Feb 22, 2013

Thwarted!

If I were a pessimist, I would say that I should have known I couldn't get to two consecutive weeks of awesome training.

I felt like a baller after I wrapped up week five of training for CLE. I ran all of my miles, I did Plyo, and I PRed a race.

Maybe I overdid it. Maybe I'm a wuss. Maybe I'm not maintaining awesomeness after all.

Nah, nevermind. I'm still feeling awesome.

I'm definitely disappointed with training this week. After the 25K on Sunday morning, my right hamstring has felt kinda tight. I was going to throw in some impromptu hill repeats on Monday morning, but the federal holiday was a good reason to sleep in (until 6:40 instead of getting up at 5:00) and as much as I told myself "it's nothing," I knew that the discomfort in my leg would have worsened had I run. It wasn't a big deal, since Mondays are non-running days in my training plan.

Monday was a wash.

Tuesday morning came and with it was enough wind to make me and Joe skip skip our 3-mile run and reset the alarm clock. I still had hammy discomfort, and in the evening the weather was still shitty, so we didn't run then, either.

Tuesday miles planned: 3
Ran: 0

We didn't get up to run on Wednesday morning. I can't even remember why, but I'm thinking we just wanted to sleep. Maybe the weather was still crappy. It was a good thing because my leg was still nagging. I promised myself that I'd run 6 miles on Wednesday evening, despite having a 12-hour day at work. I'm not complaining that I had a 12-hour day--just sayin' that it can be difficult. Cracking the whip onto myself, I got home around 7:30 and was out on the pavement at 7:40. I had an awesome 6-miler at 8:05 pace. Back in the game.

Wednesday miles planned: 6
Ran: 6.43

Thursday morning we didn't run because Joe needed to be on the road by 5:45. I guess that I could have run, but I like running with him in the morning 1.) so that I'm not alone in the creepy, dark, quietness of the morning and 2.) I like spending that time with him. After school on Thursday, I was so pooped that when I got home around 4:30, I changed into my pajamas and curled up into bed with the laptop and cats. I almost fell asleep, but at 6:00 I forced myself to get up and run. I did 3 miles at group run. I set out moving kinda quickly, then about a half-mile into the run, my right shoe was untied. For the first time in over a year, I hadn't double-knotted my shoes. I guess that I was that tired. After my pitstop I tried to catch up to where I should have been and ended up passing a guy who used to run with us, so I ran the remaining 2.5 with him. It was really windy, so I ran pretty hard at 7:50 pace. The entire run, my hamstring was really annoyed with me.

Thursday miles planned: 4
Ran: 3

And now it's Friday morning. Although I woke up at 4:30, I didn't run because the weather is miserable; I turned on the TV to see live footage of balls of ice landing on the ground and I want nothing to do with that. Fortunately, we've got a two-hour delay out of it. If this shitty weather keeps up enough to get us a closing for the day, I'm hoping that I can get out this afternoon and run at least 4 miles. That'll make me feel a little less guilty than I already do for the deficit I'm in so far this week. Or maybe I should take the weather as a sign that I need to take it easy because my hamstring is still feeling tight this morning.

We'll see.


Update: ALERT! ALERT!

Those balls of ice falling from the sky resulted in a snow day. I ran 7 miles in celebration. Now I feel less guilty about the 3 and 4-mile runs that I skipped on Tuesday and this morning respectively. Orrrr I can adjust my plan so that today's 7-miler was run in lieu of tomorrow, so tomorrow I'd need to run 10 as planned for Sunday. Hmm...

Feb 18, 2013

The TRRC 25K, again

The Toledo Road Runners Club 25K at Oak Openings was yesterday. I ran it last year in preparation for Glass City and this year it aligned almost perfectly with my CLE training plan. I needed to do 14 miles yesterday, so I figured, "What the hey?" to an additional 1.5.

The race is only available to Toledo Road Runners. I joined the TRRC last year because someone convinced me that it was worth it for the discounted and free races, the 25K being one of the latter. Last year I ended up never using the club discount at any races, and the only free race that I ran was the 25K. Would it be worth it to renew my membership for $20 just to run the 25K again? My brain said "no," but I planned to get in at least 14 miles yesterday and if I were to choose to race, I'd get a shirt out of it.

