Posts Tagged ‘tempo’

I really wanted to call this post “My Whore Moans” but out of deference to all the sweet people who link my blog to theirs and maybe don’t have the same nasty sense of humor, I reconsidered.

Saturday was a solid tempo workout that showed a lot of progress from the last time I did it in October.  It was: 1.5mi@HP, 1.5mi@15k pace, 1.5mi@10K pace w/ 2min recoveries.  With warmup and cooldown, 9.5 miles.

Paces ended up 7:04 for Half Pace, 6:53 for 15k pace and 6:48 for 10k pace.  The 15k was a tad fast, the 10K a touch slow, but I was super happy nonetheless.  These are not my current race paces, btw, they’re where I hope to be by the end of January, so it’s looking good.

But then yesterday was one of the most uncomfortable runs ever.  It was supposed to be 14, I should have cut it around 7, though ended up trudging away for 11.  I wasn’t hurting or sore, just a general exhausted not-wanting-to-continue feeling, which is extremely unusual for me.   I didn’t think it was from the previous day’s tempo since I’ve done many tempo/long runs back-to-back and never felt like that.

Then came today’s run, slated to be 8 easy, but due to the next two days being awful (13 windchill tomorrow, gusts mid 30s and not much better on Wednesday), I had no choice but to switch tomorrow’s fast workout of 200s and 800s to today, Thursday would be too close to Saturday’s 5k.  I was not happy making the switch because it meant only one day between a tempo and speed workout, and at my age, I think 2 days between hard efforts is important, but I really didn’t want to lose that workout.

It was 24 windchill, gusting like crazy and again, I felt like shit.  After the first four 200m’s, I knew the 800s weren’t going to happen, even 400m seemed like too long a distance to run hard so I turned it into a fartlek 8-miler.

Once I got home, the answer to my suckage was revealed: I got my period.  Thank god!  I often feel like crap at the onset, why don’t I remember this?  Then again, I’m not one of those clockwork chicks who know down to the hour when theirs is due so I’m never exactly sure when I’ll get that fine surprise.

Anyway, I’m relieved that it wasn’t some overnight tsetse fly disease though yeah, I’m bummed that I didn’t get to do the workout properly.  But you know, there’s only so much we can plan, life has its own agenda. I’m lucky to be able to stick to the schedule as well as I do, though with the advent of winter, there are sure to be a few more wrenches in the works.   And lots more whore moans.

Thanks to Coach A muse/Adam, I now have the final installment of Flo’s Half Marathon Trilogy.  This one is a spin-off of the last cycle but with a couple interesting (and fun) changes.

Since I’m only doing one race before Carlsbad, three more workouts could be added.  Two of them are top-end speed workouts I was talking about a few posts ago.  I mentioned in a subsequent post that I’d put the fast stuff off till February when shorter races are the focus, but Adam said “why wait?”  and it’s true, it can only be helpful and I had room for them, so they’re on for this week and next.

Then on the 21st, there’s a killer workout to replace the 2x(5x1k) from the previous plan.  That’s what I get for complaining, lol.  His goal was to keep it around 10k worth of 10k pace, so that’s what it is, but in a more “entertaining” package.

I’ve also been instructed to add more hills to my GA runs from this point forward and to my tempos starting Dec. 31st.

Other than that, I’ve got the same cutback week I’ve had in the last 2 cyclettes and many of the same workouts from the previous one, but since there’s no repetition within the cycle, it remains fun and fresh.  I’m really happy with it.   Thanks again, Adam!

Last Week’s Running
Like a large part of the country, winter landed on Wednesday, so it’s been jacket, tights, hat and gloves time in Philly.  I don’t mind, though a little less wind would be nice.

The quality work was all good.  Besides Tuesday’s speed session, I had a strong tempo on Friday: 8 miles w/5@7:08.  Another first: my fastest pace for 5 continuous tempo miles.  I’ll stop doing that “first” crap now,  it’s my excitement over finally seeing progress again.  Hopefully, there’ll be many firsts from this point on.

