Archive for April, 2009

This was supposed to be another easy run after yesterday’s mid-Long (11mi @ 8:32), but the weather was gorgeous today: sunny and 61 degrees, albeit still gusty.  Tomorrow’s supposed to be rainy and cooler, so today won.

Hudson had 3x10min @ Half/10k pace with 2min. recoveries, but dividing it up into three small parcels seemed “eh”, so I did this instead: 2 mile wu, 3mi@Half pace, 2min rec, 1.5mi@10k pace, 4miles home.

It went fine.  I wish I’d reigned it in better on the Half portion and kept it to 7:17s, because it convolutes my HR comparison to last week’s tempo, but I overcompensated for the wind.  Splits were 7:17, 7:13, 7:14 (avg. 7:14, Avg HRR 85%) , 2min recovery, 6:58, 3:28 (avg. 6:57, Avg HRR 89.5%).

Total for the run: 10.5 miles, avg pace 8:05.

Been having a weird thing with my left index finger these past few days.  It’ll twitch for a few seconds, then slow down and stop.   Of course, I stupidly looked up what it could be and discovered that Michael J. Fox’s first sign of Parkinsons was a twitching pinkie, but I’m not even going there.   It is mildy freaky though.

Other than that, I downloaded a lot of songs this week.   Of all the singles in my music collection, The Killers win for Most Songs From One Band because I just loooove their hooks and Spaceman is my new favorite sing-along.  Then there’s Manchester Orchestra’s I’ve Got Friends with that super swell chorus and the always uber-cool Dandy Warhols with Godless – excellent trumpet line.  A bunch more, too but that’s it for now.

A windy day for my river route: 48 degrees, 19mph, gusts to 29.  I would have rearranged my schedule to do this one tomorrow, but it’s going to be almost as windy, and by doing it today I’ll still have my 2 easys before Friday’s tempo.  Last week I only had one day between speed and tempo and I think I prefer a little more padding.

2.25 warmup, 4 x 1mile @ 10k pace w/ 3min. recoveries, then 4.5 miles home.  I ran farther out to try and get away from the wind, but it didn’t work (thus the long cooldown).

The mile repeats went 6:57, 6:53, 6:56, 7:00
Avg. 6:56/mi. and Avg. 85% HRR, Max 89%.
Total run: 11.55 miles, avg pace 8:03.
No complaints from me today.

Before we get to the ugly (not my tendons, btw, so no need for panic), I’ll touch on yesterday’s 17-mile LR, my longest this cycle.

It was a warm day for this unacclimated gal (67 degrees and sunny) so I carried my 20 oz handheld and for shits and giggles, wore my HR monitor because  I was curious to see how the longer run + warm temp would affect my HR.

I refilled the handheld once, so ended up drinking 40 oz of water.  I also took a gel half-way through because I hadn’t eaten a lot that morning.   End result: average pace 8:28 and a lovely avg HR of 70% HRR.  And this includes the last two miles at 7:53 avg.

Now on to tendon talk.  A couple months ago, right before her bike racing training season started, my great friend Lara (who you might remember has run a couple races with me when she’s not being cyclist extraordinaire) got a chest infection.  They figured it to be pneumonia, so they gave her the antibiotic Levaquin.

Within three days, her achilles had swollen up to where she couldn’t walk on it, couldn’t even stand on it.  Turns out she came this close to a ruptured achilles from that stupid fucking antibiotic.

She was put in a boot for 3 weeks, went back to the doc when her three weeks was up but, as she feared, was told to stay in the boot 3 more weeks.  It’s still not better, swelling up as the day progresses.  It’s been a horrible, horrible situation, ruining her training season completely, so please folks, be careful when a doc gives you Levaquin, know that tendon ruptures are a potential side effect.

The other story has to do with Nick and his half-brother, Leon.  They were in Cozumel this last week on a dive trip and on the third day, Leon fell on a slippery path near the hotel room.  He ended up tearing all the tendons on the front of his leg above his knee and had to be rushed to the hospital where they put a cast on him, not realizing he would be cutting the trip short and going home the next day.  When they discovered this, they said “you can’t fly with a cast” and had to remove it, leaving Leon in intense pain.

He went straight to the hospital in Spain (where he lives) where they operated and now it appears he’s going to have to remain on his back for a couple months.  Horrible news.

So Nick was left all alone for half his vacation, but at least he got a couple more days of diving in.  But the thing that I loved about this story was when Leon was at the doctors office he was telling Nick it felt like there were worms in his leg (the loose tendons).  I thought that was sublimely disgusting.

Now for my running schedule this week:  Last week was a new mileage high, 68 miles, and I’ll be doing the same this week.  Today is an easy 7 with 10 hill sprints, then tomorrow’s a speed session (4 x 1 mile@10k pace w/3 min. recoveries) but with 20mph winds forecasted, I’ll likely move it up a day (when there’s only 15mph winds forecasted, ugh).  Friday is a tempo combination (3x10min @ Half/10k  pace w/2min recoveries), and on Sunday another 17-miler with “last 15 minutes Hard”.

So that’s my story, Morning Glories, have a great week of running yourselves but I’ll see you back here in a couple days.

Today’s run: 11 miles – 2 miles warmup, 6 tempo@goal Half pace, 3 cooldown.

Last Friday’s tempo post resulted in some interesting comments from my blogging/running friend Julie, a speedy broad whose opinion I highly respect.  She thought my HR for that tempo was on the low end for a Half and after thinking about it, I agreed, realizing that it would have been a very comfortable HR had I been running the Half that day instead of May 3rd.  So I bumped it up today keeping her HR suggestion in mind of 86-87% avg.

It felt like a more reasonable race effort than last week, though frankly, I’m surprised at the max HR – it maxed as high as my 10k race last month!  It didn’t feel anything like the 10K though, just felt like a good tempo run.  Go figure – could be the temps, hydration, sleep…or that I ran too fast.   Silly monitor.

Here’s the dirt:

Pace    Avg HRR     Max HRR
7:22    169(81%)    175(85%)
7:18    175(85%)    177(86%)
7:11    178(87%)    181(89%)
7:14    180(88%)    182(90%)
7:19    181(89%)    184(91%)
7:17    182(90%)    184(91%)

Avg pace 7:17, Avg HR 178 (86.7%)

Even with the high Max, I’m feeling good about it.  After all, I still have 1/3 of my cycle left to go, ain’t no way I’m done yet.   So, as of this moment, 1:35:xx  is firmly in my sights.