Training

Finding Speed

I’m trying to remember how to run fast. (Do I have to keep saying “fast for me” every time? It’s implied.) My muscles seem to have forgotten, considering how the backs of my legs feel three days after my 5K. So I came up with a mini-plan for the next 3.5 weeks leading up to the Turkey Day Minneapolis 5K, based on one of Hal Higdon’s 8 week 5K plans. I started it Monday night with a 1.9 mile treadmill run. My treadmill crapped out at 1.9 miles so that was an inauspicious start.

Last night, I had 6 x 400 on my schedule. I did 6 x 0.25 miles, which is basically the same thing, but my watch is in imperial units, so that’s what I go by. I walked/jogged 0.1 miles between reps, which worked out to about 1:30-1:40 of active recovery between reps.

Here’s how things went: 8:43 (included a hill), 8:43 (included a hill), 8:17, 8:32, 8:20, 8:55.

So, that was probably not very smart running. I need to try a couple other things next week.

  1. Run a flatter route (I ran the Lakewalk and hit both hills at Leif Erikson Park).
  2. Slow down. I think aiming for a nice, even 8:45 pace would be smarter than just kind of going balls-out and seeing what happens. The reps are supposed to be run at a mile pace, and I think 8:45 is a reasonable mile pace for me.
  3. Reduce recovery time. With an overall slower and more sustainable pace, I can reduce the recovery distance to 0.05 miles.

Next Tuesday I’ll be doing another set of repeats, unfortunately mostly in the dark just like yesterday (I started late due to a work function), thanks to the end of daylight saving time. Ugh.

Crash Into Me

I’m back to running after 8 days off post-Wild Duluth. Those 8 days off did wonders for me. I had a cold for most of the time, which cut down on how much I could get done around the house, but giving my legs, hips, and back time to rest was invaluable. So was giving my brain a chance to rest. That was probably the most beneficial part of my time off.

I started back running on Monday, and was rewarded for getting back on the road by getting struck from behind by a cyclist while on the Lakewalk. That was exciting! I’m fine, he didn’t hit me very hard, but he did scream at me that I wasn’t paying attention. Ok, sir, I’m not the one trying to pass on the right, off the trail.

I signed up for a 5K on Saturday which is… I think on the Lakewalk. I’m not sure. I’m not really trained for it but it gives me another chance to get under 30 minutes this year. I’m also running a 5K in Minneapolis on Thanksgiving, but I’d just like to get this hurdle out of the way. The race hasn’t historically had a large turnout, so I’m hoping to get a lot of space to run. My goals are:

A Standard: 29:30
B Standard: 29:59

I think it’s possible, even though I have hardly done any fast running lately. In fact, for almost two months! Whatever, it’ll be fun. A friend of mine will be visiting from Grand Forks and will be running with me (and probably beating me).

Regardless of whether or not I finally get under 30 minutes for this 5K, I am going to stick to road/pavement running for awhile. I have spent a long time working on strength and endurance, and I have to spend some time re-learning how to turn my legs over. I have some mechanics to fix and some muscles to wake up, and I can’t break those bad habits on trails. I know I have limited time left on trails before snow and ice take them over, but I feel the need for speed. That doesn’t mean doing speed work in every workout, it just means that I will stop running at my “I can run forever” shuffle pace. I’ll take this month to re-train myself to run a bit more sharply, and see if I can get that to translate onto trails. I need to get faster, for a variety of reasons, and this is the first step.

Wild Duluth 50K Training: Weeks 4 and 5

The last two weeks leading up to the race were a bit haphazard.

Week 4:
Monday: rest (hockey thing)
Tuesday: rest (work)
Wednesday: rest (tired)
Thursday: 7.3 mi, paved trail (Lakewalk)
Friday: 9 mi, trail (SHT, Becks Rd toward Grand Portage)
Saturday: 4.3 mi, paved trail (Lakewalk)
Sunday: 13.2 mi, paved trail (Munger Trail)
Total: 33.8 mi

Week 5:
Monday: rest
Tuesday: 4.2 mi, paved trail (Lakewalk)
Wednesday: rest
Thursday: 3.8 mi, paved trail (Lakewalk)
Friday: rest
Saturday: 31 miles, trail (Wild Duluth 50K)
Sunday: rest
Total: 39 mi

Week 4, I had to cram in mileage into four days, thanks to my lingering cold and a big project at work. Friday I had taken a day off to relax, and planned to do a longer day run. I tried to find the southern terminus of the Superior Hiking Trail and failed. I ended up driving around for over an hour before accidentally ended up back in Duluth. I had planned on doing 10 miles, but I didn’t have time to do 10 miles before dark and before the hockey game started, thanks to lollygagging on getting started, and then all the confused driving. So I cut it to 9 miles and even then I was late to the hockey game.

