Saturday, June 23, 2007

Race Report

This morning I ran a 5k for the Kearney Community Olympics. I was hoping to finish in a decent place to get my teams some points, but wasn't really counting on it. Only the top three finishers in each age group get extra points, I'm in the 0-29 age group. But more than caring about my place my goal was to finish the race in under 21 minutes.

I'll sum up my run quickly in just one word, shitty.

Before the race my stomach felt weird, I'm sure it was just nevers though. I guess the thought of trying to finish in the top three got to me, I've never really felt nervous before a race that I can remember.

I started up way to far in the pack apparently because everyone took off, including me. I felt like I was holding back a little but still running at a pretty good pace. As we got close to the first mile I checked my watch and DOH!!. I was on the wrong mode so I start the timer. So I had no idea what kind of pace I'd been running other than how it felt, which was a little fast but not too bad. I went ahead and started it a little after mile 1 so I could figure out my first split later.

That feeling of not too bad quickly changed to am I done yet? The thoughts that were running through my head were why am I so damn tired? I can run 3 miles without much trouble and my heart rate wasn't up too high, around 177 or so. I didn't sleep great last night, I woke up off and on. I did however go to bed early, it was before midnight even (ok early for me). I figured it was just one of those days.

I walked through the water break, which was at about the halfway point, so I could get a little water in me (but mostly because I was dead). I felt a little better after that, but that feeling passed quickly as well. I ran the second mile in 7:21, which was too slow for my goal pace. I was getting passed by all kinds of people too, which is always pretty discouraging. I really wanted to go with people when they passed me but my body said "ain't happening dude."

I can handle getting passed by girls, that doesn't bother me at all. But I got passed by a baby, that's right a baby. The kid couldn't even walk, his dad was pushing him in a stroller. Here I am completely dead and pissed because I'm running bad and a BABY passes me. We where just a few blocks from the finish and I said there is no way I'm going to let a baby beat me. Then I thought, but that's not fair, how do I out kick a baby that can't even walk on it's own? I wouldn't have been able to live with myself, so I eased up and let the baby win. (Really that's what happened, I wasn't 100% drained). My watch said 17:22 at the finish which means I ran 10:01 for the last mile (I ran two miles faster than that Wednesday night while keeping my heart rate low at under 150). Very disappointing to say the least. However the race clock said 23:32. Hoohah, that means I ran the first mile in 6:10. That is 9 seconds faster than my fastest mile time trial, no wonder I was so dead the rest of the race.

Anyway I'm really disappointed how I did and now I'm going to just build my base for the rest of the year and hope to crush that time next year. I have to go partake in the rest of the Olympics now (that means no time to proof read, so sorry about the typos). I'm not real sure what I'm going to be doing though. I'll give a report how those go later, so far it's been a really good time.

Tuesday, June 19, 2007

Kearney Community Olympics

If you are looking for the 2009 schedule click here.

I finally have all the info on 2007 Kearney Community Olympics. There are a ton of events (ok, I know 18 isn't really a ton), I've listed all of them at the end of this post. Things get going Friday night at 5:30 and there is a barbecue and awards ceremony Sunday evening starting at 5:15. We compete as a team and get points for each event we compete in and then some events give extra points depending on how you place. I'm signed up for six events, Qi Qong, coed doubles Pickleball, the 5k run, free throw contest, softball and disc golf. I have no idea how to play most of the games but we got a packet that explains all the rules for each event (I have some studying to do) and the ones I do know have different rules. Softball for example, you pitch to your own team and the batter only gets two legal pitches. So that will definitely speed up the games.

