We're all out there chasing our better selves (FredtheDuck chases on)

[ZellyB]

Great that you enjoyed your tempo run so much. I love runs where I just feel good and all goes well.

The downside is those hard runs that don't go so well, like your Saturday run. Just remember it is one run and you completed it (and right on pace) - that's nothing but WIN!! And as @DopeyBadger said, don't worry about September. You are still in training and hopefully by September temps/humidity will be much better. I know for me that once the temps begin to cool off, I suddenly feel like I am flying and can run forever.

 

[sourire]

Don't freak about September right now. Still weeks away and you're in cumulative fatigue right now. Your runs aren't starting at mile 0 from a physical standpoint. Just keep training and trust the process.

Definitely this!!

[I ran on Saturday too, and it was disgusting by 8am when we started. It was so bad out there that my husband stopped about halfway through the run, and I found him sitting on a ledge at my halfway point drenched in sweat. But, I digress.]

You completed it. It may not have felt fabulous while it was happening, but you did it! And it's true...once the temps cool off, it'll feel so much better. You've got this.

 

[FredtheDuck]

That will really make it explode.

Oh noooooo. Also hilarious, though.

I definitely experienced that the later it got during my Saturday run. Glad you and @MoanasPapa pushed through.

Thanks! I normally don't mind running alone, but I was grateful that @MoanasPapa was with me to keep me distracted.

Just keep training and trust the process.

Will do, Coach!

The downside is those hard runs that don't go so well, like your Saturday run. Just remember it is one run and you completed it (and right on pace) - that's nothing but WIN!!

That's really good perspective, thank you!

And it's true...once the temps cool off, it'll feel so much better. You've got this.

Thank you! I'll be glad for fall weather, for sure.

 

[FredtheDuck]

Monday Training Update: Week Ending 7/23
This was the plan for the week:

T - 4.5 miles @ EB + Strides
Th - 1.5 miles @ WU, 2 miles @ tempo, .75 mile @ CD
F - 4 miles @ EA
Sa - 6 miles @ long run (blind)

So, exactly the same as the prior week, except the long run was a mile shorter and blind.

Tuesday's run was ok. Just ok. I ended up having GI trouble again, so I altered my route to get closer to home, and ended up cutting my cool down off completely in favor of getting back in to the house. So apparently I ran only 4.48 miles, average pace of 12:32 (supposed to do 12:52), so at least I was close(ish) to pace.

My Thursday run was HOT. @MoanasPapa, who is not a morning runner, got up with me and did his run early in the morning to avoid the worst of it, too. I'm proud of him for that! We ran completely separately because we both had tempo runs and our paces are different. I overshot my warmup pace by about a minute, hit my tempo almost dead on (mile 1: 11:00, mile 2: 10:49, supposed to be 11:07), and then completely blew my cool down (ran like 3 minutes/mile too fast) because I needed to get back for an appointment, it was downhill, and I guess I was in a groove from the tempo. It is funny to me that this .75 was so fast, because all I could think about at the beginning of the tempo was how much I was looking forward to running in slow-mo to get home. C'est la vie.

I woke up Friday morning, checked the temp and humidity, said "if it's this hot out already and the sun isn't even out yet, no thank you." So I went back to bed and made it a treadmill day. I'm not a super big fan of the treadmill, but I was grateful to have the (free) gym at work for this workout. Obviously since this was a treadmill run, pacing was fine. I think I mentioned in a previous post, but we've been thinking of getting a treadmill for home use for hot days and for icy days in the winter. If anyone reading this has any suggestions about brands/models or things to look for/avoid, we'd love to hear them!

I knew Saturday was going to be hot, too, and I don't have access to a treadmill on the weekends. So, I got up at 5:00 AM and got it done. I picked a route that requires quite a bit of uphill in the first half of the last mile, and then is downhill back in to my neighborhood. Around my turnaround at mile 3 (it is an out-and-back), my mind started to shift to how much I was dreading that hill. So, I practiced some self-talk and motivation, and I was actually pretty happy with how I responded to it. This was a blind run, and I missed my pacing (11:52, supposed to aim for 12:27), but the run felt so much easier than the 7-miler I had done the previous week (which covered some of the same trail). Bonus: when I got home, my daughter was still sleeping, so my run didn't cost @MoanasPapa his sleep-in day.

