Faking it

I did another track workout on Friday, after a hill workout on Tuesday and no running Wednesday or Thursday. My strategy of only running hard isn't working out that well, as my right hip was sore Tuesday afternoon. The time off and ibuprofen seemed to do the trick, as I had no issues with it Friday morning.

We were supposed to do 3 x 2 mile, an old favorite of mine and Greg's. Apparently during the week some emails went around about that being too boring on the track, so Mark came out to re-wheel a mile off the track so we could split the difference between the roads and the rubber. As an added bonus, the UVA guys were out doing 300s, and for some reason their coach decided to turn on the lights! I'll admit, I was pretty excited to run under the lights. I hadn't done that since high school, as there are no lights on the track at JM or Mary Washington, and my track racing has been largely limited to those venues.

Anyway, it was also cold as hell. My car said it was 32 degrees, but a better estimate would be 36 degrees. Pretty cold. Thomas, Dave, Sallie and I were working out, and we decided to do the first two intervals split between the road and the track, and the last one completely on the track. That was largely by my request, as I knew that one would be the fastest and I wanted it to be even on the track. I also needed to change my shoes after the first one, because I wanted to start in trainers before switching to the Bostons, for some reason.

So off we went, starting from the start/finish line, out the track, and out the gate, up towards the law school. Mark had a cone set up for us to turn around at, and I split us at 2:50. Going back, which was much more downhill than the way out, we got to the start/finish line at 2:46, 5:37 for the mile. The UVA guys were coming up fast on the home stretch as we entered the fence, and I was happy that they made it through the line before we got there. But then they stopped! They were jogging the curve and running the rest of the oval hard. So we had an awkward moment with them trying to get around them with some of them moving out into lane 2 and some not. It was fine, just funny. We all stayed composed and no one ran into anyone, so that's what really mattered. We stuck to lane 2 on the backstretch because they went barreling by us immediately. It went like that for the whole second mile. I was dead even on those laps, running back to back 2:39s for a 5:19 mile, 10:56 for the total.

I'd been apprehensive the week before when my first two mile was 11:02. But I was running with Dave and Thomas and I felt relaxed, although cold, so I just sucked it up. I changed my shoes while they jogged a lap with Charlie and realized I'd stopped my Garmin. Ugh.

Into the second interval, I was feeling good. Unlike the first one, I ran in the lead off of the road. We were shooting for the same effort, if not the same pace, but it just felt a lot easier. That's the beauty of doing the first one in trainers I suppose. We got to the cone and I thought it was the same time, but on second glance, I saw we were seven seconds faster at 2:43. We rolled back in a very controlled 2:44 and got back onto the track, giving us 5:28 for the mile. This time, the UVA guys were about to finish their interval as we approached the line, which made me more apprehensive. Instead of getting passed by them immediately, I spent each lap looking back to make sure they weren't there yet. It was definitely an exercise in control. The UVA coach, Pete Watson, said something to us, I'm not sure. I think he told us that we weren't going to have to worry until the last 50 meters. I don't know, I'm making that up. But I was worrying the while time!

My splits were perfect for the 2nd mile. I lead for three laps, going through both 800s in 2:36 to finish  the interval in 10:41 after a 5:13 second mile. On the last lap, Thomas and Dave picked it up just a little bit and gapped me. It wasn't like I got dropped, I was just maintaining and staying relaxed. I knew I had another one to do. This worried Thomas though, as he later told me that he said to Charlie he thought I was going to be toast for the third one. The real excitement came from some of the UVA kids trying to run me down on their last 300. I could feel them coming and I moved into lane 2 (not sure why, honestly, as it was their finish and my finish), but as I eased through the line and turned my head, two or three guys came flying up to me. As I turned to jog my recovery lap, I heard some of the other UVA guys yelling at those guys, saying "That's not what this workout is for!" I guess they shouldn't have chased the carrot.

Third mile, time to run fast. I was worried though, and said to Dave that there was no way I could run sub-5 pace. I felt like that is how he and Thomas were going to wrap this up. He said we'd start at 5:15. Just as we got to the line, the lights went out. I didn't even realize that the sun had risen, so it was a little bit surprising to still be able to see. I enjoyed the lights though. Couldn't they have stayed on for another 11 minutes?

Off we went. I was in the back immediately, but no worry. First 200 in 39. 400 in 79. Good. Just run 79 and I'll be good. Next three laps, right on pace, 78s. 5:14 high for the mile, right on their heals. Good. 77 for lap 5, am I going to bring it down? No, next lap, 78, but I'm right on Dave's heals. 7th lap 76, literally on Dave's heals as I stepped on them one or two times on accident. I think my stride was getting ready to go before his, and it chopped me up. He took the motivation and ran the heck away from me, trying to catch Thomas, and I just maintained. I would have liked to have run my last lap a little faster than 78, but I was happy with a 5:11 mile. I closed it out with a 10:25. Good work.

