GollyGadget
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Feb 15, 2017
- Messages
- 2,134
Week 7: Wait! Where did Spring go??? (Mar 5-11)
After enjoying the above average temperatures the week before, the below average temps last week were a rude wake up call. It all evens out I guess, no wonder they call them averages. It’s supposed to be right around average temperatures this week which I’m looking forward to. As long as it’s nice for St. Patrick’s Day, I’ll be a happy runner. Right now, it’s forecasted to be a low of 36 on Friday with a high of 58 on Saturday. All in all, a good forecast. I just have to hope those showers stay away. In preparation for St. Pat’s, I went to Target to buy some shamrock leggings this weekend. Somehow left with these socks as well….Target traps are the worst (or maybe the best?).
Sorry about all the complaining last week. There’s been a lot going on locally and nationally that’s gotten under my skin. I’ll try to stick to more happy topics and running this week.
Speaking of running topics, I’m still trying to figure out my race calendar to meet my goal of one race a month in 2018. June and August are the biggest question marks. August is particularly difficult because I’ll be on vacation the last two weekends, so my choices are pretty limited. Actually, right now, there’s only one local race that works and it’s on a Thursday the week after my big July race…so I’m not so sure. Hopefully something else will pop up. There is a local race in June that I’ve been debating. I ran the 6K version a few years ago but if I run this year I think I’ll go for the 1 mile. I haven’t raced a mile ever really. Once upon a time, I ran the 1600 for my junior high track team, but that was a long time ago. The biggest downside is that it’s an afternoon race. The year I ran it was incredibly warm (as you might expect for June) and there was only one water stop. I swore the race off after that but I’m thinking for a mile race, that won’t be as big of a deal. Registration prices go up the end of April, so I have some time to decide. Anyone got any pros or cons of trying to race a mile? Particularly how it might affect my fall marathon training? That training won’t start until August-ish so there isn’t a direct conflict just might affect my fitness heading into the training.
M – EA 5mi
After a week of running outside in fairly nice conditions, Monday came in with a bang. It was sleeting when I woke up. Thankfully by the time I left for work, it had turned into a light drizzle. The precipitation continued for the rest of the day and was at its worst during the commute home. I made it home without much issue but a coworker spent an extra hour trying to get home.
I was not keen on running in the rain/snow/ice mixture so I headed for the treadmill. By some miracle, the DVR was just magically working again so I got to catch up on some TV. Now that the Olympics are over though, I really need some new options. What’s good guys?
Tu – 10 x 400m @ I
It was snowing again and I didn’t want to be running on any slippery surfaces for these repeats. The conundrum I found myself in was running on the indoor track or the treadmill. To help myself learn to pace, I took to the indoor track. The downside of the track is that my watch doesn’t get GPS indoors so I knew it’d be of no use knowing my speed or distance. The other downside is the crowding that can take place. There are several people who either can’t read or think rules don’t apply to them. In particular this time, there were two walkers taking up the two outside lanes, despite the large signs overhead telling them that walkers needed to stay on the inside. When I got close I would yell out that I wanted to pass on the left or right but it didn’t faze them at all. Later on in the run, there were some middle schoolers doing some sort of circuit training who literally just repeatedly ran right into them because they left no room to pass…that also seemed to go unnoticed by the walkers who were too busy gossiping to be bothered by anyone else.
I made a little impromptu change to my workout based on what I had available to me. The workout was meant to be 10x2min and I went for 10x400m. Based on my calculation, 2min @ I should have been around .28 miles so 400 meters seemed reasonably close. The indoor track is 200m to a lap so it was easy to know the distance and elapsed time. From there I could calculate the pace after the fact. My goal was to run 400m in 1:47…hopefully my math skills didn’t fail me because for all the problems I have with tempo pacing, I actually did quite well at these.
Going forward, I’m not sure if I’ll continue these workouts on the track or outside with GPS. Billy, please let me know if I’m majorly messing something up by going for distance vs. time. Obviously, I cut about .3 miles off and maybe I should have done an extra repeat to make up for it? It wasn’t on my mind at the time, so I didn’t.
W – Rest Day
Doing your workouts when scheduled, means enjoying your rest days. We also had tickets to see the Broadway Cinderella. I was a little nervous about it. Would the musical be as good as the Disney movie? Turns out, the musical isn’t like the Disney movie at all, and that’s a good thing! I thought it was outstanding. Highly recommend if you get the chance. We saw Wizard of Oz earlier this year and I couldn’t keep myself awake it was so boring. I think I was just too familiar with the story and there was nothing particularly engaging about the performance. Of course, I know the Cinderella story but this was different enough to keep my interest.
Th – 2 x 2mi @ T
I was very nervous about this run. T at 7:46 happens to be very close at Tempo at 7:58 which I majorly biffed the week before. Following the advice for the tempo, I decided to just go for it. I still needed a plan to guess at the effort. 7:46 seemed fairly close to my 5K pace, so I tried to just keep telling myself to hit 5K pace.