The 5k is normal though. There wasn't a map included with anything though so I did some investigating on my own. A Google search found that one of the items agenda items for a 2005 city council meeting was to approve blocking off some roads for the Good Sam 5k (which is the race in the Community Olympics). That info lead me to the minutes for a meeting from this year with the same agenda item. The course they laid out doesn't make complete sense though (go west to get to a road that is actually east?). I made some assumptions as to what I thought they meant and came up with the course below (if the map doesn't show up right you can click here). I'm planning on driving along it later this week to get an idea what it's going to be like. It looks like it's a little downhill for the first mile and a little uphill for the last one but a very gradual incline.

I'm not sure how much of this Amy is going to be able to do though, she has shin splints pretty bad. It would be a shame if she wasn't able to play pickleball with me, then I'd have to go to the Deaf Peds concert instead. I'm just kidding I'd rather her be healthy then go to a show, I'm a nice guy like that. I think this community Olympics idea is a really good one and should be a lot of fun. I'll let you know next week how everything went.





Here are the events:






Qi QongTennisPickleball
Tug-of-WarObstacle Course5k Run/Walk
Inner-tube Water PoloHorseshoesBowling
SoftballVolleyballFree-Throw Shooting
Mountain BikingDisc GolfIron Chef
Soccer Shoot-OutDancing Like a StarKayaking

Monday, June 18, 2007

Nike C8 Revisited

When I first reviewed my heart rate monitor I didn't have any big complaints. Last nights run changed that a little bit, as I mentioned in my last post I lost the data for my last run. The memory bank can only store ten runs and mine was full. So I started the stopwatch when I started my run last night and hit the split at the halfway point then stopped it once I was done. I had the final time I ran but to look at my splits and average heart rate and whatnot I had to switch to Data mode. Before I do that I always save my run, but since my watch was full I couldn't. Some sort of warning that it was full would be nice (there could be one that I missed, I haven't played with it to see).

The button I usually hit to save the data actually said it was going to clear it. As a computer programmer I look at user interfaces slightly different than most people, and I feel that's a bad design. If it were me I wouldn't have that button clear the run, just display an error message that the run couldn't be saved. That would save lots of runners the frustration of clearing a run as soon as they finish instead of saving it like they meant to.

Since I couldn't save the run I switched over to delete a run so I could save that one. If you continue to hold the clear button down after clearing one run it will clear all the runs saved (a very nice feature in my opinion). So I went ahead and did that. Then I went back to my run and IT WAS GONE!! That meant I lost my splits and my average heart rate and my time in the zone and all those fun little stats that I get. I haven't played around to see if it was clearing all the runs that clear it or just leaving that mode. Either way it's pretty annoying.

I'm not trying to pass the buck or anything like that, it was my fault for not ensuring that I had an empty data slot before going for a run (something I'll make damn sure of in the future). I just think the watch could have been designed better to not lose the current run data when that situation comes up.

Building a Base

I only have two more workouts and a 5k before I start focusing on building up my aerobic base. I've done some reading on low heart rate training and I've decided that's how I'm going to try and build my base up. I'll link to a couple of articles at the end of this post that have really given me a lot of very good information and convinced me that this is the right way to do things (if you're short on time you'd be better off skipping to the end and following them). They recommend during a couple base building sessions a year of 8-12 weeks. But since I'm so out of shape that's all I'm going to do for the rest of the year before I start training hard next year.

Basically what it entails is running all of your miles at a pace that keeps your heart rate low. The formula is 180-age, but there is some tweaking depending on your level of fitness. I won't be doing any tweaking so the max for my heart rate will be 155. I'm going to set my the top of my zone at 150 though so I can slow down before I get over my limit. Right now my average pace is 11:40 at a heart rate of 140. I know that's under my target but if I try much harder than that my heart rate seems to jump up into the high 150s. My run this last Sunday went really well though, I'm guessing my average heart rate was 145-147 but I ran a pace of 10:36 for three miles. I can only guess what my heart rate was though because of a little issue I had with my watch (more on that shortly). So hopefully that wasn't a fluke and I am starting to be able to run faster at a similar heart rate.

