Slowly Getting Faster

6.2 mile loop that ended up being much slower than I had hoped.  I think my expectations are a bit unrealistic. I finished with a 1/4 mile, 200 foot hill "sprint". 

I did a 6.2 mile loop and finished with a 200 foot, 1/4 mile hill run.  I finished today faster than I did yesterday so I am happy with that. 

I haven't been very good about updating this.  I have been trying to get my mile pace faster for a while now.  When I started running again, in January 2011, my mile time was around 10:30 per mile.  Since then I have dropped it to 8:30 on average, unless I'm running hills. Overall I feel like I am improving but it seems like there is still so far to go to get to where I want to be. 

 Today I focused on my speed.  I did a 1 mile warmup, 2X400's and 3X800's.  My fastest 400 time was 1:22 and my fastest 800 time was 3:35.  I have only been doing track work for 2 weeks now and I can really feel the difference on my long runs. 

 I have a trail halfmarathon in Moab on Nov. 5 and I'm hoping to finish around 9 minute miles (slower than I would hope for if it were a road race). If anyone has any suggestions for training to meet this goal let me know. 

Early morning 6 mile run.  Getting cold and difficult to get up at 5:30 am. 

It has been a bad running week. I only went out 3 days this week.  That said, I felt great on this run.  I did 6.88 in the morning and felt so good I did another 1.51 at the track latter. I've grown quite fond of speed training, the whole pushing my body to the limits thing is a lot of fun. I probably over did it but well see I guess. 

Today was a tough one.  I think my double session yesterday was overkill for my fitness level at this point. I would love to be one of those hard-asses that can do doubles but I need to get my volume up first.  I only did 17+ miles last week, which is pathetic. So here I am Sunday, new week and a new start. We'll see if I can get somewhere closer to 40 miles in this week. 

 At any rate.  I think this run was more difficult not only because I killed myself yesterday, but because it was on a trail, which is different terrain, and because there was 950+ feet of elevation gain.  I usually only get somewhere between 300 and 500 so that extra 400-600 feet was difficult.  Add to that the fact that it was on loose dirt and voila, the run is more difficult. the trail was close to my house so I think I need to run it more often, get my legs in the kind of shape they need to be in.   

I am also not so sure about these shoes.  I have Brooks Cascadias which I have worn for a while on trail runs and up to this point have liked.  But I have been doing a lot of my training in my zero drop Altras and have grown accustomed to my foot being able to do what it is meant to do.  I could really feel the 4mm drop in these Cascadias today, and the cramped toe box was more noticeable as well.  (not that the toe box is any more cramped than any other running shoe I've ever worn, it's just not as open as the Altra toe box). It might be time for me to invest in the Altra trial shoe.  

This run was not good. I felt very tired. Am I doning something wrong? Too much maybe? I have done 6 3 days in a row and both yesterday and today were tough. I think I'm going to rest tomorrow and see where that gets me.

The rest was the key I think. I felt great this morning. I did 6 miles consisting of 1 mile warmup, 1 mile cooldown, and 4 miles of alternating sprint and medium effort jog every 1/2 mile. The medium effort jog was at 9 min mile or faster and the sprint was as fast as I could go and sustain my speed for the whole 1/2 mile.

When I finished I felt great. In fact, I felt great the whole time. And, I finished 6 miles in 8:15 per mile, which is as fast as I have ever done it I think. I've heard of resting runs but I must not have the technique down. Until I figure it out I guess I'll just take a day off.

I started this run not intending to push for marathon pace miles, and in fact most of my miles are a bit sower than I would like my marathon pace to be, but on the whole this was a great run.  I felt so good I decided to turn my slow rest jog into an actual workout.  I ended up running the 6.71 in 8:22 per mile. Again, not as fast as I want my marathon pace to be but I've still got 11 months to get that time down. 

This run was very difficult for 2 reasons, I think.  First, I did 2 6 mile speed workouts last week and I was still fatigued from that.  Lesson learned, do not kill myself with speed work. Second, I haven't run this far since August 13th. The body will adapt to what you throw at it, but if I never give it a challenge longer than 7 miles, it will never adapt to a longer distance. 

I took Sunday off because I was still feeling pretty weak after saturday's attempt at 13. I was pretty tired after work today so I was skeptical about how my performance would be tonight. I decided to take it easy, put in some distance but not push to hard.  I ran 8.77 and managed to finish in under 9 min miles, which after Saturday I'm counting as a win.  I think I have also raised the bar on the number of miles I should be running in a day.  

It says 6.02 miles easy, but that isn't quite accurate.  However, neither are the other designations so that is where I put it. It was really more of a 6.02 mile slightly easier than planned marathon pace, but also harder than easy pace. When I finished tonight I was reminded of the old adage "go slow to go fast." I forget a lot of the time that I don't need to kill every workout in order to get faster, I just need to get my volume up and occasionally kill the workout. I started to feel some twinges in my knee tonight, which is a sign I'm pushing too hard I think. Nice and easy, or at least moderate, for the rest of the week I think. 

These really were easy miles.  It was a tough uphill slogg in a couple of spots but other than that pretty mellow.  The hardest part was running at night on a trail.  I need a headlamp.  

This was 2,000'+ of elevation gain around the mountains by my house.  Pretty nice run and I am happy to find that I can actually get 2,000 feet of elevation gain this close to home.  By the end of this my legs were shot.  I will be doing this run many more times before El Vaquero next year.