Tag Archives: running

Quality Jumble Run

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Today I headed out not really knowing what I wanted to do. I sort of wanted to run long, but I also was leaning towards a recovery-type run. Into my first mile I wanted to run fast, and the downhillish second went by pretty fast too. I kept going through the third mile and powered up the hills in the fourth. In mile five I was beginning to slow and really dropped for mile six which ended with a fast run up a two block hill into the backside of Reed. Mile seven went slowly through the canyon as I accepted my tired pace and finished at eight miles and super slow, but with a reasonably high HR – 150+.

So I think I have discovered a new combo workout with the jumble run (I need to grab jumblerun.com from the domain registrar). It has the warm up and cool down of  a recovery run, 4 miles of tempo running and a hill sprint. I don’t think I’ll do this one often, but it was an interesting and tough quality run.

Super hydration

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Never one to do something half-assed, I took the need to hydrate properly to a new height (for me anyway). Starting on Friday I began drinking more water  and continued all day Saturday before the race. I was peeing all day very frequently. I also ate lots of water heavy fruit. I was properly hydrated and a half for the race. Apparently you can over hydrate, but I guess it is ridiculously hard to do.

So I recently got on a scale and saw 179 for the first time in a long while. Since fall I am down around 17 pounds or so most of this has come off due to the training, but I also think my green drinks had a lot to do with it as well as not eating after 7:00 (this may be the best weight loss thing I have done.) So I was feeling sort of heavy the morning of the race and I decided to weigh myself. 186! I figured well I have been eating a lot the last several days in order to fuel up and then all the hydrating. During the race I did a real good job of hydrating both with my own water and drink stations (I drank several cups of Gluekos). I celebrated with a bottle of Smart Water they were giving out at the finish.  After the half I weighed myself again – 183. I was a bit disappointed…

So today I went out for a recovery run with my running partner. We putzed along a a nice slow pace, I didn’t sweat much at all. I realized I hadn’t really had much to drink all day. But the run wasn’t hard at all, so I was fine. I decided to weigh myself again now a day past the super hydration I did for the race, my weight was down to 180! Amazing that I was able to stash 6 pounds of water for the race. I am a freakin’ camel!

Makes me think super hydrating might add too much weight, but considering how well I did in the race I think it was the way to go. My recovery has been pretty good as well. I have been a bit tired and slightly sore, but I think I drank enough to recover properly, I certainly ate enough as well.

Race for the Roses half marathon 2010

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Phew, great run for me. It was a beautiful morning and just perfect for running. I was able to leave the tights and warm top at home which was great. I ran strong through the entire thing finishing in 749th  place out of 2176 (434th out of 704 Male, 68th out of 97 in age group) but a respectable 9.01 pace which beat my super goal of 2 hours by running 1:58:07.  This beats my PR as well (well the only other time I have run a half) of 2:15 at the 2008 Seattle Marathon. I ran that one injured, I think I rolled an ankle the week before in training.

My time goal was to beat Seattle, which I didn’t think would be too hard. My super goal was 2 hours, but I seriously didn’t think I would be able to do it. I didn’t have a lot of room for error if I was going to do it, but I wanted to give it a try. I started out pretty fast but I tried hard to hold back. I didn’t run slower than a 9 minute pace until mile 4 (I claim hills) and didn’t run another slower than 9 until mile 8. At that point I was feeling pretty good as I had racked up several minutes to beat 2 hours. Miles 9 through 13 all hovered at pace, the highest was mile 11 at 9:23 (oddly one I missed on the partially functioning watch but really wanted to see for inspiration, since it was the slowest mile maybe the running gods were hiding it from me.) My average heart rate was 165 which was high, but I think right where I needed it to be. I maxed over 180 in the last 1.1 (high of 183). My HR went up over 165 first in Mile 4 on the hills and only went lower when we ran into downtown. If you want to see all the numbers, click here.

So my watch. Grrrr. Around mile 6 it got stuck on the clock or the compass mode and wouldn’t switch back. I couldn’t get it to go back to the data screens so I was running blind. It did however give me a pace report every mile, so that was something (and enough to keep me going to beat the two hour mark. This has happened before with this watch, makes me wonder if there is too much technology involved… Fortunately it did store all the data from the run, so I can check it out now. I think the most frustrating thing was I couldn’t shut it off at the finish. Several minutes later I was finally able to get it to shut off. Pretty frustrating overall experience with it.

