Nashville & Indy Half: Week Five Training

My favorite run day is Monday’s. Mostly because I run outdoors and the route is pretty much the same every week. It’s a loop so sometimes I run in clockwise and other times I run it counter-clockwise. It really changes things up because the hills come at different distances and the slope and length changes. It’s been a month of Monday’s since my last Monday run. For now anyway, it seems I’ve gotten past my back issues. Just hoping it stays that way.

There was a light ran coming down on Monday morning. I has to be a really gully washer or thunderstorm to keep from going out on a run. I’ve really been concentrating on my run cadence lately. I’m getting pretty good at keeping it at 180 strides a minute. I catch myself losing concentration sometimes and my cadence will drop but even then I can keep it above 170. I started a little fast for my current fitness level and that’s probably because I was excited to get out there. After the first mile I settled in.

Wednesday was my treadmill workout. Overslept a little bit but woke up early enough to still squeeze it in before work. Same as Monday I concentrated on cadence. It’s easier to monitor on the treadmill because I have a clock right there. I wear my Fitbit so I still could on my outdoor runs but most of the time I’m running blind without contacts or glasses. Can’t read my watch without one of them.

Not much to say about the Thursday treadmill run. Did it. That’s about all I can say. Before I could go out on my long run on Saturday I had some paperwork I had to get done first. It took me much longer than I thought it would take but I got it done and started my run at about 10:20 a.m. My pace was really slow. Not sure why. I guess the wind might have been a factor but I really wasn’t feeling it until about the four mile mark.

Today I went to the gym to do some strength training. I haven’t done this in a year for sure. It went well but I’m betting I’ll be sore tomorrow morning.

Overall, it was a good week. I got all for run days in and about 90 minutes of strength training. I reviewed where I’m at today compared to where I was at this time last year and man what a difference. I’m fourteen pounds heavier than I was a year ago. My running pace is much slower as well. Probably because of the extra 14 pounds. Get rid of that and I think I’ll be in pretty good shape for Nashville. Easier said than done though. I do need to start watching what I stick in my mouth for the next 6-8 weeks. Even ten pounds gone would make things a lot easier.

Ok, that’s my report for this week. This is the best week I’ve had in a while and hopefully things will continue this way!

Breakdown for the week:

Monday: Ran 3.93 miles.
Wednesday: 14 minute race pace/2 minute walk/12 minute race pace.
Thursday: 9 minute run/1.5 minutes fast+2 minute walk (x4)/9 minute run.
Saturday: Ran 7.11 miles.
Sunday: Strength training and stretching.

Approximately 14 miles for the week.

Nashville & Indy Half: Week Four Training

Only got in two runs for the week but I feel good about where I am today. My back issues kept me from running on Monday again but I ended the week without the nagging back problems I’ve had for the past three or four weeks.

I got my treadmill workout in on Wednesday and since I was off on Friday I decided to hold off on my Thursday treadmill work for then. Unfortunately, life got in the way. I had noticed my internet data usage had really gone up the past two weeks but I couldn’t figure out why. On Friday morning I discovered I had used 7 terabytes in February and was very close to using 1 terabyte in the first two days of March. Yes, terabytes, not gigabytes. That’s a lot of data! Early Friday morning I started disconnecting every internet aware device in my home to try and pinpoint the problem. Didn’t realize how many devices we had so it took awhile. After disconnecting everything but the desktop computer I was using to monitor my network I still couldn’t find the problem. I have a mobile hotspot so I connected my desktop computer to the hotspot and it didn’t take long to realize the desktop machine was the culprit. My hotspot used 2 gigabytes in less than 30 minutes. I looked at all my services and applications but didn’t see anything out of the ordinary. The only thing left to do was to wipe the hard drive and reinstall everything. YUCK! I’m assuming I had some sort of peer-to-peer installed from somewhere. I really have no idea and I’m very careful about where I surf the net. I will remain a mystery I guess. So instead of running on Friday I was busy setting up my desktop computer again. Fun stuff! NOT.

Kim and I went to see Dwight Yoakum at the Bell Auditorium on Friday night so I got to bed much later than I would have preferred. Especially since Saturday is my long run day. It was a great show though and looked like a sellout crowd.

I got a late start on my Saturday run. I didn’t get started until after eleven and normally I would be finished before this. I tried to keep it slow and steady by breathing in from my nose and exhaling from my mouth for the most part. Didn’t always to that, but most of the time I did. The first four miles felt the hardest but after that I got my second wind and felt strong and really good. My fifth mile was actually my slowest mile split but it also had the most difficult hills. That mile felt like my best mile–regardless of the split time. The route I took on Saturday is one of my more difficult routes that I run. The first mile is the flattest but after that they are all pretty difficult. The distance this week was about a mile and half further and averaged about 11 seconds per mile faster than the previous week. Still running much slower than I would like but this is progress so I’m pretty happy about it.

The great thing about this week is I ended it without any back issues and it looks like I’ll get my Monday run in. Something I haven’t done in several weeks. (FYI: I’m writing this on Monday and yes, I got my run in.)

 

Breakdown for the week:

Monday: Canceled run due to back.
Wednesday: 12 minute race pace/2 minute walk/12 minute race pace.
Saturday: 6.97 miles at a 12:48 minute mile pace.

Approximately 10 miles for the week.