Saturday I also had to cut my 5 miles down to 4, due to a late start. I have to figure that out. It was beautiful out.

Sunday was also an absolutely beautiful day to run.

I started at Becks Rd and ran on the Munger Trail to just past the dam. Midway through my run, I decided maybe I could try to get under 3 hours for a half and get a Strava PR. (Ugh, Strava, so competitive.) Well, I did, Strava says my half PR is now 2:59:43. Whoopity do. Not too bad considering I didn’t start trying til I was over halfway in. I did have to push it at the end.

I only ran twice in week 5 (other than the race), which wasn’t my intention. I had planned to run three days (Tuesday Wednesday Thursday) but I decided to run errands and relax on Wednesday instead. Friday I worked a half day from home, and then went to a hockey game. It was nice to keep my mind off the race, but didn’t help with the sleep.

This is the last race I’m training for this year. I will be doing a 5K on Thanksgiving and I’ll still be running to get ready for that, but I’m not doing anything formal. I am taking this entire week off to recover from Wild Duluth mentally and physically. I came down with a cold last night so that’s made the decision not to run even easier. If I don’t get a sub-30 5K this time around I’ll probably have to see if there’s one in December, but considering I was only 3 seconds off in June, I think I can do it.

It feels good not to have anything big looming, although I do need to sit down and plan for what I want to do in 2017. The same races. Different races. Every race.

Wild Duluth 50K Goals

Well, tomorrow I’ll either be an ultrarunner, or I won’t. I’m pretty sure I will be.

Goals:
A Standard: 9:45:00
B Standard: 9:59:59
C Standard: 10:59:59

I won’t be very happy with the C standard, but who knows? I don’t think this course has as challenging of an end as the Moose Mountain Marathon (specifically, it does not have a Moose Mountain!), so I don’t know why I couldn’t improve a little on overall pace. I know most of this course backward and forward, literally. It’s only the beginning that’s a bit of an unknown.

The weather forecast seems to be improving. It was looking like a 90% chance of rain the entire day as recently as Tuesday’s forecast, now it looks to be more like 40%, with a high of 65. I can handle that. Last year was much colder.

I will be starting the race off running with a friend, which is a first for me. Even when I’ve had friends at the starting line, our paces have been different enough that we’re separated almost immediately. I am not sure we’ll run the whole race together, as I’m not very good at running with other people, and I do like to be alone sometimes. I hate to be alone at the start, though. I’m so glad to have someone to ride the bus with.

The usual non-pace-related goals apply: no puking, no soiling myself, no medical emergencies. Keep moving. Don’t fart around at aid stations. Eat, and then take more food to go. Enjoy myself. Stay calm. Don’t get lost.

Tonight I’ve still got plenty to do to get ready, and a hockey game to attend after packet pickup. I won’t be eating a burrito bowl this time; going with pizza. And I’m not going to have caffeinated pop either, anything to try to prevent the sleepless night before Curnow.

Here goes nothing!

Wild Duluth 50K Training: Weeks 2 and 3

I’ve been mildly sick with a cold/sinus/whatever this past week.

Week 2:
Monday: 5.4 mi, trail (Enger Park out & back)
Tuesday: rest
Wednesday: 4 mi, treadmill (booooo)
Thursday: 6.4 mi, trail (Spirit Mountain to Kingsbury Creek & back)
Friday: 3 mi, treadmill (booooo again)
Saturday: 16.1 mi, trail (Grand Traverse)
Sunday: 8 mi, trail (Magney to Ely’s Peak and back)
Total: 43 mi

Week 3:
Monday: rest
Tuesday: rest
Wednesday: rest
Thursday: 4.5 mi, trail (Ely’s Peak)
Friday: rest
Saturday: rest
Sunday: 8 mi, paved trail (Munger Trail)
Total: 12.5 mi

I hate getting stupid colds. I tend to get a sneezing/coughing/fatigue illness around the equinoxes, and I’m not sure how to avoid it. Since my race is in less than two weeks, I ain’t playin’. I’m going to rest. I’m just fortunate I didn’t have to take the business trip I was scheduled to take. Last time I had a cold coming on and had to fly, I got some crud that lasted for weeks.

