Couch to ??k (A RL running dynasty)

[Alan T]

Welcome to my running log. I do not know how many will read along, but a quick summary, I will be turning 38 in a few months, other than playing softball and occasional activity have been a stationary IT guy for most of my life. I've recently started running for both entertainment as well as healthy exercise. I've lost approximately 60 pounds and want to share with everyone else my experiences as I continue this journey. This is an interactive thread, so feel free to jump in and make comments, suggestions or ask questions as I go!

Personal Stats:

Starting Weight: (Jan 14, 2009) 263 pounds
Current Weight: (As of August 9, 2013) 188.2 pounds
Total Weight loss: (As of August 9, 2013) 74.8 pounds

Personal Goals:

Weight below 230 pounds: Achieved 3/31/09 - 229.2 pounds
Weight below 220 pounds: Achieved 9/30/10 - 217.5 pounds
Weight below 210 pounds: Achieved 3/11/13 - 207.8 pounds
Weight below 200 pounds: Achieved 5/29/13 - 199.9 pounds
Weight below 190 pounds: Achieved 8/3/13 - 189.1 pounds
Weight below 184 pounds: Not achieved Yet

Walk/Jog more than 1 mile: Achieved 9/11/12 - 2.4 miles in 30 minutes (treadmill) (http://app.strava.com/activities/39358444)9/16/12 - 2.6 miles in 33 minutes (http://app.strava.com/activities/39085846)
Walk/Jog a 5k: Achieved 10/9/12 - 3.1 miles in 39:27 (http://app.strava.com/activities/39086349)
Run 5k without walking: Achieved 10/18/12 - 3.2 miles in 39:33 (http://app.strava.com/activities/39086470)
Run a 5k race: Achieved 10/21/12 - 3.2 miles in 44:30 (trail race) (http://app.strava.com/activities/39086512) Achieved 11/3/12 - 3.1 miles in 33:36 (http://app.strava.com/activities/39086665)
Run 5k in under 35 minutes: Achieved 11/3/12 - 3.1 miles in 33:36 (http://app.strava.com/activities/39086665)
Run 4 miles: Achieved 11/5/12 - 4 miles in 50:13 (http://app.strava.com/activities/39086699)
Run 10k: Achieved 2/12/13 - 6.2 miles in 1:17:19 (http://app.strava.com/activities/40671977)
Run 5k in under 30 minutes: Achieved 3/24/13 - 3.1 miles in 29:16 (http://app.strava.com/activities/45725674)
Run a 5 Mile Race: Achieved 5/4/13 - 5.0 miles in 46:09 (http://app.strava.com/activities/52290056)
Run a 10k Race: Achieved 6/1/13 - 10k in 1:03:41 (http://app.strava.com/activities/57512138)
Run 5k in under 25 minutes: Achieved 9/21/13 - 5k in 24:29 (http://www.strava.com/runs/83861481#423511616)
Run 10k in under 1 hour: Achieved 6/15/13 - 10k in 56:19 (http://app.strava.com/activities/60432742)
Run 13.1 miles: Achieved 7/28/13 - 13.5 miles in 2:32:37 (http://app.strava.com/activities/70445209/overview)
Run a Half Marathon Race: Achieved 9/15/13 - Surftown Half Marathon in 1:55:11 (http://app.strava.com/runs/82734515#420834193)
Bike 25 miles: Achieved 8/13/13 - 25.5 miles in 1:43:43 (http://app.strava.com/activities/74483480)
Run 10k in under 55 minutes: Achieved 9/15/13 - 10k in 53:53 (http://app.strava.com/runs/82734515#420834189)
Run a 10k in under 50 minutes: Not Achieved Yet
Run 26.2 miles: Not Achieved Yet
Run a Marathon Race: Not Achieved Yet
Run a Marathon in under 4 hours: Not Achieved Yet


Personal Bests:

Best 1k: 4:38 (9/21/13) (http://www.strava.com/runs/83861481#423511616)
Best 1 Mile: 7:33 (9/28/13) (http://www.strava.com/runs/85495696#427188218)
Best 5k: 24:29 (9/21/13) (http://www.strava.com/runs/83861481#423511616)
Best 10k: 53:53 (9/15/13) (http://app.strava.com/runs/82734515#420834189)
Best 15k: 1:21:28 (9/15/13) (http://app.strava.com/activities/82734515)
Best 10 mile: 1:27:36 (9/15/13) (http://app.strava.com/activities/82734515)
Best 20k: 1:48:58 (9/15/13) (http://app.strava.com/activities/82734515)
Best Half Marathon: 1:55:11 (9/15/13) (http://app.strava.com/activities/82734515)
Longest Run: 14.0 miles (8/25/13) (http://app.strava.com/activities/77431782)

VDOT History:

9/16/12: VDOT 21 2.59 - 33:12
10/18/12: VDOT 23 3.22 - 39:33
11/3/12: VDOT 27 3.11 - 33:36
11/16/12: VDOT 28 3.11 - 32:28
11/18/12: VDOT 29 3.18 - 31:50
2/23/13: VDOT 31 3.12 - 30:29
3/2/13: VDOT 32 3.13 - 29:16
5/4/13: VDOT 33 4.99 - 46:09
6/8/13: VDOT 35 3.08 - 26:57
6/21/13: VDOT 37 3.12 - 26:08
9/15/13: VDOT 38 13.24 - 1:57:14
9/21/13: VDOT 39 3.12 - 24:38
9/28/13: VDOT 40 3.05 - 23:28


Weekly Stats:

<iframe allowtransparency="true" src="http://app.strava.com/athletes/1638491/activity-summary/4a88d0e2bf832b2985e28be940a849ecb65c9868" frameborder="0" height="160" scrolling="no" width="300"></iframe>

[Alan T]

Like many around here, I was pretty active when I was younger, through my 20s I was in Softball leagues, played tennis, went biking, etc. As I hit a little past 30, my body changed to where I was gaining weight from my eating habits and I couldn't just eat what I wanted to any longer. As the years went by, especially when various problems occurred, my weight sky rocketed to the point where I was over 260 pounds.

