big week

my legs have felt a little dead, but i can't tell whether it's the increase in mileage this week, the 7 hours in the car yesterday taking Simone down to run the 10k at Drake, or remnants of last Sunday's 12-miler. i ended up missing the deadline to register for the lake minnetonka half marathon this sunday, but i was pretty ambivalent about it anyway, so i think that's okay. there will be other chances to get in a race sometime soon.
wednesday: 7.5 in the arb nice and easy
thursday: 7 in the arb, slightly quicker, legs feeling a bit peppier
today: 5 in the arb and legs felt stiff and dead.

workout...

1.5 mi. warm-up
4.5 mi. decending from 6:40 to 5:50
2 mi. cool down

8 mi. total

long time, no post...

ok - so it has been quite a while since i last posted anything.  i guess this is a recap of what has happened.  last week was bad - less than 40 mi. and only 2 really good runs.  this week has been better:

m - 11 mi. long run - difficult, but ok.  left hip flexor sore/fatigued afterwards
t - 7 mi. easy - hip flexor still fatigued going up hills
w - 5 mi. moderate pace.  feeling good - hopefully a workout tomorrow...

recovery

yesterday - easy 6 in the arb. legs felt tired, but not in a bad way; just fatigued.
today - easy 7 in very windy, wet, cool weather out past the wind turbine. glad now to have done it, but it was a tough one to get out the door for. not particularly fast (7:45ish pace). legs were still pretty tired from sunday, but on the plus side, the massive side/head winds didn't seem to be blowing me all over the road, which is a definite positive.
also, even though my quads feel fatigued from the run on sunday, i haven't felt my hamstring at all for 3 days now. the random day off last friday seems to have done the trick!

tricking myself

today i did a long run of 12 miles. i mapped it out ahead of time and had a few mile marks in mind. at first, my legs felt kind of dead, but i stopped and stretched a bit and that seemed to help. then, as i got to the mile marks i thought i knew, it seemed like i was running a lot slower than i felt like. i decided to just keep on going the way i was since i didn't really feel bad, just like my stride was short and my legs were a little tight. turned out i measured wrong (put a loop at the end instead of the beginning) and i was actually going about the pace i thought i was.
sunday: 12 hilly miles - 87:30 for around 7:18 pace

total this week - about 40 in 6 days. legs felt decently good this week, so i feel good about upping that to 46-7 in 6 days or over 50 if i go 7 days.

decent

to recap:
thursday - 6. thought about going 7, but legs weren't feeling super-awesome and i was feeling rushed.
friday - day off. busy workday that started a bit earlier than normal. thought i'd get it in after practice, but we had an easter egg hunt and my stomach hurt too much after eating all that candy. decided that until the track season is over, expecting 7 days a week is probably unrealistic. i need to scale back to 6 and if i can get in 7, it's a bonus.
saturday - 5 easy. legs felt awesome- averaged just under 7:30 pace. last mile was a little rough due to some slight stomach issues, but that was okay.

short-er and sweet...er?

well, today i got in 4 miles with the team for their pre-meet run. i was hoping to run a bit more - around 6, but my hammy was tightening up some after i stood around at the track for a bit mid-run, so i decided to keep it short. hopefully i can make up the miles tomorrow.

2-2-1-1-2...

first workout in quite a while it seems...

2 mi warm-up
2 mi. @ 6:00 pace
1 mi. @ 7:00 pace
1 mi. @ 5:30 pace
2 mi. cool-down

much easier than the last time i did this workout!  felt great, and my ankle/foot felt the best it has in a week.  so far so good this week

yesterday was off...

short and sweet

today i slammed out a brisk 5 before sunset. my legs felt okay, but not awesome; i did do a bit of lifting this morning, so that could have had something to do with it. once again, i was tempted to not go, but i'm getting more comfortable with putting off dinner to squeeze in a run before it gets dark. in the long run, this may be a bad habit for having a normal schedule, but it is good for getting mileage in.

long run...

same 10 mi. as last monday.  it is really awesome to get the long run out of the way on the first day of the week!

felt ok... a little hard, but i ran a little faster than just regular easy pace...

big two days

my legs were super sore today from the long run yesterday, which was a bit worrisome. by the time i ran, though, at around 6:30 this evening, my legs must have loosened up enough because the run was actually awesome. i ended up going around 7.5 (8.5 if you count the jog to and from the track today) instead of the planned 6, putting me at 19.5 (20.5!) in 2 days. sweet!
also, i saw 31 deer and at least 5 pheasants on my run today. it was crazy!

stupid chores...

...getting in the way of my running.
yesterday was an unintentional day off as it took us 7 hours to hang new lights in the living room. suddenly, there wasn't even time to shower before we met donna and dave at the cow, let alone run. at least we got the lights hung and functioning.
i ended up with 40 miles in 6 days, which would have been my goal 46 in 7 if i had gotten the 6 in yesterday. all in all, i feel pretty good about it.
friday, i just did a short, quick 4. today was a long run of "12 miles". i did it in the arb, based on time, so it's a little approximate. i doubt it was any longer than that, since my legs/body felt slow today. not sure if that was a result of the miles, the time of day (1:30) that i ran, or the nutrition factor, but it was okay. not great, but okay.

the week in review...

