Two days two runs

To get myself back on schedule, I ran yesterday and today.  Yesterday was miserable.  It was 70 at 6am and 97% humidity.  I swear I could feel the water collecting in my lungs.  Made it tough to run in it.  Ended up cutting things short at 25 minutes because of it.  I was actually short of the 10 minute mile pace too, probably because the extra effort of swimming and running at the same time.  I did put an extra climb into my run without killing myself, so that's good.

Today was a completely different story.  It was 48 and no noticeable humidity.  Lost feeling in my fingers again.  Probably time for a pair of cheap wool gloves for the morning.  Beyond that, the run was awesome.  I've noticed recently that my first mile is usually faster than 6mph and then I slow down for the rest of the run.  Today I wanted to see if I could keep that pace up for the whole run, or at least the second mile.  I caught myself slowing a couple times and made myself speed up again.  Based on Daily Mile and memory since the GPS in my iPod never seems to work right, my first ten minutes was 1.06 miles.  Second 10 was 1.03 or so.  Last ten was 1.11.  If I can maintain that 3rd mile pace for 2 miles, I've got my Army pace in the bag.  If I can hold that pace for 3.1 miles, I'm looking at a 28 minute 5K. 

I've been wondering recently if the fact that my current route has several points that I basically come to a complete stop and reverse course, or at least slow down to turn.  I'm assuming that could make the difference of about 5 - 10 seconds compared to running on a track or a big loop.  Something that I'm not running back over the exact same ground two or three times to get miles.  I suppose I could go use the track at the high school to get accurate times, but running on a track is boring.

Next week I return to my attempts to get a 35 mile run in.  Screwed it up this week.

Finally running again

Though today was closer to swimming.  It was 70 degrees and 86% humidity.  I haven't run in temperatures higher than 50 in a couple weeks so it threw me off for a second.

Shortened my warm up walk a bit to see how I did.  Not really a good day to test something like that since conditions were so unusual for the time of year.  It's possible my body warmed up faster than it will next week when some of the mornings are supposed to be in the 30s.  Anyway, useless conjecture at this point.

That minute of walking I skipped didn't really make any difference today.  At least not as much as the fact that I've been basically sedentary for almost a week.  Managed to do my first mile faster than 10 minutes.  Not much faster, but I was pretty happy about it.  I did let myself slow since my goal was 35 minutes and with that much time off I was worried that I'd blow up early.  At least that's what I tell myself.  It's entirely possible I was just being lazy.  Regardless, it's what I did. 

Rest of the run blurs now.  I couldn't hear the voice telling me how long I'd been running so I was guessing based on the iPod getting suddenly quieter then louder.  That's not the most reliable method apparently because at one point I had absolutely no clue how many times that had happened.  I guessed I was close based on the route I'd taken to that point and decided I'd stop at a particular point on the way back that gave me a little time to cool down, regardless of actual time.  Unfortunately, I was about 1.5 minutes short of my 35 minute goal.  I don't remember now where I stopped so it was either 3.15 or 3.25 miles total.  That tells me I slowed down too much after the first mile.  The problem is I don't realize I slow down when I'm doing it.  I think I'll have to create my own workouts in interval runner and put in some announcements to speed up. 

In all, it felt good to be back out there.  I didn't realize I missed running when I was taking my unintended break.  Same thing used to happen when I rode my bike a lot.  When I didn't ride for an extended period, the first ride back out would make me wonder why I didn't go out every day.  Not sure how I can flip the switch in my brain that makes me miss running and forces me out the door. 

Tomorrow I go out again.  I am going to map out a route that I know is 3.5 miles so that I have keep the pace up to complete it in the 35 minutes.  I may add some Fartlek in as well, just so I know I'm not plodding along.  I'll save plodding for the long Saturday runs I plan to start doing once I get through my build up to one hour and beyond.  I'm also going to start tracking my runs again.  I'm using Daily Mile this time since the Runkeeper and SportyPal apps never seemed to work right.  Too pad there's no iPod app for the site, at least that I can find...

