Same Time, Same Channel

Tempo run. 2 miles warm-up, 5(ish) miles @ 15K-1/2M pace, 2+miles cool-down.

4:55 am, 30°F, 81% humidity, winds calm, light snow, but no significant accumulation.

The battery on my Garmin was dead. I should have checked it after Saturday's long run. But at least I realized it before I headed out the door, so I wore my heart-rate monitor watch (though not the chest strap) to use as a stop watch. However, I am not very experienced with that watch, so I didn't really get it going properly until I started the tempo portion.

I was going to invent a new route on the fly today, but I couldn't since I didn't have my Garmin. I had to run a route that I knew the distance of and at least had a rough idea of where the splits were. I think I did a good job estimating the split locations for the first 4 miles of the tempo portion, but then I cut the last tempo mile a little bit short, and ended up with a total tempo distance of 4.88 miles instead of 5 miles. Oh well. I figure my average pace on the tempo portion was 8:03 and my average pace overall was 8:38.

This week's proprioceptive due is "Pulling the Road." Here is the description from Brain Training for Runners by Matt Fitzgerald:

"Image that your running route is like a giant nonmotorized treadmill. On a nonmotorized treadmill, you are able to run in place by pulling the treadmill belt backward with your feet. Envision yourself doing the same thing with the road as you run outdoors. You're not actually moving forward--you're simulating forward movement by pulling the road behind you with each foot. This proprioceptive cue will teach you to begin generating thrust earlier, stiffen your stride, and minimize ground contact time."

I found that on the few occasions that I remembered to think about this cue while I was running today, it sped me up a bit until my mind wandered again.

Medium-long run.

9:34 am,  36-43°F, 55-45% humidity, winds calm, except South at 7.8 mph around mile 4 (during which time I was heading south).

I've been a bad, bad girl. I stayed up way too late last night for no good reason. When I finally went to bed at 1 am, I thought it would not be a good idea to get up 3 1/2 hours later to run 14 miles. So I recent my alarm for 6:30 so that I could get 5 1/2 hours of sleep. Still not enough, but better than 3 1/2. When I got up, I worked for about 3 hours and got the kids off to school, and then went for my run.

I overdressed just a little bit. I'm just to used to it being really cold when I run. Not that it was fantastically warm when I ran today, but it was sunny, which I am not used to.

I decided to just run at a moderate effort, and that worked out pretty well until about the last 4 miles, and then it got hard. Michelle passed me in her car and honked and waved when I had just finished the 12th mile, and I was hurting at that point.

I'm going to take it slow at easy for the next 3 days so that I'll be ready for a MP long run on Saturday.

AP: 8:32. Splits: 9:22, 9:01, 8:42, 8:28, 8:41, 8:26, 8:31, 8:27, 8:13, 8:23, 8:25, 8:24, 8:28, 8:20.

I wish I could run comfortably in my supposedly Steady State pace range (8:04 to 8:18), but I'm not quite there. Today's run was about as close as I can get.

Recovery run + core conditioning.

6:47 am, 36°F, 54% humidity, calm.

My kids (just the middle two because the oldest and youngest don't have to do it) had CSAP (statewide standardized testing) yesterday and today. They also have it next Tuesday and Wednesday. That means no seminary on these days. I tend to lose my motivation to get up early when there's no seminary. This morning I got up at 4:45 and made a lunch for my husband because I neglected to do it last night, but then I went back to bed until almost 6:30. As a result, I had to do my workout today in fits and starts. I had promised the son I usually drive to seminary a drive to school. So I did 3 miles with shoes, then I got breakfast for my daughter and drove my son to school. Then I changed into my VFFs and did two more miles, then got my daughter off to school and then did the core conditioning. My oldest son is still home and asleep because he doesn't have to be to school until noon.

AP: 9:55. Splits: 10:09, 9:36, 9:41, 10:13, 9:55.

Medium-long run.

5:06 am, 32°F, 40% humidity, winds calm. The sky was clear and I could see the waning gibbous moon, but it's overcast now.

I took a new route today. It's about 2 1/2 miles to the temple from my house, so I ran around the temple and then back out to University, to Dry Creek, to Quebec, to County Line, and home. I normally do all my week-day runs in Douglas County, but this run was almost entirely in Arapahoe County. The roads are straighter there, but no less hilly. There were some good hills on this route. I kept the pace slow and easy because I'm still a little tired from Tuesday's run, and I have a marathon-pace long run on Saturday.

AP: 9:42. Splits: 10:05, 9:55, 9:58, 9:59, 9:59, 9:45, 9:39, 9:40, 9:28, 9:18, 9:25, 9:12.

When I had about 3 miles left, I stopped and called home to make sure that my 13-year-old son was up. My daughter answered and I asked her to wake him up. Apparently she tried but had a hard time waking him up. He should have left for school by the time I got home, but hadn't. He left shortly thereafter, but was probably late to school. This is a struggle I have on the days that I have longer runs in the morning. I can count on all of the kids to get up on time except for this one boy. He'll sleep through an alarm even if it's right by his head. I have to assign other kids to wake him up if I'm not home. Apparently my daughter was a little too timid about it today.

I haven't been commenting on blogs much during the day lately because it's hard for me to access the blog from work for some reason. Also, I've been busy at work.

