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

Hard 8

I put in an 8 mile long run this morning. There were only 3 ChampionsFit members who met this morning at 6:30. I ran with Len for the first half. We averaged 9:19 for the first four miles. I closed the second 4 miles with an 8:52 pace. It was getting very warm by the time we finished. My legs were heavy today.

8 miles 1:12 for 9:00/M pace

Easy Run ... After the Rain

Things sure were quiet at Memorial Park this evening. A strong, late-afternoon storm rolled through today. I had planned an easy loop but talked myself out of it due to the rain. I figured the trail would be under water and I didn't have my "mudders". But as I went to the parking garage to drive home around 7 pm, the storm had broken. After a brief session of waffling, I quickly changed clothes in the car and decided to at least drive over to Memorial to see what it looked like. Very few people were there and there was water on the trail but it wasn't nearly as bad as I thought.

I took the tour and added a little extra since I was feeling good.

3.4 miles in 32:03 for a 9:26 pace (the Jack Daniels table I'm currently using suggests I should be at 9:27).

Speed with Doug at Lamar High

Thanks to Stephanie, I met Doug Storey tonight at Lamar High School's track for a speed workout. Doug is a coach who works with dozens of Houston-area triathletes and runners. I'm planning to follow his program for 4-5 weeks and possibly incorporate it in with the ChampionsFit workouts once marathon training begins in earnest.

Tonight's workout for "short distance" (I will conquer my 5K PR!) was 4-6 sets of 2 x 400 with 100 jog between and 300 jog between sets.

I arrived a few minutes late and put in a mile warm up then stretched. Everyone was pretty much on their own but some informal groups were working together. Since I started late I run alone (several other runners were on the track though).

My targeted time for the 400 intervals was 1:44. This is based on the Jack Daniels VDOT values (link). Here are my times:

1:28 1:44
1:38 1:37
1:36 1:36
x:xx 1:40
1:37 1:36
1:35 1:34

I will confess that I may have defeated the benefits of the workout somewhat by walking instead of jogging between 400's. I'm sure I wouldn't have been able to maintain the times if I had jogged ... since walking (and talking to Stephanie and Doug) allowed for a longer recovery. There seems to be wisdom in this approach and I'm looking forward to continuing with it. I appreciate Stephanie for introducing me to Doug.

Frustratingly Close!

Cam and I are in Utah for tonight's Jazz-Spurs playoff game.

We found a 5K to run this morning in Syracuse. Cam clocked a PR and said he felt really good. I didn't feel very and came in at 22:00. One second off my PR. Very frustrating! Of course while running I felt like I gave it my all. But after the fact, I'm absolutely convinced I could have found 2 seconds on the course somewhere if I would have known the end result. I'm sure there's a lesson in all of this. The next time I'm in the situation will determine if I learned it.

Earlier in the week I read that a runner has to have courage to 'go for it'. 'It' can be a PR or anything that will push the limits of your current conditioning. I had not thought about it like this before but believe it's absolutely true. Today I didn't show the courage to go for it. Instead I settled for something less than my best.

Mile splits:

6:31
7:25
7:23
0:41

10 Mile Tempo Run !?!!!?!!!?!?!

Met with members of ChampionsFit this morning at 5:45 am. The group was scheduled for 12 miles but broke into different groups for shorter distances and varied paces.

I ended up with Bob Bond, an experienced runner and marathon veteran. He was running 10 miles which sounded good to me.

I felt good the first couple miles and we were on a pace around 8:10. The conversation was good and Bob was a smooth and efficient machine. It was great to be with someone who was such good runner.

I was really feeling beat with a couple miles to go. I suggested he drop me if he needed to but he stayed with me for awhile longer offering encouragement. With something around a mile left he slowing pulled away from me.

I finished the 10 miles in 1:22:44 for an 8:16 pace! This was only 10 seconds off last Saturday's race pace for the half ... minus the hills plus high humidity. I am happy with the effort ... now it's over!

I look forward to running with Bob again. I need to put together next week's training schedule.

Fort Bend Fit Trail Run

Clocked a 36:06 run through the trails with Jonathan and Audrey's Fort Bend Fit group. It was a challenging run. They said the route we took was 4 miles.

After the run, Jonathan shared with Kenyan Way post-workout core exercises with me. Nothing like a little ab work to make me feel pathetically weak and generally uncoordinated!

It sounds like Cameron is going to run the Astros 5K on Saturday and I'll go on an early morning long run with ChampionsFit. There's a 5K on Utah early Monday morning that we may do if our travel plans come together to go to the Jazz-Spurs Game 4 on Monday.

Belated Weekly Training Schedule

Okay, I know I'm late with this. I'm also late getting my full race report posted too.

I'm calling this week my "reverse taper". I haven't seen the term used anywhere else (although it seems rather obvious). Hal Higdon does call it "Zero Week". He suggests following the same routine as the week leading into the event - only in reverse. Seems like sound advice so I'm going with it ... with some modification and the name change from Zero Week to Reverse Taper.

Sunday - rest

Monday - rest

Tuesday - easy recovery run; 2-3 miles @ 9:48

Wednesday - rest

Thursday - 4 mile trail run
(Jonathan & I will hook up with Audrey from PIM and Fort Bend Fit on the Ho Chi Mihn Trail. Hopefully I don't sprain an ankle!)