For the most part, the past two years I have gotten the weight mostly under control, at least to where it is not as much of a priority. Currently I am around 217 and could bear to lose another 10-15 pounds, but it not the focus of what I am doing in this dynasty. Better eating and better exercise goes hand in hand, and simply playing softball does not do enough to keep in shape.

Last August, my wife made it clear to me that I was spending way too much time working, playing on the computer, participating in sim leagues, etc. So it was a good time for me to take a reflection on some aspects of my life. I never really enjoyed running too much as being overweight, it really hurt my knees.. but having lost a bunch of weight it no longer was as big of a deal.. so I started last August in a Couch to 5k program.

It took a few weeks to be able to run consistantly more than 5 minutes without having to walk for a bit, but I finally was able to run a full 5k and actually ran in 4 different 5k races last year. My times were nothing spectacular, ranging from 40 minutes for a 5k to my best time in December of a little over 31 minutes.

That is when I hit the wall, physically. I had to have minor surgery on my back, had an upper ankle sprain and it pretty much sidelined me for 6 weeks. That brings me to the last 10 days and picking up year 2 of my running journey.

Since I have healed up, I am back to running 4-5 days a week and gotten back to roughly 35-37 minute 5k time. My current goals are to primarily work out a running plan that includes one Long run day, 1 easy run day, and 1 tougher speed/interval running day a week. Then 4 Cross training/rest days, where I bike, weight work out/tone, light run or just plain rest.

I have my next 5k race March 9th, and plan on running in many 5ks this year, but I also plan on doing at least one 10k race with a goal to be able to run a half-marathon at least in practice for this year.

I'll let those who are interested follow along or give suggestions or ask questions in this Running dynasty



------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2/6: Speed/Interval training day

Today's Run (http://app.strava.com/activities/39997685)

Today's plan was to run:
1 mile light/easy warm up
1/2 Mile at a faster pace (for me) in 5:23
1/4 mile recovery at light/easy pace
1/2 mile at 5:23
1/4 mile recovery
1/2 mile @ 5:23
1 mile light/easy cool-down

Since the roads were pretty icy from snow last night, I decided to run at the high school track today. I do have a treadmill at home, but really hate running on it if I don't have to. Even though it is in the 20s most of the time here, I have been trying to run outside when it is not dangerous from ice.

The warm up was easy, even though it was super windy today which is annoying when it is cold. When I got to the interval though after the first mile, I think I was feeling too good. It was really the first time I have opened up since last year, and a flat track means no hills to slow me down. I ended up running my first interval in under 5 minutes, which is a little faster than I was supposed to. The second interval I slowed down a little, and by the third interval I was closer to 10:20 or 10:30/min pace which was only a few seconds off.

I didn't really feel winded the first two intervals, but the third one I was starting to feel it a bit, and was thankful for when I got to my recovery stretch. Overall, it says that i ran my second fastest 5k time ever of around 35 minutes, even with the slow downs in there, so that looks like a sign of progress for me.

Up the next few days, Thursday I have bowling and will do weight training/toning in the evening. Friday with the huge storm coming, I do not know. Maybe a light run at lunch of no more than 2 miles. Saturday I am supposed to run 5 miles, but really dread the idea of doing that on a treadmill. I might push that off to Sunday to try to do it outside.

[Alan T]

Today was a rest/cross training day for me, so no planned run. I had bowling tonight and then when I got home, I decided to do a quick warm up run at a slow pace on my treadmill.

17 minutes - 1.2 miles (http://app.strava.com/activities/40144473)

After the warm up, I just did light weight and toning exercises for about 45 minutes, and then finished with about 10 minutes of stretching.

For the week, I am up to 8 miles so far, with a 5 mile run planned for Saturday, but with the storm, I dread the thought of having to do it on my treadmill. I guess I will see how things work out, if we lose power, that may not be an option either.

[Comey]

I hated treadmill running, too, but I got over it. Eventually, I got up to ten miles on the treadmill. Unfortunately, plantar fascitis has ruined my running, so I've been biking a lot. Since I have to start prepping for baseball season, I'll be running a lot more coming up (I hope).

I wish you the best of luck. It was this time last year that I started training for my first 5K (Run For Your Lives in Boston). I ended up finishing in the top 1% of all runners, which really gave me a love of running. I miss it, and will be using your dynasty as motivation to get going again.

[Alan T]

I wish you the best of luck. It was this time last year that I started training for my first 5K (Run For Your Lives in Boston). I ended up finishing in the top 1% of all runners, which really gave me a love of running. I miss it, and will be using your dynasty as motivation to get going again.


I did the Six Flags new England Zombie Run last Fall with my wife and had a blast. Been looking at the Run for your lives New England this year, but not sure if I want to do it or not just yet. It is not in Boston this year, is in Connecticut, but not too far from my place. It is a bit pricey though for most of the races I have been doing.

[Alan T]

Yesterday was supposed to be a rest day with a long run today, but with the storm I changed it up a little bit and decided to do my long run yesterday on the treadmill instead since I assume most of this afternoon will be spent trying to clear snow. I was supposed to run 5 miles, which I see as doable outside, but have never run that far on a treadmill before.