This coming week has the same Tuesday and Friday runs, but my Thursday tempo goes up to three miles, and my long run goes up to 8. So. Woof. Here we go.

 

[ZellyB]

Sounds like a good week! Hot is the name of the game lately and survival is my primary goal.

Good job on your long blind run and awesome that your daughter slept through it for your hubby's sake.

 

[FredtheDuck]

Monday Training Update: Week Ending 7/30
This was the plan for the week:

T - 4.5 miles @ EB + Strides
Th - 1 mile @ WU, 3 miles @ tempo, .5 mile @ CD
F - 4 miles @ EA
Sa - 8 miles @ long run

Tuesday was a beautiful day, and I wanted to run outside, but our kid had been sick all weekend, and was up several times overnight Monday in to Tuesday. I had to go in to the office for a couple of meetings, so we decided that I'd try to recoup an hour of sleep and then run on the treadmill before going home for the afternoon to take over with our kiddo. The run was fine, as treadmills go. There was no one else in the gym at work, so I got to pick what I wanted to watch, and that helped the run go a little faster. Pacing was fine, since it was on the treadmill.

I really liked my tempo run. The high school track that I like to use for "speed" (using that word very loosely) workouts is a mile an a half from our house if you enter on one side, a little over a mile if you enter on the other. So I ran at warm up-ish pace for a mile, then sped up to tempo for the half mile that it took to get to the track, ran eight laps around the track, then exited on the shorter "route home" side, and ran a half mile at tempo before slowing to cool down-ish pace for the last half mile. It was a good route, and I didn't mind the eight laps around the track. Those laps actually went even faster because right after I got there, a guy that was wearing the same running gear that @MoanasPapa sometimes wears came on to the track. I spent a solid half mile watching him and trying to figure out if it was him and, if so, how he got there just a couple of minutes after I did, given that he was in bed when I left. Did he drive? Blow his WU pace? Why didn't he tell me he was doing an AM run? I finally passed the guy, and it definitely wasn't @MoanasPapa. But, hooray for a nice diversion. Pacing for the tempo was good, a few seconds too fast. Pacing for WU/CD was definitely off.

I ended up skipping my Friday run. I debated hard, but I wasn't feeling 100% and thought I had a cold. My mental calculus was that I could get my run in and have my body divert resources to recovering from the run, or I could skip the run and let my body focus on kicking the cold. It was the second run I've completely skipped this training cycle.

I was kind of dreading my Saturday run because my previous long run (the 7-miler that was accidentally 7.5 miles) was so awful. But I had heard somewhere that if you can run 8, you can run a half. I have no idea if that's true, but this run was one I'd kind of been looking at as a true test for weeks now. We decided to drive up to the trail that our half is going to be on. We had hoped to do a point-to-point, but we didn't have the extra time (family in town and coming to visit that afternoon) to deal with the logistics, so we did an out-and-back. I decided that I wanted to start with the hard part, so we looked at the elevation chart and decided to start at what will be the finish line, run up the trail for 4 miles, then turn and run back down. Much of the half will be downhill, so I thought we could at least simulate some extra fatigue by starting with an uphill(ish) segment.

We had a major storm Friday in to Saturday, so some of the trail was flooded, and there were some trees down. It ended up being a great run, and I was glad to have the extra time with @MoanasPapa, who worked really hard to keep me distracted through his very entertaining chatter. I feel better having seen part of the course, and our last two long runs will be on the middle third and top third so that we can see the full trail. We were also supposed to practice our nutrition strategy on this run. I had previously decided that Nuun is not for me. So we tried honey stinger waffles (verdict: delicious, but kind of hard to manage while on the move) and GU (verdict: salted watermelon is a little too salty, but in another flavor, I think it has promise). Anyways, I felt MUCH more confident after this run than I did after my seven-miler.

I'm now officially on the last page of my three-page training plan (thanks again, @DopeyBadger!)!

