Almost Forgot!

Almost forgot to document this run.  It was lightly snowing when it began and driving snow when it ended.  Better than rain, I suppose.

Time to re-evaluate

Perhaps it was just an off day for me.

Maybe those 6X1 mile intervals took more out of me than I thought.

Possibly, I might be trying to train to too fast a pace.

Could be that I've made my schedule tougher than it ought to be.

What ever the reason, I need to take a good look at why I stopped at mile 3.5 of the tempo run (4.5 overall) to catch my breath and rest a spell.  I finished the run after that, but it was pretty tough to keep going.

klla dk;lak ddddIIIJNMNL

Eyes dilated.

so, skldlo dfof goodlsl  faraaal;kei.  Lslsd fjfoo f alsdid sss sdl MFKDRRRRRRI*****.

Make sense?

6 X 1 mile? No problem!

It was a misty, dreary day here in Greenwood; the temp hovered in the low fifties as I started out on this run.  To tell the truth, I was glad that the bitter cold from last week had moved on if only for a little bit.

My attire, chosen especially for such a day as today, was a long sleeve shirt, shorts, socks, and shoes, and oh yes, a baseball hat that is slightly thicker than my other hats.  And it has a red bull on it.

I set my pace alarms at 9:20 and 8:40 to achieve, hopefully, a 9:00 minute pace.  As I warmed up during my first mile, I heard its cries to speed up.  I ignored them.

I quickened my pace at the chime of the mile marker and settled into a loping run that silenced the annoying alarm.  Soon, much to my dismay, the sister alarm sounded that urged me to slow down, which I obeyed immediately.  For the first mile interval, I seemed to bounce between the two alarms, never really silencing them both for very long.

After less than nine minutes, suddenly, the mile was over.  As I slowed to my recovery pace, my watch screamed at me to increase my velocity; once again, I closed my ears to its screeching.  After what seemed like an eternal 2 minutes 51 seconds, it was time to take off again.

 And so I would repeat the ping pong match between my slow alarm and my fast alarm five more times, taking care to tune out the too slow alarm during each of my recovery periods.  As I picked up my pace to my usual ~11 min/mile, my slow alarm continued to urge me on faster and faster still, but I refused to acquiesce to its demands.  I finally stopped the run at 9 miles and silenced the alarms for good.

Well, that is until tomorrow...

On a side note, I place this run in my top 5 training runs; I thoroughly enjoyed it.  It was tough, especially that sixth mile, but after it was done, I felt great!

30 degrees and SUNNY????

I am outdoors!  Well, not now, but for the run I was.  The snow had melted off for the most part on the street, so I didn't have to dodge too many piles or icy patches.  This was slightly slower than last Saturday's long run, but that run was too fast anyways for my training goals.

So, up next is strength training instead of speed work.  Monday, I will do 6X1 mile @ 9:00 pace with a quarter mile recovery @ a 12:24 pace.  I am sure this workout is going to kill me, so if you don't see an entry Monday...well, maybe by Tuesday...scratch that, WEDNESDAY(!) then feel free to assume the worst.

I need a hamster wheel

But with a solid surface to run on instead of wires (that's just asking for an injury.)  The surface outside is solid, but slick as we had snow this morning.  I fear tomorrow will find me running similar to today albeit at a 10:18 pace.  So at least the boredom will go faster...

Another ninja sighting!

This time, I was smart.  I made the balaclava into stocking cap and threw the ear warmer over it.  After about a half mile, I decided that I should go incognito and pulled the face mask down.  My cheeks were very appreciative.

The great indoors

Ran eight miles...didn't move an inch.  I didn't feel like scaring the neighborhood with the ninja bit, so I fired up the treadmill.  This was more of a psychological run than anything; I had to keep pushing myself to keep up and assuring myself that I would indeed make it.  And sure enough...I did.

The Inner Ninja Comes Out!

The temp in Greenwood, according to accuweather.com, is 16 degrees F, with a realfeel(TM) of 0 degrees F.  I thought I had the clothing dialed in:
Head:  stocking cap + ear warmer
Chest: Long sleeve UA shirt with two long sleeve tech shirts over it
Legs: Running undies, tights, shorts.
Feet:  Running socks with thick socks (and running shoes!)
Hands:  Nice gloves from Eddie (Bauer, we're kinda on a first name basis)

After three miles, I had to come back in to add a balaclava, and so, for the next 31 minutes and 49 seconds, I terrorized my neighborhood as a ninja.  A slightly overweight (188 lbs now!!), slow moving (see the pace up there?), middle age ninja, but a ninja nonetheless.

Boooya  hiiiiiiiieeeeeee!!

Last intervals for the training period

3/4 mile intervals.  Whew!

It was pretty windy and cold outside, so I decided to do the treadmill.  Couldn't slack during these intervals, although I did stop the treadmill after intervals 2-4.  I think I chose a little too fast a pace for my intervals as I don't think I could have completed this workout without stopping.  But, that's ok, 'cause now I switch to strength training, and that is at a 9:00 pace.

Two more miles chopped

Ok, so hopefully these are the last couple of miles that I'll chop from the schedule.  I could have pushed through and ran two more miles, but I decided to err on the side of caution.  36 miles for the week was enough.  I have plenty of time to get up to speed for my Mar 23rd mini, and I felt I was risking injury for very little gain.

Now that I'm back up to where I think I should be after my illness, I'm going to hit it!  Next week is 41-43 miles, then 47-49 miles, 45-47, 49-51 (!!), 45-47, 50-52 (!!!eleventyone!!!), 46-48, 47-49, aaaaaand taper to 37.1.