To prepare to race on Sunday morning, I was well-behaved on Saturday night. I made a delicious, light pasta dish at home for me and Joe--shrimp sauteed in a spicy infused olive oil with chopped basil and chives, tossed with angel hair pasta and topped with freshly shaved parmesan, served with a salad of red romaine in a homemade balsamic vinaigrette. We split a bottle of Savignon Blanc, watched Evil Dead (true love is what we have), and then I was asleep on the couch by 10:00 (while Joe watched Evil Dead again, this time with the audio commentary on).

I woke up around 7:15, bundled up for the 16° air, and was out the door around 8:10 for the 30-minute drive to Oak Openings. It seemed like there were significantly fewer runners than last year's race, but I saw a lot of familiar TRRC faces--the self-proclaimed "Nerd Herd"; the floozies who wear Newtons and always have new, matching outfits for every race; the tall, lanky, dudes who race for the local running stores and are so hardcore that they wear the short shorts even when it's 16° outside. I renewed my membership, registered, and got my shirt. I thought it couldn't get worse than last year's.

2012: Puke green.

2013: I never make copies in this color.

Same creative unique Microsoft Paint design. Same practical normal old man sweatshirt (but the interior is so soft!). Worse color? Still up for debate. Joe says that last year's puke green is way worse than this year's goldenrod. I think he just prefers this year's color because it tugs at his heart strings like the gold and blue of the Toledo Rockets.

Anywho, after throwing my shirt into my car and pacing about trying to warm up, the race was underway at 9:05. No bibs, no mats, and no timing chips for this little race. Just we runners and some old dude yelling "Go!" I had a plan to run smarter than last year. Instead of going out doing sub-8s, this year I intended to stick around 8:30 for the entire race. After all, I wasn't chasing any award (do you think they'd give any kind of award when the race budget only allows for that gem of a shirt up there?). I just needed to run my 14 miles for training. A PR would be a bonus.

I went out about 25 second faster per mile than I had planned. The first mile follows the road out of the metropark and takes runners past a couple of horse farms, and my gaiter couldn't protect me from a solid whiff of horse poop straight to the face. The pack thinned out quickly and once we were out of the park and onto route 295 (boring, straight, windy country road), we were running pretty much single-file in the shoulder of the road. I passed a few people in the next couple of miles before turning onto another boring, straight, windy country road and making it to some water. Rinse and repeat. The route isn't terribly interesting. Actually it borderlines on terribly boring. It's pretty much a figure-8 that you run twice. Running past that Mile 10 sign when you're really only at about 2.5 sucks, but it feels awesome when you've only got 5.5 miles to go.

Mile 10 was where I started to feel really good; I was almost certain that I'd PR, as long as I didn't crap out. That last 5.5 kinda flew by and I didn't find myself doing my usual countdown to pass the time. When I turned onto the final straight-away, which is about a mile, I felt unusually positive. Instead of thinking, "I am so glad that I am almost finished," I was thinking more along the lines of, "I could do a few more." I finished in 2:09 to PR, some old dude handed me a popsicle stick with the number 36, I handed it off to another old person who recorded my number, and I turned the corner to walk to my car.

Here's the comparison between last year and this year:


Oh, AND Joe surprised me. He just missed my finish, because he was busy running 10 miles at home, but he did meet me halfway to my car with a bagel from Barry's and a chocolate milk. What a dude, right? I like him.

As it turns out, I was the 32nd finisher, despite getting popsicle stick number 36. Official time: 2:09:30.

Feb 13, 2013

Yassos? Yessir.

I had a great week of training last week. My plan called for this:

Monday: Plyo
Tuesday: 3 miles
Wednesday: 6 miles
Thursday: 3 miles
Friday: Rest
Saturday: 6 miles
Sunday: 13 miles

And here's what I did:

Monday: Rest
Tuesday: 3.7 miles
Wednesday: 6.01 miles (ahem, at 8:01 pace)
Thursday: 3.89 miles & Plyo
Friday: Rest
Saturday: 7.02 miles
Sunday: 13.01 miles

Finally in week four, I did everything that I needed to do. Well, excluding doing Plyo on the right day. But at least I did it. Well, really I wasn't supposed to do Plyo at all last week. My plan calls for Core Synergistics. However, Joe really wants to do Plyo every week, so I think that I am going to just do that every week instead of Core. For what it's worth, I made Plyo my biznatch last week.

Given my great success (channel your best Borat), I decided to challenge myself for the rest of CLE training.

Cue the Yasso 800s.

