A Lean and Hungry Look

Scheduled rest day.

Drove 2 miles up Emigration, then ran up 4 miles at a comfortable pace (HR stayed below 160 most of the way).  Stopped and stretched for a few minutes, then turned around and came down.  Target pace was 5:50/mile.  Splits were:

Mile 5: 5:45 (162 bpm)

Mile 6: 5:48 (171)

Mile 7: 5:42 (174)

Mile 8: 5:54 (175)

Mile 9: 5:44 (177)

Mile 10: 5:23 (181)

Although the split for Mile 8 was a little slow, I was able to maintain a pretty consistent pace below target with a reasonable effort.  In past Emigration workouts, I think I've put more on the line and, as a result, have had difficulty recovering in time to run my Saturday workouts on target.  Instead of keeping the pedal to the floor today, I tried using cruise control until the last mile, and it felt better.  Hopefully that will translate into a better Saturday run this week.

Everything felt good today.  I didn't feel anything in my right knee, so I'm thinking that whatever it was may have been left over from the Grandeur Peak hike.  I'll keep an eye out for it, though.

Tonight we levae for Sheep Valley (near Fish Lake) for a quick camping trip/family reunion, so I'm hopeful that I can find some decent terrain for my tempo run on Saturday.  In any event, it should be fun, especially for the kids.

I ran on the trails around the Sheep Valley property.  We didn't arrive until 2:00 a.m.--due to some bad directions, an attempt to take the minivan on terrain that would challenge a 4x4 and resulted in hitting a tree and getting stuck for a while at midnight, but I digress--and I didn't get more than about 2 hours of sleep.  The run felt hot and exhausting.  I realized, after completing the run, that the elevation was about 9500 feet.  That, coupled with a lack of sleep, may have led to the overall crappy feeling.  It was spectacular country, though, and the drive home only took 3.5 hours instead of the 7.5 it took us to get there.  Call me Clark Griswold.

AHR 157

We didn't actually make it home from our camping trip and July 4th festivities until midnight on Saturday, so I broke my rule and, for only the second time in my memory, did my long run early Sunday morning (I had meetings starting at 7:30).  I'm counting it as Saturday mileage, though.  To help me justify transgressing a personal boundary, I did the run sans-iPod (I can't remember exactly where that exemption is found in Exodus).  Drove to Mountain Dell Golf Course, then ran past Little Dell and up the back side of Little Mountain, down Emigration to Crestview, up Crestview to Wasatch, around Wasatch to 13th, down to Foothill and back home.  Plan was to do the first 4 easy and the remaining 10 at a target of 6:00/mile.  Splits were as follows:

Mile 5: 6:28 (included last part of Little Mountain ascent) (157 bpm)

Mile 6: 6:01 (156)

Mile 7: 5:55 (159)

Mile 8: 5:58 (163)

Mile 9: 5:57 (166)

Mile 10: 5:55 (171)

Mile 11: 5:52 (172)

Mile 12: 5:55 (173)

Mile 13: 5:54 (included Crestview hill) (175)

Mile 14: 6:02 (177)

Although the first mile was surprisingly slow, I settled in to my pace and felt strong (strong enough to bark at a couple of cyclists who were leisurely riding two abreast and almost pushed me off the road during Mile 12) until the last half mile along Foothill, which is slightly uphill.  With about a quarter mile to go and needing to cross the road to get home, I was anaerobic and stopped for a minute to wait for a gap in traffic.  Otherwise, the AHR for the final mile would probably have been closer to 180.

I was late for my meeting, but the run went better than expected.  I don't know that I'm strong enough yet to hold 6:00 pace over terrain that isn't downhill, but I feel like I'm getting stronger each week.

Due to the shift in my long run, I'll plan to rest tomorrow and move my scheduled 6-miler to Wednesday (my scheduled rest day) instead.

Scheduled day off.

10x3-min intervals with 2 min rest between each at Liberty Park.  Goal was to maintain 5k pace of around 5:20/mile.  I pressed the wrong button on the Garmin after finishing my warmup and starting my first interval and ended up going 3:36 or so before catching the mistake.  I reset the Garmin after that and think the splits seem accurate.  Here they are:

1. 5:30 (guess)

2. 5:30 (172 bpm)

3. 5:22 (175)

4. 5:39 (176)

5. 5:32 (173)

6. 5:42 (174)

7. 5:52 (176)

8. 5:24 (175)

9. 5:57 (178)

10. 5:38 (175)

I looked down at my Garmin after about the 6th interval and thought, based on how I felt, that I must only have about 1 left.  The legs felt tired, the effort felt hard, and I just never really got into a zone.  Looking back on my numbers, I'm a little discouraged that I wasn't able to hold my target pace for even one interval.  I hope Thursday's tempo goes better.

