Cool Runnings!

Lunch - 5 miles on the trusty treadmill, programmed for 1/4 mile warmup at 8:30 pace, then 4.75 miles at 7:30 pace.  Felt pretty good, pretty controlled, but like I normally do on Mondays, not 100% normal after the weekend.  However, the breathing was good, and the legs were fine.  I had felt a little bit of soreness early last week in my shins, but that seems to have gone away.

Lunch - 5 miles on the treadmill again.  1/2 mile warmup at 8:00 pace, then 4 miles at 7:30 pace, then 1/2 mile cooldown at 8:00 pace.  Nothing much else to report.  Everything feels pretty good.

PM - 1.5 miles with Samuel, average pace of 10:30/mile.  Made posole for dinner tonight - it turned out quite good.  A very healthy meal as well - crushed tomatoes, onions, oregano, diced pork (we used leftovers from a pork roast) and white hominy.  Not a whole lot to it, but it was the first time I had made it.  The real trick is to get our oldest two to try anything new.  Adam totally snarfed it down.

Lunch - hard workout today on the treadmill.  1/2 mile workout to shake the legs loose at 8:30 pace, the on to the meat of the workout:  Tempo run of 5 miles at 6:40 pace.  I ended up adding to the difficulty of the workout by making the last 1/2 mile of the tempo run at 6:00 pace.  1/2 mile cooldown at 8:30 pace, and I was pretty tired (not to mention absolutely soaked) after that.  Got myself some gatorade to replentish my glycogen stores, which helped.

Lunch - recovery run - 4.5 easy miles on the treadmill at 8:00 pace.  Felt very easy, especially after the tempo run yesterday.  I am hoping I will be able to slowly extend that 6:40 pace out as I continue to train.  After the run, did lat pulldowns, seated rows, ab crunch machine and planks.  Planning on running with Samuel this afternoon.

PM - 1.5 miles with Samuel, he earned his smoothie today by averaging under 10:00 pace for the entire run.  Average pace of 9:59/mile.

AM - 4 miles.  I took the morning off, since Lybi had her ultrasound, and after dropping Joey off at school, I ran 4 miles outside.  Don't recall my average pace, but it felt good.  Found out great news at the ultrasound - we're having a girl!  Of course, I would have still been very happy if we were having another boy, but having a girl is something we have wished for for a long time.  Not to mention in Samuel's baby blessing, I had told him he would be a good example to his brothers and sisters, so I was pretty sure one was bound to come eventually.

PM - ran 1.5 miles with Samuel, average pace of 10:11/mile.  He did pretty good - started out pretty fast, slowed down in the middle, and then sped up at the end to bring his average pace down.

AM - got up early this morning and ran with my Del Sol teammates.  We started at the corner of Ellsworth and Bush Highway and ran up the back side of Usury Pass before heading down the other side and eventually making our way to Camille's, who graciously offered her home as both a staging area as well as for a post-run breakfast.  Took it real easy up the back side of Usury Pass - Adam will remember what this was like from last year's Del Sol - averaged about 10:00/mile and chatted with Burt - then once we hit the peak, I took off and hammered some downhill miles.  7:15, 6:41 and 6:25.  Then I slowed down again with about a 7:30 mile, followed by another 7:15 mile (didn't even realize I had sped up again), and then a final mile in 6:45.  Then I ran back a little bit and found a couple of other runners from the team and ran back in with them to make it an even 11 miles.  Average pace of 8:01/mile.

Lunch - 5 easy miles on the treadmill.  My calves were a little sore yesterday after the long run on Saturday combined with some of the miles being fairly fast, so the plan today was just to run easy and give my legs a break while still getting in the miles.  Felt good, legs feel better and looser.  As long as it isn't raining when I get home, I will plan on taking Sam out for a run.

Lunch - 5 miles on the treadmill again.  It would have been a nice day to run outside, but it was a bit chilly, and I didn't bring the right clothes for the weather.  Warmed up 1/4 mile at 8:00 pace, then settled into a nice comfortable 4.5 miles at 7:30 pace.  Worked real hard on making sure I had good form while running.  Cooled down 1/4 mile at 8:00 pace to finish the run.  Did not check my HR today.  It rained yesterday afternoon, so I wasn't able to run with Sam, but I am hoping today will work.

