Time To Run

Marathon Week 3

2007-07-17T20:23:42Z

Week 3 starts today after the Monday off day. I got a new pair of shoes to work with so hopefully it will be smooth sailing. Didn't get to the AM run today as I ended up staying home yesterday as my wife had some kind of 24 hour flu. This time I am ready as I brought my clothes and will stop on my way home to get todays hard Tempo Run in. With warmup/cooldown factored in this will be over 10 miles.....

The schedule:
Tuesday - 2miles Goal Pace, 4x1mile Tempo w(1:00) recoveries, 2 miles Goal Pace.
Wednesday - 3 miles w/5x100 strides
Thursday - 70 minute run w/6 minutes of hills
Friday - Off
Saturday - 5 miles
Sunday - 12 miles.

The plan calls for a 5k race in a few weeks. I may move that week up or back a week depending on what race I want to run.

running alone vs treadmill

2007-07-17T05:19:31Z

As I got ready to do 4 miles on Saturday at the River Trail the thought came to me "wouldn't this be easier on the treadmill?" I mean it was a nice day outside but if you are running by yourself it can be hard to get started. Brigette made a blog post about things to do while on the mill and while some of them are tongue in cheek she does make some valid points. When at the gym on the mill there are things to look at ranging from the TV to others working out to observing the gym "scene".
Pace can also be controlled on the mill. Whether it is a speed workout where you need to hit a certain pace or an "easy" day when you need to avoid going too fast you can easily control the pace with a push of a button. Saturday I went out for an easy 4 and despite my telling myself to hold back I ended up doing 4 miles in 33:18 or just under 8:20 pace. If I had a coach I know it would be considered a little too fast compared to my 8 min goal pace. Sunday I planned to get my 10 in by doing a 4.3 mile loop on my own prior to joining the 6.42 club for their run. I tried to take the first loop real slow but still ended up doing it in around 8:20 pace. Overall I ended up doing 10.72 miles in 1:28:53 or 8:17 pace. I would like to do my long runs at 8:30-9 pace to start with the last few miles being at 8 min pace if I am feeling up to it. The beginning just needs to be a little slower.
I will continue to work on the "easy" outdoor pace in future runs as I don't want to be a slave to the mill except when necessary during the week.
33+ miles for the week which is an all-time record for me!

getting the run in

2007-07-13T15:01:44Z

The likelihood of me getting out to run drops as the day goes on. If it's a workday I need to go before work and if it's a weekend I need to go before the family wakes up. Once the day gets going whether its work, kids activities are my just not feeling like getting off my butt it just doesn't happen. Yesterday I couldn't (didn't) get out of bed early enough in the morning to go to the gym so told myself I would have to get to it later. I thought I had a window in the afternoon between seeing the close of Wyatt's and Travis' basketball camp and getting them to their golf class but that didn't work out. I was determined to get the scheduled workout in however! It's Week 2 of marathon training and this would have been a very weak reason to miss a day. So at 9 pm with the kids in bed I went to the gym. I've told myself I would do that many times before but never made it but this time I actually went.

The plan called for a 1 hour run with 4-5 minutes of Uphill Time. No pace was specified so I suppose that meant "easy" but I wanted to at least finish near goal pace so I warmed up to 7.0 over the first 10 minutes and did that for the next 10 and increased .1 every 10 minutes finishing at 7.4. I did my hills by putting the incline to 7.0,8.0 or 9.0 for a minute during each segment and I did cut the speed down about .7 on each hill to keep a more even effort.

7.02 miles in 1 hour.
Breathing felt real good - definately conversational if I had someone to talk to.
Legs - a little fatigued toward the end but overall ok.

Most importantly I got it in!

Best of luck to Jen and her husband as they tackle a half marathon this weekend. She did a great job on qualifying and running Boston and has appeared to have gotten her form back after the post marathon recovery Her husband has gotten out there also and recently pushed her pretty hard in a 5k. A little spousal rivalry can never be a bad thing....lol

easy day!

