Workouts this week: Oct. 2-8

Getting faster! 

Oct. 2: Off
Took today off working out. Always amazed at how much time I have when I don’t run. I made dinner for Matt and me, prepped a salad for lunch tomorrow, caught up on SNL, did some dishes. It’s amazing

Oct. 3: Speed work at the track
Today’s workout was 10x400 at the track
The directions were to take the first few slower than 5k pace with short breaks (less than 90 seconds between each rep).

My 5k pace is about 7:20, so I was thinking about 1:50 per lap. Maybe faster since I want to get my 5k down closer to 7 minutes a mile.

Well everyone else at the workout runs 6-minute miles in their 5ks, so I was WAY behind the group. I was looking at my watch and running easy and strong and finishing 10-20+ seconds behind everyone. I was running great—but everyone is so much faster than me.

Can we have more people my speed at this workout? PLEASE. Would love someone to run with. (And since everyone is faster than me I was getting maybe a 60 second break. I knew because I had about 30 seconds left on my watch everyone we restarted laps.)

Splits
 1:48, 1:48, 1:43, 1:43, 1:40, 1:39, 1:41, 1:38, 1:38, 1:21. (7:09 to 5:19 a mile pacing)

I turned up the speed for that last one. Strava said 1:19. Mike called out 1:21. It could have been faster. I got boxed in by a newbie runner on the first 100 and couldn’t go around (despite me saying I was going to run with Sally and lining up next to her. This guy kept blocking Matt too.)

I was happy with this workout. I worked HARD but not too hard. I was working to keep those first reps as easy as I possibly could while maintaining.

Garmin. Again I tried setting the workout in Garmin.
But it wanted me to do a 90 second recovery after my warmup. (That is NOT what I programmed).

Wednesday: Your Pie Group run

I am THE WORST at going to group runs. (It’s probably been since June).

I had planned to do 5 miles today, but I saw an announcement for the Your Pie group run. And I’ve been meaning to try it for six months. I decided today was the day. So I went and ran some laps around the track and then did the run. (3.14 miles)

The perk is you get a ticket for free beer or gelato. I got some sorbet. I ordered a pizza to be a good consumer.

I don’t do group runs because I don’t run on the roads. (I worry about shin splints). And I like to pick my own route. It didn’t hurt to do a few miles on the road today. It was nice to see other runners. But meh. I think I’d rather run trails. (And I didn’t particularly want pizza after a hot run.)

Oct. 5
I really didn’t want to run today. I was tired all day. I came home and took a nap. But felt like I needed to get miles in. So I waited too late and didn’t actually start running until 7:04 (when sunset was at 7:10.) That first mile was okay. Mile 2 was DARK. Mile 3 was scary dark. Mile 4 was dark to the point that I needed a headlamp, but ran in the grass so it was okay. (The wood trails were darker than the trail around the fields).

IT IS GETTING DARKER EARLY. It didn’t think it would THAT dark so fast. But it did. I even saw a bat fly by my head on my last mile.

My plan had been to run 6 miles, but I didn’t have that in me. I ran 4 and I’ll say that’s good enough.

Oct. 6
I usually do Friday yoga after work at the student gym. But I went home and kind of did 10 minutes of yoga on my own. I did 20 minutes on the exercise bike and 30 minutes of yoga and 10 minutes of rolling. Apparently I REALLY needed to roll out my legs. Yikes.

Oct. 7: Saturday long run. 
I decided to do my long run today. And the plan was to do it solo. Matt was supposed to do his 12 mile run with a group, so I’d do 10 miles of trails by myself. (I couldn’t think of anyone to ask to run with me.) Matt slept through his group run and then decided to rest instead of run, so it was indeed by myself.

I probably waited a few minutes too long to start my run. I started it after 8 a.m. I ran the first four miles of Cook’s Trail, stopped and got water, and then ran a mile of Buckeye Trail to Lakeside Trail until I got to 5 miles and then turned around and came back.

My route wasn’t the best, because that section of Buckeye Trail was STEEP and I had to walk. (13% grade at the steepest and the hill goes on for a half mile). That’s not the mile I need to add on. So if I do 10 again, I’m not doing that section. It was too steep. It looped me around to Lakeside Trail and I was running downhill and there was a bridge, and I had so much momentum I almost went over the side of the narrow bridge (and there was a good 8 feet of drop under the bridge). I had to use my arms to save it. Eek!

The run back was a bit of a slog. I was tired. (I did see three deer.) It was 100% humidity and I could feel it. And running solo for that many miles is BORING and LONELY. Pandora quit somewhere around mile 7 so I put it on my run playlist on my phone. My hip flexors were sore on the last two miles, so I need to make sure to stretch them out. But I did it. I did 10 miles. And I didn’t walk on the last four miles back (I was so bored and tired. It was a mental effort not to quit, even though I wanted to.)

Then the rest of the day was super busy. We had a lot planned.

Oct. 8
I had 2 miles left to make my goal of 25 miles (since I ran shorter on Thursday). But I decided to get another speed session in. (One of the sub 22 5k training plans has speed work twice a week).

My idea was to see how fast I could run 2 miles. I haven’t done this in a while and it’s a little like a tempo run. I’m trying out race pace to see what I can run a 5k in.

I went to the indoor track (it was humid and storming outside) and did a short warmup (I was running late), and then ran 2 miles.

Garmin cannot figure out pacing for an indoor track. It never tells me my pace right. I tried the workout function as opposed to the treadmilll run. It was way less accurate. (Said I ran .78 miles total instead of 2, but it still had my overall time like a stop watch).

The track wasn’t too, too busy, so I didn’t have to weave too much.

My goal was 14:00. So two 7 flat miles. Ambitious? I think I’ve run a 14:20 before at the track. That calculated to 52.5 seconds per lap (if my math is right).

My first lap was 48 seconds. Too fast. I dialed it back. At the half mile point I was right at 3:30.
Mile 1: 6:49

(Which is the first time I’ve broken 7 for a mile since July. Workouts haven’t really called for it.)

So all I have to do is run 7:10 for my next mile and I made my goal.

At this point, I wasn’t checking my watch every lap. I looked down on occasion, but tried to FEEL where I should run. And sadly, this mile was a little slower. 6:57. For a total of 13:47.

WHICH IS FASTER THAN EXPECTED.

I was SO HAPPY WITH THIS TIME. And I’ve worked so hard, it’s GREAT to see my times dropping. (I didn’t know I could run that fast. I’d hoped, of course.)

It was a hard run, but I wasn’t DEAD after. It wasn’t unreasonably hard. It was also solo—so a possibly a little competition could make me a little speedier.

After that, I walked two laps, changed clothes and went to yoga. That was my stretching.

Workouts this week: 5 runs (1 group run), 2 yoga classes
Miles this week: 25