One More Try – Week 7

Happy Birthday Me. 41 today. And my present to myself was pain.

Missed last week’s update on Week 6. My weekend workout went well in Florida and I got some measure of revengeance for what happened in Week 5.

This week, I attempted 3×1-mile with a 1/2-mile jog again to close out the month of February. At least the hard part. I was definitely nervous. This week’s goal pace was 5:45. I haven’t run a sub-5:45 mile in some time – at least before today. I made sure to eat enough. Had a pizza on Friday and my full compliment of protein shakes. Then I went for the glory.

I got up at 4 a.m. this morning, but stalled until almost 8 to get outside. It was cold, about 50 degrees. But mostly, I was just scared to hurt. I drank my energy drink, but did something I normally don’t do often: use a foam roller. Lo and behold, I discovered new pain in my legs and used it as much as I could to loosen up. Then I used the massage gun to cap it off. My legs felt fresh for once. Also, I took extra Amino Energy before the run. For the first time in forever, my heart dipped below 50 bpm. Down to 48. I wasn’t sure that I was ready for the run, but these were good signs.

Finally, I summoned the courage to exit and head outside. My warmup always calls for 1 mile at 8:15 pace. But after a few steps, I found myself at 6:45 pace at the 1/4 mile point. That was a great sign because it felt easy. Three quarters of a mile later, I took off for the first of three mile repetitions. I felt great! Opened early at 5:45 pace and and then got down to 5:25 pace before backing up. I dropped my hands and pushed gently with my hamstrings backwards to propel forward quickly. I practically walked the last tenth of a mile to close just under 5:34. Was this going to be a breeze?

No.

After a 1/2 mile recovery, I started the 2nd repetition which went as easily as the first. At least through the first 1/2-mile. I hit the halfway point of the rep at 5:45 pace and then turned around to start the 2nd half of the day. I don’t know what happened at that point. All of a sudden, my watch said I was running at 6:00 pace for the rep. What did I do wrong? Was I over confident? In any case, I started to labor and pressed forward to close out the rep. It was hard, y’all. I got the rep down to 5:52 pace, but felt cheated, because I would have gone out harder had I known I was behind pace. It was quite discouraging and I knew the 3rd rep would be a fight. It definitely was.

Through 1/2 of the 3rd rep once again, I was on-pace, but this time I was dead. I took a couple of breathers (a little cheat that I’ve learned) but finished off the rep anyway in 5:45. After that I made it home pretty easily. I’m a little suspicious now of the GPS on the route that I took today, but the pace was unnecessarily hard in the second half. I won’t have a chance to test it out again until early March. Next week, I’ll back down to 4×800, but anticipate being out of town for that one.

A post-run GPS review shows that something happened there on that 2nd rep. Garmin had me backing down to 7:00 mile pace, and I definitely wasn’t slowing down that much. I’m reluctant to try this route again to be honest with you, but we’ll see. For now, just happy to have survived.

Next week, 4×800. Next month, I’ll try to get the pace of this workout down to 5:19 pace. I want to run a PR in late March which calls for a 5:27 race over 3.1 miles. I’m fairly certain at this point that I can run 1 to 1.5 miles at 5:27 pace. Just need to get that bad boy to 3.1. I can do it.

Need to pick a race and stick with it. Until then.

Weekly Mileage (Week 7):

24 of planned 24 miles

Saturday Workout

Workout: 3x1600m with 800m jog at equal time (half-pace)

Planned pace: 5:45 per mile

Actual pace: 5:44

Next week’s planned pace: 5:45 per mile (4×800)

One More Try – Week 5

It’s been a while since I’ve failed a run. That is, it’s been a while since I haven’t completed a run that I set out to do. I think maybe the first week of January when my knee was healing. Today was a humbling experience, but a good one, and one I’m glad I had before race day.

As usual, I planned to 3x1600m w/800m jogs in between. This workout simulates a 5K race without the strain of a 5K race. This week, the planned mile (1600m) pace was 6:03. I’m attempted to work this down to 5:19 by late March. And it’s a workout that I actually completed two weeks ago at 6:04 pace. I figured with two extra weeks of training, good nutrition and recovery, this week would be a breeze. Unfortunately, it was not.

I took a while to get outside, which should have been a sign, but I finally got out the door at 7:30 a.m. My mile warmup was typical at 8:15 pace. I then took off on the first rep uphill as usual. It felt harder though. I didn’t look at my watch, but pumped my arms and opened my stride until I got to the top of the hill at the 1/2-mile mark. At that point, I was slightly behind pace, which wasn’t unusual. What was unusual was that my arms and legs felt very tight and that I wasn’t moving fast for how hard I thought I was working.