AM: Easy 3 to work out some of the soreness from yesterday's intervals.  I'll plan to do another 3 tonight.

PM: Easy 3 with Brooke after the kids went to bed.

Plan was to do 10 with 8-mile tempo at HMP at Sugarhouse Park.  Started with a 2-mile easy warmup around the outer loop, then moved to the inner loop for the tempo portion.  Splits were as follows:

Mile 3: 5:55 (168 bpm) (one hill)

Mile 4: 6:05 (176) (two hills)

Mile 5: 5:59 (177) (one hill)

Mile 6: 6:22 (179) (two hills and the wheels are coming off)

Mile 7: 6:13 (178) (one hill and the wheels are completely off)

I only made it another 1/3 mile before calling it quits on the tempo.  My legs were burning, I felt anaerobic at the top of every hill, and there just wasn't anything else in the tank to hold tempo.  I finished out the 10 miles at an easy pace and tried to figure out what was wrong.  Here's what I came up with:

I've been getting adequate sleep at night and have been drinking a lot of water at work to stay hydrated.  One thing that may have factored into today's difficulties is the fact that this is my third all-out workout in 5 days (Sunday morning's 14-miler with 10 at MP, then Tuesday morning's intervals).  I think the problem runs a little deeper, though.

This was really only my second attempt to maintain tempo on anything other than downhill terrain, and I think it revealed the inadequacy of my base, which I've been able to mask by doing my tempo work running down Emigration.  I'm a pretty good downhill runner, so I've kind of been cheating myself by using downhill runs and counting them as true tempo.  I feel like I'm trying to build a 2:30 SGM on a base that would only support 3:00.  Compared to 3 years ago, when I last trained for a marathon, I feel like I'm lacking in the base mileage to recover properly from one hard workout to the next and to sustain a hard pace for more than a few miles on honest terrain.  I think it might make sense to reassess things and increase mileage for a month while pulling back on the frequency and duration of intense workouts, then try a workout like today's again to see whether the increased mileage has made a difference.  When I last trained using the kind of workouts I'm trying to do now, I had a solid base built over the course of the winter plus a dozen or more runs of 20+ miles (including 4 marathons) over the previous 6 months.  When I did tempo at Sugarhouse with that foundation underneath me, I was able to sustain a hard pace for 6 miles (I don't recall ever doing a longer tempo run there) with little trouble.  The focus then was on increasing turnover.  I feel like I have better speed now but a far lesser ability to sustain it.  Compared to those workouts, today's felt like a death march.

Easy 6 to Sugarhouse and back.  Had to leave at 5:00 so Brooke could make it out for her long run before I left for work.  Left shin pain for first 1/2 mile or so.  Iced it afterwards.  Need to remember to massage it before bed each night.

2x10k at target pace of 6:30-6:40/mile with warmup and cooldown.  Ran out along 20th East to 45th South, then down to 5th East, then up to and around Liberty Park, with cooldown back up the hill on 9th South (not the best cooldown, FYI).  Splits were as follows:

1st 10k (started at 21st South and 20th East and ended at 45th South and 5th East):

Mile 1: 6:32 (163 bpm) (ascent 516; descent 748)

Mile 2: 6:34 (167) (a 147; d 118)

Mile 3: 6:21 (170) (a 72; d 88)

Mile 4: 6:33 (168) (a 56; d 102)

Mile 5: 6:20 (164) (a 52; d 148)

Mile 6: 6:29 (165) (a 73; d 91)

Last 0.2: 6:53/mi (oops)

Total: 40:15

2nd 10k (started at 45th South and 5th East and ended with almost 1 lap at Liberty Park):

Mile 1: 6:32 (160) (a 680; d 681--that can't possibly be right)

Mile 2: 6:28 (168) (a 62; d 68)

Mile 3: 6:32 (168) (a 107; d 72)

Mile 4: 6:28 (174) (a 94; d 128)

