Goals for the new year

My first run of the year ended up being in Singapore. The tropical heat, combined with jet lag and a lingering respiratory infection, really kicked my butt, and I called it quits after about 25 minutes. But it's a start. Next time I really should go out before the sun is up!

It's a new year so it's a good time to think about setting goals. Here are my current thoughts:

Distance

I am signed up for a half-marathon at the end of April. I'm not sure I want to go for a marathon this year, so that might be the longest distance I will go. But I think I'd like to set a total distance goal for the year, and 1000km seems like a nice, round number, just high enough to make it challenging while being within reach.

Speed

My speed goal is to reach half the world-record speed. This means:

25:14 for a 5K (current PR is 27:57, and that's during a triathlon)

52:34 for a 10K (current PR is 59:34)

1:56:46 for a half-marathon

All I need to do is make sure I start putting in the miles. I'm already 7km behind my overall distance goal!

Speedwork on the treadmill

I had to watch the kids last night so I couldn't make it to the SWRC speedwork session. I opted to do the planned workout on the treadmill instead. (It had been sitting neglected for too long!)

Workout:
1/2 mile warm-up (5mph / 12:00/mi)
1/4 mile hard (7.3mph / 8:13/mi)
2x1/2 mile hard-ish (7mph / 8:34/mi)
1/4 mile hard (7.3mph / 8:13/mi)
2x1 mile tempo (6.4mph / 9:22/mi)
~1/4 mile cooldown (5mph / 12:00/mi)

Total: 4.19mi, 40:00 min

Lenore said that she came home and it sounded like an elephant was running upstairs. I think at some point we'll need to move the treadmill into the basement to avoid this, but we might need to put carpet down there first.

Boring as it is, I found using the treadmill easier for the intervals than the track, probably because you don't get to set your pace, so you don't end up starting too fast, or worrying how far to push yourself. Hopefully it's good practice to help pace myself for actual road runs.

It also felt good to get a workout in; hadn't done anything since last Friday. Only 10 days left until the Chicago Tri! I still want to get a couple of brick workouts in, but I also want to make sure to take it easy next week to rest up those muscles. I wanted to bike this morning, but ended up waking up too late and the forecast calls for scattered thunderstorms.

Shaping up

My training has been very pathetic over the past month or so. I didn't manage to do anything in Spain, then only got two workouts in last week. I think it's just hard to get motivated to go outside during this heat. I was thinking that this week it was time to shape up, but then caught a bit of a cold and was out of commission for a few days.

By Thursday I was feeling better and was actually itching to go out and do something. I was thinking of going out for a longer run late afternoon; I knew some rain was forecast, but I figured that would actually be welcome.  I got about a mile and a half out from home on country roads when I started noticing that the rain clouds off in the distance had lightning flashes. I decided that being the tallest thing within a mile radius would not be so smart, so I cut the run a little short. By the time I got back to the subdivision, lightning flashes were becoming more frequent, so I thought I'd sprint home, but after about a half mile, I had to stop and walk. Made it back inside as the first raindrops were falling. (Which, as I've learned since, was not soon enough to avoid the risk lightning, though I think being surrounded by two-story houses, rather than by soy fields, reduced the risk substantially.)

Don't you love this nice animation from NWS?

Friday morning my plan was to get up early to go for a bike ride, but I couldn't get to sleep until after 2am, so after I got up and fed the dogs, I fell right back into bed until about 10. So instead I took the dogs for a quick jog around the neighborhood. Miso does really well with jogging, but Soba less so. At first, she gets too distracted by sniffing every inch of the ground to keep a good pace, and then, after a mile or so, she just gets too tired (and hot) to continue and starts dragging behind. I keep thinking about going on a run with just Miso, but I know Soba would feel really bad about being left behind.

I also made it to the pool, after a 3 week (!) hiatus. The good news is that I didn't lose too much ability during the break. I completed week 3 day 3 of the 0-to-1650 plan, and while it felt mildly challenging, I think I'm ready to step up to week 4 during my next time out. On the minus side, the pool was fairly congested (at one point, I think there were 5 or 6 people in my lane) and I had to stop for a few seconds to check on traffic at each end of the pool, so I didn't really do the 400m uninterrupted interval. Who would have thought that so many people would have nothing better to do on a Friday night than doing laps in the pool?

Swim set:
400m, 12 breaths rest
200m, 10 breaths rest
4x100m, 8 breaths rest (may have only been 3, I always lose count here)
4x50m, 4 breaths rest

This morning I decided to join the distance run put on by our local running club. The start time was 7am, so I set my alarm for 6. I had trouble falling asleep again so I ended up taking an Ambien, but I think I took it a bit too late, since when 6am rolled around, I was still feeling a bit spacey and it took me about 20 minutes to actually drag myself out of bed. I quickly fed the dogs, made coffee (spilling the drip tray all over the floor in the process), printed out the course map that I then forgot at home, and jumped into the car. Apparently, I wasn't the only one feeling spaced out, since on the way to the start, a woman almost changed lanes into me. That got certainly my heart rate up!