I somehow managed to not notice my cue to start and ended up with 2.1 miles of warm-up with 1.9 miles of T. That first mile was an 8:00 mm. A little bit slow, but it was nice knowing I was physically capable of hitting my tempo pace in training, if only for a mile. Second mile was 7:47! Yay! Right on track! After two minutes of rest, I went after it again. 7:46 and 7:47. A very successful T workout. It was a really tough go, but I was thrilled to make it. Telling myself to keep 5K pace seemed to work, even though my actual race day 5K pace is a tad faster. Now I just need to figure out what a tempo pace “feels” like…maybe 10K?
F – EA 5mi
Friday was another easy day with Bucky. I live in a pretty isolated subdivision and there’s only about 5 miles of road in it so I have to get a bit creative with my routes. It’s a lot of running down the main road, heading down the dead end, back out, then continue down the road. I try to mix up the order I run the streets but it still gets a bit repetitive. Still less repetitive than the treadmill or indoor track though, so I guess beggars can’t be choosers.
Sa – LR 9mi
Guys, I was doing so well. I battled the Doubt Gremlins on Thursday and nailed that run but the IG Monkey was back at it again on Saturday. We ran some errands in the morning/early afternoon and didn’t get home until after 1. We were also going to a basketball game at 3:30 so I pretty much needed to get out the door right when we got home to fit in the 9 miler.
That is basically what my mind decided. Luckily, I had no plans for Sunday other than pretending DST isn’t a thing so I was able to do the work-out a day late. The actual temperature was in the 40s, but you would have thought it was 60s or nicer with all of the people out. It was nice to see. I ran the same bike path that I ran on Thursday when I literally saw no one. Nothing too exciting about the run itself, the average pace was 9:05. As usual, I started out a bit slow but easily found the pace easily once I got warmed up. My fastest miles were 6 and 7 but I distinctly remember them feeling a lot easier than miles 1 and 2. Further proving that the first mile is a liar!
Weekly Time: 4:53:56
Weekly Miles: 31.33
Yearly Miles: 208.1/1254 (16.6%)
Weight Progress: Down ½ lb! I actually tracked my meals and it paid off. I’m almost back to where I was to start the year. 10lbs to ‘ideal’ racing weight…
This week’s schedule:
M – EA 6mi
Tu – Tempo 6 mi (I think I can…I think I can…)
Th – EA 6mi
F – EB 3mi
Sa – Race Day!!!!
After enjoying the above average temperatures the week before, the below average temps last week were a rude wake up call. It all evens out I guess, no wonder they call them averages. It’s supposed to be right around average temperatures this week which I’m looking forward to. As long as it’s nice for St. Patrick’s Day, I’ll be a happy runner. Right now, it’s forecasted to be a low of 36 on Friday with a high of 58 on Saturday. All in all, a good forecast. I just have to hope those showers stay away. In preparation for St. Pat’s, I went to Target to buy some shamrock leggings this weekend. Somehow left with these socks as well….Target traps are the worst (or maybe the best?).

Sorry about all the complaining last week. There’s been a lot going on locally and nationally that’s gotten under my skin. I’ll try to stick to more happy topics and running this week.
Speaking of running topics, I’m still trying to figure out my race calendar to meet my goal of one race a month in 2018. June and August are the biggest question marks. August is particularly difficult because I’ll be on vacation the last two weekends, so my choices are pretty limited. Actually, right now, there’s only one local race that works and it’s on a Thursday the week after my big July race…so I’m not so sure. Hopefully something else will pop up. There is a local race in June that I’ve been debating. I ran the 6K version a few years ago but if I run this year I think I’ll go for the 1 mile. I haven’t raced a mile ever really. Once upon a time, I ran the 1600 for my junior high track team, but that was a long time ago. The biggest downside is that it’s an afternoon race. The year I ran it was incredibly warm (as you might expect for June) and there was only one water stop. I swore the race off after that but I’m thinking for a mile race, that won’t be as big of a deal. Registration prices go up the end of April, so I have some time to decide. Anyone got any pros or cons of trying to race a mile? Particularly how it might affect my fall marathon training? That training won’t start until August-ish so there isn’t a direct conflict just might affect my fitness heading into the training.
M – EA 5mi
After a week of running outside in fairly nice conditions, Monday came in with a bang. It was sleeting when I woke up. Thankfully by the time I left for work, it had turned into a light drizzle. The precipitation continued for the rest of the day and was at its worst during the commute home. I made it home without much issue but a coworker spent an extra hour trying to get home.
I was not keen on running in the rain/snow/ice mixture so I headed for the treadmill. By some miracle, the DVR was just magically working again so I got to catch up on some TV. Now that the Olympics are over though, I really need some new options. What’s good guys?
