Here Comes the Rain....
Maybe a more appropriate title is... "Here Comes the End". After teetering on the edge since November... its finally over. Appointment has been made to see the podiatrist, the self diagnosis: navicular stress fracture. Probably of the middle one, that doesn't heal. Meh.
Sunday 12/14: 1:14:02, CA to RB feeling slow and rickety. Felt better towards the end, but then felt depressed that so much effort was expended to run so slowly. Bad L ankle... did a lot of physical therapy afterwards, but with mixed results.
Monday 12/15: Off... still bad L ankle... determined that the problem seems to be that once my heel is on the ground, I can't push off the toe to complete one stride... which explains why I can run (as long as a toe-strike) long past when I stop being able to walk normally.
Tuesday 12/16: 1:08:14, Hungtington/Marengo from the apartment. Really slowly... tried to pretend that I wasn't favoring the bad leg... but I was. In addition, I felt really really worn out by the time I turned off of Huntington towards the end, which was really discouraging. It's been a while since a slow 7 or 8 mile run would cause fatigue.
Wednesday 12/17: 1:06:52, Same as yesterday, in the rain. Hedged my bets on getting a late start, and lost. It started raining almost as soon as I started my run.... bleh. I tried to make myself run normally even if it hurt my ankle, but that didn't seem to help the slowness very much. Still a better run overall than yesterday, despite the rain. On the plus side, I now remember that running in the rain isn't as bad as I usually imagine.
Thursday 12/18: Off, now L ankle really, really, really hurts. Ehhhh.... Work is also stressful. Trying to get everything done before the holidays. At least no coworkers have commented on my new brisk shuffle-walk, which is my attempt to have the least amount of contact between my L heel and the ground.
Friday 12/19: Off, shots. Depressed and sad. Felt awful, physically, emotionally etc. My department was the last to leave work... it was really stressful, I forgot a whole bunch of things I needed to do before I left because I was just focusing on making sure my minion got to go home at a reasonable hour.
Saturday 12/20: 48:45, Monterrey Recovery Loop. I've been riding my bike to the trails recently, but today I drove, because I was feeling so depressed and unmotivated that I knew I wouldn't go if I also had to overcome the inertia of leaving warm bed to go biking in the cold. Ankle hurt, breathing hurt, and got horrible cramping and gastrointestinal distress. Arghhhh... I guess this is the universe's way of telling me that running is over for a good long while.
Total Training this Week: 4:17:53
Monday, December 29, 2008
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
Week of 12/07/2008 - 12/13/2008
The Stupid
Whether it was the shirking of physical therapy, the sudden week of concrete running, or my suddenly inspired burst of relative speed... maybe we'll never know. On Sunday, all I know was that I was not running... or ... walking. Man. One small step leads to one giant leap backwards.
And here I find myself... staring down the end of the year thinking... once upon a time I thought I'd race the 2008 cross season... then it was the 2009 track season... and now, it's looking like the 2009 cross season. Maybe there comes a point where it becomes so pathetic that it's painful to watch. Someone really needs to come and tape a big DNR on my racing career's chest.
Every time I take 4-6 days off, it gets harder... it gets harder to believe that things ever get better. It gets harder to shove down all the crazy and make good decisions. Towards the end of the week, I wasn't sure if the days off were due to my foot still hurting or just because I was too depressed to get out of bed.
On Saturday I dragged my hopeless and morose self out to the Arroyo to do the shortest of all of my runs, just so that one week would not have passed with zero runs. Honestly, it felt horrible. The last two times I took time off in the past few months, it actually did feel physically regenerative, with not too much loss of fitness, but this time, I think I over-expended my fitness bank account... or maybe it was because it was 3 pm and I had yet to eat or drink anything. Who knows.
45:51 for Monterrey Recovery Loop, which is a lot slower than the effort felt like, and when I got back to my bike, I felt extremely dizzy, followed by slightly nauseous, and then this overpowering feeling that I've never been so thirsty in all of my life. I waited for all of those sensations to pass before biking home. Like I said... it was horrible. The intention was that I didn't want the entire week to pass by without a single run, and that I felt like if I managed to run today, psychologically it would make it more likely that I would run tomorrow... but I think I felt even more demoralized after this run than before, if that is humanly possible.
Whether it was the shirking of physical therapy, the sudden week of concrete running, or my suddenly inspired burst of relative speed... maybe we'll never know. On Sunday, all I know was that I was not running... or ... walking. Man. One small step leads to one giant leap backwards.
And here I find myself... staring down the end of the year thinking... once upon a time I thought I'd race the 2008 cross season... then it was the 2009 track season... and now, it's looking like the 2009 cross season. Maybe there comes a point where it becomes so pathetic that it's painful to watch. Someone really needs to come and tape a big DNR on my racing career's chest.
Every time I take 4-6 days off, it gets harder... it gets harder to believe that things ever get better. It gets harder to shove down all the crazy and make good decisions. Towards the end of the week, I wasn't sure if the days off were due to my foot still hurting or just because I was too depressed to get out of bed.
On Saturday I dragged my hopeless and morose self out to the Arroyo to do the shortest of all of my runs, just so that one week would not have passed with zero runs. Honestly, it felt horrible. The last two times I took time off in the past few months, it actually did feel physically regenerative, with not too much loss of fitness, but this time, I think I over-expended my fitness bank account... or maybe it was because it was 3 pm and I had yet to eat or drink anything. Who knows.
45:51 for Monterrey Recovery Loop, which is a lot slower than the effort felt like, and when I got back to my bike, I felt extremely dizzy, followed by slightly nauseous, and then this overpowering feeling that I've never been so thirsty in all of my life. I waited for all of those sensations to pass before biking home. Like I said... it was horrible. The intention was that I didn't want the entire week to pass by without a single run, and that I felt like if I managed to run today, psychologically it would make it more likely that I would run tomorrow... but I think I felt even more demoralized after this run than before, if that is humanly possible.
Saturday, December 13, 2008
Week of 11/30/2008 - 12/06/2008
The Perma-Jogger
Last week on our last day in Boston, Peter mentioned that my stride was short and I don't pick up my feet. Like I was perpetually running up a mountain or something. I guess one could say that... but then it hit me... actually there is NOT anything wrong with my stride. What's wrong with me is that I've become.... Perma-Jogger. Come to think of it, I can't remember the last time that I've actually run, save for a tempo here and there.
Slow, safe, low impact running is basically a nice, shuffle-jog. On a good day, I'll shuffle a little faster, on a bad day, a little slower... but the basic idea is the same. Shuffle-shuffle, shuffle-shuffle. No wonder it seemed impossible to GO much faster. One actually doesn't if one doesn't pick up one's feet! Arghh.... what an effing disaster.
Sunday 11/30: 44:49, Monterrey recovery loop. Felt kind of tired from yesterday, but biked down to the Arroyo and just kind of focused on picking up my feet. An lo and behold, I ran faster than I ever have on this route.
Monday 12/01: 1:09:49, California to RB. Still feeling kind of worn out. Honestly don't remember all that much else about this run. I think it was pleasantly cool this morning.
Tuesday 12/02: Off, shots. Probably not such a bad thing. I think my legs are still trying to adjust to real running.
Wednesday 12/03: Off, unintended. If I had to point to something as a bad omen of things to come, it would probably be this day. I really don't know what happened, other than that 6 am came and went, and I did NOT get out of bed. It was NOT an off day. I had a run already picked out. It was just not good.
Thursday 12/04: 1:28:44, Patrician from the apt (11 miles). Woke up super motivated to stamp out the memory of yesterday and did the run that I was supposed to do. This run was as fantastic as it was unwise for my health. This was one of the first runs that I did as a distance runner, and still one of my favorites today. The hills aren't really very daunting anymore, and the scenery isn't a surprise, but it's still wonderful. I guess it's also a lot of concrete, but I felt like my feet did okay with all the pavement in Boston, so I thought I'd give this a try.
Mostly I was really excited to run free--as in, with little concern for keeping a low HR or overloading mileage. I mapped it when I got home, and realized that it was very nearly 8 minute miles, which is not fast by any means, but given the topology, it's definitely respectable... and it means if I pick up my feet and run, I'm NOT completely useless!
Friday 12/05: 1:03:09, Monterrey to the RB and back. I probably should have taken it easy after my first real run in a very very long time... but I was so excited, I elongated my recovery loop. In hindsight this was the beginning of the end. The top of my L foot and ankle was already giving me trouble at this point, but I was just so elated to have run a good solid run, that I just wanted to do more, I just wanted to run so, so badly. The part of me that felt that way about running had been kept closely muzzled over the past year or so, but yesterday's run had unleashed it again. Little did I know, I would pay for this... yes, yes I would.
Saturday 12/06: 46:21, 2 x Washington Park Loops in Denver. L foot hurt so badly, I probably should have not run on this day. But, what's 5 miles here and there...? I thought. So I embarked, and I actually felt okay despite the altitude, but about 15 minutes in, I felt this acute pain in my L ankle... so terrible that I thought I would have to stop and walk home... but eventually I ran it off, and stupid completed the rest of the run, albeit extremely slowly and cautiously.
Training this week: 5:12:52, of real, bonafide running.
Last week on our last day in Boston, Peter mentioned that my stride was short and I don't pick up my feet. Like I was perpetually running up a mountain or something. I guess one could say that... but then it hit me... actually there is NOT anything wrong with my stride. What's wrong with me is that I've become.... Perma-Jogger. Come to think of it, I can't remember the last time that I've actually run, save for a tempo here and there.
Slow, safe, low impact running is basically a nice, shuffle-jog. On a good day, I'll shuffle a little faster, on a bad day, a little slower... but the basic idea is the same. Shuffle-shuffle, shuffle-shuffle. No wonder it seemed impossible to GO much faster. One actually doesn't if one doesn't pick up one's feet! Arghh.... what an effing disaster.
Sunday 11/30: 44:49, Monterrey recovery loop. Felt kind of tired from yesterday, but biked down to the Arroyo and just kind of focused on picking up my feet. An lo and behold, I ran faster than I ever have on this route.
Monday 12/01: 1:09:49, California to RB. Still feeling kind of worn out. Honestly don't remember all that much else about this run. I think it was pleasantly cool this morning.
Tuesday 12/02: Off, shots. Probably not such a bad thing. I think my legs are still trying to adjust to real running.
Wednesday 12/03: Off, unintended. If I had to point to something as a bad omen of things to come, it would probably be this day. I really don't know what happened, other than that 6 am came and went, and I did NOT get out of bed. It was NOT an off day. I had a run already picked out. It was just not good.
Thursday 12/04: 1:28:44, Patrician from the apt (11 miles). Woke up super motivated to stamp out the memory of yesterday and did the run that I was supposed to do. This run was as fantastic as it was unwise for my health. This was one of the first runs that I did as a distance runner, and still one of my favorites today. The hills aren't really very daunting anymore, and the scenery isn't a surprise, but it's still wonderful. I guess it's also a lot of concrete, but I felt like my feet did okay with all the pavement in Boston, so I thought I'd give this a try.
Mostly I was really excited to run free--as in, with little concern for keeping a low HR or overloading mileage. I mapped it when I got home, and realized that it was very nearly 8 minute miles, which is not fast by any means, but given the topology, it's definitely respectable... and it means if I pick up my feet and run, I'm NOT completely useless!
Friday 12/05: 1:03:09, Monterrey to the RB and back. I probably should have taken it easy after my first real run in a very very long time... but I was so excited, I elongated my recovery loop. In hindsight this was the beginning of the end. The top of my L foot and ankle was already giving me trouble at this point, but I was just so elated to have run a good solid run, that I just wanted to do more, I just wanted to run so, so badly. The part of me that felt that way about running had been kept closely muzzled over the past year or so, but yesterday's run had unleashed it again. Little did I know, I would pay for this... yes, yes I would.
Saturday 12/06: 46:21, 2 x Washington Park Loops in Denver. L foot hurt so badly, I probably should have not run on this day. But, what's 5 miles here and there...? I thought. So I embarked, and I actually felt okay despite the altitude, but about 15 minutes in, I felt this acute pain in my L ankle... so terrible that I thought I would have to stop and walk home... but eventually I ran it off, and stupid completed the rest of the run, albeit extremely slowly and cautiously.
Training this week: 5:12:52, of real, bonafide running.
Sunday, November 30, 2008
Week of 11/23/2008 - 11/29/2008 (Thanksgiving - Boston)
Thanksgiving Week
I'm not usually one for warm and fuzzy sentiments... but I really do love Thanksgiving. Went home for the week to Boston, and had plenty to be thankful about. I still don't WANT to be slow forever more... but I do realize that there are more important things.
Monday was my mom's birthday, and then Peter came for Thanksgiving. My mom had friends over too, so we ended up having WWII Villians Thanksgiving (with 2 German people and 4 Japanese people). I felt relaxed and happy and did not have nightmares for the first time in months. Cooked a big turkey, enjoyed some long, slow, (hopefully regenerative) not on a schedule runs. It actually felt somewhat de-stressing (but also a little bit stressing) to just run in a non structured way for a little bit. I just did what I could when I felt like it.
Sunday 11/23: Off, all daylight hours were consumed by flying/time zone change. Woke up at 4 am, and felt completely wiped out when I arrived so went to bed at 8 pm Boston time, which is 5 pm LA time.
Monday 11/24: 1:24:20, River path to Eliot Bridge. Decided that 40 degrees is still acceptable running weather. Once you warm up, its not half bad. Saw one other crazy person who was wearing shorts like me. Took it real easy and thought this was a nice relaxing run until I got home to my map of River Loop distances and saw that I only ran 9.3 miles... which makes this run kind of on the ridiculously slow side... bah. But today is my mom's birthday, so I did not waste any of it on being disgruntled about the slowness.
Tuesday 11/25: Off, torrential downpour. Also stuffed myself silly with scones upon getting up in the morning and felt barfy, which did not really make it any easier to want to run. Then I dug up some old running logs and remembered that in winter of 2005 I ran 11 miles a day rain or shine in the 35 degree weather when I was at home in Boston. One of those days was really rainy and miserable, and I still ran 11 miles... at sub-8 minute mile pace. Who would have thought that in 3 years I'd be all lazy and slow... lame, totally lame.
Wednesday 11/26: 1:34:31, River Path to JFK bridge (10.9 miles). Felt motivated to get out there after spending yesterday feeling grouchy. This run was better, found some nice dirt paths that I'd never ventured to try in years past. Also, had enough energy left to push the pace a little bit for the last 2.5 miles. Felt good to get going, and made it up Big Hill in record time. (We now live at the top of a half mile long, somewhat steep hill which is inevitable to get to the river path)
Thursday 11/27: 1:15:30, Shorter River Path plus detour to gas station (8.9 miles). We picked up Peter from the airport yesterday, and he came with me on my run (on bike) this morning after we patched up my old mountain bike and pumped up the tires at the gas station. It was really nice, but I realized that I was being grinchy to him, because I didn't want him to see me be this slow. I know that this is wholly irrational, because 1) numerous discussions over the years have revealed that not everyone has speed goggles to the same degree that I apparently do and 2) me at my very very best would still be woefully underwhelming to a former national champion/professional triathlete anyways... so, I should really get over this--but it's harder than you think. There's still this side of me that wants to be a badass in front of her man. When I race (er, IF I ever race again...) I want Peter to be able to say "See the one kicking everyone's butt? That's MY girl." Anyways, I suppose I can ruminate on this problem another time.
Friday 11/28: Off, bleh. Being lazy again. I think the laziness is correlated with it raining. I didn't feel too horrible though, because I have a big day planned for tomorrow :).
Saturday 11/29: 2:06:18, give or take a couple of minutes, the first ever Run-Bike Boston Tour of Megumi's Childhood Relics. Took Peter around town (me on foot, him on bike) to see where I grew up. I had an elaborate route planned out, but the farthest landmark had to be foregone due to time constraints (we had to catch our flights home). It still mapped out to ~14.5 miles though, so I wasn't going as ridiculously slowly as I thought I was. Anyways, it was fun. Felt a little groggy and sore after this + 5 1/2 hours of sitting on a plane.
Training this week: 6:20:39 (43.6 miles*) a big week on 4 days.
*This is the first time in over a year that I've run a 40 mile week. Feet and ankles are holding steady. I also did not feel catastrophically awful this week for the first time in about a month. That's something to be thankful for!
I'm not usually one for warm and fuzzy sentiments... but I really do love Thanksgiving. Went home for the week to Boston, and had plenty to be thankful about. I still don't WANT to be slow forever more... but I do realize that there are more important things.
Monday was my mom's birthday, and then Peter came for Thanksgiving. My mom had friends over too, so we ended up having WWII Villians Thanksgiving (with 2 German people and 4 Japanese people). I felt relaxed and happy and did not have nightmares for the first time in months. Cooked a big turkey, enjoyed some long, slow, (hopefully regenerative) not on a schedule runs. It actually felt somewhat de-stressing (but also a little bit stressing) to just run in a non structured way for a little bit. I just did what I could when I felt like it.
Sunday 11/23: Off, all daylight hours were consumed by flying/time zone change. Woke up at 4 am, and felt completely wiped out when I arrived so went to bed at 8 pm Boston time, which is 5 pm LA time.
Monday 11/24: 1:24:20, River path to Eliot Bridge. Decided that 40 degrees is still acceptable running weather. Once you warm up, its not half bad. Saw one other crazy person who was wearing shorts like me. Took it real easy and thought this was a nice relaxing run until I got home to my map of River Loop distances and saw that I only ran 9.3 miles... which makes this run kind of on the ridiculously slow side... bah. But today is my mom's birthday, so I did not waste any of it on being disgruntled about the slowness.
Tuesday 11/25: Off, torrential downpour. Also stuffed myself silly with scones upon getting up in the morning and felt barfy, which did not really make it any easier to want to run. Then I dug up some old running logs and remembered that in winter of 2005 I ran 11 miles a day rain or shine in the 35 degree weather when I was at home in Boston. One of those days was really rainy and miserable, and I still ran 11 miles... at sub-8 minute mile pace. Who would have thought that in 3 years I'd be all lazy and slow... lame, totally lame.
Wednesday 11/26: 1:34:31, River Path to JFK bridge (10.9 miles). Felt motivated to get out there after spending yesterday feeling grouchy. This run was better, found some nice dirt paths that I'd never ventured to try in years past. Also, had enough energy left to push the pace a little bit for the last 2.5 miles. Felt good to get going, and made it up Big Hill in record time. (We now live at the top of a half mile long, somewhat steep hill which is inevitable to get to the river path)
Thursday 11/27: 1:15:30, Shorter River Path plus detour to gas station (8.9 miles). We picked up Peter from the airport yesterday, and he came with me on my run (on bike) this morning after we patched up my old mountain bike and pumped up the tires at the gas station. It was really nice, but I realized that I was being grinchy to him, because I didn't want him to see me be this slow. I know that this is wholly irrational, because 1) numerous discussions over the years have revealed that not everyone has speed goggles to the same degree that I apparently do and 2) me at my very very best would still be woefully underwhelming to a former national champion/professional triathlete anyways... so, I should really get over this--but it's harder than you think. There's still this side of me that wants to be a badass in front of her man. When I race (er, IF I ever race again...) I want Peter to be able to say "See the one kicking everyone's butt? That's MY girl." Anyways, I suppose I can ruminate on this problem another time.
Friday 11/28: Off, bleh. Being lazy again. I think the laziness is correlated with it raining. I didn't feel too horrible though, because I have a big day planned for tomorrow :).