Friday - rest

Saturday - long run with Champions Fit
(the group is going 12M ... not sure I'll stay with them for the full run but I'll get at least 8M.)


I figure this approach will get my feet back under me.

With the half marathon behind me, I've got to refocus myself and put a few goals on the horizon. The St. George marathon in October is obviously the next big event that I'll be training for. However, I want to mix in a couple short-term goals along the way. I'm toying with an intense, 4-week speed focus before undertaking the full marathon program. The speed group Stephanie Burlet runs with meets on Tuesdays. I think I'll try that for awhile. I'd love to knock out 5K and 10K PR's (I know the weather isn't conducive but I don't necessarily have to race in Houston, do I?) before fully dedicating to myself to marathon training. I also still have to figure out which marathon program I'm going to commit to. I don't want to be changing up along the way. The Runners World plan I used for the half worked but I'm wondering if there's something better. I also expect to formally join ChampionsFit for the July session. Although it may not be the perfect fit, it is clearly the most convenient.

Back on my Feet

I still have some soreness throughout my legs but felt significantly better when I woke up this morning compared to the past couple of days!

Put in an easy loop at Memorial. I took it very slow (like a good recovery run should be!).

2.9 miles
28:29

It's a (Half) Marathon, Not a Sprint!

The course was FAST! The conditions were very close to ideal. The race was hard.

Official Time - 1:46:09

I'm thrilled with my time.


... more later ....


MILE SPLITS

8:48
8:59 Missed the 2 mile marker; Mile 2 was slighly faster and Mile 3 was slower.
7:42
8:09
7:36 Downhill fun begins!
7:54
7:42
7:40
7:54 Girl I was running with (Emily Fenwick) dropped me ... first mile on my own.
7:46
8:12 Body and mind pointing out I haven't gone this far before ....
8:42
9:05

Thursday Morning

I fell asleep with an ice bag on each knee last night. This seemed much more effective than the ice bath I took after last Saturday's long run.

This morning I am feeling very good. Hopefully this holds for 48 hours! I am actually surprised by how good I'm feeling. I need to remember to run on the track before big races since my body seems to like it much better than pounding the pavement!

At the moment my mental approach seems good. I'm viewing the race as two 5-milers followed by a 5K. The final 5K begins upon emerging from the mouth of Ogden Canyon. It sounds like there's going to be a bunch of hoopla going on in the streets (e.g., bands, street performers, spectators, etc.). I think I'll be looking for a lift at that point and I'm hoping the environment provides it for me. My current plan is to run the first 5 miles slower than the second 5 miles since the second 5 has the most elevation drop and is in the shade of the canyon.

Of course, all plans are subject to change as I tap the nether-reaches of my left-brain!

Good Tempo Run ... Am I Ready???

After a mile warm up on the track at Klein High School, I clocked a solid three-mile tempo run. Here are my quarter mile splits:

1:55
1:56
1:45
1:59 (7:35)
1:54
1:55
1:54
1:55 (7:38) (15:13)
1:54
1:57
1:57
1:53 (7:41) (22:54)


I felt pretty good and enjoyed the pace. My legs felt good and my knee did not bother me while running. Of course, it's really "screaming" now.

I'm experiencing a TON of nervous anticipation for this race. I'm caught wondering if I've trained properly for this experience and if I've put in enough miles.

I'm going to ice my knees on my way to bed!

Quick Notes

Just a couple of quick notes this morning.

• Found an article on running at altitude suggesting, among other things, that my race pace will be 6 - 10 seconds per mile slower. It also suggests racing conservatively and starting out slow. Just a few ideas to mull over leading up to Saturday.

• On a whim, I picked up the iPod+ Sport Kit on my way home last night. I hooked the receiver up to Cameron's Nano and put the "bug" under the laces of my Mizunos and circled the block. I can't figure out how it works since it is not GPS capable but at any point in the run I hit the Nano a voice came through the headphones giving me elapsed time, distance, and pace. Based on this very limited test (half mile), the technology was very accurate. I still question the overall accuracy since there was no calibration required. Ultimately, I doubt I'll use it much because the Nano and headphones drive me crazy while running. Cameron seemed excited about it so it looks like it ends up being his and I'll borrow it occasionally.

I've got 3 mile tempo run tonight at a pretty fast pace. I like the idea of my last workout being faster than Saturday's race pace. I'm considering running on the high school track rather than at Memorial. I don't like the 12 loops required on the track but my body probably prefers the rubberized surface of the track. My right knee has been bothering my a bit ever since last Saturday's long run so the track may be best tonight. ... weather may be a factor. I think there's a good chance of rain this afternoon.

Nice Easy Run

It was a beautiful night at Memorial Park. I made the 2.9 mile loop
in 25:54 for an 8:56 pace. Now I'm looking forward to good rest and
Wednesday's tempo run.

Training Schedule: May 13-19

This week is all about tapering for Saturday's half.

S-Rest
M-Weights (am) / Easy Run-3M @ 9:00 (pm)
T-Rest
W-5M including 1 warm; 3 tempo @ 7:40; 1 cool
T-Rest (fly to Utah)
F-Rest (runners' pre-race expo)
S-7 am start: Ogden half marathon
S-Recover (fly to Houston)