03/07/2010 - 03/13/2010
This was a week entirely dedicated to jogging in order to calm the horrible pain in my calves. Rather, I suppose the affliction was more localized to my R calf, which in and of itself is a sobering reminder to me regarding the weakness of the L foot. I did notice that it was harder to do a proper forefoot plant on that side while I was running, which would explain why that calf didn't really work as hard as the other one.
I was honestly really bowled over about being so completely vanquished by a tiny little 3 mile run. It really took the entirety of this week for this horrible sharp pain and general warm, inflamed feeling to dissipate from my calf. One could potentially argue that it was worsened by my lack of backing off of the mileage in the days immediately after the soreness was acquired, but that's neither here nor there at this point. I'm going to try for a shorter barefoot session sometime next week once I'm able to walk normally again... some day.
Sunday 03/07: AM: ~10.8 miles, 1:34:10 (~8:43 min/mile) Lot K to Cherry Canyon Gate
Yesterday's jog convinced me of the veracity of the theory that if you jog slowly for long enough, the pain will subside. So today, I set off on my extra long jog, eager to explore the new Arroyo trails again. Unfortunately, I got off to a bit of late start, so I was a little bit warmer and a little bit more dehydrated than I would have liked. Perhaps more unfortunately, my calves loosened up pretty nicely in the beginning, but started cramping and complaining loudly again after about 45 minutes, which made the remainder of the run relatively tough. Thankfully it was mostly manageable with a slow pace. Distance uncertain, but extrapolated based on pace for the Rose Bowl perimeter part.
PM: 45.7 miles, approx. 2:53:00 (15.8 mph) Peter's Short Long Loop
Rainy afternoon ride with Peter, started out with KB, Ian and Ben, but fell off the pace significantly once the non-downhill parts hit. Felt pretty awful by the end. Had some shot bloks a few miles into the lousy part and felt better for a little bit, but the exhaustion was more or less overpowering. Also not used to the shifting on Big Red, which made it a little bit harder. Man, I am out of biking shape... this ties my slowest ever Short Long Loop, which occurred on the day after Wrightwood. On the plus side, kept my heels down and got some nice calf stretching in.
Monday 03/08: Off, arghhhhh.... soooooo.... tired. Also, calves hurt significantly more than yesterday--crapppppppp!
Tuesday 03/09: 5.3 miles, 47:16 (8:55 min/mile) Monterrey to Third Bridge
Felt tired and lousy still, but mostly the problem was that R calf was still bothering me. It just wouldn't loosen up, and felt crampy and weak the entire way. Jogged slowly and considered if I really just needed to take a few more days completely off to make it heal. The pain actually subsided in the hours after the run though, so I'll try one more day.
Wednesday 03/10: 5.3 miles, 45:58 (8:40 min/mile) Monterrey to Third Bridge
R calf still achey and weird feeling, but there is definite improvement from yesterday. I think the 5 mile jogs are manageable for the time being. It's kind of hard to get a good push off from each step though, which means that I'm traveling at a snail's pace either which way.
Thursday 03/11: 5.3 miles, 45:03 (8:30 min/mile) Monterrey to Third Bridge
A little more improvement, but there's still some intermittent cramping and weakness. Walking around during the day is okay now though, so that's a relief. R calf is still a bit warm and weird feeling to the touch though, which is sort of disturbing. Can't believe it's still not 100%!
Friday 03/12: Off, lazy, tired. I guess I decided that taking another day off wouldn't be so awful for my poor R calf either.
Saturday 03/13: 5.3 miles, 44:38 (8:25 min/mile) Monterrey to Third Bridge
First day that my calf basically felt normal. Was thinking about trying a bit longer run, but it worked out such that I didn't get up early enough and it was uncomfortably warm out. Decided that doing one more easy short day wouldn't hurt. Best to rest up for a big day tomorrow. Felt really good to run with a semi-normal stride again! Calf held up pretty well throughout the run and afterwards. Phew.
Week Total: 32 miles, I guess this down week was an investment in my future of continued ability to run.
Friday, March 19, 2010
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
Barefoot
02/28/2010 - 03/06/2010
Against all odds, I did my first barefoot run this week. I'm not a fan of trendy-hype-y things, and well, that's what barefoot running has started to seem like lately. In addition, I have abysmal arches, and previous attempts to deviate from my orthotics have lead to bad things. Nevertheless, I've noticed an improvement on the injury front after making an active effort to transition myself to being more of a mid/fore-foot striker. Upon hearing Dr. Shapiro's treatise on the benefits of not having a heel to one's shoe... I decided to test out the theory by running barefoot on the North Field.
My barefoot run, despite being serendipitously placed as a late night double on my one "hard" day, was surprisingly awesome! Running has never felt so much like flying--easy, natural, fast. Towards the end, I was hitting paces I haven't been able to touch in years with ease. Wow, super awesome run... almost worth the 2 weeks of being crippled that has ensued.
Sunday 02/28: Both distance and time unclear: 8.5 miles, 75 minutes for the sake of book-keeping, The Other Arroyo Adventure with Ian and Dennis
Felt inexplicably "off" from the get-go, which made this run moderately miserable despite the snail's pace... but that was compensated by the coolness of the new trail. We were originally destined for Brown Mountain, but apparently that route is now patrolled by rangers, keeping folks out :(. Instead, headed into the Art Center hills via the heretofore theoretical Other Arroyo Trail. Really neat discovery, will definitely explore further when I feel a little less lousy.
Monday 03/01: 5.3 miles, 46:44 (8:49 min/mile) Monterrey to Third Bridge
Arrrrghhhh.... lousiness continues. Whole body feels tired, just plodded along, and then eventually I finished this run. Also 6 am run has re-deteriorated to 7 am run... nuts...
