Looking for something? Try here...

Thursday, June 30, 2011

10 mile tempo run.

Today was a fun, new experience...I did my 10 mile tempo run with my husband!  This was his long run for the week and the longest he has run since he decided to train for the Pocatello Half Marathon in September.  We got an early start  so we would be back around the time the kids usually wake up for the day.  Things started out fine, although I'm still feeling some lingering soreness in my hamstrings from my runs earlier in the week.  At around mile 3, Chris said he needed to go to the bathroom, smiled at me, then took off towards the other side of the road and off into a field of sagebrush and Juniper trees.  I just kept running, wondering how on earth someone could do "that" out there in the open!  I mean, you hear stories of runners doing "that", but I've never run with anyone who has had to do "that"...I just like saying it like "that"...☺

Anyway, I slowed to a jogging pace while I waited for him to catch up to me, then we continued on with our run.  We did a hard, hilly route and I maintained my tempo pace pretty well, despite feeling that annoying legs o' lead feeling.  Chris also did very well, even pushing faster up the hills then slowing a bit to wait for me at the top.  At 8 miles we took a short walking break before finishing up the last two miles.  I tried to pick up the speed a little during the last 1/2 mile, and I could tell Chris was super tired, but he did it and it was fun to finish together, bonded by sweat, cramps, aches pains and blisters!

Now I will cool down and stretch with some Yoga, while Chris heads off to work.

Wednesday, June 29, 2011

Cross-training.

I think I'm still recovering from our vacation, or maybe from my long run on Monday...my body just wants to sleep in every morning and I feel sore and stiff.  Once I got going, I got in a good cross-training workout, starting with 20 minutes of mat work Pilates, followed by level 1 of 30 Day Shred.  Lastly, I did 45 minutes on the elliptical.  Does more sweating mean you're burning more calories?  I'd like to think so. :)

Tuesday, June 28, 2011

"Speed-Work".

This morning I did 4.5 miles worth of speed-work.  I kind of got a late start, I was feeling tired and sore when I woke up this morning so I slept in a little bit and didn't get outside for my run until 8:30.  It's warm out there and it feels so good.  I wasn't able to go into town to use the track at the school, so I just went to the park to use the path there.  My schedule said to do 7 X 800m repeats (1/2 mile repeats with rest intervals), but since the track at the park is 5/8 of a mile, I had to improvise a little bit.  I did have my Garmin on, but I just started the timer/gps going as I walked there as a warm up, then I ran for a lap, walked for about 20-30 seconds then ran another lap, and repeated that for a total of 2.5 miles.  At that point, I was having some stomach cramping and my foot was hurting quite a bit so I decided to come home, where I did some stretching and laid on the floor for a few minutes before getting on the treadmill to do another 30 minutes worth of speed intervals totaling 2 more miles.

Monday, June 27, 2011

15 miles ~ I'm back!!

Home sweet home...


As much as I love going on vacation with my family and getting to spend time in new places, it felt good to be able to run in a familiar place this morning where I could relax and just enjoy the run.  I did 15 miles because I wasn't able to do a long run on Saturday, as my schedule dictated.  I was a little worried about coming home and jumping right back into things with such a long run, since my workouts while we were gone were, well...not much, to be honest.  We were camping the whole time, which I figure burns more calories than most regular days at home because you're up doing stuff all the time.

Last Monday I did do a 4.5 mile run at the first campground we stayed at because it was a little less rustic and had a mile long stretch of paved road where I just did laps.  I didn't do any running the rest of the week, although we did several small hikes (1-3 miles), and two longer hikes (5-6 miles each).

This morning I set the alarm to wake up at 5am and I was out the door by 5:45.  Surprisingly, I felt great.  I guess a little break from running helped my body get some needed recovery time.  I did the whole 15 miles with no walking breaks, and finished in 2 hours and 52 minutes, averaging 11:28 min/mile.  My foot, which hasn't bothered me for the past few days, didn't start to hurt until a few miles into my run, but it wasn't as bad as it has been, so I'm hoping it will work itself out - really, I will avoid going to the doctor until it becomes truly unavoidable.  After my run I did 15 minutes of Yoga stretching and now, starting tomorrow, I will be back on track with my regular schedule, which means a second long run on Saturday, so hopefully I will continue to feel strong.

Friday, June 17, 2011

14 miles.

