This week has been a blur. I put in three 12-hour days in a row at the office. I havent had much time to add to this, so I am going to start with yesterday and work backwards. I did manage to drop another couple of pounds – I am down 13 lbs. Granted, I thought I would have been further along at this point, but I will take what I can get.
Date: 8-19-2009
Scheduled Workout:
Rest/ Cross Training
Actual Workout:
Temp Run; 3.83 miles; splits are as follows:
Mile 1: 6:44 pace
Mile 2: 8:28 pace (recover)
Mile 3: 7:19 pace
Mile 4: 9:50 (cooldown)
Course:
Delco Road Running Club’s Wednesday night course. It starts and ends at the small church behind the Swarthmore College Running Track. It’s relatively flat with some small hills here and there. Low traffic.
Workout Nutrition:
N/A
Post workout Eats:
A bottle of no-cal Powerade immediately after the run. I got home and ate a quarter of a small Italian hoagie with some mac and cheese and a Klondike bar (hehe)
Weight:
176 as of Tuesday August 18th
Comments:
I did speedwork the day before, and I didnt feel great on that particular workout. However, when I run with this group, I get the same type of motivation to move faster, as I do when I race, albeit on a smaller scale. There is usually a group of faster people that go out and run some silly pace ahead of the smaller groups that are running various slower paces. I try to keep with the fast group for as a long as I can.
Last night, I went out with a group of five. The pace kicked into the low 8’s almost immediately. By the middle of the first mile, we were doing low 7’s and sub 7’s. I felt good. Actually, I felt great. There were about7 of us in our group. About midway through the 2nd mile, the heat started kicking in, and I heard two people in a our group say that were backing off. I got caught between them, and four guys who split off ahead of us and we’re pushing low 7’s. I decided to back off a bit as well. By the 3rd mile, our group started pushing again, and we were averaging the mid 7’s. I decided to cut the course short and do the short course instead of the normal 5 mile course. I started by cool down midway through my last mile. By this point, the four fast guys had put significant time on us, and they were no where in sight. Three of us broke off and headed back to the start/ finish.
It was hot, but no where as hot as it’s been the last couple of days. However, when I got back to the car, I was in bad enough shape that I had to sit in my car with the air on for a couple of minutes. I got home, ate and then stretched
My knee felt great and I think that’s part of the reason I ran so well. I have been ona fairly consistent stretching routine over the past few days to try and loosen up the IT Band, and I guess it’s working
The schedule called for a rest day or cross training. Normally, I would have gone mountain biking with Dom and Mike. My rear wheel on my bike sh*t the bed over the weekend and I had to drop it off at the shop. It was ready for pickup on Monday, but with the late hours I put in at the office this week, I hadn’t had any time to get it. I guess it was a blessing in disguise because I had a great run instead.
Date: 8-18-2009
Scheduled Workout:
Easy Run, 9:13 pace for three miles
Actual Workout:
Speedwork; 3 miles. I kinda made this one up as I went along
Course
I did my short Brookhaven out and back course along Rt. 352. Starts uphill, ends downhill.
Workout Nutrition:
Nothing.
Post workout Eats:
Nothing immediately after the run, but when I arrived at the office an our later, I ate a Slimfast bar (the poor man’s recovery bar).
Weight:
176 as of Tuesday August 18th
Comments:
I had a crappy run the day before (read below – next entry), so I felt the need to redeem myself with some kind of hard effort. I was out on the road at 5:15 am. I did a half mile warmup at 9:05. For the first interval, I pushed a 7:15 for a half mile, followed by another half mile recovery at 9:25. The next interval was a mile at 7 flat, but in all fairness I was going slightly downhill for a good portion of the interval. I cooled down the last half mile with a 10:44 jog. All in all, not a bad workout, but I wished I could pushed that first interval to a full mile instead of a half. The uphill start doesnt do me any favors. I got home and did a good ten minutes of stretching. Knee felt good.
Date: 8-17-2009
Scheduled Workout:
Easy Run, 9:13 pace for three miles
Actual Workout:
Easy run for 2 miles. Blah.
Course:
I did my short Brookhaven out and back course along Rt. 352. Starts uphill, ends downhill. I didnt make it the whole distance
Workout Nutrition:
Nothing.
Post workout Eats:
Cant remember
Weight:
------
Comments:
I ran at 12:00 in the afternoon (I work from home on Mondays). It was HOT- too hot. About a mile in, I was suffering and my heart rate monitor was throwing back some numbers that told me that enough was enough. I wasnt pushing a hard pace, but my HR was pinging in the high 170’s/ low 180’s which is WAY too high for that kind of pace. I decided to cut the run short and head home.
As for the rest of the weekend….
Sunday, I rested. It was hot. I did a 7 miler on Saturday (I wanted to go a bit further but the heat got to me). The course for Saturday had me climbing up towards Media for the first three miles. I ran through Media, and back down towards home. Around 5 miles, I was in deep crap. The heat and the hills we’re killing me. The last mile was awful. I stopped short on 352 at exactly 7 miles. Regardless, I average 9:15 for this run, which is exactly the pace that I was scheduled to run for that distance, so I cant complain too much I guess.
Friday, I did an MTB ride with Mike and Dom on the trails behind Swarthmore College. It was a good ride, very hot, and it wasnt a balls to the wall pace. The trails back there aren’t really the type that are conducive to hammering. The trails are kind of disjointed, and quite frankly, they kinda start to suck when you get a couple of miles in, so much to the point that riding back the same way on them is not very preferable. As a matter of fact, we took the roads hone on the way back to the College.
So, taking stock of my present situation – do I think I will be ready to run the Philly Distance Run in September? It depends on how you define “ready.” Yes, I will be ready to run and complete 13.1 miles. No, I will not be running anything close to the pace I ran two years ago, which was 8:00 min/mile. I could barely run that pace for 4 miles last night. I do not think 4 weeks is enough training time to make up that big of a gap in fitness. That’s not to say I wont try. At this point, I would be happy with an 8:30 or faster. I probably could do an 8:20 steady over 13.1 miles – maybe some 8’s here and there. It all depends. I usually surprise myself on race day with respect to pacing. Anything is possible. More now than ever its key to stay on track with the training plan. Fortunately, the temperature should be a hell of a lot more moderate on race day. If I remember correctly, when I ran the race two years ago, it was chilly enough at the start that I had to wear the patented “Frank Durso Ghetto arm warmers.”
I was reading an article in Runner’s World, the subject of which is the effect of ambient temperature on running paces. The article used marathon finishing times as context. I dont recall the exact finishing times, but the heat effects were dramatic. A 3 hour finisher in 50 degree weather would run almost 30 minutes slower in 80 degree weather, or something like that. This is not an unknown phenomenon – it’s one of the main reasons most marathons are held in early spring and in the fall – to take advantage of the moderate temperatures. So, I guess I am compelled to ask myself, if I could run an 8 minute mile average over 4 miles on a slightly rolling course in 90 degree heat, could I run 13.1 miles on a flat course in 60 degree weather? One could argue that it’s like comparing apples to oranges. One good run is not enough to frame out a situation. I could go out tonight and run really sh*ty. You get the point.
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