It’s Looking Like I’m Training.

I think I really should invest in internet soon.  Having to use the wireless in the Leasing Office at my apartment complex means having to use it between 09-1700 M-F and that’s prime time for interviews (fingers crossed!) and feeling safest taking the bus to do errands. I have been doing job searching at the library (YAY for getting a library card in my new city) but I feel like since I’m at the libs I need to be *focused*.  Not a bad thing at all.

The plus to all that is that I have a few workouts under my belt to talk about and can make this post decent with running.

Okay so not everything's running. I can be random too 😉

First: I’m sure everyone’s thinking of Boston this time of year with registration opening up yesterday for BQ-20. Not I.

I have the time to register at the moment (my WR time from last December is still good) but I just don’t feel it.  Of course, seeing people’s FB statuses and talking with people who are nervous the spaces will fill later this week makes me want to. Despite needing revenge I think it might be best to tackle it later at some point.  That and I just made some huge life changes in the past month so I’m just trying to get through things day by day.  Thinking ahead to April is unfathomable. Lots of other factors went into the decision and it was hard to put my ego aside. We’ll see if I feel the same way in April. Or even later this week.

Best of luck to all who are trying to get in!

Since my last post, last Wednesday, I’ve done 3 quality workouts.  Training time? Okey Dokey. The first was a hill workout on Wednesday with the CoOp group.  Yes, as I found out, there are hills in Dallas.  You really have to search for them though.  They weren’t hill repeats though: it was a ~1.3 mile loop where you ran up a hill, across a straightaway, down the hill, across another straightaway but in the other direction, up a hill, across a straightaway then down the hill and headed back to the start.

It really wasn’t as complicated as I just wrote it. The workout is called “Crazy 8s” because the loop is done as a figure 8.

thanks google

The plan was to do 4 of ’em but due to major GI troubles (that had plagued me all day that day and I pigheadedly thought that I’d be able to work through it) I only did 3.  The first 2 were really strong and the third was when my intestines were like “ummmmmmmmmmm no”.  I ended up with slightly over 6 miles for the total and annoyed that I tried to push myself through that third one yet also annoyed that I didn’t get through the whole thing.  Silly me.  I mostly felt “bad” that I was “wasting” the cold front.  The temps were in the 80s and it felt awesome.

Which meant that this past weekend should have been a good LR with the group.  Well I evidently partied too hard on Friday night, although I was at the Rangers game so I didn’t think there’d be much room to party.  Obviously the party didn’t end with the game. And slept through the group LR on Saturday.

The alarm was set. I just slept through it.  And the two phone calls one of the group members made to me. Oops.

I woke up in a panic about a half hour into their run and was like “I SWORE I’d be able to make it”. Clearly I was wrong.  I stayed in bed all day that day and made up the run with a friend who wasn’t, for other reasons, able to make Saturday’s run on Sunday (and I hate running long on Sundays).  I think it ended up for the best: it was my fastest run, in general, since Boston at any distances, and it was 15 miles at 9:03 pace.  So I’m not quite sure what that tells me.  I was never struggling during the run and was not 100% drained afterward.  Hopefully this run was the mental wake up I needed, I have a half to run this fall!

I also absolutely ADORE the girl (well woman I guess) that I was running with. She hasn’t been running long but she’s trying to learn all she can about running and we talked a lot about running (obviously) and she encouraged me to pick the brains of people that run in the CoOp. I always feel weird asking people for advice like that, mostly because I feel like I’m pumping them with information.  But I’ll try to make myself more annoying during group runs 😉

I’m sure the weather helped for that long run (it was still in the 60s when it started) and that was not the case today, as it was 80* at 0600. Greeeeeeeeeat. Today’s workout was a ladder workout and it was decent, aka better than last time, despite being alone for it.  It was supposed to be with the group but late last night kind of freaked out about having to get up to make a 430am rail. Which wouldn’t be so bad except I have to walk just over a mile to get there.  Even at a jog it wasn’t appealing.  Nor did it seem like a good idea to be in a confined car at 430am. In all honesty nothing probably would have happened but I don’t think I’ll get to do AM track sessions with the group ever. So I got an extra 2 hours of sleep instead. WIN.

