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

[Herding_Cats]

5k EB run done this morning, and the pacing was actually kind of close to what it should be. But it felt like garbage. This run felt hard, my legs were like UUUUUGH the whole time, and I couldn't wait to be done. I listened to a podcast and it wasn't as good a distraction as I needed.

It was only 70 degrees out, but the dewpoint was 60 and the humidity was 70%, so it's no wonder I wasn't thrilled.

EB pace "should" be 13:21, adjusted for T+D 13:37. 45/30 intervals. My miles were 13:25, 13:19, and 13:26, so nothing alarming there. Avg HR was 141 and maxed out at 156, and I was in zone 3 for all but 1 minute of the run, which is great from a numbers perspective, but it felt so much harder than that at the time.

Then I went to PT. I saw one of the PT assistants today, and so I did all of my usual stretching, and then she did more graston massage on my lower calf and ankle. And THEN she did regular massage (turns out she was a massage therapist for years before becoming at PTa) and found some massive knot. Whatever magical thing she did, my leg felt great, and fingers crossed that it doesn't clench back up.

 

[Herding_Cats]

3mi EB last night. Started the day with PT, where he put me on an elliptical for 10min (wow was that weird, I've never used an elliptical in my life!) and then had me do a bunch of the strengthening exercises he's had me doing, along with 2 new ones. Was told (again) that I need to run more. But seriously. I went on Thursday last week, then worked all day Friday and Saturday (about 18hrs of being on my feet) and then ran 5 miles on Sunday with no pain, WITH an uphill (which is usually the quickest way to trigger my ankle pain), worked all day Monday, ran 3 miles and then showered and went to PT on Tuesday. I'm not doing NOTHING, we just have a TON of stuff going on! Anyhow. Back to the running. PT Thursday morning and then trying to get my house out of crisis mode with the dishes and laundry. I took a nap with DD after lunch because it's been a week of awful, terrible sleep and everyone is exhausted. And THEN I did my 3 miles. DS3 asked to come with me and I said OK. We ran 60/30 intervals and he talked the entire time. We did some extra walking during mile 1 when my mom called to check about the kids' baseball schedules, but still managed to average 13:20/mi for the run.

The run thing for me about this run? 138avg HR, and I was in zone 2 or 3 for the entire run, minus 17 seconds where I crept up into zone 4. 133 is the top end of zone 2 for me, which means I was in the bottom part of zone 3 most of the time, so there's a definite improvement happening there.

I'm going to attempt to cram in 4mi tonight after work since that's what I was supposed to do yesterday, and that will give me Saturday "off" before my Sunday long run, which I think is 6 miles this week. My PT did warn me that one of the exercises he had me do yesterday usually makes people really sore in weird places (aka not where they are expecting in) so fingers crossed that doesn't happen.

 

[Herding_Cats]

Didn't do any runs between Thursday and Monday. Wooo. Go me. Essentially, I worked late on Friday and Saturday, and my legs were very unhappy with me on Sunday. 6 miles did NOT happen, but gardening, grocery shopping, and picking up a couple of couches from a friend (for our basement) did manage to happen.

This week is going to be a hot one. LOWS in the low 70s. That's pretty gross for northern Michigan. My garden is going to love it as long as I manage to keep it watered.

So yesterday. Worked, and then came home, fed the kids, and it was back into the car to head to their summer run club. We left early so that I could get 2 miles in WITHOUT the stroller before they started their group run. It was really, really hot. (151 T+D, with 91 of that being just the T portion.) I ran on the "less nice" section of trail because it's all shaded, which also meant it was buggy. *sigh* sometimes you just can't win. Then it was back to the park to pick up the stroller, get a drink, tell my 10 year old to not get kidnapped, and back out for another mile. When I stopped back at the park for the 2nd time I was still feeling good (which was pretty surprising) and I asked DS3 if he wanted to do a mile with me. He said yes, so off we went. I briefly contemplated doing another mile when I saw DS1 coming back from his run, but his legs were pretty much jelly and we've asked the boys watch their sister a lot more than I like in the past couple of weeks so I decided that I was done for the night. Total of 4.15mi. Pace should have been around 13:30 alone, and 14:30 with the stroller. Actual splits 13:08/12:54 (no stroller) and 13:55/14:02 (with the stroller.) AVG HR was 148, and even with pushing the stroller and it being super hot out, I spent less than 30% of my run in Zone 4, and ALL of the zone 4 HR was while pushing the stroller.

Today is a beach day, and then likely a treadmill run night (4-5mi)

 

[Naomeri]

tell my 10 year old to not get kidnapped

This takes me back to my childhood!

