Run

I’ve been in my new place right off the BG trail for about two weeks, yet today was the first day I had time in my schedule to step out my front door and hit the trail for a run. OMG and WOW how excellent. Rolled out of bed at 6, gulped some coffee, fed the cat, walked out my door in my gear at 6:30 with music and a key in my pocket, ran, and walked back into my garage - shucked shoes, stretched in the living room on the way to hopping in the shower and was at the office for a 9am meeting. Feeling so lucky today I can hardly contain myself.

Logbook Activity

• Type: Run
• Date: 04/08/2008
• Time: 06:30:00
• Total Time: 1:06:00.00
• Distance: 6.14 miles
• Average Pace: 10:45.16/mile

Lovely trail run this morning at Cougar Mt.

Logbook Activity

• Type: Run
• Date: 04/05/2008
• Time: 09:00:00
• Total Time: 2:11:00.00
• Distance: 8.49 miles
• Average Pace: 15:25.45/mile

I’ve been having so much fun trail running with friends that I agreed to run the Mt. Si relay with them in two weeks. Realized this week that Yikes! I’d better get some runs in so a small group of us agreed to meet up at Cougar on Saturday morning for a longish run (were hoping for 9 or 10) but running for a good portion of it in 4ish inches of snow really slowed us down. The run was absolutely beautiful with heavy snow coating every brach and twig in sight, but wow - was hard running. Oh, and clearly I need to get some waterproofish shoes

Logbook Activity

• Type: Run
• Date: 03/29/2008
• Time: 09:00:00
• Total Time: 2:00:00.00
• Distance: 7 miles
• Average Pace: 17:08.57/mile

Shortish trail run with some work pals at Cougar Mt.

Logbook Activity

• Type: Run
• Date: 03/15/2008
• Time: 09:30:00
• Total Time: 1:00:00.00

Quick speed Intervals on the treadmill.

Logbook Activity

• Type: Run
• Date: 10/03/2007
• Time: 06:00:00
• Total Time: 00:25:00.00
• Distance: 3 miles
• Average Pace: 8:20/mile

Going to try a bit of a switch and move over to a couple of interval workouts a week. I’ve been reading a ton lately that indicates that high intensity intervals are the answer to all my fitness prayers: get smaller and faster! So M and T this week I did super short interval workouts on the treadmill

4min warm up fast walk to an easy jog

and 5 repetitions of the following:

2min RPE9

2minRPE5-6

2-4 mins cooldown slow jog or fast walk.

Man, those were tough! Both days I was pretty spent after under 30 minutes of activity.

As you can tell from the intermittent posts and workouts, my fitness goals are very much up in the air these days. I’m still toying with the idea of doing the Seattle marathon but hesitant to commit if what I get out of it isn’t what I really want. Don’t get me wrong - the freak in me loves ticking the boxes of accomplishing my scheduled mileage and workouts - but the want to be skinny (but strong) girl in me whines “but what about what Iwant”?  I honestly believed last year when I began training for the Seattle marathon that when I completed it I would have transformed my body into a wiry lean marathon running vision. Huh. Sure. Dream on baby girl.

So maybe it’s the better choice to change up the workouts and drop the idea of the endurance accomplishment in trade for extra time, energy, and hopefully a smaller body?

Yes, careful reader, diet is a huge factor, and trust me, I’m all over that. While I could cut a few calories, and eat a little more cleanly all the time I’m pretty hard core. Cottage cheese, berries, and 1T peanut butter for breakfast, variety of veggies and lean protein salad with balsamic vinegar or chix breast and veggies for lunch, natural fruit sugar yogurt and almonds for a snack, and a repeat of lunch for dinner pretty much no matter what. I carry a cooler of my cottage cheese mixture to work events, parties, and sometimes even restaurants. I’m the freak of my office

Logbook Activity

• Type: Run
• Date: 09/17/2007
• Time: 06:00:00
• Distance: 4 miles

Logbook Activity

• Type: Run
• Date: 09/12/2007
• Time: 07:15:00
• Total Time: 00:39:21.00
• Average Heart rate: 154
• Max Heart rate: 182
• Distance: 3.82 miles
• Average Pace: 10:18.56/mile
• Ascent: 623 ft
• Descent: 599 ft

