Same Time, Same Channel

Tempo run. 3 miles warm up, 4 miles @ 15K to 1/2M pace, 2 miles cool down.

5:39 am, 26°F, 36% humidity, wind 2 SSE, slightly waning gibbous moon.

My husband has a comp day today, and so he was able to help out with the kids this morning, which gave me a little more time. It's a good thing because I hit my snooze alarm twice this morning before I was even conscious that I was hitting it, and so I was a little late getting out the door.

Today was the first day of my marathon training plan. I'm doing the 55-70 MPW, 18 week schedule out of Advanced Marathoning by Pete Pfitzinger. But I also recently started reading Brain Training for Runners by Matt Fitzegerald. Even though I'm not using Fitzgerald's training plan (I haven't even looked at his training plans yet), I'm using some things from this book. Specifically, he gives some core conditioning exercises, which are to be done twice a week, some dynamic flexibility exercises, which are to be done as a warm-up, particularly before high-intensity runs, and some proprioceptive cues to focus on during your runs. He recommends that you focus on one cue at a time and focus on it for the entire length of every run you do for a week.

So this morning I did Fitzgerald's dyanimic stretches before my run and then during the run I tried to focus on a proprioceptive cue that he calls "Pounding the Ground." In this cue, you are supposed to "practice actively driving your foot into the ground." I don't think I manage to focus consciously on that cue for the entire run, but I did for the better part of the run. I'll do the core condition exercises either on Tuesdays and Thursdays or on Wednesdays and Fridays. I'm leaning towards Tuesdays and Thursdays post run.

As for today's run, according to the McMillan calculator, my 15K pace is 7:53 and my 1/2M pace is 8:04 (not that I've ever run a half marathon that fast). I struggled to hit that pace during the first 2 miles of the tempo portion because those were almost entirely uphill. I had a much easier time hitting that pace during the second 2 miles of the tempo portion because then I had a gradual downhill.

AP for the whole run was 8:48. Average pace for the tempo portion was 8:06, so I didn't quite make it into the range. Splits were: 9:37, 9:35, 9:25, 8:20, 8:20, 7:57, 7:49, 9:04, 9:02, and 0.15 @ 9:29.

Medium-long run.

5:13 am, 26°F, 40% humidity, wind 7 SSE.

I'm cold. I just finished my run and I've put on dry clothes, but I'm still freezing. I felt cold during my run, but not terribly so. However, my face was pretty cold whenever I was going into the wind, which was a lot of the time. I'd like to take a hot shower now, but I think my son just used all of the hot water.

Like yesterday, I did some dynamic stretching before my run and then focused on the "pounding the ground" proprioceptive cue during the run. I was going to try to do core conditioning after my runs on Tuesdays and Thursdays, but I think I'm going to have to do it on Wednesdays and Fridays instead because the Tuesday runs are just too long so I don't have time.

I ran the loop that takes me past my office, with some modifications to make it longer. Miles 6-9 where a steady uphill and into the wind (for Michelle - that section was up Highlands Ranch Parkway from Broadway to University), but I managed to push up the hills with a decent pace.

AP: 9:10. Splits: 9:28, 9:16, 9:10, 9:18, 9:14, 9:33, 9:12, 9:03, 9:00, 8:35, 8:58, 0.13 @ 8:52.

Recovery run.

5:13 am, 32°F, 27% humidity, wind 6 SSE.

I really kept it slow and easy today. My recovery run pace range is 10:00 to 10:30, so I hit my pace. Even though it wasn't a hard workout, I did my dynamic stretching before I ran. I also tried to focus on the "pounding the ground" proprioceptive cue while running. After the run, I did some static stretching and then drove to seminary. Then I did just a few minutes of core conditioning exercises. This core conditioning program starts out easy, but I think it gets harder. I'll give it a few weeks and see how I like it and if it stays too easy, I'll look into something else.

AP: 10:22. Splits: 10:26, 10:24, 10:20, 10:19, 10:16.

General aerobic run.

5:18 am, 28°F, 86% humidity, wind 2 SSE.

Once again, I did dynamic stretching before the run, "pounding the ground" during the run, and static stretching after the run.

