kevvyd's running log

A great long run...

2009-09-14T10:42:00.002-03:00

My long runs so far aren't really that long, as I'm being quite careful about building the mileage back up slowly and steadily. That said, the 13 km I did yesterday is the longest I've ran in 2009. It was perfect weather, as I waited until later in the afternoon and therefore didn't get caught in the noon-time deluge that probably would have drowned me. I averaged 6:16 min/km for the run at an average heartrate of only 139. The heartrate is what gets me - I've never been able to run at that pace for that distance with that little effort. It's glorious!

Totals for the week:
Monday: rest
Tuesday: Bootcamp and 5.5 km of rowing
Wednesday: Hills (6X) - 7.25 km
Thursday: Steady 6km
Friday: Tempo 6km, 1.5 km warmup
Saturday: Steady 5km and weights
Sunday: Long 13 km

Total: running (38.7 km), weights (1x), bootcamp (1x), rowing (5.5 km)

Hills - grrr!

2009-09-11T10:50:00.000-03:00

I hate hill training. There, I've said it. If there is ever a run during the week that I'm liable to put off or skip altogether, it's hill repeats. I don't like getting that winded and I don't like working that hard. Running is fun for me and hill repeats, especially in this hilly ol' City of Lakes, are anything but.

I did them this week after skipping them for two weeks. It was ugly, it wasn't fun, but they are done. And last night I celebrated doing them the night before by going for a glorious 6K around Banook in the lovely cool of a still late summer night.

Last night is why I run, not Wednesday night.

On the road again...

2009-08-30T10:41:00.000-03:00

...after three days of travelling around New Brunswick with the girlies. I had hoped to get some runs in while away, but it didn't happen. Between long days visiting with old friends, taking the girls on hikes, sight-seeing, and a few too many drinks each night, the runs just didn't happen. Oh well.

I got back on the program today with my 10 K long run. The pace range for my long runs is broad - 5:53 - 6:38 min/km and I'm aiming for the slower end, so I've got the Garmin set to annoy me outside of 6:25 - 6:35. Unfortunately I'm having a hard time holding the speed down to that range and the average speed for the run was 6:22. Not bad, and a little better than last week's 6:17 average pace on my 6 K "long" run. Good news - I'm getting slower!

I am quite happy that I managed to keep my heart rate nice and low at this speed - average of 146 and after the first five minutes or so when it was strangely high (~ 160), it was really quite consistent in the 145-150 range.

I'm really happy the T is running now, too. She managed to get all of her runs in this week and I really think that she's feeling good about it. Her excitement about running is motivating for me, too. I hope she keeps it up.

Toodles.

Dear Diary...

2009-08-24T14:25:00.005-03:00

Dear Diary,

I am a complete and utter failure...

Just kidding. What I am is a complete and utter idiot for thinking that I could go from no regular running to running even a pokey half-marathon using a high-intensity program in three months. A natural athlete might be able to pull it off, but not a force-myself-out-the-door type like me. The long and short of the last six months is this: I started training for the Bluenose half-M in the winter, travelled just enough for work to detrack my training a few times, developed a series of nagging Achilles' tendon problems that put me off even more, and went to sea for 45 days on a boat with no treadmill.

And to boot, the chef on the ship was Italian, so weight was, um, gained; let's leave it at that.

I'm back now, have brand new sparkly shoes, have run with reasonable regularity for the past three weeks, and have targetted a (more modest) 10K in October in order to get my (more hefty) rear in gear. To that end, I think it's finally safe to lift my head in running company once again.

I've never actually trained for a 10K before, so it's interesting already. I'm using the Running Room program from John Stanton's book, so there are more runs per week (five days generally), but at a lower intensity than the FIRST training I tried and blew in the spring. Since first starting to run a few years back, running farther was always my intent - speed never mattered, just staying out on the road for what I thought was an increasingly astonishing period of time. To that end, I went from my first 5K to a half marathon inside of eight months and then followed up two years later with a couple more halfs and a full.

Training for a bit of speed will be a fresh change for me and running the shorter training runs will help me get back into the swing of things and get running back into my life. I missed it.

I still want to give the FIRST program a go at some point, because I have a feeling that there is something definitely right about it, but I have to discipline myself much better and build up a better base of running or I'll just go down the same injury/despondance path of the spring.