Saturday 11/29: 2:06:18, give or take a couple of minutes, the first ever Run-Bike Boston Tour of Megumi's Childhood Relics. Took Peter around town (me on foot, him on bike) to see where I grew up. I had an elaborate route planned out, but the farthest landmark had to be foregone due to time constraints (we had to catch our flights home). It still mapped out to ~14.5 miles though, so I wasn't going as ridiculously slowly as I thought I was. Anyways, it was fun. Felt a little groggy and sore after this + 5 1/2 hours of sitting on a plane.
Training this week: 6:20:39 (43.6 miles*) a big week on 4 days.
*This is the first time in over a year that I've run a 40 mile week. Feet and ankles are holding steady. I also did not feel catastrophically awful this week for the first time in about a month. That's something to be thankful for!
Thursday, November 20, 2008
Week of 11/16/2008 - 11/22/2008 (Not Good Week #3)
So on Sunday...
They canceled the first ever Pasadena Marathon due to forest fires... which was an extreme bummer to the many who had trained, traveled and congregated for this event. But for me, it brought some neat silver linings.
One, is that I got to spend some extra time with Kamalah, who was in town for this event. She is one cool chica. Second, I felt less guilty about not going on a run on this day.
While walking to Trader Joe's to get our consolation exercise... I realized that I should probably stop pretending that the persistent pain in my L ankle was 1) going to go away on its own and 2) not affecting my stride. Hell, it was painful to keep a normal walking gait.
I can't help but feel like my running career is circling the drain at this point and desperately needs a Do Not Resuscitate order...
Sunday 11/16 - Thursday 11/20: Nothing. Waiting for my ankle to feel less horrible. Turns out its taking a really long time. On thursday I decided I had already hit the diminishing returns principle on further days off... but I couldn't motivate myself to get out of bed and go run. Bleh.
Friday 11/21: 46:14, Monterrey Recovery Loop to test the ankle. Didn't feel fantastic, but it pretty much held up. I think I expended more effort than I could have to produce a decent time for this course, but in general I felt good. I think it felt good just to have gotten up, biked to the Arroyo and run... instead of lolling around in bed trying to sleep and ignore the feeling my body and soul being crushed into an ever smaller cube.
Saturday 11/22: 1:28:54, Brown Mountain to the Saddle and back via El Prieto with KB. This was a fantastic run. I was really really nervous and concerned about my ankle and my fitness and wondered if I'd need to be airlifted off of the mountain... but I was glad that I went anyways. Despite the many days off, felt not terrible going up, in the beginning it felt pretty horrible but it got better and I was feeling pretty chipper by the time we got to the saddle. Maybe there's hope yet. Was really great to run with KB. Breakfast with the gang at Corner Bakery afterwards. Saw Susan there too.
Training this week: 2:15:08, this week was kind of a wash anyways... but the goal was just to run again. Hopefully things will stabilize next week.
They canceled the first ever Pasadena Marathon due to forest fires... which was an extreme bummer to the many who had trained, traveled and congregated for this event. But for me, it brought some neat silver linings.
One, is that I got to spend some extra time with Kamalah, who was in town for this event. She is one cool chica. Second, I felt less guilty about not going on a run on this day.
While walking to Trader Joe's to get our consolation exercise... I realized that I should probably stop pretending that the persistent pain in my L ankle was 1) going to go away on its own and 2) not affecting my stride. Hell, it was painful to keep a normal walking gait.
I can't help but feel like my running career is circling the drain at this point and desperately needs a Do Not Resuscitate order...
Sunday 11/16 - Thursday 11/20: Nothing. Waiting for my ankle to feel less horrible. Turns out its taking a really long time. On thursday I decided I had already hit the diminishing returns principle on further days off... but I couldn't motivate myself to get out of bed and go run. Bleh.
Friday 11/21: 46:14, Monterrey Recovery Loop to test the ankle. Didn't feel fantastic, but it pretty much held up. I think I expended more effort than I could have to produce a decent time for this course, but in general I felt good. I think it felt good just to have gotten up, biked to the Arroyo and run... instead of lolling around in bed trying to sleep and ignore the feeling my body and soul being crushed into an ever smaller cube.
Saturday 11/22: 1:28:54, Brown Mountain to the Saddle and back via El Prieto with KB. This was a fantastic run. I was really really nervous and concerned about my ankle and my fitness and wondered if I'd need to be airlifted off of the mountain... but I was glad that I went anyways. Despite the many days off, felt not terrible going up, in the beginning it felt pretty horrible but it got better and I was feeling pretty chipper by the time we got to the saddle. Maybe there's hope yet. Was really great to run with KB. Breakfast with the gang at Corner Bakery afterwards. Saw Susan there too.
Training this week: 2:15:08, this week was kind of a wash anyways... but the goal was just to run again. Hopefully things will stabilize next week.
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
Week of 11/09/2008 - 11/15/2008 (Not Good Week #2)
A Medical Freak Show...
On Sunday I wondered if it's just in my head that I'm falling apart... so I decided to break out the trusty HR monitor to take on my standard easy long run.
... and sometimes there's stuff you kind of wished you didn't have to know. Started out nice and easy, HR about 160, pretty standard. I was starting to think maybe this was going to be a normal run and I was going to be alright... but then about 15 minutes in, I happened to glance down at my watch and saw 185! Holy moly...
Tempo runs go about 185... the steep part of the Bailey hill climb gets about 185... not your run of the mill, slow, flat run. Good grief, I thought my eyes would pop out of my head, but sadly I still had about 7-8 miles left, so I decided just to see what would happen.
What happened was the I started to gradually feel worse and worse, with HR peaking in the 190's... until I decided to drastically reduce my pace to about a crawl, which is how I finished the run HR hovering just below 180. Yikes... so, no, its not in my head that my body has completely melted down into a blob.
Also, this week contained a 4 day weekend (work is doing this thing where they try to compensate lack of pay for more vacation days...) during which I think I slept 14+ hours per day. Seriously. I think I'm dying....
Sunday 11/09: 1:25:51, California back to stables, then around RB. Horrible, horrible experience. See above for details. Rode my bike to the Arroyo and around town a bit.
Monday 11/10: 30:42, due to unexpected day off of work, I had time in the evening to run sufficiently after my shot so as not to cause problems. I felt horrible, so I decided just to do 10 easy laps around the North Field. Unfortunately, that was apparently too ambitious of a goal. Somehow, I couldn't hold 10 minute mile pace for 30 minutes... first 5 laps in 14:55, next 5 in 15:35... how is that even POSSIBLE? 10 minute miles aren't even exercise! I think it's officially time to be worried now.
Tuesday 11/11: 1:06:46, Monterrey to RB. Biked to the Arroyo and then ran as conservatively as I possibly while still maintaining forward motion. Felt okay. Extremely slow, I guess that's par for the course lately. In other news, at least it's getting easier to get up the hill on California on my bike.... goodness only knows something could be improving these days.
Wednesday 11/12: 49:04, Monterrey Recovery Loop. Didn't feel catastrophically awful, but felt tired and was slow. However, I discovered that my bike has its own security man! There's a friendly guy who guards the warehouse by the Monterrey entrance to the Arroyo, and apparently I lock my bike right next to where he stands. Very nice!
Thursday 11/13: 53:15, Lorain, unsatisfactory. Got kind of a late start... didn't feel very motivated. Felt alright but then when I saw the time it definitively felt like WAY more effort than such an incredibly slow pace would merit. Gah... things are so not getting better....
Friday 11/14: Off, slept in. Felt crappy. I don't really remember too much else about this day.
Saturday 11/15: 1:07:20, RB to JPL gate... wow, another contender for "Worst Run Ever". Slept in, rode my bike to the RB around 11 am, when it was already about 85 degrees, and probably over 90 when I left. Felt super awful, slowed down a great deal in the last half... and I'm not sure I can blame the heat for all of it. Arghhh... well in statistical fairness, in the past I've always chosen less sleep over running in the heat, so its only fair that I give the other choice a few shots before deciding what's better.
Training this week: 5:52:58
On Sunday I wondered if it's just in my head that I'm falling apart... so I decided to break out the trusty HR monitor to take on my standard easy long run.
... and sometimes there's stuff you kind of wished you didn't have to know. Started out nice and easy, HR about 160, pretty standard. I was starting to think maybe this was going to be a normal run and I was going to be alright... but then about 15 minutes in, I happened to glance down at my watch and saw 185! Holy moly...
Tempo runs go about 185... the steep part of the Bailey hill climb gets about 185... not your run of the mill, slow, flat run. Good grief, I thought my eyes would pop out of my head, but sadly I still had about 7-8 miles left, so I decided just to see what would happen.
What happened was the I started to gradually feel worse and worse, with HR peaking in the 190's... until I decided to drastically reduce my pace to about a crawl, which is how I finished the run HR hovering just below 180. Yikes... so, no, its not in my head that my body has completely melted down into a blob.
Also, this week contained a 4 day weekend (work is doing this thing where they try to compensate lack of pay for more vacation days...) during which I think I slept 14+ hours per day. Seriously. I think I'm dying....
Sunday 11/09: 1:25:51, California back to stables, then around RB. Horrible, horrible experience. See above for details. Rode my bike to the Arroyo and around town a bit.
Monday 11/10: 30:42, due to unexpected day off of work, I had time in the evening to run sufficiently after my shot so as not to cause problems. I felt horrible, so I decided just to do 10 easy laps around the North Field. Unfortunately, that was apparently too ambitious of a goal. Somehow, I couldn't hold 10 minute mile pace for 30 minutes... first 5 laps in 14:55, next 5 in 15:35... how is that even POSSIBLE? 10 minute miles aren't even exercise! I think it's officially time to be worried now.
Tuesday 11/11: 1:06:46, Monterrey to RB. Biked to the Arroyo and then ran as conservatively as I possibly while still maintaining forward motion. Felt okay. Extremely slow, I guess that's par for the course lately. In other news, at least it's getting easier to get up the hill on California on my bike.... goodness only knows something could be improving these days.
Wednesday 11/12: 49:04, Monterrey Recovery Loop. Didn't feel catastrophically awful, but felt tired and was slow. However, I discovered that my bike has its own security man! There's a friendly guy who guards the warehouse by the Monterrey entrance to the Arroyo, and apparently I lock my bike right next to where he stands. Very nice!
Thursday 11/13: 53:15, Lorain, unsatisfactory. Got kind of a late start... didn't feel very motivated. Felt alright but then when I saw the time it definitively felt like WAY more effort than such an incredibly slow pace would merit. Gah... things are so not getting better....
Friday 11/14: Off, slept in. Felt crappy. I don't really remember too much else about this day.
Saturday 11/15: 1:07:20, RB to JPL gate... wow, another contender for "Worst Run Ever". Slept in, rode my bike to the RB around 11 am, when it was already about 85 degrees, and probably over 90 when I left. Felt super awful, slowed down a great deal in the last half... and I'm not sure I can blame the heat for all of it. Arghhh... well in statistical fairness, in the past I've always chosen less sleep over running in the heat, so its only fair that I give the other choice a few shots before deciding what's better.
Training this week: 5:52:58
Monday, November 10, 2008
Week of 11/02/2008 - 11/08/2008 (Not Good Week #1)
So... what can I say about this week, other than that it was bad?
Well, sore and tired come to mind... which is ever so odd because I didn't run very much at all. Nevertheless, for the time being, at least, we must resist the urge to jump out the window and wait to see if things settle down--or if it's really time to start worrying.
Sunday 11/02: 1:11:16, 3 laps of Washington Park, reeeeeeeealllllly slowly. After yesterday, I was seriously worried about my ability to complete 3 laps. It was ugly and painful, but I made it. I think I kept repeating to myself, the only goal of today is to finish, the only goal of today is to finish. Thankfully, all of the quick folks seemed to be going clockwise today, so I was spared the additional consternation of seeing lithe, athletic bodies fly past me left and right. Felt really wiped out afterwards, and the charleyhorse in my calf was really painful.
Monday 11/03: Off, shots. Flying home. Thank goodness for the off day. I think I was walking funny due to the calf soreness. Feeling pretty apprehensive about the elections.
Tuesday 11/04: 51:26, Lorain (6.3 miles). I felt really tired and horrible in the morning, AND it was drizzling and grey out, but got myself up and out the door pretty quickly, because I knew that today could be a historic day in the making. If it did turn out to be so, I didn't want to remember till the day that I died that I was a lazy ass and didn't get out of bed that morning. So I got out of bed, and I ran and thought about hope, and somehow I fought through this run without slowing down too much, even though I didn't feel very good. Saw the team run by at Lacy through the fence. I don't like to think of myself as a superstitious type of a person... but Obama was selection #14 on my ballot, which is an auspicious number due to it being also my birthday... so I had a good feeling about the presidential race--and I was right!
Wednesday 11/05: 47:33, Monterrey Recovery Loop. Unfortunately, woke up in a pretty dark mood due to Prop 8, a rather cruel juxtaposition to everything that an Obama victory represents. Felt alternately sad and grouchy through most of the run, except for two highlights: 1) the homeless man under the bridge kept yelling at me as if I was in a race "you can catch'em! you're in third place now, work that hill!" 2) my Wednesday morning Arroyo rendez-vous with Ian and the oxy team running the opposite direction.
Thursday 11/06: 58:30, RB to yellow gate. The theme of this day is "hope". Seeing all of the Obama stickers go by on the freeway made me realize... a better world IS coming, whether the conservatives like it or not. The prop 8 battle may be lost but the war is not over. We have been and we will continue to move towards a more open, equal and accepting society. This run was pretty decent, as in, for the first time I didn't feel incredibly horrible. Hopefully this is indicative of good things to come.
Friday 11/07: Initially I wanted to do a short run today, but I'm still having a lot of trouble with fatigue and erratic sleeping patterns. Couldn't get out of bed this morning, and felt consistently groggy all day.
Saturday 11/08: 51:51, Huntington up Oak Knoll. Ugh. So much for hope. I let myself sleep in today, which meant that I had to run when it was uncomfortably warm and sunny, but that doesn't really account for how awful I felt. Started off not bad, but I just became tired very very early on in the run, and was pretty much wiped out by the time I got to the grass median on Huntington. Hips/glutes also insanely sore. Not sure why... just did not feel good at all.
Ugh, about a month ago, I was finally starting to feel pretty good! What the hell happened to that shit? Gah... goals are suspended until I can figure out how to fix this....
Training this week: 4:40:36
Well, sore and tired come to mind... which is ever so odd because I didn't run very much at all. Nevertheless, for the time being, at least, we must resist the urge to jump out the window and wait to see if things settle down--or if it's really time to start worrying.
Sunday 11/02: 1:11:16, 3 laps of Washington Park, reeeeeeeealllllly slowly. After yesterday, I was seriously worried about my ability to complete 3 laps. It was ugly and painful, but I made it. I think I kept repeating to myself, the only goal of today is to finish, the only goal of today is to finish. Thankfully, all of the quick folks seemed to be going clockwise today, so I was spared the additional consternation of seeing lithe, athletic bodies fly past me left and right. Felt really wiped out afterwards, and the charleyhorse in my calf was really painful.
Monday 11/03: Off, shots. Flying home. Thank goodness for the off day. I think I was walking funny due to the calf soreness. Feeling pretty apprehensive about the elections.
Tuesday 11/04: 51:26, Lorain (6.3 miles). I felt really tired and horrible in the morning, AND it was drizzling and grey out, but got myself up and out the door pretty quickly, because I knew that today could be a historic day in the making. If it did turn out to be so, I didn't want to remember till the day that I died that I was a lazy ass and didn't get out of bed that morning. So I got out of bed, and I ran and thought about hope, and somehow I fought through this run without slowing down too much, even though I didn't feel very good. Saw the team run by at Lacy through the fence. I don't like to think of myself as a superstitious type of a person... but Obama was selection #14 on my ballot, which is an auspicious number due to it being also my birthday... so I had a good feeling about the presidential race--and I was right!
Wednesday 11/05: 47:33, Monterrey Recovery Loop. Unfortunately, woke up in a pretty dark mood due to Prop 8, a rather cruel juxtaposition to everything that an Obama victory represents. Felt alternately sad and grouchy through most of the run, except for two highlights: 1) the homeless man under the bridge kept yelling at me as if I was in a race "you can catch'em! you're in third place now, work that hill!" 2) my Wednesday morning Arroyo rendez-vous with Ian and the oxy team running the opposite direction.
Thursday 11/06: 58:30, RB to yellow gate. The theme of this day is "hope". Seeing all of the Obama stickers go by on the freeway made me realize... a better world IS coming, whether the conservatives like it or not. The prop 8 battle may be lost but the war is not over. We have been and we will continue to move towards a more open, equal and accepting society. This run was pretty decent, as in, for the first time I didn't feel incredibly horrible. Hopefully this is indicative of good things to come.
Friday 11/07: Initially I wanted to do a short run today, but I'm still having a lot of trouble with fatigue and erratic sleeping patterns. Couldn't get out of bed this morning, and felt consistently groggy all day.
Saturday 11/08: 51:51, Huntington up Oak Knoll. Ugh. So much for hope. I let myself sleep in today, which meant that I had to run when it was uncomfortably warm and sunny, but that doesn't really account for how awful I felt. Started off not bad, but I just became tired very very early on in the run, and was pretty much wiped out by the time I got to the grass median on Huntington. Hips/glutes also insanely sore. Not sure why... just did not feel good at all.
Ugh, about a month ago, I was finally starting to feel pretty good! What the hell happened to that shit? Gah... goals are suspended until I can figure out how to fix this....
Training this week: 4:40:36
Friday, November 7, 2008
Week of 10/26/2008 - 11/01/2008 (EPIC FAIL)
So, as such things turn out... trying to recover by simply cutting out workout days wasn't really an effective form of re-initialization. In fact, by the end of last week, the system was even more full of fatal errors.
I finally got the blue screen of death on Sunday, wherein I ran for about 15 minutes before I turned around and came back because I was feeling so deathly horrible. 10 pounds of shit, 5 pound bag.
Demoralized by both sleep deprivation and the inexplicable decline over the past week or two... I decided that I really had to turn the system off for a little bit. After all, how else can you fix a mystery problem where you're not really sure what's wrong, and a doctor would probably tell you you're stark raving crazy if the only symptom was decline in running performance....?
Anyways, I took Monday - Friday off completely, and expected to feel better on Saturday, and boy was I disappointed.
I ran 2 laps (5.2 miles) of Washington Park near Peter's house.... maybe it wasn't a good idea to have the first run back be at altitude, but, that's what was available, and I was determined. I started out sore (strange since I hadn't moved in 5 days), and remained sore all throughout. In addition, I felt extremely tired very early on, and also a little bit barfy and actually... extremely oxygen deprived. Ran a positive split on the two laps (21:30, 22:15), and staggered home where I immediately proceeded to hug the toilet, waiting to barf or pass out, whichever came first. It felt like the type of nausea associated with extreme oxygen deprivation... brain damage anyone?
At any rate, it was terrible. I felt so depressed afterwards... if this is what it feels like after a lot of rest, there's got to be something REALLY wrong with me. Also, I somehow managed to give myself a charley horse somewhere deep in my R calf immediately prior to this run...
I finally got the blue screen of death on Sunday, wherein I ran for about 15 minutes before I turned around and came back because I was feeling so deathly horrible. 10 pounds of shit, 5 pound bag.
Demoralized by both sleep deprivation and the inexplicable decline over the past week or two... I decided that I really had to turn the system off for a little bit. After all, how else can you fix a mystery problem where you're not really sure what's wrong, and a doctor would probably tell you you're stark raving crazy if the only symptom was decline in running performance....?
