Keep Moving Forward: A Training Log (Comments Welcome)

lhermiston - I stumbled onto this thread from the WDW Marathon thread, looking for some direction in training for the Dopey.

When I flashed through some pictures of Zions and Bryce I had to stop and take a gander. These national parks are in my backyard! It is cool to be on a Disney message board and find someone who is visiting and posting about these amazing places. We took a youth group to Zion's just a few months ago and hiked Observation Point. I had done Angels Landing before, but not this. It wasn't as harrowing a hike as AL, but still had a spectacular view. Bryce is another gem, and we were there with extended family over our Fall Break in October. I never tire of visiting these places.

Glad you had a great trip! Hope you enjoyed Utah. Thanks for sharing.

Thanks for stumbling by! I am so in love with ZNP after that trip. It’s just gorgeous.

Observation Point was my backup if I opted out of Angels Landing. I knew, one way or another, that I needed photos of the whole canyon. I hope I can go back one day.
 
Steamy week in Iowa and, judging from what I'm seeing on Strava, I wasn't alone! Looks like it could be a toasty summer for running.

Tuesday

I got up early on Tuesday to run a few miles, but it was raining and it was supposed to storm all day, so I thought I might have to skip the day. Turns out, it rained a little in the morning, but not again until right as I got out of work. I got soaked walking/running to my care, but then it cleared up, so I got a short run it. I picked up the intensity a little bit since it was a short run.

3 miles @ 8:20/mile

Wednesday

4 miles @ 8:53/mile No rain this morning, so I was able to get up and get my standard 4 mile run in.

Friday

6 miles @ 8:47/mile. I took Friday off and had all of these grand plans for a really productive three-day weekend, both in terms of running and getting stuff done. The six miles on Friday were hot, but manageable. I spent the rest of the day mowing four yards and then played sand volleyball that night.

Saturday

I had every intention of getting up and running eight miles, but I was feeling pretty worn out from the day before. I also had two more yards to mow that day and I was going to power wash the garage, driveway and back porch, so I opted out of running.

Sunday

5.5 miles @ 9:25/mile. Rode the struggle bus for every mile of this run. My knees and hips were achy right from the get-go. At times it didn't feel very hot, but other times it felt a bit unbearable. I stopped to walk twice for about a block. This run just kicked my butt.

Miles This Week: 18.5
Year To Date: 719
 
Pretty solid week this week. It definitely helped that the heat broke a little bit after Independence Day.

I started off the week by replacing my running shoes, which had about 370 miles on them. That's not much, but I burn out the heels so fast that I have to replace them a little earlier than I'd like. I got another pair of Hoka Bondi 5s. After the headaches (and ankle pains) my first pair of Hokas gave me at the beginning of the year, I'm amused that I'm now on my third pair. I've been really happy with them since figuring out the whole tongue/ankle pain thing.

Tuesday

4 miles @ 8:35/mile. I can't recall if I did this intentionally or subconsciously due to the new shoes, but I opened it up just a little bit. Everything felt good.

Wednesday

6 miles @ 8:46/mile. Independence Day. With no work, I was able to go a little bit longer. It was so stinking hot, though. I think I might have walked a block at one point. Later that morning, we went to a parade and I sat out in direct sun for two hours with my youngest so she could get candy. Between that and the run, I was wiped out. It felt like I was sweating for about six hours straight.

Oh, also, I wore my new Captain America compression shirt and got a few funny reactions ... one guy yelled "hallelujah" at me. #Merica

Friday

4 miles @ 9:04/mile. The heat finally broke and it was a MUCH nicer morning. Still pretty warm at the end, but not nearly as bad as it's been lately.

Saturday

4 miles @ 8:45/mile. It was 58 degrees when I started!! It felt so good. I would've gone longer, but we had to go pick up our oldest daughters from camp that morning, so four miles was all I had time for.

