Also...

I forgot to mention that I did some strides on Saturday. In the parking lot of the park.

The Week

Mon: 40 min. yoga, was seriously shaking by the end... Why is yoga so freaking hard???

Tues: off

Wed: 30 Day Shred DVD -- I did Level 2, which is my nemesis. I was sore the next day, so that's at least a sign that I actually worked hard.

Thurs/Fri: off, Thurs. was legit, Fri. was laziness

Sat: 3 mile run at Governor Nelson State Park. I headed over there after work and had a lovely run. It was the perfect fall weather and since it's not super warm there weren't as many people there as usual. Forgot both a watch and my iPod so I was super old school. And 3 miles is an estimation.

Sun: A little over 4. Ran an old loop that I haven't done in a while. Happy b/c I averaged under 9:00 pace w/o too much effort.

ditto...

same as yesterday...

3 mi. easy at 6:50

today gives me 20 on the week, so we'll see what happens tomorrow and sunday...

spontaneous workout, part 2

i ended up skipping my hill workout this week, which is a bummer, but i can try to get it in next week. today ended up being a quick run in between getting food ready for the team dinner tonight and going to help with karissa's halloween party. i had to hurry because i had apple pie cake in the oven; i did 5ish miles in 34:44. felt pretty good, but very sweaty. turns out it's not that cold out today. oh well.

day on is the new day off...

i have decided to try to take one of the two days a week i have been taking off, and just do 2-3 mi. easy instead of 0.  today was the first such day...

3 mi. easy @ 6:45

spontaneous workout

wednesday: 6 miles. one of the women on the team's running partner was injured so i jumped in and did the workout with her. 3 x 1200 on the ambroe mile at race pace. 1200 instead of 1500 because of the ridiculous amount of sand on the front end still. i was encouraged at how easy they felt, even though they were meant to feel not that hard. all in all, it was kind of fun to do something outside of my training box. after, i did about 4 barefoot strides on the indoor track (don't worry alison, it was only because my shoes were really muddy) which felt really good.
it wasn't until i was about to start doing this workout that I realized i did a workout on tuesday also. oh well. neither of them was particularly demanding. i still need to squeeze in a hill workout this week and that promises to be much more tiring. hopefully tomorrow.

mission accomplished...

pocket workout

2 mi. @ 6:45  warm-up
1 mi. @ 5:00  kablammo!
1 mi. @ 7:00-ish  cool-down

my goal was to do a workout the included a mile at 5:00 pace either later this week, or next week.  done!

chillin'...

4 mi. easy @ 6:45-ish

like it ain't no thang...

40 mph tailwind + 60 mph gusts = I AM SO FAST!!

it was SO windy! the plan was to run 6 miles and do 4 miles of long-tempo (marathon pace) in the middle. i ended up doing a bit more than that because it felt so darn good. dave was nice enough to drive me out and drop me off so the wind was at my back and it was a darn good thing he did since it was crazy windy. i took splits in kind of random places since i wasn't sure about mile marks. here's how it went down:
first 1.1 miles of "warm-up" to house 7:29 (6:48 pace)
start "workout"
next .66 miles to intersection 4:17 (6:29 pace)
next mile 7:01 pace
next .85 miles to the trail 5:50 (6:51 pace)
next 1.75 miles to the intersection at hwy 19 and hwy 3 11:39 (6:39 pace)
next .38 miles 2:34 through town, up the hill on 3rd street to washington (6:45 pace)
cool-down .36 miles to my house 2:53 (8:00 pace)

so, a little all over the place pace-wise, but i could tell a HUGE difference in how fast i was running when the wind gusted or when it was blocked by trees. all in all, it felt great - not hard at all. thank you weather for making me feel good about myself.

2 becomes 1...

2-2-1-1-2 style workout, but shortened for the weak and feeble.

