Back At It

I ran yesterday, so that was nice. I stopped the streak of days off at 4.

I ran pickups. On the treadmill. That was less nice, although in some ways it was good. I ran on the treadmill because it was drizzly and cooler, but so humid I could see my own breath, and since I have my first and most difficult final tomorrow, I didn’t want to wear myself out or get so chilled I couldn’t function.

In order to keep from dying of boredom, I had the Montreal-Tampa Bay Stanley Cup playoff game on, but muted, and then I had a “butt rock” (aka 80s hair metal) station playing on Pandora. I did similar intervals to last week, except I did the correct 8×0.25 instead of miscounting and doing 9. I did the first 4 at a 5.5 mph pace and the last 4 and a 5 mph pace, and then I slowly jogged/walked (3.5 mph pace) in between to recover.

Running the pickups on the treadmill was beneficial for a few reasons. First, it kept my speed under control. When I did the pickups last week on the road, my pace was all over the place and it always died off at the end because I went out too fast (or because I hit a hill AND went out too fast.) My paces were more conservative (10:55 and 12:00) and I was more in control. Second, I was able to keep the pace consistent, not just because I was running a more achievable pace, but because the treadmill was making me. I am not very good at keeping a consistent pace, and I need to train my legs to do it.

I did core exercises too, and I need to be more consistent about doing them. I need a strong core and strong arms to keep me going, but for some reason I’m either too lazy to do them when I’m done running, or I’ve got a zillion other things to do once I’m done running and don’t take the time. Now that I’m not running all these crazy long runs, I have no excuse to skip the push-ups and sit-ups. Washboard abs, here I come. Or at least reduced batwings.

Time Is Not On My Side

Yesterday I whined about the amount of time it took me to train for Grandma’s Marathon. I did some math.

During the 11 (well, 10, as one week I completely skipped running) weeks of this aborted training cycle, I ran 254.24 miles in 68.26 hours, or 4095.6 minutes.

That’s an average pace of 16:07/mile.

Ok, not terrible. That’s actually faster than I thought it would be.

At a 15:00 pace, I’d save 4.7 hours.
At a 12:00 pace, I’d save 17.4 hours.
At a 10:00 pace, I’d save 25.9 hours.
At an 8:00 pace, I’d save 34.4 hours.

I’m probably never going to run at an 8:00 pace for marathon training runs, so that was more to compare to a speedy person. I’m also probably not going to hit 10:00/mile for training runs (but maybe for an actual race?), so that was to compare to a mid-packer. I don’t think I’m out of line to say in a couple years, barring injury, I could be running 12:00 paces for training runs. If I was that fast now, I’d have spent 1.7 fewer hours/week working out, or about 17 minutes/day. Of course not every run was at the same pace, nor of the same distance, but it gives a bit clearer picture.

I actually thought I’d save more time, so that’s a bit depressing. I did have a fairly low-mileage training plan, so I have to consider I’d be saving more time over a training cycle if I was running a more standard plan. (And, guess what, I will be running a slightly higher mileage plan next time around!) I do expect my training pace to decrease by the time I am ready to roll on the next marathon, but not to something silly like 12:00/mile, I’m still going to stay conservative. Patience!

Week Eleven Update

I’m not running Grandma’s Marathon this year.

Now for a recap of my mileage for last week:
Monday: rest
Tuesday: 4.6, road, speedwork/pickups
Wednesday: 7.1, road
Thursday: 4, road
Friday: 4.6, 2 miles medium effort, road for speedwork, trail for recovery
Saturday: 7.9, road
Sunday: rest/homework
Total: 28.3

I decided about 4 miles into my run on Saturday (a run that was supposed to be 16 miles) that I was not going to continue to pursue an entry into Grandma’s Marathon this year. It made the rest of the run suck really badly, as I was really down on myself about the decision.

