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.
Thursday, August 16, 2012
Saturday, July 28, 2012
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.)
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.
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.)
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| Don't you love this nice animation from NWS? |
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.
Friday, June 8, 2012
Catching up
After the 10K on Saturday, I was ahead on the run training, but I still needed to get some biking and swimming in. Sunday, we took the kids to Lake of the Woods for a bit and I decided to bring my bike in the van so that I could go on a ride afterwards. My plan called for 97 minutes of riding, so I decided to head roughly south, a ways past our house, and then double back. The SW corner of our subdivision is at the intersection of county roads 700 E and 1400 N (aka Rising and Windsor), so at every intersection I could tell how many miles away I was.
The day was perfect for riding, not too warm, and with only a light breeze. I biked past the corn and soybean fields, seeing the occasional car, cyclist, and one runner, but for the most part being on my own. I ended up riding past the same place where I had seen the cows on my long run in April, and they were out in full force, but I once again didn't have a chance to get a good picture.
I estimated that I'd need to turn around about 6.5 miles south of my subdivision, but decided to go the full 7 miles to 700 N. I figured I was feeling an occasional light breeze so the return trip would be with the wind, so I should go faster. As soon as I turned around, I realized I was wrong, and I was heading into the wind. And the road started sloping uphill to boot! Granted, the climb was very gradual, and the wind was fairly light, but I had already biked one hour and was feeling tired, both from the ride and from the 10K, so I ended up slowing down quite a bit. I also had finished all my water, so around mile 20, I felt like I was ready to quit, but short of asking Lenore to wake up the kids, pack them into the van, and come to rescue me, there wasn't much of an option other than trudging home. I finally arrived home nearly two hours after having started, thirsty and exhausted.
The good news was that I covered 27 miles, which is longer than the Olympic bike distance. The bad news was that I felt like I could hardly walk, let alone run a 10K. I'm definitely going to need some brick practice in the future!
I decided to skip the last swim of the week, convincing myself that I exceeded the total number of training minutes in my plan anyway. This, of course, ignores the fact that I exceeded it mainly on the run, which is currently my strongest discipline, and was heavily behind on the swim, which is my weakest. But I also think my body really needed the rest.
I got back in the saddle on Tuesday; this time, the wind was from the NE, and since going east means heading into the city, I opted to go north instead. My muscles were tired and it was a little slow going, but I made it to the north end of Rising, where it dead-ends into Bloomington road. From there, you can cut east for a short stretch and continue north on Lindsey Rd., which was surprisingly hilly. I made it to the top of a rise and reached my planned 35-minute turnaround time, so I headed home. The way back was much faster, with the wind at my back. Turns out that I also was losing some non-trivial elevation; I discovered later that my ride out was pretty much uphill the whole way, and ended over 100ft higher than it started! Upon further research, it turned out that I was just shy of reaching the highest point in all of Champaign county. I'll have to investigate more closely next time.
With the speedy return, I was home quickly and had to add an extra mile around the subdivision to make my goal of 64 minutes (actually ended up being 68). This ride felt much easier, in part because it was shorter and in part because I managed correctly to make it harder on the way out than back. Did not see any cows, but did pass some horses and a donkey.
Tuesday night, I wanted to fit in a quick swim, so I dashed off to the ARC right after singing the kids a lullaby. I was in the pool by 8:30, but turns out that when they say that the pool closes at 9, they really kick you out by 8:45, so I only managed to get 400 meters in, doing 100 meter repeats with 12 breaths in between. On the plus side, I didn't have too much trouble with breathing on this set, so I'm hoping I can transition to week 2 of 0 to 1650 soon.
Wednesday was our speed work session. The instructions for the day were 5 repeats of 200 "hard" + 400 "pace" on 2 minutes rest, followed by 5 repeats of 400 "pace" + 200 "hard", with a 4-minute rest between the two sets. The other guidance I was given was that "hard" for me should be 62 seconds per 200m, and "pace" was around 2:40 for the 400. I didn't take this guidance to heart, however, and interpreted "hard" as "all out," and "pace" as "pretty hard." My first 200 was finished in 46 seconds, followed by about 2:00 for the following 400, after which I felt like I was going to die! In retrospect, it was probably a bad sign that I passed a few other runners on the 200 stretch.
I spent the next little while trying to find the right pace, and was getting it pretty close by the end of the first set, settling in at the back of the pack. The second set was easier because you got to rest after the 200m sprint, rather than having to run another 400m. I only got my splits at the 200 and 600 points, but I think I was running the 400's a little faster and the 200's a little slower than target, but at least my total time was close to the mark.
By the way, I love how RunKeeper makes it look like I was running some killer hill repeats by stretching out the scale of the elevation graph here!
