week of 18 Sept

 Activities

Mon.  Rest.  Raining.  early chiro appt.  tired...

Tues.  CCT 9.5 EIM 6x800.  9.62@10:51/135.  No sleep, but felt great.  54 degrees. Noticed I was picking up knees more and bouncier stride on recoveries despite how slow.  pace/max HR:   9:04/158, 8:32/158, 8:49/155, 8:35/157, 8:31/158, 8:35/158.  *Much* faster than before despite same max HRs (or even lower).  Gotta love the better weather.

Wed. gcc 7.  Recovery.  6.95@11:08/128.  52 degrees!  Like 60-90 sec/mile faster than the spring at this kind of heart rate.

Thu.  LTHR test.  CCT 7.7.  7.7@11:01/135.  Did the stupid LT heart rate garmin test.  Why do I keep doing this to myself.  Ran to CCT (rather than drove).  54 degrees.  Four 4-minute intervals + one 3-minute.  pace/avg hr/max hr:  9:57/140/146, 9:40/150/147, 8:44/154/158, 8:17/164/169, 7:58/169/173.  Tried to do a surge to get a max but couldn't get above 174 :-).  Watching said my LTHR is still 160 and LTHR pace is 9:39???  WTF???  It project my HM as 2:00:XX which is around 9:10 pace but also says the fastest I could run for an hour is 9:39.

Fr.  gcc 7.  7.02@10:57/134.  Felt tired.  Warmer.  64 degrees.

Sat.  gc 5.  4.79@54:50/11:27/132.  Light rain 61 degrees and windy.  Tropical storm.  Little sleep and didn't run until 11:40AM waiting for a break in the rain.

Sun.  gc 8.  7.91@1:29:03/134.  64 degrees light rain off an on.  The old out and back.  Slept better last night.  Got out a bit late at 10:20.

Total:  43.97.  8h7m.  5371 calories.

Weight.  185.8, 185, 183.6, 182.8.  mean = 184.3.

BP.  last 3. 110/60/57.  Had a 104/50 I retook an threw out.  Had a 112/55 in there this week.  After being told I had high blood pressure found myself googling about low blood pressure.

ARHR 55 bpm.  Kinda high this week. Haven't been good about wearing to bed.  Also stress and lack of sleep.  HRV been low all week and watch says I'm "straining."

Amazing to me how 19 continuous minutes of moderate running is so much harder on me than the 6x800s at a higher average pace.  Focused on running bouncier on the easy runs.  Like jogging in place.  I'm pretty sure my jacked up left shoulder is affecting the swing of my right leg, which makes sense.  Hopefully I can get this thing fixed.    Want to focus on "running" -- i.e., muscles and tendons -- this go around. I think the drills I did before my PRs aren't a coincidence. I like this easy interval method as a way of getting more "fast" running in without a lot of recovery required.

I'm thinking of doing something like Hanson's strength and tempo (MP) with the longer sat/sun runs but breaking up the Tue/Thu into intervals, recognizing I'm an old chunk of coal.  Something like 800s at HMP on Tuesday and miles at MP on Thursdays.  Then 90 minute runs Sat/Sun with the Sun run growing to 3 hours and alternating with 90-2h.  I don't like having a single run be a big fraction, but will need to do that in the final marathon block.

week of 11 Sept

 Activities

Mon. TM 3.24@10:58/126.  Really 12:00/mile.  Raining.

Tues.  CCT 9.5 EIM 6x800.  9.53@11:23/136.  9:21/158 max, 9:05/157, 9:01/159, 8:51/158.  9:01/167(avg 154).

Wed.  gc 5.  Recovery.  4.79@12:05/125.

Thu. gcc 7.  Did EIM 9x400.  (could barely squeeze in 9 in the distance).  Hilly route so downhill pretty easy.  Pace/Grade adj pace/max HR: 

8:34 8:17 163
8:10 8:32 151
8:36 8:29 158
8:06 8:20 154
8:10 8:05 166
8:10 8:22 163
8:30 8:16 161
8:04 8:01 166
8:01 8:06 166

Fri.  Lake A bench out and back.  6.87@11:08/130.  Easy jog out to bench.  Sat a bit and looked at lake.  Jogged back. Gorgeous day.  55 degrees.

Sat.  CCT 7.7.  EIM 3x800.  7.7@10:52/138.  Just did 800s on the out and came back straight from Lake A.  Pace/Max HR.  9:02/160, 8:46/160, and 8:45/160.  Felt good.  Having done the faster 400s made it harder to lock into 9:00.  Wanted to go faster.  But it was cool and HRs were the same as previous 800s.

