Slowly Getting Faster

sick of being sick.  I've been out since Sunday and I'm starting to get cabin fever. 

I've been sick for a week almost exactly.  It was a little rough coming back.  Not due to motivation, but because I got out of my groove. I may have also tackled a tougher course than I should have for my comeback run. In the first mile and a half I climbed 555 feet.  After that I was pretty much exhausted. It's good to be back though. 

 Here are the split details: 9:23, 10:35, 8:20, 9:09, 9:14, 9:30, 9:43.

Since my goal half marathon time is 1:45, or 8 min miles, I've clearly got some work to do.  But those hills today will certainly help.  

Sunday was a good run even though I felt sick later that day.

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. 

This is pretty pathetic.  I've been sick all week and haven't been able to run at all.  Regardless, I just realized that last month I ran 30+ miles only two of the 4 weeks.  That is a horrible record.  Now, I've already lost a week this month to sickness.  I need to take a lesson from Jon and just run while sick if I have to. 

This was by far the most fun I have had running since I started 10 years ago.  Granted, I took 5 years off and the rest of my runs were mainly training for St. George.  Regardless, this is a really fun course and a really fun race.

Despite the fun, I thought today would be easier than it was.  The elevation chart on the website shows the 1/2 gaining just under 900' on the steepest section, so I figured that the rest of the up and down would amount to closer to 1500' than the 2,111' that the course ended up throwing at me. The first 4ish miles were all uphill, which was challenging but not too difficult.  The grade was pretty mild the whole way. And once we made it to the top, the down hill on the other side was as much fun as a roller coaster.  The downhill was mostly slick rock and with several huge bounds I made short work of the decent.  That brought me to a dirt road that was mostly sand.  Running in sand is nice on the feet, but tough on the leg muscles. The dirt road continued for about a mile and then we were back to slick rock and several stream jumps before the aid station. 

After the aid station the trail ascended the mountain again and followed the edge of a gorge carved by the river I had just jumped over. Several places along this section of the run I - and everyone else - had to stop to lower myself off of one rock and onto another rock so I could continue down the trail.  The run continued in this fashion until about mile 9.5 where the fun trail terminated at another dirt road. We followed the dirt road for about a mile and half and then turned down into the Kane Creek Wash.  At this point, mile 11, the race crew instructed us that the trail dived directly into the river running at the bottom of the wash.  I don't know if you have ever tried to run with ice cubes for feet, but that was what the next 2.1 miles amounted to.  Nevertheless, it was a ton of fun to run (or wade) down the river to the finish line.

I planned on this race taking me 2 1/2 hours, which it did, but for some reason I the math wasn't working in my head this morning when I told my support team what time to be at the finish line.  I told them to be there at noon and I was done at 11:30.  I spent a cold 30 minutes waiting for them to arrive.

Something that occurred to me doing this today is that race times are really not that important. That's not to say they aren't a good measure of your progress but rather that one race time is not equivalent with any other race time.  differences in courses, terrain, types of races, etc make my road 1/2 marathon time meaningless in relation to my time today or what I could or should have expected my time to be. As it works out, I figured this out before I got here, but I thought maybe it would be useful to pass along as well.  So now, I have a PR for a trial 1/2 marathon.  Next year maybe I can get that time down around 2:15:00.   

I tried to keep this around 6 miles.  I'm attempting to do Brad Hudson's 1/2 marathon adaptive training program and the workout for the day called for 6 miles easy.  I am shooting for a 1:45:00 time, 8 min/mile, so I guessed that an easy pace would be around 9 min miles.  The pace didn't feel forced at all and I went up some steep hills so I think that pace worked out. On those hills I think a fast pace for me would be around 8:20 per mile.  I guess I'll find out what I can do when the workout calls for that. 

Today's workout called for 5 miles plus 1 x 8 second hill sprint.  I went a different route than normal tonight and the course worked out to be mostly flat.  Something like 150' elevation change. As a result, my per mile time dropped a lot. I went from a relaxed and comfortable 6 miles yesterday at almost 9 minute miles to 8:30 per mile today. I think that on this course a medium effort might be 8:20-8:15 and a fast effort would be MP (8:00). 

