Time To Run

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.

Posted by Jeff at 12:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (1632)

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!

Posted by Jeff at 9:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (1301)

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

Posted by Jeff at 7:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

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.

Posted by Jeff at 4:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

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....

Posted by Jeff at 11:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

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

Posted by Jeff at 3:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

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.

Posted by Jeff at 9:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

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....

Posted by Jeff at 11:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

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!

Posted by Jeff at 10:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Today, I got signed up for the 10k which will be my first race since starting running in July. I will be doing the Dana Point Turkey Trot. It is a fairly big race and I'm sure there will be plenty of people to pull me along.

I have made it back from my trip to Manila and think I am just about over the jet lag though today is one of those times I feel prettty sluggish. Last Sunday, I had a great run with the 6.42 group as I went out and ran at a pace which matched my best time for that loop but I wasn't pushing hard as I had 2 more additional miles to do afterwards to make it my long run for the week. At first, I was thinking I was going too fast but it felt really good, I was able to converse easily with my dad (who is an amazing runner) and we ran the whole way together chatting about things and ended up at 8:30 pace for the run and probably more like 8:10-8:15 pace for the last half. That was very encouraging to me to be able to run that pace so comfortably! As mentioned above, I finished up with 2 more miles which I ran at about 8:40 pace. All in all, a very good running day for me.

Posted by Jeff at 10:16 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

After compiling 15.5 miles during the week I decided since I was feeling good that I could shoot for 30 for the week. I had my 6.42 group run on Sunday so I would need 8.08 on Saturday. Saturday morning came around and I decided rather than leave the house in the dark to get it in before kids sports day I would go in the afternoon once it was done. Usually that is a time where we sit down and relax after running around all day to the various fields and the kids are content to do their own thing and unwind also. I figured I could go then and cleared it with my wife so she would know I had it planned. Then I got the idea that since it was looking to be a warm day, rather than running the neighborhood route I could go to the gym and watch what was being called the greatest college football Saturday of the year. I mapped out a plan that would have me doing 8.25 miles and got started.

Continue reading "30 wasn't meant to be....." »

Posted by Jeff at 3:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

So when I started this running journey the main goal was to get in shape. I'm the type that thrives on numbers/stats (Besides blogging I also have a spreadsheet I made up which tracks my progress and if I knew how to post a file I would so maybe you are fortunate I don't. LOL ) and I have seen some good results. In August alone, I lost 6 pounds and in looking at my runs my pace improved almost 30 seconds per mile in my various runs. I don't have particular weight or pace goals in mind as I want to mainly stay focused on getting in better shape as I figure the weight will take care of itself. (though I do have some numbers in the back of my head that I think would be good).
When I started I had planned on getting to September and then finding a race to train for. This race would provide motivation and give me numbers to shoot for and help keep me going. Training wise I am very pleased at where I am but it looks like I am going to adjust my thinking on the race. This Saturday starts the fall sports season for my 3 boys which results in 4 games for my wife and I to get the kids to and from. She coaches my youngest' soccer team and I'm an assistant on my oldest' baseball team so that adds to our fun. The schedules are all in and basically Saturdays are out of the question for me as our day starts by 9am each week. There is also not much on Sundays coming up except for a few 5k's and I think I want to run something a little longer to start.
I also will be going on a 2-3 week trip to the Philippines for work the second half of October. From what I hear, the hotel has a nice gym with treadmills though it doesn't sound like there will be any outside running unless I want to take a 15-20 minute cab ride as traffic is very busy in downtown Manila. I believe I will have a lot of time to hit the gym when I am there as I will be primarily working on a night shift to equate to our day shift and there won't be much else to do.
So basically my plan will be to continue as I have been, increase my mileage to about 30 miles a week, continue to get faster, maintain my training during my trip and find a race in November to run and see what I can do.
If I happen to lose some more weight that will be a bonus!

Continue reading "The Next Step" »

Posted by Jeff at 10:44 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

So my nine year old's baseball manager went on vacation and asked me to run practice while he is gone. Friday we are finishing up with batting practice and since none of the other assistants jumped at the opportunity I started pitching. We had 11 kids and they were getting 15-20 pitches each and after about 4 batters I noticed that my left quadricep (lead leg since I throw right handed) was getting very fatigued. I toughed it out but the leg was pretty sore. You would thought my arm would be hurting but I guess the motion of stepping out with my front leg and landing on it was putting pressure on muscles that aren't getting tested by running.... And I thought I was getting in shape......

Next practice is Wednesday.

Continue reading "I should stick to running" »

Posted by Jeff at 12:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Today was a day where it is good to run in the morning. My judgment day mile repeats went well so I will up everything .1mph on the treadmill for next week. The last one at 7.6mph(7:53 pace) was tough but didn't wipe me out and my breath remained in control so I continue to get faster!

