dedication, perseverance, self-discipline

I ran a mostly easy run today, but I threw in a couple 400's just to practice going fast.  The first "400" was uphill and into a decent headwind, and since I didn't have any marks measured out to get an exact distance, I just ran for 70 seconds.  I imagine that it was a little short, but the effort and the time were what I was looking for, so no worries.  I turned around at 5 miles (36:25) and I took it pretty easy on the way back hitting 10 miles in 1:14:02 (37:37 second half).  I wanted to run one more 400 that was actually measured, so I went over to the track and ran one last 400 in 64 seconds.  I was shooting for a 62, but it was still really windy so I figure that minus the wind the time would have been about right.  I ran home after that, and finished what I will call 10.75 miles in 1:19:06.

I ran to school this morning in 1:04:27.  I kept the pace pretty slow and easy.

PM:  I ran home from school in 1:01:03.  The effort was also easy, but I did need to run a little quicker than I really wanted to because I had to get home so that Kimia and I could go to the temple for our ward temple night.

I ran to school this morning in 1:02:07.  Not as much wind this morning as we have had here recently, which was nice.

PM:  I ran home from school today in 51:14.  On the way home I ran approximately 7 miles as a tempo run in 38:37 (5:31 pace).  The wind was nasty on the way home today (either a headwind or a crossing headwind the entire way) so I am rather pleased with the effort given the conditions.

I started my tempo after a warm-up of a little less than a mile.  I have measured this route multiple times in my car over the last couple months, so I have approximate mile markers that I use to gauge pace off of.  The first mile (5:35) had a crossing headwind, and I decided to not push myself too much at the beginning in order to allow myself to relax into the pace a little.  After 1 mile I turned straight into the headwind and spent the next 3 miles fighting the wind.  I increased the effort, yet I still slowed down in comparison to the first mile.  I couldn't remember exactly where my second mile marker was, but I hit the next two miles in 11:25 (5:42.5 pace).  I followed this up with another mile in 5:42, at which point I turned again and had a crossing headwind from here until the end of the tempo.  After I turned again, it still felt like the wind was slowing me down a lot, so I was pleasantly surprised when I split the next mile in 5:25, even with a slight uphill grade over the last 200-300m (the wind probably felt worse than it really was due to the crosswind).  After 5 miles I don't really have any mile markers measured off, but after a little more uphill (for about 2 min) the grade starts heading downhill.  Just after the downhill starts there is a mile measured by some race that is marked in the street, which I ran in 5:12.  Once I was only 1 mile from my house I knew that I was 6.8 miles into my tempo, so I estimated how long .2 miles would take (based on my last timed mile) and I ran hard until I reached that time.  So if my estimations for distance are correct I ran the last 2 miles in 10:30 (5:15 average).  There was a slight downhill the last 2 miles, but I stopped the tempo before I got to the bigger downhill, so I think that the downhill did nothing more than eliminate the effect of the wind.

Overall, I think that the day ended well.  I feel like I am really getting into good shape right now. 

I ran to school this morning, 8.6 miles in 1:02:36.  It took me a mile or so for my legs to wake up, but once they did I was cruising along in the low 7:00 range for most of the run.  I was surprised, as I was expecting to feel more fatigued after the hard tempo that I ran last night.

I ran 10 miles this morning in 1:14:38.  I kept the effort easy and felt relaxed.  I was glad that I didn't run home from school yesterday, as my legs needed a little bit more rest and I was better off today because of it.

I ran 20 miles this morning in 1:59:54.  This is the fastest that I have ran a 20 mile run in a long time, and I am happy that I finished feeling like I still had more in the tank.  To top it off it was windy as always, with the wind definitely affecting me over the course of the run (although the wind was stronger last Saturday).  I would have finished this run a fair amount faster if it weren't for the wind.

For today's workout the plan was to run 9.5 miles easy, followed by a 9.5 mile tempo, followed by a 1 mile cool-down to finish at my house.  I started off faster than I normally do, as there was somewhere we needed to be later on in the morning and I wanted to give myself a few more minutes after getting home to get ready.  I made it through 4 miles in about 27:30 after an uphill first mile in 7:22 (big uphill, that is why I never run hard the last mile of workouts... I don't want to run down it).  I then averaged about 6:35 or so on two loops of sunset park of 2.7 miles each (18:09 and 17:25).  I then ran an extra 40 seconds to get to 9.5 miles in 1:03:44 before the start of my tempo run.

I started my tempo, and I did the little loop of the park (1.1 miles) in 6:09 (5:35 pace).  I didn't push too hard on this loop, as I was just trying to get a feel for the wind, but I started increasing the effort at the end of this loop when I started the first of two big loops of the park.

Recently in trying to assess where I need to make improvements I have come to the conclusion that my quad strength is lacking, or at least my ability to utilize this strength while running hard is lacking.  I notice this the most when I am running in adverse conditions (i.e. against the wind or uphill) and as such I decided that when pushing against the wind I needed to try and better utilize my quads as power generators.  So, my tempo run today ended up feeling like I was running lots of surges, as I was pushing harder against the wind, and then just trying to maintain speed when the wind was more favorable.

I was not sure what to expect time wise after the first big loop of the park, but I was pleasantly surprised when I came through with a 14:22 split (5:19 average) for 2.7 miles.  I just tried to maintain the effort during the next loop and I split 2.7 miles in 14:13 (5:16 average).  Considering the wind I was very happy with this, as the effort felt pretty hard, but did not feel unmanageable.  I then left the park to run the last 3 miles of the tempo on the roads.  I split the last three miles in 15:35 (5:11 average) with individual mile splits of 5:17 and 5:05 during this section.  The wind was not as bad during the last three miles, as it was a cross wind the whole time that switched off and on from a headwind to a tailwind, but generally did not hurt me as much as earlier when I was running on a loop (it helps that the last 2 miles has a net downhill).

Total time for the 9.5 mile tempo was 50:19 (5:17 pace), at which point I slowed down to run the last mile home.  As I made it to the bottom of the hill I realized that I still had a shot at breaking 2 hours for the run, and I sped up quite a bit over the last quarter in order to break the 2 hour mark.