Last week I ran an 11:02, did some 800s at 5-minute pace, and then ran an 10:23. This week, I did 3 sets of 2 miles in 10:56, 10:41, and 10:25. I think that is progress. I really thought of last week as a wake up call, so it was nice to see this week that it wasn't just a fluke.

Mark talked to me briefly while I was changing my shoes about 3 Bridges and wanting to have a conversation about the pacing. I've been under the wrong idea that it was 6:25 pace. Makes no real difference to me, I'll just run that pace instead. We talked a little bit about how my training is going, and he thinks that the relaxed approach that I'm taking is helpful. Hopefully. Only time will tell. I too him that I'm able to do these workouts now, but that I don't have the strength that Dave and Thomas have since I'm only running 5-6 days a week and my mileage is so low, that when we get towards the end, I'm just a lot more fatigued than they are. He told me that I must be really good at faking it.

Opportunities

I've been running and it's getting better. Over a month ago, I wrote about doing my first workout from Mark and it being a disaster. Things have progressed. With a newborn baby in the house and my own personal motivation problems, I have been very inconsistent. I haven't run 7 days in one week in two months. I often take one or two days off at a time for no reason, staying with the baby in the morning and saying I'll run in the afternoon, but then not doing that because I've never been good at doing that.

Three weeks ago I ran 6 days. I actually got in 8 days in a row, but in that week I got almost 60 miles with one day at 3 miles and one at 18 miles.That long run was great! I did the first 9 in 64 minutes and the second 9 in 60 minutes. I felt good and it was a great confidence builder.

Then last week, I got to do two workouts with the guys, or at least some of the guys. Tuesday Mark gave us a fartlek at Riverview. Dave and Sallie were the only really active racers there, and Thomas, Lee and I were planning on doing some part of the workout. Thomas and Lee stuck with Sallie, and I was hanging behind Dave for the first 30 seconds. Then I realized, why don't I just run with him? If I blow up at the end, at least I wasn't lonely the whole time! So I ran the workout with Dave. 4 x 3 minutes, 6 x 1 minute, 4 x 2 minutes. Somehow, both of my shoes came untied during the last 3 minute, which Dave thought was the first 1 minute, and I thought I'd ruined myself by not stopping to fix my shoe right away. Later, on one of the 1 minutes when Thomas and Lee joined us and left Sallie for dead, I thought to myself, "this is what I've been missing." Working out with people. I was so happy.

The happiness faded at the end when Dave dropped me like a bag of bricks on the last two minute segment. But he's in shape and I am not. Oh well! Here is a link to that workout.

I then took the next two days off to taper for my next workout on Friday.

By the way, I don't even look up these workouts anymore. I just show up and ask someone what we're doing and then try to do it or if I think it is too fast/short for my legs right now, I do something else.

So last Friday I was being a big wimp. I didn't feel good beforehand on the warm-up, and I couldn't focus on the task at hand. We were supposed to do two by two miles, which is something I've been doing a lot on my own, but with four 800s in between. I keep shying away from the short, faster things, because my hamstrings and IT bands have no interest in running fast right now. They're not strong enough to sustain it. Everyone else is near the end of their training cycle, so dropping down the pace is fine. It's just not for me right now.

I was thinking about wimping out of the workout before it even started and just running. But Charlie was only going to run 4 miles and I wanted to do more than that. So I lined up. Similarly to Tuesday, Thomas and Lee were going to run with Sallie for a while, and Dave and I were left to our own devices. It was cool and I decided that today was the day to try wearing some lighter shoes again.

I started out slow. I didn't know what I was doing, and I didn't really have any goals. I was just running. I felt like I should stop after two laps. I was very close to just walking off the track and going for a long cool down. Those first two laps were slow and awful. The next lap, I felt like I was sprinting. Looking at the clock, it was drastically faster. I made it through and got to the mile in 5:33 and thought that I was going to be in trouble. I didn't want to just step off the track in the first interval, so I sucked it up and tried to focus. I also just tried to get it over with. My two mile time was 11:02.

This was a little troublesome, as I'd been starting out at 11:15ish in previous weeks and then finishing closer to 11:00. But I'd made this bed so it was time to sleep in it. Thomas and Lee joined us for the 800s while Sallie only had to do two of them. I didn't know how fast these were supposed to be either, and figured I'd just try to run the same pace that I did for the two mile.

