Wednesday, March 28, 2012

Purple!


Black is the next (and last) level. It is 1552 miles away or as far as I've run already. I expect it to take me 18 months or so to reach it.

Tuesday, March 27, 2012

Last Day Blue!


Today should be my last day to be Blue in Nike Running. I turned blue on May 9th of last year so it's taken me nearly 11 months to go from 999 km/620 miles to 2499 km/1552 miles (932 miles). Purple goes to 5000 km/3106 miles so I'll probably be purple for at least 18 months before I turn black.

Monday, March 26, 2012

Big Brother Blanket/Labyrinth Blanket


I finished my third Labyrinth blanket this weekend for our relative's (sort-of) son who will be a big brother soon. The first two were a big brother blanket and ChococolateDaughter's blanket. This time I made the background red and then used a blue yarn with silver in it for the walls.

Training 3/19 - 3/25


Wow. 17 miles? That's a pretty low training week.

Tuesday - 4.25 miles 47 minutes (11:03/mm) plus .6 walking. I ran up and down the hills on the street near work. A good run. 2:00/1:00/

Thursday - 4.1 miles 49 minutes (11:57/mm) plus .6 walking. I ran over to the park. I was feeling quite sluggish so I ran 2:00/1:00.

Friday - I skipped it to have lunch with a friend who is working out of town.

Saturday - 7.39 miles 1:54 (15:39/mm) I should have run 10 x 800s but instead I decided to try a MAF test from the Phil Maffetone book The Big Book of Endurance Raining and Training. So far, I'd summarize his book as saying that most athletes are training at too high a HR. He wants you to train below his aerobic threshold rate or 180-age (136 in my case). So the MAF test is 5 miles at or below that rate and you time them and see what they are. For me it was 13:12, 15:24, 16:11, 14:07, 15:17 in other words terrible. I stuck with that HR throughout.

I posted a pretty detailed note on daily mile and actually got a Facebook message from a friend (and runner) cautioning me against giving too much credence to the theory and particularly against training slow. Her point: "training slow gives you muscle memory of running slow."

I doubt that I'm going to embark on his recommendation to run at or below that level for 4 months. It sounds very painful and slow. At the same time, it would probably be a good idea for me to schedule more zone 2 runs and pay attention to my HR rather than running in a higher zone so often.

Saturday - I finally got back to the You are Your own Gym (YaYoG) workout, doing Week 1, Day 3 (upper body Ladders).

Sunday, March 18, 2012

Training 3/12 - 3/18



Tuesday - 5.22 miles in 50 (9:36) minutes plus .6 for walking warm up/down. I went over to the track near work to try and get in a magic mile. I made 10:03 which was not an improvement (9:46 for the last one) but I was dodging other runners and guys doing repair work on the track. After the mm, I worked on opening my stride and ended up logging fast miles. Quite obviously the Nike+ overestimated my distance but it did feel faster than usual.

Thursday - 4.34 in 48 minutes (11:03) plus .66 in 12 miles walking warm up/down. I went to the park to run a 3:00/1:00 ratio. I don't know exactly the distance but I ran farther than I usually do in that same location.

Friday - 3.0 miles 48 minutes (16:00). Easy Friday walk. I got up at 6:00 to do my walk before we left town for the weekend.

Sunday
- 12.40 miles 2:44 (13:13) including my walking warm up/down. We're out at the farm. I ran county roads with a 1:00/1:00 ratio. It was a nice run with some humidity and around 68 degrees.

