Archive for January, 2009

Living in Philly, I’m blessed as far as weather goes.  When I read of my online running friends tackling snow and ice and ridiculously low temps, I feel lucky to be in my comparative comfy cocoon of moderate weather.  Occasionally there’s an under-20 day, but few and far between.

So I’ve no right to complain that the next 5 days are set to be colder than usual and windy.  Though it does annoy me that I should notice this the day after I decide that I’m in the midst of a mini running streak.  No avoiding those frigid temps now.

As far as the streak goes, I’m only on day 9, which is my usual stopping place when I keep running and don’t need a day off.  I’m thinking 14 days will do it for this first one, give me a taste of what it’s like to run 7 days/week.  Not that I’m planning on going that route soon, but it’s always in the back of my mind as a potential inevitability (how’s that for an oxymoron?).

But who knows…when (if) it comes to a point where I really want to get serious about goals, I’ll probably morph into a “run until I need a day off” type of person.  For now, let’s see how 14 days feels.

I can’t believe it’s been a whole month since I’ve done any official speedwork but since that 5K-ish prediction race is this Saturday, it seemed like a good idea to do my favorite “go to” intervals today.
6 x 1/2 mile with 2:00 recoveries.

Was a good session – 7.25 miles total, with the intervals averaging 3:32 (7:04 pace).  Nothing amazing, but a fine set, especially since yesterday was a long trail run.

On other news, my weight-loss has been going like clockwork; last Monday I weighed in at 124, today I’m 121.5.  And I’m eating pretty much, too, albeit healthier:  measuring portions, more fruit, etc.  Also, as I suspected in a previous post, Daily Plate is too stingy with daily calorie requirements, this one is more generous and even so, I’m losing faster than it would predict.

I also got my mOron the other day (tip of the hat to Julie for such swell renaming) and I love it!  Each morning the number goes down a little more giving me one more reason to happy dance.  Here’s to a few more weeks of continued downward trends!

Super fun 13-miler today, not only because it was on my local trail (which was gorgeous with a light covering from last night’s snow) but made all the more special because I got to run with Audra and Loren.  I love running with those two – funny chat is guaranteed.   We even came in handy in a crisis, disengaging a fallen cyclist from her tire valve.  All in all, a fine and fabulous capper to a 52-mile week.  Smooches to you, girls!

This coming week includes a novel activity on Saturday – the Pickle Prediction Race.  There are so many things I like about this one, in no particular order.

#1. Weird distance (I’m doing the 3.08) , so no PR pressure at all.
#2. Prediction run, first time racing without Garmin/watch.  I need this!
#3. Get to see my friend Matt and maybe his wife Marianne, too.
#4. Never been to this park, it’s about a 40-min drive from Philly.
#5. Funny race description.  I live for humor.

I still haven’t started dissecting how to run these next few weeks before jumping into my Half plan.  No hurry, I guess – as long as my mileage is up and I keep some hard stuff in there, I should be good to go.  But I’ll sit down with it in the next coupla days and make some workout decisions, because you know I love me some scheduling.

And this marks the end of my Sunday ramblings.  Back to the Eagles/Giants game as they eek it out to the finish.

I’ve been wearing my HR monitor lately and one of its many uses is to keep the pace down.  Yesterday I employed it for just that, averaging 67% HRR (146) on my 9-miler, avg. pace 9:18.  I’m ashamed to admit it’s been a couple months since I’ve run at such a leisurely speed.

I didn’t wear the strap much last year, but the last time I recorded a run with that same HR was in September.   It was a 5-mile recovery run and my pace was 10:25.  Granted, it was 77 degrees that day, but Daniels/Runworks says that’s only worth 15 seconds at most so that’s a sizable difference.

My resting HR is changing, too – 46 yesterday.  Since it’s been 48-50 for a while now, that’s the cherry on the sundae.

Speaking of Sundae, or rather, Sunday…I’m looking forward to tomorrow: Doggie Poo/Audra (my Steamtown mate) will be in town and we’ll be doing a long run on Forbidden Drive, the gorgeous trail over here.

Besides the fun of running with Audra, I’m excited to get back to that particular running ground.  I’ve actively avoided it recently because a sweet online friend of mine was attacked on her local trail system in December.   It’s made me think twice about being out there alone, especially in the winter when there are fewer runners out.  I’m sure I’ll get over it, but it’s spooky, nonetheless.

So this is as good a time as any to remind you all to be careful.  Just because you’re a moving target doesn’t mean you’re impervious to the evils that lurk, as much as we like to think we are.

And on that uncomfortable note, have a great weekend everyone.  May your runs be light, effortless and big fun!  Weird kissing emoticon for you all.

Continuing my between-cycle search for out of the ordinary (for me, anyway) running entertainment, yesterday’s treat was a 7-mile Progression run.  Brad Hudson or Greg McMillan will tell you they’re a surefire way to get a little extra aerobic aerobic improvement out of an easy run without the need for recovery.  Plus, they’re real fun.

Here’s Mcmillan’s Progression Run page, if you’re interested.

A great byproduct of the zippier runs I’ve been up to lately is that they’re introducing me to potential marathon goals for next Fall.   When I trained for Steamtown, the only time I ever ran marathon pace was on the two MP runs Pfitzinger had in his plan.  That pretty much sucks, because if you’re feeling like crap that day or even for that matter, feeling amazing, two tries seems like a dinky sample for such a huge event.