1 hour - 4.0 miles (http://app.strava.com/activities/40234733)

I set the treadmill to 2.0 incline as I have read that is a decent starting point for most endurance runs on treadmills and usually use that setting for shorter runs on it. I still have a problem determining the difference in reading on the treadmill vs my footpod and watch though. I know that treadmills generally are not very accurate in their distance reading, but I also think my stride is off on the treadmill. I think I take shorter strides when I run outside, but for whatever reason take longer strides on the treadmill. Instead of me setting the pace, on the treadmill it feels like I am trying to just keep up.

After 2 1/2 miles, I already was starting to feel worn out legs, where just the previous week I went 4 miles outside without any problems at all. I ended up changing the plan and ran only 4 miles instead of the planned 5. Including the warm up and cool down period, I went about 4.5 miles in total, but still a little disappointed in not going the entire 5.

[Alan T]

I spent the last two days "cross-training" ie: I spent 2 hours on Saturday and 3 hours on Sunday shoveling and snow removal. :)

I did not want to go the entire weekend without a run though, so I moved my run schedule around a little and did my easy 2 mile run last night. I took it at an easy pace, so finished at roughly 14:30-15:00 minute/mile, but when done wasn't tired at all and felt good, which is what I am aiming for in an "easy run" right now.

Run data (http://app.strava.com/activities/40503532)

That put me at right around 14 miles run last week. My goal is to try to get that over 20 miles per week in the next few weeks as I increase the mileage.

Today will be a full rest day as I haven't taken a rest day in a while as I plan on doing a long run day on Tuesday. I have less than 1 month now till the first races of the year for me, starting off with two 5k races in March, but plan on adding a tough (ie: cat 5 hill climb) 5 mile in May, and a 10k (not sure which one yet) at some point this summer too. I seriously need to start working on more hill training before May though.

[korme]

Very impressive stuff, Alan. Keep it up

[Alan T]

Today is my "long" run day, so I took advantage of the warm (39 degree) weather mid-day and went for a lunch run. The snow banks are still unmanageable, and most of the sidewalks have not been shoveled/snow-blown so pretty much was street-running only.

I picked a new running course for me mostly due to the highway being plowed better than my normal places I run. There were one or two corners where I feared for an inattentive driver taking the curve and splattering me, but ended up not having any problems other than the occasional ice puddle that I had to run around.

This route I took today was far hillier than where I normally run. That probably is a good thing since I really do need to incorporate more hills into my weekly runs over the next month. I think my watch ended up saying I climbed about 268 feet on the run, which is not really anything huge, but combined with my longest run that I have ever done could be an issue.

I took a pretty easy pace and maintained it pretty much the entire run, even up hills and didn't have any real problems at all. Around mile 5.5 I started feeling a slight twinge in my left glut, but luckily was close to finishing my run so it did not hinder me any at all.

My first 10k distance run in training! (http://app.strava.com/activities/40671977)

So it was nice to make it a full 10k even though the time was nothing great, it at least tells me I'm good for trying one or two 10k races this year, but more importantly will help increase my base and improve my 5k performances on those runs for this year.

Up next, Thursday I plan a nice, easy 3-4 mile run with my wife on Valentine's day and then Saturday have interval training followed by another easy run on Sunday. Right now I am aiming for about 16-17 miles for the week which is close to my preliminary goal of getting my miles run per week over 20.

[Alan T]

Yesterday was supposed to be a rest/cross training day for me, but my wife told me one of her friends were coming over to run and asked if I wanted to go with them, so of course i said yes. The snow and ice still is everywhere, so we took a pretty easy pace and basically ran 5k

easy 5k run (http://app.strava.com/activities/40792387)

I started feeling a discomfort on the outside of my knees though which is a little concerning. It seems like a fairly common injury for runners that could be attributed to so many different things.. Possibly too much running too soon, or my quads are too strong for my hamstrings and I need to work on that some, or I need to strengthen my core better, or my stride is having issues, or various things.

So the smart thing to do would have been to rest today and let my legs rest up a little bit.. so of course I did not do that. My wife wanted to run again with me, just her and I so I leaped for that chance. It was her day to do some "speed work", but she is a little behind me in training so I felt I could keep a fairly comfortable pace while helping her with that today.

The run was fun and the weather was not bad (about 40 degrees or so), but my legs are pretty fatigued now and I think I have pushed a little too much this week.

3.4 miles with my wife today (http://app.strava.com/activities/40900460)


I am already at close to 13 miles for the week with another 2 runs still planned for this weekend. I have speed run on Saturday and an easy 2 miler on Sunday. Depending on how I feel though, I may take off tomorrow and Saturday and try my speed training on Sunday instead. The only complication may be the weather where we may get some snow on Saturday. Also my 12 year old daughter wants to probably run with me some, so I may end up just running both days.. who knows!

23 days til my first 5k race for the season!

[Alan T]

So I rested Friday and by the end of the day felt great, and Saturday felt fully rested again, so my soreness probably was just overtaxing as I build my base up. I was supposed to do interval training on Saturday and an easy run on Sunday, but my 12 year old wanted to do the run with me, so I swapped my days around.

She is going to be doing the first 5k in March, so I wanted to see how she was able to handle the hills and the full 5k distance. I know alot of parents that have kids run with them in 5k races let the kids run on their own, but I am a little too over-protective and not really ready for that myself. So my wife and I discussed it and I'm going to end up pacing with her during the race and let my wife run her race at her pace. So Saturday I pretty much pushed the pace a bit on my daughter just to see how she could do. When she struggled a little bit, I backed off just a little but she did great, ran the full 3.1 miles and didn't stop once.