I had an easy recovery day yesterday and I have another easy recovery day tomorrow, so I decided to put a little bit more energy into my run today. I got a boost with that endeavor because about a couple of miles into my run, which is a kind of tough uphill part of the route, I saw another runner ahead of me and I decided to see if I could catch up with him by pushing the pace a little but not too much. I was almost up with him when we reached an intersection and he turned right while I went straight.

I ran the same route that I ran on Monday. Monday was a tempo run with 4 fast miles in the middle, and today I ran a more even pace. It turns out I actually ran the route 15 seconds faster overall today than I did on Monday.

AP: 8:47. Splits: 9:22, 9:12, 8:35 (chasing the other runner), 8:54, 8:49, 8:42, 8:30, 8:37, 8:24, 0.15 @ 8:38.

My oldest son finally got his driver's license yesterday. This is supposed to help me get to bed earlier because now he can drive himself to and from places that I used to have to drop him off at and pick him up from. For example, last night he worked from 6 to 10 and so I should have been able to go to bed early since I didn't have to pick him up at 10:00. However, I was worried about him out with the car on his own for the first time so I stayed up and waited for him to get home. And he got home later than I expected him to because he gave a coworker a ride home. So once again, not enough sleep for me.

There's some kind of restriction about new drivers having passengers, but I think it doesn't apply to him because he's 18. The restriction is aimed at 16 year olds.

Recovery run + dynamic stretching and core conditioning.

5:42 am, 26°F, 44% humidity, wind 2 SE.

I forgot to charge my Garmin last night, so I wore my heart rate monitor instead, primarily to use it as a stop watch. Average heart rate was 141. Average pace was 10:14.

I don't feel well. I was okay yesterday, and then it hit me last night. My nose is running like crazy and I have a sore throat, undoubtedly from post-nasal drip. I'm sneezing but not coughing much and I just feel lousy.

And I had a stinkin' busy morning doing things to help other people. It's 9:11 and I haven't had a shower yet and I've got to get to work some time.

Medium-long run with unpremeditated speed up.

7:38 am, 27-38°F, 60-35% humidity, winds calm, foggy/cloudy.

Oy vey. What have I done? Right now I feel like I've been hit by a truck.

I was in bed for 8.5 hours last night, but I didn't sleep well on account of my stuffy head. At least the run cleared my sinuses, for now.

Both Michelles were unavailable this morning, so I just met Carly at the trail. I made Carly do my funny-looking dynamic stretches with me out in the open and then we ran 8 miles together. When Carly left, I made a pit stop, blew my nose, and got a drink of water in the rec center, and then I went back out on the trail for 7 miles by myself. When I started running by myself, with no forethought whatsoever, I decided to pick up the pace a little. The main thing was that I was in a hurry to be done. The other thing that there was a runner right at the beginning that I could pass without trying too hard and that got me going a little faster, so I decided to just try to keep it at about that pace.

I guess I'm all into passing other runners lately because when I was on the way back of the out-and-back on my own, I was coming up on the 2 mile post, which meant 2 miles to go for me. There was a guy approaching me coming the other direction, but when he got to the 2 mile post he turned around, so then he was in front of me. I thought maybe I could pass him but it turned out he was going a pretty good clip, so after a while I settled into just keeping up with him, a little distance behind him. But then with a little less than a half mile to go, he slowed down or I sped up or something because I passed him and stayed ahead of him the rest of the way back to the rec center.

AP: 9:28. Splits: 10:14, 10:10, 10:10, 10:06, 10:10, 9:57, 9:56, 9:46, 8:57, 8:56, 8:41, 8:57, 8:52, 8:47, 8:09 (I guess I sped up in that last mile.)

I have a feeling that this run used all the energy alotted to me for the next couple of days and now I'm going to crash and be utterly useless.

General Aerobic + 10 x 100 m strides.

4:53 am, 28°F, 74% humidity, winds calm, light snow, with about an inch of powdery snow on the ground.

I didn't sleep well last night on account of a long nap yesterday and a stuffy head. I got up briefly around 3:30 and contemplated going running at that point, but decided against it and got back in bed until 4:30. I had gotten all my clothes laid out, including putting the yaktrax on my shoes, last night, because I needed to get out the door before 5:00 in order to be back in time to drive to seminary. I hurried this morning and made it out in time, even with doing my dynamic stretches in the house before I went out.

