The Running Thread - 2020

July Totals:
215.53 miles run
7:24 avg/mile
52.83 miles biked

Signed up for a half marathon in October (Buffalo Creek) which has a very slim chance of going off. It's capped at 1,250 runners and right now there's 94 registered. Although it'll probably be canceled out of not being fiscally feasible to hold it.
 
July by the Numbers:
  • Runs = 25
  • Miles = 112.41
  • Time on Road = 19:33:43
  • Total miles recorded this year = 521.39
  • Walks = 3
  • Miles = 6.69
  • Time on Road = 1:31:42
  • Bike Rides = 3
  • Miles = 41.36
  • Time on Road = 3:13:12
Was a great month running. Temperature is starting to be a factor. DS and DD are running again. This helps to motivate me to keep moving through COVID towards Dopey. I am still clinging to Dopey 2021 happening...all the comments I read above are starting to make me worry.
 
“Speed work” “easy run” (because every run sucks tight now and none of them are easy and if I run slower it seems even harder??) “tempo run” and so on. I’m basically hopping on the treadmill and trying to get my walk intervals down to 30sec (1min feels a LOT better at this point) and my run intervals to a higher speed (it’s always at least 6, and I’m now able to maintain 6.2ish for my 3mi runs and have been pushing the first mile up to around 6.5-6.7)
For years, I always trained at continual pacing. I almost always found myself despising the training and definitely dreading the long runs. I only kept at it because I enjoyed the reward of the race itself.
I too was one of those runners who said, "If I can go faster, why shouldn't I?" A "PR the day" type mindset. But it's when I accepted the "train slow to race fast" mantra that my PRs dropped dramatically.
Training slow to race fast quite literally changed both my enjoyment of running and success as a runner. My soreness level went down substantially in training and I found that I enjoyed the training so much more. But the real results came in races themselves.

I started training slow to run fast in the summer of 2018. My first half marathon using this philosophy came in September 2018. On race day, I was a mental wreck. I was on the struggle bus beginning around mile 3 or so. I felt like the race was a complete disaster. And yet in spite of how much I struggled during the race, I still cut 3 minutes off my previous PR.

My next races after that was my first marathon and Dopey. I had spent years believing I could not finish a marathon. Well, I not only somehow managed to not only finish the marathon, but also enjoy it so much that I signed up for a second marathon and Dopey.

Last summer, I contracted a nasty summer cold that sidelined me for nearly a month. I had a September half marathon on the horizon followed by Dopey in January 2020 and @DopeyBadger played it conservative to keep me injury free as I started training over from scratch. Every single training run was slow. No attempts at all to increase pace. I headed into the race planning to take it slow and just finish. I didn't want to even care about time. It was the same race that I had spent on the struggle bus in 2018. Well, this time I still took the race nice and easy. Barely pushing myself in the race, I still managed to cut another minutes off my previous PR.

Then came this year's WDW Marathon. And the heat. The heat and humidity so brutal that they had to shorten the course for runner safety. While I certainly felt the heat and humidity from the very beginning, I also felt very strong for the entire race. I was behind the course cutoff, so I will never know what my actual time would have been. But based on what my pace actually was for the miles I did run, I was ahead of my previous year's time in spite of the conditions.
 


July Totals:

Total Miles - 80.18 mi
Total Time - 11:52:18 h:m:s
Average Pace - 8:53
Avg HR - 149
hiking/walking - ~40 m

Whole lot of meh this month. No motivation. Converted one of my fall races to next year. Who knows what will happen to the other.

Plus side, got myself the Fenix 6 and like it a whole lot more than the 3hr I had.
 
July Summary
47.9km (~29.7 miles)

I switched to kilometres this month for a virtual Canada Day Race which required my Garmin file be uploaded in km. But I'm thinking I'll stay in km now.

Anyways, I've done the bare minimum this month. I only ran once longer than 5k. I'm having a hard time with the heat/humidity, and motivation.

In October I have a virtual 10k (they made an early decision to go virtual & still provide race shirts & half-off next year's entry), so I'm thinking I'll make a plan for that starting in August to get back to a longer distance. Looking back, March/April I was still following my plan for my May race, which I think was a big part of how I managed my higher mileage. I might just always need a plan/might not be able to wing-it...

January - 39.3km
February - 70.6km
March - 73.5km
April - 81.4km
May - 77.9km
June - 57.1km
 


July 2020: 21.9 miles

:sad2: If I'd been paying attention I would have gone another 0.1 mile yesterday. Oh well. Also, that seems low? But I did miss a few weekday runs and the start of the training plan is nothing too daunting as far as longer runs go.

Calf and ankle are a bit swollen from that wasp sting but not as bad as I worried it'd be. Right now I'm still planning to do my 9 mile run tomorrow (slow and easy!), though it all depends on how the leg feels in the morning. 9 miles--we're starting to get into some scary distances, but I'm also kind of excited about figuring out tomorrow's route.
 
July Training Summary
Total Miles: 64.8 miles
Total Time: 10:30:12
Average Pace: 9:44/mi
Average HR: 132/min

I decided early in the month to have a hand surgery that I've been delaying, so definitely less miles than I planned, but given that I lost a good week and a half of training, I'm still happy with it. My surgeon said I could resume running earlier this week, so I'm back on track.
 
