Cool Runnings!

Lunch - 6.2 miles outside.  Legs felt better than yesterday, but still a little rubbery.  That could have been from playing volleyball last night for an hour.  I was struggling a little bit today with my breathing, in spite of what felt like an easy pace.  Average pace of 7:26/mile for the run.  Did not get up early this morning because I didn't get enough sleep the night before, and if I am going to get up early and run, I need to be in bed by 10:00.

AM - 10 miles this morning without eating breakfast, which pretty much ensured I would be burning mostly fat on this run.  Ran 4 miles to the HS track, average pace of 7:53/mile, then did total of 3 miles on the track.  First two were average of about 7:30/mile, and the last one was about 7:15.  Then ran back via a different route.  By this time I was really feeling the effects of not having eaten anything, and felt like I was just plodding along.  I decided that it would be a good idea for me to push the last mile to work on improving my fat-burning capability at faster speeds.  Slowly increased speed from 7:55/mile or so to about MP effort with a mile to go.  Last mile in 6:47.  It was pretty difficult, both to maintain turnover as well as from a cardiovascular perspective.  We'll see if I get in any more miles today.  I am still kind of sore from volleyball - mostly either my piriformis or my gluteus medius on my right side.  Stretched it out last night, will stretch some more today.

Lunch - 6 miles on the treadmill.  It is starting to get too hot out for me to run outside.  I wore my mp3 player today to make the run less boring on the treadmill - it worked.  I may keep doing that.  This week I am planning on adding mileage by getting in a few miles every morning - 2-3 - and then dropping down to 5 miles at lunch so that I can spend a little more time working on my core.  Eventually, I will probably ramp up to 3 miles in the morning and 6 miles at lunch.  That might just allow me to break 60 mpw later in the summer.

AM - did not run this morning, as I didn't get enough sleep.  I had a hard time getting to sleep last night, in spite of getting to bed at a fairly decent hour.

Lunch - 6.25 miles on the treadmill.  Started off easy warming up at 8:30 pace, then bumped it up to 7:30 pace after 1/2 mile.  At the 1 mile mark, started a MP tempo run (6:53/mile) forthe next 5 miles.  At the 6 mile mark, I bumped it up to 6:00/mile pace to finish the last 0.25 miles.  All in all, a pretty good run, although it felt a little bit harder than it should have.  I hope that I will be able to get to bed early tonight so that I can start running in the morning as well, but we have decided that if I don't get to bed by 10:00, then I can't wake up early to run in the morning, so I have to put forth the effort to get to bed early enough.

AM - did not run again - I had a hard time falling asleep again, and as a result, did not get enough sleep to justify getting up early.

Lunch - 6 easy miles on the treadmill.  First 3 miles at 8:00 pace, last 3 miles at 7:30 pace.  Legs felt a little sluggish after yesterday's MP tempo run.

AM - did not run again.  Maybe tomorrow, maybe next week.  More important to get enough sleep.

Lunch - 6 miles on the treadmill at 7:30 pace.  Decided to mix things up a bit, and played with the incline settings.  Starting at mile 1.5

0.5 miles at 1.0 incline

0.5 miles at 1.5 incline

0.5 miles at 2.0 incline

0.5 miles at 2.5 incline

0.5 miles at 3.0 incline

0.5 miles at 2.0 incline

0.5 miles at 1.0 incline

Finished up with 1 mile at 0 incline, could feel that my legs were tired.

Lunch - 6.5 mile progressive run on the treadmill.  First 1/2 mile warmup at 8:00 pace, then the next 1.5 miles at 7:30 pace.  Then began the progressive tempo run.  1 mile at 7:00 pace, 1 mile at 6:40 pace, 1 mile at 6:20 pace and 1 mile at 6:00 pace, then the last 1/2 mile at 5:40 pace.  Cooled down to finish.  It felt good to stretch my legs again, and I feel that as the weight is slowly coming off (and also being redistributed) it is becoming easier to run faster (very good thing).  Unless the weather is extremely bad for the 5K in two weeks, I am feeling very hopeful for not only a PR, but to break 18:00.

AM - 13 miles outside, before it got hot.  I got up at 5 am so that I could get in a longer run.  The plan was to take it nice and easy the entire run, since I had kind of a hard workout yesteday.  First I ran to the store to pick up a gatorade and some powergels.  Took the gatorade home and drank a little, then had my first gel and took the other one with me to take later.  Stopped at just after 5 miles to take some water.  Just after 9 miles, I took the second gel, was starting to feel a little sluggish.  The first 7 miles were right around 8:00 pace, then I started to pick things up a little bit.  Mile 8 was in 7:47, mile 9 in 7:46, mile 10 in 7:35, mile 11 in 7:17, and mile 12 in 7:06 (I counted this as a MP mile), then slowed down and ran the last mile in 7:47.  Total time for the run was 1:41:13, average pace of 7:47/mile.

Lunch - 6 easy miles on the treadmill at 8:00 pace.  Feeling a little under the weather - scratchy throat, little stuffed up, so I wanted to make sure I took it easy.  Felt very easy today, although it took a minute or two for my legs to warm up.

Update:  I got an email from the St. George marathon and I am IN!  I am excited and hoping that this will be the year that I will be able to break 3 hours.

Lunch - finally got out for a run again, after having been laid up basically all last week being sick and completely exhausted.  4 easy miles on the treadmill at 8:00 pace.  I will take it as a very good sign that this run felt very easy in every aspect.  I was originally planning on putting in a few miles this morning as well, but I didn't get to bed in time.  I'll try again tonight to get to bed by 10:00 so that I can get up early enough to run about 3 miles tomorrow morning.

