First off was a mileage question.  Should I plan to cut back while I get into the workouts or do I keep it status quo?  A lot of the high-mileage threads on Letsrun involved kids running high base mileage during summer but then cutting back for Fall but I wasn’t sure if that was due to school responsibilities or a purposeful decision for better training.  I posed the question to some higher-mileage runners on MRT and those who responded don’t cut back on volume.  In fact, they hardly even taper – it seems the more mileage you do, the less you need to cut back before a race…what an interesting factoid!  So anyway, I won’t be messing with my volume, there’s no need.

As for intervals, I’m in old-lady-nothing-fancy runner mode, I don’t want to do ladders or mixed pace sessions and I’m not thirsting for variety, I just want something super simple to fulfill 3-5 miles of speedwork.  So here’s my totally old skool idea:

Weeks 1 & 2: 6 x 800 – the first week 2min recoveries, the 2nd week 90 sec recoveries
Weeks 3 & 4: 5 x1000 – same recovery pattern
Weeks 5 & 6: 5 x 1200 – same recovery pattern
Week 7: 5 x mile – recovery tbd

Weather allowing, the 800s and 1000s will be 5K-ish pace, the 1200s and miles around 10k pace, though considering it’s July and August, I’m expecting some adjustments.

Tempo runs will be the standard single-paced straight-through variety on cooler days (if we have such a thing) or split into sections with short recoveries when it’s hot.  Lastly, there’ll be some extra credit in the form of strides and hill reps.

Nothing fancy but should do the job admirably.

Hot Weather Bitchfest: The Lows & A High
It’s extremely rare that I have a miserable run but this week, there was one.  Friday brought record-breaking weather to a number of cities and Philly had a double, one for the highest low (82) and highest high (103, heat index 114) so when I left the house at 5:50am it was already “feels like” 98 with the dewpoint at 76.  The park was eerily quiet with only a fraction of the usual runners (the whole weekend was like that, actually).  My first 3 miles were super slow, all I could muster were 9:20s.  My pace did its usual drop as the miles ticked by but even so, when all was said and done, I averaged a blistering 9:00/mi.

Saturday was way better, 88 degrees when I started but the heat index was only 91 thanks to a dewpoint of 64.  Still gross, but in comparison to Friday, quite lovely.  OK, that’s a stretch, but at least I didn’t want to die. 13@8:35.

Today was Saturday’s twin as far as conditions, but I had a surprisingly great run.  It wasn’t that it was fast or easy, it was that I found a new hill for doing reps that I’m in love with.  The deal was, I left the house determined to do something with hills but there was no way I was going to do hard reps up Lemon Hill – it’s really steep and turny and last week’s paltry 4 reps were super hard though it was 15 degrees cooler.  So I got it in my head to do 6 reps but just normal running, not pushing the pace at all, make it like a regular hilly run.

As I was nearing my turnaround on the quiet side of the park, a vision loomed before me…the perfect hill.  It’s not nearly as steep as Lemon Hill, but it’s a straight shot with nary a curve and practically screamed “run up me! run up me!”.  Seeing that hill, I wanted to run reps at effort!  So I did. The reps were 1:15 to the top and at first I thought, “I’ll do 4, that’s enough” but I didn’t want to stop (I swear, this was like Twilight Zone to my lazy ass).  So I did 6, or so I thought – when I got home, it turns out I did 7.

This was an important lesson for me.  When I decided that running a few times normally up Lemon Hill would be my answer to hillwork on a friggin’ hot day, I had a total guilt feeling, like I was wimping out.  Then I had another moment of guilt when I saw the other hill and weighed it against Lemon Hill, thinking I was somehow cheating because it wasn’t as steep.  But that is such bullshit! I hate Lemon Hill and don’t find it fun in any way, shape or form.  And here I find this other hill that I want to run up, so much so that I end up doing more reps with more effort than I would have done on Lemon Hill.