The run was an 8-mile loop, which you would do once if you're training for a half marathon and twice if you're training for the full. In the olympic distance triathlon, I only have to run a 10K (6.2mi), but training longer distances should be helpful since the run will follow the swim and bike. I settled in at the back of the pack and ended up running with two older women who were both talking about their kids moving out of the house. One, whose last kid was just leaving, was 51; the other, who was on her third grandchild, was 44!! It's amazing that you can make such different life choices and end up with your kids out of the house before you even really hit middle age. For comparison, my parents were close to 70 by the time they finally got grandkids.

We started out a little fast, doing 2 sub-10 miles; fortunately, everyone agreed that we needed to slow down a bit. The women had both done marathons in the past but they were supportive of my first attempt at an 8-mile run. We took a couple walking breaks and the 51-year-old started to fall behind a bit because she was feeling too hot. I kept pace with 44-year-old (mostly); the last couple miles were a bit painful, but I did finish, making about an 11-minute pace overall, including the walking breaks.

I felt pretty exhausted by the end; I even allowed myself a little bit of gatorade to replenish my electrolytes, and it probably took me about 10 minutes to feel normal again. The women went out for a few more miles after the break. I now have a newfound respect for half-marathoners; I certainly was in no shape to run an extra 5.1 miles today. Though I think I will try to find a half marathon to run some time in the fall. The women recommended the Chicago Monster Dash in late October—sounds like it could be fun.

Countryside 10K

This morning we ran the Countryside 10K race. I got up around 6am to get a few things picked up before the babysitter arrived at 7. We left shortly afterwards and I was worried that we'd be late since Google projected a 38-minute driving time. Fortunately, the route was mostly on country roads where you can drive pretty fast, so we arrived about 20 minutes before the race start. Lenore picked up our bibs and "ag swag bags;" they were running out of safety pins but we were able to score one each. Then I queued up for the port-a-potties while Lenore listened to the pre-race announcements.

I emerged from the port-a-potty as they were playing the national anthem; it was kind of disorienting to walk around the crowd standing solemnly with hands on their hearts. The announcer also described how we'd be running around some of the finest farm land "god gave us," and gave a warning that the start of signal would consist of "ready... farm sound ... set ... another farm sound ... go!" I guess it was good he gave that warning because I couldn't hear anything from the start line, so I wouldn't have gotten to experience that bit of "country" flavor!

Anyway, a few people did hear the start signal and they relayed it to the rest of us, so we started racing. Right away, I knew I was in trouble. My legs felt very tired. I wanted to make sure I have a good training week this week, so I ended up swimming Friday night. I also decided to ride my bike to work and back, and even though I tried to take it easy to save my legs, I still used up a fair amount of energy during nearly 20 miles in the saddle. And I don't think I was fully recovered from the speedwork session on Wednesday. So my legs simply did not want to move very fast.

And moving very fast they were. Lenore, once again, just took off ahead, and I took off after her. Shortly, I had to slow down, but my iPhone was still showing me running very fast, 8-something per mile! I started slowing down and started getting passed by more and more people. Eventually, I reached the 1 mile mark, where they had a volunteer calling out times... 8:26, 8:27, 8:28. I was definitely going way too fast!

I slowed down a little bit more. Ahead of me, Lenore was slowing down, too, and in fact I was closing the gap. I thought to myself "Great, maybe we can run together for a bit!" As I caught up to her, I asked her about her ankle (which had been hurting a bit), but this caused her to slow down and fall behind. I had figured that she had decided it was hurting too much and decided to rest, maybe walk back, so I just pressed on. The second mile was over in 9:10, which was at least more reasonable. I figured, if I could keep around that pace, maybe a bit slower, I could reach my goal of beating Lenore's 10K time from the Illinois Marathon.

The third mile was when the real pain began. My body was increasingly insistent on quitting. All I could think of was collapsing into a heap. I also felt like I was the last person in the race; the pack of runners I started with was all ahead of me and there wasn't anyone for quite some distance behind. Rationally, I knew that there must have been runners behind, but emotionally, it still felt demoralizing. I tried to distract myself with singing a song in my head. (I had left my headphones at home because I mistakenly thought that headphones were forbidden on the course.) The only one I could think of was the "green grass grows all around" song from one of our kids' music CDs. "The biggest tree..." step step pant... "that you ever did see..." step step pant...

I finished mile 3 in just under 10 minutes. I picked up a gatorade at the water stop, and walked for a few paces while I drank it.  I thought maybe that the little bit of sugar would pick me up, and indeed, for the next short while, I actually managed to run for a while without feeling miserable. But sugar rushes are, of course, short-lived, and by the end of mile 4, the pain was back. I didn't even bother calculating my split pace (9:55); I no longer was caring about how fast I ran, I just wanted this race to be over!