Five days since last run

Between oversleeping last Friday and an out of town trip, I haven't been out for a run since my last post.  I didn't feel bad about it until I stepped on the scale and it hadn't moved.  Part of the blame for that is the trip and my eating habits on the road and at my destination.  Part of it is me staying up too late.  Part of it is just me being lazy.  I'm going to run a double again this week to get back on track.  Not sure if it will be tomorrow and Wednesday or Thursday and Friday.

Day X of whatever this new plan is

Today I discovered that Interval runner lets me create my own work outs.  This is perfect if I decide to follow my own plan instead of OHR.  Only problem is that I don't see a way to set up notifications every 10 minutes so I only get the halfway notification right now.  I suppose I could just make it separate 10 minute runs.

Today's run was good.  I added some 200 yard "sprints" at the 3/4 mile marks just to make myself go a little faster.  Did over 3 miles in 30 minutes.  My body definitely knows how much running I'm scheduled to do on a particular day, because as soon as that voice said 30 minutes, my legs switched to walk mode.  My breathing was easy, and I didn't feel drained so I'm pretty sure a longer run won't be a problem.

My biggest fear right now is stagnating.  I have to push myself to break that nice easy jog pace I normally have.  The 30 minute morning run has become easy.  While a 3 mile run 3 or 4 days a week would be great, I'm worried that if it becomes too routing, it will be easier to stop running because it's not something fun or challenging anymore.

Playlists complete

I've decided to try my idea for increasing my time instead of following OHR so I made my playlists for 35, 40 and 45 minute runs.  It will be nice to run to real music again.  I'm not sure if I'm going to start the 35 minute runs tomorrow or next week.  Kind of makes since to wait until the beginning of the week to start something new and just do 30 minute runs for the rest of the week.  See how I feel in the morning.

Distractions

It's amazing how much havoc a 20 pound baby can wreak.  He was screaming at 2am, finally got him back in bed about 2:30am.  Took me another 30 - 45 minutes, I think, to go back to sleep.  I had planned to go on a fast walk this morning or a 1k sprint.  Instead I stayed in bed. 

I am amused by the fact that my current weight loss is more than my son weighs.

Yes I did finish

Was too busy to post yesterday but I did finish my combo Week 9 of Cto5K and Week 1 of OHR.  I'm still kicking around ideas about continuing to run.  Not sure if I want to follow OHR or just start adding time to my runs every week on my own.  If I add 5 minutes a week, or every other week, I can get to the same point in the same amount of time or stop at the mileage I decide it correct. 

It was a basically uneventful run yesterday.  Today's run to start Week 2 of OHR was much better.  Felt really good.  Hit just under my 5k race pace.  I think it may be because I was running in the dark instead of yesterday's bright sunlight.  Probably also helped that the teething baby slept through the night.  Only problem today was cold fingers.  

At the end of the Couch to 5K program, I'm down 22.5 pounds from my estimated starting weight.  I'm going to have to buy a new belt for my work pants soon because the one I got in April is on the last notch.  I was really amazed that my weight went down at all today since I wasn't tracking calories very well last week.  I actually re-weighed myself a couple minutes later to be sure and it was lower than the original value so I did it two more times and weighed the lower amount on those two as well. 

I'll finish tomorrow

Teething baby screaming at 12:30am.  By the time I got him settled, it was after 1am.  Then he was back up at 7:45am.  My body just wasn't ready for anything strenuous.  Threw off the schedule I had planned, but I was pretty sure that wasn't going to work anyway.  I'm going to finish D3 tomorrow.  I'll do a double run and be on schedule for the 4 of 7 I was planning.  I'm going to start doing a fast 2 miles on Saturdays.  I want to see if I can do my 2 miles in 18 minutes or less yet.

I've been worried that the motivation is done now that I've done a 5k and the program is over.  I should probably schedule a 10k soon to keep me motivated, but I can't find one near me.  Not sure scheduling a 5k would be enough.

