Last Run, First Run

Last run of the year; first run of my new schedule.  For the next 12 weeks, Monday shall be known as (cue music) "Speed Work Mondays."  You should have read that in the Lost in Space voice or alternately, you could read it in a Darth Vader voice.  Both work.

As you can see, my warmup/cooldown was faster than the schedule, and while I would owe the Hanson brothers 56 pushups (1 pushup for each second faster than the goal) for such an infraction, I'm going to let myself off easy with a warning.  Besides, the pace chart for easy runs is 10:41 to 11:27, so...I'm good to go!

Tomorrow is 4 easy miles.  I should post my pace chart so you all can see what my targets are.  That might be helpful.  Of course, being helpful is the last thing this blog is supposed to be, so there's that...

A little taste of what's to come

One of the concepts that the Hanson Marathon Method (or HMM from here on out) uses is the idea of cumulative fatigue.  The long run is supposed to simulate the last x number of miles in the marathon, so the longest long run in the schedule is 16 miles, but it's the last 16 miles.

Well, I certainly felt like this run was the last 8 miles in a half marathon, and I was very glad when I was done.  I have been adapting the marathon schedule to a half marathon schedule and think I might want to cut back on some of the runs I thought I could do.  I can't cut them out altogether if I want to follow the schedule, but I can lop a mile or two off them.  Yeah, that's the ticket!

Easy 5

Yesterday, I was still feeling the effects of those intervals, so I took it off.  Today, I was feeling much better with only a little dull achyness in my hamstring.  I'm still not sure what I'm running tomorrow, and I need to throw together the half marathon schedule that starts next week.  It'll get done; trust me...

Wherein everything changes

Change, change, change, I just can't get away from it!  First, my training program is going to undergo significant changes (6 days/week running...!), second, as soon as I get used to my mother and brother being here, they up and go to my other brother's house in Louisville, KY, and THIRD, it snowed so I had to treadmill it! 

See???  All these changes!  Different here!  Not the same there!  *throws up arms in disgust*

So, got a new book from my coach for Christmas - Hansons Marathon Method.  It is definitely a good read with actual science (Not sure if it's Science!, but it is science) behind the madness in training for marathons the Hanson way.  Anyways, I am going to try to adapt the marathon schedule from week 7 to 18 for my upcoming half marathon (that I still need to sign up for...<.<...>.>...)

Oh, and yes, I did fall short on the mileage for today; it turns out that I ran those quarters way too fast for my level, and my hamstring started complaining around mile 2.  I stopped and stretched at mile 3.5, and then decided to call it at mile 6.  No use injuring myself before I get started on my
Fancy new training schedule!  You may now return to your lives, citizens...

Merry Christmas!!

I wore this outfit for the last two miles.  I thought it best if I didn't wear it while doing those intervals; you know, suck that beard down my windpipe and choke to death out in the cold.  Not a good image for the kids at Christmas.

So, I barely made the first and last intervals, but I did, so..there.  I still had a hard time slowing down to my intended pace.  I might have to adjust my pace alarms to help with that, or adjust my pace goal down to what I'm running.  But that all will have to wait...Christmas is HERE!!!

Back to the beginning

And here we are again at the beginning of the training cycle with a new base pace - 10:27.  Once again, I'll reserve the right to change this pace if I find that I can't keep it up.  But for now, so far so good!  As you can see, I had a bit of a difficult time holding it down, in fact.  I'm sure that will change as I get the stuffings run out of me this week.

On another note, I have two guests in my house from Fairbanks, AK - my mother JoAnn and brother Brian.  Today is my mom's 70th birthday, and yesterday, my little brother David from Louisville, KY came up so that we could all be together for the first time in about 26 years.  Yeah, it was a pretty big deal.  We even got a photographer to document the occasion.

So the temp here has been in the thirties and forties, which is absolutely balmy when compared to -40 that mom and Brian have come from.  It's still a little cool for short sleeve runs, so I ran with a long sleeve shirt, gloves, and ear warmer.  I wore my underarmor shirt (by which I mean a spandex-like tight fitting undershirt.) and should have come back in for a second long sleeve shirt, but instead, I sucked it up and dealt with the cold.  Made me feel like a man...

Tomorrow, a very Merry Christmas to me with 4X1/4's.  yay...

5 with Jeff

Here's a run I did with my friend Jeff; he averages around 9-9:30 minute miles, so he was gracious enough to slow down a bit for me.  It was 24 degrees and sunny, so a great day for running!

I wore three layers up top and my leggings and shorts on bottom as well as gloves and ear warmer.

S-s-s-smokin'

With just a little more effort, this run would have placed me in the top ten of my age group for the Santa Hustle 5K; not bad, eh?  Now I'm curious what I could pull off in a race...

I'll probably run 5 on Friday or Saturday.  I'm working on a schedule to push my half marathon time down to 2 hours, as well as work in some shorter races for next year.  The next mini I'm thinking about doing is Mar 23rd.  I'm also thinking about doing the training series for the Festival 500 Mini Marathon.

Santa Hustle Half Marathon - Indy Version

A.  Yes, I did wear the Santa shirt and hat provided in the packet.
B.  No, I did not wear the beard that was provided.
C.  Yes, this is a PR. (!!!SoEXCITED!!!)

That's enough of the alphabet stuff.  I was a bit worried about the weather; it was supposed to be in the low fifties, which is right around the break point for ear protection and possibly gloves, not to mention underarmor stuff.

I brought all that gear to the race as I knew I wouldn't park that far from the Start line and could adjust right up to the beginning of the race.  I decided to try going with the long sleeve Santa shirt, the aforementioned hat, no gloves, and no ear protection (the Santa hat didn't come down over my ears - fat head...).

