Sunday, January 28, 2007

8 and 18

8 and 18 has a nice ring to it. I did 8.3 on Saturday kind of fast for me 1:16:22/153. I'm a little under the weather (chest cold) and I just felt like getting it done quickly. I dreaded my long run on Sunday (in the rain/snow), but it turned out fine. 18.4 in 3:04 something (just over 10 min/mi). So the week looked like

Mon - 6.0 home tm - wc7-3
Tues - 5.9 hotel tm - wr9-1
Wed - 12.0 hotel tm - wr9-1
Th - 8.4 hotel tm - wr9-1
Fr - 0
Sat - 8.3 lake A lollipop - wc7-3
Sun - 18.4 four lake B loops - wr9-1

week
59 miles
wc7-3: 375 + 14 = 389
wr9-1: 382 + 45 = 427

Really need two new pairs of shoes. I'm debating whether to make one wave precision (one step lighter than wave rider).

Friday, January 26, 2007

the week of treadmilling

Mon - 6.0 treadmill at home (snow and ice)
Tues - 5.9 hotel tm
Wed - 12.0 hotel tm (I want combat pay for 2hrs on a treadmill)
Th - 8.4 hotel tm
Fr - 0

I did a good job of staying on east coast time and getting up at 3:30am pacific to run before my meetings, but I just couldn't manage to get up at 2:30 on Friday morning before my 6:20 flight.

Monday was wc7-3 shoes and Tu-Th I used wr9-1.

Sunday, January 21, 2007

last week

Getting out of my habit of daily logs. Here's last week.

Mon - 0
Tues - 8.3
Wed - 10.5 (ran to work)
Th - 0
Fr - 10.5 (ran to work)
Sat - 5 miles race (in 34:17 and a big PR!)
Sun - 18.4 miles (4 loops around lake B)

Saturday was noteworthy because I ran an insanely hilly 5 miler (300 feet of ascent) in 20mph sustained winds and 25 degrees and ran a great time (for me). 34:17 is 1 sec per mile slower than my 5K PR. I have a very sore middle left toe joint to show for it though. I felt good enough to run on Sunday, however, and got the full 18 miles in.

My goal of a sub-21 5K in the spring is looking within reach since I figure I was about 21:10 at the 5K mark in this race after going out too fast :-) The calculators say I can run 1:12 for 10 miles, which would be way ahead of my 1:14 goal for Cherry Blossom. Maybe I should revise those goals.

week
53 miles
shoes
wc7-3: 348 + 27 = 375
wr9-1: 356 + 26 = 382

Need some new shoes soon.

Sunday, January 14, 2007

8, 8, 8, and 18 miles

I've been lax so here's the week in review.

Got in late Tues, so didn't run Wed.

8.3 miles on lake A lollipop (out, around, and back). 1:21:52/140. wc7-3
8.3 miles on lake A lollipop (out, around, and back). 1:22:14/141. wr9-1
8.3 miles on lake A lollipop (out, around, and back). 1:19:48/145. wc7-3

Today was lake B lollipop (out, around, and back) for 17.9. It was rough today. 3:09:19/145. Felt very steamy -- humid and upper 50s. I haven't slept in a couple of nights -- dog, daughter (not in that order). On the way out, it felt hard and I was up to 145 bpm early on. When I got to the lake, it felt like I'd drift higher if I didn't slow down and I couldn't slow down without giving up my newfound faster cadence. So, I resorted to my old slog. My heart rate was getting into the 150s (and hit 167 late). I took walk breaks every 10 minutes on the way back, not starting until my heart rate went under 130. On one steep uphill that took 5 minutes! I think the walk breaks are a good idea and the recovery time is an indicator of how tired I am. I need to work out some good rule of thumb for the recovery heart rate. 120 + 5 beats for every hour is probably a decent first approximation. I'd need some minimum walk time like 30-60 secs early on.

I should mention that I haven't felt the calf/achilles thingy in about 2 weeks, so I think it's gone. My foot is still killing me though.

week
43 miles
shoes
wc7-3: 331 + 17 = 348
wr9-1: 330 + 26 = 356

Wednesday, January 10, 2007

disney marathon

Marathon, 4:22:08/159 (9:59 pace)

Just went and ran a marathon. It was very warm, so my heart rates were very high for the pace. We also had 3 (!) bathroom breaks, walked the aid stations/food stations, took pictures, posed with characters, etc., which added at least 5 minutes. I was surprised to find my heart rate in the mid-180's for the last 11 minute mile.

