Track Workout Tuesday

I was on the track this morning for the first time since December!  The workout I had didn’t have to be done on the track, but since I was out of town for work I didn’t know of a flat course without potential traffic stops that I could run on, and I don’t like running fast stuff on unfamiliar courses anyhow.  Plus, I couldn’t get this workout to transfer to my Garmin watch from Garmin Connect, and with it mixing kilometer distances for the repeats and mile distances for the recoveries, it would have been a trick to do it on the road even if I was at home!

The workout was:  2 miles warm-up, 2 x 2K in 7:40-7:45, 2 x 1K in 3:35-3:40, half mile recovery jogs between all repeats, and 0.75 mile cool-down (for 8 miles total).  One of my friends who lives in the Kansas City area directed me to the Park Hill High School track, which was about 3 miles from where I was staying Monday night, and we checked it out on Monday evening to make sure it was open to the public.



No fence climbing to access the track is always a sight for sore eyes

I arrived at the track early on Tuesday morning and ran my warm-up off track, did a few leg swings and plyos, and was off.  The first 2000 went like clock-work; every single lap was 1:32.X for 7:43 total.  This pace was brisk but I could tell it was sustainable for the 2000s.  The second 2000 wasn’t quite as even, and I don’t remember my laps exactly except that I had to run a 1:30 final lap to tie my time for the first rep, and I did that for another 7:43.

While I felt good about the 1:32 laps and like I could do 1-2 more 2000s at that pace, dropping to 1:26-1:28 lap pace for the 1000s sounded really hard!  When I read this workout on paper I knew that the 1000s would be much harder for me than the 2000s; my endurance is there but I don’t have raw speed and I haven’t been doing speed work.  I knew that hitting the top of my goal range would be the best I could hope for.  I’d also looked back at last time I ran 1000s on the track (which was in September 2015), and for that workout my goal range had been 3:40-3:45 which I liked a lot better than today’s range! Not to mention it was 78 degrees even at 5:30 a.m. today.

I tried starting off the 1000s with a 1:28 lap, but came through in 1:29.  I sustained this 1:29.X for 2:59 through the 800 and a 3:44 first 1000.  I didn’t have much left and I knew I couldn’t go any faster, but I told myself just one more repeat as close to goal pace as I could, and finished up the second 1000 in a similar fashion in 3:45.

I typically don’t run my best while traveling, but I don’t necessarily think I would have run this any faster at home this morning.  I think my coach was ambitious on those 1000 paces, and that this went pretty much as well as it could have!  I’ll need to do a few more of these faster workouts before getting ambitious about any 5Ks for sure!

Doing Painful Scary Things

Week in review for June 20-26, 2016:

I guess the theme of this week could be doing painful and/or somewhat scary workouts!  It almost always "hurts so good", though!

Mileage: 54

Monday – HIIT bootcamp with elliptical warm-up (45 minutes each).  Why don’t jumping lunges ever get any easier??  We will give the painful and scary of this day to them and excessive burpees, although my triceps were what ended up sore for 3 days.

Tuesday – 12.26 miles total with a workout and double.  My morning run was 9.16 miles with 8 x 0.25 hill repeats in the middle.  Holy hill this was hard!  Relatively speaking, 2 miles total of quality is a short workout, but on repeat 1 I was already gasping for air.  The hill I used had around 100 feet of elevation gain in 0.25 mile, but it’s not evenly distributed – I would guesstimate it’s about 250 m with intense uphill, then 100 m with gentler uphill, followed by 50 m with barely there incline.  In the end, I summed this workout up as “Hill repeats:  All the work of track repeats with none of the fast splits to show for it.” 

My average pace for the whole 9.1 was 7:33, and my paces on the 0.25 uphills were between 7:22-7:42.  This was my second time running this workout on the same hill, so I compared my average splits from today with the workout I did there in November, and was pleasantly surprised that my splits from today’s workouts averaged 2.3 seconds per quarter mile repeat faster (that's over 9 seconds per mile pace)!  I don’t think I am in as good of shape now as I was then, but hopefully this means I am progressing!  Never would 7:30ish pace make me breathe so hard as running up this hill.  Luckily I had forgotten how painful this workout was so I wasn't scared of it beforehand - hopefully I don't have it again until I forget how intensely and differently hill repeats hurt.

My second run was 3.12 miles in 7:28 average in 92 degrees.  2-a-days were terrifying to me for a long time, then they were painful, and now I seem to have hit my stride with them - fingers crossed!

Wednesday - Today wasn't painful or scary, just normal (some would consider 4:50 a.m. alarms both painful and scary, though, so we will go with that!)!  10.12 base pace miles (7:31 average) with Missy.  I am so thankful to have Missy to run with!  Running friends are the best, and who else would get up at 4-something to hang out?

