TexasLindsey

Great run today!!  Amazing, in fact.  This is the last day I'm out of town.  I'm at my in-laws house so I ran with The Woodlands Running Club.  This town has an amazing running community.  There are miles and miles of trails that curve through the woods.  Runners are everywhere!   I got there a little late because I got a little lost trying to find the meeting place in the middle of all these hundred foot tall pine trees. 

I got there just in time to tag along with this group.  I didn't even get to ask their pace before we left.  Turns out they are the 7:30 per mile group.  Oops.  That was a little faster than I was looking for.  Luckily, we were only doing 4.2 miles, then we were coming back to the parking lot to pick up more people, get our water belts and go out for another 9.5 miles.

Last week I got lost with this runner's club so this time I didn't want to lose anyone.  I hung with these guys the four miles... The first two miles, my garmin couldn't find satelites so I didn't even know the pace (but I knew it was fast and challenging for me)... when my watch finally started giving paces and distances, I was looking down seeing times of 7:00 pace... and even 6:50.  This was a little scary to me.  Amazingly, I did it though.  I finished right with everyone else... didn't fall behind in the least!  Oh, and there was no stopping for water or anything... The guy next to me said his watch had us at a 7:25 average pace for the whole 4.22 miles.  Wow.  That's a PR for me. 

Ok.  So now I knew I couldn't keep THAT up for the next 10... so I tried to find a slower group.  The next group I got with did an 8 minute pace... which was still pretty ambitious of me even without considering I ran the first four so fast.  BUT I DID IT!   I stayed with them and even talked the whole time.  It was hard but thank god for caffeine gu which I consumed every 3 miles. 

In this group, there were 5 guys who were all in super good shape.  One ran a 10k yesterday in 44 minutes.  He said he'll get better when it gets cooler.  There was one girl other than me... she said her marathon PR was 3:15... but she mostly runs Ironmans and her marathon just recently in an Ironman (after she swam 2 something miles and biked 112 miles) was 3:49.  Wow.   I can not believe I hung with them.  It was fun though.  Oh, and also, they told me the route we were taking was the hilly course... they considered it a hill workout. 

Splits for the 4.22 miles

First 15 minutes had no pace because my garmin couldn't find satelites.

Mile 3 - 7:23

Mile 4 - 7:26

We stopped for about 5-10 minutes and then...

Splits for the second part 9.5 miles

Mile 1 - 8:27

Mile 2 - 8:14

Mile 3 - 8:15

Mile 4 - 8:10

Mile 5 - 8:11

Mile 6 - 7:57

Mile 7 - 8:09

Mile 8 - 8:04

Mile 9 - 7:53

Last .5 mile pace - 7:39

My sister watched the kids so I could run around the park by her house.  It's only 80 degrees and 40% humidity today.  It was much cooler this morning but I didn't get to start running until 11 am.

I was thinking today about what I would call threshold miles, marathon miles, easy miles, etc.  I have improved so much these last three months since joining this blog...  what I used to consider threshold is now relatively comfortable... and what I used to consider impossible to sustain for longer than maybe one mile is now something I can do for at least 4.22 miles (Sunday's run) ha, ha!  It's so much fun to improve this much!  I feel so blessed to be healthy and able to run like this.   

So here's what I came up with: 

EASY are miles at an 8:45 pace or slower. 

MARATHON are miles in between 8:00 and 8:45. 

THRESHOLD is anything faster than 8:00 pace. 

TRACK speed is going to be below 7:00. 

Splits

9:08

9:01

8:44

9:00

9:05

9:07

9:21

8:27

7:07 (last .25)

5.2 miles pushing Jake in the running stroller...  10:30 was the average pace.   We spent an enormous amount of time discussing why there were lanes in the street and why people can't run in the street, and why you have to use your blinker to change lanes... he kept asking me "why", "why", "why"?  And if there was any car that didn't use their blinker...  oh boy!   Three year olds are funny!  Entertaining run.   I think now that the weather is getting better, I'm going to start taking him with me to the evening runs with my group.

8.1 miles at 5:50 am.  The previous two weeks really messed up my running and sleeping routine... it was difficult to wake up early and I started later than I wanted.  I'm so glad I woke up and ran this morning... I am now in such a great mood!  I have run 8 miles and now cooked breakfast and the kids haven't even woken up yet.  It's going to be a great day!   (I'm trying to psyche myself up to tackle all the laundry and unpacking from the vacation... ugh!)

I'm supposed to run 19 miles with my group on Saturday.  There's something really intimidating about that.  I did 16 miles and 14 miles the previous two weekends ... both of which had average paces in the 8:00's... I shouldn't be worried... I can handle this!   Still, I'm nervous.   This will be the most I've ever run in one day.  Two years ago I got injured on the 18 mile training run.  I think I'm in MUCH better shape this time... and I've been logging so many more miles.  

.... ok.... back to the positive thinking...  It's going to be GREAT!  I know it.