Still, I pushed along and opened my stride until I brought the pace down to 6:00 to end mile 1. Now, I was hurting at this point, but not any more or so than I’d felt before. So I decided to continue. After a 1/2-mile jog, I started rep 2. My strategy was to stay on my toes and keep my hands low to maintain bounce and cadence. Surely enough the first 1/3-mile was pretty fast…around 5:50 pace. But then everything fell apart for me. My breathing was heavy and I wasn’t moving fast as a began the turn back (it was mile 3 in total mileage including warm-up and jog at this point). I tried to push back and open up my stride and breathe heavy to finish the 2nd rep. At that point, I couldn’t even run straight – drifting off into grass next to the road. I decided that it wasn’t worth it to finish and stopped about 0.80 of the second mile – still around 6:10 pace, but drifting back fast.

The sucky part was when you quit at the top of an out-and-back route, you have the longest walk back home. I thought about having to post about a failed run, but decided that if you are going to post the wins, then you need to post the losses too. The truth is I did this workout easily two weeks ago and that I just didn’t eat much last night, settling for protein, ramen and little else. I like how I looked on the scale this morning, but knew that it probably wouldn’t be good for performance. Next week, pizza or pasta on Friday night. I guarantee I’ll nail this.

My confidence isn’t affected, I just wish I’d have given myself a better chance to do well today. Onward. 5:54 pace next week. Let’s see what happens.

Weekly Mileage (Week 5):

21 of planned 24 miles

Saturday Workout

Workout: 3x1600m with 800m jog at equal time (half-pace)

Planned pace: 6:03 per mile

Actual pace: DNF

Next week’s planned pace: 5:54 per mile

One More Try – Week 4

Going to be honest, didn’t really worry about today.

Today’s workout was 4x800m with a 400 jog in between at equal time. It’s a fourth week of the month, so the weekend interval workout was shorter than normal. I ate a ton over the past two days, reflecting itself in a 4-pound increase on the scale. All the same, I’ve slept well and got some cool new clothes, so i was ready to roll.

The goal pace for the intervals was 6:12, which was the same as last week’s longer 3×1600 workout. Was I overconfident? No. Just properly confident. Why after a good weekend of eating, sleeping and training would I be worst than last week? Plus, at the end of every 3-mile run this week, I accelerated to paces between 5:00-5:30 over the last quarter mile. I knew I had the stamina and the speed to burn.

The intervals ticked off easily today in 3:03, 3:04, 3:04, and 2:56. I could have gone faster and longer, which is something you want to feel in a rest week. On the fourth rep, I opened up my stride and cruised in. An honest assessment says I could have turned it into a sub-5:50 mile if the workout had continued. Moderation won the day.

That’s the end of month 1. The goal was to bring the 3×1600 workout down from an average pace of 6:30 to 6:12. I managed to bring it down to 6:04 pace last week. Next month, in February, I’ll try to move the workout from 6:03 to 5:45 pace. Need to control my eating a bit, but I think I can get that done as well.

Until then!

Weekly Mileage (Week 4):

23 of planned 23 miles

Saturday Workout

Workout: 4x800m with 400m jog at equal time (half-pace)

Planned pace: 6:12 per mile

Actual pace: 6:04 per mile

Next week’s planned pace: 6:03 per mile (3x1600m)

One More Try – Week 3

Never any doubt about this one. Had a great week of preparation and dominated. Just reflecting, my goal is to run a 16:55 5K in 13 weeks. Every weekend I do a 3x1600m workout intended to simulate the race. I’ll progress the pace slowly. When I can run the weekend workout in about 5:19 pace, I’ll be ready to attempt the race.

I had a perfect week of running, that is, I ran all 18 planned miles going into Saturday. I ate well too. The only issue is that it was 24 degrees when I woke up this morning. I asked Alexa (Amazon) about the weather, and she told me the high would be 34. Not good. That means it really didn’t matter when I got up, it was going to be cold. I took some energy drinks and postponed my usual start from 6 a.m. to 7:30 a.m. It didn’t help. By the time I got out the door, it was still 24 degrees. But at least it was sunny by then.

