More miles

Planned a long run today, but I ran out of time so I just went to the track for 3 quick 1-mile repeats:

• 10:28
• 10:36
• 10:53

That's actually a bit faster than I expected, since I've been feeling slow and sluggish lately. Lots going on with the new house acquisition and other stuff in our lives, but the increasingly warm weather always helps my motivation and interest in getting outside and working out.

Last 5k of the year?

I ran 12.5 laps of the track today, which I usually count as 5k. I'm always slower there than on the roads with my Garmin or in races, but it is what it is. First lap was a warmup and then I picked up the pace from there. Finish time for the approximate 5k was 35:43.

Back on track

Every time I have a bout of bronchitis I seem to get slower. I'm still coughing now and then but I'm about 95% recovered this round. So I went over to the track to get a little slightly faster jogging done today.

But I just didn't have it today. (It was unseasonably warm, too: 63*F and windy). Mile repeats were:

• 12:33
• 10:44
• 10:40
• 12:59

The "fast" two in the center were about the times of my slow two in September. Oh well. It's all good. I just have to stay healthy and keep laying down the miles and they'll come around.

Whew, I have a 15k race on Sunday - I haven't run that long in ages. Last year I cramped up so badly on this course that I had to stop - I'll take the first couple of miles pretty slowly this time out there. Slow finish times are better than DNFs.

Race Report: John Wall Mile

Today I ran the John Wall Mile in Severna Park, Maryland. This race commemorates John Wall, an Olympian who apparently represented the United States at the 1936 Berlin Summer Games (the games at which Jesse Owens dominated the athletics events).

This was my first actual track competition of any distance, and I was dreading the pain of running hard for a mile!

They ran the race in heats of about 20-30 runners, starting from slowest (estimated finish over 10 minutes) to fastest. I seeded myself in the 8-to-9 minute heat.

I think I did not warm up enough close to the start of the race - I walked and jogged about 1.5 miles, but cooled down while watching the heat in front of me. Once I started running it took me over half a mile for my heart rate to get up to speed. It shows my maximum is still around 185 bpm, though. I maintained a good effort level while running - I don't think I could have forced myself to run any harder today.

Finish time: 8:44. PR! I've never run an official one mile race before, so any time would have been a PR. However, it was still 11 seconds faster than my fastest-ever Garmin-timed mile at the start of a 5K.

This gives me a good benchmark to work from. Let's see if I can beat it next year! Alas, I would have to be 1:14 faster in the mile in order to meet the qualifying standard for the 2009 Summer National Senior Games (about 7:30 for the mile for age 50-54 women, that is, 7:00 for 1500m).

Quarters

I have a one mile track race on Sunday. I'm dreading the Big Hurt. I wouldn't do it except it's part of the local Championship Series and I need the points to maintain my lofty 4th place in the age group standings!

Today to get my legs warmed up to the challenge I did quarter mile intervals on the track. The fastest one I managed to do was 2:12, but I truly doubt that I could do four of those in a row. Garmin says my best quarter was 2:09 for a an 8:40 min/mile pace, but I'll believe the actual track before I'll believe Garmin. Then again, you never know what's going to happen on race day with some extra adrenalin in my system!

My maximum heart rate didn't get above 174 today. I don't think I'm able to get it well up into the 180s any more - I think my maximum has dropped. But we'll see.

Track work

OK, today I went over to the track to try to regain some of my long-lost speed as part of my 2-week Solo Training Camp.

One of the best things I like about doing intervals with my Garmin is making nice little plots of the row of even peaks in intensity (heart rate and pace) from the intervals.

This was not one of those days.

You can't tell from the plot, but this workout consisted of:
4 laps (1 mile) warmup jog
4 laps of (100m fast, 100m slow, 100m fast, 100 m slow)
4 laps (1 mile) warmdown jog

Those paces were all over the place, weren't they?

Standard exercise test #2

Today I went over to the track and repeated my 1x3 mile workout (with 1/4-mile walks between) to see if there was any difference.

Today:Three days ago (Thursday):


Today didn't feel like I was 100% either, but at least an 11:00 minute mile was my slowest for the day instead of faster than my fastest, at close to the same effort level.

Slightly better, that's all I can expect in only three days!!!

8 x 200

Another speedwork session in the books! And here's the evidence:

Warm up, and then eight times halfway around the track at my top-end speed, followed by eight recovery jogs around the other half of the track. Turn around to unwind my legs every mile.

Yeah, the pace recording is still not good. I have to tweak those settings again. But the heart rate shows I did my job today!

Times today for those eight 1/8-mile "speedy" segments are:

1. 1:09
2. 1:10
3. 1:10
4. 1:09
5. 1:08
6. 1:06
7. 1:09
8. 1:08

Average 1:09 or 9:09 min/mile pace. Yep, faster than my current 5K pace (though I haven't raced one in ages).