Anyways, I took Monday - Friday off completely, and expected to feel better on Saturday, and boy was I disappointed.
I ran 2 laps (5.2 miles) of Washington Park near Peter's house.... maybe it wasn't a good idea to have the first run back be at altitude, but, that's what was available, and I was determined. I started out sore (strange since I hadn't moved in 5 days), and remained sore all throughout. In addition, I felt extremely tired very early on, and also a little bit barfy and actually... extremely oxygen deprived. Ran a positive split on the two laps (21:30, 22:15), and staggered home where I immediately proceeded to hug the toilet, waiting to barf or pass out, whichever came first. It felt like the type of nausea associated with extreme oxygen deprivation... brain damage anyone?
At any rate, it was terrible. I felt so depressed afterwards... if this is what it feels like after a lot of rest, there's got to be something REALLY wrong with me. Also, I somehow managed to give myself a charley horse somewhere deep in my R calf immediately prior to this run...
Sunday, October 19, 2008
Week of 10/19/2008 - 10/25/2008 (Base Week 32)
As Cupcake would say: Re-initializing!
This week started off with sleeping... for 10 hours. And then 3 more hours. I guess I was really really really tired. I already knew my long run was going to be in the evening to give 24 hours of recovery from my hard run on Saturday, so I did not set my alarm clock for the first time in so long I can't even remember.
I had stayed up really late arguing about politics the night before, so I woke up around 11 or 12, groggily, ate some food, and then somehow fell back asleep until about 4 pm. Yikes. Anyways, the part about reinitialization has to do with the fact that when I woke up, for the first time in a few weeks, my legs actually did NOT have that half sore, half warm, dull achey feeling. I need to get more sleep.
I'm hoping for a significantly less stressful week this week, so this may be a good time to apply some much needed first aid to my training. Apparently turning the unit off and then on again is usually a good first step.
Sunday 10/19: 1:25:35, California to Stables to RB perimeter, the standard short long run. Despite feeling a little bit better after all of that sleep, I know my body is still kind of worn down, so I chose to go with a conservative shorter long run. Ran easy, legs felt a little tired but much better towards the end. Unfortunately, I did manage to run out of daylight, so the last 15 minutes through the Arroyo to my car were rather frightening. I'm really lucky to have made it through with only a few mis-steps. This was an okay run, a step in the right direction. L ankle is definitely still rickety, but felt like it was stabilizing, and my stomach finally made it through a long run without barfing up my last meal. Awesome.
Monday 10/20: Off, shots. Bleh, right arm swelled up again, not sure what they are going to do about this. But on the plus side, ate delicious pasta and baked yams at KB and Ian's.
Tuesday 10/21: 1:22:42, Bailey to connector. I don't often say things like this... but I guess not all runs can be good runs, and maybe the moral victory is finishing. Felt inordinately wiped out today. Was already breathing hard early despite the slow pace, and I was almost completely convinced that I was going to turn back at the old camp, but when I got there I convinced myself to go just a little bit further with the promise that if I started to go over threshold, I'd turn back. Took it super super easy and eventually I did get to the top in a glacial 50:12 (29:55 to camp). I can only remember one other occasion in the history of this run that it took me over 50 minutes... I think it was either one of my first ones or maybe I was sick. How horrifying... but like I said, maybe just making it to the top is the moral victory sometimes.
Wednesday 10/22: 48:08, Monterrey Recovery Loop, kind of a 'meh' run. Didn't feel catastrophically awful, for which I am grateful... but still felt kind of tired and my ankle is still bothering me, which I can tell is throwing off my stride. Everything just felt a little bit off, including my breathing, which meant that it didn't feel as restful and regenerative as an easy run ideally would.
Also, I ate a whole box of mystery taquitos from the office fridge... which my co-worker encouraged me to eat, reasoning that they were left overs from a late meeting yesterday, but then confessed at the end of the day that she was secretly thinking that it would be funny if someone sent out an e-mail about missing taquitos. Thankfully someone confirmed that they were indeed free leftovers.
Thursday 10/23: 59:40, RB perimeter to JPL gate. Feeling fairly consistently sub-par still. Not really sure what's wrong. Running just doesn't feel good. It feels forced and tired... but it seems to feel even more like that if I take a day off. Bah, humbug. Also, I need to come up with a scheme to save my department from being moved into the crappy office space... meh.
Friday 10/24: Semi-planned off day. Given how poorly training has been going lately, I figured that it might not be a good idea to add an extra day at this point in time, but then again, my neurotic predisposition to combat poor performance with more mileage was on the rise again. For better or for worse, I failed to get up at 6 am, feeling inordinately horrible... so the run was scrapped.
Saturday 10/25: 1:11:45, tried to do the same thing as last week--failed abysmally. These are the days where it just seems like, fuck this shit... why bother. Legs are feeling a little less dull and achey, average sleeptime has gone up this week, even had Friday off, there's no reason why this workout should have been substantially worse than last week's... but it was. 7:19, 7:22, 7:24, 7:34 for 4 miles in 29:39, the plan was to do 5, but things were falling apart already at 3, so it was more like barely hanging on to finish 4. 7:34 pace was formerly a moderate base run pace... so it just didn't seem worth it to grind out a 5th. The worst part is that there wasn't anything glaringly the matter--just non-specific badness. Maybe that's the theme for this week. Every run felt off, but not for any distinguishable reason.
Training this week: 5:47:50
Goals: To recover. Yep.
This week started off with sleeping... for 10 hours. And then 3 more hours. I guess I was really really really tired. I already knew my long run was going to be in the evening to give 24 hours of recovery from my hard run on Saturday, so I did not set my alarm clock for the first time in so long I can't even remember.
I had stayed up really late arguing about politics the night before, so I woke up around 11 or 12, groggily, ate some food, and then somehow fell back asleep until about 4 pm. Yikes. Anyways, the part about reinitialization has to do with the fact that when I woke up, for the first time in a few weeks, my legs actually did NOT have that half sore, half warm, dull achey feeling. I need to get more sleep.
I'm hoping for a significantly less stressful week this week, so this may be a good time to apply some much needed first aid to my training. Apparently turning the unit off and then on again is usually a good first step.
Sunday 10/19: 1:25:35, California to Stables to RB perimeter, the standard short long run. Despite feeling a little bit better after all of that sleep, I know my body is still kind of worn down, so I chose to go with a conservative shorter long run. Ran easy, legs felt a little tired but much better towards the end. Unfortunately, I did manage to run out of daylight, so the last 15 minutes through the Arroyo to my car were rather frightening. I'm really lucky to have made it through with only a few mis-steps. This was an okay run, a step in the right direction. L ankle is definitely still rickety, but felt like it was stabilizing, and my stomach finally made it through a long run without barfing up my last meal. Awesome.
Monday 10/20: Off, shots. Bleh, right arm swelled up again, not sure what they are going to do about this. But on the plus side, ate delicious pasta and baked yams at KB and Ian's.
Tuesday 10/21: 1:22:42, Bailey to connector. I don't often say things like this... but I guess not all runs can be good runs, and maybe the moral victory is finishing. Felt inordinately wiped out today. Was already breathing hard early despite the slow pace, and I was almost completely convinced that I was going to turn back at the old camp, but when I got there I convinced myself to go just a little bit further with the promise that if I started to go over threshold, I'd turn back. Took it super super easy and eventually I did get to the top in a glacial 50:12 (29:55 to camp). I can only remember one other occasion in the history of this run that it took me over 50 minutes... I think it was either one of my first ones or maybe I was sick. How horrifying... but like I said, maybe just making it to the top is the moral victory sometimes.
Wednesday 10/22: 48:08, Monterrey Recovery Loop, kind of a 'meh' run. Didn't feel catastrophically awful, for which I am grateful... but still felt kind of tired and my ankle is still bothering me, which I can tell is throwing off my stride. Everything just felt a little bit off, including my breathing, which meant that it didn't feel as restful and regenerative as an easy run ideally would.
Also, I ate a whole box of mystery taquitos from the office fridge... which my co-worker encouraged me to eat, reasoning that they were left overs from a late meeting yesterday, but then confessed at the end of the day that she was secretly thinking that it would be funny if someone sent out an e-mail about missing taquitos. Thankfully someone confirmed that they were indeed free leftovers.
Thursday 10/23: 59:40, RB perimeter to JPL gate. Feeling fairly consistently sub-par still. Not really sure what's wrong. Running just doesn't feel good. It feels forced and tired... but it seems to feel even more like that if I take a day off. Bah, humbug. Also, I need to come up with a scheme to save my department from being moved into the crappy office space... meh.
Friday 10/24: Semi-planned off day. Given how poorly training has been going lately, I figured that it might not be a good idea to add an extra day at this point in time, but then again, my neurotic predisposition to combat poor performance with more mileage was on the rise again. For better or for worse, I failed to get up at 6 am, feeling inordinately horrible... so the run was scrapped.
Saturday 10/25: 1:11:45, tried to do the same thing as last week--failed abysmally. These are the days where it just seems like, fuck this shit... why bother. Legs are feeling a little less dull and achey, average sleeptime has gone up this week, even had Friday off, there's no reason why this workout should have been substantially worse than last week's... but it was. 7:19, 7:22, 7:24, 7:34 for 4 miles in 29:39, the plan was to do 5, but things were falling apart already at 3, so it was more like barely hanging on to finish 4. 7:34 pace was formerly a moderate base run pace... so it just didn't seem worth it to grind out a 5th. The worst part is that there wasn't anything glaringly the matter--just non-specific badness. Maybe that's the theme for this week. Every run felt off, but not for any distinguishable reason.
Training this week: 5:47:50
Goals: To recover. Yep.
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
Week of 10/12/2008 - 10/18/2008 (Base Week 31)
Inauspicious beginnings...
The thing about beginnings... is that you don't always get to choose when they come around. Nor, do you always know what to do with them when they happen. That's the thing about beginnings.
This week contains a day that I've been waiting for for almost a whole year now. The first week where I only have to get ONE set of shots! The thing is, this isn't exactly the way it was supposed to happen. It wasn't supposed to be after my body's been completely worn down by stress and sleep deprivation, when my stomach's been revolting against digestion, when my ankle's suddenly taken a turn for the worse... because now, right NOW is when I have to focus on healing and rebuilding, not on increasing training volume. What the hell am I supposed to DO with an extra day?
After 10 months, its going to feel extraordinarily weird to have a morning without a run or a shot.
Sunday 10/12: 1:36:30, California to RB to JPL yellow gate. This was one of the worst runs of my life. I developed severe gastrointestinal distress about 20 minutes in and never recovered. It was more of a desperate trek from bathroom to bathroom, with every ounce of concentration devoted to staying upright, and not collapsing by the side of the road. I don't really remember anything about the running part. I can't believe I ran over an hour in this state... or that I continued to run after the first wave of cramps and nausea.
Monday 10/13: Off, shots. Don't remember much about this day. I think I felt poorly and was grouchy.
Tuesday 10/14: 1:21:33, Bailey to Connector. 28:46 to camp, 48:00 to sign. L ankle's been bugging me a lot, and still wasn't feeling great, but I had to seize the day and do a run I was excited about, because I knew I was losing tomorrow's run to work. Was glad I did. For some reason they didn't open the parking lot to the trail head today, so I had to climb over the fence on my way in and my way out. It turned out to be pretty nice though, because I pretty much had the whole trail to myself, save for one old lady who somehow sneaked in too. It was a really nice morning, and this run felt really inordinately easy. I was kind of disappointed with the total runtime, but I think I'm getting there. This was the most relaxed I've ever felt on this route, so much so that I was mildly disappointed that I didn't bring my HR monitor this time. The one bad thing was that I had significant pain in L ankle for the first 15 minutes or so... not sure how that is going to develop.
Wednesday 10/15: Off, work... early morning training session, partially compensated by a really delicious pumpkin bagel. L ankle still bugging me. Meh.
Thursday 10/16: 1:15:03, an excessively slow California to RB perimeter loop. Felt pretty tired and crappy today. L ankle hurt a bit less than the past few days, but it still bugged me a little. Still not getting enough sleep to recover, been feeling really worn out most days for the past few weeks. Feeling kind of barfy now after eating too much free leftovers for dinner at the office.
Friday 10/17: 45:01, Monterrey Recovery Loop. The first Friday run, maybe the only one for a while to come, but today was to make up for Wednesday. Felt pretty good today. Actually, I didn't feel that great... but this is part of the phenomena where if you're expecting "extremely crappy" and you get "kind of okay", then it feels like the best thing in the world. Picked up the pace a little bit towards the end, I think I needed to prove to myself that the fitness that I painstakingly raised from the dead over the past year is maybe just buried or dormant, instead of renewedly stone cold dead.
Saturday 10/18: 1:11:14, 4 mile sub-tempo on the track in 28:59 (7:19, 7:22, 7:14, 7:04). Spent the AM attending SCIAC multi-duals, so ran in the evening. Legs felt really bad all day... but couldn't really figure out if it was from anything that I did, or just extended sleep deprivation causing my entire being to feel really bad. Legs felt like they were already dragging on the warm up (7 laps on North field), so I decided to approach this more like a hard base run, rather than to try to hit threshold.
Given how awful I felt going in, I was pretty happy with the result. The first two miles felt really easy, so I had at that point planned on keeping that intensity and doing 5 miles, but after 9 laps my legs had other ideas. I'm still not sure what causes this, but sometimes my legs will shift gears seemingly independently of my brain... but it just felt like the pace they wanted to go, and forcing them to slow back down seemed really unnatural. Anyways, so it was 4 instead of 5 but with a really nice pick up over the last 2 miles. Felt a lot stronger than when I started out. 7 laps on the North field as a cooldown felt infinitely better than my warm up laps.
Training this week: 6:09:21, this didn't feel like a solid week, but I guess the minutes add up
Goals: Not to let this ankle thing turn into a chronic injury
The thing about beginnings... is that you don't always get to choose when they come around. Nor, do you always know what to do with them when they happen. That's the thing about beginnings.
This week contains a day that I've been waiting for for almost a whole year now. The first week where I only have to get ONE set of shots! The thing is, this isn't exactly the way it was supposed to happen. It wasn't supposed to be after my body's been completely worn down by stress and sleep deprivation, when my stomach's been revolting against digestion, when my ankle's suddenly taken a turn for the worse... because now, right NOW is when I have to focus on healing and rebuilding, not on increasing training volume. What the hell am I supposed to DO with an extra day?
After 10 months, its going to feel extraordinarily weird to have a morning without a run or a shot.
Sunday 10/12: 1:36:30, California to RB to JPL yellow gate. This was one of the worst runs of my life. I developed severe gastrointestinal distress about 20 minutes in and never recovered. It was more of a desperate trek from bathroom to bathroom, with every ounce of concentration devoted to staying upright, and not collapsing by the side of the road. I don't really remember anything about the running part. I can't believe I ran over an hour in this state... or that I continued to run after the first wave of cramps and nausea.
Monday 10/13: Off, shots. Don't remember much about this day. I think I felt poorly and was grouchy.
Tuesday 10/14: 1:21:33, Bailey to Connector. 28:46 to camp, 48:00 to sign. L ankle's been bugging me a lot, and still wasn't feeling great, but I had to seize the day and do a run I was excited about, because I knew I was losing tomorrow's run to work. Was glad I did. For some reason they didn't open the parking lot to the trail head today, so I had to climb over the fence on my way in and my way out. It turned out to be pretty nice though, because I pretty much had the whole trail to myself, save for one old lady who somehow sneaked in too. It was a really nice morning, and this run felt really inordinately easy. I was kind of disappointed with the total runtime, but I think I'm getting there. This was the most relaxed I've ever felt on this route, so much so that I was mildly disappointed that I didn't bring my HR monitor this time. The one bad thing was that I had significant pain in L ankle for the first 15 minutes or so... not sure how that is going to develop.
Wednesday 10/15: Off, work... early morning training session, partially compensated by a really delicious pumpkin bagel. L ankle still bugging me. Meh.
Thursday 10/16: 1:15:03, an excessively slow California to RB perimeter loop. Felt pretty tired and crappy today. L ankle hurt a bit less than the past few days, but it still bugged me a little. Still not getting enough sleep to recover, been feeling really worn out most days for the past few weeks. Feeling kind of barfy now after eating too much free leftovers for dinner at the office.
Friday 10/17: 45:01, Monterrey Recovery Loop. The first Friday run, maybe the only one for a while to come, but today was to make up for Wednesday. Felt pretty good today. Actually, I didn't feel that great... but this is part of the phenomena where if you're expecting "extremely crappy" and you get "kind of okay", then it feels like the best thing in the world. Picked up the pace a little bit towards the end, I think I needed to prove to myself that the fitness that I painstakingly raised from the dead over the past year is maybe just buried or dormant, instead of renewedly stone cold dead.
Saturday 10/18: 1:11:14, 4 mile sub-tempo on the track in 28:59 (7:19, 7:22, 7:14, 7:04). Spent the AM attending SCIAC multi-duals, so ran in the evening. Legs felt really bad all day... but couldn't really figure out if it was from anything that I did, or just extended sleep deprivation causing my entire being to feel really bad. Legs felt like they were already dragging on the warm up (7 laps on North field), so I decided to approach this more like a hard base run, rather than to try to hit threshold.
Given how awful I felt going in, I was pretty happy with the result. The first two miles felt really easy, so I had at that point planned on keeping that intensity and doing 5 miles, but after 9 laps my legs had other ideas. I'm still not sure what causes this, but sometimes my legs will shift gears seemingly independently of my brain... but it just felt like the pace they wanted to go, and forcing them to slow back down seemed really unnatural. Anyways, so it was 4 instead of 5 but with a really nice pick up over the last 2 miles. Felt a lot stronger than when I started out. 7 laps on the North field as a cooldown felt infinitely better than my warm up laps.
Training this week: 6:09:21, this didn't feel like a solid week, but I guess the minutes add up
Goals: Not to let this ankle thing turn into a chronic injury
Monday, October 6, 2008
Week of 10/05/2008 - 10/11/2008 (Base Week 30)
Does it really get better?
..and actually, for once I'm not talking about my abysmal state of fitness... I'm talking about life, and how getting up at 4 am (3 am CA time) to catch my flight actually didn't feel so different from my normal state of sleep deprivation these days.
You think well if I just survive this week, or this due date... but then, something else inevitably pops on up. Before you know, years have gone by... and you're still disgruntled about the same things. For those of us whose interests don't align with gainful employment... well, kinda makes one feel pretty bummed out sometimes.
Sunday 10/05: 1:34:04, 2 x 2 laps of Washington Park. I guess it doesn't quite serve the purpose of a long run with the bathroom break in between, but I've been suffering from gastrointestinal distress ever since the Chinese food on Friday night. For some reason today was the worst of it... ran 2 laps very slowly while accumulating a worsening stomach ache, then had to shuttle back to the house to go to the bathroom, then headed out for 2 more. The third lap felt absolutely like death, and I considered bailing on the last one, but then I realized that I felt crappy because of my stomach, and not because of my running system... so I decided to man up and power through. Glad that I did, because I finally started feeling better on the last lap. Wasn't really keeping precise track of time, but the two halves were about equal at ~47 minutes per 2 laps plus jog back to house and back... lap splits were around 23, 22, 23:30, 21:30, basically correlated to how bad my stomach ache was at the time. Felt like 10 minute miles at the time, but I felt much better about this run after mapping the route, probably ~10.9 miles including commuting back and forth from the house.