PM - 1.5 miles with Sam, average pace of 10:43/mile.  It was a little chilly out for him, so I ws hesitant to push the pace.  When he exerts himself in cold weather, he ends up having a coughing spell for several minutes.

Lunch - 6.25 miles on the treadmill.  I originally wasn't planning on doing anything other than easy miles this entire week, but that ended up not going according to plan . . . Warmed up 0.5 miles at 8:00 pace, then 4 miles at 7:30 pace.  I was originally trying to do 6 miles in 46 minutes, but realized fairly early on that I was going to do a little bit more, and at 4.5 miles, decided to increase the speed to MP to shoot for 6.2 miles.  Then at 5.5 miles, I upped the pace again to 6:40 to finish out the run with 6.25 miles.  Cooled down, then did some planks to finish the workout.  I haven't been lifting weights because my left shoulder has been bothering me a bit and I don't want to make it any worse.

Lunch - hard workout - 4 miles on the treadmill.  Our fitness center got two brand new treadmills, and I was anxious to see what they were capable of.  This was a progressive run that started off at 7.5 mph (8:00 pace), with the speed increasing 0.5 mph every 1/2 mile until I couldn't keep the pace for 1/2 mile any more.  1/2 mile at 8:00 pace, 1/2 mile at 7:30 pace, 1/2 mile at 7:00 pace 1/2 mile at 6:40 pace, 1/2 mile at 6:20 pace (was still doing very good here with my breathing and my stride), 1/2 mile at 6:00 pace (started to labor a bit here), 1/2 mile at 5:40 pace, then 1/4 mile at 5:20 pace - this was where I finally couldn't hold the pace for the full 1/2 mile.  I know I could have, but I didn't want to be completely wasted after the workout.  For the last 1/4 mile I cooled down walking, then walked for another few minutes.  I counted the first 1/4 mile of walking as part of my run.  My impressions of this workout:

1.  I was a bit surprised at how long into the workiout I was able to maintain good breathing - all the way to 6:00 pace.

2.  I was excited about how long I was able to go at sub-6:00 pace.  I feel confident that if I tried, I could run a sub-5:30 mile right now, and I also feel pretty confident that this year I might finally be able to break 18:00 in the 5K.

My workout today leads me to believe that the new treadmills go all the way up to 12 mph (5:00 pace).  At some point, as my training continues to progress, I may try to get in some V02 workouts at that pace to see how I do.  But that won't be for some time yet.

Lunch - 6 recovery miles on the treadmill at 8:00 pace.  Legs were a little bit out of what from yesterday's workout, and I felt like I could never quite hit my natural stride.  However, I am glad I ran.  I noticed today that not only was I breathing extremely easy throughout the entire run, but I cooled down very quickly after I was done.  A month ago, that was not the case.

AM - 6 miles outside. I was originally planning on a long run of 12 miles, but my legs were totally dead, my shins were a little sore, and I decided it wasn't worth it to try and get in more miles when I wasn't feeling good, so I cut it real short. Average pace of 7:52/mile.

Lunch - 6 miles on the treadmill, nice steady pace.  After a rough run on Saturday, I was hoping that today was going to be easier.  The muscles in my left hip were kind of sore (maybe bad sleeping position?) but otherwise I felt pretty refreshed.  Warmed up for1/2 mile at 8:00 pace, then bumped up the pace to 7:30 pace for 5 miles.  Cooled down at 8:30 pace for the last 1/2 mile.  Everything felt good - I felt like I was back in my stride today.  I guess that hard workout last week must have taken something out of me.  Planning on 1.5 with Samuel this afternoon (need to be more consistent about that).

PM - ran 1.2 miles with Samuel to the store and back to pick up a FHE treat.  Averaged 10:35/mile.

Lunch - ran outside today, no GPS, just a watch.  I felt so good today that this ended up being a not-so-good thing, as I ran faster than I realized.  5.1 miles on Lunch Run 2, beautiful day, probably low-60's and sunny, slightly windy but not bad at all.  Felt good throughout the entire run, very relaxed, very controlled.  Average pace was about 7:15/mile.  Oops - I was shooting more for 7:30-7:40.  I felt a little bit of general soreness in my shins today, but nothing localized - probably about time to get a new pair of shoes.  My Tangent 3's have around 300 miles on them, and I was told they wouldn't last as long as a regular stability shoe.