Toodleedoo for now...

Week 2 update

2009-01-29T13:58:00.007-04:00

I've been smoked with work the last five days or so as I prepare to travel and I've not posted an update recently. (Thanks for the poke, Jen!) Week 2 went pretty well, though work forced me to move my schedule around a bit and the flu bug that hit me forced me to miss one run, my speed intervals, outright. I managed to get my cross-training sessions in on the rowing machine, but I must cop to not getting my weightlifting sessions done. They're sooooo bbbbooooorrrrrriiiinggggg!

The weather this winter has been, like most of the country it seems, devilish. I can't remember running more on treadmills than I have in the past few weeks. Not ever. I think the city has cut back on street maintenance to such an extent now that there is almost nothing being spent on sidewalk clearing, and when they are cleared, nothing on salting/sanding. In any case, I managed two runs in Week 2 outside - my 8 km tempo run Tuesday (at 5:23 ave, 159 bpm ave HR) and my long run (15 km at 5:33, 153 ave HR) on the treadmill.

I have no idea why my heart rates were so similar from one run to the next - it's so weird I'm almost willing to blame the Garmin, but I don't think that's it. The tempo run was after work, on my 10 K loop home, and my long run was Saturday morning, so maybe the time of day played into it. Or maybe, since it was Sunday night that the flu bug hit, my heart rate was elevated Saturday as the illness set in. That sounds reasonable, probably something that I would have noticed if I monitored my resting heart rate from day to day. That seems like something only "real" athletes do, not wannabe's like me, so I have never done it.

Do regular people do that?

Also, it might be that my training speeds for the long runs are just too high and I'm running north of my purely aerobic zone. I'll play this out through to the Bluenose to give it a fair shake, but I reserve the right to run slower after than on the long runs.

I managed to get my speed work in for week 3 last night on the treadmill - 1000, 2000, 1000, 1000, with 400m rest periods in between. I didn't have the Garmin for that run so I don't have heart rate numbers, but I do know that I was right on my training paces 4:32 for the 1000's and 9:24 for the 2000. Treadmills are good for holding pace.

Hopefully I'll be able to keep my training up over the next couple of weeks while I'm away. There is a nice gym in Inuvik that I really hope has a treadmill. I didn't go in last year when I was down, but I intend to sniff it out next week. Next week's updates will be from north of the Arctic Circle.

Toodley-doo.

Long runs on treadmills and the first week done...

2009-01-18T19:43:00.004-04:00

I finished the first week of training with my 13 km long run, on a treadmill because the weather outside is frightful. (Cue music...) A shade over 13 km in 1:12:24 (5:34 min/km) with an average heartrate of 157, according to my Garmin, which is reduced to a heart rate monitor during treadmill runs. This is quite a lot lower than last week's 163, which I think I can attribute to issues you have to fight running outdoors - wind and topography, as well as the slightly slower pace. I ran today with the 'mill on a steady 1° incline, however the hills around here are appreciably greater than 1°.

Weekly totals: 33:2 km running and 15.9 km rowing. A good week.

Speed run Friday

2009-01-16T22:46:00.003-04:00

Speed repeats completed on a treadmill at the Sportsplex - 12 x 400m with 90 sec easy running between each and a mile warmup and warmdown. My average heart rates by interval were:

1 - 163
2 - 162
3 - 160
4 - 158
5 - 162
6 - 161
7 - 164
8 - 165
9 - 166
10 - 168
11 - 168
12 - 167

I didn't really feel tired during the repeats, though it's obvious that after finding my groove I did start to labour toward the end. Fun stuff.

I'm tired and it's time for a beer and the Battlestar Galacitica season opener.

Rowing, rowing, rowing...

2009-01-16T08:37:00.005-04:00

Did my cross-training row last night, and for the first time used my Garmin strictly as a heart rate monitor:

5 min easy (ave HR 105),
10 min med-hard (ave HR 131),
5 min easy (ave HR 123),
10 min med-hard (ave HR 142)
5 min easy (ave HR 123). Total

Total distance: 7.98 km.