Thursday was a rest day. I was pretty tired, though my DOMS seems to have peaked last night/this morning, so maybe I should have done some recovery activity. I did notice that Thursday morning I weighed nearly 3 lbs (!) lighter than Wednesday, despite drinking copious amounts of water.
Today I went swimming. The ambitious plan was to wake up early and get to the pool; in reality, I only managed to wake up early-ish, with not enough time to get in a full workout before the end of the morning pool hours at 7:45 (that is if they even let me stay until 7:45!). I "pivoted" and went into the office early instead, and stopped at the pool on my way home. Simple workout, 4x100 followed by 8x50. (Probably should have stuck to the 6x50 of the 0 to 1650 plan, since I ended up being 2 minutes late coming home.) This time, the 12 breaths of rest after each 100 felt like plenty, so I think I'm ready for week 2.
Plan for the weekend: Sat AM: run with Lenore and twins, Sun AM: long bike ride, Sun PM: swim. Seems doable.
The day was perfect for riding, not too warm, and with only a light breeze. I biked past the corn and soybean fields, seeing the occasional car, cyclist, and one runner, but for the most part being on my own. I ended up riding past the same place where I had seen the cows on my long run in April, and they were out in full force, but I once again didn't have a chance to get a good picture.
I estimated that I'd need to turn around about 6.5 miles south of my subdivision, but decided to go the full 7 miles to 700 N. I figured I was feeling an occasional light breeze so the return trip would be with the wind, so I should go faster. As soon as I turned around, I realized I was wrong, and I was heading into the wind. And the road started sloping uphill to boot! Granted, the climb was very gradual, and the wind was fairly light, but I had already biked one hour and was feeling tired, both from the ride and from the 10K, so I ended up slowing down quite a bit. I also had finished all my water, so around mile 20, I felt like I was ready to quit, but short of asking Lenore to wake up the kids, pack them into the van, and come to rescue me, there wasn't much of an option other than trudging home. I finally arrived home nearly two hours after having started, thirsty and exhausted.
The good news was that I covered 27 miles, which is longer than the Olympic bike distance. The bad news was that I felt like I could hardly walk, let alone run a 10K. I'm definitely going to need some brick practice in the future!
I decided to skip the last swim of the week, convincing myself that I exceeded the total number of training minutes in my plan anyway. This, of course, ignores the fact that I exceeded it mainly on the run, which is currently my strongest discipline, and was heavily behind on the swim, which is my weakest. But I also think my body really needed the rest.
I got back in the saddle on Tuesday; this time, the wind was from the NE, and since going east means heading into the city, I opted to go north instead. My muscles were tired and it was a little slow going, but I made it to the north end of Rising, where it dead-ends into Bloomington road. From there, you can cut east for a short stretch and continue north on Lindsey Rd., which was surprisingly hilly. I made it to the top of a rise and reached my planned 35-minute turnaround time, so I headed home. The way back was much faster, with the wind at my back. Turns out that I also was losing some non-trivial elevation; I discovered later that my ride out was pretty much uphill the whole way, and ended over 100ft higher than it started! Upon further research, it turned out that I was just shy of reaching the highest point in all of Champaign county. I'll have to investigate more closely next time.
With the speedy return, I was home quickly and had to add an extra mile around the subdivision to make my goal of 64 minutes (actually ended up being 68). This ride felt much easier, in part because it was shorter and in part because I managed correctly to make it harder on the way out than back. Did not see any cows, but did pass some horses and a donkey.
Tuesday night, I wanted to fit in a quick swim, so I dashed off to the ARC right after singing the kids a lullaby. I was in the pool by 8:30, but turns out that when they say that the pool closes at 9, they really kick you out by 8:45, so I only managed to get 400 meters in, doing 100 meter repeats with 12 breaths in between. On the plus side, I didn't have too much trouble with breathing on this set, so I'm hoping I can transition to week 2 of 0 to 1650 soon.
Wednesday was our speed work session. The instructions for the day were 5 repeats of 200 "hard" + 400 "pace" on 2 minutes rest, followed by 5 repeats of 400 "pace" + 200 "hard", with a 4-minute rest between the two sets. The other guidance I was given was that "hard" for me should be 62 seconds per 200m, and "pace" was around 2:40 for the 400. I didn't take this guidance to heart, however, and interpreted "hard" as "all out," and "pace" as "pretty hard." My first 200 was finished in 46 seconds, followed by about 2:00 for the following 400, after which I felt like I was going to die! In retrospect, it was probably a bad sign that I passed a few other runners on the 200 stretch.