Tuesday, March 13, 2012

Galloway 10 Mile Race Training Plan

The Galloway Training Programs book has a 10 Mile race training plan.  It is 15 weeks long (including 2 post weeks post-race) so I'm not doing the full thing since the Austin 10/20 is April 15th. Basically I joined in around week 7 of the plan after a few post half-marathon weeks.  Every week has a 45 minute run on Tuesday, 45 minute run on Thursday, and easy walk on Friday. I'm not putting those in the table.  By the plan I should have done a magic mile last Tuesday so I'll plan to do one this week.  The plan Sundays are:

DatePlanned Run
03/0410 miles
03/119 x 800
03/1812 miles
03/2510-12 x 800
04/0114 miles
04/084 mi MM
04/1510 Mile Race

Monday, March 12, 2012

Training 03/05 - 03/11


Tuesday - 4.55 in 50 minutes (10:59/mile) plus walking warm up/down. I ran over to the park and through it. The weather was gorgeous. 3:00/1:00 ratio.
Tuesday - You are Your own Gym (YAYOG) workout Week 1, Day 1. I finally started the YAYOG workouts again. I liked it back in November but then I had to return the book and then I got it for the holidays but I didn't want to start while training for the HM. The first day is basically arms. It was a good but hard workout.
Wednesday - Walking to/from lunch. YAYOG Week 1, Day 2. I used the Android app for my exercise which is nice. It tells you how long to exercise and rest. Legs.
Thursday - I could not run due to being in training and taking an hour (only lunch). I walked about 2 miles in 30 minutes.
Sunday - 7.0 miles 1:30. 50 degrees and raining for about half of the run. 9 x 800 repeats per the Galloway plan for a 10 mile race. My target was still 5:33 since I have not run another magic mile. Actual: 5:08, 5:12, 5:17, 5:17, 5:08, 5:15, 5:17, 5:23, 5:11. A very good run. The last 3 repeats felt easier than the first 3. I feel like I'm starting to get into a nice posture and rhythm in my running.

Monday, March 5, 2012

Running 2/26 - 3/04


I had a pretty light running week.  I missed Tuesday entirely due to a funeral in an especially emotionally sad situation. 

Thursday - 3.86 in 47 minutes (12:10) plus the walking warm up/down.  I ran the hills near campus at a 3:00 - 1:00.  It was a good run.
Friday - 4.56 in 56 minutes (12:16) plus the walking warm up/down.  I went to Clark Field on campus thinking that I would do the three 1600 repeats (target of 10:50).  I did the first in 10:48 but knew 3/4 through the 2nd that it wasn't a good day for 1600 repeats - either because of the previous day's run or the heat (81 and Sunny).  There was a runner there named Tony who was "trying to get back in shape." By trying to get back in shape I mean he was running 400s (fast, very fast).  We chatted while I was running my run/walks and he was warming down in bare feet.  He was very nice running and then walking with me although my pace was obviously no strain on him.  He says he is trying to break 17 minutes in the 5k.  Wow.  Yep, that's my statement about that.  Wow.
Sunday - 10.29 in 2:19 (13:30).  LSR.  About 71-73 out.  My Galloway target for a training run should be 13:36 and I felt a bit slow until I realized I was beating the target and it was hotter out.  I concentrated on running tall and a good foot strike.  It was a very worthwhile run. 

I've been tracking my food on Livestrong.com and the Livestrong mobile app.  I really would like to lose another 10 pounds or even 15 mostly because I would like to see if it makes my running easier and faster.  ChocolateWife has had great success with Noom. I like Noom but prefer Livestrong because:
  • Noom takes the predicted calories from your predicted weekly exercise and uses those to raise your calorie allowance averaged over the week while Livestrong leaves your daily average the same but adjusts daily by your calories burned that day.
  • Noom will only do that adjustment by the predicted calories rather than actual.  I know from my HRM readings that my actual calories burned are 80-100% higher than Noom predictions.
  • Noom doesn't assess workout or post-workout nutrition well.  When I do a long run, I will usually consume 2 or 3 energy gels and then a post-workout recovery drink.  Noom sees that as around 550 red calories which means that I will go over calories for the day and have way too much red.  Livestrong just lets me enter those calories but since I can also enter that I burned 2000-2400 calories running, it's no worry. 
Of course the real test will be whether I lose some weight.