Long, Hot One with Bob

Although I really wanted to run the Woodlands 5K this morning. I scratched it for a 10 mile long run with ChampionsFit. I wanted to try cracking my 5K PR in the Woodlands this morning and was feeling pretty good about it but more than that I need to continue building my endurance. So, it was off and running at 6 this morning.

I was happy to see Bob Bond in the group. There were a couple others who I hadn't met before. We started out with 7 in our group and the plan was for 10 miles.

I had decided I wanted to be around a 9:20 but figured Bob would be moving much faster since we ran something like 8:10 a couple weeks ago. We started with the group then there were four of us then, at about 2 miles, it was Bob and me. We were on a pace around 8:50. It was warm and humid this morning but I enjoyed covering the distance with Bob. After 8 miles and a 9:00 pace, I slowed and Bob continued. Those last couple miles were tough but I made it.

10.35 miles @ 9:04 pace (1:33.48)


Bob is a strong runner and good conversationalist. I looked up some running information about him after we ran together last time. In 2006, he finished the Boston Marathon in 3:49. He also completed the Houston Marathon 3 times and also ran the Top of Utah Marathon in 2006. His best marathon time (that I could find) is 3:37. Oh, another important fact, Bob is 60 years old!

I do enjoy running with him and as long as he's around ChampionsFit, I suppose I'll run with the group. I've been questioning how I fit with the group lately. The official "season" begins in early July and the focus is the Houston marathon in January. Of course, my focus is the St. George marathon in October. I'm concerned about how the training schedule is going to sync up with what I need to properly prepare for my first marathon experience.

As an alternative, Stephanie's triathalon group does Saturday morning long runs in the Memorial Park/Buffalo Bayou area (soft surfaces!). She's invited Jonathan and me to join them when we like. The only drawback for me is the drive to and from downtown where the runs start. After making the commute 5 days a week for work, I'm not excited about doing it to run Saturday. This is going to be my backup to ChampionsFit though. If I'm not getting what I need there, I'll make the drive to run with Stephanie's Houston Racing crew.

87° and 73%

You know when the title of the blog is the weather conditions that it must have been a bad workout! Of course, these are just excuses for what's to follow ... justification.

On today's schedule was a tempo run. When planning today's workout, I cut the distance and ramped up the intensity. So I ended up with 5.8 miles (two loops at Memorial Park) with a pace in the 7:25 - 7:45 range.

Reality wasn't anywhere close to the plan!

I did get to see Jonathan tonight and he let me use his Garmin Forerunner 305 for the run. Our schedules synced up for us to run together tonight. It was good to see him again. He's coming off a 5K PR last Saturday. He's been working hard in the Kenyan Way training program. I think I'll end up with Kenyan Way as soon as I get this marathon "nonsense" out of the way!

We started out fast ... too fast for the conditions. Both for us knew that it wouldn't last long. After gutting out a very challenging workout last night, Jonathan dropped back. (Of course, I had taken an easy run last night anticipating tonight's tough one.... That theory didn't sustain me for long!) With the Garmin pacing me, I was determined to keep the pace under 7:45 for as long as possible. The backside of Memorial was shady so that helped keep the sun off me. I stayed in the targeted zone for the second mile but felt it slipping during the third. I tried prodding myself along faster but there wasn't much there. The question of whether I could complete a second loop was already formulating before I had finished the first. I decided to pull it back and try quarter mile intervals (fast-slow-fast-slow). That helped until about the second rep to go fast. There was nothing there so I just slowed it down. I checked the Garmin and figured I'd go out until the return would make 5 total miles rather than the planned two loops for 5.8. I came back to the start ... slowing all the while ....