2007-07-12T00:04:28Z

For me one of the hardest things is to keep from wanting to push on a non-push day. It is weird for me running without ever feeling like you are breathing hard but from what everything I've read I need to do so in order to be ready for the harder workouts so who am I to argue.....

Treadmill for 3 miles + 4 100m Strides
Mile 1@6.8 with warmup 1/4@6.1
Mile 2@ 6.9
Mile 3@ 7.0
Strides at 11.5 recovering to walk at 4.0 for about 15 seconds in between.

Total 3.45m in 29:56.

Thanks Juls for the technical support. Your size recommendation was perfect though they aren't the same size in our respective blogs.

picture of the boys

2007-07-10T19:42:53Z

I was a little slow getting out of bed this morning but I made it to the gym and by 5:30 was on the mill. 1 mile of warmup and then did 2 miles at my marathon goal pace of 8:00 followed by 2 miles of tempo at 7:35 with the last half mile bumped up to 7:30 and then 2 miles at goal pace with the last mile bumped up to 7:53 pace. 1 mile of cool down gave me 8 miles in 65:17 total. It felt tough but not like a race or anything. I'm pretty happy with how it went. The way the plan works Tuesday seems to be the hardest day pace wise so I'll look at those to see if my 8:00min/mile marathon goal pace is realistic.

I know some people can't do treadmills for running but I seem to be one of those that can and my paces carry over pretty accurately from treadmill to outdoors. I'll be hooked up with this plan for the next few months but I came across a few good treadmill workouts on Natalie's blog. She's a bit faster than me right now but the concepts of the workouts are good and it appeals to those of you (like me) who like to push buttons while they run.

Oh yeah and I thought I would put up a picture of the boys in an effort to spice up the blog a bit. Maybe next I can figure out how to get my picture up on the left side....

1 Year Down

2007-07-09T23:11:55Z

Last week marked the 1 year anniversary of my "beginning" as a runner. When I started the main goal was to get into better shape to feel better, be able to run around with my kids, and to lose some weight. Overall it's been pretty successful. I find I have much more energy when I am out with my kids playing or coaching their teams. I can demonstrate a full court drill on the basketball court without needing oxygen afterwards. I can hurry to get around the stations during a baseball practice and still have lung power to give instructions that carry across the field. I have also lost almost 40 pounds which has been a big bonus.

My running started with me struggling to carry 9 minute mile pace for more than a few miles. In February, I did a half marathon with each of my mile splits below 8 minute pace. I ran a 10k on the 4th of July and found myself disappointed with my time of 47:11 despite a hilly course on an unusually humid SoCal morning. My training hadn't gone well before then as I got sick over the last few days of my business trip to the Philippines and only ran a few times on vacation the last week of June after that. Taking all that into account I'm not going to be too down on myself even though I was nipped at the wire by a 14 year old girl! (I had passed her in the 4th mile and was pretty far ahead of her at the 6 mile mark but she must have really turned it on....lol).

Now I have started training for my first marathon this fall. Week 1 of the training was mismashed around the race so I only followed my plan in concept but I did get in 32+miles for the week thanks to Darrell taking me out too far on what was supposed to be a 10 miler. (Seriously though it was great running with you and hope to do it again!).

This weeks schedule:
Monday - Rest
Tuesday - 2miles Goal Pace, 2 miles Tempo, 2 miles Goal Pace
Wednesday - 3 miles easy with 4 100m Strides
Thursday - 1 hour run with 4-5 minutes of uphills/
Friday - Rest
Saturday - 4 miles
Sunday - 10 miles

Going up another level

2007-03-21T17:30:40Z

Despite having my running schedule thrown out the window by my annual trip to Vegas for the beginning of March Madness I did my judgement day workout with miles at 7.6/8.1/8.6. It's getting to the point where I do cooldown at the end just to get 30 minutes in. Going to step it up another .1 next week but need to get some runs in before next Wednesday.

