This morning, on a drizzly, muggy morning, Brian, Alex, Frank and I set out for the traditional 3000m shakedown cruise around the Zilker Park loop (a loop and a half, more or less). The chatter was fun, and after the warmup jogging and the drills, we were ready to roll. Since I'm semi-goal-less for Indy, I didn't have a specific time in mind for a purported half marathon goal pace. I figured I'd just run how I felt, and see where I am. As we started, the group quickly strung out, with Alex, then Frank, then Brian, then me. I kept Brian in the same distance range until we started the last 1000m, when he strung out his lead just a bit. I managed to keep a very consistent pace, and ended up with a 7:22/mile overall pace for the 1.82 miles (not quite 3000m, but close enough). Last year, I ran more like 7:07/mile with the same perceived effort, so that gives me something of a comparative number to base things on for Saturday's race. Last year's Indy was 7:53/mile. It'll be interesting to see how closely the statistical things match up after the race...
After a quick sip of water, we headed back, and again enjoyed the conversation. I got bombed by a bird while passing under the Lamar bridge, which was disconcerting, but I'll try not to take it personally. At least it hit my leg and not my head or shoulder (I know, Yuck!). It's a pretty good feeling to hang out with the Indy Gazelles, and I'm looking forward to the trip, as usual. We chatted a bit after we got finished, and then it was time to call it a day. For the workout morning, a quick little 5.5 miles total.
To catch up from last week, I hit the gym last Tuesday for 30 minutes of indoor cycling and a single set core/leg/upper body workout. I'm just now trying to get the gym back into my routine, but it's slowly getting back. Wednesday was an easy 40 minute jog, using my HR monitor to keep under a low HR number (for me, at least) for absolute recovery. That felt good. Thursday, instead of simulating the 8x800m repeats on the schedule, I substituted a fartlek workout in my 'hood since I was housebound in the morning. I went out and did 15 minutes nice and relaxed, then 8 x 3:00 at more or less 800m effort, with 2:00 jogging between each repeat. After the 8 accelerations were done, I finished it off with 15 minutes of cooldown jogging. Given my current state of fitness, that workout was a solid one. Overall, I scored 7.6 miles for the long fartlek workout, and 4.4 miles for the recovery run.
I took Friday off (should have gotten to the gym, but...), and then cruised the 10 mile Town Lake loop with Frank and Alex on Saturday. We ran that a bit harder than I had expected, but it was okay. 10.1 miles at 9:26/mile, with all the water stops included. Our actual running pace was around 8:45/mile, I'd guess. Full stretching after that while we watched the Texas Roundup 10K pass us by at their 4 mile mark. My favorite moment was cheering for Dick Wilkowski, who is fierce at his 60+ year age. We saw him coming and yelled for him to "drop the bomb," and by God, he did! He just shifted gears right in front of us, and dusted a much younger guy ahead of him as he just blew by him. Awesome! I can only hope that I'm something like that when I get a little older...
Anyway, that catches me up to today. Yesterday, a bunch of my peeps went up to Oklahoma City for the marathon and half marathon, and suffered through a tough weather day, it seems. They all finished, but I know they'll be glad to relax for a couple of weeks before jumping back into the routine. We also saw Rachel doing her second post-Boston run on Saturday, so it was cool to see her again and chat briefly with her after we got finished.
The rest of this week? A gym visit tomorrow, 5 mile fartlek workout (10 x 1:00 accelerations) on Wednesday, off on Thursday (travel day), and the usual short jog and stretching on Friday before Saturday's half marathon. Is it wrong that I'm already looking forward to the post-half-marathon food and beer? I think not.
Monday, April 30, 2007
Monday, April 23, 2007
PMAD [and 10 Mile Pace Run]
...and today I crawl a few more yards out of my Post-Marathon Affective Disorder following the AT&T Marathon. I suppose that I let that race get to me a little more than usual, and I moped around quite a bit with my running in the months following the race. I was a little bit dinged up, physically, with a groin strain, but I could have run through that a little more if I had really wanted to do so. I sort of let my running self-esteem issues get in the way of returning to Gazelles full-time, and that was not smart. When your main support group for your running is the very group that you are avoiding, then you're just not going to get much better, are you? Anyway, although I kept up the long runs on Saturdays, I was only fitfully running during the weekdays, and that's caused some deterioration in my conditioning. Not a fully terrible thing, but I've got a little work to do to get back up to speed...so to speak.
I came back in the last couple of weeks, and it's been gratifying to see that (a) My running friends noticed that I was missing, and were happy to see me back, and (b) I wasn't as far out of shape as I had thought. Sure, my HR is higher than usual for a given effort level, and my speed is a little off, but I can see that it's only a matter of another month until I'm more or less ready to roll with the old gang.
In the short term, my running goals are to get back in the full training routine, have fun at the upcoming Indy Mini (Half) Marathon the first Saturday in May (sort of a tourist run, depending on weather conditions), and prepare myself for the start of Chicago Marathon training in June. I've already enjoyed these last couple of weeks, back with the peeps, and I'd like to thank Brian and Frank for including me in some workouts lately, which has helped my mental outlook a bunch.
