dedication, perseverance, self-discipline

Felt just a tiny bit of soreness in my legs this morning, which is good considering the workout I did yesterday.  My knee is still a little tender, so I will probably avoid any short fast sprints until it starts feeling better.

At church I also got the opportunity to teach the Elders quorum lesson, after being asked to teach in the middle of Sunday school.  I was given the wrong lesson, and ended up teaching on the law of chastity instead of Teachings For Our Times.

I ran 11 miles this morning.  I kept the pace easy.  I felt pretty good considering I ran 100 miles last week.  

In the afternoon I bought a wheel and decided that I was going to measure the mall loop that I have been running speed workouts on.  I only made it a half mile before a security guard stopped me and after talking to me told me that I was not only not allowed to continue measuring the road, but that I was not allowed to ever run on the road around the mall again.  Evidently it is a "hazard" to run there because there is no sidewalk.  I find this extremely silly because I run on this particular loop before the mall even opens in the morning, and I find it much safer to run here where the traffic is minimal and drives slowly, in comparison to running on sidewalks where cars are driving 45 mph within feet of where I am running.  I guess that I will have to find a new loop to run speedwork on.

On the plus side, I was able to measure a half mile of the loop, and what I found was that the course tool measurements that I took seemed to be accurate to within a few meters.  It gives me a little more confidence that the course was the right distance. 

PM: I was supposed to run a second run today, but I started not feeling so well in the evening.  I mainly just felt really tired, so I cancelled the second run.

I slept in this morning because I was still just not feeling good.  I did not feel like I was sick, but I just felt tired.  I ended up getting about 10 hours of sleep last night.

I felt good enough to run later on in the afternoon, but Anita came down with something and had an underarm temperature of 102.2 degrees.  Because of this I ended up staying home all day and taking care of her.  By the time I was able to run it was getting late, and considering how I had felt that morning (and the evening before) I decided that it would not be a bad idea to give myself a little rest. 

I slept in again (still just feeling super tired) and was planning on running in the evening after coming home from work.  My aunt called during the day however, to tell Kimia that they were in town, so I ended up running on the treadmill at work, and we went out to dinner with them afterwards.

The only problem with running at work was that I didn't have any running stuff with me.  Because of this, I ended up using a pair of test shoes from the cabinet in the lab, and I ran without socks.  The workout ended up being good, but the shoes I wore hashed up my feet, and I have sores and blisters all over them now.

I ended up running a fartlek workout on the treadmill, running hard for 2, 3, 4, and 5 minutes on the treadmill, with active recovery of 1, 1.5, 2, and 2.5 minutes at 7.5 mph.  Speed was 12.4, 12.0, 11.6, and 11.2 mph for the the different repeats.  After the 5 minute repeat, I hopped off the treadmill to put a band-aid on my heel as it was already getting a nasty sore on it.  I then got back on the treadmill and ran the same ladder in reverse, running 5, 4, 3, 2, plus 1 minute hard to top off the workout.  Recovery after each repeat was the same as before, but the speed for the repeats was just a little faster, as I ran them at 11.3, 11.7, 12.1, 12.5, and 12.9 mph.  I don't want to figure out exactly how much of the workout was speed-work, and how much was easy, so I will just count 5.5 miles hard.  12 miles total in about 1:15:00 (I think I am remembering that right)

I ran too and from school today, running to school in heat of about 102 degrees, and then running home in the evening.  Time in the afternoon to run 8.6 miles was 1:05:18, and in the evening it took me 1:02:52 to run 8.6 miles home.  My heels hurt quite a bit running both ways because of the blisters and sores on them.  My little toes on both feet also hurt quite a bit by the end of the day because of the blisters on them.

Because of how much my feet were hurting I decided to run barefoot on the grass this morning.  I ran a bit before going over to the baseball fields, and started running there.  However, as I started running on the fields I noticed there were a lot of bees flying around everywhere.  I noted that I should remain cautious so as not to step on any bees.  Despite my caution it was not to be, and I stepped on a bee in the grass after running barefoot for less than a half mile.  My foot hurt quite a bit from the bee sting, and the blisters made running in shoes uncomfortable, so I ended up just running home.  I ran a total of 2.5 miles in about 20 minutes.