Logbook Activity

• Type: Run
• Date: 09/09/2007
• Time: 08:04:00
• Total Time: 1:43:16.00
• Average Heart rate: 151
• Max Heart rate: 174
• Distance: 9.22 miles
• Average Pace: 11:11.64/mile

Logbook Activity

• Type: Run
• Date: 09/07/2007
• Time: 07:12:00
• Total Time: 00:40:05.00
• Average Heart rate: 160
• Max Heart rate: 179
• Distance: 3.82 miles
• Average Pace: 10:29.37/mile
• Ascent: 567 ft
• Descent: 573 ft

Logbook Activity

• Type: Run
• Date: 09/05/2007
• Time: 07:11:00
• Total Time: 00:39:44.00
• Average Heart rate: 152
• Max Heart rate: 180
• Distance: 3.82 miles
• Average Pace: 10:23.92/mile
• Ascent: 628 ft
• Descent: 603 ft

Short lovely run this morning! Nice cool temp, fresh air, and just the right amount of sun. Good day to be alive, outdoors, and sweating. Would be nice to know for how long I was sweating, though, as the Garmin decided that it only took me 16minutes to run nearly 4 miles. Pretty sure that’s not quite right. Dang. I was feeling really good, and doing some quick intervals, too. Would be GREAT to know how I was really doing. I have no idea what time I started or finished so guess I’m free to believe that I totally rocked it. Perhaps I’m also free to believe the “best pace” my Garmin reports of 7:18/mi? Sure, why not! That would only be, like, my best pace in history! Maybe, though.

I was working on visualizing “pushing the ground away” from me with the balls of my feet. Not sure if that’s a visual/area of focus that coaches have runners work on but it was working nicely for me. Someone I was with recently commented on the lovely “kick” that a champion runner had and while I’m not quite sure what that means, imagining the pushing was making me feel quicker.

Logbook Activity

• Type: Run
• Date: 08/28/2007
• Time: 07:00:00
• Total Time: 00:35:00.00
• Distance: 3.86 miles
• Average Pace: 9:03.81/mile

My old Garmin Forerunner 201 has decided it no longer wants to track my heart rate….silly device…doesn’t it know it’s nearly bonus season at work? Headed down to REI the other day to pick up a new Garmin Forerunner 305….sweet! They’ve made a few changes I’m not wild including the slightly smaller screen and slightly shorter battery life than my old device: 15 hours supposedly for the 201 vs 10 hours for the 305 (but if I study Brad’s battery extension project perhaps I, too, can pump mine up!) but WORST of all the device no longer connects directly to my computer…I’m forced to use their little ‘docking toggle’ thing. That’s going to take a bite out of my reporting as I generally just plug in my device right after a workout (when I get to the office) to upload data and charge - all done with whatever USB cable I happen to have had on my desk (since most of my other mobiles use the same connector). Now I’ll either have to tote the docking station around with me or buy an additional one as I can’t be bothered to remember if it’s at home or the office and where/when I last charged it or uploaded data. It’s gotta be dead simple and ALWAYS the same for me or I get all befuddled. I’m sure I’ll figure out a new system.

I do really dig the customizable screens - letting me choose the data blocks I want to see on my main displays and choose how many data blocks are displayed so I can overcome the smaller screen by choosing fewer data blocks on a screen where I need key data to be super easy to read. Nice feature that is. I’ve already got it set so my HR is front and center and large and so one of my display screens shows time of day as I always had to munge around modes on my old one to figure out what time it was.

Anyway, tiny run today to try to jump back on the horse and see if I want to spin up super quickly for a half over Labor day. We’ll see how the next few days go. Supposed to go test ride bikes today but I haven’t gotten the call yet from the shop saying they’re in so maybe tomorrow.

Oh, and I’ll be jumping back on tennis in just a few weeks - taking a weekly group lesson and joining a new mixed doubles team! Yay for nearly affordable indoor tennis at Amy Yee Tennis Center!

Logbook Activity

• Type: Run
• Date: 08/23/2007
• Time: 07:00:00
• Total Time: 00:41:08.00
• Distance: 3.74 miles
• Average Pace: 10:59.34/mile

Quick 30min intervals on the treadmill. Sheesh I seem to post this more often than anything else. Think I need to get my morning schedule into better shape so I have time for something other than this short tiny run. Guess it’s indicative of the semi-transitional state I’m just in now - cutting back run volume a bit, returning to Pilates starting in Sept and really considering “what” I want to be/do for fitness.  