My hill sprint ended up being longer than 8 seconds.  I tried the 8 second version but it seems like I barely get started and the workout is over.  Almost anticlimactic and certainly unsatisfying.  I expect a good heart pounding, leg burning, gasping for breath effort if I'm going to spring up a hill.  The hill was 15% grade and the sprint was 6:03 per mile pace, which I feel pretty good about.  It will be interesting when the hill sprints become multiples instead of one single effort.   

The workout for today called for 5 miles easy.  I gather from the book that the purpose of all this slow miles is to build my aerobic capacity and my running volume.  Since I have been running 30 miles a week for a while now I'm not sure that the 25 miles on tap for this week is actually going to achieve that purpose.  For that reason, and because I was under time constraints tonight, I opted to do the 5 miles at my hoped for MP.  Until tonight, that was 8 min miles. I didn't know I even could keep a sub 8 min mile time up for 5 miles.

I started out and felt really good.  After about 20 seconds I looked at my watch to make sure my pace was on target and found that I was actually running a 6:30 pace.  So I slowed down as much as I could until it felt like I would be walking if I went any slower.  That worked out to be ~7:35 pace.  So I revised my plan and tried to just keep my pace under 8:00 for the rest of the run.  I was tired at the end but if my bowels hadn't started acting up I think I could of kept going.  Know I think I'm going to shoot for a 7:50 1/2 marathon average pace.  

It was easy run day today, which is good after yesterdays workout. The plan said to do 6 but the jog up city creek canyon was so pleasant that I pushed a bit farther than I had planned.  I passed several people on the way up, which felt great because I wasn't even putting much effort into my pace. On the way down I noticed that at points I was only moving at an 8:30 pace which felt really slow.  It's pretty nice to be able to say that. 

I gained 600', which isn't much to brag about, but I'm pleased that the effort, even up the steeper hills, didn't feel strained at all.  I think my body is getting used to this.  

Feeling fatigued today. Less than 24 hours between this run and my last run.  I know for some that isn't a big deal, but I'm not quite to that level yet. Today's run wasn't hard physically, but it was a challenge mentally.  I think the whole "find the zen" in running idea is apt. I've got to train my mind to deal with the fatigue every bit as much as I've got to train my body.  I read the other day that the hardest part of a 100 mile run is the mental aspect of the last 50 miles. I'm not planning on doing one of those soon, but I think the biggest barrier to my being able to run a sub 8 min mile half in a couple months is going to be the mental aspect as well. If I can train myself to not talk myself out of pushing hard, or putting in the miles, or just enduring, then maybe I can reach the next level. 

I tried to make the run interesting by taking the legacy parkway trail, but that trail is not interesting. I saw some friendly people out there today, always a nice aspect of running on saturday.  

Workout today called for 6 mile progression run with the last 20 minutes at a moderate pace.  I figured my moderate pace is somewhere in the neighborhood of 8:10 - 8:20 per mile.  I picked that number because its not a sprint but its harder than an easy run. Its enough effort to let me know I'm working but not so much I am dead at the end. 

I didn't quite figure the distance for 20 minutes correctly and I only got ~16 minutes of moderate running in.  Next time I need to speed up at mile 3.5 instead of mile 4. The last mile was uphill too, which made it harder, but I pushed the speed to keep my pace fairly consistent. All in all, it was a fun run.  I like the workouts that add some speed in.  It adds some excitement to the miles.  

This was supposed to be 6 miles easy and 2x20 second hill sprints.  The actual workout called for 8 second hill sprints but I've already expressed my views on that. My average pace for the 6 miles was 8:23 per, with my slowest mile being 2 seconds faster than my slowest mile yesterday. I tried to just run at a pace that felt good and I avoided looking at my watch almost the entire time so that I wouldn't psych myself out and push harder than I wanted to.  I'm not sure if the result today is because I pushed my limits or if my limits have just changed.