I forgot to assign myself a new proprioceptive cue for this week. The only one other than last week's pounding the ground that I could think of while I was running was pulling your navel towards your spine, so I kind of focused on that during the run, though I was probably more focused on the condition of the ground. I think that cue is supposed to help you attain a more neutral position with your pelvis. I'll have to look it up and see if I'm on the right track or completely off base.

My head's still pretty stuffy, but I figure I'll get over this cold in due time regardless of whether I run or not, so I might as well run.

I ran my normal six mile loop, but instead of heading home at the end, I went to the middle school track to do the strides. The track was covered with snow, so I couldn't see the markings on the track. I used the lap button and the lap distance field on my Garmin to measure the strides, but in my early morning stupor, I wasn't real sure how many feet are in 100 meters. I think I ran most of the strides just slightly longer than 100 meters. After I finished the strides, I ran home from the track the remaining distance that I had to make 8 miles in total.

AP: 9:48. Splits before the strides: 10:20, 10:07, 10:19, 9:47, 9:57, 9:41. Pace on strides: 6:49, 6:53, 7:16, 7:08, 7:23, 6:57, 7:05, 7:14, 7:09, 6:45.

Medium-long run.

2:20 pm, 43°F, 37% humidity, wind 5 ENE.

I got up at 4:30 this morning and checked the temperature. It was about 5 degrees. If I had a shorter run on the schedule, I might have gone out, but I had 12 miles, which meant almost a two hour run and would require my boy to walk to seminary. Neither of those things was appealing, so I ironed a shirt for my husband and then went back to bed for an hour. Then I got up and drove the boy to seminary and then I started my work day. I was thinking that I would run during the day while the kids were at school, but then I ended up keeping my youngest home because she's got a cold too, so that threw a wrench in my plans. But then I let my oldest come home from school after 5th period because he doesn't have a 6th period class and I let him skip 7th period jazz band because he was with the jazz band until 10:00 last night. Since he was home, I was able to head out as soon as I got some work I needed to do done.

A few days ago Tracy was wondering whether a morning runner like me would have more energy running later in the day and I guess the answer is yes. I kept up a pretty good pace with a moderate effort today, but it was possible partly due to this week's proprioceptive cue - falling forward. Still, I doubt I have would have run as fast if I had run early this morning, but it would have been because of the cold as well as the early hour.

AP: 8:44. Splits: 9:14, 9:09, 9:00, 8:35, 8:53, 8:41, 8:16, 8:38, 8:35, 8;38, 8:40, 8:25.

Description of the Falling Forward cue for those who are interested (quoted from Brain Training for Runners by Matt Fitzgerald):

"Tilt your whole body slightly forward as you run. Don't bend at the waist! Tilt your entire body from the ankles. When you're first getting a feel for this proprioceptive cue, feel free to exaggerate your lean to the point where you feel you're about to fall on your face. Then ease back to a point where you feel comfortable and in control, but where gravity still seems to be pulling you forward. This cue will help you correct overstriding, because when you're running with a slight forward tilt in your body, your feet will naturally land close to your center of gravity."

Recovery run + core conditioning exercises.

10:30 am, 40°F, 36% humidity, wind 3 SSW.

It turns out that I am unable to get up and run early in the morning if I take liquid Nyquil the night before. That has been my situation the last two mornings. Not only was I in a drug induced stupor this morning, but I had reset my alarm for 6:20 when I went back to bed yesterday and I forgot to change it to 4:20, so my alarm didn't go off. My husband's alarm went off at 4:30, but I didn't hear it and didn't hear him get up and didn't notice anything at all until I woke up at 5:12. At that point there was time to run before seminary, so I went back to sleep until about 6:10.

I'm working from home again today and I managed to send Thing 4 to school, but I kept Thing 3 home because he was coughing up a lung this morning. But he's old enough for me to leave him in the house alone, so I was able to go out for my run when I got to a good stopping place with my work.