I did a lot of soul-searching during mile 5. Why was I doing this to myself? Everything in my body was screaming that it's time to stop. I was thinking back of a blog post I read that talked about whether you train so you can race, or you race so that you train. For me, I'm pretty sure I race to train. The race achievements are nice, but the important part is getting fitter and exercising regularly, not getting a PR. So in theory, there'd be nothing wrong with listening to my body and walking the rest of the way. Finally, I convinced myself that this was a good exercise in discipline. I also figured I only needed to make it to the next water stop, where I could walk for a bit as I'm drinking.

Once I was walking, starting to run again was the hardest thing. I ended up walking about 30 seconds, just catching my breath, before starting up again. But eventually, it was one foot in front of the other, repeat, until I was done. I started feeling curious about my time again. My average pace was now 9:38 or so, and I knew I wasn't capable of running much faster than a 10-minute mile anymore, but I still had a shot at making it under an hour. At the five-mile mark, they called out a time of 58 and a few seconds. I quickly calculated: 1.2 miles to go, at 10 minutes per mile... it was going to be close!

I wish I could say that this thought energized me and pushed me to run faster, but I simply felt like I had no reserves left. I started counting down the distance. The finish line felt so close, yet so far away! Finally, with about a half mile to go, I switched to 2-1 breathing (I had been doing 2-2 for most of the race), which allowed me to pick up the pace ever so slightly. Finally, I rounded a corner and saw the race clock at the finish line. 59:04! But it looked like such a long way to go. I lengthened my stride, pumped those arms, and finally crossed the finish line when it read 59:33! That was a minute and a half PR from my last 10K.

They tore off my tag while I gasped uncontrollably, then I made a beeline for the port-a-potty. When I was done, I tried to stand up, and my legs just gave out on me. I guess I had really given it my all. On a second attempt, I successfully made it out of the bathroom. I started downing gatorade and looking for Lenore. I figured that she had either turned back before the 2-mile mark, in which case she should have been there already, or she was run-walking because of her ankle injury, in which case she would probably not be there for quite a while. To my surprise, she came down the finish chute when I was on my 3rd cup of gatorade. Apparently, she had met up with another runner, who had encouraged her to keep running.

Lenore's ankle was pretty sore, so we got an ice pack from the car, and then made our way to the food area. I was feeling close to collapse, so I figured it'd be OK to go off diet and have some carbs. We refueled for a bit, but eventually got too cold, and it was time to go home and relieve our babysitter, so we headed home.

Results

Nikita: 59:34.4, 9/10 in age group (ouch!), 41/51 gender, 75/129 overall

Lenore: 1:02:34.1, 16/27 in age group, 43/78 gender, 86/129 overall

Some final thoughts

Thinking about this race versus the 10K at the Illinois Marathon, they are like night and day. Back then, I started out going fairly slowly, and then negative split things and accelerated towards the end. This race, I started out too fast and then slowed down after the first couple of miles. And even though I finished the race faster today, I think I much prefer the negative split approach: accelerating towards the end feels empowering, whereas slowing down feels pretty demoralizing. After the first quarter mile or so, I did not pass a single person this race... except Lenore.

My other thought is that I treated both this race and the Wildcat race as `B' races that I would run while training for another race (in this case, the Chicago Triathlon), whereas the 10K at the Illinois Marathon was a race that I specifically trained and prepared for. As a result, I ended up doing a bunch of exercise in the week leading up to the race, and some the day right before. But as a result, instead of having a fun race, I felt pretty miserable for large chunks instead. So I think in the future, even if I'm trying to integrate a "fun" race into my normal training schedule, I should make sure that it's during a rest week, or at least has a rest day preceding it.

And my final thought is that, despite how I was feeling, I ran a great race! The first mile might well have been the fastest mile I have ever run, and I improved my PR by 90 seconds. And I very nearly caught up to Lenore's 10K time from the Illinois Marathon!

Home "alone", part 2

... and we're back! When we last left our heroes, they just completed a 40-minute jog with the POD. The initial plan for Sunday was to try the bike trailer mode of the POD, but due to an error on my part, Tora's helmet had not yet arrived. The backup plan was to try out a strength workout using the GAIN Fitness app, but that also had to be scrapped when I woke up Sunday morning with a bad case of food poisoning.  So instead I spent the day feeling trying to remain horizontal while feeling miserable.

By Monday I was feeling much better. I also lucked out with our babysitter; she came to watch the twins while I went to work for a prelim exam and was able to stay a bit later, so I got in a quick swim at the pool. I noticed myself making progress; I was able to get through an entire 50m length without feeling terribly winded. I also spent some time doing some measurements: I was taking 90 to 120 seconds per a 50m pool length, and about 75 strokes. So definitely lots of room for improvement!

Tuesday morning the kids went to daycare and I went to the gym. I decided it was time to try out the GAIN Fitness app. It's kind of neat: you give it some goals about what you are aiming to do, such as build muscle or just improve health, how long you want to work out, what area you want to focus on, and what equipment you have available. It then creates a set of exercises for you and guides you through them. For each exercise, you get a picture and some tips; you can also switch among several (roughly) equivalent exercises, based on your preference. It can also upload a report to RunKeeper about your workout.