3.1 miles - 36:10 (http://app.strava.com/activities/41105248)

So that left my interval training for Sunday, and the weather was a beast today. It snowed about 3-4 inches around here, but the temperature dropped a decent amount and the winds were howling (20-30mph). So my choice was either to do interval training on the treadmill or go out and brave the weather... I decided to do the run outside. As I told my wife, I still think a wind chill of 5 degrees, dodging snow plows and slopping through ice puddles is better than the treadmill!

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y19/Turlos/running/weather-2-17.jpg

Probably was the worst weather I have ever run in yet to this day. I've read of people who live in Canada or Alaska or Minnesota or such that deal with this every day, but I'm a southern boy at heart and anything below 50 degrees is a bit offputting to me.

My interval training was scheduled as:

1 mile easy warm-up jog
1/2 mile at a pace of better than 10:44min/mile
1/4 mile of recovery jog pace
1/2 mile at 10:44min/mile
1/4 mile of recovery jog pace
1/2 mile at 10:44min/mile
1 mile easy cool-down jog

For a total of 4 miles. I decided to take the path that I don't necessarily enjoy on the highway mainly because the sideroads were in worst condition than the highway. This meant that I hit the first hill on the run right in time for my interval. I tend to push my intervals a bit faster than I should, adding that to a hill just means death for my lungs and legs. I didn't necessarily do as well as I wanted, but I made it.

I set a new personal record on the climb, not a steep one but I'm not a superstar runner by any means. 56 feet elevation gain over 1/2 mile. The steepest part is only a 5-6% grade but I did it in 5:03 for a pace of 10:01min/mile, which is better than my interval goal.

The overall run was:

4miles - 45:43 (http://app.strava.com/activities/41271024)



This also finishes my week (Monday through Sunday) where I reached my goal for both miles and time spent

For the week: 20.0 miles in 3 hours, 58 minutes and a total of 480 feet of elevation climbed. I set my 2nd best 5k time 3 days ago, and then broke it again this morning in the horrible weather

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y19/Turlos/running/2-17-week.jpg


Taking a rest day tomorrow, and then Tuesday is my long run day. Going to try to increase it to 7 miles this week.

[Alan T]

Hills suck


Yesterday was an off day, where I rested completely for today's long run. The weather was warming up nicely with a rain front moving in this afternoon, so was about 35 degrees when I set out to run.

I don't know what came over me though, on my long run the goal is to run the distance, go slower than race pace, take it fairly easy just to do the distance. But instead I decided to try a loop around town that I didn't remember being so hilly. Now I know that it sucks :) I went 7.55 miles in about an hour and a half (average of 12:45 minutes per mile for the entire run). The climb was 320 ft of elevation, including 150ft of that over the course of 3/4 of a mile straight up hill during the 3rd mile of the run.

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y19/Turlos/running/2-19-elevation.jpg


I had a semi-funny event occur during the run today. For the first time, shortly after the largest hill there, I had run close to 4 miles, I saw another runner coming down from a side street, a woman who looked pretty fit and probably about 5-8 years younger than me. She had an envelope in her hand as if going by the post office during her run, but she was really booking it. At that point I was struggling a little bit after that hill and she blew by me. My initial macho instinct was to speed up some so I didn't look completely inept out there, but I just was too tired and ended up just sticking to my recovery pace. Didn't take her long to blow past me out of my sight. I felt rather slow at that point :)

7:55 miles long run day (http://app.strava.com/activities/41544276)


Once I got home, i did my cooldown, and for the first time tried out the foam roller that I had gotten for my wife and I to use. No idea how it will do, but seems that alot of people say they help keep the legs fresh. Tomorrrow I plan on doing cross training, no running and then Thursday is an easy run day.

[Alan T]

I took Wednesday off from running and did some crosstraining. I still was having some issues with soreness on the outside of my knees after the long run, so decided to focus alot more on core exercises, abs, glutes and legs. It may still be an issue of my body getting used to the additional miles, but I want to make sure that it is not a case of my quads out-developing faster and causing my leg to perform oddly.

Yesterday, I went on a nice and easy jog at a slow pace. Basically just scheduled to get out there and run some easy miles. Nothing overly tough.

2 miles easy jog (http://app.strava.com/activities/41781490)

Today is another off day for me on the running to rest or cross train. I may just give the legs a little more rest time and take a full day off, depending on how I feel later.

Tomorrow I am scheduled for a tempo run. 5 miles total, 1 mile warmup and 1 mile cooldown and then 3 miles in the middle at a fast but sustainable pace. Tempo runs as far as I understand it are supposed to be the fastest pace that I can keep up for 1 hour (even though I'll cover 3 miles in about half of that time). The 8 min/mile or 9 min/mile paces I sometimes reach on my intervals are way too fast for me to sustain for an hour, I am not in that good of shape yet. I'll probably find the time somewhere around 10:30 min/mile or so I am guessing.

My wife and I were talking and considering taking part in a weekly 5k race tomorrow morning that one of the large local running clubs do every Saturday. 5k would be right about perfect for my 3 mile tempo run, and I would just simply not treat it like a race (go all out). I'd just pace myself appropriately, but it might be fun to check this out and meet some other runners in the area too.

Alot of this probably depends on the weather though as we're supposed to get another 14-15 inches of snow this weekend.

[Alan T]

Race Result ... kinda...

So I rested completely on Friday, no cross training or anything (actually ate way too much out at dinner at Longhorns with my in-laws.. oops). However I felt very well rested this morning for my tempo run day. On tempo runs, the way I understand it, you are supposed to run at a pace that you can uncomfortably go for an hour. Not a 400m sprint that you then run out of gas on, but not an easy pace that doesn't work you. You should feel like you are tip-toeing the line between potential collapse and sustainability.