I strapped on my reflective vest (not that I needed it) and music player and walked out the door. Another trick that I’ve learned in this kind of weather is to wear rubber gloves under the cloth ones to keep your hands warm. There’s a bit of sweat collection at the end, but at least the fingers are protected. In any case, I felt tough, hard, walking out the door. Like a soldier. For real. And it was great. And I took off.

The Saturday run protocol was the usual: 1 mile warmup at 8:16, 3 individual miles at desired pace with 1/2-mile jogs and then a 1/2-mile cold down at 8:16 pace. The warmup felt fine, I was moving a little slow but quickly found that I had enough energy to get going. Fortunately, the first part of my route is downhill, so I took care of business easily. At the mile mark, I took off. For whatever reason, I chose a path that requires an uphill climb through the first 1/3 of the speedwork session. But I’m a creature of consistency, and since I ran this route the first two weeks, I won’t change now. I pumped my arms through the uphill portion and came out of the first 1/3 mile in 6:06 pace. It didn’t even feel that hard. I kept the arms moving freely through the rest of the first rep to close out in 6:06. I slowed down significantly to do it as well. And intentionally. At this point, I knew there was a high likelihood of success today, but I still needed to finish the workout.

Then the second challenge of the day (after the cold). My music player stopped working. I didn’t charge it. I always run with music. This sucked. But I thought it was great race day preparation. What if something happens on race day that I don’t expect? I can’t quit. Plus, I won’t race with music. I tried briefly during the jog to get the music back on, but gave up and started the 2nd mile repetition. I blasted off, arms pumping, confident but not fully that I could get this rep done. After all, it’s been the 2nd half of the 2nd rep that’s given me the most trouble the last two weeks. I was cooking, man. My watch showed me going at 5:40 pace at one point. After the run, I checked the chart, and I was moving as fast at 5:01 pace. I finally slowed down to hit the halfway point and come back. It was challenging, and I hate the out-and-back part because I break stride. Nonetheless, I focused on pumping my arms more and crept across in 6:00 for the 2nd rep. Definitely faster than I wanted to go, but I just wanted to get the rep over with.

After trying again to get my music player to start on the subsequent jog, I finally took my hoodie-mask off. This would expose my face and mouth to the cold on the last rep. I did this in case things got rough later. Honestly, it really didn’t. I started off pretty slowly to be honest. I came to a complete stop because someone almost hit me coming out of their neighborhood. I was pretty disappointed because I slowed down to make eye contact, and the driver refused to look in my direction. So I had to stop during the rep. I wasn’t happy. But I like the clock run. She apologized and I had ground to make up. And uphill again. This time I focused on pumping my arms and inhaling to get the right rhythm. With a little under 1/2 mile to go I was moving at 6:18 pace. And I knew I’d won this workout because everything else was downhill. I thought about spidering out my legs and inhaling deeply and I took off downhill. All gravy, coming through in 6:05 pace at the end. Garmin shows that I closed the workout in 5:42 pace for the last 1/4 mile.

I let out a scream forgetting that it was Saturday morning in a quiet neighborhood and made my way home. The paces were 6:06, 6:00 and 6:05 for a 6:04 average. My goal was 6:12, so I’m thrilled. Honestly, I think I could have done a 4th rep. It felt great. Unlike last week on Friday, I did eat well this time with a nice homemade Chicken Fettuccine Alfredo dinner last night (with Garlic bread). I was plenty fueled and crushed it. Next week, we’ll check down to 4×800 to consolidate the gains before moving up to 6:03 pace in two weeks. I’m there now! Two weeks ahead of schedule.

Until then!

Weekly Mileage (Week 3):

24 of planned 24 miles

Saturday Workout

Workout: 3x1600m with 800m jog at equal time (half-pace)

Planned pace: 6:12 per mile

Actual pace: 6:04 per mile

Next week’s planned pace: 6:12 per mile (4x800m)

One More Try – Week 2

That hurt. Not going to lie. Punched out a 3×1-mile workout in 30 degrees. At this point the temperatures don’t really bother me. I’ve told myself for a while that January is when I want to win the year. You see, if you can get the workouts done in January and February, then the stuff in the Spring is more rewarding. I love this time of year because I can prove to myself how much I want to run and get better. It’s darker, colder, wetter and scary. And that’s how I like it.

Took a moment to get outside, but when I did it was on. Easy mile warmup in 8:16 and then I started the first rep. The first part of my route is uphill, but I looked down quickly and I was moving at 5:46 pace. My planned place for the mile-intervals was 6:21, so I figured I would crush today because 5:46 felt easy. And that was as easy as it would get. Within 20 seconds, I checked my watch again only to find that I was actually moving at about 7:00 mile pace. Bummer. I slowly accelerated up the hill to even ground and began the 3/4-mile trek to get the pace down to 6:21. Eventually, I did, finishing the first rep in 6:18. This wasn’t unlike last week where I had to work a little on the first rep, so no real problems there.