Which is why I’m an official race-pace convert now (and this extends to all race distances).  Whether it occurs in the form of intervals, tempos, steady state or part of a long run, I’m all about rehearsing race pace as part of the training block.

So it occurred to me that my faster easy runs these days double as a kind of audition process for future marathon pace.  I mean, not really truly quite yet, because it’s way too early, but it’s pretty cool to be running 8:xx and think, “yeah, gimme 11 months and I could do this for 26.2″.

Back to reality and the calendar, Hudson’s Half plan was supposed to begin this coming Sunday.  However, because my mileage and workouts are already ahead of his basebuilding phase, I’m going to jump into his plan a bit later, continuing on my own for now, though including his progression runs and hill repeats in the interim.

It’s strange, doing a truncated plan before a goal race – I’m so used to having 16 weeks laid out for me – but I realize that’s a mental thing, it’s not like I won’t be training well these next few weeks – six weeks, actually.  His threshold runs don’t even begin till week 7, so in essence, the main Hudson contribution will amount to a 10-week plan.

Looks like Excel and I will be spending some quality time together as we figure out how best to fill in the blanks.  Good thing I love that stuff.

Had a couple interesting runs this past weekend.  On Saturday, I did my first official Steady State Run.  Since I’m between training cycles and didn’t want to do a full-out fast thing, yet still wanted a workout, it seemed like a novel compromise.  I wore my HR monitor to make sure I stayed in the right ballpark (83-87% says McMillan).  I did 7 w/5 steady state miles.

It was fun – not so tough as a tempo but harder than a regular run.  Granted, I’m too much of a “get the most done in the least amount of time” person to do Steady State during a regular training cycle, but for in-between, it was perfect.  The steady-state miles were 8:00s and the whole run w/warmup and cooldown averaged 8:13.

Then yesterday afternoon I did 12…though a rough 12 it was.  I was tired and internally moaning from the start.  I didn’t eat beforehand and got thirsty at the end, so I was a big whiner.  I tried to keep the pace down and would tell myself  “9:15′s, keep it at 9:15s” but I kept speeding up, which annoyed me, since it would have been a more comfortable run had I kept a slower pace.  Avg. pace, 9:01.  That makes 51 miles for last week.

On other fronts, I’m finally getting into the weight loss attempt.  Previously, when I tried to quit my horrible candy habit, I didn’t lose any weight after a week, so I’d be all “well hell, if I’m going to stay the same, I’ll keep eating the fun stuff”.  I’m sure it’s because whatever I replaced the candy with was the same number of calories.  Now that I’m keeping track of what goes down my gullet, though, changes are occurring.

I started buckling down with Daily Plate last week, in an effort to see exactly what I’m eating and to finally understand how many calories I need.  The Daily Plate gives you a couple ways of figuring it out and there’s this calculator which is more generous calorie-wise (and I suspect more accurate, I’ll let you know as this progresses).  In the end, my daily average this week was 1830 calories/day.

So I’ve lost a little weight already without being monkish.  In fact, though I hope never again to keep huge bags of Reese’s Pieces and Jelly Bellys in the house, I was given a box of white chocolate Godivas for Xmas (I’m a white chocolate freak) so a couple nights this week I had one or two as my evening treat, but it’s easy to ignore the box for a few days or to be satisfied with that small amount, so my sugar intake is down dramatically.

One other thing I did with the Daily Plate was to join their Gold Member status temporarily, just so I could see how much calcium I’ve been getting on average.  They give you 5 days free when you sign up for Gold, so you just have to cancel before they start charging you.

Anyway, my calcium daily percentages varied from 20-97% of the recommendation (1000mg) so this was a firm reminder to take my daily 600mg softgel.  Ladies especially, do remember to fulfill your calcium requirements to help ward off stress fractures and keep those bones of yours in great condition!  It’s 1000mg/day if you’re under 50, 1200mg if you’re over.  Best way is through diet of course, and if you take a supplement, don’t take it with a meal that features calcium or too large a dose at once, you can only absorb about 500mg at a time.

On other weighty news, I ordered one of these Body Fat Monitors.  I realize they’re not exactly the most accurate of tools, but they appear to be consistent with their own readings which is all I care about, some kind of baseline to measure.

Now, please don’t think I’m going to get all mental about this, I’m not.  I’m too vain to get too thin, and I like eating too much to go hungry, but I am now completely curious as to what it’ll take to maintain a more “runnerly” body.  Right now I’m 5’4″ and 124lbs. (from 126.5) and while my original goal was 120, I’m now thinking 117ish is even better.  It’s closer to 114 that Glover suggests and would put me at 20% BMI instead of my current 21.3%.  Considering that I have a very small frame (5.25″ wrists), this’ll still leave me at an ordinary weight.

What’s keeping me pumped besides the thought of potentially losing my “bat wings” (a.k.a. flabby upperarms) and other fat pockets of resistance, is to see what this’ll do for my race times.  I don’t know if those weight vs. speed calculators are bullshit or what, but they all indicate I’d lose more than a minute off my 5K at 118 lbs.  A minute!

Crazy to think that this year’s 5K goal could be substantially lower than what I was thinking (low 21:xx) and that I could hit the 20′s this year!  Add to that my usual training cycles and I may turn into A Force To Be Reckoned With in my AG before the year’s up.

Stay tuned.