Every Wish That We Put Into Motion.... (comments welcome!)

[Kerry1957]

Mile 3. Oh thank god, I get to start with a walk break on one of the uphills.

The following technique may not work for you, but it does for me and may be worth a try (on a practice run).

Adjust your intervals slightly on the fly if that means either being able to run down a hill or to walk up one. I run a HM every year in Lexington that is constant rolling hills. My mantra is never walk down a hill and (within reason) never run up a steep hill. I set my HM PR on this course and my Garmin said I climbed 100 flights of stairs. Adjusting the intervals means perhaps running an extra 30 seconds or so to reach the bottom of a hill, or perhaps running 30 seconds less if you face a large incline. Nothing drastic; just a tweak here and there.

And congrats on a great 5K! As we discussed at the Hurricane Hannah meetup, I continue to be so impressed with folks like you who get in their training while working and raising active kids. I didn't start running until near retirement and I'm not sure I could have done it 20 or 30 years earlier.

 

[Herding_Cats]

Fine. I’ll do it, but I’m going to complain the whole time.

I have to do my 9mi run tomorrow instead of this weekend. DH decided this afternoon that we need to go camping this weekend, so we are headed out tomorrow afternoon. I definitely did not eat enough today (before I found out about camping) to help out with a 2hr run tomorrow, and I only have 1 gel in my stash right now, so things are going to be pretty interesting. The only silver lining is that tomorrow is supposed to be a high of 73.

 

[Herding_Cats]

9mi done. LR pace, unadjusted, is 13:00, so I figured with the temperatures and such that 13:15 would be a reasonable goal. T+D ended up being 123, so adjusted pace should have been around 13:11, so I wasn't far off in my estimation. 60/30 intervals. Use my 165bpm playlist for the first hour and my 170bpm playlist for hour 2. I had to really back off on hour 2 or my pace would have been in the mid 12s. This run went really really well. Way better than I was expecting. I definitely could have gone a few more miles if I had needed to, which is nice because I did have some anxiety about the duration.

I wore my vest today, but didn't use the bladder and instead opted to do my 2 8oz flasks; one had water and the other had nuun. I also took my last package of stinger gummies from MW and decided to practice my nutrition strategy and ate one at the end of every mile. Did I NEED to do that? Probably not. But this is how I figure out what my stomach says "no thanks" to.

AVG pace ended up at 13:04.
Avg HR 147 (I put the bigger hill so it would hit at around mile 7ish and that cranked the HR up for the last couple of miles.)
75% zone 3 and only 18% zone 4 for HR, so this was pretty successful from an effort stantpoint.
My body was trying to convince me something was wrong starting at about mile 5. Does my ankle hurt? Is my calf cramping? My other knee? My glute? Nope. Just keep running and it would go away after a few minutes.

 

[NYC_MW]

Nice! Such a nice feeling when runs end up better than expected! Did you end up complaining the whole time?
Have fun camping!

 

[Herding_Cats]

Nice! Such a nice feeling when runs end up better than expected! Did you end up complaining the whole time?
Have fun camping!

I actually managed to turn my brain off and just run for most of the 2 hours. And I was done before I knew it, which was great.

 

[HangWithMerida]

Great job! I get that anxiety about the distance for my long runs as they start ramping up too. Even after a few years of running and having done the distance several times. It’s nice when the run ends up feeling easier than you thought it would and you can look back and think, why was I so worried about this?

 

[Herding_Cats]

Got 0 running in over the long weekend. DS1 and 2 participated in the marathon relay, and it was the most convoluted team, where they used 9 runners instead of the usual 5 since we have too many boys that were either unavailable due to health reasons or work schedule conflicts. And it rained THE WHOLE TIME that race was going. Bless those runners who did the full marathon on their own (I think there were around 10-15?) because running in the rain, when it's 60 out, with the headwind they had from mile 16-20, is not for the faint of heart. If I had been signed up I would absolutely have eaten my registration fee and just slept in.


I made a cost spreadsheet for SS weekend this morning. Yeah that's not going to happen as an in-person race for me. I forgot how much more rooms cost during "busier" times of year. I don't WANT to do them virtually, but I also don't think I can pass up the themes out of sheer nostalgia. DS2 was OBSESSED with Cars and Toy Story when he was little. DD is starting to be fascinated with them, along with Nemo. And there's so much potential for awesome shirts/medals based on the artwork.