Tu – 10 x 400m @ I
It was snowing again and I didn’t want to be running on any slippery surfaces for these repeats. The conundrum I found myself in was running on the indoor track or the treadmill. To help myself learn to pace, I took to the indoor track. The downside of the track is that my watch doesn’t get GPS indoors so I knew it’d be of no use knowing my speed or distance. The other downside is the crowding that can take place. There are several people who either can’t read or think rules don’t apply to them. In particular this time, there were two walkers taking up the two outside lanes, despite the large signs overhead telling them that walkers needed to stay on the inside. When I got close I would yell out that I wanted to pass on the left or right but it didn’t faze them at all. Later on in the run, there were some middle schoolers doing some sort of circuit training who literally just repeatedly ran right into them because they left no room to pass…that also seemed to go unnoticed by the walkers who were too busy gossiping to be bothered by anyone else.
I made a little impromptu change to my workout based on what I had available to me. The workout was meant to be 10x2min and I went for 10x400m. Based on my calculation, 2min @ I should have been around .28 miles so 400 meters seemed reasonably close. The indoor track is 200m to a lap so it was easy to know the distance and elapsed time. From there I could calculate the pace after the fact. My goal was to run 400m in 1:47…hopefully my math skills didn’t fail me because for all the problems I have with tempo pacing, I actually did quite well at these.
- 1:47
- 1:46
- 1:46
- 1:46
- 1:51
- 1:51
- 1:48
- 1:47
- 1:46
- 1:48
Going forward, I’m not sure if I’ll continue these workouts on the track or outside with GPS. Billy, please let me know if I’m majorly messing something up by going for distance vs. time. Obviously, I cut about .3 miles off and maybe I should have done an extra repeat to make up for it? It wasn’t on my mind at the time, so I didn’t.
W – Rest Day
Doing your workouts when scheduled, means enjoying your rest days. We also had tickets to see the Broadway Cinderella. I was a little nervous about it. Would the musical be as good as the Disney movie? Turns out, the musical isn’t like the Disney movie at all, and that’s a good thing! I thought it was outstanding. Highly recommend if you get the chance. We saw Wizard of Oz earlier this year and I couldn’t keep myself awake it was so boring. I think I was just too familiar with the story and there was nothing particularly engaging about the performance. Of course, I know the Cinderella story but this was different enough to keep my interest.
Th – 2 x 2mi @ T
I was very nervous about this run. T at 7:46 happens to be very close at Tempo at 7:58 which I majorly biffed the week before. Following the advice for the tempo, I decided to just go for it. I still needed a plan to guess at the effort. 7:46 seemed fairly close to my 5K pace, so I tried to just keep telling myself to hit 5K pace.
I somehow managed to not notice my cue to start and ended up with 2.1 miles of warm-up with 1.9 miles of T. That first mile was an 8:00 mm. A little bit slow, but it was nice knowing I was physically capable of hitting my tempo pace in training, if only for a mile. Second mile was 7:47! Yay! Right on track! After two minutes of rest, I went after it again. 7:46 and 7:47. A very successful T workout. It was a really tough go, but I was thrilled to make it. Telling myself to keep 5K pace seemed to work, even though my actual race day 5K pace is a tad faster. Now I just need to figure out what a tempo pace “feels” like…maybe 10K?

F – EA 5mi
Friday was another easy day with Bucky. I live in a pretty isolated subdivision and there’s only about 5 miles of road in it so I have to get a bit creative with my routes. It’s a lot of running down the main road, heading down the dead end, back out, then continue down the road. I try to mix up the order I run the streets but it still gets a bit repetitive. Still less repetitive than the treadmill or indoor track though, so I guess beggars can’t be choosers.
Sa – LR 9mi
Guys, I was doing so well. I battled the Doubt Gremlins on Thursday and nailed that run but the IG Monkey was back at it again on Saturday. We ran some errands in the morning/early afternoon and didn’t get home until after 1. We were also going to a basketball game at 3:30 so I pretty much needed to get out the door right when we got home to fit in the 9 miler.

That is basically what my mind decided. Luckily, I had no plans for Sunday other than pretending DST isn’t a thing so I was able to do the work-out a day late. The actual temperature was in the 40s, but you would have thought it was 60s or nicer with all of the people out. It was nice to see. I ran the same bike path that I ran on Thursday when I literally saw no one. Nothing too exciting about the run itself, the average pace was 9:05. As usual, I started out a bit slow but easily found the pace easily once I got warmed up. My fastest miles were 6 and 7 but I distinctly remember them feeling a lot easier than miles 1 and 2. Further proving that the first mile is a liar!

Weekly Time: 4:53:56
Weekly Miles: 31.33
Yearly Miles: 208.1/1254 (16.6%)
Weight Progress: Down ½ lb! I actually tracked my meals and it paid off. I’m almost back to where I was to start the year. 10lbs to ‘ideal’ racing weight…
This week’s schedule:
M – EA 6mi
Tu – Tempo 6 mi (I think I can…I think I can…)
Th – EA 6mi
F – EB 3mi
Sa – Race Day!!!!