Training

I’ve finally had a few weeks of running without pain, so I feel pretty confident that I’ve solved the issue with tenderness in my knees. Cross-training and extensive stretching have really done wonders. With that fixed, I am not able to concentrate on extending my runs.

Even with shorter days I’m able to get in some good mileage on the weekends along with some decent miles on weekdays. I’m going to try to have a couple weekends with 21 mile runs. Then I will feel confident enough to run the 50K at Sunmart.

Yesterday I took a break from the solitary trails and went to the track where I joined about 5 others who were getting some exercise. I ran 8-400 meter sprints with a 200 meter walk between each. My times ranged from a best of 1:31 to a worst of 1:41. Most of the times were right at 1:35. That’s not so bad when the temperature is 97 degrees.

Today I run a tempo three miles at about 8 minute miles.

I try to have only one or two long races on the road each year. I avoid doing very many shorter 5K/10K races on the road unless it’s a local event or a run I have fond memories of. I just enjoy running on trails a little better. For me it’s not really about joint pain or anything. I just get bored on road races.

That said, I do have one of the one or two long races coming up in November. Last year I ran in a 24 hour run but pulled out of it after 7 hours. This year I am going to go out there and spend a couple days running and camping with friends. I’ll be doing the 48 hour run and going for something like 120 miles. That’s the initial plan anyhow. Specifics are likely to change.

What sucks is that it’s a 2 mile circuit type course on pavement alongside a lake. The lake is nice the pavement and distance become boring. Thankfully I’ll have a lot of time to take breaks and rest.

I’m not sure why I go out to run intervals. I don’t really have any reason to want to be quicker with my miles. My thought is that intervals don’t really help all that much for endurance events anyhow. But I still push my body through intervals on a weekly basis.

I went out today and did about 4 total miles of running on the track. I warm up, run 8-400s at sprint (my ability makes the sprint sort of laughable) followed by walking 200m, and then a warm down. All in all it makes for a good day at the track and I sort of enjoy the workout. It’s a nice change from the solitary drone of running through the forest.

I’m not prepared for the race tomorrow, but I’m going to run it anyhow. The course is my training grounds, the weather is great, and I’m in good health. I think that the first half of the race should be a breeze. It’ll be interesting to see how I do overall with the lower mileage training that I am attempting.

Good luck to anyone else racing this weekend!

This week has been a pretty busy one on the trails for me. I have to get ready for the Hogs Hunt at the beginning of next month, and I’m too out of shape right now. I went out for a seven mile run on Monday. Then I followed that up with a run through the trails on a new route involving a new trail on Tuesday. My guess was that I’d be going about 7 miles, but I think it ended up being just under nine. I can only guess because it was based on the amount of time it took and some rough mileage calculations from the trails I know the distance of. Yesterday I ran another seven mile loop as I tried, unsucessfully, to catch up with friends who started 20 minutes ahead of me. Finally, I took it easy and ran five miles today. I’ll probably try to run 21 on Saturday.

Just in case you’re interested, the message board posters at letsrun.com are having a little debate over the best way to run 100 mile weeks. At my max I am only running upwards of 50 miles in a week. I can’t image moving it to 100 miles on a steady basis. For what it’s worth, they all seem to agree that it’s in some combination of high singles and then doubling up your days with morning and evening runs.

I like to have a set workout schedule so that I can keep myself on the correct training path. It changes when I’m preparing for a race (50K or greater) or when I’m recovering so I’ll put a the nuances in here. Furthermore, I do a lot of core training that includes pushups, crunches, jump roping, pushups, and various other exercises.

Non-training routine (goal 30-35 weekly miles):

Sunday: 7 mile run on trails in morning with 2 mile run on roads in evening

Monday: 1-2 hours of mountain biking

Tuesday: 5 mile run on trails

Wednesday: Interval speed training at track (at least six sprints) alternate week of hill work

Thursday: 5-7 mile run on trails

Friday: Day off

Saturday: 10 mile long run on trails

Training workout routine (goal 40-60 weekly miles):

Sunday: 7 mile run on trails in morning with 2 mile run on roads in evening

Monday: 1-2 hours Mountain bike alternate week of 5K speed run on road

Tuesday: 10 mile run on trails

Wednesday: 3.5 mile trail run followed by hill repeats

Thursday: 7 mile run on trails

Friday: Day off

Saturday: 14-21 mile trail run with occasional “training” races of 15.5-31 miles

In order to recover, I will typically take 2-3 days off running. I will start by mountain biking a few days after the race. A day later I will run anywhere from 3-5 miles at a very slow pace. I won’t increase beyond 5 miles in any given run until about 6-7 days after a race. I will slowly increase my distance and speed to aid proper recovery.

