Took the day off yesterday. Muscles were sore from the track workout and
still a little bit today but good enough to run. It was cooler today
and really gorgeous running weather. Even though my legs were a bit sore
I only felt it at the end when I did some speed trap sprints to finish
up. Really got the legs turning over today and actually felt like I was
at a fast but comfortable training pace. Cut a lot of miles lately, but I
can tell my speed is improving already.
bf 2523
Not sure about this one. Felt pretty fast, but ipod said it was over 7:00 pace so I decided to do 3x200m sprints @5:36 at the end just to prove my point to it.
bf 2379
Right now is the best time to be running. The cool weather has finally moved in and I can tell a HUGE difference. My breathing is relaxed and controlled and I feel like I could run forever. Tonight I had no problems running the hour and half I'd been trying to reach for the past three weeks. At one point in the run I found myself just coasting, that hasn't happened for a while. I was just running without thinking about it or even trying, I love that feeling.
So yeah I missed three days. Friday I had a festival, Saturday were insane thunderstorms, and Sunday I guess I just kept the streak going. But as always I'm getting back up on the horse, and after today's run being the longest since I can remember, I find that pretty ironic after three days of absolute zero. Honestly though, now that the temperature is cooler I'm not sweating as much and definitely can breathe easier. It felt like had an oxygen mask on or something, and my shorts barely had any sweat on them, where normally they are completely soaked through, I mean literally just dripping and so wet they stick to my legs, gross.
It was fun because normally set my ipod to 1hr 10minutes. Well I somehow set it to 1:15, so when I hit 1:15 I realized that I was 5 minutes ahead of where I thought I was. It really helped my confidence because i'm usually just begging to hit that mark. The last five minutes I picked it up pretty good and nearly made it under 1:30, which was kind of what I thought I could hit if I ran well. I hope you all are having great runs as well.
7:09 pm 66° F 45%H 10mph
1:30:28 13.04 bf 1900
Wow September is almost gone people. At least I've gotten my butt in gear this month and really put up decent numbers, especially considering the whole mr. shin being weird deal. Today it rained, yet again. This time I took no chances and freakin got on doppler radar and scoped it out for myself - I'm forecasting my own weather from here on out. It worked! I was able to wait until the storm passed, then start running, otherwise I probably would have ended up running in the middle of the storm like yesterday.
Although the roads were wet it wasn't too bad of a run. My shoes were still a little soggy from yesterday, but I didn't want to get another pair wet too, so I just wore them anyway. The funny thing about running in the wet roads is all the dirt that flies up on the back of your legs. When I take a shower it feels like I just came back from a day at the beach. I ended the run with some pretty good accelerations, but nothing too much because I'm still very weary that if I go too fast or too far my shin will suddenly just shatter into a million pieces. Well I tried to make this post a little more exciting, but yet again I revert to weather, injury, and the ever present edging towards complaint.
7:07 72º 97%H
1:12:33 10.5 bf 1854
Kind of a harder run for an easy recovery day, but I wanted to run somewhere other than the usual neighborhood cul-de-sacs. It actually was a really good run, but I just ended up working a lot harder than I wanted to due to hills and wind. The max HR is a little misleading as that was from the 4 accelerations I did toward the end, the highest it got on the hills was 170 or so. Not sure how the legs will feel tomorrow, but they were kinda sore today, mostly just the hams. It's supposed to rain again, who knows if it will or not, but I figured a little more effort today wouldn't hurt anything if I get rained out of track work tomorrow.
I was looking back through the blog trying to see some of my progress on speedwork and honestly there isn't a whole lot there. I mean there is if I compare to when I first started running, but in the last year or so I've been around the same speed. The one positive thing I did notice is that even though I'm at the same speed, it's more relaxed and I'm able to maintain it much longer than before (more repeats/total work). Not going to go into much more detail than that and bore ya, but it's more just for my own memo.
soccer complex. 76º 43%H 10mph from S (warm, windy)
1:08:02(10.0), gm 1027
AHR 161 MHR 179
A nice little hill workout this morning. Did 1 loop steady, then 5x HugeHill at a normal pace. Honestly normal pace was fine because there was a headwind and of course I was going against gravity, so these hills seemed a lot harder than they probably would have been. It was funny, there was a little boy who kept racing me when I ran by his house about halfway up. He did pretty good on my last trip down, and when I put out my hand for a high five, I said "good job" and he smiled real big and slapped my hand. It was fun.
The rest of the run was at moderate pace, Only about a mile and half left so I used it to do some accelerations with the wind, except the last one which was against it. Good workout I felt the hams a bit after the run, I also had to work a bit harder because of the wind, but it was no big deal. Just a moderate effort run, good medium-high quality strength workout.
