Running week 5/11 - 5/17

[Susan Otcenas]

Tempo workout on the treadmill this morning.
1mi @ 5.5mph
4mi @ 5.9mph
1mi @ 5.5mph
.35mi walk to cool down
total elapsed time = 70 minutes

My legs are fried. After Saturday's triathlon, Monday's 8.35mi long run, yesterday's swim & today's tempo workout, my quads are definitely talking to me! Usually it's my calves that get tired first, but not this week.

Kacie - Maybe this is a no news is good news moment? It must be very frustrating though. Perhaps a few PT sessions will do the trick. I hope you're able to get out there soon!

jesvetmed - I have that problem with my Tuesday morning swim. I don't know why, but if there's one workout I bail on, it's the Tuesday morning swim. I always tell myself I'll do it in the evening, but truthfully, I only manage to accomplish that about 1/2 the time. Yesterday morning, sure enough, I bailed on the swim. Fortunately, I *did* manage to make it to the pool for an hour last night, so it worked out in the end.

[Jolt]

Yet another trail run/walk today, to enjoy the nice weather! I was out for about 1.5 hours but only 20 minutes or so was running (interspersed with walking breaks). Getting better but still some work to do!

[Urlea]

This morning was my first real post-marathon run. If felt so good to be out there again even though it was a brisk 35 degrees! I kept with the 3miler group most of whom had run the full marathon so our pace was nice & slow. Despite wanting to run the whole 3mi. with them I fell back about 1/2 way through to start giving myself walk breaks.

Like you said Spindizzy I do have another big race coming up & need to train smart in the limited time I have left.

My legs have been recovering surprisingly well. So I'm really encouraged by that. Woohoo, I can run again!!!

Overall I'm just excited to get back to training in general. Swimming & a short easy spin on one of the trainers @ the gym felt decent yesterday. I think next week I will feel confident enough to start training on the road-bike again. Right now I'm worried my quads will give out on me while I'm locked into my pedals.

Anyway...Keep running ladies!! Way to go on the speedwork!

[Crankin]

I went trail running again today; it was not my best run, but I forced myself to go. Of course the rain predicted to start tonight started as soon as I opened my front door, to put my Garmin out to synch up. I decided to go anyway, since I figured once i was in the woods, I would be protected a bit. Plus, it's about 10 degrees warmer than my last rainy run.
My lower back/hip is getting progressively stiffer as I run longer distances and my left neck is wacked out, too. I have an appt. Monday to see my rheumatologist, who has pretty much decided I don't have Fibromyalgia. Well, my goal is to get a scrip for PT and to avoid telling him I've been running. He will yell at me, as he's a slightly overweight guy my age, who is a cyclist. And he tells me to swim or "ride 5 miles." Since I can barely swim that's not going to happen.
Anyway, the run was slow and I felt stiff all over, although I have found going to yoga before running helps me immensely. All was fine until I was about 3/4 the way down the out part of the out and back. I hit a rock straight on and went flying, landing splayed out in the middle of the trail! Thankfully, no real damage. My left knee has some reddish abrasions, but arnica should take care of that. After I made sure no one saw me (it was empty), I continued on to the end, rested at the turn around for a couple of minutes and headed back. I didn't do the extra loop I intended to do, but I felt better on the way back. I ended up running 3.5 miles, at an 11:50 pace, about 1:20 slower than my last run on the road. I did walk again on the rock gardens, etc and took a few more walking breaks than normal.
I probably won't run again until Sunday or Monday; will be riding tomorrow and Saturday.

[yellow]

Crankin, it takes me at least 30 minutes to warm up. I know that it takes other runners far more talented than I at least that much time as well. Go easy on yourself. Walk more if you need or want to. Remember to keep it positive and fun!

Urlea, it's a 50k here in Utah. It's the first year for this event. I'm looking forward to it as it's in an area that is not normally open to the public. I just hope it isn't 90F. Could be based on the pattern we're looking at for the next week. If so, well, it'll be a nice, long hike (although there is a time limit...)

I had a 2-hour beat me up massage today during which she worked only on my legs and hips. Could have gone another hour on my calves alone. OK, I exaggerate. But they are really inflexible these days. I'm blaming it on jumping rope and box jumps. We'll see how they feel on my long run tomorrow.