After a quick 1/2 mile jog, I started the second rep – at this point oblivious to the weather and only thinking about finishing the rep and posting my success video on my TikTok. Though I was slow at the beginning of the rep, I quickly pushed the the pace to 6:00 pace before slowing down. I had some success staying on my toes before getting to the last 1/4 mile of the second rep. Then everything got hard. I couldn’t move my legs as easily and my quads hurt. I thought about posting my weekly updates on TikTok, and how much it would suck to fail my plan to run faster in Week 2. I figured finishing the second rep could be a mini-win. So I fought through, knocking down the 2nd mile in 6:17 before stopping to catch my breath. I didn’t think I would finish the workout at the time, but I at least wanted to jog the 2nd 1/2 mile and then quit. Halfway through the jog, I started giving myself a pep talk. I was pretty loud. Glad no one was around. And it wasn’t much of a talk. Just a bunch of grunts and curse words (I’m built like that). I decided that two reps wasn’t enough, and that I’d rather fail on my 3rd rep than quit.

I’m glad I didn’t quit.

For the 3rd rep, I focused on opening my stride and being smooth with my arms. With Frankie Beverly’s “Too Many Games” in my ears, I moved along the first 1/3 mile at 5:55 pace, afraid to slow down and break rhythm. I slowed down noticeably before the 1/2 mile mark and decided to stop my watch and catch my breath. I didn’t feel great about it, but again, decided that this would be better than quitting. After about 30 seconds, I started my watch again and got on my toes. At this point, I was moving at about 6:24 pace but knew that the last 1/2 mile would be downhill as the first 1/2 mile was uphill. Slowly, I moved towards the planned 6:21 pace and gained confidence. I thought about taking one more breather, but figured getting this over with was better. And I blasted off. Down the hill and crushing to 6:13.7 on the last mile. I cheated a little but got it done. I didn’t feel bad because I didn’t eat yesterday much. The goal is to show what I can do, and I know I could do this easily if I just eat right.

I stopped again to catch my breath (not stopping the watch this time) and breathed really loudly. An older man was talking to me though I had my headphones on. I took them off, and he said I sounded like I was going die. I laughed. “Gotta keep going.” Finished the workout, got home and posted on my TikTok. The power of public pressure worked today to pull me through, but I need to eat a little better next week. This shouldn’t have been as hard as it was. But it works for me (6:18, 6:17, 6:14). Average of 6:16 pace per mile. I want to get this down to 5:19 in a couple months, and I think I’m on track. Doing some good things on the nutritional end too to help. I’m ready man!

Next week I’ll shoot for 6:12 pace before taking a recovery week in Week 4. So far…so good!

Enjoy the weekend!

Weekly Mileage (Week 2):

18 of planned 24 miles

Saturday Workout

Workout: 3x1600m with 800m jog at equal time (half-pace)

Planned pace: 6:21 per mile

Actual pace: 6:16 per mile

Next week’s planned pace: 6:12 per mile

One More Try – Week 1

Off to a good start this year. Despite the cold, I managed to do most of my workouts as planned. Some slight hiccups though. My run scheme is pretty basic actually. Between Sunday and Friday, I do a 3 mile run. Each run starts with 2.75 at a decent, but mostly comfortable pace (7:28/mile). The last .25 miles are pretty intense (5:19 pace). Not coincidentally, 5:19 is the same pace at which I intend to complete an interval workout in late March of 3x1600m. Colloquially, that’s 3 miles in 5:19 with some jogging in between each rep. This workout should prepare me for a race in last March or early April. In that race, I hope to run a 5K or 3.1 miles in 16:55 or about (5:27/mile). Wish me luck.

This week was Week 1 of my progression plan. I attempted to run 3 miles every day from Sunday to Friday. On Saturday, I did my intervals workout of 3x1600m (1 mile) with some jogging in between. Saturday’s workout took 6 miles in total with the jogging and warm up and cool down included. This means that Saturday’s workout also effectively serves as my long run since all the other run during the week are 3 miles.