It was cool to follow all of the Boston Gazelles, especially Emily H., Leslie, Rachel, and Shannon, my old training buddies. I am envious of their opportunity to compete in the Super Bowl of marathoning for mere mortal runners, and I hope to be there some day. I'm still holding on to my goal of qualifying as a 50-year 0ld, which suddenly is not that far away!
Okay, today's workout was a pace run around Town Lake with Alex, Brian and Frank. Gilbert had us do 3 easy miles and then 7 at half marathon goal pace. The weather conditions were muggy and 70 degrees, but that was tolerable. My goal was to run the HMGP miles at 8:15 or so, which is about as fast as I'm planning on running at Indy in two weeks. We had some chatter for those first three easy miles, and then it was time to "Go!" Alex took off and was gone almost immediately. Frank was cruising in the silver medal position, and I sort of tagged along in last place, keeping Brian in sight as a pacer.
I was surprised that my first several miles were quicker than my goal, but I was running how I felt, and that's the pace my body delivered. I passed Brian during the second pace mile, as he was having a bad day after a long weekend of travel, and sort of cruised along from there. I grabbed water a couple of times (well, I actually drank the water, as that works better than grabbing it in one's hands...) along the way. It was fun to see Thon and Carrie on the trail this morning, too, around the 4 mile marker. I pretty much held onto pace to Mopac, where I took a slightly extended water stop of about 30 seconds. From there, it was a matter of convincing myself that I really didn't want to walk or slow way down. I found enough people to chase on the trail in those last miles, and salvaged this first extended pace effort.
I ended up with 3 miles of easy preliminary running at about 9:29/mile, not including a rest stop early for us, and then clicked off 7 miles of pace running at about 8:16/mile, including my brief water stops. Overall, I scored 10.25 miles at 8:38/mile, dropping to 8:50/mile including that 2:00 stop early. Altogether, I'll take that. Given that my goals for Indy are loosely defined as trying to get a 1:48:00 (8:15/mile), so that I'm qualified for the Seeded C Corral for 2008, those numbers look okay. Yeah, I'm already formulating a race plan for Indy. :-)
So, I'm back with the program, little by little, and I'm finding that running is really fun again. I'm excited about being a part of the Chicago training group for a change, even though the prospect of training those long runs in the heat of the summer is a bit daunting. The group that is signed up from Gazelles is a fun one, and I look forward to that challenge.
I came back in the last couple of weeks, and it's been gratifying to see that (a) My running friends noticed that I was missing, and were happy to see me back, and (b) I wasn't as far out of shape as I had thought. Sure, my HR is higher than usual for a given effort level, and my speed is a little off, but I can see that it's only a matter of another month until I'm more or less ready to roll with the old gang.
In the short term, my running goals are to get back in the full training routine, have fun at the upcoming Indy Mini (Half) Marathon the first Saturday in May (sort of a tourist run, depending on weather conditions), and prepare myself for the start of Chicago Marathon training in June. I've already enjoyed these last couple of weeks, back with the peeps, and I'd like to thank Brian and Frank for including me in some workouts lately, which has helped my mental outlook a bunch.
It was cool to follow all of the Boston Gazelles, especially Emily H., Leslie, Rachel, and Shannon, my old training buddies. I am envious of their opportunity to compete in the Super Bowl of marathoning for mere mortal runners, and I hope to be there some day. I'm still holding on to my goal of qualifying as a 50-year 0ld, which suddenly is not that far away!
Okay, today's workout was a pace run around Town Lake with Alex, Brian and Frank. Gilbert had us do 3 easy miles and then 7 at half marathon goal pace. The weather conditions were muggy and 70 degrees, but that was tolerable. My goal was to run the HMGP miles at 8:15 or so, which is about as fast as I'm planning on running at Indy in two weeks. We had some chatter for those first three easy miles, and then it was time to "Go!" Alex took off and was gone almost immediately. Frank was cruising in the silver medal position, and I sort of tagged along in last place, keeping Brian in sight as a pacer.
I was surprised that my first several miles were quicker than my goal, but I was running how I felt, and that's the pace my body delivered. I passed Brian during the second pace mile, as he was having a bad day after a long weekend of travel, and sort of cruised along from there. I grabbed water a couple of times (well, I actually drank the water, as that works better than grabbing it in one's hands...) along the way. It was fun to see Thon and Carrie on the trail this morning, too, around the 4 mile marker. I pretty much held onto pace to Mopac, where I took a slightly extended water stop of about 30 seconds. From there, it was a matter of convincing myself that I really didn't want to walk or slow way down. I found enough people to chase on the trail in those last miles, and salvaged this first extended pace effort.
I ended up with 3 miles of easy preliminary running at about 9:29/mile, not including a rest stop early for us, and then clicked off 7 miles of pace running at about 8:16/mile, including my brief water stops. Overall, I scored 10.25 miles at 8:38/mile, dropping to 8:50/mile including that 2:00 stop early. Altogether, I'll take that. Given that my goals for Indy are loosely defined as trying to get a 1:48:00 (8:15/mile), so that I'm qualified for the Seeded C Corral for 2008, those numbers look okay. Yeah, I'm already formulating a race plan for Indy. :-)
So, I'm back with the program, little by little, and I'm finding that running is really fun again. I'm excited about being a part of the Chicago training group for a change, even though the prospect of training those long runs in the heat of the summer is a bit daunting. The group that is signed up from Gazelles is a fun one, and I look forward to that challenge.
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