PM - 1.5 miles with Samuel, average pace of 10:35/mile.  He took off in the beginning and was running around 9:00 pace, then when I told him how fast he was running (bad move maybe?) he immediately slowed down.  Next time I won't tell him if he is running too fast . . . :) 

Lunch - 5 miles on the treadmill, followed by ab work.  A variation of planks where I did plank lifts, then side planks, then leg lifts.  Run felt good, shins are still a little bit sore, but no more than before.  Easy runs the rest of this week (I promise!).

Lunch - 6 miles on the treadmill.  I started out nice and easy for the first two miles - 8:00 pace, then sped up to 7:30 pace for 3.65 miles, and for the last bit, decided to see how I handled running at 5:00 pace, and how long I could last.  I was kind of hoping I might be able to do a 1/2 mile at that speed, but decided to put the brakes on at 0.35 miles.  It felt extremely fast - I haven't run at that speed for a long time.

After running and before I could shower and get dressed, the fire alarm in the building went off, and everyone was evacuated.  No fire, but apparently someone in that building had received a piece of mail with a white powder in it, so the fire department and hazmat crew came in to check it out.  After an hour of waiting in my shorts and singlet (thankfully it was nice out) I finally got to go back in and grab my stuff from the locker room, but no shower :(  Since I actually work in the building next door, I just got dressed and headed over there, but everyone who worked in that building had to collect their stuff and leave.  Craziness.  About 15-20 minutes before we started going back in, a FOX news chopper was hovering over the area, and I heard that they had reporters there as well.

Lunch - 5 easy miles on the treadmill, 8:00 average pace.  Wore my HR chest strap today and used the integrated Polar HRM function of the treadmill to monitor my HR during the run.  Average HR of 150, max HR of 158 (I am not counting a 1-second blip where my HR jumped to 161 once).  Run felt very good.  Over the course of the 5 miles, my HR slowly crept up from the 140's to the low-mid 150's by the end.  Very interesting.  Since I went back on my declaration yesterday from the previous day that I would not do any speedwork, I am going to pledge to myself to NOT do any more speedword before Del Sol.  Getting injured a week prior to the relay would be a very bad thing.

PM - 1.5 miles with Samuel, average pace of 10:38/mile.  He has been complaining of late of a pain in his left knee - when he points to it, the pain is just below his kneecap, towards the inside.  Couldn't find anything wrong - we will see what happens over the next few days.  After running with Sam, ran 1.1 miles with Joseph at 11:20 pace to Fry's and back so that we could pick up some alfredo sauce for the younger boys for spaghetti tonight - they really love it, and goodness knows Joey needs to get some meat on his bones . . . he did very well, in spite of worrying that he would get tired.

AM - ran 4.1 miles to a member's house to help him move a few blocks away.  I woke up with a sore back, so I started off slow and used the run to just warm up for the move.  Average pace of 7:52/mile.  Felt very good.

AM2 - ran 3.9 miles back from helping out with the move - with being nice and warmed up (and also wanting to get back home a bit quicker), I found myself naturally running faster on the way home.  Average pace of 7:17/mile, was slowly increasing the pace the entire run.  I am putting down 1 mile at MP.  This run also felt very good - felt good to stretch the legs out a little bit without going too fast.

Lunch - 5.5 easy miles on the treadmill at 8:00 pace. Wore my HR monitor strap again to synch with the HR monitor on the treadmill. Average HR was a bit higher today than last Friday - probably because I didn't get enough sleep, despite getting to bed at a reasonable hour. I woke up at 4:30 with a very sore back, and couldn't get back to sleep. Average HR for the run was about 153, max HR was 160. It also did something really weird that I am sure was not right - when I first started out, it showed my HR up at about 178 for about the first 1/2 mile, then it dropped down to the upper 140's. I will attribute this to the HR strap not having any sweat or other conductivity gel to conduct the electrical impulse from the heart to the transmitter in the strap. That's about the only thing I can think of . . .

PM - untimed run with Adam, may have been as much as 0.25, but I didn't want to pressure him.  0.65 with Joey at 11:30 pace, then 1.5 with Samuel at 10:40 pace.  I made sure today that Samuel was the one leading, and I was just giving him feedback about his pace so that he knew whether to speed up or not.  For the first 1/2 mile, he was having a real hard time figuring out what the right pace was, but towards the end, he found a good pace and was able to do a good job of maintaining it.  One item of concern - just before I started to run with Samuel, my left hamstring kind of cramped up on me a little bit, although it felt fine during the run.  After we were done running, it felt a bit sore again.  I am going to have Lybi apply the hamstring torture treatment tonight.

