Reflections...
On Saturday I felt something that I'd been painstakingly staving off for a good few months now.
I set my alarm for 6 am, woke up at 8 am and found that it was already 90 degrees out. I stumbled, still exhausted and bleary feeling out of bed and the only thought in my head was how much I did not want to run. It wasn't just occasional morning inertia, and it wasn't entirely about the heat, this was big picture training angst and by now I know exactly what the symptoms look like.
For the past few months, I've been getting through it, trying to encourage myself with the small unsatisfying improvements, trying to keep talking positive even though deep down I knew it was a sham. Nobody told me it was going to be so damn hard. It's hard to train when you don't trust your own body, it's harder to train without hope. Between foot tendonitis that flares somewhat unpredictably, weird asthma symptoms, shots twice a week and a lot of still unexplained fatigue and insomnia, training's just not what it used to be. I didn't realize that sometimes you can't keep expecting a breakthrough around the next corner because then you may be disappointed indefinitely. I felt like I would have to dig deep to get through this, and slogging through another sub-par run in the suffocating heat was not going to give me the inspiration that I so desperately needed.
So, I dusted off my beautiful Bianchi and headed off into the summer dusk, to ride until I found what I was looking for. There were all sorts of folks out there at the RB on that unlikely hot evening. A big football looking guy who bravely made it through about 3 laps at a good pace, but clearly struggling towards the end... a girl who roller-bladed alongside her runner boyfriend, a lean, athletic looking guy doing striders, technical work and a strange stint of backwards running, a happy old couple. I wondered at what each of their stories were...
In the end, a whole lot of thinking lead a whole lot of nowhere, but that's alright I suppose. At about 8 pm I ran out of water and daylight simultaneously and so it was time to go home. So home I went and felt content. It was a nice ride on a nice summer evening, and then I realized... you've got to WANT to run. Deep down inside, you've got to want to do each day of training. When it gets about just getting through what's on the training plan, thats when it gets to be no good. I think I've needed an extra day off for a while now, and now that I've taken it, I felt again that I wanted to run.
Sunday 06/22: 1:24:30, JPL adventure run. Longest long run yet. Instead of going to the waterfall, I went the way the signs pointed to Switzer/Brown Mtn. Unfortunately, I didn't have a whole lot of minutes left on the clock in which to explore, but found a nice extended scramble up a steep Bailey-esque narrow trail, that descended into a completely differently vegetated valley. Turned back at the next river crossing but really wanted to know how this linked up to all of these other trails. Was really nice, woke up 1 hour too late at 6 am, but it was unnaturally cooler in the forest and the temperature was just fine.
Took a short nap upon my return and went to hang out with John and Chris, who unfortunately confirmed my suspicion that the majority of the vegetation along that JPL trail was in fact poison oak. Gah, felt like my legs were itchy all day after that. We saw Get Smart, ate Pinkberry and discovered some cool new trails at the end of Lake Ave. Got in workout #2 of the day which involved running up as many giant dirt stairs as possible to get to the top of the mountain before we ran out of daylight. Didn't quite get to see what was at the top, but it was fantastic anyways. Kind of scary coming back down, but we made it!
Monday 06/23: Off. Shots. A really crummy day. Both of my arms swelled up alarmingly after my shots today. No idea why, things have been quiet on the shots end for a while now. There's too much work, and the reason I dislike delegating is that most of the time it doesn't get done the way I want it. Fortunately, I think I still have enough happy left from the weekend to avoid becoming completely irate.
Tuesday 06/24: 44:48, Monterrey to Bridge loop. Legs still a bit tight from Sunday's adventures, so I figured I'd give it an extra day before the tempo. From the slow pace, I'm going to guess it was the right decision. Still really struggling with insomnia during the night and inability to get up in the morning. It wasn't as hot as it's been, but generally the runs on the days I can't get up early enough just don't feel as good. Also bad--my arms are STILL swollen and sore from the damn reaction to the shots yesterday....
Wednesday 06/25: 54:48, warm up, 3 mile steady state, cool down. Especially bad today on waking up.... dragged my lazy ass out of bed a full 90 minutes after I was supposed to, and as a consequence was BOTH uncomfortably warm AND late for work... I had had a good feeling about this workout, but it turned out to be a complete disappointment. 21:31 for 3 miles (7:04, 7:14, 7:13) The worst part is that after the first mile, I felt like I had made a breakthrough, but then after 1.5 miles it quickly became apparent that the same pace was not going to be manageable at this "tempo" amount of effort. I would have been happy with 7:05's... 10 seconds per mile is noticeable improvement, but as it is, this is tantamount to NO improvement. I also felt renewed disgruntlement at the fact that I felt so much more left in my legs but that they are chained to this piece of crap cardiovascular system... which is why I seem to be permanently doomed to be running 7:15's.
Thursday 06/26: 42:32, Huntington/Virginia, started real easy, gradually sped up. My weekly 1 pavement run. On the bright side, I think my feet are kinda getting used to it... though on second thought almost half of this run is actually grass. Oh, well. Did ~half an hour worth of a medley of technical stuff afterwards at the track, high knees, butt kicks, striders and 2 x 200m accelerations. I think I've got a lot of disgruntled energy... bc I normally do not feel enthused to do striders, but today I felt like doing lots of them. Unfortunately also got exposed to a lot of freshly cut grass... so now my throat is raw, been coughing all day and breathing shallow. Damn piece of crap respiratory system/allergies.
Friday 06/27: Off. Shots. Meetings. They cut my dose on the shots bc of Monday's disaster, which is nice bc it didn't swell at all... but not nice in that it prolongs the number of weeks before I can get them just ONCE a week. I also have this hunch that my current work ratio of 25% analysis : 75% difficult person management is here to stay...
Saturday 06/28: 2:05:42, Epic Brown Mountain Half Marathon Adventure, ~1800 ft elevation gain. Ummm, what can I say... Ooops? If there was a sign on my forehead that displayed "X days since last poor training decision", X = 0 as of today. For what it's worth, it was glorious.
http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/?r=2030086
Let's just pretend that I mapped the return route, which is the same way that I came. Went the same way as the Millard Camp Ground route, except instead of descending to the campground, I took the left fork at the intersection to climb a little bit more up to the end of Brown Mountain Upper Mountainway. There were these beautiful narrow trails at the end of the fire road at the top... but since I had already grossly over-extended my "non foot aggravating running minutes" bank account, I had to squelch my curiosity and turn back.
As it turns out, it was kind of a long way home. I also made an unplanned detour and ended up at somebody's farm, which mapped conveniently to 0.8 miles, for a grand total of 13.1 miles. Felt good the whole way climbing up, the descending got old pretty quick, but all in all didn't feel like 2 hours, was definitely ready to be done by the time I got to my car, but it didn't feel like I was going to die or anything. I guess since I'm used to the Mt. Wilson trails, the fireroad felt friendly and not steep.
Training this week: 5:52:20... holy shit.
Goals: To not be driven crazy by work.
Sunday, June 22, 2008
Monday, June 16, 2008
Week of 06/15/2008 - 06/21/2008 (Base Week 14)
Where do bad runs go when they die?
They don't go to heaven where the angels fly... The question is though, do they actually end up in the Long Term Fitness Bank as debits or credits? I feel like we're conditioned to believe that the more pain you put in, the more speed you get out... but lately, I'm really not so sure.
Conventional wisdom says that you just have to maintain X amount of effort for Y number of minutes and it deposits into some long term fitness reserve... regardless of the speed at which that particular day's workout occurred, but the problem I have is that there are days that just don't fit that mold. There are days where no amount of slow makes it feel any less like dying... or no amount of effort makes the tempo run any faster, or where you simply don't even think your weary sleep deprived body will make it Y number of minutes at ANY effort level.
These sorts of scenarios didn't used to occur very frequently, but in my present state, they seem to occur alarmingly often... and so I find myself facing this question over and over again lately. I am the Queen of Long and Grueling, so if one day in the future, it will help me, then I'm willing to get through the bad runs, whatever it takes. The thing is, sometimes I wonder if you only dig your hole deeper. What if "getting through it" is what steadily creates a fatigue accumulation from which it takes longer and longer for your body to recover? Maybe there's an opportunity cost to obstinacy. I wish that some day I'll know when to suck it up and absorb the extra day off, or the one missed workout here and there such that I don't suddenly crash and require entire weeks worth of crappy slow runs just to get back to normal.
