9/12 Medium Long Run

Don't remember what the excuse for not running Thursday was, but I deferred it till Friday. Than on Friday evening, after fighting with my iPhone for an hour trying to get it synced and some new tunes loaded, I realized it was 9:45. And I still needed to run. And I needed to get up at 6 so I could do my Saturday run.

So I bagged it. And then decided that to heck with it. If I can't my mileage during the week, I'll just do it during the weekends. So Saturday is 14 now. :) Sunday might be 17 instead of 14, we'll see.

Go out a little late between waiting for my intestinal tract to wake up, and then fiddling with Training center and Sports Tracks trying to decide if I should try a slightly different route. On the road at mid 60s at about 6:45.

The first 5 or 6 miles of the run weren't the most fun I've ever had on two legs. Hard to keep my pace, shins ached, just off my feed. But once I crossed some threshold, my shins stopped sniveling and everything started working properly. Ran through Mill Creek backwards, and had to do the upper loop twice, which was kind of neat since they are finally finishing the paving and sidewalk on Seattle Hill Road, so I got to watch some of that as I ran by.

Last two miles I sped up, as I seem to do on most of the long runs. I decided to not fight it and just let it flow. I thought I was running close to GMP (Goal Marathon Pace) for those two miles (8:45, 8:40). Not so much. Actual GMP is 8:34. Maybe next time. :)

Hauled a long a couple of GUs, but didn't need them. Probably not drinking enough on the run, I'm coming back in with bottles with water in them. A lot of it is related to the need to pee at mile 7. :)

14.2 miles in 2:09:55 (9:08/mile) @ 153 bpm

Been pretty tired today, both from run and long week, so it's been pretty lazy. Lots of playing outside, and I took Kaitlyn with me to Borders to pick up the new book "The Runner's Body", by the guys who do The Science of Sport blog. Also snagged "the New Rules of Lifting" (we have NROL for Women for Val, great book on strength training. Also picked up a copy of Total Immersion, for when I get back into the swimming thing.

9/9 'Recovery' Run

After last week's self induced unpleasantness I decided to be a little more sane, and kept my pace a bit lower (Long Run pace (9:04-10:04), tending towards Easy Run (9:04-9:34)) and to just run the much less hilly, albeit boring, out and back on 35th.

I probably should have run this more slowly, but it actually hurt more to run slowly. If I sped up to around 9:30 or so the feeling that someone was beating my shins with baseball bats subsided to a dull numbness that allowed me to get the mileage in.

I managed to catch almost every light that I could on this run, which was especially unpleasant as my calves would tighten back up, and then starting running would aggravate the shins until things worked themselves out again.

So all in all, a fairly unpleasant run. Good psychological training for the last 10K of the marathon I suppose. :|

What this has identified with some over thinking, is that the problem is not really the increased intensity, or mileage. It's lack of stretching and supporting training. I briefly considered that maybe I should switch to a cross training day after Tempo Tuesday to recover. Which isn't a horrible idea, necessarily, but it doesn't address the root cause of the problem.

Which as far as I can tell is classic shin splint issues, weak muscles in the front of the lower leg, and over tight muscles in the calf. Possibly combined with oddball form issues from poor core strength.

While I admit that going back to my workouts is a necessity, it's just not going to happen for a bit longer due to time constraints. But... I can use my foam roller twice a day again, and more importantly I can do front planks, which both work my core, and stretch my calves.

So, until I can get back to the gym regularly, and possibly beyond, I'm going to turn into one of 'those' people. The crazy workout/health people you work with. I've got an Outlook reminder every hour on the half hour. I'm going to do about 2 minutes total of SOMETHING. So far today it's been 1 minute front planks, followed by 20 pushups. Calves already feel looser. We'll see how long I can keep it up. :)


6.19 miles in 1:00:33 (9:46/mile) @ 143 bpm
(A little lower, first mile was 9:21, all others were between 9:40 and 10:04)

9/8 Tempo Run

An evening run on Tempo Tuesday. On the road ~9:30. Weather was nice and pleasant, low 60s.

I'm planning in just rerunning last week, without the shin pain and long run bonk I hope. :)

Actually hit 49 bpm for a sample period standing at the light waiting to start. So much for being HR elevated in the evenings. :)

Run was really good despite some mild fears it wouldn't be. Almost identical to last weeks run as far as total time, even with a more controlled cooldown mile. Paces were more consistent as well.

The cooldown mile was more painful than the fast running. Downhill really aggravated my shins, and the slower pace seemed to let me cool down and get achy and sore. A bit frustrating.

6.17 miles in 51:52 (8:19/mile) @ 158 bpm avg

9:08 @ 143

7:53 @ 163
7:50 @ 163
7:56 @ 166
7:49 @ 168
--7:52/mile @ 165 average for tempo

9:11 @ 150
0.17 - 9:10 @ 159

9/6 Medium Long Run

On the road a touch earlier to account for the extra mileage. But not much. :) Got started around 6:45. Around 55 and a light rain. Headed out around Mill Creek, the 'right' direction. :) For whatever reason, this is the direction I prefer on this route.