PM:  My planned run this evening was only 5 miles, but since my run this morning was cut short due to the bee sting I extended the run a bit so that I would at least get in 10 miles on the day.  I ran 7.5 miles in just under 56 minutes.  My heels were still hurting a lot as well. 

I was up late last night, as I was helping one of the professors perform data collection for a project, so I decided to just run a speed workout on the treadmill at UNLV where I would not have to deal with as much heat.  I waited until the little ones went down for naps before leaving, and when I got to UNLV the lab was 84 degrees inside (so I guess it really wasn't much of a relief from the heat).  I turned the a/c down to cool the lab off, and started my run.  I had bandaged up my feet so that they would not hurt so much, and that worked out pretty well for me.  I started off slow, but sped up progressively over the first few miles until I was running 6:40 pace just 3 miles into the run.  I then continued to speed up until I was running sub 6:20 pace for the mile before I started my tempo run.

I started my speed work after 9 miles, running the first 8.5 miles in 58:01.  The plan was to run 10 miles, with the first 5 miles at 11.3 mph (approximately 5:18 pace) and the last 5 miles at 11.4 mph (approximately 5:15 pace).  In order to account for the lack of wind resistance I put the treadmill on a mild incline (1%), and then put a fan to my side to simulate a cross wind.  Just before I started the tempo I went to the bathroom, got some water and changed my shoes as well.  I also checked the temperature in the lab, and it was still 80 degrees when I started the tempo.  The first 5 miles went according to plan, and I went through 5 miles at 11.3 mph in 26:32.  I did not feel like I could run 5 more miles at 11.4 mph, but I upped the pace anyways after the first 5 miles, and kept running.  7 miles into the tempo I could tell that I was struggling.  I was glad that I was on the treadmill, because if I was not I probably would have just given up and slowed down.  Mentally it is easier to not slow down when you have to do something physically to make it happen (push the slow down button).  I could tell that my body was capable of running the pace, but it was hard enough that I knew if I did not have that extra motivation I would have caved mentally and slowed down.

9 miles into the tempo (last 4 miles in 21:02) I felt like I was pushing the pace too hard, and was not relaxing enough, so I decided to back off the pace for a half mile in order to relax.  I hoped to follow this by running a final mile at 11.4 mph.  The problem was that a half mile was not long enough for me to truly recover, and I was running too fast to recover quickly (finished the half mile in 3:41 for an average pace of 7:22).  The result was that the final mile felt a little easier for about 0.1, and the final 0.9 felt considerably harder than it felt before I slowed down.  That last mile was torture.  It has been a long time since I have hurt that bad while running, but I held the pace.  The total time for the final 5 miles (excluding the half mile "recovery") was 26:18, for a 10 mile split time of 52:50 (again, minus the "recovery").  I then ran an extra half mile to finish 20 miles with a total time of 2:01:42.

I have mixed feelings about this workout.  Conditions were not ideal (77-78 degrees inside when I finished the workout) and the mild incline the treadmill was on plus the fan made conditions difficult as well, so I was not surprised that I struggled some.  I also ran the 10 mile tempo faster today than the 2 x 5 mile tempo I ran on the same treadmill a month or so ago (despite running a faster warm-up).  However, I feel like I should be able to handle this type of pace with almost zero difficulty even when conditions are not ideal if I am going to qualify for the trials this fall.  If I can barely manage OTQ pace for 10 miles in a workout at the end of a low mileage week, how am I supposed to do it for 26 miles?  I may be reacting somewhat harshly, as the workout didn't kill my legs like the last treadmill long run I ran (wasn't sore at all on Sunday), and the temperature difference of about 20 degrees (or more), and the difference of about 2000 ft elevation when running at sea level during my next marathon will certainly make hitting an OTQ easier in November than it would be running on the treadmill here in Vegas.  However, I can't seem to shake the thought that I really need to be able to hit my goal pace even in bad circumstances for at least the half marathon distance if I want to get the qualifier.