It's the first time I've ever measured my heart rate during rowing, so the numbers are interesting. I have read that the maximum heart rate varies from exercise to exercise, but this is the first time I've seen it on myself. There is no way that I was rowing at maximum exertion, however just from perceived exertion, the 10-minute sprints (at ~ 25 SPM) felt as hard as a 5:30 min/km run to me, which would have put my running HR somewhere in the high 160's.

(I watched George Bush's final address during the first half of this exercise. Mayhaps I was feeling spriritually lighter?)

Oh, and for what it's worth, the Garmin said that I traveled 24 m during the 35 minute workout.

Cool.

First tempo run...

2009-01-15T17:48:00.002-04:00

Just a quick update - ran my first tempo run of the new training regime last night, on the treadmill at the Sportsplex because the roads are still pretty icy and it's jeezely cold. 10 km, (3.5 @ 6:00 min/km, 5 @ 5 min/km, 1.5 easy), finishing in 54:01. Felt good, but tiring. I didn't wear my HR monitor, but I did some spot checks on the machines grip one and I was in the mid 140's throughout the first section, and climbed from the low 150's quickly to mid 160's in the second, until the final half-km when it began to climb again, to around 170 by the end.

Tiring, but fun. Well, as fun as a treadmill usually gets.

Running update and my "friend"

2009-01-11T12:04:00.004-04:00

My running this past week completely fell apart owing to a visit from an old friend and an old "friend".

First, Wednesday's scheduled speed intervals didn't happen as the weather came down on us hard - icing the roads, glazing the outdoor track I intended to use and then, argh, forcing my gym to close early so I couldn't even try things out on the dreadmill. In retrospect I should have just called it a cross-training day and hit the rowing machine, it's in my basement after all, but I figured I'd get up early and hit the treadmill at the gym. That's when my "friend" showed up.

Insomnia.

Insomnia and I have a long history, and in the last year it's kind of come back. Usually it's stress-induced, but sometimes, like this time I think, it just happens. In any case, I didn't sleep a wink Wednesday night and got up the next morning and, preparing for the worst, went to work and had one of the most productive days I've had in months. Weird.

Productivity at work, where I'm sitting on my ass in front of a computer is one thing, I wasn't going to attempt speed intervals. Then, that night a friend, who was in town on business, called and he and I and another old friend went out for beers. At 2:00 AM I dragged my butt in the door and had a great sleep - sleeping in a bit and going to work a bit late. Working as a scientist with a computer instead of a lab, I can do that some days.

Friday night I managed a 7 km easy run, untimed, just to get out and get some air and Saturday I hit the gym for a good weight and ab session.

This morning (Sunday), I ran my last pre-FIRST training run, as the 18-week program for the Bluenose Half starts next week. I figured I'd reprise last Sunday's 13 km run, and managed to meet the target pace (5:33). I set the Garmin to lap count every kilometre and got this:

5:32 (ave HR 151 bpm)
5:34 (ave HR 160 bpm)
5:31 (ave HR 154 bpm)
5:36 (ave HR 161 bpm)
5:32 (ave HR 169 bpm)
5:34 (ave HR 167 bpm)
5:25 (ave HR 164 bpm)
5:28 (ave HR 163 bpm)
5:29 (ave HR 163 bpm)
5:34 (ave HR 165 bpm)
5:44 (ave HR 166 bpm)
5:34 (ave HR 167 bpm)
5:13 (ave HR 171 bpm) - the big finish!

I finished in 1:11:47, at an average pace of 5:31 (owing to the big finishing spurt, I guess) at an average heart rate of 163.

Just looking at this, I see that my heart rate increased a fair bit over the past few kms, even aside from the "big finish" final km. Like all routes around Dartmouth, it was hilly, which shows up in both the km paces as well as the exertion, particularly in the first and last few kms, but I can tell that I was tiring in the final few kms, both from the numbers and from the feeling I had on the road.

Hopefully this bodes well for the training program that truly begins this week. With any luck, visits from my "friend" will be few between now and May.

Happy running!

A ripping row

2009-01-06T23:29:00.003-04:00

Just completed a hard row - 30 minutes broken down thusly:

5 min easy (~ 21 strokes per minute)
1 min hard (25 - 26 spm)
1 min easy
2 min hard
1 min easy
3 min hard
1 min easy
4 min hard
1 min easy (thank gawd!)
3 min hard
1 min easy
2 min hard
1 min easy
1 min hard
3 min easy/cool down

Total 6.79 kms.

