I so did not want to run tonight. I got home at 8:30pm and knew that I had a 5k in front of me but all I wanted to was lounge around.
But thanks to some encouragement from Sarah (and, the fact that I now have a training schedule to stick to), I got out the door and did my 3.1 miles.
I loved it. Sure, the first half mile my calves were a little tight and I wondered if I'd hit a groove, but by the time I'd finished the first mile and was starting to hit the uphill portion of the run, I was feeling good.
Running uphill for the second mile (not the whole second mile, of course, but a few portions of it) felt surprisingly good. My pace slowed a bit but I felt strong and happy.
The third mile was downhill and my pace quickened accordingly. I got my pumping and my stride lengthened and with my head high I ran a strong third mile (and extra tenth) to finish off my 5k in much higher spirits than I'd started it.
One of the things that I've discovered is that I like destination runs a lot more than loops. It gives the running a purpose; it becomes a mode of transportation in addition to being exhausting exercise. :) Since I've been looking for apartments, my destinations have all been apartments I'm looking at. Running to them (and back) gives me the opportunity to check out the neighborhood (and stalk the apartment).
Today I ran to a place that was 2 miles away that I'll be viewing at 11 tomorrow morning.
I'll have to pick a place for my Thursday run. Of course, if I like the apartment tomorrow, there's a good chance I'll run their on Thursday again to check out the neighborhood more in daylight. :)
Here was my pace and heart rate:
Mile 1: 11:56 139bpm
Mile 2: 12:20 155bpm
Mile 3: 10:50 161
Mile 3.1: 10:02 pace 174 bpm
Average: 11:39 152bpm
Total: 36:09
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
Sunday, July 25, 2010
12 weeks til the half-marathon!
I ran today! 5k (3.1 miles).
I wanted to get back into things with a decent distance but I didn't want to push myself too much on the first day back to running.
I took it really slow for the first mile, then ran up hill for part of the second mile (slowing me down even more!) and then picked up the pace on the third mile. It felt good to get my heart rate up.
Mile 1: 13:12 143bpm
Mile 2: 14:16 153bpm
Mile 3: 11:30 168bpm
Final 10th of a mile: 1:06 (10:48 pace) 173bpm
Average: 12:55/mile and 154 bpm.
I realized after I'd run that today is 12 weeks exactly until my half-marathon. My friend Viv dropped off a copy of a training program that she swears by for the half marathon. It's 16 weeks long, so I'm going to have to cut a few weeks out of it along the way.
Saturday is supposed to be the long run day on this sched and sunday is supposed to be a rest day and monday an interval or pace day. Since I'm trying to take it easy as I get back into things and ran today instead of Sat, I think I will skip tomorrow's interval/pace workout and then get on the schedule on Tuesday.
The schedule looks like this: Monday pace/interval, Tues 5km (3.1 miles), Weds rest, Thurs 5k or 8k (5miles), Friday rest, Saturday long run, Sunday rest. (There are specific pace or interval workouts for each Monday and specific distances for Saturday's long run.)
I wanted to get back into things with a decent distance but I didn't want to push myself too much on the first day back to running.
I took it really slow for the first mile, then ran up hill for part of the second mile (slowing me down even more!) and then picked up the pace on the third mile. It felt good to get my heart rate up.
Mile 1: 13:12 143bpm
Mile 2: 14:16 153bpm
Mile 3: 11:30 168bpm
Final 10th of a mile: 1:06 (10:48 pace) 173bpm
Average: 12:55/mile and 154 bpm.
I realized after I'd run that today is 12 weeks exactly until my half-marathon. My friend Viv dropped off a copy of a training program that she swears by for the half marathon. It's 16 weeks long, so I'm going to have to cut a few weeks out of it along the way.
Saturday is supposed to be the long run day on this sched and sunday is supposed to be a rest day and monday an interval or pace day. Since I'm trying to take it easy as I get back into things and ran today instead of Sat, I think I will skip tomorrow's interval/pace workout and then get on the schedule on Tuesday.