Regardless, I think I learned something today about how I should approach the race.  Yesterday I felt good, but not as good as I did today.  Yesterday I was coming off a full days rest, today I was not.  So on race week, with the race on Saturday, I think I need to run about half the normal miles for the week, rest on Thursday, and do a tune up run on Friday maybe 3 miles or something before the Saturday race. We'll see how that works.  

Today's workout called for an easy 6 miles.  I really tried not to push to hard because I'm worried my efforts over the last 2 days have been too much.  I don't want to burn out before Saturday. So, going up the canyon I gained 600', and my splits were 9:23, 10:01, 9:43, which I thought was a good easy pace.  On the way down, my splits got progressively faster.  Starting at 8:36, then 8:06, then 7:53.  The last mile was the least steep but the fastest, which makes me think I probably over did it.  The problem I'm having is knowing where that line is.  I never feel like I'm pushing it, but those times are so much faster than I think I should be going.  I guess I'll know by Saturday. 

This was pretty much the same run as yesterday with a little added distance.  I like that canyon, its a pretty run with no traffic.  One of these days soon I'm going to take the Boneville shoreline trail from north salt lake to this City Creek Canyon.  I've seen the trail several times and it looks like a lot of fun.  I just haven't had time to run it yet and it's probably going to snow tomorrow. 

The run today was slower than yesterday, which I think is a sign that I'm getting tired from going so fast all week.  It could also be that I just figured out how to properly pace myself though.  Of course, it could also be that the downhill leg of a canyon run is more taxing on the leg muscles than I previously gave it credit for and by the time I run 3.5 miles up my legs are pretty tired coming down.  Maybe its a combination of those things.  

If it snows tomorrow I'm not sure where or when I will run and I might be reduced to a treadmill if its as bad as the weather report keeps saying it will be. I'm not looking forward to that.  

the workout today called for 6 + 2x8second hill sprints.  Instead, I decided to do 6 up Bonneville Shoreline Trail from City Creek to the Summit by Ensign Peak.  It was a great trail but I brought the wrong footwear for the job.  I hadn't planned on running this course when I woke up this morning so I packed my road shoes in my bag.  I love my road shoes but they are not ideal for trail running, especially when the trail is as rocky as that one can be in some places. 

For the past 2 weeks I have been running up City Creek Canyon at least a couple of times during the week.  The canyon road is nice because its paved and even in the steep parts its not such a steep grade that I even have to walk or slow down all that much.  This has built my confidence and left me with the false impression that the trail would be a nice relatively easy run as well.  I was mistaken.  there were a couple of points that I had to walk due to the steepness of the incline, and even the downhill was pretty rough though mostly because of my footwear.  It is an awesome trail and I think if I can alter my runs to take advantage of that kind of elevation gain I will get stronger and faster. 

this was 5 miles up Farmington Canyon, up to the place where the pavement ends.  Its was slow for a couple of reasons.  Fist, the grade up there is pretty steep - much steeper than city creek.  Second, it had rained or something last night and the road was icy and I didn't have any spikes to keep me from falling on my face.  consequently, I had to take it slow going up and slow coming down.  That said, it was a ton of fun.  I have never been able to get that far up that road before.  It was just under 1000' or gain but I think I could have kept going if I had better shoes on.  One day soon I'm going to go up to the next switchback in the road.  Maybe after I get me some Altra Kings Peak trail shoes. 

I did 9 up city creek today.  The workout called for 9 with the last 20 minutes being moderate.  I have found it is hard to get into the grove on the down hill for a couple of miles, especially after making the transition from going up hill. Today I felt tired until the last couple of miles.  My uphill was not as fast as it normally is, and my downhill started out slow as well.  By the last couple of miles though I had found my grove and I was cruising.  

The last 4.5 miles of this run were all down hill, and the last 2 are pretty gradual elevation drop.  Not quite level, but not steep either.  In the past two weeks I have run those 2 miles at least 5 times, and the fastest I have ever managed to cover those miles is 7:30 per.  Today I covered the last mile in 6:50! I was pretty excited because not only is that fast for me, but it felt completely natural.  I could have gone another mile at that pace I think.  Tomorrow I may try to do my workout on a flat course just to see how fast I can go there.  I've been doing a lot of uphill work, and a lot of downhill work to go along with it, and I think I may have improved my time.