40 mi. total in 5 days
m: 10 mi.
t: 7 mi.
w: 8 mi.
th: off
f: 7 mi.
sa: off
su: 8 mi.

all in all not too bad...

the run that almost wasn't

i came this close to not running last night. but i told myself that i had to do it, there just wasn't a choice and that even if i only went 4 miles instead of the 6-8 that i had planned, it was better than 0. so, i headed out into the arb and did a random 6ish miles right before the sun set. it felt really good when i got home and had done it.
this is the last accepted students' weekend at carleton, so things have been a little nuts the past few days, but in a great way. i was really glad to get my run in yesterday in spite of it. in the past, these would be the types of days where i would quite easily come up with an excuse for myself and not go.

yesterday and today...

yesterday: 8 mi. with Metzdorff @ 6:40-6:45 pace.  quick but good.

today: off (on account of mysteriously sore ankle/top-of-foot syndrome...)

workout...

1 mi. warm-up
5 x 1000m (3:09 / 3:11 / 3:11 / 3:14 / 3:13)
1 mi. cool-down

it was hard, but pretty good.  i think somewhere around 3:15-ish might be my vo2max pace...

6.5 - 7mi. total on the day.

mid-week

monday: "6 mile" unmeasured loop in the upper-lower arb - legs felt awful
tuesday: "6 mile" loop in upper-lower arb - legs felt marginally better, but not great
wednesday: "6 mile" loop - legs finally felt pretty good again

i think that i've been extra tight lately because my tendency is to run, stretch a bit (usually a very little bit) and then sit down, which makes my hammy's, quads and hip flexors tight. i think it would be good for me to keep moving around after, but that seems a bit unlikely. i'm starting to look forward to the end of the school year for the extra flexibility (so to speak).

the plan this week is to run 7 days, with one being a short 4, one being a long 12, one at 8, and the rest at 6. here's hoping!

long run but...

not as long as alison's!

10 mi. easy (arb 8 from home + a little)

first time in double-digits, and my hip flexors are none too happy about it...

(ps - nice job alison!)

LONG run

18 miles on Saturday. It hurt.

last week...

w: 6 x 800m (2:37 / 2:37 / 2:38 / 2:39 / 2:38 / 2:37) 3:00 recovery - 5.5 mi. total
th: bailed on a workout - 3 mi. warm-up / >1.5 mi. @ sub-6:00 pace / <1.5 mi. cool-down
f: 6.5 mi.
sa: 5 mi.
su: off

36 mi. total for the week and feeling good (but tired by the end of the week...)

meh

started my long run yesterday and my legs just felt like bricks. that, and my hammy felt particularly tight. not sure if it's the increase in mileage or the fact that on saturday i ran 6 miles, took a shower and then hopped in a car for an hour+ without really stretching and then proceeded to stand around at a track meet for 5 hours and sit in a car for another hour+. whatever it was, it felt not like the way you want to go into a long run. so, i'm hopeful that perhaps i can get it in tomorrow instead. if not, i'll just wait until this weekend - i'm ahead on my long run mileage, even if my overall mileage is behind.
yesterday: 3.5 miles slow
last week: 31.5 miles in 6 days (on the plus side, that is still about equal to my highest mileage week since last fall)

saturday done

yesterday ended up being a day off - poor choice of breakfast time and a lot of miles recently made me think that a day off wasn't the worst thing. i should still be able to hit 40 in 6 days this week.

today i just got in an easy 6. my legs were feeling a little tired and my hammy was fairly tight, so i made a concerted effort to go slowish. i think it ended up being around 7:35 pace.

learning to run easy

my sense of pace has been all kinds of screwed up lately. fortunately, it has been mostly on the positive - things seem to be faster than what i think when i check them. the past two days have been 5 mile easy runs. yesterday's was particularly easy because my legs were TIRED from a few quick-ish hilly days in a row. today, the plan is to get in a solid 7-8 miles easy with the team. we'll see how that turns out.

time to catch up...

last week reall went downhill at the end - i took friday and sunday off, but i did run with metzdorff and ben kampf in minneapolis on saturday.  we did six (but it seemed a little long to me).  anyway, i ended last week 1 day and 4.25 miles short of my goal of 6 days and 30 mi.  crap.

yesterday i decided to get my long run out of the way on monday, so i wouldn't have to worry about it.

8 mi. - pretty fast (unintentionally)

WINDY (20 mph, 40 mph gusts!), but my foot felt good, so that's good...

UPDATE: 5 mi. at 6:45-ish pace today...

day 1

dragged my sleepy ass out of bed this morning for what turned into a lovely, if windy, 5 miles.

day 1 of the "run every day to make sure that you don't take half the week off" plan...check!

bonus

today i did a long run with nichole porath (peterson...remember her from gac, alison) who lives in northfield now. her husband and dog tagged along. we had a nice run, very conversational, which worried me that i was going too slow for her. when i got home and pedometer-ed it, though, it turns out that it was 11 miles in 81 minutes.... i'm wondering if i forgot to start a watch or something? that makes for 7:20 pace, and i know i was a little quicker...7:10 on the way to their house and home... maybe 2 miles of it? which could mean that the rest of it was around 7:25 or something. i don't know. in any case, it was nice to have an 11 mile day that felt pretty easy, despite the fact that it was crazy windy (tailwind for part of it...) and moderately hilly.
total for the week: 25ish in 4 days...not quite the 45 in 7 i had planned, but hopefully i can get there next week.

:)

woof. yesterday i didn't go running because i was grumpy and my day was stressful. today, i almost didn't go, but when i got home from the 10 hour track meet, i got out the door and did a quick, easy 5. yay!