I haven’t run since Saturday, and it’s now Wednesday. I planned on running today but I feel sort of gross. I mostly haven’t run because I have had a bunch of homework to do. That was part of the reason why I cut my run in half on Saturday. The guilt of taking over four hours of my Saturday to run, when I knew I had a ton of work to do, was the final criterion I needed to pull the plug on marathon training for now.

I know I said at the beginning that I was going to do a full training cycle whether or not I ran Grandma’s. I am not, I’ll save the full training cycle for the Mankato Marathon.

My plan right now is somewhat haphazard, but I am going to:
1. Finish up my last few days of school and my finals.
2. Do some speed work and medium runs in preparation for my race on May 16th.
3. Start an 8-week 10K training plan in preparation for the Park Point 5 Miler.

I think focusing on speed for awhile might do me some good. The single biggest issue with marathon training was the time commitment. It will always be a time commitment, of course, but if I can shave some seconds off my comfortable training paces, I can make the time commitment more manageable.

Thus ends the Week XX updates for now.

Pickups

So today was a nice hard workout. By nice I mean now that it’s over I can look back and be like “Nice job.” It kind of sucked a lot while I was doing it.

In my quest to find new routes to stave off boredom and also avoid hills, I decided to park at school, head off in a new direction, and then get some work done in the computer lab while stinking with sweat. Because I live in East Hillside (please don’t stalk me), I’m kind of stuck with the same old routes because Central Entrance cuts me off to the “west” (Duluth west isn’t exactly west) and I do not want to run down the hill because that means I have to go back up the hill. It’s pretty friggin’ steep. So I must go east. Or “east,” rather.

From school, I headed “east” on Woodland and then down the hill on Arrowhead. That was a dumb choice because the streets are all cut off by Snively, the road I actually wanted to go on. I ended up at a dead end but that led me to Snively anyway. I thought that was going to be great for starting my pickup intervals, but the sidewalks ended when I was less than 2 miles into the run. So, that was annoying. I also left the house when it was cloudy and somehow the sun came out in the 5 minutes it took me to get to school. I didn’t have my hat so I was squinting and miserable for half the run.

I might be running my pickups too fast. Which is hilarious, because it’s not like I am zipping along at a cool 5:00/mile pace, but I mean too fast over my slow run pace. I was running at a “hard effort” as the training plan suggested, but I don’t know, maybe I should have been running at my 5K pace instead of hitting some single-digit paces for the beginning of the interval and then fading. Next Tuesday I am going to try to focus on hitting a consistent faster pace rather than trying to run as fast as I can.

I finished the 4.7 mile run at a 13:49 average pace and 164 bpm average heart rate. With those kinds of results, I am definitely going to give the walk/run strategy a try.

Week 10 Update

I’m pretty sure I’m actually better off as a 5 day a week runner. Right now I have no time to do any cross-training, because I don’t have time to run AND do some other kind of workout, and I believe a rest day is a rest day, not a day off from running where I do some other kind of physical activity. I also wouldn’t mind an extra day to get homework and work done.

A quick recap:
Monday: rest
Tuesday: 4.3 miles, 8x hill repeats
Wednesday: 6.9 miles, road + a little bit of trail
Thursday: 4.1 miles, Lakewalk, slightly pushing the pace (14:08 average)
Friday: rest, dead tired and concerned about a cold
Saturday: 3.9 miles, trails at Bagley
Sunday: 13.8 miles, road, Park Point and the Lakewalk
Total: 33 miles

This upcoming week I don’t have hill repeats anymore, I have pickups. I’m supposed to do 6-8 repeats of either 0.25 mile or 2 minute hard effort intervals within a 5 mile workout. This is fine, although I don’t know which to pick: 0.25 miles or 2 minutes. For someone like me, those are vastly different things. I’ll probably go with 0.25 miles because I have a need for speed (meaning I am slow, not meaning I crave it). We’ll see. I also have a 16 mile long run which I now MUST do on Saturday because I need to spend ALL DAY on Sunday working on this dumb report for a rocketry competition I’ve entered. Sunday’s 4 mile workout will probably kill me.

