Miler Method (Week 1 of 6)

Week-beginning thoughts: YAY a training plan. 🎉 But also... rain. Again.

Monday
Planned: strength + 2mi
Did: strength
I'd wanted to get in a couple of miles just to up my overall weekly mileage, but realize that since my strength workouts have been going almost a full hour, I really don't have time to work in more in that timeframe. So I stuck with the usual routine for Monday strength.

Also, I may have found ways to do my 1-mile race! I forgot that both the Greenville and Spartanburg Track Clubs host all-comers track meets through the summer months. Greenville's are on Tuesdays and Spartanburg's are on Thursdays... I'm thinking the Greenville meet on Tuesday July 10th is going to be a good "race" day for the end of this training cycle... I think there's a 800m time trial on the training schedule, so that might be a good Thursday event. Anyway... excited to maybe have an actual event/race to target!

Tuesday
Planned: easy 10kTuesday
Did: 6.21 mi @ 9:49/mi avg
Ran early downtown with Megan today - the air (and my legs) felt heavy, but we got it done and as always, felt awesome to be finished with it as the sun was rising!

Wednesday
Planned: tempo+interval
10-20 min WU
10 min tempo/5 min rest
8x200m/2 min (up to 80% effort)
10-15 min CD

I had a detailed discussion with my "coach" this morning via text about what exactly an "80% effort" was and what a "tempo" pace should look like. Since I really have no idea what I'm capable of on this mile, it's more difficult, but she's given me some guidance and suggestions that I'm going to just (literally) run with and see how things go / adjust as needed.

For today, the target paces will be:

• WU/recovery/CD = 9:30/mi
• tempo = 7:30/mi*
• 200m = 2@7:00/mi, 2@6:45/mi, 2@6:30/mi, 2@6:15/mi

*this is probably conservative, but just for this first time, didn't want to go full tilt

Did: mostly as planned, total 5.75 mi @ 8:35/mi avg

So. Many. Splits.

Well, it's no wonder this felt easy... you can definitely tell by my max. heartrate that this wasn't pushing too hard for me. Though if I'm going for 80% based on Max. HR... 0.8*(220-33) = 149... HAHA I'm well above that. That equation never works well for me anyway.

So yeah... the problem with treadmill running is that there's far too much lag time on the acceleration for such short distances. It works OK for things at least a quarter mile, but 200s? Too short. I'm gonna have to figure out a way to do this stuff on the track because this is just not going to get me where I want to go. Each of those paces is about 0:15/mi slower than what I'd set the treadmill on. I also had to skimp on the warmup / cooldown due to time constraints.

Eh, lesson learned. I did enjoy the workout and it made close-to-6-miles of speedwork fly by pretty quickly. Looking forward to repeating this again in a more realistic scenario.


Thurday
Planned: hill repeats, Short Track Race #3
10-20 min WU
8x hill repeats (30s) @ 50-80% effort
10-15 min CD

Did: 3.27 mi @ 10:05/mi avg w/ 8x hills
This was a shorter-than-it-should-have-been workout again due to time constraints (skimped the WU/CD) but got all the hills done and felt pretty darn good about them! 30s seems so short, but it's a quick burst of hard effort w/ quick turnaround on recovery, then bam, you're at it again.

My neighborhood has plenty of hills, so I'd switched the tempo+intervals for the hills since I'm WFH today. I did a loop, then headed over to The Hill I'd selected for today's workout... I wasn't sure exactly how long a "30-second" hill should be, but turns out I estimated pretty well!

Started at the second mailbox, ran to the driveway just over the crest.

I didn't do a great job of the "50-80% gradual increased effort" and instead just kind of went 80% the whole time then pushed it to maybe 90% on the last one. Felt GOOD. I actually mis-remembered the workout structure and did the 50-80% on my 200s yesterday. UGH. Again, no wonder it felt too easy. *facepalm*

My heartrate has bigger "hills" than the elevation graph hehe.

The hill segments turned out to be an elevation gain of about 23 feet over 0.07 miles, which calculates to a little over a 6% grade. Not too steep, but enough to feel the push.

