Posts Tagged ‘mileage’

I moved yesterday, so today was my first run from the new pad.  It was a little weird since, except for a couple vacation runs, the old place has always been my starting point.  One thing I love about the new route is that there’s no 2-block hill to cap off my run but what I don’t like is there’s no 2-block hill to cap off my run (I always thought that bit toughened me up some).  Might just detour to take in those blocks sometimes.

The move went really smoothly – the film people left a day early so I was able to cart a bunch of stuff on Wednesday morning, then I spent the rest of the day packing boxes.  All that physical labor and anxiety made me think yesterday morning’s MP run was going to suck.  But it didn’t.

The run was 14 w/8 at MP (shooting for 7:30s).  My MP splits went like this: 7:36, 7:32, 7:24, 7:25, 7:27, 7:28, 7:27, 7:24 for an average of 7:27.  But the best part was my HR, which averaged 81%HRR and didn’t climb like a mo-fo.  Here’s my HR in graphic form so you can see that it was pretty steady. With 11 weeks of training still to go, I am beginning to think my goal could really happen.  (providing no hurricanes, snow storms or mudslides, of course)

As for my running these past weeks, I’ve been going like clockwork to where 70’s ain’t no big deal.  Here’s what August looked like (plus an 8 miler on the 31st).  Note the 71s…it’s ’cause 71 is more than 70. 

Click on it for a larger pic.

This week I’m set for 76 with what Hudson calls a “hard 18″ on Sunday (which also happens to be my birthday…48, woohoo!).  By hard, he says MP+10% which comes out to 8:15/mi.  Shouldn’t be too tough but you never know.

OK, I’m pooped but now that I’m fully in my crappy new apartment (it’s got cute points to it but is basically silly small with a lot of street noise) it’s time to start getting back to the forums and see what everyone’s been up to.  Must do some blog reading, too, there’s much to catch up on.

Have a great Labor Day, you Americanos, and as for you foreigners, may your weekend be a goodie.

Yesterday was Vova’s funeral which ended up being a wonderful day-long affair with a luncheon for 40 and a boozy party afterwards.  He would have loved it, the sweetie.

Occasionally I link to music on this blog and while my main favorite genre is Alternative, I’m a sucker for any style so long as there’s a great hook or a beautiful melody.  Nick made a wonderful slideshow of Vova through the decades with a heart-ripping A Capella song as the soundtrack.  It’s by a Ukrainian group called Pikkardiyska Tertsia (translates to Picardy Third, a type of musical chord).  Using this song was insurance that anyone who saw it would cry their eyes out.  I’m moved every time I hear it and the climax just kills me – doesn’t matter that I’ve no idea what they’re singing.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

If my fancy new audio player plugin isn’t showing in your browser (I had to download the newest version of Firefox) here’s a link to the song.

As for running, I had a banner month, reached a new mileage high with 285 and today’s LR finished off a 71 mile week, so things are looking good.  ITBS, I scoff at you (though not too hard in case you come back).

Hudson had a 4-mile time trial listed for Friday, but if there’s one running phrase that makes me stick my fingers in my ears and go LALALALALALALA to drown out the thought, it’d be Time Trial.  I simply don’t do them and I’m at peace with that decision.   Something about running as hard as I can, alone, is comparable to sticking bamboo shoots up fingernails, so it ain’t ever gonna happen.

In its place, I’d planned a 4-mile tempo run, but it was so hot on Friday (dewpoint of 74, Heat Index 87) that I bagged it.  I did want to get something LTish in this week though, so I did a steady-stateish/tempoish progression yesterday before the funeral, middle 4 went 7:15, 7:05, 7:04, 7:00.  7 miles total at 7:45.

Then today, I’d planned 15 and went 16, albeit a slow 16 on Forbidden Drive (local trail) with some rain off and on.  Yesterday I was in high heels all day and had more than my share of wine, so I had no inclination to be anything but a turtle today.  It was so gorgeous with a dark sky (I love ominous-looking rainy days) and all that green on the trail that it turned out to be a slice of heaven.  Ended up with an 8:50 avg.

I’ll leave you with my month in review.  The grey text means it was in the plan but I didn’t do it.  The numbers on the far left are the weeks counting down to the marathon, so week 16 starts tomorrow.  Woohoo!

Feeling alright these days, no IT shadows since last week, though the farthest I’ve gone in the last few days is an 8-miler.  Tomorrow I’ll go for 11 and hope for the first double-digit in a month that doesn’t require a stop for stretching.  I’m seriously pooped though and the heat doesn’t help.