It’s supposed to be in the high 50s or the 60s all this upcoming week, which is great, because I am sick of wearing the same yellow hoodie every freaking day. I need a couple more cold/cool weather jackets/hoodies/whatever so that I am not wearing the same stinky thing every day. I am hoping to get by with just light long-sleeved t-shirts (at worst) from now until… like, October. I did get that green long-sleeved t-shirt for running Fitger’s 5K, but the one time I considered wearing it was Thursday when I ran on the Lakewalk, and I’m glad I didn’t, because there were like 3 other people wearing it.

Lessons from the Long Run

14 miles in the books today. Well, 13.8. Ugh. It wasn’t good. Although I plugged in my watch and looked at my overall time and splits and apparently it didn’t suck as much as I thought.

Let’s look at the splits:
Park Point out and back
16:02 – warmup/I got bridged right at the beginning and had to wait around a bit.
15:10
14:47
14:18 – I wanted to finish the first four miles in under an hour and came close, but this is faster than it should have been, if I was running smartly. It felt fine though.
15:16 – I walked a little bit here and had a Starburst.
14:43 – Another Starburst here I think.
14:40
16:17 – Walked a bit and had another Starburst, felt nauseated.
15:11
Lakewalk
22:06 – Stopped at my car right at the beginning of this mile
15:37
16:44
15:44
14:48 pace for the last 0.8 miles
Overall pace: 15:49

I kind of thought the overall pace would be slower but it wasn’t. It’s not great and I was clearly fading at the end. I was fading mentally more than anything else, because if I pulled myself together, I could get my pace back up. So I have to figure that out.

A couple of other things I need to correct before next weekend’s 16 mile run:

1. I need a hand-held water bottle. I was never in danger of getting dehydrated or anything, but a few sips of water would have made a huge difference mentally.

2. Starbursts are tasty but are not a good candy for eating on the run. It might have been better if I had been able to take a few sips of water after eating pieces of candy but probably not. They’re too sticky and the wrappers are annoying to deal with, and they triggered my gag reflex a little as their taste was too intense. I probably need some mints or something instead.

3. I need to try out a different strategy. Maybe a Galloway-style run-walk? I don’t know. I also need to not stop for 6 minutes.

Next weekend is make-or-break time. If I have another crappy and disappointing long run, I’m not ready for a marathon, and I’ll focus on speed for the 5-Miler and then work on training for Mankato. I wish I could trust that I will run faster in the marathon than I am now in training, but I don’t.

From 5K to 5 Miles

I registered for the Park Point 5 Miler yesterday.

5miler

Hooray!

Maybe. There are some concerning things about this race.

1. It is in July, when it might be hot. It probably won’t be that hot, but if it is, that might kinda suck. I should be acclimated to the heat at that point, but I’m still concerned.

2. It’s only a few weeks after the marathon. Obviously if I don’t run it, that doesn’t matter. If I do, it could be an ugly race.

3. I don’t know how to race a 5 mile race. I mean, a 5K is easy to strategize. Run. I guess. Try to save a little for the end. Does that really apply to 5 miles, too? I kind of assume so, but I’m looking at an hour of hard running. Coach Google is probably going to have to give me some advice.

4. This isn’t a run/walk. This is a run. I am legitimately concerned about whether or not I can run fast enough to not totally hold up the race. Part of me is like “Give up marathon training and start training for the races you’re already entered in!” Another part of me is like “That would mean track workouts!” I would have to get over my fear of looking like a doofus on the track. And also of getting kicked off the track for trespassing, even though I know people work out at HS tracks all the time. (The track at UMD is inside the football stadium so I’m fairly certain I can’t go hop on there, and there’s intramural stuff going on all the time anyway.

I didn’t run yesterday as I was pretty tired. I was concerned I’d wake up today with a terrible cold, because I felt like I had one coming on, but I woke up feeling pretty good. I slept as late as I felt like, which means I need to re-hydrate before getting out in the cold (it’s 40 F), but it was well worth it.