8/16/2010-8/22/2010

38 miles in 6 runs.

6/14-6/20

Monday: 8.2mi (58:00) This was pretty slow because my left hip was a little tender. I spent some time working on it with the foam roller, stretching and popping advil.

Plan

Tuesday: AM - 4mi, PM - 10mi

Wednesday: AM - 3mi, PM - 10mi
Thursday: AM - 4mi, PM - 8mi
Friday: AM - 4, PM - 10mi w/ ss run
Saturday: 8mi
Sunday: 16mi

Completed: 8.2mi

Plan Total: 75-85mi

6/7-6/13

This was a pretty hard week because I ran 81 miles, did three hard workouts and did my first 20+ mile long run. I am not sure how often I will run that long, but I wanted to see if I could do it at this point in my training. The hard workouts were a 5km tempo run in 16:12, hill repeats and a 10km steady-state run in 34:33. I am going to shoot for 80-85 miles next week but limit myself to 2 hard workouts.

Monday: AM - 3mi (20:56) Easy run at work. PM - 10mi (66ish) On Wednesday we are going to run hills and I wanted to get something fast in so I did a 5k tempo run tonight. I got out of work late so I did not make it back to Nashua for the Mine Falls Park Trail Race tonight so I ran the tempo run on the track. This worked out well because I was not sure about pace and running it on the track allowed me to get splits. My goal was to hit 5:20 pace for the first two miles and then run what ever felt good for the last mile. I was still feeling pretty tired from my long run and my legs were heavy but I settled into 79 sec/400m pace after about the first mile and split 5:15, 10:29 (5:14), 15:34 (5:05), 16:12 (:37). The first two miles were very comfortable, although not really that smooth, but I was working pretty hard on the last mile. I feel like I could have held 5:10-5:15 pace for another mile or two but I did not want to over-do it tonight. I did a three mile warm up (20:47) and a four mile cool down (28:52).

Tuesday: AM - 8.2mi (59:49) Slow recovery run early in the morning, PM - 6mi (41:57) Easy run.

Wednesday: AM - 3.3mi (24:20) Easy run to loosen up the legs, PM - 11.9mi (1:20:24) I warmed up by running 4 miles to the school and then we went to a hill close to Nashua South to do repeats. I think that the hill is about 1/5th of a mile long. The workout was 5 sets of 1/3, 2/3, all the way up and then a 100 meter stride at the bottom of the hill. The total workout added up to about 3.5 miles. I cooled down by running 3.5 miles home. I did one of the miles at MP (actually, I only hit 5:55 and felt like crap) to flush out the legs. I felt really tired today and my legs are beat up a bit so I am going to go really easy and short tomorrow.
Thursday: 6mi (44:13) I bailed on doubles today and did a really easy run. I was feeling over tired today and I have a steady-state run tomorrow so hopefully this will help.
Friday: 12mi+ (80ish) Instead of doing my standard 10 mile steady-state run I decided to do a 10km stead-state run on the track to mix things up. The main reason I did this was that I wanted to run a bit faster than the road run, even if I cut the distance. I started out with a 3 mile warm up and some strides. After how tired I felt yesterday I was not sure how I would feel today but things went pretty well. I wore my heart-rate monitor and set my HR alarms to 165bpm and 176bpm (170bpm should be roughly MP for me with HRM = 205bpm). My splits and HR were:

Mile Split Mile Split Avg. HR
1 5:35 5:35 166
2 11:06 5:31 170
3 16:39 5:32 171
5k 17:20
4 22:07 5:28 173
5 27:38 5:30 174
6 33:12 5:33 175
10k 34:33

I guess that looking at the HR it was steadily increasing over the run, so it was a bit faster than "steady-state". I finished with a strong 3 mile cool-down. Rest tomorrow.
Saturday: 0 - I just did not get around to running.
Sunday: 21.1 (2:33:33.) This was a pretty tough run because I did not have anywhere to get fluids on the route that I ran and it was 4 miles longer than my longest run so far. I decided to just take it slow and steady and focus on just getting the miles in rather than worry about pace. I averaged 7:17 pace, which is not bad for this long of a run.

