Just Mileage

I haven't had any "quality" workouts since Sunday's Half-Marathon. I've had some good mileage runs, but no tempos intervals or fartleks so far this week. Our conference cross country championships are in tomorrow (Saturday) morning and I've been busy with preperations for that. Once this weeks done with though, I'll have 60-65 miles down in the log book (with a day off). I have a mile repeat workout scheduled for myself in the morning. Hopefully it will go well.

Houston Half

I ran the my first half-marathon this morning in Houston. I had been looking forward to this race for quite a while, as I've never run (much less raced) a half-marathon and I was excited to see what I could do. I also wanted to get some experience with racing this distance prior to my ultimate goal, the Aramco Half-Marathon in January.

Things I learned in my first half-marathon....
1) I need to lose a few pounds. When I woke up Sunday morning I weighed myself. It's been a while since I've weighed myself so I was curious to see how much I weighed. The scale said 171 lbs. This is about 9 pounds more than what I prefer to race at. I felt heavy leading into the race. I haven't been eating very well. I'm going to go back to watching my caloric intake the next month and try to get down to 164 lbs by Thanksgiving.
2) I need to be closer to the start line when the gun goes off. Unfortunately, HHM didn't have the start area separated into pacing sections. I had to guess at where I should start. I didn't want to start near the front and get sucked into too fast of a start. So I found some other runners that looked to be about my capabilities. Moments before the gun went off I asked the guy next to me what pace he was hoping to run. He said, "Hopefully 9 minutes." My immediate thought was, "FUCK!" I split 7:16 for the first mile, which was not bad (a little faster than what I wanted the first mile to be), but I fartleked the whole first mile and I was forced to weave around a lot of people. This first mile was probably about 7 min effort. Next time, I'm going to start significantly closer to the front. I would rather be around runners that are much faster than me and have the path clear, than to weave around a bunch of fat people.
3) I need to be more even with my splits. I was all over the place with my mile splits and I think I could have run 20-30 seconds faster if I had just evened everything out. My splits were: 7:17 - 7:27 - 7:20 - 7:20 - 7:01 - 6:51 - 7:09 - 7:08 - 7:13 - 7:09 - 7:27 - 7:30 - 7:23 - 43 seconds. I was feeling pretty good after the fourth mile and accidentally ran faster than I wanted. I got a little excited and tried to keep it going. I split 6:51 for my 6th mile. I thought this was probably not a good idea and I purposely backed off, however, the damage had been done. I "hit the wall" right around the 10 mile mark and slowed significantly. If I hadn't had been all over the place with my pacing the first 10 miles, I think I could have maintained a better pace the last 3 miles and finished between 1:34:15 and 1:34:30. This was a major mistake for me which was caused by being too far off the start line in the beginning and being forced to weave around people.

4) I need to prep myself, nutritionally, better. I ate 'okay' on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. But I think I could have benefited from more complex carbs. I had a good spaghetti dinner Saturday night, but it was probably too late at that point for my body to turn those carbs into glycogen. I need to eat better on 2, 3, and 4 days prior to the race. I think this will allow me to eat lighter the day before the race and not feel so heavy. I think better glycogen stores will help prevent me from "hitting the wall" next time.
5) I need get some Gu. I had been advised by a few friends to invest in some gu for the half-marathon, but I had never done it before and didn't want to experiment with it on race day. However, I think this will help replensh my glycogen stores and will also help prevent my from "hitting the wall." I'm going to get some on my next trip to The Woodlands and start using it on my long runs and long quality workouts.
6) I need to bump up the length of my long runs. My long runs have been only about 12 miles, and that has only been for the past month. I've been planning on it, and now it's time to bump up my long runs to 16 miles. If I can keep them at 8:00 to 8:20/mile that should be sufficent at helping my maintain a good pace the last 3 miles.

I'm really beginning to realize how important it is to pay attention to the little details when you race over longer distances. In a 5k race, I can be a few pounds over weight or get by with 8-10 mile long runs. I realize how important glycogen stores are now in these long races.

At the present moment, I'm exhausted and my legs ache beyond anything I've ever felt before. I really hope I'm able to run tomorrow morning (and faster than 9 min pace), but we'll see.

Mile Repeats.... again

I've pretty much thrown my original training plan out the window. With the set backs of getting the flu, followed by my training getting off last week because of hosting a cross country meet I decided to just schedule my workouts off of feel. I feel I'm experienced enough with both my own body and principles of endurance training to "make it up as a go along." I'm still going to do most of the same workouts, I'm just not going to plan it out more than about a week or two in advance. I'm responsible and dedicated enough and know how much mileage I need to run in order to feel good and run well. I don't think I need to necessarily write my mileage goals down anymore.

