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Location:

Littleton,CO,USA

Member Since:

Aug 04, 2008

Gender:

Female

Goal Type:

Boston Qualifier

Running Accomplishments:

I've run off and on (more off than on) throughout my adult life. Most recently I started running in May of 2007.

5K PR: Colder Bolder in December 2009 in 22:50.

10k PR: Bolder Boulder in May 2009 in 48:06.13.

1/2 Marathon PR: Canyonlands Half-Marathon in March 2010 in 1:43:20.

Marathon PR: Newport (Oregon) Marathon in June 2010 in 3:42:17.

I have completed two full marathons.

Short-Term Running Goals:

Get back to consistent running.

Long-Term Running Goals:

Sub 3:30 marathon.

Personal:

I grew up in Utah, but live in Colorado now.

I am married and am a working mother of four children, ages 9-19.

Favorite Blogs:

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Miles:This week: 0.00 Month: 0.00 Year: 0.00
Nike Lunarracer Lifetime Miles: 284.91
Brooks Adrenaline Trail Lifetime Miles: 574.62
Brooks Green Silence Lifetime Miles: 681.13
Brooks Adrenaline 10 (2) Lifetime Miles: 424.52
Slow milesFast milesTotal Distance
55.1112.3667.47
Brooks Adrenaline Miles: 10.11Brooks Green Silence Miles: 19.12Nike Lunarracer Miles: 15.20Brooks Adrenaline Trail Miles: 7.04Brooks Adrenaline 10 Miles: 16.00
Night Sleep Time: 36.50Nap Time: 1.50Total Sleep Time: 38.00
Slow milesFast milesTotal Distance
10.080.0010.08

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.

Brooks Adrenaline Miles: 4.00Brooks Green Silence Miles: 6.08
Night Sleep Time: 5.00Nap Time: 0.00Total Sleep Time: 5.00
Comments(14)
Slow milesFast milesTotal Distance
15.200.0015.20

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.

Nike Lunarracer Miles: 15.20
Night Sleep Time: 5.00Nap Time: 1.50Total Sleep Time: 6.50
Comments(9)
Slow milesFast milesTotal Distance
6.110.006.11

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.

Brooks Adrenaline Miles: 6.11
Night Sleep Time: 7.50Nap Time: 0.00Total Sleep Time: 7.50
Comments(18)
Slow milesFast milesTotal Distance
13.040.0013.04

Medium-long run.

4:53 am, 48-39°F, 41% humidity, wind 5 SSE.

I checked the temperature before I got dressed to run this morning and it was 48, but I was worried that the temperature would drop during my run. I debated whether to wear long pants or shorts. I finally went with shorts, even though I thought the temperature would drop. Well, the temperature did drop and I was getting cold by the end of my run.

I tried to take it fairly slow and easy today because I've got a long marathon-pace run on Saturday. This week is kind of a big week in terms of my training schedule, and so I'm just trying to survive it. Next week is a recovery week. Then I have 5 hard weeks after that before I start cutting back leading up to the race. I sometimes wonder what possessed me to do this training plan.

A while ago I put 2 or 3 whole albums that belong to my oldest son on my mp3 player and I haven't listened to them all the way through, so I sometimes hear a song on my mp3 player that I've never heard before. That happened this morning while I was running. It turned out to be a pretty good song for running and made me feel energetic. It's a song by Gogol Bordello called "Suddenly...(I Miss Carpaty)." For some reason I like this weird eastern-European rock.

I ran my home/work loop and made a pit stop at the Northridge rec center about 4 miles into the run.

AP: 9:33. Splits: 10:01, 9:34, 9:30, 9:21, 9:45, 9:46, 9:56, 9:31, 9:23, 9:20, 9:08, 9:29, 9:27.

Brooks Green Silence Miles: 13.04
Night Sleep Time: 5.50Nap Time: 0.00Total Sleep Time: 5.50
Comments(15)
Slow milesFast milesTotal Distance
6.680.367.04

Recovery run w/ 6 x 100 m strides.

5:06 am, 31°F, 26% humidity, winds calm and then 10-15 W.

Well, I didn't have to struggle with deciding whether to wear shorts or pants this morning. The cold weather has arrived, but no precipitation yet. I was thinking during the first part of my run this morning that it wasn't too bad because it wasn't windy like it's been all week, but about the time I got to the track to do the strides, the wind started up in a big way and I had to contend with it for the rest of my run. On the strides, the odd numbered strides were into the wind and I had the wind behind me on the the even numbered strides.

Aside from the strides, I really put the slow in recovery this morning.