Tuesday 03/02: AM: another lazy person's workout: Mini-tempo in the Arroyo + 6 x striders
1 lap warm up jog around Arroyo Tempo Loop (14:22), then one lap sub-threshold tempo (11:24) was hoping to do two, but for some reason I'm really scared to push the limits these days... so I stopped while I was still feeling good. To atone for this deficiency, I did a long-ish cooldown along the Arroyo 3 mile loop (26:10), with 6 x striders embedded, ~6.1 miles total. Felt sufficiently worn out afterwards that I didn't feel quite as badly about abandoning the second tempo loop.
PM: 3.1 miles, 23:58 (7:44 min/mile) 10 x barefoot North Field Laps
Super awesome barefoot run after work. NF maps really conveniently to 500m, so I decided to do 10 laps. 2K-2K-1K splits were 9:53, 9:30, 4:35 which means that I started out at a little over 8 min/miles and finished off near 7:20 pace. Felt easy and good the whole way, so good that I felt giddy with excitement! Barefoot boggles my mind... calves felt surprisingly good until the 9th lap when I could start to feel the cramping coming on, but the rest of me felt so great, I had to finish the original plan for 10 laps. If the cramping hadn't happened, I was debating staying and running for an hour.
Wednesday 03/03: 7.6 miles, 1:04:21 (8:28 min/mile) Steve's Lil' Engine to Alpine via Huntington/Garfield/Mission
Holy moly, my calves hurt so badly every step feels like I'm about to do a faceplant. For some reason I decided that the way to cure this was to do an easy jog, so I plotted a nice grassy route home from dropping my car off in the morning. I kept waiting for my calves to unclench, but... somehow that never happened. They felt momentarily better after stretching at a few lights, but went straight back to horrendously painful about 50 feet later. Ohhhhhh man. On the upside I was pleasantly surprised to learn that I was actually not running the 10 minute miles that I felt like I was running.
Thursday - Friday 03/04 - 03/05: Off. Calves were 100% worse after yesterday's run, so I decided that perhaps I should give it a rest. Unfortunately there was minimal improvement even after 2 days off. I feel like my walking stride is even altered, because my calves do not support any weight anymore. Ouch-y.....
Saturday 03/06: ~7.7 miles, ~1:07:30 (~8:46 min/mile) California around RB perimeter
Me and Dennis were super late to KB's Arroyo run... as a result, Dennis was able to catch up with them, and I was not. Basically, my calves started killing me as soon as I started running, which made it physically impossible to do anything other than shuffle along at an inordinately slow pace. Resigning myself to running alone, I decided to stick with my theory that enough slow jogging would loosen up my calves. Fortunately after about 35 minutes, the pain started to ease up a little bit, enough to allow a more normal stride/pace. In the interim, I fell into a thigh deep water pit during the river crossing at the North end of the Rose Bowl. This was so discombobulating to me that I forgot to re-start my watch... and therefore the time of the run is estimated.
Week Total: 38.3 miles, not bad for 5 days.... but holy crap I hope I haven't incurred permanent damage to my calves....
Against all odds, I did my first barefoot run this week. I'm not a fan of trendy-hype-y things, and well, that's what barefoot running has started to seem like lately. In addition, I have abysmal arches, and previous attempts to deviate from my orthotics have lead to bad things. Nevertheless, I've noticed an improvement on the injury front after making an active effort to transition myself to being more of a mid/fore-foot striker. Upon hearing Dr. Shapiro's treatise on the benefits of not having a heel to one's shoe... I decided to test out the theory by running barefoot on the North Field.
My barefoot run, despite being serendipitously placed as a late night double on my one "hard" day, was surprisingly awesome! Running has never felt so much like flying--easy, natural, fast. Towards the end, I was hitting paces I haven't been able to touch in years with ease. Wow, super awesome run... almost worth the 2 weeks of being crippled that has ensued.
Sunday 02/28: Both distance and time unclear: 8.5 miles, 75 minutes for the sake of book-keeping, The Other Arroyo Adventure with Ian and Dennis
Felt inexplicably "off" from the get-go, which made this run moderately miserable despite the snail's pace... but that was compensated by the coolness of the new trail. We were originally destined for Brown Mountain, but apparently that route is now patrolled by rangers, keeping folks out :(. Instead, headed into the Art Center hills via the heretofore theoretical Other Arroyo Trail. Really neat discovery, will definitely explore further when I feel a little less lousy.
Monday 03/01: 5.3 miles, 46:44 (8:49 min/mile) Monterrey to Third Bridge
Arrrrghhhh.... lousiness continues. Whole body feels tired, just plodded along, and then eventually I finished this run. Also 6 am run has re-deteriorated to 7 am run... nuts...
Tuesday 03/02: AM: another lazy person's workout: Mini-tempo in the Arroyo + 6 x striders
1 lap warm up jog around Arroyo Tempo Loop (14:22), then one lap sub-threshold tempo (11:24) was hoping to do two, but for some reason I'm really scared to push the limits these days... so I stopped while I was still feeling good. To atone for this deficiency, I did a long-ish cooldown along the Arroyo 3 mile loop (26:10), with 6 x striders embedded, ~6.1 miles total. Felt sufficiently worn out afterwards that I didn't feel quite as badly about abandoning the second tempo loop.
PM: 3.1 miles, 23:58 (7:44 min/mile) 10 x barefoot North Field Laps
Super awesome barefoot run after work. NF maps really conveniently to 500m, so I decided to do 10 laps. 2K-2K-1K splits were 9:53, 9:30, 4:35 which means that I started out at a little over 8 min/miles and finished off near 7:20 pace. Felt easy and good the whole way, so good that I felt giddy with excitement! Barefoot boggles my mind... calves felt surprisingly good until the 9th lap when I could start to feel the cramping coming on, but the rest of me felt so great, I had to finish the original plan for 10 laps. If the cramping hadn't happened, I was debating staying and running for an hour.