One last thought I had tonight.  A lot of people tell me that they don't like to run because it is boring.  At one time in my life I had that same opinion.  But I think that maybe running is boring when its a chore.  When I push myself and run faster than I thought I could or when I am able to run up mountains that I couldn't have run up before running is a blast.  So maybe if running is boring your just not pushing hard enough. 

I think I over did it yesterday because I feel really tired today.  My legs were a little sore starting out today as well, though it went away after a half mile or so. The 9 miles I did yesterday is the farthest I have run since the 5th and I'm not sure I was ready for that at the beginning of the week. I need to adjust the recommended workout so that those runs are at the end with a day of rest between them and the softer runs throughout the week.  Maybe.  I'll see how the rest of the week plays out I guess. 

I was supposed to do a 7 mile fartlek run today but I was really tired and my legs feel exhausted.  Instead I did 6 miles at an easy pace.  I'm happy to report that even completely exhausted my easy pace is 8:33 per mile. That is definitely an improvement over even just a month ago. I am also pretty please with how I felt about the course today.  I ran this same route last summer - down jordan river parkway from 400 South to 2100 South - and I remembered it being much farther than it was today.  It seemed to go by pretty quick and painlessly.  It would be interesting to see how fast I ran that course last summer. 

 I have been running uphill every day for at least a week and I think that it improved my run but at the cost of the longevity of my legs.  I need to work up to that I guess.  Next week I'll pepper in more flat runs with my canyon running. 

I didn't have a lot of time today so I couldn't go for the long run that I wanted.  Instead, I decided I should do a short, fast run. I managed to do 5 on a semi hilly course in 7:52 per mile.  I was pretty happy about it. 

Today I wanted to make up some of the miles I missed earlier in the week.  Since there is no work and no school today it seemed like the perfect time.  I did 10 in 8:39 per mile, which is the fastest I've run 10 miles since 2006. It was also encouraging that this pace was not strained at all. It was a nice mellow run.  My legs were a bit stiff and soar to start, but it went away and by the end I felt great. 

I was supposed to do 7 miles today and 3 hill sprints.  Instead, I did 5 miles and no hill sprints.  I think that the 10 I did yesterday must have taken it out of me.  My calf muscles started sore and never got better.  In fact, they got more painful as I went. I spent a good 20 minutes stretching before I went out but my hip (I.T.?) also started to get tight around mile 3.  I decided it would be best to cut the run short and take it easy instead of pushing through and ending up injured.

On the up side, I managed to break 40 miles this week. That's the first time I've done that in a while. 

The goal tonight was to make sure my "easy" miles stayed easy miles.  I'm not sure why I crashed at the end of the week last week but I'm suspicious that it had something to do with 5 miles at 7:50 pace followed by 10 miles at 8:30 pace followed by me thinking I could do all that and still do another 7 miles at 8:30 the next day.  With my total miles exceeding any previous weeks mileage by at least 4 miles I think I just pushed to hard and ended up killing myself.  So today I tried to keep my easy miles to between 8:40 and 9 minute miles.  I was pretty good. All except 1 of my splits were in the range, and the one outside the range was mostly downhill. I don't feel exhausted tonight but my legs are sore already, which I don't think is a good sign.  If I have to I'll limit my miles this week to match last week, rather than do an extra 4 miles as suggested by the workout plan. 

I started a little sore, which I expected after yesterday.  But it went away pretty quick, which I didn't expect based on yesterday.  I'm starting to notice that after a day off my form isn't as good and I have to work back into it. after I figured it out today I was good. The run felt good. 

I'm getting tired of running at night.  It's cold, people keep trying to hit me with their cars, and tonight it was raining off an on - a fact that only makes the coldness that much worse.  To combat these problems I decided to go to the gym and run on the treadmill.  This solution was not without problems though. To begin with, it's a treadmill and I haven't run on a treadmill for a very long time.  the second major issue is that a treadmill, or at least the treadmills at the gym I go to, will only let me run for 40 minutes before stopping - so distance is out. Finally, the treadmill is, or at least can be, very boring. 