I haven’t been sleeping, mostly because of an evil red cardinal living in our courtyard that loves taunting Kitsia, our cat, who’s always laying out on the deck.  The cardinal will stand on the deck rail starting at 5am and chirp loudly and unceasingly to get a rise out her, but the cat doesn’t give a shit.  I’ve taken to scaring it away myself by storming onto the deck with a really mean face, yelling “Go away you stupid bird!!”  But the bird doesn’t give a shit.

In work news, I got that voiceover job for the Rita’s commercial (the funny one requiring a bit of Swedish pronunciation) so I’m doing that this afternoon.  Yay.

Other than that, been doing a lot of designing and redesigning for Adorableshirts.com so I hope to get those up in the next day, then do a couple more running shirts for Gifted Runner, then the big job after that will be getting my music section off Fishpie.com and make its own seperate shop/website.  So I’ve gone from not doing anything designwise for a year to giving myself enough work to be steadily occupied for the next few months and beyond.  I wish I had more of a money-lust, then I’d work hard all the time.  As it is, I wait until some dwindling has occurred, then hurry to catch up.

On a funny note (though entirely aggravating to me), I discovered that after redoing my x-rated shirt site using Zazzle products instead of Cafepress, someone else on Zazzle had immediately copied two of my designs!  With great joy I submitted a copyright violation report with Zazzle and they removed the offending copies without ado, but still.  People are so stupid sometimes.

As far as running goes, I’m hopefully going to get my mileage back to the 60s starting this week.  June saw weekly averages of low 50s thanks to the IT band adventure.   This actually worked out well in the end, since a cutback is a healthy thing anyway and I wouldn’t have done it voluntarily.   So now I’m crossing fingers and toes for a strong mileage return without incident (though keeping toes crossed sounds like another cause for injury, so maybe I’ll stick with fingers).

Oh, and I never did share a chuckle at the havoc my IT rehab ended up wreaking.  Overzealous stretching awoke my dormant ankle bursitis (I’ve since laid off the heavy stretching so my ankle’s back to normal, thank god) but I also burned the side of my knee by icing it so much and not using a cover over the gel ice pack, so I now have a large scabby circle there.

If it’s not one thing…

Zippy run in the rain today – my Hydrolite jacket came through in a big way, really made it an enjoyable run.  Seven miles @ 8:14.

About an hour after I got home, though, I’m in the kitchen and I hear a sound like some tiny alarm coming from my office, and realize it’s my Garmin beeping non-stop.  The screen was also flashing frenetically, switching datascreens back and forth like it was having a seizure.  I took it off the cradle, turned it off and on again, then the buttons wouldn’t work.  I can only turn it off now with a soft reset (mode+Lap).  Hard reset doesn’t work either.  Oh, my sweet Garmin, what have I done to you?

I have to send it back and possibly receive a refurbished one in return.  That would be so very sad, as much as we’ve been through together.  In the meantime, I have a 205 (bought as backup when the 405 was released and 205s went cheap) so I’m fine pacewise, but my recent addiction to HR data must be shelved temporarily.  Probably a healthy thing in a way.

Tomorrow, I’d planned to do 17 but am now just sticking with 16, because that’ll give me 72 miles for the week, a new mileage PR, so I’m happy to cap it there.  It’s funny how I used to think 70mpw would be this huge, hard thing, something I couldn’t imagine ever wanting to do, but once you start adding a few here and a few there, it just grows on you.

The best part about it is, I was feeling a few twinges after March’s races, a couple of times I had to get out the foam roller, but then between last week’s 68 and this week’s 72 I feel great!  My legs are silent.    Last time I had a day off was March 2nd, so things couldn’t be better (knock on wood).

So I’m thinking about after the Lehigh Valley Half, how I should handle the months before marathon training begins in August.  I put a few potential races on the calendar for June and one for July, so that’ll keep me peppy.  I’m not sure how I’m going to portion out fast and easy runs at this point but I did want to cultivate 70mpw, and at this point, it looks like it’ll be no problem.

Fun run today, waited till late afternoon to avoid gusting wind. It was a beautiful breezy sunset of a run, 8.25 miles which included 8×10sec hill sprints. It’s funny because they sprints are supposed to be “5K effort”, but if you do them on a grassy hill, they end up being as fast as sludge. No matter. I’m getting into them, I can tell they’re giving me Super Runner powers.

Speaking of Super Runner powers, I’ve been thinking of mileage and my next move in that area. Funny how the things you think “I can’t imagine wanting to do that” end up being the next logical step. For instance, last Fall I fully expected my mileage to stay around 45-50, 60 wasn’t even a contender.