W9D3 postponed

Recent events made it impossible, or at least very difficult, for me to get out and run today.  I'm postponing the run until tomorrow.  Also trying to decide if I want to do the every other day schedule or do MWF for OHR and then a short run for speed on Saturday or Sunday.  Would end up doing more running overall and it's a set schedule again.  I'm still going back and forth on the alternate day running.  Yes it's a set schedule, but it's not the same days every week.

One day left

Slacked and didn't post about yesterday's run.  I assume it's because the run hurt.  Unfortunately I don't know if it's because I skipped the pre-run pain meds or if it's the schedule change.  Could be a combination of the two.  I'll take the meds again tomorrow and see what happens.  If I don't hurt, I'll have my answer.  Of course, masking the pain with Tylenol probably isn't the best solution.

Run for Day 2 was a little slower than Day 1 because of the leg pain.  I was just short of 2 miles at the 20 minute mark.  I have no idea what my total time was because I didn't hear the Interval Run voice tell me it was time to stop.  I ran to the point I know is 3.1x miles and stopped.  Never really hit a runner's high.  My leg did stop hurting for a bit so I was able to space out some.  Woke up today and my leg was killing me.  Not sure if it's run related or not.  Decided to take the morning off because of it, especially since I'm doing some semi-strenuous exercise tonight. 

I'm glad I chose to overlap the two programs.  Even though I planned to start the OHR anyway, I kind of get the feeling I would have convinced myself to take some additional time off between the two which then would have snowballed into me starting over.  Even with my goal of JAG, I think scheduling a 5k a month until I'm up to a 10k is probably going to be useful in keeping me motivated.

Week 9 Day 1 / One Hour Runner

Yesterday was the combo beginning of my last week of Cto5k and first week of OHR.  Early on in the run, I felt like I was really going fast.  I can't remember if I slowed down a little to save my legs or not.  When I hit what had been the halfway point of the Week 8 runs, I still hadn't heard the halfway voice so I assumed I was flying.  Since most of my week 8 runs ended up being 30 minutes anyway, I forgot that the halfway announcement for week 8 was at 13.5 minutes not 15.  When the halfway announcement finally did pop up, I was about 1.5 miles into the run.  It's hard to be exact since none of the GPS apps for my iPod seem to work right and gmap-pedometer is manual and it's hard to be exact.  Regardless, I didn't slow down at halfway even though I thought I was hauling butt.  When the 30 minute announcement came in, I chose to stop running.  It was right at 3 miles, give or take. 

Beginning of the run, the back of my thigh was stiff.  Still no idea why because I've never had muscle stiffness in my thighs, just my calves.  Normally the stiffness in anything goes away within 1/4 mile so I didn't think about it.  It stuck around until the mile mark for some reason.  No problems with it after that, but it did make me wonder if the run schedule was the problem.  I had to tell myself 3 runs in 5 days is normal for me and it's tomorrow's run that will be the real test of the new schedule.  That will be 4 runs in 8 days.

In the "tale of the tape" my weight didn't go down this week even though I kept my calories under the goal amount almost every day.  There were some high fat and high sodium meals in there though so that could be all it was.  More importantly, I tightened my belt another notch today without realizing it.  Hopefully when I get on the scale next week, my weight will have gone down.

First 5k complete

Yesterday was my first 5k.  My goals were pretty basic, run the whole thing and finish in 35 minutes or less.  I knew I could run for the total time on my normal route.  The 5k route had a longer extended incline though so I wasn't sure how it would hit me, even after the run I did Thursday morning. 

Start of the race was congested.  They separated out the timed and untimed runners, but they didn't corral people based on finish time or anything like that.  I got stuck behind several people who were running a much slower pace than I wanted to.  Was even harder to get around them because of the faster runners stuck behind me moving their way up.  I finally got to the outside and found a group moving about my speed. 