My solution to these problems was to run hard and fast and make sure I get a good workout in if I can't get distance. I decided that the first mile should be slow so I could adapt to the treadmill experience again and after a mile I felt just fine.  So I took my speed up.  It should be noted that the treadmill was always at a 1% incline to account for the friction that is experienced on the road but lacking on a treadmill.  I ran the first mile at 8:57 pace then upped my pace to 7:47.  I held the 7:47 pace for the next 1.5. After that I dropped my pace to 8:20 for a half mile to recover and then sped back up to 7:30 for another 1.3 miles.  At the 4.3 mark I sped up again to an even 7:00 pace and maintained that until I hit 4.8 where I sped up again to 6:48 for the final .2.  The 6:48 was tough to maintain, especially after running the 7:30 and 7:00 pace, so it's a good thing I only had to do that for a short distance.  I found that running the treadmill this way was not only a great workout but that the treadmill was actually pretty fun like this.  I still wish I could go for more distance, but I'll take what I can get I guess. 

Due to the winds, which I heard were somewhere in the neighborhood of 100 mph, I couldn't run today.  Not only was road running virtually impossible but the Gym, along with most of davis county, had it's power knocked out so I couldn't even hit the treadmill.  

 Instead I did 20 minutes on the spin bike in my garage and a bunch of pushups and sit ups. If I'm going to hit 40 this week I'm going to have to put in some serious miles in the next 2 days.  

I opted for the treadmill again today.  It was already 30 degrees outside when I got time to run and it was dark.  In lieu of tripping over fallen tree branches in the dark - the result of the storm - I went to the gym. Because it was a treadmill and because I didn't get my run in yesterday I thought I should push harder than normal. I managed to do 5.1 miles in 40 minutes (7:50 avg pace). Because that is pretty flat running, even at the 1% incline, I then took the treadmill up to a 4% grade and put in another mile and a half.  At the 1 1/2 point I took it up to 5% and at 1.75 I took it up to 6%.  In the end I the machine said I did just under 500 feet vert in 2 miles. 

I feel pretty great after that run and I'm hoping to get some trail time in tomorrow if the snow isn't too deep. Maybe BST from NSL to City Creek or from Farmington to Adams Canyon.  Either way, I need to get in some miles and I would prefer that they were interesting.  

I am done with Cascadias! I haven't ran that many miles in these shoes this year and every time I run in them they hurt my feet.  I bought them because I'm a sucker for what big name ultrarunners endorse, or at least I used to be.  I've found, over the last several months, that footwear is really a personal issue. Like trying to determine whether or not you like the way something tastes. No one can tell you if a pair of shoes is good for you - or no shoes for that matter - it's just something you have to figure out as you go.  That said, Cascadias are not good for me or my feet. I tried on the Altra Lone Peaks yesterday and I liked them a lot.  I also tried on the Hookas for the first time and I liked them a lot as well. They feel like your walking on marshmallows. Whether it's the Hookas or the Lone Peaks I'll be switching trail shoes before I hit the trail again. 

My shoe bitching aside, the trail was pretty fun.  I went up the BST from City Creek to the towers on the top of the mountain.  I thought about taking the trail down into North Salt Lake and coming back but that downhill off the ridge made me think about the uphill I would just have to face latter.  Instead, I decided to turn right at that junction and just head up to the top of the mountain.  The idea was that I would just get the up hill out of the way while my legs were pretty fresh.  In retrospect I'm glad that's how I did it because my legs were tired by the end.  It was 2,229 feet of vertical gain, all of which came in the first 5 miles.

The first 3 miles is all up hill, and some of it is pretty steep. after 3 it mellows out for a while, some rolling hills, then its straight up hill to the tower. The ridge at the top was very windy, and since it's only 35-40 degrees here that meant it was also very cold. My nose and cheeks were frozen until I got off the ridge. I tried to speed up on the way down but my legs (quads) were pretty tired and my shoes were hurting my feet. I wonder what I could do with good shoes on that trial.  