In light of this decision, I decided late last week that I wanted to get another mile repeat (cruise interval) session in prior to my race Sunday. But instead of 6 this time, I'd go for 8. The weather was great (slightly cold and overcast). I ran my first 6 repeats on the road. I have a 3 mile tempo course around campus marked off (I have it measured with a wheel) and I just ran from one mile marker to the next. When I got the end of the 3 mile loop I turned around and did it again. I average 6:56 on the roads taking 1 minute rest between each repeat. After the 6th one I took a 2 minute jog (to get back to the track) and proceeded to run my last two repeats on the track. I ran 7:07 and 7:04 for my last two, taking a 2 minute rest between them.

All-in-all it was a very good workout. I average 6:58.8 for each repeat (which is about my goal for a half-marathon in January) and did more repeats than I've ever done. I think I started out a little too fast on my first 3 repeats, but every one of my repeats was within no more than 11-seconds of my overall average. I ran 6:55 - 6:53 - 6:47 - 7:02 - 6:58 - 7:03 - 7:07 - 7:04.

Good day. I feel confident in my ability to run under 96-minutes Sunday.

Back to a routine

This past week was the most stressful week for me as I am the meet director for the SHSU Cross Country Invitational and it's my responsibility to handle any and everything associated with the meet. I probably put in close to 70 hours this past week in prep for this, including some physical labor. It always interrupts my training, but I do the best I can.

I was able to get in some decent workouts this week and still managed to get about 50 miles in this week, with an off day on Saturday (meet day).

I got a good 12.1 miler in this morning out at the state park. I averaged about 8:15/mile, which is pretty normal for most of my runs on the trails at the park, though I could tell I was working a little harder than normal.

I have my first Half-Marathon next Sunday in Houston. My goal is to run between 94 and 96 minutes. Due to the flu and this XC Meet, I haven't been as consistent with my training the past month as I'd like to be, but I still feel pretty good. All I can do at this point is just watch my diet, get some good rest at night, and follow my normal routine. I hope to get a good mile repeat workout in Wednesday, but other than just some mileage and crossing of the fingers.

Two Good Days

Each of my runs the past two days have been great. I'm sure the cooler weather has a lot to do with it, but it's nice to be feeling good and running well regardless.

Yesterday (Saturday) was an extremely busy day. I woke up early to go scout perspective student-athletes at Nike South. I left the meet a little early to be back in Huntsville into for the teams practice. I had a 2 hour break between the workout and the time I had to leave to go to Magnolia to meet a with a recruit and her parents. I was able to squeeze in my run during that two hour break. I originally wanted to do 3 x 2 Miles at Forest Hills, but I didn't have time for that. So I changed the workout to 3 x 15 min hard fartlek with 3 min rest between each hard segment. I ended up running my 8.25-mile course around town and covered the entire route in just under 58-minutes. I probably ran a little harder than I originally planned, but the weather was great and I felt good, so I just went with it. I averaged 7:02/mile (including my easy jog segments of the fartlek) for the entire run, which is significantly faster than I've ever run that course before.

Today I ran 12.1-miles at the State Park. This is the longest run I've ever completed and I ran 1-hour 38-minutes 30-seconds (8:08/mile). I typically run about 8:20/mile on my runs in the park, so I was quite pleased with this run is well. I'm feeling good and at the present moment I'm looking forward to the Houston Half-Marathon in two weeks.

Run Streak = 10 days

Mile Repeats

“Adversity is like a strong wind. It tears away from us all but the things that cannot be torn, so that we see ourselves as we really are.” -Arthur Golden

Today I ran my first quality workout since getting sick. I was hoping to be able to run 8x1600m @ ~7/mile with 1 min rest by now, but the flu set me back a bit. I decided to keep the workout at 6x1600m with 1 min rest. I timed them all, but didn't look at my watch the entire workout. I wanted to just run off of feel instead of obsessing about the pace. I average 7:20/mile for the 6 repeats and felt pretty good most of the way. However, I could really feel some soreness in my legs the last two. Last time I did this workout I average 7:07/mile. I felt about the same this time, so it's obvious I'm not back to where I was, but I think another week or so and I should be fine.

Run Streak = 6 days

Feeling it again

I've been trying to work myself back into my running the past several days. I ran 5 miles on Friday, 6.5 miles on Saturday, 7 miles on Sunday, and 7.7 miles today (Monday). Each of the runs have been better than the previous and I ran 7:48/mile for 7.7 miles today. I'm still coughing periodically, both when I'm running and not running, but it's not bad. I'm going to attempt my first quality workout tomorrow since getting sick. I'm not expecting anything great, I just hope I feel well.

Run Streak = 4 days