I guess it remains to be seen whether running Sunday was a mistake, but I couldn’t help it. It was near 70 F, sunny, and the leaves are changing. I had to get outside. I could have probably run Saturday, as well, if I had not had two hockey games to attend. Attending hockey games takes a lot of energy, let me tell you.

Grand Traverse Duluth Goals

I mentioned on Monday that I signed up for another race on Saturday, a race which is two days from now. A race whose website has crashed for the moment.

I had an epiphany while running last Saturday. I had been thinking about running a 5K just to see if I could squeak under 30 minutes finally, but then I realized I could run the Grand Traverse instead. I wasn’t even sure of the date of the race while I was running, or what the distance options where, so I plotted as I ran, unsure of whether or not I could actually put those thoughts into fruition.

I had considered running the Grand Traverse before, but I thought that it would be too soon after the marathon. I thought I’d be totally wrecked by the MMM, and it would take weeks of recovery. I wasn’t even certain I could run Wild Duluth, which is why I didn’t sign up until I had completed the MMM. But I recovered well, so I’m in good shape to run it.

I realized I would be running the trails anyway, so I might as well take advantage of a fun event, a chance to do a point to point run rather than a dreaded out & back, and a couple of aid stations along the way. It will also ensure I get up and get going early enough to complete my long run in time to attend the UMD-Whitecaps hockey game in the afternoon.

I chose the ~16 mile option, though I’d have preferred more like an 18 mile option. 20 seemed too long. I hope I can complete it in maybe 4:30, but I haven’t put much effort into looking at what that would take. If their website stays down, I’ll just have to wing it. From what I gather, this race is very low key. The time starts when you get off the bus. That’s it. It’s certainly a good opportunity to run a race without being a slave to my watch.

I’m going to use this as a long, challenging training run for Wild Duluth. I’m going to run hard, but not race-level effort. I can compare the pace to my pace from this spring’s Zumbro and last year’s Harder n Hell half and see how I’ve improved. I am also going to practice consuming more food and drink while racing, to try to improve my on-the-go nutrition. Wild Duluth is twice as long, so I’m not sure I’ll get anything else out of this race that will be applicable to WD. Just time on my feet on the course, and that’s pretty darn good.

So, finish around 4.5 hours without giving max race effort, eat and drink more, avoid barfing/incontinence/injury/death, and have fun. There are my race goals!

Wild Duluth 50K Training: Week 1

Back to the grind.

My heart rate monitor is still malfunctioning, so I won’t be reporting those numbers until it gets fixed. I’m fairly certain I’m not running trails with an average of 72 bpm.
Monday: rest
Tuesday: rest (massage!)
Wednesday: 7.3 mi, paved trail (Lakewalk)
Thursday: 6.3 mi, paved trail (Munger)
Friday: 5.5 mi, trail (Lester Park)
Saturday: 10.1 mi, trail (SHT @ 24th Ave W)
Sunday: 4.1 mi, trail (SHT, Brewer’s Park loop)
Total: 33.3 mi

Super boring week of training. I could have run Monday but didn’t, because I wanted to be lazy. I eased my body back into running by choosing a couple of paved, flatter trails to start off.

Friday I ran Lester Park for the first time and I am stupid for not running it sooner! It’s gorgeous! I ran uphill along the river and cruised along enjoying the view, then turned around and headed back the way I came after I got to 2.75 miles. I will do some more exploring soon and take some photos.

Saturday I made a slight error in judgement. I brought one handheld water bottle and two gels. It was not enough. I didn’t bonk/die/collapse or anything, but I was SO HUNGRY the last couple miles. I think it would have been enough if I’d eaten closer to the time I’d started my run, but I lollygagged around for too long after eating my brunch. Oh well, lesson learned. I felt pretty good during most of the run.

Sunday I had no energy or drive to run the sad 4 miles of the new Brewer’s Park loop. Which is just a shorter way to get from Highland/Getchell to Haines Rd, btw. It was just OK. I felt like a diplodocus, with slow, heavy feet. Yuck. The loop was shorter than I thought it would be, but I was glad of it.

I am hoping to have a couple of higher volume weeks for weeks 2-4 of this plan, but we’ll see. This week should be fun, I signed up to run a race this Saturday.