Feeling sick and finals are taking up too much of my time.  consequently, I didn't get any miles in today.  Don't know how I'm going to make my quota this week. 

It's too cold outside so I ran on the treadmill today.  I don't know if refusing to run outside when it's 20 degrees makes me a wuse, but if it does I guess I'm a wuse. I know it's winter and it will be cold for a while, but I hope that it gets back to 30 or 40 before too long. There is only so much that can be done on a treadmill. 

I've been sick all week.  I thought, on Tuesday, I could just out run it, but it caught up with me. I don't know how much of a set back a week with virtually no training will be but I would like it very much if I could just get over this and get back to it. 

This is my first run in a week.  I came down with a nasty sinus cold and that, coupled with finals, kept me inside all week. I got sick of sitting around though so now I'm back.  I wanted to do more than 5 but thought it wise to get back into it easy. Or at least sort of easy

This run wasn't really easy though. I did the first mile at an 8:45AP then had to make up the difference over the next 4 miles.  Since the TM i run on will only let me run for 40 minutes before stopping, I like to try and squeeze in at least 5 miles.  at the 1 mile mark I upped the speed to 8:00 per mile and kept it there until I hit 20 minutes. At 20 minutes I started running intervals of 1 min at 6:39 and 2 min at 8:00.  I did that for 10 minutes then took the machine back to 8:00.  At 35 minutes I took the speed up to 7:30 pace, then at 32 I took it up to a 7:00 min pace and at 39 minutes I took it up to 6:39 again for the last minute.  I was tired and sweaty when it was over but it was good to be back at it.

TM again.  Instead of killing myself on speed 2 days in a row I shot for elevation this time. I started with an easy 8:34 pace and kept that all the way through.  I began my elevation at 2.5% grade and stayed there until 20 minutes in.  At that point I upped the elevation to 3 for a minute then down to 2.5 for a minute, then up to 3.5 for a minute then back to 2.5, then up to 4.5, etc.  I repeated this until I got to a 5% grade.  Then I backed it off to 2.5 and held that until the final 5 minutes.  At 35 minutes I went to 4.5%, at 37 I went to 5%, at 38 I went to 5.5%, and at 39 I went to 7%.  I was surprised that I didn't have to lower my speed, especially on that last minute, but I maintained the 8:34 until the end. It would have been nice to get in more than 4.75 miles but the TM will only let me go for 40 minutes.

In the end my total elevation gain was just under 800'. 

On the TM again.  The yellow air day and the cold kept me from wanting to go outside. The TM is getting old. I hope the inversion clears by the time finals are over. 

I planned on doing 6 miles today even though it meant stopping and restarting at the 40 minute mark.  The gym was pretty empty and no one was in line so I didn't think it would be an issue. I did the first 4.2 miles at 8:34 per mile then had to stop for an urgent bathroom break.  When I returned  I decided that I should do 1.5 as fast as possible with a .3 medium effort jog to warm back up.  I did the .3 at 8:19 pace then upped the speed to 6:39 pace.  I did the remaining 1.5 at that pace.

I noticed something tonight that I haven't noticed before.  I think I realized this due to the fact that I was on the treadmill.  Unlike the road, where I run as fast as I can talk myself into until I get to tired and ultimately slow down, on the TM I am forced to keep moving fast for as long as I leave the speed turned up.  After the first half mile I began having a hard time getting my foot to land properly.  I don't mean that my form was bad, but rather I couldn't quite close the mental gap between how fast I needed to move my leg to get it underneath me before I stepped down again.  I didn't hurt myself, or even break stride, but to me it was quite noticeable how difficult it was to make my brain and my leg work together. 

I have read a lot of stuff in the last few months about the importance of neuro-muscular training along with aerobic conditioning but it has never been more clear to me than it was tonight.  Aerobically, I was fine at the 6:39 pace but had I kept going at that pace for any longer than I did I would have hurt myself simply because I was loosing the ability to control the speed and coordination of my legs. So I guess the point here is that if I want to get faster than I am already, and especially if I want to do so sooner rather than later, I should get back on the treadmill and teach my legs how to move that fast. Clearly it is going to take some practice.

