Tag: miles

Week 5- Training Begins??

Training for:

  • Livermore 13.1 -March 26
  • Destination Races Santa Barbara 13.1- May 13

Or does it?     I was looking forward to putting my money where my mouth is as it were and hitting the marks during week 1 of training.   Or at least trying to.   I knew the miles were going to be hard and I knew I had a busy week but I was looking forward to the challenge.


Monday- 3.1 miles   Baby tempo!   You can read all about that enlightening run here.   I’m still debating where to run my tempo miles.    I’ll figure something out.

Tuesday- Planned rest day  My legs were a little tight after the attempt at speed the previous day.   I wore compression socks under my slacks most of the day and made sure to foam roll.

And here’s when things went south-

Wednesday- Intervals– rest  I woke up with a headache and stomach pain.  I held fast that I was going to run after work.    Except that I didn’t make it through the day at work.  It got to the point that I couldn’t even stand up straight my stomach hurt so bad.    Joy.

Thursday/ Friday- Rest   What I didn’t mention was that starting  Tuesday night I woke up every night sweating ridiculously.  TMI?  Sorry.    Maybe I was fighting something?  My brother had been sick, my boss missed a day being sick.  Whatever it was, my migraine wouldn’t quit and I felt weird.  I also had a doctor’s appointment where he ordered a series of fun tests.  Yay.

Saturday- Planned rest.   We were going out of town for my grandmother’s memorial.  I knew I wasn’t running that day.    It was a sad, nostalgic, interesting morning and a long day.


Sunday- 8 miles.   I didn’t want to run.  I still wasn’t feeling great but I also wondered how much of that was real and how much was just lingering inertia of the week.   I slept in in the morning and headed out a little before 3.  Yes, I was running during the Super Bowl.   😛     I was bartering with myself in miles 1 and 2, the week was already a wash so I could call it at 4 right?  I even slowed down in mile 3 which has a downhill and is usually a little faster.  Grrr.   But I kept running and something changed around mile 3.5.      I just kept going, mile 4, across the bridge- where I pulled a sub 10 mile.  This is only interesting because I average around 11:30ish until I hit the bridge and bring the pace down over the next .3 mile.   I swear I wasn’t sprinting.   Mile 5- still going and feeling pretty good.  Mile 6 and I ran an entire hill that I have never run all of before.    I celebrated on IG and my mother laughed at me.  Ok, so the hill less than 1/2 mile and only gained 92 feet but let me have my tiny victory!!!   Onto mile 7 and mile 8 and I still felt good!  Woo hoo!!   I have no idea what happened but I’ll take it!

11.1 miles for the week.  1 half completed workout, 1 fully completed workout.  1 missed run and 2 missed cross trainings.    I’m still on the long run high though so yay!  But I am thankful that this is a longer training plan now.  If it was the standard 12 weeks, I may be a little nervous but the longer plan is keeping me a little calmer.  It may be a false sense of security but only time will tell.

How was your week?

Did you watch the Super Bowl?  Puppy Bowl?

Tempo Troubles

Year of Challenge, right?

Training for Destination Races Santa Barbara started Monday.   After much deliberation and a little reworking, I am using a combo plan.  Primarily Run Less Run Faster with a little Jeff Galloway thrown in.  Kind of an oxymoron but I was hoping it would work for me.    The plan means 3 key running workouts a week, 1 tempo- 1 interval workout- 1 long run.

Sounds great, right?  Except it’s day 3 and I am already having troubles.

Monday opened with a tempo.  Probably not the best idea (also against the plan) considering I had run the previous 2 days but unfortunately that was how my schedule worked out this week.   That wasn’t the only trouble.   I suddenly realized I had no where to run said tempo.    I have no access to a track.   The treadmill tries to break me, even the idea of attempting a 5-6 mile made my calves seize up in imagined pain.  I haven’t been on a treadmill since the nightmare fiasco back in October.    Normally I run my tempo runs at the lake path…except thanks to the mudslides not only is my commute 15 miles longer each way due to the road closure but I can’t get to the lake.   A fact that did not occur to me until Sunday night.  Oops.

So now what?

Monday’s run called for a 1-2 mile warmup followed by 3 miles at short tempo pace with a 1 mile cooldown.  What was my tempo pace?  Well according to my last 5K- it should be 9:02.  Trouble.   Let’s all start laughing now.   People, I’m not in 9:02 shape not even close.  I would need a downhill with an 8% grade, a strong tailwind and maybe even skates to pull that off.   I went back to the pace chart.   Could I even maintain a sub 10?  Honestly, I wasn’t sure.  Ouch.

Next trouble.  I was running this in work town.  After work.   In the dark.  On the streets.  With cars.   Yeah, this was going to be very abbreviated and interesting.    What really happened?

.75 mile warm up
1 mile tempo
.2 mile gasp for air
.7 mile tempo
.5 mile cooldown

Holy crap, I was sucking wind.  My legs were so confused.  They were like, wait, fast running?  I thought we didn’t do that anymore, who agreed to this?    As for the paces?  Haha.    Tempo mile 1- 9:55.  Ouch.   I had hoped it would be a little better than that.  Except let’s be real, there was a 30 second walk break in there.  Ok, there was also a break.   Because when you come around a corner and see this sunset, you stop and stare a bit.


And try to stop panting.

That last tempo portion wasn’t a full mile partly because I decided it was too dark to run safely and if I stopped it there, I had a half mile cool down jog to my car.  That .7 mile of tempo came in at a 9:27 pace.   Somehow I improved going uphill, wonder if I could have held it.

So yeah, ouch.  I cut my 6 mile run in half.  Ran hard into the reality of how much work I need to do get faster.  I felt like toast just after those 3 miles.