About 3/4 of a mile in, I had the feeling I was moving a little faster than my normal pace, which is to be expected with the adrenaline.  However, I chose to slow down a bit because I knew I had the climb still to come and didn't want to burn out my legs and end up walking.  There was a cop stationed at the end of the first mile calling time.  I hit the line right at 9 minutes.  I made myself slow down a little more to be on the safe side since I assumed my initial pace was about 8.5 minutes which is a lot faster than I normally run. 

A lot of people started walking during that second mile, especially once the incline started.  I kept chugging along and passed quite a few people who had burned out on the first mile.  The hill wasn't particularly steep, but it was bad enough that I was glad I'd slowed down.  I hit mile 2 at 19 something.  Three things went through my head at that point.  First I knew that based on the previous year people had already finished.  Second I could probably walk the last mile and still beat my goal time.  Third was that if I could just hold my current pace, I'd beat 30 minutes.  I used that to motivate me to keep running. 

I don't really remember much about mile 3.  There was some more uphill and then a blessed downhill for about half a mile.  I didn't take as much advantage of that downhill as well as I should have especially with the end of race climb coming.  Again, I was more worried about getting to the end and losing steam.  I hit 3 miles and they yelled out 29 something.  I sped up, but not quite enough.  I hit the line at 30:07 clock time which translated to 30:03 line to line based on the timing thing on my shoe.  That translates to 9:42 per mile.  I was 111/252 and 16th in my age group.  The top two finishers were also in my age group.  If I'd kicked a little harder in the end, I might have been 14th. 

All in all, I feel like I did really well.  I was significantly faster than my normal speed when I run at home.  I know now that I can maintain a faster pace for 30 minutes without burning out.  I also know that I can run 3.1 miles on Thursday and again on Saturday.  Tomorrow I start Week 9 of Cto5K and Week 1 of One Hour Runner.  I decided to follow the OHR program at least through Week 7's 45 minute run.  At that point I'll decide if I should focus on getting 5 miles in 45 minutes or continue to the end of OHR.  But that decision is almost 2 months away.

Last run before the 5k

This weekend is my first 5k.  I picked a route for today's run to try to mimic some of the 5k route as best I could.  The 5k has about 100 feet of climbing between 1.25 miles and 2.25 miles.  My normal route doesn't have that much elevation change, so I decided to run a 1.14 mile loop through the neighborhood next to mine.  That climbs almost 100 feet in the span of 1k.  Figured if I could do that, I'd be fine on Saturday.  I will start by saying that I did run it.  I will continue by saying boy did it ever suck.  I think my legs just weren't warmed up enough to do the hill yet.  I think that walking that area will be my off day exercise, at least until I develop the climbing muscles a little bit more. 

Once I got through the first km, the route is a pretty nice downhill for half a mile then back up for half a mile.  That particular climb is very gradual and is part of my normal route.  I vaguely remember hearing the voice telling me I was at the 15 minute mark, but my brain was already off on hiatus, which was nice.  I don't really remember the next mile and change.  Was brought back to reality by a garbage truck running a stop sign and bouncing over the curb about 10 feet in front of me.  Glad my subconscious mind was paying attention because I'm pretty sure the driver didn't see me and was not going to give me enough space.  So I was conscious again for about the last km, but I was running easy and could have kept going.  I even contemplated pushing up my speed and adding some distance, but I decided not to last minute.  Last thing I need is to push it too much and risk injury, or even just soreness, two days before my first race.  I was already planning to run 2-3 minutes past the Week 8 time as it was.  That 2-3 minutes became 4 or 5. 

I'm planning to count Week 9 of C25K as week one of One Hour Runner since they're identical.  I was contemplating going straight into Week 4 of OHR, but since I'm planning to change my run schedule to every other day instead of 3 days a week, it seemed like a good idea to do the 30 minute runs while I get used to the new schedule.

Walking days

Today I walked instead of running.  Main reasons were lack of sleep and arm pain from my flu shot.  I'm not sure if running would have made the pain worse or not, but since I could barely lift my arm, I decided to give it a day.

I am more sore after walking than I normally am after running.  I'm not sure if it's the 40 degree temperature, the lack of pre-exercise stretching, or just the fact that I was using the muscles in a different way.  All I do know is my calves were burning and that doesn't normally happen. 

