs in sub-8:30 territory to get a good feel of how fast I'm running. I also have the tendency of getting really anxious about making my time so I always end up running a few seconds faster than the goal time just to make sure I'll make the time. Anyone else do this? I'm sure I'm not the only one!

So... 2 mile warm up goes fine.

Mile 1 - 8:20. Exactly on pace, sort of... What happened is I ran faster than pace and end up slowing down a bit in the last 0.25 or so to hit the goal time.

Mile 2 - 8:19. This one felt harder. Like a lot harder than I felt it should but I ran it the same way I ran the previous mile - faster in the beginning and slowed down in the end to get close to my goal time.

Mile 3 - 8:17. I was really on the struggle bus for this one. Maybe I shouldn't depend on my Garmin as much and trust how I feel. At the beginning of this mile I felt like I was running as hard as I could but my lap pace on the Garmin was showing almost 9:00... so I ran even harder and the time slowly budged down. However, with 0.25 left to go, I still hadn't got down to 8:20. By now I was definitely NOT running aerobically, and definitely NOT in that 80-85% zone of perceived effort where I should have been. I felt I was running 100% and racing towards a finish line with all I had just to make an 8:20 mile. With it I also felt a sense of despair. There was no way I was going to run a sub-1:50 half if I felt like this after only 3 miles at half-marathon pace.

Watch beeped at mile 3 and I was DONE. I didn't attempt mile 4. Incredibly discouraged I did a mile cool down in almost 11:00 and called it a day. I didn't think doing another cool down mile was going to add any value to my run at this point. DONE. DONE. DONE was all I felt. It was over 80 degrees and there were rivers of salty sweat stinging my face and eyes. I just wanted to lay in a pool of cool water and be done.

Drove to the Y, showered and changed... and then I felt completely better and wanted a re-do.

In retrospect, maybe it wasn't all that bad. Really, I need 8:23 pace or faster to make my goal. By my third mile, using 8:23 as the goal pace, I actually had a 13 second deficit. That meant I could have run mile 4 in 8:36 and still have been on goal pace for a sub-1:50. If I had had my head together I would have realized that and tried for a fourth mile, except that hypoxic brains don't reason like that in the moment.

Still... blowing up on a 4 mile run worries me. Maybe it was the heat? I'm running more when it's hot out to try and get heat acclimated. Maybe I need more miles. I'll give myself another week to see how realistic this goal is going to be.

Training Log 4/9/17 - 4/15/17 - Tour de Trails 8K

Perhaps 10 miles on Thursday was a bad idea... or maybe I just need more training weeks like this and suck it up on the Saturday races...

Sunday 4/9 - Rest

Monday 4/10 - 4 miles. Easy run on the hamster track in the evening. It was threatening rain and lightening so I ran indoors.

Tuesday 4/11 - 10 miles. Run club speed session workout was 2 mile warm up, 5 x 1 mile repeats at 10K pace with 3:30 recovery jog in between, then 2 mile warm down. Ran my miles in 8:12, 8:10, 8:10, 8:08, and 8:14 so it was a good work out.

Wednesday 4/12 - 800 meter swim. I think this is the first time I've been in the pool since the Indoor Triathlon. First half was OK, then I had to share the lane and kept running into the lane divider and the open swim started and there was some kid screaming his head off the whole time so I decided 800 meters was enough.

Thursday 4/13 - 10 miles. I had it in my head I needed a long run this week and that Tuesday's run didn't count as it was speed work. It was a beautiful day and I envisioned going 15 miles. Well... it was a HOT beautiful day; hot like over 80 degrees by the time I hit the Monon at 4:30 pm. I decided to head South as I didn't have any water with me and I knew there would be water out in front of the Athletic Annex about 3 miles down from the Y. I figured I'd hit that, then keep going South and hit it again on my way back. By the time I hit 5 miles though I was BEAT so I turned around and cut it short to 10.

Friday 4/14 - Zero miles. I had planned to do about 4 but my legs felt dead and I was racing the next day so I took the day off.

Saturday 4/15 - 7 miles. Tour de Trails 8K in Columbus. I felt so tired on Friday I considered not racing, especially since I hadn't even pre-registered. I looked at the race website one last time on Friday night and decided to run. I needed to do this. Goal was to run 8:00 miles and finish under 40:00. I have not run many 8Ks so my PR at this distance is 39:40. I didn't feel like I was in PR shape but sub-40:00 also seemed like a reasonable goal given how I felt on Tuesday.

The weather on Saturday morning was perfect. Overcast with a slight breeze but not windy by any means and temps around 60 degrees. Not too cold and not too hot for a short race. Did a 1 mile warm up, then it was race time.

