Month: October 2005

My nephew and I ran in the “Run Like Hell” 5K yesterday morning. I had been worried that it would rain on us, but that morning showed nearly-clear blue skies. It was a bit chilly and windy, but once we got moving we warmed up.

Max had planned on wearing his Hallowe’en costume in the race; he had his aunt put together a Link costume (from the “Legends of Zelda” games). However, he changed his mind since he didn’t want to get his costume sweaty, and just wore the hat.

I, knowing how much I sweat, did not wear a costume. I did, however, unusually for me, wear the event T-shirt. Just tryin’ to fit in.

The route was touted as “fast and flat” but there was at least one long, low-grade hill, and it took it’s toll on Max. I stuck with him, and we finished with an unofficial time of around 37 minutes.

My nephew is thinking about trying out for track or cross-country next year. Even if he doesn’t go on to compete, I’m happy to have a running partner and glad to see he’s doing something he enjoys. I’m proud of him!

I did, however, feel sorry for the half-marathoners. Their route ran along Front Ave., then all the way out Barbur Blvd. to Terwilliger, and then up and down the West Hills before finishing back downtown. I’ll be interested to see what kind of time the winners in that race turned in.

In other news, my nephew has his own blog now. Go check it out; it’s called all about every thing and every where.

Long run today. That was the plan. Weather didn’t exactly cooperate, so I headed for the gym.

Woke up late, close to noon, so instead of running on a really empty stomach (might be OK for a short easy run but 7+ miles?), decided to have a light “breakfast” around noon, then hit the gym about 2-3 hours afterward.

Wore my Adidas, and a long-sleeved tech shirt, mainly to prevent my copious amounts of sweat from flying all over. Especially on a long run, I sweat in gallons, it seems. Blech, but there it is. I come from hairy sweaty people.

The nano wasn’t charged! Frustrating. I couldn’t run that far on the treadmills without music, though, so I used the larger older iPod. It doesn’t take to shocks very well, so I set it on the shelf on the treadmill. Worried about pulling it off the shelf, but those worries were baseless. For music, I chose the Gorillaz second album, “Demon Days”. Most excellent running music (and I’ll have to add that to the nano; it’s not on there and should be).

The plan was 2 miles at a brisk warmup pace (aiming to average a 10:00 pace), then push myself hard for the next 3 miles, aiming for a 9:30 or better, then cooldown at whatever pace felt good for another 2+ miles. I tried to talk myself into committing to 7.5 miles total, but it just wasn’t happening.

First 2 miles seemed challenging but do-able. My speed bounced around, but I finished in just a hair under my planned 10:00 pace – 20:00 and 2.01 miles. Took a quick break for water, then got to moving.

And… I hit 5.0 total miles in 49:00! Which means for the middle 3 miles, I kept a 9:40 pace! Not as fast as I had hoped, but still satisfying. I’m going to work on this…

I finished the total 7 miles in 1:12:00 or so (the treadmill stops showing seconds after an hour, how annoying), so I slowed down considerably on the cooldown. But, y’know, that’s what cooldowns are for. I’m still happy with the workout.

It’s much easier for me to push on the treadmill, for a lot of reasons. And I know that this doesn’t always translate into speed on the streets and trails. But long runs are more about building up my aerobic capacity, that elusive VO2 max that elite athletes are chasing. I know I’m not ever going to be an elite athlete, but I know that I’ve come very far in the past couple of years, and even though I’m over 40 (I’ll be 41 in December), I think I can look forward to a couple more years of improvement before time starts to take its toll. So I’ve still got some personal records to set…

Ran in the gym tonight. Wore the Asics. Forgot to bring the nano, dammit, so I was musicless.

The session was a repeat of last week’s speed work.

One mile warmup (around a 9:50 pace), then four repeating sets of 4:00 fast, and 2:00 recovery, then one mile cooldown.

This week I wanted to push my speed up faster than last week, so I set the pace for the fast sections at 8:40, which felt plenty fast to me. I tried not to let my recovery pace go slower than 10:00 during the first two, but by the third one I had to slow to a walking pace for about 30-45 seconds, and, sadly, that was enough to counter any distance gain I may have had over last week, because by the end of the 24 minutes of speed work, I had gone the exact same distance, 2.55 miles. Bummer.

But on the bright side, I impressed myself during the fast sections. 4 x 4:00 at 8:41 pace equals 1.8 miles. I think, on a good day, I could do 2 miles now at that pace, without the recovery breaks. Or, at least, that I’m close to being able to do that. And that means, with more training, I might be able to do a 5K at that pace… it’s foreseeable, at least. Wow, a 27:00 (or less) 5K time? On my short little legs?

