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.