Thomas and Dave immediately gapped me. I felt like I was running so fast and they were so far ahead of me immediately. But I was satisfied to run a 2:31. On the next one, I was a lot closer to them on the first lap and thought that meant I was running too fast, but I did the same thing: 2:31. The next two were also very consistent, 2:30 and 2:29. Not that bad. But now I knew I was going to be in trouble.

As we started the final two mile (of two), I asked, "What pace is this supposed to be? 10k?" Dave and Thomas said yes, so my brain started thinking about 5:18-5:20 pace. I'm pretty sure my 10k PR is at 5:18 pace. So if I shoot for 5:20s, that would be a huge improvement from the first interval, and still really fast for me. Just run 80s the whole way, 80 flat. 200 meters in, I was 38/39 seconds. Too fast, too hot. Slow down. I was way too close to Dave and Thomas anyway. Back off. Over the next hundred meters, I relaxed and backed off the pace as they ran away from me. But then something happened when I hit the straightaway.

I decided not to be such a wimp. I was on the track, nothing was wrong with me, and I had company with me. So what is the point of me running so slowly? Get up there and suck it up. What is the worst thing that can happen? I have a bad two miles? So what? It is a workout, just get over it.

So I caught back up. The first lap was a 79, followed by two 78s and a 77. I was hanging out right behind Dave while Thomas led. So hitting that first mile in 5:13 was a little bit of a shock, but I was comfortable. I knew that I'd made it half way and that if I blew up now, I'd just have a mile to suffer, but I wasn't ready to suffer yet. I started thinking about running faster if I could, but there was no more speed in my legs. Dave started to try to surge ahead at the 300 but would quickly come back and tuck in behind me. We were still running quickly, and it felt good. Hard, but good. I went 78, 77, 76, and then relaxed my way down the homestretch to a 77, finishing the mile in 509 and the two mile in 10:23. Holy cow!

And I was immediately spent afterwards. I trotted around for the cool down and suffered a while, but it was exciting. I was happy. I had the opportunity to run with my teammates twice this week, to do legitimate workouts, and I took it. Great way to start the day. Here is a link to the workout, and my splits are below.

What I need to improve now is my consistency. This week I took another two days off (hopefully I'll be able to write about this week before too long) and that isn't going to make me stronger. I know that I'm only trying to run a 2:44:59 marathon in 6 weeks and that a 6:25 pace won't be challenging, but it won't be challenging if I am strong enough. These workouts are fine, they're a lot of fun and will probably help me when I try to run the Turkey Trot 5K on Thanksgiving, but running a a 10:23 two mile isn't going to matter when I'm 150 minutes into a long run and I haven't spent that much time on my feet over the course of 3 consecutive days.

I'm working on the long runs. I've done 16, 18, and 18 the past three weeks. I'm going to do 20, 20, and 18 the next three weeks. Probably a 22 after that, and then back down to 18 and 16 before 3 Bridges. We'll see. It's going to be an adventure, seeing if I can put my money where my mouth is.

Chip Cowsert guest blog - Army 10 Miler

My brother-in-law ran in the Army 10 Miler this morning. He's a lot quicker than I am to his race write-ups, and was kind enough to send this out and let me know that I could use it as a guest post for my blog. So I'm dusting off the ol' keyboard long enough to Copy/Paste his email in for you.

I promise I have lots of things to say about running recently, and that I am even doing some running, but I've had more pressing matters to deal with. Oh, and I realize while typing this that I never told my blog readers that we had our baby! Sorry for not letting you know earlier, mom.

Enjoy Chip's race recap!

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Thanks for the well wishes for my race today everybody! For those who'd be interested, I thought I'd write a little race recap. For those who are less interested, you can scroll to the bottom to find my splits/time.

Emily Holloway (Katie's cousin-in law) drove us into the pentagon parking lot at 7:20. Our group today was made up of Anne Muntz (Katie's Aunt) and Ryan Holloway (Katie's cousin). Due to a bum hip, Katie decided not to race today but made the day so much more enjoyable by carrying our dry clothes and food! We hit some traffic so I was running a little late on my warm-up. It didn't matter though, because I stood in security for 35 minutes before making my way onto the course. I finally made my way onto the course at 8:01...a minute after the starting time for my group. The next few waves were being held in the starting area. I put my jersey on and began running to start line.

I started the race about 3 minutes behind the first wave of runners. About 34,000 runners were being held back from the starting line...but I was allowed to start with about 5 other "yellow wave" runners who were each arriving at the start line after being frisked...it was pretty surreal to take the line with 4 other guys as a few thousand people stood and watched.