So I headed to a local track and did the same ladder they did: 800-1200-1600-1200-800 with 400m recovery time (although I’m not sure if I cheated by doing an 800 recovery after the 1600.  I needed it so I think not).  Let’s just say that I wasn’t too thrilled with the added 1600 in there because last time we did a ladder, two weeks ago, it wasn’t.

I’m still not sure which paces I’m supposed to be hitting here according to the pace chart for the group (which can be seen in the link above from last time and does vary with the distance of the intervals), so I kind of put a range between the “goal marathon time” I ended up running paces for last time (the 4:00 marathon) and the one faster (3:50).  I was in there, on the slower side, but in there.  What was frustrating was, despite feeling like I worked hard, the marathon times I selected are still slower than marathons I’ve run.

• 800: 3:49 (7:38)
• 1200: 5:53 (7:50)
• 1600: 8:02 (8:02)
• 1200: 5:57 (7:56)
• 800: 3:52 (7:44)

Looking back at my training log, I was pretty much at, or slightly faster, than my times the last time I did a ladder.  I’m happy with that, especially being able to be slightly faster than the last time (aka I didn’t flounder the way I did last time) on the “down” portion of the ladder after the 1600. Obviously not where I was last fall/winter but about where I was training for Boston this past winter.

All told my legs had that good burn at the end of it.  I feel like I couldv’e gone faster though? I mean, my legs hurt and my mind wanted to quite but I wasn’t satisfied with it.  I’m glad I did it today though as I was debating putting it off another day.

I’m at an impasse though because my long run was so stellar on Sunday and my intervals were meh today.  Intervals suck. I appreciate everyone who’s chimed in about me taking care of myself and I continue to do so.  Although I’m sure that some of you are shaking your heads at my running load. Other than my paces being slower than in the past, I feel fine physically.  Since I’m training now, I’m going to keep a closer eye on things but I don’t have access to affordable health care at the moment so I’ll just continue to do what’s worked for me when I’ve been I’ve feltlike this before.

Since adding in quality workouts, however, my weekly miles have dropped slightly, I’ve gotten back an appetite (aka can fuel better) and my weekly average pace has dropped slightly as well (at least the past two weeks since I’ve considered myself training for something). 

Anyway that’s what I’ve got. Hopefully I won’t go another week or so without posting/commenting/keeping in touch.  Although I am keeping my fingers crossed that I get a call back from a job and having to work makes it difficult to post 😉

Of Ladders and Recovery and Racing

First off I need to give a HUGE shoutout to my girl Lesley for hanging out/driving me to Super Target for groceries. She’s the BEST! I actually ran into her during our long runs this past Saturday (we ran by each other) and hopefully I can get together and run with her someday (and go to the zoo. Remember now, you promised 😉 )

Thanks google

I swear I’m not 5 years old and/or her 4th kid.

Back to running because I guess moving and unemployment have been the best things to happen to it.  And to my blog posting abilities.

The group I’ve linked up with WRRC decided to make their speed session workout Tuesday morning. At 5am. Now in any “normal circumstance” (because trust me I realize that getting up at 4am to haul ass around a track is not in any way shape or form normal) I’d be all for it.  But with no car, I have to take the rail.  And catching a 0432 rail after walking a mile in the dark to the station is not ideal.  I don’t live in the worst neighborhood per se, but it made me uneasy.  So I figured I’d do it on my own.

Unfortunately some upsetting dreams (and I’ve been having VIVID dreams lately) had me oversleeping and I knew that trying to do speedwork once the sun comes up is not prudent.  As it stands in my log book I ended up getting a mid-distance run in, which might not have been prudent either given the lack of water stops on the “trail” I was on.  I did 11 but based on the time and my effort I feel like it should have been more.

I suppose it serves me right for starting a run at 8am although in my defense that’s the weather I’ve been running in all summer back home (86* and home has higher humidity which makes it feel worse) so I figured I’d be okay.  My stomach by the end was all upset in its “dehydration ouchie” state.  I think on the way home I stopped a couple times to stretch it out. Lesson learned: this is Texas. Bring water. (and drink more H2O in general. Adding lemonade powder to my water has been a lifesaver lately though because I can only take so much water!)