Recovery run + core conditioning

5:42 am, 26°F, 88% humidity, winds calm, patchy fog.

Busy morning again. I had to do some take-care-of-the-family stuff before my run, so I only had time for the 3 miles in shoes portion before the drive to seminary. I did the 2 miles in VFFs and the core conditioning after the drive to seminary.

I've got another busy day at work and then I've got to leave early so that I can usher at my husband's orchestra concert tonight. I have to do that to get discounted tuition for my sons in the youth orchestra that's affiliated with my husband's orchestra. My oldest son is actually playing with the grown-up orchestra tonight. I don't know when or how we're going to have dinner tonight.

Tomorrow's marathon-pace long run is in jeopardy because of all the things the kids need.

AP: 10:21. Splits: 10:55, 10:21, 10:16, 10:12, 10:00. (An accidental progress that never got fast.)

Marathon-pace long run. 18 miles w/ 10 miles @ marathon race pace.

3:06 pm, 52-46°F, 30-48% humidity, wind 6 ENE.

I can't believe I managed to get this run done despite the forces conspiring against me. I had to take my oldest son up to Greeley today to audition for the music department at the University of Northern Colorado. I think his audition went well and he had a nice time together. But that took a 7-hour chunk out of my day. I got dressed and went out for my run as soon as I could after we got home, but this run was so long that by the time I finished, the sun was setting and I was starting to get cold (I wore shorts and a short-sleeve top). Also, despite that I was running for 2 hours and 38 minutes, the run took 3 hours because I had to stop for lights a lot more than I do in the early mornings because of the increased traffic, I made a pit stop at a Walgreens, and my family kept calling me and I would have to stop to talk to them. My husband called when I had run 6 miles and asked if I was almost done. That was kind of disheartening. But the worst was when I had about 3 miles to go and I got 5 calls from home in 10 minutes. My poor son was the 5th caller (actually I think he was the 3rd and the 5th caller - he called twice) and I yelled at him because I was so frustrated at that point. I felt like I could get home and help them if they would ever stop calling me. I take my phone on runs so that I can make OUTGOING calls in an emergency, not to receive everyone's INCOMING call when they can't find their wallet or whatever.

I ran around the 'hood rather than driving to the trail in order to save time. I can go lots of places in the 'hood in 18 miles. But I ran so that the route would have more uphill in the first half and more downhill in the 2nd half in order to make it a little easier to do the MP miles, but the last 2 miles were net uphill, which was tough. As it turned out the first half was also more into the wind. They say that you're supposed to do these MP long runs on a course that is similar to your race course. But the race course I'm training for is flat and at sea level. We don't have flat around here, let alone sea level.

I'm glad just to have made it through this week. Next week is a recovery week.

AP: 8:47. Splits: 9:35, 9:31, 9:33, 9:25, 9:34, 9:43, 9:12, 8:58, 8:13, 8:17, 8:11, 8:09, 8:06, 8:22, 8:17, 8:25, 8:10, 8:26.

General Aerobic + Speed: 8 miles w/ 10 x 100 m strides.

4:57 am, 40°F, 75% humidity, very slight SSE wind, overcast, wet ground from overnight rain, but not raining.

The weather is definitely warming up. However, I don't trust March. We're likely to get a huge snowstorm before the month is over. I don't know whether that's in the extended forecast. That's just what usually happens.

I had some operator error with my Garmin this morning. I paused it when I stopped to scoop a pebble out of the ankle area of my shoe, and then forgot to start it again and didn't realize it until about 1.6 miles later. So I don't really have mile splits today, but I know that I started out with a 10:05 mile, and was running about 9:33 pace by the 6th mile.

I did my standard 6-mile loop but ended at the middle school track instead of at home, ran the strides on the track, and then ran home to make it a total of 8 miles. My first two strides were on the curved parts of the track, but then I decided I wanted to run the strides on the straight-aways, so I did 200m of jogging, instead of 100m, between the 2nd and 3rd repeat to get myself straighted out, then ran strides on the straight-aways and jogged the curves.

I think my average pace for the whole run was 9:30. Paces on the strides were 6:53, 7:10, 7:03, 6:59, 6:50, 7:10, 6:44, 6:57, 6:37, 6:41.

I've been running around like a chicken with my head cut off trying to help kids with various things and get them out the door to school. The real problem was the 13-year-old who fell asleep reading last night and neglected to finish a project that he was supposed to have done by 1st period today. I didn't do the project for him, but I did give him some suggestions and a little bit of help this morning.

I forgot to look up a new proprioceptive cue before this run, so I just kind of thought occasionally about some of the previous ones during this run. Once I realized that I had had my Garmin paused, my mind was consumed trying to remember when I had paused it and calculate how much distance I had failed to record.

In any case, here's this week's cue, from Brain Training for Runners by Matt Fitzgerald. It's called "Scooting."

"Run in a 'scooting' manner by actively minimizing vertical oscillation. Don't exaggerate this action to the point where you are reducing your stride rate or increasing ground contact time. Just think about thrusting your body forward instead of upward while running. If it helps, imagine you're running beneath a ceiling just two inches above your head that will leave you with a terrible headache if you smack into it repeatedly throughout a run. This proprioceptive cue will enable you to run with greater stability by reducing vertical impact forces."