After a pretty decent night's sleep, I was up at 4:45am and getting ready for my long run.  I ate 1/2 a banana, drank a 5-hour energy supplement, wrapped my bum foot with a small ace bandage and headed out the door.  After a couple of minutes of walking I started my run.  My foot hurt, I'm not gonna lie.  I'm not going to be surprised if I have stress fracture, but like I said, I'm not going to get it checked until we get back from our trip.  I did an out and back run, and I hit some serious winds from miles 5-9 and it was COLD!  Once I got down to the last 3-4 mile stretch, I was facing the sun and that felt so much better.  I ran the entire time, and actually for the last couple of miles my foot was more or less numb anyway.  One mental-physical hurdle I conquered on this run is a huge hill that I usually end up walking, at least partly, today I ran the whole thing!  Other than the foot issue, I was really feeling good.  It ticks me off that I just can't feel good everywhere at the same time - there is always some injury, pain or soreness somewhere.  When I hit the half marathon point at 13.1 miles, I was at 2 hours and 29 minutes, and I reached 14.1 miles at 2 hrs. 40 min. exactly.  My average pace was 11:22 min/mile, a good pace for me for a long run.

Now that I have that done, I can finish stretching and then get to work packing the rest of our stuff for our week long camping/family reunion trip to Teton National Park ~ Woo hoo!  While we're gone I won't be able to blog, but I'll do a recap of my week when I get back.  I will be trying to fit in at least 3 shorter runs while we're gone, but I won't do another long run until a week from Monday after we get back home.  I'm not really interested in being eaten by a bear or something like that!

Thursday, June 16, 2011

Cross-training is not for wimps.

Today I did a (very) long cross-training session, partly because I discovered a new show to watch on Hulu.com and partly to procrastinate all the laundry, cleaning, packing and food prep that is lying in wait for me the rest of the day.  I started out with 10 minutes of floor work Pilates, then I did level 2 of 30 Day Shred.  After that I put on episode 1 of "The Voice", was sucked in....and 1 hour and 20 minutes later I had finished a very sweaty elliptical workout.  Tomorrow I will be doing my long run and I'm anxious to see how it goes with my foot bothering me as much as it is.  I will tape it up and hopefully that will help.  Otherwise, I maybe doing a 3 hour elliptical workout instead! ;)

Wednesday, June 15, 2011

5 mile tempo run.

This morning I surprised myself by waking up at around 5:30am, after staying up way too late last night.  My husband and I were organizing and packing groceries and other items into our camper in preparation for our upcoming trip, then we went to bed around 11pm, but stayed up for another hour watching a show.  At any rate, I was up, so I decided to go ahead and go on my run.  I didn't do much of a warm up, I just did a few stretches then went out and started walking for a few minutes before starting my run.  Since this was supposed to be a tempo run (as described in the book, the first mile to be done at a moderately easy pace as part of the warm up, then the middle 3 miles at a set pace, slightly slower than 10K pace, then ease up on the last mile), I set my Garmin to alert me if I slowed below 11:00min/mile.  For the first mile I definitely felt "off", a little sluggish, and of course my Garmin was beeping at me so I knew I was already a little slow.  Once I got past the first couple of hills on my run, and I felt warmed up, I just focused on staying steady and I thankfully didn't hear any beeping from my Garmin so I knew I was near my pace.  My foot was really hurting and I'm coming to the realization that I'm probably going to need to get it x-rayed, but it will wait until after we get back from our trip.  I'm hoping that if I take a little "break" while we're on our vacation it will have a chance to heal from whatever the problem is.  Anyway, back to my run...I kept that steady pace until I had gone the whole 5 miles, then I walked the rest of the way home.  When I downloaded my Garmin info I was very surprised and pleased to see that it only took me 51 minutes to do 5 miles and my average pace was 10:19min./mile.  That's really good for me, and definitely faster than I thought I was going.  Maybe the speed work is starting to pay off a little bit.  ;)  After my run I also did JM's 30 minute Yoga Meltdown.

Tuesday, June 14, 2011

Cross-training.

This morning I did my usual cross-training workout: level 1 of 30 Day Shred followed by 40 minutes on the elliptical.  After that I walked with the kids to the playground and then walked laps around the black top while they played, for about 20 minutes of walking.