Progress - Looking Back

2007-03-07T19:04:17Z

At some point I had come across an article that was one of those that gave ideas for quick workouts that could be done on the treadmill. One of them said to warm up for 1/4mile, do a mile at a faster pace, recover for a 1/4 mile, do a mile at .5mph faster than the first mile, recover for a 1/4 mile, and then finish with a mile at .5 faster than the 2nd mile. This was labeled as a "30 minute" workout. I used this as what I called a "judgement day" in my training when I started last summer to see how I was progressing. If I could complete it without feeling like I was losing a lung i would increase each pace by .1. If I could barely finish it then I would leave the same and if I couldn't finish I would move back .1. This workout was done weekly. See the below which is taken from my blog post of August 17, 2006.

I do my midweek runs in the morning on the gym treadmill. Yesterday I did my weekly Wednesday trial run. The goal was to do 3 one mile intervals progressively faster starting at 6.5 mph for the first, 7.0 mph for the second, and 7.5 mph for the third. Warmup/recoverly quarters are done before the first and between the miles at 5.5mph. I was excited that I completed this very easily considering 4 weeks ago I couldn't even complete this series dong 6.4/6.9/7.4 for my miles. I felt strong on the last mile and even kicked up the tmill to 8.4 for the last 200. The result was 3.75 miles in 33:38 which gets me just under 9min/pace overall! Next Wednesday I will try to complete it at 6.6/7.1/7.6 with 5.6 warmup/recoveries.

Well today I got that workout done in under 30 minutes! I did 6.5 for the recovery and warmup and did the mile repeats at 7.5 (8:00 pace), 8.0 (7:30 pace), and 8.5 (7.03) pace. The last quarter mile I did the first 200 at 9.0 (6:40 pace) and 9.5 (6:19 pace). I actually had to finish up back at 6.5 to get a full 30 minutes in. So 3.83 miles in 30 minutes flat. It's great to see how much I have improved!

Next week will be at 6.6/7.6/8.1/8.6....

Back to Running

2007-02-27T18:32:55Z

I am back at running after going almost 2 weeks without doing a thing. I had been going at it pretty well since last July and going into my half-marathon was ready for a break. All the microtears should be healed from that race so I figure the break was a healthy one though I could see myself slipping into the non-exercise mode I was in previously. So I told myself it is "Time to Run". My plan is to get 3 days a week during the week and then 1 or 2 runs on the weekend. Nothing too crazy mileage wise but I want to build a base that can be used if I decide to do a marathon in the fall.

Today I did 5 miles on the tmill, starting out at 6.4 and increasing it .1 every minute to warmup. I maintained 7.3 for 10 minutes, 7.4 for 10 minutes and then 7.5 for the remainder. I did the 2nd to last quarter at 8.5 and then did the final one as a cool down at 6.5. I also threw in inclines as this is one area I want to emphasize to build up strength. After the warmup I did a 1 min hill every 5 minutes at 2.0,3.0,4.0,5.0, and then 6.0. The rest of the run was at my usual 1.0 incline. Total time for the 5 miles was 41:09. It felt good to run that pace and not feel like I was pushing (except for the last couple inclines...).

It's good to be back!

At the Finish Line

2007-02-12T23:57:04Z

Pacific Shoreline Half Marathon Race Report - The Race

2007-02-08T20:23:01Z

As i crossed the start line in what felt like "Wave 23" 20+ minutes after the start I told myself to relax and take it easy the first mile. There were lots of runners with paces slower than mine so I non-aggressively made my way through them. The positive thing about the wave start was that after about a quarter mile it was fairly clear and I could almost always find a path through the crowd by keeping my head up and planning ahead as I approached those in front of me. The first mile mark approached and as I came up to it hit the lap button on my watch and came up and saw 8:25. I grabbed a cup of water, slowed to a walk for a few steps once I was clear of the station to drink it and settled into a nice easy pace which I hoped was about 8min/mile. The next mile went very easy and as I glanced at my watch prior to reaching the mile marker saw that I was going to be right on. The split on my watch was 7:54 which was a little faster than I wanted but was so close to the goal that I just told myself to take it easy and not get any faster. I didn't see the mile 3 mark but at mile 4 hit my watch and saw 15:50 for the 2 miles and I was feeling really good. The first part of the course headed north on PCH away from Huntington Beach towards the Sunset Beach area and I enjoyed the beautiful morning with a view of the ocean to my left. The course continued on another mile in this direction and as I continued to pass people hit 5 miles in 40:01 which meant a 7:52 mile split. I was exactly where I wanted to be after 5 miles and most importantly was feeling great. The legs felt good and I was in a "conversational" mode which means that I would have been able to converse had I had people to run with. Since I had started so far back in the pack all the people that were running near my pace were way ahead of me. That was bad in that there was no one to pace off of or to race but good in that I could focus on my pace and passing all the people wasn't bad for my ego either.