So one more race for the spring season, the Sean’s Run 10K. Then I get to make the decision on the San Francisco Marathon. Right now I have to say I am leaning towards not doing it. The half may be the race for me after all.

Night before the Race for the Roses

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Tomorrow morning I run my earliest race. The Race for the Roses half-marathon starts at 7:00 AM sharp. I’ll be setting the alarm for 4:30 to make sure I get a cup of coffee and Lara bar in me. The electrolyte for the run is Gleukos and they passed out samples in non curbside recyclable plastic containers (I’ll take mine to the plastic recycler, but I doubt many others will. Gleukos basically acknowledges that you will just throw the soft plastic container away by trying to ease your worries and saying that they “PRE”-cycle, which I believe means they pay some money up front so you can drink your drink in an environmentally irresponsible manner and not worry about it. I am hoping this means can just throw the container in the street, I am pretty sure it does. So the point of me bringing Gleukos up in the first place was that I am going to hydrate pre-race with it and fill my water bottle up with it. Still irritated with the waste.

And the Gluekos wasn’t the only offender. The event themselves is using disposable timing chips. No longer do we have to deal with the hassle of returning them, we can just throw them away. Hurray! Again, I am thinking on the street would be a good thing. On the positive side the Convention center thanked me for riding my bike to pick up the packet. Well, actually I took mass-transit, but better than driving myself so I was with them in spirit even though I used more wheels.

Environmental destruction aside, I am ready for this race. I am fully hydrated and well rested. I have eaten a ton the last couple of days, and good foods (with the exception of a bowl of popcorn last night). I had my traditional bowl of pasta for dinner (though the benefit of pasta before a race is scientifically debatable, its a good tradition and I know I feel (possibly psychological) if I run after a good meal the evening prior.) Now the next challenge will be to get enough sleep tonight, I am going to watch a movie in bed tonight and hopefully be asleep soon after 10 (earlier if Mega Piranha turns out to be a bust, good chance of that.) I am psyched to run tomorrow.

The route runs right through downtown Portland and some surrounding areas. Hills don’t appear to be too intense. I am going to shoot for the 2 hour mark and hopefully hook up with a nine minute pace group which would put me a two minutes under 2 hours. I think that might be too fast for me, but I am gonna give it a shot and see how it goes.

I am taking three gels with me. One for pre-race, one at say 6 or 7 and another at 11 or so, I am also bringing a pack of Sharkies and some Sport Beans for the race and a Greens+ protien bar for after the race. Gluekos in the water bottle even though they say don’t rave with a drink you don’t normally train with, but I think it will be ok. I had most of a bottle today while I was picking up my packet. Go #1274!

Taper week

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Since I have the Race for the Roses half-marathon this weekend I am planning to taper a bit this week. That said, I did eight miles today, but eight slow miles. I think I will run tomorrow and Thursday then take Fri and Sat off. Tomorrow my tentative plan is to do a short tempo run, maybe 4-5 miles with a good portion of that being fast, then I’ll finish my pre-race week off with a recovery run on Friday. This way I will be nice and well rested for the race (I hope.)

My run this morning was a soggy somewhat cold base run. I didn’t push it on the run, just a steady run in the drizzle and fat burning zone.

Weekend long run, a day early

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This week I did my long on Saturday so I could do a shorter run on Sunday with my running partner who is getting back in the swing of things after a race, a new dog and life. When I got up this morning I was only sure of one thing about this run and that was that I was going to do one. I knew I needed to do a long run this weekend as it would be my last long run before the Race for the Roses on Sunday, April 11th. But I was also thinking I didn’t really need to do another long one as I should be tapering. Since I didn’t run long last weekend, I felt a little pressure to get another in, but I was feeling a bit lazy. And due to a late large meal last night which managed to supply my brain with a host of nightmares and my belly with a not so digested wake-up, I was more inclined to just do a short run. As I walked down the driveway I still hadn’t decided what to do. Go right for a shorter run or left for a run up to Mt. Tabor. I picked right.

