the goat

Okay, I got sidelined with a cold this week - serves me right for complaining huh? But before that - I did get in a decent tempo type workout with some hill action on Saturday morning.

There's actually a pretty awesome 10 mile race here May 1st - The Mountain Goat Run. I ran it a couple years ago and have been wanting to do it again since but it conflicts with the time we have been taking vacation. I'd love to do it this year, but since I am certainly not a competitive runner by any means I do try to keep running in perspective and figure the time is more important to spend with my husband. Although, fair is fair and next year I think we should go a week earlier or later so I can run my race! Anyway - here is the elevation profile for the course:

Piece of cake right? haha. There are two killer hills...the last one after mile 6 really gets you. Lucky for me they have training runs for this race so I get the fun of running the course even without being able to do the race.

This coming weekend I plan to do the whole thing for my long run, but last Saturday I just did the first half, 45:15 for the 5.66 miles (8:00 avg pace which was my goal!) and my splits were:

7:55, 8:37, 8:19, 7:45, 7:34, 7:42 (last .66)

I was very happy with this run and my negative split times. That is something I need to work on. Again, clearly I really struggled with my pace on the hill. My goal for the race would be to break 80 minutes and this run felt hard so I don't think I'm there yet. Then I got sick and didn't run or workout until today when I just ran an easy 3. Oops.

I am going to be in so much trouble if I do that half next week. haha. The plan right now is to run 10 or 11 Saturday morning and if it goes okay do the half I originally planned on next weekend. Yes, I am horribly prepared and haven't run long much at all...yet somehow I still think I can pull a sub-1:50? Hopefully I'm not setting myself up for disappointment, but if nothing else it will help me gauge my actual fitness vs. where I'd like to be at this point!

blah week

So, I'm having a very lackluster training week. I'm blaming it on the return of winter! Seriously, more snow? More cold? And next week doesn't look a lot better. sigh.

Anyway, I did do some intervals with the group Tuesday - the group in general is faster than me so I was feeling like they sucked but they may have been my fastest of the year
1/4 - 1:27/1:28 (evidentally I haven't mastered the art of the Garmin yet!)
1/4 - 1:29
1/4 - 1:33ish?
1/2 - 3:24
4 miles total. So, whatever. I felt like I should have done another int, for some reason I have it in my head that doing less than 5 intervals isn't really helping much...thoughts?

Did my strength training Wednesday and then just ran a couple miles yesterday. Nothing at all last weekend. So I should have tons of energy for my run tomorrow. I really don't feel like getting up early in the cold but we're busy later in the day so I'm going to do an early group run with a big hill. Probably about 6 miles, but if I can find a group that is running my pace I'll do 10.

Time is running out if I'm going to do a half next month so I'll need to get a 10+ run in soon.
I need some training tips for getting my 5k down to a 7:00 pace this year. And by mid-June I have a big goal for a sub 25 minute 3.5 miler.

Boring Entry...

Workouts this week went sort of like
4 mile run last Saturday
2.75ish Monday (2 miles fast - under 7:30 pace)
6.5 Tuesday (2 miles on own 4.5 with group)
Strength workout Wednesday
4 miles Thursday with intervals
.5 mile 3:10
.25 - 1:30
.25 - 1:31
.25 - 1:40 (getting tired, more into wind)
.5 - 3:36 (wtf? I forgot it was an interval after the first .25 haha)

Going away again this weekend so it's going to be hard to get some more miles in but we'll see what I can do. Go BIG EAST!!

more for the core

It's been a tough week of workouts for me and unless you like reading detailed stuff this will probably be a boring post. Actually, this is more like a workout journal than a blog so far...
I probably should have taken a "before" photo to post huh?
Sunday I started my core strength routine. I did
10 Burpees - See Katie's blog here for a demo if you don't know what a burpee is: http://bikinirun.blogspot.com/2011/01/burpee-contest-and-demo.html
I just recently found her blog and have been loving it. Very motivating!
Bowflex - chest press, fly, tricep extensions
dips, squats
reverse lunges with weights
elevated planks
elevated side planks
pilates ab series + teasers

I was SORE on Monday after this on top of the effort from Saturday's race. But I STILL did my long run because I'm hard core like that. Plus my long run is only 10 miles at this point. I did 10.08 in 1:25:44. 8:30 average. However, that was my moving time - it actually took me longer than this to make it home because I had some stomach issues. I don't usually have problems when I run but I had to stop twice on my route to use the bathroom. Luckily there was a convenience store/gas station and one in the park on my way otherwise I'm not sure what I would have done...called my husband to pick me up and cried until he got there I guess. After the first 5 miles the stomach issues went away and the run got better until mile 10 which was tough. Mile 8 was my fastest at 8:11 which I'm happy about. I mean I want my pace faster than this but I'm happy that I was able to keep it consistent. I think my only mile over 9:00 pace was because I had to weight for a light during mile 5.

Tuesday I took off because I was really sore.