Wednesday 03/03: 7.6 miles, 1:04:21 (8:28 min/mile) Steve's Lil' Engine to Alpine via Huntington/Garfield/Mission
Holy moly, my calves hurt so badly every step feels like I'm about to do a faceplant. For some reason I decided that the way to cure this was to do an easy jog, so I plotted a nice grassy route home from dropping my car off in the morning. I kept waiting for my calves to unclench, but... somehow that never happened. They felt momentarily better after stretching at a few lights, but went straight back to horrendously painful about 50 feet later. Ohhhhhh man. On the upside I was pleasantly surprised to learn that I was actually not running the 10 minute miles that I felt like I was running.
Thursday - Friday 03/04 - 03/05: Off. Calves were 100% worse after yesterday's run, so I decided that perhaps I should give it a rest. Unfortunately there was minimal improvement even after 2 days off. I feel like my walking stride is even altered, because my calves do not support any weight anymore. Ouch-y.....
Saturday 03/06: ~7.7 miles, ~1:07:30 (~8:46 min/mile) California around RB perimeter
Me and Dennis were super late to KB's Arroyo run... as a result, Dennis was able to catch up with them, and I was not. Basically, my calves started killing me as soon as I started running, which made it physically impossible to do anything other than shuffle along at an inordinately slow pace. Resigning myself to running alone, I decided to stick with my theory that enough slow jogging would loosen up my calves. Fortunately after about 35 minutes, the pain started to ease up a little bit, enough to allow a more normal stride/pace. In the interim, I fell into a thigh deep water pit during the river crossing at the North end of the Rose Bowl. This was so discombobulating to me that I forgot to re-start my watch... and therefore the time of the run is estimated.
Week Total: 38.3 miles, not bad for 5 days.... but holy crap I hope I haven't incurred permanent damage to my calves....
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
The horribleness rears its ugly head!
02/21/2010 - 02/27/2010
Gah, I'm not exactly sure what went wrong, but the horribleness seems to be off to an early lead this week. First the lack of a proper long run, then the unintentional day off, then the horrible workout/horrible re-spraining of the ankle. GAHHHHHH...
Sunday 02/21: 7.1 miles, 59:26 (8:22 min/mile) Monterrey to Rose Bowl
The cop-out long run. Didn't sleep well and felt really lousy and stomach-achey through the morning. Finally dragged my unhappy self out to the Arroyo in the final hours of daylight. Felt lousy until the turnaround point, then a little better. I guess given how the day started out, its probably a win to have done a run at all.
Monday 02/22: Off, woke up and my stomach hurt so I slept in until it was too late to do a run. Nuts...
Tuesday 02/23: ~5.3 miles, 5 laps North Field, 2 x mile with 1 lap jog recovery, 5 laps North Field
Horrible, horrible workout. Felt congested and lousy when I woke up, and was already huffing on my warm up. Not a good sign... but per not having enough time to drive back to the Arroyo and not really wanting to run 45 minutes on the North Field (I have a low tolerance for runs that don't go anywhere) I was committed to the work out. Well... maybe not as committed as I could have been. Was supposed to be 3 x mile... but bailed after two sub-standard miles in (7:02/7:10) feeling substantially worse than last week's tempo or the previous week's workout with Susan... isn't training supposed to make you FASTER? To add insult to injury (or rather, injury to insult in this case), I horribly sprained my newly healed R ankle during the last lap of my cooldown.... gahhhhhhh. So sad and unamused.
Wednesday 02/24: 7.1 miles, 57:16 (8:04 min/mile) Monterrey to Rose Bowl
6 am run awesomeness with Dennis in the Arroyo. Actually felt really good. I like the early morning hours, very peaceful and calm. A moderate but comfortable pace, I guess I have energy left over from running SO SLOWLY yesterday. I really wish I knew what made the bad days come and go. Let's see if I can get up this early again tomorrow.
Thursday 02/25: 7.1 miles, 1:01:32 (8:40 min/mile) Monterrey to Rose Bowl
Decided to cash in my recovery jog today instead of yesterday. I think the jog on the way out, run on the way back works well for me in this regard. (33:29/28:03) probably could have put some more effort into the jog part, but oh well, sort of tired and groggy--felt a lot better on the run back. Day 2 of getting up at 5:45, but did an involuntary snooze until 6am so everything was 15 minutes late today.
Friday 02/26: 7.1 miles, 58:13 (8:12 min/mile) Monterrey to Rose Bowl
Day 3 of 6 am run. Same route with Dennis, felt pretty good, but not quite as good as Wednesday, so we went a little bit slower, but it actually turned out better than I thought it would. I guess I'm kind of in a rut with this route (4th time this week)... but to be fair, a 7 mile rut is much better than a 5 mile rut!
Saturday 02/27: 5.3 miles, 45:52 (8:39 min/mile) Monterrey to Third Bridge
Fail on waking up early. Did some light jogging during one of the breaks in the rain. Arroyo was extra muddy for some reason, footing difficult, almost did a faceplant at various points. Felt okay otherwise, just taking it easy in preparation for attempting a decent long run tomorrow. Really hungry today for some reason.
Week Total: 39 miles, not bad considering lack of long run.
Gah, I'm not exactly sure what went wrong, but the horribleness seems to be off to an early lead this week. First the lack of a proper long run, then the unintentional day off, then the horrible workout/horrible re-spraining of the ankle. GAHHHHHH...
Sunday 02/21: 7.1 miles, 59:26 (8:22 min/mile) Monterrey to Rose Bowl
The cop-out long run. Didn't sleep well and felt really lousy and stomach-achey through the morning. Finally dragged my unhappy self out to the Arroyo in the final hours of daylight. Felt lousy until the turnaround point, then a little better. I guess given how the day started out, its probably a win to have done a run at all.
Monday 02/22: Off, woke up and my stomach hurt so I slept in until it was too late to do a run. Nuts...
