Got a long run in today. Over to North Park and ten miles on the trails there (there's only about 2 miles of trails in the park, so I did the same loop 4 times and then some other trails for the other two miles), and then over to the track for 3 before heading home. I averaged 8 1/2 mpm. Not bad.
See? Told you it wouldn't be long. Now I've got to recover for tomorrow's speedwork.
Monday, July 06, 2009
Saturday, July 04, 2009
North Canton Y 5-Mile
Five pretty good strong miles today. Too bad they weren't all in the North Canton Y 5-Mile race. I started off by running the 2-mile as usual for a warmup. As usual, I did the first mile easy at just under 8 minutes and the second mile hard in 6:10 or so. Pretty decent, thought I. Bodes well for the 5-mile, thought I.
All of those thoughts were as usual too. I've never ever had a good 5-mile race here, but I continue to run it because it's in the race series. So with hopes of finally getting a breakthrough, I started well with a 6:30 mile. Needless to say, it went downhill from there. Even so, I hit mile 3 in just over 20 minutes and mile 4 in just over 27 minutes.
At that point I still had hopes of pulling off a semi-breakthrough. If I could manage a strong mile 5, I might be able to do something like 33 and a half. But it wasn't to be. Instead I fell apart completely. Yeah, there were some hills, but I still should've done better than 7:17 for a 34 and a half. Bad form. The breakthrough will have to wait for another week.
All of those thoughts were as usual too. I've never ever had a good 5-mile race here, but I continue to run it because it's in the race series. So with hopes of finally getting a breakthrough, I started well with a 6:30 mile. Needless to say, it went downhill from there. Even so, I hit mile 3 in just over 20 minutes and mile 4 in just over 27 minutes.
At that point I still had hopes of pulling off a semi-breakthrough. If I could manage a strong mile 5, I might be able to do something like 33 and a half. But it wasn't to be. Instead I fell apart completely. Yeah, there were some hills, but I still should've done better than 7:17 for a 34 and a half. Bad form. The breakthrough will have to wait for another week.
Thursday, July 02, 2009
Twenty on Ten
That's 20 miles on 10 hours rest.
I did the usual speedwork thing with the gang on Tuesday. It went ok (I generally kept up with Ladd), but I'm a little discouraged that I'm not seeing any breakthroughs. The workout was 3 x 800 followed by 4 x 400. Maybe the breakthrough will occur next week.
I slept poorly that night and awoke a little after 3am. Got out the door a while later, and figured I was out doing the run on 10 or so hours rest. Did 10 fairly slow miles, although they felt fast. By then it was raining, and heaven knows it's not at all possible to run in the rain. So onto the treadmill I hopped, and then I did 10 more. These were fast mill miles, but they were still only mill miles.
Today I did 10 more. Made my way slowly to the track and then did 4 x 1200. These were about as slow as speedwork can be. Another slog to get home. All in all I got 10 in today. Turned out not so bad.
Race coming up this Saturday.
I did the usual speedwork thing with the gang on Tuesday. It went ok (I generally kept up with Ladd), but I'm a little discouraged that I'm not seeing any breakthroughs. The workout was 3 x 800 followed by 4 x 400. Maybe the breakthrough will occur next week.
I slept poorly that night and awoke a little after 3am. Got out the door a while later, and figured I was out doing the run on 10 or so hours rest. Did 10 fairly slow miles, although they felt fast. By then it was raining, and heaven knows it's not at all possible to run in the rain. So onto the treadmill I hopped, and then I did 10 more. These were fast mill miles, but they were still only mill miles.
Today I did 10 more. Made my way slowly to the track and then did 4 x 1200. These were about as slow as speedwork can be. Another slog to get home. All in all I got 10 in today. Turned out not so bad.
Race coming up this Saturday.
Monday, June 29, 2009
My Three Races
What possessed me? I’d done stupid stuff like running three races in three days before, but never when I was in this bad shape. Not that I’m not on the upswing, as I like to say. But this weekend should make me or break me for the rest of the year. Ironically, my slowest race was my best, and I was thrilled with a PW (Personal Worst) that really wasn’t.
The Wadsworth Matchstick 4-mile was the Friday night race. Lots of friends from MCRR showed up, but not so many from the series. The hills were as tough as ever, and it was fairly warm at 79F. I ran a slow but reasonably steady 27:19. Since the turnout was lighter than usual, I managed to place 2nd in my age group. Got a $10 gift certificate to Second Sole!
What hurts, besides the slow time, is that 1st in my age group went to Doug Hradek, who I almost caught up to at the finish. I used to also be able to beat Doug in my faster days. Oh well.
