Same Time, Same Channel

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.