My wife talked me into doing a local 5k weekly race that the local racing club does every week. They don't do shirts or prizes or anything, just a group of 20-50 of people come out and pay $3-$5 to run a timed 5k road race. So I decided I would try to do this for my tempo run today.

I ran an almost 1 mile warmup before we started at a pretty easy pace, just to get going since it was once again cold out..

1 mile - warmup jog (http://app.strava.com/activities/41948841)

Then, at 9am it was race time! Of course, I am doing this with a bunch of marathoners and people talking about their various times of 18-20 minutes for a 5k. Before this my best 5k ever was a 31:30 or so last December in the snow, so clearly I am in a different class than most of these people, but it was fun to get out and run anyways!

I started at the back of the group to start, no sense getting in their way when they would all pass me anyways, but I wanted to try to keep my pace at about 10:00 per mile. The adrenaline and race type environment though got the best of me and I actually ran the first mile waaaaay too fast (for me), at a 9:16.

Then I hit the hilly part, (There really wasn't much hills on this track, it was a pretty easy course, but most of the uphill was the second mile where we climbed around 60 feet or so .. not a huge amount but enough to slow me down some). I still kept pretty much on target for my pace though, right at 10:06 for my second mile, even with the hills in there.

I realized at the start of my third mile that I was actually making really good time (for myself). I wasn't even to 20:00 in yet, and only had about a mile to go. I was struggling a little bit, but I kept pushing to keep my pace going. Luckily for me, the third mile was relatively flat, a little up hill and a little down hill but was easy enough for me to push through. My heart rate actually got about the highest I have seen it while running during this stretch though, I was right at 180bpm heart rate through this. Not sure if that is a bad thing or not, but one of my goals with running is to try to improve my health and hopefully the more I run, the less it will take for me to do something at this pace.

By the time I got to about 2.60 miles in, I was struggling, I was checking my watch like every 1/10th of a mile, but once I saw the finish line, I dug into my reserve and pushed the rest of the way... One of my big goals is to finish a 5k in under 30 minutes... and this one I finished in......


CMS Weekly 5k - 30:15 (http://app.strava.com/activities/41948843)


So close, yet so far. My 3rd mile I ended up running in 9:54, which was right around my tempo goal pace.. but if you look at it by Grade Adjusted Pace (adjusting the pace for the elevation gain or lost), my third mile was easily my worst)

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y19/Turlos/running/2-23-13-gap.jpg

Overall, I am pretty happy with my run today, and I did end up setting two new personal records for myself!

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y19/Turlos/running/2-23-13-pr.jpg


That was my fastest 2 mile run and fastest 5k (3.11 miles) run that I have ever done. So a good sign I suppose that the work is helping me improve! Hopefully I will break the 30 minute mark in the upcoming few weeks at some point!

Tomorrow I am scheduled for an easy 2 mile run and going to try to get in some cross training if I can. I have to take the in-laws to the airport, likely have to shovel snow and have to drive myself to New York for work for the week all tomorrow, so the schedule is all up in the air!

I am traveling for work all next week, which means my running schedule could be all messed up. I am going to try to do my best to stick to it though!

[Alan T]

So I was traveling all last week for work and it made it tough to keep my routine going, but I still managed to meet most of my goals... I left out of town on last Sunday night, so wanted to do a run before I left. To make things worse, it started snowing and I had to drive my in-laws to the airport for their trip home. That meant in heavy snow I had to drive 4 1/2 hours of the total 6 hours that I drove. With the bad weather, I just resorted to doing the treadmill and pulled off a very un-inspiring result.

Treadmill - 2 miles in 28 minutes (http://app.strava.com/activities/42098215)

Monday was an off day for me, so it came to my Tuesday long day. Since I was traveling, it really limited my options for how I could do a long run. I had a morning meeting at 8am and had a dinner commitment for work that evening. I looked at the sunrise time for the next day (6:14am) and decided to set my alarm for 5:30am. I ended up waking up before my alarm, way before my alarm but that is a different story...

So I got dressed and out to warm up before the sun rose, and started my run at 6:00am. It wasn't sunrise just yet, but enough light to keep me from fearing getting run over my some morning commuter in a car. I was fairly unfamiliar with the area, so checked out google maps before I ran, and found a loop that was 7+ miles.

I recently changed some of my pace times for various runs including my long runs that I upped my pace to trying to maintain a 11:01 pace. (Previously I had been doing long runs closer to 12:00 minutes per mile instead). I found that I was able to keep the pace up fairly well for the first three miles until i hit a general upwards slant for the next three miles, including 1 full mile between mile 4.5 and 5.5 where I climbed about 150 feet (which is alot for me still). I ended up slowing down for most of those three miles back to my old 12:00 pace, but then rebounded for my next two miles and finished pretty well.

Looking at my GAP, virtually the entire thing was all below 11:30, so I feel I have some work to do, but am pretty happy with the end result:

7.1 miles in 1 hour 23 minutes (11:41 min/mile pace) (http://app.strava.com/activities/42322934)

This was only the third time that I had run past a 10k distance, but I was able to break my old 10k personal best record by over 3 minutes thanks to my increased pace!

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y19/Turlos/running/10k-2-26-13.jpg

Wednesday was another off day for me, and Thursday thanks to all day rain in Long Island, I had to do another treadmill run, which was a super slow pace for some reason :(

2 miles treadmill - 32 minutes (http://app.strava.com/activities/42544050)

Friday, I ended up taking advantage of the hotel gym and using a stationary bike for 20 minutes (4.6 miles) for an off day training and then finally got out of town later that day.

[Alan T]

I had runs scheduled for Saturday and Sunday, and was finally home for those. The weather did not magically improve for me while I was gone, it was still cold and miserable, but evidently some of the snow had melted in places the previous week to make one of the nearby bike trails at least half-usable (some snow mounds I had to jump over or run around, and only half the trail was usable, but still better than nothing).