I took little tiny steps today to keep my pace slow while focusing on the falling forward proprioceptive cue (I love the word "proprioceptive"). But I was tired from yesterday's run, so it wasn't too hard to do.

I ran a four mile loop and then came in the house and blew my nose and changed into my VFFs and then went out for another 1.12 miles. I did stretching and core conditioning after that.

Incidentally, my target pace range for recovery runs is 10:00 to 10:30.

AP: 10:14. Splits: 10:20, 10:02, 10:05, 10:25, 10:16.

General Aerobic run.

5:13 am, 25°F, 50% humidity, wind 3 SE.

I slept last night without any chemical assistance, so I was able to get up and run this morning.

In the past I've designated some days as easy days, but my easy days tended to not be all that different in either distance or pace from a lot of my harder days. Since I started this current marathon training plan a week and a half ago, I've done real recovery days for the first time, where I've really drastically reduced my distance and pace. I'm liking having more of a contrast between hard and easy days because it's letting me pick up the pace more on my hard days.

I somewhat arbitrarily decided to classify anything slower than 8:30 as slow miles and anything faster than 8:30 as fast miles today. I actually don't know my pace on the last .16 because I neglected to stop my watch and so I deleted that lap, but I'm assuming it was fast. In any case, I know I ran that last bit pretty hard.

AP: 8:44. Splits: 9:07, 8:57, 8:45, 9:00, 8:51, 8:37, 8:30, 8:34, 8:15.

Recovery Run + Core Conditioning.

5:13 am, 27°F, 48% humidity, wind 3 SSE.

I ran four slow miles in my really old Brooks Adrenalines and then changed into my VFFs for a little over a mile. I figure if I do a little over a mile in the VFFs twice/week for about 3 weeks consistently, then I can up the VFF mileage to 2 miles per run and keep increasing in like fashion. I have short recovery runs on Wednesdays and Fridays for the next several weeks, so those work out to be good days to do it.

This was the coldest weather I've ever worn the VFFs in. The tops of my feet and ankles were cold when I first went out in the VFFs, but within a few minutes they felt fine. Of course, I was only out there in them for just under 12 minutes.

My lower back was sore all day yesterday. It's somewhat better today. I figure it's either from the core conditioning, which has doubled in quantity since last week, or from the "falling forward" proprioceptive cue I've been focusing on this week, possibly both. The core conditioning exercises really aren't that hard. I had to do one set of each exercise each time I did the exercises last week, and I had to do two sets of each exercise each time I did then this week. Next week, I'm supposed to do three sets, and then it switches to a different set of exercises. This first group of exercises is pretty easy, so I think the more likely culprit for the sore back is the falling forward.

AP: 10:13. Splits: 10:26, 10:09, 10:06, 10:10, 10:14, 0.13 @ 10:36.

Marathon pace run (16 miles total w/ 8 miles at goal marathon pace).

7:36 am, 32-44°F, 31-15% humidity, wind calm until the last 2 miles, then 3 NE.

I met Carly and my friend Michelle and my other friend Michelle at the Highline Canal Trail today. Carly wanted to do 9 miles and so the Michelles agreed to do that amount too. I ran with them, but then when we finished 8th mile I sped up and left them so that I could do my marathon pace portion. I really wasn't sure what pace to run for my marathon pace portion. On the training plan it says "marathon race pace" but in the book that the training plan comes from, it says that you should do these at your goal marathon pace. Well, I'm not really sure what my goal marathon pace should be. I ran the Ogden marathon at an average pace of 8:36. If I put my most recent race time (which is a 5K) into the McMillan calculator, it gives me a marathon pace of 8:30. But my goal (which might be a little optimistic at this point) is to run a 3:30 marathon, which is 8:01 pace. So I just tried to run between 8:01 and 8:30 for the marathon portion, the closer to 8:01 that I could, the better.

The first 9 miles were 4.5 out and back on the trail heading north from the rec center. There were a few snowy sections on the trail, one relatively large one, through this part. My next 5 miles were 2.5 out and back on the trail heading south from the rec center. It was considerably snowier than the northern part of the trail. Almost all of it was snow covered, which was kind of a pain. Incidentally, during this portion, I literally ran into a dog. It was a small dog and it's owner was right there, but the dog was off leash and it ran right at me. It wasn't threatening at all. I wasn't worried that it would bite me. It just seemed excited to see me and ran right into my leg. I just kept running. I felt the impact, but I assume the dog was okay. If the owner wasn't happy about it, then too bad. That's what he gets for letting his dog off leash on the trail.