]]> Right after mile 5 the course U-turned on PCH and headed back to the South. Since my splits seemed to be creeping faster towards the 7:50 mark I told myself to maintain for the next 3 miles then I would see how I was feeling. I was cautiously optimistic at this point and wanted to gain some time on 8 min/mile pace but wasn't ready to pick it up yet. Mile 6 was nice and I ended up with another 7:52 split and as I kept going into Mile 7 popped a Gel Blok into my mouth and I guess played with it in my mouth would be the accurate term on how to describe what I did with it. It probably took me a full mile to get 2 of them down but I wasn't in a hurry as what else did I have to do other than run and play with the Blok....The seventh mile was when I first started feeling a little tightness in my hip flexor but other than that was still feeling good. That mile ended up with an incline on PCH (we had gone down it after Mile 3 but I didn't really notice it then) which I could tell slowed a lot of people but I kept plugging and actually ended up with a 7:45 mile split there. After the 7 mile mark we turned inland for a 3+mile loop through a residential area. I could feel it getting a little warmer after leaving the direct proximity of the ocean and told myself to just take it easy and maintain my pace. The water/aid stops were about every mile (staffed pretty well too!) and I told myself to stop at each one now. I had skipped a couple earlier but wanted to take care of myself at this point of the race. I did Mile 8 in 7:46 and was starting to feel it a little more in the hips but overall wasn't too bad off. I told myself only 5 miles left and I had trained through times I had been hurting a lot more. The ninth mile had the biggest hill on the course which I thought I overheard someone say was the last one so I focused on maintaining my form, using my big muscles to push up it knowing that I would get to go back down soon and hit the 9 mile mark in 7:50. The 10th mile had a downhill equivalent to what I had gone up and I concentrated on floating down. The hills took some of the pressure off of my hip flexors so in a way the change in grade helped. As I headed back towards the coast I went through Mile 10 in 1:18:52 with a 7:37 mile split. They were passing out Gu at the intersection of what would have been either after Mile 8 or about Mile 9.5 but I passed on it. I still had some Bloks in my pocket (in a little baggie) but at that point I figured it wasn't going to do much for me.
Sometime after passing Mile 10 is when the race really became work. I knew that the 1:43 mark was right there for me simply by maintaing my pace but as I ran the 11th mile and reached PCH again it was taking more and more concentration to keep my form. They had balloons right on top of the mile markers and I hadn't seen a Mile 11 mark but saw a balloon up ahead. As I approached my watch read over 8 min. for the mile but as I got closer saw that the balloons were marking something going back the other way so I must have missed that mark. The course was headed back to the South towards Huntington Beach downtown and at that point wished I knew the area better. I found myself playing the games of "just get to the next light" and things like that. I even justified slowing down and told myself that even if I slowed I was still going to end up with a great time for me as I should still break 1:45. I felt like I was slowing down but as I hit Mile 12 my watch read 15:37 for the 2 miles so I was still running at a good pace. I could tell my form was going bad as my hip flexors didn't want to lift my legs anymore but I told myself it would be all over in another 8-9 minutes and that if I kept running it would be over sooner. I was still passing almost everybody I came up on as the 5k walkers were on the same path finishing their race and heard them call out "stay to the right" as the wheelchair marathon leader went by towards the finish. Finally I could see the finish line banner and balloons and as I got closer found a little spring in my step and dug down to the finish. I didn't see a Mile 13 marker but my split as I hit the finish was 8:23 for the last 1.1. Somehow I had kept up the pace the last few miles! My watch read 1:42:51 (my official time was 1:42:58).