Sunday 06/15: 1:16:56, RB perimeter starting from California. Argh. Tired and hot. Hips, hamstrings sore, felt marginally better towards the end. About 10 minutes in, I distinctly felt that 1) I was really really thirsty and 2) I couldn't really imagine how I was going to get through the rest of this run. Then about 30 minutes in, R Plantar Fascia began to complain increasingly loudly. Sucked. Too exhausted to do anything else.
Monday 06/16: Off, shots. Insomnia continues. Exhausted, mentally.
Tuesday 06/17: 54:54, warm up, 4 x 800m with 1 lap jog rest, cool down. Kind of a "blah" workout, not horrible, but on the worse end of what I expected. I guess if the goal was to keep the 20 x 200m pace, I told myself I'd be okay with anything in the 3:20 range (assuming we stick to the base model of 50 s 200s) but I guess to be quite honest, what I primarily felt about the result was disappointment: 3:18 (96, 102), 3:20 (100, 100), 3:19 (100, 99), 3:19 (100, 99).
I guess that's kind of the trouble with setting time goals at all. 0:50/200m was an artificial construct to begin with, something that I backed out of the fact that the only guidance I got for this workout was that it was supposed to teach me to run tempo pace again, so I said, say 13:20 is a halfway decent 3 x 2 mile pace, which is the bulk of my upper threshold training, so 13:20/16 = 0:50. The problem is that it's really easy to run a little under 50's... a bit harder to run a little under 3:20, probably even harder to run a little under 6:40... and frankly right now, 13:20 for 2 miles is probably my all-out, dying pace. But the point is, that once you set a precedent of "beating" the goal times, its not very satisfying to run the goal times.
The other thing is that one could fundamentally question whether it was even fair of me to set this as "goal pace". 6:45 was once my tempo pace, but that was after 2 years of hard work and much more intense training than what I'm doing now. I guess if I'm honest with myself, even while knowing that the point of it is to practice running 100 second laps, I didn't WANT that. What I wanted was some indication that 100 second laps would start to feel like a pedestrian pace sometime SOONER rather than later, and needless to say, I didn't get that. Logically, I'm not even sure why I expected to get that.
I'm reminded now about a blog that Sara Hall wrote about the value of being able to have a short term memory. Sometimes, you need a short term memory in order to have mental health, and you need mental health in order to be the best you can be in the future. I know that the bulk of the disgruntlement that I feel about my training these days is because every step of the way from here until "where I used to be" feels excruciatingly like remedial math. No one WANTS to be in remedial math, when their classmates are in Calculus. Unfortunately, it's still not easy to cheerfully accept remedial math, even if you know its good for you.
Wednesday 06/18: 45:19, Monterrey to bridge. Sleeping problems continue, part of it is that it's still hot at night, part of it is that my mental state basically resembles a jungle and a quagmire... woke up late this morning and it was hot and I was massively dehydrated. I've learned better how to manage such situations, but I've concluded that I still don't enjoy them. Drank 3 glasses of water afterwards and still didn't feel quite right. Was also vaguely troubled by the fact that I used to be absolutely horrified that this run took 44 minutes when I was tired... but lately 45 and 46 minute performances have crept up... I almost want to gmaps it to know once and for all how bad the damage is. But must think short term memory, short term memory, short term memory.
Thursday 06/19: 45:22, Huntington/Virginia disaster. This is a run that might have been a good run, but one in which circumstances, unfortunately had other plans. Insomnia continues, resulting in waking up late, which pushed this run over into the evening (which I dislike to begin with). Add to that the fact that the thermometer was still having trouble dipping under 90, and having consumed about the greasiest cheesiest lunch one could imagine. I was already feeling sick after lunch, and running in the heat after that... I simply can't remember any other run that I've done where I was trying to shove down the violent urge to hurl every step of the way. Given that, I really just wanted to be done with this ASAP, so I thought that I was hurrying the best I could, and was honestly bowled over to see the time... it did NOT feel like I was going THAT slow, goodness gracious. Skipped the striders because I was absolutely sure I would hurl if I tried. Just wanted to be invisible, it was so awful. Screw all of this positive thinking crap. It just sucked.
Friday 06/20: Off, shots. Still feeling generally irate today. It's a combination of the sleeping problems and life problems. Oh, and it being 105 degrees every damn day. Argh.
Saturday 06/21: 2:04:20, 32.8 miles on the bike. Heat wave and sleep deprivation continue. Did not feel like running at all. Instead, had a nice breakfast of french toast with Cupcake and talked a lot about math. By 5 pm I felt inspired to ride, and so I did. Initially figured I would do an hour or so, just to get the legs moving, but ended up staying out there for 2 hours, trying to find my peace. 8 laps around the RB, pretty slow ~16 mph, but really enjoyed it. Forgot how different the bike is. It felt like the polar opposite of running, my legs were burning with the unfamiliar exhaustion, but no matter how hard I pushed, I didn't breathe hard at all, it was so strange, I had to sing along to my ipod bc I didn't know what to do with all of this breath. Legs were thoroughly, thoroughly worn out by the end, but I think it did my soul some good.
Goals: Judging from Sunday's run, I don't really think my body found last week very restful. Argh. This week will have to be played by ear.
They don't go to heaven where the angels fly... The question is though, do they actually end up in the Long Term Fitness Bank as debits or credits? I feel like we're conditioned to believe that the more pain you put in, the more speed you get out... but lately, I'm really not so sure.
Conventional wisdom says that you just have to maintain X amount of effort for Y number of minutes and it deposits into some long term fitness reserve... regardless of the speed at which that particular day's workout occurred, but the problem I have is that there are days that just don't fit that mold. There are days where no amount of slow makes it feel any less like dying... or no amount of effort makes the tempo run any faster, or where you simply don't even think your weary sleep deprived body will make it Y number of minutes at ANY effort level.
These sorts of scenarios didn't used to occur very frequently, but in my present state, they seem to occur alarmingly often... and so I find myself facing this question over and over again lately. I am the Queen of Long and Grueling, so if one day in the future, it will help me, then I'm willing to get through the bad runs, whatever it takes. The thing is, sometimes I wonder if you only dig your hole deeper. What if "getting through it" is what steadily creates a fatigue accumulation from which it takes longer and longer for your body to recover? Maybe there's an opportunity cost to obstinacy. I wish that some day I'll know when to suck it up and absorb the extra day off, or the one missed workout here and there such that I don't suddenly crash and require entire weeks worth of crappy slow runs just to get back to normal.
Sunday 06/15: 1:16:56, RB perimeter starting from California. Argh. Tired and hot. Hips, hamstrings sore, felt marginally better towards the end. About 10 minutes in, I distinctly felt that 1) I was really really thirsty and 2) I couldn't really imagine how I was going to get through the rest of this run. Then about 30 minutes in, R Plantar Fascia began to complain increasingly loudly. Sucked. Too exhausted to do anything else.
Monday 06/16: Off, shots. Insomnia continues. Exhausted, mentally.
Tuesday 06/17: 54:54, warm up, 4 x 800m with 1 lap jog rest, cool down. Kind of a "blah" workout, not horrible, but on the worse end of what I expected. I guess if the goal was to keep the 20 x 200m pace, I told myself I'd be okay with anything in the 3:20 range (assuming we stick to the base model of 50 s 200s) but I guess to be quite honest, what I primarily felt about the result was disappointment: 3:18 (96, 102), 3:20 (100, 100), 3:19 (100, 99), 3:19 (100, 99).
I guess that's kind of the trouble with setting time goals at all. 0:50/200m was an artificial construct to begin with, something that I backed out of the fact that the only guidance I got for this workout was that it was supposed to teach me to run tempo pace again, so I said, say 13:20 is a halfway decent 3 x 2 mile pace, which is the bulk of my upper threshold training, so 13:20/16 = 0:50. The problem is that it's really easy to run a little under 50's... a bit harder to run a little under 3:20, probably even harder to run a little under 6:40... and frankly right now, 13:20 for 2 miles is probably my all-out, dying pace. But the point is, that once you set a precedent of "beating" the goal times, its not very satisfying to run the goal times.
The other thing is that one could fundamentally question whether it was even fair of me to set this as "goal pace". 6:45 was once my tempo pace, but that was after 2 years of hard work and much more intense training than what I'm doing now. I guess if I'm honest with myself, even while knowing that the point of it is to practice running 100 second laps, I didn't WANT that. What I wanted was some indication that 100 second laps would start to feel like a pedestrian pace sometime SOONER rather than later, and needless to say, I didn't get that. Logically, I'm not even sure why I expected to get that.