I went to the track yesterday and ran some more intervals. I don’t really like doing them, so I hope that they make me a little faster. If they don’t, I’m going to be really disappointed that I spent some of my time at the track. This time I ended up running an 800, then I ran 5-400 meter sprints with a 200 meter walk between. I finished it all with one final 800 meter run.

I don’t like running fast, but I want to run faster. Conundrum if there ever was one. So today I did a little speed training. Maybe every other week I will go on a two mile run through some hills and see how long it takes. Today I was able to finish in 14:55, which is about as fast as I’ve ever finished this two mile loop. The goal is to get down to seven minute miles where I can run them without any major effort.

…sucks. I don’t really like it but I made myself do six sets of running fast 400s (only like 1 1/2 minutes for me), followed by walking a 200. I also sandwiched the intervals with 4-minute 800s.

What is most frustrating is having the racewalkers taking up each lane you could want and then moving. I don’t really care about any rules about who should have the inside lane. I’m sure there is etiquette that says the inside lane should be left for runners but I don’t care if someone walks in it. I just don’t want to be avoiding you and then have your friend move into my way while I’m trying to pass. I especially don’t want it to repeat a couple more times.

This week I’m going to be taking it a little easier than normal. I’ve got the 24 hour run starting Saturday morning, so I wanted to taper some for it. I’m excited and will keep you posted.

Today I ran a seven mile loop in about 1:03. That’s not too fast and it’s not too slow for me. It’s going at a decent pace which is what I need to prepare for this 24 hour run. At no point should I be going at a fast pace when I’m running that race. I hope that I’ll be able to hit 100 miles, but I’m going to have to spend a little time preparing on pace before I go.

Yesterday, my training run went a lot better than expected. I went out to the trails after work thinking that I would just run the seven mile loop alone. It was a gloomy day because of a gray overcast and a little water on the ground from a rain earlier in the day.

I decided that I didn’t want to run alone, so I called my friend Phillip to see if he wanted to go. He said he needed to see if his daughter was going to hang out at his place or if she was just dropping by. He called me back a few minutes later and said he’d be at the park in ten minutes.

I’m glad that I called him because he came with his Jack Russell who was more than excited to run. We started at a fast pace, so it wasn’t long before Phillip and Bandit were far ahead of me.

Around mile 4, I noticed that my pace was a lot better that it normally was. In fact, I thought that I might be able to finish the run in under 1 hour. With this thought, I started to get a little bit of a second wind. I decided to push the pace and caught up with Phillip and Bandit. With about two miles left, I passed Phillip and Bandit and started to run 8 minute miles.

Ultimately, I finished in 59:43. That’s the first time I’ve ever run that loop in under an hour.

The long run is usually pretty fun. I don’t know why I dread it. It’s relaxing because I will usually do it on my own with a slightly reduced pace. That’s nice. What sort of stinks is how much time it takes from my day and how it can make me sore.

This weekend will be a 14 mile long run. The following weekend I will run 21 miles. Then, I think the next weekend is a race of 31 miles. That should get me ready for my upcoming 24 hour run.

I know some people in my running club who always run alone because they want to go different distances than the group. I know other people in the club who will start with the group but soon are by themselves because of pacing.

I am guilty of both at times but not always.

I like to run further than a lot of people in my club. I am training for races and most of them are just getting exercise, running for fun, or whatever.

With different goals necessarily comes somewhat different methods to achieve those goals.

More often than not, I will run on my own before the group meets. Then I will run their run with them. If I run with the group first, I am often ahead of the group; thereby, I am running alone. If I run by myself first, I am a little worn down and tend to stay with the group because I’m tired.

Seems like a good way to get the best result for running with friends while getting a good base mileage for training.

I’ve decided that it’s time for me to step up the running. I can’t believe that it’s back to the racing season. I’m happy that some of the races are sending me emails to let me know that I should sign up for this years race. It’s cool that they are good at reminding me. So, anyhow, more distance to prepare.

Alright, I ran 15 miles today, in two runs. I ran five miles this morning because I didn’t feel too great. Then I went back out and ran 10 miles. I realized shortly into the ten miles that my stomach still had aches.

All told, I saw 3 deer, bunches of squirrels, one dog, zero snakes, one other runner, a father and son walking, and three tree branches crash to the forest floor. All in all that seems like a good long run to me.