Goes to show, it’s not all about textbook numbers and the perfect hill grade and the best possible thing you can do to improve.  It’s about finding ways to love training and being drawn towards it instead of being repelled yet forcing yourself anyway.  Not that that’s never supposed to happen, pushing yourself and fighting through difficulty is of course necessary at times, especially in a race, but there shouldn’t be anything wrong or guilt-inducing about finding more pleasant ways to get the work in.  In fact, you might just end up accomplishing more in the end.

Lemon Hill (evil hill)

Strawberry Mansion Hill (good hill)

Heat Wave Week in Review
Monday: 9@8:24
Tuesday: 15@8:16 (8x2min on, 1min off)
Wednesday: 12@8:30
Thursday: 17@8:36
Friday: 12@9:00
Saturday: 13@8:35
Sunday: 12@8:33 (seven 75-sec hill reps)
Total: 91.5 mi (avg pace 8:33)

Between Thurs, Sat and Sun (which were all similar, weather-wise), I can say that Daniels’ temperature comparison calculations are off for me.  For 90 degrees, he says I’d slow by 19 seconds but I think it’s closer to 30 seconds in my case.  Not that any of it is exact science (and maybe it’s because humidity is not taken into account), but I thought it worth noting.

Resuming the shorter speed/tempo stuff is just what the doctor ordered, too – not just for the cumulative effect, either.  I’ve always felt that I run faster and easier on the days following speedwork, which is why the oft-repeated advice “you don’t get the effects of speedwork for 10 days” might be true (though I’ve never seen any study or evidence to support this), I believe there’s a worthy short-term effect as well.

Cookies
Another change I’ve made: I stopped giving a crap about my weight since Boston.  OK, it helps that my mileage is up there again and for the most part, I still eat very cleanly, but I’ve added in copious amounts of cookies to my diet.  I’ve also stopped weighing myself.  I can tell by looking at my stomach if I’m gaining and I appear to be holding steady.  My feeling right now is, as long as I get faster, it doesn’t matter…though I reserve the right to care again when an important race is on the line.

Last night’s workout
I ran with the club again, this time for hill repeats.  I left the house at 5:40pm so I could get in 5 miles beforehand, which in itself is a novel thing since I’m a morning/early afternoon runner.  Those miles were faster than usual and I had to keep purposely slowing myself down, reminding myself I’d be tackling hills afterward.  Still, I was doing 8:10, 8:02…like that.

Met with the group who, aside from the leader, were all different people from Saturday’s run.  It was a little smaller and a different vibe since we were doing a more structured thing.  We ran to Lemon Hill and did 10 charges up the hill and back, which came out to a little more than 20 minutes of actual work.  Then we jogged back to the museum, chatted a bit and separated.

What I enjoyed about doing this in a group was the lack of negative self-talk I usually feed myself during hard workouts.  Seeing other people in the same boat, it became more about rising above, rather than grumbling through.  Everyone was doing their own thing though we were doing the same thing together.  It was cool.

I liked it so much (and hill work is SO good for you) that I might make it a weekly deal.  The only thing is, if I do this, it means I’ll have to forgo a weekly speed or tempo run since 2 quality runs a week is my limit.  With that in mind, I think my next step is to analyze which of the 3 workouts I need most, keep that weekly, and alternate the other 2.

Enough rumination, have a great weekend folks.  As to my marathon running friends (and shorter racing pals, too) kick some booty this weekend!  Woohoo!!

Backtracking, Tuesday was quite a good run – hill reps day -  so 10mi w/5 x.25mi repeats.  When I did these 3 weeks ago, I was pretty satisfied with the workout though if you remember, once home and looking at my logs, realized I’d lost quite a chunk of fitness since last Fall’s buildup.  So this Tuesday was great because it was 10sec faster per rep, had an additional rep than the last time and a lower heart rate, to boot. Plus, they were all into the wind.  A needed confidence booster.

Wednesday was an 8mi recovery, then yesterday, a not-so-hot tempo.  It was 13mi. w/4tempo and I struggled to keep the tempo miles at anything approaching a good pace, they veered from 7:20s to 7:25, which really super sucks but honestly, I was ok with it!