The schedule looks like this: Monday pace/interval, Tues 5km (3.1 miles), Weds rest, Thurs 5k or 8k (5miles), Friday rest, Saturday long run, Sunday rest. (There are specific pace or interval workouts for each Monday and specific distances for Saturday's long run.)
Thursday, July 22, 2010
Testing out the knee
I've been sidelined since Saturday the 10th when I hurt my knee. I'm still not sure what is wrong with it, but I've been trying to take it easy.
That being said, I'm eager to start training again.
Monday night I gave it a trial "run" by playing in my baseball game. Things felt ok there. Yesterday I went out and did one mile. It hurt some, but mainly in the knee cap area (which I'm used to) instead of the ligament area (which I was concerned about).
Tonight I play baseball again and then I think I'll try to go for 2-3 miles on Friday and see how it goes . . .
Hopefully I'll be back in the swing of things soon.
That being said, I'm eager to start training again.
Monday night I gave it a trial "run" by playing in my baseball game. Things felt ok there. Yesterday I went out and did one mile. It hurt some, but mainly in the knee cap area (which I'm used to) instead of the ligament area (which I was concerned about).
Tonight I play baseball again and then I think I'll try to go for 2-3 miles on Friday and see how it goes . . .
Hopefully I'll be back in the swing of things soon.
Saturday, July 10, 2010
R.I.C.E
and not in the healthy carbohydrate sense of things. But in the Rest. Ice. Compress. Elevate. sense of things.
Yup, that's right. I'm a real runner now; I have my first running injury. (Well, first injury more serious than blisters and sore hip flexors, that is.) I have self-diagnosed (with lots of help from Val) that it's a sprained ligament. We think it's a minor sprain (no actual tear of the ligament) because I don't feel unstable on it.
But, it does mean I need to take at least a couple days (and maybe longer) off of running. Right now it's compressed and elevated. It's been iced and will be again.
Today was supposed to be my 5 mile day. I made it about 4.1 miles, which is kinda impressive (and maybe pretty dumb) given that I started really feeling the pain shortly into the second mile. I thought, though, that I was just irritating it by having a different stride because of running more slowly for the long run day, so I picked up the pace on mile 3. Then when I was done with mile 3, I figured I was most of the way there. But mile 4 was a lot of hills (I ran over to the High Park area to look at some addresses that are advertising apartments) and shortly after the mile 4 point, on a steep downhill, I realized that the pain was real and that the type of pain it was meant that I should stop running not push through. So, I did.
I don't regret not stopping at 2 miles, though. I'll probably never know whether it actually made this minor injury any worse and I do know that I pushed through for another 2 miles when I had a good excuse to stop. And if I'm ever going to make it to 13.2 miles, there is going to need to be a lot of pushing through.
Since today was supposed to be a long run day, it was also supposed to be a slow, conversational pace day, so I didn't worry about my pace at all at any point (which is actually really nice and makes running more enjoyable). But my watch recorded everything for me, so I might as well share:
Mile 1: 12:37 minute mile, 136 bpm heartrate
Mile 2: 13:35 minute mile, 143 bpm (my legs were kinda hurting this mile so I slowed things down to give them a chance to loosen up; on hindsight, i might have hurt my knee at the beginning of this mile when i did a quick direction change when a car i was going to pass behind stopped suddenly.)
Mile 3: 12:23 minute mile, 145 bpm (this is when I increased the pace for a bit to see if it helped my knee)
Mile 4: 13:38 min mile, 151 bpm (hills drove the heartrate up some and also slowed down my pace)
Yup, that's right. I'm a real runner now; I have my first running injury. (Well, first injury more serious than blisters and sore hip flexors, that is.) I have self-diagnosed (with lots of help from Val) that it's a sprained ligament. We think it's a minor sprain (no actual tear of the ligament) because I don't feel unstable on it.