There is way too much rain for appropriate 50K training. This weekend is the last weekend I have for a long run. I will probably need to do it tomorrow but I’m worried a little about being washed out. I couldn’t run on the 4th or yesterday because of the rain. Hopefully it’ll be clear tomorrow so I can run 14 miles.

Who am I fooling? More than that, I sort of want to watch the Live Earth concert all day and be lazy.

Today I ran a 10 mile loop at the state park, but I didn’t actually run 10 miles. I think it was around mile six where I decided that the heat and the humidity was too draining to push it any harder. I didn’t walk the rest of the way, but I ran and walked for the remainder of the run.

Yesterday, I ran a very quick 3.5 mile loop. The day before that I ran 2 miles in 7:40 miles.

Two more weeks before my big summer race.

I ran 4-400 meter sprints around the track this evening. Right now, I am only able to get around 1:35 for each which isn’t fast enough. I’m going to push myself on speed drills once a week to try to cut those times down to the 1:05-1:10 range. Then I hope that my shorter distance race times will improve. After the sprints, I also ran a mile to see if my pace was correct.

This past week was a little bit of a low mileage week. It isn’t going to be long before I have to step it up for  El Scorcho 50k, but I will wait another week or two.

I took Sunday off because I was feeling lazy. I made up for that by going on a 3.5 mile run in the rain on Monday. Then I ran with a friend on Tuesday with a killer 5 mile in just over 38 minutes. I followed that up with a similar time by myself on Wednesday.

The next chance I had to run was on Friday. I went with a guy in my club and his dog. Towards the end of the run his dog caught, and killed, a baby armadillo. That was a shame to deal with but I guess he was lucky it wasn’t an animal that could have killed his dog.

All told it was just a 20 mile week.

This week wasn’t too impressive as far as distance. I started out the week with my typical Sunday 7 mile run. I ended up walking a lot of it and running some with the president of the running club.

I went out on Monday for a quick run. I saw the storms approaching and thought I could beat the rain. I lost but finished the 3.5 in a personal best.

I didn’t venture back out for a run until Wednesday. It was soggy, there were fallen trees, and the air was far too humid, yet I trudged through 9 miles.

Friday and Saturday were both 3.5 mile runs. On Saturday I ran with a friend who was visiting for the weekend. He hasn’t ever ran trails so it was fun showing him the joys of trail running.

When I am training, I will always try to run the big hills that are on the trail. Some of the people I run with will stop when they get to the intimidating ones and walk up the hill — I don’t. That’s why I typically finish 5 or 10 minutes before my group. When I’m racing, I will play it by ear with a goal of walking more big hills than running. I think it’s very beneficial on a training run but expends to much energy in a longer race.

For a little speed work, I ran a short two miles in 15 minutes. It actually went a little quicker than I would have guessed. I think that on longer runs my average mile is more like 9 minutes. It looks like I need more speed work (e.g. ladders) to sustain the 7 or 8 minute mile pace.

Today was just three miles of speed work at the track. I haven’t been doing nearly enough of it. I decided that today would be a good day as I had way too many brownies at a colleague’s going away party.

Now I just need to say no to running until the race on Saturday.

I ran a 5 mile training run this morning on a trail. I finished it in just over 43 minutes with only a couple obstacles to slow me down. This puts me at just over an 8:30 minute mile pace, which isn’t good enough for me. Ultimately, I’d like to cut a minute off each of those miles, but I’m not there just yet. I’ll start with trying to get that down to 8 minute miles during my spring runs.

This morning I set off the park to meet a running friend for a long run. We planned to do 14 miles which is just a couple laps. I packed a jacket to wear, an extra bottle of water, water bottle to run with, GU, and a Clif bar. This is more than enough goodies for a not so long run.

I met up with Phillip and we took off around 8:15. I decided that I didn’t need any water or GU for the first lap. I did wear my long sleeved jacket because it was pretty chilly. It didn’t take long before I realized that the jacket was a mistake. That was mistake number one of the run.

We stayed together for most of the first lap. There weren’t any problems with the run except I was pretty out of breath. I took some allergy medication before I left because of congestion. The congestion didn’t go away during the first lap, so I was cramping and having breathing problems. Normally, I won’t stop, but I had to walk a couple times. Oh, I also had to stop to crest a tree that had fallen in the path. It was a little more than difficult to get over.