My 12-miler on Thursday was interesting because after the first mile, I decided not to peek at my Garmin again till I got home.   I’m going to make G.I. (Garmin Ignoring) a once-a-week deal, the mid-long runs seem well-suited to that.

Lastly, yesterday’s LR, a 13-miler, came perilously close to being a terrible run.  The tendon on the top of my foot leading to the big toe has been tender for a couple days.  I think it’s because I need to toss my ancient and beloved black suede Vans in the garbage.  Anyway, for Saturday’s run, I fashioned some moleskin around the painful area but it still hurt and once home, I had to ice it a few times.

Tried again with moleskin yesterday.  Seemed ok for the first 3 miles but by mile 5 it was really hurting so I stopped to completely re-lace my shoe, skipping the holes over the tender area.  That didn’t help.  Then I stopped again to make another adjustment, but no relief.  So I turned around early, unhappy that it’d only be an 11-miler but mostly worried about the state of my foot.

Then, about 1/2 mile into the return portion, the moleskin shifted and the pain went away completely (and now I know where to place it).  Whew!  So when I got back to the museum, I felt good enough to add nearly 2 miles of hilliness by going up and down the little rampy paths there.  Short hills but steep.  Crisis averted and a better run in the end.

Total for the week: 57.5 miles

Hope For The Masters
This is a great article, not only because it features fellow blogger/recent Olympic Trials Qualifier, Jaymee Martee, but because it widens the axiom that “runners generally have 7-10 years to improve after taking up running”.  Several of the women featured have been running much longer than that and are still getting PRs!   Exciting and hopeful, for sure.

I want to start by talking about these last couple weeks after making that decision to pick up the pace on easy and long runs.  I am fascinated by the results so far, it is working better than expected.  Not only are those paces feeling comfortable (easys are averaging 8:15 – 8:10 with sub 8s on the way home) but my heart rate has shown a marked improvement to where those runs are averaging 152, 154.  It’s magic.

Now, I lost a nice amount of weight, so obviously this is making a dent, but here’s the part I find fascinating; I’ve been at this same weight (114-115) for 5 weeks, but it wasn’t till that one day when I decided to consciously start picking up my paces that things started happening.

What’s interesting about this is you’d think that you lose weight and suddenly you run faster since there’s less mass, but it wasn’t that way for me (though I’m sure it would have infiltrated the averages eventually).  I had 3 weeks running the same as always at that new weight, albeit somewhat faster thanks to the end of summer, but nothing like the dramatic turn from one day to the next.

This confirms the idea that, for me, my paces are truly led by habit.  By suddenly flipping the switch on Easys and Longs, I think the central nervous system got a kick in the pants and told the body “hey, it’s ok, you’re allowed to do this”.   And like night/day, everything felt easier.

Other external forces would be weather, though I’m using comparable days as comparison so that’s not in the equation.  One thing that does help the heart rate I think, is running later in the day as I have been, after I’ve been moving around a bit.

Now be aware, I am not telling you guys to go out and start racing all your easys and longs.  You’re your own experiment and the popular consensus is that conservative is the way to go, though I have been reading some articles that say moderate pace is something worth exploring.  That said, I have a few things going for me that made the transition easy:

1. A constant mileage base around 60mpw
2. I’m very lucky when it comes to recovery (knock on wood)
3. I lost 9lbs since July 23rd, so of course that helps

I feel silly for having to “warn” you, but I get enough feedback from blog readers to know that people do sometimes follow my lead.  Just do it carefully, please.

Weight Revisited
I got down to 113 for that one day and as I’ve mentioned, I tend to hit a new weight, then it bops around for about 3 weeks before settling.  But I might be at my set weight for the amount of food I’m consuming: around 1900 calories/day with an occasional night out where I stuff my face and don’t give a shit.

While I originally said 110 was my ultimate goal, I was never married to that particular number, the whole point was to get back to the speed I was seeing last year and then move beyond that.  Since things are starting to cook for me again, I’m satisfied to stick here a while, maybe indefinitely.  I just wanted to make this clear for anyone else who’s pursuing a new racing weight, to think in terms of sustainability, what you can be happy living with and to consider what your goal is.

