Chase the wind and touch the sky - a training journal (comments welcome)

[YawningDodo]

Weekly Journal: June 24-30
Galloway's Beginner-to-3.5 Mile Schedule: Week 3

Monday:
Planned:

Walk to/from work (2.4 mile round trip)​

Actual:

Walked to/from work
​

Tuesday:
Planned:

22 minute run/walk at 10/50 ratio​

Actual:

22 minute run/walk at 10/50 ratio
1.5 miles
14:40 pace
​

Wednesday:
Planned:

Walk Penny, 30 minutes
Walk to/from work (2.4 mile round trip)​

Actual:

Walked Penny, 40 minutes
Walked to/from work
​

Thursday:
Planned:

25 minute run/walk at 10/50 ratio​

Actual:

25 minute run/walk at 10/50 ratio
1.73 miles
14:27 pace
​

Friday:
Planned:

Walk Penny, 30 minutes
Walk to/from work (2.4 mile round trip)​

Actual:

Walked Penny, 30 minutes
Walked to/from work
​

Saturday:
Planned:

2 mile run/walk at 10/50 ratio​

Actual:

2 mile run/walk at 10/50 ratio
15:38 pace
​

Summary:
I hit all my goals this week in terms of walks taken and times run. Saturday saw a much slower pace than I've been running as I spent those two miles working on my form and taking it easier on my walk breaks, which is overall a win in preventing injuries as I go forward from here.

 

[YawningDodo]

This weekend my housemate and I went down to the capitol for a pop culture convention. We drove down on Saturday morning and came back on Sunday, and I'm really proud of myself for hauling myself out of bed early enough on Saturday morning to still do my run before we left. It's too easy to start making excuses, and I don't want to fall into that trap. I had a really good run on Saturday, too! I dropped my intervals from 15/45 to 10/50 because while I'd been able to do 15/45 for 19 minutes on Thursday, I was very ready to be done by the time I hit minute 17. Part of me wants to push harder, but I remembered that Galloway says about a billion time to never be afraid to drop to a lower interval. Not only did I maintain the same overall pace I had on Thursday, but I also beat my fastest mile and I still felt good past the first twenty minutes (the latter was what I was worried about). It looks like 10/50 is where I'm at for now.

Skipped out on one of my walks this morning because a.) Penny was still in boarding until this afternoon and b.) I was totally drained after the con and let myself sleep in half an hour instead. Still walked to/from work, though.

 

[YawningDodo]

So this morning was...interesting. I hit snooze on my first alarm and dozed in bed with my dog because I was absolutely convinced that today was a walking day and that I had all the time in the world. When I walk Penny I can take it easy since all my preparations for walking take less time and because I don't feed her until after the walk. On a running morning I have to get her fed and get her to do her business before I can leave the house (once she's awake the clock is ticking, and she has proven that she cannot hold it until I get back if it doesn't get taken care of first thing--and we don't have a fenced yard, so I have to walk her halfway around the block most mornings). So I realized about ten minutes before I was supposed to be out the door that I was supposed to be out the door in ten minutes. Got it all done, though, and only fifteen or twenty minutes late. Still had time for a full warm-up and cool-down, but the shower and breakfast afterward were a bit rushed.

Also not my favorite thing: going to make some chocolate milk after the run and discovering that the milk had spoiled. I survived, somehow.

Looks like my pace is staying pretty steady as I start lengthening my runs. For now it's alright; 14:30 isn't where I want to be in the long run but 25 minutes at 14:30 is better than I've done in the past, so I'll take it. Goal right now is to build up to the first distance (3.5 miles) and worry about speed later. Also, I keep hearing that running starts to feel good at some point and boy I hope that's true. I feel great after a run, and I feel okay during runs (and okay is a lot better than feeling like death!!), but I don't feel great during the run itself. I wonder if I'm walking too fast and not getting enough of a rest? My 10/50 is at a more brisk walk than I'd usually do when walking to get somewhere, so I almost wonder if going back to 15/45 but slowing down my walk would be a good idea. Don't know!