There were definitely some complications this week. It was cold for starters. Last January, I pulled my hamstring, the left one, trying to run fast in the cold. I almost did it again this week. Fortunately, as I began my sprint on the end of one of the 3-mile runs, I felt the tightness in my left hamstring and slowed down. The tightness persisted the following day and I closed out slower (around 6:00 pace). I was sick this week as well. I’ve had a nasty cough for about 3 weeks now. Admittedly, I feel a lot better this week but the cough is still there. I ran only 1 mile on two days this week and only 2 miles on another. In all, I’d run 15 of the planned 18 minutes between Sunday and Friday and that works for me.

Saturday was perfect though. I warmed up with one mile in 8:16. It was drizzling and a little cold outside. I wore my pullover and jogging pants. I was a little worried up front because of the length of today’s run (6 miles), I wondered if I had the stamina to make it. I hadn’t run 6 miles since Nov. 12 (55 days) due to a lingering knee issue. If you’re keeping count that’s a hamstring, a cold and a knee injury that I’m working with right now. Just getting old, huh? In any case, I started off on the first of the three mile-long reps. I felt like quitting after the first half mile at 6:30 pace. In fact, I was much slower (around 7:00 mile pace) through the first .25 miles. I got on my toes and floated through the first rep in 6:28 before taking a much needed jog. The second rep felt much easier though. I had to make a decision after the first rep whether to turn back towards home or risk continuing an out and back route that could have left me stranded if I ran out of energy. I braved it and kept out. I started out on pace and within the first quarter-mile I was moving along at 5:54 pace. Was this a fluke? A GPS glitch? Sometimes my GPS falters on cloudy days such as this one. I didn’t care. Good for me, I thought. Turns out it was no glitch and I was finally warmed up and comfortable. I slowed down to pace. At 3 miles out, I turned around and finished the rep comfortably in 6:27. At this point, I was absolutely certain that I would finish this workout. Also, thrilled that I didn’t give up earlier.

The last rep began incredibly slow. But but this time I was listening comfortably to Babyface and Stevie Wonder’s “How Come, How Long” in my headphones. On a cloudy day, it was actually a little sad listening to a song about domestic abuse awareness. But there I was trudging back home at a 6:50 pace uphill – absolutely certain that I would kick into another gear at some point. It happened. The last 1/2 mile of the 3rd rep was largely downhill and I took off, quickly reaching the planned 6:30 pace. But with the end of the song – and me dreaming of running a great race in April – I didn’t hold back, opening my stride until the finish. I imagined running my PR right then and how good it would have felt doing a great thing in front of others. I finished the rep at 6:14 pace (something that I would actually accept two weeks from now!). At the end of the ensuing recovery jog, I felt as though I could have done a 4th rep, but pulled in home to finish the final 1/2 mile at the cool pace of 8:16.

What a fantastic start to the year and right on pace in Week 1! Again, I planned to start slower that what I was capable of doing to allow my body to adapt to the mileage and give myself a chance to recover from all my old-man maladies. In all, I planned on Saturday to do 3×1-mile at 6:30 pace per mile. I did 3×1-mile with splits of 6:28, 6:27, and 6:14 for an average pace of 6:23. Right on schedule. Furthermore, my heart rate shows that I maxed out this workout at about 88%, meaning that I certainly had more to give if I needed it. Next week, I will attempt the same workout at 6:21 pace. I honestly would have been happy with today’s effort next week, so I’m definitely ahead of schedule. The goal is to make these Saturday runs feel easier and easier. If I can progress to 5:19 pace for the weekend workout, I think I’ll be ready to race a 5K personal best in 16:55 or (5:27 pace) in April. Thanks for reading! See you next week!

Weekly Mileage (Week 1):

21 of planned 24 miles

Saturday Workout

Workout: 3x1600m with 800m jog at equal time (half-pace)

Planned pace: 6:30 per mile

Actual pace: 6:23 per mile

Next week’s planned pace: 6:21 per mile

One More Try

Just realized that it’s been six years since I’ve posted on this blog. Almost seven really. I’m still standing though! Still running and still trying to get out after it. Running is still my favorite hobby and I’m still trying to set PRs. Have put on a couple pounds (or 10-15), so I’ll need to address that. But even at the ripe age of 40, I think I still got something special in me.

With the help of something called a ChatGPT, I’ve put together a basic scheme to run faster of the next 13 weeks. The time commitment is relatively minor, but the paces are tough. Every Saturday I’ll run a race paced intervals workout designed to progress me to a 5K personal best (16:55 in late March). The pace chart is below.