The only saving grace to the run was that it drizzled for the whole first half.  Actually I’m not sure if this made it better or not as I felt a little more humidity about.  At least there wasn’t any true lightning like there was on Monday morning when it poured (now that felt good).

The rest of the day (and really any day) was spent recovering (aka feet up and applying to jobs) for:

WEDNESDAY’S BIG DAY OF RUNNING

The track workout that I didn’t do Tuesday was on tap.  I had set my alarm for 0530 so I could easily be out the door before 0600. I ended up getting up at 0600.  Still well before the sunrise, so it’s okay.  The temp was 88*.  Ouch.

On tap was

• Warmup
• 800-1200-1200-800 (with 400m recovery between)
• Warmdown

This was created, I think, by one of the guys in the Running Coop and he’s posted on the FB group page a “Ladder Pace Chart” for what you should try and hit depending on your marathon goal.  For me, I’m not signed up for a marathon so I really had no clue what I should do.  A few weeks back I did some 800s at 7:20-30 pace which according to the pace chart below was what the group aiming for a 3:40-3:50 marathon would target.

Because I’m delusional I decided I wanted to go faster and hit paces targeting a 3:20-40 marathon (and corresponding to a 1:34-44 half, see below). Don’t forget that out of all my marathons, I’ve run 75% of them slower than 3:30 and my half PR is 1:33:something.

Delusional.

Because here’s the pace chart (I figured it’d be easier for y’all to see it with your own eyes rather than me confuse you by trying to explain it)

Yes I am aware it’s an oddly shaped image with a lot of space at the bottom. Deal (although the whole point was so that you guys could read it. Hopefully you can get it to enlarge, maybe by clicking on the image to open it in a new tab/window?)

In order to do this workout I needed to find a track.  This shouldn’t have been a problem.  And wouldn’t have been if I had a car at the moment.  But I don’t.  So I needed something within an appropriate warm up distance.  I found it but the one I found definitely had a sign that said “stadium for school district use only”.  Oops. I had to even walk through the school to get to the track.  Luckily I was able to get in because it was unlocked for the football team.

Side note: I grew up in MA, my high school’s football team (and football in general in the league) was, and likely still is, a joke. In college I didn’t have a team. So this was fascinating in it’s own right.

I guess I can share my speeds/what I actually hit.  As I said above I was targeting the 320-3:40 pace on the chart, but in reality I ended up hitting more of a 3:50-4:00 goal. (rest was one lap, and typically took me ~3 minutes. The recovery according to the pace chart is above but is supposed to be marathon goal in minutes:seconds).  So here are the splits, for 800s it’s broken 400+400 time, for the 1200s it’s broken 800+400 times

• 800:   1:55 + 1:50 = 3:45 (7:30 pace)
• 1200: 3:55 + 1:57 = 5:52 (7:52)
• 1200: 4:00 + 2:00 = 6:00 (8:00)
• 800:    1:58 + 1:58 = 3:56 ( 7:52)

The workout itself ( again, done mostly in the dark. Ugh late sunrises but yay to seeing the sunrise) went meeeeeeeeeeeeeeh. I mean, I hauled ass.  Major ass. But it just wasn’t pace wise where I thought I should be.  I was wayyyy off of the goal for me, with the second half of the ladder being much slower than the first and despite me feeling like I was pushing HARD.  Next week I’m going to haul butt to do the speed session with the group because I know that during the intervals it wasn’t a constant “on”, it was a slow down/speed up routine that made me feel like crap.

Shouldn’t have been too surprising though given how slow I’ve been running all summer but I wanted something faster to make my decision whether to run a fall / winter marathon (or even half) clearer. Only good thing about the run (well I guess just getting out there and running fast is a good thing) was that the football coach  asked me “Marathoner?” and I said yes, and told him a potential goal race to which he said “you have an excellent footfall. Wish I could teach my kids that”. That made me smile and probably put a little pep in my step for that last 800.