My warmup run was pretty good, so I decided to go with what I had on.  That was a good choice as I ended up rolling the sleeves up for a couple of miles during the race.

As you can see, the first half of my race was faster than the second by 20 seconds (not counting the last .12 miles), which, now that I think about it, isn't that bad.  The cool thing is that all my miles are within 19 seconds of each other; there might be something to this pace alarm thing!  This is the first race that I think I've run consistent times for my miles; all the other races, my times have varied by minutes, not seconds.

The interval work really paid off as I spotted the mile 13 sign about .1 miles away, so I kicked it into gear and carried it all the way to the end. 

I just checked the results:
Age Group (45-49): 32/45. At least I wasn't last...
Overall: 465/938.  TOP HALF!!!

Next half marathon goal? 2 hours, baby!!

Last 4 Miles

I was supposed to do 6 miles yesterday, but the work monster ate it up.  This was also scheduled, and I got off work in time to do it.  Yay.  This is also my last run before Sunday's Santa Hustle Half Marathon.

I reset my pace alarms for a particular window and then forgot to switch to that window for my run.  Consequently, I ran with the pace alarms for my last run, which was 10:36 minute miles.  Whoops.  I knew what I was supposed to run, so I was somewhat confused when the pace alarm went off below 11:00 min miles.  I figured it out on the last mile.  That's right, given a half an hour of a watch screaming at me at the wrong times, I'll finally realize what's going on.

Sharpest knife in the drawer here...

Cool Eight Kinda Faster

I know you're thinking that the title is my DJ name.  It isn't (that would be Def Jiggy Blowfish.)  No, rather, the title describes my run; weird, eh?

It was at the freezing point outside, so I bundled up with two layers of shorts, two layers of shirts, gloves, and ear/head band.  After two miles, I came back in the house and threw on another tech shirt, which turned out to be just perfect.

I'm starting to think about my mini this Sunday; I'm supposed to wear the provided beard, shirt, and hat.  I don't have a problem wearing the shirt, but the other two...I'll have to see them to make that determination.  I might have to pull the beard down into an Amish beard so that I'm not choking on it for 13.1 miles.

As for the hat, I'll have to see if it will come down over my ears just in case it's cold.  Or maybe see if it fits over my headband.  Or my elbow.  I'll let you know more after packet pickup on Saturday.

5-5-2 plan

I was feeling pretty good at the beginning of this run and even thought about keeping up the 9:54 pace the last two miles.  That was at the beginning...by mile 10 I was more than happy to slow down to the 11:00 pace.  Then, I had to keep pushing myself that last mile just to keep that pace up!

Whew!  That's the end of the hard training for the race on the 16th.  Next week is three runs - all of them somewhat easy.  Monday will be the hardest with 8 miles at a 10:36 pace.

I Eight Faster

I would have liked to do this run without stopping, but I put on the beef stew before I headed out and felt compelled to stop at 3 miles to check on it and 5 miles to add the potatoes and carrots.

I set my pace alarms for +/- 20 seconds off my pace goal, and I think I'm going to keep it there for future runs.  As you can see for yourself, my mile times are pretty tightly grouped within 4 seconds of each other!

Slighly Faster than Training Pace

Not sure what the 10 sec/mile change is all about, but it's on the schedule, so I ran it.

I made two adjustments to my routine.  One is I set my pace alarms for +/- 20 seconds from my pace goal instead of +/- 30 seconds.  I'll need more empirical data to determine if it's better for keeping on pace without having wild swings.

And two, I finally changed my Min/mile average to reflect hours:minutes:seconds instead of minutes.hundredths of minutes.  Not really sure why I didn't do that in the first place; probably Denali's fault.

World Record (Rusty version) Mile

There you go: Mile PR in 8:15.  /flex!  And, then to boot, some fast quarters!  I was a little worried that I would fail to meet my goal for a mile, then I was a little worried that I wouldn't be able to pump out the quarters.  And then I was a little worried that all that worrying would cause a wart.

But all that ado about worrying was for naught.  Yay!  Tomorrow is an easy six miles. Double yay!

So, a tempo run, huh?

This is the pace that I am planning on running for 13.1 miles on Dec 16th.  Right now, that seems a bit out of reach, but I also have to factor in doing this on one days rest from a 12 mile run on Sat as well as the last week of intense training.  Next week will not be nearly as challenging before my race, and I'll get at least two days rest before Sunday.

This week is a bit of a taper as I only do 38 miles, but the intensity is definitely stepped up.  Tomorrow is a mile interval and two quarters with warm up/cool down miles.  Wed is an easy day with 6 miles at a slightly faster than training pace (10:50).  Thu is 8 miles at a 10:22 pace.  And Sat is 12 miles (5 miles at 11:00, 5 miles at 9:54, and two miles at 11:00.)

Today and Saturday's runs are the ones that worried me the most, so now that this one is in the books, I have a lot more confidence that I can complete Saturday's run at the prescribed paces.

EDIT: Oh yeah, and 70's today!!!  Another temptation to run nekkid, but wisdom won again and I wore short sleeves with my shorts.

Short Sleeve 12 In December!

It was in the 60's here in Indiana!  I thought I had run my last run this year in short sleeves, but once again, I was wrong.  And it's looking like I might get some more short sleeve runs in next week.  Yay!

Full disclosure: I made stops at 1 (talked with neighbors about fence), 3 (pit stop), and 7 (bloody nose).  I thought about making stops at 1, 2, 4, 7, and 12 but didn't know if you all would get the fibonacci reference, so I didn't.

That run wraps up 39 miles for the week.  So the last three weeks are 35+40+39=114 miles!  I think that's the most I've ever run over a three week span.  I got in 123 miles for November, and I feel great.  No body parts are injured or strained.  Yay!