Posts Tagged ‘Hudson’

I was going to make today 9 miles with a 3-mile tempo in the middle (because the wonderful thing about not being in marathon training is that little-biddy 3-mile tempos are perfectly “legal”) but frankly, I’m still enjoying the lack of regimentation, so I made it 9 with fartleks instead.  It was so easy and non-pressured, I might just keep doing that for the next couple weeks instead of reintroducing tempos and intervals till marathon training dictates I must.

Regardless, I really do need to keep occasional fast stuff in, even when “on break” because I lose my edge pretty quickly.  Perhaps it’s more mental than physical, but if I don’t remind myself what it’s like to push hard, easy paces are all I want to do.

So next week I’ll do a couple more fartlek days and that should get me right back into proper workout mode.  Funny, because this is actually Hudson’s M.O. entirely by giving you fartleks before you get into quality work.  Maybe I’m subconsciously getting into a 20-week marathon cycle, after all.

In other news, I wore my Pro-tec IT strap for the first time today.  This strap gets great reviews as far as injury accoutrements go but I’ve been relunctant to try it because I can’t help thinking, “why am I changing everything because of this one injury?” and “what if it hurts me somehow because I’m adding yet another foreign object into my life?” but with my mileage back to the 60s and a 14-miler set for Sunday (oooh, so looong ), I thought it worthwhile to try out – because I do foresee some IT band shadowing for that 14.

It was great, actually!  Felt supporting and didn’t slide down as I thought it might.  I was worried that  when I took it off, the truth would out and my IT band would suddenly be hurting double, but not a peep, leg feels fab.  So that’ll be a for-sure wardrobe addition on Sunday’s LR.

Another thing I’ve added (again with the “why am I changing everything?”) is I bought some Glucosamine/chondroitin/msm capsules yesterday.  I don’t really know if it’ll help, I don’t have arthritis or creaky joints per se (though I do my share of occasional groaning), but I’m going to be an elderly 48 in a couple months, so maybe it’ll be insurance of sorts, plus, I’ve read that some folks get good results for tendon-related issues from using it, so what the hell?  While it’s not a soft-tissue fix, I suppose that helping the surrounding areas improves everything connected, so I’m game to try it.

As you can see, I’m in that place where my previous confidence level of “I am strong, I am invincible, I am womaaaaan” has been shattered somewhat.  In the back of my mind, I’m reminded how crucial it will be to run genuinely Long starting next month without any owees involved, so that’s where I’m at:  a little Frankenstein, a little PT, a little wacko nut-job.  Same old, same old.

Life is looking up – I had a great night of sleep.  The noisy cardinal disappeared almost a week ago (maybe a neighbor took a BB gun to it) but instead of peace and quiet returning, the house next door is in the midst of a complete renovation, so yesterday I was out on my deck at 7:30 am, yelling at the workers for using a nail gun so early in the !@#$ morning.  I scared the guys pretty good, crazy bed-hair and all, so they stopped for about an hour and this morning they waited till a more reasonable 8am.

On the running front, things are going great.  The IT band is (dare I say it?) normal again, though I feel it’s one of those injuries that once you have it, you’re always open to reinjury, so I take it with a grain of salt.  It ended up lasting 6 weeks exactly, but now that I know what to do about it if it returns, I don’t foresee it being so drawn-out again.

Last week was a nice, fat, undramatic 61 mile week and boy, did that make me happy.  Pacing was slower than usual because it kept being mid-80s by the time I got out and with all that had been going on, I was satisfied to plod through most of them, so my runs averaged 8:51 to 8:08, depending on the day.

Continuing the trend, yesterday was a 7-mile recoveryish run at 8:53 (87 degrees) and today’s 9 averaged 8:24.  I’m just running by feel – haven’t worn my HR monitor in weeks, either.

Here’s what my tentative calendar looks like for the rest of the month.  I’ll probably get a day off in there somewhere, just not sure when.

Except for progression runs starting the 19th, I haven’t marked any quality runs in yet, choosing  to play it by ear since I’m not training yet.  I figure I’ll start with a short tempo this week, then alternate intervals and tempos till August.  I’m still feeling very much in “taking it easy” mode after being in running rehab the last few weeks.  Funny how easy it is to get out of the quality work habit once you’ve let it lapse.

One interesting note is that if I started Hudson at the 20-week mark (instead of doing my own base-building this month), marathon training would have begun this week.  As it is, I have no interest in calling anything “marathon training” 20-weeks out, so I’m ignoring the little numbers to the left of the calendar until August.  Nod to Hudson for the progression runs, though.

Besides that, I’ve been quite industrious these last few days, adding 10 new designs to The Gifted Runner, so check it out if you’re curious.  But ladies, don’t ask me why the pink wicking shirts are showing up as white, I’ve got a tech support email out to Zazzle to fix it.  It’s not my fault, I swear.

I took Monday off, then got back on the road Tues.  Probably should have been recovery pace, but I wasn’t hurting so it wasn’t happening.  I ended up with a 7-miler at 8:12, Wed was 8 at 8:03 then finally yesterday, helped by a killer dewpoint, I was better behaved with an 8.5 @8:49.