Tuesday 02/23: ~5.3 miles, 5 laps North Field, 2 x mile with 1 lap jog recovery, 5 laps North Field
Horrible, horrible workout. Felt congested and lousy when I woke up, and was already huffing on my warm up. Not a good sign... but per not having enough time to drive back to the Arroyo and not really wanting to run 45 minutes on the North Field (I have a low tolerance for runs that don't go anywhere) I was committed to the work out. Well... maybe not as committed as I could have been. Was supposed to be 3 x mile... but bailed after two sub-standard miles in (7:02/7:10) feeling substantially worse than last week's tempo or the previous week's workout with Susan... isn't training supposed to make you FASTER? To add insult to injury (or rather, injury to insult in this case), I horribly sprained my newly healed R ankle during the last lap of my cooldown.... gahhhhhhh. So sad and unamused.
Wednesday 02/24: 7.1 miles, 57:16 (8:04 min/mile) Monterrey to Rose Bowl
6 am run awesomeness with Dennis in the Arroyo. Actually felt really good. I like the early morning hours, very peaceful and calm. A moderate but comfortable pace, I guess I have energy left over from running SO SLOWLY yesterday. I really wish I knew what made the bad days come and go. Let's see if I can get up this early again tomorrow.
Thursday 02/25: 7.1 miles, 1:01:32 (8:40 min/mile) Monterrey to Rose Bowl
Decided to cash in my recovery jog today instead of yesterday. I think the jog on the way out, run on the way back works well for me in this regard. (33:29/28:03) probably could have put some more effort into the jog part, but oh well, sort of tired and groggy--felt a lot better on the run back. Day 2 of getting up at 5:45, but did an involuntary snooze until 6am so everything was 15 minutes late today.
Friday 02/26: 7.1 miles, 58:13 (8:12 min/mile) Monterrey to Rose Bowl
Day 3 of 6 am run. Same route with Dennis, felt pretty good, but not quite as good as Wednesday, so we went a little bit slower, but it actually turned out better than I thought it would. I guess I'm kind of in a rut with this route (4th time this week)... but to be fair, a 7 mile rut is much better than a 5 mile rut!
Saturday 02/27: 5.3 miles, 45:52 (8:39 min/mile) Monterrey to Third Bridge
Fail on waking up early. Did some light jogging during one of the breaks in the rain. Arroyo was extra muddy for some reason, footing difficult, almost did a faceplant at various points. Felt okay otherwise, just taking it easy in preparation for attempting a decent long run tomorrow. Really hungry today for some reason.
Week Total: 39 miles, not bad considering lack of long run.
Monday, February 22, 2010
A Veritable Assortment of Strange Runs
02/14/2010 - 02/20/2010
In the absence of structured training, I find myself being more open to running opportunistically with whomever or whenever there happens to be an opening. Which is a novelty in and of itself for someone who is normally so constrained by the forces of OCD. Unfortunately, 8 days worth of work got crammed into 4 days of the workweek due to President's day, so opportunistically is really the only way I could fit a decent number of runs into this week. I daresay I did pretty well, but the sleep deprivation was pretty intense by the end of the week.
Sunday 02/14: 7.1 miles, 1:01:35 (8:40 min/mile) Monterrey to Rose Bowl
Happy Valentine's Day/Chinese New Year! Though personally the day was slanted towards the latter due to the fact that my significant other is out of the country and Nathan Lau and Dennis and I cooked a Chinese New Year feast. I didn't manage to wake up a reasonable hour, which meant that I had to wedge a run in during the hottest part of the day prior to picking up a whole Peking duck. Legs kind of felt thrashed, R hamstring kind of bugging me still, went really slow... but overall felt better than other tired, sub-optimally warm runs I've been on in recent memory though.
Monday 02/15: 9.8 miles, 1:16:44 (7:50 min/mile) Whole Arroyo
Nice morning run with Chief, Ryan and Cameron. Well, actually, I arrived late and had to ball it down to Garfield to catch up with them (2.5 miles, 17:42 = tempo run for grossly out of shape me?). Felt sort of wiped out from the early effort, but managed to stick with the group the rest of the way, despite a strong temptation to bail out early onto California. It's actually really nice to have company to pull you along when you're struggling. Strangely felt better once we came out of the trails on the way back. Felt the R hamstring at certain points, but not too bad.
Tuesday 02/16: 5.3 miles, 44:00 (8:18 min/mile) Monterrey to Third Bridge
Gah, back to work... but managed to get a good start by waking up moderately on time to squeeze in a run. I expected to feel kind of horrible from yesterday, but it was not bad at all! Maybe the new year's mochi/cake thingy that we made is magic.
Wednesday 02/17: 5.3 miles, ??? (??? min/mile) Monterrey to Third Bridge
The funny thing is, I was so tired when I got home from work yesterday, that I went to bed without taking off my watch... but somehow in the commotion to get up in the morning, I TOOK IT OFF... and therefore this run is untimed. I guess that is okay, because it psychologically made it easier for me to take today's run really relaxed. My R hamstring still kind of feels funny, and I think it could really use an very easy day.
Thursday 02/18: ~5 miles, 5 laps North Field + 2 mile tempo on the track + 5 laps North Field
I woke up early but I really needed the extra time because my google earth mapping project is still sub-par. Came home at 9:30 pm and decided I could still wedge in a short workout before starting my next presentation. Abridged warm up felt really good, I considered just ditching the tempo and running easy for 45 minutes, but after 4 laps I got bored of running on the NF so I decided to stick with the original plan. 2 mile tempo in 13:53 (6:59/6:54) running really consistent lap splits. The first mile is a little bit slower because some stupid Fleming people had parked their backpacks and their butts in lane 1. Felt good and in control, like under threshold pace. It's actually fairly relaxing to run just one... usually 2 mile tempos come in sets of 3. Unclear if there are any training benefits from today, just wanted to run a different pace than usual, cooled down still feeling good and less stressed than before.