However I still have the problem of where to run.   Until the highway opens back up, I can’t get to the lake path.     I could try the treadmill but I fear it would cause more harm than good.   I could keep running them at work until the lake path is available, they would just be way shorter than the plan says.  Something is better than nothing right?   The days are getting longer so I could the push the tempo portion to be a little longer each week.   I was looking forward to working on my training plan and now I just feel foiled.  Grrr.

What would do?

Where would you run?

 

Weekly Recap 2- Of stress and rain

Yikes, last week was a little rough.  I still can’t pinpoint exactly why but if you read my last post you know I was feeling massively out of sorts last week.   The feeling only went away when I ran.  Or tried to nap but that was rare.  I started the week with a migraine and my stomach was being its asshat self.   I also admit that my food choices were less than stellar.  Boo.

Anyways, let’s get to the workouts!  Or what resembled working out.  😛

Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday- Stress– Rest  In all seriousness, I foam rolled and stretched every one of these nights.     Between all the rain and the longer commute, job stress and just life, I was freaking out.    I knew I was only running one evening during the week due to my weekend running plans so I kept pushing it back due to the weather.    I really needed to run.


Thursday- 3 miles Oh thank goodness, a break from the rain and I ran.    I was planning on running at home but knew that the longer drive home zaps my energy and willpower.  I changed into my running clothes after work and made the last minute decision to run from work as I was walking out the door.   I always treated my work route as off limits in the dark but I decided to chance it.   It was just what I needed.  It was slow but also oddly the fastest 3 miler I’ve done in months.  Considering I was dodging branches, I’ll take it!   The smell of the eucalyptus trees and the sun setting on the ocean was just what I needed.  For a blissful few moments, my brain was quiet for the first time all week.

Friday- Rest   Jacked up my back again while getting ready for work, it hurt just to move.  So I spent the day deciding how crazy I was.  Which also probably contributed to my stress level this week.


Saturday- Road trip!  Up early on the road heading towards Carlsbad.  My back was super sore but not outright painful.  Guess I am crazy.    Bonus to this trip was that my uncle recently moved to that area- so added perks were staying with family and no hotel fees!  Even if the grounds of his new house made me feel like I am doing something wrong with my life.  


And the fact that I typed grounds, it’s not  big but still.   I went to bed early and just tried to get a decent night’s sleep.


Sunday- Carlsbad Half Marathon.  I only ran 14 miles in December, what was I thinking?!   But more on that next time.  😛

16.2 miles for the week.  I kept my work week miles low as I knew what was coming in Sunday.   I may be a little crazy but I have been trying to up my weekly mileage in a sane way.    But still, doesn’t everyone jump their long runs from 7 to 13?     Looking to this week, I am hoping to be a little calmer.  Rain is still coming and my road is still closed, man I miss it, but I’m hoping that I will deal with it better this week.   Fingers crossed!

How was your week?

Share something random!

 

 Week 40 Training Recap/ September Wrap

3/4 of the year is done!  Woah.  Already my Facebook feed is full of countdowns to Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas.  Knock it off people!!

Anyways, last week’s training started out great, maintained for most of the week then hit a big roadblock by the weekend.  One I am still trying to figure out.  Combine that with a truly craptacular week in sleeping and this one was a little rough.   Seriously, each night averaged around 6 hours.  😕

Monday- Rest– I somehow got used to running on Monday’s and now resting on those days feels odd.  However I was so abnormally sore to the point of painful after Sunday’s races that I embraced it.  Plus the temps were in the triple digits everywhere so why put myself through that?

​

Tuesday- 4.2 miles–  I was still sore so I opted for the lower end of what coach suggested.    I kept the pace nice and easy and walked whenever my leg felt odd.   To avoid most of the heat, I ran in work town.   I really wish there was more trail through the eucalyptus grove.  That said, it was a decent run and I managed to negative split, which considering it’s an out and back with the first 2 miles down hill is pretty sweet.


Wednesday- 3.75 miles.  Float like a butterfly, pant like a dog.   Speed work!


Thursday- 3.5 miles.  Recovery run.  In retrospect, maybe I should have just gotten on the bike and moved my legs that way.  I was really trying to stick to the plan though.    I crawled.  My legs were not happy even attempting to run.  I iced and rolled and stretched that night but I had a feeling it wasn’t enough.

Friday- Rest- Ouch.  My left leg was pissed.  I felt twinges anytime I moved.  Which  brought me to a very cranky conclusion-

Saturday- 5K race– Yeah, nope.   I had planned on running the inaugural Run the Runways out at the airport but I realized there was no way my leg was up to it.    I knew I would get out there and likely do something stupid.   I did 15 minutes on the bike though.  Work is attempting the Tone It Up challenge for October, I looked at the daily exercises but they all required more leg work then I was willing to do, so fail day 1.😢

Sunday-9-10 mile long run– 30 minutes bike  Another one bites the dust.  I woke up with a headache, tried getting up to run but no.   Figured I would go out for a few in the afternoon and slept some more.   Afternoon rolled around and my leg was not happy.  I was trying to determine if it really hurt or if I was trying to be lazy and not feel guilty about it.   I hopped on the bike for a very slow ride for 30 minutes.  Judging but how my leg felt while riding, I made the right choice not running.  Boo.

So now, I am in limbo.  I have a half marathon on Sunday and I am hesitant about it.  Plus side is that I haven’t registered for it yet.  Downside- it’s one of my favorites.   So this coming week will be interesting.


Since last week saw the end of September, I added up my mileage- 75.85.  Not too bad.  Not where I had hoped I would be but it is what it is and now it is time to focus on October.   Which hopefully means that the high 90’s and triple digit weather is gone.  Fingers crossed! 

How was your week?  September?

Any plans for October?