Monday 10/06: Off, traveling. Another crappy day. Had some sort of massive allergic reaction this morning, and was sneezing uncontrollably until evening. They wouldn't even give me my shots today on account of the fact that my brains seemed to be coming out of my nose. Felt better after I got home to my myriad nasal sprays. Need sleep. Dying.
Tuesday 10/07: 50:43, Monterrey recovery loop, ridiculously, insanely slowly. When I woke up I still felt horrible, despite getting 8 hours of sleep for the first time in weeks. Typically my legs are wiped out after running at altitude, and I guess they were particularly so. I guess one could say that it's an improvement that my brains are no longer coming out of my nose at quite the same rate, but unfortunately this was replaced by my nose being insanely chapped from yesterday, and it hurting like hell when it started running again on the run. Basically it was pretty miserable on all accounts.
Wednesday 10/08: Off, the first complete casualty of this godawful few weeks... After working until 1 am, I woke up and it was almost 7 am... so I got out of bed, but I felt so insanely horrible that I just fell back asleep until 8:30, effectively putting a nail in the coffin of me running today. This means that after teetering on the edge for weeks now, I've finally passed the threshold where any subsequent sleep deprivation will exponentially cause a decline in one's health and well-being. Craptastic.
Thursday 10/09: 1:11:08, California around RB and back. Down but not out. Unfortunately, that dull, achey, its horrible to be alive feeling was still present when I woke up today, but I'm renewedly determined not to fall completely off of the ball. This wasn't a strong run by any means, but it was decent. Felt okay, wasn't ridiculously slow, felt better towards the end. I just have to keep doing these base runs to prevent fitness loss while I try to ride out the rest of this horribleness. Things are slated to be mildly better next week, and calm down moderately after that.
Friday 10/10: Off, shots, stress, work, the usual. Had a good talk with el boss man though, and Peter came and we ate delicious mini burgers... so I'm starting to feel a little bit better about life.
Saturday 10/11: 1:19:48, 3 x Arroyo Tempo Loops with the Caltech guys team... man was that ugly... but nevertheless, a good workout, or at least it was maybe good to run outside the comfort zone, since I don't do that very often these days. Started out with the second group on the first lap, but then was unceremoniously left behind. Oh, well. After everyone disappeared, I just ran a pace that felt manageable. 11:09, 11:33, 11:41, for unfortunate positive splits, but I was glad that the last two laps didn't fall apart horrendously. Didn't feel wiped out or anything, but the breathing was hard. I'm getting there, would ideally like to be able to comfortably crank out three at about 11 minutes, but you know... this is a lot of progress compared to before. Ran from the gym to the Arroyo too, and the longer warm up and cool down felt really good.
Training this week: 4:55:43, eh... for 4 days, I'll take it.
Goals: Not to die, Part the second (well, I'm still kicking so...)
..and actually, for once I'm not talking about my abysmal state of fitness... I'm talking about life, and how getting up at 4 am (3 am CA time) to catch my flight actually didn't feel so different from my normal state of sleep deprivation these days.
You think well if I just survive this week, or this due date... but then, something else inevitably pops on up. Before you know, years have gone by... and you're still disgruntled about the same things. For those of us whose interests don't align with gainful employment... well, kinda makes one feel pretty bummed out sometimes.
Sunday 10/05: 1:34:04, 2 x 2 laps of Washington Park. I guess it doesn't quite serve the purpose of a long run with the bathroom break in between, but I've been suffering from gastrointestinal distress ever since the Chinese food on Friday night. For some reason today was the worst of it... ran 2 laps very slowly while accumulating a worsening stomach ache, then had to shuttle back to the house to go to the bathroom, then headed out for 2 more. The third lap felt absolutely like death, and I considered bailing on the last one, but then I realized that I felt crappy because of my stomach, and not because of my running system... so I decided to man up and power through. Glad that I did, because I finally started feeling better on the last lap. Wasn't really keeping precise track of time, but the two halves were about equal at ~47 minutes per 2 laps plus jog back to house and back... lap splits were around 23, 22, 23:30, 21:30, basically correlated to how bad my stomach ache was at the time. Felt like 10 minute miles at the time, but I felt much better about this run after mapping the route, probably ~10.9 miles including commuting back and forth from the house.
Monday 10/06: Off, traveling. Another crappy day. Had some sort of massive allergic reaction this morning, and was sneezing uncontrollably until evening. They wouldn't even give me my shots today on account of the fact that my brains seemed to be coming out of my nose. Felt better after I got home to my myriad nasal sprays. Need sleep. Dying.
Tuesday 10/07: 50:43, Monterrey recovery loop, ridiculously, insanely slowly. When I woke up I still felt horrible, despite getting 8 hours of sleep for the first time in weeks. Typically my legs are wiped out after running at altitude, and I guess they were particularly so. I guess one could say that it's an improvement that my brains are no longer coming out of my nose at quite the same rate, but unfortunately this was replaced by my nose being insanely chapped from yesterday, and it hurting like hell when it started running again on the run. Basically it was pretty miserable on all accounts.
Wednesday 10/08: Off, the first complete casualty of this godawful few weeks... After working until 1 am, I woke up and it was almost 7 am... so I got out of bed, but I felt so insanely horrible that I just fell back asleep until 8:30, effectively putting a nail in the coffin of me running today. This means that after teetering on the edge for weeks now, I've finally passed the threshold where any subsequent sleep deprivation will exponentially cause a decline in one's health and well-being. Craptastic.
Thursday 10/09: 1:11:08, California around RB and back. Down but not out. Unfortunately, that dull, achey, its horrible to be alive feeling was still present when I woke up today, but I'm renewedly determined not to fall completely off of the ball. This wasn't a strong run by any means, but it was decent. Felt okay, wasn't ridiculously slow, felt better towards the end. I just have to keep doing these base runs to prevent fitness loss while I try to ride out the rest of this horribleness. Things are slated to be mildly better next week, and calm down moderately after that.
Friday 10/10: Off, shots, stress, work, the usual. Had a good talk with el boss man though, and Peter came and we ate delicious mini burgers... so I'm starting to feel a little bit better about life.
Saturday 10/11: 1:19:48, 3 x Arroyo Tempo Loops with the Caltech guys team... man was that ugly... but nevertheless, a good workout, or at least it was maybe good to run outside the comfort zone, since I don't do that very often these days. Started out with the second group on the first lap, but then was unceremoniously left behind. Oh, well. After everyone disappeared, I just ran a pace that felt manageable. 11:09, 11:33, 11:41, for unfortunate positive splits, but I was glad that the last two laps didn't fall apart horrendously. Didn't feel wiped out or anything, but the breathing was hard. I'm getting there, would ideally like to be able to comfortably crank out three at about 11 minutes, but you know... this is a lot of progress compared to before. Ran from the gym to the Arroyo too, and the longer warm up and cool down felt really good.
Training this week: 4:55:43, eh... for 4 days, I'll take it.
Goals: Not to die, Part the second (well, I'm still kicking so...)
Sunday, September 28, 2008
Week of 09/28/2008 - 10/04/2008 (Base Week 29)
I like to think that I'm supportive and encouraging of all people to run/exercise, but... this Retired Racewalkers Group that seems to meet at 6 am on Saturdays at the Caltech track.... hmmmm, this could start to be a problem for me.
It's just that, after a lot of experimentation, I've determined that the ideal structure of my 5 day training week goes like this:
Sunday - Long
Monday - Off, shots
Tuesday - Mountain
Wednesday - Short, easy
Thursday - Medium, progression run or fartlek
Friday - Off, shots
Saturday - Tempo
Also, that if I don't wake up at 6 am to do my run, there's a high probability that running time will just get mowed over by work time or something else time. So technically, it would be better... if there wasn't a conflict for the Saturday morning slot.
I'm used to there being joggers or walkers, there usually are, even at odd hours... but this is actually more like a zoo. There are just SO many of them, and the instructor person has a whistle and a bull horn. Some of them are chatting incessantly, others are huffing and puffing furiously, and the rest are old and seem oblivious of things that are happening around them. Then, there's the problem of when the huffing ones need to pass the chatting ones, which is kind of like when two trucks have to pass each other on the I-5 North around where the tumbleweeds are.
It happened multiple times that I had to swing out to the THIRD lane to pass this situation in progress yesterday. Between that, and then weaving between lanes 1 and 2 to dodge the other traffic (most walk in lane 1, some walk in lane 2, then one lady was walking exactly on the line between lane 1 and 2..., also an awkward passing situation) I would be hesitant to call this an optimal setting for a tempo run.
I know I need to be more flexible about my training settings... the time of day, the temperature, the surroundings, etc... but dammit, I like my early mornings with their peace and quiet and cool temperatures!
Sunday 09/28: 1:04:05, Huntington up Los Robles. About 4 miles too short for a long run... but let's just pretend that this is because I'm taking good care of my L ankle and calves that have been complaining above averagely loudly the past few days, and not because I'm a lazy sack o' crap who slept in and then had to clean and move until I ran out of time and daylight for a proper long run. Let's just pretend....
Felt really worn out all day, legs felt dull and heavy in a strange way, which I think mostly stems from the climbing and squatting and stretching and lifting that comes with cleaning and moving. Got a pretty slow start as a result, but still managed 8:30's, so that means I must have been going a good pace towards the end. Breathing remained easy and tranquil throughout, which was encouraging. Also, the lawn-mowers of Pasadena must be on strike, because there was the most fantastic, soft and cushy grass I've ever seen growing on the Sierra Madre and Huntington medians! Maybe its because my shoes are starting to get pretty worn down, but this was the most comfortable, amazing grass I've ever run on--like running on pillows! (which, is actually I guess not really conducive to speed... but I wasn't super worried about that today)
I'm a little worried about my L ankle, a little peeved that I didn't do an actual long run, and a little freaked out that my legs are suddenly feeling not so good... but all in all, you do what you can. For a while today it was kind of looking like I wasn't going to be able to run at all, so this is definitely not the worst case scenario.
Monday 09/29: Off, shots. Work bad. No sleep. Legs feeling tired continues. Bleh. But I think this may be my second to last twice a week shots (?).
Tuesday 09/30: 1:23:36, Bailey to Connector... 29:55 to camp, 49:55 to sign... ohhhhh bollocks. I suppose a down week is in order... Didn't feel bad or anything, HR still probably majority around 180 - 185. Just legs felt tired from the start and wouldn't go, ended up super super slow. Also it was this weird, nasty lukewarm temperature from the start today, and 80+ by 8 am... and there are still people who don't believe in global warming--unbelievable. Third week in a row with slower times, I guess it may have been over ambitious to start up the once a week mountain runs again. On the upside, noticed that low HR mountain runs completely avoid all soreness.
Wednesday 10/01: 47:33, Monterrey Recovery Loop. Felt vaguely more tired than usual, but wasn't that slow, surprisingly. Saw Ian and the Oxy gang in the Arroyo--apparently they also have the easy Wednesdays in the Arroyo thing scheduled pretty regularly. To be honest, I can't remember too much about this run other than it was that nasty lukewarm, humid temperature out, and that I felt groggier and bit more tired in that accumulated fatigue sort of way than usual.
Thursday 10/02: 1:15:17, RB perimeter starting from California. I still don't know what on earth caused me to believe this morning that waking up after 4 hours of sleep to go run 8 miles would make me feel better than sleeping an extra 2 hours... but I did. Did I mention I don't really know why?
Woke up feeling headachey, barfy and with this strange tight, crampiness in my L hamstring. Nevertheless, I woke with a very strong belief that the answer to these problems was to go run, so run I did. I can't imagine that I was going any faster than a post-race recovery jog in the beginning, but I just kept plugging along, waiting to feel better... and I think I was waiting for a very long time. Finally after about 40 minutes, I started to feel a little bit better, but my hamstring didn't loosen up until closer to the 1 hour mark. Then, the last 20 minutes or so felt fine. Strange thing, this running....
Friday 10/03: Off, shots. Traveling. Ugh, what a horrible day this was. Things started to look better after I made my flight with about 5 whole minutes to spare... but not before I'd consumed about 5,000 calories of greasy chinese food, completely blew 2 deadlines, spent $52 on airport parking and almost had a nervous breakdown. Thank goodness I didn't have a run to fit in there too... given how awful me and my legs have been feeling lately. Between that and sleep deprivation, I very possibly would have keeled right over.
Saturday 10/04: 48:55, 2.X laps of Washington Park in Denver near Peter's new place. After sleeping fitfully, I woke up determined to feel better. As it turns out the park is (literally, as I later found) 200m from the house. This was actually the first Colorado run that didn't feel entirely like crap. Felt pretty light on my feet, and the breathing wasn't ragged either, especially given that I had selected a "moderate" instead of an "extremely easy" pace. I figured that's the least I could do, since for a non down week Saturday, I'd have some sort of a tempo on the plate.
Did 2 laps, but it didn't add up to 50 minutes, so I ran around a little bit more until I thought I'd covered about 5 miles and jogged home. Turns out that was unnecessary... again this may be another historical first that I was pleasantly surprised by a gmaps pedometer mapping. The trail perimeter of the park is actually 2.6 miles, vs. what I had pessimistically estimated at between 2 and 2.5 miles. Lap splits were 21:15 and 20:50, which puts me just above 8 minute miles! I think that's the fastest I've run at altitude so far. I wonder if there's a long term adjustment factor, even if the exposure is 2-3 day intervals separated by 2-4 weeks.
Training this week: 5:19:26 (a decent down week)
Goals: Not to die, Part the First (met, but just barely)
It's just that, after a lot of experimentation, I've determined that the ideal structure of my 5 day training week goes like this:
Sunday - Long
Monday - Off, shots
Tuesday - Mountain
Wednesday - Short, easy
Thursday - Medium, progression run or fartlek
Friday - Off, shots
Saturday - Tempo
Also, that if I don't wake up at 6 am to do my run, there's a high probability that running time will just get mowed over by work time or something else time. So technically, it would be better... if there wasn't a conflict for the Saturday morning slot.
I'm used to there being joggers or walkers, there usually are, even at odd hours... but this is actually more like a zoo. There are just SO many of them, and the instructor person has a whistle and a bull horn. Some of them are chatting incessantly, others are huffing and puffing furiously, and the rest are old and seem oblivious of things that are happening around them. Then, there's the problem of when the huffing ones need to pass the chatting ones, which is kind of like when two trucks have to pass each other on the I-5 North around where the tumbleweeds are.
It happened multiple times that I had to swing out to the THIRD lane to pass this situation in progress yesterday. Between that, and then weaving between lanes 1 and 2 to dodge the other traffic (most walk in lane 1, some walk in lane 2, then one lady was walking exactly on the line between lane 1 and 2..., also an awkward passing situation) I would be hesitant to call this an optimal setting for a tempo run.
I know I need to be more flexible about my training settings... the time of day, the temperature, the surroundings, etc... but dammit, I like my early mornings with their peace and quiet and cool temperatures!
Sunday 09/28: 1:04:05, Huntington up Los Robles. About 4 miles too short for a long run... but let's just pretend that this is because I'm taking good care of my L ankle and calves that have been complaining above averagely loudly the past few days, and not because I'm a lazy sack o' crap who slept in and then had to clean and move until I ran out of time and daylight for a proper long run. Let's just pretend....
Felt really worn out all day, legs felt dull and heavy in a strange way, which I think mostly stems from the climbing and squatting and stretching and lifting that comes with cleaning and moving. Got a pretty slow start as a result, but still managed 8:30's, so that means I must have been going a good pace towards the end. Breathing remained easy and tranquil throughout, which was encouraging. Also, the lawn-mowers of Pasadena must be on strike, because there was the most fantastic, soft and cushy grass I've ever seen growing on the Sierra Madre and Huntington medians! Maybe its because my shoes are starting to get pretty worn down, but this was the most comfortable, amazing grass I've ever run on--like running on pillows! (which, is actually I guess not really conducive to speed... but I wasn't super worried about that today)
I'm a little worried about my L ankle, a little peeved that I didn't do an actual long run, and a little freaked out that my legs are suddenly feeling not so good... but all in all, you do what you can. For a while today it was kind of looking like I wasn't going to be able to run at all, so this is definitely not the worst case scenario.
Monday 09/29: Off, shots. Work bad. No sleep. Legs feeling tired continues. Bleh. But I think this may be my second to last twice a week shots (?).
Tuesday 09/30: 1:23:36, Bailey to Connector... 29:55 to camp, 49:55 to sign... ohhhhh bollocks. I suppose a down week is in order... Didn't feel bad or anything, HR still probably majority around 180 - 185. Just legs felt tired from the start and wouldn't go, ended up super super slow. Also it was this weird, nasty lukewarm temperature from the start today, and 80+ by 8 am... and there are still people who don't believe in global warming--unbelievable. Third week in a row with slower times, I guess it may have been over ambitious to start up the once a week mountain runs again. On the upside, noticed that low HR mountain runs completely avoid all soreness.
Wednesday 10/01: 47:33, Monterrey Recovery Loop. Felt vaguely more tired than usual, but wasn't that slow, surprisingly. Saw Ian and the Oxy gang in the Arroyo--apparently they also have the easy Wednesdays in the Arroyo thing scheduled pretty regularly. To be honest, I can't remember too much about this run other than it was that nasty lukewarm, humid temperature out, and that I felt groggier and bit more tired in that accumulated fatigue sort of way than usual.
Thursday 10/02: 1:15:17, RB perimeter starting from California. I still don't know what on earth caused me to believe this morning that waking up after 4 hours of sleep to go run 8 miles would make me feel better than sleeping an extra 2 hours... but I did. Did I mention I don't really know why?
Woke up feeling headachey, barfy and with this strange tight, crampiness in my L hamstring. Nevertheless, I woke with a very strong belief that the answer to these problems was to go run, so run I did. I can't imagine that I was going any faster than a post-race recovery jog in the beginning, but I just kept plugging along, waiting to feel better... and I think I was waiting for a very long time. Finally after about 40 minutes, I started to feel a little bit better, but my hamstring didn't loosen up until closer to the 1 hour mark. Then, the last 20 minutes or so felt fine. Strange thing, this running....
Friday 10/03: Off, shots. Traveling. Ugh, what a horrible day this was. Things started to look better after I made my flight with about 5 whole minutes to spare... but not before I'd consumed about 5,000 calories of greasy chinese food, completely blew 2 deadlines, spent $52 on airport parking and almost had a nervous breakdown. Thank goodness I didn't have a run to fit in there too... given how awful me and my legs have been feeling lately. Between that and sleep deprivation, I very possibly would have keeled right over.
Saturday 10/04: 48:55, 2.X laps of Washington Park in Denver near Peter's new place. After sleeping fitfully, I woke up determined to feel better. As it turns out the park is (literally, as I later found) 200m from the house. This was actually the first Colorado run that didn't feel entirely like crap. Felt pretty light on my feet, and the breathing wasn't ragged either, especially given that I had selected a "moderate" instead of an "extremely easy" pace. I figured that's the least I could do, since for a non down week Saturday, I'd have some sort of a tempo on the plate.
Did 2 laps, but it didn't add up to 50 minutes, so I ran around a little bit more until I thought I'd covered about 5 miles and jogged home. Turns out that was unnecessary... again this may be another historical first that I was pleasantly surprised by a gmaps pedometer mapping. The trail perimeter of the park is actually 2.6 miles, vs. what I had pessimistically estimated at between 2 and 2.5 miles. Lap splits were 21:15 and 20:50, which puts me just above 8 minute miles! I think that's the fastest I've run at altitude so far. I wonder if there's a long term adjustment factor, even if the exposure is 2-3 day intervals separated by 2-4 weeks.