Split paces based on avg. moving pace: 6:41, 8:03, 7:24, 7:57, 8:03, 8:31 (zzzzzz), 7:18, 7:10

So, pretty much all over the map. Oh well, it was a good run and got it done!


Short Track Race #3
Did: 4.95 mi mountain biking
I did not feel like "racing" tonight, but once I got on the bike I felt pretty good! Got 6 loops done on the race and was pretty consistent on my lap times... all were within a few seconds of each other except for the first & last loop (first one due to "traffic" of everyone starting, last due to tiredness). Averaged 9.8 mph for most of the race!

Friday
Planned: yoga
Did: 1.4 mi treadmill desk walk

Saturday
Planned: long run (5-8mi) w/ 10 min tempo
Did: 8mi @ 9:13/mi avg w/ 1 mi @ 7:17/mi
I ran on the hilly Lake Road near my parents' lake house for this run. I got out early (before breakfast, post-sunrise) but it was already soupy with the humidity. Blegh. Legs felt pretty tired to start out with, but eased into a decent steady run. I decided that since I was combining the tempo with my long run, I could get away with "only" a tempo mile instead of full 10 minutes. I decided I was going to do 3 miles, 1 mile tempo, then finish off the last 4. After I got through the first tempo mile, I felt pretty good and decided I'd "recover" for a mile then do another tempo mile.

Tempo and... interrupted tempo.

I started off on the second tempo mile then heard the sound of rapidly-approaching small claws on the pavement behind me. Turns out I had a small dog friend who decided to join me... I kept stopping and trying to get him to go home and keep him out of traffic, then eventually he got distracted by a pickup truck and ran off... but he was with me for almost a mile! Anyway, that threw my tempo plan off enough that I decided to just finish out the run at a normal pace.
Did the Big 5 stretches when I got back to the house.

Sunday
Planned: bike ride
Did: 35.2 mi @ 15.4 mph avg
Took the opportunity to do a road ride w/ Scott - was a great reminder of how much I enjoy the road bike! We did just over 35 miles through the rolling hills of the Lake roads and I was surprised how good I felt since this was my longest ride in quite a while!

Week-ending thoughts:
Enjoying being "in training" for something. :)

Rainy week

Week Beginning thoughts:
Um, it's going to rain all week, including this weekend when we're supposed to go camping and mountain bike all weekend. Just great.

Monday
Did: strength
Feeling strong today. Hitting higher and higher numbers on the weights, 30# assisted pull-ups are finally feeling doable, with good form, all the way to the end of the third set... that means it's time to drop some weight next time!

Tuesday
Did: 6.21mi @ 10:53/mi
Did an early downtown #10kTuesday with Megan and Robin. Did what's becoming the "usual" route and enjoyed the early temps and being outside before the rainy week began. I was able to go back home and shower since I was working from home for the day, which was quite nice vs the usual of sweating in my car for the entire commute and showering in the locker room at work.

Wednesday
Did: 10.0 mi stationary bike @ 14.2 mph
I didn't even bother packing my bike due to the forecast of rain all day, so I got my interval program done on the stationary bike. Not much else since had to shower after as well. Bleh.

pedal pedal pedal

Thursday
Did: 4.00 mi @ 8:14/mi avg - treadmill ladder + Big 5 stretching
Quick speedwork Thursday late in the afternoon. Thought about attempting a one-mile "test" but really just didn't feel mentally into it... so I did some speedwork instead in the short time I had. More on that 1-mile later...
Anyway, I did 1200/800/400 at 6:30/mi pace with 400 rest in between, plus 1 warm up / 1 cool down. Actually didn't feel bad on the speeds and thought I could go faster... hmm.

Friday
Did: yoga
Finally made it to yoga! Yesssss.

Saturday
Did: nothing
Well, this weekend we were supposed to go camping and would be mountain biking all weekend. We got about 45 mins into the drive and D pukes... then pukes again 30 mins later... so we turn around, and he pukes as we pull into the driveway at home. Scott went camping. D and I are home. He puked again this afternoon on the way home from the zoo (walking around the zoo was the extent of my exercise today). Blergh.

