Monday, January 31, 2011

Last Week's Runs



Wow. It's a lot of running since Nike+'s week goes from Sunday to Saturday. I think around 31-32 miles for the week. But since I summarized Sunday last week:

Tuesday - Scheduled 6 miles. Actual 5.05 miles 1:00:06 - 11.53/mile. I ran outside in the afternoon which was great because there was actual sunshine. It's probably been 2 months since I've run in sunlight. Very nice.
Thursday - Scheduled 6 miles. Actual 4.04 miles. 49:02 12:07/mile. I was feeling very sluggish and only my motivation to not miss a run for the 3rd straight week got me out the door at all.

Saturday - Scheduled 11 miles. Actual 11 miles. 2:18 12:34/mile. Av hr 166/min. 2750+ calories. It was slower than the run on Sunday but felt much much easier. I think a big part of that was the hills/no hills. I ran at the park which is about 3/4 or more trail surface rather than asphalt/concrete. I also felt really good about my form. I listened through the Chi Running recording twice while running.
Sunday - I walked the kids over to the park to play and back. ChocolateDaughter rode her balance bike and ChocolateSon walked. According to iMapMyRun, it was .7 miles each way but I didn't record it on the Nike+ .


This is my January runs according to Nike Running. I missed two runs during the week but I still did 82.92 miles which is probably my most ever in a month.

Monday, January 24, 2011

Last Week's Runs


It doesn't look like much does it? That's because it's not.
Tuesday - Scheduled 6 miles. Actual 5.04 miles. 1:00:26 or 11:58/mile. I've come to the conclusion that at my current pace, it's simply not feasible for me to do 6 mile runs before work. Most of the remainder of the training runs for my 1/2 are 6 miles in the mornings so most of those will be 5 miles.
Thursday - Scheduled 6 miles. Actual - got up, very sick to my stomach. You don't want details but it's Gluten/Gluten-free related. Also, I unintentionally ate Gluten Wednesday evening and have now reset my no-Gluten for 3 weeks clock.
Saturday - Scheduled 11 miles. Actual - no running because we had ChocolateSon's party on Saturday and were getting ready for it all day, then having it.
Sunday - Saturday's 11 mile run. 2:12 (12:04/mile). Av hr 170. Calories - 2500+ I took my car to the shop for an oil change and then ran on the streets near there. I ended up running a street I'd never gone before and found some very nice up and down hills. It was good hill practice and the most hill running I've ever done but I think made my first 6-7 miles really tire me out for the last few miles. By the end I was pretty much running 2 minutes, walking 45-60 seconds. Considering the number of times I had to stop and wait for traffic lights, I'm pretty happy with the time. Without all those traffic lights, it would have been less than 12:00.
I'm not particularly sore from running today. But I am chaffed. I was wearing a very very old pair of hand-me-down tights. Last week when I ran in the them (5 miles) I got chaffed between the legs but this week was really bad. I put on some glide but of course the tights rubbed it off immediately. Within a mile or two of starting I could feel chaffing and thought that the tights were so old and worn that they were pulling down too much. It was uncomfortable the entire run. Well, I stretched and paid for my car and got in and looked and there was about a 4 inch diameter hole in one leg so no wonder they weren't helping. That leg just brushed and brushed against the other tight for 11 miles. It's torn up! I don't know if I'll be able to run tomorrow because of it.
The good news is that I had ordered a new pair of running tights (with reflective stripe) and new long sleeve tech shirt (fully reflective) Friday. They actually shipped within an hour of order so I'm hoping they will arrive soon.
Depending on my legs, I hope to have a better running week this week.

Monday, January 17, 2011

Last Week's Runs


I skipped a run last week due to staying up late and lazyness but I still had some nice runs and put up nice miles. True, the reason for the nice miles was that the prior Saturday run was scheduled for Sunday but still...
Sunday - Scheduled 10.2 (2 mile warm-up, 6.2 time trial, 2 mile warm-down). Actual 10.2 mile, 1:59 (11:40/mile). I ran at the gym on the treadmill due to the weather. I don't remember my average heart rate but my total calories burned was over 2300 for the 2 hour period. The Nike+ definitely recorded higher miles than the treadmills (1 - a new one that I used for the first 35 minutes, 2 - an old one that I used for 30 minutes then took a (2 minute) break to go to the bathroom and fill my water bottle, 3 - finishing off on the old one). I accepted the Nike+ mileage.
Tuesday - Scheduled 5 miles. I skipped it.
Thursday - Scheduled 6 miles with tempos. Actual - 5.03 1:06 (13:10/mile). I got to the gym earlier than usual to do the 6 miles but just wasn't going that fast I guess. I had to stop at 6:35 to stretch and shower. I used the second treadmill from Sunday and this time the Nike+ and treadmill miles matched exactly.
Saturday - Scheduled 10 miles. Actual - 10.1 miles. 2:00:29 (11:56/mile). According to the Nike + I ran about 10.75. According to the treadmill (a different one) I ran about 9.35. I split the difference. It felt like a really really good run and I was not sore like I was after the Sunday run. Ok, I was a little sore but mostly just because I had blisters on the bottom of both pinkie toes.
I only did the core workout 1 time last week. I need to pick that up this week.

Thursday, January 13, 2011

.1 Miles to go or maybe not


Remember yesterday when I had 0.1 miles to go to reach my 55 miles in 4 weeks goal? Well it gets stranger. I logged into Nike Running for something else and the goal was green which generally indicates that I've achieved it. But if you look on the right, it still shows 0.1 miles to go. At the bottom though - under Run Farther it shows 0 miles left.
When I was describing it to R last night she was like, "oh God! Put on the sensor and go walk around the block so it's no confused any longer." I did my 5 mile run this morning so once I sync, it will all make sense again...


