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Well, the holiday weekend marks the unofficial kick-off of Summer, and talk of speed work seems to be everywhere! The Running Laminator has a great post comparing the benefits of intervals and tempo runs for distance runners. Nitmos has launched his 2nd annual Summer of Speed (SOS2). And the June issue of Runner’s World has a good, basic spread about all things track related. It makes me miss my glory days of being my high school’s illustrious 2nd best 800 and 1500 meter runner! Quite the claim to fame, right?? (The only race I ever won was at the end of my sophomore season. It was me versus one other girl in the 800, and I beat her by half a lap. Track wasn’t very big in my county…)
Last week I questioned whether it was too early for me to incorporate some speed work into my runs. After a bit of research on the internets, I’ve decided it’s probably best to put it on hold for now. I found a great Q&A page on the DC Road Runners website that addressed some of my questions. It recommends having a base of about 25 miles per week before jumping into the faster stuff. That’s my mileage goal right now anyway, so it makes sense to wait. What I will be doing, though, is sticking with hillier routes for my shorter runs, to keep building strength in my legs.
It’s funny that I’m reading all this stuff about speed when what I really need to focus on is s-l-o-w-i-n-g down. My mid-week runs are getting faster and faster, and I don’t think that’s necessarily a good thing. I tell myself multiple times during each run to slow down and take it easy, but it doesn’t seem to help. It even feels like I’m trudging along, until I check my splits and see that I’m still at the same pace or faster. So here’s a ridiculous question: how do you slow down?? I don’t want to reduce my turnover rate (the number of steps I take per minute). That means I need to take smaller steps, right? But it already feels like I’m tiptoeing along as it is! (Sigh.) I’ll get the hang of pacing one of these days…
…hopefully tomorrow. I’ve got 7 miles on the schedule in the morning, and I will be trying hard to hold down a 10:30-11 minute pace. Maybe the oppressive humidity will help with that – yuck.
Happy holiday weekend, everyone!
I started this blog thinking that I had a lot to talk about and it would be easy to keep up with it, but I’m having trouble getting into a rhythm with my writing! I know a lot of you fellow bloggers have multiple drafts going at once, as you think of things to post. That may be the solution. I’m a quiet person, but I’m sure I’ve got more to say! For now, I’ll skip right to the running.
Last week was a good running week for me. I finally fit in 4 runs, which is the schedule I plan to stick with for the foreseeable future. My legs are responding well to the slowly increasing mileage. The strain in my right hamstring from 2 weeks ago never got any worse and has pretty much disappeared. Here’s how the week went down:
Tuesday: 2.64 miles, 30:00, 11:22 pace (treadmill)
Wednesday: 3.95 miles, 41:11, 10:26 pace
Thursday: 3.55 miles, 34:50, 9:49 pace
Sunday: 6.0 miles, 1:00:35, 10:06 pace
Total: 16.1 miles
Yesterday’s 6-miler went a million times better than the previous weekend! I ran the entire distance (no walk breaks) and had a negative split of about 1 minute. I ate well the night before (no BBQ this time), and the weather was perfect – overcast and about 63 degrees. There were a couple of times that I wasn’t sure I would make it, but I pushed through and just tried to focus on the fact that I wasn’t hurting and I was still breathing ok (so, no good reason to stop).
I am really loving running on the greenway! Sometimes in the past, the markers posted at every ¼ mile drove me crazy, making the run seem never-ending. But I’ve made my peace with them, and now I find that they are friendly little faces helping me stay focused on the present, rather than stressing about how much further I have to go. It’s also fun to see all the different runners, walkers, dogs, strollers, and cyclists sharing the trail.
My biggest concern right now is the quickly approaching summer season, with its 3-H days – hazy, hot, and humid… It is by far my least favorite time of the year. But it looks like I won’t have to worry about that this week. This morning, temps were in the 40s - yay!
My mom is the coolest 60-something woman I know. And I’m not just saying this because I’m her daughter and Mothers Day was last Sunday (although those are happy coincidences)! She does all the regular mom stuff pretty well – you know, being there when I need her, listening, giving great hugs, all that. But then there’s her cool side.
My mom loves to go to rock concerts. Most recently, she saw Bon Jovi and Bruce Springsteen with my sisters and my aunt. Over the years, she and I have gone to Bush, Creed, Pearl Jam, and Tom Petty shows. She has tickets to U2 in October! This is just a small representative sample of her concert resume.
What brings me to talk about this is that I’m thinking of taking her to yet another concert for her birthday in July. Aerosmith and ZZ Top are coming July 9th, and I heard today that lawn tickets are just $10 if you buy them this Saturday. It’s like the gift fairies heard me lamenting how difficult it is to pick something out for her (and also how tight money is right now…) and bestowed upon me some of their magic. I love it when they do that!
ZZ Top is the soundtrack to all the road trips we took when I was a little kid. It was one of a handful of cassette tapes we always had in our car. Just imagine three little girls sitting in the backseat, happily singing along to ‘Legs’ and ‘Sharp Dressed Man’. Ahhh the wholesome memories…
But don’t worry – we also had the John Denver & the Muppets ‘Rocky Mountain Holiday’ cassette. If you’ve never heard John Denver and Miss Piggy sing a duet of ‘Happy Trails’, you’re really missing out...
