The bright side of a Moon
Next week’s running schedule:
Running update:
I know, I know, it seems like all I post about lately is running. What can I say?
Tonight was hill night. Ow. Ow, ow. Ow ow ow ow ow owow ow. The drill: 1 mile warmup and cooldown, and in-between, 8 x up a .3-mile section of hill, fairly steep, and walk or jog down. As much rest as I need between each run up, because I aim to improve my time by 5-10 seconds each time after the first. It’s a pretty tough drill, actually. Here are my times, and equivalent per-mile paces:
I pushed myself hard, especially considering last night I ran at my 5K race pace or better. And it’s no surprise that by my 7th time up the hill, I just stopped. My legs just wouldn’t keep going. It’s a testament to my drive that, even having to stop in the middle of the hill, I still made it the rest of the way up faster than my first two intervals. And I managed to improve my time up the last time. I totally didn’t want to even start my 8th interval, let alone run home, but I did, and I did.
Looking back on last week, I have no idea how I managed that last time of 02:26. But this week, I managed two intervals better than my second-best from last week. Oh hell, I don’t know what it all means. I’m sure a coach could pull something out of all these numbers.
I’m taking tomorrow off entirely, and, as usual, Thursday may be a rest day, too. My legs are sorrrrrrrrrrrrre tonight, and that’s probably not a good sign. But I feel proud to have completed what I set out to do. That’s always the best part of the post-run experience.
Running update:
I just ran 3.05 miles in 28:54, for a 9:28.5 pace!
I know it was just a training run, and it was at the gym, not in the heat or on the streets and hills of Portland, but it was still damned fast. I think my speedwork is paying off. I haven’t run that fast, that far, in a while…
I kept a 9:40 pace for the first mile and a half, then bumped it up to 9:21 for the next mile and finished the last .55 miles at some crazy speed. Just kept bumping it up a little bit at a time. I think my final pace for the last .05 mile was near 8:30, which for me felt much like flying.
I concentrated on form and breathing, making sure my breathing was in rhythm with my running. I’ve noticed that I do better when I control my breathing, which may sound obvious to others but screw you, I’m the one out there running.
Next weeks’ running schedule. Um, similar to last week. The downside is that, if I don’t get up early on Thursday to run before work, I feel odd running Thursday night with a long run less than 12 hours later. So it’s optional. I’m probably over-thinking things. It’s just what I do.
Running update:
Today I ran about 5.25 miles while doing some speedwork at the gym. That makes my total weekly miles 20.25 (I would have had more but I didn’t run 4 miles on Thursday as planned – I did walk my 4 mile loop but I’m not counting that towards my running miles), which marks my first week with more than 20 miles total. Another goal reached. Yay, me!
My next goal, I think, is to run continuously for more than an hour, which is a record I’ll need to achieve before thinking about a half-marathon or marathon. I’m kinda nervous about planning a 7-mile run next week, though, considering I’ve only just broken the 20-mile-week barrier… but I think having runs in longer than a 10K will help me with the Pints to Pasta 10K coming up in a couple of weeks. Oh, well, I have time. I think I’ll just plan on a 6-mile run next week, then a 6.5-mile run the week after, then a 7-mile run the following week. That will leave a week for tapering before the 10K.
Ow. Ow, ow. Ow ow ow ow.
I ran hills last night. Well, technically, one hill, over and over again (eight times, actually).
The idea is, in between one mile warmup and cooldown, to run up this .3-mile stretch of hill in Sellwood Park at an easy pace, then jog or walk down, and then to go up seven more times, and to aim to improve my time by 5-10 seconds each time.
They say that hill work is speedwork in disguise, which is why I’ve been hitting the hills lately.
And, in fact, I did eventually achieve my goal. Here are the individual times (and equivalent per-mile paces):
A couple of bumps in the curve there, but like I said, I did eventually end up, on the last interval, achieving a speed within 40-80 seconds faster than I started out.
The funny part was the couple sitting at a park bench near my “finish line”, watching in amazement as I passed them, then turned around and headed back down the path, so many times. By the seventh time they had left, though, so they didn’t see my Snoopy dance when I had my final burst of speed.