Having Tuesday’s good workout was like, “Ok, this was just an off day, there’s still good things going on beyond this one run.”   I rarely do morning runs in the winter anyway, so maybe I wasn’t all there, but also…the bear! My last tempo mile was crazy fighting that gnarly wooly creature off.  Thankfully, the tempo portion ended just in front of the restrooms.   I guess you need to be careful of what you talk about, or else it might come round to bite you in the ass.  Literally.

Today is a day off, but well spent.  I made a narration demo!  I love Mike and Deb, the studio owners.  They’re a blast to hang with and she makes a mean chicken casserole.  Here are the fruits of our labor.  (warning: it’s not at all thrilling but since I’m such a media whore these days, may as well post it).

Other than that, I’ve become enamored with Facebook this week. Last night I made a Fan Page for Gifted Runner and it’s already got 50 fans.  Half are my friends while the other half are people I don’t even know and they’re actually going to the website, so this is a very cool development. Didn’t realize just how useful it could be, so if you have a site, I highly recommend making a Page for it. And once you get 25 Fans, you can go to www.facebook.com/username to get a pretty URL for it, so I’ve got www.facebook.com/giftedrunner. Niiice.

There’s very little on the page right now but one thing I posted is a promise of new designs by February 9th. How’s that for a publicly self-imposed kick in the ass? Anyway, if you’d like to become a Fan of Gifted Runner, please do. And while I’m in beggar mode, if you want to add me to your friend pile, I’m game: www.facebook.com/flo.karp (you can get a nice URL for your personal page, too).

And with that, I’m going to enjoy the rest of this frigid day off by doing absolutely nothing and not eating shredded wheat because I have 10 w/8MP tomorrow. Just wish it wasn’t going to be 14 degrees. Winter bites.

Two interesting points about that run. 1. My garmin wasn’t catching on my windowsill so I did something I never do, wore my Timex ironman watch, purchased at the start of C25K and tossed to the side about a week later once I’d bought a Garmin.  Not only was I Garminless, but I had totally forgot how to use the watch and neglected to check the instructions before I left the house, though I did manage to find the Chrono bit, I couldn’t figure out the lap part of it, so basically ran nekkid.  It was a nice change.

Interesting point of the run #2: While running with the watch, simultaneously trying to figure out how it worked, the wind blew my hat off and as I was chasing it down, I fell flat on my ass in the middle of the wet, slippery street.   Didn’t hurt at all, was just funny, though the one guy that saw me pretended not to notice.

Today’s run was even more eventful as I heard a car crash into some trees.  I would have seen it but there is a wall at the point where it happened, so me and a bunch of other runners ran up to the wall after hearing that awful noise and saw the driver get out of her car, so apparently she was ok, but it was still a scary scene.

The run was a goody because it’s the workout I dread the most, hill reps.  I know they’re good for me though, so there was no way I was getting out of it but man, did I dawdle before leaving the apt.  Workout was 12.75 miles with five 3min reps @ 5k effort.  Should have been a 9 mile workout but that ole hill is inconveniently placed a little far from home.

Someone on the Marathon Training Forum mentioned a really good deal on gels and other edibles at REI so I thought I’d post it here.  If you buy at least 12 single serving items of any combination of product, brand or flavor, you get a 20% discount so check out REI (the link will take you directly to that page).

And that’s about it for me today. Hope everyone has a great weekend with some stupendous running, or at the very least, running that doesn’t suck.  Later, my sweets!

I don’t know if you remember the hill I used for marathon training, dubbed Smile Hill because I used it for mile repeats and kept calling it “that stupid mile hill” which eventually morphed into Smile Hill, but anyway, it’s 4.5 miles from my house – not a problem when you’re marathon training and your repeats are focused on downhill running at marathon pace.  But when the repeats are uphill at 5K effort, a 4.5-mile slog home seems like unnecessary torture.