If I am going to reach my bad-ass goal for the Cleveland Marathon, I need to do more than hit my weekly mileage and incorporate Plyo. I need regular speed workouts. I'm not sure if I buy it that Yasso 800s work, but I can't knock it before I try it.

Tammy and I hit the nearby middle school, hoping to trespass onto their track. They have that shit on serious lock-down, so we just ran the parking lots and sidewalks around the school. Once around was about a half-mile, it's more or less a rectangle, and at 6:00PM we didn't need to dodge crazy parents in minivans, so despite being denied by the chain link fence, we have a solid location for future speed work. After a one-mile warm-up, here's how our first attempt went:

.5 miles: 3:35
.25 miles: 2:08
.5 miles: 3:33
.25 miles: 2:10
.5 miles: 3:35
.25 miles: 2:08
.5 miles: 3:32

After the first interval, I think we both felt like keeling over. I was certain that the next .5 would be significantly slower, but as the numbers show, we were pretty consistent. During this workout I learned that I have a lot to learn about what a faster pace feels like--we intended to aim for 3:50, but clearly that wasn't enough of a challenge for Team Elite. I could have looked at my watch for pace, but running way faster than my "normal," I was too focused on breathing and not letting my legs just give up on me. I am definitely happy with what we did and it gives me hope for next time when we add two more intervals. If the Yasso 800s theory holds true, as long as I can maintain those 3:35ish half-miles as I increase the intervals, I should be able to reach my goal time for CLE.

Feb 4, 2013

Week 3 of CLE

I'm a week closer to marathon number three. I try to stay away from cliche phrases like that, since we are always getting closer to an event in the future rather than implying that it's possible to be further. Anywho, here is the week in running by numbers:

5 runs
27.87 miles
4:02:11 (h:m:s)
6.9 miles per hour (average)
2,637 calories burned

I fell thirteen-hundredths of a mile short of my plan (28). I blame it on the weather--not the cold, but the crappy rain-sleet-opening-of-the-angry-heavens on Wednesday night. I had a long day. Rob agreed to join me to run at 7:30PM when I was finally free for the evening and since didn't have a single chance to even think about checking the weather, I planned for us to run 6 miles. It was 46° but windy when we got started, so I threw on a vest over my short-sleeved shirt. As soon as we hit the pavement, the wind kicked up with easily 20 mile per hour gusts. A few minutes later, the sky pelted us with tiny, cold rain drops. Those rain drops quickly became semi-frozen. We wussed out just over 3 miles, but I was so very happy to be done. I tried to compensate for the short mileage through Sunday and fell just short.

Oh, and I completed Plyometrics!

As the photo demonstrates, I wasn't sure of myself upon the warm-up. I had watched Joe do it the night before (while I was curled in the fetal position on the couch) and was impressed by his soft landings and the sweat pouring from his head. I didn't think I'd make it through without quitting or throwing a hissy fit.

I did the entire 60ish minutes of jumping, squatting, lunging, and combining all three into moves only Tony Horton could conjure. I did need a short break on two moves. The first was Run Squat 180-Jumps, which is in the final sequence of moves. I skipped 2 of the jumps because I could feel my form falling apart and I didn't want to "dog it," as Tony describes sloppy execution of his moves. The other sequence that I cut short was in the bonus round (yes, I'm a baller and made it to the bonus round)--Pitch and Catch. I never have been a baseball or softball player, so that move was not in my repertoire of things that I can do without looking like a newborn giraffe falling out of the birth canal and then flailing its giant, awkward legs in an attempt to mobilize itself. I wasn't tired or dogging it, but completely incapable of watching the move and executing it simultaneously. When I thought I finally got the right-handed move right, it was time to switch to left-handed. Yeah, that was probably comical.

With that, week four has begun. Although I'm supposed to do Core Synergistics tonight, Joe and I instead plan to do Plyo together. I've added another race to my plan, which is the Toledo Road Runners 25K on February 17th. It was one of my training races for Glass City last year. I killed it in the first five miles at 8-minute pace, then I kinda fell apart. I finished just over 15 miles in 2:10. I was still new to running at the time, so I'm thinking that this time around I should be able to pace myself better and maybe even PR the course.

LAST but not and least important: I received my free Rite Aid Cleveland Marathon early-bird sign-up gift. I predicted when I registered for CLE that the gift would be something best stored in a trash can.


I was right.