Medium-long run.

5:14 am, 36°F, 58% humidity, winds calm, party cloudy, but clear enough to see the waning crescent moon at the beginning of the run and then to have sunshine by the end of the run.

This was a pleasant enough run. I kept the pace easy, but not too easy. I ran the County Line/Quebec/MacArthur Ranch loop. I focused on the proprioceptive cue of not letting my head smack into the imaginary ceiling two inches above my head and it went pretty well. I think I'm usually not too bouncy of a runner. It was a little trickier when I was running up hill. If I bounce at all, it tends to be when running uphill.

You know what I like about running all alone? You can Please follow Fast Running Blog policy regarding vulgar language whenever you want to. Sorry if that's too much information.

AP: 9:02. Splits: 9:36, 9:31, 9:21, 9:14, 9:16, 8:55, 9:07, 8:47, 8:39, 8:47, 8:41, 8:31.

It was almost a progression run, but not quite. The hill that comprises mile 7 got in the way, as did some other smaller hills.

Recovery run + core conditioning.

5:45 am, 32°F, 67% humidity, winds calm, partly cloudy.

I slept in until 5:30 today because I only had a short run and there was no seminary because of CSAP testing. As a result, it got light shortly after I started my run and I had sun in my eyes by the end of my run.

As far as the run goes, it was just a typical Wednesday recovery run with 3 miles in shoes and 2 miles in VFFs. The weird thing about this run is the splits. I don't know how this happened.

AP: 10:09. Splits: 10:34, 10:03, 10:03, 10:03, 10:03.

Really. That's what Garmin said the splits were.

General aerobic run.

5:19 am, 22°F, 79% humidity, winds calm, clear skies.

I got scared when I saw the 22° when I was getting dressed this morning and so I overdressed a little. At least I wasn't too cold on this run.

I ran the route that takes me past my office. This route is generally downhill for the first half and generally uphill for the second half. I just felt kind of sluggish for the whole run and never really felt like I got going well. However, my splits are better than I thought they would be (I didn't manage to keep track of them while I was running). I was only supposed to run 10 miles, but I did an extra loop in the middle of the run and it turned out to be longer than I thought. I ran until I got home instead of stopping at 10 and then walking.

I encouraged Thing 2 to skip seminary this morning because he was feeling sick last night. Also, that absolved me from feeling guilty about not driving him to seminary this cold cold morning.

AP: 9:16. Splits: 10:07, 9:27, 9:17, 9:14, 9:31, 9:23, 9:21, 9:09, 9:01, 8:37, 0.68 @ 8:39.

Recovery run + core conditioning.

6:30 am, 30°F, 36% humidity, wind 2 S, sunshine.

My kids don't have school today (it's a teacher work day) so I didn't have to drive anyone anywhere or get home before kids left for school. So I slept in a bit and ran in the sunshine.

Yesterday about half-way through my run, I caught my left toe on some jagged pavement and started to go down, but then managed to take a step with my right foot and didn't fall. However, that step with my right foot was pretty awkward and hard and I've had just a little tightness in my right glut since then. It's still tight this morning, but it's not too bad.

I'm liking these short run recovery days. I think that maybe they do more for me psychologically than they do physically.

AP: 10:03. Splits: 10:17, 9:56, 9:50, 10:02, 10:12 (the last two miles were in VFFs).

Medium-long run.

7:38 am, 40-58°F, 10% humidity, winds calm.

We had a good group on the High Line Canal Trail this morning. It was me, Michelle, Michelle, Carly, and Carly's friend Nicole. Nicole wanted to do 4 miles and she's fairly speedy. We did two out and back and Carly and Nicole led the whole time, but the rest of us stayed more or less the same distance behind them. Nicole stopped when we got back to the start and the rest of us continued out for a mile and then turned around and came back. Michelle was kind of struggling. She's pregnant and she's coming down with a cold. She slowed down and told us to go on without her when we had about a half mile to go. I was thinking that this was unusual because she usually picks up the pace at the end and I was wondering if she was going to finish slowly for a change. And then when the finish was in site, Michelle came charging up from behind and passed us all, so I picked up the pace and finished with her. Michelle and Michelle and Nicole were done at that point. I went to my car and discarded my gloves, my ear warmer, and one of my two shirts, got a drink of water, and put my ear phones on. Then I went out for 9 more by myself. When I had about 3 or 4 miles to go, I tried to remind myself to just enjoy being out running instead of being anxious about getting finished. I'm not sure it really worked. I was still anxious to get done. I decided to try to gradually speed up the last few miles and then really push it for a fast finish the last mile.

The trail was in better shape than it has been in a long time. All the snow and ice is gone off of it. There was only one spot beyond mile marker 4 that was kind of muddy. The only problem is that some sections are rutted with tire tracks.

I have now finished mesocycle 1 of my training plan without missing any days.

AP: 9:16. Splits: 9:40, 9:20, 9:49, 9:53, 9:51, 9:36, 9:24, 9:24, 9:27, 9:10, 9:06, 8:59, 8:53, 8:49, 7:54, 0.07 miles @ 7:12.

So look, Michelle, we did go faster those first couple of miles. No wonder you were struggling.

Tempo run - 10 miles w/ 5 miles @ 15K-1/2M pace.

