Gonna have to find a loop near my apt in nashville with some more dirt. This loop has about 3/4 miles dirt and probably 7 of grass if you care enough, but the grass is tall and in bunches that are hard to run on. I will probably drive the 3.5 miles to percy warner park and do the 8 mile horse trail most of the time.
Heat index = 100 I took 24oz of nuun and drank it by 5 miles where I refilled at a water fountain (a redeeming feature of this route) not to drink but to poor over my head on the last 3.6 miles. I was happy with how I felt in the heat. I definitely can do easy runs in this kind of heat. But Im afraid that tempo runs and even good interval sessions are gonna have to be done on a treadmill or on the indoor track. I will experiment with long runs in the heat (which I have had problems with in the past but I was also in much worse shape then) later this week but probably in the morning in 80-85 degree weather instead of 100.
Long tempo on the treadmill. This was the longest run on a treadmill I have ever done by 4 miles. It wasn't too boring though because of the pain. The reason I did this was to get a good workout and I can't do that in this 90+ heat. I brought a fan, but I need a bigger one. And unfortunately it is not allowed to be shirtless in the vandy gym. I asked if I could sue them if I got a heat stroke when the guy told me it wasn't allowed and he said "sure, I guess". Given these issues I had some problems on the run. I started out a bit too ambitious probably--6:30 pace with 1.5 incline. I made it to 6.5 miles like that and decided that I could not make it to 10 if I kept it there. I dropped the incline to 1 and the pace to 6:40 till mile 7 but I was already too spent. I got a cramp and was forced to walk for 30 sec twice but in the end I averaged 6:50 pace even with the two walking breaks so I guess it wasn't so bad. Not counting the walking breaks it would have been 6:45 pace. The great thing about this run was the two guys beside me who obviously saw me and thought they could run faster and put the speed where I was but one lasted 2 miles and the other lasted 3/4 of a mile, lol.
AM. Easy 3 to work and 2 on the treadmill. I will probably usually run outside for the extra at least in the morning.
PM. Easy 2 around the park and then 3 home. Felt darn good despite the heat. Im feeling thin again which really helps. I need to spend less time with my parents who eat horrendously. They aren't fat, but I don't know why.
AM: easy 3 to work and 2 around the track. Im gonna bring my gps and find a 2-3 mile loop around campus so I don't have to deal with the boredom of running in circles or on the TM. Gonna do a workout tonight with this group that I am faster than. I will take it pretty easy. The coach is a 15:30 5k guy so he knows most of the runners in the area and perhaps he can suggest a group or training partners more at my level. The workout should be good. On my long tempo the other day I felt like I was going fast at times, which shouldnt be the case. It should feel slow, but difficult to sustain. Even my mile pace feels slow when I am properly trained for the mile. It feels slow and yet I can only keep it up for 5 min. I think it is because of the fast 200's that we did. So if I do some fast 400's or 800's then hopefully tempo and marathon paces will start feeling slow again.
PM. Did a workout with the group from last summer. I really like having people to do workouts with, but the workouts don't seem very good to me now. I like to have very specific reasons for the type of workout I do. We did 3x150m, 3x200m, 1xmile, 3x400m, 3x200m. I don't think I am gonna go with them anymore because I think that my workouts are much more beneficial. I don't need that fast stuff almost ever (although I like it rarely just to make other paces feel slower). I need a lot of volume of VO2max pace for track workouts. And tempo I will do elsewhere.
BTW, my left big toe has been hurting the past few days. Can you even get stress fractures in your toes? I mean, if you are not a ballerina? I am gonna ice it tonight and see what happens tomorrow. The pain isn't really bad, but it came on pretty suddenly feeling like my toe was out of place but then it suddenly stopped hurting later in the run. Over the past few days it has hurt for more and more of each run. This probably won't be an issue, but its always worrying when anything hurts for longer than a few strides.
I ran with Ted today for the first time. He said his easy pace was 7-7:30 and I thought he was probably one of those guys who never runs workouts and always runs mileage hard, but no luck. He has run a 5k in 14:40 in his college days and many in the 15's since then. Luckily he is ridiculously out of shape right now which is to say, still quite a bit better shape than I am. So our trail run was a good bit faster than I wanted to go, but in the end he was like, wow, that hurt. So hopefully we can run together more and at a more reasonable pace. He is gonna train for a 2:40 marathon in the fall which considering his speed if he just puts in the long runs he should do it.
AM: 3 to work and 3.45 around campus. Got a little lost and ended up running .45 more than planned. Felt good. I just need to lose more weight so I don't feel bad about going shirtless as it is a must in this weather.
Went home to muscle shoals (yes the name of the town is misspelled, it should be mussel shoals) AL for fathers day weekend. Found out that my current 8 mile route has a nice gravel/dirt shoulder that I can run on. Went too fast on this run. It was 85F and I averaged 7:36. All I was doing was trying to keep my turnover near 180 and I thought my stride was laughably short. I didn't feel like I was pushing it really. In this heat nothing feels really easy, but Ive been going by Daniels breathing test. If you can do 3 strides per breath in and 3 per breath out and maintain that for a while then the pace is easy enough. Of course, Daniels thinks my easy pace should be 7:15-7:25 which is just not the case. It is especially not the case with heat, hills, and slow but soft running surfaces. Wish I was up in RI to do the trail race tomorrow. Bedoukian will gain fitness on me with that probably. I need to think about what my workouts will be this week actually. I am racing 18 miles on saturday, so wednesday I should do VO2max. So sunday 8.2 + monday 9.75 + tuesday 6.2+6.2 + wednesday 6.2+7 + thursday 8.2 + friday 5 + saturday 18 = 74.75 maybe too much. I could cut one of the 6.2's(3 to work + 3.2 around campus) down to 3 if im feeling tired. But I like doubling 2 days/week for 70mpw. It seems right to me especially in this heat. My last long run was the trail marathon, but it wasn't too long ago so I should be fine for the 18 miler.