I talked to the other guys running with me and we shared our goal paces...one guy was trying to run 730's and one guy 700's. Since I wasn't warmed up yet, I decided to not run with the 700's guy but ran with the 730 guy for a mile until we hit the back of the first wave. Our pace slowed down for the next mile since we were caught up in the back of the first wave.

I finally got down to pace for the 3rd mile and was able to stay pretty comfortable through the middle miles. I was less consistent in the middle of the race than I'd like to be. I was hoping to find somebody to run with...but missing the start of the race made that difficult.

Around mile 5 I got passed by a guy with a fort hood jersey. He and I ran together for the next four miles and then raced over the last mile and he beat me.

As bad as missing the start could have been. I think it made me run my first two miles conservatively and ultimately helped me finish pretty close to my goal of 67:30.

Here are the mile splits I recorded.
7:20 (ran with a guy who was aiming for 7:30...we were both just trying to warm up!)
7:27 (hit the back of the 1st wave, had to weave around folks for the rest of the race)
6:44 (was really excited to get down to pace but wasn't ready to hold it yet)
6:57
6:50
6:50 (Got connected with another guy (fort hood jersey) who was working his way through the crowds after starting late...ran together for the rest of the race, and congratulated each other as we finished...I'm really glad he showed up!)
6:35
6:32
6:26
5:56 (woohoo! I was hoping to run a good 5k this winter, I'm really excited to be able to put up a decent mile time on tired legs!)

Time 67:42

Special thanks to Katie for cheering/carrying stuff/and even driving after!

Chipper!

September

September is upon us and I've done my first workout. Spoiler alert: it was a disaster!

Instructions were simple.
1600m on the track @ 10k-half marathon pace.
Recovery jog to a hill nearby.
4 sets up a hill.
Back to the track for 2 x 800m @ 5k pace
One lap recovery
Recovery jog to another hill nearby.
3 sets up that hill, which is steeper.
Back to the track for a 3200m @ 10k-half marathon pace, preferably faster than the mile.

My 10k-half marathon pace would be 5:18-5:25 pace, and 5k pace would be 5:02 pace, just for a reference. I planned to run considerably slower than those targets, as it would be my first workout in months. As we started, the women's XC team and the entire varsity swimming program arrived at the track to do their own workouts at the same time. The swim coach asked if we minded (we didn't) so we got on our merry way!

Things started out fine. I ran somewhere in the 82-84 range for the first two laps. I was satisfied. Right at 5:30 pace. My next lap got a little faster, closer to 80. The last lap, we were running through what was essentially a tunnel of swimmers occupying lanes 2-7 for over 150 meters. That's when things got out of hand. I finished with a 75 last lap for 5:15. Running in front of an audience gets the legs moving.

Off to the hills. They were hard. I suffered through them, trying to maintain contact with Dave and Thomas ahead of me. Then back to the track. I thought to myself, "try to run the same pace you did for that mile." Nope. 71 seconds, followed by a 75. Granted, I slowed down deliberately in the last hundred because the swim team was standing there waiting to start their interval and I wanted to look good. So a 2:26 is NOT 5:15 pace, nor is it even 5:02 pace. Too fast, too furious. Will I be smarter for the next 800? Of course not. 71, 74 for a 2:25. Apparently the fastest of the swimmers ran a 2:26 for their last of four 800s that morning too. They looked a lot better running than I look swimming, that's for sure.

Back to more hills, same thing as before. Only steeper and fewer. Then back to the track. But no, the audience is leaving! Now I have to suffer through these two miles without anyone there getting me excited and making me run faster! I started 10 seconds back of Thomas and Dave, so that I wouldn't get sucked in. My plan was to run a 5:30 for the first mile, then maybe negative split if possible. Again, if possible.

So what did I go out in to run this 5:30? Did I run an 82? No. 77. Idiot. I settled down and got back under control and found myself at an 80. Continued to get back where I needed to be, went through the mile in 5:18. So too fast. Settle down. My next 400 was an 83. Not bad, keep it up. My next 200 was a 46. Uh oh. Wheels are falling off.

I just called it then. I knew I wasn't going to get anything out of walking two more laps in over 90 seconds each, so I just stopped at 2400 meters in 8:08. From there I proceeded to die a slow, painful death trying to catch my breath in the low-60 degree air that was gracing me with its presence. It was a perfect day to do my first workout and I just tanked it because I made rookie mistakes.

On the cool down, Thomas and I got dropped by Rachel.

The next morning, I did a 16 mile long run in 2 hours. Thomas joined me for miles 11 through 16. I was sore and tired. It was very cool outside. Pretty great.

Moving on to the next week.