 

[YawningDodo]

Update: this morning's minor shin pain has lingered and become this afternoon's minor shin pain. Did some reading; going to do more reading and video-watching tonight and tomorrow and focus on form during Saturday's run. Think I'll stick to 10/50 at an easier walk, mind my form really closely during the run portions, and if the pain gets worse I can always just walk the two miles. I don't know why today when I haven't had any trouble in the last two weeks. Ugh. I'm just mentally preparing myself to be Slow on Saturday in the interest of using it as a learning opportunity to run better rather than faster.

 

[SarahDisney]

We've all had those "wait, I forgot I was supposed to run this morning!" days. Great job getting out there and getting it done!

Goal right now is to build up to the first distance (3.5 miles) and worry about speed later.

This is a really important goal. I think a lot of people try to focus on distance and speed at the same time early in their journey and it leads them to overextend themselves. You will probably get a little faster as you continue to run, even just focusing on the distance, and once you reach your distance goal, you can focus a little more on speed.

Keep up the good work!

 

[YawningDodo]

We've all had those "wait, I forgot I was supposed to run this morning!" days. Great job getting out there and getting it done!



This is a really important goal. I think a lot of people try to focus on distance and speed at the same time early in their journey and it leads them to overextend themselves. You will probably get a little faster as you continue to run, even just focusing on the distance, and once you reach your distance goal, you can focus a little more on speed.

Keep up the good work!

Thanks! I don't really know where I'll focus after the initial 13 weeks--whether that looks like pushing on toward 10K, or if it looks like sticking in the 3-4 mile range for a while and working on speed at that distance. I'm not going to worry about it yet, though.

Today was, as expected, a slow run. I've got a little bit of a twinge in my shins, but nowhere near as bad as it was on Thursday (though it wasn't that bad on Thursday; it only hurt if I put pressure on my legs). I think both my running and walking forms were to blame; I experimented with different walking paces during my warmup, and once I was really paying attention to how things felt it was very obvious to me that the speed-walk I'd been doing as my "rest" pace during runs had an overextended stride that had me striking my heels quite hard. Even though it didn't immediately hurt, I could tell how it was going to lead to pain if I kept it up. So I did slow down my walk to my normal "walking to work" pace, which is fairly brisk but doesn't require particular effort and doesn't cause me any pain. I was initially pretty slow on the run portions, too, as I really thought about how I was moving and tried to put the things I'd read or seen in videos into practice. Still don't know if I'm doing it right, but it was more comfortable and I was eventually able to speed up the runs a bit without feeling pain.

Overall, it was an easy run that left me feeling like I could have kept going if I hadn't had a schedule to keep today, and I'm struggling again with the question of whether it was too easy. It's hard when growing up I was always given the impression that I was not exercising correctly unless it felt bad, but then Galloway says you should feel good during the run. I did feel good today, but I have a hard time trusting it. Seems like it should be at least a little unpleasant in order to qualify as good exercise. I may, as I mentioned before, switch back up to 15/45 with the easier walk and see how that treats me.

 

[DopeyBadger]

Overall, it was an easy run that left me feeling like I could have kept going if I hadn't had a schedule to keep today, and I'm struggling again with the question of whether it was too easy. It's hard when growing up I was always given the impression that I was not exercising correctly unless it felt bad, but then Galloway says you should feel good during the run. I did feel good today, but I have a hard time trusting it. Seems like it should be at least a little unpleasant in order to qualify as good exercise. I may, as I mentioned before, switch back up to 15/45 with the easier walk and see how that treats me.

It's completely counter-intuitive, but easy runs play a vital role in getting better. So about 50% of my training is at an effort level that I feel like I'm barely trying. Another 30% that I feel like I'm trying but still very easy. Then the last 20% which I actually consider hard. So just keep those easy days super easy.