On Saturday morning I drove out to the Green Township Y very tired, but not overly sore. The Green YMCA Caribbean 10K was not going to be a pretty one for me. I figured I’d start slow and try to keep the mile splits around seven minutes. Luckily it was cool and comfortable with temperatures rising through the sixties. With that conservative start I managed to run a fairly steady pace with nearly even splits. I came in at 44:39. This was obviously not one of my faster 10K’s, but under the circumstances, I’d have to take it.
Another funny thing happened: even with this slowest of 10K races in many decades I still came in 3rd in my age group. The leaders? Vince and Doug. Once again I had tried to catch Doug at the finish but wasn’t able to.
Now I added up my mileage and checked my average pace for the past week. One would think that after a tempo run, a speedwork session and two races that I could average better than 8 minutes per mile for my weekly seventy, wouldn’t one? It was 8:04. I guess this means I’d better do fewer miles. In fact, I’m thinking that next week will be an easy one for me, no matter how hard that is. Maybe this will enable me to run a decent pace at next week’s 4th of July run. Naaah, probably not.
On Sunday I awoke still more tired, but still not overly sore. This run would definitely be a slow one. Eight minutes per mile. If I could just do that for the entire NCN Columbia Station ½ Marathon, I’d have a PW, but I’d still be happy. For some reason, I’ve never run a really bad ½. As far as I can tell, my worst ever came in 1989 at the West Bloomfield half in 1:41. 8mpm would bring me in at about 1:44 and change.
But would I even be able to do eights? I did for the first six miles, but it seemed like faster than that. At about the ½ way point I caught Debbie and Ladd. I thought we’d run together for a while, but our reunion didn’t last too long. Ladd sped up, and so did I as I tried, unsuccessfully, to catch him once again. Debbie stayed back, but seemed to be doing fine anyway. Up until that point all my mile splits had been at or just over 8mpm. After this point, they were all faster than eights. Not that it wasn’t tough out there. There were some windy parts, and although there was no sun, the humidity was very high.
I took an energy gel at mile 9 and continued to gradually increase my speed. After 6 consecutive miles slower than 8 minute pace, my last seven were: 7:59, 7:54, 7:53, 7:58, 7:47, 7:21, and 7:13 for the final uphill 1.1. I liked that trend. In fact, I liked the whole race – I really enjoyed myself out there. There is nothing like the ability to finish strong. My overall time was 1:42:15, good for first in my age group.
But it was still a PW. Or was it? Ladd’s GPS told him that he’d run 13:67 miles. Other runners with GPS’ also said that they had it at ½ mile too long. ½ mile would be 3 ½ or more minutes. So it’s the PW that wasn’t. And the slow run that was my best.
The Wadsworth Matchstick 4-mile was the Friday night race. Lots of friends from MCRR showed up, but not so many from the series. The hills were as tough as ever, and it was fairly warm at 79F. I ran a slow but reasonably steady 27:19. Since the turnout was lighter than usual, I managed to place 2nd in my age group. Got a $10 gift certificate to Second Sole!
What hurts, besides the slow time, is that 1st in my age group went to Doug Hradek, who I almost caught up to at the finish. I used to also be able to beat Doug in my faster days. Oh well.
On Saturday morning I drove out to the Green Township Y very tired, but not overly sore. The Green YMCA Caribbean 10K was not going to be a pretty one for me. I figured I’d start slow and try to keep the mile splits around seven minutes. Luckily it was cool and comfortable with temperatures rising through the sixties. With that conservative start I managed to run a fairly steady pace with nearly even splits. I came in at 44:39. This was obviously not one of my faster 10K’s, but under the circumstances, I’d have to take it.
Another funny thing happened: even with this slowest of 10K races in many decades I still came in 3rd in my age group. The leaders? Vince and Doug. Once again I had tried to catch Doug at the finish but wasn’t able to.
Now I added up my mileage and checked my average pace for the past week. One would think that after a tempo run, a speedwork session and two races that I could average better than 8 minutes per mile for my weekly seventy, wouldn’t one? It was 8:04. I guess this means I’d better do fewer miles. In fact, I’m thinking that next week will be an easy one for me, no matter how hard that is. Maybe this will enable me to run a decent pace at next week’s 4th of July run. Naaah, probably not.
On Sunday I awoke still more tired, but still not overly sore. This run would definitely be a slow one. Eight minutes per mile. If I could just do that for the entire NCN Columbia Station ½ Marathon, I’d have a PW, but I’d still be happy. For some reason, I’ve never run a really bad ½. As far as I can tell, my worst ever came in 1989 at the West Bloomfield half in 1:41. 8mpm would bring me in at about 1:44 and change.