Follow the links below because they really do give a lot of very good information and what I type here won't even come close to doing them justice, but I'll try anyway. What's going on is that by keeping your heart rate low you are building your aerobic base. They say that the 5k is 95% aerobic and the marathon 99%. When you have a big aerobic base you are able to maintain your pace for a longer period of time. If you want to know if you have an issue with your aerobic base you can use a running calculator like, McMillan's, to see if your race times have a relationship similar to what they predict. If not then it's likely that you need to work on building your base.

Something that I have experienced so far in doing this is that at first it really sucks (great selling point huh?). It is really hard to run as slow as they say I should. During the second half of my runs I have to walk up hills to keep my heart rate where it should be, and walking hurts the pride a little bit. I've comments from quite a few people who have experienced the same thing but they insist that it does get better. So I'm going to spend the next 5 months or so running extremely slowly in hopes that I will have a very big base built up before I start doing speed work again. I'll be sure to keep you posted on how it goes.

Here are the links
Want Speed? Slow Down! by Dr. Philip Maffetone - This is the article that convinced me to give this type of training a shot. If you are going to follow any of these links follow this one. If it doesn't peak your interest then this probably isn't the training for you.
Low Heart Rate training FAQ by formationflier - He has put together a very good FAQ that has answered a lot of questions that I've had since I first read about this.
Low HR Training group on RunningAHEAD - This is a group of runnings that are currently doing low heart rate training, some of them have been doing it for years. They seem more than willing to help people out by answering questions and giving advice. I'll be joining the group late this week, so far I've just been lurking around there.

Saturday, June 16, 2007

Looking Back

Since I started running again I've been showing pretty rapid
improvement. Which I suppose is to be expected going from doing
nothing other than sitting on the couch to running 4 days a week. It
has me looking back on my running during high school. I was decent
but, but far from good. During my best cross country season I think I
was running 17-18 minute 5ks, which was good enough for me to be a
backup at state. During track I ran 52 second 400s and 2:03 800s. That
was good enough to put me on the 4x800 team that finished 7th at
state. I've been wondering, what could I have done if I cared enough
about being a good runner back then to do something about it. All I
did was ran at practice and that was because I ran with a great group
of friends, but my focus was on basketball. Even if I could I wouldn't
change anything though. There is no way I would give up the hours I
spent on my driveway or in the gym playing ball and there is
absolutely no way I would give up our state championship and all the
great memories that came along with it.

I know there is no way to find if I could have broke 2 minutes in the
800 if I just would have trained harder, I'm sure I could have but
that doesn't count for anything. What I do though is see where my
limits are today and that is something I've been thinking a ton about
lately. Can I ran a mile in under 5 minutes? What about a marathon,
can my body take the punishment of training to be able to race for 26
miles? Can I get back down to my high school 5k times, or better? Will
I ever realize there are actually races between the 5k and the
marathon? Basically, I want to find out what my limits are and then
break on through to see what they truly are.

The hardest part about that these questions is that there is no easy
answer. I can't just use Google to see if I can ran fast enough to
qualify for Boston. The only way to answer them is to train and train
some more. So that is what I'm going to do, I'm going to run and I'm
going to find out what I am capable of.

Nice Easy Run

I went for a nice and easy 2.5 mile run tonight. I ran the loop for the first time in quite a while. In fact, it's the first time that I've ran it in the dark since I got the light that clips on the bill of my hat and it worked great. I finished in a time of 29:40 with an average heart rate of 142. My plan was to keep my HR under 150 and I was above it for just under 7 minutes, but I was only a couple beats above each time. I did walk up a hill toward the end to keep my heart rate down. It still amazes me how much my HR jumps up when going up a hill, even though it doesn't feel like I'm working any harder. I'm happy to report that I didn't have any pain in my knees at all, or anywhere else for that matter.

We're heading back to Lincoln again tomorrow, this time for a wedding. It should be a pretty good time, I just hope I can stay "hydrated" for a low price (i.e. free). It will be a very short trip because Amy and I both have to work Monday morning.