I finished the first lap in about an hour and 8 minutes. That isn’t too far off from my typical pace of 1:03 hours for 7 miles. I went to my car to grab my water, GU, and ate a little bit of a Clif bar. Phillip came over and was munching on a Girl Scout peanut butter cookie. He seemed to believe that was better tasting than the Clif Bar (he was right). I only ate about two bites of the bar because I knew that I wouldn’t need all that for seven more miles. I drank some water from my extra bottle. We took off on a different route.

Not even a mile into the second lap and Phillip hit a root. He was in front of me so I watched him tumble. He sprung back up and said everything was alright. After a mile, I opened the Gu and sucked it down. I packed it away (even the top) because I hate seeing those things on the trail. Even though I did this while running, it slowed me down enough that Phillip was gone.

To catch up with Phillip, I decided to cross the dam instead of running the extra distance to the bridges. This was certainly mistake number two. Because of all the moss and vegetation, it was difficult to see where the concrete steps were located and my foot was wetter for it. The last 3 miles of my run were finished with a soaking wet foot. I thought it was kind of fun but it made my legs heavier.

All in all, it took about 2 hours and 18 minutes for me to finish. That included my little break for a Clif Bar. I just wish that I felt better on that first lap and I would have done better — I think.

This was a pretty nice weekend for my running. I didn’t run at all on Friday, because I wanted some recovery time. But I ran 21 miles on Saturday, a 7 mile trail run today, and finished the day with a 5K club run which I finished in 25 minutes and 23 seconds. All in all, not too bad for a weekend.

I didn’t quite make it the 28 miles that I should have gone. I ran about 21 and called it quits to meet my uncle for lunch as he was driving through town.

The first 45 minutes of my run were done in a drizzle to downpour. Even with the trees blocking a lot of the rain, I was drenched with water. It was fun but made it a little heavy to run and the paths were muddier than I enjoy.

After running 7 or 8 miles, I decided to take a GU packet. I ran most of the way but would walk on a few of the hills.  The last part of the run was better than the front part of run because the rain went away.

It was a fun run. Tomorrow I will run about 10 miles with the running club to make this a 50K weekend.

This weekend is my first 50K. I’m really excited about it and want to do decently. Even though I ran 7 miles today, I think that I still have enough time to let my body prepare for the run. Tomorrow I might run a light 3 or 4 miles, Thursday will be a day off, and Friday will be about 2 or 3 miles.

I like to go on an easy run the day before a race. I know that some people say you should take the day off, but I do better if I run a little bit. It won’t be far enough that it gives me any soreness, but I want to get my heart rate up and a muscles warmed up.

This evening I ran about three miles. I was able to do it with my newly purchased water bottle. It’s one of those bottles that rests on your hands with a cozy strap. I’m excited that I can have a lot of water right there with me for my runs.

I’m going to get a good nights sleep and hope for the best tomorrow!

Where to start, where to start? I guess that I’ll explain why I didn’t write yesterday. I went on a date with a cool girl, so I didn’t run and didn’t have much time to write anything.

Today I signed up for the Jogger Egg Nogger run this weekend. I flipped a coin on whether to run an easy 5K or a more challenging 15K. I decided that I would do the 15K because it’s more of a challenge for me. Regardless of how I run, I look forward to a cup of whiskey egg nog after the run! Is anyone else running this one?
This evening, in preparation for the race, I ran a fast-paced 4 mile run. My time was right around 28 minutes which is good enough for me. I would like to be at a 7 minute pace for the weekend run, but I know that I won’t do that well for the full 15K.

I wanted to say something about about Marc Witkes who passed away this past weekend during the Tuscon Marathon. It was a tragic and premature death that is both unfortunate and frightful. I did not know Marc, or even of Marc, so I can’t offer anything personal (please read what Scott Dunlap says at A Trail Runner’s Blog) but I can say that this should affect all runners in some way. It’s scary to me because mortality is something we all have to be aware of regardless of our age, health, and athletic ability. It’s a thought that both scares me and reminds me of how precious our lives are.

Well, I did go on a Sunday run, but I didn’t make it a long run. This means that I didn’t get a long run in this weekend. That’s a little frustrating to me but with some family in town, I guess it’s understandable.

This coming weekend is the Dallas White Rock Marathon. I haven’t decided if I want to run the half or not. I haven’t properly trained, so I don’t think I will run it. On the other hand, it’s a good course and easy to run without too much intense training. I think that right now I could come in around 2 hours for the half.

I think that I’m leaning more towards taking pictures and encouraging the runners as they pass through the lake area. I don’t like to run in races without being ready for them even if my times aren’t stellar.