Wednesday I did intervals again however the girl I ran with and I were both sore so we only did 4 1/4s. I know that's pretty lame and it almost doesn't count but the point is I did them and logged 4 more miles for the week in the process.
Splits: 1:29, 1:35, 1:30, 1:35.
Okay, a little better. And my legs hurt. I know I should have done at least one more but at least one of them is under 1:30. That's improvement.

I don't remember the reps from Sunday but I did basically the same workout as above again today (Thursday) with the following:
12 burpees (legs less sore but these still kill me - the jump up gets me)
2x12 bench press 50lbs (yep, I'm a wuss)
2x10 fly 20lb
2x10 tricep extension 20 lb
20 dips - this was tough, I keep my feet elevated on a stool
20 squats (100 lbs)
2 sets of 12 reps reverse lunges with 10 lb weights
10 elevated planks, 5 elevated side planks each side
pilates ab series + teasers
chest pullups with bar - 4 with legs straight, 6 with bent legs.
It takes me about 25-30 minutes for the whole she-bang.
Okay, it took me three tries to get to this point without my computer locking up on me so I'm posting now! Tomorrow is Friday!!

race recap

So this morning I ran the Tipperary Hill Shamrock run. Why do I continue to torture myself by signing up for races with "hill" and "mountain" in the name?
haha. The race was great, very well organized, no issues parking, a little over 2000 participants, good crowd support, plenty of water, and G2 (Jeter Juice!).
The weather, not so great. Rainy although it had slowed to a drizzle and then stopped for most of the time I was running but more troublesome - extremely windy! And somehow they planned it so all the uphills would be into the wind!!

Anyway, onto the numbers.

My net time was 30:44, 7:41 pace
I don't really care about age group/place results - you know unless I win something which is almost never. haha

My Garmin splits show how lopsided the course was in terms of elevation - first mile almost entirely downhill and miles 2.5-3.5 almost entirely uphill!

Garmin said:
4.00 miles
30:28 mins
mile 1 - 6:43 (?!)
mile 2 - 7:28
mile 3 - 8:22
mile 4 - 7:55

I think my garmin mapped out 4.05 miles hence the time discrepancy which is really pretty accurate. I had to take some wide corners due to crowding so there would be a difference there. Also, I still haven't mastered the art of stopping my garmin when I cross the line. I accidentally restarted it twice, and then again on the drive home (that was my fastest split) so I didn't get my garmin pace.

Anyway, my splits look very uneven - way worse than they are. The first mile felt ridiculously easy but I did try to push it to have a time buffer. The second mile felt harder as there was some uphill so that must have been when my legs got to work. The third mile I completely fell off pace, the final hill killed me - the slight rolling hills had taken more of a toll than I thought and I was winded. My abs really felt it too, I've done a bit of hill work, actually I haven't really been training again for long but still, I was disappointed in this effort. Since the first half of the course had been relatively easy I was hoping to have more left at that point. I think running into the wind might have made a difference here as well. The final mile is a little more uphill and then around a loop to the finish. I had anticipated that I could pick it up again and finish pretty strong! The problem was, I had very little left! I think more of this mile was uphill than I realized because I did try to push it on the flatter areas but it was still tough to get under 8 min/mile pace.

So overall, I'm okay with my time. I mean, it's the first race of the year, I've only done 3 interval sessions and while I've been running conistently and more miles the past couple months - I wasn't really doing much consistently all fall/winter. So given that this was a hilly course and the weather was tough - rainy/windy I'm okay with it.

I am disappointed I couldn't hold it together better for the hill at the end. I thought I could still keep the pace down to 8:30s for the hard part of the hill and I clearly did not. I also had a hard time recovering at all after the hill and just wanted to be done at that point.

So I have quite a bit of work to do but its a start. I really want to get my 5k pace down to 7:00 min/miles. It won't be easy but I'm going to work at it.
I also think I need to start working on my core and doing some exercises there. I haven't done any weight training at all and know its lacking. I'm going to do a more detailed post on some of my planned training and goals soon!

Next up, a couple of longer races! I need to get a long run in soon, tomorrow if I feel okay otherwise I'll have to be good with my time Monday to fit it in.

nerves

So, I am ridiculously nervous for this 4 mile race I'm doing Saturday. I haven't raced since last June and I've never done a 4-miler. I think I'd feel better if it was flatter, or if I felt more prepared but its still kind of early in the year for up here - a balmy 8 degrees outside today I believe.

Anyway, I never quite got my long run in last weekend, I did a little over 5, although there was some difficult rolling hills. Tuesday I did a pretty fast tempo-ish 4 with the girls at lunch and that's it. I wanted to go yesterday but the wind was ridiculous and today its freezing so I'm actually thinking I might not run again until the race. That's probably way more rest than I need and I originally only planned on taking 2 days off but in the grand scheme of things it's probably not goign to make a huge difference in my race time. What MAY make a difference is if I can't stop eating, haha. I'm a terrible stress eater and have been overdoing it a bit lately. Time to rein it in. Okay, I'm going to try and update again later with some talk about goals but I have to get this day started now!