I have one week until my 5k for the Kearney Community Olympics (I'll post about them in the next couple days). So I'm going to take things easy this week. I'm only supposed to do a 3 mile run and a 1.5 mile run before the race. I don't think I can just sit around for that long do I'll through in an extra run early in the week, probably the loop. Since I run my easy runs extremely easy I'm sure it won't hurt anything.

Friday, June 15, 2007

Knee Pains

First things first. GO SPURS!!! WOOHOO!!!! They put on an impressive show sweeping the Cavs to win their fourth championship since '99. Ok so it wasn't the most impressive offensive series, or anything remotely close. But the way that the Spurs play as a team and always find someone to step and their ability to shut down the other teams is very impressive. I'm going on the record now, if the Spurs make it to the finals again next year to repeat I will do everything I can to get tickets to a game, in San Antonio. And not nose bleed tickets either, I'm talking first 20 rows so I can actually see the game.

Now, back to running. Since I started running again a big concern that I've had is how my knees will hold up. I have a history of knee issues. Back in high school I battled with pain in both knees my junior and senior years. When I was going to community college a few years ago I was playing basketball a few nights a week and my knee got so bad that I couldn't put any weight on it for a few weeks. I'm a real man idiot and didn't let that stop me from playing though, it always seemed to loosen up after playing for a couple minutes. Basketball is a lot different from running in that regard though. With ball it's all kinds of different stuff that your knee goes through, so what ever is causing the pain gets a break once in awhile. When you run you just keep pounding away at it, step after step after ever more painful step.

In an effort to avoid hurting my knees again I've been doing a decent job of stretching to try and loosen up my legs a little. I'm still stiff as a board though. Up until this week everything has been going great, no pain at all. My right knee has hurt a little during my last couple runs though, at the top of the kneecap. That's the same place it hurt in high school. It only hurt for short periods of time though, maybe a minute or two during the middle of the run and that's it.

Tonight I ran some hills to see if I could get closer to my max heart rate than last time. I couldn't even get up to my average heart rate of 182 from the 3k. The hills were about 150 meters and I ran 5 of them all out. Just jogging back down for rest. I also warmed up for ten minutes first and cooled down for another ten minutes after. My knee didn't bother me at all during my workout. I got home and drank some water, took of my shoes and walked around in the apartment a bit and I had a sharp pain in the back of my right knee toward the inside. I have never felt a pain like that before so I'm a little concerned. It didn't last very long and I iced it right away. I'm hoping its just a fluke thing but I'll be keeping an eye on it.

Since my knee started hurting I've been running in the grass instead of on the bike trail or road as much as possible. I've also been trying to read as much as I can on injury prevention. If anyone has any suggestions on what to do or can recommend any websites or books I would love to read about it in the comments.

Wednesday, June 13, 2007

Sleep Issues

I don't sleep normal (that may be a bit of an understatement). I'll run through a typical day for me quick. I get up about 7:30 A.M. (after hitting snooze for about 20 minutes) hop in the shower and get to work a little after 8. I come home for lunch and take a little nap for about 20 minutes and head back to work. Then after work I usually end up taking another "nap" for a 2-3 hours. Then I'm usually up until 3 or 4 before I go to sleep for 3-4 more hours and start the cycle all over again.

When people hear that the first thing they say is well don't take a nap then you won't be up until 3 or 4. That sounds great in theory but it always seems that no matter how much sleep I get the night before I get tired in the afternoon. So I force myself to stay awake and am pretty much just a zombie the whole evening. Then 10 or 11 rolls around and I catch a second wind or something and I wake up. I try to go to bed but I just toss and turn and after an hour or so of that I get up until 3 or 4 again. So then I missed out on a few hours of sleep after work but I still didn't get anything done because I was too tired to focus. This is how I've been since at least my sophomore year of high school.