I'm reminded now about a blog that Sara Hall wrote about the value of being able to have a short term memory. Sometimes, you need a short term memory in order to have mental health, and you need mental health in order to be the best you can be in the future. I know that the bulk of the disgruntlement that I feel about my training these days is because every step of the way from here until "where I used to be" feels excruciatingly like remedial math. No one WANTS to be in remedial math, when their classmates are in Calculus. Unfortunately, it's still not easy to cheerfully accept remedial math, even if you know its good for you.
Wednesday 06/18: 45:19, Monterrey to bridge. Sleeping problems continue, part of it is that it's still hot at night, part of it is that my mental state basically resembles a jungle and a quagmire... woke up late this morning and it was hot and I was massively dehydrated. I've learned better how to manage such situations, but I've concluded that I still don't enjoy them. Drank 3 glasses of water afterwards and still didn't feel quite right. Was also vaguely troubled by the fact that I used to be absolutely horrified that this run took 44 minutes when I was tired... but lately 45 and 46 minute performances have crept up... I almost want to gmaps it to know once and for all how bad the damage is. But must think short term memory, short term memory, short term memory.
Thursday 06/19: 45:22, Huntington/Virginia disaster. This is a run that might have been a good run, but one in which circumstances, unfortunately had other plans. Insomnia continues, resulting in waking up late, which pushed this run over into the evening (which I dislike to begin with). Add to that the fact that the thermometer was still having trouble dipping under 90, and having consumed about the greasiest cheesiest lunch one could imagine. I was already feeling sick after lunch, and running in the heat after that... I simply can't remember any other run that I've done where I was trying to shove down the violent urge to hurl every step of the way. Given that, I really just wanted to be done with this ASAP, so I thought that I was hurrying the best I could, and was honestly bowled over to see the time... it did NOT feel like I was going THAT slow, goodness gracious. Skipped the striders because I was absolutely sure I would hurl if I tried. Just wanted to be invisible, it was so awful. Screw all of this positive thinking crap. It just sucked.
Friday 06/20: Off, shots. Still feeling generally irate today. It's a combination of the sleeping problems and life problems. Oh, and it being 105 degrees every damn day. Argh.
Saturday 06/21: 2:04:20, 32.8 miles on the bike. Heat wave and sleep deprivation continue. Did not feel like running at all. Instead, had a nice breakfast of french toast with Cupcake and talked a lot about math. By 5 pm I felt inspired to ride, and so I did. Initially figured I would do an hour or so, just to get the legs moving, but ended up staying out there for 2 hours, trying to find my peace. 8 laps around the RB, pretty slow ~16 mph, but really enjoyed it. Forgot how different the bike is. It felt like the polar opposite of running, my legs were burning with the unfamiliar exhaustion, but no matter how hard I pushed, I didn't breathe hard at all, it was so strange, I had to sing along to my ipod bc I didn't know what to do with all of this breath. Legs were thoroughly, thoroughly worn out by the end, but I think it did my soul some good.
Goals: Judging from Sunday's run, I don't really think my body found last week very restful. Argh. This week will have to be played by ear.
Sunday, June 8, 2008
Week of 06/08/2008 - 06/14/2008 (Base Week 13)
OLD!
Yesterday when I was at tech to start my run, there were just old people everywhere and not a parking space to be found! Perplexed, I finally located the source of the commotion: "CA Senior Track and Field Championships" were apparently being contested at the Caltech track. Interesting. Most of the old folks looked jolly and happy to be there, but there were a few... the very, very serious, ones... determined and frowning....
I guess this is what happens after Masters racing. I couldn't help but wonder... do I really want this? Is this what's going to happen to me if I don't get my shit together and deal with some running demons now. I kinda, actually I really want to be retired from competitive racing by the time I'm 75. Racing to me is an incredible emotional commitment more than anything else. You do to some degree push away other emotional commitments in order to be the best you can be. I don't know if that's what I want for the rest of my life. When I'm all old and wrinkly, I want to just run whenever I want and do other things whenever I want--play with grand kids, water the plants, cook for the family, go on a trip ... not trundling day in and day out on my walker so that I can beat so and so for the 90-95 age bracket world record in the 400m hobble.
Sunday 06/08: 1:08:21, Monterrey to RB. Thus the down week begins. A slow run, but an enjoyable shortened long day. Basically, I woke up today at 12:59 pm (after getting home from a wedding at 2 am, after a whole week of sleep deprivation) just in time to mash enough buttons on the TV for it to display the Prefontaine Classic. Of course they didn't bother to tell us anything about what happened with the Bekele/Defar world record attempts, but anyways... somehow I was still so tired that I was falling asleep during the commercials. I dunno, I guess this is what happens when you get old. This wasn't even like Caltech sleep deprivation, just a steady stream of late nights and 5-6 hours of sleep, but my body was totally trashed by today. I woke up and my legs were completely sore and stiff, despite very slow running or no running for the past 3 days. Shoulders were tight, general headachey, body-achey awfulness.
For this reason, my goal for this down week's long run was just to run as slow as I needed to feel good and loosen up all of the things that were complaining, which I did, and felt a lot better and stronger by the end. A cute little girl in a pink dress took a shine to me as well, and ran up the little hill at the far end of the Arroyo Tempo Loop with me. She said her name was Gabriella, and her parents were excited that she was already running. I hope she grows up to be a runner some day.
Monday 06/09: Off, shots. Argh, massive gastrointestinal issues, food poisoning (?) couldn't sleep, felt barfy all day. Didn't really eat much of anything. Horrible.
Tuesday 06/10: 46:24, Monterrey to bridge. Still felt a little bit barfy, but mostly just weak. Maybe bc of the not eating. Crawled through this short run, no hope of doing the scheduled Tuesday tempo workout.
Wednesday 06/11: 48:09, warm up, 2 mile steady state, cool down. In retrospect I wish that I had pushed this off until tomorrow... but what it really comes down to is that I wish that I had a better understanding of my body and more control over my emotional state to be able to make good decisions for where I currently am. In this case, the benefit of being more recovered from food poisoning should have been more than the benefit of having the extra day between tempo day and the longer harder runs that I tend to want to do on the weekends... but I chose wrong, because I like to believe I can do more on any given day than I really can, and it greatly irked me to have to potentially push back some of the other workouts I'd planned.
In observance of the down week, but more bc I still felt crappy, shrank down the planned 3 miles to 2 miles: 7:10,7:15, except worse feeling than the 3 mile steady state that I did a while back. So much for improvement. I am also disgruntled about the fact that my threshold pace appears to be still 30 seconds/mile slower than what I would like it to be. That just feels like a really big gap to fill... meh.
Thursday 06/12: 44:30, Monterrey to bridge again. Crappy but some improvement. Basically, how hard it is to get out of bed is probably the best indicator of when runs won't go well. It was still really hard today, but at least it didn't feel quite as much like I was going to die as some other days. I guess this is another data point to support that "what's wrong" with me is systemic, instead of weak legs, diminished lung capacity, etc. I actually do feel like those things have made a lot of progress, progress that isn't always reflected in my workouts, which is frustrating.
Friday 06/13: Off, shots. Friday the 13th! Nothing too scary, save for the amount of food that I consumed today. Felt sick. Argh.
Saturday 06/14: 43:06, Huntington/Virginia at about noon, 85 and sunny. Not my favorite conditions, but took it real easy and the heat didn't bother me at all, surprisingly. A good chunk of technical stuff that I've been neglecting lately afterwards, plus 2 x 200m accelerations, focusing on turnover. Learned something that might have been of use to me 5 years ago in my brief sprinting career: apparently one's go-fast muscles are in your butt. That's what started cramping when I tried to kick up the turnover. It's a little bit scary to think that I don't really recall using these muscles ever before.
Training this week: 4:10:30
Goals: To sleep and recover to be able to go into this next weekend strong.
Yesterday when I was at tech to start my run, there were just old people everywhere and not a parking space to be found! Perplexed, I finally located the source of the commotion: "CA Senior Track and Field Championships" were apparently being contested at the Caltech track. Interesting. Most of the old folks looked jolly and happy to be there, but there were a few... the very, very serious, ones... determined and frowning....