Yesterday was also my race hangover.  It was nothing unexpected; that comedown you feel when a big event is over (helped by some PMS, a bit of real life crap and a day of rain) made for one big ball of boohoo.   I also had a brand new set of apres-race dark thoughts that went a little something like this: “how long will I be able to keep this up?” “what if it ends soon?” “I’ll never be as fast as…”  Blah blah blah.

I eventually cheered up last night when I started copying my Marathon schedule from Hudson’s book into my running calendar and after that was done, filled in the blanks for the few months preceding it.   Having some type of schedule was all I needed to start dreaming and planning again.

I had originally thought I’d be doing 70mpw all summer, but some backing off to re-energize will be beneficial, so it looks like I’ll be 60 to 65 from now through June with one quality session a week.  I’ll have some 55 weeks, too, due to the 4 tentative races I have planned: a 5K in 3 weeks and in June there are 3 consecutive race weeks (a 5K, 5-miler then another 5K).  If it’s horribly hot, I’ll skip one or more.  Then July will get me back up to 70 with marathon training beginning the first week of August.

Now, a picture of Kat and I with Bart Yasso, taken at the Expo.

Plus my ugly race photo.  See the racers behind me?  They were in front of me as I turned the curve on the track but I kicked my heart out to pass them.  The annoying thing is I had my photo face on all through that damn kick and figured they’d already snapped the pic by the time I crossed the mat.  I look like an eel.

Woohoo!  I went for a 6-mile tempo, not anything Hudson advised, but because 3 weeks ago I did a similar tempo and wanted to collect new HR data on it for comparison.  Of course, I could have skipped this thing entirely because, according to McMillan, the 10K on Sunday gives me a 7:15 Half pace and I find McMillan pretty accurate – but it was nice to have the extra shot of confidence and confirmation this tempo provided.

My HR was high in general (64 degrees, Noon run)  but I’m not worried, especially after seeing how high my HR got at the 10K.  The main thing is the last few miles stayed steady and didn’t rise much, which bodes well for sustainability.  I averaged 7:14/mi which comes out to a 1:34:45 Half.  I really hadn’t planned on attempting to crack 1:35, but maybe I need to just go for it.  We’ll see.

Before I sign off, I want to give a shoutout to Jim, my trusty blog commenter, online racing buddy and friend. He’s doing a tough marathon this Sunday, Big Sur, so here’s to a great race and enjoy the view.    Go, Jim, go!

Got through my speedwork yesterday, but the whole session was peppered with lovely internal spewing.  It started before I left the house because I was really tired, not legs tired, just sleepy tired:

Me: “You just raced two days ago, you don’t have to do this, you know.”

Self: “But it’s my last key session, I might as well eek out everything I can from this body before race day.”

Me: “OK, but it’s totally cool if you take it down to 10k pace instead of 5k pace.”

Self: “Yeah, I guess, but did you not hear me?  It’s my last key session…”

Me: “Alright, then here’s another alternative, if you feel like cutting it down to 5 reps instead of 6, that’s totally fine, too.”

Self: “But then I’ll be mad at myself for not finishing the workout!”

Me: “Now see that?  You’ve done three already, you can bag that last one for real, it’s no big deal.”

Self: “But I’m on pace and it’s not killing me, but yeah, quitting early does sound tempting…”

Me: “C’mon, you’ve been working really hard all cycle, give yourself a break!”

Self: “Shut up Bitch, one more and I’m done.”

Workout was: 6×800@5k pace w/90sec. rec’s.  I used my new 5K pace based on Sunday’s race, so my split paces were 6:43 (oops), 6:33, 6:30, 6:37, 6:34, 6:38, average 6:36.  Plus 2.5 miles warmup and cooldown, so 9 miles total.

After that, besides my planned Easys, I’m doing a long tempo on Friday, then there’s a short speed session on Monday (3×1 mile @10k pace w/ 3min. rec’s.) and that’s it!  Definitely my densest cycle of quality work ever, but I have enjoyed it completely.

Now the question will be about taking raceweek days off.  Hudson calls for next Thursday and Saturday off though I’m at a higher mileage level than he expects, so I could get away with a 4-miler in lieu of Thursday’s off day.

Me: “You should just take the one day off, you’ve had this streak since March 2nd, why mess it up with two off days?”

Self: “Because it’s like those people who eschew gels on long runs, I’ll probably be extra fortified on race day by having two whole rest days after such a long spell!  Besides, tapering is for real, it will only help in the long run (yuck yuck) to lay off an extra day.”

Me: “You win.  But I’m still pissed that you called me a Bitch before.”

Self: 

How appropriate that on Easter, my Garmin came back to life.  I guess it was the rain that temporarily did it in yesterday, water must have entered the housing.  But I was not accepting of this fate, so last night I kept turning it on and messing with it.  Eventually the buttons started working again and the screen stopped scrolling as madly, then this morning, all was peaceful with the world again.  Garmin lives.

So Garmin and I enjoyed a fantastic long run today, you could tell we were deeply in love by the numbers it gave and by the adoring glances I couldn’t help bestowing upon it.  16 miles @ 8:07 avg. pace and since Hudson called for the “last 15min Hard” the last couple miles netted me 7:16s.

Couldn’t believe how easy the whole run was, which I believe may be linked with the wrapping up of my Lady Time – looking back on my logs I see a trend in the hormonal department.  Whatever the reason, one thing is sure: I really, really liked it.