Sunday

8 miles @ 9:03/mile. I got started a little later than I'd like since my youngest daughter woke up early and I gave everyone else a chance to sleep in. Still, the weather was good. Sunny and not overbearingly hot. I'm less than three weeks from my 7-miler, so I went for eight miles this morning. I decided to take it "easy," but ended up going a little faster than I would have liked. But, it felt natural and I paced myself more on perceived effort than speed.

Miles This Week: 26
Year To Date: 745
 
Another week of running in the bag. The heat was back and we got some rain this weekend, too, which made it nice and muggy.

My 7-miler is less than two weeks away. I don't think that will be any big deal, but I won't be setting any land speed records, either. My 7-mile times have been sitting right around 60-65 minutes. After that, I'm going to try to build up my miles on long runs a little bit more. After doing a minimal amount of research, I think I'm going to try the Hal Higdon Dopey Challenge Plan. That plan would start in 8 weeks and the first long run is 13 miles, so I need to be ready for that. Fortunately, there's plenty of time to build up, I'm just tired of the heat.

And, considering that I'll be doing long runs of at least 13 miles in September, I think I'm going to go ahead and do the full this October for our local race. Shouldn't be any big deal.

Wednesday

4 miles @ 8:55/mile. Nothing much to report.

Friday

4 miles @ 8:54/mile. Ditto. At least I'm consistent.

Saturday

6 miles @ 8:26/mile. This run was a little bit of a mess. I decided to pick up the pace, but didn't really set a pace. The result was a 7:53 first mile, 8:42 and 8:55 for miles 4 and 5, respectively; and finished with an 8:26 final mile. The picture of inconsistency. I'll be the first to admit that I am someone who benefits from the structure of a training plan.

Sunday

8 miles @ 9:22/mile. Another inconsistent run. I set out wanting to just get some miles in at a nice, easy pace. I was thinking maybe around 9:40/mile. First mile, 9:12. Okay, faster than I wanted, but it felt okay and I stuck with it. Miles 2 and 3 were in the 8:50s, the opposite of what I wanted. I hovered around the 9 minute mark for the next few miles, but by Mile 7 I was soaked with sweat and feeling kind of gassed. I walked .2 miles for a mile time of 10:51 - my worst mile this year, maybe? Mile 8 was better - 10:06 - but that was partially because I was waiting to cross an intersection for a good minute. Still, I need to force myself to slow down and be more consistent in my runs.

Miles This Week: 22
Year To Date: 767
 


Ugh. It was a week, gang. Let's dive in...

Tuesday

4 miles @ 9:19/mile. Nothing much that I can recall about this one.

Wednesday

4 miles @ 9:09/mile. Same.

Thursday

Registration Day. What. A. Hassle. Most of you saw how things unfolded or experienced it for yourself, so I'll just say that it was a 4.5 hour long mess that finally ended with me being registered for my first Dopey and two extra charges on my credit card.

But, my day gets even better ... it had rained all day, pretty heavily. I get home from work, sit down and see a spot in the ceiling in my dining room. Long story short, we discovered that we have SIGNIFICANT water damage in our dining room ceiling, the garage and my daughters' playroom. The culprit - old wood around our roof/chimney that has apparently rotted and has been seeping water into our walls. I'm writing this on Monday and my wife has been on the phone with some people and we've had one restoration company out, but I have no idea what the total cost for repairs is going to be or how much (if any) insurance will cover.

I'm not really one to get into personal stuff on these forums, but I'm so freaking stressed out about all of this that I've had trouble sleeping. Which leads us to...

Friday

At best, I got maybe two hours of sleep. I was going to get up and run that morning, but I was exhausted. So, nada.

Saturday

6 miles @ 9:11/mile. Back at it. Run went fine.

Sunday

6 miles @ 9:22/mile. So, Saturday night was this big reunion for my college newspaper. I went out to blow off a little steam, i.e. a few adult beverages were had. Because I caught a ride downtown with my buddy, I had to walk home, which is right around 3 miles. I got home probably around 12:30.