 

[YawningDodo]

It's completely counter-intuitive, but easy runs play a vital role in getting better. So about 50% of my training is at an effort level that I feel like I'm barely trying. Another 30% that I feel like I'm trying but still very easy. Then the last 20% which I actually consider hard. So just keep those easy days super easy.

Yeah, I've just had it drilled into me for a long time that "no pain = no gain" (gee, I wonder why I never liked exercise or sports as a kid...). I think if only half of it is supposed to be easy, though, I do need to step it up at least on Saturdays. I'm going to build that into the coming week's plan when I put it up in a moment, here.

 

[YawningDodo]

Weekly Journal: July 1-7

Monday:
Planned:

28 minute run/walk at 10/50 ratio​

Actual:

28 minute run/walk at 10/50 ratio
1.79 miles
15:39 pace
​

Tuesday:
Planned:

Walk Penny, 30 minutes
Walk to/from work (2.4 mile round trip)​

Actual:

Walked Penny, 35 minutes
Walked to/from work​

Wednesday (July 4):
Planned:

30 minute run/walk at 10/50 ratio​

Actual:

30 minute run/walk at 10/50 ratio on a hilly route
1.89 miles
15:51 pace
​

Thursday:
Planned:

Walk Penny, 30 minutes​

Actual:

Walked Penny, 35 minutes​

Friday:
Planned:

Walk Penny, 30 minutes
Walk to/from work (2.4 mile round trip)​

Actual:

Walked Penny, 20 minutes
Walked to/from work​

Saturday:
Planned:

30 minute run/walk at 15/45 ratio​

Actual:

30 minute run/walk at 15/45 ratio
2 miles
15:00 pace​

 

[YawningDodo]

So this week will be interesting in terms of keeping on top of my schedule. I'm not sure yet what our July 4 plans look like, but I've been burned in the past by staying up late and having a miserable time the next morning. Trying to mitigate that by shifting my weekday runs a day earlier so I'm running on the morning of the holiday and can take a rest the day after, though it means a weird little two-day break before Saturday. I continue to wish we got July 5 off from work rather than July 4, since what I really need is a day of recovery....

 

[DopeyBadger]

Yeah, I've just had it drilled into me for a long time that "no pain = no gain" (gee, I wonder why I never liked exercise or sports as a kid...). I think if only half of it is supposed to be easy, though, I do need to step it up at least on Saturdays. I'm going to build that into the coming week's plan when I put it up in a moment, here.

It's early into your journey. So there's absolutely nothing wrong with 100% easy. Ease into running and worry about other things later. Endurance (slow running) is king.

 

[YawningDodo]

It's early into your journey. So there's absolutely nothing wrong with 100% easy. Ease into running and worry about other things later. Endurance (slow running) is king.

This is really encouraging to hear for the reasons I've already said--for a long time, any kind of working out has always come with the assumption that I'm going to dislike it. And I do like pushing myself, but in the past I've pushed to the point of misery and not stuck with it in the long term. So I think it is important to keep focusing on just getting out there and running regularly and building up the distance in this first part of the journey. That being said I do still plan to try the 15/45 ratio tomorrow...as I was saying to my housemate, it's just that if I'm taking an easier walking pace (and possibly an easier running pace now that I'm using better form) I want to check and see whether 15/45 feels good and easy since I think it'd be a waste to not step it up if I'm able to do it without making myself miserable.

In other news, this week has been weird and off-kilter. I enjoyed the day off in the middle, but my sleep schedule has been all out of whack and while I do think my decision to rearrange my runs to accommodate that was a good one, it's left me feeling a little weird (both yesterday and today being walking days was weird). I'm really looking forward to the weekend.

And in other other news I think I may have finagled a way for my housemate to come with me on my 2020 marathon trip. She said she'd think about it, and I'm really hopeful she'll say yes both because I'd like her there with me and because I want to show her Disney World (though doing a cruise is still on the table, in which case I wouldn't really get to show her much of the parks but we'd still have a good time).

