Running Ninja

Training so far...an easier way to view what I've done.  2 weeks until my half marathon.

I was able to scratch off that 12 mile run from week 11 today.

There were some extra easy runs sprinkled in along the way.  I only missed one tempo run (week 8).  At the time I was a little behind and had two of the 4 tempo mile runs on my schedule, so I thought one of them could go.

Here's another way to look at what I've done so far.
x = rest.  Far right column is weekly miles run.

20-Jun  27-Jun  4-Jul  11-Jul  18-Jul  25-Jul  1-Aug  8-Aug  15-Aug  22-Aug  29-Aug

Mon 2 easy  4 tempo  6.3 easy  5 hills  14 bike  10 long  13 long  x  6.8 easy  10 long  15mid5P

Tues 2 easy  5.4 pro  5 tempo  x  x  x  4.3 easy  7 tempo  13mid4P  8 bike  x

Wed x  x  2 easy  x  5 tempo  x  x  5k  7 bike  5 tempo  5 pro

Thur 5 fartlek  10mid2P  11 long  12mid4P  5 easy  4 fartlek  6 pro  x  5 fartlek  x  x

Fri 10 bike  x  x  2 bike  4.5 easy  5.7 bike  7.7 bike  6.5 hills  7 bike  7 hills  7 tempo

Sat 8 Long  x  x  4 hike  x  x  12mid1P  x  x  3 easy  x

Sun 5 hike  x  x  5 fartlek  7 bike  5 hike  14 bike  x  x  x  12w1P

17  20  24  22  15  14  35  17  25  22  39

I'm pretty proud of my 7 mile tempo run this week.  I started to get down on myself before I even ran.  It was supposed to be 5 miles at a 9:30-9:50 pace with an easy mile on either end, and that sounded hard from the comfort of my kitchen chair.  But I got my butt out the door, looking like a running ninja, and I got it done.  I brought my music along for a little boost.

 black headband, tank, sunglasses = ninja

Tempo mile paces were: 9:49, 9:41, 9:48, 9:45, 9:38.

Today's 12 mile run was fun- I ran 10.5 easy miles with a friend, then continued on to run another mile at half marathon pace (9:56), then did nearly another mile of running/walking with my cell phone camera to check out some of the damage to the towpath from the hurricane.

You might remember this picture from earlier this week:

I counted the number of stones down from the bridge.

Today the water was ~2.5 feet below the top of the concrete wall.

Here are a couple more.

I'm sorry, but I'm obsessed with all the flooding we had.  I'm still trying to wrap my head around 7.1 inches of rain in less than 16 hours.

The tree tunnel/passageway to the right is the only way through.
And at 5'2" I had to duck.  That NEVER happens.

Check out the muddy leaves, you can see how far the water came up.

The rocks got washed diagonally across the path into the canal.
This child also snuck into my picture.  Don't worry, he had an adult nearby.

Here is my artistic interpretation of where the edge of the "path" was (straight blue line) and where there is now gravel exploding into the canal as a result of the previous picture.

Fun stuff.  Don't think hubs will be biking to work for a while; in several parts of the only 1/2 mile section showcased above, so much of the fine gravel and dirt was washed away that it's only large jagged chunks of rocks left behind that would not treat his thinner hybrid bike tires well.  It was enough to run on them... I was hoping I did not twist and ankle or fall face down on them.

Here's what I'm planning on doing for the remaining two weeks until my half:

	Mon	Tue	Wed	Thur	Fri	Sat	Sun
9/5	bike	6 fartlek		5 hill		7 tempo	bike?
9/12	??Long Run??	??Long Run??	5 fartlek		4 pace	rest	half marathon!

Here's the deal.

I will be away this Friday through Monday morning.  I would like to at least run my 7 mile tempo run + Dan and I were planning to take advantage of our hotel's free bike rentals.

I have TWO long runs left on my schedule, but time for only one more.  Should I...

• do a 10 mile long run with 4 pace miles in the middle?
• do the 8 mile long run

Also to consider:

• My long run will have to be either Monday night after a red eye and a day of work or Tuesday
• I have already completed 
• one 15 mile run with 5 pace miles
• two 13 mile runs, one with 4 pace miles
• three 12 mile runs, one with 4 pace miles, two with 1 pace mile
• one 11 mile run
• three 10 mile runs, one with 2 pace miles

I feel like a long run with pace miles is more valuable.  But is running 10 miles on Monday or Tuesday too close to the race on Sunday? 

Pretty cool: if all goes well in the next 2 weeks I will have only missed one long run and one tempo run over the entire 13 weeks!  I think that's good.  Applying my behavior intervention plan terminology, that's pretty high treatment integrity, if I do say so myself.


Doing anything fun over Labor Day Weekend?
Last night we went to our favorite local brewery (an hour+ away) to fill our 2 growlers and have dinner; I enjoyed my long run today then we were invited to our friends' pool this afternoon, and I plan to laze about tomorrow- last time I will be able to for a couple weeks!

Please tell me what you think about my long run dilemma!