5:19 am, 30°F, 85% humidity, winds calm.

Curse you, Daylight Savings Time! I woke up several times during the night and thought that I just should just get up and run in the middle of the night so that I could go back to bed afterwards. However, I stayed in bed as long as I could. One minute before my alarm was supposed to go off, my daughter came into my room because she had had a bad dream. I let her climb into bed with me and I hit the snooze alarm. The next time my alarm went off, I got up and got dressed, but then I had a delay while I ironed clothes for my husband. So I didn't make it out the door quite as early as I would have liked to. Nevertheless, felt like 4:19 to my body, so it might as well have been the middle of the night. Except I don't get to go back to bed now.

We got just a wee bit of snow last night. It's mostly just on the grassy areas, but I did hit a couple of snowy spots when I was running.

I hate the 5th mile on the route that I ran today. I struggle with it every time. Incidentally, my goal pace range was either 7:59 to  8:09 or 7:53 to 8:04, depending which of my race results I put into the pace calculator.

AP: 8:47. Splits: 9:50, 9:50, 9:46, 8:15, 8:22, 8:06, 7:36 (oops, a little too fast), 7:53, 9:05, 9:06, 0.23 @ 8:48.

So I managed to get the third mile, at 8:06, barely into the top end of the slower of my two pace ranges, and the fifth mile, at 7:53, really barely into the bottom end of the faster of my two pace ranges. Mostly I ran either too slow or too fast. Nevertheless, my average pace for the tempo portion works out to about 8:02, and that's in both ranges.

In case anyone is still paying attention, this week's proprioceptive cue is "Pounding the Ground," which was the first one I did before I started doing these cues in order. But I decided to do it again this week rather than skipping it. So here is the description from  Brain Training for Runners by Matt Fitzgerald.

"Most runners are taught to run as softly as possible. In fact, running speed is almost entirely a function of how forcefully you hit the ground with your feet. The typical runner--especially the typical overstriding runner--allows his or her foot to fall passively to the ground with each stride. Instead, practice actively driving your foot into the ground. Be sure to give a somewhat backward pull to this driving movement rather than a completely vertical movement. Also, if you are currently a heel striker (overstrider), work on shortening your stride and landing flat-footed before using this proprioceptive cue, which teaches you to stiffen your stride, thrust earlier, and minimize ground contact time."

I found that I did speed up slightly whenever I thought about and tried to implement this cue.

This is my only real speed workout this week. I intend to run at an easy pace the rest of the week (except for short strides on Friday) in preparation for Saturday's half marathon. Other than that, I'm not really tapering for this race. I'm training through it, I guess.

Happy Ides of March, everyone.

Medium-long run at an easy pace.

6:32 pm, 60-39°F, 15-43% humidity, wind 3 SE.

I stayed up way too late last night for no good reason and I couldn't face getting up to run after 4 hours of sleep, so I slept until time to drive Thing 2 to seminary, then when I got back from doing that, I went back to sleep until it was time to drive Thing 1 and his bass to school about 1/2 hour later. I couldn't run then because I had to get my daughter off to school. I might have run during work hours, but instead I spent the morning getting the rear windshield wiper fixed on my car (I broke it off with the garage door a while ago). It looks like we might have bad weather for the drive to Utah on Friday, and I didn't want to do it without a rear windshield wiper. After spending all morning at the car dealership, I had to work in the afternoon, then I had to take my daughter to her piano lesson. After her lesson, I talked to Michelle, who is her piano teacher, and that talk motivated me to go running. So I picked up some dinner for the family on my way home, and then got dressed and headed out.

When I was getting ready to go out, my daughter wanted to come run with me. So I did a half-mile loop with her, but I paused my watch during the part we walked and ended up running about 1/3 of a mile with her. Then she went back in the house and I continued with my run.

It was still light and warm when I started out. I wore shorts and a short-sleeved shirt, but I also took this opportunity to try out the arm sleeves that I bought last weekend to wear during the race on Saturday. They worked will but during parts of my run, particularly when running through open spaces, I was wishing for long pants and gloves.

AP: 9:36. Splits: 10:14, 9:10, 9:37, 9:37, 9:44, 9:30, 9:53 (my favorite hill on South Quebec St. approaching MacArthur Ranch Rd.), 9:30, 9:15, 9:26, 9:24, 9:45, 9:45, 9:33.

Recovery run + core conditioning.

5:16 am, 39°F, 42% humidity, wind 7 SSW.

How to ensure that you run a recovery run at a very slow pace: run 14 miles less than 12 hours before.

AP: 10:38. Splits: 11:09, 10:40, 10:21, 10:26, 10:35.

The last two miles were in Vibram Five Fingers.

I'm going to change up my training plan for the rest of the week. The book says 11 miles on Thursday and 7  miles with strides on Friday, then 21 miles on Saturday. Instead, I'm going to do the 7 miles with strides on Thursday, do 5 miles recovery like today on Friday, and then try to run fast in a half marathon on Saturday.

I was done with my run in time to drive to seminary this morning, but the boy is not going to school because he is sick. So I'm slightly ahead of schedule so far this morning.

General Aerobic + Speed: 7 mi w/ 10 x 100 m strides

5:14 am, 42°F, 35% humidity, wind 10 SE.

