Saturday, March 14, 2009

3-14-09 morning run

Just got back from a 4 mile run at the rails to trails route in Valley. It was dark when I started, and it was dark when I got done. Luckily it felt a little warmer by the end. I'd planned on doing 4 miles, but I'd not set out for a certain pace - just wanted to get some miles in since the rest of the day was probably going to be hectic. I ended up doing a pretty good pace just by feel. I clocked the 4 miles in 31:59 (I never looked at the GPS except for turnaround markers - but towards the end, I was hoping for a 9 minute pace...36 mins). When I saw 32 minutes, I was a little shocked. I looked back through the lap data on the GPS and found that I sped up with each mile:

mile 1 = 8:42
mile 2 = 8:17
mile 3 = 7:31
mile 4 = 7:16

All this leads me to the realization that when I do 5K and 10K races, I probably need to get to the race soon enough to do nearly a mile of warmup (at an easy pace) to get my legs ready to run fast. Usually I try to limit the warmup to .25 to .5 miles.

Updates - I've been bad about posting workouts for this week, so I'll recount below (data taken from twitter and facebook posts)

3-12-09 3 miles at the dam before work. 8:30 pace
3-13-09 1500 meters in the pool - 34:56 - GOAL!!!! was shooting for 35 minutes.

Wednesday, March 11, 2009

Sanity break in the morning and ARRRRGGGHHHH!!

This is my moment of Zen in a hectic morning - have gotten zero accomplished.

Was supposed to swim this morning - but we changed every clock in the house for daylight savings....except the little digital that I hang on the TV for swim mornings.


5:00am Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep, Beeepppbeeeeepbeeeeeepbeeeepbeeeeep. I get up, stumble to the clock and disarm it. I go into the bathroom to put on my swimsuit, wait... why does the bathroom clock say 6:03? meh?!?! Put on the watch...wait, why is my watch stupid, too - it says 6:04. That's not good. Go to the kitchen - Crap, it's 6am in here too.

This is the point when realization hits. The little digital had been lounging in a drawer during daylight savings time. So now I am instantly an hour behind. I should have been in the pool 40 minutes ago.

I knew I couldn't accomplish anything except for driving to Valley in time to shower and drive back to work - why was the gas?

And the day hasn't gotten any better yet.

Tuesday, March 10, 2009

3-10-09 10 miler

This has been a bad week or two for workouts, but time crushing in on you has a way of motivating. My big race this year is only about 8 weeks off. I've been doing conditioning work since Jan, but it's time to get serious now - longer runs, and longer rides. Oddly enough, the swim really doesn't have me worried that much (hope I don't regret that statement).

Tonight I did 10 miles at the dam. It was the first warm run of the year, and the first time I could take my shirt off to run. It felt great to be our and sweating again. I ran from one end of the dam park to the other making sure to take all the side roads and spurs to add distance. I still had to do some doubling back (which I hate - phsycological effect), but only for about 1/4 mile to make to an even 10. There was no way I was going to end that run on 9.6 miles. I'm seeing more people at the dam, and as the evenings cool a little, the crowds increase...and so does the road traffic. I passed an older gent on a bike about 7 times. He was apparently racking up miles by doing 3 mile laps at the park as well.

Tomorrow is a rest day (from running - still gonna swim), so I figured I'd go long to give my legs a reason for recovery .

Now I just need to dedicate about an hour to making out the training schedule for the next 2 months. I'll try to get that accomplished tomorrow night.

I had hotdogs for lunch which has traditionally meant that I ran out of energy on any runs over about 3 miles. To combat this, I took a Gu before I started, and another Gu at around 5 miles. I also stopped for a while @ 5 to stretch a bit - I want to make sure my calves stay limber since they've been a little tight lately; that is probably due to the transistion from the treadmill to terra firma. I want to make sure I take care of that so I arrive at the starting line un-injured.

Time to start visualizing the race.