speed workouts

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 Seven Update

Let me pat myself on the back for yet another awesome training week. And by awesome I mean I didn’t wimp out on any workouts.

A quick recap:
Monday: off
Tuesday: 5.3 miles, road, 6 hill repeats
Wednesday: 5.2 miles, road
Thursday: 4 miles, treadmill
Friday: 4.1 miles, Lakewalk, speed work
Saturday: 12 miles, road
Sunday: 2.9 miles, road/trail (Chester Bowl)
Total: 33.5 miles

Friday’s speedwork went well. I hit an overall pace of 12:35/mile, with about 3 miles of “medium paced” running. I feel like I’m in a good spot for my 5k this weekend. I doubt I can hold the speedwork pace for 3 miles (around 11 min/mile) but I think I’ll be able to be somewhere between my A and B goals.

Saturday was my first double-digit long run. It was not the best idea to plan it the day after my speedy day, but Saturday’s forecast was better than Sunday’s, and Sunday is my “desperately catching up on homework” day. So the first couple miles felt slow as molasses. My 2nd mile was the slowest pace (17:11) of the whole run, except for the one where I took a break. I planned an 8-mile loop, back to my house, followed by a 4 mile loop. My hips and my back were pretty sore the whole time, but as I turned off Rice Lake Road onto Central Entrance to head down the hill right before my break, I couldn’t stop grinning. It was a gorgeous day, the lake looked beautiful, and I was high on endorphins.

I planned a break at 8 miles just in case I had to pee or was dying of thirst. I had felt pretty thirsty toward the end of my 9 mile run last weekend, and I didn’t want to carry a hand-held water bottle, so I stopped at home for about 5 minutes. Somehow I still ended up with a “pace” for that mile of 19:23, which is faster than some of my trail running paces.

The last 4 miles felt pretty terrible. I made a kind of stupid route choice, with too much uphill. Maybe I am doing too many hills. That sounds lazy, but I also think it’s a valid question. I finished the run with an overall pace of 16:30 and an average heart rate of 151 bpm, so I didn’t push too hard and only lost about half a minute off my 9-mile pace, even with the break.

Sunday I ran as slowly as I could stand, and took it easy on my body by running down the Chester Creek path from Skyline to 9th. I stopped and took a picture of ducks.

5K on Saturday. At 9 am. And it’s not going to be warm. Blahhhh.

At A Medium Pace

Yesterday I had my first “medium pace” run of this training cycle. My training plan defines a “medium pace” as follows: “You should feel like you’re running faster than your normal training pace but not so fast that you can’t keep it up for a little while. You may not be able to talk very easily and your breathing will be more labored.” Ok. I wasn’t sure how hard to push it, but I knew that I needed to be done in time to watch the Bulldogs’ hockey game. I was supposed to warm up, run at this mystery pace for a mile or more, jog for a bit, repeat.

I went to the Lakewalk for the run because I didn’t want to deal with giant hills. I could gamble because the game before UMD’s was going into overtime, so it pushed our starting time back. I needed 4 miles for the day, so I decided to keep an eye on my watch and then turn around at 2 miles, instead of doing the whole Lakewalk and adding another 0.6 miles. Time was of the essence!! Hockey was occurring!

I crushed that medium pace run. I am pretty pumped about it. I ran three 1-mile intervals, and ran all 3 around 12 minutes. On the last one I got a side stitch and had to slow down to keep it from getting out of hand. I finished 4 miles in less than an hour for the first time in forever, so that was exciting.

Splits:
12:55
13:30
13:25
12:27 (This was the only mile that was entirely at the faster pace)

This doesn’t mean much for the marathon yet, but it does bode well for the Fitger’s 5K in 2 weeks. I was really afraid I wouldn’t be able to run very fast or that I couldn’t keep the pace up long enough. I used to be a big quitter when running. If I felt crummy or frustrated, I would just give up. I need to continue to build mental toughness; it’s really lagging my physical fitness.

I finished up my run and made it home just in time for the hockey game to start, the Bulldogs won, and the Wild won, so it was a great day overall. I still have 14 13 miles to go this weekend (5 only 4! today and 9 on Sunday, or maybe flip-flopped), but I am a little concerned. My hip has been bugging me, just some overall soreness. I might need to back off on the 5 miler.

I’m pleased to have had a good training day after several not-so-pleasant ones. Yesterday was still cold, but the sun was shining, the lake was a gorgeous deep blue, and I enjoyed speeding up instead of plodding along. The next few days should be in the 40s or even 50s, so I hope to have a few more nice workouts.