Thursday - 11.6 miles with 8.5 in the morning and 3.1 in the evening.  The scary of this was running 11.6 miles 2 days before a race, which I'm not sure is something I've ever done before and feels like a horrible idea.  I ran with Missy in the morning and she was really tired, so my miles with her were slower and my average was 7:55.  I was only supposed to run 8 miles, but I forgot that I also had 6 x 20 second strides (with 40 second jog recoveries) until I was at about 7.9, so ended up running a little farther to get those in.  It's easy for me to forget those - especially if I am running and talking with Missy - because it's not a workout that my whole run is based around, and is tacked on at the end of easy miles.

My second run was scary due to a heat index of 103!  However, now that I've had 4 solid second runs in a row, I am going to say that I am in a groove with them.  I think my coach also structures them better than I did when I tried them here and there on my own, so that makes a big difference!  My average pace was 7:19.  Jon ran this one "with" me (e.g., we both ran the YMCA loop while Albani was on the Kids Zone inflatables...on days like these she always tells me I need to run farther so she has longer to play...I believe this began due to her staying in for 2 hours a couple of times when I did long runs when Jon was out of town).

What was I thinking when I agreed to summer 2-a-days?!

Friday - A day off -- now that is truly scary, bahahaha!  Of course I had to do a little to keep the workout streak going (almost to 30 months or 2.5 years now!), but I kept it very minimal with 15 minutes easy on the elliptical.

Saturday - 14 miles total, split into 3.4 (7:45), 3.1 (6:18), 7.5 (7:38) - but I kept the gaps between these miles pretty short, definitely under 5 minute a pop. By definition, 5Ks are uber painful (the struggle is real). However, this one wasn't painful, even though it was in the middle of a long run and at 88 degrees "feels like" temperature (so the painful and scary for this workout goes to the summer weather and 8:00 a.m. race start). The secret to making it not painful was running the first mile at half marathon pace, bahaha! But I walked away with an overall win (men and women), a solid progressive tempo run, and my long run mileage, which were the objectives, so all was good. Details here. 

My mini-me doing scary things, also at the Duck Fest

Sunday - 6 mile shake out (7:40).  The beginning of a shake out run the day after a long run or race is always scary (plus I was up until 11:00 p.m. on Saturday night, which was also scary for me)!  On these 6 mile runs, I always feel better on mile 6 than on mile 1 though! 

My final painful and scary for the week goes to the amount of laundry generated from 9-10 workouts a week!  For most workouts, I'm only wearing a sports bra, shorts, and socks (occasionally a visor), so what is truly scary is how bad this would be in the winter! 

It was impossible to get a good angle; 4 days of workout clothing on the drying rack

"Run a 5K in the middle of your long run," they said. "It will be fun," they said.

It actually was fun!  And if you know me you know I never say that about 5Ks...they are usually too short and painful!

I ran the Sertoma Duck Waddle 5K today as a last-minute race.  My parents were coming to the Duck Fest for the car show from Kansas.  I noticed the race on the festival schedule, and that the overall winners won gift cards.  I told Jon about it, but then decided that I didn't want to run it because I didn't want to modify my 54 mile training week.  He proceeded to talk me into running it to try to win (not for time), so I said I would ask my coach, who I expected to say no.  Well, he said to go for it, but also to keep my schedule as planned this week (which was what I said I would plan to do when I emailed him about this race).  So it was decided and I ran this race coming off 11.6 miles and a double on Thursday, and during a 14 mile long run.  I did skip bootcamp yesterday so my legs wouldn't be 100% shot!

When I signed up for the race, I thought it started at 7:00 a.m. (I think I just made that up or assumed it, since it is June in Missouri after all).  Yesterday I looked at the website and saw that it actually started at 8:00 a.m.  My main fear was that I was going to finish this race and then run 8ish more miles when it was really hot, so I kind of started dreading it. 

I decided I would run more miles before the race when it was less hot, but due to last minute who's riding with who debates, I only had time for 3.5 miles before the race (we were taking 2 vehicles so my family didn't have to wait around while I did my miles after the race, and initially I was going to drive there alone so they could also leave the house later, but then Albani decided she wanted to ride there with me, etc.).  Those 3.5 were at 7:45 pace and felt okay, but I was absolutely drenched in sweat and kind of wishing that I had started my long run at 5:00 a.m. and not worried about this race!  I hate racing in a sports bra without a shirt (although I train that way all of the time, it's different on deserted farm roads), but it was so hot I stopped caring.

The race started, and one woman took off around 6:10 pace, followed by one man.  I figured I'd better cover her, and I knew I could run the thing at 6:10 pace although I didn't really want to!  She faded by the half mile, and then I was running side by side with the overall male.  I could pretty much tell at this point that I wasn't going to have competition in this race.  I decided that I would just run with the overall male until the final half mile or so, and then push to try to win overall overall.  A lot of this was just me being lazy, and I kept thinking about how I had to run 7.5 more base pace miles after the race!

