Running Chick

A picture of my beloved french fries can only mean one thing – the completion of a long run and the end of the running week. Wooo.

We did our ten this morning and it was so humid that my breathing didn’t feel settled until we hit around 3 miles.  That sucked, especially when the first two miles were uphill.  But, we did it in around 1:55 using a nice, easy pace of 11:30/mile.  I’ve been trying to stick to the McMillian Running Calculator for my weekly running and our long run pace was right where I was supposed to be.  Bummer, though, the battery in my footpod died right as I left the house, so I couldn’t keep an eye on my cadence.  I’m trying to wean myself off of using my mp3 player & the 174bpm audio file that Josh made me, so monitoring my cadence is rather important.  I have no idea how close I came, but my legs aren’t bothering me so that’s good.

On a side note, I’ve developed a love/hate relationship with that darn footpod.  It syncs with my watch just fine in the beginning, but ends up constantly giving me incorrect readings or losing it’s connection during my run, which ultimately skews the data I pull from my watch when I’m done. I’ve replaced the batteries a couple of times, and calibrated it with no improvements.  It is the first generation footpod that Garmin had, so maybe I should just buy the new one. Meh.

Speaking of data, I use a program called Sport Tracks to obsess over analyze the data that I upload from my Garmin 305.  It allows me to look at things like mile splits, pace, heart rate, and cadence (on both the run & bike), along with giving me a neat little gps track of my run, which makes it easy for me to look back and all the routes I’ve taken for a particular distance. I have data going back to 2005, so there’s a lot of stuff in there (which reminds me that I should talk to my system administrator about backups).  Another neat thing it does is allow me to overlay two (or more) runs over the same course and I remembered that we did the same run we did this morning a few months ago when we were training for Journeys, so I compared the two of them based on pace (clink the images to enlarge).

Although we ran the same route, today’s run was ten miles, so one mile longer than back in April.  Here are the run stats:

• April 7th, 2012     –   9 miles @ 11:53/mile, 1:47:32
• August 4th, 2012 – 10 miles @ 11:32/mile, 1:55:32

While we started out slower this morning (red line) than back in April (blue line), our average pace (bold lines) was faster after three miles and we didn’t slow down as the run got longer. Progress! The heart rate graph shows even more improvement.

It feels good to log all the miles, frequently wondering why, and then see validation for our efforts. Yay!

Weekly recap: Monday, 5 @ 10:12; Tuesday, 4.50 @ 11:28; Thursday, 4 @ 10:14 and Saturday, 10 @ 11:32 for a weekly total of 23.50 miles @ 11:01. 

And, for the stupid hot month of July, I sweated through 80 miles @ 10:50.  I handful of those runs were pleasant, but the majority of them were in the heat and humidity and pretty dang miserable.  My totals are a little better than I thought they’d be, which is surprising, but I won’t be signing up for Badwater anytime soon.

So, good riddance July. I’d have liked you better if you were 10 degrees cooler each day. Welcome, August! Please be cooler than your predecessor.

Josh and I ran the five mile race at the Canal Run yesterday.  It was my first time doing this event, and considering that the event is almost as old as I am and practically in my back yard, I don’t really know why.  I’ve been a worker bee a few times and spectated a few other times, but never a participant. So, when Josh suggested we do it a few months ago, I figured it was probably time to scratch it off my bucket list.

Our respective training plans for the Fox Cities HM in September don’t have us doing enough mileage for the ten mile event, so we opted for the five which I’m glad we did, because it was hot yesterday morning.  The majority of the course was shaded with some rolling hills here & there, nothing major.  I was feeling slightly overheated, but the aid stations had plenty of water so I was able to take two cups (one down the throat, one over the head) without feeling like the people behind me were going to get screwed.

We ran out of shade with about a mile and a half left to go, which wouldn’t have been a problem, but half that last stretch is uphill.  It’s one of those hills that, as far as you can see, it just goes up. Then you round a corner and the hill continues on, but only gets steeper. Ugh.  I was feeling okay for the first portion of the hill, but the sun was starting to get to me when we hit the steep climb.  The fire department had opened up a hydrant and my first thought was wet shoes = blisters, but then I decided that there was only about a half mile to go and I probably wouldn’t blister in that short span so I ran right into the cold shower.  My shoes, and the rest of me, got soaked but I felt infinitely better. We finished in 54:34, which was around a 10:53 mile, and met Josh’s finishing goals.

In other news, Pippen turned one a few weeks ago.  Here he is at 10 weeks or so when we got him.

And here he is now, spilling out of his bed.

He likes to really stretch out when he lays on the floor. One of these days, I’m going to make him a little red Superman cape.

He can be pretty sassy, though. Especially when he does things like take the roll of toilet paper from the bathroom and drag it all over the living room. Or, chew my foam roller to pieces.

Oh well, I was looking for an excuse to buy a bigger one.

This week’s running totals were 13.25 miles @ 10:39 made up of one pathetic hill workout on Monday (note: do not do hill workouts in 80 degree weather), one speed session on Thursday and the Canal Run on Saturday.  I tossed in one 25 mile bike ride out to McLain Park because it was too hot to run on that day.

Next week, if the weather cooperates and it cools down, I’ll log around 21 miles. Fingers crossed!

Hey, remember when I was going to be all productive during my post race running hiatus?  Do some house projects, ride my bike, yadda yadda. Guess how many of those things I got done. One? Nope, sorry loser. ZERO. And I don’t feel bad about it, either because I believe we set a new personal record in going to the bar & eating out this week, and that took up some serious time & effort.  Priorities, man. Priorities.

Some race highlights/lowlights -

• Surprisingly consistent splits. I went out too fast for the first two miles, but dialed it in by the fourth.
• Almost choking on a crumbly Fig Newton. It’s probably time to experiment with gels again.
• Seeing “One Walker is beats [insert some number which I can’t remember] runners” chalked all over the road, thinking WTF? and then getting a lesson in Wisconsin politics from the dude running next to me who was definitely voting to oust Cheeseland Gov Scott Walker in the upcoming recall election.
• Eagle themed aid stations.  One had a old dude wearing a George Washington-looking wig, yelling into a PA system and waving an eagle puppet at all the runners.  Josh said he high-fived the eagle. I ran to the other side of the road. Creepy.  The other had a little kid sitting on the pavement on a pile of sticks that was supposed to look like a nest. She had cardboard wings strapped to her arms and sprung up from her nest and made screeching eagle noises when runners went by.
• Have any beer? I heard it at almost every aid station, but the only one which could have honored the request was the aid station at the bar and they could barely get water out in time. Sorry, lushes.

Soda Pops restaurant.  It’s a soda fountain!  Lots of fun drinks and yummy food. It was so good we went there twice.

The Hodag in Rhinelander, WI. We zipped over there to find me some shorts because it was going to be warmer than I anticipated and didn’t bring any. It was a bust. I have the absolute worst time finding shorts that fit my thunder thighs. Grumble.

Cocktails and sandwiches! I so wanted to go there, they were closed.

Strangest mannequins I’ve ever seen. The first one reminds me of the Joker.

Post race bar crawl photo at the Black Forest Pub in Three Lakes, WI. Drinks were expensive, food was good.

Compression socks & moccasins. My sexiness is beyond compare.

The view from our little cabin. Pretty, but that was about the only nice thing I have to say about that place. It was a serious dump.

Next week, running! Biking! Or, something.