 

[Herding_Cats]

This takes me back to my childhood!

Right?! It’s a terrible “joke” we have. Because his response was, “but what if they have a van and free candy?” His brothers were still there, and a bunch of parents we know (who were hanging out while their kids ran) were there as well.

 

[Herding_Cats]

Nothing like the reality check of looking at your calendar on Garmin Connect to see how much you have NOT been doing on your training plan. *sigh*

Managed 3 miles EA (continuous) on the treadmill tonight. Nothing exciting, but I did do something, which is the point. Tomorrow is supposed to be as disgustingly hot as today and I'm due for a 4mi HM-pace run. Eww. Right now the hourly forecast shows that it should be in the mid-70s at 7pm, but it ALSO says that it's a high of 87 tomorrow and yet the hourly never gets above 78. So who knows what's going to happen. My ankle was pretty cranky during the middle of the run, but a loooooong stretch after seemed to help all of the tightness (and WOW was my calf/soleus tight.)

Also, my giggle moment from Monday night. Listening to one of the coaches talk about how he was sure he could run a sub-3 marathon after PR'ing a half in 1:40. And then all the things he thinks he should/would do if he trained for a marathon again (which is like a laundry list of things that are NOT recommended.)

 

[Herding_Cats]

4mi pace run done. Avg pace 11:40. Avg HR 160 (yikes!), mostly zone 4 and some 5 for this run. 80/30 intervals.

I had DH drop me off on the side of the road on the way to DS2’s baseball game. I figured that with how early he’s supposed to be there and the pace i was supposed to run that it would work out that I would get to the field right before the game started, and I was correct.

I haven’t don’t anything really above LR pace (other than the firecracker 5k) in a really long time. HM pace for me is around 11:30, so I figured with T+D of 142 meant I should be 11:50 (I was guessing around 12:00.) Mile 1.5-3 have a lot of downhill (around 350ft of elevation change) so I tried to not let the pace get too fast there. I also couldn’t find my shokz, and it was really hard to hear my phone for the interval changes over the road noise (this was a busier road than I prefer to run.)
Mile 1: 11:58. Right on target. Flat.
Mile 2: 11:07. Here’s the downhill. Weeee!
Mile 3: 11:41. Missed a couple of walk cues and things started to feel hard. And it was hot.
Mile 4: 11:56 My pace had fallen off off to about 12:20 at 3.4mi, so I buckled down and tried to get back on-pace.

All in all, successful HM pace run so I can’t complain too much other than I’m ready for it to not be nearly 90 at 7pm.

 

[Herding_Cats]

Forced my long run last night. Didn't want to do it. Made all of the excuses (it's too late, it's too hot, work was ridiculously hot on Friday and worse on Saturday, and DD has been sleeping so so poorly.) And then at 6:30 I talked DH into going for a run with me (he did 5k) so I wouldn't have to run alone. Told myself I needed to do at least 4, and didn't have to run the section with the hill.

How it went: 60/30 intervals; 7 miles (go me!), just a hair under 90min, 12:45 avg pace (will get to that in a moment), avg HR 147. 75% in zone 3 for HR, 19% in zone 4, and NOTHING in zone 5.


T+D: It was 79 degrees when I started, and the dew point was 62. So what's that....141? Yes. I just used my calculator to check my math. I've gotten in the habit of just sort of guessing at the T+D and not really consulting my pace adjustment chart and just worrying about how hard or easy the run feels, and how my HR is doing (as in, is it coming right down during the walk portion and how high is it getting during the run portion.) I knew my LR pace was pretty close to 13:00 so my goal was to be sort of in that area. What my pace *SHOULD* have been was around 13:30. Oops? I will say that working in the pie kitchen has really upped my heat tolerance. It would be great for Dopey if I were working there all fall/early winter as well but alas when school starts up, my childcare will be gone.

DH ran miles 1 and 2 (.something) with my and then headed back toward home while I continued on for however long I felt like running. As usual, my miles with him were definitely too fast at 12:28 and 12:06. Once I was on my own I managed to pull back on the pace and get quite I bit closer to my 13:00/mi guesstimate with 12:51 for miles 3 and 4, and 13:09 and 13:00 for miles 5 and 6. That pretty dang close to on pace for me. I'm usually all over the place.

Mile 7 was a slog. I couldn't just stop at that point because "it's only 1 more mile and you'll actually do what your plan says" kept going through my mind. And it wasn't that I was *tired* so much as that I was just ready to be done. I was falling way "off pace" and was up to 13:25 at the half mile mark so I ran through a few walk breaks and finished the last mile in 12:53.

