Leaving Neverland

Actually, Ensure or Boost are great recovery drinks and would be a good choice for you, Mike. Wish I had the lack of calories thing going for me.....

Mark/Michele - Funny that a chocolate milk type recovery drink comes up. I allowed the logic of my recent dietary changes (vegan to fish-eater) to run full circle last week and said to myself, "Mike, if you eat frozen yogurt - and pay $4 for it - why not just get some normal yogurt for after runs?" So for the last week and a half, I've been downing a yogurt/cocoa powder/banana mixture after my hard runs, followed by a substantial meal. 250kcal + 450-500kcal. No lactose-related side effects (I'm sure I'd have them), and it's actually really filling.

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5.2mi today. Was planned 5mi, but the extra .2 were worth the fact that I got to hit the one and only "trail" within a short distance of here. Man, I forgot how great trails are once the weather cools down. Especially after a rain, so the ground has a slight give to it, covered in wet leaves, smell of pine and fall in the air... Yeah, I miss trails. A lot. Already thinking about how I can start incorporating them into my HM training come New Year's.

Anyway, the focus is on a 10k, for now. So a very, very aerobically easy run today, just a shave over 8:00 pace. My joints and muscles are all pretty bitchy, to be honest, but I think that's par for the course right about now.

In a word...
Booooooooooom!

In two words...
Nailed it!

As per usual, here's the verbose race-esque report:
Everything about today felt like a race. Even going to bed last night - mind reeling a little bit, worried that I wouldn't sleep well - and waking up at 3am with that, "oh shit, I'm not going to get back to sleep" feeling. Waking up this morning, I had that usual race-day stomach unease. So obviously, today was already one of psychological importance.

I've been keeping track of my morning schedule - waking time, eating time, restroom time, run start time, etc. - so try and start mimicking race day conditions. So I shot for starting my run a little earlier than normal. I might need to rethink that, as my warm-up miles were a bit uncomfortable. Just felt full-bellied.

Anyway, finished my 2mi warm-up, the whole time trying to squelch any hint of negative self-talk and replace it with a dose of confidence, and toed the "starting line." I wanted to get some experience pacing on the street rather than track, so the line was an intersection. Appropriately.

Aaaaand we're off. Felt like I was going out pretty fast, but a wrist check at a quarter mile showed me at tempo pace (6:20 or so). A quick surge to get the legs turning over brought me down to goal pace, and before I knew it, I was a half mile in. Well, that's nice. Then a funny thing happened: time started to slow down. By the end of mile 1, that super-quick first half mile had been evened out and it felt like the 5:57 split it was. Then the wrist checks started to get closer and closer together, even though I felt like I was waiting longer and longer. Around the 10min mark, that red-line discomfort started to creep in, and at 11min, a slight kick in the road (1-1.5%) really put me in some pain. But I held on for that last minute, hitting the 2mi mark in 11:54.

Which brought me to some pretty bad stomach cramps. No idea what that's all about, but oof, did it hurt. Like, bad. Fortunately, I had a 5min recovery, and by ~4min in, I was feeling better.

Aaaaand round two! This one actually felt easier. I just had more control over my pace, my stride, everything. It didn't hurt that the first .2mi was going back down that kicker from the end of the first interval, so I had picked up a few seconds on it. Again, time started playing tricks around the 1mi mark, and from minute 10 onward, things sucked. But unlike the 5k TT, I was able to find the focus to push through the last two minutes, even picking up the pace for a split of 11:57.

At this point, I was just a couple hundred meters from school, so I moseyed over during my 5min recovery and hopped onto the track. I knew I had this workout in the bag, so there was a definite feeling of relief by this point. The stomach cramps had gone away, and I didn't have that usual bonky feeling I get after a few miles at 10k pace. In fact, I felt like I could run another 2mi interval, if I had to.

Mile 5 was by far the easiest, a simple 4-lap cruise for a 5:57 split. The only issue with this one was the construction going on next to the track - they're building a parking structure - that resulted in a cloud of dust/gas fumes blowing over the back turn of the track. Ugh, that smell is really awful when running at pace.

