Category Archives: Weekly Update

03.04.14
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Week of 2/24/14 – 3/2/14: Country Music Half Training, Week 7

Almost halfway through the training cycle (although only about a third of the mileage), and less than two months to go until the half marathon! Unfortunately, this wasn’t my best week.

week of 2/24/14 to 3/2/14

Tuesday

I was feeling a little discouraged after Sunday’s run, so I decided to forgo my strides and just do my easy three. This week’s intervals were 15 minutes running, 2 minutes walking. I completed this with no issues while watching “Lilo & Stitch” on my phone.

Afterwards, since I wasn’t doing strides, I did ten minutes on the recumbent bike. This is one good thing about going to the gym; I would have no other way to crosstrain without it. I don’t like this gym’s recumbent bikes nearly as much as my last gym’s. I slide off the seat a lot and it says I don’t go as far (like an entire mile less), even though I’m putting in the same effort (like it says my rotations per minute are the same). Weird. But I’m not concerned about mileage on the bike, just trying to give my legs something else to do. I could definitely feel it the next day!

Thursday

Back to tempo runs for a couple of weeks! I thought about buying the digital download of “Frozen” to watch while I did this run, but I really wanted to wait for the Blu-ray. I compromised by downloading “Let It Go” to add to my running playlist. Best running song ever.

I started out with a ten minute warmup, then started at 5.2 with the goal to speed up to 5.6 over the course of thirty minutes. Two minutes in I got a terrible side stitch. I took a sip of water and tried to control my breathing and push through it, but it only got worse. So five minutes after starting my tempo pace, I stopped the treadmill and took four minutes to try to massage it out and stretch.

I hit the lap button on my watch to signify that I was starting my 30 minutes over and started back at 5.2. I made it seven minutes this time before the side stitch made me stop again. Frustrated, I took a two minute walk break, drank some more water, and focused on my breathing. I can usually get rid of a side stitch by either: massaging it, making sure I’m hydrated, or timing my breathing so my exhales are on the opposite foot of the side of the pain. None of these things were working.

I switched my music over to play “Let It Go” to focus my mind on something. I managed to get through the song three times (nine minutes) before I had to walk again. After another two minute break, I gave up and decided I was not going to get in a solid thirty minutes of nonstop tempo pace, but I could at least do thirty minutes over intervals.

I wasn’t sure exactly how long I had ran so far, so I gave it my best estimate. I ended up doing about 32 minutes total of tempo pace, broken up into six different intervals.

I was really frustrated at myself and the stupid side stitch that refused to go away. But I have another thirty minute tempo next Thursday, so hopefully I can knock it out then.

Saturday

I was hopeful going into Saturday’s run that it would be better. It wasn’t. The side stitch decided to make a reappearance. I ended up taking a couple extra walking breaks during my intervals. The side stitch finally went away (mostly), but it was replaced by some fantastic stomach problems! So I cut the run short after three miles because I wasn’t really in the mood for throwing up in the middle of a public park.

Sunday

With three out of four of my last runs being less than stellar, I was really lacking motivation on Sunday. Oh yeah, and it was 33 degrees and pouring rain. And lightning. I ended up going to the gym. I knew I was not going to be able to pull out the planned 9.5 miles, but I hoped to make it through at least three.

My head was so not into this run. I took one extra walking break in the middle of both my first and second 15 minute intervals. After that, I told myself I was almost to three miles and could stop after that. That placated my head enough to make it through the third interval with no extra walk breaks. I had almost been running for an hour at that point, so I decided to make it a nice even 60 minute run. Except when 60 minutes came, I was less than a tenth of a mile from doing a nice even five miles, so I ended up doing that.

I’m debating on what I should do for the upcoming week. I’ve thought about cutting my mileage a little and seeing if that helps, since I’m scared of overtraining. (Maybe I should have taken some more days off after the 15k?) But what I think I’m going to do is drop my intervals down to 5:1 and see if that helps with the head games. If I still can’t make my mileage, I’ll consider cutting that down in the following week.

02.24.14
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Week of 2/17/14 – 2/23/14: Country Music Half Training, Week 6

week of 2/17/14 to 2/23/14
Guess what? I finally went running with a group this week! Except it wasn’t the group that I’m supposed to be running with.