I guess this is what happens after Masters racing. I couldn't help but wonder... do I really want this? Is this what's going to happen to me if I don't get my shit together and deal with some running demons now. I kinda, actually I really want to be retired from competitive racing by the time I'm 75. Racing to me is an incredible emotional commitment more than anything else. You do to some degree push away other emotional commitments in order to be the best you can be. I don't know if that's what I want for the rest of my life. When I'm all old and wrinkly, I want to just run whenever I want and do other things whenever I want--play with grand kids, water the plants, cook for the family, go on a trip ... not trundling day in and day out on my walker so that I can beat so and so for the 90-95 age bracket world record in the 400m hobble.
Sunday 06/08: 1:08:21, Monterrey to RB. Thus the down week begins. A slow run, but an enjoyable shortened long day. Basically, I woke up today at 12:59 pm (after getting home from a wedding at 2 am, after a whole week of sleep deprivation) just in time to mash enough buttons on the TV for it to display the Prefontaine Classic. Of course they didn't bother to tell us anything about what happened with the Bekele/Defar world record attempts, but anyways... somehow I was still so tired that I was falling asleep during the commercials. I dunno, I guess this is what happens when you get old. This wasn't even like Caltech sleep deprivation, just a steady stream of late nights and 5-6 hours of sleep, but my body was totally trashed by today. I woke up and my legs were completely sore and stiff, despite very slow running or no running for the past 3 days. Shoulders were tight, general headachey, body-achey awfulness.
For this reason, my goal for this down week's long run was just to run as slow as I needed to feel good and loosen up all of the things that were complaining, which I did, and felt a lot better and stronger by the end. A cute little girl in a pink dress took a shine to me as well, and ran up the little hill at the far end of the Arroyo Tempo Loop with me. She said her name was Gabriella, and her parents were excited that she was already running. I hope she grows up to be a runner some day.
Monday 06/09: Off, shots. Argh, massive gastrointestinal issues, food poisoning (?) couldn't sleep, felt barfy all day. Didn't really eat much of anything. Horrible.
Tuesday 06/10: 46:24, Monterrey to bridge. Still felt a little bit barfy, but mostly just weak. Maybe bc of the not eating. Crawled through this short run, no hope of doing the scheduled Tuesday tempo workout.
Wednesday 06/11: 48:09, warm up, 2 mile steady state, cool down. In retrospect I wish that I had pushed this off until tomorrow... but what it really comes down to is that I wish that I had a better understanding of my body and more control over my emotional state to be able to make good decisions for where I currently am. In this case, the benefit of being more recovered from food poisoning should have been more than the benefit of having the extra day between tempo day and the longer harder runs that I tend to want to do on the weekends... but I chose wrong, because I like to believe I can do more on any given day than I really can, and it greatly irked me to have to potentially push back some of the other workouts I'd planned.
In observance of the down week, but more bc I still felt crappy, shrank down the planned 3 miles to 2 miles: 7:10,7:15, except worse feeling than the 3 mile steady state that I did a while back. So much for improvement. I am also disgruntled about the fact that my threshold pace appears to be still 30 seconds/mile slower than what I would like it to be. That just feels like a really big gap to fill... meh.
Thursday 06/12: 44:30, Monterrey to bridge again. Crappy but some improvement. Basically, how hard it is to get out of bed is probably the best indicator of when runs won't go well. It was still really hard today, but at least it didn't feel quite as much like I was going to die as some other days. I guess this is another data point to support that "what's wrong" with me is systemic, instead of weak legs, diminished lung capacity, etc. I actually do feel like those things have made a lot of progress, progress that isn't always reflected in my workouts, which is frustrating.
Friday 06/13: Off, shots. Friday the 13th! Nothing too scary, save for the amount of food that I consumed today. Felt sick. Argh.
Saturday 06/14: 43:06, Huntington/Virginia at about noon, 85 and sunny. Not my favorite conditions, but took it real easy and the heat didn't bother me at all, surprisingly. A good chunk of technical stuff that I've been neglecting lately afterwards, plus 2 x 200m accelerations, focusing on turnover. Learned something that might have been of use to me 5 years ago in my brief sprinting career: apparently one's go-fast muscles are in your butt. That's what started cramping when I tried to kick up the turnover. It's a little bit scary to think that I don't really recall using these muscles ever before.
Training this week: 4:10:30
Goals: To sleep and recover to be able to go into this next weekend strong.
Sunday, June 1, 2008
Week of 06/01/2008 - 06/07/2008 (Base Week 12)
Getting there...
Things are improving (knock on wood!). I really tried, and its hard for a obsessively competitive person--to take Markkimarkkonnen's advice that every run should be its own reward to heart. I think last week's breakthrough, other than the increase in training minutes, is that I'm rediscovering the joy of running, feeling a little bit more of that "what's behind the next bend" intrigue of trying new routes and just enjoying the steps I take, instead of constantly hashing and rehashing what this means to The Plan, and how I'm doing that day.
Coincidentally or not, I'm also feeling a lot stronger. I feel like the runs that turn out the best are the ones that I really feel like doing. Within certain parameters, maybe sometimes it is good to listen to my moods and the runs I'd like to do that day. I was a bit worried after the unplanned Saturday longer run, how that would affect my Sunday long run, but surprisingly, I felt great. I'm really encouraged to know that I can do back to back solid runs now!
Sunday 06/01: 1:11:43, California around RB and back. I can usually tell within the first 10 minutes of a run, what kind of a run it's going to be, and I could tell early on that this was going to be a good one. Felt easy and coordinated for a change, legs strong, upper body relaxed, no breathing troubles, it seems like the yellow flowers are starting to subside a little bit. It just felt so very fantastic to feel like running was a natural, non taxing activity, that my legs just moved effortlessly over the terrain. Coming back on the other side of the RB, you can see the runners down below on the pavement, and my competitive instinct kicked in there, evidence that my spirit is actually not completely broken. I was pleasantly surprised that I could smoothly accelerate and pass them one by one, chasing them until I got back to the fields and the entrance to the Arroyo. It felt good, and it didn't seem to strain my breathing at all. Went pretty easy the rest of the way. A good run.
Monday 06/02: Off, shots. Tai Chi in the morning with Intern. It was great! It requires balance and coordination, which I lack in abundance. I think I will try to make a habit of doing this on shot days. Hamstrings oddly sore in the PM, wonder if it has to do with trying to hold all of those leg kicks and etc.
Tuesday 06/03: 1:14:56, warm up, 20 x 200m with 200m jog rest, cool down. This was both harder and easier than I thought it would be. In retrospect, I guess I was a little bit more tired for this than I would have liked, but overall, I think I got what I wanted out of it. Getting through the 7 warm up laps on the grass took a lot longer than usual, and it was really tough to control the pacing on the first 5 (I thought about them in 4 sets of 5 even though there was no break in between sets), so I was actually pretty concerned at that point. If this is what 5 feels like, how will I feel on 20? If this is what 200m feels like, how will I complete my 800's (next session)... yikes. I settled down after 5 though and it turned out alright:
46, 51, 49, 50, 49, 48, 48, 47, 47, 47, 47, 48, 47, 47, 48, 48, 47, 48, 48, 43.5 on an average of 2:02-3 lap cycles for 40:46 for 20 laps. I'm actually really pleased that I was able to remember these 20 numbers (GRE here I come!). I wanted consistency on the tempo parts, and to really just keep on moving through the jog parts and I think I got that. 6-19 were all about the same in terms of pace, lap time and how they felt, which is exactly what I wanted. On the last one, I was kind of just curious to see what I had left, since even at my best I am She-Who-Has-No-Kick (aka the opposite of KB). Ran the turn like the other ones, and accelerated into the straightaway for probably the best 100m I've ever run in my life. Apparently I do have a significantly faster gear, and it felt smooth, easy and fantastic. I think the breakthrough was about thinking "faster turnover" instead of "more effort", and the speed comes more easily, and the everything else feels more controlled.
Wednesday 06/04: 42:04, Monterrey to bridge loop in the PM. Had to go shadow a principal for the day, which meant leaving the house at 6:30 AM, which meant, no morning run. Run was very chill, pleasant, though I guess the advantage of the morning is that there aren't little kids and horses and other stuff that blocks the trail out there. Definitely aware that my legs feel a little bit beat up, but was pleased that the runtime was still on the better end of the spectrum of previous results. Even so, I've had a lot of volume in the past few weeks, I think I'll go easy through end of this week, and try to do a chill but longer run on Sunday so I can not be exhausted for whatever Tuesday is... maybe steady-state since I don't quite feel mentally prepared for 800's, even if its just at threshold pace.