Mile 5: 6:26 (173) (a 114; d 107)

Mile 6: 6:12 (177) (a 102; d 135)

Last 0.2: 6:20/mi (177)

Total: 39:55

The first couple of miles of the first 10k were harder than expected--they didn't really hurt, but I had expected it to feel relatively easy and it didn't.  It required focus to keep the pace, which felt solid but doable.  The last mile or so of the second 10k felt pretty hard.  The "cooldown" going up the 9th South hill from Liberty Park felt lousy, and I was pretty spent when I got home.  As I was stretching, I realized that because I cheated and slipped in Sunday morning's run into last week's mileage, my actual mileage for the past 7 days was just over 60, which is the highest mileage I've run in a week in over 3 years, and 4 of those days were hard workouts.  That, plus the fact that I didn't get out until after 7 this morning and it was warm and muggy, may explain the overall fatigue I'm feeling.  I'll take it easy the rest of the day and tomorrow.

21st to Stratford loop at easy pace.  Felt some lingering fatigue in the legs after last week, but no pain anywhere.  I should have gotten out at 5 am as planned, because it felt hot out there.

AHR 153

Did a VO2 test this morning to get a better idea of my heart rate zones for use in tempo training.  The preliminary results seemed to confirm that I've been going out too fast on tempo that isn't on a downhill course, which results in my going lactic and hitting a point of failure soon thereafter.  The goal will be to reset target pacing for my tempo runs and to gradually raise my threshold over the next 8-9 weeks.

Results of test: Blood lactate levels will start to rise rapidly at about 178bpm.  VO2 Max at 74ml with a heart rate of 185.  Anaerobic Threshold at 172.

Sugarhouse Park loop at easy pace (7:18/mile avg).  Gorgeous morning for a run.

AHR 159

3 sets of 5k each, with target HR between 172-178, not to exceed 178. Ran to Sugarhouse at an easy pace (a little over 2 miles), then stopped and stretched for a few minutes before the first repeat.  Had to slow pace every time I hit the hills tin an attempt to stay in my target zone, but I still jumped above 178 multiple times.  Paid no attention to pace but looked at HR frequently.  I seemed to be pretty comfortable cruising at 175 on the flat sections.  Here are the details:

Set #1 (actually 3.16 miles) (around Sugarhouse): 19:32, avg pace 6:11, AHR 172, MHR 186

Mile 1: 5:58 (166 bpm)

Mile 2: 6:09 (175)

Mile 3: 6:29 (177)

Last 0.16: 5:50/mi (174)

Set #2 (around Sugarhouse): 19:11, avg pace 6:12, AHR 175, MHR 188

Mile 1: 6:03 (170)

Mile 2: 6:09 (176)

Mile 3: 6:21 (179)

Last 0.1: 6:21 (179)

Set #3 (from SW part of Sugarhouse loop and up the hill back home): 21:02, avg pace 6:47, AHR 173, MHR 182

Mile 1: 6:38 (170)

Mile 2: 6:54 (175)

Mile 3: 6:54 (176)

Last 0.1: 5:54/mi (178)

Although the last set was all mildly uphill, I think it was still slower than it should have been, probably because I spent too much time above 178 on the second set and the legs had too much lactate coursing through them.  Still, I enjoyed focusing on HR instead of pace from a mental standpoint--I was pretty frustrated last week when I wasn't able to hold my target pace at the park.  The terrain at the park makes it hard to get into a zone and set cruise control, but I like the fact that doing tempo there forces me to recover (mainly from the hills) on the run.

Easy 6 at Bear Lake over rolling terrain.  I didn't leave until after 10 am because I was waiting for Brooke to finish her 16-miler, so it was pretty warm.

