Wednesday, December 31, 2008

National Marathon Week 10

This week has another 15 mile run at the end and it has new years in the middle. should be a tough one... January is the make or break month for me to see if I can hit my 4:20 goal. There are 4 tough weeks this month with one recovery week. Hopefully the weather will cooperate with my schedule...

Monday: Was supposed to swim, but got home late from Virginia and was worn out so I skipped it.

Tuesday: Today was a tempo run, after my last few workouts and all the traveling I wasn't expecting much, but it ended up being a really good run. Met Tim and Frank at Shelley lake and did the 1 mile warmup together. Tim had 4 miles at 8:30 and Frank said he would hang with me as long as he could. At mile 1 Tim took off and Frank and I increased to 9:10 pace, took my sweat shirt off at 1.5 and felt much better. My tempo pace for 5 miles was to be between 9:00 and 9:20. Mile 1 of tempo was 9:11 and I felt really good. Shelley lake is really flat so I'm sure that had something to do with it. mile 2 of the tempo was 9:10, still feeling good so I decided to pick it up a bit to 9 min pace and lost Frank. Mile 3 was 8:58, this was harder, but I still felt really good so I kept this pace for mile 4 and an 8:59. Mile 5 of the tempo had a short steep hill right where I dropped my sweat shirt that I had to pick up so I wanted to keep my 9 min pace going so after picking it up I sprinted to the top and still had dropped to 9:30 pace from 8:56 and was way out of breath. I kept a decent pace going until I could breath again and picked it up for the final quarter to finish mile 5 @ 9:03. then did a 10:14 cool down. total for the run 1:05 and a 9:23 pace for 7 miles, tempo part was 9:04 pace for 5 miles.

Wednesday: Coach changed my schedule to be a cross train at the last minute from a run so I did a swim today.
warmup:
5 swim, 5 pull, 5 kick w/fins

mainset:
12 mins pull & paddles @ 2.3
3 min swim at 2.3 :30 ri
2 min swim at 2.4 :30 ri
1 min swim at 2.5

cool down:
5 mins easy

Thursday: Very cold new year's day run. Wore my new tights and socks and shorts with an old long sleeve shirt and heavy fleece sweat shirt on top, skiing gloves and a hat. Had my heavy metal play list shuffled on my iphone and took off early. It was close to 30 degrees, I think I overdressed, but running into the wind I was cold with the wind chill, but when the wind was at my back it felt hot. Either way I felt fairly good and stong on this run, a little sore from the 3 hours of ice skating the day before, but since it was an easy run I took it easy. Did 5 miles in 52 mins for a 10:16 pace...

Friday: day off - woo hoo, but spent day taking down chritmas gifts and starting on a hopefully consistent resistence training plan.

Saturday: 15 miles at comfortable pace - um remember not to start resistence training day before 15 mile run. This 15 miler was better than the last 15 miler, while last time I was coming down with a cold, this time my energy level was good, but my muscles were sore. My running partners were resting injuries and my other running buddies were either too lazy to get up or had to watch the kids so I was solo this week. I setup a playlist for the iphone and headed to umstead. Started off cold, I was wearing long tights and shorts and a long sleeve running shirt and fleece pullover. no gloves or head gear. My paces were slower to start than last time, but overall my pace at the end was better. I did run the last 3 miles without walkbreaks but man my quads were killing me.
stats: 15 miles in 2:42:00 for a 10:47 pace, ave hr 144 max 162. spent most of the time in zone 3 1:54:45, and some in zone 4 ( 40:06 ).

Sunday: Swim - legs were really sore today so just did an easy swim and no kicking.

miles for the week 27

looking forward to getting back to a normal schedule...

Tuesday, December 30, 2008

National Marathon Week 9

These next two weeks are going to be odd with Christmas and New Years and the kid off from school and us off from work so I told myself to make sure to get the runs in and try as best I can to do the rest...

Monday: I had a 3 mile recovery run with strides after, but decided to skip it since I was still recovering from a cold and it was 23 degrees in the morning, the only time I had to run and I just felt too crappy to get out of bed.

Tuesday: Feeling better today but decided to do an easier track workout today to keep recovering from my cold. Did 1.5 mile warmup followed by a 3 mile run alternating 400's fast/recovery ( 2:10 / 2:20 ). Ran with Cindy and Frank and this way of doing 3 miles on the track was better than the way I did it last time as the change in pace broke up the monotony, but since I had company that probably had something to do with it as well.

Wednesday: Today I had swim/kick with fins in the morning and mtn bike at lunch. Did my swim and more kicking than normal and felt really good, but had to skip the bike as the park was closed and had to do some last minute shopping

Thursday: day off

Friday: Today was the long run day as Saturday is a travel day. This is a recovery week so I only had 10 miles, but they were to be done at ~9:30 pace. Met Erin and Rob at Lake Benson and ran towards downtown Garner and did a loop back. This one was tough. We started off around 10:30 pace for the first mile, but then gradually sped up until we were doing 9:30's. The course was sidewalks and roads and rolling all the way. At mile 7 we were at 9:37 ave pace for the whole run so we were right on pace, but even though the next two miles were flat, I couldn't get the pace any lower so at mile 9 we were at 9:35 and I decided to slow down and do a cool down back to the car. Ended up with 9:37 ave pace for 9.61 miles

Sat: day off, but I did play some sand volley ball for 1.5 hours

Sun: had a 6 mile easy, run, it wasn't easy, I was tired from travel and staying up really late for me. Did 6.1 miles in 1:02:43 for about a 10:20 pace.

Next week is going to be tough again, but then hopefully will be back to the normal routine.

weekly mileage: 22

Sunday, December 21, 2008

National Marathon week 8

Week 8 was a struggle, really only Tuesday went well, but I managed to get through it and am looking forward to no work for two weeks and having a recovery week during Christmas.