Phew. Tomorrow is my first set of intervals, 12 x 400m. This should be interesting.

Yesterday's long run

2009-01-05T10:28:00.003-04:00

Ran 13 km in 1:12:49 in relatively nice weather, but crappy road conditions. The snow from the New Year's Eve/Day blizzard was still around on the sidewalks, though they had been "cleared" by the city maintenance people. I think the problem is that the sidewalks in many places are so badly frost-heaved and broken that they set the blades on the blowers pretty high, resulting in about three or five cenitimetres of loosely-packed snow in many places, which makes for a tremendous workout for the muscles in the lower legs. My calves are still sore 24 hours later.

That said, the weather was lovely - cloudy, -8° C with a light wind - great winter running weather. Perfect, I think.

My time was a little slower than the target, 5:37 min/km vs. 5:33. But since it was my first attempt at a long run at that kind of speed, and with sub-perfect road conditions to boot, I think it was a great run. A very nice way to start the running year.

The Bluenose Half it is

2009-01-05T08:45:00.004-04:00

After a bit of soul-searching (sole-?) over the holidays, specifically after a couple of longish runs and some staring at training schedules, I've decided to target the Halifax Bluenose Half-Marathon as my next race rather than the Full. There are a couple of reasons for the decision.

The first is that about a year ago I picked up the FIRST running book and the training runs look challenging and I'd like to give it a try. Having read through it again and pored over the training programs I've determined that there is no way I'm ready for the first week of the marathon training program with my current level of fitness, but the half- seems doable. Hard, but doable. I would be in fine shape a few months from now, but not just yet.

Second, I could probably work myself into reasonable marathon shape using a five-day per week program such as the Running Room one I used to run in 2007, but I've been having a really hard time fitting in more than three or four runs a week recently and I don't know if that is going to change in the near future. The FIRST program has a couple of cross-training days in the schedule which are easy for me to fit in as I have my lovely WaterRower sitting in my basement and can easily point it toward the television for a half an hour in the evening after the kids are in bed. Five workouts a week is much simpler this way than trying to work around my wife's crazy work/class/symphony schedule and arranging for someone to be home with the kids while I run.

Finally, I've tested each of the major key runs in the FIRST program over the past couple of weeks, and while the training paces are challenging, they are fun. All I've ever really used in the past are the Running Room programs and while they have gotten me pretty far, I'd like to try something new just to shake things up. Besides, a new program gives me something else to geek about.

In any case, there is plenty of time later for marathons. After I've established a new half-marathon PB!

Update: It's done - I've just registered for the half. Now I'm officially committed.

10 K race test

2008-12-29T14:30:00.004-04:00

In an effort to gauge my current level of fitness, and to be honest partly out of morbid curiosity, I ran a 10 K "race" yesterday. The results were pretty ugly all things considered, but pretty much along the lines of what I expected. I did the loop of lakes Banook and Mic Mac, cutting through Shubie Park and along the trail and boardwalk - a semi-regular part of my long runs. Unfortunately it's quite a hilly run and in spots was quite slippery, and so not an entirely accurate gauge, but I shall rerun it again every few months and see where my times go.

For the record, the 10K portion of the run was completed in 52:34 and my average heart rate was an astounding 174 bpm.

I'm still assessing whether or not to run the full marathon at the Bluenose in May. This little test it part of the assessment.

Missing a run isn't everything... right?

2008-12-15T14:00:00.004-04:00

I had an absolute crap sleep Saturday night and missed my Sunday long run. I had thrown around the idea of running long this morning, but I slept in until 5:30 and only had time for a short 6 km. It was a great run, but I still want to get a long run in, so if all goes well tomorrow and T's schedule allows, I'll run late tomorrow.

I've been running 3 km tempos with a 1.5 km warmup / warmdown on either end. I can't remember exactly when or how I determined my tempo paces, but the Garmin had 5:00 - 5:10 set for the goal pace, and that seems to be working out well. I think that I'll start running two of these a week and will increase the mileage a little - maybe 4 km on the main part of the run.

Avoiding the trap

2008-12-10T08:46:00.005-04:00

My search for running goals hasn't really begun yet. I expect to just try to maintain consistent training for a couple of months, slowly building my mileage up. I guess for now, running in and of itself, without expectation, has to be good enough.