I tried to keep it easy but not too slow this morning. I started out on my normal 6 mile loop, but cut it short and went to the middle school track to do the strides. I had run not quite 5 miles when I got to the track. I tried to do the strides properly and just focus on form rather than trying to run really fast. Also, it was more windy than is typical around here. It was particularly windy on the track because the track is in an open space. I think the wind accounts for my alternating between slower and faster strides (except for the first one, which I must have just pushed the pace on) because I was running the strides on the straight aways and jogging the curves.

AP: 9:23. Splits before the strides: 9:35, 9:26, 9:40, 9:25, 0.86 @ 9:41.

Pace on the strides: 7:06, 7:14, 7:44, 7:16, 7:38, 7:18, 7:38, 7:16, 8:00, 7:02.

Split time for the 1 mile after the strides: 9:24.

I've got a busy day today. There are lots of things I need to get done before going to Utah tomorrow.

Recovery run + core conditioning.

9:13 am, 31°F, 75% humidity, winds calm, light snow. The snow was sticking to the grass, but not really to the streets.

I had planned to get up and run early this morning, but since I didn't absolutely have to, when the time came to get up, I didn't do it. Instead, I slept until about 6:15, then got up and got kids off to school, and then ran. The weather didn't bother me too much, except when I was heading north. It wasn't really windy. Officially, there was no wind, but there was just enough that when I was going north, the snow felt like little pins pricking me in the face. I hardly had my eyes open and my eyelashes were covered with ice. But my eyelashes thawed when I turned and started going a different direction.

AP: 9:51. Splits: 10:35, 9:58, 9:38, 9:27, 9:37.

I've got less than an hour now to get showered, eat something, and get on the road to Moab.

This was a great race. I felt so much better throughout the race than I did in this race last year. The temperature was cooler than last year, and I think that helped.

Another nice thing about this year versus last year was that we actually stayed in Moab. Last year I couldn't get a room in Moab and so I stayed in Green River and had to get up early and drive to Moab. Today, we just had to walk about a block to get to the bus pickup.

I didn't sleep great last night, but that's to be expected. But things went very smoothly this morning. It was cold at the start, but that was typical. About an half hour before race time I took my leave from my friends and took off my warm clothes and tossed my drop bag onto the truck. I ran a mile and a half warm-up at about 10:10 pace with a couple of short strides thrown in. Then I did my dynamic stretches and then lined up just a little ways behind the 8:00 pace marker. It still took quite a while to get over the start line, but once we started, I felt like I had lined up in the right place because I ran about the pace of the people around me and it seemed like the appropriate pace at that point.

I don't really have a mile-by-mile breakdown. I tried not to look at my watch except for at the mile splits. I didn't look at see what my pace was while I was running, nor did I look at the total time until the end. I just knew my splits were pretty good and so I just tried to keep it up. I had a couple of slower miles where there were some hills, but I felt pretty strong on the hills. I'm not too crazy about the last couple of miles where you're out of the canyon and are running along the highway, but I just kept telling myself that I was almsot done. I felt good through out the race and didn't really struggle to keep going until the last mile.

My pace and split times are from my Garmin, which shows 13.2 miles instead of 13.1, so they're a little off from what the official race results will be.

AP: 7:49. Splits: 8:20, 8:05, 8:03, 7:48, 7:49, 7:45, 7:39, 7:41, 7:25, 7:58, 7:58, 7:36, 7:37, 0.20 @ 7:39.

Official results are in.

Chip Time: 1:43:20

Gun Time: 1:44:25

Overall place: 446 out of 3282

Sex place: 116 out of 1942

Division place: 15 out of  221

Here's a photo of the 4 of us (Michelle, Michelle, me, and Carly) right after the race.

Recovery run #1.

6:48 am, 40°F, 29% humidity, winds calm.

AP: 9:49. Splits: 10:09, 9:54, 10:04, 9:29, 9:41, 9:35

My kids are on Spring Break this week so I don't have to drive anyone to seminary or to school.  I took the opportunity today to sleep in this morning. I need to get up early to run tomorrow even though there's no school, because I have a longer run. It was really nice to to get a good night's sleep last night.

I'm supposed to run 4 miles later today. I'm going to try to do it at lunch time, but then I'll have to shower at work, which is a hassle. But the alternative is to try to do it in the evening and that's difficult because of family obligations. So I better hurry up and get to work because I'm not exactly ahead of schedule at this point.

I forgot to review this week's proprioceptive cue last night or this morning before running. However, I had looked ahead to it a week ago so I kind of remembered it and tried to implement it at various times during my run. This week's cue is "Driving the Thigh." Here is the description from Brain Training for Runners by Matt Fitzgerald:

"Concentrate on driving the thigh of your swing leg forward a little more forcefully than you normally do. A more forceful forward-upward movement of this leg will create a counterbalancing downward-backward action in your opposite leg as it comes into contact with the ground. (Think of the way your free arm moves in opposition to your throwing arm when you throw a ball hard.) This cue will enhance your stride symmetry and stiffness."

Recovery Run #2.

12:28 pm, 59F, 13% humidity, winds 3 ENE.

AP: 9:44. Splits: 10:10, 9:47, 9:31, 9:32.