Friday 02/19: Off, shots. Too exhausted after work to do an evening run.
Saturday 02/20: ~5.5 miles, Random Track with Matt and Dennis
Arrghhh... somehow I let Dennis convince me that Matt's slow pace is reasonably close to my normal pace, which as it turns out is not true. Additionally I'm feeling the post-shots hangover pretty badly today. The system just doesn't feel good. I wonder if this will go away, as I've never noticed the effect until very recently. Ran ~3 miles in lane 2 or 3 with Matt and Dennis then 10 laps of the SF just to be sure I ran more than 5 miles. I'm pretty sure Matt mis-counted a lap though because my watch read 18:15 at the supposed 7.5th lap and it took about 7:45 to cover the last 4 laps. Anyways, I suppose it really doesn't matter... the bottom line is that I felt really godawful running a pedestrian pace of between 7:30 and 8 minute miles. Better luck tomorrow.
Week Total: 38 miles... hey, improvement! Only one off day this week.
In the absence of structured training, I find myself being more open to running opportunistically with whomever or whenever there happens to be an opening. Which is a novelty in and of itself for someone who is normally so constrained by the forces of OCD. Unfortunately, 8 days worth of work got crammed into 4 days of the workweek due to President's day, so opportunistically is really the only way I could fit a decent number of runs into this week. I daresay I did pretty well, but the sleep deprivation was pretty intense by the end of the week.
Sunday 02/14: 7.1 miles, 1:01:35 (8:40 min/mile) Monterrey to Rose Bowl
Happy Valentine's Day/Chinese New Year! Though personally the day was slanted towards the latter due to the fact that my significant other is out of the country and Nathan Lau and Dennis and I cooked a Chinese New Year feast. I didn't manage to wake up a reasonable hour, which meant that I had to wedge a run in during the hottest part of the day prior to picking up a whole Peking duck. Legs kind of felt thrashed, R hamstring kind of bugging me still, went really slow... but overall felt better than other tired, sub-optimally warm runs I've been on in recent memory though.
Monday 02/15: 9.8 miles, 1:16:44 (7:50 min/mile) Whole Arroyo
Nice morning run with Chief, Ryan and Cameron. Well, actually, I arrived late and had to ball it down to Garfield to catch up with them (2.5 miles, 17:42 = tempo run for grossly out of shape me?). Felt sort of wiped out from the early effort, but managed to stick with the group the rest of the way, despite a strong temptation to bail out early onto California. It's actually really nice to have company to pull you along when you're struggling. Strangely felt better once we came out of the trails on the way back. Felt the R hamstring at certain points, but not too bad.
Tuesday 02/16: 5.3 miles, 44:00 (8:18 min/mile) Monterrey to Third Bridge
Gah, back to work... but managed to get a good start by waking up moderately on time to squeeze in a run. I expected to feel kind of horrible from yesterday, but it was not bad at all! Maybe the new year's mochi/cake thingy that we made is magic.
Wednesday 02/17: 5.3 miles, ??? (??? min/mile) Monterrey to Third Bridge
The funny thing is, I was so tired when I got home from work yesterday, that I went to bed without taking off my watch... but somehow in the commotion to get up in the morning, I TOOK IT OFF... and therefore this run is untimed. I guess that is okay, because it psychologically made it easier for me to take today's run really relaxed. My R hamstring still kind of feels funny, and I think it could really use an very easy day.
Thursday 02/18: ~5 miles, 5 laps North Field + 2 mile tempo on the track + 5 laps North Field
I woke up early but I really needed the extra time because my google earth mapping project is still sub-par. Came home at 9:30 pm and decided I could still wedge in a short workout before starting my next presentation. Abridged warm up felt really good, I considered just ditching the tempo and running easy for 45 minutes, but after 4 laps I got bored of running on the NF so I decided to stick with the original plan. 2 mile tempo in 13:53 (6:59/6:54) running really consistent lap splits. The first mile is a little bit slower because some stupid Fleming people had parked their backpacks and their butts in lane 1. Felt good and in control, like under threshold pace. It's actually fairly relaxing to run just one... usually 2 mile tempos come in sets of 3. Unclear if there are any training benefits from today, just wanted to run a different pace than usual, cooled down still feeling good and less stressed than before.
Friday 02/19: Off, shots. Too exhausted after work to do an evening run.
Saturday 02/20: ~5.5 miles, Random Track with Matt and Dennis
Arrghhh... somehow I let Dennis convince me that Matt's slow pace is reasonably close to my normal pace, which as it turns out is not true. Additionally I'm feeling the post-shots hangover pretty badly today. The system just doesn't feel good. I wonder if this will go away, as I've never noticed the effect until very recently. Ran ~3 miles in lane 2 or 3 with Matt and Dennis then 10 laps of the SF just to be sure I ran more than 5 miles. I'm pretty sure Matt mis-counted a lap though because my watch read 18:15 at the supposed 7.5th lap and it took about 7:45 to cover the last 4 laps. Anyways, I suppose it really doesn't matter... the bottom line is that I felt really godawful running a pedestrian pace of between 7:30 and 8 minute miles. Better luck tomorrow.
Week Total: 38 miles... hey, improvement! Only one off day this week.
Sunday, February 21, 2010
Must....keep.... running....!
02/07/2010 - 02/13/2010
It was definitely easier to rely on the OCD aspect of running every day. Now without this goal that is independent of being fast, it's a lot harder to motivate myself to train properly. I remember that getting from grossly out of shape to kind of having some basic fitness is much easier than going from there to competitive race shape. To be completely honest, getting to competitive race shape took me ~1-2 years from the day that I started running. Having been away from that for a few years now, I feel like I've reverted back to square one. There's something really demoralizing about knowing there's such a long road ahead. Nevertheless, the alternative would be permanent retirement, so I guess I just have to suck it up and keep running.
