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.

I finally picked a Spring race.  

Except that I'm doing the half marathon and not the marathon because I'm not crazy enough to train for a marathon in the winter.  This one's scheduled for May 18th and we'll have entire Team /var/run there, so it's going to be a lot of fun.

I've been having a tough time figuring out how I want to deal with training for this race. I usually just find a plan with four days of running, and (...wait for it...) run.  I tend bypass any plan that has speed work or tempos because I'm not really sure what they are or how to do them.  This time I actually wanted to see what my body could handle, so I put out a couple of feelers to some awesome runner friends of mine and asked them what I should be doing.  Using their advice, and probably sprinkled with a little bit of over-confidence, I found a plan that will probably kill me, but hopefully I'll get a PR crossing the finish line before that happens.

I decided to go with Hal Higdon's advanced half marathon plan. Here's a little snippet, click on it for the full calendar.

When I found this plan a few of weeks ago, I knew it was going to be hard, but I tried not to get too freaked out about it. But now that training starts on Monday, and I'm looking at the plan and OMG all the running, and the race is ONLY 12 weeks out - I'm starting to feel a little overwhelmed and anxious. I never really worried about that sort of stuff with my other plans because, ultimately, they were pretty easy. This plan, though, it could be too much running. It could be too hard. I could get injured.

Or it could be none of those things.  I try to stay optimistic about most things but sometimes when I'm presented with something new, my pessimistic side bubbles to the surface.  I think it'll be important for me to stay positive during these next 12 weeks.  To do my best not get get overwhelmed, take it one run at a time, and try to stay focused on the prize.  My goal is to finish as close to 2:00 as I can.  We'll see what happens.

I haven't been documenting all my run streak runs here because I'm just too lazy to keep up with that much blogging. Heck, I can barely manage to put them up on Instagram, but I my last few runs were pretty decent by my standards, so here we go.

Day 29 - Christmas Swag/Zoe's Birthday/Nighttime Run

This little monkey turned the Big O-N-E, so we had to celebrate by going for a run.

I was also testing out the new swag Josh Santa brought me for Christmas - Brooks Cascadia 7 shoes and a headlamp.

I wasn't really keeping an eye on my watch (hard to do with headlamp & holding a dog leash), so I mostly was just going by feel. I was kind of surprised when I saw the results, I usually drag on the uphill sections of this route. That last mile - I have no idea. That's the most uphill section of the route and it's usually a struggle. Tailwind?

Day 30 - Come Get Me Run

Josh was putting in a half day at work, so I took that opportunity to run down to my mom & dad's house and have him pick me up on the way home. I'm only sort of excited about my pace.  Aside from a small uphill in the first .5 mile, it's downhill the rest of the way. Factor in Zoe pulling me and we have an impressive time. Eh.

It was also fairly warm outside, so I was able to run in lighter gear.  The Oiselle Lux top that I got from Amy and Oiselle Lesley tights were just right for the temp. Josh picked up lunch on the way home. Rodeo, of course, in honor of our Team /var/run Friday lunch tradition.

Day 31 - One and Done

After spending half of the day shoveling off the roof, then the other half shoveling the snow that was on the roof, by body didn't want to be be doing anything other than sitting by the fire, downing Ibuprofen and drinking wine. But, gotta keep the streak alive, so one slow one on the treadmill was all I could muster. I was running easy for this one, my entire body was hurting.

Side note: I've been using the Brooks PureFlow 2s for my treadmill runs. For years I've been running in the most cushiony shoes I could find, and I really wanted to see if I could make the switch to a more minimalist shoe.  I've been keeping my runs in them pretty short (under 4 miles) and I did have some complains from my shins & quads when I first starting using them, but now they're my go-to treadmill. I've also been using them when we run on the track at the SDC, but I've found that my shins do quite a bit of complaining afterwards so I don't know how these shoes are going to pan out for non-treadmill running.

Day 32 - Frigid Five (point five)

This run was cold as hell.

But, what the hell is going on with my time?

My last three outside runs have been in under 10:00. What?

I figured Day 29's run was a fluke. Maybe I accidentally told my watch to use the foodpod instead of the GPS. Maybe I was just having a good day. I dunno. Day 30 was all downhill with some help from gravity & Zoe, so I pretty much wrote that one off.

Yesterday when we took off, I figured I'd be back to my usual mid-10:00 slog for this route. It's a a bit hilly for the first three miles then there's about a mile downhill before we hit another climb back to the house. The last time I ran this with Josh on Thanksgiving day, I had a hard time keeping my pace up. I even had to stop a couple of times to get my heart rate back down from the stratosphere (aka pukeville). I'd classify that run as hard. This time around I found I was fairly comfortable with my pace and my heart rate stayed in the high 160s to low 170s the entire time. My splits were all under 10:00, which is definitely not the norm for me. What, what?

There's a couple of factors that probably contribute to this speed drop. I lost a few pounds bringing me back down to my pre-marathon eat-all-the-things weight. I've been running EVERY FREAKING DAY FOR THE LAST 32 DAYS. And I've been throwing speedwork into my routine every week or so with intervals on the treadmill or track sessions with the Team /var/run crew. Do these things for a month straight and I'm bound to see some improvement, right? I think? Anybody?

In any event, I'll just keep doing the same things and see where it gets me. Since 2013 is coming to a close, it's time to pick my spring half marathon. I've decided not to do Journeys this year. I've done it five times already and I'm getting bored with it. I've got a couple of races in mind, but I haven't settled on anything yet. Soon.