Maria's Running Blog

very easy recovery run, 45:05 (9:24 pace). I tried to go as slow as possible, but HR stayed mostly 142-143, although the average came out to 131. Felt fine. Went to the London Marathon store to look for Asics DS Trainers, but they didn't have them. When I asked if they have anyting comparable, the girl said she needs to go and look up what category of shoes DS Trainer falls into. At that point I knew it's not a good place to buy shoes (not to mention the prices!), or at least I shouldn't listen to their advice. They did, however, give me a free trial pack of High 5 products, various drinks and a gel, so at least I got something :).

Marathon pace tempo plus some strides today. It was raining when I started, but stopped after about 30 min. or so. The wind, however, bothered me the entire run, steady at 16-20 mph. I did 15min. warmup, 5.04mi in 40:00 (7:56 pace), then about 2mi. cool down. Also did 4x100m strides on the track before turning to run home. Total time 1:12:59, not counting strides. I felt good, although tempo pace was a bit too fast, perhaps. Garmin couldn't get a signal for the longest time, so I started tempo by feel, and after about 2mi. it locked in, and I saw 7:55 average, so I kind of went with it. When I was running into the wind, I just tried to keep the same effort, rather than pace, but I think my breathing was affected anyway.

easy run in 42:00 (8:45 pace). It's chilly today, one of the coldest days so far in London - 36F, chill factor 27F (I know it sounds balmy compared to the temps you guys are running in elsewhere). One of the few times I wore gloves on the run. But - it is sunny and clear, and for once, my Garmin didn't have any trouble picking up the signal.

Did 3x10 heel raises after.

Did 6x800 intervals on the track today with equal time jog in between. We got snow for the first time this winter, and track was snow covered, but melting quickly. It created a slush since it's a cinder track, but didn't affect the traction. I ran 2.6mi. warmup, and started on the intervals. This track is a bit short, so it's very possible I ran slightly under 800m, although I'm not sure by how much. I ran the first one in the outer most lane to try to compensate, but it might have been too much, as Garmin showed 0.52mi for that interval. Of course, GPS is not really accurate on tracks with tight turns, so it can't be completely trusted either. In any case, I ran all the other intervals in 3-4 lane and at least they were consistent and Garmin showed 0.5mi for all of them (except one at 0.49). The splits were:

3:36 (Garmin showed 0.52mi)
3:28 -0.5mi
3.27 -0.5mi
3:26 -0.5mi
3.25-0.49mi
3.24 -0.5mi

The last two were very hard, and I generally was running first lap few seconds faster than the second. I started usually in 1:40-1:42. Then I ran 1.4mi cool down. Total time 1:15:58.

I felt my right arch on the second interval, which is worrisome, so I'm icing it now just in case.

Did progression run today: 5.6mi. easy (8:28 avg. pace), then 10:00 at half-marathon pace (1.3mi, 7:42 pace), and finally 1.5mi. cool down (9:14 avg. pace). The half-marathon pace felt easier today than before, in fact I ran an average 7:36 pace until I hit a slight uphill in the park, and the pace slipped a bit. Total time 1:11:47.

I had to do my long run today due to the family weekend trip to Brussels. I knew there is no way I could take 3 hours to run there, not to mention I wouldn't even know where to go, so I decided to rearrange the workouts a bit this week, giving myself slightly less stressful day yesterday (800s intervals were originally scheduled for yesterday), and just go for it today.

I got inspired by Paul's article to try running with my iPod. I never run with music, I can't stand anything bouncing on me, dangling cords, earphones falling out of my ears and having to readjust all this stuff. But I had to wear FuelBelt with water and gels anyway, so I got my iPod as well, as an experiment. It wasn't going to be an easy run and I figured I could use all the distractrion I can get! Well, in the beginning I did hate it, but after about 5 miles I found a way to tuck the iPod into the FuelBelt so it didn't bounce and the cord was mostly out of the way. Listened to everything from Enigma to Russian rock. I ran around the perimeter of Regents Park with only 2 crossings on 2.75mi. loop, so safety wasn't an issue. I did 6 loops, and the pace was around 8:45 in the beginning, then around 9mi. Garmin lost the signal for a while, but got it back less than a mile later. I took one gel around 9mi. (probably too late), and the second gel around 14mi. I was certainly tired, but my pace actually got a little quicker. Then 2 miles from home iPod ran out of battery! Just when I needed it the most. Oh well... I was glad to be done though. Total time 2:44:04.