Training this week: 5:19:26 (a decent down week)
Goals: Not to die, Part the First (met, but just barely)
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
Week of 09/21/2008 - 09/27/2008 (Base Week 28)
I'm actually too tired, too sleep deprived and too stressed to rant about anything this week.
Sunday 09/21: 1:30:06, California to yellow gate at JPL and back around the other side of the RB. Pretty easy but picked up the pace a little bit towards the end. Woke up early to go before moving, so it was nice and cool. Feeling a little bit stronger these days. Moved furniture and ate delicious fish tacos with Kangway and Mark later.
Monday 09/22: Off, shots. This was a really crummy day. I'm really, really, really tired and sleep deprived and overworked.
Tuesday 09/23: 1:21:47, Bailey to Connector, real easy. Took the HR monitor again, I dunno how I feel about this. It's probably good for me, but low HR training can be so very frustrating... Basically kept a lower HR profile this time, staying below 180 until the camp, then 180-185 past there, 193 on the steepest parts. Actually felt easy and relaxed most of the way, but the time sucked, 29:16 to camp, 48:35 to the sign. I mean, I guess its good that I can do this challenging run and still be under threshold, but lack of improvement on the run-time makes me nervous. After all, first place doesn't go to the contestant with the lowest heart rate... it goes to the person who runs fastest.
Wednesday 09/24: 46:18, Monterrey Recovery Loop, saw Scott run by as I was parking. For some reason, legs seemed to want to pick up the pace, so ran a little bit faster than usual. Felt good, not too tired from yesterday.
Thursday 09/25: 56:30, RB perimeter to yellow gate at a moderate pace. Didn't sleep well and felt really inordinately horrible in the morning, but the run was actually pretty good. Started easy then picked up the pace about every 10-20 minute increments, but it didn't really feel like a progression run, maybe the variance in speeds wasn't large enough... though this is my fastest time for this loop by a substantial margin. Legs are feeling really good these days, the rest of me, a bit rickety. I think I'll survive though, as long as I don't contract Kangway's plague.
Friday 09/26: Off, shots. Oh, the end is in sight! I think I'm a few weeks away from graduating to the once per week shot schedule, imagine that. Gotta be careful though, in terms of rocking the boat, it's been a good 6+ months on the 5 day week, not sure how the foot will handle a whole extra training day.
Saturday 09/27: 1:13:51, a tempo run that just wasn't mean to be spectacular... Really having trouble sleeping lately, felt pretty crummy in the morning, then I got to the gym and the North Field was closed (grrr!), the gym--ergo the bathroom was also closed (GRRR!!), AND there were about 15 racewalkers milling about the track (GGRRRRR!!!)^2. As a result, I was feeling not entirely chipper as I started my workout, and decidedly less so after discovering that my L lower leg was pretty tweaky today, foot was a little sore and my calf was tightening up quite a bit just on the warm up.
Nevertheless, after 12 laps of the South Field as a warm up plus a jog to the park bathroom, felt mostly okay to go. 6:53, 7:01, 6:59 for 20:53, pretty disappointed, mainly because I'd set out with the goal of doing 4 miles this time. Maybe this week of poor life/work/eating habits is catching up to me. Or, maybe I shouldn't expect improvement so soon, since the 3 mile tempo only became completely under control and good feeling last week. Bleh, this wasn't a catastrophically horrible workout, but I still felt pretty bummed out for some reason...
Training this week: 5:48:32
Goals: To avoid being completely crushed by the weight of overdue work...
Sunday 09/21: 1:30:06, California to yellow gate at JPL and back around the other side of the RB. Pretty easy but picked up the pace a little bit towards the end. Woke up early to go before moving, so it was nice and cool. Feeling a little bit stronger these days. Moved furniture and ate delicious fish tacos with Kangway and Mark later.
Monday 09/22: Off, shots. This was a really crummy day. I'm really, really, really tired and sleep deprived and overworked.
Tuesday 09/23: 1:21:47, Bailey to Connector, real easy. Took the HR monitor again, I dunno how I feel about this. It's probably good for me, but low HR training can be so very frustrating... Basically kept a lower HR profile this time, staying below 180 until the camp, then 180-185 past there, 193 on the steepest parts. Actually felt easy and relaxed most of the way, but the time sucked, 29:16 to camp, 48:35 to the sign. I mean, I guess its good that I can do this challenging run and still be under threshold, but lack of improvement on the run-time makes me nervous. After all, first place doesn't go to the contestant with the lowest heart rate... it goes to the person who runs fastest.
Wednesday 09/24: 46:18, Monterrey Recovery Loop, saw Scott run by as I was parking. For some reason, legs seemed to want to pick up the pace, so ran a little bit faster than usual. Felt good, not too tired from yesterday.
Thursday 09/25: 56:30, RB perimeter to yellow gate at a moderate pace. Didn't sleep well and felt really inordinately horrible in the morning, but the run was actually pretty good. Started easy then picked up the pace about every 10-20 minute increments, but it didn't really feel like a progression run, maybe the variance in speeds wasn't large enough... though this is my fastest time for this loop by a substantial margin. Legs are feeling really good these days, the rest of me, a bit rickety. I think I'll survive though, as long as I don't contract Kangway's plague.
Friday 09/26: Off, shots. Oh, the end is in sight! I think I'm a few weeks away from graduating to the once per week shot schedule, imagine that. Gotta be careful though, in terms of rocking the boat, it's been a good 6+ months on the 5 day week, not sure how the foot will handle a whole extra training day.
Saturday 09/27: 1:13:51, a tempo run that just wasn't mean to be spectacular... Really having trouble sleeping lately, felt pretty crummy in the morning, then I got to the gym and the North Field was closed (grrr!), the gym--ergo the bathroom was also closed (GRRR!!), AND there were about 15 racewalkers milling about the track (GGRRRRR!!!)^2. As a result, I was feeling not entirely chipper as I started my workout, and decidedly less so after discovering that my L lower leg was pretty tweaky today, foot was a little sore and my calf was tightening up quite a bit just on the warm up.
Nevertheless, after 12 laps of the South Field as a warm up plus a jog to the park bathroom, felt mostly okay to go. 6:53, 7:01, 6:59 for 20:53, pretty disappointed, mainly because I'd set out with the goal of doing 4 miles this time. Maybe this week of poor life/work/eating habits is catching up to me. Or, maybe I shouldn't expect improvement so soon, since the 3 mile tempo only became completely under control and good feeling last week. Bleh, this wasn't a catastrophically horrible workout, but I still felt pretty bummed out for some reason...
Training this week: 5:48:32
Goals: To avoid being completely crushed by the weight of overdue work...
Sunday, September 14, 2008
Week of 09/14/2008 - 09/20/2008 (Base Week 27)
Endurance, the final frontier.
In the very beginning, there's tangible Ugly... everything is slow and short and feels like death. I know how to fix this part. You suck it up and you put in your days and your miles and eventually, you regain the ability to run for more than 30 consecutive minutes, or at a pace faster than glacial.
But then, after the beginning... there's this other place you go to, let's call it "Purgatory"... because that's what it feels like to me. Purgatory is deceptive. In some ways you completely resemble a functional athlete. I'm at the point now where I can run for 2 hours if need be, I can even run fast for approximately 2 miles... it's not like one can say "oh woe is me that I am completely out of shape". But I realized that the state of running purgatory is the state of lacking CUMULATIVE endurance.
I can't string together multiple days of good training (Exhibit A, after running 3 solid > 1 hour runs in Colorado, my body was completely trashed for days after I got back) ... and I also can't combine speed AND duration (Exhibit B, all tempo runs divert to Game Over after about 2 miles or 15 minutes, whatever comes first) There's something entirely lacking where consistency is concerned... Right now its not really about that tempo pace isn't what I want it to be... what's more immediately concerning is that tempo pace isn't SUSTAINABLE for very long. Maybe it doesn't always FEEL fantastic, but the sheer ability to maintain a high exertion level for 6-12 miles is something I realize I've always and completely taken for granted... and now it has vanished! Since 5K is the shortest race I run with any frequency, this poses a substantial challenge...
Here's the rub about Purgatory... its cruel because it's the illusion of being in shape. One day you feel fantastic, but then it takes 3 days to recover from it. A few days go really well... but then it crashes on down. It feels so close... so close you can feel it... but then, you realize it's not. There's something horribly wrong. But why, one might ask, is it too little training? Is it overtraining? Is it stress, is it medical mystery again? Why, why, why.... I've put in my time, it's been over 6 months and I shouldn't feel so terrible. What am I doing wrong to cause this?
Sunday 09/14: 1:40:45, Monterrey to RB perimeter and back on the other side. A good, solid long run. I felt really horrible in the morning. Stomach was gurgling and upset, and I was so, so, tired that I woke up at 6 am, then somehow walked around and then fell back into bed until I woke up in horror at 8 am. Thankfully it was still cool and foggy at this hour, but I just realized how exhausted I am. Nevertheless, I had business to take care of, including stamping out the memory of Abysmal Run yesterday. It took me a while to snap out of it, but after about 20 minutes I did regroup and focus, ran pretty easy to the RB, then picked it up a little bit for the perimeter, then ran a strong moderate pace the last 30 minutes back including fairly aggressively the last 5 minutes. I was pleased that fatigue wasn't a factor today and that I felt very much in control of all of my paces.
Monday 09/15: Off, shots. Legs actually feeling a little heavy today, glad its a rest day. Starting to feel pretty panicked about all the stuff that has to get done in the next few weeks...
Tuesday 09/16: 1:20:04, Bailey to Connector, 29:02 to camp, 48:15 to sign. Better splits this week, thanks to el HR monitor. Was interesting to have it... started off pretty easy 165-175, did most of the middle part up until the camp in 180-ish, then more like 185 past the camp, then 190-195 the last 3-5 minutes up heartbreak hill to the sign. Definitely under threshold this time until the very end. Felt alright, but total times are still moderately crappy. I guess I should give myself a break... it was warm and humid and on tired legs (and... really, the rest of me). Woke up with nightmares at around 3 am, tossed and turned still until 6 am, then decided I might as well get an early start driving to the trailhead in the dark... but the 210 East was blocked off at Michillinda, so I sat in traffic for 20 minutes while the sun came up and the temperature rose. So much for that plan.
Wednesday 09/17: 46:53, Monterrey recovery loop. Legs a little tired from yesterday, but felt surprisingly good. Went pretty easy, but probably managed a little faster than some recovery jogs... a good shake out for the legs. A nice morning, saw Ian and the Oxy women's team in the Arroyo!
Another side note that I forgot to mention yesterday, sprained L ankle fairly catastrophically coming down the Bailey trail. Stopped simply because I felt it roll so acutely, but then when I shook it out, I was boggled to discover... no pain. As I had to get back down either way, I decided at that time not to ponder too extensively whether I'd severed a nerve and the ankle would still turn purple and swell up like a basketball by the next morning... OR whether I finally succeeded in no longer having ankle ligaments left intact to sprain, thus making me effectively impervious to sprained ankles. Based on the fact that I only had mild soreness around the surgery site this morning, I'm going to vote for the latter. Woo hoo!
Thursday 09/18: 1:00:13, Monterrey to RB and back. Wanted to do a medley of paces, kind of like last week's surges, but it just felt so strained and forced so I settled back into an easy pace. Legs then suddenly felt drastically better after the turnaround point, so I cranked down the pace steadily through the last 30 minutes or so to turn it into a fairly solid progression run. Felt pretty horrible this morning after inadequate sleep and continuing stress, but felt a lot better after the run. Unfortunately, I slept in and got a late start, which meant that I ran into some grass mowers by the fields near the Arroyo and my nose has been dripping non-stop since then. Arrrghhhh... basically, the general rule is that only bad things happen when I don't get up at the crack of dawn.
Friday 09/19: Off, shots. A crappy day... stressed, sleep deprived, and generally feeling rather grim. Ate three cream puffs.
Saturday 09/20: 1:11:43, 9 laps warm up around the north field, 3 mile tempo at the track, 9 laps cool down around the north field. Slept in rather catastrophically... I think it was past 9 am when I got to the gym, and around 80 degrees. Was feeling pretty warm already when I started my warm up. Nevertheless, I powered through the rest of the workout, and it wasn't horrible. 3 miles in 6:53, 7:01, 6:55 for 20:49 total.
These actually felt like good, non-strained threshold miles. Had a little bit of trouble pacing the first mile, but then ran 1:45 laps fairly consistently. Also finally managed to get the third mile under control without the significant slow down factor. Maybe I can even do FOUR miles the next tempo session... Gotta get on that if I ever want to race 10Ks ever again.
Training this week: 5:59:38
Goals: Less stress... might help with the nightmares.
In the very beginning, there's tangible Ugly... everything is slow and short and feels like death. I know how to fix this part. You suck it up and you put in your days and your miles and eventually, you regain the ability to run for more than 30 consecutive minutes, or at a pace faster than glacial.
But then, after the beginning... there's this other place you go to, let's call it "Purgatory"... because that's what it feels like to me. Purgatory is deceptive. In some ways you completely resemble a functional athlete. I'm at the point now where I can run for 2 hours if need be, I can even run fast for approximately 2 miles... it's not like one can say "oh woe is me that I am completely out of shape". But I realized that the state of running purgatory is the state of lacking CUMULATIVE endurance.
I can't string together multiple days of good training (Exhibit A, after running 3 solid > 1 hour runs in Colorado, my body was completely trashed for days after I got back) ... and I also can't combine speed AND duration (Exhibit B, all tempo runs divert to Game Over after about 2 miles or 15 minutes, whatever comes first) There's something entirely lacking where consistency is concerned... Right now its not really about that tempo pace isn't what I want it to be... what's more immediately concerning is that tempo pace isn't SUSTAINABLE for very long. Maybe it doesn't always FEEL fantastic, but the sheer ability to maintain a high exertion level for 6-12 miles is something I realize I've always and completely taken for granted... and now it has vanished! Since 5K is the shortest race I run with any frequency, this poses a substantial challenge...
Here's the rub about Purgatory... its cruel because it's the illusion of being in shape. One day you feel fantastic, but then it takes 3 days to recover from it. A few days go really well... but then it crashes on down. It feels so close... so close you can feel it... but then, you realize it's not. There's something horribly wrong. But why, one might ask, is it too little training? Is it overtraining? Is it stress, is it medical mystery again? Why, why, why.... I've put in my time, it's been over 6 months and I shouldn't feel so terrible. What am I doing wrong to cause this?
Sunday 09/14: 1:40:45, Monterrey to RB perimeter and back on the other side. A good, solid long run. I felt really horrible in the morning. Stomach was gurgling and upset, and I was so, so, tired that I woke up at 6 am, then somehow walked around and then fell back into bed until I woke up in horror at 8 am. Thankfully it was still cool and foggy at this hour, but I just realized how exhausted I am. Nevertheless, I had business to take care of, including stamping out the memory of Abysmal Run yesterday. It took me a while to snap out of it, but after about 20 minutes I did regroup and focus, ran pretty easy to the RB, then picked it up a little bit for the perimeter, then ran a strong moderate pace the last 30 minutes back including fairly aggressively the last 5 minutes. I was pleased that fatigue wasn't a factor today and that I felt very much in control of all of my paces.
Monday 09/15: Off, shots. Legs actually feeling a little heavy today, glad its a rest day. Starting to feel pretty panicked about all the stuff that has to get done in the next few weeks...
Tuesday 09/16: 1:20:04, Bailey to Connector, 29:02 to camp, 48:15 to sign. Better splits this week, thanks to el HR monitor. Was interesting to have it... started off pretty easy 165-175, did most of the middle part up until the camp in 180-ish, then more like 185 past the camp, then 190-195 the last 3-5 minutes up heartbreak hill to the sign. Definitely under threshold this time until the very end. Felt alright, but total times are still moderately crappy. I guess I should give myself a break... it was warm and humid and on tired legs (and... really, the rest of me). Woke up with nightmares at around 3 am, tossed and turned still until 6 am, then decided I might as well get an early start driving to the trailhead in the dark... but the 210 East was blocked off at Michillinda, so I sat in traffic for 20 minutes while the sun came up and the temperature rose. So much for that plan.
Wednesday 09/17: 46:53, Monterrey recovery loop. Legs a little tired from yesterday, but felt surprisingly good. Went pretty easy, but probably managed a little faster than some recovery jogs... a good shake out for the legs. A nice morning, saw Ian and the Oxy women's team in the Arroyo!
Another side note that I forgot to mention yesterday, sprained L ankle fairly catastrophically coming down the Bailey trail. Stopped simply because I felt it roll so acutely, but then when I shook it out, I was boggled to discover... no pain. As I had to get back down either way, I decided at that time not to ponder too extensively whether I'd severed a nerve and the ankle would still turn purple and swell up like a basketball by the next morning... OR whether I finally succeeded in no longer having ankle ligaments left intact to sprain, thus making me effectively impervious to sprained ankles. Based on the fact that I only had mild soreness around the surgery site this morning, I'm going to vote for the latter. Woo hoo!
Thursday 09/18: 1:00:13, Monterrey to RB and back. Wanted to do a medley of paces, kind of like last week's surges, but it just felt so strained and forced so I settled back into an easy pace. Legs then suddenly felt drastically better after the turnaround point, so I cranked down the pace steadily through the last 30 minutes or so to turn it into a fairly solid progression run. Felt pretty horrible this morning after inadequate sleep and continuing stress, but felt a lot better after the run. Unfortunately, I slept in and got a late start, which meant that I ran into some grass mowers by the fields near the Arroyo and my nose has been dripping non-stop since then. Arrrghhhh... basically, the general rule is that only bad things happen when I don't get up at the crack of dawn.
Friday 09/19: Off, shots. A crappy day... stressed, sleep deprived, and generally feeling rather grim. Ate three cream puffs.
Saturday 09/20: 1:11:43, 9 laps warm up around the north field, 3 mile tempo at the track, 9 laps cool down around the north field. Slept in rather catastrophically... I think it was past 9 am when I got to the gym, and around 80 degrees. Was feeling pretty warm already when I started my warm up. Nevertheless, I powered through the rest of the workout, and it wasn't horrible. 3 miles in 6:53, 7:01, 6:55 for 20:49 total.
These actually felt like good, non-strained threshold miles. Had a little bit of trouble pacing the first mile, but then ran 1:45 laps fairly consistently. Also finally managed to get the third mile under control without the significant slow down factor. Maybe I can even do FOUR miles the next tempo session... Gotta get on that if I ever want to race 10Ks ever again.
Training this week: 5:59:38
Goals: Less stress... might help with the nightmares.
Monday, September 8, 2008
Week of 09/07/2008 - 09/13/2008 (Base Week 26)
Restructuring: More focus, more discipline, more sleep.
Okay, so Wednesday - Sunday was crappy... but I can salvage this. The bottom line is that I'm wearing a lot of different hats these days: embattled non profit employee, daughter, long distance girlfriend, severely allergic and injury prone person, manager, friend, property owner (which, as it turns out is about as fun as when you spend your last $100 on a hotel on Boardwalk that no one lands on and then you pick that Chance? card that charges you repairs on all of your properties) ... but anyways, the point is that there's not a lot of room for error. To train seriously and also balance everything else requires a lot of discipline... and when that starts to slip, the running starts to go bad too.