So I drove to my run, which felt really silly since I parked in a spot I run by daily, but I was glad to have done it.  I ran 4 miles warmup, did the repeats which came out to 3 miles worth and then ran 2 miles back to my car, so 9 miles total.

It was funny because there was this lone crossing guard standing on the sidewalk whom I passed on the way up and down each time.  She was cute, made small talk on my trips down, “how many do you have to do?”  “did you make it to the top?” “tired yet?”  I think she knew not to chat on my way up though, my face one ugly determined grimace fighting against a constant wind.

Much improved pacing this time – when I did 8×1-min repeats @5K effort a couple weeks ago, I started with a 7:31 and by the 8th one could only eek out an 8:46, and if you recall I was so embarrassed by my shitty pacing I kept it from you.  This time I ran the ups in the low 8:00s so they didn’t veer much at all, but I got a solid workout and felt great afterwards.

Today I have 11 easy, or as easy as will be after having consumed vodka shots and wine last night.  We went with friends to a Russian restaurant, a BYOB, which makes getting drunk that much more convenient.  Feeling pretty good actually, considering I was on the verge of puking last night.

Looking ahead, the rest of the week looks downright luxurious with no races on the immediate schedule.  I’ve got 7 easy tomorrow, then Friday it’s 9 w/5 tempo at goal Half pace (ooh, time to decide on race pace), Saturday 7 easy, finishing with a 16-miler on Sunday that includes 15x(90sec.@10k pace w/90 sec recoveries).

Onward and outward, looks like a wonderful 55 degrees out there, just right for a fragile boozer such as myself.

I first realized the power of a minute last week with the 15x(1min on,1min off) stints from Wednesday and Sunday. Then yesterday I discovered an alternate way to be made miserable in a mere minute: spend it going up a hill. Suddenly 1 minute seems like an eternity.

The run consisted of 6 miles, then 8x1min hill repeats @5k effort w/jogs back to the start, then one mile home. It was a little cooler than I thought it’d be out, so I started the run at a brisk 8:19, then feeling good, averaged 8:06 for the next 5 miles. Then came time for the repeats.

The place I do my hill stuff is called Lemon Hill, right across the street from the river and the boathouses. At the top of Lemon Hill sits an historic mansion and the whole surrounding area is park, so it’s quite lovely. However, as I’ve mentioned in the past, you can also find the occasional condom on the ground and people seem to hang out there in their cars to hide out from their jobs during the day, so it tends to skeeve me out a bit.

When I started my repeats, there was this one SUV with dark windows and motor running that I kept having to pass, leaving me extremely self-conscious since by the time I’d pass it, it was always the end of my repeat (when I appeared to be near death). Maybe they were just in there eating their turkey sandwiches, but luckily, there’s a fork in the road with a similar hill on the opposite side, so after repeat 4, I switched hills.

All I can say is, I wanted it to be over way sooner than the workout actually was – 5k effort on a hill is tough! The last couple repeats had moments in them where I felt I was standing still, my legs wobbling so much. I won’t post my splits because they’re ridiculous, I never neared actual 5K pace and the last two ended up slower than my usual easy pace, but I felt amazing after it was over, like I’d done something especially great for my legs and butt. Final tally for the run: 9.25 miles, avg. 8:23 pace.

Since the last 3 days have included quality work in each of them, it’s a treat to see the next 3 are purely easy, the only strenuous addition are a few strides on Friday. Originally, my schedule called for a tempo run on Friday, but Saturday’s race ends up being the perfect substitute, so it all works out swimmingly.

This afternoon I have 11 easy and a bunch of pushups (eek, 8 sets instead of 5 and only 45 seconds between sets with the last set “at least 40″ – I may need a redo on this week). Speaking of pushups, I’ve been contemplating getting one of those chin-up bars you put in the doorway. I’ve never in my life been able to do a single one so it’d be kind of cool to be able to do a few. Plus, pull-ups are the perfect counter exercise for pushups and would further improve my posture, ultimately improving my running. We’ll see, I have a limit to self-inflicted suffering and chinups might put me over the edge.