3min later, I started my last mile of the day. This one made me question my idea of running my last 2mi in one interval, but that isn't to say I ever doubted that I'd get it done. Just felt the wheels starting to come off pretty early on in this one. I kept the first .5mi under control before gradually opening up, hitting a near-sprint for the last 100m (5:25 average, 4:45 max pace). Another 5:57 split for that mile.

So again, in sum, nailed it. Really the one single thing I would have changed about this run is pushing a smidgen harder during the second interval to have all my splits at 5:57 - not that this is a significant number, just that I know the Garmin measures long, so I wanted to go comfortably sub-6 for every mile.

Anyway, little bit of a cutback week next week before hammering it until Thanksgiving.

Nailed. It.

BTW, also a nice job practicing a race report!

Woohoo!!

Woohoo is right. Still really stoked from that run. And today's.

Not so much yesterday's.

So my day off Friday was nice and easy, just letting the body recover and getting a bit of homework out of the way for the weekend. Had a party at my buddy's house on Friday night and a party here last night, so I knew I wasn't going to be accomplishing much.

Meaning yesterday's run sucked. Six obnoxious miles, creaky as all hell from my run Thursday + being super hungover and only having about 5hr sleep. I fought off my hangover all day, pretty much resigning myself to the couch, and committed to not having a repeat again last night. Gotta say, my buddy's little 10-person party was a hell of a lot better than last night's 50+ kegger. But that made it a lot easier to limit my beer intake.

Glad I stuck to my game plan.

Didn't get to bed until late last night, so the run started late, but it was sunny and only slightly warm by the time I started (~10am), so conditions were pleasant. Pounded out 12.27mi, taking Jim's advice to go for another LSD rather than more tempo miles so I could save that effort for Thursday. Ran it sort of progressively, just taking it easy the first 4mi (7:48 average), picked it up to a steady effort for the next 4mi (7:09, slight net downhill), and took it to GA for the last 4mi (7:01, slight net uphill, 1mi on a trail). Totally forgot to grab a granola bar before taking off, so did the whole thing on breakfast alone (okay, and some candy/cookies from last night; hey, it was a celebration!).

Gonna feel good to get some solid sleep the rest of this week.

5mi easy today. Haven't mentioned it yet, but I've got a nice little hamstring/back-of-knee niggle on my left leg since Thursday. Also had a little tendinitis in my foot, but that's gone away... mostly. But yeah, this whole knee thing is on the back/outside. I know it's my hamstrings, because it always is with this uptempo running, but it's getting obnoxious. Sticks around for about 1.5min when I start to run, then it's juuuuuuuuuust enough there to let me know it could at any time tighten up again. Doesn't even hurt. Just there.

Nice work on the 3 x 2 mile.

Not quite the 3x 2mi yet, Dave. That's in 2 weeks.

8mi today. Still pretty beat up from Thursday. Legs are flat at anything resembling high-end, so I kept the run pretty easy with 3x 3strides thrown in throughout to try and get some pick-up. Still cranking away at that left hamstring/tendon/whatever. Ice, stretch, massage, repeat.

Another easy 5mi today.

I get it, legs. Shut up already.

Just general discomfort/creak. Nothing stride-changing. But seriously, legs, shut up.

We'll see how tomorrow's 2x 3mi tempo goes.

Suggestion: ease into it. Give yourself 10-15 seconds leeway in that first mile. Deep into a cycle like this, that first mile will likely suck until your body gets the message that you're not stopping any time soon. That's how those runs always seem to go for me anyway.

mul21 wrote:Suggestion: ease into it. Give yourself 10-15 seconds leeway in that first mile. Deep into a cycle like this, that first mile will likely suck until your body gets the message that you're not stopping any time soon. That's how those runs always seem to go for me anyway.

Yeah, that's a good call. First mile/interval/whatever sucks for me too. I'll try and start out with a 6:30 or so.

Mike MacLellan wrote:Not quite the 3x 2mi yet, Dave. That's in 2 weeks.

Wait, then what was that workout? 2 x 2 mile + 1 mile? Does my reading comprehension suck that badly? Don't answer that.

Either way, my comment stands.

Still not quite right. 2x 2mi + 2x 1mi.