Discipline isn't just about doing your workouts and managing your time... for me it's also about managing stress, controlling my emotions and rolling with the punches. It's about getting enough sleep, eating a healthy diet and making smart decisions about running. Honestly, I haven't been doing ANY of that in the past 5 days, and I can tell that it's costing me. First and foremost, I want to enjoy my runs, I want to look forwards to getting out the door in the morning, instead of being stressed and worried and exhausted by it. I'm not off to a super good start this week... but I can get back on the happy life ball.
Sunday 09/07: 1:33:05, Stables to RB. You know, not really the way I wanted to start off my "let's be disciplined and make good decisions" reformation week... but gotta keep at it. Woke up SUPER late, didn't get out there until 8, and it was sunny and hot and all the weird people were already out... like three fat middle aged ladies wearing skintight pink "McCain Palin" wifebeaters. So, this is the demographic that they appeal to.... interesting... and... slightly terrifying.
Anyways, felt completely beat from yesterday complete with cramped shoulders from moving, and that awful dull achey feeling all through my legs that happens after you go lactic for too long. Felt like a Colorado run... it was so slow and painful. In hindsight I should have done a short run today, and moved the long run to Tuesday, but who says making good decisions was ever easy!
Monday 09/08: Off, shots. Ughh... calamity of the world! My pomegranite vinegar salad dressing leaked all over my trunk, which was then vaporized by the car sitting out in the school parking lot all day, and completely infused into ever inch of my car by the time I had to go home... it totally burned my eyes and nose. Still felt horrible and sneezy/drooly/congested by the time I went to sleep. Glaghalgahglahgalhga...
Tuesday 09/09: 49:27, Monterrey Recovery Loop, super super easy in the nice AM clouds. I suppose if one must be technical, this was more like 20 minutes of sleepwalking and 30 minutes of jogging. Felt pretty much like death today from too much consecutive sleep deprivation, 3 straight days of moving and two ill advised weekend runs. Blech. I rememebered from my Bain days that sometimes slow running will clear out some of the deathly feeling... and I felt moderately well enough to face the day by the time I finished. But see, I made a good training decision today! Now off to claim my first night of good sleep in about a week.
Wednesday 09/10: 58:46, RB to yellow gate at JPL. A nice run. Finally got something vaguely resembling a good night's sleep, and the mental haze is starting to lift! Felt a little bit crampy and tired still in the beginning, but started feeling really good after the devil's gate portion. L knee a bit tweaked out, was worried but it worked itself out. Ran a good solid, but not difficult pace throughout.
Thursday 09/11: 59:37, Monterrey to RB, working in 4 x 4-5 minute intervals of higher intensity running. It wasn't particularly planned this way, but I think it ended up being somewhat akin to 5 on, 5 off. The interval parts were definitely run closer to race pace than tempo pace, but I had full recovery, and they felt good, controlled. The first one felt like the toughest, just because it was kind of like readjusting one's expectations for how running should feel. I think I've gotten a little too used to low HR training... the change of pace was good for me, without it being tiring. Felt good about this run.
Friday 09/12: Off, shots. Somehow ended up staying up pretty late organizing stuff at the new place. Also ate two cookies... stress and moving are really not conducive to healthy eating habits.
Saturday 09/13: 1:09:29, California plus RB perimeter... a generous description for today's run would be "abysmal". Was supposed to be easy to RB, then RB perimeter loop at maybe a pace a little bit under tempo and then easy back the rest of the way. For some reason felt pretty dull and out of it from the beginning, and it certainly didn't help my mood to get passed by a hoard of Run with Us people. The uptempo part was the worst... somehow I took the first kind of squishy woodchips slightly uphill part too hard and felt pretty horrible by the river crossing. The total was about 36 minutes, which is slower than it took me to run this loop at a much, much lower exertion level a month or two back. How absolutely horrifying.
Training this week: 5:19:24, a pretty tame week I'd say...
Goals: to... survive...
Okay, so Wednesday - Sunday was crappy... but I can salvage this. The bottom line is that I'm wearing a lot of different hats these days: embattled non profit employee, daughter, long distance girlfriend, severely allergic and injury prone person, manager, friend, property owner (which, as it turns out is about as fun as when you spend your last $100 on a hotel on Boardwalk that no one lands on and then you pick that Chance? card that charges you repairs on all of your properties) ... but anyways, the point is that there's not a lot of room for error. To train seriously and also balance everything else requires a lot of discipline... and when that starts to slip, the running starts to go bad too.
Discipline isn't just about doing your workouts and managing your time... for me it's also about managing stress, controlling my emotions and rolling with the punches. It's about getting enough sleep, eating a healthy diet and making smart decisions about running. Honestly, I haven't been doing ANY of that in the past 5 days, and I can tell that it's costing me. First and foremost, I want to enjoy my runs, I want to look forwards to getting out the door in the morning, instead of being stressed and worried and exhausted by it. I'm not off to a super good start this week... but I can get back on the happy life ball.
Sunday 09/07: 1:33:05, Stables to RB. You know, not really the way I wanted to start off my "let's be disciplined and make good decisions" reformation week... but gotta keep at it. Woke up SUPER late, didn't get out there until 8, and it was sunny and hot and all the weird people were already out... like three fat middle aged ladies wearing skintight pink "McCain Palin" wifebeaters. So, this is the demographic that they appeal to.... interesting... and... slightly terrifying.
Anyways, felt completely beat from yesterday complete with cramped shoulders from moving, and that awful dull achey feeling all through my legs that happens after you go lactic for too long. Felt like a Colorado run... it was so slow and painful. In hindsight I should have done a short run today, and moved the long run to Tuesday, but who says making good decisions was ever easy!
Monday 09/08: Off, shots. Ughh... calamity of the world! My pomegranite vinegar salad dressing leaked all over my trunk, which was then vaporized by the car sitting out in the school parking lot all day, and completely infused into ever inch of my car by the time I had to go home... it totally burned my eyes and nose. Still felt horrible and sneezy/drooly/congested by the time I went to sleep. Glaghalgahglahgalhga...
Tuesday 09/09: 49:27, Monterrey Recovery Loop, super super easy in the nice AM clouds. I suppose if one must be technical, this was more like 20 minutes of sleepwalking and 30 minutes of jogging. Felt pretty much like death today from too much consecutive sleep deprivation, 3 straight days of moving and two ill advised weekend runs. Blech. I rememebered from my Bain days that sometimes slow running will clear out some of the deathly feeling... and I felt moderately well enough to face the day by the time I finished. But see, I made a good training decision today! Now off to claim my first night of good sleep in about a week.
Wednesday 09/10: 58:46, RB to yellow gate at JPL. A nice run. Finally got something vaguely resembling a good night's sleep, and the mental haze is starting to lift! Felt a little bit crampy and tired still in the beginning, but started feeling really good after the devil's gate portion. L knee a bit tweaked out, was worried but it worked itself out. Ran a good solid, but not difficult pace throughout.
Thursday 09/11: 59:37, Monterrey to RB, working in 4 x 4-5 minute intervals of higher intensity running. It wasn't particularly planned this way, but I think it ended up being somewhat akin to 5 on, 5 off. The interval parts were definitely run closer to race pace than tempo pace, but I had full recovery, and they felt good, controlled. The first one felt like the toughest, just because it was kind of like readjusting one's expectations for how running should feel. I think I've gotten a little too used to low HR training... the change of pace was good for me, without it being tiring. Felt good about this run.
Friday 09/12: Off, shots. Somehow ended up staying up pretty late organizing stuff at the new place. Also ate two cookies... stress and moving are really not conducive to healthy eating habits.
Saturday 09/13: 1:09:29, California plus RB perimeter... a generous description for today's run would be "abysmal". Was supposed to be easy to RB, then RB perimeter loop at maybe a pace a little bit under tempo and then easy back the rest of the way. For some reason felt pretty dull and out of it from the beginning, and it certainly didn't help my mood to get passed by a hoard of Run with Us people. The uptempo part was the worst... somehow I took the first kind of squishy woodchips slightly uphill part too hard and felt pretty horrible by the river crossing. The total was about 36 minutes, which is slower than it took me to run this loop at a much, much lower exertion level a month or two back. How absolutely horrifying.
Training this week: 5:19:24, a pretty tame week I'd say...
Goals: to... survive...
Thursday, September 4, 2008
Week of 08/31/2008 - 09/06/2008 (Base Week 25)
26 year old asian female seeking short and effective anger management course.
Hate and chocolate... are apparently NOT good fuels for running.
*Sigh* ... two runs this week have been ruined and this has to stop. I suppose my dislike isn't actually causing a certain deserving individual any pain, and it's not bringing back my opportunity to see our mutual friends that he so kindly and considerately took away... so, I suppose I should let it go. I guess I should move this weekend anyways. Gah, I need to learn to meditate.
Sunday 08/31: 1:10:35, Last Griggs Road run... *sigh* I'm making my rounds of the last Highlands Ranch area runs... which I'm finding to be sadder than I expected. The area we're going to is pretty nifty, but the non pavement running seems... limited. Felt pretty awful in the morning, something bad is going on with my sinuses, or maybe I'm catching the plague from Peter. That plus the memory of exactly how much gasping for air I had to do yesterday made me rather unenthused about getting out the door... but I did and I actually made it pretty far today too, despite the decision to move my long run over to tomorrow. Ate some delicious banana bread pudding and packed up Peter's kitchen.
Monday 09/01: 1:47:44, Last Dried Up Creek Run. I think maybe day 3 is when you finally begin to acclimate to the altitude a little bit, because today was the first day that a pace existed that did not feel like drowning. That felt really nice. Went all the way to the railroad tracks and came back. Was feeling a bit tired by the end, but overall a good long run. I think it also helped that it was pretty flat. We got done with most of the packing, ate some INCREDIBLY delicious Indian food near Peter's new home, and watched some weird British comedy shows.
Tuesday 09/02: Off, shots, traveling. Felt sad to leave, it was a really good, quiet weekend. Packing's not so exciting, but it was really nice to spend that time with Peter, and overall I felt like I had 3 quality runs. I knew I wasn't going to get anything uptempo in there, so my goal was just to log some solid base miles... er, minutes... which I think I did.
In other news, signed the lease on the new place with Kangway and Mark!
Wednesday 09/03: 49:18, Monterrey Recovery Loop. This is where it all went wrong... I woke up with some pretty major gastrointestinal distress (likely due to an excess of chocolate, junk food and cheesecake factory), and decided it was not a good idea to head out the door in this state. Drifted in and out of sleep in between bathroom runs until about 8 am... when I felt exhausted as hell and pretty horrible, but somewhat well enough to jog... so I did. And it was slow and barfy and at the end this horrible lady on a horse wouldn't stop to let me go around so I had to stand there just totally aghast waiting for her to slooooowly amble past my turnoff so I could start running again! Totally outrageous. To my credit though, I didn't shout any of the 4 and/or 5 letter words that were formulating themselves in my mind once I'd gotten over being so very taken aback.
Thursday 09/04: 55:02, a botched attempt at a tempo run. In the end I just stopped after 2 sub-standard Arroyo Tempo Loops and ran around for a little bit. For the first time on a tempo... my legs just felt like lead, and I was totally pre-occupied and my heart just wasn't in it. I've been stewing and seething since yesterday night regarding a certain selfish, inconsiderate individual who will remain nameless who unwittingly or otherwise has destroyed a weekend that I was looking forwards to... and usually anger makes me run faster and more aggressively, but today it just kinda imploded in on itself, probably just due to physical exhaustion from being sleep deprived, stressed and possibly getting sick. Went home and just stared into space for a while I was so upset.
Friday 09/05: Off, shots. I don't remember a whole lot about this day... but I think I felt better. And, less angry. Turning over a new leaf.
Saturday 09/06: 1:22:05, Bailey to Connector. I think this was like my worst Bailey run, probably... ever. And that is because I should know better. Stupid, stupid, stupid idiot. 27:54 to the camp, and 48:34 to the sign. For some reason, I totally lost control of this run and had completely gone anaerobic halfway to the camp. Getting from the camp to the top was like, worse than crawling, it was horrible... I can hardly believe I even made it.
Gah. I'm more pissed at myself for losing control than for it being a crappy run... I consider this a very technical course. It can be absolutely glorious, OR it can also easily degenerate to lactic slogging if you can't stay close to threshold. I must have run this 10, 20 times before without having a blow up like this one. I seriously considered turning back at the camp because I was in so much pain by then, but it seemed like it had to be some sort of redemption to finish... In hindsight that's horrible logic, but I think I was probably trying to burn away some residual self loathing after abandoning my tempo run on Thursday.
Training this week: 6:04:44 ... wow, my first > 6 hours in years and years...
Goals: Anger management, Weight management.
Hate and chocolate... are apparently NOT good fuels for running.
*Sigh* ... two runs this week have been ruined and this has to stop. I suppose my dislike isn't actually causing a certain deserving individual any pain, and it's not bringing back my opportunity to see our mutual friends that he so kindly and considerately took away... so, I suppose I should let it go. I guess I should move this weekend anyways. Gah, I need to learn to meditate.
Sunday 08/31: 1:10:35, Last Griggs Road run... *sigh* I'm making my rounds of the last Highlands Ranch area runs... which I'm finding to be sadder than I expected. The area we're going to is pretty nifty, but the non pavement running seems... limited. Felt pretty awful in the morning, something bad is going on with my sinuses, or maybe I'm catching the plague from Peter. That plus the memory of exactly how much gasping for air I had to do yesterday made me rather unenthused about getting out the door... but I did and I actually made it pretty far today too, despite the decision to move my long run over to tomorrow. Ate some delicious banana bread pudding and packed up Peter's kitchen.
Monday 09/01: 1:47:44, Last Dried Up Creek Run. I think maybe day 3 is when you finally begin to acclimate to the altitude a little bit, because today was the first day that a pace existed that did not feel like drowning. That felt really nice. Went all the way to the railroad tracks and came back. Was feeling a bit tired by the end, but overall a good long run. I think it also helped that it was pretty flat. We got done with most of the packing, ate some INCREDIBLY delicious Indian food near Peter's new home, and watched some weird British comedy shows.
Tuesday 09/02: Off, shots, traveling. Felt sad to leave, it was a really good, quiet weekend. Packing's not so exciting, but it was really nice to spend that time with Peter, and overall I felt like I had 3 quality runs. I knew I wasn't going to get anything uptempo in there, so my goal was just to log some solid base miles... er, minutes... which I think I did.
In other news, signed the lease on the new place with Kangway and Mark!
Wednesday 09/03: 49:18, Monterrey Recovery Loop. This is where it all went wrong... I woke up with some pretty major gastrointestinal distress (likely due to an excess of chocolate, junk food and cheesecake factory), and decided it was not a good idea to head out the door in this state. Drifted in and out of sleep in between bathroom runs until about 8 am... when I felt exhausted as hell and pretty horrible, but somewhat well enough to jog... so I did. And it was slow and barfy and at the end this horrible lady on a horse wouldn't stop to let me go around so I had to stand there just totally aghast waiting for her to slooooowly amble past my turnoff so I could start running again! Totally outrageous. To my credit though, I didn't shout any of the 4 and/or 5 letter words that were formulating themselves in my mind once I'd gotten over being so very taken aback.
Thursday 09/04: 55:02, a botched attempt at a tempo run. In the end I just stopped after 2 sub-standard Arroyo Tempo Loops and ran around for a little bit. For the first time on a tempo... my legs just felt like lead, and I was totally pre-occupied and my heart just wasn't in it. I've been stewing and seething since yesterday night regarding a certain selfish, inconsiderate individual who will remain nameless who unwittingly or otherwise has destroyed a weekend that I was looking forwards to... and usually anger makes me run faster and more aggressively, but today it just kinda imploded in on itself, probably just due to physical exhaustion from being sleep deprived, stressed and possibly getting sick. Went home and just stared into space for a while I was so upset.
Friday 09/05: Off, shots. I don't remember a whole lot about this day... but I think I felt better. And, less angry. Turning over a new leaf.
Saturday 09/06: 1:22:05, Bailey to Connector. I think this was like my worst Bailey run, probably... ever. And that is because I should know better. Stupid, stupid, stupid idiot. 27:54 to the camp, and 48:34 to the sign. For some reason, I totally lost control of this run and had completely gone anaerobic halfway to the camp. Getting from the camp to the top was like, worse than crawling, it was horrible... I can hardly believe I even made it.
Gah. I'm more pissed at myself for losing control than for it being a crappy run... I consider this a very technical course. It can be absolutely glorious, OR it can also easily degenerate to lactic slogging if you can't stay close to threshold. I must have run this 10, 20 times before without having a blow up like this one. I seriously considered turning back at the camp because I was in so much pain by then, but it seemed like it had to be some sort of redemption to finish... In hindsight that's horrible logic, but I think I was probably trying to burn away some residual self loathing after abandoning my tempo run on Thursday.
Training this week: 6:04:44 ... wow, my first > 6 hours in years and years...
Goals: Anger management, Weight management.
Monday, August 25, 2008
Week of 08/24/2008 - 08/30/2008 (Base Week 24)
Yeah okay, maybe last week was only a down week in the sense that it had only 4 days... but I'd say it served its purpose in so much that I feel not dead physically, and a LOT more enthused psychologically.
I think mostly I feel relieved that I chose not to run cross, it makes me feel less pressured and inadequate, and hence more likely to enjoy that which I can do now, rather than to bemoan that which I can't do yet. I'm gonna get there... some day.
Sunday 08/24: 1:26:40, the short long run again from stables to RB perimeter. Same as last Tuesday but taking the slightly longer way back crossing the bridges along the Arroyo. Felt a wee bit tired from yesterday but nothing substantial. Sleeping in continues though, which is a bit of a worrying trend. Started at 7:30 am, which all told isn't horrible... but for some reason I always feel grinchy about missing those nice early dawn hours.
Monday 08/25: Off, shots. Argh, swelling in one arm... they may cut my dose again, I swear I may never get through this damn last bottle. Maybe it's the world's way of telling me I'm not ready for the 6 day training week yet, meh.
Tuesday 08/26: 1:06:58, 5 x Arroyo Tempo Loops with middle 3 as tempo: 15:46, 11:47, 11:42, 11:32, 14:49 plus jog back to car. Not as fast as last week, but I think these were loads better. Effort level was much lower, felt controlled and comfortable. Pushed a little on the last one, but didn't breathe hard until the last 800m or so. Also, there were some fallen trees obstructing the path at one point, which was annoying less because of the time it takes to pick one's way around them, and more because it seriously cuts up your momentum on the slightly downhill portion. On the last cool down lap, a guy was just finishing hauling the trees away. Great timing guys, thanks. Biked to work, felt a little tired.
Wednesday 08/27: 49:04, I'm just going to call the Monterrey to Arroyo Tempo Loop thing the "Monterrey Recovery Loop". Today's was kind of sub-standard. Woke up late again, ugh... it was overcast but kind of warm and damp, AND there was ANOTHER damn tree obstructing a different part of the path. This is really getting old, really quick. Also legs felt tired in a nondescript way, I kinda suspect this has to do with the extra biking... run was slower than I expected w.r.t. perceived effort, which also makes me disgruntled. Biked to work, hoping that my body adjusts soon...
Thursday 08/28: 1:15:22, Lower Arroyo plus some jogging at Garfield park and some doubling back. (Thank goodness I'm no longer so neurotic that I need to know the length of each run down to 2 significant figures...) A great run with the whole team, pace ranged from super easy to a good clip. Felt not half bad, despite being pretty worn out yesterday.