If I weren't married I don't think I'd have a problem with my sleep pattern at all. Really I kind of like it, it's like I have twice as many days as everyone else. The problem is that the only time Amy and I are both awake is when we are at work. Since we don't work together we don't spend too much quality time together. I doubt that sleeping this way is the best plan for productivity at work or recovering after runs either. So I'm on a quest to fix it.

Here is an article on LifeHack.org that pretty much describes how I sleep exactly and has a solution on how to fix it. Sit in front of a light for 30 minutes every morning. Even though that sounds like loads of fun I'm not sure I want to drop $300 to do so. I'll explore some other options first. In fact that's part of the reason I haven't been posting much the last few days. I've been going to sleep early, around 1 in the morning (well, early for me) and haven't had naps in the evening. So far it seems to be going pretty good.

If anyone else has/had similar sleep issues how do you deal with it or how did you over come it?

Saturday, June 9, 2007

Race Results: Havelock Charity Run

This morning was the Havelock Charity Run in Lincoln. We ran the 3k version. This event had the extra feature of running as part of a team to earn money for a charity. The way that the charity piece works is that Pinnacle Bank donates $50 to your selected charity. Then if your team beats their team (who is always pretty slow) then they will donate an additional $25, for a grand total of $75. The Charity we chose to run for is the Matt Talbot Kitchen. Their mission is "to serve the physical, emotional and spiritual needs of Lincoln's working poor, and homeless through outreach, advocacy, education and the provision of food and shelter.

Amy's brother puts our team together and had enough people this year for two teams. One of the guys that ran with us was our former high school track and cross country coach. It was nice I'm happy to say that both teams beat the Pinnacle Bank team. The team I was on got second and the other team got 5th. We had all men though and they had two girls, they were the second coed team.

This course is pretty much flat, there was one hill but it wasn't very steep at all. My goal for this race was 13 minutes. I really wanted to make my goal 12, but I didn't think I could pull that off and wanted to keep things realistic. My watch time was 12:03 and I'm pretty sure my chip time will be about the same. So I made my goal of 13 but I'm upset that I didn't run just a little faster and break that 12 minute mark. I'm pretty sure I could have but I didn't know the course and I thought there was another turn before the finish line so I held back a little bit until I realized that I was wrong. I'll need to make sure I get a map of the course sooner and study it better next time.

Amy had a good race too, she ran a 16:37 which is quite an improvement over her two mile time of 19:55 from April 21st.

Next up is a 5k for the Kearney Community Olympics on the 23rd. According to the McMillian Running Calculator my 12:03 translates to a 21:01. So I'm making my goal 21 minutes, but I have a secret goal of breaking 20 minutes.

Friday, June 8, 2007

Random Updates

My leg stopped twitching after lunch. I'm guessing that MVTruman was right when he said it was either Fatigue or an Electrolyte Imbalance that caused it. It would be hard to eliminate either one of those things because my sleep schedule and diet are so messed up.

We had another softball game tonight. We played a lot better and actually got to finish the game instead of losing to the mercy rule after three innings. I actually got a couple hits tonight for the first time this season. My rib cage is a little sore now though. I don't really believe in stopping when I'm running the bases, once I get going it's like 5 steps between the bags. So I was on my way to home and I thought I had plenty of time but I was running pretty much all out anyway. Someone yelled at me to stop and go back to third (like that would happen) and then the pitcher was in the baseline getting ready to catch the ball. I knew I wasn't stopping in time to avoid him so I braced for impact. Yep that's right I didn't let the fact that he was 6'4" and about 275 slow me down. He didn't move at all even though I was running at close to full speed, but I bounced off him pretty good. He didn't catch the ball (I know it's cuz he was scared) and I scored.

After the game I kind of watched the Spurs beat the Cavs in game one of the NBA finals and kind of took a nap. The Spurs sure are looking good, I have no doubt the Spurs will win their 4th championship.