Overall, I like the ability to design a tailored workout for your particular circumstance (especially as I travel and have to exercise in various hotel gyms). The functionality has a few rough corners; if you look at the report, it seems to follow a template that isn't appropriate for all exercises and it also includes some exercises that I skipped. Also, during the warm-up and cool-down exercises, it assumes that you are able to instantaneously switch between them as it measures out 30-second intervals; I guess with practice, that may be the case. It's not a replacement for a personal trainer, but it seems to provide good guidance for someone like me, who's just beginning some strength training and needs flexibility in the workouts.

Finally, Tuesday afternoon, we went for a bike ride. The kids' helmets had both arrived and I got them adjusted as best I could. (The instructions kept saying things like "put the helmet on your head ...", which would have been much simpler than putting the helmet on a squirmy toddler, but I'm pretty sure they wouldn't fit.) Tora for some reason didn't like the helmet too much, though Tavi was pretty happy; I think he just saw it as another cool hat.

I finally wrangled them both into the trailer and into the helmets and we were ready to go.

We went slowly out of the subdivision and then got out onto the country road... where the wind hit. The trailer has a terrible wind profile, so I ended up going very slowly in a low gear. The handling of the bike is also noticeably different; every once in a while, the wind shifts or the slope changes and then the pull from the back changes, sometimes even to a brief push. But we were in no rush, and once again, this training should help me go faster in a race sans trailer.

My plan was to go for about a 50-minute ride, as prescribed by my training schedule, but after about 20 minutes, Tora started crying. I don't know if she was tired, hot, hungry, or just cranky. Unfortunately, there was nothing much I could do other than turn around and bike home, which took another 15 minutes or so. Next time I will try going when it's not as hot out and/or bring something for the kids to drink to see if they tolerate it better.

MooMoo...crawl

Today was my first attempt at a trail race, running the Wildcat 10K, put on by Brazen Racing. It fit nicely into my scheduled trip to the Bay area, and my friend Bem had often said great things about Brazen, so I decided to sign up. The main question for me was whether to run a 5K or 10K, since although I can easily run a 10K on flat land, the hilly course here was going to be a challenge. I decided to follow the rule of "when in doubt, pick the more challenging option" and signed up for the 10K.

I ordered breakfast in my hotel to come between 6 and 6:30, figuring this would wake me up in time for the race. After breakfast, I drove to the race location, where I met up with Bem and some of his racing friends, and eventually with Alex and his friend Mark. Bem and Alex were running the half-marathon, while Mark was doing the 10K with me.

Bem explained to me that the key to this type of race is to walk up the hills; the announcer at the start also recommended this approach. Emotionally, it felt kind of disappointing, because being able to run long distances without having to walk feels like one of my biggest accomplishments over the last year, but rationally, it was obviously the right strategy. The race started with a big uphill climb and it was obvious that everyone was walking rather than running, so any bad feelings about walking quickly evaporated.

They were quickly replaced by bad feelings from my legs, which were complaining about having to lug my body up hills for the second day in a row (on Friday, I went on a two-hour bike ride from San Francisco to Sausalito and back). The first mile had about 450ft of climbing (according to RunKeeper); this was definitely not the Midwest! Despite walking, my heart rate stayed in the 160s the whole time.

What goes up must come down and soon there was a descent. I made up a lot of time here by switching to a super-fast cadence and holding on for dear life. Things flattened out a bit and I got to see some cows!

I stopped at the first aid station long enough to drink two cups of water and the continued on my way. My stomach did feel a bit unsettled for a while and I wondered whether eating breakfast and/or having so much water was a mistake. I also felt like my muscles weren't responding very well and I was barely moving, but whenever I'd look down at my iPhone, it showed me running around a ten-minute mile, which I thought was pretty good considering.

By the third mile, I settled into a comfortable rhythm, with a nice 3-2 breathing pattern. The course was fairly flat for a while and I felt much more in my element. By the time I got to the second aid station, I was feeling pretty optimistic about the race: I was halfway done, and my average pace was somewhere around 12 minutes / mile, which I thought pretty respectable given the hills. This line of reasoning had just one flaw. See, I had in my mind this elevation profile for the race:

Careful readers, however, might observe the markings on the x axis and notice that this is the 5K elevation profile. For the 10K, it looked more like this:

So I had finished the easy half, with all of the hard work still ahead. Even though I wasn't feeling super thirsty, I drank a cup of Ultima Replenisher (which actually tasted pretty good; not too sweet, like I feared), which turned out to be a very good idea given what lay in store for me:

I started hiking up the hill and watched that average pace drop to 13 minutes, then to 14 minutes, then to 14 and a half. I kept having the experience of reaching the crest of a hill, settling into an easy trot on the downhill while catching my breath, only to turn and see more climbing ahead! It was kind of demoralizing. The only consolation I had were the gorgeous views of hills (and more cows!):

After an hour, I had only made it through about 4 and a quarter miles, and I felt mentally ready to be done. At one of the final crests, there was a nice bench where you could sit down, take a load off, and take in the views and man, was it ever tempting!