I received my copy of the book "Run Less Run Faster" in the mail several days ago and have been reading through it.  There are a couple of things I'm unsure about when it comes to my routine.  One of the things the book says is that the key to the cross-training workouts is that they need to be high-intensity aerobic workouts without being weight bearing, so that the muscles used for running can get their adequate recovery time.  The book lists the elliptical machine as one of the "not suggested" modes of cross-training because even though it offers a good aerobic and fat burn, it is still weight bearing.  The book also says that weight training is not considered cross-training for the purposes of following the training method outlined in the book.  Unfortunately, I don't have a gym membership or easy access to a bike, spinner, rowing machine or swimming pool - the elliptical is all I've got, so I have to make do.  The core of the FIRST training method (as it is outlined in the book) is that you do 3 key runs a week and 2-3 key cross-training workouts, vs. other training plans that have you running 5-6 days a week.  The premise is that the three runs each have a specific purpose - speed, tempo, endurance (long run) - and then the cross-training workouts provide additional cardio-respiratory fitness without risking injury or burnout.  I like the plan so far, other than my hang up with doing the proper cross-training.  Other than the minor foot injury/problem I'm currently facing, I feel great.  The speed workouts I find to be kind of confidence boosters.  I like feeling like a faster, stronger runner.  Even though the weekly mileage is less, I feel stronger.

Monday, June 13, 2011

5.25 miles of speedwork.

Normally, according to my schedule today would be a cross-training day, but this week I have to switch my running days because on Saturday we are leaving for a week long trip and I'm going to be doing my long run of Friday morning instead of Saturday morning.  So that means today became my speed work out day.  After doing 20 minutes of Pilates to warm up my muscles, my husband and I geared up and headed into town to do our runs at the track.  We found a middle school with an open track, it's a little bit further away from our house (about a 12 minute drive), but not too big of a deal.  I really like doing the speed workouts on a track.  It's so nice to just start my Garmin at the beginning and then forget about it and just do my thing, using the track itself to gauge my distance for running and resting intervals.  I started out with one lap (400 meters, or 1/4 mile) of walking for a warm up, then I did 10 X 400 meters, with 400m rest intervals.  In other words, I'd run 1 lap at a faster than normal pace, then walk/jog one lap to recover, then repeat 10 times, for a total distance covered of 5.25 miles.  When I got home and downloaded my Garmin info, I was excited to see that for each of my speed intervals, my pace was right around 7 min/mile for the whole 1/4 mile.  Unfortunately, my foot started to hurt again after just a few minutes of running.  It's very annoying.

Saturday, June 11, 2011

10 mile long run.

To my shock and amazement the weather actually cooperated with my plans for a run this morning, yippee!  I woke up around 6:30 and was on the road by 6:45.  It was all in all an uneventful run.  I ran the whole thing, minus about 1/4 mile of walking up a huge hill around mile 7, finishing the 10 miles in 1 hour and 50 minutes.  Not breaking any speed records here, but feeling pretty good.

I have had a new "problem" with one of my feet.  A few weeks ago I noticed a bulging lump on the top of my ankle, right around where the top of the tongue of the shoe hits.  It doesn't hurt to touch it, but I've been watching it and it has gotten a little bigger.  Last night my foot was bothering me, not super painful, but annoying, with the pain starting in the area of the lump and going down the top of my foot to my big toe.  Today was the first time on a run it started to hurt and made running a little harder, but I'm icing it now.  I'm thinking along the lines of a ganglion cyst or something like that, but if it keeps bugging me, I may have to go to a doctor and have it checked...ugh.  I hate doctors.

Friday, June 10, 2011

Rest, yeah right!

This morning is a "rest" day, but I did level 2 of 30 Day Shred just to get my heart pumping a little. ;)  And, of course, the sun is shining and it seems it's going to be a beautiful day.  Since it's a non-running day for me, after cub scouts and grocery shopping, I'm hoping to get the kids outside and to the park for a little exercise.

Thursday, June 9, 2011

3 mile tempo run.

Well I guess I stupidly assumed that after my "spring" marathon, I would come home and start my "summer" training season, leaving the dreadmill behind, at least for a few months...

This morning when I woke up and heard the rain pounding on the roof, I actually considered for a moment going out to do my 3 mile run...what's a little rain, right?  Then I got realistic when I went out on the porch and saw the down pour and headed for the treadmill.  My schedule had me doing a 3 mile tempo run, so in a way I suppose it should have been an easy thing to do - just set the treadmill for my desired pace and run for 3 miles - simple.  Sort of.  I honestly have not honed the treadmill vs. road running pace thing.  I know I can run 3 miles on the road in under 30 minutes, and my goal had I been running outside today was to run it in under 28 minutes, which I know I could have done, possibly even faster.  The problem with running on the treadmill is that I feel like I have to work so much harder, that the faster I go, the more out of control of my body I feel.  I did my 3 mile tempo run at a 5.5 mph pace, and at the end I was literally dripping with sweat and felt like I was going to vomit.  I did a little walking at the end as a cool down, so I spent a total of 3.6 miles and 48 minutes on the treadmill.  After my run, I did 30 minutes of Pilates floor work.  Now I don't run again until my scheduled 10 miler on Saturday, and I'm telling you it had better be warm and sunny or I am seriously going to start researching jobs and real estate in southern California!