But, it does mean I need to take at least a couple days (and maybe longer) off of running. Right now it's compressed and elevated. It's been iced and will be again.
Today was supposed to be my 5 mile day. I made it about 4.1 miles, which is kinda impressive (and maybe pretty dumb) given that I started really feeling the pain shortly into the second mile. I thought, though, that I was just irritating it by having a different stride because of running more slowly for the long run day, so I picked up the pace on mile 3. Then when I was done with mile 3, I figured I was most of the way there. But mile 4 was a lot of hills (I ran over to the High Park area to look at some addresses that are advertising apartments) and shortly after the mile 4 point, on a steep downhill, I realized that the pain was real and that the type of pain it was meant that I should stop running not push through. So, I did.
I don't regret not stopping at 2 miles, though. I'll probably never know whether it actually made this minor injury any worse and I do know that I pushed through for another 2 miles when I had a good excuse to stop. And if I'm ever going to make it to 13.2 miles, there is going to need to be a lot of pushing through.
Since today was supposed to be a long run day, it was also supposed to be a slow, conversational pace day, so I didn't worry about my pace at all at any point (which is actually really nice and makes running more enjoyable). But my watch recorded everything for me, so I might as well share:
Mile 1: 12:37 minute mile, 136 bpm heartrate
Mile 2: 13:35 minute mile, 143 bpm (my legs were kinda hurting this mile so I slowed things down to give them a chance to loosen up; on hindsight, i might have hurt my knee at the beginning of this mile when i did a quick direction change when a car i was going to pass behind stopped suddenly.)
Mile 3: 12:23 minute mile, 145 bpm (this is when I increased the pace for a bit to see if it helped my knee)
Mile 4: 13:38 min mile, 151 bpm (hills drove the heartrate up some and also slowed down my pace)
Thursday, July 8, 2010
Return to the treadmill
My roommate Sarah's suggestion that we go to the gym this morning was a flash of genius! What better way to deal with the biggest heat wave that has hit Toronto since I've lived here than run indoors in an air conditioned gym?
Double luxury--treadmill keeps the pace for you and air conditioning keeps you from passing out at that pace!
Today was a 3 mile day. One of those Tuesday/Thursday runs where I'm supposed to go a bit faster than my long distance pace.
I started out at 5.5 miles per hour (10:54 mile) and did one mile at that. Then I moved to 5.3 (11:20 mile), then to 5.2 (11:31), and then picked up the pace for the last 1/3 mile or so. I did 3 miles in 33:30, which is an average mph of 11:10. Not too shabby.
(By the way, I no longer believe that I was running 11 minutes miles before I had my gps watch. Maybe I was and I've just got a mental block now; it's possible. But I think that i just under calculated the distance just enough to make what was probably really 11:30 or 11:20 miles seem like 11:00 miles).
Tomorrow is a day off and Saturday is 5 miles! It's supposed to be a bit cooler, but still pretty warm, so I'll probably need to get up early to do it.
Double luxury--treadmill keeps the pace for you and air conditioning keeps you from passing out at that pace!
Today was a 3 mile day. One of those Tuesday/Thursday runs where I'm supposed to go a bit faster than my long distance pace.
I started out at 5.5 miles per hour (10:54 mile) and did one mile at that. Then I moved to 5.3 (11:20 mile), then to 5.2 (11:31), and then picked up the pace for the last 1/3 mile or so. I did 3 miles in 33:30, which is an average mph of 11:10. Not too shabby.
(By the way, I no longer believe that I was running 11 minutes miles before I had my gps watch. Maybe I was and I've just got a mental block now; it's possible. But I think that i just under calculated the distance just enough to make what was probably really 11:30 or 11:20 miles seem like 11:00 miles).
Tomorrow is a day off and Saturday is 5 miles! It's supposed to be a bit cooler, but still pretty warm, so I'll probably need to get up early to do it.
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
Point taken, July.