2-1-1-1-1 (for a total of 6 mi.)
2 mi. @ 6:50
1 mi. @ 5:50
1 mi. @ 6:50
1 mi. @ 5:30
1 mi. @ 6:50

went great!  felt good!  foot felt fine!  ___!

stomach lessons

today: 6 easy miles in the arb. accidentally didn't start my watch when i left the house, so i have no idea what pace it is, but i also don't know exactly how far that loop is either. no biggie shorty.
at some point in this marathon prep, i'm going to have to start teaching my stomach to ingest gus or some other equally fuel-some substance. i don't really need to do that for a while - i'm thinking once my long runs get up around 12 or 13 miles - but i did start the prep work today. pre-run i ate several large handfuls of cereal and a lot of water. then, i got a package from steve's mom with a ton of halloween candy. so i ate a marshmallow peep ghost and a chocolate covered oreo. stomach felt glorious during the run, so i think that means i'm good to go (or good to gu).

wrapping up the week...

tuesday: 3 mi.
wednesday: studio review (= 0 mi.)
thursday: pocket workout 2 - 4 mi.
  1 mi. @ 6:45
  1 mi. @ 6:30
  1 mi. @ 5:00
  1 mi. @ 6:50
friday: 5 mi. on trails
saturday: 4 mi.
sunday: off

20 mi. total for the week in 5 days with 2 workouts.  feeling good, so hopefully next week is 6 days and 25-ish mi. ...

no pain

today was the halloween carnival so i went over and helped set up and then went on my long run once things got going. it turned out to be an awesome run. my legs felt a little heavy at first but warmed up nicely. i ended up going just over 10 (10.2) in 74:30 which came out to 7:18 pace. i was a little surprised at the overall time, but definitely felt like i was making some effort to pick the pace up just a touch.
overall: actually 38, but 35 if you count monday's long run in last week

cautiously optimistic

yesterday - 5 miles
today - 4 junky miles. the team did a time trial and i ran some on the way out and on the way back...sort of a real run.
the good thing was that i didn't feel my calf much at all today. i think i'll be good to go on my long run tomorrow. i'll probably stop and stretch early on and then ice cup really well after, but i think it will be fine.

calving

today i only went 4. my calf still felt tight, which i'm not happy about. i think i over-worked it a bit on the quicker long run that i did monday and then didn't stretch well at all. today i ice-cupped it pretty hard, and i could feel a ton of tension in it. i cut my run shorter than i was hoping (6), so i probably won't end up breaking 40 this week. i'm hopeful that if i heat it before i run tomorrow it will be just fine. between that, some good icing and stretching, i'm hoping to get this thing licked before it becomes any sort of problem
in the long term, i need to do more calf strengthening.

Consistency and Leprechauns

I'm not sure which you're more likely to find in Mobile, AL over the next couple of weeks.

I'm headed down to Mobile on Sunday and will be there for 10 days of pretty intense work. I'm going to squeeze in a couple more runs before I head out, and my goal will be to run at least 5 times while I'm there, any distance.

On not running...

So, I've more or less agreed to run the Green Bay Marathon with a coworker in May. Obviously, I don't really need to start training for a few months. I've decided in the meantime to focus less on running and more on overall strength. And I know we all say we're going to do that and then just go for a run anyway. So, I'm going to try REALLY HARD not to do that.

Over the past few months when I've had trouble running, my cardiovascular fitness has been totally fine. Feels like I could run forever. However, my muscles (leg, back, abs, you name it) feel fatigued much quicker than seems right and my perceived exertion level is just so high. Like it has just felt so hard to run 3 miles at 9:00 pace. And there's something not right about that.

So I'm hoping that a few months of minimal running and more of other things will help me feel more ready to go with the training come January/February. My goal is to work out 5-6 days/week for at least 30 minutes, and only 3-4 days of running. I'm having a hard time finding the time to work out... this semester has just been a bitch. So hopefully knowing I only have to get in 30 minutes of something will also encourage me to actually do something rather than being like "if I'm just going to run 3 miles again, I might as well just take the day off and study."

So far this week:

Monday - went for a 3 mile run

Tuesday - 30 min of yoga

Wednesday - Jillian Michaels' 30 Day Shred DVD (It's a 20 min. workout but super intense.)

Leaving for Philadelphia tomorrow for my first podiatry school interview (and a little Page/Brody visit), so Thursday/Friday will probably be off.

Later.