Splits

Mile 1 - 9:58

Mile 2 - 9:57

Mile 3 - 9:50

Mile 4 - 9:20

Mile 5 - 9:36

Mile 6 - 9:37

Mile 7 - 9:29

Mile 8 - 8:32

Last .1 mile - 7:47 

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Decided to do a tempo run this evening.  I ran 3.2 miles at a comfortably hard pace.  I would have thought it would be faster than this but then it occured to me that I didn't warm up at all before I just started running fast.  I got a stitch in my side - how odd as that never happens anymore - probably also because I just started running at an 8:00 pace off the bat.  Ah well, learning experience...

I am being precise on my times below because I want to race myself on this same route next time.

Splits

mile 1 - 8:23

mile 2 - 8:25

mile 3 - 8:28

.1 - 43 seconds - 6:40 pace  = making my 5k time 25:59

.1 -  32 seconds - 6:28 pace = making my 3.2 time 25:31

I'm considering this a cross training day. 

What did I do to cross-train?  That would be hard manual labor cleaning house, moving furniture around, doing mass quantities of laundry, sorting boxes of clothes that no longer fit my kids and boxes of hand me down clothes they can now wear.  I didn't sit down all day. 

I intended to run 8 miles but once I got into working in the house I decided I might just take an day off to be fresh for the 19 miler on Saturday.

I ran 19.22 miles this morning.  The longest I've ever gone.  This was a good and a bad day.  

The good was the times I recorded were pretty awesome. 

One bad part was my watch messed up in the beginning and I didn't have satelites the first 17 or 18 mintues.  I had to turn off watch and turn it back on again... and wait for satelites to be found.   I was able to figure out that I was exactly 2.4 miles "off".  This confused me the entire run as I tried to do math in my head.  I found out that I'm not all that great at math while doing 8:20 miles.  Ha, ha!  

But the REALLY bad part was that I hurt my IT band on mile 16.5.   I ran through the pain a mile or so... then I ran/walk for the remaining 1.5 miles.   I'm so mad!

I started out too fast I think.  I was running the first 6 miles with my friend, Brenda, and we were trying to keep up with one of those "fast girls" from two weeks ago (the other "fast girl" wasn't there today).  After Brenda turned around to head back, I tried to catch the "fast girl" ahead of me but she was out of my sight for the first half of the run.  She must have slowed down or stopped alot because after the turn around, I started closing in on her.  I caught up to her around mile 13.5... I actually even passed her for a few miles (although she was not too far behind). 

Then BOOM going downhill on concrete around 16.5 mile... my IT band on my right leg just started hurting.  It really sucks because at the time when this happened, I was really feeling great aerobically... I was thinking I would have no problem coasting in at a pace under 8:30.  Ugh!  This was the same pain as two years ago that prevented me from running a marathon that year.... only that was on my left leg.  Did I mention that I was mad?!!

So I kept running but slowed down to a 9 min pace for a little over a mile... but eventually, the pain got so intense I had to walk/run.  At this point the "fast girl" wizzed past me... I guess she thinks that's what I get for trying to hang with her.  LOL  

Any advice would be appreciated.  Should I take time off?  Should I reduce mileage?  I had planned on running my first marathon on Nov 14th... should I scrap that and try for another marathon in Dec or Jan.   I'm just so upset right now I don't know what to do. 

People in my running group told me to go to the sports chiropractor for our team.  He's like a genius wonder worker who can fix anything... but I don't really have the money.  Buying new shoes all the time and running races about breaks me.  I'm a stay-at-home mom on a budget. 

Splits

First 2.4 miles I recorded no pace or distance because -and I didn't realize this right away because it was dark - my watch couldn't find satelites.  I think I did them in around 18 minutes.  I'm not exactly sure because the timer was shut off when I re-started watch to locate satelites.  Since I don't know for sure I'll say the pace was approx 8:00 a mile but honestly, I think it was faster.

Because of the above screw up, during the below miles I actually didn't know exactly what mile I was on while I running them.  So these were fun miles!  Ha, ha!  At least I started getting paces though.

mile 3.4 - 7:59

mile 4.4 - 8:09

mile 5.4 - 8:14

mile 6.4 - 8:23

mile 7.4 - 8:13

mile 8.4 - 8:14

mile 9.4 - 8:30

Turn around at mile 9.6 ... reset watch but forgot to re-start right away.  Messed me up AGAIN.  User error.  The fun continues.

mile 10.4 - 8:25 ish (a guess because 1/2 this mile was not recorded based on the user error above)

mile 11.4 - 8:17

reset watch again at water stop because I was told it was exactly 7.5 miles back to the store from this location.  Woo Hoo!  I finally know how much farther!!

mile 11.75 - 8:33

mile 12.75 - 8:22

mile 13.75 - 8:27

mile 14.75 - 8:23

mile 15.75 - 8:09

mile 16.75 - 8:46 (IT band first started hurting)

mile 17.75 - 9:16 (I tried to slow down this mile to see if I could hold pain off)

With about 1.5 miles left I finally started walk/running.  It took me about 16 minutes to get back... I was running about 10 min pace but with the walking it averaged out to 11 min pace.

Final mileage today = 19.22 miles   but I guess technically I should only count 17.75  ... sigh...