After the game I went for a nice and easy 1.5 mile run. My time was 17:40 (11:47 mins/mile) with an average heart rate of just 135. My legs are a little tired still from Tuesday's hard mile and I want to be pretty fresh for Saturday's 3k so I made sure I ran really easy.

I found out tonight that the 5k Amy signed me up for is on the 23rd at 7:00 in the morning. I don't understand why they always have these races so damn early. Can't they do some at midnight when normal people are awake (I reject your reality and substitute my own (stolen from Mythbusters))? I haven't set a goal for that race yet, I'd love to break 20 but I don't think that's realistic at all. I'll see how this race goes and then figure what I'll shoot for in the 5k but it will probably be in the 22-23 minute range. I'm also planning on going to a concert the night before it. The Deaf Pedestrians are playing here in Kearney for just $10. But you have to get tickets at the door, last time they played in G.I. 200 people were turned away. Hmm, that's interesting. According to the tour schedule on their site they are playing in G.I. again. Oh well, we'll see what happens. I don't have my hopes up much on going to that show. But their CD is headed my way and will hopefully be here next week.

Well I better try and get a little sleep so my leg doesn't start twitching again.

Thursday, June 7, 2007

What's wrong with my leg?

Since I got home tonight (about 8 hours ago) the muscle on the inside of my left leg just above the knee about an inch has been twitching. Every few seconds it just tenses up. It doesn't hurt but it is really freaking annoying. Doesn't matter if my leg is straight or bent or even if I'm standing. I took a nap for awhile but as soon as I woke up it started happening again (not sure about during the nap because, umm, well I was sleeping). There have been stretches of a few minutes when it wouldn't do it but it has always started up again. I punched it once to make it stop, yeah that wasn't a good plan. Then it hurt and twitched (note to self punching your self is bad umm kay). I have no idea what caused it to happen, why it is or how to make it stop. If anyone has any ideas or wants to make up something I'd love to hear read them. I'm willing to try pretty much anything (I punched myself) to make it stop before it drives me completely insane. I'm going to go do some yoga to see if that will help at all.

Wednesday, June 6, 2007

Review: Nike C8 Heart Rate Monitor

I've had my Nike C8 heart rate monitor for a couple of week nows and I've used pretty much all of the features and I'm ready to give you my thoughts on it. To summarize, I really like the watch and would recommend it to others. It has lots of features for the price and is very easy to use.

As a watch it has all your standard features, time, date, two alarms, backlight (that actually stays on long enough to read the display) and two time zones. It's pretty easy to set the time and alarms. I never thought I'd use the two time zones but it was pretty nice when we were in the mountain time zone. It also has an auto off feature to save battery life, it can be set to shut off after a certain number of hours of inactivity, up to 24. The watch is designed for a man and has a huge face, which makes it very easy to read while running.

The heart rate monitor is pretty comfortable and I hardly notice when I run. I haven't had any problems with it staying in place. However Amy has used it a couple times and said it slipped down a little bit, but not enough to stop and fix while running (I bet she just doesn't have it tight enough). The readings have seemed pretty accurate most of the time. In order to get actuate readings you have to get the sensors wet, I get my chest wet too. I haven't had any problems getting accurate readings when I have done that (but without doing that my heart rate jumped up to 230 in a few minutes of really easy jogging). Unlike a lot of other HRMs, you can change the batteries on your own, saving you time and money from having to send it in. The manual says the watch battery will last 1.5 years depending on usage and the monitor battery will last 1 year with one hour of use a day (I busted out my trusty TI-85 and that's 365 hours). The strap comes off the monitor easily and you can toss it in the washer with your other running stuff. I've never been around anyone else with a HRM so I have no idea about interference.

Other than time the watch has three modes: Run, INTR (Interval), and Data.