When I got back to the rec center after my little adventure on the southern part of the trail, I still had 2 miles to go, so I went north to the 1 mile marker and then turned around and came back to the rec center. I really had to use that mile marker because a little past the rec center (after 14.4 miles to be exact), my Garmin died. I had gotten a low battery warning when I turned it on this morning, but there was nothing I could do except how that it would make it through the run. So when I got to the end of my run, I just checked the time on my cell phone so that I could use that to figure my time for those last two miles. It's not terrifically precise, because my cell phone shows the time to the minute, not the seconds. Also, there's also no 0 mile marker at the rec center, so I just had to kind of guess where to stop. So those are the caveats to my pace calculations for the last 2 miles. Nevertheless, I did push it on those last 2 miles and I felt like I was going to throw up when I finished.

AP: 9:04. Splits: 9:52, 9:50, 9:50, 9:46, 9:56, 9:52, 10:03, 9:59, 8:14, 8:06, 8:13, 8:17, 8:19, 8:21, 2 miles @ 8:07 (but maybe not - This is based off a finish time of 10:01:22 am, but the 22 seconds was just a guess. The phone just said 10:01. I could have been as much as 38 second slower, which would make my average pace for those last two miles 8:23. The truth probably lies somewhere in between). In any case, if I go with the arbitrary guess of 22 seconds past 10:01, my average pace for the marathon-pace portion was 8:13.

I think that in the future when I have a marathon pace run on Saturday, I should take it a little easier on Thursday than I did this week.

Medium-long run.

8:35 am, 18-27°F, 39-21% humidity, wind 3 ESE, sunny.

My training plan said 11 miles today and 13 miles tomorrow, but I switched them because I have more time today than I do tomorrow on account of the holiday.

This was just an ordinary run. I tried to keep the pace fairly easy but not too slow. There was some snow in spots from yesterday's storm, but it wasn't too bad. I ran my home-work loop, which is hilly, and then the better part of my normal 6-mile loop the opposite direction from how I usually run it.

AP: 9:17. Splits: 9:55, 9:36, 9:31, 9:31, 9:37, 9:25, 9:06, 9:07, 8:55, 9:08, 9:01, 8:59, 8:49, 0.12 @ 8:55.

OK, boys and girls, this weeks proprioceptive cue is Navel to Spine. Here is the description from Brain training for Runners by Matt Fitzgerald:

"Concentrate on pulling your belly button inward toward your spine while running. Using this cue will activate the deep abdominal muscles that serve as important stabilizers of the pelvis and lower spine during running. In runners who do not properly contract the deep abdominals during running, the pelvis tilts forward excessively as the thigh pulls backward during the thrust phase. When the deep abs are kept tight, most of the force generated by the buttocks and hamstrings is transferred to the ground, hence into forward movement. But when the deep abs are not kept tight, some of the force generated by the buttocks and hamstrings is wasted in stretching the deep abs, causing the pelvis to tip forward, and consequently never reaches the ground."

He warms that this proprioceptive cue requires a lot of concentration to sustain throughout a run. I can't say that I focused on it for the entire run, but I tried to bring my thoughts back to it whenever they wandered.

Medium-long run.

5:13 am, 10°F, 66% humidity, wind 2 SSE.

I didn't realize it was that cold before I went out this morning. I thought it was between 15 and 20 degrees. I should have dressed a little warmer and a I should have covered my face. I was cold for this whole run and I think my face froze.

I tried to really focus on the Navel to Spine cue today. About the last mile or so of my run, my butt was feeling tight, probably from all the Navel to Spine action, but I feel okay now.

It turns out that running over 10 miles two days in a row is a little bit tough for me, or maybe it was the cold that did me in today. It took me a long time to get going.

AP: 9:35. Splits: 9:53, 9:52, 9:55, 9:45, 10:03, 9:39, 9:23, 9:17, 9:14, 9:16, 9:09.