I'm tempted to make a graph comparing last year's runs to this year's (especially the shorter ones since I did everything under 5mi at continuous last year) just to see what the HR avg data looks like, but I don't think I have the energy to nerd out that much tonight.

 

[Cabius]

Forced my long run last night. Didn't want to do it. Made all of the excuses (it's too late, it's too hot, work was ridiculously hot on Friday and worse on Saturday, and DD has been sleeping so so poorly.) And then at 6:30 I talked DH into going for a run with me (he did 5k) so I wouldn't have to run alone. Told myself I needed to do at least 4, and didn't have to run the section with the hill.

I think we've all had a ton of those races. Good for you for going out and getting the miles in!

I'm tempted to make a graph comparing last year's runs to this year's (especially the shorter ones since I did everything under 5mi at continuous last year) just to see what the HRace data looks like, but I don't think I have the energy to nerd out that much tonight.

Rest days are nerding out and making charts, right?

 

[HangWithMerida]

Right?! It’s a terrible “joke” we have. Because his response was, “but what if they have a van and free candy?” His brothers were still there, and a bunch of parents we know (who were hanging out while their kids ran) were there as well.

This had me laughing as it sounds like something we would tell our kid. When we leave my almost 14 y/o at home we tell them not to burn the house down while we’re gone. We say the same to our cats when we leave for a trip.

Your paces are looking really good. You mentioned that you are usually all over the place So whatever you are doing is definitely working. Great job!

 

[Herding_Cats]

@HangWithMerida is the person we all need to cheer us on as we drag our way through July and into the dog days of August.

 

[Herding_Cats]

Tuesday (day off work) run is in the books. And I fell asleep on the couch after lunch today. I haven't taken my iron supplement in a couple of weeks and while I have a lot of reasons to be tired, this is like the 3rd day in the last week that's happened.

Got up at 6am (did I mention it was my day off?) to take all 3 boys to the village north of us for a benefit 5k. It was very much a last minute thing for us to find out about and it was.....interesting. Had to do in-person registration, so we left extra early in order to beat the probable lines of people who also needed to register still. DS1 finished in a little over 25min, DS2 in just over 21min (according to their timing team...the clock was past 22min when he finished so who knows what was going on there) and DS3 finished in just over 33min. The overall winner (mens) was sub-15 and the overall female runner was sub 18 (and a masters runner!) It was NOT chip timed and people were discussing how far off the time written on their bib was off from whatever their watch said and it was all over faster AND slower by almost a minute in some cases.

Talked DH into running with me again this afternoon. Picked the hottest part of the day to do it too with T+D being 131 (82 degrees, and very few clouds.) I decided to have DH run whatever he thought was his easy pace, and we would do 30/30 intervals because I knew it would be quite a bit faster than I *should* be going, but figured it would count as "speedwork." Judging by his breathing, what DH thinks is "easy" is not actually easy. So there's that. Mile 1 was completed in 11:27. With 30/30 intervals. So we were pushin (for me) during those run intervals. How fast for me? It was between HM and lactate threshold....allllllmost 10k pace overall. And according to my watch (which I do not trust because of the short duraction) 8:30ish pace during the run portion which is faster than my 1mi pace. And it was definitely not a sprint. I pumped the brakes hard for the 2nd mile and still somehow ran it in 13:02. And then during mile 3 I told DH to run whatever he felt like because my ankle/calf were getting really really tight and I needed to stay backed off until it felt better. But then I decided to try to catch up to him during the last half mile just to see if I could. So much logic going on in my brain there. (Spoiler alert: I didn't catch him.) 11:58.
Avg pace: 12:14. Avg HR: 156. 3.11mi.


Tomorrow is work (where I'm fully expecting to come in to 0 pies on hand and having to haul you-know-what all morning to "catch up"), then volunteering at the Track/XC team fundraiser (A micro-marathon beer run 0.262mi and a beer token, a medal, and a sticker for $20!) and then I'm somehow supposed to run 5 miles. We will see. That might get pushed to Thursday, or shortened. That 7 miler on Sunday did good things for my brain. I think more sleep would do good things for my body.

@DopeyBadger can you give me a ballpark of how many minutes/wk I should be running by September when I have my race (which I may or may not *race*) and then switch over to Dopey training? I need fodder to quit making excuses. I'm allegedly on Higdon Novice 2 HM plan, but I'm not doing the cross training per se, just sort of counting all of the hours on my feet at work and being glad for an extra "rest" day.