Gun went off... and then I realized my Garmin wasn't tracking. Arghhhh!! I thought about running without it but then decided to reset it. When I tried to do this I realized it had never started in the first place. I think I was at 0.1 miles when it finally started tracking. I figured I'd go by it as all I really wanted to know was if I could keep an 8:00 pace. So... per my Garmin...

Mile 1 - 7:57
Mile 2 - 8:02
Mile 3 - 8:18. It started sprinkling rain. It actually felt really good but I was breathing hard.
Mile 4 - 8:28. Ugh. Why does it always fall apart at mile 4?
Last 0.96 - 8:08. This is a calculated time as I subtracted my mile 1-4 times from my final time so it's more like the time for my first 0.1 and last 0.86. Nonetheless, I do feel like I was able to speed back up at the end.

Official finish time - 40:37. So, not exactly what I wanted to run but I got another good speed session in. Ended up third in the women's race, first in the 45-49 age group. They ran out of first place medals at the awards ceremony so I'm suppose to get mine in the mail. One mile cool down after that.

I did come to another realization after my race though... I was tired but NOTHING HURTS!!! I had no nagging pains during the race. In fact, I don't hurt anymore when I run and I'm no longer hanging on to shopping carts like walkers at the store or hobbling out of bed in the morning like I'm 80. I'm definitely not as fast as I was 1-2 years ago but I'm not in constant pain either. Hopefully it will stay that way as I pick up my training.

31 miles this week plus an 800 meter swim.

Daylight

Sunny days are here again! At least that is my hope. I took my snow pants and ice scraper out of my car this week and moved all our winter jackets hanging in our entry way into the closet to say good bye (and good riddance) to winter.

I've jokingly commented to friends in the past that I think I suffer from Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD). I mean, who wouldn't? I've had a rather tough time holding my running together the early part of this year, especially on those cold windy gray days. It's been a see-saw battle. I felt better in early February and ran my goal time in the ValenTimes 10K to get my 500 Festival Mini-Marathon seed time. It went downhill from there again. I've continued logging and blogging my weekly miles. It's all out there. I just haven't been publicly announcing the blog links like I usually do as there's not anything interesting to see... of course then my friend Trena adds an encouraging comment every week telling me someone's out there pushing me along.

Thank you Trena!

Then there's my friend Margo. She's my friend I met through run club. I've always enjoyed having all my online runner friends from the Sole Sister group as well as all my Indiana Timing friends that I get to race with on the weekends but now I have a friend, live and in person, that actually wants to run with me... and has goals even loftier than mine. We run similar paces. I made the "mistake" of telling her that I kinda sorta wanted to try to get a PR at the Mini this year and run under 1:50...

There. I said it. I want to break 1:50 for 13.1 miles. I'd love to do it on the 500 Festival Mini-Marathon course; the course I've run so many times I could run it in my sleep.

As some of you may recall, when I started this blog in 2013 it was to try and run that course in under 2:00 again. I had NEVER tried any kind of training program until then. Since making that goal, I've focused on marathon training and never focused on another half-marathon. All the halves I've run since then were training runs. Now I want to go all out on a half.

Itsy bitsy little problem though... With all my SAD issues I haven't actually done a training plan. I've just made myself RUN. There are weeks when I think I can make my goal and there are weeks when I think it's hopeless. Two weeks ago I didn't run at all. I was on Spring Break. Last week I made myself run. I gutted through a run club speed session that I probably had no business doing then did my first "long" run in quite some time on Saturday, logging 10 miles. Looking back, the last double digit run I did before that was on 2/22 when I did 13 and decided I wasn't doing a spring marathon this year.

This week has been a good week though. I went to run club again last night and hit my workout goal. Workout was a 2 mile warm up, then 3 to 5 x 1 mile repeats at 10K pace (+/- 10 sec) with 3:30 - 4:00 recovery jogs in between, then a 2 mile cool down. I decided I was going to do 5 one mile repeats and get 10 miles in for the day. Then I was late to practice. G doesn't have dance this week because the company is performing this weekend so I drove directly to Broad Ripple. Traffic was horrible. It took me an hour and a half to get from Greenwood to Broad Ripple! I showed up 20 minutes late so everyone else had already started. Quite frankly, I almost turned around and went back home while I was stuck in downtown traffic as it seemed silly to drive all the way to Broad Ripple to run a workout I knew I'd be running by myself... except that I was afraid I wouldn't do it if I went back home so I continued to drive to commit myself. The good thing about G not having dance though was that I didn't have to be done running at any certain time so I could run as long as I needed.

