Nearly Long Run

Sometimes training plans/runs don't go as planned.

1. Sundays are my long run days.  This Sunday it rained a lot.  My options were: 30 minute limit on the treadmill at the gym, or run outside in downpour.  The break in the rain I mentioned yesterday lasted about 5 minutes.  Hubs offered to run with me anyway, in the rain.  So we did an easy, but very soggy run together yesterday.
 

2. My plan was to leave work early (a.k.a. right on time) and to squeeze in a long run between work and a function for my husband's work tonight.
2a. Couldn't go to spinning because of husband's work function.
2b. Can't do my long run Tuesday due to needing to stay at work until approximately 6:30 or 7. 

3. Wasn't able to leave work until about 20-30 minutes later than I wanted to.

4. That meant I had 2 hours and 10 minutes to change, run, shower and be presentable to leave the apartment.

It was clear I was not going to be able to get in a 10-11 mile run at this point.  So I told myself I would run for approximately 8 miles, or as long as I could get in, leaving about 25 minutes to get ready.  The plan was to run it at a comfortable pace, but to do a 3/1 run (per Hal Higdon: A 3/1 run is one in which you run the first three-fourths of the distance at a comfortable pace, then accelerate to near race pace over the last one quarter of the workout. (You should finish refreshed, not fatigued.) 


Here's what happened:

Ok.  So I started out the first .4 miles at a 10:15 pace.  How did this start happening!?  I made myself slow down a lot.  Still faster than Long Run pace (I think of this as the 11-11:30, or even slower range). 

Lap 2: still too fast.

Laps 3 and 4 were closer to the right pace.

Lap 5: faster again.

Lap 6: better long slow run pace.  At approximately 5.3 miles I had a sudden need to pee. (TMI).  Never in my short 2 years of running have I had to pee mid run.  Luckily the nearby park I was about to enter has bathrooms, which I had not used prior to today, and water fountains. I encountered these at mile 5.8

Lap 7: I thought I paused the Garmin when I made my pit stop.  I didn't.  I then pushed the lap button by accident somewhere in the bathroom process (apparently at 5.84 miles).

Lap 8:  I hit this lap button after the pit stop and I got running again, I thought I was evening it out so my laps were back on .00 again, but I was off.  This bothers anal-retentive me.  But this is the 1 part of my 3/1 run.  I *intentionally* picked up the pace to be closer to the faster end of my desired half marathon pace (10:23-10:42)

Lap 9: Another half marathon pace lap.

Lap 10: .48 miles at an even faster pace, not sure what happened...I think running downhill happened.

Lap 11:  I walked the remaining .08 miles home.

Check out the nice gradual hill:

Happy with my 167 average heart rate (and 181 max HR)  for a faster-than-easy pace run.  Or is 11ish becoming my new easy pace?? 

While it wasn't the 10ish miles I was hoping to get in, I'm still proud that I was still able to get in an 8.52 mile run on a week day!  I've already had a 10 mile run (10.49 to be exact) and I still have 3 long run Sundays before the half, so I should stop worrying about it not being as long as I wanted it to be.


Lessons Learned:

1. Never count on being able to leave work on time. Haha.
2. Don't chug a 16 ounce Nalgene bottle on your drive home from work + over half of a 21 ounce bottle of water in the first 5 miles of your run.  You will have to pee.
3. Use the Bezel Lock feature on your Garmin to prevent accidental lap-button-pressing.
4. Try not to freak out when you can't do your training plan exactly as written.

Saturday Pace Run

Saturday I had a fabulous pace run.  I tried out my brand new Asics GT 2150s for the first time, and they were perfect.  Very comfortable,  no rubbing or blisters.  The only thing I had to adjust to was the weight -- each shoe is 2.1 ounces less than my Sauconys!  I decided to use the new shoes without the insoles.

Saturday it was about 59 and overcast/windy.  Hooray for running shorts weather!  My legs are in need of some sun or some bronzer/self-tanning lotion.

It was supposed to be a 5 mile pace run.  I planned to warm up, run 5 miles @ half pace (10:23-10:42), then cool down.  Except about .15 miles in, I realized I was flying at a 9:19 pace (what!?!?!) so I stopped and walked for a minute to reset myself then began running at what I thought was an EASIER pace.  That first mile ended up at a 10:37 pace.  So my warm up mile was...still within my goal pace range.

Here are all my times:

I was feeling pretty good at the end of the 5th mile and I guess as I had just run uphill and the ground was now relatively flat, I ran at a faster pace.  I decided to see if I could keep it up for a whole mile on not-fresh legs, and I could!  I then tried to slow down a bit as I headed home, but still had a pretty good pace for the last .76 miles...then I walked for about a minute the rest of the way to my apartment.