That was interesting.

Had about half my program over last night for pizza+beer+Nightmare Before Christmas. So I didn't get to bed until late, and I didn't feel so hot this morning. And then I ran 11mi w/ 2x 3mi tempo intervals. Well... I knew this one wasn't going to go amazingly well, so I decided to run the first tempo interval at a comfortably hard effort level rather than trying to hit a specific time.

For the first mile, as Jim predicted, that sucked and required me to run relatively slow (for tempo pace). I clocked something closer to MP. The next two, I was able to bring it down to a 6:25 pace, giving me a 6:32 average for the interval. Slow for tempo, but perfect for steady state. Plus, it felt hard.

My stomach cramped up (I admit, I succumbed to some cheese pizza last night; my stomach still isn't totally used to dairy) during my .5mi recovery, but once interval #2 got under way, it quieted down. I nailed a 6:20 split for the first mile, as well as the second, then hit that short, steep motherfuck of a hill (.05mi @ 10% or so) which blew the legs to pieces. I just held on, running well into the red zone for the last half mile. Lost about 12 seconds on that mile for a 6:32 split, but with a net 75' uphill in the last quarter mile, I'll take it.

Hobbled home (at least, that's what it felt like). Gotta say, I damn nearly quit on this run about 5-6x. Before the tempo intervals even started, I was ready to completely give up running. So I guess I'm walking that fine line between overreaching and overtraining. Makes sense and explains my recent irritability/desire for cocoon-mode. Time for a lot of sleep this weekend. For real, this time.

But hey, at least my left leg niggles are gone! For now. After my left quad bitched and moaned for the first 2mi. Grumble grumble.

Only a couple weeks to go...

4mi AM + 4mi PM today. With 9 hours of class in between.

Second run was in new shoes! A pair of Green Silences. I like them, they fit well, but my legs were definitely achy when I finished the run. Not sure if that's just residual or what.

Mike MacLellan wrote:4mi AM + 4mi PM today. With 9 hours of class in between.

Second run was in new shoes! A pair of Green Silences. I like them, they fit well, but my legs were definitely achy when I finished the run. Not sure if that's just residual or what.

Could be both the shoes and the residual from your less-than-great run.

Hang in there. You can get this done.

Thanks, Mark. Definitely struggling the last week or so. At this point, I'm less than 20 days from the race, so it's time to focus on quality runs and recovery. Nothing more.

I've obviously been having a bit of a tough time focusing and keeping my morale up lately, but today feels like things might be looking up a little. Maybe it's knowing I'm coming down the home stretch, with only 3-4 more workouts before the race. It's definitely not because of how good my quads feel - like they've been put through a meat grinder. I'm going to attempt a film reference here that Aileen didn't get - Jigsaw sure is a dick. Eh? Eh?

Anyway, 12mi today. I didn't know what to do with it. I didn't want to do 800s yet, because I want my legs to be a bit fresher for those. Plus, fewer miles for that run. So what to do? I decided to go for a 3-2-1. The loose goal (since I have no idea how to "correctly" do this as a tempo) was HM, 10k, 5k. Maybe if I came into it fresh, that would've been a good goal.

Ended up with:
6:21, 6:16, 6:07 (slight net downhill)
6:12, 6:07
6:06 (slight net uphill)

So that's more like HM--->15k, 15k, 10k. I'll take it. Had a couple feel-good moments during the first interval. I wanted to pass some runners but I heard a couple cyclists coming up behind, so after a quick glance behind, I saw that they were riding ~12mph, ramped it up and hopped in between to squeeze around the runners. The second guy gave me a "nice pace!" as he passed. Then, passed another group (there were a ton of people doing their last long run for CIM) and overheard someone say, "well, there's our new leader!"

Interval 3 was just painful.

Okay, recovery time. For real. I can do this.

Dat dere DOMS. At least yesterday. Seriously felt like I'd just run at least a half marathon as a race. So I rested a lot, stayed off my feet, stretched...

And ran slow today.