Sunday 02/07: ~10 miles, 1:27:27 (unclear pace/distance) Fire roads in Hesperia w/CMS team and alumni
Had to drive an hour and almost ran out of gas but well worth it for this awesome run! Basically an unlimited supply of muddy fireroads across undulating terrain, so that nowhere was ever very flat. There was one or two significant climbs, but everything else was basically rolling. 40 degrees out and mildly at altitude (4,000 ft) but felt great! Maybe I'm well trained from suffering through Colorado... passed all of the women and kept pace with Jennifer Tave on the way back. I hate miles... why don't they have the Alumni 5 mile hill climb?
Monday 02/08: 5.3 miles, 47:35 (8:59 min/mile) Monterrey to Third Bridge
Holy crap, sore and tired. I guess it was a big (~20 mile) weekend for me, way more than I've run in recent years. Trying to keep the momentum going for regular training runs to happen though, so I forced myself to do this jog. The bridge underpass is flooded near the horse stables too, which means that you kind of have to trundle through the hovel under the bridge.
Tuesday 02/09: 5.3 miles, 46:17 (8:44 min/mile) Monterrey to Third Bridge
Gah, not improving (my legs nor the level of the puddle under the bridge). Another morning, another jog. Felt a little bit better, but pace is still not so acceptable.
Wednesday 02/10: Off, okay I've succumbed to the inertia... gah.
Thursday 02/11: 5.3 miles, 44:38 (8:25 min/mile) Monterrey to Third Bridge
On the way from my car to the trail, somehow I managed to lose my footing and wrenched my R hamstring in an effort to not fall on my face. It kind of hurt through the first half of the run, but I kept thinking it would loosen up if I kept going. Still kind of felt lousy at the end but stretched it out really good, think it will be okay.
Friday 02/12: Off, ugh... no shots but lots of work. Maybe this is a good thing for my hamstring.
Saturday 02/13: 8.8 miles, Workout with Susan (mile, 2 x Oak Groves, mile)
Figured I should mix things up a little bit, seeing as that speed is especially deficient right now. Started off with a mile at the track, Susan paced it at 6:40, which actually felt pretty easy, definitely loads and loads better than last Saturday. Then we ran down to Oak Grove and did two loops (1200m) in 5:08, 5:16. Felt pretty toasted after that, and kind of blew up on the last mile in 7:10, sad! Cool down to Susan's place and back. Actually didn't feel too wiped out, now I just have to build some speed endurance.
Week Total: 34.7 miles, hmmm... really need to fix this two days off a week thing
It was definitely easier to rely on the OCD aspect of running every day. Now without this goal that is independent of being fast, it's a lot harder to motivate myself to train properly. I remember that getting from grossly out of shape to kind of having some basic fitness is much easier than going from there to competitive race shape. To be completely honest, getting to competitive race shape took me ~1-2 years from the day that I started running. Having been away from that for a few years now, I feel like I've reverted back to square one. There's something really demoralizing about knowing there's such a long road ahead. Nevertheless, the alternative would be permanent retirement, so I guess I just have to suck it up and keep running.
Sunday 02/07: ~10 miles, 1:27:27 (unclear pace/distance) Fire roads in Hesperia w/CMS team and alumni
Had to drive an hour and almost ran out of gas but well worth it for this awesome run! Basically an unlimited supply of muddy fireroads across undulating terrain, so that nowhere was ever very flat. There was one or two significant climbs, but everything else was basically rolling. 40 degrees out and mildly at altitude (4,000 ft) but felt great! Maybe I'm well trained from suffering through Colorado... passed all of the women and kept pace with Jennifer Tave on the way back. I hate miles... why don't they have the Alumni 5 mile hill climb?
Monday 02/08: 5.3 miles, 47:35 (8:59 min/mile) Monterrey to Third Bridge
Holy crap, sore and tired. I guess it was a big (~20 mile) weekend for me, way more than I've run in recent years. Trying to keep the momentum going for regular training runs to happen though, so I forced myself to do this jog. The bridge underpass is flooded near the horse stables too, which means that you kind of have to trundle through the hovel under the bridge.
Tuesday 02/09: 5.3 miles, 46:17 (8:44 min/mile) Monterrey to Third Bridge
Gah, not improving (my legs nor the level of the puddle under the bridge). Another morning, another jog. Felt a little bit better, but pace is still not so acceptable.
Wednesday 02/10: Off, okay I've succumbed to the inertia... gah.
Thursday 02/11: 5.3 miles, 44:38 (8:25 min/mile) Monterrey to Third Bridge
On the way from my car to the trail, somehow I managed to lose my footing and wrenched my R hamstring in an effort to not fall on my face. It kind of hurt through the first half of the run, but I kept thinking it would loosen up if I kept going. Still kind of felt lousy at the end but stretched it out really good, think it will be okay.
Friday 02/12: Off, ugh... no shots but lots of work. Maybe this is a good thing for my hamstring.
Saturday 02/13: 8.8 miles, Workout with Susan (mile, 2 x Oak Groves, mile)
Figured I should mix things up a little bit, seeing as that speed is especially deficient right now. Started off with a mile at the track, Susan paced it at 6:40, which actually felt pretty easy, definitely loads and loads better than last Saturday. Then we ran down to Oak Grove and did two loops (1200m) in 5:08, 5:16. Felt pretty toasted after that, and kind of blew up on the last mile in 7:10, sad! Cool down to Susan's place and back. Actually didn't feel too wiped out, now I just have to build some speed endurance.
Week Total: 34.7 miles, hmmm... really need to fix this two days off a week thing
Saturday, February 20, 2010
Worst. Mile. Ever.
01/31/2010 - 02/06/2010
There's a certain level of fitness that you take for granted... or that you used to take for granted, and know that you shouldn't anymore, but its oh so hard to accept how far from that you really are. A few years ago, I ran a mile at the track after having completed a very tough and long workout. It was not pretty (6:10) and I was not pleased at the time, but I figured, well this is as bad as it gets.