***
My running has been going pretty well lately, overall. Last week I completed three runs (13 miles):
3 miles on Wednesday (10:56 pace)
4 miles on Friday (10:32 pace)
6 miles on Saturday (10:59 pace)
Wednesday’s 3-miler was done on the treadmill, where my pace continues to lag behind that of my outdoor runs. (This seems to defy logic. Does anyone else find it hard to push the pace on the TM?) I strained my right hamstring slightly and have been trying to baby it over the past week with ice and some additional stretching. I’m liking the TM less and less…
My 6-miler on Saturday was not the greatest. I tried to monitor my pace and keep it around the 11-minute mark and did pretty well with that. But halfway through the run I started taking walk breaks and kind of fell apart from mile 4.5 to 5.5. I think it was mostly mental, but it was hotter than it has been (about 75 degrees and super humid). Plus I had eaten a lot of BBQ the night before – probably not the best pre-run fuel. I figure I was due for a bad run anyway, so I’m glad to have it out of my system!
This week I’m on track to run four times for about 15 miles. I ran 2.6 miles on the TM yesterday (11:22 pace), and today I did the 4-mile neighborhood loop I call the Big Block (10:26 pace). Both runs were uneventful, and I finished them feeling strong. Tomorrow I’m planning on about 3.5 miles around the neighborhood, and Saturday I’ll repeat the 6-miler on the greenway, hopefully with more success this time!
On my mind lately is speed work. I think it’s too early for it, as I’ve only been running consistently for about 2 months now, but I’m wondering if it might boost my fitness faster to start incorporating some brief accelerations in some of my shorter runs. Nothing too speedy, just enough to get me a little bit out of breath. Maybe hills are the better answer, for now…?
If you don't know where you are going, you will probably end up somewhere else. ~Lawrence J. Peter
I am a person who loves maps. And lists. And plans. Really, anything that brings order to my universe. I’m the one who knows exactly when the plane takes off and lands, exactly how far we are travelling, and exactly when we need to be at the next gate or train station to make our connection. It is both a blessing and a curse. Just ask my friends. (Or, uh, maybe it’s better if you don’t.)
So it may come as a surprise to know that I’m kind of scared of training plans. I think my perfectionist tendencies lead me straight to a fear of failure when I see those beautiful, calculated workouts all laid out neatly on a calendar. And yet I am drawn to them like Christina Yang to Owen Hunt (any Grey’s Anatomy fans out there…?).
The last time I followed a plan was when I trained for 2 half marathons in 2006. It still shames me to think that I only really managed to do the long runs prescribed each week – and none of the mid-week runs… I love training plans, and yet I don’t have a lot of success sticking with them.
This is a long way of saying that right now I don’t have any crystal clear running goals, and I’m not sure that I’m okay with that. Or maybe I am. I’ve been avoiding thinking too far ahead because I want to build a solid training base before I decide what comes next. But without a target race on the horizon, it is hard to get myself out the door as often as I should.
Right now I’m doing pretty well with fitting in 3 runs per week, slowly building the mileage. I’d like to push that up to 4 runs per week, about 25 miles total, with a long run of about 10 miles. At the rate I’m going, I should be there by the middle of June. I think if I can hold that base for a good 3 months, I should be ready to tackle a more formal training plan of some sort.
The marathon is my ultimate goal, I won’t deny it. It’s fun to pick out races. Vermont City, Myrtle Beach, Virginia Beach, maybe even the National Marathon if I can get a qualifying time. There are a couple of half marathons in Charlotte towards the end of the year that are on my radar and would be a good test of my fitness.
I guess all this rambling is me reassuring myself that even if there is not a single, monumental goal to my running (right now), there is still a plan in place. (Albeit, a relatively loose one.) I am still on my way somewhere. The rest of the details will come into focus later.
And I’m okay with this.
Really, I am.
Sort of…
(sigh)
Any golf fans out there? If you’re watching the Quail Hollow Championship, there’s a very slight chance you may see my house in one of the overhead shots, courtesy of the blimp. I live about a mile from the course, as the crow (or birdie) flies. Golf is not my thing – it’s on my list of pseudo-sports, along with baseball and bowling – but it’s kind of exciting to be so close to the action.
That said, yesterday I left all the hubbub behind to go watch 2 of my nieces dance in their annual recital. Little R is in ballet, and Big R is in clogging. (If you’re not from the South, there’s a good chance you have no idea what clogging is. My best description would be that it’s a mix between Irish step dancing and tap dancing.) They’re both in their 2nd year of dance and have improved significantly over last year! I’m so proud of them for sticking with it and having the nerve to get up on stage in front of an entire auditorium full of people!
Especially in those glorified bathing suit dance outfits… Big R referred to her class as the Dancing Cheetos – ha! Little R fared better, with a Disney princess-esque tutu. On a side note, why is it that the older the girls get, the skimpier and tighter their outfits get…? *sigh*
Thank goodness runners aren’t subjected to such exposure of the flesh! Oh wait…
Speaking of running… (how’s that for a segue??) My goals for last week were to run 4 times for a total of 12 miles. I came up short in both frequency and duration, but I’m not too disappointed. I managed 3 runs for 11.9 miles. I could round that up to 12, but I won’t because I’m a numbers person and it would bother me.
Run 1 – 4 miles (average pace 10:12) on the greenway (see post below)
Run 2 – 2.9 miles (10:24) around home
Run 3 – 5 miles (10:14) on the greenway
On Run 2, I missed a turn and ended up cutting about a half mile off my route. I knew I would be short, but honestly my legs had had enough of the hills anyway. This was my first time running hills in about 6 months, and I had forgotten that delightful feeling of huffing and puffing but going nowhere (seemingly).
Run 3 was this morning. The only thing of note here is that I intended to run around an 11-minute pace but obviously failed. That’s something I really need to focus on, especially as I am trying to build the mileage of my long runs. I will say, however, that I ran surprisingly even splits. Surprising because I fully expected to crash in the last mile. I guess my observation for the week is that I am still exploring my running boundaries, if that makes any sense.
And now I’m going to go sit out in the sunshine, sip on a beer, and watch the blimp circle overhead!