Tuesday

Since it was 60 degrees, I decided to meet up with the Mt. Juliet Flyers group to do my easy three miles on the Providence Greenway. Around twenty people showed up. Like I am wont to do in groups, I started my easy miles too fast. This week’s intervals were 12:2, which should be no problem, but I started off at a sub-11 min/mi pace. Nope. The entire interval I was also leapfrogging with a couple of other ladies who were doing 3:1 intervals, so after my first, I decided to join them. Because isn’t that the point of running with a group? I completed the three miles with them effortlessly and within my easy run pace. Yay!

I almost decided to not do my strides, but I stopped on the way home in the neighborhood I like to run in and did them. This was my first time not doing them on a treadmill this training cycle, so I was interested to see how my times would compare. So here’s a comparison for you! Outside is on the left, and what my footpod recorded on the treadmill for my last stride workout is on the right:
stride workout comparison

So pretty close, but looks like I’m slightly speedier outdoors, probably because the treadmill does a ramp up to the speed I enter, whereas I just start out faster when I’m outside. It also (oddly) feels like they take longer outside. Usually the opposite is true! Maybe it’s because I wasn’t listening to music or couldn’t stare at the timer. Or, again, because the treadmill ramps up the speed so the time spent at the fastest pace is shorter.

Thursday

Long hill workout day! Except a storm was en route (the downside of it finally warming up), so the group workout got canceled. I did treadmill hills. The hill the group was supposed to be running is about 0.4 miles with an average grade of 6%. So this is what I replicated on the ‘mill. First, I did an easy 8.5 minute warmup at 4.3 mph with a minute and a half of walking after to shake out my legs. I decided to start at 5.0 mph and see how that felt before possibly increasing my speed on subsequent intervals. For recovery, I walked at 2.5 with zero incline until I felt recovered (usually around 4-5 minutes). Not nearly as fun as jogging back down the hill (literally the only fun part of hill workouts), but it would have to do.

I’m not going to lie. The first interval was HARD. I did it at a steady 5.0, and I was breathing crazy heavy by the middle of it. That said, I figured I was still just warming up, so I did the second one faster. I increased from 5.0 to 5.2 over the course of the interval. Yeah, I wanted to die after that. I didn’t know if I was going to be making it through this workout. So I decided to slow it down on my third and started at 4.5 and increased to 4.8. This was easier and I only needed about 2.5 minutes of recovery for it. So for the fourth, I started at 4.8, increased to 5.0 and back down to 4.8. Finally, for the fifth interval, I started at 4.8 and played my counting game until I was increased to 5.4! Figured I might as well finish it off with death.

My fastest of the intervals was my second one, which I completed in 4:37. My slowest was the third, completed in 5:11. The other three all fell in the middle, around 4:50. This probably would have been easier on an actual hill where I could adjust my speed as needed, instead of being stuck at a speed on the treadmill. This may have been my hardest workout ever.

Saturday

My five miler this week went well. The 12:2 intervals posed no problem, and the weather outside was perfect. The only issue I had is that I started to develop some blisters on my big toes. Also, my knees have been hurting earlier in runs than they used to. I used to not feel them until around 7-8 miles, but lately it’s been around mile four. I hope this isn’t an issue.

Sunday

Ugh, where do I begin with Sunday? I knew my training was going too well, and I was sure to hit a roadblock eventually. I was scheduled to do eight miles easy; this is slightly less than my last couple long runs because I knew the hill workout would be killer. And I was right. That, on top of the five miles from the day before, meant I was going into this run with really, really tired legs. I mean, that’s kind of the point. That’s why I scheduled the long run for the day after a five mile run every week. I’m supposed to be running on fatigued legs because it trains me to do so in races. But this was way more fatigued than normal.

It was also really warm and sunny outside (hi, 67 degrees!) and incredibly windy. And I chose a hilly route. I didn’t feel strong starting out. I didn’t feel strong in the middle. My knees starting aching around mile four again, and by mile six, they were downright HURTING. I pushed on, promising myself I’d do at least seven miles. However, on my sixth running interval, I ended up cutting it two minutes short. I was just in too much pain. The blisters from the day before had gotten way worse, so that, plus my knees, plus the fatigue in my legs, just wouldn’t let me go on. So I turned my two minute walk break into a four minute break before starting my seventh interval. I got to 7.5 miles, but I just couldn’t finish it out. I needed to listen to my body and not push too hard, but I still felt like a failure.

When I got home I discovered that I got to experience the wonderful world of chafing for the first time. The skin on the upper inside of my right arm had been rubbed raw. Remind me not to wear that running shirt again, as that’s the only thing I could think of that would have caused it.