Running with the crew is really fun, but at the same time it really throws me off... I'm so used to solitary hours on the trails, no traffic lights, no company, and a level of inner concentration that you just can't get if you're talking and stopping and constantly trying to adjust to other people's decisions around you. I also found that I get so excited with all the yakking and gossiping that I don't really pay attention to the things that I normally do on a run, like my stride and my HR and all that. I think I'd still like to run with the team every so often, but on a regular basis it probably doesn't suit my training style.
I guess one upside to being old and not an assistant coach is that I can choose what I want for each day. I'm definitely leaving the team in the much more competent, patient and caring hands of KB and Mark. Biked to work, feeling less exhausted and pretty happy.
Friday 08/29: Off, shots... traveling... don't you just love flight delays. Was even in a pretty good mood up until then too. But has some fantastic happy hour appetizers with Peter when I finally did arrive anyways and that made it all better.
Saturday 08/30: 1:02:54, Last Wildcat Trail run... felt kind of sad despite the fact that I'm not particularly attached to the frightening expanse of conservative, white, gated communities around here. The trails are actually pretty quality though with lots of rolling hills. I forgot how painful running at altitude is though, which pretty much quashed my enthusiasm for this run within 30 seconds of setting out the door. Felt moderately better after about 25 minutes, and I managed to make it out pretty far--turned around at this field full of adorable little groundhogs or prairie dogs or whatever they are. They're funny because they don't run away when you come, they all just perk up and look at you quizzically.
Training this week: 5:38:58
Goals: To lose the weight I gained while Peter was here (End of week addendum--I did, but then I gained it right back again when I went to visit him... *sigh*)
I think mostly I feel relieved that I chose not to run cross, it makes me feel less pressured and inadequate, and hence more likely to enjoy that which I can do now, rather than to bemoan that which I can't do yet. I'm gonna get there... some day.
Sunday 08/24: 1:26:40, the short long run again from stables to RB perimeter. Same as last Tuesday but taking the slightly longer way back crossing the bridges along the Arroyo. Felt a wee bit tired from yesterday but nothing substantial. Sleeping in continues though, which is a bit of a worrying trend. Started at 7:30 am, which all told isn't horrible... but for some reason I always feel grinchy about missing those nice early dawn hours.
Monday 08/25: Off, shots. Argh, swelling in one arm... they may cut my dose again, I swear I may never get through this damn last bottle. Maybe it's the world's way of telling me I'm not ready for the 6 day training week yet, meh.
Tuesday 08/26: 1:06:58, 5 x Arroyo Tempo Loops with middle 3 as tempo: 15:46, 11:47, 11:42, 11:32, 14:49 plus jog back to car. Not as fast as last week, but I think these were loads better. Effort level was much lower, felt controlled and comfortable. Pushed a little on the last one, but didn't breathe hard until the last 800m or so. Also, there were some fallen trees obstructing the path at one point, which was annoying less because of the time it takes to pick one's way around them, and more because it seriously cuts up your momentum on the slightly downhill portion. On the last cool down lap, a guy was just finishing hauling the trees away. Great timing guys, thanks. Biked to work, felt a little tired.
Wednesday 08/27: 49:04, I'm just going to call the Monterrey to Arroyo Tempo Loop thing the "Monterrey Recovery Loop". Today's was kind of sub-standard. Woke up late again, ugh... it was overcast but kind of warm and damp, AND there was ANOTHER damn tree obstructing a different part of the path. This is really getting old, really quick. Also legs felt tired in a nondescript way, I kinda suspect this has to do with the extra biking... run was slower than I expected w.r.t. perceived effort, which also makes me disgruntled. Biked to work, hoping that my body adjusts soon...
Thursday 08/28: 1:15:22, Lower Arroyo plus some jogging at Garfield park and some doubling back. (Thank goodness I'm no longer so neurotic that I need to know the length of each run down to 2 significant figures...) A great run with the whole team, pace ranged from super easy to a good clip. Felt not half bad, despite being pretty worn out yesterday.
Running with the crew is really fun, but at the same time it really throws me off... I'm so used to solitary hours on the trails, no traffic lights, no company, and a level of inner concentration that you just can't get if you're talking and stopping and constantly trying to adjust to other people's decisions around you. I also found that I get so excited with all the yakking and gossiping that I don't really pay attention to the things that I normally do on a run, like my stride and my HR and all that. I think I'd still like to run with the team every so often, but on a regular basis it probably doesn't suit my training style.
I guess one upside to being old and not an assistant coach is that I can choose what I want for each day. I'm definitely leaving the team in the much more competent, patient and caring hands of KB and Mark. Biked to work, feeling less exhausted and pretty happy.
Friday 08/29: Off, shots... traveling... don't you just love flight delays. Was even in a pretty good mood up until then too. But has some fantastic happy hour appetizers with Peter when I finally did arrive anyways and that made it all better.
Saturday 08/30: 1:02:54, Last Wildcat Trail run... felt kind of sad despite the fact that I'm not particularly attached to the frightening expanse of conservative, white, gated communities around here. The trails are actually pretty quality though with lots of rolling hills. I forgot how painful running at altitude is though, which pretty much quashed my enthusiasm for this run within 30 seconds of setting out the door. Felt moderately better after about 25 minutes, and I managed to make it out pretty far--turned around at this field full of adorable little groundhogs or prairie dogs or whatever they are. They're funny because they don't run away when you come, they all just perk up and look at you quizzically.
Training this week: 5:38:58
Goals: To lose the weight I gained while Peter was here (End of week addendum--I did, but then I gained it right back again when I went to visit him... *sigh*)
Sunday, August 17, 2008
Week of 08/17/2008 - 08/23/2008 (Base Week 23)
A down week is definitely in order.
Feeling really worn out, it was a big week last week and a whole bunch before that > 5 hours. I think the jump from 4 hours to 5+ hours went a lot faster than say going from 3 hours to 4 hours... add in some extra biking to work and I think I just have to not lose sight of the fact that I'm still working my way up.
Sunday 08/17: ~2:20 riding the new Vitus, 9 RB laps. Woke up feeling really really bad. I don't really mind soreness, but this was not sore... this was like this awful warm, inflamed, on the verge of some injury-type feeling all through my legs, just tired and worn out. Thought riding would take some strain off, but it was still pretty hard... on the upside, I feel pretty competent with the downtube shifters now. Hopefully day off will be good, and I can shift my long run over to Tuesday.
Monday 08/18: Off, shots. Felt crappy and bummed, didn't get very much done, meaning I will be extremely stressed tomorrow...
Tuesday 08/19: 1:20:09, California back to the stables then around the RB and back, same route as two Sundays ago. Unintentionally harder than usual long runs... but pace kept creeping up. I think its because its been 2 days since the last run. Felt pretty good, was glad that I felt ready and motivated to go... don't want to fall into a funk here. Every so often I have these weird days where I feel irrationally despondent and not wanting to run, and Sunday was one of those... I was a little worried about that and how I'd feel today, but it was okay.
Wednesday 08/20: 49:23, Monterrey to end of Arroyo Loop, intentionally super super easy. Felt good, another wonderfully overcast, cool morning--I'm really liking the morning fog these days. Rode to work, first time on the red bike, it was fantastic! No computer though, so I'm just going to call all of these trips 70 minutes.
Thursday 08/21: 58:56, RB trail perimeter plus detour to yellow JPL gate. Was kind of blah in the beginning, but then started feeling really really good after the little hill up by Devil's Gate. Got a bit of a late start this morning, but it's still unseasonably cool. Awesome. Didn't get to ride to work due to after work event... *sigh*.
Friday 08/22: Off, shots. Tired. There's this new annoying guy at work. He bugs me every 5 minutes about inane things ... so had to work under someone's desk and behind some boxes to be able to get anything done. My back is all tweaked out now, this can't continue.
Saturday 08/23: 1:56:10, Brown Mountain Adventure Loop. Up to the end of the Brown Mtn Fireroad, then back via El Prieto trail. 59:30 to end of fireroad, going easy until the trail splits, then started picking up the pace the rest of the way. Felt really good for most of it, but the last 5 minutes or so I was ready to be done... and the trail just goes on and on and on...
Unfortunately, got a pretty late start today so it was already sunny and warmer than I enjoy. Was pretty thirsty already at the top, so decided to take a gamble on trying to locate El Prieto trail which I thought would be a shortcut. Thankfully two mountain bikers turned into the trail right in front of me, so I was able to find the entrance... but it turns out its a pretty rough trail. The mountain bikers promptly crashed into a pile about 10 feet in, so I had to pick my way around that, and I didn't see them the rest of the way. Descent ended up taking almost as much as going up... I really don't enjoy going downhill. Took it really easy today. All in all a good run.
Training this week: 5:04:38 plus ~ 3:30 cycling
Goals: To keep things under control, no injuries.
Feeling really worn out, it was a big week last week and a whole bunch before that > 5 hours. I think the jump from 4 hours to 5+ hours went a lot faster than say going from 3 hours to 4 hours... add in some extra biking to work and I think I just have to not lose sight of the fact that I'm still working my way up.
Sunday 08/17: ~2:20 riding the new Vitus, 9 RB laps. Woke up feeling really really bad. I don't really mind soreness, but this was not sore... this was like this awful warm, inflamed, on the verge of some injury-type feeling all through my legs, just tired and worn out. Thought riding would take some strain off, but it was still pretty hard... on the upside, I feel pretty competent with the downtube shifters now. Hopefully day off will be good, and I can shift my long run over to Tuesday.
Monday 08/18: Off, shots. Felt crappy and bummed, didn't get very much done, meaning I will be extremely stressed tomorrow...
Tuesday 08/19: 1:20:09, California back to the stables then around the RB and back, same route as two Sundays ago. Unintentionally harder than usual long runs... but pace kept creeping up. I think its because its been 2 days since the last run. Felt pretty good, was glad that I felt ready and motivated to go... don't want to fall into a funk here. Every so often I have these weird days where I feel irrationally despondent and not wanting to run, and Sunday was one of those... I was a little worried about that and how I'd feel today, but it was okay.
Wednesday 08/20: 49:23, Monterrey to end of Arroyo Loop, intentionally super super easy. Felt good, another wonderfully overcast, cool morning--I'm really liking the morning fog these days. Rode to work, first time on the red bike, it was fantastic! No computer though, so I'm just going to call all of these trips 70 minutes.
Thursday 08/21: 58:56, RB trail perimeter plus detour to yellow JPL gate. Was kind of blah in the beginning, but then started feeling really really good after the little hill up by Devil's Gate. Got a bit of a late start this morning, but it's still unseasonably cool. Awesome. Didn't get to ride to work due to after work event... *sigh*.
Friday 08/22: Off, shots. Tired. There's this new annoying guy at work. He bugs me every 5 minutes about inane things ... so had to work under someone's desk and behind some boxes to be able to get anything done. My back is all tweaked out now, this can't continue.
Saturday 08/23: 1:56:10, Brown Mountain Adventure Loop. Up to the end of the Brown Mtn Fireroad, then back via El Prieto trail. 59:30 to end of fireroad, going easy until the trail splits, then started picking up the pace the rest of the way. Felt really good for most of it, but the last 5 minutes or so I was ready to be done... and the trail just goes on and on and on...
Unfortunately, got a pretty late start today so it was already sunny and warmer than I enjoy. Was pretty thirsty already at the top, so decided to take a gamble on trying to locate El Prieto trail which I thought would be a shortcut. Thankfully two mountain bikers turned into the trail right in front of me, so I was able to find the entrance... but it turns out its a pretty rough trail. The mountain bikers promptly crashed into a pile about 10 feet in, so I had to pick my way around that, and I didn't see them the rest of the way. Descent ended up taking almost as much as going up... I really don't enjoy going downhill. Took it really easy today. All in all a good run.
Training this week: 5:04:38 plus ~ 3:30 cycling
Goals: To keep things under control, no injuries.
Sunday, August 10, 2008
Week of 08/10/2008 - 08/16/2008 (Base Week 22)
A little more like me
Progress:
1) Wearing my skinny clothes for the first time in almost a year: I define skinny clothes as anything I've bought post-becoming a distance runner. Everything I wore before that are fat clothes. I now anatomically resemble an athlete, even thought the functionality is still getting there.
2) Call of the demons: I'm feeling a little bit more in my element in the past few runs. Mostly this has to do with the return of competitive instincts. It feels good to go fast. I find myself working in little surges, passing people, wanting to do more. Actually, dying to do more.
I feel a little bit more like me. Of course, that comes with pros and cons. What gives me the drive to lift myself out of being defeated and depressed is also what potentially gives me the injuries that hold me back. Keeping the demons under control will be the major challenge for this next block of training.
Sunday 08/10: 1:43:08, Monterrey to RB perimeter and back on the other side. A good solid long run. Woke up a little on the late side so it blebbed into the 8 am hour... but thankfully it remained relatively cool. Ran easy and but picked it up a little at the end. Felt good the whole way, though the first 20 minutes or so felt choppy.
Monday 08/11: Off, shots. Feeling really stressed today... I just wish that every aspect of my life did not involve QUITE so much difficult person management.
Tuesday 08/12: 1:20:52, Bailey to Connector. Due to the confluence of many inconvenient things, did my birthday run 2 days early. Woke up at 5:50 am to get out there early and it was foggy and cool and wonderful. 28:29 to camp, 47:56 to connector, not particularly fast vs. last week, but the effort level made all the difference in the world. A little rough in the beginning but felt good the whole way, breathing through nose, didn't even notice Heartbreak Hill until I was already past it. Unlike last week, I never got to the super dying horrible not going to make it state.
In other news, took a little bit of a tumble biking to work... bc I am retarded. Was standing (with one foot on the ground) at an intersection, and toppled cleanly over trying to shift my backpack. Fortunately said backpack broke my fall, but the impact managed to drop my chain. Then, somehow I decided that shifting the gears would help me get it back on, but that made the situation horribly worse because then the chain got tangled and jammed around the rear derailleur area. I try not to be a complete moron regarding bike part proficiency, but I am no Katherine Breeden... I really was rather on the boggled side as far as how to fix this situation. So instead, here I am sitting by the side of the road staring at my bike like a doofus... when miraculously a car stops in front of me, and a cyclist steps out to save the day. Bike restored, I made it safely the rest of the way. ~68 minutes round trip.
Wednesday 08/13: 47:44, Monterrey to end of Arroyo Tempo Loop. Slept in, then couldn't find watch, ergo moderately disgruntled, but run was okay. A little bit tired from yesterday, so took it real easy, but was pleased that the time wasn't that off from non-post-Bailey days. Had to drive to work today due to off-campus meetings... :'(.
Thursday 08/14: 55:59, 2 laps of the Arroyo from the horse stables to the trail closure... which is a disgruntling turn of events. Wanted to do California to Salvia Canyon, but the path was blocked off right under the bridge nearest to the RB. So had to back track and run the circuit again to add up to ~ 50 minutes. Legs felt more tired than I expected, not zippy at all, but I guess it's been a big week already. Felt better after biking to work.
Friday 08/15: Off, shots. I'm finally back to about the dose where everything went wrong... a little more swelling than usual, but fingers crossed. So tired....
Saturday 08/16: 1:07:18, 5 x Arroyo Tempo Loops with middle 3 at tempo pace: 15:22, 11:40, 11:34, 11:27, 17:16 with the last cool down lap including detour to see if trail closure has been re-opened (yes) and jog back to car. Not terrible, felt good to finally make it through 3. First two breathing through nose, then last one pretty hard... harder than I would have liked, but at least it was the fastest. I think this is progress, but the issue is still mostly weak cardio.
Worked on my beautiful new commuting bike with Peter and Ian!
Training this week: 5:55:01, plus ~2:20 cycling--a pretty big week.
Goals: Need to establish a solid 5 - 5.5 hour weekly routine that's compatible with biking to work on the non-shot days. This does not come naturally to me, but I need to think sustainability.
Progress:
1) Wearing my skinny clothes for the first time in almost a year: I define skinny clothes as anything I've bought post-becoming a distance runner. Everything I wore before that are fat clothes. I now anatomically resemble an athlete, even thought the functionality is still getting there.
2) Call of the demons: I'm feeling a little bit more in my element in the past few runs. Mostly this has to do with the return of competitive instincts. It feels good to go fast. I find myself working in little surges, passing people, wanting to do more. Actually, dying to do more.
I feel a little bit more like me. Of course, that comes with pros and cons. What gives me the drive to lift myself out of being defeated and depressed is also what potentially gives me the injuries that hold me back. Keeping the demons under control will be the major challenge for this next block of training.
Sunday 08/10: 1:43:08, Monterrey to RB perimeter and back on the other side. A good solid long run. Woke up a little on the late side so it blebbed into the 8 am hour... but thankfully it remained relatively cool. Ran easy and but picked it up a little at the end. Felt good the whole way, though the first 20 minutes or so felt choppy.
Monday 08/11: Off, shots. Feeling really stressed today... I just wish that every aspect of my life did not involve QUITE so much difficult person management.
Tuesday 08/12: 1:20:52, Bailey to Connector. Due to the confluence of many inconvenient things, did my birthday run 2 days early. Woke up at 5:50 am to get out there early and it was foggy and cool and wonderful. 28:29 to camp, 47:56 to connector, not particularly fast vs. last week, but the effort level made all the difference in the world. A little rough in the beginning but felt good the whole way, breathing through nose, didn't even notice Heartbreak Hill until I was already past it. Unlike last week, I never got to the super dying horrible not going to make it state.
In other news, took a little bit of a tumble biking to work... bc I am retarded. Was standing (with one foot on the ground) at an intersection, and toppled cleanly over trying to shift my backpack. Fortunately said backpack broke my fall, but the impact managed to drop my chain. Then, somehow I decided that shifting the gears would help me get it back on, but that made the situation horribly worse because then the chain got tangled and jammed around the rear derailleur area. I try not to be a complete moron regarding bike part proficiency, but I am no Katherine Breeden... I really was rather on the boggled side as far as how to fix this situation. So instead, here I am sitting by the side of the road staring at my bike like a doofus... when miraculously a car stops in front of me, and a cyclist steps out to save the day. Bike restored, I made it safely the rest of the way. ~68 minutes round trip.
Wednesday 08/13: 47:44, Monterrey to end of Arroyo Tempo Loop. Slept in, then couldn't find watch, ergo moderately disgruntled, but run was okay. A little bit tired from yesterday, so took it real easy, but was pleased that the time wasn't that off from non-post-Bailey days. Had to drive to work today due to off-campus meetings... :'(.
Thursday 08/14: 55:59, 2 laps of the Arroyo from the horse stables to the trail closure... which is a disgruntling turn of events. Wanted to do California to Salvia Canyon, but the path was blocked off right under the bridge nearest to the RB. So had to back track and run the circuit again to add up to ~ 50 minutes. Legs felt more tired than I expected, not zippy at all, but I guess it's been a big week already. Felt better after biking to work.
Friday 08/15: Off, shots. I'm finally back to about the dose where everything went wrong... a little more swelling than usual, but fingers crossed. So tired....
Saturday 08/16: 1:07:18, 5 x Arroyo Tempo Loops with middle 3 at tempo pace: 15:22, 11:40, 11:34, 11:27, 17:16 with the last cool down lap including detour to see if trail closure has been re-opened (yes) and jog back to car. Not terrible, felt good to finally make it through 3. First two breathing through nose, then last one pretty hard... harder than I would have liked, but at least it was the fastest. I think this is progress, but the issue is still mostly weak cardio.