 

[YawningDodo]

Weekly Journal: July 8-14

Monday:
Planned:

Walk Penny, 30 minutes
Walk to/from work (2.4 mile round trip)​

Actual:

Walked Penny, 35 minutes
Walked to/from work​

Tuesday:
Planned:

Run/walk 30 minutes at 10/50 ratio​

Actual:

Run/walk 30 minutes at 10/50 ratio
1.9 miles
15:47 pace​

Wednesday:
Planned:

Walk Penny, 30 minutes
Walk to/from work (2.4 mile round trip)​

Actual:

Walked Penny, 45 minutes
Walked to work (got a ride home)​

Thursday:
Planned:

Run/walk 30 minutes at 10/50 ratio​

Actual:

Run/walk 30 minutes at 10/50 ratio, hilly route
1.88 miles
15:57 pace​

Friday:
Planned:

Walk Penny, 30 minutes
Walk to/from work (2.4 mile round trip)​

Saturday:
Planned:

Run/walk 2.5 miles at 15/45 ratio​

Actual:

Ran/walked 2.83 miles at 15/45 ratio
43:21 minutes
15:19 pace
Training record: longest run​

 

[YawningDodo]

Once again went north instead of south to start my run this morning, somehow forgetting that the neighborhood is much less flat down that way. I think it's that I've been getting bored running in the neighborhood and keep wanting to change it up; I'd kind of like to run the river trail for all my runs instead of just Saturdays, but it adds a few minutes for drive time and I've been just barely waking up early enough to do my weekday runs as it is. Also, after three runs listening to a favorite podcast I've decided podcasts are out and it's just music from here on. I thought it'd help the time pass, but honestly it just distracts me and puts me in the wrong headspace; Tuesday and today felt much more lengthy and difficult than similar runs done while listening to music. Also, My Brother My Brother and Me is too funny for running; it basically wrecked three intervals on Tuesday when I couldn't stop laughing.

Other than that, I know I've been a bit absent other than coming in here to update my workouts; haven't been on the running thread or visited other journals in a few days. Been a little nebulously stressed out; I normally tend to have ups and downs and tbqh I think it's pretty good that I've been continuing to do my runs as planned during a down period. Think I'm starting to come out of it, too, hopefully.

Edit to add: looking at my list for this week, I'm not sure I'm going to keep Saturday's run at 15/45. The longest run I've done so far is 2.07 miles, and that was when I was walking too fast on my rests. At 10/50, 2.5 miles is going to take me closer to an hour...but at 15/45 I may not end up much faster than that if I fade out because it's too much right now. My runs this week haven't felt great, so I'm leaning toward dropping Saturday to the easier interval and just planning to be out there longer. The river trail is gorgeous anyway, it's not like it's a burden to be out enjoying it for longer.

 

[YawningDodo]

In news that is only tangentially related to running, I've got full on planning fever for my 2020 Marathon Weekend trip. I, uh...may have created a spreadsheet that acts as a calculator for determining the cost of a WDW room, that lets me plug in different numbers of nights for different resorts so I can see how much a split stay costs depending on the length of each side of the split....

And I may have discovered that, if the typical January room discounts are offered for 2020, I can afford to do a split stay of 3 nights at an All-Star and 4 nights at AKL (standard view, not savanna, but still!). I've never done a deluxe and I'm kind of boggling at the possibility. That'd mean bedding down one place over the entire race weekend; I/we would have to move the day after the marathon but then the trip would divide neatly into the race-focused portion and the resort/park-focused portion. Of course, I think what I'm probably going to do is book all seven nights at AoA when room bookings open in June 2019 so I'll know for sure that I have a room secured at a resort that interests me and a price I can afford. Then if the discounts don't come through, oh well.

I think I'm mostly settled on doing an all-WDW trip rather than a cruise, too. It's definitely going to be all WDW if my housemate can come (fingers crossed!).