Finally, it was time to start the long descent. By this point in time, my legs just didn't want to move, so I ended up having to go much slower this time. Probably a good idea, too: another runner passed me on a downhill and then ended up falling not too far ahead. (She was OK.) There were a couple of small upticks nestled in the descent, and I ended up nearly crawling up them. Somewhere in my mind I thought that it would be nice to finish within an hour and a half, or end with a sub-14-minute pace, but not enough to do any real sprinting to the finish. It did feel nice when the announcer called my name as I crossed the finish line, but it was even nicer knowing that I was finally done!

I picked up my finisher's medal and saw Mark, who had finished about 8 minutes ahead of me and looked to be holding up much better. Then I started the replenishment cycle. I am off my low-carb diet this week so I got to pig out on all of the tasty post-race treats. I saw Bem finish his half-marathon, looking salty and happy. I did not stick around to see Alex finish since I needed to go check out of my hotel.

Final results: 

1:30:42 (14:10 pace, since the course was 6.4 miles)

11/16 age group, 91/161 overall

Overall, I'm not sure how I feel about this experience. Dragging your body uphill is a pretty different feeling than pushing your pace while racing on flat ground; they both involve fighting through exhaustion, but I think you get a much better endorphin reward with the latter, and the fact that you are moving rather than crawling makes it emotionally more satisfying. Then again, it could be that I'm just not used to going up hills at all and my body is responding in kind. So I'm not ready to write off trail racing yet, but I think next time I'll try to find one with less elevation gain and get more rest ahead of time.

Home "alone" (part 1)

Lenore has been in Florida since Friday so I have been home "alone" with the twins (and the dogs). This has put a damper on both my ability to work out and my blogging, but I'm trying to catch up.

I ordered a Baby Jogger POD, which is a combination bike trailer / jogging stroller. It's a little pricey, but I'm hoping this will let Lenore and me to work out together more often, and in theory it should last them a few years. I am a little concerned about the amount of shoulder room, since they're already pretty cozy in there:

(The Chariot Cougar 2 has a bit more shoulder room, but it's even more expensive.)  On Friday, I took the kids out for a quick stroll in the POD, taking the dogs along, too. It seemed to work fine, so on Saturday I went for a 40-minute run... and immediately felt the impact of the extra 70 lbs or so I was pushing along. Even going on a flat surface was a lot harder, perhaps in part because I couldn't swing my arms for counterbalance, and any minimal incline was immediately noticeable. Interestingly, it felt more like a whole-body workout, since pushing the stroller required engaging my arm, back, and core muscles. I ended up feeling pretty exhausted by the end, despite running only about a 11-minute mile. As it turns out, I wasn't the only one who got tuckered out:

I'm actually thinking that this will be good for my triathlon training. My training plan calls for "long" runs starting at 40 minutes and building up to 77 minutes over the course of 3 months, which makes sense aiming at a 10K run, but since I just finished a 10K training plan, a 40-minute session just doesn't feel like that long a run normally, and I could relatively comfortably knock out 77 minutes tomorrow if needed. But with a stroller, it's a whole different story and 40 minutes seems like a good starting point. In the actual race, of course, I'll be running sans stroller, but I will be tired from the swim and the bike, so it should be somewhat similar.

(To be continued—have to go pick up the kids from daycare now)

Swim bike run!

After taking a break last week, this week is week one of triathlon training! My overall plan is borrowed from here, though I think I will be making some adjustments. The overall strategy is: 3x swim, 2x run, and 2x bike per week, increasing overall volume by 10% each week, with a rest week once a month. This needs to be rounded out with 2x per week strength training, for an ambitious total of 9 workouts a week. I actually wrote a python program to try to come up with an optimal schedule, but in retrospect, I might just play things by ear, at least for a couple of weeks to try to figure out how fast I recover from various workouts.

This week will be a bit below par; I spent Monday and Tuesday in DC, and although I had some plans for how to fit a workout or two into that trip, having my arrival delayed by 19 hours due to bad weather in O'Hare threw a wrench into those plans. And tomorrow morning, Lenore goes away on a 5-day vacation in Florida, leaving me to watch the kids, which will limit my exercise options. I did order a Baby Jogger Pod for the twins, which should hopefully allow me to go for a jog and a bike ride while she's gone, but I can't go to the gym or the pool.

Night Swimming

For some reason I thought that swimming is best to do first thing in the morning, and in fact my plan on Tuesday was to go for a swim in DC, but I overslept, compensating for a long night the night before. So instead I went to the ARC pool after putting the kids to bed, and that actually worked out pretty well. The pool was fairly empty, and it was actually kind of fun swimming in the dark.