After I posted on my blog this morning, I turned on my work computer to check my email and discovered I had some things to take care of right away. Once those things were done, the morning was half gone, so I decided to work from home all morning, and then do my run and shower at home. Maybe I'll go into the office this afternoon. Maybe not. I must eat something first.

I wore my new neon green Canyonlands shirt and hat for this run. I wouldn't wear this shirt anywhere else, but I'll run in it.

I felt sluggish on this run and this morning's run too. I guess I ran hard on Saturday. With this training plan, I typically run hard enough on other days that I have no problem going slow on recovery days.

Medium-long run.

5:46 am, 35°F, 60% humidity, winds calm.

Man, it takes a long time to run 14 miles. This run just went on, and on, and on, and on, and on. I ran my hilly home/office loop, but that's only about 9 or 10 miles, so then I had to do a bunch of wandering around the 'hood to get to 14 miles. Tuesdays are tough on this training plan.

AP: 9:08. Splits: 10:05, 9:19, 9:11, 9:18, 9;26, 9:19, 9:21, 8:51, 8:44, 8:50, 8:37, 9:06, 9:06, 8:34, 0.12 @ 8:51.

It looks like we're going to get a snow storm in the next day or two. Drat.

Snow day. I figure we've got about 6-8 inches on my deck. My kids would be off school today even if they weren't already on Spring Break. Even my husband's school district canceled today, which is really unusual. They're not nearly as quick to cancel as our local school district is. And I've got the start of a sore throat. I'll have to see if the roads get cleared enough that I can make it to my office to run on the treadmill at some point today.

**Update**

Recovery run on the TM.

AP: 9:50. Splits: 10:00, 10:00, 9:50, 9:41, 9:41.

I slept in this morning because of the snow, but then got up in time for an 8:00 conference call. I then worked from home all morning, but my two oldest sons were not getting along and were making me crazy. Around noon I looked out and even our piddly neighborhood road had been plowed and looked fine, so I gathered up all my stuff and headed in to the office.

Once I got here, I ran on the treadmill. If I had been running outside, I would have done 3 miles in shoes and 2 miles in VFFs. Since I was on the treadmill where there are no little pebbles, I decided to do 3 miles in shoes and 2 miles barefoot. After I had run 3 miles, I kicked off my shoes, but left my socks on. I ran like that for a minute or two, but it felt too slippery, so I took my socks off. Shortly after that, Toto's "Africa," performed by Perpetuum Jazzile, came on my mp3 player. So I tried to image myself running barefoot across the African plain while staring out the window at the snow. I also focused on the "Drive the Thigh" proprioceptive cue. That was the best part of my run.

When I had been running about 1.3 miles barefoot, I felt a blister developing on the bottom of my right foot. I thought about just pushing through it because I only had a few minutes to go, but it hurt and I decided that the barefoot running wasn't worth making the blister worse. So I stopped the treadmill and put my shoes back on, sweaty socks and all, and finished out my run.

So now I've got a lovely blister (fortunately it's not too big) on the bottom of my foot and it hurts to walk. I hope it feels good enough by tomorrow to do a tempo run.

Tempo run - 11 miles w/ 6 miles @ 15K-1/2M pace.

8:36 am, 29-34°F, 62% humidity, winds 2 S.

This was a tough run. I've had workouts like this that called for 15K-1/2m pace before and I figured if I was a little slower than 8:00 pace on them, that was fine. But then I had to go run a 1/2 marathon last Saturday and acquire a new 1/2M pace. Based on that race, my 15K-1/2M pace is 7:43-7:54. So I guess now I have to run my tempo workouts faster than I had been.

Usually when I have a workout like this, I run the warm-up miles really slowly in order to rest up for the tempo portion. The problem with that approach is that I have to increase my speed so drastically when I start the tempo portion, and I haven't been able to hit the target pace for the first couple of tempo miles. So I had this idea that it would be better to run the warm-up miles a little faster and try to increase my speed so that I was closer to the target pace when I started the tempo portion and wouldn't have to make such a jump. So that's what I tried to do today. It worked out okay to begin with, and I hit the target pace on my first tempo mile. But then I hit the dreaded mile 5 on this route, with it's 125 feet of elevation gain to only 13 feet of elevation loss. Maybe that doesn't seem like a lot to some of you, but it's just this gradual uphill for nearly the whole mile. Actually, the gradual uphill starts in mile 4, so I'm already tired by the time I start mile 5. Maybe I need to find a new route to do my tempo runs on.

I was in about mile 6 overall (mile 3 of the tempo) and was running along a main road. I was crossing at a light when a smaller street met the main road. When I was half-way across, the light turned yellow, so I picked up the pace, and waved to the car that was waiting to turn onto the main street, so that they would see me and wait for me. Well, it turned out to be my good friend Bozena, whom I haven't seen in several months, in that car. She recognized me and waved. I waved back but kept running, so I didn't stop and talk to her or anything. Still, it was a nice surprise to see her.

Yesterday's blister didn't really bother me. I didn't even really feel it at all until the last mile. Yesterday evening I popped it and then put neosporin and a band-aid on it, and that seemed to help.

I'm going to try to buy some new running shoes today.

AP: 8:30. Splits: 9:37, 9:00, 8:48, 7:52, 8:31, 8:02, 7:43, 7:53, 7:49, 8:53, 9:16.

