Same Time, Same Channel

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.