Pace: 7:30/mi

AHR: 159 bpm

Out-and-back at Bear Lake.  I headed north from the cabin (on the northeast side) and ran along the rolling hills to North Beach Road, then along North Beach Road (pancake flat) to the 8-mile marker and back.  First 6 at easy pace, last 10 at MP effort (target of 168-172 bpm).  AHR and mile splits were as follows:

Mile 7 (flat): 157 bpm/6:27

Mile 8 (flat): 167/6:26

Mile 9 (flat): 167/6:16

Mile 10 (flat): 170/6:21

Mile 11 (flat): 167/6:27

Mile 12 (flat with slight rise at end): 170/6:31

Mile 13 (rolling): 171/6:47

Mile 14 (rolling): 168/6:46

Mile 15 (rolling): 173/6:46

Mile 16 (rolling): 175/6:19

I took a Hammer Gel around 30 min (raspberry--disgusting), 60 min (orange--gross but not disgusting), and 90 min (tropical w/caffeine--gagged and involuntarily spewed most of it out), and finished off two Amphipod flasks (could have used more but didn't remember to bring extra flasks).  My energy felt pretty consistent throughout and I wasn't wiped out after the run the way I normally am after a long run.  I wish I didn't hate gel so much, because the Enervitene I prefer to use is prohibitively expensive, so I'll generally only buy it for races.  Maybe if I keep forcing myself to gag down gels during long runs I'll get used to the sensation of sucking flavored mucus.  No more raspberry, though.

Stayed up too late on Sunday night and missed my Monday run.  Darn vacation.

Easy 6 at Bear Lake.  I ran south from the cabin at a very easy pace for the first three, then picked it up slightly on the last three.  Managed to beat the sun, heat, and cars and enjoyed watching the rabbits skitter across the road in front of me.

Pace: 7:22

AHR: 152 bpm

Scheduled day off.

I headed up to Arapeen and ran through Research Park, down Wakara and along Foothill to Wasatch, then worked my way through the construction on the U of U golf course, through Federal Heights to 11th Ave, then along 11th Ave to B Street and back.  It felt hot enough that I ditched my shirt after 1/2 mile and spent the next 9 miles burning the eyes of the public (but it sure felt better!).  On the way home I ran along North Campus up to Wasatch, then through the old golf course (it looks like they've turned at least some of the upper holes into a frisbee course now--I should take the kids sometime) and back.  Opened it up a bit during the last 1/2 mile or so and felt good.

Should have taken some water with me, because I've been sucking it down like crazy ever since.

Pace: 7:30

AHR: 161 bpm (lots of hills)

Decided to break out the Nike Frees and try an easy 6 using more neutral form.  Legs and feet felt fine, but I didn't get out until after 10 am (Brooke ran 18 this morning and I was hanging out with the kids), so it was hot and miserable.  I felt pretty lousy start to finish.  Just one of those days, I suppose.  Didn't take Garmin along, but I'm sure HR didn't exceed 160.

On a more positive note, I am nearing the end of Christopher McDougall's Born to Run, and I've loved every page of it.  It's made me want to experiment with barefoot running (or at least to try out the Vibram Five Fingers) after St. George and to see if some barefoot exercises could help my wife and two of my kids, all of whom have either completely flat feet or bad arches.  I was fascinated to read about Alan Webb starting as a freshman with a size 12 foot and, after a few years of barefoot exercises, being down to between a 9 and a 10, then later setting the American Record in the mile.  The studies about, among other things, the direct relationship between rate of injury and cost of shoe, have also been provocative.  The stories themselves (about the Tarahumara Indians, Caballo Blanco, Barefoot Ted, Scott Jurek, Joe Vigil, Bill Bowerman, Nike, and a host of others) have been absolutely fascinating.  If you haven't read it yet, you should.  It's a quick and highly enjoyable read.

Plan was to run 7 miles up Emigration and turn around, with the first 4 being a warmup, then the next 10 at MP effort (HR between 168-174 bpm).  I stopped at the 4-mile mark and ate a bag of Jelly Belly Sport Beans, which tasted great but wouldn't work as race fuel due to the effort required to chew them.  The next 3 were at MP effort but slow because I was trying to keep HR below 174.  I stopped again at the turnaround point and downed a PowerBar gel (Vanilla).  After last week's trouble, I decided to try sipping instead of gulping.  The flavor was so sweet that I had to drink a lot of water, which would also disqualify this stuff as race fuel.  Fortunately, though, I kept it down just fine.  After finishing the gel and stretching for a few minutes, I headed down the canyon, where I focused 100% on HR and didn't think about pace.  Here are the splits for the entire 10 miles:

 5-7 (still climbing Emigration)

Mile 5: 7:16 (168 bpm)

Mile 6: 7:28 (173)

Mile 7: 7:28 (174)

8-15 (down Emigration)

Mile 8: 5:33 (165) (I pushed the pace hard here in order to bring HR back up after my rest)

Mile 9: 5:50 (173)

Mile 10: 5:59 (173)

Mile 11: 5:58 (173)

Mile 12: 5:59 (174)

Mile 13: 5:51 (175)

Mile 14: 5:56 (175)

I felt tired but not wiped out at the end.  Still feeling some tightness from water skiing at Bear Lake on Tuesday, but otherwise no problems.  I suspect that my pace would have been faster had I not done so much climbing before the tempo section, but hopefully the climbing is good preparation for Veyo to Dammeron Valley at SGM.

