10 miles steady in 70:28 at 11am. Ran from home 5 miles up the Old Croton Aqueduct (OCA) trail to the Scarborough school and back. Splits were even: 35:25 / 35:03.
We have been having a heat wave and today was hot again, but at least there was a bit of a breeze returning. Ran without my shirt which always seems to make me go faster. Overall, I went harder than planned and was surprised to hit even splits -- I thought I'd die coming back. Ending HR was 160. Felt strong overall, and it was a good effort considering the weather.
My left hip and right knee were a little sore as usual, but it's just the same old niggles, nothing acute.
In the last half mile after I got off the trail and on to the streets, I was running down a narrow street made more narrow by construction work on the side of the street. A teenager (ooooh!!! I hate teenagers!) driving an SUV with a girl in the front seat was weaving as he came towards me, pretending like he might hit me. As he passed I slapped the back of his car to let him know I didn't hold with his driving. In retrospect I wish I'd hit the driver-side rearview mirror right next to him and knocked it off-kilter a bit. Oh well - you always think of these things later. One thing I've always wanted to have the opportunity to do is jump up on a car's hood if it pulls out and cuts me off. Not sure I'd actually have the nuggets to do that, but it's fun to think about at least.
Hit the Tarrytown Y later in the afternoon for my upper-body routine. If anyone is interested, this usually consists of:
bench press
standing row (where you lean over frontwards and pull a barbell up towards your stomach)
pec flies
shoulder press
upright row
shrugs
shoulder raises (front and side)
shoulder flies
lat pull-downs
tricep extensions
bicep curls
I use a combination of free weights and machines depending on the exercise. I use whatever weight leads to burn out after ~12 reps. Normally I do just one set of each, and typically I do the whole routine every 3 days. It takes about 45 minutes.
Current weight is 148 compared to a racing weight of about 144.
6 miles easy in 47 at 7:30am at Rockefeller. Drove with Alana to Gory Brook Road and started and finished there. [If anyone is interested, "Rockefeller" refers to the Rockefeller State Park Preserve in Sleepy Hollow, NY, and the surrounding land. All the land once belonged to John D. Rockefeller, who bought it up around the turn of the century. A few years back, the family donated about a quarter of it for the park, and most of the land they still own is open to walkers and runners. The whole area comprises about 3000 acres and there are dozens of miles of dirt/gravel carriage roads. There are quite a few hills (some overlook the Hudson River) and a couple lakes and a bunch of streams, and the landscape is mostly wooded with some open meadows. There is even a functioning farm owned by David Rockefeller. All of this 25 miles north of midtown Manhattan.
It is probably the best place in the world to run. I'm pretty lucky.]
I was a little groggy this morning so I wore sunglasses even though it wasn't bright yet. Plus, they got fogged up on account of the heat and humidity and I didn't bother to wipe them off, so I definitely spent the run in a cloudy haze. Fine with me. The only thing even moderately memorable about this run was that I stopped to clear a large limb that had fallen on the trail and shattered overnight during the thunderstorms we had.
End HR was 140. I felt OK and obviously didn't push it.
Lower-body workout at the Y at noon. This normally consists of 2 go-rounds of my ab circuit plus a bunch of leg exercises. The ab circuit includes:
knee raises in the captain's chair holding a dumbbell between my feet
reverse crunches on the Roman chair holding a medicine ball out in front
crunches on the balance ball
side lean-over thingies holding very heavy dumbbells
straight leg raises in the captain's chair
crunches sitting on the very front of a weight bench
For legs I usually do the following:
leg press
calf raises
leg extensions on the quad machine (I think this really helped improve my runner's knee)
hamstring curls
hips (flexors, extensors, ad- and abductors)
I use ankle weights for the hamstring and hip exercises. All of this takes about an hour and I try to do it every 3 days.
9 miles in 63 at 6:30am at Rockefeller, starting and ending at Gory Brook. It was cooler than previous days (about 75). Here in the East, during summer it often never gets below 70 or 75, even at night.
Avg pace was 7:04 and avg HR was 151. I ran fairly easy but threw in 6 or 8 pickups lasting, say, 30 seconds to 2 minutes each. My legs accepted these only grudgingly. When you have lifted hard the previous day, you really can feel exactly what muscles running uses. In particular, my hips were feeling it today when I tried to pick it up. After I finished my legs felt pretty beat up. The ol' knees are aching but nothing out of the ordinary. Took an ibuprofen and will ice later.