The question for now relates to how many runs a week to try and fit in. As I've been sort of idling my way back in, I'm working on only two or three right now, but that's because I'm trying to fit in two weightlifting sessions and a couple of rows. To get any more runs in, I'm obviously going to have to double up a bit - maybe row on weightlifting days. I seem to have hazy recollections of being most comfortable with four runs a week.

Working out and running early in the morning seems to work pretty well for me so far. It's been almost three weeks now that I've awoken to the 5:30 alarm and headed out the door to the gym or to run. The gym is pretty easy in the morning, there are lots of people and the social atmosphere is encouraging. The hard part is getting out to run - the roads are generally pretty empty, perfect for running, but I find I have to work to keep motivated in the dark. My MP3 player/FM radio helps on these runs - CBC first thing in the morning is a piece of normality for me, but it's still hard. Since my runs have been relatively short so far - 6 or 7 km max, they don't take very long, but if I decide to really work a program and have to start running intervals or 10 km or more on these runs, the time will dramatically increase.

Am I going to have to get up still earlier?

I am doing all of this other stuff to avoid the running trap. I fell into it three years ago when I blew my Achilles' tendon on a 30 km training run - running without proper cross-training is a recipe for injury and mental breakdown.

The injury bit is straightforward; the triathletes have it exactly right. (Although I still think they are mental.) After getting hurt a couple of years ago, I was forced to stop running for a couple of months. I found myself completely unprepared for the emotional effects of the immediate cessation of physical activity. Unsurprisingly, I gained weight, but what I wasn't ready for was how screwed up my sleep schedule got. I guess that I had been building up quite a lot of energy capacity from running, and with nothing to expend it on, I began having trouble getting to sleep at night, which lead to grouchy days and the spiral to total bastard was very quick indeed.

The trap.

Avoiding the trap is so easy that I was a complete idiot for falling in it in the first place. Cross-train. Cross-training with intent not only lets me balance muscle and connective tissue development, but it also gives me a physical outlet that might be able to take the place of running when an injury prevents it. It also gives me other chances to build up core muscle strength that can prevent injury to my back, which is always (ahem) at the back of my mind. Wonky back days trumps everything, so keeping it strong is job #1. I can row til I drop even when my knee feels a bit off. I can lift weights anytime, I just have to be careful with the injury.

The key with cross-training for me seems to be to not consider it secondary to the running, to put it on an equal footing. That doesn't necessarily mean to have as many cross-training days as running days, there just aren't enough in the week. It just means keeping it important, log it just as I do my runs, and above all, not to feel ripped off if I get hurt and can't run - make up for it with additional cross-training sessions as recuperation allows.

At some point in time, I promise to start swimming. I have promised this for a while now, but I will, I just don't know when.

Semi-public embarrassment or the threat thereof

2008-12-09T09:04:00.000-04:00

That's the reason for the blog, ultimately - partly as a "training" log, partly to clarify my own goals, and partly to act as motivation through the threat of embarrassment when I slack off.

I'm like many, my running goes pretty well when I'm actually doing it; I motivate quite easily to get out the door at 5:30 AM on cold winter mornings when I'm into it, but when my motivation flags, when my roll stops, it can stop hard. For instance, I ran the Bluenose marathon in 2007 and then almost immediately after went to sea for three months on board a vessel with no training facilities. On returning home, I couldn't get started up again. In the following year and a half, I started training twice, and only now, fully twenty months later, can I really say I'm back at it. When I look back, even in the training leading up to the Bluenose, my first marathon, I wasn't really into it like I want to be.

The fact is, I want to obsess about running. I want to think about my runs when I'm doing them and when I'm not. I want to look at my Garmin records over and over and compare my heart rates from one run to the next. I want to log my runs in Google Earth. I want to run when the weather is great and when it sucks. I want to read books about running and read magazine reviews about books about running. I want to be one of those idiots you see in the Halifax sleet in January on the side of the road, grimacing and splashing. I'm hoping this space will help me obsess.

That said, my goals for now are just to continue training through the winter to keep my fitness and spirits up. Running makes me a better partner, father, person, and those really are the improvements I'm looking for.