The swim itself was very frustrating; I felt like I was mostly thrashing in the water. I was having a lot of trouble with breathing and also with maintaining form. The 50m length also took a lot of getting used to; I'd swim swim swim, look ahead, and see that I wasn't even halfway across! Most of the time I couldn't make it across without stopping (the pool is shallow the whole way), or at least taking a few breast strokes to catch my breath. The one time I did make it was pretty exciting.

I went for another swim tonight and I felt like I was making progress. I started out slowly, but after a couple of laps, I was able to make it across the pool without stopping more often than not. I also experimented with breathing every third stroke, and that actually helped quite a bit. Initially I'd only manage about half the pool length before switching to breathing every other stroke, but eventually I managed to do it for a whole length, unless I happened to gulp down some water on an inhale (which definitely happens more often on my left side, since in the past I've tried breathing on the right only).

I'm hoping that this experience will be similar to the Couch-to-5K plan, where initially even a really short jog would feel nearly impossible, but after a few weeks of concerted effort, things became much easier. And I figure worst case, I can always break down and do breast or back stroke in the triathlon.

Speedwork

The Second Wind running club is organizing speedwork sessions on Wednesday nights so I decided to join them. The meeting was at the Urbana High School track, which I believe was my first time running on a track since... probably grade 6 or so. The workout plan was:

2x1600m, 5m rest

2x800m, 3m rest

2x400m, 2m rest

The organizer had helpfully come up with a list of times that we should aim for in each interval, given our last 5K performance. Based on that, my mile was supposed to be between 10:45 (if you use the second half 5K split from the 10K race) and 12:00 (if you use my last actual 5K race).  When we started off our first 1600m interval, I tried to keep up with the people towards the back of the pack. As I finished my first lap, my quarter-mile split was 2:12! I pushed through and made it three more laps, feeling very much like I was going to die, and finished with an 8:55 time. After that, I realized that I best give up on trying to keep up with everyone and slow down in an attempt to survive. My second mile interval was 9:30; it still felt like a very hard pace, but at least I wasn't quite so ready to collapse afterwards. Here were all of my times:

1600: 8:55, 9:30

800: 4:40, 4:35

400: 2:01, 2:01

I was really hoping to get under 2 minutes on that last 400m, but it wasn't in the cards. This left me wondering whether (a) I am capable of running a much faster 5K (my interval times were in line with a 26-27 finish) or (b) I was pushing myself way too hard on these intervals. I'm guessing (b), but next Wednesday they're planning a 5K fun run, so I guess I'll find out.

Biking

When I got home Wednesday night, I was barely able to move. I just managed to grab dinner before passing out. When I woke up the this morning, however, I felt OK enough to try a bike ride. I even found the bike shorts I wore on my honeymoon in Norway; fortunately, I was able to fit into them again! I hadn't charged my phone so I wasn't able to get any data about the ride, but my estimate was that I rode about 11.5 miles in 45 minutes. There was hardly any wind and the ride was a comfortable constant effort. The Tifosi sunglasses worked out really well for biking, providing a wide shielded field of vision.

Rest

Tomorrow will be a much welcomed day of rest, other than chasing after two twins. This was a pretty intense sequence, and I think I'd like to space things out just a little bit more in future weeks. But I'm getting a lot more confidence that at the end of week 16 I'll be able to complete the triathlon. Wish me luck! 

10K @ Illinois Marathon — race report

Great race this morning!

The day began bright and early, with the babysitter arriving at 6 a.m. sharp. The weather was cool and windy, with a 40% chance of rain. I checked the marathon site just in case and they had a message confirming the race was on, but we found some slightly warmer clothes to wear out. We parked our car just as the marathoners and half-marathoners were starting off. We watched the corrals set off one by one while trying to keep warm. But by the time we were getting lined up at the start, it was much warmer. It's amazing how effective a couple thousand people are at generating heat and serving as a wind breaker! We lined up with the 11 min/mile group; I was planning to run at a 10:30 pace and Lenore wasn't really sure, though we were thinking between 11 and 13.

As soon as the race started, Lenore just took off ahead. I decided to keep back to maintain my pace, though I noticed that, feeling the energy for the crowd, I was still running faster than planned. My first mile split was 9:54, but my heart rate was in the 160s, which I figured was most important. I kept looking ahead for Lenore, figuring that she would slow down at some point, but didn't see her anywhere, so I kept running.
                                                                                                           
Second mile felt great; feeling lots of energy from the crowd, still running faster than expected, for a split of 10:06. There was a small grade at the end of it, which sent my heart rate above 170, so I tried to moderate my pace a little bit.  During the third mile, I was starting to worry that I had gone out too fast; my pace was slowing down a bit and I was noticing having to breathe a little heavier. My heart rate stayed at about 170 the whole mile.