Running with the first male felt awfully easy, and when my Garmin beeped a 6:28 first mile, I realized that was why it felt so easy (that's about half pace for me).  I decided I would go ahead and speed up a bit, because although I didn't want to kill myself I did still want to be under 20, and he was fading a bit.  So from then on it was just me and the lead cyclist.  At the turn around I got a look at everyone behind me, and with how slowly I'd started I knew my win was pretty much locked in.

Although in the end the course was accurate (Garmin had 3.12), the course mile markers were off, with the 1 mile mark at the 1.2 point on my Garmin and the 2 mile mark around 1.9 on my Garmin.  My second Garmin split was 6:18 with some uphill, and I felt far too good for mile 2 of a 5K, but that was sure nice!  I pushed for a little faster last mile, running it in 6:12, and also kicked it in on the final 0.12 (5:21 pace) once I saw my family cheering.  I stopped my Garmin at 19:35 after I crossed, my finishing pictures show 19:33-19:34, and my official time was 19:37, so who really knows what exactly my time was (there was no chip mat at the start, and we started and finished in different places, which is always a recipe for screwy times, so I am honestly surprised it was this close).

It's always a good day when I beat all of the men and women!  I finished feeling like I'd run a solid tempo, but not an all-out race, which was good since I had 7.5 more miles to go.  I drank a 20 oz. bottle of water, wiped the sweat off my face, and headed back out.  I finished the 7.5 at 7:38 average pace and SO very sweaty!  I was glad to keep this in the 7:30s for sure.

My family picked up my awards while I was still running. I won a cute little trophy, a gift card to Academy Sports, and a gift certificate for pet-sitting (probably the most unique prize I've received!), so it was worth running this.  I also feel like I may just try for a sub-19 5K when I'm a little rested, when I have competition, when I'm not running a long run, and when it's not 88 degrees "feels like" temperature -- but, that will be painful and scary!

The moral of this story:  5Ks are not at all painful or scary when you run the first mile at half marathon pace.

Following the lead cyclist in

Finishing it up

Done

Pretty pumped about this pet sitting gift certificate!

Quite fitting for the Duck Fest

Garmin splits

Working Smarter, Not Harder

I once read that it's better to go into a race under-trained than over-trained, and the Type A in me balked.  Who are these people going into goal races under-trained?!?  However, one of the top lessons I have learned in the past year of running is that sometimes with training, less is more.

When I decided to chase a sub-3:00 marathon in 2015, I knew I needed to go all in so I decided to work with a coach for the first time post-collegiately.  I went into it thinking that his schedule, which I started in July 2015, would be harder than what I was doing up to that point.  I was prepared for tons of hard and long workouts, and to be tired all of the time.  I expected push push push.

When I received my first month's schedule, I was surprised.  It was easier than what I would have put together myself.  The majority of my runs were at base pace, and then each week I had one workout, one long run/workout, and usually one day that included 6 x 20 second strides at the end of my run. During a couple weeks, I only had one workout total if the weekend run was intense (e.g., a 10 mile tempo within a 17 mile long run), with everything else being base miles. Putting my own schedule together, I would usually run two workouts plus a long run each week, so I started worrying that this wasn't enough!  I started questioning other runners about their number of workouts, and worrying that I was going to get slower.

I decided I would stick to the schedule, although I got antsy and asked about adding more workouts (the answer was no).  I mostly followed things to a T, although I added a tempo run here and some fast finish miles there (but this was the exception, not the norm).  For 5.5 solid months, I followed the schedule.  I peaked conservatively at 50 mpw, but I had a lot of weeks in the high-40s (peaking at 50 was my request, as I feared injury).

The one workout I had during the week was generally challenging, and often I would see the time goals on the pace-based workouts and think to myself that there was no way I could run that fast.  Once when I had a track workout that included 200s at 38-39 seconds at the end, I told my coach that there was no way I could run that fast (I have no raw speed!)...then the next day I sent him an email with the subject "It's nice to be wrong sometimes", after running them in 38s.

After a few months on the schedule, crazy things started happening.  I started running faster than I ever had before, at age 34 and on fewer workouts!  This was happening in both training and in racing.  I had a hard time giving up control of my schedule and also had a hard time not second-guessing my coach, until I ran a 1:24:33 half marathon on a challenging course, shattering my PR of 1:27:08.  I went on to run a 3:06 marathon on a training run without a taper, and to shatter my 10K PR with a 38:05, a time I never thought I'd see.  I didn't have the best day or good weather for my marathon, and while I didn't get my sub-3:00 I set a 2-minute PR with a 3:01.  I then followed that up with my second fastest ever half marathon, 6 days after my marathon in a race that I was not even going to "race."