Completed: 81.5mi

Plan Total: 75-85mi

5/31-6/5

I got back to business as I jumped my mileage up from 55 last week to a bit over 80 his week. I had good workouts on both Wednesday and Friday but felt pretty crappy the rest of the week. I am not sure why, but it bothers me when I run an 8 minute mile (I have the Forerunner set to give mile splits) and I have see several of those in the last week. I keep telling myself that it does not matter and that I should just listen to my body so that I recover and stay injury free. Looking back over the week, I will gladly take the slow miles on recovery runs if I can blast some good workouts (and races , in the future). It is only the first week of June and it feels like we are in the middle of August with all of this heat and humidity. I am hoping that it cools off and dries out a bit because I am rotating three pairs of running shoes right now and all three are always wet.

Monday: 11.7mi (?) My watch battery died just as I started the run. Grrrr! Anyway, I was planning on doing some hills today but after digging in the yard for 5 hours and considering the heat I just did a moderate run in Mine Falls Park.

Tuesday: AM - 6.5mi (50:25) This was a really slow recovery run. I was supposed to go 8 miles but it was so hot and humid and I felt like garbage so I cut it short. PM - 4mi (29:30) On the treadmill at work. I could not face the humidity again today.

Wednesday: 11.5mi () 3mi warm-up in 21:50 followed by 1600/800/400/400/800/1600 @ 5k pace with 400m rest for all (yeah, I know, that is a lot of rest). I hit 5:00 (2:30ish), 2:28 (3:03), 71 (2:49), 71 (2:47), 2:25 (2:56), 4:56. The heat and humidity really started to get to me (83 and the dew point=64 when we started). Cooled down for about 4 miles.
Thursday: AM - 8.1mi (61:26) Really slow recovery run again., PM 4mi (29:12) On the treadmill at work again. This heat and humidity is killing me!

Friday: 9.9mi (61:25) This was my "10 mile" stead-state run. I was a bit nervous about this one because it was 84 degrees and the dew point was 64 degrees (not good running weather). I did not wear the Garmin today so I did not get exact splits but here is a summary of how I did compared to last week's run when the weather was much more conducive to running. I was 20 seconds slower than last week at 1.5mi but had pulled even by 2.5mi. At the turn around (halfway) I was 5 seconds faster and by 8 miles I was ahead by about 20 seconds. I decided to shut things down at this point and just cool down the last two miles because I was getting really hot and figured that it was not wise to over-do things. I averaged about 6:00min/mi even for the first 8 miles.

Saturday: 8.1mi (60:23) A really slow recovery run in Mine Falls park.

Sunday: 17mi (2:01:30) I did what I should have done the last two long runs and I drove down to Mine Falls Park and ran from there. That allowed me to stop for fluids half way through. I did not think that I would have issues today since it was only about 66 degrees but it was quite humid and I still can not seem to deal with the humidity. I never really felt good on the run and never got into a groove, but I got in 17 decent miles at 7:08 pace. The heavy rain hit at about 14 miles and when I heard the thunder rolling in at about 16.5 miles I quickly changed my plans to try to hit 18 miles and headed for the car.

Completed: 80.8mi

Plan Total: 70-80mi

5/24-5/30

This was a decent week, although it did not feel as restful as it was supposed to be. I think that was because of the extreme heat that we had (Wednesday hit about 95 in Nashua!). I ran 55.5 miles on 6 runs and I had two good workouts and even got in a real long run. Next week I get back to work and my mileage will pop back up to 75ish miles and I will probably try to throw in 2-3 doubles in the week.

Monday: 6mi (43:16) Easy run.
Tuesday: 7.5mi (57:16) Really easy run in the morning to beat the heat.

Wednesday: ~8mi () 2.5mi warm-up in 19:13 w/ an acceleration in last 200m, 10x400m @3k pace w/ about 150-200m rest (~90sec) followed by a 2.2mi cool-down (18:10) and 6x100m strides. It was about 93 degrees when we started and this is an easy week so I was not about to put too much into this workout and was fully prepared to pull the chute if the heat got to me. I finished all 10 repeats and hit pretty consistent splits except a couple where I let the wind on the back stretch get to me and I slowed by a second or two. Times and rests:

Bout	Split	Avg HR	Max HR	Rest
1	70	172	186	89
2	71	176	184	80
3	71	178	185	77
4	70	175	188	85
5	70	176	186	78
6	72	176	184	110
7	70	173	184	91
8	71	177	185	96
9	72	173	184	91
10	68	-	-	-

It is interesting to note that for the repeats where I slipped to 72sec my peak HR was around 184bpm while it was about 186-188bpm when I ran 70sec. This just shows it was a mental slip, not a physical limit. In the end I do not really see the point of this workout, especially since it was touted as a HR workout. We were supposed to run 3k pace and with pretty much equal time rest. I agree with Dan Hocking's rant about this type of workout.
Thursday: 8mi (58:21) Nice and easy today. A bit longer than I planned, but it was such a nice day and I could not resist.