Logbook Activity

• Type: Run
• Date: 08/21/2007
• Time: 07:00:00
• Total Time: 00:30:00.00
• Distance: 2.5 miles
• Average Pace: 12:00/mile

Cranked through some quick intervals today. Noticed that my hip flexors are still suuuper sore & tight from the two days spend crouching/bending and otherwise skating around on my marble floors during ‘vacation’.

Logbook Activity

• Type: Run
• Date: 08/16/2007
• Time: 07:00:00
• Total Time: 00:40:00.00
• Distance: 3.3 miles
• Average Pace: 12:07.27/mile

Long/slowish run today went pretty well all things considered - well mainly being considered was the 3+ hours of tennis played yesterday. An hour or so of warmup followed by what was supposed to be an easy hour match that had us coming out on top (we had beaten the opponents easily earlier in the season). Yea, not so much. Turned into a 2 and a half hour burner 3 set with a tiebreak in the 3rd set defeat for us. Serious bummer but I guess we paid out karmic dues as the opponent hadn’t won a single set in the entire season and clearly not a match either….so we figure we just weren’t meant to win. They were totally stoked to even take us to 3 sets and, well, suffice to say we weren’t hitting out best. Frustrating though I do feel good about them feeling so good about their win. Anyway, didn’t have sufficient water for a 3 set burner in 80 degree heat and sun so was massively dehydrated. Watered and carbed up this morning before heading out for my run and it went better that I expected despite forgetting my heart rate monitor strap. Was kind of freeing not to look at the heart rate numbers but to just go by my RPE and pace. I really kicked it after the turnaround and was super pleased with my 10ish pace the whole way back. Somewhat speedy for me.

Logbook Activity

• Type: Run
• Date: 07/29/2007
• Time: 10:30:00
• Total Time: 1:47:00.00
• Distance: 10 miles
• Average Pace: 10:41.71/mile

Quick half hour of intervals (2mins on, 1minute recovery increasing speed maxing out in 9min/miles) on the treadmill.

Logbook Activity

• Type: Run
• Date: 07/27/2007
• Time: 06:00:00
• Total Time: 00:36:00.00
• Distance: 3 miles
• Average Pace: 12:00/mile

Quick loop. 

Logbook Activity

• Type: Run
• Date: 07/24/2007
• Time: 06:52:00
• Total Time: 00:38:16.00
• Average Heart rate: 148
• Max Heart rate: 182
• Calories: 376
• Distance: 3.65 miles
• Average Pace: 10:29.37/mile
• Ascent: 248 ft
• Descent: 210 ft

Longish run yesterday in a very light drizzle and (for the NW) pretty high humidity. Seems like I should be able to hit Super Jock and Jill 1/2 with no trouble this year though it’s going to be hard work to beat my time significantly from last year.

Logbook Activity

• Type: Run
• Date: 07/22/2007
• Time: 10:21:00
• Total Time: 1:42:00.00
• Average Heart rate: 152
• Max Heart rate: 167
• Calories: 1022
• Average Pace: 11:20.53/mile

Nice run this morning - looks slow as I had the timer on during warmup. Whoops.

Logbook Activity

• Type: Run
• Date: 07/19/2007
• Time: 07:00:00
• Total Time: 1:15:37.00
• Distance: 6.46 miles
• Average Pace: 11:41.75/mile

Quick speedwork on the treadmill then off to some “chops” on the FreeMotion.

Logbook Activity

• Type: Run
• Date: 07/17/2007
• Time: 07:00:00
• Total Time: 00:45:00.00
• Distance: 3 miles
• Average Pace: 15:00/mile

Oh lord, surely I know better than to head out for a run at 10am on a warm day with only one bottle of water. Blech. The first 5 miles were awesome - until I realized I wasn’t going to make it to my water fill/turnaround point. Had a hard time stop so had to turn around before filling my bottle and spent every step back to my car obsessing about the 2 drips of water left in my bottle. Didn’t help that I had dehydrated a bit the day before and didn’t drink enough before heading out the door. Ugh! Maybe I need a new fuel belt that holds two big bottles.