 

[YawningDodo]

So my run today was always supposed to beat my training record for distance at 2.5 miles, but I missed the distance alert on my Garmin and accidentally ran an extra third of a mile (I think it must have gone off when I was running past the waterfall; there's about a quarter mile where it's hard to hear the beeps in general). It was an out and back run, but I'd had to guesstimate the distance pretty roughly based on posted distances to landmarks (no mile markers on that part of the trail) and even though I knew I should finish a quarter to a half mile out from my car, I didn't stop to check until I was back at the pull-out. Bonus...?? No harm done, really, though I could tell I was fading by the end of the run so maybe I would have gotten a slightly better pace if I'd finished where I was supposed to. I'd compromised with myself and run the 15/45 ratio because the river trail always makes me feel ambitious, but took a slower walking pace and told myself not to worry about pace overall because I was concerned about my stamina. I thought I must be going very slowly when I got to where I thought my run would end and still hadn't heard the alarm, so 15:19 was actually a pleasant surprise. I thought it was going to be much worse than that.

All in all, I probably should have done 10/50 because I probably could have kept a more even pace. Oh well.

In other news, I ran across No Need for Speed by John Bingham. I was really enthusiastic about it at first as a book that could feed into positive thinking about the beginner's process and give me some tips on equipment and method...now that I'm a couple chapters in I don't think it's bad, but it's...less encouraging, weirdly, than I would have expected. I like that he reiterates again and again that all you have to do to be a runner is to put on some shoes, and I like that he's both positive and realistic about being the best runner you can be rather than worrying about being The Best Runner, but I was actually kind of put off by the "inspiration" chapters at the beginning. The introduction was very promising because it started with pointing out that reasons for running like "getting thin" and "lowering cholesterol" are really secondary benefits and the real reason most people run and keep running is enjoyment of the sport...but then as soon as the actual book started he went on and on and on about how he started running because he needed to lose weight and hated it at first because he struggled to change his lifestyle and get healthy. I feel like that might be helpful to some audiences (he circles back to talk about how it's a long journey, not a quick fix), but...as someone who's actively focusing on what I want (to run a marathon) and focusing away from what I don't want (being fat), I didn't find it helpful. It just reminded me frequently as I was reading that I'm fat and that I'm probably going to be fat for a long time. And I just...don't really care about the fact that I'm fat right now and don't want to give it my mental and emotional energy. My focus is on running, and the adjustments I make to how I take care of my body are in service of being a better runner. If I get thin that's a bonus, not the purpose. I hope I get thinner, but I've rebounded from so many dieting attempts (and was still so un-athletic even when I succeeded at dieting one time and got thin) that I know it's not actually helpful to me to worry about weight as a measure of health.

So I guess I'm glad that it's a library book, and I won't be bothering to pick up my own copy when I'm done reading it. But I will finish reading it.

 

[YawningDodo]

Weekly Journal: July 15-21

Monday:
Planned:

Walk Penny, 30 minutes
Walk to/from work (2.4 mile round trip)​

Tuesday:
Planned:

30 minute run/walk at 10/50 ratio​

Actual:

30 minute run/walk at 10/50 ratio
1.96 miles
15:18 pace ​

Wednesday:
Planned:

Walk Penny, 30 minutes
Walk to/from work (2.4 mile round trip)​

Actual:

Walked Penny, 40 minutes
Walked to/from work​

Thursday:
Planned:

30 minute run/walk at 10/50 ratio​

Actual:

30 minute run/walk at 10/50 ratio
1.93 miles
15:33 pace​

Friday:
Planned:

Walk Penny, 30 minutes
Walk to/from work (2.4 mile round trip)​

Actual:

Walked Penny and Rose, 30 minutes (the puppy's first walk! we only got 4 blocks away from the house and it was exhausting!!)
Walked to/from work​

Saturday:
Planned:

40 minute run/walk at 10/50 ratio​

Actual:

40 minute run/walk at 10/50 ratio
2.7 miles
14:49 pace ​

 

[YawningDodo]

Is it Thursday already??