Wednesday, June 8, 2011

Cross-training day.

Today I still have a little bit of a headache, but it's better than yesterday thankfully.  I think it's partly due to hormones, but also some stress I've been feeling over trying to plan a trip that we're taking in about a week and a half.  The financial and logistical aspects are weighing me down, and I've been trying to overcome these feelings through my workouts and by eating healthy foods.  Gradually it has been helping.  Today for my cross-training workout I started with level 1 of 30 Day Shred, then I did 40 minutes on the elliptical, so not much new on that front.  My husband and I do have plans to work out in the yard and garden today as well, which I also like to think of as cross-training. :)

Tuesday, June 7, 2011

3 miles of speed work.

Well, the headache I had all day yesterday was still lingering when I got out of bed early this morning, as was the rain and cool temperatures.  But, I still managed to head over to the high school track to do my workout.  Unfortunately, when I got there the gate was chained and I couldn't get in to use the track.  I guess since school's out, I might have to figure out an alternative.  In the meantime, for today's run I just came home and used the treadmill to do my 3 X 1600 repeats.  I warmed up for a few minutes with some walking, followed by a slow jog, then increased the speed and ran at a faster pace for 1 mile, then slowing to a jog for about 4 minutes, then repeat.  When I finished I had actually gone a little over 3 1/2 miles, including the recovery portions.  After my run, I did level 1 of JM's Yoga Meltdown.  My headache feels a little better now, but I am tempted to go back to bed.  I guess I'll finish my chocolate-banana-peanut butter smoothie and go take a shower instead. :)

Monday, June 6, 2011

Cross-training Monday.

For my workout this morning I started out with level 1 of 30 Day Shred.  After that I did 45 minutes on the elliptical.  My legs are still sore from Saturday's long run, but this week is an "easy" week, with 3 miles worth of speed work tomorrow, 3 mile tempo run on Thursday and a 10 mile long run on Saturday.

Saturday, June 4, 2011

12.65 miles.

I got an early start on this morning's long run, heading out the door at 6:15 after a brief warm up.  I had dressed in a new running outfit - a pink singlet and a black running skirt - anticipating a warm run since it's sunny and predicted highs are supposed to reach mid 70's.  Unfortunately at that early in the morning there wasn't much warmth, even when the sun came up over the mountains, and I was cold the entire run.  It's even worse when you start to sweat but you still feel cold.  At any rate, I completed my run, taking a few walking breaks during the last 4-5 miles.  I felt really good during the first 7-8 miles, as is typical for me, but I hit a wall after that and really had to push myself to finish.  I had to remind myself that I'm only 2 weeks out from the marathon and my muscles are still recovering.  Now I'm going to enjoy the rest of this sunny Saturday knowing I don't run again until Tuesday. :)

Thursday, June 2, 2011

7 mile tempo run.

I meant to get up early this morning to do my run, but my body didn't want to cooperate and I slept in until about 7.  I did a brief warm-up before heading out for my 7 mile tempo run.  According to the book, on this run the goal was to maintain a consistent pace at about 20 seconds slower than my 10K pace.  The problem I'm having with this plan is that all the runs are based on gauging all of my paces according to my 10K pace and I don't really know what that is.  I've just gone through all of my Garmin downloads for the past year and looked at what pace most of my 6-7 mile runs were.  I'm more interested in what pace I would like to be doing, and kind of going from there.  At any rate, for today's run, I set my Garmin to alert me if I was going slower than 11 min/mile so I would know to speed up a little bit.  There were a couple of times that my alarm went off; man, it is hard to keep a consistent pace when running out on the road, taking into account all the hills, etc.  There were also a few times I looked at my pace on my watch and I was going under 10 min/mile.  When I downloaded my run info from my Garmin when I got home, it showed that I had an average pace of 10:37 min/mile, finishing a little over 7 miles in just under 74 minutes.  I guess that works.  I felt like I was pushing myself more than I usually do, and I guess that's the point of these tempo runs.  I did a few minutes of stretching after my run, but again today I hope to get in some Pilates a little later.

Wednesday, June 1, 2011

Cross-training.

I can totally tell that I did a speed workout yesterday because my body is sore in all kinds of places.  Luckily, today is not a run day.  I started my cross-training workout with level 2 of 30 Day Shred, then I did 30 minutes on the elliptical followed by a 15 minute walk on the treadmill to cool down.