In costuming news I ordered 4 more yellow shirts from Kohls yesterday to see if I can find one that works. They had a few that looked promising (in the men's department) when we were in the store yesterday, but of course they only had them in XL or XXL.

 

[Herding_Cats]

OH! And I do have a scheduling question. NEXT weekend I'm scheduled to do a 10k time trial/race and that's just not going to be in the cards because of allllllll the other stuff we have going on (or even finding a 10k nearby-ish??), AND I don't want to risk the injury of racing a 10k with only a few weeks before the race. Do I just do a long run? Some sort of speedwork?

 

[DopeyBadger]

Do I just do a long run? Some sort of speedwork?

Try this one called Rat-A-Tat:

10-15 min WU + 12 sets of (400m @ 10k + 15 sec RI) + 10-15 min CD

It's not a 10k race, but is a race simulating workout. A little less stress than a race itself. I find it to be a good workout for working on turnover in a less stressful situation, and the 15s rests are just enough to make the workout tolerable. The max workout is 16 reps, but I cut it down to 12 reps here. The benefits are gathered in the last four reps, so try your best to maintain the correct pace throughout the workout.

 

[WillRunForPizza]

Similarly, I'm scheduled for a 10k this weekend but there are none in town, so I'm stealing this workout for Sunday too!

 

[Herding_Cats]

10-15 min WU + 12 sets of (400m @ 10k + 15 sec RI) + 10-15 min CD

So if I've been using intervals for my training, and would use intervals if it were a race, do I still use intervals for the 400s? or should i run these continuous?

 

[DopeyBadger]

So if I've been using intervals for my training, and would use intervals if it were a race, do I still use intervals for the 400s? or should i run these continuous?

Run them continuously, otherwise we should try a different workout. What intervals would you plan on using for a 10k, or do plan on using for the HM?

 

[lookingforsunshine]

Ooo I might steal this workout for Wednesday.

 

[Herding_Cats]

Run them continuously, otherwise we should try a different workout. What intervals would you plan on using for a 10k, or do plan on using for the HM?

I assumed I should run them continuous, but was just making sure. That's going to be interesting for me since I've done 95% intervals all summer and my body now knows when I'm "supposed" to be at a walk interval.


For the half I'm considering starting with 80/30 and then changing it to either 90/30 (if i'm feeling good and want to try to negative split and push harder for the PR) or 60/30 (if I feel like I need to pull back and just finish) depending on the weather, how I'm feeling, etc. I'm planning on doing my 10mi run this week up on the trail that the race is on to see how my ankle reacts to not pavement as a running surface.

 

[DopeyBadger]

I assumed I should run them continuous, but was just making sure. That's going to be interesting for me since I've done 95% intervals all summer and my body now knows when I'm "supposed" to be at a walk interval.


For the half I'm considering starting with 80/30 and then changing it to either 90/30 (if i'm feeling good and want to try to negative split and push harder for the PR) or 60/30 (if I feel like I need to pull back and just finish) depending on the weather, how I'm feeling, etc. I'm planning on doing my 10mi run this week up on the trail that the race is on to see how my ankle reacts to not pavement as a running surface.

So consider these 164/15 intervals then.

If you're doing 11:31 min/mile average pace at 80/30 with about an 18(?) min/mile walk, your run pace is around 10:10 min/mile. With your 10k pace being around 10:56, it just means you'll run slower during the run portion for twice as long with half the break. But you'll only be doing it for 3 total miles instead of 13.11 miles.

If you want to do an interval focused workout around 10k pace, then do 150/30 intervals at the same 10:10 min/mile run pace you've been using for HM practice. Difference is you are holding it for 150 seconds instead of 80 seconds. This will average out closer to 10k pace than will the 80/30 reps of the same run pace. Maybe something like:

10-15 min WU + 4 x ((3 x 150/30) + 3 min RI) + 10-15 min CD

In practice it would look like:

10-15 min WU
+
150/30 at 10:10/18:00 (avg. around 11)
+
150/30 at 10:10/18:00 (avg. around 11)
+
150/30 at 10:10/18:00 (avg. around 11)
+
3 min RI
+
150/30 at 10:10/18:00 (avg. around 11)
+
150/30 at 10:10/18:00 (avg. around 11)
+
150/30 at 10:10/18:00 (avg. around 11)
+
3 min RI
+
150/30 at 10:10/18:00 (avg. around 11)
+
150/30 at 10:10/18:00 (avg. around 11)
+
150/30 at 10:10/18:00 (avg. around 11)
+
3 min RI
+
150/30 at 10:10/18:00 (avg. around 11)
+
150/30 at 10:10/18:00 (avg. around 11)
+
150/30 at 10:10/18:00 (avg. around 11)
+
10-15 min CD

It's essentially a 4 x 1300 meter at 10k pace workout.