Missing my sub-3:00 threw a wrench in my plan and cast some doubt for me, so I decided for my spring marathon I would follow the training schedule that my fast friend had shared with me.  It included two workouts a week plus a long run, and more mileage.  Hindsight is 20/20, but I sure wish I would have worked with my coach again for my February marathon instead of trying this schedule!  It worked for her but was not for me.  I ended up injured and unable to run my marathon, with about 7 weeks total off running.  I guess that's what they mean about it being better to get to your race a little under-trained!  I missed my goal race being over-trained.

Going through all of that, I can now say that I trust my coach and his schedule, and will follow it during this marathon build-up without second-guessing.  He taught me that training smarter will get me farther than throwing down all of the time.  I learned that I should feel good for my runs and not run down all of the time - and that I can, even running higher mileage and hard workouts!  He thinks I can stay healthy and run more mileage this time, and so far so good. 

The body is a funny thing, and recovery is just as important as training - but how easy is it to forget that!?  I see a lot of runners over-training - by running hard every run - and I hope they learn this lesson sooner rather than later!  I'm stubborn and would have probably never believed it until I saw it work for me, so I get it.  It's still hard to see other runners running more or longer hard workouts than me, but I remind myself that I am not them and I am working smarter for me, and toward my long-term goals!

5Ks: The Struggle is Real!

The older I get, the worse I seem to get at 5Ks.  I haven’t trained specifically for a 5K since college (or since high school because I was injured more than not during college running), but even so I would expect that I could eek out a decent 5K while I am PRing at other distances.  I’ve raced a lot of 5Ks over the years because they are common and convenient, but in 2015 I could not run one that was comparable to my other race performances to save my life.

Put in perspective:  my fastest 5K of 2015 was the second 5K of a 10K.  This was the only time I broke 19:00, with an 18:51 second 5K (although technically I did finish one 5K in 18:42, it was a bit short and my average pace on my Garmin was 6:09 so it shouldn't have been sub-19).  Most of my certified 5Ks were 19:0X, and a few slower than that (I did manage to keep them all under 20:00, though - even during two races in which I took wrong turns as the leader to make them 3.25ish mile 5Ks!).  I could never get those few extra seconds to go sub-19! To make my 5K races even more pathetic, the final 5K of my 1:24 PR half marathon was 19:10!!!  So following running 10 miles at 6:30ish pace, I can run a 5K just a few seconds slower than my all-out 5K.  Following running 3.1 miles of a 10K in 19:14, I can run another 3.1 miles faster than my all-out 5K.  What the heck!? I tried running longer and faster warm ups before my 5Ks but still no luck. 

I had some workouts that I thought meant for a promising or even PR 5K (my current PR is 18:18 run in 2010), including my best mile repeat workout of all time which was 4 x 1 mile all between 5:49-5:51, but I could never put together a nice 5K race.  My last of 2015 was on New Year’s Eve, and my time in it was the best I did for a certified straight 5K: 19:03.  The irony in that one was that it was also by far the most challenging course I ran, with 212 feet of elevation gain.

I’ve only run one 5K thus far in 2016, and if I had known what the course was like beforehand I probably would have never gone (more details here)!  The first half mile was all straight uphill, and there wasn’t really a flat stretch in the whole thing (several rollers after the first up, then a steep up and steep down before the turn around...the main redemption being that that last half mile was all downhill since it was out and back).  Once I saw the first hill and ran the course for my warm-up, I was ready to turn around and go home, and I told Jon that I wouldn’t be able to get under 20:00, especially considering that I was 6 days off racing the Prairie Fire Half and had done no speed work.  The reason we went to this one was because it had nice prize money for the top 3 women and the times hadn’t been under 20:00 for #2 and #3 in most past years (our local Olympic Trials qualifier was always #1), so I decided I wouldn’t worry about my time and just try to place.  I didn’t look at my watch during the race because I knew my pace would be super erratic with the elevation changes, and I ended up running 19:16, which I was shocked and amazed with on that course and with how my spring training had been.

I am going to run another 5K this Saturday, and I’m not as terrified about this one as I usually get of them, because I’m expecting to run slower than 10K pace!  In fact, it’s slated as a tempo workout for me, and will fall at the end of a 53+ mile week and after a Thursday workout and double run, so I won’t exactly be rested.  My tempo pace has been 6:18-6:30 per my coach, and I am going to aim for 6:20ish so I can keep it under 20:00 (and also go for the win).  It’s a huge relief to not even think about aiming for under 19:00, and I haven’t done much running under tempo pace in 2016 (I think only a couple of reps this speed workout, the 19:16 5K I raced in May, and 6 x 20 second strides which I do once a week usually), so my speed is definitely not there even if I wanted to try!

Why are 5Ks so hard and scary?   Give me a half marathon any day!