:)

this was a good run. i came up with a new pr course of 6 miles which i'm going to call spring creek 6 - basically, it's cemetery 7 from our house, minus the cemetery/carleton part. nice route, a couple mild hills with a long downhill finish and a short, steep uphill at the very end.
the best part about the run wasn't my time, though i was pretty happy with that - 42:01 (and it's actually 5.9 miles, so the pace wasn't exactly 7:00, it was 7:07). the best part was that i didn't really want to do this run today. i dragged my sleepy ass out of bed at 6:30 and started hydrating, planning to go when it was light enough (around 7:15). 7:15 came and i convinced myself that i could wait a little longer, which only made me more drowsy until i finally decided to just eat breakfast and try to squeeze the run in later. we met with a recruit at 9:45 and there was the perfect amount of time to go between that and lunch with her, so i made myself go. as soon as i started, i felt pretty good, but my left calf felt a little tight; since i strained a calf last fall and spent a couple of months not running, i was mildly concerned and started thinking...hmm, i could cut this off at jefferson parkway and make it the 4.5 mile pr loop that i used to do. i even started thinking about my blog post - planning to start it with a frowny face as the title and proceed to justify cutting the run short. when i got to jefferson, my calf had calmed down a bit and i told myself to stop being a wuss and just do the damn run.
now, i'm so glad i did, but i'm a bit concerned about having to do this again in two weeks and try to shave time off. actually, no i'm not. there's no way that was as fast as i could run. it was only as fast as i wanted to run.

running around northfield

so someday when i'm further along with this marathon training, my plan is to do at least 1, preferably 2 or 3, 20-mile long runs. it just so happens that running around the city limits of northfield (as close as possible on roads) from our house is just shy of 20 miles (19.8). i can't wait until i'm able to literally run around northfield.

day off and week plan

well, today ended up as a day off... i think that's okay since i should be able to get one in on saturday pre-time trial. to make up for it, i'm going to shoot for 40 miles this week 5 days at 6 miles and a 10 mile long run. i'm going to count yesterday's long run as being in last week and sunday's 6 miles in this week to avoid the two long runs in the same week bonus. i'm guessing that my legs will be tired by the time sunday rolls around, but i can deal.

short and sweet...

the pocket workout.

4 mi. -
1 mi. @ 7:00
1 mi. @ 6:00
1 mi. @ 5:30
1 mi. @7:00

went well, foot felt good, all is well...

weird days

well, last week was not great, but not awful. i ended up getting in 4 runs, though two of them were in the same day. i was going to go long yesterday but decided to wait until today so that i could run with the team. so last week looked like:
wednesday 5 and 4.5 (hills AM, quasi-"workout" PM)
thursday 4 legs felt WIPED after the hills on weds, so i cut this short
fri OFF - silly...should have run
sat OFF - no time between meet and helping Donna with Karissa
sun 6 - legs felt great at first, but then felt tired by about half-way. when i got back i suddenly felt super nauseous. unsure why. tried eating something but that made it worse. suddenly felt exhausted, like falling asleep while i was sitting there, so i took a nap. felt a little better when i woke up but not great.

so... something like 20ish miles in 4 runs last week. decent, but could have been better.

today: 9 miles with alison (smyth, not traff). great run with some thresholdy pickups mixed in. legs felt kind of tired, but it felt good to run with her. after, i had some coffee and a doughnut and now my tummy feels awful again. perhaps i need to stop eating right after my runs...

my week

i deliberately chose not to post each day so that i would feel obligated to get in a good week. i ran 11 miles this week, which i suppose is better. i meant to run this weekend, and i didn't. oops.

anyway, back to the grind...

glad to have you back nathan!

i went out for my run today planning on 5 mi., but i got back in a disappointing 37:41.  i gmap-pedometer-ed the route, though, and it turns out that i went further than i thought: 5.8!  awesome.

5.8 @ moderate pace

felt good, stopped to stretch about halfway.  foot felt good too.

weekly total: 22.5!

Who could say no to a 20k...

...not this guy.

On Friday night a couple friends and I decided we should run around Lake Monona on Saturday morning, and it took surprisingly little badgering to get everyone to follow through with it. I was a little nervous about running that far in my Nike Frees (I had heard from others that they can start to take a toll on stabilizing muscles after 5-6 miles), but I didn't have any trouble. It was an awesome fall day in Madison -- 60s and sunny with a light breeze. And when I said 'morning', I meant that we were shooting for 10am and left by 11...

short day...

the streak continues: this is my 4th day in a row, and i felt great!

3 mi. @ 7:00-ish

foot felt great, legs felt great, lungs felt great...

doubling up

whoa... when it rains it pours, i guess. i wouldn't say i got in two "workouts" even though i jumped into the workout with the team this afternoon. the slowest girl on our team's running partner got injured during the workout and she seemed to be struggling, so i jumped in for the last two 1500s with her. between that, the warm-up, cool-down and recovery in between, i probably got in another 4.5 miles. the 1500s were at around 7:45-8:00 pace, so it really doesn't count as a workout. she's really not very fast...

rollin' w/ my homies...

