Training

Snow Falling Sideways

Wednesday I took a rest day, as it was as good a day as any, plus I was tired. I felt a bit like I was coming down with a cold. I felt pretty crummy yesterday morning, too, and was thinking of taking a second rest day. I perked up as the day went on, but I thought I’d play it safe and slog it on the treadmill. It was warmer but it was snowing and windy and I thought I might get too chilled.

I got home, farted around on Facebook for awhile, and a friend of mine posted this article about running outside in winter. It’s nothing ground-breaking, just a woman writing about why she likes it, but it was enough to get me out the door. I’ve been grousing about the cold, complaining about the treadmill, and wishing to get outside, I couldn’t squander the opportunity.

Even when it was snowing sideways on the Lakewalk. The wind was pretty rough at first, and snow had blown over the trail for the first half mile. I wasn’t sure if I had made a very good decision, especially when I was facing the wind head-on in the second mile.

Once I turned around and headed back, I was glad I’d done it. Ice floated on the water, bobbing on the waves as they crashed into the shore. The clouds over the city gave way to black sky over the open water. I had the path mostly to myself, although there were a few other intrepid runners and walkers enjoying the warm-up while it lasts.

My actual running plans are fairly boring. I run 4-6 miles or so most days, at my max heart rate. That’s it. Nothing notable.

The lottery for the Superior 25K ended last night, so fingers crossed I get in! Training plan starts Monday either way.

Are You Tough Enough?

Am I tough enough for this weather? No.

There are still some people running outside in this weather, I see them post pix on various running sites. I am not running in sub-zero weather. I don’t have the right gear, and I don’t have the mental fortitude.

Today the high is 2 F. I’ll be in treadmill town again.

The great news is Thursday and Friday look to be warm enough for outdoor running. Highs near 20 F! That is exciting. And then Saturday and Sunday look awful. The extended forecast doesn’t look that bad, though.

Next week will be my first week of training for either Zumbro 17 or Superior 25K, depending on my luck with the lottery. I hope it’s better luck than I had with the Powerball. I won $0.32 in a pool with co-workers ($16 among 50 people). Next week is 12 weeks out from Zumbro, so I’ll either be on a 12 week training plan culminating with Zumbro, or a 16 week training plan with Zumbro as a training run. Which is weird because Zumbro is a longer race than Superior.

I haven’t picked out a plan yet for training, but I might just wing it and combine some plans, or modify a half marathon plan for slightly longer and higher mileage. The final decision will depend on which race ends up as my goal race. I’ll find out next week, so my first week of training will have to be the same no matter what.

I just checked and there’s a Wild game tonight, so I’ll be able to survive the treadmill!

Molasses in January

I’ve completed one whole week of MAF training. Go me!

My first observation is that while I am running slowly, I’m not running that much slower than I was without the heart rate monitor. It seems I was doing a pretty decent job of staying close to aerobic. It is difficult to tell, of course, because I run such different courses.

I downloaded a user-created app for my watch that beeps when I go over 144 bpm, which is 2 bpm over what the 180-age-5 formula says. That works nicely, as it doesn’t start beeping if I’m briefly at 143, or if I’m holding steady at 142. It has helped me keep in check, although the first time I used it, I ended up well below the threshold, so I have been paying more attention to the heart rate display on my watch as I’m running.

Now that it’s very cold, I’m struggling. It’s still hard to keep it under control for the first mile or so, but earlier last week, when it was still in the 20s or even low 30s, it leveled off.

Saturday it was in the single digits, and I was miserable. My thighs and my butt were cold for most of the run, and I couldn’t find a way to protect my face without fogging up my glasses, so I alternated between blindness and frozen cheeks.

I gave up on keeping my heart rate below 142, and instead tried to keep my heart rate steady. I ended up completely unsuccessful. Spikes all over the place, as you can see in the picture. (Heart rate is shown with the orange line, pace with the white line.)