Saturday was my interval day. basically warm up for a mile and then run at a fast pace (for myself) for 1 mile. Then a recover jog for 1/2 mile and then another mile of the fast pace, then cool down for a mile and all done. Sounds easy right?

Based on the trainer that I am using, based on my previous 5k results, my goal for these intervals would be to try to aim at a 9:20 min/mile pace during my fast part of the interval. I tend to have problems getting carried away and running faster than I should though and it causes me issues. In my first interval, I was about 1/2 mile in and realized I was closer to 8:30 min/mile pace and was wishing I was done. I mentally forced myself to finish the mile, but I wasn't happy at the end.

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y19/Turlos/running/3-2-13-mile.jpg

The mile I ended up doing in 9 minutes and 2 seconds, which sets a new personal record for myself, but boy it beat me up a good bit. By the end of that mile, my heart rate was up to 176, which is about as high as I have seen it go since getting a heart rate monitor while I run. I had 1/2 of a mile to recover, and used all of it before starting my next interval. This time I only made it 1/2 of the way through before stopping for a quarter mile then I ran for another 1/4th of a mile at a fast pace before shutting that down for the day.

I cooled down for a mile and ended up running 4.3 miles in total, but only 1.75 of the 2 miles worth of intervals. If I had run closer to the 9:20 instead of the 8:40 or whatever it was, I probably could have made it the entire 2 miles of intervals. That is what my over-eagerness to run fast and not stick to the plan got me.

4.3 miles - 49 minutes (http://app.strava.com/activities/42834682)

The next day was just an easy run, 2 miles was scheduled but I wanted to get to my weekly goal and ended up doing 3.2 miles at a pretty easy pace (12:21 minutes per mile).

Sunday run (http://app.strava.com/activities/42982668)

That got me over my 16 mile goal for the week even with traveling. It was a mixed set of results for the week, best 10k personal record, best mile personal record, but a few pretty cruddy runs out there too.

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y19/Turlos/running/weekend-3-3-13.jpg

Including the time on the stationary bike, I put in almost 4 hours last week, including 16.6 miles of that running.

Coming up this next week, I have my long run day tomorrow, I am planning on trying to increase my run to 8 miles, which would be a personal best for me. I have easy run day planned on Thursday and Sunday. Saturday I am running a 5k with my family, but not going to try to set a personal best in this one. Going to spend the time pacing my wife and my 12 year old daughter in the race to try to help them get below a 35:00 5k for the first time. (This is my daughter's first 5k ever, so I am excited about that!)

My next target race is march 24th, a 5k that I am trying to aim at breaking a 30 minute 5k time for myself, something that I got close on but have not managed to do yet!

[Alan T]

So my body this morning felt like crud and it was long run day for me. I think i overdid my light weight exercises on Sunday night, too many reps and my adductor muscles were still sore/fatigued even today from that. I have been trying to do more workouts to strengthen my core, and parts of my legs that get neglected in running, but it gets tough some times balancing when I plan on doing all of that.

I did a bunch of stretching before running today. I generally don't stretch before running, but instead take it easy to start with a walk, then light jog into my pace that I am going for. I decided to go ahead and stretch since I as not sure if I was even going to be able to do my long run with the way I was feeling. I am cautious if my body is not responding well, to just reschedule for another day.

Even after stretching, i still felt those specific muscles, but they wern't hurting or anything, they just felt fatigued. I decided to give it a go and if after a mile or two I was struggling, I would just call it there and come back in.

Well, I won't say the first two miles were easy, but it didn't hurt, my legs just felt a little dead. I've read that in a solid training plan, you will have some days where you just don't feel great, and unless there is pain or risk of injury, you just have to suck it up and do it. So I just kept going.

My goal pace for my run was a 11:20 minutes per mile, but since I was a little tired, I decided to back it off a little and aimed for closer to 12:04 instead. I managed to run almost exactly that for my full run today, and for the most part I was able to keep my pace pretty even. I did find at times that my mind wandered, thinking about other things and I lost focus on my pace and fell closer to 13:00 minutes per mile, but I resolved that quickly each time and kept chugging away.

In the end, I made it the entire route that I had planned, a new route that included roads that I had never seen before. I actually enjoyed the route and will likely run it again next week. I just didn't feel that great during it. Still my performance was solid enough that I was happy with it.

So, I did have some notable results from today's run.. to start with the biggest one..

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y19/Turlos/running/longest-3-5-13.jpg

Today's run was the longest that I have done. I actually am now getting to the point where my long run is too much of my weekly totals that I need to change things up a little bit. I have read that you want your long run to be roughly 35% of your weekly total and with an 8.5 mile long run that would put me at roughly 24 miles per week. I do want to get to 20-25 miles per week, but I am a little short right now still. So I need to be careful to not push that total any higher on the long run days for now. Instead in upcoming weeks I will have to work in a way to make my easy runs longer runs as well. If I bump them up each 1-2 miles then I will have everything in a good proportion I feel.

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y19/Turlos/running/2ndfastest-3-5-13.jpg

I also achieved my second best 10k time during today's run. A 10k is roughly 6.2 miles of the 8.5 that I ran and I came in with 1 hour, 13 minutes and 46 seconds for my 10k today. My personal record is just 29 seconds faster, so even feeling not myself, I pretty much kept pace with my best previous 10k, so that is a good sign as well.

So the total run was..