Even as I turned east and headed to the volcano I still hadn’t decided if I would just do the eight mile Tabor route or if I would extend it with a dash to Laurelhurst Park. I think this option was one of the main reasons I chose “right”. It was cool and spitting, so I dressed warmly. Too warm in fact as just after a mile I had to stop and take off my warm shirt to settle into a long sleeve running shirt and my running shell. But the gloves didn’t come off, I wasn’t that warm yet! The run to the mountain was relatively fast and I powered up the base of the mountain to get to the lower trail. The big climb went quite a bit slower, but I managed to keep my HR in check for the most part with one 170+ peak. At the top I did my victory lap and downed a gel. At this point I knew I was going on to the park.The run down the mountain was really muddy and I found myself slogging through a couple of really bad spots always mindful to go through the mud so as to not carve a wider path on the drier edges.

The park was beautiful with all the blossoming trees and despite all the rain it wasn’t too muddy. The run through the park always goes by too quickly and I soon found myself heading south into the wind I would be dealing with for the next 2.5 miles. At one point I found myself with another mileage choice. If I went right I could go to the track and onto Reed college which would give me really close to a half-marathon distance of 13.1 miles. If I chose left it would be less, but how much less I wasn’t sure. Since I had already gone longer twice before, I chose left and discovered that this route gives me 11 miles exactly. I felt really good, easily felt like I could go on for another couple miles at least, but I’ll save that for next weekend!

Eight miles of recovery

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Today I faced the gray skies and headed out for a run. Even though I had a day off on Monday and My Sunday long run wasn’t that long, I decided to stay on schedule and do a recovery run. My avg HR was a beat above my 70% ceiling and I noticed that I was often over on the run and really had to focus on reigning in my pace to slow down enough to bring my HR down. I could have gone ahead and done some sort of quality run this morning but I have band practice tonight and I wanted to be somewhat alert. I have gone to practice after doing hard runs in the past and it was a mistake! I poop out really early and don’t focus as much as I should. So I’ll save the hard stuff for tomorrow. I think I will head to the track for either straights and curves or 400 intervals. Probably the latter as I just did S&Cs last week, though I can never do too many of those.

We msers are really supposed to be good at either doing the fish oil or for those of us who are vegetarian flax seed oil. The omega-3 fatty acids are supposed to do wonders for everybody, but the msers apparently especially benefit from it. As a veg my option is flax seed oil which apparently isn’t as effective as the fish oil, but close (I think it is just propaganda from the fishing industry!) I have been bad about the flax seed oil, mostly cause I don’t like the taste. There are capsules you can get, but it is often hard (and expensive) to find vegetarian capsules that don’t have gelatin. Why a meat eater would be so accepting of eating processed hoof I don’t know, but I pass for sure. I used to put a table spoon of crushed flax seeds on my cereal, but I got tired of doing that so I bought several bottles of the oil which was really inexpensive (5 for the price of 2 from www.puritan.com) But I went off of that for several months as well. Recently I have renewed my vigor and have been forcing myself to take a slug of it every day. At first I experienced a horrible aftertaste from the oil, yuck. Also, I found myself burping the taste for several hours afterwords, yuck again. But after a week or so that seems to have died back for whatever reason, maybe my system has gotten used to it. I actually feel somewhat more healthy when I am taking it. I don’t know if that is psychological or not, but still I feel more energized and just healthier. Hmm. I have to say it is worth the bad taste. I did find that having a mint to eat right after taking it is a good solution to the initial aftertaste, water also helps.

Tempo run and enjoyable trail run to finish the week

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Friday I set out to add another quality run onto my week. Since I had already done some interval work at the track I decided to do a tempo run. I did sort sort of a longish warm up so I could get to a flat area in my route. So after a mile and a half of  relatively easy pace I cranked it up. My target Heart Rate was 85% of my max or around 163 and I wanted to do that for at least 3 miles. Once I hit the second mile I was cruising along pretty well and even averaged 7:20 for the third mile. The HR crept past 163 and fluctuated between my target and 171 or so. I didn’t want to slow down any so I kept it in that range for the next four miles or so. I adjusted my route so that I wouldn’t hit any big hills and kept to flat areas. My plan was to start my tempo run just after I dropped down into East Moreland. This would give me a half mile or so on a gentle slope downhill before I hit the mile long greenway. After a couple of miles I was really feeling it but kept pressing on focusing my head on small distances to complete. I rounded the mailbox along the Reed greenway and headed back. As I was cranking along I kept thinking about getting to the end of the greenway, so that became my mini goal. Once I hit the end of that stretch I refocussed my mini goal to be the four blocks back to the gentle hills I ran at the start. When I turned onto that block, I again refocussed, this time on the entrance of the park. And I made it! It was tough, but it was a good feeling to make the whole distance at the high HR.