HRvsPace

Some of the spikes coincide with hills (corresponding to big drop-offs in pace), but not all of them. It needs to warm up so I can enjoy running outside. Today is treadmill city, again (so was yesterday), since it’s the middle of the day and it’s only 1 F. I suppose I should be glad it’s been mild up til now, but there’s still a lot of winter to go.

MAF Test Attempt #1

My replacement heart rate monitor came on Saturday, and after I remembered I needed to sync it before it would connect with my watch, I was able to take it out for a test on Sunday.

I was attempting to set a baseline for measuring my aerobic progress using the MAF Test recommended by Dr. Maffetone. I was supposed to run a warm-up, followed by 5 miles at my maximum aerobic heart rate (mine is 142), and then a cool-down. The warm-up is 15-20 minutes long (or longer) and I was supposed to gradually increase my heart rate to 142. The 5 miles at 142 bpm should have gotten progressively slower, and then I had to cool down for 15-20 mins, bringing my heart rate gradually back down.

That’s not how it worked.

I chose to do the test along Minnesota Ave. on Minnesota Point, because it’s flat, so I wouldn’t have hills messing up my results. It didn’t seem that cold and the trees didn’t seem to be moving so I didn’t think there was any wind. Wind and cold can affect the heart rate. It turned out it was windy, so that was annoying.

I was having trouble with my heart rate from the get-go. I was walking and it was spiking even though I was barely exerting myself, and then the monitor slipped down and I lost contact. It wasn’t tight enough, since I was afraid of stretching out the strap too much, as happened with my first heart rate monitor. Apparently stretching out the strap affects its ability to function. Argh.

Warmup: 1 mile, 18:39, 115 bpm avg

I was micro-managing my heart rate during the first mile, but it was either too high or too low, jumping all over the place. The road was snowy and/or icy in spots, and the sidewalks weren’t consistently cleared. I was running on the road and at times had to pause and wait for cars to go by before I could safely get around parked vehicles. I ended up with almost exactly the opposite of what is supposed to happen in the test.

Mile 1: 16:52, 137 bpm
Mile 2: 16:03, 134 bpm
Mile 3: 16:00, 133 bpm
Mile 4: 15:27, 134 bpm
Mile 5: 15:43, 135 bpm

Whoops. I’m not sure what this means. Maybe I need a longer warm-up. Maybe I need to use a lower max heart rate. Maybe this is not going to work in winter. I don’t know.

Cooldown: 0.74 mi, 19:06 pace, 122 bpm avg

I’m going to give the test another try in a month or so and see if I can get a better result. The workout itself was good, I felt great afterward, and the warm-up and cool-down felt nice. So it wasn’t a total loss, although it was frustrating trying to make the test work.

I looked at the extended forecast and it looks like there’s only a week or so of the somewhat unusually warm weather left, so that was a bit depressing. I also signed up for the lottery for the Superior 25K in May, so with a little luck, I’ll get in.

Year Two

Here’s to a year of running seriously!

I rang in the new year this year by “summitting” Ely’s Peak. It was unpleasant. I was in knee-deep snow at times. I only “ran” 2.3 miles. I can’t say that there was more than a half a mile of that that I’d consider actual running, sans quotation marks. It took an hour.

2015 was a pretty good year for running (for me): I ran 1193 miles, completed 6 races and volunteered at another, and lost 20 lbs. It was a good start.

In 2016, I want to be a bolder, braver runner. I have goals to that effect. My must-achieve goals are:

  • Become an ultramarathoner (at the Wild Duluth 50k)
  • Get “redemption” at the Park Point 5 Miler (by running much faster)
  • Be more social (by meeting other runners, joining UMTR, participating the NMTC races this summer, and volunteering)

I have some stretch goals, too.

  • Run a 5k under 30 minutes
  • Complete a whole cycle of aerobic/MAF training
  • Eat better

Some are more achievable than others, obviously. I have to eat better, but I am not sure if I can develop overall “better” eating habits in a year. I’m not even sure what that means. I do have to figure some stuff out, food-wise, before the fall. Otherwise completing 50k is going to be rough. Well, it’ll be rough anyway, but I need to be as prepared as possible.