Week 8

Today was my best run in two weeks.  Not sure what was different other than everything just seemed to click.  I was definitely surprised since I expected it to be a really bad run since I only slept about 4 hours last night.  Maybe it was that I was well hydrated and had a fairly healthy dinner.  Maybe it was the ice cream for dessert.  Maybe it was my weight being 2 pounds lower.  Shoot, could have been the 47 degree temperature.  Don't really care, all I know is that the run felt good.

Ran in the jacket again today.  I discovered that leaving the sleeves loose instead of tightening them around my wrist increased the air flow so it didn't get as hot.  All I had to do was unzip it a little near the end of the run to keep from feeling uncomfortably sweaty.  I think I prefer the jacket for cold running than the long sleeve cycling undershirt I wore last week because it is a little more flexible with zippers etc.  This is good since I don't feel like spending $30 a pop for long sleeve running shirts.  I suppose I could get some normal long sleeve t-shirts, but I like the running/cycling shirt material.

Finally, the run report.  I actually started off at a fairly good clip, I think because I wanted to get the blood pumping due to the cold.  My stride felt more like I was jogging than plodding or shuffling.  Again, just seemed to flow.  I didn't get around to making a playlist or my own podcast for week 8, so I don't know what my time was at the 1 mile mark.  At the halfway point, I was 1.4 to 1.5 miles, so maybe a little faster than 6mph.  Since none of the GPS programs for my iPod seem to work properly, I stopped using them.  Based on memory and gmap-pedometer, I was just short of 2.8 miles at the end of the podcast for the run portion.  I tacked on a little more and hit 2.9 miles total when I was to my cool down point.  Wednesday I'm going to tack on enough to make sure I do at least 3 miles.  I've mapped out several routes between 3 and 3.5 miles, just have to pick one. 

The best thing about today was getting to the cool down with plenty of juice left in the tank even after I sped up for that last .2 miles.  And realizing that if I add .2 more, I'm running a 5k in about 30 minutes.  It's amazing that in just 7 weeks I've gone from skipping the last 1 minute interval of 8 to running for 27+ minutes.

Walktober

My company started an exercise competition called Walktober.  The goal is for everyone to record at least 20 days during the month that they exercise at least 30 minutes.  Of course, I signed up for it.  I assume walking on my off days won't hurt me for running and will only help the weight loss.

Speaking of weight loss, my official Monday weigh in was down 2 more pounds.  Considering I had a couple days last week that I went over my maintenance calories not just my weight loss calories, that's a pretty good number in my book.  The two pound a week average doesn't get me to Army weight as fast as I'd like, but it's still a good rate and will have me ready by the March 1 application deadline if I have to reapply.

End of 7

Not a good run today.  I wore my cold weather gear and didn't need it, so I felt overheated at one point.  I didn't stretch well before the run, which ended up being more mental than physical.  I was thinking about injuries and my history of back pain from running.  When I realized my back wasn't going to hurt, I was less worried.

At some point, I got a cramp on my right side.  I haven't had a cramp since week 2 or 3, so I was a little surprised.  It was around mile 1 and my brain started telling me to bail out and run tomorrow instead.  I know not to listen to my brain when it comes to exercise, so I pushed through.  I think the cramp went away about a half mile later.  I really don't remember at this point.

Distance was about .2 miles shorter than Wednesday.  I am a little disappointed in my speed today, but I take some solace in the fact that I still ran the full 25 minutes, even if it was slow.  I need to do something to work on my stride and rhythm.  I think that's what was killing me today.  I felt like I was shuffling instead of jogging.  Half the time I was wondering if my feet actually left the ground.  And, as usual, my attempts to make myself stretch my stride out a bit and run would fade as soon as I stopped focusing on it.

Monday I'm going to try interval runner instead of the Ullrey podcasts.  I think having my own music playing instead of the techno will make a huge difference.  I expect to catch myself running down the road singing along, and I'm okay with that.