Thursday 06/05: 53:10, California to Salvia Canyon. Yikes. I have to say, since the past week or so has been pretty encouraging, at the back of my mind, I've been wondering when the other shoe was going to fall... and fall it did today. Was falling asleep at the wheel yesterday and just had a lot of trouble waking up today, already bad indications... just felt really systemically tired this morning. Legs felt okay, just the whole system wouldn't move. Felt better during the second half, but I guess it didn't really make up for running the first half at like 10 minute miles...
Friday 06/06: Off, shots. Stressed and sleep deprived, argh!
Saturday 06/07: 45:34, Huntington/Virginia disaster. Body feeling kind of beat up from all of the stress, lack of sleep and etc. these days, so decided to start my down week one day early by cutting this run down from planned Huntington/Oak Knoll. Good thing too, bc I started off feeling barfy and then got this side stitch that wouldn't work itself out and it was pretty miserable and slow. Not that I was feeling particularly great before the side stitch, it felt a lot warmer than I would have preferred. I also saw Rachael Martin of CMS running on the Sierra Madre median, she had a look of vague recognition when she saw me, but I didn't want to freak her out by saying "hi Rachael". I guess I'm also weary of running into competitive runners (vs. exercise runners) if I'm having a particularly ugly day, which today definitely was.
Training this week: 4:47:27, 3 pretty heavy weeks in a row... definitely need a down week.
Goals: Not to go crazy and overdo it, now that I'm feeling better.
Things are improving (knock on wood!). I really tried, and its hard for a obsessively competitive person--to take Markkimarkkonnen's advice that every run should be its own reward to heart. I think last week's breakthrough, other than the increase in training minutes, is that I'm rediscovering the joy of running, feeling a little bit more of that "what's behind the next bend" intrigue of trying new routes and just enjoying the steps I take, instead of constantly hashing and rehashing what this means to The Plan, and how I'm doing that day.
Coincidentally or not, I'm also feeling a lot stronger. I feel like the runs that turn out the best are the ones that I really feel like doing. Within certain parameters, maybe sometimes it is good to listen to my moods and the runs I'd like to do that day. I was a bit worried after the unplanned Saturday longer run, how that would affect my Sunday long run, but surprisingly, I felt great. I'm really encouraged to know that I can do back to back solid runs now!
Sunday 06/01: 1:11:43, California around RB and back. I can usually tell within the first 10 minutes of a run, what kind of a run it's going to be, and I could tell early on that this was going to be a good one. Felt easy and coordinated for a change, legs strong, upper body relaxed, no breathing troubles, it seems like the yellow flowers are starting to subside a little bit. It just felt so very fantastic to feel like running was a natural, non taxing activity, that my legs just moved effortlessly over the terrain. Coming back on the other side of the RB, you can see the runners down below on the pavement, and my competitive instinct kicked in there, evidence that my spirit is actually not completely broken. I was pleasantly surprised that I could smoothly accelerate and pass them one by one, chasing them until I got back to the fields and the entrance to the Arroyo. It felt good, and it didn't seem to strain my breathing at all. Went pretty easy the rest of the way. A good run.
Monday 06/02: Off, shots. Tai Chi in the morning with Intern. It was great! It requires balance and coordination, which I lack in abundance. I think I will try to make a habit of doing this on shot days. Hamstrings oddly sore in the PM, wonder if it has to do with trying to hold all of those leg kicks and etc.
Tuesday 06/03: 1:14:56, warm up, 20 x 200m with 200m jog rest, cool down. This was both harder and easier than I thought it would be. In retrospect, I guess I was a little bit more tired for this than I would have liked, but overall, I think I got what I wanted out of it. Getting through the 7 warm up laps on the grass took a lot longer than usual, and it was really tough to control the pacing on the first 5 (I thought about them in 4 sets of 5 even though there was no break in between sets), so I was actually pretty concerned at that point. If this is what 5 feels like, how will I feel on 20? If this is what 200m feels like, how will I complete my 800's (next session)... yikes. I settled down after 5 though and it turned out alright:
46, 51, 49, 50, 49, 48, 48, 47, 47, 47, 47, 48, 47, 47, 48, 48, 47, 48, 48, 43.5 on an average of 2:02-3 lap cycles for 40:46 for 20 laps. I'm actually really pleased that I was able to remember these 20 numbers (GRE here I come!). I wanted consistency on the tempo parts, and to really just keep on moving through the jog parts and I think I got that. 6-19 were all about the same in terms of pace, lap time and how they felt, which is exactly what I wanted. On the last one, I was kind of just curious to see what I had left, since even at my best I am She-Who-Has-No-Kick (aka the opposite of KB). Ran the turn like the other ones, and accelerated into the straightaway for probably the best 100m I've ever run in my life. Apparently I do have a significantly faster gear, and it felt smooth, easy and fantastic. I think the breakthrough was about thinking "faster turnover" instead of "more effort", and the speed comes more easily, and the everything else feels more controlled.
Wednesday 06/04: 42:04, Monterrey to bridge loop in the PM. Had to go shadow a principal for the day, which meant leaving the house at 6:30 AM, which meant, no morning run. Run was very chill, pleasant, though I guess the advantage of the morning is that there aren't little kids and horses and other stuff that blocks the trail out there. Definitely aware that my legs feel a little bit beat up, but was pleased that the runtime was still on the better end of the spectrum of previous results. Even so, I've had a lot of volume in the past few weeks, I think I'll go easy through end of this week, and try to do a chill but longer run on Sunday so I can not be exhausted for whatever Tuesday is... maybe steady-state since I don't quite feel mentally prepared for 800's, even if its just at threshold pace.
Thursday 06/05: 53:10, California to Salvia Canyon. Yikes. I have to say, since the past week or so has been pretty encouraging, at the back of my mind, I've been wondering when the other shoe was going to fall... and fall it did today. Was falling asleep at the wheel yesterday and just had a lot of trouble waking up today, already bad indications... just felt really systemically tired this morning. Legs felt okay, just the whole system wouldn't move. Felt better during the second half, but I guess it didn't really make up for running the first half at like 10 minute miles...
Friday 06/06: Off, shots. Stressed and sleep deprived, argh!
Saturday 06/07: 45:34, Huntington/Virginia disaster. Body feeling kind of beat up from all of the stress, lack of sleep and etc. these days, so decided to start my down week one day early by cutting this run down from planned Huntington/Oak Knoll. Good thing too, bc I started off feeling barfy and then got this side stitch that wouldn't work itself out and it was pretty miserable and slow. Not that I was feeling particularly great before the side stitch, it felt a lot warmer than I would have preferred. I also saw Rachael Martin of CMS running on the Sierra Madre median, she had a look of vague recognition when she saw me, but I didn't want to freak her out by saying "hi Rachael". I guess I'm also weary of running into competitive runners (vs. exercise runners) if I'm having a particularly ugly day, which today definitely was.
Training this week: 4:47:27, 3 pretty heavy weeks in a row... definitely need a down week.
Goals: Not to go crazy and overdo it, now that I'm feeling better.
Monday, May 26, 2008
Week of 05/25/2008 - 05/31/2008 (Base Week 11)
Baby Rabbit and Wormhole?
Once upon a time in a field near Denver, lived a large population of rabbits that roamed the plains and also the yards of folk who lived nearby. Now that spring has come, the rabbits produced baby rabbits, and when I came to visit Peter, I fell in love with them instantly.
In our excursions to spot the tiny baby rabbits, we often noticed them clamber through a hole cut out in a brick wall to allow rain water to drain out of a patio. Strangely enough, however, whenever the rabbits would climb through the hole, we could never ever find them on the other side. Even when one of us stood on the outside to witness the rabbit go through, and the other stood inside the patio waiting for it to appear...
The mystery continued for 2 days, I inspected the passageway, but found the sides of the hole to be solid... strange indeed. Sadly enough however, before I could alert the theoretical physicists that a worm hole had opened up that allowed the passage of baby rabbits into distant parts of the universe... Peter examined the hole in the wall again and declared that there was a secret passageway directly UP from the opening, and somehow the rabbits were climbing into the wall itself. I suppose I will have to find some other way to be remembered in the annals of scientific discovery than to be the first person to find a real functional wormhole...