I'm coaching a friend in my program towards her first ever 10k (though she just ran 6.2mi last week...) and wanted to throw in a bit of fun by having her do a 5kTT. She's run 2 5k races since August, finishing in ~30min each time. Her fastest 5k interval of any run was 27:41 during a 5mi training run, so we'd already seen some good improvement. Today, she ran a 26:11 with me. I hovered in lane 2, talking her through strategies when things got tough, getting her through the last mile, etc. But man, a 100sec PR! I was impressed.

Our original goal for her was a sub-1hr 10k. She ran a 57 as her training run. So I think we're shooting for 55 safe goal, 54 goal, 53 stretch.

After that, I ran home from the track for a total of 5.86mi at just over 8min pace. Hamstrings are a little tight, but nothing like last week (no pain/discomfort), and quads felt better after than when I started. Looking forward to some 800s Wednesday and then being home for a week!

Tried out the Green Silences again today. It's definitely the shoes that are giving me some additional tightness in some already-beat-up muscles, but they're not unbearable by any means. I will transition into them a bit more after the race. But if the T7s I got don't work out, these will work well for the race itself.

Anyway, 6mi even today, first mile @8:24 and last @7:15. Pretty even effort, just took a while for the legs to loosen up.

8x 800m tomorrow.

So today was the long awaited 800m repeats. After having done a couple waaaaay early on in my training cycle and having Chris tell me to run faster, I kind of completely neglected that distance in favor of timed intervals. Well, at Dave and Jim's prompting, I went for it today.

While I would have liked to do a 10x 800m, the sheer volume of that run in addition to my 3/2/1 tempo this past Sunday seemed dangerous. Especially given my continuous DOMS the last week or two. So I compromised at 8 (my original plan was 6).

I wanted to start with some easy splits - 3:00 and ~2:55 - to ease into the speed. Of course, being all excited on the track, I ran the first in 2:55, so I tried to really control the 2nd and matched the first. It was simultaneously helpful (to motivate me) and not helpful (overly motivated) that there was a guy doing sprint repeats @~5:00 pace on the track. He was in lane 8, so if he rounded a turn, I would slowly gain on him.

Anyway, next two repeats were also relatively easy and controlled: 2:55 and 2:54. I did want to reel it in earlier than repeat 5, but I also wanted to play it safe and not hurt myself. The legs definitely weren't smooth enough for a great speed workout, so I was more nervous about tearing them up than hammering out amazing times.

Then I ran a 2:50. No idea, really. I picked up onto my toes for the last 200m, but didn't feel like I was running hard enough to shave off a whopping 4sec on that part alone. But I did. Weird.

The final 3 repeats were 2:51 across the board, each progressively harder than the last. I learned that I still suck at pacing short intervals, and I tend to do a sort of J shape with my pace. Start off sort of fast for 100-200m, slow down a little, then start picking it up with 300m to go, really opening up on the last stretch.

Anyway, I feel pretty good about this run. I really dug hard on the last interval, and I was able to overcome that mental "you're going to puke/pass out/fall over dead/run out of gas" sensation and just hammer it home.

Couple miles to cool down and I've got 1 more VO2max workout left.

2:55, 2:55, 2:55, 2:54, 2:50, 2:51, 2:51, 2:51.

I actually think that's really solid pacing. Consistent throughout, second 4 repeats faster than the first. Your results might not have matched your expectations, but given you stayed consistent until the end, I don't see it as a problem. And frankly, I don't think pacing necessarily means that you maintain an identical speed for the entire 800m.

Hm. Glad to see that I don't have to be steady for the 800m. I guess either way, this is about taxing my VO2max, not learning to pace it, so that makes sense.

Did 6.25mi yesterday at home. Ran around the local lake... The hilly one. That may have been a dumb decision. Just creaky and sore and tight and oof for the whole run. Really just hanging on for these next two weeks so I can make it to the start line in one piece... And then I'm going to rest. A lot. I need it.

6mi and change this morning. Really teetering on the mental brink. Just want this to be over.

We'll see how tomorrow goes. If I'm feeling ridiculously strong at the end of the first interval, I may just go for broke and run a 6.2. If it goes like complete shit, I may not race. Yeah, it's that bad.

You are almost there - and it might be good that you are freaking, kind of like marathon taper!