another run

wednesday 6.50 miles/1:04:13/9:53 average pace

No group tonight, so Zach and I ran together in the dark near our house. My shins are sore. I have been running a lot more in the last two weeks (around 30 mpw) so it makes sense. I am taking today off and running an easy 3 on the TM tomorrow instead. Still planning on a long run Saturday. Then I will cut back next week a bit, maybe aim for 25 ish miles total. I'll probably continue this easy week/hard week thing till my half.

Mellow Morning

tuesday 4.5 miles/42:40/9:29 average pace

Slept in and then went for a longer-than-planned run, resulting in a very late arrivial to work. But it was worth it. Took it slow and easy and listened to relaxing Norah Jones on my ipod. My lower legs felt pretty tight.

Tale of Two Runs

monday 5.0 miles total

Part 1: Hilly, muddy, slippery, and slow 2.25 miles/25:54/11:32 average pace

We tried to do a trail run, but the trail was washed out. So, we tried a new trail which was a really really bad idea! It was totally mucky and I slipped/shuffled/splashed along very slowly. We made it back to the main road for a total of 2.25 messy but fun miles.

Part 2: Still hilly, but paved and fast 2.75 miles/23.57/8:43 average pace

Once we were on the road (and I had scraped about 8 lbs of mud from my shoes) I took off. It felt so good to be able to move freely! :D We did an out-and-back on the road, which is quite hilly.


Got lots of sweet running stuff for Christmas: tights, tons of socks, a t-shirt and a long sleeve shirt, Body Glide, a light for running at night, and Jack Daniel's book "Running Formula." :)


Plan for this week:

Mon: 5 miles HILLS (ha ha, DONE)
Tues: 3 easy
Wed: 6 GA group
Thurs: 4 easy
Fri: resssst
Sat: 10-12? long
Sun: rest

total: 28-30. It would be cool to hit 30 for the first time post-thon.

Oh, here's a thought: Last week I ran Friday 4ish miles, then did my long run the next day and felt fine. This counters my long-held belief that going into a long run with *fresh* legs is necessary. Maybe not? Maybe I should make Thursday a rest day and run friday then saturday, OR better yet, rest friday and run short saturday and long sunday. It would be nice to run both weekend days since they don't require ass-crack of dawn waking or TM. Then I'd have to rest Monday, because I still strongly believe I need that day after my long run OFF. Hmmmm. Although I do like doing my long run Saturday. Anyway, something to think about.

Christmas Eve Eve/Christmas Eve

friday 4.25 miles/40:13/9:28 average pace

Trail run with Zach. Actually, most of it was on a road (literally on the middle of the road, no shoulder whatsoever!) with very little traffic. It was pretty hilly, but not bad. Lots of fun. :)

saturday 11.00 miles/1:45:28/9:35 average pace

What a relaxing and fun run! I kept an easy pace which I only judged by "feel" ... that is, I didn't look at my watch at all. That kept me from focusing on my time and pace and let my mind wander. Actually, the loop went by pretty fast and I felt strong at the end. It was definitely one of those days I could have run forever. Love that.

Here are my splits. As I said, I ran purely by feel and didn't plan on a pace (besides "feels easy")

1 9:54
2 9:13
3 9:18
4 9:37
5 9:53
6 9:27
7 9:58
8 9:23
9 11:01 (? suspect GPS error? oh well)
10 8:58
11 8:41


Total mileage for the week: 28.40

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!!!!

Christmas Light Show part II

Wednesday 6.0 total

5.89 miles/53:18/9:03 average pace

(plus, I ran part of the way home from work, so I just rounded up)


It was POURING rain on our christmas light show! But it was still really fun.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Tuesday Treadmill

Tuesday 3.0 miles/30:00/10:00 average pace

snore.

Ya, it wasn't the most exciting run of all time. Also, I had to patiently ellipticate for 15 freaking minutes while some kid finished his "workout" (which was walking slow on the tm, occasionally answering his cell phone). I guess I didn't really mind, I got 15 minutes extra exercise. :)

Christmas week

Monday 4.15 miles/40:07/9:40 pace

Easy run OUTSIDE! I was not in a tm kinda mood. Unfortunately, that is where I am headed today.