Sunday 05/25: 1:18:39, River path to end of golf course. First Colorado solo driving... I think I angered many fellow drivers with my inept bungling through construction, poorly marked lanes, and bad eyesight combined with small unreadable street signs. Path was nice and placid except for the occasional road crossing, and golf cart route crossing. Went real easy about 42 minutes out and back mostly the same way. Gently rolling terrain, since nothing is really truly ever flat out here. I think I unintentionally scared about 20 rabbits on my way.
Monday 05/26: 50:18, Wildcat Trail out by Peter's house. Trails out here are so strange, and oddly situated around housing complexes, highways and other such non nature-like things. This one was pretty nice, if one could get over the creepy crackling of overhead power lines. Terrain was neat and hilly though and seemed to go on for a long time. I'm starting to think that ALL runs out here have the property of seeming to be mostly uphill in BOTH directions.
Tuesday 05/27: Off, shots, traveling. A lot of work and not a lot of sleep. Stressed and bummed out feeling. Meh.
Wednesday 05/28: 42:45, Monterrey to bridge loop at 6:30 am after a little less than 5 hours of sleep (and 3 hours the day before). Hard to get up but I felt motivated to do this run today. Usually I feel really tired and awful after a travel day, so decided to do the easy run today, and tempo tomorrow. L foot/ankle feeling a bit balky today, but otherwise a pleasant run.
Thursday 05/29: 55:59, warm up, 3 mile steady state on track, cool down. 3 miles in 21:35 (7:11.5, 7:08.6, 7:14.7) slooooooooow, but you know, all told I'm okay with it. Definitely way faster than anything I've done this year, and running faster than a trundle feels good. It feels unfamiliar, for sure, but good.
I still get really excited and nervous when I get on the track, ran a surprisingly fast first lap, freaked out about the split, then forced myself to settle down on the second, but after that the 7:10-ish pace felt really even, controlled and easy for the first 2 miles. I think my body just quit after 2 miles though, because that last mile felt pretty awful even if the slowdown factor doesn't look that bad on paper--I wondered if its because the only uptempo running I've been doing for the past year or so is 1 Arroyo Tempo loop, which takes 11-12 minutes. So after 2 miles, my body was just like screw this, I'm done. Or, maybe there's no reason and this is just where I am right now, and I just have to focus on expanding my cardiovascular endurance, because I know my legs are strong, and they felt good today.
Friday 05/30: Off, shots. Tired. Delicious curry noodles.
Saturday 05/31: 1:10:39, JPL to waterfall. Today was supposed to be 40-50 minutes moderate... but I woke up in the morning and the first thing that popped into my head was that I would really like to run at JPL today. I haven't been out there in some 2-3 years, but for whatever reason that was the inspiration of the day. Apparently things have changed, like the first bridge has collapsed and there seemed to be tons more water crossings that I ever imagined, but I still did remember Super Scary Bridge and Giant Flat Rock. Ran real easy and had to stop often to fall inadvertently into the river on my way across, so hopefully I can still do my "long" run tomorrow.
Goals: To get in one good faster paced day. I'm happy with the amount of training time out in Colorado, but its basically set up to be really slow, with the hills and the altitude.
Training this week: 4:58:20 volume PR thanks to JPL adventure... logged a lot of minutes, got in a tempo, got to see some new scenery. A good week.
Once upon a time in a field near Denver, lived a large population of rabbits that roamed the plains and also the yards of folk who lived nearby. Now that spring has come, the rabbits produced baby rabbits, and when I came to visit Peter, I fell in love with them instantly.
In our excursions to spot the tiny baby rabbits, we often noticed them clamber through a hole cut out in a brick wall to allow rain water to drain out of a patio. Strangely enough, however, whenever the rabbits would climb through the hole, we could never ever find them on the other side. Even when one of us stood on the outside to witness the rabbit go through, and the other stood inside the patio waiting for it to appear...
The mystery continued for 2 days, I inspected the passageway, but found the sides of the hole to be solid... strange indeed. Sadly enough however, before I could alert the theoretical physicists that a worm hole had opened up that allowed the passage of baby rabbits into distant parts of the universe... Peter examined the hole in the wall again and declared that there was a secret passageway directly UP from the opening, and somehow the rabbits were climbing into the wall itself. I suppose I will have to find some other way to be remembered in the annals of scientific discovery than to be the first person to find a real functional wormhole...
Sunday 05/25: 1:18:39, River path to end of golf course. First Colorado solo driving... I think I angered many fellow drivers with my inept bungling through construction, poorly marked lanes, and bad eyesight combined with small unreadable street signs. Path was nice and placid except for the occasional road crossing, and golf cart route crossing. Went real easy about 42 minutes out and back mostly the same way. Gently rolling terrain, since nothing is really truly ever flat out here. I think I unintentionally scared about 20 rabbits on my way.
Monday 05/26: 50:18, Wildcat Trail out by Peter's house. Trails out here are so strange, and oddly situated around housing complexes, highways and other such non nature-like things. This one was pretty nice, if one could get over the creepy crackling of overhead power lines. Terrain was neat and hilly though and seemed to go on for a long time. I'm starting to think that ALL runs out here have the property of seeming to be mostly uphill in BOTH directions.
Tuesday 05/27: Off, shots, traveling. A lot of work and not a lot of sleep. Stressed and bummed out feeling. Meh.
Wednesday 05/28: 42:45, Monterrey to bridge loop at 6:30 am after a little less than 5 hours of sleep (and 3 hours the day before). Hard to get up but I felt motivated to do this run today. Usually I feel really tired and awful after a travel day, so decided to do the easy run today, and tempo tomorrow. L foot/ankle feeling a bit balky today, but otherwise a pleasant run.
Thursday 05/29: 55:59, warm up, 3 mile steady state on track, cool down. 3 miles in 21:35 (7:11.5, 7:08.6, 7:14.7) slooooooooow, but you know, all told I'm okay with it. Definitely way faster than anything I've done this year, and running faster than a trundle feels good. It feels unfamiliar, for sure, but good.
I still get really excited and nervous when I get on the track, ran a surprisingly fast first lap, freaked out about the split, then forced myself to settle down on the second, but after that the 7:10-ish pace felt really even, controlled and easy for the first 2 miles. I think my body just quit after 2 miles though, because that last mile felt pretty awful even if the slowdown factor doesn't look that bad on paper--I wondered if its because the only uptempo running I've been doing for the past year or so is 1 Arroyo Tempo loop, which takes 11-12 minutes. So after 2 miles, my body was just like screw this, I'm done. Or, maybe there's no reason and this is just where I am right now, and I just have to focus on expanding my cardiovascular endurance, because I know my legs are strong, and they felt good today.
Friday 05/30: Off, shots. Tired. Delicious curry noodles.
Saturday 05/31: 1:10:39, JPL to waterfall. Today was supposed to be 40-50 minutes moderate... but I woke up in the morning and the first thing that popped into my head was that I would really like to run at JPL today. I haven't been out there in some 2-3 years, but for whatever reason that was the inspiration of the day. Apparently things have changed, like the first bridge has collapsed and there seemed to be tons more water crossings that I ever imagined, but I still did remember Super Scary Bridge and Giant Flat Rock. Ran real easy and had to stop often to fall inadvertently into the river on my way across, so hopefully I can still do my "long" run tomorrow.
Goals: To get in one good faster paced day. I'm happy with the amount of training time out in Colorado, but its basically set up to be really slow, with the hills and the altitude.
Training this week: 4:58:20 volume PR thanks to JPL adventure... logged a lot of minutes, got in a tempo, got to see some new scenery. A good week.
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
Week of 05/18/2008 - 05/24/2008 (Base Week 10)
Does anyone NOT feel like they didn't make the most of their Caltech education??? Actually, let's not answer that.
1) Accept that you are responsible for where you are... or... aren't
2) Stop running away from weaknesses
3) .....
Damn, this sucks. Usually how running is going affects everything else in my life. Lately, it seems like the "everything else" part is affecting my running.
Sunday 05/18: 1:10:13, RB to JPL and back. Started 1 hour earlier than yesterday so only 93 degrees this time. While I may not be improving on the metric of "getting lazy ass out of bed at a reasonable hour", to my credit I am learning the basics of running in the heat. In the past most runs in the 85+ degree range have resulted in one of two outcomes: 1) uncontrollable wheezing and exhaustion resulting in the need to walk back or 2) lying in bed the whole rest of the day with heatstroke. As a result, I go to great lengths to avoid running when it's hot--waiting until it's past midnight, running indoors on a treadmill, judicious swapping of off days, etc. In the spirit of confronting one's weaknesses though, I decided that this is not good for my development as a runner, and that the ability to deal with adverse race conditions is something I should strive to cultivate.