But I guess it’s a good/decent barometer as to where I am at the moment.

Later that night I went for a group run with the Coop.  I met up with my friend beforehand for a little over 2 miles and the loop with the group was a little over 6 so I got ~8.4 on the night.  The pace felt easy (except for some rolling hills at the end and humidity when we hit White Rock lake) and it was faster than my usual runs.  Not sure what that means.  What I do know is that it left me with 16 for the day.

I didn’t get back to my apt until close to 2200, had to eat dinner and shower AND *register for the DRC half in November before the price increased today*. After the group run, sitting around at Fuzzys Tacos, I wasn’t really talked into it per se but it just made sense.  Something to train for.  Something relatively soon. Something not a marathon. I still have marathon *ideas* but that’s all there is to them.  We’ll see how the half goes first (and if I get a job to pay for it!)

I didn’t get into bed until late and, normally not a big deal but with the Texas heat I really can’t run mid-morning anymore.  So I’m skipped  my scheduled 7 for this morning.  Maybe I’ll get it in tonight (very likely) but we’ll see. I’m babying my Achilles at the moment because, as I mentioned yesterday, Dallas “trails” are really just concrete bike paths that they call multi-use paths. Guess this is a city built on concrete.  I’m not quite sure why but I suspect asphalt would melt in the summer but that’s my theory.

Anyway, it’s September 1st, meaning I should do a “Previously on MM” post for August. I’m going to wait a bit. Lots of stuff went down in August, but I feel like in my last two or three posts you’ve gotten it all.  I’ll have to put my creative juices to work and come up with something wicked pissah to put into words my monthly total.  Hmmmmmmmmmm.  As if applying to jobs wasn’t zapping all my mental capacity!

And since you’ve read this thus far (seriously, I mean what I wrote about unemployment being good for the blog above!):

thansk google

Another Week Goes By….

…and no post.  I meant to post during the week but (and this is one of my transitions, I’ll try to give them all a separate post — unfortunately it might be late next week– because I want to talk about my workout today) this week was my last week at the clinic.  I can’t believe that my year with VISTA is over! And since last post I don’t have anything exciting on the workout front.

So needless to say, I’ve been swamped.  Not with work per se.  More so with the “let’s spend 8 hours applying to jobs” and “let’s go drinking with friends at night” swamped. Tough life, no?

Well yes.  Because tough = mile repeats = pain.

Granted I was out way to late last night and woke up still drunk this morning.  But, that said, I’ve had spectacular sessions before after such nights.  This was not the case and I think my liver is finally realizing that it’s not 21 anymore. I’m still in the process of convincing it otherwise.

Thanks google images.

Anyway I headed out to the track this afternoon to “bang out some mile repeats”. Step one of running fast is the outfit and I rocked my booty spandex and sports bra and sunglasses. (Step two is not chickening out — see below and my pre-1 repeat)

Last week I was excited about them (and by them I mean the 800s).  This week I knew I had to run twice the distance and about the same pace.  Last fall I was able to do 6 X 1 mile @ ~6:30.  Based on last week’s workout I wanted to do 4 X 1 mile @ 7:30.

Now, as I’m just getting back into speed work I have ZERO idea what I should be running these things in.  But 7:30 is what I’d ideally call a tempo pace, and did last fall  (and I just cheated and looked at McMillian based on my PW marathon time and mile repeats should be at 7:21-7:43 with tempo runs being 7:53-8:13 and tempo intervals being 7:46-8:03 for whatever that info is worth)

I’m very glad I didn’t know that information until just now though.  Just because.  I think that with the hiatus I’ve taken I should just go.

And go I did.

Workout: 4 X 1 mile with 800m recovery jog

1. 4:10 + 4:01 = 8:11. F@#$. <– Thought in my head.  I debated nixing the whole workout but figured that anything faster than the 9:40 easy paces I’ve been doing should be beneficial.  Fact: I stopped this first repeat at the 200m line. Gave myself a HTFU pep talk, walked back to the start and then ran in
2. 4:06 + 4:04 = 8:10 Seriously?!?
   