Sunday morning I woke up feeling a little bit like garbage and with sore knees thanks to the walk the night before. I mowed a couple lawns and went to a pizza buffet for lunch, which my wife thought we all needed after a rough few days. It was good, but didn't do me any favors, running-wise. Still, I got out, which was good. I had planned to do 8 or more miles, but that'll have to wait.

Saturday is the 7 mile race. I'm not going to run for time or anything like that. I'm feeling sore and achy lately, so I know I'm not going to PR anything anyway. After that race, I need to start building up my miles in anticipation of Dopey training.

Miles This Week: 20
Year To Date: 787
 
Oh man, I'm sorry to hear about the house stuff. We had a really bad leak in our roof a while back that led us to have to replace the entire roof ... it's never fun. I hope the repair costs aren't too bad.

Good luck on your race on Saturday! Even without a PR, I hope you enjoy the race!
 


"Race" week. I say "race" because I haven't done any serious training for it and because it's a 7-miler, I can't use it for Proof of Time for Dopey (which I suppose is moot since I'm using my CRANDIC marathon time), anyway...

Tuesday

4 miles @ 8:54/mile. I really need to start leaving myself some notes on these runs, because I don't remember much by the time Sunday rolls around, I don't have much of a recollection of the runs early in the week. I think this was the run that I saw a couple deer, so that's cool. Also, it was relatively cool this week, especially in the mornings, which was nice.

Wednesday

4 miles @ 8:47/mile. Not far off my marathon pace, which is nice. But, there's a big difference between 4 miles and 26.2. Either way, nice to feel a little fast (for me) again.

Friday

I had every intention of getting up and running, but my wife got called into a birth the night before and was at the hospital until 7 Friday morning and I couldn't run before work. I had plans for after work, so no Friday run.

Saturday

7 miles @ 8:23/mile. Race day. The Bix 7 is an annual 7-mile road race in Davenport, Iowa, about a hour from my house. I grew up going to this race since my mom, dad and a bunch of aunts and uncles ran it. Later on, some of my cousins got in on the action. My family literally "runs" this race, my aunt is operations manager for the race.

Even though I did track and a variety of other sports in high school, the running bug never really bit me, so I was not among the members of my extended family who have participated in the Bix. That changed four years ago when my running efforts started picking up. That year, my first Bix paved the way for my first half, which prompted me to run my first marathon a year and a half after that.

Going into this year's Bix, I was not expecting big things. For the most part, I've felt slow and sluggish since my marathon at the end of April. I was anticipating a time of about 65 minutes.

The morning of the race certainly didn't start off well. I got up at 5:30, my stomach felt gross and I took some Pepto Bismol. I didn't pack the night before, so I scrambled to get out the door and didn't realize until I was on the interstate that I forgot my arm band and hydration belt. I got to Davenport with plenty of time to spare, but grabbing my packet involved walking a mile to packet pickup, a mile back to my car to drop off my free shirt and then a mile back to the starting line. I was drinking Powerade and water all morning, but my stomach was still feeling gross. I actually sent my wife a message predicting the race could be a disaster in the making.

Fortunately, the Pepto finally kicked in and my stomach settled a bit just as the pre-race ceremony was beginning. After "God Bless America," the national anthem and a fly over and the gun signaled the beginning of the race.

So, I love the Bix, but it's a perfect example of why Disney has POT requirements. There are a handful of corrals, but all of them except them start at the same time and only the "elite" corral requires any sort of POT (if that). People openly admit to BSing their predicted time so they get good corral placement. Combine that with the fact that the first half mile is a really steep hill that a lot of people walk (including people in the front corrals) and the first mile of this race is kind of a mess. Oh, also, the people who run the two-mile "Quick Bix" start with all the rest of us, further cluttering things.

As I'm working my way up the hill and practically making as much lateral movement as forward progress just to weave around walkers, I kept checking my pace on my phone (which I had in my hand since I forgot my arm band - super annoying). I started off at about a 12-minute mile pace. I kept weaving and looking for lanes to pass walkers or slow movers and things finally thinned out a bit. First mile came in at 9:57.