Basically, the rules of the game are: drink much much more than you think you need, and start at a pace that feels slow (cuz in 10 minutes that pace will feel really crappy). I had to make a detour to run around looking for the water fountain at JPL that Ryan showed me, and I felt really, really, painfully dehydrated within 10 minutes of that anyways... but I made it. 35 minutes out, 35 back. No asthma attacks and even pacing. I'll call that a victory.
Monday 05/19: Off, shots. Feeling extra bummed today :(
Tuesday 05/20: 56:14, warm up, 12 x 200m with 200 jog rest, cool down -- not the sprinter work out, this is the "out of shape distance runner" workout. I remembered that I did this early on in the year in 2007 and didn't feel like I got much out of it, so I went back and asked Peter what the purpose of this was, and he said it was basically like a "practice" tempo run, like a stepping stone between striders and long intervals/steady state tempos. It's the whole idea that its beneficial to move one's legs at faster paces even if you don't yet have the cardiovascular capacity to sustain it.
That said, I decided to aim for threshold tempo run "goal pace" and focus on keeping the jog rest part still like running instead of like that shuffling as slowly as you can until you're totally 100% recovered jog. Had no idea how I'd feel, so I went in with the goal of running 50's (~6:40 pace) and having it feel sustainable and good. Ended up: 49, 49, 48, 49, 47, 47.5, 48, 47, 46, 47, 46, 43 on about 2:00 - 2: 10 per lap cycles.
48's and 49's felt perfect, didn't breathe hard, felt like I could do tons and tons of these, which is how I would want to feel about 200m of tempo pace. Supposedly the next session is 20 x 200m, so I figure I should make more of an effort to run 50's for the first 10 of these.
Wednesday 05/21: 44:24, Monterrey to bridge. Couldn't get out of bed this morning, felt awful. Legs felt much more tired that I would have liked. Sloppy and slow. Not a great run.
Thursday 05/22: 53:08, Huntington/Oak Knoll. Tried by sheer force of will to make this a good run, and failed. Today, legs were okay but the rest of me felt barfy and bad. I couldn't figure out what it felt like exactly, it mostly felt like all of the parts of my running "system" just weren't working harmoniously to move me forwards. Towards the end it just felt like my legs were moving on their own and the rest of me was just getting dragged along, flopping around awkwardly in the wind.
Felt pretty dejected... so complained to Markkimarkonnen about how I wasted my undergraduate career instead of doing my striders and quick steps. Bleh. Gotta snap out of this.
Friday 05/23: Off, shots, traveling. L ankle, ball of foot unhappy after yesterday.
Saturday 05/24: 55:09, random hilly trail up to Griggs Road in Colorado. Same one I did a few months ago here, but with less ice. It was tough in the altitude but it was a nice, peaceful, enjoyable run. I'm glad I chose this one instead of trying to do something tempo-y.
Training this week: 4 hours 39 minutes
I didn't realize it was that much because I haven't been keeping track lately. Maybe I should cut myself some slack for feeling tired-er than usual...
Goals: to not go crazy...
1) Accept that you are responsible for where you are... or... aren't
2) Stop running away from weaknesses
3) .....
Damn, this sucks. Usually how running is going affects everything else in my life. Lately, it seems like the "everything else" part is affecting my running.
Sunday 05/18: 1:10:13, RB to JPL and back. Started 1 hour earlier than yesterday so only 93 degrees this time. While I may not be improving on the metric of "getting lazy ass out of bed at a reasonable hour", to my credit I am learning the basics of running in the heat. In the past most runs in the 85+ degree range have resulted in one of two outcomes: 1) uncontrollable wheezing and exhaustion resulting in the need to walk back or 2) lying in bed the whole rest of the day with heatstroke. As a result, I go to great lengths to avoid running when it's hot--waiting until it's past midnight, running indoors on a treadmill, judicious swapping of off days, etc. In the spirit of confronting one's weaknesses though, I decided that this is not good for my development as a runner, and that the ability to deal with adverse race conditions is something I should strive to cultivate.
Basically, the rules of the game are: drink much much more than you think you need, and start at a pace that feels slow (cuz in 10 minutes that pace will feel really crappy). I had to make a detour to run around looking for the water fountain at JPL that Ryan showed me, and I felt really, really, painfully dehydrated within 10 minutes of that anyways... but I made it. 35 minutes out, 35 back. No asthma attacks and even pacing. I'll call that a victory.
Monday 05/19: Off, shots. Feeling extra bummed today :(
Tuesday 05/20: 56:14, warm up, 12 x 200m with 200 jog rest, cool down -- not the sprinter work out, this is the "out of shape distance runner" workout. I remembered that I did this early on in the year in 2007 and didn't feel like I got much out of it, so I went back and asked Peter what the purpose of this was, and he said it was basically like a "practice" tempo run, like a stepping stone between striders and long intervals/steady state tempos. It's the whole idea that its beneficial to move one's legs at faster paces even if you don't yet have the cardiovascular capacity to sustain it.
That said, I decided to aim for threshold tempo run "goal pace" and focus on keeping the jog rest part still like running instead of like that shuffling as slowly as you can until you're totally 100% recovered jog. Had no idea how I'd feel, so I went in with the goal of running 50's (~6:40 pace) and having it feel sustainable and good. Ended up: 49, 49, 48, 49, 47, 47.5, 48, 47, 46, 47, 46, 43 on about 2:00 - 2: 10 per lap cycles.
48's and 49's felt perfect, didn't breathe hard, felt like I could do tons and tons of these, which is how I would want to feel about 200m of tempo pace. Supposedly the next session is 20 x 200m, so I figure I should make more of an effort to run 50's for the first 10 of these.
Wednesday 05/21: 44:24, Monterrey to bridge. Couldn't get out of bed this morning, felt awful. Legs felt much more tired that I would have liked. Sloppy and slow. Not a great run.
Thursday 05/22: 53:08, Huntington/Oak Knoll. Tried by sheer force of will to make this a good run, and failed. Today, legs were okay but the rest of me felt barfy and bad. I couldn't figure out what it felt like exactly, it mostly felt like all of the parts of my running "system" just weren't working harmoniously to move me forwards. Towards the end it just felt like my legs were moving on their own and the rest of me was just getting dragged along, flopping around awkwardly in the wind.
Felt pretty dejected... so complained to Markkimarkonnen about how I wasted my undergraduate career instead of doing my striders and quick steps. Bleh. Gotta snap out of this.
Friday 05/23: Off, shots, traveling. L ankle, ball of foot unhappy after yesterday.
Saturday 05/24: 55:09, random hilly trail up to Griggs Road in Colorado. Same one I did a few months ago here, but with less ice. It was tough in the altitude but it was a nice, peaceful, enjoyable run. I'm glad I chose this one instead of trying to do something tempo-y.
Training this week: 4 hours 39 minutes
I didn't realize it was that much because I haven't been keeping track lately. Maybe I should cut myself some slack for feeling tired-er than usual...
Goals: to not go crazy...
Monday, May 12, 2008
Week of 05/11/2008 - 05/17/2008 (Base Week 9)
Hanging in there...
I've resisted all of the office chocolate for a whole week now. I'm eating healthy. I could do better with getting regular amounts of sleep, but I'm working on it. Overall these are good signs, bc it means I still feel hope for my athletic future. When that starts to fade, I go into binge candy eating, wallowing in self pity mode. Not going to do that anymore. Now, if only I could be as disciplined about taking steps towards a career path that I want... *big sigh*
Sunday 05/11: 1:14:34, Foothills of El Dorado - A Running Adventure. Peter found some trails of "moderate" difficulty for my long run near Boulder, but ofcourse he didn't bring the book, and so when I got to the trail head, there were 3 different choices to get to the "rolling" hills part... little did I know at that point that one was moderately hard, one was hard and one was... kind of like rock climbing. Naturally I selected the steepest one, but after about 6 minutes of steep climbing, I decided that stopping to pick one's way over large rocks every 2 feet wasn't exactly good cardio. Turned back and then selected the second steepest route, which was still plenty challenging. It was really tough to climb in altitude, but since I'd already passed about 25 hikers, I absolutely couldn't turn back for the easiest route and be a huge loser.