8.5 miles - 1 hour 42 minutes (http://app.strava.com/activities/43297536)

That ends up being a 12:01 minutes per mile pace for the full run, and as I mentioned above, I pretty much kept it around that for the entire time and didn't fall off too badly halfway this week. (Mile 7 for me was @12:00)

One other achievement that I may be the proudest of is actually my weight after the run. Now granted, I am sure it will go up a bit due to water weight, but at least for a brief period of time today I weighed 209 pounds. As I mentioned above, in 2012 I weighed as much as 264 pounds so in roughly 6-8 months I have lost 55 pounds. In the last 7 weeks I have lost 24 pounds. BMI says for a 6 foot male my age I should be around 170-180 range, but my doctor in my last physical said that getting 200-210 seemed to be a good reasonable goal to try to reach and be happy with. So while weight loss right now is not the focus of my running, it has been a very pleasant benefit from it!

Up next... Thursday easy run and then Saturday running a 5k with my family (actually running with them, not trying to set a new personal record). I can't wait!

[finketr]

Alan,

I've been following this from nearly the beginning...

I'm just curious: how did you get started? Just go run and see if you die in less than five minutes?

[Alan T]

Alan,

I've been following this from nearly the beginning...

I'm just curious: how did you get started? Just go run and see if you die in less than five minutes?


Kind of something like that. My wife had to do regular cardiovascular exercise for her lungs due to almost dying a few years ago. So I started to try to run with her. I found at the beginning that, being overweight and out of shape that I just couldn't run more than a little bit at a time without just dying. So I started a Couch to 5k plan that you can find all kinds of variations of on the internet. It actually did a good job of making it easy for me to just push myself a little longer each time until I finally got to the point where I could run an entire 5k without stopping for air.


Speaking of which, I haven't updated this in 2 weeks as I've been busy with travel and other stuff, but I actually had a very happy or positive race result this past weekend that I do want to share, so I need to find some time later today to provide updates on where I am and what is next for me!

[Alan T]

Trying to catch up a little bit on the stuff that I missed...

After my last entry of my longest long run 8.5 miles on March 5th, we got hit with another bad snow storm that week. This winter has been pretty brutal for snow which makes running outside pretty rough.

I decided that I did not want to be trapped on the treadmill, so actually went out at the beginning of the snowfall and ran an easy run just as the snow started..

2.5 mile easy run (http://app.strava.com/activities/43534451)

[Alan T]

Fridays are almost always rest days for me on my training plan, so my next run was scheduled for March 9th, and it was actually to be a 5k road race to benefit cancer research. When we pick races to run, we usually try to meet a few criteria in some level of importance:

1) Has a worthwhile or decent charity that we are running for
2) Has a shirt that is given to runners that run the race
3) Interesting area or run, or good scenery or some place we would like to run

If a race has all three, we try to go for it, but at least 2 of the 3 is our goal usually.


This particular 5k, I was not planning on going all out and trying for a new personal record though. Part of my running is to be able to have an activity that I do with my family. If I always just run off ahead on my own, it defeats that purpose. So my plan on this race was to run at my wife's pace and try to help her beat her goal of 35:00 5k. I was just going to treat it like a normal easy run for myself.

I think my wife made a few mistakes though for this race. I think she started psyching herself out a bit too much, plus she did some things that she normally does not do (like drink or eat too much that morning before the race). The general rule of thumb is that you should not do anything new on a race day that you have not already been doing many times before. No new shirts, or shoes or trying a new technique for the first time.

So we started off well, but once we hit some of the hills, she started getting a little bit of a side stitch while running which caused her to have to slow down a little bit. In hind sight, I think what she needs is not to have me there egging her on as it seemed to create even more pressure on her to perform. Next time I run with her on a race, I'll let her set the pace and I'll just keep up with her.

We ended up finishing the race in under 35 minutes, but according to our GPS watches, the race was not technically a full 5k and was about 1/10th of a mile short. We took it as a morale victory for her though and she would have been really close to her goal even with having to slow down. I was very proud of her!

Sub 35 minute 3-mile Race (http://app.strava.com/activities/43759031)

[Alan T]

On the 10th, I needed a few more miles to reach my goal for 17 miles for the week. My ultimate short term goal with training was to try to get consistently up to 20 miles or more per week running as I have read that is a pretty good level to be at for optimal growth or improvement. You can't just simply go from 0 miles a week to 20 miles a week without risk of injury though so I have gradually been working my way up to 20.

I had a chance for another run with my wife and it was scheduled for an easy run day so I took advantage of it. The roads were still icy/slushy from the snowstorm we had that week, so we just took it easy and ran 4 miles at a comfortable pace.

4 miles in 52 minutes (http://app.strava.com/activities/43909148)


That was more than enough to reach my goal for 17 miles on the week and actually got me really close to 20 miles.

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y19/Turlos/running/mar10-week.jpg

For the week I ran almost 4 hours and totaled 19.5 miles, climbing 342 feet in altitude during my runs. So I was getting pretty close to where I wanted to be on a week in and week out basis.

[finketr]

Kind of something like that. My wife had to do regular cardiovascular exercise for her lungs due to almost dying a few years ago. So I started to try to run with her. I found at the beginning that, being overweight and out of shape that I just couldn't run more than a little bit at a time without just dying. So I started a Couch to 5k plan that you can find all kinds of variations of on the internet. It actually did a good job of making it easy for me to just push myself a little longer each time until I finally got to the point where I could run an entire 5k without stopping for air.

Didn't mean to completely resurrect your thread as just need to get started.

I am looking at the c25k app. And need to get started somehow since i am way overweight. I can do hour long walks pretty well, I have a 3+ mile track that I use around the neighborhood, through the mall for the AC break, sometimes pushing my son in his stroller, sometimes just me walking.

I am thinking of alternating the 3x runs with 3x swims...