It felt so good to be over and even better to break 1:43! I followed the crowd through the chute, got my chip cut off my shoe, grabbed waters, a blanket and headed back towards my car with a huge feeling of accomplishment as I rushed home to get ready to coach my son's basketball game....(that was another story which didn't go so well....)
After the game I went to the store picked up weekly groceries and Super Bowl munchies and rewarded myself by eating and drinking more than I should but Hey! I had earned it....

PS Half Marathon Race Report - Training - Pre Race

2007-02-08T19:01:01Z

The Pacific Shoreline Half Marathon marked the end of the third phase of my running adventure. I had started running consistently last July, struggling to run a few miles at over 9 min/mile pace, trained for a 10k in November running it in just under 47 minutes, and then went right into training for the half marathon. After the 10k I plugged my time in the various predictors out there which indicated my expected half marathon time would be around 1:43. This sounded very ambitious to me but I used that time to guide me to plug into the training plan for my tempo and interval paces. Training went ok but not great. I did not get all the mileage in as a lot of times I didn't get in one of the general runs in for the week and didn't get the mid plan races in but I did do the prescribed interval, tempo, and long runs. The toughest workout for me was a 4 mile run at half marathon pace followed by a 800 recovery, a 800 at 10k pace followed by a 400 recovery, and then 2 more miles at half marathon pace. The first time I tried it I was done after the 4 mile stint but the following week (the plan had repeat weeks) I did complete it. This was 8 days before the race. I had also done the last 3 of an 11 mile long run in under 24 minutes and the last mile of a 12 mile long run in under 7 minutes (thank Jesse of the 6:42's for that) so overall I felt I was ready though worried a little about losing about 6 miles per week off of the plan. I was also becoming a little burned out by the running. I think this was due to being in a dedicated training plan since September for the 10k where it was mapped out what I had to run each day. I didn't have the flexibility of doing a spin class instead of a run or to lift weights as it took all my efforts to find time just to get the run in. (let alone blog about it....) I told myself that after this race I would take a break to reward myself.

]]> For goal setting obviously the 1:43 would be my goal but due to the incompleteness of my training I made it my "A" goal. I felt that anything under 8 min pace or 1:45 would be great for that distance so that was my "B" goal and made finishing comfortable in the 1:48-1:50 range an acceptable fall back or "C" goal if thing didn't go well. My race plan was to start off easy and hold myself back to the 8:00-8:10 range the first 5 miles, pick up to the 7:50-8:00 range if things were feeling good for the next 5, and then take it from there. I felt if I could get through 5 miles in 40 minutes I could then gain almost a minute under the 8min pace miles 5-10 and then another minute the last 3.1 which would give me the 1:43.
Race day was a gorgeous day with an early morning chill of about 45-50 degrees but the sun was out so I wore a long sleeve tech shirt for the race. I got parking plenty early and hung out near the car for awhile and then walked towards the race area. After making a last minute potty stop I got to the start line about 5 minutes before start and got myself lined up. Hindsight would have been to get there earlier and scout it out as evidently they had a few different chutes where you could line up according to pace. The race had over 7000 runners starting on a 2 lane side of PCH so they had a "wave" start. Race time arrived and the first "wave" was allowed to go. From where I was I could not see where they came from but from using my height to look over the crowd I could see heads bobbing as they set off. Every 2 minutes or so they let another "wave" go. Though I was probably only about 100-150 yards behind the start line I could not see any movement of the people directly between me and the start line. Finally about 15 minutes after the start I could see some movement ahead of me and just over 20 minutes after the start my "wave" was allowed to cross the line and I was off.