Splits before the strides: 10:47, 10:46, 10:34, 10:35, 0.66 @ 10:33.
Paces on the strides: 7:00, 7:14, 8:07, 7:12, 7:42, 6:55.
Splits after the strides: 10:19, 0.70 @ 10:04.

I got home just in time to drive to seminary only to find out that the boy was skipping seminary to finish a school project. (He has really good seminary attendance, so I let him skip from time to time when he needs to.) I wish I had known last night that he wasn't going to seminary today. I would have slept a little later. It sure was tough getting out of bed this morning.


Brooks Adrenaline Trail Miles: 7.04
Night Sleep Time: 6.50Nap Time: 0.00Total Sleep Time: 6.50
Comments(5)
Slow milesFast milesTotal Distance
4.0012.0016.00

Marathon-pace run - 16 miles w/ 12 @ marathon goal pace.

8:21 am, 43-52°F, 25% humidity, wind 9 SSW, all by myself on the Highline Canal Trail.

I had good intentions to get up early and get this run done in time to be showered before the start of Saturday-morning General Conference at 10 am. But I gave up that intention in favor of an attempt at more sleep.

I have been having a little issue with some PF pain in my right foot since about last Tuesday. It wasn't really bad, but it was bad enough yesterday that it bothered me all day, but I could walk on it. So I did some significant things yesterday to try to keep this thing from derailing my marathon training.

I think the cause is that I've been running too much in racing flats and my feet apparently just aren't strong enough for that. All my non-racing flat shoes were getting old, so I went out and bought myself a new pair of Brooks Adrenalines. I think for now I need to wear sturdier shoes for longer runs, and save the racing flats for the shorter runs. I also bought myself a Strassburg Sock, and wore it to bed last night. Finally, I went in to see my ART guy last night and had him work on my foot. That might have been the most helpful thing. My foot had been bothering me all day Friday, but as soon as the ART guy finished working on me (and nothing he has ever done to me before has hurt like this did), I could stand on it and it didn't hurt and it hasn't bothered me except for a wee little bit at the start of my run since. Maybe the Strassburg Sock helped too, but it was sure uncomfortable to sleep in. I tossed and turned and didn't sleep well, and finally took it off at about 4 a.m.

Now, after the run (for which I wore the new shoes), my foot feels okay in terms of the PF pain, but the stupid big toe, which has also been bothering me since last Tuesday, is not very happy. When I got in my car to drive home, I took off my shoes and socks and drove home barefoot and I kept getting shooting pains in my big toe.

I guess I should say something about the run, even though this post is getting long. The run went fine. I tried to use the first 4 miles to work up to the target pace. My marathon pace, based on my recent 1/2 M race, is 8:19. But Pfitzinger says to run at goal marathon pace. To reach my goal of a 3:30 marathon, I need to run 8:01 pace. So I decided to target my MP miles between 8:01 and 8:19. I hit that target except for the last mile, which I ran a little bit faster, not because I was feeling good. I wasn't. I was feeling lousy. I just wanted to be done.

It's been a long time since I've run to the 8-mile marker on that trail. I usually do multiple shorter out and backs. The trail was in great shape. All the snow and ice is gone, it was dry, and it wasn't too rutted. On the way out, I passed several other runners. I didn't see as many runners on the way back, though I did pass some. It turned out that the wind was more or less behind me on the way out (which I did not realize at the time) and so I was more or less going into the wind on the way back, particularly in the last half mile. On the way back, I had to grab my hat several times to keep it on, and one time it blew off. I stopped to pick it up and rested for about 10-20 seconds. That was my only stop during the run. (I paused my watch, so the splits don't show it.) That's one difference about running on the trail verses on the roads. On the roads, I have to stop and wait for lights at intersections. The trail crosses some roads, but mostly they're small roads with little traffic. The route I took today crossed two busy roads, but those roads both had underpasses for the trail.

AP: 8:23. Splits: 9:44, 9:12, 8:51, 8:37, 8:05, 8:12, 8:06, 8:08, 8:14, 8:16, 8:14, 8:11, 8:07, 8:15, 8:07, 7:53. So average pace for the MP portion (if I did the math right), was 8:09.

Brooks Adrenaline 10 Miles: 16.00
Night Sleep Time: 7.00Nap Time: 0.00Total Sleep Time: 7.00
Comments(19)
Slow milesFast milesTotal Distance
55.1112.3667.47
Brooks Adrenaline Miles: 10.11Brooks Green Silence Miles: 19.12Nike Lunarracer Miles: 15.20Brooks Adrenaline Trail Miles: 7.04Brooks Adrenaline 10 Miles: 16.00
Night Sleep Time: 36.50Nap Time: 1.50Total Sleep Time: 38.00
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