Does anyone have any good advice on what to do for these blisters I keep getting on my big toes? I seem to get them with all socks and all shoes, so I’m not sure that changing any of that will help.

02.17.14
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Week of 2/10/14 – 2/16/14: Country Music Half Training, Week 5

week of 2/10/14 to 2/16/14

On Tuesday, I headed out to the gym for my easy three and strides. I started up the treadmill on a slow walk while I set up my Garmin, like I always do. Except my Garmin was dead. Despite that it had said 60% battery when I checked it at home, it was completely dead. “Oh well,” I thought. “I can still track it with the Nike app.” The Nike app isn’t as accurate, but I’m still not sure how accurate my footpod is either, so I figured it’d be pretty close.

Nope.

Nike was telling me in my ear that I was running 9-10 minute miles (while at 4.8-5.2 on the treadmill), which is just laughable. This threw me off and made the first couple miles frustrating. I was doing 10:2 intervals this week, although I actually did 12 minutes on my first interval because I didn’t want to stop running to a song that I was listening to. By the third mile and third interval, I was more into a rhythm and ignoring my Nike app talking in my ear. Nike said I did 3 miles in a little over half an hour. I ran for 36 minutes, figuring that was closer to the truth.

Since my watch was dead, I had nothing to time my strides with. So I just decided to do a fast mile. Here’s some numbers and math for you: I started the treadmill at 5.0 and increased 0.1 every 30 seconds for the first two minutes. That got me to 5.4. Then I increased 0.1 every 20 seconds for two minutes. By then I was at 6.0. For the next two minutes or so, I increased 0.1 every 15 seconds until I got to 7.0. I held that speed for one minute. Then I decreased 0.2 every 30 seconds down to 6.0 until my mile was complete. One mile in 9:55 according to the treadmill, so effort felt slightly faster.

I had every intention of running this week’s scheduled hill intervals. I also had every intention of actually running with the group. Life said otherwise. My car tire somehow ended up with four spikes in it, so I had to take it in to get a new tire. Then Amanda hit me with the news that she wasn’t going to be running the 15k with me on Saturday (more on that in my upcoming race report). I was feeling a little defeated on Thursday and I didn’t really want to trash my legs before the race, so I ended up just doing a 15 minute tempo run alone. It was 50 degrees outside, so I opted to not go to the gym, which seemed kinda silly for a short workout, so I strapped on my reflective gear and headed into the night.

I considered bailing and not running at all, so I’m glad I pushed myself to do SOME sort of speedwork. It felt fairly hard, maybe even harder than the 20 minute tempo from last week, but then I came across this Runner’s World article about running in the dark that made me feel better. I also didn’t really warm up beforehand (bad runner!), which was evident by the awesome shin splints I felt during the entire run. Luckily, Jonathan cooked a super yummy dinner to make up for the crappy day I had.

I actually came pretty close to not running the 15k on Saturday, which I’ll go into more on my race report, but I’m glad I did because it was awesome. Despite being bitterly cold, I had probably my best race to date. And the race was super well organized and the chocolate at the end was very very yummy. I finished in 1:46:48, which was faster than what I thought would even be my best.

I didn’t have a run scheduled on Sunday because of Saturday’s race, but I went out for a thirty minute recovery run anyway because it was 50 degrees and sunny. The goal was to stay between a 12:30 and 13:00 min pace, which I did. I thought about doing this week’s 10:2 intervals, but I ended up just running the whole thing through. Again, I’m cautiously excited about how well training is going.

02.10.14
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Week of 2/3/14 – 2/9/14: Country Music Half Training, Week 4

I’m a little amazed by how well this training cycle is going. I know I’m only four weeks in, but four weeks into the last one, I was burnt out and slowing down.

week of 2/3/14 to 2/9/14

I hit the gym on Tuesday, as usual, for my easy three and strides. This week my easy runs are being done with intervals of 8 minutes running and 2 minutes walking. I was kind of apprehensive about this, especially because Amanda has been doing the same intervals I’ve been doing for the same mileage but a week earlier, and she said that the jump from the 5:1.5 ratio to the 8:2 ratio was really tough. But I knew I had made it through my 10:2 tempo run last week, so I was hopeful that this wouldn’t be too awful.