So all of my tempo miles were in the appropriate range except for the 2nd one, which was way too slow, and the 3rd one, which has about 70 feet of elevation loss and gain for a net of 0. I guess I was still tired from the 2nd mile on the 3rd mile. Also. I've got a bit of a head cold, so maybe that hurt me a bit.

Recovery run.

7:23 am, 34°F, 51% humidity, wind 2 W.

I've been taking it easy this week with sleeping in and running late. It's going to be a rude awakening to have to get back to real life and the dark, cold, early mornings next week.

I got some new shoes for my birthday yesterday. Michelle went shopping with me. I had to lie to the sales punk about what distance I plan to run in them in order to get him to show me racing flats. In any case, I settled on the Brooks Green Silence, which are really red and yellow and look like Ronald McDonald shoes. Here they are:

I ran the first 4 miles in these shoes, and then changed to the VFFs for the last two miles.

I spent today's run thinking about tomorrow's 20 miler. I think the trail is going to be too snowy to run on. So my choices are to run a 20 mile loop on the streets, which would require me essentially to circumnavigate Highlands Ranch and would be very hilly. Or I could do repeats of a smaller loop, like do my 10 mile loop twice, but that would give me that nasty mile 5 hill that kicked my butt yesterday twice. Or I could do my 2 mile loop 10 times, or my 4 mile loop 5 times. I kind of like the idea of the 4 mile loop five times, because it doesn't take so long to do the 4 mile loop, and 5 repeats aren't that many, so it might seem shorter psychologically. And if I did either the 2 mile loop 10 times or the 4 miles loop 5 times, I could set up a little aid station in my front yard and practice drinking from cups on the run and then I wouldn't have to carry my fuel belt. Decisions, decisions.

And just to make things even more fun, it looks like we're due for another snow storm tonight/tomorrow morning. Maybe I'll do 4 mile loops in my yak traks tomorrow. Dang these spring storms that mess up my long runs. This reminds me of last Spring when I ran 20 miles on a 1/12 of a mile indoor track because of snow. I guess this is the risk I take with training for a Spring marathon.

Incidentally, I've decided that I have seasonal allergies, not a head cold, because my snot is clear. Still, I'm kind of a sneezing, drippy mess, especially right after I come in from running.

AP: 10:03. Splits: 10:29, 10:01, 9:47, 9:39, 10:06, 10:18.

I was starting to get into a groove with those new Ronald McDonald shoes, but then I slowed way down in the VFFs. I just don't run fast in the VFFs for some reason. Maybe it's a good thing I switched to them today because this was supposed to be a recovery run, and I was starting to run too fast in the Ronald McDonald shoes.

Long run with a fast finish, just because I wanted to be done.

6:53 am, 33-40°, 79-53% humidity, winds 12 NNW, gusting to 20.

Well, we didn't get a big snow storm like I was afraid we would. It tried to snow a little bit last night, but never amounted to anything. So the only issue this morning was the cold and the wind. The cold actually wasn't too bad except when I was going into the wind. The wind got a little worse during the course of the run.

The voting yesterday was unanimous in favor of my running the 4 mile loop 5 times, so that's what I did. Michelle ran to my house and then ran my second loop and then she ran back home. It was nice to have company for part of the run. In accordance with jun's recommendation yesterday, I alternated directions. I normally run this route clockwise, but today I ran the 1st, 3rd, and 5th loops counter-clockwise and the 2nd and 4th loops clockwise.

I came in my house for a bathroom break and some water after the second loop, and then I stopped again after the third loop and had about half of an apple pie flavored hammer gel and some water.

There's nothing really exciting to report about this run. I'm just glad it's over.

AP: 9:17. Splits: 9:34, 9:32, 9;16, 9:17, 10:01, 9:50, 9;51, 9:46, 9:09, 9:09, 9:08, 9:04, 9:00, 9:08, 9:06, 9:04, 9;12, 9:09, 9:07, 8:21.

I'm calling that last mile a fast mile because it's below my arbitrary designation of anything below 8:30 as fast.

Recovery run #1.

5:13 am, 43°F, 23% humidity, wind 6 S, as a huge yellow full moon slipped below the western horizon.

AP: 10:18. Splits: 10:18, 10:27, 10:35, 10:18, 10:13, 10:02.

It was not hard for me to keep it slow today. My legs were kind of heavy.

I've got to do a 4 mile run later today, just like last Monday. I'm going to try to make it into the office today and run from work at lunch time. Since several of you asked about my double last Monday, I thought I'd tell you what Pfitzinger says about why it's in the schedule:

"In these schedules, doubles are called for only on the occasional recovery day, with a total of 10 miles for the day. On these days, your recovery will be enhanced by doing a 6-miler and a 4-miler rather than putting in one 10-mile run. Instead of making you more tired, splitting your mileage like this on easy days will speed your recovery because each run will increase blood flow to your muscles yet take little out of you."