Monday: Recovery Run 4 miles: Did 4.3 on the flattest course available which really isn't flat but does have a nice middle section that is flat. legs felt really heavy and tired at the beginning, finally started feeling good around mile 2.5 just in time for the hilly section back to work.

Tuesday: Track Day, This was a great day for me, did a 1.5 mile warmup, then
2000 at 9 min pace, 6 x 800's starting at 4:20 and getting faster by 5 seconds rep. then a 1 mile cool down, beat all my goal times and felt good doing it. big confidence builder.

Wednesday: was supposed to do core class and 20 mile easy bike, wasn't able to do either as we were driving up to Virginia for dinner with Lilyan's grandpa. So it was leave at 3, drive 3 hours, eat dinner and open presents, drive 3 hours home, this after getting up at 5 to get my work hours in. At least she got a wii out of it.

Thursday: I had a 6-7 mile steady run on the schedule, but instead did a 1 mile warmup, 3 mile tempo at 9:15 pace, 2 mile cool down. This was tough and did more walking than I would like, but I needed to save my legs for saturday's 15 miles and was tired from yesterday.

Friday: This was an off day, but since wednesday got screwed up, I did an easy 35 min swim. It felt great swimming but still mentally tired.

Saturday: Woke up with a head cold, felt really tired and congested, but had to meet Erin and Rob for 15 miles. Luckily the weather this week was in the 50's and dry. We did a route that started at starbucks, ran 2.5 hilly miles to a greenway, then did a 5 mile out and back on the flat greenway. taking walk breaks every mile to drink or eat. I felt tired and drained the whole time but the fueling strategy kept me going and I made it through, the first half was at 10:25 pace, the second at 11:15 to ave 10:50 for the whole route.

Sunday: still feeling the headcold, but wanted to get the legs and shoulders loosened up so did an easy 30 min 1 mile swim.

Looking forward to next week's reduced mileage, but more travel at the end of the week.

Weekly mileage: 25

Sunday, December 14, 2008

National Marathon Week 7

Week 7 looked like this
M - Recovery Run ( 5 miles easy )
T - Track ( 1.5 warmup, 3 miles @ 9, 2 miles @ 8:45, 1 mile @ 8:15 - 8:30, .5 cool)
W - Mountain bike morning, back to core class lunch
T - Negative Run ( 6 miles last 2 @ 9:30 pace )
F - Off
S - 13 miles on flat roads
S - Cross train

Monday: started off ok, I had a race on Saturday but still felt fairly good today, did 4.7 miles in 49 mins for 10:30 pace.

Tuesday: was great, it was a long track day, but I was looking forward to it since I saw it on my schedule. 3 miles ( 12 laps ) on the track is not that exicting so I was happy to have my coach run part of it with me as part of her cool down. Hit my paces right on or a little better, so very happy.

Wednesday: nothing went right, raining so trails closed, rfc staff had holiday lunch, so no back to the core and my last ditch plan to spin at home just wasn't appealing enough so I skipped it. No work out today but the rest was needed after Tuesday.

Thursday: Should have run in the morning, but was still feeling lazy. The rain stopped at 10 and I thought I could get an hour in before it came back so I headed out. Made to mile 4.5 before I got hit by a downpour. With only 15 minutes to go I figured I would just suck it up and get wet, but then the lightning started so I took the short cut back to work and ended up with 5.5 miles instead of the 6.2 planned and my pace at the end while faster was not quite the 9:30 on the schedule

Saturday: Was supposed to be flat, but my running partners had to stay close to home so we did loops around my extremely hilly neighborhood. Did 13 miles at 10:30 pace with walk breaks on the miles. It was cold, but little wind and the sun felt really good.

Sunday: Did a quick easy swim to loosen the legs and get the blood flowing. Quads are hurting, but not too bad.

31 miles this week, haven't done that many in a long time...

Sunday, December 7, 2008

Run at the Rock

Last race of the year. This was a 7 mile trail run. I haven't been having the best of luck with trails lately, so I wasn't expecting much in speed and I didn't disappoint.
The day started off ok, went to starbucks to meet Tim to make the hour drive to the race site. It was cold, but the truck was warm. Got there with plenty of time to get our race bags minus the normal t-shirts, and do a short warm up. They were playing 80's rock music like Van Halen and Ozzy. The race started off with a canon shot, Tim told me I should put this in my report so he would remember it.
It was in the 30's, I was wearing thin gloves, long sleeve under shirt, running tights, an old sweatshirt and a thin headband. I thought I was going to be ok since I started off really cold, but soon found out I was over dressed. The headband came off at mile 1, and the gloves at mile 2. Then I was still hot the rest of the way. Mile 1 was ok, we started on roads, the eased into a dirt trail until we came to a stop at the bridge to the single track. Waited about a minute, then started the trails. Mile 2 was ok as well, people were passing me left and right, but it didn't bother me as I was more concerned with not twisting my ankle or falling on the rocks. Mile 3 sucked as my legs were hurting and the hills were tough. I think I was at an 11:11 pace at mile 2, but by the time we got to mile 3 my ave dropped to 12. When we came out of the first set of trails I started feeling better and my speed started picking up. When got to the final section, I was just starting to feel good, and was getting the hang of the ups and downs over roots and rocks. I picked up a good pace setter and followed her the rest of the way in. There was one more big hill before the end which came at mile 6.6 on my watch, not that I wanted to go another .4, I was ready to get back in the truck and warm up.
It was a fun course, easier than the trails I trained on, so I enjoyed it more than I expected and saw a bunch of people I knew so it was fun. I do like trail running, but I also hate it because I suck so badly at it...