The ingredients are simple, run consistently, get sleep, eat, drink water, do strength work and stay healthy. Simple as that! I’ll go back to making a weekly blog post every Saturday to update the progress. As long as I can hit the Saturday workout, I’m on track. That workout is 3×1600 (or 1 mile) with a 1/2 mile jog in between. The jog is at half pace but equal time. In other words if I run a mile in 7:00 minutes, I would follow with a 1/2 mile jog in 7:00 minutes (or at 14:00-mile pace). Pretty simple. I have found that this workout predicts success relatively well. In other words if I want to race a 16:55 5K in March, I would need to complete each mile of the race in 5:27. The 3×1600 workout, I find, needs to be completed with the mile-intervals at a slightly faster pace – around 10 seconds faster – to predict success in the race. I’m aiming to move the pace of the workout to 5:19 by mid-March to give myself a chance.

I will start the workouts at 6:30 pace on January 6, which is likely slower than what I can achieve at this point. I’m starting conservatively just to get used to the distance again. I’ve actually had a cold in late December. Also, struggled with a knee problem in since late November. I think I that I am healthy now and ready to try again.

I hope you can enjoy the journey with me as I resume running, select a race and get ready to do big things again!

Heart Break – Week 5 Recap

Welp. I’ll forget about April for a moment. Next race will be a 2000m steeplechase on March 11. I’ve got 5 weeks to get in “don’t embarrass yourself” shape.

Went to a small track meet hosted by the University of Hawaii track team today. After watching our women’s team, I told one of the ladies I would run in the open 2000m steeplechase event next month. For starters, I’ve enjoyed working for the UH athletic department. The girls ask me pretty regularly if I’ll jump in one of the meets. Seeing as how I’m mostly out-of-shape for that sort of thing, I would have rather had until April at the least. Alas, March is the last open event of the school year, so it has to happen soon.

5 weeks. Not a lot of time for base building. Speed it is. Speed and recovery and more speed and more recovery. Do what I gotta do.

Recap

This week kinda sucked training wise. 10-miler on Sunday left me with a tight IT band and later a sore knee. Ran through it on Monday in a decent “sprint” workout (more below). Shut it down until today’s 3 miles. Not as productive as I had hoped. That said, my estimated 5K time improved from about 24:00 to 22:00. The gains should come pretty quickly over the next two weeks before the trench warfare sets in and plans have to be a little more deliberate.

Spring 2017 Goal Progress

1. Build endurance (today). Despite only three runs this week, I think “Mission Accomplished” is accurate. Solid 3-mile easy run on Saturday. On the right track.
2. Complete 80% of planned strength/recovery workouts. (April 15). Nope. 3-for-7 this week. Sunday, Monday and Saturday night. Gotta do better. Just get the situps in, man. No reason not to be 100% next week.
3. Run a race in late April (April 22). No progress here. I will be running a race in mid-March though. Should still generate a list of April options next week.
4. Start May in 18:30 5K shape (April 30). Estimated 5k dropped from 24:00 to 22:00 this week. That’s with 3 days of running. Will get a better feel for progress this coming week. So far, so good.

 

Run of the Week

Not much to choose from here. Good to get an interval session in on Monday before the knee soreness crept in. Good one to build a foundation on too. Will repeat this every Monday until whenever.

 

Unrelated to running

Mental health matters. Not a huge believer in my ability to think my way into positive mental states though. Generally, either try to address any pressing concerns or just eat, sleep and exercise better. Been popping the vitamins and water a little more consistently now (multivitamin, iron, Vit. D, fish oil, magnesium, probiotic)…and generally speaking, things just feel a little easier. Sleep’s been good. Bringing positive energy to work. Placebo effect maybe? I don’t know.

Just my ramblings for the week…look forward to a solid week next week of running. Ya know…don’t care who wins the Super Bowl tomorrow. Ready for next football season already.

 

Heart Break

Can’t believe it’s been two years since I’ve posted on this thing. From the looks of it, a lot of people who I used to read on WordPress have stopped too. Time to find new pages to read, I guess.

I love running. Since dropping the 5k PR about two years ago, I really haven’t run consistently to be honest. Not long after my best race, I wore down from the constant hard runs and the Hawaii heat and humidity. Heck, maybe I just got complacent. In any case, running for time hasn’t been that big a deal in the past couple of years. I think I have more in tank now. I want to make another go at it. I’m not even close at the moment. Rough guess…maybe 6-7 minutes off the pace right now. With consistent running, I should quickly approach the 20-minute barrier for the distance mid-to-late February. Then the hard work begins. Rough target for a personal best (16:58) in the 5K should be around August, if everything goes to plan.