Then I got Hudson’s book and noticed that midway through his Half plan he called for 7 days/week. Eh, I figured that when the time came, I’d stick with a 6 day week. Then in January, before I’d even begun the plan, I thought it’d be a lark to try it out, run 7 days/week, just so I could see what it was like. It ended up being so natural that I had no reason to return to 6 days.

So now I’m an “around 60mpw” runner. If nothing interferes (like a race or taking a day off when my foot was smarting) then it’s 60, otherwise, if I lose a day it ends up being around 55. My Half plan will peak next month at 68, but besides that, I figured I’d sit at 60 for awhile. But this week I’ve become curious.

If things are going so swimmingly at 60mpw, what would happen if I went to 70? If you read this blog, you might remember me saying I never liked the thought of doubles. I guess the main reason is that running is my big event for the day, my treat. But to get dressed, run, change clothes again, do daily stuff, be stinky if I don’t shower, change clothes again, run again, etc… just does not appeal to me. Still, knowing that the only way to get faster is to continue to add mileage means I was starting to come round to the thought of doubles.

So yesterday I posted a thread on the Marathon Training Forum asking 70+mpw runners a few questions about their schedules and found out the most amazing thing. Most of them don’t run doubles! And we’re talking up to 88mpw of singles. Whether it’s because they have family obligations, job obligations or just don’t like doing doubles, it is apparently not the requirement I thought it was.

Lest you think I just pulled that “requirement” out of my ass, it’s a factoid I’ve read in several books and articles from esteemed mega-coaches, that if you run more than 70mpw, you need to start doing doubles, else you’ll never be adequately recovered. So what a thrill to find this is book learnin’ advice, not necessarily a real-world necessity.

Game On! I’m going to continue as planned for this Half, peaking at 68 (although I reserve the right to run more if I’m feeling craaaazy), then in May start building mileage a bit.

The cool thing is that marathon training doesn’t start till August and I’m not planning on running any summer 20-milers on a whim. So for a couple months I’ll enjoy some longer mid-week mid-longs and then, once training begins, I can keep that going and just add some mileage to the Sunday run. This way there’ll be no dramatic peaks or surprises and I should be in strong shape as I move through the marathon cycle.

So there you have it, my newest diabolical plan to rule the world. Or at least beat the crap out of some 45-49 year old hags ladies.

For 3 runs this week, I had some quad pain in my right leg so I’ve been taking it easy, pacewise.  The weather helped with that, a big mush of snow came down one day and then it was just plain friggin’ cold for the others, so I’ve had no problem keeping it calm.   I also foam rollered the crap out of it which worked wonderfully, drawing out that exquisite pain that no amount of Stick or hand manipulation can replicate.

Yesterday I was back to my resilient self, not a twinge to be had, so today I’ve got 9 with some strides on tap, then tomorrow, along with a blessedly warmer day they’re promising,  I’ll do a tempo run, which I haven’t done since December!

I’d been so good doing both a tempo and interval session weekly during my 5K cycle but in this “between” period it morphed into one interval/fartlek/steady state or progression a week.  I have no regrets about this, I firmly believe that there is a time and place to put the pedal to the metal and between cycles isn’t it.  In fact, considering I started on this 7-day/week running at the top of January, I guess we can officially call this period basebuilding.

Funny to think that back in November, I declared I’d be aiming for 45-50 mi/week, though in my heart of hearts, I figured I’d be closer to 45 than 50.  Now I’m looking at 60 for my average and it doesn’t feel like I’ve even increased the load.

I’m embracing the idea of keeping mileage at a level where, when I go into marathon training again, there’s nothing to have to build beforehand, just make the long runs longer and add specificity to the quality work.  I suppose it does take out one of the potential growth elements, but at the same token, removes one of the potential injury elements, so I think it’s a valid plan.

Quasi-basebuilding aside, next week marks 12 weeks to my goal Half, so it’s time to get back into serious work mode.   I still have no idea what pace I’ll be shooting for, so it’s all a big fat question mark.

Speaking of fat, my weightloss slowed down for a while there, which I believe was a result of not eating enough.  I’m now targeting 2000 calories/day which seems to have kicked the weight-loss back into gear.   I’m loving the results so far, I’ve lost 7.5 pounds so far and my body looks better than it ever has.  No lie.

I’ve settled on 114 lbs. as my final goal – Glover’s magic number for my height and one I think will suit my small frame quite well.   That means I’ve got 5 lbs. left to go, which seems like no biggie but it’s weird, because I never planned on losing 12.5 lbs. and if I thought of it that way, would have been freaked out at the prospect. Now, it’s like having a huge unopened Xmas present waiting for my hot little hands to unwrap.  What will the final speed gains be?

The anticipation is heavenly.