I ran yesterday at an easy pace, and will do the same all week I think (well, at least in the "easy" to "general aerobic" pace range) Still babying the shins. I don't think I've posted my plan for this week

Mon: 4.15 easy (done)
Tues: 3 tm GA + ST
Wed: 6 group GA
Thurs: rest + ST
Fri: 4 trail run w/ Zach (off work)
Sat: Christmas eve! Long relaxing run about 9-10 miles
Sun: Christmas day- Rest

total 26-27 miles Yay!

Merrrrrrrrrrrrrrry Christmas!

Gettin dirty!

Saturday 5.50 miles/51:15/9:19 average pace

Went on a trail run this morning and it was cold, wet, and dirty. yay! We jumped over creeks and scrambled up rocky trails. Our pace for the first mile was 10:44 (uphill and we were COLD). Our pace for the fifth mile was 8:06. :D It was tons of fun. Probably the most fun I've ever had on a run. It really started pouring at the very end when we were back at the car- good timing! Zach nearly out ran me at the end, he's getttin speedy! I'm so lucky to have a running buddy for life. :)


I'm definitely resting tomorrow, so only 8.76 miles this week. haha! But I also did lots of XT, including 60 minutes Thursday (30 bike and 30 eliptical). Next week I'll be on a normal schedule again.

Recovery week

The race results were posted, and my official time was 47:23, a second faster than watch time. I was 6th female overall, of 40. 5th in my AG 19-29. (previous years were 5-year AG... not that it matters but the top 4 in this year's AG were all 19-23 years old, meaning I can pretend I won the 24-29 ag or whatver. :P)

So I've been cross training all week to let my shins heal up and I"m feeling good so far! I did run Wednesday 3.26 miles/30:00/9:13 average pace. Felt fine. The rest of the week looks like this:

Mon: rest + mini ST (pushups and crunches)
Tues: 60 minutes eliptical trainer + Weights (at the hotel, with real machines and heavy weights!)
Wed: 3.26 miles General Aerobic
Thurs: 30 minutes bike machine & 30 minutes eliptical + mini ST
Friday: ?? (maybe 30-45 minutes aerobic exercise on bike or eliptical, and/or strenght training video? I'll do something)
Saturday: trail run 3-5 miles? or hike?
Sunday: rest


BTW, it's freezing outside!

Holiday 10k race

It went well! I am still awaiting official resutls, but I am VERY happy with myself. :)

Watch time: 47:24- a 15 second PR. I don't have my splits in front of me, but they were perfect! The first mile was too fast @ 7:08, but the second mile KILLED me with a giant hill! WTF? I didn't expect that. I recall that mile was a very slow 8:11. After the hill the course looped around a beautiful reservoir with a dirt path. I passed a girl in mile 3 (or 4?) as I sped up a little. The rest of my splits were very close to goal pace 7:30. I passed another girl in mile 5 (or 6?) The best news? I DIDN"T WALK! Go me! Ok, I did walk for a few seconds mid-way through mile 6 because I suddenly was working way too hard and could hardly breathe... but still- I made it almost the whole race without walking! And I actually felt really good the whole time! The only suffering was toward the end when I got tired and was running fastest. I knew I was going to miss my goal of sub-47, but at least I got a PR! And I held my goal pace perfectly- I couldn't have done any better. I am confident that without a big ass hill I would have came in under 47:00.

I don't know how I placed, but Zach said he thought I was the 7th woman? There were VERY few people at the starting line. Maybe 50. :D It was cool and I had a great time. I will post the official resutls when they are up (later this week most likely).


Total miles for the week: 23.05

Plan for this week: REST. Yep, I am going to do some cross training and what not, and I'll go to the group run on Wednesday, but that's it. I need a week off! I am not sure about running next weekend. Maybe I'll do a hike or an easy trail run?


Also- I found a half marathon in February I might want to do. *evil smile* I am going to check out the course at home tonight (Google earth will give me the elevation info the website lacks) and if it's not too too challenging, I am going to sign up. I would have a nice 7 weeks to train for that, and that would segue nicely into my marathon training plan. Tenative goal: 1:45:xx (current PR 1:49:xx)

:)

Christmas Lightshow

Wednesday 5.85 miles/54:23/9:18 average pace

We had a fun group run last night through a very festive neighborhood! It was cold and my legs were kinda tight, but I was distracted by all the pretty decorations. :)

Thursday 3.0 miles/30:00/10:00 average pace

My shins felt really sore during and after the run last night, so I debated taking today off completely. But I actually woke up on time and didn't want to waste the morning! So I just did 3 easy miles on the treadmill. I think my legs are just tired because although I haven't been running tons of miles, I have been doing several speed workouts and I've had a couple hard races, plus I have not done a single EASY workout in weeks. Even my recovery days end up fast-ish. This is a a pretty obvious sign from my body to back off. My shins never bothered me during marathon training, so I think it's specifically a speed-training thing. So, after my race this weekend I am going to have a real easy recovery week next week (I'll follow the old "one day off (or easy day) for every mile raced). Then I think I will back off the speed work some. I will do a tempo run once a week (or every other week?) instead of hard speed work. Ya, I am a wuss. I'd rather run lots of miles though and feel good. :)

Allright well I guess it's time to put up my race goals for this weekend!