I crossed the 5K mark at 31:20, which was about 30 seconds faster than my last 5K race back in March. I was still worried about the pacing, knowing that there was another 5K to go, but I figured I could start tapping into anaerobic reserves now, and my heart rate stated creeping up into the 170s. After the 4 mile mark, I decided to throw caution to the wind and stop worrying about my heart rate; it shot up to high 170s as I pulled out a 9:42 split. Somewhere towards the end of the fifth mile, I noticed that my average pace was 10:04 and realized that a sub-10-minute pace was within reach. I kicked it up a notch, switching to 2-2 breathing, and then to 2-1 when there was about a mile to go. Around mile 5 is also when I realized that if I had not caught up to Lenore so far, it wasn't likely to happen. I kept thinking that maybe I had passed her without noticing, but that seemed unlikely.

Approaching the stadium, I was definitely having to push myself pretty hard. I remember feeling really disappointed when I saw that we actually had to run a little past the entrance and then turn around, since my body was ready to stop any minute now. I did manage a sprint towards the finish, crossing just after 1:02 on the clock time. And there, holding her finishers medal, was Lenore, waiting for me. She had finished ahead of me by about a minute and a half!

My official chip time was 61:08, or a 9:51 pace. This was way faster than I had planned, and I pulled off one hell of a negative split, with 9:05 for mile 6 and 8:54 for the last little bit. But Lenore's time was even more of a surprise; we were both totally convinced that I would finish significantly before her and I had at one point estimated her finishing time to be around 1 hour 20. Boy, were we ever off!


My results:
Clock Time 1:02:17
Chip Time 1:01:08
Overall Place 705 / 2218 (32%)
Gender Place 379 / 730 (52%)
Division Place 62 / 105 (59%)

Lenore's results:

Clock Time 1:00:41
Chip Time 59:33
Overall Place 595 / 2218 (27%)
Gender Place 250 / 1488 (17%)
Division Place 31 / 201 (15%)

I was pretty excited about beating the 10 min / mile mark, but a little disappointed when I realized that this still puts me in the bottom half of my age group. Lenore, on the other hand, was in the 15th percentile in her division! We were pretty excited about this, until we learned that everyone else we knew running this race was faster than us. We finally settled on thinking that we're probably faster than most of the people we knew who did not run a race this weekend! And we got medals to boot, which the twins loved playing with the whole day.

It's been great training for this race and a lot of fun running it. I have a week off and then it's time to start training for the Chicago triathlon in August! Lenore's not doing that one because she doesn't feel comfortable enough swimming, but she's excited to find another land-based race to kick my ass in!

Taper week

I ended up again skipping my recovery run on Monday. I nearly skipped my last race pace run on Wednesday, too. My plan was to get in an early morning run, but then the dogs woke me up at 5 and I heard the kids crying. I went to check on them and discovered that it was 95 degrees in their room! The space heater we use has this UI bug where you have to set the thermostat temperature each time you turn it on, otherwise it simply ends up on the "max heat" setting by default, and Lenore must have forgotten to do that last night. There was no getting them back to sleep and I failed at waking up Lenore, so I ended up feeding them an early breakfast and watching them until Lenore finally got up, by which point I had to rush out of the house to make my doctor's appointment.

At the end of the day, I was feeling exhausted from being up since 5, plus suffering from either a minor head cold or allergies. But, after taking a break on the couch, I convinced myself that it was probably just allergies, and I was feeling really disappointed about not running at all this week (other than the 10K, of course), so I laced up my shoes and went outside. Once I was actually running, I felt a million times better!

My goal was to run a 3 miles at a 10:30 min/mile pace to practice for the 10K. My splits were 10:15, 10:25, and 10:37, averaging out to 10:26, so pretty close to the mark. My average heart rate was 163 bpm and it actually stayed pretty close to that during the whole run. So I think my target pace is right on target; I figure I'll aim for it for the first 5 miles and then pick things up for the last one, assuming I have any energy left.

I picked up our race packets this afternoon at the fitness expo. From what I saw, the event seems pretty well organized, with lots of signs and volunteers pointing you in the right direction. (Though they did screw up Lenore's shirt size and were unwilling to exchange it.) We'll have to see how much of a zoo it will be on Saturday, with 20,000 people. I also talked to the folks from the Second WInd running club; they seemed very nice. They apparently hold speed work sessions Wednesday nights, so I might try to incorporate that into my triathlon training schedule.

It seems that the allergies turned out to be a head cold after all. I'm hoping that a good night's rest will keep it from taking a turn for the worse, so it's time for some NyQuil and bed.

Last long run before the 10K!

I headed out for a last long run this afternoon before the 10K race next weekend. I decided to try running at a "conversational" pace, which is what everyone seems to recommend for long runs, but I've almost always opted to run faster than that. I tried to keep my heart rate in the 150–160 range and not worry too much about the pace. The good thing about this pace is that it's really easy to maintain for long distances and still have energy reserves to tap into if needed. The bad thing is that it's a little boring; I didn't get much of a runner's high at all until around the 5-mile mark and I finally decided to kick things up a notch for the last 3/4 mile just to keep things a bit more interesting. I guess a conversational pace is probably more pleasant when there's someone to have a conversation with.