July Totals

running: 103.1 mi
average pace: 12:09 min/mi
total time: 20.86 hr

This is the lowest mileage for me in a month since last August when I was in Italy for two weeks and didn't run. The average pace is definitely lower than usual because I've been in transition between plans and not doing speedwork, and I've had to slow way down for the heat and humidity.

tennis: 12 hr

This is up to a more typical level after having an abrupt stop to tennis in mid-March. All of it has been outside, and the heat and humidity have been brutal. I have been sweating buckets and buckets - way more than usual in the summer - and realized that one of my meds has the possible side-effect of "increased sweating". Check. I used to take a 24-oz bottle of Nuun + water for a 2-hour match or practice, but that wasn't enough. I upped it to 24 oz + 18 oz, and still not enough. Got a 64-oz insulated bottle, and that worked perfectly for practice today! Good to the last drop! Ha.
 
July Mileage

Running: 61.87 miles, 9:27/mile Average Pace

Cycling: 55.55 miles, 15.9 mph Average Speed (excluding a few "family" rides)

I lost about a week of running (and gained about a week of cycling) as a result of a quadriceps strain I suffered on my weekly "long" run (but only 4 miles into it). I'm probably another week on the bike minimally before it heals up. I hate running injuries!

The silver lining is that I got myself a new bike, which is faster than my prior bike so I've really been enjoying riding it.
 
DH July report:
Running: 88.7 miles. My streak of 100+ mile months ends at 4, and I'm fine with that. Too many hot days here in Pa.

Annual physical was in July. In the visit summary, I found this, which made me laugh. I can envision the matter-of-fact dictation going on when my PCP said this:

Doing well. He ran his first marathon in 1/2020 in Florida. He was successful with this and had no injury. Interestingly he ran half marathon the day before.
 
Well, you gotta laugh so you don't cry--no nine mile run for me today! Woke up and my leg felt fine, so I went through all the motions to get some food in my stomach and get ready to go out...and discovered when I went to grab some clothes for the run that the finished basement had flooded. The good news is that the plumbing issue is a pretty simple/cheap fix and we live in a dry climate. But we did spend all morning moving furniture around so we could cut up the carpet and haul sodden carpet and padding out to the dumpster (this is the second time it's flooded and we are D O N E trying to salvage that carpeting -- plan is to just let the concrete and everything dry out and put in sheet vinyl). I can't say I particularly recommend prying up nailed-down strips of carpet tacks in half an inch of water as a weekend leisure activity.

Ah well. Unless something else goes wrong tomorrow I still have one more morning in which to get that nine miles done this weekend.

On topic thought/question: I'm going to visit friends this coming week. I scheduled an off week but I'm trying to decide whether to bring my gear with me anyway to do some short runs. Who runs on vacation, and who, uh...doesn't?
 
July totals:

Running: 145.26 mi
Pace: 10:07

Cycling: 34:89 mi

Run total dropped by 100 miles, as work has been eating a lot of my time. Getting back on the bike to start training for a two day ride in October. Bummed but not surprised about W&D. Finished my virtual 1000k, which was fun. May do some more virtual 100k/100m races to keep things interesting in the fall. Ready to get away from triple digit heat indexes and T+D > 160. Fingers crossed for Dopey!
 
vEveresting completed in 16:16 with 8888m of ascent
SO impressed! Well done! :worship:
Currently on run streak day 55 as well.
Great job on the run streak!:tiptoe:
Who runs on vacation, and who, uh...doesn't?
I always run on vacation! It's a great way to explore whereever I am visiting, and it helps burn off the extra food and alcohol I am usually consuming! :blush:

JULY totals:
Run = 93 mi
Bike = 370 mi (combo of Zwift and outside)
Swim = 18,000yds

Highlight - I got a new bike! A Canyon Speedmax tri bike - it's sooooo pretty and I love it!
 
Well, you gotta laugh so you don't cry--no nine mile run for me today! Woke up and my leg felt fine, so I went through all the motions to get some food in my stomach and get ready to go out...and discovered when I went to grab some clothes for the run that the finished basement had flooded. The good news is that the plumbing issue is a pretty simple/cheap fix and we live in a dry climate. But we did spend all morning moving furniture around so we could cut up the carpet and haul sodden carpet and padding out to the dumpster (this is the second time it's flooded and we are D O N E trying to salvage that carpeting -- plan is to just let the concrete and everything dry out and put in sheet vinyl). I can't say I particularly recommend prying up nailed-down strips of carpet tacks in half an inch of water as a weekend leisure activity.

Ah well. Unless something else goes wrong tomorrow I still have one more morning in which to get that nine miles done this weekend.

On topic thought/question: I'm going to visit friends this coming week. I scheduled an off week but I'm trying to decide whether to bring my gear with me anyway to do some short runs. Who runs on vacation, and who, uh...doesn't?

So sorry to hear about the flooded basement! DH and I had trouble with that for awhile until we were able to get our backyard regraded. So so frustrating to deal with.

To answer your other question: I often run on vacation. As some others have said, it's a nice way to see the area and burn some calories. I do try to do some planning ahead of time, such as seeing if there are trails/bike paths/greenways near where I will be or planning out urban routes.
 

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