Last night, my wife mentioned our SUV was making a funny noise when she stepped on the gas. I checked it out and agreed so decided to take it in this morning. Well, I didn't make it in as on the way to the dealer it wouldn't get into gear anymore and would just rev up when I hit the gas. I had to call AAA to pick me up and tow me to the dealer. It's a 2002 with about 41k miles on it so just over the standard factory warranty but luckily I had purchased an extended warranty to 6 years/60k when I purchased the vehicle. So that took most of my morning by the time my wife picked me up from the dealer so my work day was shot. I called the dealer at the end of the day and he said it was the front clutch and they would be tearing it down tomorrow and thought they would have it ready on Friday. We will see.....

At least the run was good :)

Posted by Jeff at 5:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Sunday was 6:42 day. There is a group in Villa Park that has been around for a long time and I guess they got their name by having their base course be a 6.42 mile loop that they run starting at 6:42 am every Sunday. Rumor has it that someone with a GPS (I can't call it a Garmin or other name until I have one of my own......LOL) recently measured it at 6.47 but with tangents and everything who is counting. The five minutes extra sleep would be nice though!

It was tough getting up but I got there just in time and off we went. The faster runners in the group had run a 10 mile race the day before so they started off slow. I started easy and was running with one lady, Michele and as we went off noticed after a couple miles that no one was going with us. Kind of like a breakway from the peloton and the peloton wasn't bothering with us because we weren't contenders....

Anyways we ran together not pushing really hard just trying to stay steady. It seemed like she was feeling it a little more than me as I would end up a couple steps ahead on occasion and she would have to catch up but basically we were crusing along. The course has about a 1/4 mile incline towards the end of the 4th mile. Michele opened up about 10 yards on me by the top of the hill and then she picked it up afterwards and opened it up to about a 30 second lead which I couldn't close. One of the fast guys in the group, Jesse decided to make a run at us, caught both of us and paced her to the finish. The good news is that I ended up running the 6.42 miles in 56:27 which was about a minute and half faster than the previous Sunday. Once again the extra weight couldn't be helping me. Maybe its kind of like carrying a 20 lb weight belt on my waist. I can only imagine how it's going to feel and how I will run when it's gone.

Continue reading "Hills kick my butt!" »

Posted by Jeff at 3:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Whomever said the above is exactly right.....

Saturday, I woke up for the planned long run (about 8 miles) and basically it went off real well. The course I took is from my house running through a residential neighborhood to a reservoir that has a 1.7 mile path around it. The neigborhood part has some ups and down and the reservoir trail has one section that has a 50-75 yard downhill followed by a short flat area and a 50-75 yard uphill. I did 3 laps around the reservoir. It was nice out, still overcast, and there were some walkers and joggers out that I could greet as I went around. There is also a water fountain that I stopped at each lap. Then I ran home. Coming home leaving the reservoir you have to leave and go up a steep ramp like stretch. Only about 30 yards but at an incline where you really have to lean forward and push. Following the ramp is a more gentle but still substantial slope that last about 150 yards. That took a lot of work and reminded me that the extra 20-30 pounds I carry right now is killing me... I recovered after that and jogged home feeling pretty good. My hip flexors were telling me they were tired but I just kept telling myself to relax and keep my form. Overall a good run. I ended up at 1:16:36 for 8.3 miles.

Continue reading "Never grocery shop on an empty stomach!" »

Posted by Jeff at 3:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Ok, I am giving myself a complete day of rest today. I have had a real good 2 1/2 weeks of training logging in 23 and 25 miles the last two weeks and getting my average pace up about 20 seconds per mile. I normally wouldn't run but I would be tempted to cross train. Since yesterdays easy run ended up feeling like a moderate run I decided to take this day off.

For the weekend I am planning to a "long run" on Saturday increasing my 6.6 miles to a little over 8. I won't push for time on that except for the last mile or so if I am feeling up to it. Sunday I will run with a local group that does 6.42 miles. Usually the group starts off together then gradually people go there different paces. That will give me a 28 mile week which is probably the most I have ever run.

Next week I have already decided to step it back and will reduce my Tuesday and Thursday runs down to 30 minutes from 40 and keep Saturday at around 5 miles.

I started this running commitment at the beginning of July with my initial goal being to establish a running base and routine. Overall it has gone well so my plan is at the end of August to find a race (probably around 10k) to train for and establish a baseline race pace for me that I can use for future training.

Long term I want to run my first marathon and the dream that I am keeping stashed away at this point is to run Boston. The pace that I would need to run to qualify seems very daunting at this point but who knows?

Posted by Jeff at 9:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)