 

[roxymama]

Being on the last page is such a relief! It can be scary because it usually has some doozy of miles/workouts. But then it also has the beauty that is the final days of "easy stuff" and then it is both exciting and scary when you see the RACE written there. I understand that feeling of "am I getting a cold...will running make it worse...or am I ok?" feeling. Still not sure I'm the best judge of if I am getting sick yet but I have found that I've gotten sick a lot less once I started running. But that may have to do more with my kiddo being older and not constantly chewing on everything and everybody she sees (usually.)

Congrats on getting those 8 miles in!!!

 

[FredtheDuck]

Here's how my August 2017 has gone. I'll update as new runs are added. I'll use the date: distance, time (average pace) format.

Week 1:
8/1: 4.01 mi, 49:19 (12:17/mi) (-35 sec/mi from scheduled EB + strides pace)
8/3: 4.57 mi, 50:38 (11:05/mi) (included 1.5 mi @ WU/CD and 3 mi @ tempo)
8/4: 3.51 mi, 45:01 (12:49/mi) (-55 sec/mi from scheduled EA pace)
8/5: 5.06 mi, 59:50 (11:46/mi) (-42 sec/mi from scheduled LR pace)

Week 2:
8/8: 4.61 mi, 56:28 (12:14/mi) (-13 sec/mi from scheduled EB + strides pace)
8/10: Tempo run skipped - medical
8/11: 4.00 mi, 52:08 (13:02/mi) (-42 sec/mi from scheduled EA pace)
8/12: 8.09 mi, 1:40:54 (12:27/mi) (exactly my scheduled LR pace!)

Week 3:
8/15: 4.50 mi, 57:27 (12:46/mi) (-6 sec/mi from scheduled EB + strides pace)
8/17: 4.50 mi, 52:25 (11:34/mi) (included .5 mi @ WU, 4 @ tempo, cut CD)
8/18: 4.14 mi, 52:32 (12:40/mi) (-64 sec/mi from scheduled EA pace)
8/19: 7.00 mi, 1:27:41 (12:30/mi) (+3 sec/mi from scheduled LR pace)

Week 4:
8/22: 4.51 mi, 57:21 (12:42/mi) (-10 sec/mi from scheduled EB + strides pace)
8/24: 5.00 mi, 54:54 (10:56/mi) (included .5 mi @ WU, 5 @ tempo, .5 @ CD)
8/25: 3.46 mi, 45:42 (13:12/mi) (-32 sec/mi from scheduled EA pace, was supposed to be 4 miles, cut for GI)
8/26: 10.01 mi, 2:02:48 (12:15/mi) (-12 sec/mi from scheduled LR pace)

 

[ZellyB]

Congrats on a successful 8 miler!! You are progressing so well and you should be feeling really confident. We've been doing track work too and I initially thought I'd hate it especially as we climbed up into more and more loops, but I've also found it surprisingly not horrible.

 

[FredtheDuck]

Congrats on a successful 8 miler!! You are progressing so well and you should be feeling really confident. We've been doing track work too and I initially thought I'd hate it especially as we climbed up into more and more loops, but I've also found it surprisingly not horrible.

Thank you! I'm not sure about really confident, but I'm starting to be more sure that I can do it than that I can't, so that's something. Also, you do SO MUCH MORE at the track than I do. Good for you for feeling like it's not horrible! Usually I'm surprised by how fast it goes, but also ready for it to be done.

 

[FredtheDuck]

Monday Training Update: Week Ending 8/6
This was the plan for the week:

T - 4 miles @ EB + Strides
Th - 1 mile @ WU, 3 miles @ tempo, .5 mile @ CD
F - 3.5 miles @ EA
Sa - 5 miles @ long run

This was a backed-off week, so I don't have a ton to report. My Tuesday run was uneventful save for some stomach trouble (more on that soon).

My tempo run was about the same as last week. I ended up a little on the fast side, and kept telling myself that I needed to slow down. No @MoanasPapa doppelganger to keep me occupied this time, so it was just me knuckling it out.