Friday: 9.9mi (59:35) This was the same "10 mile" steady-state run that I ran last Friday, but I wore my Forerunner and it unfortunately came out 1/10th of a mile short. Oh, well. I was feeling a bit tired and was not sure if I was going to do this run, but once I got going I felt better and had a decent run. I averaged 6:02min/mi pace and my mile splits were: 6:20, 6:14, 6:03, 5:59, 5:51, 5:58, 6:02, 5:59, 5:52, 5:12 (for 0.9mi = 6:03 pace). If it had been a full 10 miles the time would have been ~60:20.

Saturday: 0 - I spent the day digging in the yard. Yay!
Sunday: 16.25 (1:51:21) I felt alright, although a bit sore from yesterday's digging, and began the run hitting 7min/mi pace for the first 6 mile. Just after 6 miles I stopped to stretch and did most of the rest of the run at around 6:30 pace until I started to get dehydrated and slow down. I am not sure which was the worst part of the run, the dehydration or the chaffing that I endured for the last 8 miles of the run. I think that I have to get some compression shorts to run in from now on.

Completed: ~55.5mi

Plan Total: 50-60mi

5/17/2010-5/23/2010

I am going to start updating this daily so that I do not have to remember all my runs at the end of the week.

Monday: 11.75mi (80:20) Easy run to shake out the legs from yesterday's long run.
Tuesday: 10mi (69:42) Felt really easy and I was just resting up for tomorrow's workout.

Wednesday: 11.5mi - 4mi warm-up followed by 1 mile @ 5k pace on the track, 5km @ MP on the trails and finish with 1 mile @ 5k pace back on the track. There was no rest between each segment and it turns out that the 5k on the trails that we did was actually only 2.5 miles. It was pretty cool (55F) and rainy but I felt decent. I did not really know what pace to do for the "5k" section so I used my heart rate monitor and set an upper limit of 176bpm, which is about 87-88% of my HRM (pretty much marathon pace from what I know). I hit the first mile in 5:15 w/ an average HR of 183 (only 90% of HRM), I did the 2.5mi stretch in 14:55 w/ an average HR of 177 (sadly enough, it was only 6:00 pace), and then closed out the last mile on the track in 5:14 w/ an average HR of 185. I felt really comfortable the whole way, rightly so since I ran so stinking slow, and the hardest part of the whole run was switching up the pace for the last mile. I ended with a 3mi cool-down and 6x100m strides. Rest up tomorrow.

Thursday: 11.75mi (83:05) Same route as Monday. I felt great the first 8 or so miles because it was sunny, warm and I just felt good. However, as the run went on I sweat so much that chaffing became an issue and the run went down hill. Overall it was a great run because I am starting to feel like a runner again but I really need to cut my weight.

Friday: 10mi (62:15) I felt really good from the start today and let out the reins a little bit to get the legs going. I covered the first 5 miles in 31:47 and covered the second half in 30:28. The pace was pretty quick but I was not pushing too hard - it was much slower than LT pace.

Saturday: 8.2mi (60:09) This was a really easy run and my first run with my new Forerunner 305. It seems pretty good, although it is A LOT bigger than my Suunto T6. I like the idea of being able to set up workouts based on any combination of time and distance (intervals and rests) and do them on the road.
Sunday: 17.1mi (1:59:07) I felt really good on this run other than the fact that I had some hydration issues. I usually drive somewhere to run and take fluids with me but today I ran from home and did not have access to any fluids on the run. It was not that warm out but it was pretty humid and I felt dehydrated by 9 miles. I started out at 7:30 pace for the first 2-3 miles, did most of the run at 6:55-7:05 pace and then finished the last 4 miles at 6:30-6:40 pace

This week was pretty good. I hit my highest mileage yet (80 miles on singles), I had two good workouts and my longest long run yet. Next week is going to be a really easy week with one or two easy workouts and I will only do 50-60 miles.

Completed: 80mi
Plan Total: 80mi