And it wasn’t. In fact, it was–dare I say–easy. I usually do my treadmill easy runs on 4.8 for the running intervals, but I was mixing it up all over the place on these intervals, running anywhere from 4.8 up to 5.2 (which doesn’t sound like a huge difference, until you realize that’s over a minute per mile faster). I started playing games with myself to ease the treadmill boredom. I would count to 100 in my head and then I could either speed up 0.1, slow down 0.1, or stay the same speed before restarting my count. I almost always chose to speed up. If I looked at the time display before I was to 100, I had to automatically speed up with no choice.

Unfortunately, I have no idea exactly what distance I ran. I don’t include my warmup in my overall time, which the treadmill was reporting, so I rely on my Garmin to give me my actual running time. On the treadmill, it determines distance using my footpod. Except on my fourth running interval (or right before it), it somehow picked up a GPS signal and tried to use that to determine my distance. So I was very confused when I finished that interval, looked at my watch, and it said total distance was only 2.6 while the treadmill was reporting 3.1. I knew my walking warmup couldn’t possibly have been half a mile (they are super short and slow for easy runs), and the watch had been close to 2.3 after the end of my third interval. Confused, I took another walking break, and then started on a fifth interval. But the math wasn’t working out in my head. Something had to be wrong with the GPS, and I had to have done 3 miles already. So I stopped. When I got home, this is what my GPS data looked like:

messed up garmin data

So I took some time to edit the TCX file by just copying over my third interval to my fourth, even though I knew I had run my fourth faster. But I just wanted a rough estimate of how much I had ran. It showed that I had done 3 miles after my fourth interval, so with the extra bit I did afterwards, I was up to 3.3. Okay.

My strides also went well (and I turned the GPS off for them so they were reported accurately). This week I did five at 7.0 and three at 7.5. Woohoo!

I was a little stiff going into Thursday’s run, so I made sure to foam roll my IT band, quads, and glutes before I headed off to that magical land of sweat and loud machines. I was nervous for this week’s tempo run. (20 straight minutes at an 11 min/mi pace? I haven’t done that in four months!) But I got on the treadmill with the mindset that I was going to do it. No matter what. I was going to do it. And I did.

Footpod said I was a little faster than the treadmill did. The treadmill average was 5.4 mph, which is equivalent to 11:06 min/mi. The footpod average was around 10:30 min/mi. Once I can get out to an actual track, I’m going to do some tests on that thing, but Google tells me it’s possible the footpod is more accurate than the treadmill, even uncalibrated–especially if the treadmill is older (which it is). I don’t know. I just make sure that the pace I need to do is met by the treadmill, and if it happens to actually be faster, then cool. All I know is that if I judged by effort, I would lean towards the footpod being more accurate. A 17 min/mi walk doesn’t feel like a speed walk to me outdoors; it does on the treadmill. Just about every pace where I know what it feels like outside feels about 1 min/mi faster on the treadmill.

Anyway, I digress.

Saturday, I woke up to a winter wonderland. (Well, as winter wonderland-esque as it gets in Nashville.) I was supposed to run with Amanda again, but she came down with the flu. So I headed out to the park, but sadly all the snow had already melted by the time I got out. It was around 38 degrees, but warmed up to around 47 before I was done with my five miles. I had no problems, other than getting mildly warm after the sun decided to come out.

The next day I was scheduled for nine miles. I had some issues motivating myself to get out the door, but once I did, it felt okay. Nine miles seems to be my problem area. I’ve only had two actual runs longer than this distance, but the 8-9 mile mark is always where I start to drag. You’ll remember it was around this point in the Disney half where I really started walking more than I was running. Because of this, I have a good focus on this distance in my training plan. I basically stay around this mileage on my long runs for a month before going up to 11 miles. Today, I finished my 8:2 intervals without any extra walking and probably faster than I should have (most of my running intervals were around 11:30 min/mi, when they should be staying between 12 and 12:30).

I definitely felt absolutely exhausted by the time I was done. It didn’t help that for more than half the run, I could feel a clipped fingernail that had somehow gotten caught in my sock; I stopped around mile 5 to pull it out. I also had some kind of awful blister/callous on my right pinkie toe that I could feel the whole time. And apparently I developed a really ugly blister on my left foot as well. I don’t know if I need to reevaluate my long run shoes or what. I currently am wearing my Pearl Izumi Road N2s, which have pretty much been my exclusive long run shoe through both half training cycles, and what I ran the Disney half in. Although, if you remember, I wanted to burn those shoes after the half.