I realized that I've inadvertently cut out elevation with a couple of my newer running routes. July was a record distance month for me, but my elevation was actually down compared to July. So I decided to return to my original running route on Friday, but unlike the days of yore, I'd have to run two loops to get to my mileage goal. It... wasn't my favorite run... and my pacing was not great (I have a hard time with the ups and downs), but I'm going to force myself to keep at it because I know it's good for me. I also just had a hard time getting excited to get out there on Thursday, but I think I'm just tired.

On Saturday, the weather was glorious. Seriously, at 9:30, it was still not in the 70s. There was some wind, but nothing major. So, I figured I'd have a nice, easy 5 mile LR. I enjoyed the weather and the scenery, but I really had a hard time finding my groove on the run. In fact, I don't think I ever really did. My pace was uneven, and I just never felt super "on," you know? I kind of expected to feel much more enthusiastic for a short run on a beautiful day.

Mileage kicks back up this week, so here's hoping for good weather and better moods.

 

[FredtheDuck]

Monday Training Update: Week Ending 8/13
This was the plan for the week:

T - 4.5 miles @ EB + Strides
Th - 1 miles @ WU, 3 miles @ tempo, .5 mile @ CD
F - 4 miles @ EA
Sa - 8 miles @ long run

Tuesday was another day where I had trouble feeling like I was getting in to the groove of my run. I got it done with nothing eventful to report, I just didn't quite feel the same "wheeeee, I'm out on a run and this is great!" feeling that I sometimes feel when I run. As is always the case, I was proud of myself when I was done and glad I had gotten out there.

I skipped my tempo run, and I really hated to do it, because it's become my favorite run of the week (I know I'm weird). But I had good reason: I had an exam called an arthrogram on my shoulder on Wednesday afternoon, and because of all the contrast they inject in to the joint, they say nothing more physically strenuous than a walk for at least 24 hours after the procedure. I had planned to ignore that, but when I woke up for my run, there was still quite a bit of pressure and popping, so I thought I'd better listen to the docs. Fun fact: I have a torn labrum in my shoulder that is causing it to pop in and out of place. I'll learn today whether I need surgery or will start with just PT. If surgery, hoping to wait until after the half.

I was feeling better on Friday, but @MoanasPapa got us tickets to the Nats-Giants game, so I had to do some schedule adjusting in order to take the train to work instead of driving so that I could meet him at the ballpark that night. So my 4-miler became a treadmill run at the gym at work, and it was surprisingly pleasant. I watched an episode of "When We Left the Earth" (I just outed myself as a space nerd), and it was exactly the length of my run. Was over before I knew it. It ended up that after a long delay, they postponed the game. But we still had a blast being at the ballpark (we used to go a lot before we had our kiddo... alas... kid bedtimes and baseball games clash these days), even if not a single pitch was thrown.

For our long run on Saturday, we went back to the trail where the half will be. Last time, we ran from the finish to mile 9 and back. This time, we started around mile 9 and worked up to around mile 5, then looped back down. The course is a net negative elevation, so I'm having us do these long runs "backwards" to get more hill work in the hopes of building endurance. This time, I used an old hydration pack, and had a rough game plan for fuel (gu every 45 minutes). I ended up having some stomach trouble about half way in to the run. @MoanasPapa was trying clifbloks and gave me one, and I really liked it. In fact, it sat a little better than the half a gu I had later in the run. In the last two miles of the run, there are a lot of hills, so I ate the rest of his clifbloks rather than messing around with the gu (my stomach gets sour when I work hard on hills). Worked like a charm. This run felt good all around (minus the mile 3 break for stomach protest). At the end, I thought, "I'm still not sure I can do 13, but I'll be able to do the 10 that we have in two weeks." And I think that's the goal right now.

Sunday was the REI garage sale, so we went and scored a really nice Nathan hydration pack for me to use on long runs for $110 off ($40 instead of $150). It was returned because it was missing the hydration sleeve, but is otherwise in new condition. We're backpackers... we have plenty of camelbak sleeves at home. We also go more clifbloks, and @MoanasPapa got more honey stinger waffles, which I think he would eat as a snack independent of running, if he could... he likes them a lot.