Sunday’s run was a very different one. My running partner and I went out to 1000 acres park and ran trails with her dog. Right off the bat I stumbled and slid through a big puddle of mud landing on the same area of my hip I fell on the other day. At least this time I didn’t have my water bottle to make the fall more painful. But back up on the feet and off we went. It was really beautiful out there and we all had a good time especially the dog. After 2.5 mile on the fire road we were on we found ourselves on the bank of the Columbia. We turned back and continued our run through the muddy trails giving my RP’s new shoes a proper christening! We are going to have to come out here again.

Track work

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After a recovery run on Tuesday (and a day off on Monday) I went to the track to force  myself to do some speed work. I think that is what has been missing from my running these last several weeks, actually I know it. My speed really slowed down after the time off I took going up to Seattle and then the week following being sick. It has been somewhat of a struggle getting back into things. The running itself hasn’t been too bad, but my pace has been really slow and basically feels like I have reverted to where I was a couple months ago before I started including quality runs into my workout. Everything has felt plodding.

Yesterday’s speed workout went ok. After six laps of straights and curves I decided to head back. I was tired and the track was crowded. I kept having to dodge soccer balls, apparently you need like 50 of them to have a practice and they have to be kicked all over the place. The sprints were at a good sold pace and I felt strong doing them. I think it was a good start back to going faster. Now I just need to keep it up. I think a tempo run is in my near future!

Today I am going to do a short recovery run. Hopefully I will be doing it with my running partner, she has been sick and still working with her new dog who will also probably be joining us this morning. No text yet saying she can’t make it, and we are supposed to leave in ten minutes.

Update: I ended up doing the run on my own this morning which wasn’t all bad as I did the miles I wanted to do. I also really focused on doing a recovery run. My goal was to keep my heart rate under my recovery ceiling of 70% or 143 bpm for the entire run. There were a few times it got up to 146, but I did pretty well even on hills. I was surprised to notice that I was able to keep up a decent pace and even keep the HR below 140. Towards the end of the run the final two miles were harder to keep the HR low but I was able to without going agonizingly slow.

Long slow distance run

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Today I made up for my short run yesterday putting in 13.5 miles in 2:20. It was a harder run than I expected granted it was a long one. Our warm spring days of yesterday did not make it past the evening and the rains returned. The rain actually made for pretty nice running weather as the temperature was nice and cool. The clouds that came in yesterday evening kept a lot of the warm air around also, but it wasn’t muggy at all, at least that I noticed anyway. There was a bit of a breeze that felt a lot stronger whenever I would head into it. So I don’t think the weather was the issue. Maybe it was what I ate last night which wasn’t horrible, but also not that great as far as fueling up. I had a large veggie sandwich and a bag of chips that was almost 500 calories (that really surprised me as the bag was pretty small! The calories didn’t stop there either, I also added on a juice drink and a slice of carrot cake. So that was the culprit I think. Not enough energy stored up to make that run as well as I would have liked.

The other factor that I think got in the way mentally was the route I took was a new route. These new routes always seem to go by slower than the ones that I am overly familiar with. Also, I overestimated how long it would be. So at the point when I figured I had 8 or nine miles done, I really only had 6 or 7. So I decided to take my first extension. then I took my second mileage extension finding myself down on the water front which meant I would have to climb my way back, which wasn’t too big of a deal. Down on the banks of the Willamette I had a hard time finding a path and had to climb over some areas, but that just added to the fun (well I say fun, but my legs were pretty woozy at that point so I was climbing very slowly.) I took a third mileage extension into East Moreland and figured I would hit a half marathon distance pretty close to home. I hit the 13.1 mile mark at 2:16:16, not great at all, but tha’ts ok.  Good run but a tiring one.