After about 23 minutes of uphill slogging, the path became the promised rolling terrain in the scenic foothills. Really beautiful, I'd forgotten how extremely awesome it is to run somewhere for the first time and not know what happens next. I just really wished that I could go as far as I felt like, and not have to stop at the "and then after this I think my foot will start hurting" point. Ran a little over 40 minutes out to a nice crooked pine tree surrounded by wildflowers, then back, taking the easiest way back down, which turned out to be great bc it provided me with 12-15 minutes of uninterrupted practice in running downhill fast on a soft gravelly surface. Felt like flying, was happy that I had quick turnover even after all of that uphill. Overall, felt like a strong run, the difficulty was mostly in the altitude, I was happy with the way my legs responded to the variety of terrain.
Monday 05/12: Off, shots, traveling. Woke up with cramping and soreness in L quad. Crikey, I guess I've gotten all de-conditioned to handle those mountain hill climbs. Also had adverse reaction to last set of shots, due to high pollen count. Feeling crappy even with the half dosage. Man, this is all very bad news bears.
Tuesday 05/13: 45:03, 10 x 100m striders, karoakes, quicksteps. Same as last week, except slower and worse. Soreness is less than yesterday but just couldn't get any quick turnover bc legs were just dead and heavy still. In hindsight I should have switched the tuesday and wednesday workouts, but I guess I'm never quite ready to accept how tired my legs are until I'm actually trying to run fast and its not working.
Wednesday 05/14: 46:22, Monterrey to bridge... Oooof. Upper L leg was really really tight and crampy this morning. Jogged real slow the whole way trying to warm and loosen up the muscles. Was not fun. Also crew removing trees along the trail, made it hard to get through. Also lots of dust and stuff in the air. Allergies really bad this week. Hopefully this was all worth it to get my leg to gradually loosen up... feels alright now, I guess we'll see tomorrow!
Thursday 05/15: 36:11, Yikes... cut a run short due to exhaustion, foot and knee pain and allergy badness. I swear that the thing I am singly most allergic to are those damn little yellow flowers that grow by the gazillions right by the California entrance to the Arroyo and all along the Arroyo Tempo Loop. You can SMELL the pollen in the air. And trust me, I smell very few things as it is. As soon as I enter this area, I can almost feel my throat closing up, its just horrible, horrible, horrible. I've noticed though, that every so often the city workers come and mow down all of the weeds along the trails, getting rid of the flowers and leaving this nice soft hay instead... I think I'm going to wait for them to come to this area of the Arroyo before I do any more tempo loops.
Friday 05/16: Off, shots. Iced and stretched R knee a lot. For some reason I feel extra exhausted and bad this week, more systemically than anything in particular. Like how I can't get out of bed even after 8 hours of sleep, and how it constantly feels like my head is stuffed full of cotton balls.
Saturday 05/17: 40:35, a cautionary tale: the punishment for eating too many pieces of greasy chicken yesterday was a horrible stomachache that kept me up most of the night, and the punishment for not waking up at 6 am due to resulting sleep deprivation was to do my nascent steady state run in the 90+ degree heat. So kids, the moral of the story is, make good choices for your body.
It was 93 when I started and 96 when I finished, but I held it together and survived. Jogged a little at the track, did a 2 mile sort of mini-steady state run (7:33, 7:27) and then jogged some more. I love the track so much. Not even the heat, or the painful sensation of hot dry air passing over a cracking and raspy throat could take away the pure, simple, focused joy of running around the track at a pace faster than trundling. While the air felt kind of like sandpaper on each inhale, and I really wasn't going very fast at all... I felt good about this run, if only because I felt that I forced myself to deal with the heat (which I usually go to great lengths to avoid), and didn't completely fall apart.
No goals again this week... I don't think I'm going to set capacity goals until I establish a baseline of what I can productively handle.
I've resisted all of the office chocolate for a whole week now. I'm eating healthy. I could do better with getting regular amounts of sleep, but I'm working on it. Overall these are good signs, bc it means I still feel hope for my athletic future. When that starts to fade, I go into binge candy eating, wallowing in self pity mode. Not going to do that anymore. Now, if only I could be as disciplined about taking steps towards a career path that I want... *big sigh*
Sunday 05/11: 1:14:34, Foothills of El Dorado - A Running Adventure. Peter found some trails of "moderate" difficulty for my long run near Boulder, but ofcourse he didn't bring the book, and so when I got to the trail head, there were 3 different choices to get to the "rolling" hills part... little did I know at that point that one was moderately hard, one was hard and one was... kind of like rock climbing. Naturally I selected the steepest one, but after about 6 minutes of steep climbing, I decided that stopping to pick one's way over large rocks every 2 feet wasn't exactly good cardio. Turned back and then selected the second steepest route, which was still plenty challenging. It was really tough to climb in altitude, but since I'd already passed about 25 hikers, I absolutely couldn't turn back for the easiest route and be a huge loser.
After about 23 minutes of uphill slogging, the path became the promised rolling terrain in the scenic foothills. Really beautiful, I'd forgotten how extremely awesome it is to run somewhere for the first time and not know what happens next. I just really wished that I could go as far as I felt like, and not have to stop at the "and then after this I think my foot will start hurting" point. Ran a little over 40 minutes out to a nice crooked pine tree surrounded by wildflowers, then back, taking the easiest way back down, which turned out to be great bc it provided me with 12-15 minutes of uninterrupted practice in running downhill fast on a soft gravelly surface. Felt like flying, was happy that I had quick turnover even after all of that uphill. Overall, felt like a strong run, the difficulty was mostly in the altitude, I was happy with the way my legs responded to the variety of terrain.
Monday 05/12: Off, shots, traveling. Woke up with cramping and soreness in L quad. Crikey, I guess I've gotten all de-conditioned to handle those mountain hill climbs. Also had adverse reaction to last set of shots, due to high pollen count. Feeling crappy even with the half dosage. Man, this is all very bad news bears.
Tuesday 05/13: 45:03, 10 x 100m striders, karoakes, quicksteps. Same as last week, except slower and worse. Soreness is less than yesterday but just couldn't get any quick turnover bc legs were just dead and heavy still. In hindsight I should have switched the tuesday and wednesday workouts, but I guess I'm never quite ready to accept how tired my legs are until I'm actually trying to run fast and its not working.
Wednesday 05/14: 46:22, Monterrey to bridge... Oooof. Upper L leg was really really tight and crampy this morning. Jogged real slow the whole way trying to warm and loosen up the muscles. Was not fun. Also crew removing trees along the trail, made it hard to get through. Also lots of dust and stuff in the air. Allergies really bad this week. Hopefully this was all worth it to get my leg to gradually loosen up... feels alright now, I guess we'll see tomorrow!
Thursday 05/15: 36:11, Yikes... cut a run short due to exhaustion, foot and knee pain and allergy badness. I swear that the thing I am singly most allergic to are those damn little yellow flowers that grow by the gazillions right by the California entrance to the Arroyo and all along the Arroyo Tempo Loop. You can SMELL the pollen in the air. And trust me, I smell very few things as it is. As soon as I enter this area, I can almost feel my throat closing up, its just horrible, horrible, horrible. I've noticed though, that every so often the city workers come and mow down all of the weeds along the trails, getting rid of the flowers and leaving this nice soft hay instead... I think I'm going to wait for them to come to this area of the Arroyo before I do any more tempo loops.
Friday 05/16: Off, shots. Iced and stretched R knee a lot. For some reason I feel extra exhausted and bad this week, more systemically than anything in particular. Like how I can't get out of bed even after 8 hours of sleep, and how it constantly feels like my head is stuffed full of cotton balls.
Saturday 05/17: 40:35, a cautionary tale: the punishment for eating too many pieces of greasy chicken yesterday was a horrible stomachache that kept me up most of the night, and the punishment for not waking up at 6 am due to resulting sleep deprivation was to do my nascent steady state run in the 90+ degree heat. So kids, the moral of the story is, make good choices for your body.
It was 93 when I started and 96 when I finished, but I held it together and survived. Jogged a little at the track, did a 2 mile sort of mini-steady state run (7:33, 7:27) and then jogged some more. I love the track so much. Not even the heat, or the painful sensation of hot dry air passing over a cracking and raspy throat could take away the pure, simple, focused joy of running around the track at a pace faster than trundling. While the air felt kind of like sandpaper on each inhale, and I really wasn't going very fast at all... I felt good about this run, if only because I felt that I forced myself to deal with the heat (which I usually go to great lengths to avoid), and didn't completely fall apart.
No goals again this week... I don't think I'm going to set capacity goals until I establish a baseline of what I can productively handle.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)