Getting behind seems to be a recurring theme! I've been spending more of my "screen time" researching performance nutrition and doing some work getting print samples ready for some shirts I'm designing for marathon relay teams.
I also seem to tend to write more when I hit bumps in my training and that may be another reason why I've gone MIA for a few days. My last post caught me up through Wednesday of last week. Not counting family walks, I've had 2 non-training days and 4 training days. I skipped last Friday's workout to be on Daddy Daycare duty while SWMBO had some appointments and errands to run and Sunday was my planned off day after Saturday's long run. Monday's workout was almost exclusively upper body and my biceps & triceps are still feeling it a bit!
2011-APR-15 Diet Log
2011-APR-17 Diet Log
2011-APR-18 Diet Log
My last 3 runs have felts great. Thursday was a 10 mile at my expected marathon pace (MP). The course I ran was downhill or flat for the first half and mostly flat for the second half with a BIG hill at 7.5 miles. I was supposed to run at an 8:00/mile pace, but I instead chose to run at a pace that was comfortable and felt realistic for the distance I was running. I ran the second half (the uphill portion) faster than the first half and ended with an average pace of 7:33/mile and felt great doing it!
2011-APR-14 Run Graph (Nike+)
2011-APR-14 Run Stats (RunKeeper)
Saturday was scheduled to be a 15 mile run at MP + 20 seconds per mile. My long run this weekend was awkward. We had plans Saturday morning and Sunday afternoon and an ugly storm was due to blow in Saturday afternoon through noon Sunday. I decided to get the run out of the way on Saturday despite REALLY not wanting to go out in gusting winds as the storm blew in and not really sure if the rain would start pelting down mid-run.
Still working from my MP being 8:00, my scheduled pace for the run was 8:20 per mile. I completed the run in under 2:00 with an average pace of around 7:51 per mile, again running comfortably and exceeding my expected training pace by nearly 30 seconds per mile.
2011-APR-16 Diet Log
2011-APR-16 Run Graph (Nike+)
2011-APR-16 Run Stats (RunKeeper)
Finally, I typically run my treadmill intervals on Tuesday, but the weather was BEAUTIFUL, so I flip-flopped my Tempo run to today (Tuesday). It was supposed to be a 6 mile run, 1 mile easy, 5 miles at Mid-Tempo pace. My training partner has been working with a PT to address some Achilles & IT Band issues and was on a similar run schedule for the day. We decided to keep the distance, but turn it into a Hill Run + Tempo run. The course we ran was pretty flat for about 2 miles, then a big hill about 3/4 of a mile long with a few seriously steep portions.
We ran at a relatively easy pace out to the hill (9:00 per mile) and then maintained that pace or greater for the ascent before coming back down and doing our own Tempo Run back to the gym. I wasn't running with a specific pace in mind, but I pushed the pace for the entire 2 miles I had to run. I ended up running the 2 miles in 13 minutes for an average pace of 6:30 per mile. What's truly sick to think about is that the guy who won this year's Boston Marathon did it while averaging almost 2:00 per mile faster for the entire 26.2 miles (and only won by 4 seconds)!
(no Nike+ Graph; dead iTouch battery!)
I don't know where this sudden flurry of success is coming from with my runs. I've been paying a lot more attention to nutrition and have started working a L-Glutamine supplement into my diet a few times per day. I've also made an effort to increase the fat and reduce the protein in my diet to help fuel my activity. Running in the Asics is a dream, too, so I'm not sure what has really made the difference, but so far, I LIKE IT!
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