3. 4:05 + 4:00 = 8:05 Better I guess.
   
4. 4:05 + 4:00 = 8:05 Dayyyyyyyyyum

So clearly I’ve fallen from last fall.  Like last week, I never felt like I was going fast.  And yet I know I could not have gone faster.  It was upsetting to a degree. Funny how last week I wrote about being okay because I was getting back into it and, while I’d never have admitted it beforehand, I was hoping to really bounce back fast. I shouldn’t (and am not) be surprised just because after last Friday’s session my legs were wiped for days after.  I’m not sure if it’s even possible BUT I don’t think my legs were recovered today!

I was just complaining to a friend about how “out of shape I clearly am” and he disagreed.  Mostly because he know I run a lot and that equals being in shape.  At the time I didn’t have a retort.

Now I do: I am out of racing shape.  I can bang out 100+ mile weeks with the best of them but that doesn’t mean I’m going fast.  I really don’t think I could have run faster if Jack the Ripper was behind me today.

thanks google images

And since I love racing (I know I don’t race often but I do love it) that’s frustrating. I guess this means that if I want to start seriously contemplating a fall race (not a marathon but maybe a half or 10k or anything!) I need to cut back on the miles and let myself ride out this period of awkward “hey-what-the-hell-am-I-doing?!?” phase of getting into Fasty McFast shape.

Note: I’m not upset over this in an “I’m-going-to-agonize-over-it” way.  I’m just annoyed that I’m not in my Fall 2010 Racing Shape. The workout wasn’t a complete disaster because I fell in the “tempo interval” range as noted above. I’m sure I’ll reap some benefit from this, no? And, as I mentioned last week, there’s room for improvement. I need to focus on that excitement.

I also hope this post is coherent.  I’m running on little sleep.  Time for a quick nap and then time to go out and celebrate with my friends (they’re 2nd year med students and this week is the 1st year’s orientation.  I’m an honorary med student this week hahah!)

Well It’s a Start. The Story of Me (kind of) Finding Speed.

I’ve been M.I.A. lately. Duh.  So much so that I’d forgotten my password to log into my blog. Suffice it to say that I’m in the midst of some HUGE changes in my life (exciting, scary, sad, partying, frustrating) and posting…well it just was something I didn’t have time for.

But I’m back.  For the day. Maybe longer.  But those changes are still on- going until September so bear with me.  And no, that’s not me apologizing.  If you don’t want to bear with me then don’t.  But I’d like it if you did 🙂

Also back into life is speed-work.  This entire summer I’ve only done LSD.  Seriously.  My weekly miles are huge and slow (I know I didn’t do a monthly recap for June or July but the miles were 451.9 and 433.7 respectively with the average paces being 9:45 for each month or thereabouts). I’m okay with that, running has been one aspect of my dealing with life (dancing and karaoke with friends is the other) and it feels good to just kind of plod along and let my thoughts wash over me.

That said, for whatever reason during my run this morning (which was supposed to be a long run) the idea popped into my head to run track work today.  Since I was already 7 miles into my run I stopped that run, headed back to my apartment, and rested up for the afternoon (I figured doing speed-work immediately after 7 miles was silly).  Because I decided that I had to do it THAT SAME DAY or else I was liable to chicken out. Who knew when my next urge to run at the track would be?

Because my last speed work session was March 5th.  Like 5 months ago.

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH (thanks google images)

I chose to run 800s; mostly because they are my favorite track session.  I decided to do 4 of them because 4 is my lucky number.  And I decided to shoot for 3:30 for each one because it was…well there was no rhyme or reason but I wanted to go at 7 pace. That whole 5 months thing be damned.

How’d I do? Well, considering during my warm up mile around the track was painfully slow and I wanted to bail on the whole stupid thing, fine.  Not quite on pace but there’s that five month thing.

1. 1:54 + 1:52 = 3:46 (daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaamn I am slow. My first ones are usually the fastest! Wonder how the next three will go)
2. 1:54 + 1:52 = 3:46 (Seriously?! The same f$#%ing time?)
3. 1:53 + 1:51 = 3:44 (Better.  Kind of sort of)
4. 1:52 + 1:49 = 3:41 (Okay.  That hurt.)