I know that when we're learning the seasons in the Northern Hemisphere, we learn that July is one of the months of summer. But I think July has decided it isn't convinced we actually would believe it was summer otherwise, so it has delivered a whammy of a heatwave just to prove a point.
Point taken, July. Point taken.
Today it is supposed to be 93 with a heat index of 110. Yesterday it was a couple degrees less than that, but still more than warm enough.
Clearly, it is not wise to run in the heat. That being said, I do not think my half-marathon training would go particularly smoothly if I were to take July and August off. So, it looks like I'm gonna be a morning runner. This morning I went out at 8:15 for my 2.5 miler. It was "only" 76 with a heat index of about 85. Practically refreshing! (The original plan was to get up for 7am, but I had a baseball game last night--that was a sweaty one!--and didn't get home until late and didn't go to sleep until late. Excuses, excuses. Speaking of baseball, I hit a homerun last night!)
Mile 1: 11:38 139 bpm
Mile 2: 12:06 150 bpm
Half mile: 5:20 (10:40 pace per mile) 158 bpm
Tomorrow is a day off. We'll actually it's a cross-training day. But since I have baseball tomorrow night, I think I'll count that as my cross-training.
Thursday is 3 miles.
Point taken, July. Point taken.
Today it is supposed to be 93 with a heat index of 110. Yesterday it was a couple degrees less than that, but still more than warm enough.
Clearly, it is not wise to run in the heat. That being said, I do not think my half-marathon training would go particularly smoothly if I were to take July and August off. So, it looks like I'm gonna be a morning runner. This morning I went out at 8:15 for my 2.5 miler. It was "only" 76 with a heat index of about 85. Practically refreshing! (The original plan was to get up for 7am, but I had a baseball game last night--that was a sweaty one!--and didn't get home until late and didn't go to sleep until late. Excuses, excuses. Speaking of baseball, I hit a homerun last night!)
Mile 1: 11:38 139 bpm
Mile 2: 12:06 150 bpm
Half mile: 5:20 (10:40 pace per mile) 158 bpm
Tomorrow is a day off. We'll actually it's a cross-training day. But since I have baseball tomorrow night, I think I'll count that as my cross-training.
Thursday is 3 miles.
Sunday, July 4, 2010
Toasty
It is a warm one out there. Lots of sun and heat in town for Toronto's Queer Pride this weekend.
Yesterday, I took the day off from running (as I decided on Thursday that my legs needed) and moved the 4 mile run scheduled for that day to this morning.
I did a bit of de facto cross training the last two days, riding my bike to and from the trans march on friday and then Take Back the Dyke on Saturday (plus the marching in both). I think that biking will be a good cross training thing for me to try to build in more regularly to my workout routine. Good quad workout!
Today's four mile run was toasty! Even though I went out before noon, it was already quite warm and very sunny. I survived it, though. My pace was practically a crawl from mile 2.5 to 3.5. With about half a mile left, I told myself that the faster I ran the sooner I'd finish and picked up the pace some. Picking up the pace for that last half mile also got my heart rate up into the 160s for the first time in the run.
Pace/BPM
1. 12:01, 136
2. 13:10, 143
3. 13:52, 146
4. 13:18, 149
I have baseball practice this afternoon, a baseball game tomorrow evening, and then 2.5 miles on Tuesday.
Yesterday, I took the day off from running (as I decided on Thursday that my legs needed) and moved the 4 mile run scheduled for that day to this morning.
I did a bit of de facto cross training the last two days, riding my bike to and from the trans march on friday and then Take Back the Dyke on Saturday (plus the marching in both). I think that biking will be a good cross training thing for me to try to build in more regularly to my workout routine. Good quad workout!
Today's four mile run was toasty! Even though I went out before noon, it was already quite warm and very sunny. I survived it, though. My pace was practically a crawl from mile 2.5 to 3.5. With about half a mile left, I told myself that the faster I ran the sooner I'd finish and picked up the pace some. Picking up the pace for that last half mile also got my heart rate up into the 160s for the first time in the run.