Recovery run.

5:15 am, 27°F, 45% humidity, wind 4 SSE.

Just another slow run, focusing on the navel to spine cue. In answer to auntieem's questions of the last couple of days, yes, I do noticed an improved hip flexor lift when when I do the navel to spine cue.

I've got a busy morning with work and getting ready to head out of town. I'm leaving this afternoon to drive to Des Moines, Iowa with my oldest son and his giant string bass. We're going on a campus visit/music department audition at Drake University. We're driving as far as York, Nebraska today. So I'll be running in Nebraska tomorrow morning. It looks like farm country. Then I'll be running in Des Moines on Friday morning, and then back in York, Nebraska on Saturday morning. We'll get home Saturday night.

I did the last mile+ in the Vibram Five Fingers today. I don't run very fast in them. Maybe that's because I keep wearing them on my recovery days.

AP: 10:19. Splits: 10:24, 10:10, 10:11, 10:17, 10:33, 0.12 @ 10:26.

Tempo run. 3 miles warm-up, 4 miles @ 15K to 1/2M pace, 2+ miles cool down.

8:01 am Central Standard Time, 17-24°F, 74% humidity, winds calm.

Here I am in York, Nebraska. It's about 1/4 mile from my hotel to the begining of a dirt road. I ran west on that dirt road for a couple of miles then turned north onto another dirt road and went for 2 and a half miles, then turned around and came back. On the way back, I was a little unsure which east/west road to turn onto, but the breadcrumb trail on my Garmin solved the mystery.

These dirt roads just ran between snow-covered fields. There were big round bales of hay in some of the fields, and I saw a few farm houses. The roads were rutted in some places and icy in a few places, but on the whole not too bad.

I ran this tempo run a little faster than I usually run it at home. I guess the lower elevation and the relative flatness of the terrain helps.

I didn't get out particularly early and I was out for a while, but my son is still asleep now that I'm back. We've got not quite an hour and half until we have to check out of this hotel, so I better wake him up.

AP: 8:35. Splits: 9:22, 9:12, 9:20, 8:08, 7:55, 7:59, 7:47, 8:42, 8:51, 0.16 @ 8:45.

Recovery run.

5:30 am Central Standard Time, 19°F, 65% humidity, wind 2 ENE.

They've got a lot of snow on the ground here in Des Moines, Iowa. What little shoulder there might be on the roads is covered in about a 2-3 foot pile of snow. I discovered that there are sidewalks and they had been plowed with a varying lack of success. But I stuck to the snowy icy sidewalks because running in the road with no shoulder seemed too dangerous even though there wasn't much traffic at this time in the morning. I had to walk through deep snow on a couple of occasions and nearly fell a couple of times too.

My stats are somewhat approximate because my watch didn't have satellites for about the first .6 miles and wasn't looking for them because I had told the watch that I was indoors when it failed to find satellites from within the hotel. So after about .6 miles when I realized it wasn't giving me pace or distance, I stopped, turned off the watch and turned it back on and waited for it to find satellites.

I brought my VFFs and was going to change into them for the last mile today, but I decided that the roads are too treacherous. Also, I'm short on time because we've got to get to the University fairly early this morning.

AP: 10:24. Splits (from the point at which I got satellites): 10:02, 10:13, 10:50, 10:38, 10:10 (0.42 miles).

Medium-long run.

5:38 am (Central Standard Time), 24°F, 86% humidity, wind 7 NNE.

We're back in York, Nebraska. I had to get up early for this run so that we can get out of here at a decent time. Last night my son was talking about wanting to leave at 7:00 this morning, but it's 8:15 now and he's still asleep. I'm just back from my run and desperately need a shower.

I was out on the farm roads again today. About half of this run was in the dark. That was a little challenging because my headlamp needs new batteries and so I couldn't see really well and the dirt road is a quite rutted in spots. Also, apparently they got a little snow here yesterday and so the roads were just a little bit snowier than they were on Thursday. The temperature was pleasant enough until I turned east for the last 2 miles and was going into the wind. (The wind also picked up a bit around that time). Then I was pretty cold, so I hurried to finish.