Lunch - 4.5 easy miles on the treadmill.  0.5 at 8:00 pace, then 4 miles at 7:30 pace.  Average HR for the run was 154, max HR 163.  HR seemed to pretty much stabilize right around 160 after a couple miles at 7:30 pace.  Hamstring still felt a little bit tight, but better after getting the heck scraped out of it last night.  No cramping, stretched it out nicely after the run. 

No running today or tomorrow - I am dealing with a couple very small niggles that I don't want to aggravate before Del Sol.  My left hammy, although feeling much better than the other day, is still a little tender, and my right foot is a little sore.  Better to give them some rest before running what will be, including warming up and cooling down, well over 20 miles.

Leg 7

Our 7th runner was not going to be able to run his first leg due to work (he was a last-minute replacement), so I volunteered to run his first leg for him.  I was hoping to just make this a nice warmup - that didn't happen.  When I got the armband, I took off like a rocket, and didn't look at my Garmin until about 1/4 mile later, when my breathing had started to get kind of labored.  I realized I was actually running 5:10 pace up to that point!  Needless to say, I was full of adrenaline.  I managed to slow down a bit, but completed leg 7 in 29:13, average pace of 6:37/mile.  This was definitely not a warmup for me, and unfortunately  probably set the tone for all of my legs.

Leg 12

This was my actual leg I was scheduled to run, and it was already dark and we were running on dirt roads.  This slowed me down due to the decreased traction on dirt, as well as the inability to see very well, plus there were some very inconsiderate vehicles blazing down the road, throwing up huge clouds of dust.  Not very good for the lungs . . . I actually started off on this leg at about 6:20 pace, but was unable to maintain it - and then the thing that really kept me from meeting my goal was a big superman-style wipeout as I veered off towards the left side of the road and tripped on the soft shoulder.  Thankfully, there were no injuries, and I was able to get back up and start running again, but I was kind of in shock.  It took me a while to recover.  Then, with about 0.5 miles to go, I ended up walking for about 30 seconds, then started up again.  Time for this run was 48:12, average pace of 6:53/mile.  Still below 7:00/mile, but slower than I had wanted.  More details to come later - right now I need to lay down and get some sleep.

Leg 24 - 7.9 miles

I was already feeling sore from my first two legs, so I didn't know what I was going to be able to do on this one.  I started off well, hitting about 6:50 pace for the first couple of miles, but my legs didn't last very long, especially since this was mostly gradual uphill.  I ended up wimping out and walking occasionally about every mile, which was about when our van stopped to offer me gatorade.  When we made the turn, I managed to put together a pretty good couple miles, but then we hit more uphill and my legs abandoned me.  Out of all my legs, this was the one I was most disappointed with.  Average pace: 7:38/mile.  I was absolutely exhausted after this leg.  I had also gotten a blister on my right big toe during the previous leg, and got a matching one on my left big toe to match.

Thankfully, we drove down to Camille's house after this leg, and her husband made waffles for us with orange juice.  We also had a nice place to take a hot shower, which I did.  I downed a couple waffles and had some orange juice, then laid down on the couch and managed to get maybe an hour of sleep.  Then off to our final set of legs.  Everyone was tired and sore and ran slower than we had planned.

Leg 36 - 3.8 miles

I got the baton and surpised myself with how well I was doing - I was running about 6:30 pace and felt like I could sustain it, then got hit with the dreaded stoplight.  I lost at least 30 seconds at the stoplight and had I been a cursing man, would have been cursing the light for taking so long to change.  Another speedy runner had caught up to me at the light, and we took off together.  I tried to stay with him, but he was running a little too fast for me.  I made the turn on to Alma School road, and had to wait for ANOTHER light!  Another 30 seconds (minimum) lost.  Grrrr!  From Alma School, I went on to the canal for about a mile, and the dirt took a lot out of me.  Once I got onto the road again, I was really struggling.  I ended up walking for about 0.1 miles again until I got to Dobson, then ran the rest of the way in.  Oh, and I had two more lights that I had to wait at!  Finally finished, and I was absolutely beat.  Average pace was 7:13/mile, but I feel confident that had it not been for the stoplights, I would have been able to hit my predicted pace of 6:48/mile.