It's weird comparing this run to one from two weeks ago. The distance was the same, and my average pace was close (11:19 vs. 11:21), but my average heart rate was a full 10 bpm higher two weeks ago, and back then, I was really huffing and puffing towards the end, where today I felt like I could have easily kept going. In fact, I was barely breaking a sweat. Granted, I think I wasn't as well rested then, and was battling a headwind for longer, but it's hard not to think that at least some of the improvement is due to the training program working.

I didn't run far enough to see the cows today, but I did see some newly planted corn.

Running for the hills

Nothing ever goes according to plan. I once again failed to drag myself out of bed in the morning, using in part the excuse that my legs were still feeling a bit tired. I also figured I would have some time in the late afternoon for a run, after my meetings. But first, I went shopping! I seem to have lost my old swim goggles, plus they never quite formed a good enough seal, so I headed down to SpeedyReedy to try out a few pairs. The sales staff were nice and helpful and I ended up walking out with a Tyr Orion. I also picked up a pair of Tifosi Vogel sunglasses:

 

Together with my new swimsuit [image redacted], I ended up just slightly over budget for this month, so no new toys or race entries until May!

Back in Bellevue, I was anxious to get in a run before dinner and to test out the sunglasses in action. My plan, if you recall, was to do some speed work intervals, so I cued up the program on RunKeeper and headed out of the hotel parking lot and down a steep downhill descent. It was fun barreling down, trying to keep my foot turnover high, even though I knew I'd have to pay for it later. But the real pain came sooner than that, as my path took me up another steep hill. Just as I made it over the crest, my interval timer chimed in for me to start a "fast" half-mile. I looked at the next hill in front of me, checked my heart rate (still in the 170's) and decided to ignore the intervals and just try to make it through the hilly run. I think I actually did reasonably well for someone whose training has been nearly exclusively in flat prairieland, but I did end up walking for a couple of short stretches.

I love how well both my pace and my heart rate track the elevation in this chart! The vertical scale here is about 230ft; the total climb that RunKeeper recorded was 668 feet. I'm definitely going to try to find a flatter route for Friday's run!

Running past my bedtime

I have sometimes been lazy and skipped the recovery runs during the 10K training, but I figured it was really needed since my legs were pretty sore after Sunday's 7-miler. Nevertheless, the morning run with the dogs didn't happen since I woke up late, feeling lazy, and, as the last straw, my iPhone was out of charge. (I should get this poster framed!) I figured an evening run would work out OK, but I first had to get the twins to bed, finish taxes and take care of a few other chores. Before I knew it, it was after 10pm.

I finally got on the treadmill and set myself up for an easy 12 min/mi pace. My heart rate climbed quickly into the high 140's so I slowed things down to 12:30 and played around with various strides—long steps, quick turnover, and a rolling, nearly walking shuffle. My heart rate was relatively stable but I was sweating like crazy, so I decided to take my shirt off... and slid off the treadmill in the process. I had the safety key clipped to my shorts so the treadmill stopped as designed and I was a little jarred but not hurt. Yet another reminder of why I prefer running outside, but it's not really an option when I'm home alone with the twins.

I made it to 45 minutes, allowing myself to speed up just a tad and go out of my heart rate zone for the last couple of minutes. Was nearly falling over tired at the end, though I expect this was largely due to the late night rather than the exertion of the exercise.

Today is my rest day, which is good because a) my quads are still pretty tired, b) I only managed to get 5 hours of sleep, and c) I'm spending half the day on airplanes on my way to Seattle.  I'm writing this from 37816 feet up in the air, as a matter of fact.  I will be in Seattle until Saturday, my workout plan is:

Wednesday: speed work (following the same plan as last Friday: 4x800 5K pace with 400 rest in between)
Thursday: do some total immersion exercises in the hotel pool
Friday: 3–4 mile run with a friend, if that works out

The time change should make it easier for me to get early morning workouts in before starting the day's business. I just have to find some good routes where the hills won't kill me!

Cows in Champaign? Moo!

Yesterday was my peak distance run (7 miles) in my 10K training! At 1h20, it also looks like it's going to be longer than anything in my upcoming summer triathlon training plan, too (which is time based), though I expect that I'll gain enough speed over the summer that I'll hit 7 miles again.

There were high winds coming from the south, so my route headed west, then south for one mile, and then back east. In retrospect, it may have been even better to do an out-and-back east-west run, since the mile running into the wind was one long and slow mile! But once it was done, the rest of the run felt pretty great. And I got to see some cows and horses this way.

I got tired again at the very end, with about a quarter mile to go and collapsed on the floor at home for a bit. I'm going to need to figure out a hydration plan for runs over an hour, since I think that's a factor in feeling so exhausted. Though again, looking at my tri training plan, I won't be exceeding an hour in running until July. (The 10K in 2 weeks, of course, will have water stations along the way.)