Sunday
Did: 8.05 mi @ 10:36/mi w/ stroller
Whew, this was a hot and slow one. I haven't run in the neighborhood with the stroller (or at all, really) recently so the hills were quite challenging, especially since we ran from about 10:30-noon aka HOT and humid part of the day. Still, it was enjoyable to spend time without any real distance or pace goals, just trucking along with my little dude.

Starting out... shades on.

Sweaty for snack time

It's very challenging to carry on a conversation with a chatty 3-year-old while sweating and running, even at a moderate pace. But he made the miles tick by reasonably and I think we both enjoyed ourselves.

Week-ending thoughts:
Oh, so I forgot to mention... I'm loosely joining up with a virtual group of friends (ok, they're real friends, we're just training "together" virtually) to train for a one-miler. I don't have an actual goal race, but I'm hoping to do a 1-mile test run sometime this week (hoping for a track, but worst case I'll run around the parking lot at work twice or something) then see how much I can improve in 6 weeks. It's a last-minute and not completely thought-out thing on my part, but hey, we'll see what happens!

Other than that, I'm generally pleased with this week except for not getting on an actual bike at all. Unfortunately this next week looks almost as bad weather-wise. Ugh. Let's hope it clears up!

Biking and running... yep.

Week beginning thoughts:
Haven't done this in a while... usually because it's mid-way through the week before I start an entry, if that gives you any indication of how life is going these days. But I wanted to record the fact that things currently hurt because of my "wreck" on the mountain bike yesterday. My wrists both ache, but it feels mostly like a bruise. My left shoulder hurts when I do certain maneuvers, and the bruise on my left hip/thigh is pretty substantial. I think it should all be fine in a few days, but geez.

Monday
Did: strength
Had to modify/eliminate a few things because of said injuries. I would go to lift or press something and go "nooOOOoope". Also, clamshells on my left side were painful due to bruise. Oh well, did what I could do.

Lots of nope.

Tuesday
Did: 6.23 mi @ 8:54/mi #10kTuesday (64 consecutive weeks!)
Run at lunch today - hello, warm weather! And my pace showed it. Ugh. I miss my early morning running, but I know it's good for me to build heat tolerance - necessary evil. Anyway, not much spectacular about today's run. Consistent pace, didn't really push, just got it done. Yep.

Wednesday
Did: 10.6 mi @ 12.8 mph bike ride
Rode the usual hill + Upstate loop with Robin today - beautiful day to be on a bike! Low humidity, light breeze, lots of sunshine. We've gotten our loop time down to about 51 minutes, and decided once we're comfortable at 45 mins we're gonna try a longer loop! Woot!

Thursday
Did: 3.23 mi @ 8:40/mi avg (3x400) #speedworkThursday
This was a haphazard workout because I rolled up to work thinking I would just t'mill it, but it was SO nice that I decided to run outside. And then I didn't really want to just run, so I decided to do speedwork. And then I didn't really decide what format for speedwork I would do until I was done with my warm-up and halfway through my first interval. Was I doing a tempo run? Progression? Intervals? Yeah, that's how it went. I did intervals.

No goal pace, just push as hard as I could for a quarter-ish mile. I had a 30-minute timeframe in mind, so only really time for 3 hard intervals before it was time for a cooldown. Apparently I got faster with each interval, so that's nice. Eh, good enough for today!

Friday
Did: rest
Nothing today - rest day!

Saturday
Did: 4 mi + Zoom through the Zoo 5k
I'd registered for this 5k as part of the Corporate Shield series (companies in the Upstate compete for points), but didn't really plan to "race" it, so I wanted some more distance for the day. Met up with Robin & Dale and we parked about a mile and a quarter from the race site... decided to casually jog over, pick up our bibs and shirts, jog back to the cars to put the shirts away, then jog back to the race. It was just the right amount of pre-race mileage at an easy pace to set the stage for the race.
More details on the Zoom through the Zoo here.
Total of 7.1 miles for the day.