I tried to be sure to include some hills along my route to be at least a little like my April half marathon course.

This morning we got pastries from the local bakery for breakfast:

The one on the left is half of a raspberry currant croissant, the one on the right is half of an almond pastry covered in confectioner's sugar.  They are both delicious.  And I think our favorite two pasty offerings from the bakery.

I would LOVE to go for my long easy run today, but it's been raining since the wee hours of the morning.  It is raining buckets.

I think I will end up running anyway at some point.  Just hoping it will let up a little bit.  And actually, as I am typing this, it appears that it might be only a light sprinkle right now...maybe I will try to get my act together and get out the door.  I'll stick with my older running shoes today...not ready to get my bright white shoes dirty yet.

Thanks to those who weighed in regarding my race schedule question Friday night.  I think I have decided to sign up for the other half at the end of May.  Why not!?  It will be a bigger race than my April half, with more runners and more spectators, and a flatter course.

Sweaty Bands Winner and race question

Drumroll please...

Congratulations to Abbie, winner of the Sweaty Bands giveaway!
Abbie, I have emailed you at the email address I found through your blog.

Thank you to everyone who entered!

I know this is so wrong, but now when I hear winner, I can't help but think of:

{source}

Ok, enough of Charlie Sheen.

Thoughts please:

1. I am signed up for a local, but hilly, half marathon on April 3.  I'd love to beat my previous best time of 2:21:10 that day, (and think I've been pretty good with my training) but *shouldn't* be too surprised if I don't, because holy hills.

2. Hubs and I are going to Ohio Memorial Day weekend, and planning to run a 5k on while we are there (I don't have any huge 5k goals...would like to be better than 10:00 pace though).

3. A friend just asked if I'd like to run a half marathon with her on May 22.  It's a relatively flat course.  It's only 45 minutes away.


My thoughts:
-Eek, a half only a week before a 5k!?
-What if I bomb the April 3 half?  It might be nice to know I've got a chance to redeem myself before summer is officially here and I will want to crawl into air conditioning and not come out again until October.
-If I DO beat my time goal on April 3...I could possibly further improve my time 7 weeks later on a flatter course.

Is this running timeline too crazy??

More Hills

Woah, I haven't posted since Monday.  This week is kicking my butt, I guess.

Last night I had a pretty good hills workout!  My plan called for another 40 minute tempo run, but I just did one of those last week, and it's been a couple weeks since I have done a hills workout.  I recently posted the crazy elevation of my upcoming half...so you can see why some hill practice is necessary!

My plan was to do 7x hills.

It was in the mid 40s but the sun was setting and it was really windy (gusts in the 25-30mph range) so it felt a lot colder.  It was especially unpleasant having the wind blow in my face while running up hill.  I was beginning to talk myself into stopping my run early somewhere between hill 4 through hill 6.

Then while running down and back up hill number 6, I saw another runner crazy enough to be doing hill workouts in the dark + wind.  After finishing hill #7, I was so happy to have finished what I did, and started to talk myself into running an 8th hill.  Crazy hill runner guy was still running up and down that same hill...maybe his presence encouraged me to do another.

Each of the hills was anywhere from .25 to .4 miles.  I was pleasantly surprised to see I maintained a sub 10:00 pace while running uphill 8 times.  In fact, it was more in the 9:20-9:40ish range for most uphills, with one closer to 9:10.  After I ran up the hill I walked briefly, or just slowed my running to the bottom of the next hill.  So my running was fast uphill and easy for everything else.

It's weird how in the moment I wanted to poke my eyes out and go home early, yet after most of the run was behind me I felt so optimistic about it.

Total: 6.39 miles.

In case you're curious, here was my last hills run (whoops, it was more like a month ago).  Actually, looking back at that run, I have to take a moment to be proud of what my heart rate looked like this time compared with last time (you should be able to click on graphs to enlarge).  I did more hills, ran them faster, and my HR recovered more in between!!

8x hills 3/2/11:

6x hills 1/28/11:

And, so this post is not strictly Garmin graphs, I will share a fun new food from my favorite Wegmans.  It's called the Sunrise Blend and it is a blend of a lot of ingredients I am not familiar with: wheat bulgur, buckwheat groats, Colusari heirloom red rice, whole grain quinoa flakes, and brown flax seeds.

Yay for 4g of fiber and 7g of protein!  You can make it hot on the stove top, OR

you can stir some into yogurt the night before, as per this serving suggestion from Wegmans.

I ate some hot with a sliced banana and a little drizzle of honey.  It's good, but not a "quick" breakfast. if made on the stove top (bring water to boil; add & let stand for 25 minutes).

Ok, good night!