My goal is to be faster, not the fastest possible I can ever hope to reach.  I’d be happy to be a work in progress forever…as long as there’s progress!  Having said this, my weight might bop down a bit more, which I wouldn’t have a problem with, but I’m not pursuing it, I’d just let it happen.

Today’s Workout
It’s amazing how much calmer one feels entering a tough workout when training is going well.  I actually looked forward to this one, though it was a toughie: warmup, 3@Half Pace, 1hour easy, 3@Half Pace, cooldown.

It was a windy day, 17mph gusts, 41 windchill to start, 50 by the time I finished.  I only did 1mi warmup since that’ll mirror race day.  Turned out to be exactly 2 hrs. and 15.5 miles, avg pace 7:45.

The key, as Coach A Muse/Adam reminded me, is not to run the easy portion too easy, so by the time you revisit Half Pace, you’re tired – just as you would be in a race.  Considering how my easy paces have been lately, I was confident that portion would remain somewhat zippy, and it was.

1mi warmup: 8:07
3 Half Pace: 7:13
1 hr (7.5 mi): 8:03 avg.
3 Half Pace: 7:12
1 mi home: 8:08

I’d like to say the HP miles were a nice low heart rate, but they weren’t, it was too windy, but coming back was lower.  I was targeting 7:10s for HP, so it wasn’t perfect but that’s ok – this workout says my endurance is fab and that things are definitely going well.  Been a long time coming.

Now I’m off to one of those voiceover jobs where I have absolutely no clue what I’m saying.  Today’s favorite word is Triiodothyronine.   What fun.  Later, my lovelies.

…or Echo Stress test, whatever the order is.  Anyway, as expected, nothing was discovered, though it was an interesting experience.

First, they stick a bunch of things on you and look at your heart via ultrasound, take a bunch of pictures, then stick a bunch more stuff on you and you get on the treadmill.

They start you walking and then every few minutes, they increase the incline and pump a little more speed.  For my age, they would ordinarily stop the mill when my heart rate hits 145 but since I’m Runner Chick, they let me keep going.  I was on there for 20 minutes total though I didn’t reach my max HR (193 is what I’ve clocked a couple times), only reaching 186.

Also, you’re not allowed to take your hands off the bar in front of you (I think they’re afraid people will be whisked off the back or will faint or something).  So I learned that it’s a major pain in the ass running without the use of your arms.

While on the treadmill, they periodically take your blood pressure and mine behaved perfectly.  Then it was back for another lie-down with the ultrasound machine.  I got mucho kudos from the doctor and technicians for being such a healthy specimen, and they were all so sweet that when I left, hugs were exchanged (talk about your strange bonding experience).

Of course, it’s fabulous that I’m so fit, but leaves me with nothing solid on which to blame the collapses.   C’est la vie, it’s what I expected and now that the evil summer is over, I’ll just attribute it to weather and not let it worry me until next year.

Latest Runs
Wed – 7 easy @ 8:44, Thurs – 6 easy @ 8:28 + stress test, Today – frickin’ hard tempo intervals.

Actually, it was a solid workout albeit tough thanks to my legs feeling yesterday’s treadmill hill fun coupled with 23mph gusts of wind.  For the wind alone, I would have rescheduled but tomorrow’s a huge regatta which means forget the bike path and also, I want my 17 on Sunday to be on fresh legs.  On the good side, it was a lovely 55 degrees.

The workout was 9.5mi w/ 3 x 2mi @HP, 2min rec’s.  Warmup was 2@8:12, Cooldown was 1@8:20, average for the entire run 7:40.

Starting directly into the wind, the first mile sucked @7:21, but after that things improved.  The 2mi splits went 7:16, 7:11 and 7:08, avg 7:11.  Not bad, really.  Also, my HR was lower than usual for that pace, so double not bad.

And with that, I return to sloth mode with a rest day tomorrow.   Have a great weekend, friends.  May you enjoy some fine running and Halloween stuff, if that’s your thing.  Personally, I can’t wait till this silly holiday is over so I can stop thinking that stuffed scarecrow doll in overalls on Green Street is not a human being.   It’s annoying being tricked every damn time.