Worked on my beautiful new commuting bike with Peter and Ian!
Training this week: 5:55:01, plus ~2:20 cycling--a pretty big week.
Goals: Need to establish a solid 5 - 5.5 hour weekly routine that's compatible with biking to work on the non-shot days. This does not come naturally to me, but I need to think sustainability.
Sunday, August 3, 2008
Week of 08/03/2008 - 08/09/2008 (Base Week 21)
Decision time
I knew that my angst about the impending XC season was starting to affect my motivation, so I had to make a choice. I decided not to train for cross this year. If I for some unlikely reason feel really compelled to race once or twice, I may do that to test it out, but I'm not going to alter my training to try to peak in a month or two.
This isn't the way I wanted it to be, but I think I've had some setbacks along the way and this is the right decision for where I am. Originally I was supposed to start doing more tempo work by now, and be on my once a week shot routine so I could phase in the 6 day week again. Instead, I'm over a month behind on my shot schedule now due to the outbreak of hives, and also missed 2 weeks of tempos. The lengthening process for the duration of my tempo runs has gotten hopelessly stalled at 3 miles, and I've yet to solve the mystery of why... so, all in all, I'm kinda shaky on even completing a 5K on rough terrain, without it degenerating into painful jogging by mile 3.
I think my runs ARE getting stronger though, and maybe I'll have a good shot at some late in the year road races if I just patiently keep at it for now. I think I can work in 1 medium hard day in addition to tempo day, hopefully that will teach my body to accept longer periods of high HR existence. Patience has never been a virtue of mine, but I try to remind myself that everything I've forced or rushed into with running has ended up a disaster. So far, nothing BAD has happened, I'm still on my feet, I'm still slooooowly making progress, I haven't made my foot completely better ... but at least it's not worse. As long as I'm still running, I'm still in the game. It's still the longest I've ever been able to train, in terms of # of weeks though not in # of miles. I guess I can be happy about that.
Sunday 08/03: 1:28:42, California backtracked to the stables, before heading out to once around the RB. Legs felt inordinately tired and sore from yesterday's adventures... but the run was fine. I realized that I'm so much happier if I can wake up and run at 6 am than 7 or later. Not sure why it makes that much of a difference, but something about that early dawn goodness makes me feel calmer and peaceful. Realized that going uphill was fine, but going DOWNHILL was the most painful thing ever, I think my quads are pickled with lactic acid from yesterday. Felt loads better after about 20 minutes of jogging, but unfortunately the soreness returned after I got back from the run and legs got a chance to cool back down. Darn.
Monday 08/04: Off, shots. Soreness continues... I'm either getting old, or maybe my legs didn't need that many miles yesterday.
Tuesday 08/05: 41:44, Huntington/Virginia/stairs. A pleasant short run with Stephanie, Sedona and Sarah. Legs were still feeling a little bit heavy and sore, but felt okay on the run.
This was also the first day of Bike-To-Work, a new fitness increasing/money saving initiative. I was only moderately terrified for my life... which I suppose exceeds expectations. ~80 minutes round trip, including getting horribly lost on my way back. It's only about 8.75 miles each way but somewhat slow going due to the traffic and heavy backpack. All in all it was not bad, I'm hoping to do this on the non shot days to supplement my meager running schedule. Toe a little bit tweaked out in the PM, maybe from pavement or from biking, or both.
Wednesday 08/06: 1:02:36, Monterrey to RB and back. The run in which I meet a golf ball named "Juice". No jokes. Ran really easy out, but pace crept up on the way back. Felt pretty good. I really enjoy the early morning. Bike to work went much better today, in which I had zero near death experiences and zero stopping to correct being losts. Hooray for improvement. ~70 minutes round trip.
Thursday 08/07: 1:01:39, RB perimeter plus the section to the yellow gate near JPL. Slept in until 6:30 this morning and it totally threw my whole morning off... Felt tired in many senses, legs felt heavy, and the temperature was creeping up. Somehow, it all started feeling a lot better after about 15-20 minutes, so I was able to finish strong, but basically ran pretty easy the whole way. I wonder if the extra biking is wearing me down... Felt much, much less zippy today both on my run and my commute. Hopefully my body will adjust... ~71 minutes round trip today, getting more comfortable with the route, but I rode much less aggressively than yesterday due to more tired.
Friday 08/08: Off, shots. It's amazing how quickly one adjusts to things. Felt really strange not to ride to work. I realized that I really enjoy riding to work.
Saturday 08/09: 54:42, some moderate tempo work in the Arroyo. 4 x Arroyo Tempo loops with the first and last warm up and cool down. There were supposed to be 3 tempo ones in the middle... but apparently it wasn't meant to be: 15:50, 11:51, 11:23, 14:23 plus jog back to car. Woke up with a stomach ache and felt pretty awful on the warm up lap. Surprisingly the first tempo lap was really good, a good clip but breathing only through nose, but for some reason I just freaked out on the second one. I think I was anticipating a slowdown and overcompensated. Then I had to sprint to pass an enormous (like, 50 kids) patch of HS cross country-ers, and at the end, I kinda felt like I was done. It bugged me for a while afterwards that I didn't do the 3 laps... but I decided that there'd be other days, and that I learned from this run that I do think I have 3 sub-12 minute laps in me right now. I was really worried about not clearing that hurdle, so I guess this exceeds expectations.
Training this week: 5:09:23, plus ~3:40 riding to work
Goals: To be able to descend a staircase without wincing.
I knew that my angst about the impending XC season was starting to affect my motivation, so I had to make a choice. I decided not to train for cross this year. If I for some unlikely reason feel really compelled to race once or twice, I may do that to test it out, but I'm not going to alter my training to try to peak in a month or two.
This isn't the way I wanted it to be, but I think I've had some setbacks along the way and this is the right decision for where I am. Originally I was supposed to start doing more tempo work by now, and be on my once a week shot routine so I could phase in the 6 day week again. Instead, I'm over a month behind on my shot schedule now due to the outbreak of hives, and also missed 2 weeks of tempos. The lengthening process for the duration of my tempo runs has gotten hopelessly stalled at 3 miles, and I've yet to solve the mystery of why... so, all in all, I'm kinda shaky on even completing a 5K on rough terrain, without it degenerating into painful jogging by mile 3.
I think my runs ARE getting stronger though, and maybe I'll have a good shot at some late in the year road races if I just patiently keep at it for now. I think I can work in 1 medium hard day in addition to tempo day, hopefully that will teach my body to accept longer periods of high HR existence. Patience has never been a virtue of mine, but I try to remind myself that everything I've forced or rushed into with running has ended up a disaster. So far, nothing BAD has happened, I'm still on my feet, I'm still slooooowly making progress, I haven't made my foot completely better ... but at least it's not worse. As long as I'm still running, I'm still in the game. It's still the longest I've ever been able to train, in terms of # of weeks though not in # of miles. I guess I can be happy about that.
Sunday 08/03: 1:28:42, California backtracked to the stables, before heading out to once around the RB. Legs felt inordinately tired and sore from yesterday's adventures... but the run was fine. I realized that I'm so much happier if I can wake up and run at 6 am than 7 or later. Not sure why it makes that much of a difference, but something about that early dawn goodness makes me feel calmer and peaceful. Realized that going uphill was fine, but going DOWNHILL was the most painful thing ever, I think my quads are pickled with lactic acid from yesterday. Felt loads better after about 20 minutes of jogging, but unfortunately the soreness returned after I got back from the run and legs got a chance to cool back down. Darn.
Monday 08/04: Off, shots. Soreness continues... I'm either getting old, or maybe my legs didn't need that many miles yesterday.
Tuesday 08/05: 41:44, Huntington/Virginia/stairs. A pleasant short run with Stephanie, Sedona and Sarah. Legs were still feeling a little bit heavy and sore, but felt okay on the run.
This was also the first day of Bike-To-Work, a new fitness increasing/money saving initiative. I was only moderately terrified for my life... which I suppose exceeds expectations. ~80 minutes round trip, including getting horribly lost on my way back. It's only about 8.75 miles each way but somewhat slow going due to the traffic and heavy backpack. All in all it was not bad, I'm hoping to do this on the non shot days to supplement my meager running schedule. Toe a little bit tweaked out in the PM, maybe from pavement or from biking, or both.
Wednesday 08/06: 1:02:36, Monterrey to RB and back. The run in which I meet a golf ball named "Juice". No jokes. Ran really easy out, but pace crept up on the way back. Felt pretty good. I really enjoy the early morning. Bike to work went much better today, in which I had zero near death experiences and zero stopping to correct being losts. Hooray for improvement. ~70 minutes round trip.
Thursday 08/07: 1:01:39, RB perimeter plus the section to the yellow gate near JPL. Slept in until 6:30 this morning and it totally threw my whole morning off... Felt tired in many senses, legs felt heavy, and the temperature was creeping up. Somehow, it all started feeling a lot better after about 15-20 minutes, so I was able to finish strong, but basically ran pretty easy the whole way. I wonder if the extra biking is wearing me down... Felt much, much less zippy today both on my run and my commute. Hopefully my body will adjust... ~71 minutes round trip today, getting more comfortable with the route, but I rode much less aggressively than yesterday due to more tired.
Friday 08/08: Off, shots. It's amazing how quickly one adjusts to things. Felt really strange not to ride to work. I realized that I really enjoy riding to work.
Saturday 08/09: 54:42, some moderate tempo work in the Arroyo. 4 x Arroyo Tempo loops with the first and last warm up and cool down. There were supposed to be 3 tempo ones in the middle... but apparently it wasn't meant to be: 15:50, 11:51, 11:23, 14:23 plus jog back to car. Woke up with a stomach ache and felt pretty awful on the warm up lap. Surprisingly the first tempo lap was really good, a good clip but breathing only through nose, but for some reason I just freaked out on the second one. I think I was anticipating a slowdown and overcompensated. Then I had to sprint to pass an enormous (like, 50 kids) patch of HS cross country-ers, and at the end, I kinda felt like I was done. It bugged me for a while afterwards that I didn't do the 3 laps... but I decided that there'd be other days, and that I learned from this run that I do think I have 3 sub-12 minute laps in me right now. I was really worried about not clearing that hurdle, so I guess this exceeds expectations.
Training this week: 5:09:23, plus ~3:40 riding to work
Goals: To be able to descend a staircase without wincing.
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
Week of 07/27/2008 - 08/02/2008 (Base Week 20)
Call me crazy, but I really think the hellmouth really has opened up. Sinkhole in the 110, big ass earthquake, plague of boils (... er, hives)... I'd like to say I'm not superstitious... but none of this really bodes well.
I think as cross season approaches, I'm feeling more and more out of sorts. I'm really starting to hate this feeling that I have so often these days of thinking back on things I used to be able to do with amazement, like that it seems close to impossible I could ever do those things again. Like 90 mile bike rides in the mountains. The run/bike doubles this weekend were really tough. I felt tired and sore all of Monday. I'm starting to feel a little bit stronger on my runs, but realize that I still have a really tough time sustaining any sort of intensity. Then I get slammed by the realization that races are actually coming up real soon and that everyone around me is doing 2 x or 3 x the mileage that I'm doing.
It just feels like such a letdown. I feel like I've spent this whole year trying to prepare for the fall, and now fall is almost here and on a relative scale, I'm doing a lot lot better.... but on an absolute scale, my foot is still fucked and my immune system is still fucked and I'm still chronically fatigued. It sucks. I wish it weren't like this. Or, I wish I could know that it will go back to the way it was before ... some day.
Sunday 07/27: 1:05:20, Monterrey to RB and back in the PM, after Chantry in the AM with Peter, KB and Ian. Bike ride was really fun, but I felt moderately crappy about being the one person in the group who was clearly much, much worse than the rest. Thankfully KB kept me company while I crawled up the hill feeling like my legs would imminently implode. Sadly the breakfast place was closed on our way home, Peter was disgruntled.
Felt tired and achey by evening, so cut back my long run. The first 15 minutes or so felt like death... my stride felt stilted and gastrointestinal system was complaining loudly, but somehow it worked itself out and the rest of the run was fine. I was happy that it really didn't seem to have been affected that much by the morning bike ride. It was actually breezy and cool as well which helped a lot.
Monday 07/28: Off, shots. Still felt strangely dehydrated and headachey from the weekend but it got better. Had delicious delicious cornbread at dinner with Julie and Vikas.
Tuesday 07/29: 47:45, Monterrey to third bridge loop. I've permanently expanded this route to go to the end of the Arroyo Tempo Loop and feel like it's a good distance. Woke up late, but actually felt good this morning, it was nice and cool and I met Jolly Walks Lots of Dogs Man again. You see a lot of the same characters in the Arroyo in the morning. In hindsight I should have gotten up earlier and done my tempo today while it was cloudy and cool, but I guess I was trying to be conservative by allowing an extra easy day given that my legs felt pretty beat all of yesterday from the weekend. In other news.... EARTHQUAAAAAAKE!!!! aaaaahhhh!
Wednesday 07/30: 1:10:03, warm up, 3 mile track tempo, cool down plus an extra lap or two with KB, Ian, Kangway at the end. Really glad that the North Fields were open again, and was nice and cool and remained overcast for the duration of my running time. Tempo was interesting in 20:54 (6:51, 6:52, 7:11), definitely some improvement, but I'm kind of baffled and concerned that it's been a lot of weeks now and it just isn't getting any easier to get through that last mile... In order to combat this phenomenon, I ran the first 6 laps breathing only out of my nose and kept the exertion level down, so I feel like I can't REALLY be accused of going out too hard.... It feels more like something just turns off after 2 miles.
Thursday 07/31: 50:37, California to Salvia Canyon and back. Nice and cloudy and cool, got a little bit earlier start... but felt a little off today. It wasn't painful, just slow, and my L foot is feeling a bit tweaked out. Some idiots were screaming and yelling and screeching their cars outside my window at 3 am, so I felt really awful when the alarm went off in the morning. I guess my legs are also kinda tired. Couldn't shake this feeling of dissatisfaction--I just feel like I should have more to show for 6 months of training... I wish someone would just figure out how to fix my body already.
Friday 08/01: Off, shots. So far so good. Ate an entire delicious CPK pizza for lunch... and plotted with co-workers about how to quasi-legally supplement our meager non profit salaries.
Saturday 08/02: 1:22 - 1:25 ish, Bailey Canyon to the connector for the first time in over a year. Convinced KB, Stephanie, Heather and Sedona to come, was excited! KB totally rocked this run. Ate breakfast at Lucky's afterwards. Fun! We made pretty good time up (48:15-ish) but it was really painful, like a lot more painful than I had remembered. It felt good to be up there again, but I also felt kind of troubled because I saw the same pattern with this that happens with the tempo runs... I feel good, good, good, and then suddenly it goes from fine to horrible, awful dying within the span of like a minute. There's no gradual tiring process, its just like a sudden "game over". It feels weird and unnatural. It really bugs me...
Training this week: Let's just say 5 hours 15 minutes running and 2:36 biking--didn't really do a good job keeping time on Saturday's run
Goals: Figure out what I'm doing
I think as cross season approaches, I'm feeling more and more out of sorts. I'm really starting to hate this feeling that I have so often these days of thinking back on things I used to be able to do with amazement, like that it seems close to impossible I could ever do those things again. Like 90 mile bike rides in the mountains. The run/bike doubles this weekend were really tough. I felt tired and sore all of Monday. I'm starting to feel a little bit stronger on my runs, but realize that I still have a really tough time sustaining any sort of intensity. Then I get slammed by the realization that races are actually coming up real soon and that everyone around me is doing 2 x or 3 x the mileage that I'm doing.
It just feels like such a letdown. I feel like I've spent this whole year trying to prepare for the fall, and now fall is almost here and on a relative scale, I'm doing a lot lot better.... but on an absolute scale, my foot is still fucked and my immune system is still fucked and I'm still chronically fatigued. It sucks. I wish it weren't like this. Or, I wish I could know that it will go back to the way it was before ... some day.
Sunday 07/27: 1:05:20, Monterrey to RB and back in the PM, after Chantry in the AM with Peter, KB and Ian. Bike ride was really fun, but I felt moderately crappy about being the one person in the group who was clearly much, much worse than the rest. Thankfully KB kept me company while I crawled up the hill feeling like my legs would imminently implode. Sadly the breakfast place was closed on our way home, Peter was disgruntled.
Felt tired and achey by evening, so cut back my long run. The first 15 minutes or so felt like death... my stride felt stilted and gastrointestinal system was complaining loudly, but somehow it worked itself out and the rest of the run was fine. I was happy that it really didn't seem to have been affected that much by the morning bike ride. It was actually breezy and cool as well which helped a lot.
Monday 07/28: Off, shots. Still felt strangely dehydrated and headachey from the weekend but it got better. Had delicious delicious cornbread at dinner with Julie and Vikas.
Tuesday 07/29: 47:45, Monterrey to third bridge loop. I've permanently expanded this route to go to the end of the Arroyo Tempo Loop and feel like it's a good distance. Woke up late, but actually felt good this morning, it was nice and cool and I met Jolly Walks Lots of Dogs Man again. You see a lot of the same characters in the Arroyo in the morning. In hindsight I should have gotten up earlier and done my tempo today while it was cloudy and cool, but I guess I was trying to be conservative by allowing an extra easy day given that my legs felt pretty beat all of yesterday from the weekend. In other news.... EARTHQUAAAAAAKE!!!! aaaaahhhh!
Wednesday 07/30: 1:10:03, warm up, 3 mile track tempo, cool down plus an extra lap or two with KB, Ian, Kangway at the end. Really glad that the North Fields were open again, and was nice and cool and remained overcast for the duration of my running time. Tempo was interesting in 20:54 (6:51, 6:52, 7:11), definitely some improvement, but I'm kind of baffled and concerned that it's been a lot of weeks now and it just isn't getting any easier to get through that last mile... In order to combat this phenomenon, I ran the first 6 laps breathing only out of my nose and kept the exertion level down, so I feel like I can't REALLY be accused of going out too hard.... It feels more like something just turns off after 2 miles.
Thursday 07/31: 50:37, California to Salvia Canyon and back. Nice and cloudy and cool, got a little bit earlier start... but felt a little off today. It wasn't painful, just slow, and my L foot is feeling a bit tweaked out. Some idiots were screaming and yelling and screeching their cars outside my window at 3 am, so I felt really awful when the alarm went off in the morning. I guess my legs are also kinda tired. Couldn't shake this feeling of dissatisfaction--I just feel like I should have more to show for 6 months of training... I wish someone would just figure out how to fix my body already.
Friday 08/01: Off, shots. So far so good. Ate an entire delicious CPK pizza for lunch... and plotted with co-workers about how to quasi-legally supplement our meager non profit salaries.
Saturday 08/02: 1:22 - 1:25 ish, Bailey Canyon to the connector for the first time in over a year. Convinced KB, Stephanie, Heather and Sedona to come, was excited! KB totally rocked this run. Ate breakfast at Lucky's afterwards. Fun! We made pretty good time up (48:15-ish) but it was really painful, like a lot more painful than I had remembered. It felt good to be up there again, but I also felt kind of troubled because I saw the same pattern with this that happens with the tempo runs... I feel good, good, good, and then suddenly it goes from fine to horrible, awful dying within the span of like a minute. There's no gradual tiring process, its just like a sudden "game over". It feels weird and unnatural. It really bugs me...
Training this week: Let's just say 5 hours 15 minutes running and 2:36 biking--didn't really do a good job keeping time on Saturday's run
Goals: Figure out what I'm doing
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