A Passion for Running

Holy moly, the miles I’ve been running are really starting to pay off:

1. My hard run paces are getting faster. Earliest to latest, my last three hard runs were run at 8:14, 8:09 and 8:00 minutes per mile. What’s really cool about the last pace is that a) It’s a 3:30 marathon training pace, and b) I ran it with an average 163 heart rate – midway into my “hard” heart rate training zone.
2. Working heart rate is decreasing. I was astounded to run my second last “easy” run at an average heart rate of 139 beats per minute. My admission is that I set out to see how low a heart rate I could do that run in but, to me, that’s still incredible since two months ago, I struggled to keep my heart rate under 155 running the slowest pace I could run at.
3. I’m still trimming down. One week ago, I weighed in at 169 pounds. I believe I’ve lost about 7 pounds in the last couple of months and I haven’t been under 170 in two years.
4. I’ve gained muscle mass in my hamstrings. Those puppies are really growing!

I’ve been 60 miles/week for a few weeks now and I feel pretty darn good. Compare that to a couple of years ago training at 45 or so miles a week and feeling tired and beat up. I think kudos are due to Coach Andrew, Arthur Lydiard and my much improved running form.

Today’s Run

Distance: 7.64 miles
Time: 1:01:15
Pace: 8:00 min/mile
Avg Heart Rate: 163

My long run happened to land on Christmas day so I had planned on shortening it up a bit but, as I would soon find out, that was not meant to be.

An hour into my run, I happened upon an 80-something year old sitting in the middle of the sidewalk in one of these:

He wasn’t moving and there was absolutely noone around. As I approached, I could tell he was very upset. His battery had died in the middle of the cold trip to fetch groceries.

So, I pushed him home – a 1/2 mile out of my way. I felt so bad for him as he complained about the “sins he must have committed” to be having the horrible day he was having on Christmas.

He was grateful I was there to help but I felt pretty badly for him.

I have so much.

Things are still not good with Complete Running but that won’t stop me from running.

Because of what I mentioned in my last post about my right Achilles, I reduced running intensity on Wednesday by making my scheduled “hard” run one of the “easy” variety. I also concentrated very hard on a quick pull of the foot and high cadence.

I continued the focus on form on my 90 minute run on Thursday and today’s “hard” run. I was thinking I’d be running today’s run at easy effort pace but the achilles felt good so I eased into the hard effort.

The strategy worked. I ran today with no pain.

I’m learning some things about my body as it gets used to this amount of running – that my muscular and skeletal systems definitely lag behind my cardiovascular system. Lately, I’ve been finding it much easier to run with more intensity – easier on my heart and lungs that is. But my muscles/tendons and bones feel the increased intensity after only a few days.

So, I am learning as I get to that “next” level of fitness.

Take care, you.

I did a lot better pre-run today. Breakfast? Check. Lunch? Check. Adequate H20 in the tank? Check.

So, overall I felt much better on today’s run. However, that dang right achilles of mine was really bugging me. It took 60 minutes before I was able to avoid pain there by an intense focus on a very quick foot pull/cadence. The last 30 minutes went very well and it felt ok when I got home. I’m icing it right now.

Distance: 9.12
Time: 1:31
Pace: 10:00 min/mile
Avg. Heart Rate: 148

Thanks everyone for your positive comments.
———–
On another note: It looks like we may have things under control with the web site. Crossing fingers.

I think not.

Complete Running is a mess and all I can do right now is wait on the host to sort it out.

I haven’t been sleeping and I continue to make really dumb mistakes.

Today’s stupidity: Went to bed late, woke up early and didn’t eat breakfast. Had coffee and a light, crappy lunch. Failed to hydrate until 2:00 p.m. Began my two hour long run home at 3:30 without my water bottle which I’d forgotten at home.

Outcome: Horrible run. Good average heart rate but horrible run nonetheless. Felt like crap for 90 out of 120 minutes. Right Achilles gave me unending grief. Was hungry and then rather woozy in the last 30 minutes.

The Positive: The weather was nice.

Average Heart Rate: 148
Time: 2:02:30
Distance: 12.19 miles
Pace: 10:03 min/mile

Tomorrow can only get better.

Smokin’ run today. Adaptation is definitely taking place. Today, I was able to very comfortably run near/at the top of my “hard” day training range and it showed.

A pic of this week’s training log can be seen here.

As per Adeel’s request, I am going to update my training log. This is something I had to do anyway so thanks for the nudge, Adeel.

This past week you can count yourself lucky if your blog is hosted on a big service (e.g. blogger), or if you don’t rank well in the search engines.

Why? Because many domains with decent google ranking blogs fell under heavy attack from comment spamming botnets this week. It took all my energy to keep Complete Running up this week and got very little sleep while doing so.

Running didn’t suffer until Friday when I forgot two things. The first thing I forgot was my employer’s Christmas lunch which meant I would not be running as scheduled during my lunch break. I thought, “no problem, I’ll run when I get home”. Wrong – I forgot I had my daughter’s school Christmas show to attend.

So, I missed Friday’s run due to a brain misfire. Argh! That’s not going to happen again if I can help it.

Today’s run was a good one. I felt sluggish starting out (funny how that’s always the case after a day off) so I decided to run super slow until it felt right to increase the pace. It never really did feel like I picked up the pace at all during the run. It felt slow.

But the stats tell a different story:

Distance: 9.3 miles
Time: 1:29
Pace: 9:33 min/mile
Average Heart Rate: 148 (nice and low)

That’s faster than my last 90 minute slow run (which in itself was a record) and I have no idea why.

Yesterday’s 90 minute run home was a good one. Most of these runs I’ve been getting done in a slow 10+ per minute mile pace. There are two main reasons for that:

1. My fitness level at the beginning of the Andrew Training Program, was not good. When I began, I had a heckuva time running slow enough to keep my heart rate in the zone it needed to be for long slow/recovery runs.
2. The amount of snow we’ve had and/or the terrible footing I’ve had to run in. Maintaining any kind of pace has been extremely difficult.

The footing on yesterday’s run was mostly pretty good (I’d say 75% good). It gave me a chance to relax a bit and work on one aspect of my form I’ve neglected lately – that being that I tend to “sit” a bit when I run. This is hard to explain but, in the movie Without Limits, there is a scene where Bill Bowerman is trying to teach Steve Prefontaine not to “sit”. In the movie, Steve doesn’t understand what Bill is trying to get him to do so the coach pushes his butt forward and says, “Like at the point of maximum penetration”. Sorry for the graphic image but …it’s effective!

With the better footing, focus on form and a slightly higher heart rate, I had a very comfortable run:

Distance: 9.12
Time: 1:28:20 (a couple minutes faster than previous best efforts)
Pace: 9:41 miles/minute
Average Heart Rate: 153 (a bit higher than previous efforts – still very comfortable, however)

This makes me happy because it puts my long run pace very near to where it was in previous marathon training efforts.

Yesterday I ran home (90 minutes) easy.

Distance: 9.12
Time: 90:26
Pace: 9:54 min/mile
Average Heart Rate: 148 (even with a drift up to 160 in the last mile)

Today I had a hard run.

Distance: 6.67 miles
Time: 60:20
Pace: 9:02
Average Heart Rate: 160

Boring post, I know. I am swamped with website fixit stuff.