Maybe I should experiment with some of my other shoes on long runs, though none of them really fit the long run bill. My Skechers are close to being worn out, so I’m using them mainly for speed work. My Kinvaras are much too narrow for long runs; they would definitely give me blisters on anything longer than 5 miles, though they are my preferred shoe at the moment. The only other option I have are my New Balance trail shoes, which don’t just scream long run comfort to me. I’ve been toying with buying another pair of Skechers, or maybe trying out some Mizunos. But this week at the 15k, I’ll probably be sticking with the Pearl Izumis because you don’t try new things on race days!

02.03.14
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Week of 1/27/14 – 2/2/14: Country Music Half Training, Week 3

I seriously cannot wait until it warms up and daylight savings time begins. Three out of my four runs this week were on the treadmill. Ugh.

week of 1/27/14 to 2/2/14

On Tuesday, I went to the gym to do my easy three on the treadmill. This week I was doing 5 minute running and 1.5 minute walking intervals. (Are you noticing a pattern yet?) It went well, despite how utterly monotonous the treadmill is, and I just tried to zone out to my music for the most part. I need to create a new playlist post for the stuff I’ve been listening to lately that really help me on these boring treadmill runs. On my last 5 minute interval, I increased the speed by 0.1 every minute to end on a high note and to make sure I was adequately warmed up for my strides.

Strides this week were more structured than last week, since I set my watch interval timer. I did 40 seconds fast, then 40 seconds recovery. My watch starts beeping when the next interval is 5 seconds away, so I would enter the new speed at around 3 seconds to go, which seemed to balance out well. The first six I did at 7 mph and the last two at 7.5.

My speed workout on Thursday was my first of four tempo runs. I have 10:45 to 11:15 min/mi listed as my tempo pace, but I didn’t want to push too much, since (a) that’s a little aggressive for me right now and (b) it was my first one. I was to do 10 minutes at tempo pace, 2 minutes recovery, then another 10 minutes at tempo pace.

To warm up, I did a five minute progressive walk (from 2.0-3.5), a four minute jog (at 4.2), and a one minute walk (at 3.5). (I never record my walking warmup, so I started my Garmin when I started the jogging part of my warmup.)

For the first interval, I set the treadmill (yes, I’m still not doing these with the group even though I said I was going to) to 5.2, which equates to about a 11:30 min/mi. My footpod recorded me at about an 11 min/mi, but I think I just need to calibrate it.

It was hard, but I got through it and relished my 2 minute walking break. For the second interval, I changed my speed by 0.1 every minute, fluctuating from 5.2 up to 5.6 (10:42 min/mi) and back down to cover my whole tempo range. And I finished it! I like changing my speed every minute or so on the treadmill because it gives me something to look forward to besides counting down the minutes. Even though I made it through both intervals, I’m still nervous to put them together for my 20 minute tempo next week!

I flip-flopped my 5 mile run and my long run this week. I hung out with Amanda on Friday night, and so we did our long runs together on Saturday morning. She’s a little slower than me, so that made it easy to make sure I wasn’t running too fast and was keeping my pace conversational. It was an absolutely gorgeous day outside. It was around 50 and sunny when we went out at 9am. Shorts and short-sleeves, yay!

I started out being the complaining one. I really hate the first two mile of all runs. So each time our walking interval ended and our running interval started, I would groan. But my legs finally loosened up about two miles into our 7.5 mile run.

About halfway through, Amanda felt the urge to pee, but there was nothing around. I tried to get her to go in the woods, but she wouldn’t. So we ended up a little slower around that time because it had slowed her to a walk. We finally came to a building where some national guard training or something was going on and the nice soldiers let us in to use the restroom. After that, we had less than three miles to go.

This is where the roles reversed, and she resumed my complaining from miles one and two. I was all warmed up and felt like I could run forever, but she was getting tired. I tried encouraging her, but she would just glare at me. On our final interval, I told her to try to push the pace. I pushed mine all the way up past 5k pace! The average pace for that five minute interval was just over a 10 min/mi. Woohoo!

After that, I went home and continued to enjoy the nice weather (it got up to around 65 that afternoon). However, it didn’t last. The next day was cold and rainy. I kept hoping for a break in the rain, but one never came. I have no adequate running clothes for going out in a 35 degree rain. So after I woke up from my afternoon nap, I went to the gym and did my five miles on the treadmill.

All in all, it was a good week of training. I am just ready to ditch the treadmill!