In Sickness and in Health

Went out today with Larry for 6 miles - my first run following a mild stomach flu that kept me in on Monday. I still felt the effects: average pace was 8:22 min/mile, up 42 seconds/mile from my 7:40s - and the slowest pace of '07. If the weather is ok Friday, I may try again then.

Our team may try and run in the New York Colon Cancer Challenge on March 11th. I find this a tough one to committ to since I'm in pretty crumy running shape now, although the 15k distance is probably a good distance for me. I'll have to think about it.

Another Cold Run

Getting motivated to go out for a run in this cold is getting tough. It probably doesn't help that I've been adding on a few extra miles everytime. Today I did 6.5 miles at an average pace of 7:40. The temp was cold - It took about 1.5 miles before I warmed-up, and by that I mean: felt like I wasn't going to have the tips of my fingers removed from frostbite. I also developed a blister near the heal of my right foot. Now I need to consider sending those new Asics DS trainers back. Damn!

Teen Temp Tempo

Did a 5-miler today, including a 2 mile tempo run in the middle: 7:47 (1.5), 6:53, 7:05 and 8.48 (1.5). I'm much happier with my pacing this time. I'll have to try and figure out a good way of bumping the 2 mile tempo up to 3 miles by the end of March.

Yesterday, I went to the YMCA and did the first Total Immesion drills (the book can be found here, or at the local library). The drills felt fine, although I still had trouble with my free style. I guess I'll get to the meat of the excersise later.

Not so negative splits today

Did a not-so-nice 5.75 miler today. The good news is that I got the mileage in, the bad news is that my recent trend of improvement came to a halt. It's funny, I could tell from the begining that I wasn't going to be able to go intense with the pace at all, so I backed off.

The plot shows the nice negative splits on the two previous runs, and todays run, including a fall-off in pace at mile 4 and the walk up 'the bitch' that really killed my pace for mile 5. At least I feel good about getting the run in.

Attempted Tempo

Larry was unable to go today, so I headed out with my trusted iPod Shuffle and my new Mizuno Wave Elixers and ran 3.93 miles at a 7:34 min/mile pace. Largely do to poor pacing, I ran the first 2.43 miles at a 7:15 min/mile pace - which I think qualifies it as a decent attempt at a 3 mile 'short tempo' (ST) run. I then walked for ~50 seconds, before finishing up.

Ideally, I would have went slower on the first mile, then do the next 2 at ST pace (~7:10, for now). But about 1.5 miles into the attempted tempo, I realized I'd better stop. It wasn't until I got back that I realized the first mile ('warm-up' mile) was ~7:33 and the second was 6:55. I need to add about 15 seconds onto each of those if I want my wind for the full tempo distance.

The shoes felt great. Hopefully my heels will feel ok tonight (thus justifying the money spent on new shoes).

MLK Day Swim

I had yesterday off, so I hit the YMCA pool and did 1/2 mile of swimming. I actually feel pretty sore today. I really need to do some drills when swimming. My form is bad. If I swim head-up, I can go at a pretty even pace, but very inefficient. If I try head down, I tend to swim to fast since my breathing is poor. I have trouble sucking in air, without first blowing out - so it takes me twice as long as usual. Eventually I seem to endup with a nose full of water. The other problem I have with swimming is finding a good time to hit the Y - I don't get every Monday off...

Last Friday Larry and I did another near-6-miler. Like earlier in the week, we headed out ~8 min/miles for the first 3 miles, then picked up the pace (~7:30s) the rest of the way. Average pace
was 7:45 over 5.76 miles. Last week's totals were: 11 miles at an average pace of 7:47.

Slowly Regaining Form

It's really pretty amazing how quickly we loose 'it' over the holidays. My last 'long' training run before the Tarzan Brown race was a 6 miler on October 30th. I managed a 7:41 pace that day. Last Friday, Larry and I did 5.72 miles at an average pace of 7:56. Basically, we lost a minute and a half off of a 6 mile run. Today we did 5.27 miles at a 7:49 pace - so we're getting closer. My best 'long' tempo run pace was 7:28s for 6.4 miles - and that's what I'd like to work down to. I think It's important, since I'm only running 2/week, to try and match the long-tempo intensity going into the spring running season.

Happy New Year!

It took 3 days, but I went out with Larry today at lunch and did my first run of the New Year. Neither of us had run in a few days, so our pace out of the shute was slow (8:15 mile 1, 8:03 for mile 2), but we warmed up as the run progressed (7:41 mile 3 and 7:27 for the last .8 miles). Overall pace was 7:52 for 3.87 miles.

Prior to the new year, I did a Christmas Eve run while pushing my two daughters in the running stroller. The new stroller is great, but since they sit side-by-side, it's a little like pushing a kite through when facing the wind. The pace wasn't pretty (an almost unbelievable 9:56 min/mile including some walking for 4.5 miles) - but the workout was good, and my oldest daughter got a much needed nap.

In addition to 2 or 3 weekly runs, I'm still doing the 8-minute jorge workouts (last night was shoulders and abs, tonight calves and thighs). I'm thinking now that I'll keep the mileage low for the next 3 months and concentrate on making sure the strength training sticks. Then I'll start my build for my next goal race which isn't until June 20th (JP Morgan Chase Corporate Challenge). The training actually lines up nicely with the Furman plans 5k schedule. In fact, the 5 mile distance run at week 10 (counting backwards from 12) is aligned with the WTAC Clamdigger 5 mile run in April and the 8 mile run for week 6 corresponds with the Twilight trail run out at Bluff Point in May.