Sunday, April 29, 2012

Week of April 23-29: 42 miles in 5 days/runs
  Monday: off
  Tuesday: 8.2 miles pushing a stroller at 7:56/mi.
  Wednesday: track workout (see below)
  Thursday: 8 miles at 7:43/mi.
  Friday: 8.2 miles at 7:28/mi.
  Saturday: off
  Sunday: Pike's Peek 10k race

I ended up doing my track workout this week on Wednesday instead of Tuesday, and it went well. It was the same workout I did last week - 4 x 1200 (800) - but faster. I averaged 4:24 per 1200, which is 5:53/mi. pace. I felt strong and smooth, and ran all four intervals at almost exactly the same pace. In fact, this workout felt so good that I started thinking about aiming for 37 minutes at the race on Sunday. I ran my first mile of the race in 5:54, which is just under 37 minute pace. But then I thought better of it and decided to back off to my original goal of running under 38 minutes, which would be 6:06/mi. pace. I stayed right on 6:06 pace for miles 2-4 but then slipped a little to 6:11 for mile 5 and 6:10 for mile 6. I wasn't hurting all that much but my legs started feeling heavy. But that first fast mile and a fast final .2 miles downhill were still enough to keep me under 38 minutes. I finished in 37:48, which is a PR by nearly 2 minutes, though I hadn't run a 10k for more than six months. My 5k split was 18:41 (I think), which is my second fastest 5k time, though obviously I'm due for a new 5k PR soon as well. I don't think the fast first mile affected much, since I backed off well before I felt tired, and I may have been able to speed up a few seconds for each of the last couple miles instead of slowing down a couple seconds if I had gone out slower. But I look forward to trying to hold that faster pace in my next 10k, after (I hope) running a couple of fast 5k's first. That's my next task, after recovering from this race: to prepare to run under 18 minutes for a 5k in three weeks, and then faster still (17:30?) two weeks after that. By June 9 (my next 10k), I hope that running 5:50's feels slow.

Sunday, April 22, 2012

Week of April 16-22: 55 miles in 6 days/runs
  Monday: off
  Tuesday: 4 x 1200 (800) intervals averaging 4:30.5 (about 6:05/mi. pace)
  Wednesday: 8.2 miles on a treadmill at 7:30/mi.
  Thursday: 12 miles at 7:43/mi.
  Friday: 8.2 miles pushing a stroller at 7:56/mi.
  Saturday: 3 mile tempo at 6:18/mi., 1 mile tempo at 6:22/mi., plus 5 easy
  Sunday: 8.6 miles on a treadmill at 7:32/mi.

This was a crucial week in my condensed preparation for the Pike's Peek 10k next Sunday, and it went about as well as I could reasonably expect. On Tuesday I got back on the track for the first time in a month, though it was my first time in 2012 running 1200's. I was surprised how slow I was, but I guess you use it or lose it. I think that workout, plus last weekend's tempo run, contributed significantly toward making this Saturday's tempo run go better. On Saturday I felt much more comfortable running at tempo pace, which was a tad faster than last weekend, and for longer at a stretch. I was planning on doing more tempo intervals: 3 miles, then (after three minutes rest) two miles, then (after two minutes rest) one mile, all at 6:20. But I felt so good on the three mile interval, and yet I was worried enough about cumulative fatigue from the week, that after a mile into the second interval I decided to call off the rest of the tempo run and to save my strength for a track workout next Tuesday. I'm confident about my endurance right now (after Cherry Blossom) and prefer to focus on getting some speed back in a hurry before Pike's Peek.  Next week, besides intervals on Tuesday, there will be nothing but easy miles and rest before the race on Sunday. I should be able to demolish my 10k PR of 39:44, but by how much? If I can't break 39 minutes, then something will have gone wrong. Depending on how Tuesday goes, I may take aim at 38 minutes. I hear that the course is fast but haven't run it before.

Sunday, April 15, 2012

Week of April 9-15: 53 miles in 6 runs
  Monday: 8.3 miles at 7:47/mi.
  Tuesday: off
  Wednesday: 8.2 miles at 7:42/mi.
  Thursday: 10 miles at 7:34 on a treadmill
  Friday: 8.2 miles at 7:41/mi.
  Saturday: 3x2mile tempo intervals averaging 6:25/mi. with 2 min. rest in between
  Sunday: 8.7 miles at 7:34/mi.

After wasting last week by running too fast to recover from the Cherry Blossom race, and then resting on Sunday and Tuesday, I got back into the swing of things this week mainly by putting a lot of slower, easy miles into my legs. It felt great. On Saturday I was able to complete the tempo run that I had to abort last weekend, though not quite at the pace I aimed for (6:20). The first two intervals were almost on pace (6:22, 6:23), but the third one was further off (6:30). That's good enough, though, to kick off a short series of speed workouts that should get progressively faster leading up to the Pike's Peek 10k, while keeping my mileage up. On Saturday and Sunday this week I ran outside without my allergy mask for the first time since Cherry Blossom, and I wasn't up coughing last (Saturday) night. So maybe the worst of the Spring allergy season is over for me.

