Half Marathon Distance Run!

Well, today Carena and I set out to do a long run. Her longest previously was 8.25 miles, and mine (recently) was about 10.5 miles, so we set out to do around a 10-11 miler. We decided to run the Chain of Lakes, which includes Lake Harriet, Lake Calhoun, and Lake of the Isles. This is a gorgeous route, which in turn makes it a very busy route. Nonetheless, it was an amazingly enjoyable run. One big plus is that there is very little elevation change, which made this far easier to run than it would be to run the same distance in Lakeville. As we came up on the car, we had completed just under 10 miles. Still feeling pretty good, we decided why not push for the whole 13.1 miles, so we ran an extra lap and change around Lake Harriet to hit the correct mileage. It's a pretty nifty route, which you can see in the workout details here.

I ended up with a time of 2:03:25, which I feel is pretty good for me considering I wasn't even really going for speed until the last 3 or 4 miles. If I were racing, I'm confident I could shave quite a bit off that time, so I think I could run a sub-2hour half marathon. At the end of this run, I was getting somewhat fatigued, but I certainly still had plenty of gas left in the tank. If you compare it to my only actual half marathon race time (from 2006), which was 2:12:05, it's quite an improvement. Also, if I were to compare my level of fatigue between the two runs, there's no comparison; I was exhausted at the end of the race from 2006, but I actually feel pretty good today.

Carena did amazingly well, especially when you consider she hadn't run more than just over 8 miles before in her life. She was unsure if she would be ready for the actual race we're running in October, but I'm pretty sure this should change her outlook significantly :P.

I'm definitely as pumped for running as I have been in a long time. I can't wait to get out there tomorrow!

Til next time,
Dave

Tempo Run

I seem to only want to update when I've had a good run. On Tuesday, I had another interval session in which I only completed 3 of the scheduled 5 intervals (details). Luckily I bounced back with a pretty solid tempo run (details) today. Did a 1 mile warmup, followed by 3 miles at my Tempo pace, and a 1 mile cooldown. The splits for the middle 3 miles were 8:13, 8:20, and 8:26. I'd still like them to even out a little bit, but there are a pair of nasty hills near the end of the 2nd mile and the start of the 3rd mile that take a lot out of me, so the 3rd mile takes a bit of a hit. I haven't found a route that's less hilly that I can do without driving somewhere. Maybe next week I'll drive to Lake Harriet or something and do a flat one.

One thing I do know is that this course is quite a bit harder than the CrazyLegs, and I almost completed it in the same amount of time with relative ease. And that's including my warmup and cooldown in my calculations. Subtract those and take into account the additional hills and you'll see that I've improved quite a bit since that race in April. I'd guess I could shave 3 minutes or more off my time.

My First Interval Session

Today, as the title indicates, is my first attempt at interval training. Intervals are designed to stress your aerobic system to its maximum in order to increase your VO2 Max. For those unaware, a person's VO2 Max is basically the maximum rate of oxygen consumption and utilization during exercise. It's one of the major factors in running performance, and you can improve it by running at a pace that will really push your HR up near its maximum, which stresses the oxygen delivery system. Ideally, about 2 minutes into your interval, you want to be near 98% of your maximum HR. I don't really know what my maximum heart rate is, but I think it's near 190, so ideally I should be above 186 bpm after about 2 minutes in each interval.

Since it was my first time, I wasn't quite sure what would be the correct pace, but according to my trusty book, "Daniel's Running Formula," I estimated it to be around 7:30-7:40 (which I will call I pace, and ~10:20 per mile is my easy, or E, pace). The plan for my workout was as follows:

5-10 min warmup
6 strides
5x(3 minutes at I pace + 2 minutes rest at E pace )
5-10 min cooldown

I would say that the workout (details) felt pretty successful, but I was not able to keep the last couple intervals up to the speed of my first couple. The interval paces were, in order: 7:21, 7:24, 7:36, 7:47, and 8:01. Ideally they'd all be much closer together, but I think in this case it's probably ok because the last two intervals were predominantly uphill. If anything, I probably should've run the first two faster because they included a lot of downhill. I think one of my goals before my next quality training session (by that I mean not just a constant easy pace) is to find someplace nearby that is flat where I can go to train. Hills are good sometimes, but they also get in the way when you have to deal with them on every run.

