Road to Nowhere

Walk: 2.4 miles

Weather: Overcast, cool. 50 degrees

Part of my new strategy is to try to do something as many days of the week as I can, even if it's just walking. So I took another lunchtime walk from the office this afternoon.

I went up and over the Interstate 5 Bridge, crossing over the Columbia River into Oregon before turning around and heading back to Vancouver. Nice view and breeze, thanks to the trucks rushing by.

Low HR Run: 30 minutes (2.11 miles) on the treadmill

Temp: 68. Gear: Free 3.0 v4s, shorts, T. After breakfast.

I squeezed in a short low HR run before work, though I had a debate with my internal voice that was telling me to step off the treadmill and make this a rest day. It was weird: I'm not sore, or tired. So, I told that internal voice to just hold on a bit. I completed my walking warm-up, and still felt fine. I started my run, and it felt fine, too. I tried to keep my foot strike light and easy, and I kept the speed down. I had to slow a bit after about 19 minutes, but given what I've been asking my body to do lately, I shouldn't be surprised.

I feel fine after the run. I'll play the rest of the workouts this week by ear and see how it goes. I'm trying to do something almost every day - even if it's just a little bit of something - to see if I can get accustomed to it. I've tended to be mostly a 4-day a week runner, and I'm wondering if I can sneak in a little more.

Average HR for entire run: 124

I agree with doing 'something' almost every day...I do something cardio-wise almost every day (Sundays are off), although I only run 3 days a week. Lately, the other 'something' is Zumba, prior to that it was elliptical.

Good job on the negotiation with your inner voice!

Mark - it never matters how much you try to do each day, and we do need some active rest (like Kathy, I usually don't run on Sunday, but I often find myself walking, biking, gardening, what ever that day). Keep up the good work.

KathyK wrote:I agree with doing 'something' almost every day...I do something cardio-wise almost every day (Sundays are off), although I only run 3 days a week. Lately, the other 'something' is Zumba, prior to that it was elliptical.

Good job on the negotiation with your inner voice!

Thanks, Kathy! Since the time/distance of my workouts are less than they have been, this seems like the best time to experiment with a greater frequency. It also helps that I'm trying to keep my activity level up to help in my weight loss efforts. What I'd been doing before wasn't working, so a new strategy was needed. More on that later (if it works).

Michele "1L" Keane wrote:Mark - it never matters how much you try to do each day, and we do need some active rest (like Kathy, I usually don't run on Sunday, but I often find myself walking, biking, gardening, what ever that day). Keep up the good work.

Good point, and thanks. I can't imagine "working out" seven days a week - or even six - but I can imagine being active on all but the big rest days. That might change when my mileage increases, but I'm hoping to build to it slowly and kind of sneak up on a high level of fitness.

Low HR Run: 60 minutes (4.88 miles)

Weather: Rainy and cool, a bit of a breeze. 47 degrees. Gear: Free 3.0 v4s, shorts, long-sleeved T, jacket, hat, gloves. Fuel: Didn't carry water (kind of wished I did)

I was a little fatigued this morning but felt more peppy as the day wore on, so I went out for a low HR run in the rain. I could feel my body getting more accustomed to more of a forefoot strike, though it got more difficult to maintain the longer I ran. It made it more difficult than usual to keep my heart rate in the target zone.

A note on the foot strike: When I do it right, if feels. so. good. It's sort of like how it feels when I'd turn on the afterburners and shift into a higher gear. Because, in fact, I guess that's kind of what I'm doing. Interesting.

I did go a little faster, and a little farther, which is nice, considering how wet I got.

Average HR for the whole run: 133

Low HR Run: 40 minutes (2.9 miles) on the treadmill

Temp: 68 Gear: Free 3.0 v4s, shorts, T. Fuel/water: none

I opted for an easy low HR run on the treadmill this morning. It went very well. My HR was lower than it has been lately when I started my warm-up walk, and it rose slowly as the time progressed. I kept the pace at 12/mi, and when I passed 25 minutes with my HR at 135 (still below my target), I decided to go another 5 minutes and see what happened. At 30 minutes, my HR was right at my target (138), so I decided to go another 5 minutes and see if I could keep it there. At 35 minutes, it was starting to nudge above 138, so I decided that this was enough for today and started my cool-down. The distance is estimated, because I forgot to check the distance on the 'mill (I only leave the timer up) before I unplugged it. Oops!