I'd love to link those together and be running low 9-minute miles regularly, but that won't happen for a while. . . . we'll see!

And to my Canadian friends: You're welcome to come get your geese now. We've had quite enough of them for this winter. You're also welcome to clean up their poop which is accumulating on my track. Thank you.

More speedwork

Well, that didn't exactly work as planned! I went over to the track with my Garmin and did 8x100 (warmup and then one fast 100 within each quarter-mile lap of the track), and motivated myself by thinking of the lovely plot I would have with 8 beautiful little dips that went deep into Single Digit Pace Land. Unfortunately it seems that the Garmin doesn't record pace very frequently and my speediness was so quick it missed several of the sprints.

Oh well, I'll wear the heart rate meter next time which has a higher sampling rate and shows more detail.

My LEGS know that I've done some speed work (and that's what counts), even if my pace plot doesn't show it.

I can't get anything done in 25 minutes

That's what I was thinking when I looked at the clock and realized that I had frittered away almost all of my valuable time when the girls were in school today. But then I caught myself and climbed out of that negative thinking trap - SOMETHING is better than NOTHING today, right?

So I headed over to the school track for a quick few laps before I picked up the girls.

Let's see, if I do this right I have time for 8 laps. I'm ready to go after my walk over.

1. 3:02. Ouch, I'm feeling creaky.
2. 2:51. OK, my knee stopped hurting. Now I can run semi-normally.
3. 2:44. That's not so creaky, starting to warm up.
4. 2:43. I wonder if I can do every lap faster than the last? Let's hit it!
0:22. Pause to remove hot vest and gloves.
5. 2:23. Woot! Whew, that got me out of breath. Not bad.
6. 2:44. OK, I can breathe again. One more time, faster than the last.
7. 2:22. That's better.
8. 2:55. OK, warm down, and go get the girls.

22:10: Total time for 2.0 miles and pause including a half mile at 9:30 min/mile pace.

Not a lot of distance by endurance athlete standards, of course, and not a lot of speed by most runner standards, but it's still probably more distance than a lot of people ran in the entire year of 2007. In less time than many moms spend sitting in their cars waiting for their kids to get out of school every day.

Half mile repeats

AKA Yassos. AKA acute discomfort around the track. Only a few of them today. Somehow that song kept going through my mind about how "I'm as good once as I ever was". But once is all.

Times:

• 5:55 warmup
• 4:49
• 4:53
• 4:50
• 4:51
• 5:10 stick a fork in me

Quarter mile intervals

I just got back from 5K on the track. It's COLD today! I did some 1/4-mile intervals to try to give myself a little speed boost. I tried to do the auto-lap function on the GPS to get my interval times but it didn't work, it was still recording 1-mile autolaps. I did a 1 mile warmup and 4 intervals, go faster every even-numbered quarter, jog the odd-numbered quarters. Let's see, off the watch they were:

1 - 2:40
2 - 2:37
3 - 2:34
4 - 2:33
5 - 2:57
6 - 2:25
7 - 3:02
8 - 2:26
9 - 3:06
10 - 2:29
11 - 3:09
12 - 2:21
13 - 1:29 (1/8)

I think that's a pretty good workout for me, considering anything under a 2:30 lap for me is working pretty hard! At least I don't have to walk for recovery any more, I can actually maintain a jog and still get some muscle recovery. That's progress!

Off to the bath now and then to our local Yacht Club with the girls for a late lunch!

Things I like now that I used to hate

Looking back over the past six or seven years, I've had an attitude shift. Part of it was intentional and deliberate, part of it a side-effect. I used to toss out "I hate this" and "I hate that" phrases all the time concerning fitness activities, either to myself or out loud. They were pretty convenient excuses for sloth, although naturally I didn't think of them that way at the time. These included:

• "I hate exercise." Chronic laziness! Now I hate it when I take an unscheduled day off.
• "I hate running." Now I enjoy it. Knowing that I'm making progress with each step helps. Ambitious race goals also help.
  
• "I hate running in the rain/cold/heat." There are still lots of days when it's not my favorite weather, but now it's a very rare day that I'll reschedule a workout due to weather.
• "I especially hate running on the track." Now I choose to run on the track once or twice per week - yes, it sometimes gets boring, but more often I find it relaxing and often inspiring. Certainly very convenient for me and safer than the roads when I run in the dark. I like to monitor my pace and use the track for intervals.
• "I hate swimming laps." Now it's a treat to have a solid hour free to spend in the pool working on my stroke.

My attitude held me back and kept me on the couch. Which comes first? Change the attitude, change the activities, change the fitness, change the body. They all go together.

There is one I'm hanging on to, though. I can't change everything!

• "I hate getting up early." But I do it anyway.