Here are the mile splits:

• 7:35
• 7:37
• 8:12
• 8:53
• 9:46

5 miles @ 8:25 pace

After I finished, I really felt like I was overheating. I went to the car for water. The run seemed like it had really overstressed my body. Fortunately, Jonathan was there. We had planned to do core exercises after the run. I had pretty much convinced myself that I wasn't up for that routine. However, I knew I wanted to go through them again so I can get the routine down better. Jonathan took me through the cycle. My core strength is absolutely pathetic. There's just about nothing there. I really need to work on this. It's so bad it's embarrassing. Anyway, Jonathan was patient and we finished them off.

Should note that I saw Stephanie on the trail. She did at least 3 loops while I was there. I think she may have been with some of the Tornados running club since I saw some of their members too.

Too Fast...Easy Run...Yes, I've done this before!

Took the tour at Memorial Park in 25:45. Yes, this was supposed to be a recovery run from last night's track workout. And, yes, the fastest I should have finished was 27:24. Probably doesn't bode well for tomorrow's tempo run!

2.9 M @ 8:53

Yasso 800's

Okay, the plan was to join Doug Storey's group at the Lamar High track for a speed workout tonight. That was scheduled for 6:30. I planned to get there between 6 and 6:30. So much for the plan. My car got new tires today. After spending the day in the shop that was supposed to be completed at 4:30 .... didn't happen. I picked the car up at 7. Of course, I missed the workout with the group. I drove home and, not surprisingly, the longer I was at the house, the less I felt like going back out to run. The Astros game had started .... Cameron was home .... There were things to do .... Finally, refusing to be pulled in by that tractor beam, I pulled away around 9:30. I figured this was a good opportunity to try Yasso 800's. I've been wanting to do this workout for over a month but it hasn't ever fit nicely into my schedule so I figured now was as good a time as any. On top of that, instead of driving to the Klein High track, I decided I'd run over there for a warm-up.

Here's how the workout broke down:

Total miles - 6.75

Warm up - 2.25 miles @ 9:01 (20:18)

4 x 800 (target time 3:40 w/3:40 recovery jog between)

• 3:28
• 3:19
• 3:17
• 3:15

Cool down - 2:25 miles @ 9:39 (21:42)

This was a tough workout but I liked it lot. I think I'll work it into my regular schedule. The theory is that Yasso 800's are a good predictor of your marathon time ... if you do 10 x 800 and keep the in-between recovery period the same as the running times. Since my next comment is buried so deep in this entry and no one reads my blog anyway ... I'm going to say it now ... for the record. Before the St. George marathon, I want to be able to run 10 Yasso 800's at 3:20 (my Boston qualifying time).

Easy ... My Own Style ...

Okay I put in an easy 2.9 miles at Memorial Park tonight. No big deal. After a couple weeks off my weight training (half recovery and Memorial Day holiday), I started lifting again this morning. It felt like I'd taken too much time off especially on the upper body! I just felt pathetically weak. However, my leg press was very good. I'm sure it's the running.

Anyway back to my easy run, to date my workouts have always been based on something I've read or something a "coach" has suggested. Today I just "made up my own thing". It's an easy run so I'm sure it's no big deal but I decided to force myself to run negative splits. I have no idea if this does any good or not but it seems one of my problems is that I great into a rhythm at one pace and it's extremely difficult for me to pick it up. The odd thing is that the pace is never the same. I can bounce around between 8:00 and 9:30 per mile and "feel" comfortable". Maybe this is hurting me in races ...??? So here's what I ended up with for mile splits:

10:27
08:58
07:23 (this was .9 mile for an equivalent of 8:12)

So my overall pace for the 2.9M was 9:14 per mile. (Remember this was an easy run which was scheduled for a 9:27 pace) Who knows if there's any benefit in approaching the easy run this way ... ? At a minimum, it gave me a mental game to play while running.

June 4 - 10

Here's the general schedule I'm planning on following this week:

Mon - Easy 3M
Tue - Speed @ LHS
Wed - Easy 3M
Thu - Tempo (mileage TBD...5-8M...)
Fri - Rest
Sat - Long 10M
Sun - Yasso 800's or Rest