The run itself was pretty cool. It felt lighter and easier than usual, with a cadence of about 180, with what seemed like a light forefoot strike. When I'd see my HR edge up, I'd realize I was starting to lose form - as much by tensing up as anything - and I'd relax and see the HR edge back down again. I think this is working.

Average HR for the whole run: 124

So it seems like you and your new shoes are getting along well now!

KathyK wrote:So it seems like you and your new shoes are getting along well now!

It's getting there, Kathy. Whether it's the shoes conforming to my feet or my body adjusting to the different foot strike this type of shoe encourages, I'm not sure. Probably a little bit of both. It's one of the main reasons I'm experimenting with more activity of lesser duration: I'm trying to get enough stimulus to adapt.

Barefoot Run: 1 mile on dry asphalt

Weather: Sunny and nice. 56 degrees.

Alec is well enough now to start running for his computer game time (1 mile = 1 hour), so we went out for a few laps around the block. I was planning on going barefoot, and Alec wanted to try it, too. He did pretty well, and he kept wanting to veer onto rougher pavement even though he kept going ow-ow-ow when he hit a rougher patch. We went slower (I concentrated on form), and we walked a little, too.

Abbreviated MAF Test: 3.27 miles

Weather: Very sunny. Gear: Free 3.0 v4s, shorts, T. Fuel: Coffee and oatmeal/chia before. Took nuun at track.

I was looking forward to a MAF test this morning but ended up cutting it short. Initially my legs wanted to go-go-go but my body (based on HR) was going no-no-no. I had a devil of a time trying to get my HR to behave. The first mile was a lot slower than I expected, and the speed dropped off more than I'd have preferred in Mile 2.

It might have been the bright sunlight (yes, I feel like a vampire), or the extra stuff I did this week, or the different shoes (I've gone from the 5.0 to the 3.0 sole, and my gait has changed as a result), or the diet changes that have been pretty effective at dropping weight (down from 186 a month ago to 177.4 as of this morning, with most of the weight loss in the past two weeks). Or all put together. At any rate, I decided there wouldn't really be any benefit for pushing it more, and obsessing about numbers for the sake of numbers seemed, well, stupid. So I did a lap to cool down and wrapped it up.

I might give myself a little break next week.

Average HR for entire run: 126

Here's the comparison chart:

Don't try to do too much at one time Mark. Sounds like your body is telling you to slow it down a bit. PLEASE LISTEN, I don't want to see another explosion from you and find you 3 months down the road burned out and/or injured.

Joel H wrote:Don't try to do too much at one time Mark. Sounds like your body is telling you to slow it down a bit. PLEASE LISTEN, I don't want to see another explosion from you and find you 3 months down the road burned out and/or injured.

I was thinking the same thing yesterday, Joel. I noticed that I was starting to get hung up on numbers again.

So this morning, I decided to do something less measurable -- a trail run -- to see if the sense of ennui I had was physical or existential.

Trail Run: 3.81 miles

Weather: Sunny, pleasant. 60-64 degrees. Gear: Peregrines, shorts, T. Fuel: Took S-cap before, carried water.

I took advantage of a warm sunny morning to head out to some trails near my house. I haven't been on a trail since December in Indiana, and I needed to mix things up. Nothing like hamstering around a track like I did yesterday to make you want to go out and find some sweet single track.



I wore my HR monitor, though, to keep me from hammering too hard. Of course, in some places, I had to hammer to keep from sinking up to my knees in mud. The park is used mostly by horse riders, so that means any damp soil is churned up and turned into a mud bog.



Good practice for light foot strike,eh? And I came *this* close to a full-on face plant when I caught a foot under a branch. That would have made quite the photo.

Not that heavy mud isn't photogenic, mind you...




After a while, I broke off the main trail and went exploring well off the beaten path, and found some true single-track.




- and managed to get so lost that I ended up in some field and had to run the last part through the field and on the road navigating my way back to the car.



My Peregrines are okay running on pavement, though they're awfully stiff for walking on asphalt. Still, it was a pretty day, even from the road.