Not that it helped. :) Apparently, dinner the day you run 11, before you run 14, should be something more significant than half an Auntie Anne's pretzel, and 10 Mrs. Field's Chocolate Chip Nibblers. :) My Mom was over visiting and kicked Val and I out on a date to see Harry Potter. Scheduling messes with lunch, movie times, etc meant that we ate poorly. :)

First 6 miles or so were right on pace (9:11/mile average) (with 2 a touch over (downhills)). About mile 4 or 5 I started fighting a cram in my left hip flexor (again), that lasted for 3 miles or so. And then I hit the wall. And slowed down. :) Which probably helped the hip flexor, come to think about it.

If I had brought nutrition, I might have been able to fuel my way out of it, but I haven't needed it for the 10 milers, and didn't figure I'd need it for this run. Not only that, all the GUs were up in the closet in the guest room, and waking my Mom up didn't seem very nice. :)

Bruce pointed out that in addition to fueling issues, the cold and wet may have affected things too, by increasing my need for fuel to stay warm. Good lesson in preparedness. That being said, even after the bonk, I was able to stay in the target range for long runs (9:04-10:04), so that's good. :) Last 8 miles averaged 9:36/mile.

14.22 miles in 2:14:04 (9:25/mile) @ 155 bpm

9/5 Medium Long Run

Saturday's run was pretty uneventful other than it being the first run in the rain for a long time. Welcome to training for a late fall marathon. :) It was 59 and lightly drizzling when I left the house and got on the road around 7. It turned to real rain abut half a mile in. And then would do rain intervals of about 30 minutes. :)

I ran the Mill Creek route, in 'reverse'. Nothing particularly interesting. Nowhere near as many runners out as last Saturday. It was a pretty good run, with the appropriate levels of tolerable discomfort. :)

Val helped talk me into doing the sane thing and took Friday off as well to try to recover my shins, and it seems to have worked. Too much mileage added, and a significant increase in intensity. I know better...

11.19 miles in 1:42:46 (9:11/mile) @ 157 bpm

Faster than last weeks runs on the same route, but about 5 points higher on HR

9/2 Run

This was a brutally unpleasant run.

I totally misjudged the amount of recovery I'd need from Tuesday's run, and ran this as an 'Easy' Run (9:04 - 9:34). Then I decided that since I missed a training run at Carkeek and all of it's hills, I would make sure this was nice and hilly.

I hate not knowing my route, and this turned into a slog as I tried to add mileage, while uncomfortable and wanting to quit.

My shins screamed at me from the start of the run, and only stopped whimpering about 4 miles in. I took Thursday off to try to appease them and it appears to have helped. I think it's a combination of mileage, shoes, and being out of whack. My back is arching oddly, and something I read recently pointed me to to being a poor core strength, over-strong hip flexor issue. I'm stretching my calves to relieve some of the pressure on my shins, and starting to do planks again to try and get my form back into whack.

So. Lesson learned. 10% rule good. Stretching good. Core training good. RECOVERY runs (10:00 - 10:34) after Tempo runs REQUIRED!

6.13 miles in 57:11 (9:19/mile) @ 153 bpm

Only 40 more feet of elevation than my regular loop, just a bigger hill right in the middle. :) Don't know if I'll run this route again. Maybe if I just double up in the middle and do the hill twice.

9/1 Tempo Run

Tuesday was the first tempo run of the new training cycle. And really, ever. :)

I wasn't sure what I was going to be capable of, so I went out with the goal of doing 1 mile warmup, then 4 at either Steady State Run(8:07/mile to 8:21/mile), or Tempo(7:47/mile - 8:07/mile ), paces, then ~1 mile cooldown, per McMillan.

Getting Garmy set up for the McMillan paces is going to be a pain, so I just wrote the ranges on the back of my hand and checked regularly. I was surprised that there was not way to set a pace range easily, on the watch. You have to set up anything other than an HR workout as a custom workout in Training Center. And to get the paces you want, you have to customize your Pace Ranges.

Using Garmy for Paces is a little frustrating. It definitely doesn't like sudden directional changes, and seems to lag a little on changes to pace. (I think it only samples every 4 or 8 seconds, based on the TCX file, so I think that makes sense). It would almost be better to have it ping you every minute or .1 mile with your actual pace from the last mile marker or something similar.

Surprising myself, since I felt a little sluggish, I was able to have a great tempo run, even keeping pace on all the hills on the route around the 'block', which was difficult.

Here's the profile for the 'block' (clockwise)



6.17 miles in 51:16 (8:18/mile) @ 157 bpm avg

9:12 @ 143 - Warmup

7:59 @ 160 - 80% Uphill
7:46 @ 162 - A second faster than goal. All downhill.
7:54 @ 163 - 95 % Uphill
7:51 @ 168 - 60 % Uphill, then a nice steep downhill
Average pace for Tempo component: 7:53

8:55 @ 151 - Downhill. And hard to come down from the speed, anyway.
0.17 - 1:38 (9:36/mile) @ 159

177 feet of elevation gain over the route. A good hard workout.