 

[DopeyBadger]

@DopeyBadger can you give me a ballpark of how many minutes/wk I should be running by September when I have my race (which I may or may not *race*) and then switch over to Dopey training? I need fodder to quit making excuses. I'm allegedly on Higdon Novice 2 HM plan, but I'm not doing the cross training per se, just sort of counting all of the hours on my feet at work and being glad for an extra "rest" day.

A few things that are ideal leading into the training plan:

1) You've been consistently running for at least the six weeks prior.

2) You are ideally doing at least 50-60% of the volume you plan to peak at if the plan is 16-18 weeks in length. So if you plan to peak at 7 hours, then you want to be doing 3.5-4.2 hrs of running entering the plan. However, this depends as well on where the training plan you choose also starts. If it's more than 50-60%, then you need to be around there. If it's less than 50-60%, then you should be on the lower end.

3) When entering the training plan, you shouldn't be increasing volume by much more than about 10-20 min per week in the weeks prior. If you're increasing your volume by say 30-40 min per week to get to the 50-60% threshold, well then your body is going to perceive the training as having started weeks earlier than the actual training plan. This increases the odds of burnout or fatigue late in the training because there's a limited window in which we can consistently build load before the body won't accept it anymore and needs a break. For most people, that increasing load is around 12-14 weeks, which is why most training plans are 16-18 weeks in length (inclusion of taper/race week, and a brief run-in at the start). To alleviate this, a) consider lessening the peak, or b) consider being less than 50-60% entering the plan and expect a very aggressive ramp up that will be an initially tough fatigue inducer (consider pulling back on the hard days during this aggressive ramp).

 

[Herding_Cats]

Ok. I’m at around 7wks out from my race right now and I’m looking at around 4hrs 20min per week of training (plus or minus some as I’m getting close to where he mixes in time trials in place of a couple of the long runs.) If I do all of the runs as written (and none of the cross training) it’s around 20mi per week give or take a couple.

My peak for Goofy and my marathon last year was 29mi (6hr 40min) and you mentioned having more volume with my switch to intervals. So I might be around the right area with my current plan?

And there are 14 weeks from the September half until the week of MW, with the week of the races being week 15.

 

[DopeyBadger]

Ok. I’m at around 7wks out from my race right now and I’m looking at around 4hrs 20min per week of training (plus or minus some as I’m getting close to where he mixes in time trials in place of a couple of the long runs.) If I do all of the runs as written (and none of the cross training) it’s around 20mi per week give or take a couple.

My peak for Goofy and my marathon last year was 29mi (6hr 40min) and you mentioned having more volume with my switch to intervals. So I might be around the right area with my current plan?

And there are 14 weeks from the September half until the week of MW, with the week of the races being week 15.

Seems completely reasonable to me. I'd say you'd increase your LR from 150 min to 180 min to account for intervals, but most everything else stays the same. So looking at close to 7 hours at peak.

 

[Herding_Cats]

Today I practiced taking a nap so that I can stay sharp for that during MW. . Which means I didn’t get my run in. Which means I’ll be doing a mini simulation the next 3 days (4mi, 3 mi, 8mi.)

I did an online order for some UA stuff because I thought I found a shirt for one of my costumes. I need a yellow (not neon) short sleeved shirt that would be suitable for either the half or the full and the one I got definitely leans hard into orange. So that’s getting returned. If anyone has a suggestion I’ve checked all my usual places and I’m not finding anything for a yellow shirt. It’s all green-y or orange-y or neon.

 

[DopeyBadger]

Any of these? (Link)

 

[lookingforsunshine]

Any of these? (Link)

I love those Patagonia shirts for running and that looks yellow!

 

[Herding_Cats]

Maaaaybe the rabbit one (but ugh $48?!) or the Patagonia one, but that neckline is weirding me out. I had checked there, and on the brooks/new balance/nike websites. Old navy. Gap. Athletes. UA. I refuse to look at lululemon because I know that it’s just $$$.

 

[sandam1]

I did an online order for some UA stuff because I thought I found a shirt for one of my costumes. I need a yellow (not neon) short sleeved shirt that would be suitable for either the half or the full and the one I got definitely leans hard into orange. So that’s getting returned. If anyone has a suggestion I’ve checked all my usual places and I’m not finding anything for a yellow shirt. It’s all green-y or orange-y or neon.

Check Kohls. I use their Tek Brand shirts almost exclusively and I'm pretty sure that they had several versions that had different yellow colors. It's super easy to order several different versions to try and then (assuming that you have a store nearby) take them bake to the store. I'm between sizes in their shirts so I order both sizes so I can try them on and keep the ones that work best.