For the next few months, until the end of April, the goal will be to get in shape and to set up a great summer of running (which, honestly, I’ve never had). Since about 2009, I’ve organized my years into three 16-week segments with some rest weeks in between. The first segment typically runs from January to late April. Today actually kicks off Week 5 in what I call the “Spring” segment. Fairly boring stuff so far, and I’ve probably run for about 10 days in the month of January. Hardly a great start. Run plan for this spring is pretty basic. Alternate”easy” runs with intervals. That’s it. One for stamina. The other for race-prep.

The biggest challenge will be staying motivated with no personal bests in sight. Good life prep too. I’ll want to run long after I’m not capable of doing my all-time best. So here we go…Goals for this Spring in order of appearance and what I plan to do this week to contribute.

1. Build endurance (today). Not really specific about this goal because I don’t have as much control over the specifics. Basically involves running faster paces at an easier effort as measured by heart rate. Not perfect, but it’s the tool I have. Should see big gains early by just getting off the couch.  
2. Complete 80% of planned strength/recovery workouts. (April 15). Just want to be balanced here. I have some assortment of pushups, situps, squats, jumps and foam rolling planned for every night. I’ve always let this part of the plan go, but not this time. I’m tracking. I want to feel strong. These will be night workouts. Shouldn’t miss more than 1-2 days per week.
3. Run a race in late April (April 22). Simple. Need to find a race that I can run in. I’ve got a two-week window to get it done in the training schedule. April 22 and April 29. Need to sign up. Big motivator.
4. Start May in 18:30 5K shape (April 30). And contrary to everything I’ve posted above, if I want to think about being at my best at the end of August, I’ve got to be in striking distance beforehand. I won’t have to wait until April to see progress on this. I have a “key workout”, 4×800, that I run on Wednesdays. While typically 3×1600 gives me a better idea of how a 5k run will go, 4×800 will suffice if the effort leaves me feeling as though I have more to give. I will consider this goal met if I complete the workout averaging 2:37 per rep and not maxing out HR (<95%) at the end of April.

Alright. This this meets the whole S.M.A.R.T. goals criteria. Specific (with the exception of #1). Measurable (numbers everywhere). Attainable (Done it before. Not looking for a PR). Relevant (I love this stuff). Timely (done in April). Thanks Internet.

Favorite Run Last Week: 

Well since I didn’t run last week, here’s today. 10-miler. Progressive run. Went faster with every mile. But still have a lot of work to do. So sore. I’ll look back on this run as the season progresses.

Unrelated to Running…

I was a HUGE New Edition fan as a kid. You know, the singing group. They were so COOL! Or you don’t know. But you can learn about them. BET recently produced a New Edition biopic last week. It was terrific. 3 nights. 6 talented men. 1 great story. For the next month, I’ll be listening to my guys over the next month and pounding out these miles. This also explains why I will categorize these segments of posts over the next 3 months as Heart Break.  It’s the title of N.E.’s most commercially successful album. Just getting back to what I love. Running and music.

Run safe everyone…

(guess we have to pay WordPress to post videos now…lame).

Do It Again

It didn’t last long…and it wasn’t easy.

Confidence was not the word of the day. Adaptation maybe a better choice. I read some running article the day before the race that said runners who were prepared for difficulty would handle the challenges of the race a lot better. My challenge was getting in a mindset where I was prepared to hurt (a little) to get what I wanted.

In any case, I always try to race on my brother’s birthday, or at least that weekend. It’s good luck. Last Saturday, was dead on (Apr. 25). Even better. After setting my PR in March, I’d identified the 5000m race as the next opportunity to do something special – at least for me – break 17 in the 5K.

Since the training leading up to the March workout was successful in getting me to 17:22. I did the same sort of training leading up to the April race as well. Only just a little bit faster for every workout.

March v. April Difference (some examples)
“Easy Runs”: 6:42 v. 6:35 pace.
Steady State: 6:11 v. 6:03 pace.
Mile Repeats: 5:26 v. 5:17 pace.

For three weeks in April, training went to plan. I performed better than I had leading up to the March race, and I knew that I had a realistic shot at going under 17:00 on race day. The last week, the taper week, didn’t go as well though. I’d stopped eating as much as before, stopped doing strength workouts at night, and the weather was getting warmer throughout. Not sure why. Boredom? Fatigue? Silly, really. Even though I had cut my mileage in half for the week, the Wednesday (3×800) speed session didn’t go so well. I’d done a similar session, twice as long (6×800) the week before. How could I be struggling so much on a down week? I was having a hard time sleeping as well, getting around 6 hours per night for the week. Even worse, an ill-conceived experiment with long striding left me with throbbing shins and a sore left buttcheek.