I spent the next little while trying to find the right pace, and was getting it pretty close by the end of the first set, settling in at the back of the pack. The second set was easier because you got to rest after the 200m sprint, rather than having to run another 400m. I only got my splits at the 200 and 600 points, but I think I was running the 400's a little faster and the 200's a little slower than target, but at least my total time was close to the mark.
Thursday was a rest day. I was pretty tired, though my DOMS seems to have peaked last night/this morning, so maybe I should have done some recovery activity. I did notice that Thursday morning I weighed nearly 3 lbs (!) lighter than Wednesday, despite drinking copious amounts of water.
Today I went swimming. The ambitious plan was to wake up early and get to the pool; in reality, I only managed to wake up early-ish, with not enough time to get in a full workout before the end of the morning pool hours at 7:45 (that is if they even let me stay until 7:45!). I "pivoted" and went into the office early instead, and stopped at the pool on my way home. Simple workout, 4x100 followed by 8x50. (Probably should have stuck to the 6x50 of the 0 to 1650 plan, since I ended up being 2 minutes late coming home.) This time, the 12 breaths of rest after each 100 felt like plenty, so I think I'm ready for week 2.
Plan for the weekend: Sat AM: run with Lenore and twins, Sun AM: long bike ride, Sun PM: swim. Seems doable.
Sunday, June 3, 2012
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.
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!
Monday, May 28, 2012
Training update
I'm starting week 4 of my triathlon training, so I decided to take quick stock of how things have been going. I came up with this graph:
The odd columns represent the planned exercise for the week, and the even ones represent what I've actually done. (Week 4, of course, has just begun.) Blue=swim, red=bike, green=run
Week 1 fell pretty short of the goal; this was due to a combination of traveling to DC (with some crazy travel mishaps), babysitting the twins, and getting sick. Week 2 of training went really well, in fact exceeding the plan for Week 3. (Running a 5K and a 10K helped here!) Week 3 was once again a little short: I didn't work out quite as much as I hoped while at a conference in San Francisco, and then this past weekend was our intense potty training session, plus it was too hot to reasonably bike except for in the morning, plus the pool was closed on the weekend.
Looking at the graphs, it's pretty clear that I don't need to take a recovery week this week, so I'm thinking of skipping week 4 and heading straight into week 5. I'm a little hesitant to advance my training overly quickly, but then again, if I stick to the planned total volume, I will still be doing less exercise this coming week than during week 2. Of course, I do have another 10K planned for the weekend, so I'll probably exceed the run volume again (though I don't expect this one to take an hour and a half!)
The plan for the week is:
Monday: short swim
Tuesday: bike (long or short depending on how early I wake up, with the goal of being back at home by 7am when the kids get up)
Wednesday: medium swim, speedwork session
Thursday: bike (short if Tuesday was long and vice versa)
Friday: long swim
Saturday: 10K!
Sunday: rest
We'll see how things actually turn out. Lenore has to travel to Philadelphia either late this week or early next week, so that might end up shifting some things around. I also should really fit in a strength training session or two somewhere into this schedule; I've only managed to do one total so far.
[Hmm... a thunderstorm is brewing. Hopefully it will be clear by tomorrow morning]
Week 1 fell pretty short of the goal; this was due to a combination of traveling to DC (with some crazy travel mishaps), babysitting the twins, and getting sick. Week 2 of training went really well, in fact exceeding the plan for Week 3. (Running a 5K and a 10K helped here!) Week 3 was once again a little short: I didn't work out quite as much as I hoped while at a conference in San Francisco, and then this past weekend was our intense potty training session, plus it was too hot to reasonably bike except for in the morning, plus the pool was closed on the weekend.
Looking at the graphs, it's pretty clear that I don't need to take a recovery week this week, so I'm thinking of skipping week 4 and heading straight into week 5. I'm a little hesitant to advance my training overly quickly, but then again, if I stick to the planned total volume, I will still be doing less exercise this coming week than during week 2. Of course, I do have another 10K planned for the weekend, so I'll probably exceed the run volume again (though I don't expect this one to take an hour and a half!)
The plan for the week is:
Monday: short swim
Tuesday: bike (long or short depending on how early I wake up, with the goal of being back at home by 7am when the kids get up)
Wednesday: medium swim, speedwork session
Thursday: bike (short if Tuesday was long and vice versa)
Friday: long swim
Saturday: 10K!
Sunday: rest
We'll see how things actually turn out. Lenore has to travel to Philadelphia either late this week or early next week, so that might end up shifting some things around. I also should really fit in a strength training session or two somewhere into this schedule; I've only managed to do one total so far.
[Hmm... a thunderstorm is brewing. Hopefully it will be clear by tomorrow morning]
Wednesday, May 23, 2012
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.
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.
Monday, May 21, 2012
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:
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.
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