So far my best 5K time has been a 9:27 pace… That would be so cool to break a 9:00 pace, on an officially-timed race, after my 41st birthday.

It’s something to look forward to.

Oh, before I forget:

Running tonight. Treadmill. Wore my Adidas. 3.09 miles in 30:00 exactly, for about a 9:42 overall pace. Started at 9:50, kept increasing the pace over the distance, ended up doing the last, oh, third of a mile faster than a 9:00 pace just to see if I could. And, apparently, I could.

Did my new, high-steppin’ stride (or at least lifting my knees more) and, man-oh-man, is that noisy on a treadmill. Oh, well, was listening to Bad Religion on the nano, so I just turned it up until I all I could hear was the punk rock.

I know I planned to do my 7.5 mile loop, but, well, I changed plans in mid-run, and instead took the 7-mile loop, which is a huge disappointment to myself, but there it is. It’s not that much difference, especially because I did a longer run last night than I had originally planned. But, also, because I misremembered the finish line, I ended up only doing about 6.6 miles total, which brings my total for the week to 21.59, which is still more than I had last week so I’m happy about that.

I stopped three times for water, which is included in my overall time, which also makes me feel good, as you’ll see. When I punched the stop button at what I thought was the finish line for 7 miles, it read 1:08:32.8. Sixty-eight minutes? Did I really do a sub-10:00 pace for 7 miles? I kept going over it in my head as I walked back home. It seemed too good to be true, especially considering all the walk-breaks I took during the run. Could I possibly have been going really really fast when I ran, which averaged out the walking? The more I thought about it, the more I realized that I must have stopped early. But even if I’d stopped a half-mile early, that was still better time than I thought I’d have. I figured I’d turn in a 12:00 pace. Ugh.

So, it’s a pleasant surprise to me that my final average pace, water and walk breaks included, was 10:23. Not too shabby for being old and out-of-shape for most of my life.

Wanted to run tonight after work. The weather was perfect, the perfect running temperature, the sun was shining. I had been looking forward to it all day, all the dreary long work-a-day work day.

I wanted to stay downtown, so I knew I was running the Waterfront loop. I couldn’t decide how far to run. I had planned on 4 miles, a couple of days ago. I knew that once around, from my starting point at SW Columbia and back to that starting point (I know the exact seam in the sidewalk that is my starting and finish line) was 2.87 miles, as near as I can measure in Google Earth. So I knew that once around was not long enough. I had to extend it somehow.

I knew that tomorrow I would be running my 7.5 mile loop, in my neighborhood. So twice around seemed a bit too long. My crazy double-figure-8 loop was, what, 4.7 miles? That would be good. But, y’know, I’ve already run that loop this week. I could just add the back-and-forth across the Hawthorne Bridge at the end, but that only makes 3.5 miles, give or take.

So. Twice around it was.

Used my inhaler, good ol’ albuterol. Wore short sleeves, shorts, my Adidas, my lucky hat, my watch. Queued up the nano to Foo Fighters, again. Stretched out. And decided I would push myself this time, keep a faster pace. I also set the goal of aiming for a faster second half – negative splits. Hoped I didn’t get interrupted by any bridge openings – that’s the suck.

About a mile into it, I shifted to a stride where I lifted my knees more than I had been. I’d been doing this slow shuffle, hardly lifting my feet at all. But when I tried raising my knees on the up stroke, it felt… easier. Thinking about it, I think that I was using more muscles to do the same work of propelling myself along, which made it seem easier. I kept going fairly brisk (but not race-pace) for a very long time without slowing or breaking stride to walk at all, for the first 44 minutes, which felt amazing to me after having been so slow these past weeks. And after a brief (30 seconds – I timed it) walking recovery, I was able to continue on again at the same pace.

The best part is I started doing that stride because my heel started hurting again, and lifting my knees caused me to strike more towards my forefoot, which seemed to ease the pain of my heel.

My first half I did in 28:17.99 (9:51.6 pace), my second half I did in 29:27.0 (10:15.7 pace), for an average of 10:03.7 pace, which feels pretty good for that distance (5.74 miles total). I know I can do better, but that’s a good recent pace for that distance.

I’ll do the heat/ice treatment tonight, and again in the morning before I run, and definitely afterward, but I’m betting that my new stride will have another positive effect on my heel pain. Here’s hoping.