Sunday, April 8, 2012

Week of April 2-8: 34 miles in 4 runs
  Monday: off
  Tuesday: off
  Wednesday: 8 miles on a treadmill at 7:30/mi.
  Thursday: 10 miles at 7:22/mi.
  Friday: 8 miles at 7:24
  Saturday: tempo intervals (see below)
  Sunday: off

Above is a good example of how not to spend the week recovering after a hard 10-mile race. I was pleased with my race for about a day and didn't mind taking the next day off after coughing much of Sunday night (mercifully, my last bad allergy night to date). By Tuesday, I was thinking more about how many people finished ahead of me (over 400!). But not running on Monday enabled me to sleep well that night, and sleeping felt so good that I didn't bother getting up Tuesday morning to run. So two days off let my muscles tighten up and the soreness settled in pretty deep. Nevertheless, when I did get back to running I refused to run easy when I needed to. This happens to me a lot: after a race, especially a race in which I run well, I try to run too fast on what are supposed to be easy runs for about a week afterwards, as if either I just can't let that fast feeling go, or I believe that I've stepped up to a new level and can suddenly recover sufficiently from "easy" runs that are run at a substantially faster pace than they were just a week earlier. I was sore on Wednesday, when I didn't run faster than a typical easy run for me, but it should have been an especially slow easy run given that it was my first run back after a hard race and then two days off. But both Thursday and Friday were clearly too fast, and the soreness in my legs was obvious. One mitigating factor was that I wore an allergy mask on both days, and on Saturday as well. It was unpleasant - something like what I imagine running at altitude to be like. I was always on the verge of not getting enough air, like you feel when swimming and you have to wait until that third or whatever stroke to take a breath. Plus, it was hot and sweaty under the mask, and of course everyone looked at me like I was crazy. It may seem that the mask is an additional reason to run more slowly. But in fact it was an obstacle that motivated me to run faster. It was uncomfortable, and running less slowly feels better, so I chose to do and focus on that. Anyway, when Saturday rolled around, I was so unrecovered from the race last weekend that my planned tempo run went predictably badly. I planned on running 3x2miles at 6:20 with 2 minutes rest. But I managed only 1x2miles and then 2x1 mile, with 2 minutes rest between intervals, at an average of 6:27, which was basically my pace in the race last weekend. My legs were very tight and sore, and I was gasping for air under my mask as families out for a stroll on Easter weekend wondered: what is the deal with that masked man? (I was running on a trail around a lake because the track I often use was closed). That finally made it clear to me that I had botched this whole week, so I took yet another day off on Sunday to recover. I'll try to keep things genuinely easy on my easy runs next week.

Sunday, April 1, 2012

Week of March 26-April 1: 41 miles in 5 runs
  Monday: 8 miles pushing a stroller at 8:02/mi.
  Tuesday: Off
  Wednesday: 7 miles at 7:40/mi.
  Thursday: 8 miles on a treadmill at 7:30/mi.
  Friday: 6 miles pushing a stroller at 7:59/mi.
  Saturday: Off
  Sunday: Cherry Blossom 10-mile race

Most of this week was a continuation of last week's allergic misery. I finally went to the doctor on Tuesday and got some prescriptions, including codeine cough syrup. But they did not immediately help, and the codeine never helped. Drugs or no drugs, when I ran outside this week, I stayed up coughing most of that night. When I did not run outside, I slept better. So I resigned myself to running inside on a treadmill when possible while allergy season lasts, or at least until I find a Galen Rupp-style mask that I can wear running. I certainly didn't expect to run well in the Cherry Blossom 10-miler on Sunday after two bad weeks with little sleep, a lot of work, and not much running, all of which was easy running. But in fact I ran very well, and in hindsight I see that allergies effectively forced me into a two week taper. My time of 1:04:42 is 7 minutes faster than my previous 10-mile PR, which was so bad relative to my times at other distances that I didn't even list it among my PR's. Now my half and marathon times are the outliers, though I'm confident that today I could have kept going another 5k for roughly a 1:25 flat half-marathon, which would be almost 8 minutes faster than my best actual half. Speculation aside, my splits today were almost perfectly even: my average pace was 6:28, and I ran each mile between 6:24 and 6:29. I went through 5k in just over 20 minutes and 10k in 40:09, which makes that the second fastest 10k I've run, but I didn't slow down over the next 4 miles. My split at 5 miles was 32:18, which means I ran the second 5 miles only 6 seconds slower in 32:24. Somehow I managed to run hard but "within myself," as people say, the whole time. That, even more than my time, made this probably my best race to date. McMillan puts only my best 5k time ahead of this. But 5k's are not as complicated as longer races, and in the past I have never been able to run times in longer races that McMillan says correspond to my best 5k times. Since one of my main longer term running goals is to get the marathon right, I'm pleased finally to have come very close to doing that at 10 miles. Of course, 26.2 miles is a lot further, but this gives me some confidence that my goal of running a sub-3 hour marathon this Fall isn't totally crazy. But these allergies need to give me a break so that I can get back to real training now. I want to run some faster times at shorter distances in the next 2-3 months before switching my focus to the marathon.

Another thing that made this race memorable was that I saw Joan Benoit Samuelson just after the finish line. She beat me by around 2 minutes, fittingly. But it was inspiring to finish shortly after the first gold medalist in the women's marathon (in 1984).