Overall I can’t say I’m too upset.  Of course I want to be faster.  And I think I held some stuff back because I wanted to hit all 4 of them around the same pace.  Which I was successful of. Just wish I had been consistent in a faster manner. I never felt as though I was…well I hate to use the word sprinting because that’s not the point of track work…but I never felt as though I was going fast.

But 7:22-7:32 pace as the range for all 4 of them isn’t too bad. That’s my typical threshold run, or at least it used to be. So I do have a long way to go before I can say I’m my typical speedy self but I’m not beating myself up over it. If I don’t improve from here then, sure, let the beating up commence.  But for now I’ll just sit back, let my legs feel the good ole feeling of tiredness from a job well done.

As well get ready to go drink beer and go dancing tonight.

Also: I picked the perfect day to do this.  The temp when I went out at 1600 was 75* and cloudy.  When the sun broke through it literally looked like this.  I guess that’s a sign I should make a date with the track every week?

thanks google images.

Can’t You Read?

Scarecrow: Read what?
Guardian of the Emerald City Gates: The notice!
Dorothy: What notice?
Guardian of the Emerald City Gates: It’s on the door – as plain as the nose on my face! It… oh…

Courtesy of Google Images

Apparently it was hard to read the notice that said “Show Up to the Track” today. Or my brain didn’t get the “hey we’re not going to go as fast as you want today” notice from my legs.

But the rest of my body read the notice that said “Sleep In”. I do believe that I got up at 0900? I NEVER wake up to an alarm on the weekends. Ever. Very weird. I really can’t remember the last time I did that.   And I probably could have hit snooze and not felt badly at all about it too.  Guess my body just needed sleep! (okay so maybe THAT isn’t so shocking)

Good thing too because today was the usual Saturday head-to-the-track day.  I think, however, the combo of my stomach thing-y Thursday night and the mucho sleep I got last night messed up some rhythm in my body so the workout felt kind of weird.

The plan was to do 5 X 1 mile, with 800m of recovery in between.  According to some people I’ve talked to, the pace I should target on this workout is double Yasso pace.  Well I did do Yassos two weeks ago, with the average 800 being 3:12, but I knew that trying to do 5 mile repeats at 6:24 was going to be pushing it. Especially since I don’t think 3:12 is very realistic for this upcoming race.

Since McMillian predicts 3:18 for my marathon fitness at this moment, I went with a target of 6:30.  A little fast? Yes.  But I’m always going to push in intervals.  Fast short stuff is my background after all.  6:30 was a bit ambitious for sure, but I figured why the heck not?

And just for good measure, I wanted to get some 400m repeats in afterward. Talk about ambitious.

The Workout

Mile 1: 6:43

Ummmmm okay. So maybe my trend of the first interval being the fastest will be wrong today?

Mile 2: 6:40

Okay better.  But still.  This is HARD today.

Mile 3: 6:35

Another hard one.  But at least the effort is staying the same and the time is getting faster.

Mile 4: 6:35

(At the 800m) Yay 3:15. Maybe I can hit the goal pace! (At the end) Oooooooooor not.

Mile 5: 6:34

Ugh this hurts. This sucks. I want to be done. NOW. F#$# those 400s. Not happening. Not No Way. Not No How. (Yes I really did quote the Wizard of Oz during the last lap of the last repeat)

And I wish that I had a Wizard to make this workout feel better! Like the Great and Powerful Oz (courtesy of google images)

Post Workout Thoughts

Overall I just don’t think my heart was in it today.  I know that, on paper, this workout looks great.  According to the calculator that spit out the 3:18:08 goal time, my 1600 speed workout time should be 6:30-6:44.  Since I’m an exact-ist that works out to 6:32-6:46 per mile.  And I was at the fast end of that.  Happy face even if I weirdly feel disappointed a bit.