 

[roxymama]

If the tempo is your favorite run of the week, then I would like to borrow your positive outlook on tempo runs for just a few weeks. Or at least a fraction of it
(But yes, they are kinda fun when they are going well....)

You mentioning your clifbloks reminds me to go order the clif gels I was supposed to order yesterday, so thanks!

 

[ZellyB]

Sorry to hear about your shoulder injury. I hope that you can avoid surgery! Otherwise sounds like you had a good week. I can't do gu hardly at all. I just don't like the texture and it feels like it just hits my stomach hard. I like the clifbloks pretty well and also like the honey stingers in both the blocks and the waffles. I eat sport beans a lot of times too. Great job with your long run and you have the exact right approach. You just worry about the next long run and then the next one and before you know it you are running a half marathon.

 

[FredtheDuck]

@DopeyBadger random question: a family emergency has made it so that I couldn't get out in the early morning Tuesday and won't be able to tomorrow either. I did my Tuesday run on the treadmill. OK to do the tempo run scheduled for tomorrow on the treadmill as well? Or would it be better to switch Thursday and Friday (I should be able to get back outside Friday morning and Saturday)?

 

[DopeyBadger]

@DopeyBadger random question: a family emergency has made it so that I couldn't get out in the early morning Tuesday and won't be able to tomorrow either. I did my Tuesday run on the treadmill. OK to do the tempo run scheduled for tomorrow on the treadmill as well? Or would it be better to switch Thursday and Friday (I should be able to get back outside Friday morning and Saturday)?

Treadmill Tempo is fine.

 

[roxymama]

@DopeyBadger random question: a family emergency has made it so that I couldn't get out in the early morning Tuesday and won't be able to tomorrow either. I did my Tuesday run on the treadmill. OK to do the tempo run scheduled for tomorrow on the treadmill as well? Or would it be better to switch Thursday and Friday (I should be able to get back outside Friday morning and Saturday)?

I know you didn't ask me, but if you get the A-ok to run your tempo on the treadmill on Thursday I can offer some tempo/treadmill tips from someone who has to do so many that way.

1) Going from WU pace to Tempo on a treadmill can be a bit jarring. Since outside I more naturally increase into the tempo pace I try to replicate that. When I'm nearing just a few min left of my WU I start increasing the speed button gradually so that it's not an all at once.
2) If it feels like your legs are just going way to fast to keep up, it may be because you aren't feeling the same kind of resistance that you would out on the road with your feet against pavement. Increase the incline by at least 1 to at least help you feel like you aren't spinning out of control (think a spinning bike vs a normal bike)
3) If it still feels way fast compared to outdoors (maybe it won't and then yay!) don't feel bad about lessening the speed so that it feels like your tempo effort. After a little while you will find a rythym and usually can then begin increasing back to where the pace chart wanted you to be. Just be aware not to increase the total time during your tempo too much if you back down on speed a bit while getting used to it.
4) Cover the clock if you can and watch a show that has no commercials...if you can
5) enjoy miles that go by faster

That's my little tidbits, hope they get the badger approval stamp.

 

[FredtheDuck]

Thanks, @DopeyBadger and @roxymama!

2) If it feels like your legs are just going way to fast to keep up, it may be because you aren't feeling the same kind of resistance that you would out on the road with your feet against pavement.

Everything you pointed out is super helpful, I appreciate it! Funnily enough, @MoanasPapa and I were just talking about how treadmill speed seems SO MUCH faster than outdoor speed. I'll try the trick with the incline to see if that gets me a little closer to how my outdoor runs feel. Thanks again!

 

[FFigawi]

Everything you pointed out is super helpful, I appreciate it! Funnily enough, @MoanasPapa and I were just talking about how treadmill speed seems SO MUCH faster than outdoor speed. I'll try the trick with the incline to see if that gets me a little closer to how my outdoor runs feel. Thanks again!

Buy a footpod. This way you can match your indoor pace to your outdoor pace since not many treadmills are well calibrated.

 

[FredtheDuck]

Buy a footpod. This way you can match your indoor pace to your outdoor pace since not many treadmills are well calibrated.

Thanks! I'll grab one soon... I imagine I'll probably be on the treadmill often enough this winter to make good use of it.