But would I even be able to do eights? I did for the first six miles, but it seemed like faster than that. At about the ½ way point I caught Debbie and Ladd. I thought we’d run together for a while, but our reunion didn’t last too long. Ladd sped up, and so did I as I tried, unsuccessfully, to catch him once again. Debbie stayed back, but seemed to be doing fine anyway. Up until that point all my mile splits had been at or just over 8mpm. After this point, they were all faster than eights. Not that it wasn’t tough out there. There were some windy parts, and although there was no sun, the humidity was very high.
I took an energy gel at mile 9 and continued to gradually increase my speed. After 6 consecutive miles slower than 8 minute pace, my last seven were: 7:59, 7:54, 7:53, 7:58, 7:47, 7:21, and 7:13 for the final uphill 1.1. I liked that trend. In fact, I liked the whole race – I really enjoyed myself out there. There is nothing like the ability to finish strong. My overall time was 1:42:15, good for first in my age group.
But it was still a PW. Or was it? Ladd’s GPS told him that he’d run 13:67 miles. Other runners with GPS’ also said that they had it at ½ mile too long. ½ mile would be 3 ½ or more minutes. So it’s the PW that wasn’t. And the slow run that was my best.
Thursday, June 25, 2009
The Fly and Me
It was about 4:30am when I stepped out the door, and this was a bad thing. I'd wanted to get out the door before four, so that I could run more, but that's not what was in store. I guess I have to get out of bed before 3:10.
It was comfortably warm as I started, and this was a bad thing. It meant that I'd be extremely UN-comfortable as my run progressed, especially after the sun rose. And of course this did turn out to be the case.
What do these bad things have to do with the Fly? If you combine them (starting late and hot weather) and also run on the Ohio country roads that I run on, you get attacks by deerflies. And this is a bad thing too. They drive me bonkers. I know that I could avoid them. I could get out earlier and do my entire run in the dark (I tried, I tried). I could use repellent (but I hate that stuff, and I always have the hope that maybe I can avoid the flies long enough so as not to need it). I could run more on the citified roads and avoid the country roads (but I love those country roads). I could just stay in bed and not run at all (this is not an option).
After about an hour of running in the dark, the eastern sky began to get light. And that’s when I got my first nibble. Or, I should say, the first nibble got me. I tried to brush it away, hoping beyond hope that it was just some rogue fly that was out there on his own. Nope. Soon I was being eaten left and right. I did manage to swat one and it fell out of my hand and onto the ground. But that’s just the beginning of the story. Here’s how I described this little incident in my Facebook entry for today: ‘
The rest of the story isn’t quite so exciting. I got back home for a pit stop after my 11-mile loop, then went out again, headed for the track. Those three miles were slower, but when I hit the track I really turned on the speed. Yeah, right. I did go from 8:30 and 9:00 minute miles to just under eight minute pace for three of the four miles there. Not so long ago I would’ve expected these to be sub-SEVEN minute miles. Today I was happy with the sub-eights. But then, suffering mightily, I slowed down again and struggled to get home in the heat. I’d wanted to do something like 22 to 24 miles today, but this run only added up to 21 in 3:01. Maybe next week’s long run will be better.
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
More On (or is it Moron) Speedwork
Just kiddn. It was great speedwork. And there was a good bunch o folks out there too. Never seen quite so many before. We did 800, 1200, 800, 1200, 800 and I'm pretty durn happy with the results. I think my running is getting somewhere.
Monday, June 22, 2009
Stamina
I've been talking about speed and strength, but there's a third component of running improvement: stamina. It's the ability to hold a relatively fast pace for a relatively long time. In order to improve stamina, one would do tempo runs and longer intervals at slightly slower than top speed. Today I worked on my stamina.
I took a long 5-mile route to the track and then did a 3-mile tempo run there. Although I've done a few on the mill, I haven't done an outside tempo run in a long time. I was very, very happy just to be able to do the 3 consecutive miles under 7 minutes each. Then I struggled home.
Now I've got to recover enough to be able to do the speedwork tomorrow.
I took a long 5-mile route to the track and then did a 3-mile tempo run there. Although I've done a few on the mill, I haven't done an outside tempo run in a long time. I was very, very happy just to be able to do the 3 consecutive miles under 7 minutes each. Then I struggled home.
Now I've got to recover enough to be able to do the speedwork tomorrow.
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