I don’t know if the 5k goal is possible but I also don’t care, I am going to try.

I have three goal races. I’ve had these tentatively planned as goal races for awhile, but I wasn’t sure if I was staying in Duluth or not. The goal races are:

I plan on running other races, of course, but I will be following specific training plans for those three. If I don’t get in to the Superior 25K, I’ll make the Zumbro 17 my spring goal race, as I am already signed up.

These are all big dreams and nothing more at the moment, but I’m already working to lay the foundation for success this coming year. I hope to stay injury-free, motivated, and happy!

Where The Sidewalk Ends

Last week was a bit light on running since I didn’t run from Dec 24-26, but I still got in a couple of relatively decent runs, most of them outside!

I got my safety vest and headlamp and was raring to try them out, so I did a couple of road runs Monday and Wednesday. They were both terrible. The runs, I mean, both items worked well and I felt very safe running.

Monday’s run was slick and difficult. Many stretches of sidewalk were icy, and in some spots the ice was uneven and rutted, making it tough to find good footing.

Wednesday’s run was sloppy and wet with new snow. It was snowing most of the time I was running, which meant the sidewalks weren’t shoveled, and in some places the snow plowed from the street had spilled over onto the sidewalk. It was 34 degrees so there was plenty of slush and my feet were soaked. I was concerned about getting cold, but my feet felt fine the whole time, and I wasn’t even wearing fancy winter socks.

Both runs were infinitely better than running on the treadmill.

I’m a little concerned about running this upcoming week. It snowed on Saturday, and when driving around Sunday, it appeared that the sidewalks were hit or miss as far as shoveling was concerned. Running in the street is not an option as the streets are already narrowed due to the snow. I can’t handle the treadmill every day, so I’ll have to figure something out in the meantime, and hope that people get around to shoveling.

The weather has been great, though. Highs in the 20s every day except yesterday! I can handle the annoying sidewalks if the weather stays this nice!

Dashing Through the Snow

I returned to the Superior Hiking Trail yesterday, starting at the Magney-Snively parking lot and heading toward Ely’s Peak.
SHT
It was a bit magical, you might say. At least, the scenery was.

The run, on the other hand, was not very pleasant. I ran just over 5 miles and it took me a little over 2 hours. Yikes. I mean, I’m slow. But I’m not that slow. I was planning to go to Ely’s Peak and back, and that didn’t happen. I was chasing daylight by the end, and probably had about 15 minutes or so left before it started to get dark. I should have brought my headlamp, but didn’t. I did have my phone with me just in case I needed a flashlight.

I wasn’t breaking trails, but they weren’t nice tamped down trails either. I didn’t expect they would be, but I also didn’t expect it to be so physically taxing to run in snow like that. It’s still preferable to running in sand, but I felt pretty worn out.

I wore my shoe chains (which have corroded a bit on the surface, so we’ll see how long they last before they break), which helped me dig in. I felt a lot more confident bombing down hills with the added traction. I did slip once but I was trying to take too big of a step up and the snow gave way.

I might have to rethink some of my trail running plans for the winter. I mean, obviously running at Hartley or Bagley will be no problem, but going off the beaten path is going to take more effort than expected. I read somewhere (I would link the article if I remembered where) that running trails in the winter should be based on time rather than distance. So, if my training plan calls for 10 miles, I should run for the time it would take me to run 10 miles on dirt, and I’ll get the same benefit. Right now I’m not training for anything, but it’s something to keep in mind. I certainly felt like I ran more than 5 miles, which was unfortunate since I was tired for the 10:20 showing of The Force Awakens.

I ended the week with 27.7 miles, which is about where I want to be for a base. However, I also took two weeks off from running, so that’s not where I wanted to be for a base. I still have a few more weeks before I start my spring training cycle, so I’ll have at least a month’s base to start from. I’m enjoying this unstructured, relaxed running, but I also kind of miss training for a race. Let’s see what I think in mid-March when I’m panicking about whether or not I’m prepared for the race that’s only a few weeks away.