Logbook Activity

• Type: Run
• Date: 07/15/2007
• Time: 09:50:00
• Total Time: 1:27:05.00
• Average Heart rate: 160
• Max Heart rate: 175
• Calories: 810
• Distance: 7.64 miles
• Average Pace: 11:24.41/mile
• Max Pace: 8:41.74/mile
• Ascent: 465 ft
• Descent: 422 ft

Logbook Activity

• Type: Run
• Date: 07/09/2007
• Time: 06:00:00
• Total Time: 1:05:00.00
• Distance: 6 miles
• Average Pace: 10:49.82/mile

Legs were feeling a little burned out from yesterday, but nothing a little stubborn ‘keep going’ couldn’t overcome. Nice short-ish run with  a similar pacing, but a wee bit slower, as Tuedsay.  

Logbook Activity

• Type: Run
• Date: 07/05/2007
• Time: 07:00:00
• Total Time: 00:54:00.00
• Distance: 5 miles
• Average Pace: 10:47.48/mile

Nice run this morning - perfect weather - excellent start to the day. The first 2 miles were super tough but after those and the first hill climb I settled into a really good feeling pace. In fact, it might have been the best feeling pace I’ve ever found. It wasn’t speedy (about 11.10/mi) but my posture and form felt great - my heart rate was stuck right around 150 - and I knew I could hold that pace for hours. Wow! Even more surprising is that I kept the pace and great feeling for the remainder of the run including my last sprint. Usually I feel like total crap for the first mile either for the entire run - or sometimes with a short bout of ‘bliss’ in the middle - but usually it feels like it’s all I can do to just keep moving my huge tree-trunk legs forward. Please note - this is not the image I keep in mind, but the description of how my body feels - running almost never feels ‘easy’ and I almost never feel like I’m just ‘out for a jog’. It almost always feels like a very hard battle. Oddly, though I wish it were easy, hte difficulty is precisely why I find it so satisfying when I complete what I set out to run - because it feels SO difficult and requires so much mental power just to keep my body moving and fighting the urge to just stop.

Anyway, today perhaps it was a combo of fueling and water - I roll out of bed either at 4:30 and 5:30 (depending on whether it’s a 6am spinning day or regular day), feed the pets, make a cup of coffee, dress and dash out the door. I usually eat something - a shake - or a bar  - or whatever, and then gulp down some water on my way out the door of the gym to start my run. I’ve been suspecting that if I ate something less ‘complex’ (just sugar, no protein or fat) and watered up a little more than just that coffee and the last minute gulps that my workouts might feel better. So today I drank 6oz of water or so before I left the house, drank my coffee, and had a shot of Hammer Gel on the way to the gym. I also carried my fuel belt (normally I only do that for runs longer than an hour) and drank water throughout my run.

I certainly struggled with my diet during marathon training last year as I’m still pretty much in ‘diet’ mode. I don’t count my calories, but I do eat a very controlled diet with very little in the way of carbs or fruit and nearly zero white anything (flour, sugar, or what have you) - not really the ideal diet for endurance training. Perhaps I can stick to that general diet but add in very targeted Hammer Gels and Sharkies pre-workout without messing things up too much.

Either way, I’m thrilled with a solid 5 miles under my belt - and hoping my legs aren’t too toasted for our tennis match tonight!

I’m going to continue to try to shoot for that lovely pace and see how much faster I can get it over the next few weeks.

Logbook Activity

• Type: Run
• Date: 07/03/2007
• Time: 06:00:00
• Total Time: 00:54:21.00
• Average Heart rate: 156
• Max Heart rate: 176
• Calories: 522
• Distance: 5 miles
• Average Pace: 10:52.17/mile
• Max Pace: 8:27.04/mile
• Ascent: 309 ft
• Descent: 283 ft

Good class today. lots of speed intervals, a solid 10 minute climb, followed by a 10 minute ‘change’ drill. yum.

Logbook Activity

• Type: Cycle
• Date: 07/02/2007
• Time: 06:00:00
• Total Time: 1:00:00.00

Logbook Activity

• Type: Run
• Date: 06/30/2007
• Time: 09:57:15
• Total Time: 00:41:42.00
• Average Heart rate: 156
• Max Heart rate: 210
• Calories: 336
• Distance: 4 miles
• Average Pace: 10:25/mile
• Max Pace: 9:13.85/mile

Logbook Activity

• Type: Run
• Date: 06/26/2007
• Time: 06:30:00
• Total Time: 00:41:25.00
• Average Heart rate: 159
• Max Heart rate: 180
• Calories: 393
• Distance: 4.03 miles
• Average Pace: 10:16.44/mile
• Max Pace: 8:49.41/mile

Only had about a bleem to work out so hit some fast intervals on the treadmill to try to stay fast for Sunday’s tennis match. I hate rushing and not getting to do all I set out to - but as a good friend says “Some minutes is better than no minutes”.