11am. home. 69° 65%H 12 mph wind from SSW (mild + windy)
1:13:07(10.97)bf 1344 5xHH, 4x100m accels
AHR163/MHR179
A little track workout tonight. Nothing major a 2 mile warmup, form drills, 400 meter sprints with 400m recovery, then another two and a half miles with accelerations on the backstretch for the last 5 laps. So this workout was kind of wierd because it was so late. I normally workout before dinner, but tonight was kind of pushing it as I ate before. So that mean't getting to the track around 8:30, when it was nearly dark. Actually most of this workout was in the dark, and there are just a few lights they keep on nearby at the parking lots. It was still easy to see the lines so no big deal, just different. Another good reason to run later is that my race Friday will be at 9:30, so it was a good test of running later on.
Laps were going to be difficult to time because I couldn't use a stopwatch - it has no glow in the dark and I probably wouldn't have been able to find it to turn it on because it is black, so there was no point in bringing it. I just had to use my ipod and try to remember what the seconds were when I crossed the line. But anyway the first lap was 77, not anything special, but honestly I wasn't pushing my hardest, I was going fast, but still had another gear. It was also windy for 200 meters as the wind was coming at angle to the track, a good 12-13 mph or so and that took a few seconds off I'm sure. One good thing about going a tad slower was that I only needed a lap recovery before doing the next one. I really wanted to limit recovery tonight and it worked nicely. The next two laps were 77 as well, I guess it was just my night for 77's. My last lap I pushed a little harder into the wind the last 200m and got it down to 75, but nothing to write home about.
The 400's felt good and I really tried to get a feel for what the mile should be like on Friday. It will hurt, just as these did. But the funny thing is that after you take 20-30 seconds you are fine again, it's crazy how that works. I try to keep that in mind when things start hurting at the end. So I ran another mile and then did 100 meter sprints on the backstretch for the next mile. These I really worked on getting up to near top speed. I still feel a little clumsy getting up that fast and my feet just feel like they are pounding. That's to be expected from all my slow running I guess, I'll get there soon enough, plenty of time to work on speed this summer.
So I'm guessing Friday's mile is kind of going to be a toss-up judging from this workout. I'm going to run the first 800 hard and try to get with someone and run with them(assuming I'm not in the lead somehow) hold on for the third 400 and do a gradual kick the last 400. Sounds as good as a strategy as I'll get. No reason to overthink it as I'm really not in shape to run it haha. We'll see what happens, I'm sure there will at least be some high schoolers running good times so I think I'll just try to hang with them and outkick them at the end. The fortunate thing about marathon training is that for a short distance like this I'm pretty confident my kick will be there at the end, so not to worried about that. It's exciting just thinking about it, reminds me of high school glory days. Only, then I had friends yelling out "Ric Flair" at the end so I could yell "Woooo" and kick it home. I really didn't like Ric Flair, but I liked abandoning all sanity and sprinting no matter how much it hurt. Fun times, in shape times.
8:28pm. track. 54º 40%H 13mph wind from WNW (cool)
4x400 @77, 77, 77, 75 w/400m recovery
4x100m accels
50:18(7.75) fasttwitch 54
AHR165?/MHR185
Perfect day for a run. Started off kinda cloudy, but cleared up wonderfully in the afternoon. Today the HR was lower on the run without trying to keep it low, just felt nice and easy out there running. It was a tad windy, but nothing compared to what we've been having. Beautiful sun and a cool breeze made this run just keep going. In fact my playlist ran out because i thought I would only be out for 1:12, but again I went an extra ten minutes, so that is great!
I'm feeling AMAZING right now. Legs feel better than ever and I think my new routine is just what I've been missing. I'm actually kind of regretting not starting it earlier. Tonight everything felt better soreness wise. The calves have a little bit left, but the hip was fine, so all systems were go for the accelerations I've been wanting to work in. I did them on the straight cul-de-sac by my house and it just felt wonderful to open it up. I have so been missing that. I let my HR return to 112 before starting another which basically mean't a walk back to the start line and just a few seconds standing. I did six and afterwards my legs just felt awesome. So in case you didn't know, everything is feeling amazing and awesome and good.
Really feeling confident about this mile race coming up, and I'm sort of so-so about the 10k. I know I will PR or whatever, but really it's more of a stepping block into the summer for me. I haven't raced or even trained during the summer so I know it will be different, but things are really looking good right now and I know that consistency and my new focus on speed are going to bring about some major advances in my running. After 3 years I finally feel in shape like I was in high school, haha, only took three years. I suppose that's not bad considering I was next to a couch potato for 8. Lots of training for the 10k - basically I'm thinking a mixture of hills and speed, but more of a focus on the speed.
here is some video I had April shoot of me running tonight. Constructive criticism appreciated :)
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6pm. home. sunny 61 degrees 50% H wind from NNE 11mph (warm/coolbreeze)
1:25:44(12.65), gf 645
AHR158/MHR168
sleep AHR57 MHR89