From there, I was hauling butt to make up for the first mile. The next four miles came in between 8:12 and 8:36. When I hit mile 6 and was approaching mile 7, I realized that if I really booked it - like, really, REALLY booked it - I could maybe come in at or under a mile, which is a nice little milestone for me and that race (never mind that my cousin finished it in less than 40).

Mile 6 came in at 8:14 and I knew it'd be close. But, I also knew that I'd be going back down the big hill that started the race and that gravity is my friend. I got to the hill, skipped a water station and kicked into as high of a gear as I could all the way down the hill. The finish line is actually another quarter mile past the starting line and is flat, so I had a tough time maintaining that speed during the final stretch, but I did my best to keep chugging across the line. I checked my phone when I finished: 59:30. Mission complete. Not bad for a "race" that I had more or less dismissed weeks ago.

Unfortunately, I came to find after the race that the body glide I had put on hours earlier had worn off before or during the run, leading to some chafing and ... unpleasantness. That was less than ideal. Still, I'm happy with the run.

Sunday

6 miles @ 8:58/mile. I wanted to take it nice and easy today. I was a little sore when I got up, particularly in my knees and lower back. I didn't take it quite as "easy" as I had planned, but I didn't push myself and the weather was pleasant, so all in all, it was a good run.

Miles This Week: 21.1
Year To Date: 808 (let the countdown to 1,000 and beyond begin!)
 
Hey to anyone following along! I’ve been bad about updating this week, but I am running. Nothing earth shattering.

Biggest news of the week: DopeyBadger has agreed to put together a Dopey plan for me in September! Given that I ran the race of my life on his last plan, I’m super pumped.
 
Okay, I'm overdue for an actual running report, so here goes:

Tuesday

4 miles @ 8:36/mile. This was the first of two afternoon runs this week. I didn't intend on running in the afternoons, but that's how the scheduled worked out. It's still too darn hot during the day to be running, so I'll stick with mornings for a while longer.

Wednesday

4 miles @ 8:51. My second afternoon run. Still hot, but it got me thinking about how switching to evenings may or may not work out once school starts. Their junior high is right around the corner from our house, so my two oldest daughters will be able to walk to and from school. But, they still have activities some afternoons, usually starting around 5 or 5:30. Once the days start getting shorter, I'll be less inclined to run in the morning when it's so darn dark (and colder), so hopefully it all works out. I managed to train for the Disney Marathon this way two years ago (though we're busier now, it seems), so it should work out.

Friday

4 miles @ 9:08. Back to the morning. MUCH cooler and everything felt good.

Saturday

6 miles @ 8:57. Another morning run. Quick story: about half of my running shirts are super hero themed. It's silly, but I like the way they look, so don't @ me ;) Anyway, on Saturday morning I wore Spider-Man compression shirt that looks like his costume. Around Mile 5, I came up on a woman walking with a young girl, maybe three years old. As I passed them, the mom crouched down next to the girl and said, "Look honey, it's Spider-Man." I smiled and gave a little wave to the girl and she waved back. Nice little moment.

Sunday

9 miles @ LR. At DopeyBadger's recommendation, I'm incorporating some of my former speed plan into training during this lull before true Dopey training kicks in. Goal pace for the Long Run was supposed to be 9:58/mile, but I averaged 9:40/mile. I still think that, spiritually, it was a decent Long Run. I made a concerted effort to slow down, even if I was only within range three times (and one of those was when I was waiting at an intersection for a while).

Anyway, it was a good run - a little toasty toward the end - but it was also my longest distance since the marathon, so it felt good to put on a little more distance.

Even though Dopey Training doesn't begin in earnest until next month, I'm starting to get really pumped. Now, that we're past the 150 day mark, it really feels like marathon weekend will be here soon. I'm also ready for some cooler temps. I like running in the fall and last year we had good temperatures that lasted well into November (thanks global warming, I guess?), so I'm looking forward to a good training period.