I forgot to look up the next proprioceptive cue before this run, so I just occasionally thought about last week's Driving the Thigh cue. In any case, this week's cue is Floppy Feet. Here's the description from Brain Training for Runners by Matt Fitzgerald:

"The human foot contains twenty-seven bones and dozens of muscles and ligaments. This complex structure enables the foot to deform in an intricate, wavelike pattern while it is in contact with the ground during running. Unfortunately, shoes greatly restrict this natural movement. You can get a lot of it back by wearing a running shoe that allows greater freedom of foot movement, such as the Nike Free. You can get even more back by concentrating on running with relaxed, "floppy" feet while running. When practicing this cue, continue to strike the ground forcefully with your feet, but use the muscles of your upper leg to generate this force while keeping your foot relaxed, enabling it to absorb and transfer impact forces in a way that will minimize stress on specific tissues and increase the amount of free elastic energy you are able to store and reuse."

This sounds like kind of a tricky cue to do. I'll have to give it a go on my 4-miler later today.

Recovery run #2.

12:01 pm, 68°F, 13% humidity, winds calm, partly cloudy.

AP: 10:05. Splits: 10:31, 10:26, 9:44, 9:39.

Well, I did it. I had lead legs and felt slow. During these slow recovery runs, I sometimes feel like I'll never be able to run fast again. But I remember that I was slow and sluggish during both recovery runs last Monday, so I have hope that I will be able to run my normal pace tomorrow. And I did get going by the end of this second run today.

I ran in to a coworker that I am acquainted with in the locker room when I was getting ready to run. Then I crossed paths with her out on the street about half-way through my run. She was walking. And then I passed her on the hill leading up to the office at the very end of my run. My office is in kind of a small business park, and I saw a handful of other people out walking and a couple of runners. I'm sure they all work nearby and were out on their lunch breaks.

I tried to relax my feet per the Floppy Feet cue, but I don't know how successful I was. It's hard to relax your feet when you're running.

Medium-long run.

4:39 am, 49-52°F, 27% humidity, wind 9 SSE.

I'm glad this run is over. Of course I have to do this (this being 15 miles on a week day) two more times in this training cycle, and I have to do 14 miles on a week day, which is almost as bad,  three more times.

I never really felt good on this whole run. Maybe it was the lack of adequate sleep. Maybe it was that I dressed too warmly. (I wore long pants and a long sleeve shirt because I just couldn't bring myself to put on shorts and a short-sleeve shirt at 4:30 am, though I should have.) Maybe it was that my shoes started feeling uncomfortable after about 10 miles. I don't like these Nike Lunaracers for long distances. I hope the new Ronald McDonald shoes do better.

About 3/4 of a mile into my run I realized up with my left hand and scratched my back. I wear my Garmin on my left wrist. I must have bumped the stop button when I scratched my back because two or three minutes later I realized that Garmin was stopped. I figure that I had run between .2 and .3 miles while my Garmin was stopped. I decided to go ahead and run until my Garmin said 15 miles, even though I missed that little bit. So I'm crediting myself with 15.2 miles even though my Garmin only said 15 and my AP and splits are based on the 15 that my Garmin recorded.

When I had about 5.5 miles to go, I found myself at an intersection and needed to make a decision about which way to go to get the rest of the run done. I was near the 5 mile point of my normal 6-mile route, so I decided to run that route in reverse from that point. Given the time of day and the similarity between my 6-mile route and Michelle's 4-mile route, I figured there was a good chance I would see her. First I saw the stiff-arm old man and then a minute later I crossed paths with Michelle. Then I realized that I would see her again on a different part of the loop. Sure enough, I crossed-paths with her again a couple of miles later. At that point I was following a runner who I thought might be Ali, who ran with us one Saturday a while ago. Sure enough, it was Ali. I passed her a little while after I crossed paths with Michelle the second time. I thought I was overdressed, but Ali was way overdressed.

AP: 9:17. Splits: 9:49, 9:49, 9:40, 9:43, 9:32, 9:30, 9:19, 9:10, 9:06, 9:10, 8:49, 8:47, 8:50, 9:02, 8:56.

Recovery run.

8:30 am, 42°F, 53% humidity, wind 9 NW.

My body was pretty broken down after 15 miles in the wrong shoes yesterday. The big toe on my right foot was complaining the loudest. Perhaps that's why when my alarm went off at 4:30 this morning, and then again at 4:39, and then again at 4:48, I reset it for 6:15 and went back to sleep. I got up at 6:15 and drove Thing 2 to seminary, and then went back home, reset my alarm for 7:15 and went back to bed. Then I got up and drove Thing 1 to school and got breakfast for Thing 4 and got her off to school. (Notice that I didn't have to do anything for Thing 3. Actually I had to wake him up before I left for seminary, but that was the only thing.) Then I went for my run. My toe was sufficiently calm by then. And my toe made it through the run.

I saw Michelle during my run. She was on her way to go visiting teaching at Carly's house. So I stopped in and said hello to them after my run since Carly lives just a few houses down the street from me.

Normally I would do a couple of miles in VFFs today, but I've been having just a little teeny tiny bit of heel pain some mornings recently, and so I've decided to back off of the VFFs until after the Newport Marathon.

I've still got to go to work today. And it's my husband's birthday and I'm not entirely prepared. We skipped the birthday breakfast this morning because he leaves for work at about 5:15 and everyone else was in bed at that point today, including me.

AP: 9:42. Splits: 10:17, 9:43, 9:37, 9:36, 9:32, 9:30, 0.11 @ 9:16.

Looks like it turned into a very gradual accidental progression run.