I think the disappointment comes from the fact that I was so easily distracted during it all.  From the little kids vs. parents/coaches soccer game on the infield to the cute guy who was using the park to do an outdoor strength session to other distracting thoughts running through my head, I wasn’t focused on running. Or at least running hard. My head kept bobbing around.  Like I was rubbernecking or something.

And I can’t get over how hard this workout felt either.  Maybe if I had been more focused it wouldn’t have been so bad? Yes, speed work *should* feel hard. But my legs just felt so spent by the end despite the rest of my body (like my lungs!) feeling 100%.  Normally I get that exhilarating rush after a speed session that I can feel in every cell of my body.  Not today.

Maybe it’s the constant changing of the weather (the past 4 days have been: 27*, 41*, 59*, 43*. All at the same time of day!) doing something funky to my psyche.  Although I will say that maybe I didn’t recover too greatly from that stomach thing because I did get a little lightheaded during some of the recovery jogs by the end. Which is why I nixed the 400m repeats at the end.  It just seemed counterproductive at that point.

That said, I’m going to pull a Sarah and say that, during my long warm down and after much deliberation, I am pleased (I think that was her exact post title a few days ago too!). The fact that I was able to get faster over time bodes well for me and, even though I’d like to have the first two over again, the last three being so consistent is a boost despite my thinking that something is holding me back and that I could have (or should have) gone faster.

Then again, I probably will always feel like that because I’m such a perfectionist and expect so much from myself.

[Edit: So I just re-read this after reading a few comments and I definitely am not *upset* with how the workout went. I just had a much grander idea of what I wanted to do.  From a physical standpoint I think I nailed it, especially with what my current training goals are (MARATHON), but I always want to be faster, stronger etc.  I think it’s the fact that I come from a sprinter background and when I get on the track, going wayyyy fast is just my mentality. But the workout was really solid and another good workout to draw on in….28 days?!….when I run WR.]

Anyway.  Enough whining. The Great and Powerful MM has spoken (yes I am having an intense urge to watch that movie now)

I’m going to say an early GOOD LUCK to my peeps running NYC tmrw: AMarathoner,  Eat Drink Run, Meals for Miles, Skinny Runner, The Runner’s Kitchen. Hmmmm I feel like there’s more of you? Let me know if you’re running it! I’m going to keep updating this list 🙂

And I’m going to say AWESOME JOB to NACN (from rwol) who ran amazingly in Indy today. Woot.

HAVE A GREAT (rest of  your) SATURDAY 🙂

And check out the giveaways from: Tricia, Running Diva Mom, 26.2 is my cooldown

P.S. I’m glad you guys liked seeing the soup that I made. I’m becoming so domesticated and adult.  Not sure how I feel about that hahah!

Exceeds Expectations

As promised, a more exciting post than the one about my library card.  Not going to lie though: I’m still pretty excited about that.

Plus I can’t say “exceeds expectations” without thinking of HP. And then getting excited about it coming out. So already this post is more exciting than previously.

Today is not a Harry Potter day though and I exceeded my own expectations (which I’ve written that word several times already in this post and spellcheck has had to correct me each time! Oops.) with my workout.  Like I mentioned yesterday many of my fellow bloggers have been making me feel majorly guilty about my lack of speed work. Not intentionally of course, but through reading their posts it was making me more-than-acutely aware that my last date with the track was 3 weeks ago to the day.

I did tell myself when the alarm went off that I could skip it because I’m not training for anything.  But I guess it was about time to “nut up or shut up”.

TRACK TIME

I do have to say that I have a love/hate with the track.  It’s actually starting to grow on me and I’ll be sad when winter comes and plops 2 feet of snow on top of it.  I mean, I loved the TM for speed last winter but there’s something satisfying about hitting a time on your own.  Assuming, of course, that you can hit the times you want.

Lacey told me in her comment to my post yesterday to do 800s.  I didn’t get the comment until AFTER the workout but the originally plan *was* to steal the workout that Jess did earlier this week because I like it and she’s a fast runner. Yay Lacey for being on the same brainwave as me.  And yay Jess for making me want to run fast. I figured that to be fast you need to train like you’re fast so what’s good for her is going to be good for me.  Well that was the hope.