5.5 mi. @ 6:45 with double johns this morning

i felt good, my foot felt good, and the weather was perfect!


so far so good on the week (13.7 and counting)...

first real workout

today was good.
5 miles total: one mile warm-up, 3 miles workout, 1 mile cool-down
6x400m cemetery hill (98, 1:44, 96, 96, 96, 90)
felt like i probably could have done a couple more or at the very least not had that 1:44 in there, but my legs definitely feel fatigued after and i can shoot for 8 next time.

as a side note, alison, you should encourage nathan to add a post...otherwise it's just SAC attack and i have a feeling that graphic would be considerably less cute than the killer cupcake. :)

kind of a bust

well...last week didn't go so great. i think i got in something like 15 miles in 3 days (mon, wed, thurs).
I haven't run since then - yesterday by the time I got back from the airport it was time for practice and it was getting dark by the time I got home. Today I was just fucking lazy. Got to get back on my horse!

Had a great chat with Dave about training. Here are the bullet points of my general plan:
-increase mileage to around 60 mi/week
-increase long runs to around 20 mi/week
- this will probably take a while...repeating distances some weeks
-once/week do a long tempo run at marathon pace, which i'm thinking will be around 7:00-7:30
- gradually increase the distance of this workout
-every other week do a hill workout, gradually increasing volume
-on alternating weeks, do some sort of a "pr course". this is a run that starts and finishes at the house and is a set distance that i can repeat and try to "pr" on. i have one that is 4.5, and another that is 9 (which i won't do for a few months) but i need to figure out one that is somewhere in between - maybe around 7.
-next spring/summer, try to get up to do long runs on marathon course

time to get cracking on this. if my legs feel remotely good tomorrow morning, once i've gotten warmed up, i'd like to do some hills.

hot and heavy...

the title describes how i felt on today's short run...

2.7 mi. @ 6:45-ish

ugh...

back to my mission...

end of last week:
- fri: off (unintentional - working to get ready for cassie to visit)
- weekend: off

weekly total: 10.  not bad for just over 2 days...


this week:
mon: 5.5 mi. with nowinski (no watch = no pace)

foot felt relatively good...

doing it...

4 mi.  chillin' - foot felt good.

on track...

catch-up and/or ketchup...

last week:
fri: off
sat: off
sun 7 mi. with nowinski - my longest yet, but my foot started hurting at the end

22 total for the week!  (but the excitement of this was marred by the bad wheel)

this week:
mon: off (for foot recovery)
tues: 2 mi. (foot recovery, but it felt fine)
wed: 4 mi. easy with the johns - foot felt good!

i'm on the road to recovery...

fun finish

well, it was a good week. finished off with a lovely 4 mile run with alison today. the whole day got me fired up to try the marathon next year. big fun!
sunday: 4 miles

weekly total: 33 miles in 6 days.

good consistency; now i just need to keep upping the miles. net week, it would be good to try to mix in some 6 mile runs during the week and to increase the long run, if i'm feeling good by then. of course, i'll be in austin friday-monday, so chances are good that i won't get all 6 days in, but we'll see. maybe i'll try to get the long run in before i leave on thursday.

about time for a great week

and this was it! i'll wait to do the full week recap until i see what i end up doing tomorrow with a-town, but so far so good. especially encouraging was today's run.
thursday: long 5 in the arb (making up for the short 5 on wednesday)
friday: 5 in the arb in the AM, lots of sprinting around the course in the PM - i'm guessing an additional mile of intervals, plus the mile of warmup that we did with the team.
saturday: 9 miles. i wasn't sure how my legs would feel after all of that sprinting around the course last night, but i got myself up and did my 9 mile long run today and was shocked at how good my legs felt. the weather was good, if a bit breezy, but it was mostly a cross-wind. i was alarmed when i got home and saw how long i had been running for until i confirmed that my route had not been short. 9 miles, average 7:34 pace and i felt like could have easily done the whole thing quicker if i'd wanted to.
now i'm pumped to go cheer and watch the marathon and run with/cheer for alison!

yesterday...

4 mi @ easy, except for 3rd mi. (1200 @ 6:30, 400 @ 5:30)

felt good.  i am at 15 mi. so far for this week, planning on 6 mi. long run on sunday, so today may be off...