As it turns out... that is not true... (see Saturday's entry).
Sunday 01/31: 7.1 miles, 58:21 (8:13 min/mile) Monterrey to Rose Bowl
Feeling good today, wanted to pick it up a little bit after yesterday. Amazing how far a little rest will go. I want to say this indicates an improved level of fitness, but I'm pretty sure my legs are just really well rested after some very low mileage weeks. A nice run either way.
Monday 02/01: Off, gah... motivational problems continue. This is a bad move too, because CMS Alumni meet is on Saturday and I will be expected to make an appearance.
Tuesday 02/02: 5.3 miles, 43:27 (8:12 min/mile) Monterrey to Third Bridge
Woke up feeling hungry and frustrated with myself. Took it out a by going out a little fast on this run, but dialed it back and felt alright. I'm just sick of being slow, but my schedule and my motivation are so erratic these days, it just hasn't come together to form very much improvement.
Wednesday 02/03: 7.1 miles, 59:44 (8:25 min/mile) Monterrey to Rose Bowl
Ran nice and easy on the way out and then picked it up on the way home (31:59/27:45). Feeling pretty good. Just need to get the mileage back up, now that it looks like my foot is going to be alright.
Thursday 02/04: 5.3 miles, 42:28 (8:01 min/mile) Monterrey to Third Bridge
Moderate effort, felt okay, glad that my Arroyo pace (which seems consistently 20-30 sec/mile slower than my pavement paces) is coming down. Just need to keep the sprained ankles under control. Maybe I'm a little spacey in the morning, but there are plenty of errant rocks these days after the rains.
Friday 02/05: Off, shots. I'm going every two weeks now, but for some reason this has the effect of making them more unpleasant. I feel tired and congested afterwards.
Saturday 02/06: 8.4 miles, 1:08:56 (8:12 min/mile) Patrician from the apartment (short)
I had this awesome plan to wake up early, run Patrician, hang out, recover, have a nice lunch and then head out to Claremont and run the Alumni Mile...
...and it didn't work out that way at all. I woke up early and it was raining and I had a headache, so I slept in until 11:30 am. Then I woke up in a panic and headed out to run Patrician, but about half a mile in I was already feeling crappy. I managed to get through the hills okay, but was completely dead heading back into Old Town, so I cut back early on Orange Grove and went straight back to the apartment instead of running through Caltech which is the customary route.
After I showered and stretched, I realized that I was not going to have time to get anything to eat, so I shoveled down one package of shot bloks and drove straight to Claremont. On my way I'm pretty sure I'm barely going to make the 2:25 start time for the mile, but I luck out with an opportune parking spot right next to the track! I sprint from the car to the starting line and had barely caught my breath before we were off.
The mile was pretty miserable, despite the fact that my competitors were also fat, out of shape alumni. My splits went something like this... 83, 106, 105, 105 = 6:39 for last place in pouring rain, though to my credit, there was someone like 5 meters up, so it wasn't quite as horrible.... and Brandi ran the last 3 laps with me, which was nice. Then we did some ridiculous alumni relays which resulted in me running some 400's and 200's with crappy handoffs, but it was all in good fun. Nice to see some folks from a few years back :)
Week Total: ~35 miles including the stuff from the meet. Oooof, I've got some work to do to be presentable for Hood to Coast.
There's a certain level of fitness that you take for granted... or that you used to take for granted, and know that you shouldn't anymore, but its oh so hard to accept how far from that you really are. A few years ago, I ran a mile at the track after having completed a very tough and long workout. It was not pretty (6:10) and I was not pleased at the time, but I figured, well this is as bad as it gets.
As it turns out... that is not true... (see Saturday's entry).
Sunday 01/31: 7.1 miles, 58:21 (8:13 min/mile) Monterrey to Rose Bowl
Feeling good today, wanted to pick it up a little bit after yesterday. Amazing how far a little rest will go. I want to say this indicates an improved level of fitness, but I'm pretty sure my legs are just really well rested after some very low mileage weeks. A nice run either way.
Monday 02/01: Off, gah... motivational problems continue. This is a bad move too, because CMS Alumni meet is on Saturday and I will be expected to make an appearance.
Tuesday 02/02: 5.3 miles, 43:27 (8:12 min/mile) Monterrey to Third Bridge
Woke up feeling hungry and frustrated with myself. Took it out a by going out a little fast on this run, but dialed it back and felt alright. I'm just sick of being slow, but my schedule and my motivation are so erratic these days, it just hasn't come together to form very much improvement.
Wednesday 02/03: 7.1 miles, 59:44 (8:25 min/mile) Monterrey to Rose Bowl
Ran nice and easy on the way out and then picked it up on the way home (31:59/27:45). Feeling pretty good. Just need to get the mileage back up, now that it looks like my foot is going to be alright.
Thursday 02/04: 5.3 miles, 42:28 (8:01 min/mile) Monterrey to Third Bridge
Moderate effort, felt okay, glad that my Arroyo pace (which seems consistently 20-30 sec/mile slower than my pavement paces) is coming down. Just need to keep the sprained ankles under control. Maybe I'm a little spacey in the morning, but there are plenty of errant rocks these days after the rains.
Friday 02/05: Off, shots. I'm going every two weeks now, but for some reason this has the effect of making them more unpleasant. I feel tired and congested afterwards.
Saturday 02/06: 8.4 miles, 1:08:56 (8:12 min/mile) Patrician from the apartment (short)
I had this awesome plan to wake up early, run Patrician, hang out, recover, have a nice lunch and then head out to Claremont and run the Alumni Mile...