Miles This Week: 27
Year To Date: 859
 
Back at it for another week. One thing I'm realizing I need to start working on in addition to the training is my nutrition. I've noticed in recent weeks that I've been eating so darn much, either portion sizes that are too big or just too much snacking between meals. I need to rein it in. That goes for the beers, too...

We got an estimate back on our home repairs this week and ... oy. Insurance will cover a big chunk, but not all of it. We do have access to two home improvement loan programs, one though the city and one federal, so that should help (assuming we're approved). But, we have to get more estimates and getting contractors out here this week has been an exercise in futility. On top of that, the check engine light in my wife's van just came on Friday...

Maybe this is TMI for a running journal, but my stress level has been so high the last couple weeks (maybe that explains the pour diet) and I'm just ready for things to calm down. In the meantime, I've been maintaining my running and still plan to start training next month as if I'll be running Dopey in January.

Tuesday
4 miles @ 9:07/mile

Wednesday
4 miles @ 8:49/mile - afternoon run (due to rain that morning, I think). It's still pretty stinking hot in the afternoons. I'm ready for fall.

Friday
4 miles @ 9:23/mile - overcast and a little rainy, felt kind of good though

Saturday
6 miles @ 9:10/mile - really intended for this to be more of an EA run, but I am horrible at "slowing down" and sticking to it. I need to do better. Hopefully, the training plan will get conditioned to slowing my pace down a bit.

Sunday
9 miles @ 9:23/mile - I had every intention of this being an LR workout like last Sunday, but ... see above. This isn't meant to be a #humblebrag because I know I'm not fast by any definition, but "slowing down" might be the hardest part of these plans. Definitely something I need to get back into the swing of because it helped so much in keeping me fresh. I've been feeling some aches in my knees lately and I hope that clears up.

Miles This Week - 27
Year To Date - 877
 
forecast.jpg

We keep moving forward. Still in the process of figuring out all the house stuff. Thanks to anyone who has put up with my venting the past two weeks and is sticking with this running journal. Hopefully, the next time I bring it up I'll have some good news.

The weather here was kind of crazy this week. It started off a little on the cooler side (upper 60s and lower 70s) and rainy/overcast. We had rain all day Monday (the first day of classes at UI, sorry kids). Later in the week, a huge booming storm rolled through overnight and brought the heat back with it. This weekend hit the upper 80s and lower 90s and it was all kinds of muggy. I'm ready for the fall...

Tuesday
4 miles @ 9:35/mile. Nothing to report. Nice and cool morning. Breezy. Made it easier not to push too hard.

Wednesday
4 miles @ 9:11/mile. Afternoon run, so it must've been raining that morning. I can't think of anything that stands out.

Friday
4 miles @ 8:36/mile. Strava screwed up somehow and didn't record my first mile. Frustrating, but whatever.

Saturday
6 miles @ 9:05/mile. The entire run was fine, but it became a bit of a logistical mess as I got closer to downtown. The only thing that outnumbered all of the construction cones were the swarms of sorority sisters out on the sidewalks, (presumably) practicing pledge stuff. My normal route was all but impossible with a good portion of my route either closed off or congested with 18 and 19 year olds in identical T-shirts. But, like I said, it ended up being just fine. Oh, and it was muggy AF.

Sunday
10 miles @ 9:09/mile. Today's run from the old speed work plan called for a 1 mile WU and 9 miles @ M Tempo (9:14/mile). Even at 8 a.m., it was so stinking hot. I was soaked in sweat before the end of Mile 3. I was just a little on the "fast" side the first three miles, but that's often the case when I transition from WU to my prescribed speed without life pace tracking. Mile 9 was a little on the "slow" side thanks to stopping to refill my water, a little bit of traffic and walking for about one block (the heat was really kicking my butt by that point). All in all, though, it was a good run, especially considering the heat.

Miles This Week: 27
Year To Date: 904 - The countdown to 1,000 has officially begun!
 

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