Sunday
Did: 12.2 mi mountain biking
Original thought was to go to Dupont this morning, but I felt "meh" about the drive and wasn't sure I really wanted to ride all that much, so we opted for a more local option with lots of variety of distance to choose from. Turns out neither of us had ridden at Paris Mountain in YEARS. Crazy! I ended up feeling really good and very pleased that not only is my fitness much better than the last time I remember biking there, my bike skills are better too because some of the trails I remember being "really hard" weren't all that bad!

on the North Lake dam

Did a total of just over 2,000 ft elevation gain on the ride today... that's some climbing!

Mountain(s)

A very nice way to spend Mother's Day morning. :)

Week-ending thoughts: 
Not too much to say... was a good strong week.

Race Report: Zoom through the Zoo 5k

So, general thoughts: this was a fun event! I'd never done this race before but it got added to the Corporate Shield race series this year, so I decided to try it out. It seemed well done, though it was expensive ($25) for a 5k. It was family-friendly, nice swag, good refreshments and support. They did run out of water at the end of the race, though, which is never a good thing. But overall, I think it's a well-done race and I'll do it again, especially if it's a CS race. However, it is NOT a race for a PR - the course is twisty, turny, and has a lovely little climb in the last half mile of the race that is super tough. Still, a fun course. 

Side note: it's not just my perception... the winner of the race was just under 18 minutes, and I know he's usually closer to 16 minutes on a 5k. 

Anyway, the race itself was pretty uneventful - not much but winding around the park and then climbing through the zoo at the end. I didn't even look around to see any of the animals as I ran by! I didn't consider this a PR effort, but was pretty pleased by the result. 

We had a great turnout from the company team, too... almost 50 people registered! Not sure how many actually did the race, but we almost never have that many register, so that was exciting. 

Team!

Spring has arrived!

Monday
Did: lifting

Increased weights on several things and felt good, but I can tell I'm going to be SORE. Also kept good form on the pull-ups which tells me I need to move down in the counterweight soon. 

Tuesday

Did: 6.21 mi @ 10:40/mi avg

Ran early downtown with Robin & Dale, weirdly chilly (mid-40s) for as warm as the daytime gets... but I'm not complaining! I know it'll be short-lived. As usual, good to get this done early so I can focus on the day ahead. Oh, and I was right... hammies, glutes, and just about everything else are SORE from yesterday.

Wednesday
Did: 1.8 mi treadmill desk walk
Busy day at work, legs still sore from Monday... plus knowing Friday would be the 5k March of Dimes walk, decided to just make to day a rest day.

Thursday
Did: 10.8 mi bike ride
Rode at lunch with Robin today - gorgeous, warm, spring day! A little breezy at times, but overall felt great to be out on the bike. Hooray!

Friday
Did: 5k March of Dimes walk
I didn't even bother with tracking this on Garmin, but it was a nice family walk through Cleveland Park & downtown Greenville in the evening.

Marching for Babies!

Saturday
Did: 9.24 mi @ 9:09/mi avg
Stroller run with Super D on a lazy Saturday morning. Yes, somehow running 9+ miles with a stroller constitutes "lazy"... anyway, it was a nice run, got quite warm towards the end, but was nice to just get out and log some miles with my little running buddy on the Swamp Rabbit Trail.

 

Sunday

Did: 15.6 mi mountain biking

Got a solo trip out to Pleasant Ridge this morning to do some loops on the JFA trail. I did two full loops, 5.6 miles each. My current PR for a loop is about 45 minutes based on previous Garmin data that I could find. Today I did not one, but TWO loops under that... Loop 1 was 42:03, and Loop 2 was 41:28. Crazy! Pretty happy with that. I even went for a third but kept it short (there are a few shortcuts along the way) and despite sliding and falling on the gravel road at the beginning of the third loop (gonna have a bruised left side tomorrow) I felt great! Really happy with the ride today. :)