Going into Friday, my recovery plans amounted to taking Friday off from running, drinking as much sugar as possible and getting to bed early. Check. Check. Check. Nearly 10 hours of sleep Friday night had me feeling OK by Saturday morning. Packed the workout drinks and drove off to the race.

I’d gone over my strategy well in advance this time. A 5000m race is really 25×200 meters. About the longest period I can focus at one time. As early as the night of the March race, I knew what my splits would be for the April race. Every 200m: 40, 41, 41, 41. 40, 41, 41, 41. Cross 1600m in 5:26. 3200 in 10:52. 4800 in 16:18. Sprint to the finish in 16:58.

I was happy to see at the check-in that three runners from one of the local universities would be in the race. While “The Kid” wasn’t returning, I was sure that local university runners would push (or pull) me to a great finish. Business as usual from this point. After drinking my usual pre-workout drink and warming up, I was informed that there would be two heats of the 5000m instead of one. The women would run first and then the men. This is the first time this year, that I’ve warmed up and then sat afterwards for 30 minutes while waiting on my race. Rather than re-warm up, I decided to keep my windbreaker pants on, sit down and continue to drink fluids.

Actually had a good time talking to the other runners as we began our final check-in at the starting line. People always have the same question: “How fast are you going to run?” Nervous types, I guess. For once, I genuinely didn’t care to hear how fast they were going to run, I assumed it would be good enough to help me. Fortunately, their coach (or friend) asked me what splits I needed to run to get my goal of 17:00 and agreed to call out my times as I passed by. This would be crucial later.

Gun goes off. College kids take off towards their planned pace of 77 seconds per lap. I need to go a little slower at nearly 82. In fact, I should come through 100m in 20 seconds or so. I looked down to check my watch for early confirmation and quickly discover that I didn’t press start hard enough at the gun. I start the clock at 100m but my splits are off entirely now. Memorized splits won’t help me now, and I don’t feel like doing a bunch of math during the race. Good thing the coach agreed to read my times out.

With the coach’s help, I figured the first 1200m left me slightly behind pace, but I made it up to get to 5:27 at the 1600m mark. Good, only a second behind at this point. The trick then, was to keep my cadence up around 180 spm and not overstride as I tired. While striding quickly helped, the benefits were easily countered by warmer weather (75 degrees), high humidity (83%), moderate winds (10 mph against on the backstretch), and an increasingly nosy sun that chose to peep from behind the clouds. Ran a couple of the laps squinting until I got enough courage to slow down and wipe the sweat from my face with my shirt. Much better. At the 3200m mark, I was 5 seconds behind pace at 10:57, but not too disheartened. A very nice lady was yelling that I had the freshest legs left in the race. Good to hear. While 40, 41, 41, 41 was out of the picture, I felt that if I just ran hard enough, I could give myself a chance in the last 600-800m of the race.

And so, I looked away from my watch and looked up. The lady was right. The three runners from the university were all having a tough time of it. They’d planned to run under 16:00 that day, but it was clear that they weren’t going to make it. All were within 150m of me. The last in the group was only 50m to 75m ahead. I decided to close on him. To be honest, I don’t remember much of the last mile. I just kept the last kid in my sight and tried to get within striking distance. With 200m go, the coach yelled out, “16:24…16:25…”. I was 6-7 seconds behind pace.

The math came to me quickly. I needed 34-35 seconds to break 17. A whole month of training for this. I worked too hard to go home unhappy. Time to cut loose. Catch this guy in front of me. As the others were finishing, I caught the 3rd kid with 75m to go. To his credit, he didn’t give up and just edged me at the tape. Great response on his part as we sprinted to the finish line. I stopped my watch in 16:39, but I knew I’d started it late. What was my official time?

I asked around but no one was clocking me. Then I walked into the timing booth. The team manager already knew what I wanted.

16:58.91.

Bam! 34 seconds to close the run. Great surprise on a very tough day. I called my dad to tell him about the news. I’m still having trouble associating myself with the 17:22 5K time – let alone a sub-17. Dad’s response was don’t get used to it because it’s going down again.

We’ll see. May 23. Road race. Fort Worth, TX.