One other thing I noticed tonight, though this has nothing to do with me.  When I first arrived at the gym I picked a TM and started stretching next to it.  One machine to my left was a woman (20's probably) wearing Vibrams.  While I stretched I watched her run and I noticed that every time her foot came down it came down heel first. It was painful to watch, almost like she was trying to land on her heel.  I'm not sure how long she had been doing that but she stayed for another 10 minutes and left.  I'm a fan of minimalist shoes because I think it can teach a person how to run correctly, but I am amazed at how someone can be conscientious enough to buy those shoes but know that the whole point is to train yourself to run correctly.  I guess that's the point of all the McDougal hatred I've heard lately, though I don't think that it's his fault or even his suggestion.  

Nothing interesting tonight.  I wanted to do the workout that Broaddwg told me about today, but figured I better give myself an easy day before pushing it again. 6.2 on the treadmill at an 8:34 pace the entire way is not nearly as interesting as that workout would have been though. Hopefully the rest will pay off tomorrow. 

Broaddwg TM workout tonight.  I mixed it up a bit by doing a 2 mile warm up on the indoor track then 4 x 1mile @ 7:30 pace on the TM and 2 mile cool down back on the track. I didn't think I could maintain the 6:39 pace for the mile repeats and I'm expecting my MP to actually be somewhere around 8:15 to 8:00 AP.  Based on that I figured 7:30 was a good pace for the repeats.  

I didn't quite make my milage quota for the week but since I missed Monday due to illness and still got 30 miles in I guess I'll consider it a successful week. Hopefully with the end of finals I will be able to have time to more miles in next week.  

The smog finally cleared and I was able to hit the road today.  I thought I should break back into the week with an easy effort so I ran at a pace that felt comfortable and didn't check my watch until mile 3.  When I did finally check my watch it said I had been running 8:15 per mile. Before the smog set in, this same course at an easy pace usually worked out to around 8:30-8:40 per mile. There are a couple of reasons that this could have been faster today. 1) I was rested because I couldn't get out monday or tuesday, or 2) the speed work I've been doing on the treadmill has been paying off. I hope it's the latter.  We'll see how the rest of the week works out.  I did notice that my form felt better today than I remember the last time I ran the road; almost smoother than it previously had.  If the rest of the week plays out this same way I won't regret using the TM when it gets smoggy again. 

I decided to do the treadmill workout from last week on the road today. It all went well up until the last half mile.  I did 1 mile warm up, 4 x 1 mile @ 7:00-7:30 pace w/90 sec recoveries, and 1 mile cool down.  My splits were: 7:23, 7:22, 7:19, 7:22.  On the final half mile I felt the muscles in the arch of my foot starting to strain, like when you lift a lot of weight at the gym and feel sore the next day. By the end of the cool down, which was much slower than the warm up, both the bottom of my foot and muscle on the back of my right calf were soar. 

I'm not sure I understand why this happened.  I can run faster than this on the treadmill without this problem. I have even run a consistent 7:38 pace for 5 miles on the road and not had this problem. The only thing I can really think of is that the cushion in my shoe is shot at this point.  I've been running in the same Altra Instincts since September (maybe earlier) and maybe it's time to get new shoes? If anyone has any insights I would appreciate it. 

Either way, next time I need to just stop and rest when my foot starts to hurt.  Had I done that the injury might not have been that bad.  

1 hour on the spin bike (20 miles). Trying to maintain my cardio while nursing my injury

another hour on the bike (20 miles)

20 more miles on the stationary bike.  The bike is getting my quads nice and conditioned.  Hopefully I'll be able to hit the hills harder when get back to running again. 

Another hour on the bike.  This time I got to 25 miles by the hour mark.  I would rather be running, but if I can't at least I'm improving on the bike. 

I had hoped to be recovered by today so I could get one last run in before the year is over.  Looks like that isn't going to happen.  I may even be on the bike until next Saturday. It's a pitty on such a beautiful day.