The other problem I had to figure out was how I was going to track my distance as well as my recovery time on my Garmin. I mean, how do you time your mile then jog for 4:00, then time your next mile? This is the solution I came up with... put the watch in lap time mode. Run one mile, when it beeps jog 3:30 into the next mile. Stop the watch and save that run and reset the watch while continuing to jog - which I figure gets you close to the 4:00 mark. Restart your watch to do the next mile repeat and recovery. I don't know if there's a better way to do this without wearing two watches.

Next question was how fast to do the mile repeats. I averaged 8:10 pace for my last 10K. I am signed up for another 10K later this month where I want to run 8:00 pace...BUT, I also didn't feel like I'd been running enough to do 8:00 mile repeats... What's realistic? I settled on a goal of 8:15.

Here's how the repeats went...

Mile 1 - 8:12.35
Mile 2 - 8:10.35
Mile 3 - 8:10.48
Mile 4 - 8:08.68
Mile 5 - 8:14.34. I hit the stoplight at 75th Street in full stride with 0.15 of a mile left to go and had to decelerate and change direction which stopped all my momentum...

Let me tell ya, it felt GREAT to hit my time for all 5 mile repeats! So glad I went to the session.

In order to run sub-1:50 for a half marathon I have to average 8:23 or better miles. This week I'm thinking I can do it. Now that she knows, Margo is hell bent on us running that time. I know she's put in her training so I'm buckling down these next 3 weeks with mine. Sunlight makes it much better.

Training Log 4/2/17 - 4/8/17

Sunday 4/2 - 6 miles. Easy run on the Monon.

Monday 4/3 - Zero miles. Worked all day.

Tuesday 4/4 - 6 miles. Went to Run Club. Workout was 2 mile warm up, then 8 x 400m hill repeats with a 200m recovery, then 1 mile cool down. I debated whether to do the 400's or not as I don't think I'm really in any shape to be doing 400m repeats... but I ended up doing them anyway. Interestingly, the "hill" that we ran up and down amounted to less of an incline than the rollers I have to run if I do any running around my house.

Wednesday 4/5 - Zero miles. I worked out in my yard all day then went to the fitness center in the evening to try and get some miles in. One lap in my right foot was hurting and my quads were burning. I decided a run was not happening tonight. I got plenty of exercise doing yard work though!

Thursday 4/6 - 6 miles. SO did not feel like running today but made myself go to the hamster track after work in the evening. I got there just before 9 pm and they close at 10 pm. The first 3 miles felt awful and I was just plodding along. Then it occurred to me I might not get done if I didn't hurry up. I sped up and actually felt better. Got all 6 miles in plus a cool down walk lap, couple stretches, and was out the door at 9:57 pm.

Friday 4/7 - Zero miles. Worked another 12 hour day. My intention was to go to the Y and swim after work but then my husband offered to take me out to dinner for National Beer Day and that sounded much better!

Saturday 4/8 - 10 miles. I had entertained the idea of running a 5K in Columbus in the morning. However, especially after a night out, I decided that sleeping in in the morning and getting a long run in sounded better. It ended up being a beautiful day. Sunny and warm. Next thing I knew it was 7 pm and I still hadn't gotten my run in. J and I went to the walking trail at New Hope to run as it would be too dark to run on the road by the time we were done. The trail there is a half-mile paved loop with about a 100 meter uphill section. I did 20 laps. J got done with her 5 miles after I had 6.5 in and she said she'd wait til I finished all 10. At 8 miles I considered stopping as I felt bad about her waiting in the car for me, but then I started on my next lap and got over it. Glad I did it. Finally a long run!

28 miles this week.

Training Log 3/26/17 - 4/1/17

Sunday 3/26 - No running miles. Did a very strenuous hike of about 3 miles through the rain forest with Kalichi Adventures with a ton of treacherous muddy downhills, uphills, and "body rafting" down a river.

Monday 3/27 - Zero miles. So sore from Sunday I can hardly move.

Tuesday 3/28 - No running miles. Went to El Yunque National Forest and hiked about 3 miles.

Wednesday 3/29 - No running miles. Spent the whole day walking around Old San Juan.

Thursday 3/30 - No running miles. Hiked 5+ miles to El Yunque Peak and back first thing in the morning. The guidebooks all said it was a half day hike but it just didn't look that far so J and her friend and I hit the trail as soon as the park opened at 7:30 am and made a beeline for the top. Took one wrong turn on the way back but still made it round trip in 2.5 hours. As we were headed back to the car we heard the park guides telling people it takes 3.5 hours to hike to the peak...

Friday 3/31 - Zero miles. Spent the whole day on a boat and went snorkeling.

Saturday 4/1 - Zero miles. Got on an airplane at 2:45 am to fly home but didn't get home til noon, then spent the rest of the day driving G to dance.

So, no running miles this week but a lot of hiking and walking.
Overall an enjoyable Spring Break!