Lunch - 4 miles on the treadmill again.  I did not get to bed early enough to run this morning.  Started off at 8:00 pace, then progressed to 7:30 pace after 1 mile and stayed there for the rest of the run.  I have been feeling a bit congested today; hoping that doesn't lead to anything else.  If I start to feel any worse, I will shut it down and drop out of the 5K this weekend.  However, today may just be due to allergies - we had a storm last night with rain and high winds that blew a lot of dust around, and I didn't take my claritin last night like I normally do.

Lunch - 4 miles on the treadmill.  First mile at 8:00 pace to warm up, second mile at 7:30 pace, 3rd mile at 7:00 pace (I am considering this marathon pace), then picked up the pace on the last mile to 5K pace - 5:42, to get myself ready for my 5K on Saturday.  It felt good, no issues, I feel good to go for this weekend.  I am looking forward to seeing what I can do, depending on what the weather throws at me.  I am trying to decide if I am also going to do the Moon Valley 5K this year as well, since it is only a few weeks before St. George - I guess I will have to see.

Afterwards, did 1 minute of planks facing downward and 1 minute on each side, then did some knee raises.  Last week when I was sick, I gained back all the weight I had lost so far, and I am hoping some of it is just due to perhaps water retention or something like that.

Lunch - 5.1 easy miles outside today.  It was too gorgeous to pass up today - about 80 degrees, cloudy with some occasional spitting rain.  Beautiful!  The run felt very good - no soreness at all, except in my arms and pecs.  I made the mistake of doing pushups with my webelos scouts last night as they were finishing up with their athlete activity badge.  I managed to do 35 (not too bad), but now I am paying for it.  It looks like the weather is going to be beautiful this weekend - I am looking forward to the race.

Lunch - nice easy run outside again.  I couldn't pass up running in this weather again - it was so beautiful!  5.71 miles at average pace of 7:30/mile.  Felt nice and easy.  I ended up running up to where the 5K is tomorrow and running the 5K course, then coming back.  It was quite nice, and I'm glad I had the chance to refresh my memory on what the course is like.

AM - Burt met me at 6:15, and we headed off to Papago Park to the first of the Arizona Road Racers summer race series. We got there with plenty of time, and I picked up my bib and timing chip. This race is the only one of the series that employs a age and gender handicap, where you start a certain number minutes after the gun to avoid congestion, and the entire race is timed by chip time instead of clock time. My age group handicap was 13:52. After running nice easy 1.5 mile warmup, I got in line and waited to get going. There were a lot more people there this year as opposed to last year, so it was more crowded than before. Time for the race was 19:00 flat, with splits below.

Mile 1 - 5:53 - I hit 5:10 pace during this first mile at some point, which probably did me in. This mile was also the craziest, with my having to slow down and speed up multiple times due to the sheer number of slower runners in front of me.

Mile 2 - 6:15 - on this mile, which included the turnaround, I realized that I was not going to reach my goal of sub-18:00, because I was already struggling, and I decided to slow it down a bit.

Mile 3 - 6:13 - This mile included a nice downhill where I actually hit 4:50 pace, otherwise it would have been a bit slower.

Final 0.11 - :38 - 5:28 average pace, and I hit 4:40 pace during my kick.

I ended up 36th overall and 6th in my age division. In retrospect, I am pretty happy with this result given that last week I missed the entire week except Monday due to sickness, and it was also very humid today, even though the weather was pretty nice. Burt did a great job getting a new PR in the 5K, so congratulations to him.

On a side note, Olympic hopeful Sara Slattery was in the race. The announcer said she still held the all-time HS state record in the mile at 4:48. I saw her coming back while I was heading out and didn't recognize her at the time, but heard her yell at the runners crowding the other lane to move. She was booking it, and ended up being the first overall finisher in spite of the handicap.

Lunch - 4.75 miles on the treadmill.  Started off easy, but got bored quickly and since I wasn't completely satisfied with my race, wanted to see what I could manage on the treadmill.  Started off at 8:00 pace, then increased to 7:30 pace after a mile.  At 2 miles, increased the pace to 7:00 pace, then increased the speed every 1/2 mile after that.  At 2.5 miles, increased to 6:40 pace, at 3 miles, increased to 6:20 pace, at 3.5 miles, increased to 6:00 pace (still doing good), at 4 miles, increased to 5:42 pace, at 4.5, increased to 5:30 pace, then called it good after 1/4 mile at that pace.  Good workout, but the downside was that afterwards the top of my foot hurt.  I am a bit concerned, as it was sore after my race as well.  I iced it later in the evening, and decided to not do any more running this week, but will instead get on the bike to keep up the cardio and still work the legs.

11.25 miles on the bike at the fitness center.  Got in a pretty good workout, although for the most part, my HR was down in the 110-120 range.  Towards the end, I got it up to 140 really pushing it on a simulated hill - RPM's were around 105.  Had that weird feeling after the ride I will call "biker's legs" where everything still felt kind of rolling for a couple minutes.

Lunch - 14.4 miles on the bike in 40 minutes.  Today was more of a cardio workout than yesterday - more of a constant resistance aimed at reaching a certain HR as opposed to doing hills yesterday.  Got my HR up to 150 by the end.  Average speed would have been 21.6 mph based on the distance.  Got a real good workout for my legs, then did core till my abs were burning.  Foot still hurts :(

Lunch - another 14.4 miles on the bike in the fitness center.  Got my HR up to 163 today at the end, but I was also going at about 110 rpm . . . legs were burning good at the end.  Then I did core again until my abs were burning big time.  I hope that I can still maintain some semblance of fitness this next week while I wait to see what is going on with my foot.  Been icing it, and started rubbing hydrocortisone cream on it at night to help with any inflammation, since I can't handle motrin.  This injury is really baffling me.  I don't wear my running shoes tight, but at the same time, there doesn't appear to be major tenderness to the touch at the location that is painful.