Run Mode
This is the stopwatch. It has 50-lap memory and all kinds of other neat stuff. You can setup one heart rate zone, the max value is 240 bpm and the low end is 30 bpm. If you have the zone setup you can turn the alarm on or off so it will beep at you if you get out of the zone, it beeps at you even if you haven't started the time yet (I haven't decided if that's a nice feature or not yet, I'm leaning toward not so much). You can set which is displayed larger, lap time or total time. You can also setup 'My View', with that you can choose what is on the big display and what is on the little one from the following categories: LAP, HR, Time, or Total. You can't have the same category on both, which is kind of annoying if you are switching the two. There is a button that allows you to switch between views quickly. I think it is pretty hard to press, but it has gotten a little easier since I first got the watch. You can switch between Lap/Total, HR/Total, and 'My View'.

Interval Mode
This is a more advanced version of a countdown timer than I had seen before. Actually it's just two countdown timers (called segments), one goes off as soon as the other is done. I've used this for a fartlek and it worked pretty well for that. It will be really nice to use once I start doing interval training. It only has a countdown mode. I've used Ironman watches before and they have a couple other modes, like it counts up after counting down to zero and some other one. The thing I don't like about the interval timer is that if you want to store your run (see below) you have to switch to Run mode and start the timer. But you can change the view to display your heart rate along with the time remaining on the current segment. It would also be nice to be able to setup a different heart rate zone for each segment.

Data Mode
You can save up to 10 of your runs in memory. Then you can use the data mode to review those runs. Here is the data that you can review: total run time, average split time, average HR, best split and average HR for it, time in, below and above your heart rate zone, each split and the total time at that point and average heart rate for it.

Complaints
I really don't have any major complaints about this watch. If I was going to get another one (in this price range) I wouldn't hesitate to get this same one. Really the only things I would change is to have more statistical data (but I'm pretty nerdy like that) and have a separate zone for each interval segment. It would be really nice to be able to see what the max heart rate for each split and run (and that falls under the more stats complaint).

This watch retails for $120, but I found it at WatchNThings for $82.95. I was really happy with their service, I ordered the watch on a Friday morning and got it the following Monday and I only paid $5.99 for the slowest shipping. They also sent along two extra batteries. I very highly recommend them.

Hopefully I covered everything you want to know about the watch, but if not leave me a comment with what you want to know and I'll find the answer for you. (I reserve the right to just make something up if I can't find a real answer.)

Tuesday, June 5, 2007

An Almost Consistent Mile

If you recall my post last week I had a little (ok tons of) trouble running consistent quarter mile splits for the mile I ran. I found the article I was looking for on how to train yourself to run consistent laps for a mile. On the schedule for tonight was another mile "fast" (it's only fast compared to my other runs). So I figured it would be a good time to try some of the things that Jeff Galloway suggested in that article. As opposed to just going off memory like last time I figured out what I wanted to run my mile in and how that broke down to 400 and 200 splits. I decided to go for a 6:25, about 10 seconds faster than last week, so that meant 400 splits in 1:36 and 200s in 48 seconds.

We jogged the half mile to the track as a warm up, I jogged another lap, did some stretching, ran some strides, then it was off to the races. I didn't go out like a race horse tonight, but I did go out a little fast. I was pretty consistent the next few 200s then picked it up a little last one. Here are my splits, total time and average heart rate for each 200.



So my average time for each 200 was 47.41, each 400 was 1:34.81 and average HR was 173. I was a lot more consistent than last week, but I still have a ways to go until all my splits are within a second or two of each other. My time was 16 seconds faster than last week but I'm pretty sure that was because I ran at a more consistent pace not because I've improved that much in less than a week. Still tonight's run makes me pretty confident I'll reach my goal of 13 minutes for the 3k Saturday.