Aftermath + 15 miler

Since I was delinquent in posting about Irene damages yesterday, I will be posting about BOTH hurricane aftermath and my super awesome long run, in that order and without a creative title.  Consider yourself warned so if you are interested in only one portion of that you can skip to the appropriate section.

Irene has come and gone and we really lucked out!  Saturday afternoon the rain started up and by Saturday evening, the rain started coming down much harder and with high winds.  Being only a couple houses from a fire station we heard sirens all night.

We watched Mad Men on Netflix and I kept my laptop and phone plugged so they would be fully charged, expecting the power to go out.  I stalked a local news website looking for updates on what was going on outside.

Surprisingly our power flashed only once around 11:30 but came back on soon after.

At 3am, we got an automated phone call from hubs' grad school alerting us to another Tornado Warning...and after brief confusion we both fell back asleep seconds later.  We learned Sunday morning that when there's a tornado warning you're supposed to take cover and get away from windows...

It rained until maybe noon then the sun started to come out.

There was all kinds of flooding and downed trees around us (right down the street).

 
Route 1 was even closed!

[source]
Understandably so.

Here's my beloved canal towpath, post-hurricane:
 [credit for next 3 pictures]

I usually run under that bridge.

Here's what the above picture should look like on a good day (taken from the other direction):

This site has some crazy pictures from the damage over the weekend.  Including these local ones:

[source] 

When taking the train up to NYC, you need to go through that tunnel to get to the platform!

 [no source provided except this site. it's #9]

Asbury Park, NJ boardwalk: This is the exact site of my first half marathon finish line.

Overall it wasn't so bad for us.  We survived and so did the 3 dogs we were responsible for, our friends' house had no damage and our cars did not float away.  Our friends were originally supposed to fly back in yesterday, but because of the weather and all the flight delays and cancellations, they can't get back until this Thursday.

We were able to go check on our apartment late Sunday after a couple roads had reopened and found our apartment without power and with about 6" of water in the basement.  The utility company estimated service would be restored by September 4th. 

Late on Monday we stopped back to bring ice over for our fridge and to throw out bad food.  While I was bringing out garbage I noticed the traffic lights outside our apartment came back on!  Early!  There was still water in the basement, but only a couple inches.

Basement flooding is a great example of when I am glad to be a renter and not a home owner:

 

Luckily we did not have anything of value stored in our building's basement.  I would also hope that when I do become a home owner, I would not store cans of paint, a mattress, a lawnmower, etc. on the floor of my basement when I knew it might flood.  

That oil or paint looks kinda cool in the water though...

Aaaany fart.

My weekend long run was postponed until Monday.  I was supposed to run 15 miles with 5 of them at race pace.  This is an all time longest distance for me!  And I did it alone, without music :)

I slept in until 8 and didn't start my run until 9:45, luckily it was cool out.

I highlighted my pace miles for your convenience and to pat myself on the back.  Mile 11, while a 10:31 pace, does in fact count, because I walked for 1 minute at the beginning of that lap, so my running portion was actually sub-race pace.

Race pace would ideally be around 9:55 for a 2:10 half marathon.  But an average pace of 10:17 would still beat my last half marathon.

I blame my fast start on the cooler weather.  It was only in the mid to upper 60s at the start of my run, and it felt great! In fact, some how for the first 1/3 of a mile my pace was in the upper 8:00s.  Clearly that wasn't going to last for 15 miles so I slowed down.

My pace was not very consistent though as I encountered several obstacles like branches and other debris on the sidewalks and in the roads. 

Small branch on the sidewalk.

While the 10 non-pace miles were faster than my typical easy run, I did not feel like I was working too hard or like I was going to die!  My heart rate stayed around my easy run HR range for a little more than the first half of my run and didn't get higher until somewhere around mile 9, but I think I would actually like to attribute that to the fact that miles 8-10 were a consistent gradual uphill.

I had a gu over the course of mile 6.9-7.1. (1:13-1:15 overall time).

Around mile 11.75 I stopped in a store to buy a 17 oz bottle of water for my handheld bottle.

At 12.68 (I only know that because I hit the lap button), my left quad felt a little tight so I stopped and stretched it quickly and walked a little bit, then took my second gu at mile 12.83. Exactly. I remembered that one (2:14 overall time).  I know you should only have those if you plan to be running for the next half hour, but I told myself it must be because I needed more electrolytes or something.

It felt better within 5ish minutes.  Was it the stretching? the gu? the walking? placebo effect?  Should I have had the 2nd gu sooner?  Should I have eaten salt? Was it all in my head??

I feel really good having run 15 miles at a 10:32 pace!  Strangely I was not tired yet at midnight yesterday despite the distance and my legs were not sore when I woke up this morning. Weird, brief quad tightness and all, it was a confidence booster.  Let's bring on this next half marathon!

Weirdest thing seen on my run?

This little guy was about 4" long and on a sidewalk next to a college, hundreds of feet from a nearby drainage pond that may or may not connect to a creek.

If you made it this far...Questions for YOU:

How are things around you if you were hit by Irene?

For me? See above blog post.

If you run longer distances + eat something on your runs: at what times/distances do you take something?

I know it varies by individual, but I'm having issues with getting this right.

Tell me something weird you've seen on a walk/run/bike ride.