This week marks my last week of speed work, and I move on to strength runs at a 9:00 pace.  It still looks like speed work with intervals and all.  You'll see.

See? Days switched!

Or two miles knocked off yesterday's run...

I switched days...really!

This is tomorrow's 5 miler, chopped down to 4.  I'll run today's 6 miler tomorrow, chopped down to 5.  Got that?  Good, cause I did not, repeat, NOT chop this six mile run down to four.  It just didn't happen.

Tempo does it 5

As you can see, my self inflicted schedule called for a six mile tempo run, and I did five.  I thought it wise to continue to not push myself especially since I'm supposed to be going from 30 miles last week to around 40ish this week.  I believe I'm going to cut some more miles off runs this week so that I don't do more than 36-38, which is still asking for trouble.

The Hanson's book sets weekly tempo runs at 5, 5, 5, 8, 8, 8, 9, 9, 9, 10; that jump from 5 to 8 is a killer, so I decided to ramp it with 4 (last week), 5, 6, 6, 7, 7, 7, 8, 8, 9.  I know: Here I go thinking I know more than the experts...that, or I'm just a wimp.

Easy does it 5

I'm getting to like these easy runs more and more.  Even though it was 32 degrees out, I felt a little over dressed with two long sleeve shirts and a short sleeve underarmor shirt on.  So, I was fairly toasty with my ear warmer, gloves, and shorts as well as a well layered upper body; that, coupled with the easy pace made this a nice relaxing run.  If such a thing exists...I probably just fell asleep on the couch and dreamed the whole thing.

I'm gonna count it anyways; maybe fudge the pace a bit...I can't be held responsible for what I do in my sleep.

5 X 1000m

Here is the longest intervals that I have done to date; of course, I've done fast miles, but not mile intervals (but I will later in this schedule.)  Next Monday, the intervals increase to 3/4ths of a mile; should be taxing...

After next week, the intervals are switched to strength training speed and increase in length starting with one mile and subsequently 1.5, 2, and 3 mile intervals at a 9:00 pace.

I think this type of training is for someone who is more finely tuned than I am, cause I don't think I'd have a problem doing two 27 minute 3 mile runs with a mile recovery in between.  I mean, I'm supposed to do a 6 mile tempo run at 9:10 on this Wed.  Of course, I say this now in ignorance; we'll see what I say on that particular day, if I can catch my breath to talk, that is.

Regardless, hopefully through following this schedule I can get some sort of idea of my potential and work toward it.  Right now, I'm not sure where my limits are, and while it is exciting to think about chopping minutes off my half marathon time, I'm not quite sure what is realistic and what is just wishful thinking.

EDIT: Oh, totally messed up the first interval; 1000m equals .625 miles, which is more precise than my Garmin 305 will track, so I meant to just run .63 and brain farted on that first one. I also added 200 m (.125 miles) to the recovery part to make each interval an even mile.

Sunny and 58 degrees!!

I wore one of my new short sleeve shirts for this Long Run.  As you can see, I ran at my Long Run pace of 10:18.  I was supposed to run an easy 6, but I feared I wouldn't be able to get in the scheduled Long Run tomorrow, so I ran it today.

If I find 66 minutes to myself tomorrow, I will try to get in the easy 6.

Easy there treadmill boy

Rain, rain, go away!  Since the weather doesn't seem to respond to my urgings, I decided to run in the great indoors...staring at a blank wall...in a short sleeve shirt...dripping sweat with the window wide open.  And the dog barking at me to throw her ball.

Maybe I'll brave the rain next time.

A true tempo run

This may be the first time I've done a true tempo run; you know, with the warm up and cool down and steady race pace...pace...and all.  Anyways, I might have been able to do the fifth mile that the schedule called for, but decided to keep with the "take it easy kinda" comeback philosophy that I so eloquently described in the annuals of this here blog.

Tomorrow is 6 miles easy and Friday is 8 miles long run pace (10:18).  If I get a chance to run Saturday, it will be 5 miles easy.

I finished mapping out the rest of my schedule for my Mar 23 mini.  I also signed up for that mini, so I'm committed!  I'll have to figure out what I'm going to do between Mar 23 and May 4 for training, but that's not for a while, so I have some time.

Oh, and I also signed up for the whole enchilada on Nov 2nd...oh boy!

Well...almost to the schedule

I am probably going to cut a bit off of each run this week to take it a little easy for my first week back.  If everything goes well, then I'll run next week's schedule in its entirety.

One of the ideas in the book that I'm trying to follow is the idea of easy runs should be...easy.  Now, my easy pace, according to my goal of a 2 hour half marathon, should be anywhere from 11:27 to 10:41, so 11 minute miles are just fine.  The purpose of the run is to get miles in and not to break land speed records (that's for other days.)

So, for easy days, I need to remind myself, "It's ok to be slow!"

Back to the schedule

So, I'm going to try to jump back into the schedule.  I debated retooling the schedule for the 500 festival mini and skipping the Sam Costa half up in Carmel, but I figured I would see how the week goes.

This run felt great!  I was a bit winded at the end of the intervals, but as you can see, I was able to maintain my recovery pace.  Also, I was encouraged as I looked at the graphs of my intervals; they weren't slanted which would, in my case, indicate a steady slowing down.

I will skip one run this week as I need to run down to Evansville on Saturday, and I don't think I'll be able to squeeze it in.  Of course, I'll pick a short one so that if the time does come available, I'll be able to do it.

Just Flu In

Monday, New Year's Eve, was not very fun for me.  The flu bug hit me and emptied my intestinal system...completely.  So, this is my first run back from the edge; didn't expect it to go this good!

I need to see how the slacking time affects my schedule, but for now, I'm feeling much better!