Running Chick

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.