Pace/BPM
1. 12:01, 136
2. 13:10, 143
3. 13:52, 146
4. 13:18, 149
I have baseball practice this afternoon, a baseball game tomorrow evening, and then 2.5 miles on Tuesday.
Thursday, July 1, 2010
it's all uphill
It started out great. It was Canada Day, so at 7:30am no one was on the roads, but it was sunny and still a bit cool. And I was trying out a new route that would take me through one of my favorite parks.
The problem with trying a new route in my neighborhood, though, is that if I head South instead of North, then the last mile of my run is a slow ascent instead of a slow descent. That is, it's all uphill.
It's a lot harder to finish a run uphill than it is downhill. Especially when your legs feel like they haven't had a day off in weeks, even though they have had every second day off for the last few weeks.
I was dragging today at the end. It was all I could do mentally to keep myself technically jogging rather than walking.
My internal monologue for the last mile:
"One step at a time. Go as slow as you need to. Just keep going. You only have to do three miles; don't quit at two. What will you say on the blog if you do two instead of three? Just do it. Nope, that's too close to a walk, get the gait back. C'mon, it's just fatique, nothing serious. Why was 5 miles so easy last week and 3 so hard this week? Is it because I helped Cody move yesterday? Is it the 60 sec wall sit I'm doing while I brush my teeth now that Val suggested? Ok, enough with the excuses; just keep running. Doesn't matter how slowly I do it, as long as I do it. Oh, shit, is that a hill up there? I thought I was done with the hills. How could I forget the one last hill before my house? Maybe I should turnaround and head back down hill and then when I'm done with 3 miles, walk the hill back . . . . No, I can't even imagine running away from my destination at this point."
I did finish. Didn't walk. Wasn't fast.
Mile 1: 11:33, 135 bpm
Mile 2: 11:58, 147 bpm
Mile 3: 13:33 145 bpm (13:33!!!)
Anyway, I'm supposed to have tomorrow off and then run four miles on Saturday. But given how tired my legs were today, I'm thinking about taking Friday and Saturday off and just doing my 4 miles on Sunday. In other words, taking one extra day off this week.
The problem with trying a new route in my neighborhood, though, is that if I head South instead of North, then the last mile of my run is a slow ascent instead of a slow descent. That is, it's all uphill.
It's a lot harder to finish a run uphill than it is downhill. Especially when your legs feel like they haven't had a day off in weeks, even though they have had every second day off for the last few weeks.
I was dragging today at the end. It was all I could do mentally to keep myself technically jogging rather than walking.
My internal monologue for the last mile:
"One step at a time. Go as slow as you need to. Just keep going. You only have to do three miles; don't quit at two. What will you say on the blog if you do two instead of three? Just do it. Nope, that's too close to a walk, get the gait back. C'mon, it's just fatique, nothing serious. Why was 5 miles so easy last week and 3 so hard this week? Is it because I helped Cody move yesterday? Is it the 60 sec wall sit I'm doing while I brush my teeth now that Val suggested? Ok, enough with the excuses; just keep running. Doesn't matter how slowly I do it, as long as I do it. Oh, shit, is that a hill up there? I thought I was done with the hills. How could I forget the one last hill before my house? Maybe I should turnaround and head back down hill and then when I'm done with 3 miles, walk the hill back . . . . No, I can't even imagine running away from my destination at this point."
I did finish. Didn't walk. Wasn't fast.
Mile 1: 11:33, 135 bpm
Mile 2: 11:58, 147 bpm
Mile 3: 13:33 145 bpm (13:33!!!)
Anyway, I'm supposed to have tomorrow off and then run four miles on Saturday. But given how tired my legs were today, I'm thinking about taking Friday and Saturday off and just doing my 4 miles on Sunday. In other words, taking one extra day off this week.
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