Sun.  CCT 7.7 easy.  7.7@11:26/131.  Thought about going around lake A to get 11 and make 50 for the week but was really tired.  Little sleep.  Rationalized that I want to hit 45 three times before going to 50.

Total:  46.8.  8h44m.  5592 calories.

Weight:  185.1.  up half a pound from last week.  Been more lax and enjoying ability to eat more.  185 is apparently the "fitness age" dividing line so I got half a year older since last week.

week of 4 Sept

 Activities

Recovering from parkrun in early part of the week.  biggest mileage week in "come back."

• gc 5. recovery.  4.77@12:04/129
• svbgc 5.5. recovery.  5.50@11:59/129
• gc 8.  7.89@10:57/142.  Did a 5x800 on my hilly 8 miler.  grad adjusted pace was reasonable but doesn't really capture the hills IMO.  9:25, 9:04, 8:48, 9:15, 8:56.
• gcc 7. 6.99@12:10/134.  Felt pretty miserable.  no sleep. humid
• svbgc 5.5.  5.54@11:21/132.
• svbgc 5.5.  5.53@11:25/133.
• burke lake 2 lapper.  9.15@10:45/141.  no sleep last two night but felt good on first lap (68 degrees).  felt less good on second lap (was 78 by end) and decided to do 0.5 and 1.0 aerobic intervals - 8:56 and 8:47.

Total: 45.37 miles.  8h39m.  5656 calories.

Weight:  184.6.  Weight seems to finally going down despite that I find myself eating more.

crplot just because I like them.  Today's run was the fastest equivalent marathon run (3:44:02 if I did it every day).

week of 28 August

 Activities

• Mon.  3.28@11:59/126.  Recovery.
• Tue.  Rest.  Old beagle. No sleep.
• Wed.  9.55@11:07/144.  EIM 6x800@~HMP on CCT with 2M wup and 2M cdn.  72 but super humid.  8:53 (max 161), 8:51 (166), 8:49 (163), 8:45 (165), 8:50 (171).
• Thu.  5.51@11:25/130.
• Fri.  5.53@11:00/133.
• Sat.  Fletcher's Cove parkrun 25:31.  0.86 wup, 1.22 cdn.
• Sun. 4.79@11:55/128.  Recovery

Total.  33.85 miles.  6h17m.  4250 calories.

Weight: 186.1 (n=4). Kind of a step function drop.

ARHR: 50 bpm

BP:  Last 3.  116/67.

Was hoping for sub-25, so 25:36 was a bit disappointing, but in a race environment, I think I could have come close and 68 is still warm for me.  I've been using the 52-minute line for 10k for EIM paces.  25:36 is equivalent to 53:22.

first parkrun - fletcher's cove 25:36

 Did my first parkrun today. Wanted to race/time trial a 5k to see where I was.  Debated the Donut Dash 5k race on Sunday or a parkrun on Saturday.  Race would have given me a lot of people around 25-minute 5k, but the course had at least one 60-foot hill on the loop and very slightly worse weather (I thought).  Issue with the parkrun would be having to run by myself for much it.

So, I did the parkrun and that was the case.  Really nice atmosphere - and yes, it's a 'run' not a 'race.'  Place was basically to try and go out at 25-minute pace (8:03/mi, 5:00/km) and see what happened. Yo-yo'd a bit in the opening with the traffic and trying to guess my pace. Watch was up and down (7:30 to 8:30) despite wearing a foot pod and having a straight out and back with a pretty unobstructed sky.  Overall distance was dead on -- 3.11 miles.

My pace sense must still be decent. Splits (km) were 4:59, 5:01, 5:05, 5:10, 5:16.  Dead on 12:30 at the turnaround.  I think my watch auto-paused for ~5 seconds at the beginning though.

I was totally by myself after a mile.  Abs were screaming at some point.  Kind of surprising.  Not really lung searing, just harder and harder to generate power.  HRs 162, 177, 179, 180, 180.  Max 184.  This was most depressing.  I used to average around 186 for a 10 miler and was ~174 for my PR marathon.  ~193 was typical for a 5k.  I'm hoping I'll be able to use more beats at some point.  Basically convince my brain, I'm not going to kill myself.

Anyway, I'm on the board.

5k@8:13/176 bpm.  25:36

weight: 186.2

Just a curiosity, but I find it funny that my 5k with wup (0.86) and cooldown (1.22), put me right on the 3:45 line with my other "best" training runs.