As for heart rate, well... it's hard to gauge this one. This was about as far from a steady-state run as you can get. There was walking, churning through mud, running up hills, etc. But it was nice to mix it up, and there were a couple of points where I was having a blast. I'll take it.



Average HR for the entire run: 124.

Oh, and here's the track and elevation chart:

Now THAT sounds and looks like FUN!!! Much better than around a track like a hamster indeed. Are you sure those are shoes under that mud?

Joel H wrote:Are you sure those are shoes under that mud?

No, not entirely.

Hey, at least this time the bog didn't suck a shoe off.

(It almost did once, though.)

Looks like a great run Mark - I'm surprised you are not wearing gaiters going through that stuff! I think I'm getting poison ivy just looking at those pictures - does it ever bother you? I just look at it anymore and I seem to get ate up with it.

John Kilpatrick wrote:Looks like a great run Mark - I'm surprised you are not wearing gaiters going through that stuff! I think I'm getting poison ivy just looking at those pictures - does it ever bother you? I just look at it anymore and I seem to get ate up with it.

Gaiters would just get weighted down by all the mud, John! And there's no poison ivy in the West. There *is* poison oak, but I've never had problems with it. In fact, I've been up to my hips in it taking photos at a bad freeway accident years ago and not had a reaction ... in fact, I didn't even know had been *in* poison oak until I saw a firefighter who'd been out on the scene covered with calamine lotion. He was a little irked that I came through without a trace of it...

I consider it karmic payback. I was a member of the rash-of-the-month club as a kid, and I have eczema now, so it seems fair that I've dodged the poison oak/ivy bullet. For now, at least,

Hey Mark, looks like I've got a lot of catching up to do, but happy to see you are still very comfortable venturing into the wilds, wallowing in the mud, getting lost and, in general, doing it all with a smile on your face! I'm sure it won't be long until you and I will be discussing LHR training again.

Tom H wrote:Hey Mark, looks like I've got a lot of catching up to do, but happy to see you are still very comfortable venturing into the wilds, wallowing in the mud, getting lost and, in general, doing it all with a smile on your face! I'm sure it won't be long until you and I will be discussing LHR training again.

Cool. You know where to find me. If you've plowed through this blog, you've seen that I started back at it again, with a few twists to keep it fun. So far, so good.

Were those new shoes under all of that mud? If so, they have certainly lost their new shoe look, huh?

Honestly, it does look like a fun run, though!

I love those shoes in that color. I had the same poison ivy thoughts (plus here I'd get deer ticks and another bout with Lyme disease). Sounds like a fun one!!

Beautiful trail, Mark. Guess I'm the west coast voice here - didn't think about ticks or ivy. Poison oak doesn't even cross my mind, either, as I've never had a reaction to it.

KathyK wrote:Were those new shoes under all of that mud? If so, they have certainly lost their new shoe look, huh?

Honestly, it does look like a fun run, though!

No, they weren't new shoes, Kathy. They're a pair of Saucony Peregrines that I got last year when I started trail running. And one of the neat things about them is the fact that it's pretty easy to get the caked mud out/out of them. Just blast 'em with water for a few minutes and they look (almost) as good as new!

It was a fun run - it's nice to get out of the robotic "maximum efficiency" stride that you get on pavement or a treadmill. Every step was different. Every landing point at a different angle. Hopping over things (or tripping over things) and trying to get through the bogs worked all sorts of different muscles. Couple that with a lot of yard work when I got home (raking out moss, overseeding lawn, spreading soil), and I am definitely sore this morning.

Michael Enright wrote:I love those shoes in that color. I had the same poison ivy thoughts (plus here I'd get deer ticks and another bout with Lyme disease). Sounds like a fun one!!

Ticks aren't really an issue here, Michael. Not so much with Lyme disease, either. But... once the mosquitoes hatch early this summer, a trip into those woods could mean a 10% loss in total blood volume by the time you make it back out again.

Mike MacLellan wrote:Beautiful trail, Mark. Guess I'm the west coast voice here - didn't think about ticks or ivy. Poison oak doesn't even cross my mind, either, as I've never had a reaction to it.

I guess we're both lucky on that, Mike. Other parts of the country seem so inhospitable. Why is that they live there?

I'm disappointed that you weren't running barefoot through that mud - nothing feels better than squishy mud in your toes - even to someone like me who doesn't run barefoot much.