Logbook Activity

• Type: Run
• Date: 06/23/2007
• Time: 10:00:00
• Total Time: 00:35:00.00
• Distance: 3.2 miles
• Average Pace: 10:55.74/mile

Had an 8:30am con call at the office (who does that on a Friday? Clearly they don’t know that’s the slowest day of the week at the gym and that I like to linger in the peace and open equipment!). Anyway - so only had time for a quick 35 Mins interval work on treadmill today and 30 mins strength. Plus we have our first tennis match tomorrow if it doesn’t rain so I want to be fresh.  

The run was super tough and slow again - wondering what’s going on. I felt like I was speeding along (meaning I was working hard), looked down to see 12minute miles. BLAECH! Now I AM slow, I know that…but sheeseh. Bumped the next speed interval up to 10ish and was really feeling it but managed to hang on to better speed for the remainder of the workout.  

If I’m looking at the week - M 60mins spinning & lifting, Tuesday 45min run & lifting, Weds off, Thurs 45mins on stair climber and lifting and an hour or so of tennis in the evening, then today. Doesn’t seem like enough to really be killing me. Very frustrating. I know by looking at the list you’d think I’m lifting too much but I don’t think that’s it. I don’t lift a lot of weight and I really work different muscle groups differently each day. Like yesterday I did a bunch of upper body stuff but missed my delts, lats, and a couple of Tricep bits I like to do so today after the run I did those things and threw in a one-legged bosu ball bicep curl to overhead press combo just because that’s my favorite!

Sunday I’m going to test my bike commute to work! I’m SO excited about that. I live sort of at the bottom of the 7 hills of Kirkland so it will be a tough climb out  but then I can hop o

Logbook Activity

• Type: Run
• Date: 06/08/2007
• Time: 06:30:00
• Total Time: 00:35:00.00
• Distance: 3 miles
• Average Pace: 11:40.39/mile

Ergh - really tough run this morning. I guess after a 7mile hike on Sat, couple of hours of tennis in Sunday, and spinning yesterday my body is telling me it’s time for a rest day. I hate runs like today - though thankfully they’re pretty rare - every step was tough and all I wanted to do was stop and walk. When I finished my route and pressed “stop” on the timer I was disappointed to see 41min - not exactly a PR even on my dinky 4 mile loop. I suppose I should heartily remind myself that this is exactly my THIRD outdoor run since January and that my body has been pretty dang busy healing my massively broken arm in the meantime. Add in a dumptruck load of personal and work stress and I’m pretty sure it all equals out to things not being ‘at their peak’. Even so, it’s tough to accept.

I was wondering a bit on the run about knowing how much is too much training or activity. The extremes of ‘no activity’ and ’so much activity that you physically pass out or wind up in the medical tent’ are, well, obvious to identify - but not so much the gradation in between. I want to be as thin, fit, and healthy as possible and to be able to be as active as possible for as long as possible at as many different activities as I enjoy doing.  How in the hell do I optimize for all of those? I want to make sure I’m working hard enough to gain fitness, speed, and strength - but not so much that I’m doing damage to my body that will ultimately shorten the amount of time I’m able to do these activities. You might say that no one ever died from being too active - but I’m not sure about that. I do hear of athletes dropping dead either during activities or after - there’s no way to tell if the activities or the training contributed or actually delayed the inevitable. I don’t want to run so much now, when I’m a bit on the heavy side, that I do damage to my hips and wind up having to have them replaced at 50 due to over-stress from training for marathons today….but I also don’t want to not train for fear of what injury present or future I might cause.

I think I need to step away from the keyboard and take a rest day tomorrow. I’m sure after that everything will look better and I’ll be back to taking my “one day and one step” at a time approach to this.

Logbook Activity

• Type: Run
• Date: 06/05/2007
• Time: 06:00:00
• Total Time: 00:41:00.00
• Distance: 4 miles
• Average Pace: 10:15.38/mile