Easy run along 21st East to Stratford and back via 16th East neighborhood.

Pace: 7:10

AHR: 155

I finished Born to Run yesterday.  What a fun read.

Plan was to do 10x3-min intervals with target HR of 178 and recovery jog of either 1 minute or until HR dropped to 130, whichever was later.  Unfortunately, it took forever for my heart to recover to that level, so the recovery jogs took far longer than expected and I ran out of time and had to cut my workout short.  I did the workout at Sugarhouse Park.

2-mile warmup around outer loop

1: AHR 165/MHR 177 (5:21/mi)

Recovery jog of 6:21 (are you kidding?)

2: AHR 169/MHR 181 (5:26/mi)

Recovery jog of 5:56

3: AHR 172/MHR 179 (5:17/mi)

Recovery jog of 5:38

4: AHR 171/MHR 181 (5:39/mi)

Recovery jog of 2:34 (no idea why it got so much shorter)

5: AHR 171/MHR 181 (5:45/mi)

Don't know how long recovery jog took--had to restart workout on Garmin

6: AHR 173/MHR 180 (5:44/mi)

Recovery jog of 2:18

7: AHR 174/182

Recovery jog of 4:20 and HR was still around 140

I don't know what to make of this workout.  I think the faster intervals, in addition to being at the beginning of my workout, included only 1 of the Sugarhouse hills, while the slower ones included both, which may explain the wide variation in pace.  I have no idea why it was taking my heart so much longer to recover during the early intervals (and again after number 7) than on 4-6.  I should note that the Garmin does not display HR when in interval mode (I forgot to set a target HR when I programmed the workout), so I was guessing except on the recovery portion, where it displayed how far above my target I was.  It seemed like I was able to get down to around 140 bpm within a reasonable amount of time, but the drop from 140 to 130 took a long time.  Maybe it would make sense to make 140 the threshold for starting the next interval.  Finally, I was tired after the workout but not nearly as tired as I would have expected.  Since I only did 7 repeats and not 10 and since I had tons of recovery in the early part of the set, that was not surprising.

Scheduled day off.

This was supposed to be an 8-mile tempo run with a target AHR of around 175 bpm, not to exceed 178.  I had planned to drive 6 miles up Emigration, but Brooke stayed at her mom's last night with the kids, so I didn't have anyone to take me back to the car.  Instead, I drove to Sugarhouse, did roughly 2-mile warmup, stopped, stretched, then started tempo.  There was a pretty stiff wind out of the northeast, so the south side and northeast hill were more challenging than usual.  After starting the workout, I exceeded 178 every time I hit a hill.  By the time I hit 4 miles, I had exceeded it at least 8 times and my pace was suffering.  As a result, I called it for the tempo section and finished the mileage out with an easy 4 or so. 

HR data and splits for the 4 miles of tempo were as follows:

Mile 1: AHR 170 (5:54)

Mile 2: AHR 177 (6:29)

Mile 3: AHR 176 (6:27)

Mile 4: AHR 175 (6:57)

Although AHR for the first mile was only 170, that was due largely to the fact that I had stopped and stretched after the warmup, so it took a bit for me to hit my target.  By the second hill on that mile, though, HR had hit 180.  It hit at least 181 in the second mile.  Even though I slowed dramatically on every hill (down to 8-minute pace or so), HR still jumped over 178 within a few seconds every time, then wouldn't come down until around 10-15 seconds after cresting the hill.  With the hills only about 1/2 mile apart, I was barely able recover from one and get back into a rhythm before I'd hit the next one.  

After calling the tempo run, the remaining 4 miles didn't feel great.  Sugarhouse may not be the best place for me to do tempo work while I'm trying to increase my pace.

Ran up to Wasatch then south along Shoreline Trail to turnaround point and back.  Felt light and easy today.

Pace: 7:07/mi

AHR: 155 bpm