• Warm up (aka jog to the track)
• 6 X 800m (with 400m jogging recovery)
• Warm down (aka jog home)

According to McMillian my 800 speed workout could range from 3:02.5 to 3:15.2, depending on which recent race I used in the calculator.  With my half time of 1:33:58, the range was 3:06.5 to 3:15.2.  Since I’ve NEVER done 800 repeats on my own before (hello TM!) I wasn’t sure what to aim for, so I figured that hitting the upper end of the range was good (and to me that hundredths of a second doesn’t really mean anything to me, so as long as I didn’t see 3:16 then I considered the target hit) .

How’d I do?

THE WORKOUT (italics are my thoughts during the run/interval.  Normal font is post-run reflection.)

1st: 3:08.13

Holy @#$%.  That was fast.

2nd: 3:15.57

Whoa there. Clearly that first one was a bit trigger happy hahah.  This one felt much slower and I was worried that I had killed the workout with that first one.

3rd: 3:15.16

After this one half-way there! On the slower end but within what I wanted.

4th: 3:11.38

*Breathe* okay I can do this. It was actually starting to feel “easy” at this point.  Not effortless but I was feeling good in getting into a rhythm over the 800m

5th: 3:12.66

Shut up kids! There was some little kid soccer team practicing on the infield and one of the twerps shouted “hey weird runner! Keep running!”. Did I mention that I hate kids?  It took the utmost willpower not to shout something back.  It also made me wish that the high school girl from 3 weeks ago was there to tell me I was a good runner.

6th: 3:12.31

Heyyyyyy.  This isn’t so bad.  Let’s see how many I can do before my legs give in to fatigue!

At this point I knew I was done with the workout and that anything else would be icing on the cake.  I decided to do more until my times dropped off.

7th: 3:13.94

Okay so maybe I lied and my legs are almost done.  Let’s try one more to see if that was a fluke?

8th: 3:13.63

Oh hey there lactic acid!

9th: 3:11.28

Just. Hold. On. I really couldn’t tell you why I kept pressing on.  Maybe because 10 X 800 is that golden standard? But I’m VERY happy I did because this repeat was a good one.

10th: 3:11.53

So was this one.  Even though my times for the repeats never fell off I decided to make this one the last one.  My legs hurt more than the normal lactic acid build up, like the borderline of actual hurt.  And my recovery jog after this one was ~10 seconds slower than the previous 9 (they had all been in the 2:20 range and this one was 2:30.  Total time between intervals might have been an additional 20-30 seconds because I stopped to record times) so I figured it was time to call it a day.

Post-Workout

VICTORY

So I’m really happy with this workout.  I give myself a B+ for it.  (and since I’m a perfectionist that’s likely the highest grade I’ll EVER give myself!).

Repeats #8, 9, 10 were HARD.  I honestly thought that they were going to be in the 3:20 range.

But, yeah, really happy with this one.  If I remember correctly I did a 3 X (4 X 800m) workout during Boston training (aka 3 sets of four 800m repeats with 5 minutes recovery between sets, for a grand total of 12 repeats) and the pace for those was done in 7:08 pace, or 3:34 for the 800.  Sure I only did 10 today but they were FASTER and ON THE TRACK.

And there was some annoying adult fitness group that came and walking laps around the track and I had to dodge them.  I think that the last one could have been faster if I hadn’t literally run into one of the women.  Honestly though, if you heard the shouts (granted they were breathless shouts) of “Watch Lane One”, what would you do? Stay in Lane One?

Oh well.  I still rocked this workout.  My hips are telling me so! Like screaming such at me.

I think that it’s going to be a stretch, *foamroll* and read those library books rest of the afternoon. At least until my roomie wakes up and we can possibly decide of baking something.

And then going out tonight to “shake out my legs” hahah! I was thinking of taking an ice bath butttttttttttt we currently do not have any ice made in the freezer and I am FAR too cheap to go out and buy a bag or two. I gotta save for a destination marathon 😉

So this is getting long and it’s Saturday.  Lots of relaxing to go do!