And now, as I said to a friend last night, I’m taking at least one night off from running, or else my legs are going to fall off and fall apart, Daffy Duck-style. Which would be bad.
Tomorrow I’ll post the run-down on my day trip to Seattle (almost exactly a day — Woke up at 8 AM and didn’t sleep until 7 AM Sunday morning) to see Harvey Danger and hang out in Seattle (teaser: saw John Roderick of the Long Winters – did he have his frightening beard or not? Stay tuned). Also will update my POTW.
For now, want to post my running schedule for the week. It will look pretty familiar to those who remember last week:
Unofficial time in the Run Hit Wonder Portland 2005 10K: 66:18.49.
Wow, I kinda died out there.
Not sure what happened. I showed up, I had a strategy, I got plenty of sleep last night, I had a good pre-race-day dinner (fettucine pesto e pollo from La Terrazza… mmmmmm), drank lots and lots of water, didn’t run but still exercised the past two days.
Still, I woke up with a headache, stuffy nose (took another Zyrtec for that), legs were stiff and took a while to warm up and stretch out, just felt blah.
It was funny seeing all the looks from folk wondering who all these orange-shirted people were, wandering around the city. Since there were 10,000 people entered in the race, that made for a lot of orange shirts. I must have been asked five times this morning what it was all about.
And I took a chance, and grabbed a spot near the start line. Not in the elite runner’s group, nor the 7:00-and-under pace people. I wasn’t that gutsy. But I lined up with the 8:00 pace people, and it only took me about 9 seconds to cross the start line.
I got excited and ran a little fast for the first two miles. My strategy was to aim for a 10:00 pace the first third, 9:30 pace the second third, and then hope I had enough in my for a 9:00 pace to finish. But since I ran the first mile in 9:24… uhhhh… I think I overdid it. All my miles after that were 10:00 or greater.
Maybe it was the heat. Maybe my speedwork hasn’t been enough. Maybe my allergies were kicking up. Whatever. It’s all excuses. I went out, I ran, I finished, I did what I did. On the bright side, my stretches have helped my sore heel; hardly any soreness at all. My hamstrings are a bit sore but not too bad; they finally warmed up, and I stretched well after the race. Once again, the Nike shirt for some reason really irritates my nipples. Argh. I much prefer my UnderArmor or Brooks shirts; they don’t chafe me.
I stuck around for a couple of songs from the lovely Ms. Jett, but it was hot on the field, no shade, and I didn’t have any cash to get some beer or food and didn’t feel like paying the ATM transaction fee at the park.
My reward was a delicious NW Raspberry Milkshake from Burgerville. Mmmmm.
And now that my two biggest races are past me for the year, I can go back to just running for fun, rather than training for an event. I still have another 10K I want to do, the Pints-to-Pasta in September, and I might do another 10K in August, but that’s too far away to think about just yet. Doesn’t look like I’ll be doing a half-marathon this year. Oh, well, there’s always next year.
If you’re downtown on Sunday and in Goose Hollow or NW, and want to watch for me, I’ll be #3793.
The Run Hit Wonder shirts are bright orange this year. I picked mine up today.
It’s official: my running clothes are officially more colorful than my street clothes.
Sweet cracker sandwich! I haven’t posted in over a day!
Ran last night, up and down the Waterfront Park and Eastbank Esplanade. Didn’t time myself, just going for slow-but-steady. Did some speed work on Saturday, blech. Speed work is always the suck. If it feels easy, then it’s not speed work, you know? I ran down to the Milwaukie High School track and did 10 sets of 15 seconds flat-out, followed by 45 seconds of jogging recovery.
I plan on running some hill intervals tomorrow morning, then resting Thursday, having a light day on Friday, then running in the Beat the Burnside on Sunday. 8 kilometers, all downhill. Yay. I hope to do well but don’t want to hurt myself too much, since the Nike Run Hit Wonder is the following weekend and I want to do well, even though it’s gonna be crowded.