This week has been a better week for running than the last from the start. I felt great on Tuesday and actually sped up a bit toward the end of the run--if you'll notice, that 5:18 pace at 10/50 actually beat last Saturday's pace at 15/45! Go slower to go faster, I guess! Or just...I don't know, get better sleep and address the things in your life that are stressing you out and perform better for it. One of those. Probably both of those.

I could tell in the first two minutes that this morning wasn't going to be as good of a run, but decided to just approach it with a good attitude, do what I needed to do to keep good form and avoid injury, and take whatever pace I got. I still did better on this "bad" run than I did on either of last week's weekday runs. This morning it was hotter than it was on Tuesday (someday I'll start keeping track of weather data...today is not that day), and I hadn't slept quite as well (probably related; our house isn't air conditioned).

Earlier this week I looked ahead to my fall training to figure out what I needed to budget for buying a training plan...and ended up deciding not to buy one. Not at this point, at least. Money's not exactly tight, but after reworking my budget to more realistically reflect other upcoming expenses it's just hard to squeeze that in. And, too, I kind of looked at it like...I'm still at a stage where staying kind of loose in my training plans is fine, and where I'm not worrying too much about improving my pace. I'm going to set some distance goals I need to hit over the coming winter and next spring, but I think I'll start by only writing two or three months of more detailed training plans at a time. Honestly I'm kind of excited to write my own plan. That won't kick in until September, so I've got time to prepare.

 

[YawningDodo]

I had just...a terrible walk with Penny and Rose this morning. It was Rose's first time going further out than the yard on a leash, and she kept panicking when the leash pulled on her (including in the middle of the street), and her response to being afraid is to completely freeze up and dig in her heels. After a much-more-harrowing-than-it-needed-to-be trek across the one and only semi-busy street we needed to cross on the way out, she got carried across when we reached that street on the way back in. That dog needs to get out more. She also needs one-on-one work instead of going out with Penny, who tore up my foot when she saw a man walking his dogs, freaked out, and slammed her feet down on mine in her attempts to get loose and go scream at them (this is why you can't run with me, Penny!!). Since I was wearing sandals she got my heel pretty good, but I'm hopeful that I can just keep a heavy-duty bandaid over it and not have the cut get rubbed too badly by my shoe on tomorrow's run.


Also, I changed tomorrow's run from 15/45 to 10/50 after having done some thinking about training in general. For now, my plan is for my weekday runs to remain at whatever ratio feels easy, and then on Saturdays I push myself in one way: I run with a distance goal or I run for a longer time or I run at a higher ratio. I'm trying to let go of the "should" feeling--what I "should" be able to do. I've only been running for six weeks, for pete's sake, and I know that when I've pushed myself to run farther and faster on the "long" run (e.g. last Saturday) I actually end up at a slower overall pace. No bueno. When I finish this initial program and write my own I think there will be Saturdays when I only run half an hour but push myself to do it at a tougher ratio, though most of the Saturday runs will still be focused on running longer and/or farther.

 

[YawningDodo]

Weekly Journal: July 22-28, 2018

Monday:
Planned:

30 minute run/walk at 10/50 ratio​

Actual:

30 minute run/walk at 10/50 ratio
1.92 miles
15:38 pace​

Tuesday:
Planned:

Walk Penny, 30 minutes
Walk to/from work (2.4 mile round trip)​

Actual:

Walked Penny, 30 minutes
Walked to/from work​

Wednesday:
Planned:

30 minute run/walk at 10/50 ratio​

Actual:

30 minute run/walk at 10/50 ratio
1.97 miles
15:14 pace​

Thursday:
Planned:

Walk Penny, 30 minutes
Walk to/from work (2.4 mile round trip)​

Actual:

Walked Penny and Rose, 20 minutes
Walked to/from work​

Friday:
Planned:

30 minute run/walk at 10/50 ratio​

Saturday:
Rest/travel