Number of vehicles I encountered on the farm roads on Thursday: 2.

Number of vehicles I encountered on the farm roads today: 0.

I tried to work on the Navel to Spine que as much as possible, though my mind did wander some. I've thought about repeating this que for another week, but I think I'm ready to move on.

AP: 9:20. Splits: 9:41, 9:38, 9:24, 9:22, 9:34, 9:30, 9:27, 9:20, 9:21, 9:12, 9:08, 9:27, 9:08, 9:07, 8:57, 0.16 @ 8:28.

The University visit went well yesterday. My son liked the school and the bass professor told him that he gave him a good rating in the audition. So we'll just have to wait and see whether the music department gives him a good enough scholarship to get hiim there. It would be a challenge to send him to school at Drake because of the cost and the distance from home. He prefers to stay in Denver and go to the University of Denver, but that's even more expensive and he hasn't even been accepted there yet.

We didn't find anyplace great to eat in Des Moines. In fact, we had a hard time finding any place at all to eat in Des Moines. Also, it snowed quite a bit during the day in Des Moines yesterday and we had a tough time getting out of town. We saw a lot of cars off the road in the median. We did finally get to better roads about 50 miles are so west of Des Moines.

General Aerobic run w/ 10 x 100 m strides.

4:45 am, 18°F, 75% humidity, wind 2 NW, very light snow falling with a thin but significant layer of snow on the ground.

I got an earlier than usual start this morning so that I could be done in time to drive my son to seminary. He's going to have to walk tomorrow and Thursday and so I thought I'd try to be nice and give him a ride today since my run was short enough that I could manage it with a little effort.

My legs felt like lead today. It's probably from my poor diet while traveling last week, my lack of adequate sleep last night, or both.

I wore the yaktrax this morning because of the snow. I was going to run the strides on the track, but then I realized that the snow on the track would be too deep because the track wouldn't have been plowed at all in the last 3 days. The sidewalks got plowed yesterday and probably the day before, and so they just had last night's accumulation of snow. So I ran the strides on the sidewalk on Cresthill Lane across from the middle school. Cresthill Lane runs very slightly uphill as it heads south and I ran the strides heading south. The wind was coming from the north and there wasn't really enough wind to help me on the strides, but just enough to make me cold when I turned around and headed back in between the strides. I was slow on the strides today. I guess I just didn't have it in me today. Hey, at least I tried. I did try to run the strides with good form, and I guess that's really the point of strides.

I ran a little over 6 miles before I started the strides, and then had about a mile and a half left to make a total of 9 miles after I had done the strides.

AP: 9:30. Splits for the first 6 miles: 9:27, 9:24, 9:46, 9:13, 9:29, 9:16. Pace on the strides: 7:24, 8:01, 8:04, 7:49, 7:52, 8:06, 8:07, 7:37, 7:59, 7:35. Splits after the strides: 9:51, 0:54 @ 9:37.

It's a new week so it's time for a new proprioceptive cue. This week's cue is Running on Water. Here's the summary from Brain Training for Runners by Matt Fitzgerald.

"Image you're running on water, and your goal is to not fall through the surface. To do this, you must overcome the squishiness of your running surface by applying maximum force to the water in minimum contact time, like a skipping stone. Try to make your feet skip across your running surface in a similar way: quickly, lightly, yet forcefully. This proprioceptive cue will teach you to stiffen your stride, minimize ground contact time, and begin the thrust phase earlier."

I tried to think about this cue while I was running today and I think I did okay at first, but then I got tired and didn't do such a great job towards the end of my run. I doubled back just a bit at the end of my run and I could see from my tracks in the snow that I wasn't doing a great job of picking up my feet. However, I saw my own tracks in the snow while I was doing the strides since I went back and forth, and I was doing better then.

Medium-long run.

4:50 am, 16°F, 50% humidity, wind 10 SSE.

This felt like the run that would never end. I got an early start, before any of my family was awake, and by the time I got home, 3 of them had left for the day and a 4th left a few minutes after I got home. Besides that this was a long run, I had to stop periodically for traffic lights, a pit stop, and phone calls.