I'm anxious to see how my next run on Saturday will feel after completing this session today. I've noticed huge gains since I started including threshold pace running into my training, and I'm hoping including intervals will give me another solid boost.

Early Morning Tempo Run

Today was a real test for me, but I passed with flying colors. The test: to be able to get up and run before getting to work at 8. I woke up at 5:55 (luckily with no alarm), got dressed in my running gear and scarfed a nutrigrain bar and a banana with a swig of water, and was out the door by 6:05. It was nice and cool, which I think allowed me to perform quite a bit better than I had in the past 2 weeks or so.

Today (details) was a brief 5-6 min warmup, followed by a 5k at tempo pace, followed by a 7-8 minute cooldown. It went very well, and I was able to run 8:20 pace at about the same effort level as I had been able to run 8:40 pace about 3 weeks ago. I'm starting to get excited, because now I have my base mileage built up and am able to work on speed for the first time in my life. I think I'm going to look for a 5k in the next couple weeks, just to see where I'm at. My run today had a time of 26:21 for the 5k portion, and I was tired but not exhausted at the end. Also, the route is quite hilly, so on a flatter course I'm starting to think I could probably do under 24:00, which would make me extremely happy. In fact I'm going to look for races immediately following this post :).

One thing I noticed is that my HR was off in the first couple minutes. Sometimes the strap doesn't get a very good reading while dry, so there are some unusual peaks in the early going where it says my HR was 160+ and it was more realistically below 135. Once I get a sweat going (or I wet the underside), it's very accurate.

Off to look for some races!

Long Run

Went for a long run today. There seems to be a trend of me having my long runs on the mornings when I have plans with my buddy Ben involving beer in the evening. It's probably not the healthiest thing for me.

Today I set off with no real mileage goal in mind; I only knew I wanted it to be at least 7 miles. I kinda figured 10 might be too much for me at this time, and I was probably right. I started in the direction of Ben's house (run details), and I figured I'd swing by and see if they needed any help setting up for tonight's festivities (he's having his Lakeville wedding reception tonight). They didn't, so I just stopped and chatted for a couple minutes before departing towards Orchard Lake.

I took a GU energy gel (Vanilla Bean flavor) at around 4 miles. It seemed to give me a boost for a little while, but it might've been a placebo effect more than anything else. It was fine, as far as taste goes, but I'm still looking forward to trying some other flavors.

It was right around the time that I was passing Sarah's house (with two identical Yarises [Yarii? plural of Yaris] in the driveway) that I realized I had not worn protection. Nipple protection that is. I decided to run another couple miles, and once the sun was behind the clouds, take my shirt off. I'm glad I did. My nipples are still in great shape :), but I have no doubt that another mile or 2 and they wouldn't have been so happy.

The biggest problem with this route is that the last 2 miles seemed to be almost completely uphill, which is not fun, but overall I'm pretty satisfied with the run. Keeping the pace at 10:13 for 8.5 miles is pretty decent for me, and I'm starting to get a little confidence regarding what my half-marathon time could be.

That's all for this post. Hopefully the next post won't be too far into the future.

Busy Week

Sorry I haven't checked in for awhile; it's been a busy couple of weeks. I was in Michigan for a friend's wedding where I did a 6 mile run (details). All that accomplished was me getting mad at rich people for owning all the lakefront property, and also me stepping in dog poop without realizing it. Not fun. On the other hand, it was kinda fun just running aimlessly with no goal in mind, just exploring the town of Charlevoix.

On Tuesday, I set out with the goal of doing 5k at threshold pace, which I was able to accomplish (details). Even though I wasn't pushing myself as hard as I could (seeing as it's a threshold run), I was surprised it was still slower than the first race I ever ran (the Pi Mile Run at the U of M), but I'm confident in a race situation I could obliterate that time. I'm considering doing a 5k in the near future. One that looks like it's a nice course is Dave Ryan's 5k for Special Olympics Minnesota, so I'll probably do that. I feel like I'm almost back to the best running shape I've ever been in, though that's not really saying much. I haven't run a short race after 6 months of training before, so I'm curious to see how I'll perform. I'm hoping that I'll be able to convince a bunch of my friends (Chris, Andrew, Ben, Greg: I'm looking at you [and others if they're able]) to run it with me.