My overall goal is to run a smart race, pace well, not walk (too much), and finish feeling halfway decent.

Time goals:

A goal: 46:xx (7:24-7:34 pace)

B goal: beat current PR of 47:38 (7:40 pace)

C goal: under 48:00 (7:43 pace)

secret dream goal: 45:xx


Also, the results from previous years show that this is a really small race so I would love to place or possibly win my AG. :)

I love Fred Astaire

Tuesday 4.50 miles/38:30/8:33 average pace

Well I didn't get up and run in the morning because my foot hurt. I suspected it was from walking/standing in dress shoes for hours on Saturday night, and I was right! You can actually see bead-shaped bruises from those blasted cute shoes. It's actually kind of funny.

So my solution was to basically not tie my shoe, so it was loose enough to not press down on my bruise. I decided just do run on the Treadmill in case it started to hurt bad. It didn't!

I did 4.5 miles speedwork on the treadmill while watching the Christmas classic "Holiday Inn" with Fred Astaire and Bing Crosby. It is awesome. I especially love the scene when he is dancing drunk.

Anyway, I ran 1.0 mile at 6.0 mph (10:00 pace) to warm up and test out the foot. Then I sped up to 7.5 mph (8:00 pace) for 2.0 miles which felt great. At the last minute I decided to do one more mile, this time at 8.0 mph (7:30 pace). I ended with a 0.5 mile cool down at 6.0 mph (10:00 pace). So I basically did a 3 mile tempo run at an average pace of 7:50. :)

Running tonight with the group- hopefully the neighborhood will be all christmas light-y! :)

Brrrr

Saturday 10.75 miles/1:39:42/9:17 average pace

The distance was surely more than what my gps showed- by at least a quarter mile. I stopped by my house partway through the run and lost the signal when I went inside... somehow I lost mileage. ANyway, I didn't want to fudge the numbers in my log because I admit I take gps-mistakes in my favor occasionally. So instead, I ran fast for the last 4 miles to ensure my average pace was correct. (???) Ya, I know- totally backwards thinking but whatever! :D So my last four miles were sub 8:30 and the last .75 was at 7:40 pace. !!! It felt good though. I think if I can run mile 11 at 10k pace, I'm ready to add some distance onto my long run.

Although this coming weekend I'm planning on a 10k race (since I blew my last one) so the long run will have to wait a week.

Total for last week: 25.39 miles. :)

Monday 3.50 miles/31:06/8:54 average pace

Brrrrrr. That's all I have to say about that! It had to be below freezing.


Plan for zee week:

Mon: 3.5 general aerobic (a new term I"m throwing around probably incorrectly)
Tues: 4 speed (tempo? Mile repeats? something like that)
Wed: 6 group
Thurs: 4 recovery
Fri: rest
Saturday: 10k race!
Sun: rest

total: 23-24 ish.

Black/Blue Toe Regains Original Flesh Tone!

I forgot to mention that my black toe miraculously healed up in a matter of minutes yesterday morning. It's still a bit pinkish-purple, but hardly noticeable. Just in time for fancy holiday party this weekend!

Go feet! Rock on with your flesh-toned toes!!!!!!!!!

It was a dark and stormy morning...

Was it ever!

Wednesday 6.39 miles/1:01:37/9:38 average pace

First, last night I skipped the group and just Zach and I went for a nice run. It was nice and cool out, and we kept the pace nice and slow till the end so I felt really relaxed.

Thursday 4.25 miles/41:31/9:46 average pace

Drug myself from the warm bed before dawn this morning and took it really easy, as planned. My legs were really tired- not sore or anything, just kinda blah. Felt better toward the end though. It started sprinkling in the last few minutes but it was actually pretty warm out. I'm feeling kinda beat now, I'm definitely ready for my rest day tomorrow!