I struggled through the run a lot more than I was expecting to though (ok, expecting isn't the right word, more like hoping). I'm going out on a limb and saying the reason I struggled was because I didn't go to sleep until about 4:30 this morning and went into work at 8. I skipped breakfast like usual, and had a few cups of coffee once I got to work. Then I didn't eat anything for lunch (again, like usual) had a few handfuls of pretzels at work and a little 6oz. thing of yogurt when I got home. Then I went and ran a mile fast and didn't expect to struggle with it?

Easy Runs At My Pace

After getting my HRM I wanted to do what the books and websites said, that is keep my heart rate under a certain level when running. I ran 4 easy/long runs with my average heart rate right around 140, my average pace for those runs was pretty close to 11:30 per mile. I felt like I could run forever at that pace and hardly felt like I had done anything once I finished. In fact it was really hard to run that slow, I had to walk occasionally to keep my heart rate as low as it should be. I tried doing that for awhile but it have a couple races coming up that I want to do decent in and I don't feel running that slow will help me with that.

I've ran one long run and one easy run since then by what I felt was an easy pace. I used the conversation test. Basically that is if I can carry on a conversation without having to pause frequently to catch my breath then I'm going about the right pace. (I get strange looks when I test that out since I run by myself.) My pace for both those was right around 10:20 a mile. My average heart rate for the easy 2 mile run was 151 and 161 for the 4 mile long run. Those runs felt so much better, I felt like I actually worked out a little bit (got a tiny bit of that runner's high). I still felt like I could run for a very long time too.

My long run cemented the fact that my aerobic base sucks (sitting on your ass for 7 years will do that). I averaged a heart rate of 150 for the first half of it, but the second half was a different story. The average for it half was 169, with 173 being the highest that I saw. I kept a pretty even pace the whole time so naturally my heart rate would be higher for the second half, but I didn't expect it to be that much higher. So after these upcoming races I'm going to work on building my aerobic base up for the rest of the year (it could be a long six months). I'll layout my whole training plan in a later post. That will give me an excellent base to build some speed on in 2008 (at least that's my hope anyway).

Transendence

You might have noticed that I've been slacking off on my postings for a little while now (I've still been running though). The reason for the lack of posts is that I've been playing a game called Transcendence whenever I have free time. It's strangely addictive, you pilot a space ship and blow stuff up, then loot the leftovers. Then you can sell what you take and buy upgrades for your ship so you can blow up bigger stuff and get even better loot. You can check out the game here. It's free and you don't have to install anything, you just unzip it and play, so you have nothing to lose (except your free time).

I get burnt out on games pretty quick though, so I'll be tired of it in a few days and things will be back to normal. But since I'm so far behind on my posts I'm not going to play tonight (yeah right), I'm just going to get caught up.

Friday, June 1, 2007

I have work to do

My run for last night was one mile fast. We jogged about a half mile down to the track and I did some strides to get warmed up. I was thinking my last mile was a 6:48, so I was hoping to run a 6:40, which would be 1:40 for each lap. I have a little (and by little I mean a tons of) trouble with running consistent laps though. My first 200 only took about 35 seconds, oops. I slowed down a little and hit my first lap at 1:21. Since I went out so fast on the first one I slowed down for the next two too much and ran the second in 1:48, followed by 1:54 for the third. Then I let myself go on the last one and ran a 1:30. Final time - 6:35. So even though I beat the time I was shooting for I wasn't happy with my run, I have to get more consistent. I read a pretty good article on how to train yourself to do that but I can't find it now, oh well I'll have to look for it later.

I checked my log after I got back and it turns out I ran a 6:34 mile on 5/1, the 6:48 was a couple weeks before that. So perhaps I'll check out my log BEFORE I run next time.

My goal for my 3k next weekend is 13 minutes and I still have a little work to do to get there. According to The McMillan Running Calculator my 6:35 translates to a 13:04 3k (but that's for people that are in shape and I have a ways to go before I am). If I don't start out so damn fast and let the competitive juices flow I should be pretty close to getting there. If you've never played with that calculator give it a try, it's pretty fun to do.