Pacific Shoreline Half Marathon

2007-02-05T16:01:06Z

2/4/2007 Huntington Beach CA

Pacific Shoreline Marathon - Half Marathon
Bib: 2177
Name: Jeff Emenaker
Gender: M
Age: 40
Hometown: Orange CA
Place Overall: 647 out of 7386
Men: 508 out of 3229
M 40-44: 85 out of 500
AgeGrade: 59.37% Place: 1191
FINISH: 1:42:48 pace: 7:51
5.2 Mile: 41:24 pace: 7:58
9.4 Mile: 1:13:14 pace: 7:48
Chip Time: 1:42:48
Gun Time: 2:03:19
Splits:
Mile 1: 8:25
Mile 2: 7:54 16:19
Mile 3: 7:55 24:14
Mile 4 7:55 32:09
Mile 5 7:52 40:01
Mile 6 7:52 47:53
Mile 7 7:45 55:38
Mile 8 7:46 1:03:24
Mile 9 7:50 1:11:14
Mile 10 7:37 1:18:51
Mile 11 7:49 1:26:40
Mile 12 7:48 1:34:28
Mile 13.1 8:23 1:42:51

Race report to follow soon

Dedicated Runners

2006-12-23T20:50:56Z

As I prepared for my Xmas trip, I did some internet searching for running groups in the Boston area. Imagine my surprise when I came across a group based in Abington which is where we would be staying. The Colonial Road Runners website showed they had a group training run on Saturdays and a winter fun run series on Sundays. I sent an email to the address on the site and I got a reply to come and join them. Friday night a rainstorm hit the Boston area with rain being forecast through at least midday on Saturday. I wasn't sure anyone was going to show on Saturday morning but figured I would go check it out and if no one showed then I could legitimately take a rest day since I had done the hard run the day before. So I pull into the parking lot of the meeting place a few minutes before 8 and there is one car there. However in the next few minutes several more cars pull up and people get out. Keep in mind that there is a steady rain going though it is unseasonably warm by New England standards. I got out and introduced myself and ended up going on a nice 6 mile run with a great group of people. 10 of us were out there in the rain on a day where normally I wouldn't have even thought about running outdoors in California. The course they ran went by one of the members houses who wasn't with us that day but he did leave a trashcan out that had a gallon of water and papercups for us to get a drink along the way. I was very impressed by the dedication of the group and could sense that none of them thought it was any big deal to get out and run that day. I was soaked but very exhilirated as I finished up back at the school and enjoyed standing in the rain for a few more minutes before getting in the car to leave. Many thanks to the Colonial Road Runners for a great run! I plan on joining them tomorrow for their winter fun run and again next Saturday for a group run before coming home.

Running on the East Coast

2006-12-23T20:28:15Z

Our family got away to Massachusetts to visit my inlaws. I had mentally prepared myself for cold weather and planned on following my half marathon training plan as closely as possible though I did put an extra week in the schedule to allow for a "do over" week. We arrived Tuesday morning and went for my first run on Wednesday. My plan called for 2 1mile intervals at 10k pace and 6 200's at 5k pace. I haven't invested in a Garmin yet as the kids presents and other things keep getting ahead of it on the financial list but went out and used time to estimate the intervals. I did a warmup mile which I figured would take 9 minutes and then my first mile interval for which I ran at what I thought was 10k pace for 7:30. I followed that pattern for the rest of my interval workout estimating my interval distances by the time I thought they should take. An 800 recovery meant a 4:30 recovery and so on.... I am usually pretty obsessive about the exactness of workouts but in a way it was kind of liberating not being able to worry about it. I figure the important thing is I am getting a workout in and actually from what I measure in the car it is coming out pretty well. Oh yeah, the weather has been nice (about 40 out when I run mid morning) so it has felt good to bundle up a little and get into the crisp air.

]]> I did the interval workout Wednesday then an easy 4 mile run on Thursday around a loop I measured out. Friday called for a tempo type run with the first part being 4 miles at half marathon pace. So I trucked around the loop after warming up trying to push it but not quite race and ended up with 31:15 which felt about right on. I recovered for 4.5 minutes then did a mile at what I though was 10k pace by running harder for 7:30. After warmup and cooldown with some strides thrown in there it ended up being 8 miles in just under 66 minutes. It was a hard workout but a rewarding one to complete. I am especially enjoying the 40ish temperatures!