Weekend summary

I viewed the trip as one endurance event: a marathon and a half tucked in 6 days in the parks with the wife and kids. In some ways the running was a break :-) The goal was to make it through the distance in good enough shape that I wouldn't whine when chasing the family around the park on Monday and Tuesday. I ran it with a friend and our strategy was simple: run 10 minute miles both days. 10 min/mi is my typical training pace and we wanted to run slow enough on Saturday, because we figured the worst mistake you could make would be to run Saturday hard enough that you didn't want to run on Sunday. This was really a "for fun" race for me and it made 3 marathons, two halfs, and a 5K in 10 weeks. The last marathon was 6 weeks earlier and I ran it in 3:43, so the 10 min/mi should have been pretty comfortable.

In short, we executed the plan. The three "halves" were 2:11:26, 2:11:09, and 2:10:59 for a 10:00.5 min/mi pace overall. Close enough :-) The evenness of the splits is a little deceiving though as there were 5 bathroom breaks in there, pictures with characters, a stop to kiss my kids, etc. We were rather casual. The splits varied from 9:12 to 11:39 depending on pit stops. Our only big mistake was going out too slow, taking one of our leisurely bathroom breaks in mile 2, and then letting the 4:30 pace group pass us. It then took miles to get past the throng of people behind the 4:30 pacer. As others have said, running through the parks was a blast, but the roads sucked, especially miles 18-22.

It was very warm and at 11am on Sunday it was 79 degrees with a dew point of 67 according the wunderground.com (we finished around 10:22). 10 min/miles in that was much harder than the 40 degree temps in Viriginia and the weather when I ran my last marathon. I felt like I was getting a little overheated at the end and dump several cups of water over my head at each aid station. I was very surprised to see my heart rate in the 180s in the last couple of miles. In fact, my mile 26 average was higher on Sunday.

My 9 year-old son (who saw my at mile 18) was rather unimpressed I guess as the first thing he said to me was, "There was an old man ahead of you. He had a crutch." I later figured out the "old man with a crutch" was the forty-something guy with a huge leg brace that we passed somewhere around mile 20. I have no idea how he ran with that thing.

Above a comparison of my 3:43 marathon and this 4:22 marathon. Notice that my heart rate is fairly close at the 3:30 point even though I ran much slower on Sunday.

wr9-1

week
62 miles
shoes
wc7-3: 315 + 16 = 331
wr9-1: 284 + 46 = 330

Saturday, January 06, 2007

disney half marathon

half marathon, 2:11:26/152 (10:01 min/mi)

Day one of the Goofy challenge. Basically a medium long run at training pace with some entertainment and heat and humidity. High heart rate for the pace, but it was hot. (70's and humid.)

wr9-1

Wednesday, January 03, 2007

8 miles

out, around lake, and back, 8.3 miles, 1:22:59/142

I wore the foot pod with the same 1.053 cal factor. It said 8.61 miles. I hit the lap for a distance I thought would be easy to measure with google earth. It said 1.91 versus 1.83 from google earth. 1.83/1.91 * 8.61 = 8.29 so my 8.3 miles looks right and the foot pod wrong. I believe it's "different wrong" than at my parents though, because the 1 mile loop couldn't have been that far off. I had taken the foot pod off the shoe and put it back on. Anyway, the foot pod isn't worth messing with unless you have to.

Normal heart rate/pace today.

wc7-3

Tuesday, January 02, 2007

8 miles

out, around lake a, and back. 8.3 miles, 1:20:59/147

ran it a little faster than normal

wr9-1

Monday, January 01, 2007

6 miles

treadmill, 6.0 miles/141 (10:29 min/mi)

I unjustifiably maligned the treadmill a little yesterday. My heart rate and pace were more reasonable today, but still not at all good.

I ran with the footpod to check the treadmill. The footpod is miscalibrated but I know by how much. (It showed 1.01 miles on the 1 mile loop at my parents with the current calibration factor and I'm pretty sure the loop is accurate since checking it with gmap-pedometer gave 0.993.) Anyway on the treadmill today I got 6.18 miles on the footpod and 6.00 miles on the treadmill. Adjusting for the 1% footpod error, the treadmill distance would be about 2% lower than the adjusted (6.18/1.01) footpod distance. The calibration I did with the measuring tape and counting rpms said it was the treadmill was reading 2% high. I would think the tape measurer should be accurate, but there wasn't a person running on it, so that might have an effect. It's academic anyway since I'm not going to bother adjusting and I'll just write down what the treadmill shows.

My legs felt absolutely fine today after yesterday's 5K. This is a good sign since I hope to run some Sat 5K's and Sun long runs.

wc7-3