 

[Herding_Cats]

I think my walk pace is more in the low 17s or high 16s when I'm doing a run. I'll have to think on which of those sounds better. Might be good for my brain to have to push through those 165/15 intervals, but also at the same time......165/15 intervals sound awful. 150/30 is something that would be pretty easy to program into my interval timer. Hmmmm. Definitely something to think about for the next week.

 

[Herding_Cats]

Just when I think I'm getting into a groove (again) with my runs, the schedule changes and throws everything off. This week it was DS1&2 going to XC team camp for 4 days/3 nights. That meant no free babysitters for me to leave DD with while I went out for a run, and in turn forces me into evening runs when DH is home from work. And this week we did a lot of extra stuff in the evenings. So yeah. Monday/Tuesday went OK. Wednesday was supposed to be my pace run, but we ended up getting new phones, going out to dinner, and finishing a movie we had started on Tuesday.

Last night I went out for my 5mi HM-pace run. Of course my spotify wasn't all loaded up and it seriously took it around 20min to do everything it needed to before I could use it. This REALLY threw me off because I rely heavily on it to keep my cadence steady and not overrun these workouts. I can hit 13-14min pace pretty easily because I've done so much of it, but once it gets down to things like HM pace or faster I'm usually too fast. So while I was standing at the end of my driveway waiting for my music to work I did a quick check of my pace chart and guessed that I needed to shoot for 11:30-11:40 for my pace because it was still mid-70s and kind of sticky out (T+D ended up being 132, so adjusted pace would have been 11:42.)
I didn't really want to do a pace run. At all. 5mi EB? No problem. But I was not in the mood to push the pace and was bargaining with myself before the run even started. The plan was a half mile warm up and 80/30 intervals. If I still felt awful at 3mi I would just finish the run at EB pace and be happy I got the miles in. But things came around during the run and I ended up averaging 11:38 pace, 158bpm for HR which was almost entirely zone 4.

Waited around for my phone to do it's job, but the music still didn't work, so I set off on a half mile "warm-up" that ended up being run at 13:02 pace. Which is LR pace. Hit the lap button. Still no music.

Guessed at the pacing and started the pace portion of the workout. Looked at my watch at about the half mile mark and I was running 10:40 pace. No wonder it felt so awful! Lap button and slow the run portion.

Around this time my app had finally finished loading/updating/whatever else I had to do and my music started working and it made a huuuuge difference. Look at that! Mile 2 in 11:34.

And so it continued, 11:43 for mile 3, 11:27 for mile 4 (which is great since I had to stop for about 20 seconds when someone's shih tzu decided to chase and try to bite me....I always make it a point to STOP and address dogs that get out of their yards because there's nothing that will amp up a prey drive for a doggo like continuing to run when they're chasing you, and I also don't want them to learn to chase people/things into the road) and 11:26 for mile 5.

Basically once I got through the first 20ish minutes things got a lot easier, and the run ended up going well. My legs started feeling tired near the end, but I'm going to chalk that up to my food choices being all over the place this week and some absolutely TERRIBLE sleep.

The rest of this week is going to be rough. I work today, and when I get home I need to make a ton of cookies for the Saturday post-XC meet pot-luck lunch, AND fit in a 3mi run somewhere. Saturday is the XC meet, which is about 2 hours away, and I need to fit in my 10mi long run (good luck to me on that one) and there's also a 70% chance of thunderstorms, so it might end up being done on the treadmill. And then work again on Sunday. Yay.

 

[NYC_MW]

Am forever amazed by all of you who get the running done in addition to juggling work, taking care of other living beings (human or fur), and all the other little things that pop up along the way (baking cookies for an entire XC meet?!).

 

[Herding_Cats]

Not the whole meet. “Just” our team (boys and girls) and whatever of their family comes along. So maybe 50 people? Not everyone shows up and it sounds like quite a few kids are going to be there solo and the ride sharing in the group text is getting intense.

 

[Herding_Cats]

Did manage to get my 3mi (continuous) in on the treadmill last night. 14:03 pace. I might have gotten a blister, or at least irritated the ball of my left foot on my 5 miler on Thursday.
Also, all of the chocolate cookies for tomorrow….