I ran the County Line Road and MacArthur Ranch Road loops hooked together, so it was quite hilly, but what else is new. There was a good amount of melting yesterday, so the roads were mostly clear. The only significant stretch of snow and ice that I encountered was in the last mile on the green belt trail near my house.

Tuesdays will continue to be long and hard for the next several weeks. I'm looking forward to a recovery day tomorrow.

I tried to think about the Running on Water cue from time to time, but my mind wandered quite a bit.

AP: 9:03. Splits: 9:24, 9:13, 9:15, 9:22, 9:29, 9:01, 9:34, 8:44, 8:47, 8:30, 8:54, 8:56, 8:55, 8:37.

Recovery run + core conditioning.

5:20 am, 27°F, 41% humidity, wind 3 S.

I stayed up too late again last night. I've got to find a way to get to bed earlier. I'm sleepy right now.

I ran my recovery run just slightly faster than I have been because I got a late start and I was worried about time. I had to get home to drive the boy to seminary. The increase in speed over that distance amount to a savings of not quite 2 minutes, but 2 minutes makes a difference in my busy morning schedule.

I changed into the VFFs after 4 miles and ran the last 1.12 in them. I'm getting better at putting them on. I can do it a little quicker than I used to. I think I'll stick with the 1+ mile in them on Friday this week and then up the VFF mileage a little next week.

I tried to think about the "running on water" or, as I like to think of it "skipping stones" cue. This is kind of a vague cue. I just think of it as quick turnover. Since this one is kind of strange, I also tried to focus a bit on doing navel to spine at the same time.

AP: 9:59. Splits: 10:19, 10:09, 9:51, 9:53, 9:43, 0.12 @ 9:50.

Medium-long run.

5:16 am, 33°F, 58% humidity, winds calm.

I ran the route that takes me past my office. This route is mostly downhill for the first half and mostly uphill for the second half. I sometimes prefer that to the routes I do more often, which tend to be uphill for the first half and downhill for the second half.

This run was unremarkable (so then why am I remarking? you might ask). It wasn't really fast, but it wasn't too slow. I didn't feel great, but I didn't feel awful. I'm glad it's over.

AP: 9:11. Splits: 9:35, 9:16, 9:12, 9:17, 9:29, 9:09, 9:19, 9:19, 9:03, 8:43, 8:37.

Recovery run + core conditioning.

5:14 am, 19°F, 81% humidity, winds calm.

We got a spit of snow last night that stuck to the grass but not so much to the roads and sidewalks. However, it did make things slick in spots and there were a few places where I had to run over snow.

It felt good to run slowly today. I'm liking these recovery runs.

AP: 10:26. Splits: 10:32, 10:29, 10:13, 10:27, 10:26, 0.14 @ 10:30.

A fox ran along side me but off to my right a ways for a bit.

As is my Wednesday and Friday custom, I switched to the Vibram Five Fingers for the last mile and a bit. There's a snow-covered stretch of sidewalk in front of my house and my neighbor's house. I left barefoot-looking tracks in that snow at the end of the VFF part of my run today. I thought that was pretty cool. I wonder if anyone will notice. A lot of kids walk past there on their way to school.

I've got a busy day today. I've got to go downtown and video tape my  husband's top mariachi group performing at the state capitol for Arts Advocacy Day.

Long run.

7:34 am, 31-45°F, 18-12% humidity, wind calm/2 WSW.

I ran out to the 4.5 milepost on the Highline Canal Trail and back twice, the first time with Michelle and Michelle. They were planning to do 8 miles today, but I talked them into doing 9 so that I would be half done when they finished. I took a short break/pit stop in the rec center after finishing with them and going out for the second time.

About 50% of the trail is covered with snow and/or ice. On my second time out and back, some of the sections with just a little ice had turned muddy.

18 miles is never easy for me. I'm glad to be done. It was nice to have friends and conversation for the first half of the run. I listened to music for the second half.

AP: 9:42. Splits: 9:57, 9:45, 9:47, 9:59, 9:59, 10:28, 10:29, 10:16, 10:18, 9:29, 9:26, 9;37, 9:18, 9:09, 9:28, 9:16, 9:21, 8:40.