...and it didn't work out that way at all. I woke up early and it was raining and I had a headache, so I slept in until 11:30 am. Then I woke up in a panic and headed out to run Patrician, but about half a mile in I was already feeling crappy. I managed to get through the hills okay, but was completely dead heading back into Old Town, so I cut back early on Orange Grove and went straight back to the apartment instead of running through Caltech which is the customary route.
After I showered and stretched, I realized that I was not going to have time to get anything to eat, so I shoveled down one package of shot bloks and drove straight to Claremont. On my way I'm pretty sure I'm barely going to make the 2:25 start time for the mile, but I luck out with an opportune parking spot right next to the track! I sprint from the car to the starting line and had barely caught my breath before we were off.
The mile was pretty miserable, despite the fact that my competitors were also fat, out of shape alumni. My splits went something like this... 83, 106, 105, 105 = 6:39 for last place in pouring rain, though to my credit, there was someone like 5 meters up, so it wasn't quite as horrible.... and Brandi ran the last 3 laps with me, which was nice. Then we did some ridiculous alumni relays which resulted in me running some 400's and 200's with crappy handoffs, but it was all in good fun. Nice to see some folks from a few years back :)
Week Total: ~35 miles including the stuff from the meet. Oooof, I've got some work to do to be presentable for Hood to Coast.
Friday, February 19, 2010
Inertia prevents take-off
01/24/2010 - 01/30/2010
After last week, I thought maybe it wouldn't be as hard as I thought to clip back into some sort of rhythm of regular running... not so. I still kind of feel deflated and discouraged for the most part, accentuated by a heavy dose of existential ennui relating to my life outside of running. Bah, humbug.
Sunday 01/24: XC Skiing with Peter (~3 hours)
Took advantage of this lull in running motivation to enjoy some other activities. Though, I must say the weather tried its best to make this as un-enjoyable as possible. It was like 15 degrees and overcast, with snow falling intermittently. The other issue is that this place is at 9,000 feet, which pretty much makes exertion harder at all levels. Nonetheless, I was determined to enjoy myself. Did some drills with Peter until I felt more confident on the skate skis to venture farther out onto the trails. Did some nice loops, but with a lot of breaks to catch my breath. It was much more difficult than I remembered.
Monday 01/25: Off, travel. Also insanely sore in all of these strange places.
Tuesday - Wednesday (01/26 - 01/27): Off. No excuse... just useless blobbiness. Meh.
Thursday 01/28: 5.3 miles, 44:09 (8:20 min/mile) Monterrey to Third Bridge
Remembered that somehow I signed myself up to run Patrician on Saturday, so I figured it would be in my best interests to run a little bit before then, just to make sure my legs still work. Felt fine, but somehow ended up being irate anyways because I figured this should have been faster due to all of the extra rest. Maybe I'm just losing fitness now :(
Friday 01/29: Off, shots. No motivation to do an evening run.
Saturday 01/30: 10 miles, 1:27:47 (8:47 min/mile) Patrician
Fun run with Kamalah (!) who's in town this weekend, Michelle, Susan, Stephanie and Ryan (Keeley, not The Brain). Super super easy except for the Patrician Hills part, where I picked it up a little in a moderately unsuccessful attempt to stay with Susan. Re-grouped at the sketchy hose water, with a short double back to collect Kamalah and we were on our way again. The hills were definitely a shock to the system, but I came out of it alright. Felt like I had energy to burn on the way back to Tech and wanted to tempo it, but dialed it back since no one else seemed amenable to the idea. Nice breakfast at Corner Bakery afterwards!
Week Total: 15.3 miles... mmmm, not so decent... though I feel slightly more motivated to start training again, I think I'm okay on the flats, but sad that I'm so weak on hills now :(
After last week, I thought maybe it wouldn't be as hard as I thought to clip back into some sort of rhythm of regular running... not so. I still kind of feel deflated and discouraged for the most part, accentuated by a heavy dose of existential ennui relating to my life outside of running. Bah, humbug.
Sunday 01/24: XC Skiing with Peter (~3 hours)
Took advantage of this lull in running motivation to enjoy some other activities. Though, I must say the weather tried its best to make this as un-enjoyable as possible. It was like 15 degrees and overcast, with snow falling intermittently. The other issue is that this place is at 9,000 feet, which pretty much makes exertion harder at all levels. Nonetheless, I was determined to enjoy myself. Did some drills with Peter until I felt more confident on the skate skis to venture farther out onto the trails. Did some nice loops, but with a lot of breaks to catch my breath. It was much more difficult than I remembered.
Monday 01/25: Off, travel. Also insanely sore in all of these strange places.
Tuesday - Wednesday (01/26 - 01/27): Off. No excuse... just useless blobbiness. Meh.
Thursday 01/28: 5.3 miles, 44:09 (8:20 min/mile) Monterrey to Third Bridge
Remembered that somehow I signed myself up to run Patrician on Saturday, so I figured it would be in my best interests to run a little bit before then, just to make sure my legs still work. Felt fine, but somehow ended up being irate anyways because I figured this should have been faster due to all of the extra rest. Maybe I'm just losing fitness now :(
Friday 01/29: Off, shots. No motivation to do an evening run.
Saturday 01/30: 10 miles, 1:27:47 (8:47 min/mile) Patrician
Fun run with Kamalah (!) who's in town this weekend, Michelle, Susan, Stephanie and Ryan (Keeley, not The Brain). Super super easy except for the Patrician Hills part, where I picked it up a little in a moderately unsuccessful attempt to stay with Susan. Re-grouped at the sketchy hose water, with a short double back to collect Kamalah and we were on our way again. The hills were definitely a shock to the system, but I came out of it alright. Felt like I had energy to burn on the way back to Tech and wanted to tempo it, but dialed it back since no one else seemed amenable to the idea. Nice breakfast at Corner Bakery afterwards!
Week Total: 15.3 miles... mmmm, not so decent... though I feel slightly more motivated to start training again, I think I'm okay on the flats, but sad that I'm so weak on hills now :(
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