Later, loves.

Yesterday’s blog post was put in action today and boy, do I have great feelings about this!  Forgive me Facebook folks, this is basically the update I just posted but I’m so pleased, it deserves blog detailing as well.

Today was a tempo run: 9mi with 6@HP.  61 degrees with 10mph wind.

Implementing my old style, instead of doing my usual slow couple miles before the workout, I left the house with pep in my step.  I wasn’t shooting for anything special, just wanted to feel energized.  So with huge surprise, my first two miles were 7:53 and 7:45 (a full minute faster per mile than my usual warmup miles). I was looking at my Garmin thinking “Girl, you are going too fast” but since my heartrate was averaging 158, I said screw it.  I did have a thought that maybe this peppy beginning might make my tempo miles harder but figured at least I’ll know for next time.

Once the tempo miles started, I had some dodging and weaving thanks to the Dragonboat races on the river which brought a ton of people out on the path.  I was going for 7:10s and Garmin told me I was doing that (going as low as 7:03s), but once home, when I added the real splits off the bike path, it came out to 7:13s, oh well…still cool by me.

The cooldown mile home was 8:11.  That one surprised me the most. I was thinking that my cooldowns will be slower from here on in, as in, actual cooldowns…but I ran what felt right and that’s what it came out to.

Of course, this is just one run but it now holds a place as the fastest pace I’ve averaged for a run in a non-race situation (7:29s).  Neat-o!  Though no worries folks, I’m not going to race my training runs, heart rate will be a major player in keeping it all “legal”.

So we’ll see if picking up the pace here and there ends up picking up my pace as a whole.  I can’t see how it won’t.

This has been a really fun week of running, I can feel the speed growing in these ole thighs of mine.  I had those hillettes on Tuesday, then an effortless 12mi progression on Wednesday (from 8:30 to 7:39, avg 8:06), a tired 8miler on Thursday from too little sleep (very rare these days…8 hours is getting to be the norm, yay!) and today, a great tempo.

Coach Adam gave me training paces to shoot for the other day based off my Half PR from last year.  That seems to fit well since, despite what happened in last month’s Half, I do feel as though I’m back to that shape now. Training paces are: HP=7:08-7:10, 10K=6:48, 5K=6:27 (note: these aren’t current race paces per se, but based around Canova’s training principles).

So today’s workout was 9mi with 1.5mi@HP, 2min rec, 1.5mi@15k, 2min rec, 1.5mi@10k.  They were originally written as 10 minutes at each pace, but since the Garmin isn’t exact, I changed it to 1.5mi so I could use the park markers, the better to compare the workout to future ones. Conditions were 63 degrees and a bit windy.

Avg pace results:
1.75 warmup=8:53
HP section=7:08
15k section=6:57
10k section=6:48
2.75mi home=8:11 (surprisingly zippy…didn’t feel that fast)
Avg for the entire run=7:49

Not bad for having drunk 1/2 bottle of wine the night before.

Breathing Test Results
Got the results of the breathing test: normal…Yay!! But wait, normal…Fuuuuuck.  Of course it’s great that nothing is found but I really wanted there to be a simple, straight-ahead reason for these collapses.  On the bright side, I don’t have to worry about where to carry an inhaler, on the dull side, it looks like racing in anything warmer than 65 is a crapshoot.

I still have the Echo Stress test at the end of the month and if I get to see an official max HR out of it (which is all I’m expecting) that’ll be cool.

GOOD LUCK Marathoning Friends!!
This is a huge marathon weekend with about 6 races going on, the largest of which, Chicago, will contain the majority of my friends from the 3:20 thread and a ton of Facebook friends as well.  The weather is being an ass, likely in the 60s, which is certainly not optimum but these are strong runners with solid determination and I’m sure they’ll do what it takes to make it a great race.

I wish you all the best of luck, whether you’re doing Chicago, Steamtown, Mohawk-Hudson, Portland, Hartford, Towpath or another.  Run relaxed, run strong and race like you mean it.  Sending hugs, love and speedy wishes to each and every one of you.