Wednesday, January 12, 2011

.1 Miles to Go

One of the fun little features of the Nike Running site is that you can set goals for yourself. You can set a "run more" which means x miles in y weeks or "run more often" which means x runs in y weeks or "run faster" which means x runs of z speed or less in y weeks. There's also a burn calories one but that makes no sense to me since I use a HRM for my calorie calculations and find them not that useful in tracking my running progress. So a few weeks ago I set a "run more" goal of 55 miles. I never check up on these things but if you haven't met a goal or completed a challenge you always get an e-mail from Nike+ saying "your deadline is approaching..." I got one the other day and hit the view goal button and saw this.


Ha ha. I'm 1/10 of a mile from meeting the goal by next Tuesday. Although I've been sleepy and lazy the last two days, I think I can meet that.

Now I just hope I haven't cursed myself.

Monday, January 10, 2011

Last Week's Runs


I had a good week last week although the graph looks kind of wimpy. I don't really know why but the coach program scheduled the long run on Sunday rather than Saturday. I think it's the only time in the entire schedule that it does that. Actually that worked out well because we went to an out-of-town birthday party on Saturday. On the other hand, the weather Saturday would have been lovely for a run while Sunday was 35-40 degrees and rainy. Blech.
Sunday - I walked with the kids and R to the school so they could ride balance bikes and then around the track. They got tired of riding so I took them over to the play scape to play while R walked. 1.71 walking.
Monday - I met my friend LD at the gym to walk on the treadmill. 3.0 miles in about an hour. I'm trying to add some walking days to the schedule to get some more miles on. Also, it's awesome to get to see her more and catch up.
Tuesday - Scheduled 5.0 with intervals. Actual 5.0 with intervals. 11.03/mile. Just a great and fun run. The best in weeks.
Wednesday - Met LD again at the gym for another 2.93 mile walking on the treadmill in about an hour.
Friday - This was Thursday's scheduled 3.0 mile run. 3.12. 12:21/mile.
Saturday - I skipped the scheduled 2.0 mile run.
I've also started doing this core workout a few evenings a week. Last week I did it Sunday and Tuesday. This week, I want to do it 3-4 evenings.

Tuesday, January 4, 2011

Last Week's Runs




I had good runs last week. I still felt like I was struggling with getting my Nike+ calibrated but I actually feel like it's pretty well calibrated now.

Tuesday - Scheduled 4.0 + 15 minutes strength. Actual 4.0. I took R's smart phone and used the GPS to calibrate my Nike+. It was about 5% high at 4.24 miles so I lowered it to 4.0. 47.45 11:57/mile.
Thursday - Scheduled 5.0 with tempos. Actual 5.0 with tempos. 1:05 12:57/mile. Slow, slow, slow. I'm not sure why.
Saturday - Scheduled 5.0. Actual 5.0. 59:57 11:57/mile.

I've been feeling like this program is somewhat too easy but I looked at the next Nike+ coach program (intermediate 1) and it's significantly more. In particular it has a number of 6 or 7 mile runs on weekdays which are very hard for me. Any run over 5 miles requires me to get up earlier than 5:00 which seems a bit insane (even for me).

Rather than change my program I decided this week to make two additions:
  • Add core work a few evenings a week. I did the LoLo Jones Core workout that was on the Runner's world site Sunday evening and will try to do it 3x a week, possibly augmenting with a few more exercises.
  • Add more walking days.
Also, two friends/relatives mde donations on 12/31 and another friend surprised me with a donation today. So my fund raising is going well.

Monday, January 3, 2011

2010 in Running


Considering that I didn't start running until the very end of March and had never considered running before that, I feel pretty happy with my running progress. Once I got the Nike+ I logged 314 miles in 80 workouts. Before that, I had to go back and read my posts here and came up with estimated totals of 16 run/walks in April(33 miles? who knows?), 33 in May, 45 in June, and 41 in July (plus the 6 on Nike running). That's around 467 miles. Not bad and hopefully I'll about double that in 2011.

Sunday, January 2, 2011

2011 Goals

Last year I posted 3 goals. My progress on them:

  • Donate Blood Platelets 12x or more. I just looked and it looks like I did 16 double donations this year. So I beat that goal pretty handily. I've got a new boss at work and I don't feel as comfortable regularly taking time off to donate so it's pretty much stopped at this point. I may just donate blood at the drives we have at work this coming year since they're easier to get to.
  • Volunteer at a few rides or runs. Pretty vague. I volunteered at the Austin Marathon on Valentine's Day handing out Water and drinks. That was it.
  • Be more forgiving - I actually think I'll give myself a thumbs-up on this one. I have felt like I wasn't holding on to issues as long and I've been praying a lot to help me give up being angry or resentful.

So what are my 2011 goals?


I can't say that I have very many specific goals for 2011. I want to feel happy, to be relaxed, to be a good parent and a loving partner. And I want to run.


  • Run the Austin Livestrong Half-Marathon 2/20. (Committed).
  • Raise >$750 for said Half-Marathon (I'm at about $500)

How far, how much do I want to run this year? Do I want to set these goals?

  • Run 500 miles (9.61 miles per week)
  • Run 750 miles (14.42 miles per week)
  • Run 1000 miles (19.23 miles per week)

I've joined Nike Running challenges for the first two distances. I've also joined one that purports to be running across Texas from Orange to El Paso (1476 km or 915 miles).