Stopped to look for a cougar around 4 miles. Timed it to run past the visitors' center where they have porta-johns.
I saw some of the local Africans training this morning. They are "sub-elite" or semi-pro, not internationally competitive, but it still gives me a little thrill to see them training. I think they all have day jobs and just try to scrape up $500 or $1000 at the local and regional races. If there is prize money at a local race, there will always be some of the local Africans there. If you can run 5 miles in 24:00 and it feels like a tempo run and win a couple hundred bucks, why wouldn't you?
Khalid Khannouchi, US record holder in the marathon, lives in Ossining and sometimes trains at Rockefeller too, though I've never seen him.
Anyway, towards the end I passed a woman who I think is Kenyan and lives in Sleepy Hollow, and I said hi. I have to admit it gave me a tiny bit of satisfaction to pass her. Well, you know what, later my wife said she had seen her cranking out intervals on the trail, so I guess by the time I passed her she was warming down. I guess that's a little sad to feel like a stud for passing a woman on her warm-down.
Around 6 miles easy at 8:30am. Ran from home south on the OCA to around Ardsley and back.
Not hot this morning, thankfully. Very wet and humid as I just missed a pretty good rainstorm right before I headed out. The trail was in pretty bad shape from all the rain. I tried to avoid the puddles and mud as much as possible, but ended up with the backs of my legs caked in mud.
Felt fine and didn't push it. End HR 140.
Off to a Yankees game in about an hour! It is an afternoon game against the Twins. Yanks have a 5-game win streak and Mussina is pitching.
Ran at 8:45am in a big loop: up to Marymount, on the Tarrytown Lakes bike path, up the Putnam North County trailway bike path, up into Rockefeller, past Stone Barns, onto OCA and past the HS, and then back home. First mile neighborhoods, then almost 5 on asphalt bike paths, and the rest (except the last half mile) on dirt/gravel carriage roads.
Weather was coolish, cloudy, humid, with bits of light rain.
Felt pretty good on this run. The first 6 miles, on pavement, the legs really wanted to go and the pace was under 7 with not much effort. Getting onto the trails and up the hills starting at mile 6, I lost a bit of mojo and had a couple of easy miles. After that, most of the rest was downhill or flat, and hit those miles at 7:00 pace or just over.
Came home just absolutely drenched, as usual, from the humidity. My shorts weighed about 3 pounds and my shoes were squish-squishing the entire way. My feet look like prunes now.
Legs feel a little banged up. Tomorrow is a planned day off and I'll look forward to that. I'm trying a 6-day cycle: medium/short/medium/short/long/off (in terms of mileage).
8M in 57:35 this morning at 7:45am. Ran up the OCA to the Rockwood Hall bike bridge and back. Weather was nice.
2M w.u., then 4x (200, 200, 400) with equal distance recovery, then 2M w.d. Splits were 28:10/29:25. The positive splits reflect a slower warm-down than warm-up, rather than slower reps.
The reps were estimated since I was on the trail. I could have programmed the Garmin, but I didn't feel like listening for beeps every 30 seconds that I can't hear half the time, and/or having to look at my watch every 10 seconds. Instead, I went by paces: I estimated 220 steps per quarter mile on the workbouts and 340 steps per quarter on the recoveries. I need to think some more about whether this is accurate.
I am guessing the pace on the workbouts was 35 sec / 200m or 70 sec per quarter, or possibly slightly slower. It is supposed to be full recovery, and it pretty much was. Only the last 2 quarters hurt.
Some of you might recognize this as a Jack Daniels workout. I am following his program for the 5k-15k distance. It is a 24-week program and my goal race is on Thanksgiving, so today is the first day of the second 6-week chunk. This phase is early quality and focuses on "reps" like I did today (short, relatively fast repeats with full recovery) and threshold runs.
Legs felt pretty good. Noticed just the slightest twinge on the inside of my right knee where I had trouble about 6 weeks ago. I'll be sore tomorrow but it's an easy day.
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Weights (lower body routine) at the Y in the afternoon.