[Crankin]

Yellow, you reminded me that next week I am going to schedule a massage at the massage therapy school that I discovered is 3 miles from my house! It's only 25.00 for a student to do the massage, but, something is better than nothing.
I actually feel less stiff today. I don't know if it's the yoga or the run. My hamstrings are killing me, though. I guess the 30 mile ride I am doing later will work that out!

[SJCzar]

Thurs. was my 5 mile tempo day. The last run before Sunday's HM. Very enjoyable. Maybe I can almost start to think of myself as a runner (although a slow one).

My daughter, the super swimmer in the family, has been making sure I get to the YMCA and swim laps. We went last night and again this morning. I was satisfied to just do my 400 meters and another 100 with the kickboard and head to the hot tub but she wouldn't let me get away with that. 3 more laps before I could hit the tub. I made the mistake of saying that since I take less breaks, and we get done sooner, we could sleep in a little later next time. Oh no way - she told me that it just means that we'll get there early still but I'll just have to swim more laps. Wait ... who's the parent here and who's the child? I guess at least I'll feel more prepared when that first sprint tri of the season rolls around next month.

I'm very excited about the weekend's events. I'm going to a few pre-race talks on Sat., pasta dinner, and then hopefully a good night's sleep at the hotel. There were some bad days while training where I thought I'd never be able to run 13 miles but surprisingly now I feel fairly well prepared. We're even bringing our mountain bikes along with the hope that we'll have enough energy afterwards to go do a few loops on the local area trail. Sounds like a good idea in theory but .... we'll see.

[divingbiker]

Did my second-ever 5K this morning, and improved my time by 30 seconds. Still slow as molasses in January, but I managed a sub-12 minute/mile pace this time.

I just love the environment of races, and am going to try to do at least one each month into the fall.

[skhill]

I'm so excited!!! Ran 55 minutes this morning; that's a new longest for me (but I haven't figured out the distance yet). And I felt great afterwards, until about half-way through mass later this morning when my stomach started growling (I did eat...) and my calf started cramping (damn kneelers).

The other cool thing today was that I finally got up the gumption to run in the slum just to my south. At 6 am, the prostitution market is shut down for the morning, thankfully, and I only encoutered 2 falling-down drunks... Still, I'm thinking of getting some pepper spray if I decide to run there often....

[OakLeaf]

Yeesh, I have been such a slug this week.

Honestly I might not have run today if DH hadn't woken up two hours after I'd had breakfast, and decided to fix us a mess of blueberry pancakes. With those in my belly, I had to run.

Did the same loop I did last week, 8.3 miles, unbelievably I ran it a little bit faster @ 10:18.

The trouble with depression is that the disorder itself makes it so hard to do what I know I need to do to get through it. Great runs all you gals and good to hear the recovery's going well. Thanks for the inspiration.

[SJCzar]

My half-marathon on Sunday was really fun. I faithfully followed a 16 week training program leading up to the race and I think that really gave me the confidence to go into the event feeling totally prepared.

There was close to a total 10,000 runners doing the marathon, half-marathon, and a 5K (which started a half hour earlier). Because of the amount of runners the pace was a bit slow going out for the first mile or so but after that people seemed to be able to get into their zone.

The spectators in Green Bay were really enthusiastic. They were very supportive with their signs, words of encouragement to all the runners, boom boxes blaring upbeat music, and bands along the way. The event was very well organized and there were plenty of rest stops.

I made all my goals. First - enjoy every minute of it. Second - don't walk at all (except for while drinking at the rest stops - I have not perfected drinking while running yet). Lastly - keep the overall pace under 11 minute miles. I had to keep slowing myself down because I was running faster and was afraid I would wear myself out for the last few miles. I never did feel too tired out so I probably could have run a bit faster but I was more concerned about having fun and ending the race on a positive note. I really wanted to be able to think of it as my favorite race ever - which it was. It was much easier to stay motivated for 13.1 slower miles then it has ever been for me for a faster paced 5 K run.

One of the coolest features of the race was being able to run through the player's tunnel out into Lambeau Field to take a lap around the track. The sound system was cranking and the stands were filled with people. After that it was back outside the stadium to the finish line in the parking lot.

Now that the half-marathon was such a postive experience my running buddy and I are already thinking about training for a full marathon in the fall .... but perhaps that's just the after-glow of a fabulous day and the reality of the commitment of that many miles will sink in first.