What's the best way to find good shoes to do the training? Sports Authority? Skechers outlet store? Foot locker? Obviously need to find someone with some knowledge of feet and measurement (no offense to any skechers or foot locker people)...

thanks in advance,

tim

ps (live in riverside, CA, essentially)

[Alan T]

Didn't mean to completely resurrect your thread as just need to get started.

I am looking at the c25k app. And need to get started somehow since i am way overweight. I can do hour long walks pretty well, I have a 3+ mile track that I use around the neighborhood, through the mall for the AC break, sometimes pushing my son in his stroller, sometimes just me walking.

I am thinking of alternating the 3x runs with 3x swims...

What's the best way to find good shoes to do the training? Sports Authority? Skechers outlet store? Foot locker? Obviously need to find someone with some knowledge of feet and measurement (no offense to any skechers or foot locker people)...

thanks in advance,

tim

ps (live in riverside, CA, essentially)


The best way to get started is to just get started. The toughest part for someone who is not used to daily exercise is just the motivation to get started. I always have excuses why I can't exercise, too much work, family stuff, no time, too tired, whatever. You just have to want to do it enough to carve the time for it.

Most Couch to 5k plans just require a 20-30 minute time three days a week and they do a good job of taking someone who can't run much at all and get you to the point of being able to run for 30 minutes consecutively. An example of the start of a Couch to 5k plan the first week would be:

Brisk 5 minute warm up walk
Alternate 60 seconds of jogging with 90 seconds of walking for total of 20 minutes.

So after the entire workout you would have walked for something like 17 minutes and jogged for 8 minutes. You would repeat this workout each of the three days during week one and then the next week you run a little longer (not much).

The progression goes week by week for I believe 9 weeks? If you ever get to a point that feels tough to make it through, you can simply repeat that week again the following week. Before you know it a few months later your cardiovascular has improved enough to where your 20-30 minute exercise is doing alot of good. At that point you can choose to continue going further, or faster or keep it at 20-30 minutes if that is what you want to set aside time for.

You say you want to do 3x running and 3x swimming, that is probably a good plan for alot of people as you want to give your body time to recover from your walk/run program on off days and you can swim on those if you want. I wish I had an easy way to fit in swimming at least one day a week where I lived. Just I would suggest not trying to jump in and do everything all at once and burn yourself out though. Take it gradually and progress as your body feels comfortable with it.

As for the shoes... in a couch to 5k plan, as long as you have decent tennis shoes they probably should be fine. What I found as I ran more though, I eventually started getting shin pains and leg pains from not enough support on my tennis shoes. Part of that was me being overweight, I put more impact on my knees and legs than someone a little more in shape would have. If you get to that point, you can get specific running shoes. As soon as I switched to a good pair of running shoes, almost all of my leg pains went away. The catch though is there are many different types of shoes and what is good for one person may not be for another. It depends on the type of arch you have, the type of running stride you take and other details.

My recommendation if you get to that point where you want to get a good pair of running shoes would be to go to an actual running store in your area. Not just a foot locker or sports authority, you want a running store where they can analyze your stride and help you find a good shoe for your foot type. Generally going this route is a bit more costly, I think my running shoes cost about $150, my wife's were $90, but getting the wrong type of running shoes for your foot type and stride type can actually cause other pains in places that you did not have before. As I mentioned before though to just get started where most of your time would be walking, this probably is not as important a thing to worry about and I used normal tennis shoes for a while in my Couch to 5k.

The other thing that I did was find a local running club in the area where people here are very helpful and gave me good pointers on where to go to get fitted by experts. There may be some in your area that you could talk to as well if you want to find local resources for good stores, places to walk/run or even a community to help encourage you to keep consistent in your exercise.

I know that was probably far more of an answer than you were looking for.. to summarize my best advice would be to just get started with the C25K. The toughest part is motivating yourself to do it. If you can get past that, the rest becomes easy.

[Alan T]

Trying to catch up a bit more on the running log.. I took off March 11th (Monday), but had to travel for the rest of the week. When I travel, especially to different time zones it gets tougher for me to keep to my exercise schedule. Just because I was 3 hours later in time, I still had my normal meetings and conference calls with the team in India each morning. So my upcoming trip to Las Vegas was going to be problematic when I had to wake up at 3am and generally go to bed late at night due to conferences...

I wanted to get a long run in before I left. I did not know if I would find the time or a good place to run for 7-8 miles while in Las Vegas, so literally 4 hours before my plane flight I decided to go for a long run, and ended up doing my second longest run that I have ever done up to this point...

8.1 miles in 1 hour and 35 minutes (http://app.strava.com/activities/44138048)

My goal on the run was to try to keep roughly a 11:20 minute per mile pace going through the entire run. I haven't yet been able to keep my long pace for my entire long runs and usually start wearing out a little bit about mile 4 or 5 on my pace when trying to keep that pace going. This was the closest that I have gotten so far though.. plus I set a new personal record for my fastest 10k time up to this point!

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y19/Turlos/running/3-12-10krecord.jpg

That ended up being about 1 1/2 minutes faster than my previous best 10k time!

The run was not necessarily that easy for me. I did not have many really huge hills, but after the fact I found that pretty much the first half of my run was consistently up hill.

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y19/Turlos/running/3-12elevation.jpg

The total climb for my run was 255 feet, which is not the most that I have ever done, but the problem I found here was that I pretty much ran up hill for 4 straight miles. I have gotten better at being able to keep my pace running up hills, but what I find is once I reach the top, I have to recover my breathing a bit to continue at my pace. With the consistent up hill, I never had any recovery time and pretty much the entire work out ended up being harder on me than a normal run at this pace. Overall though, probably the best long run that I have had so far..

The downside though was it did make it a bit uncomfortable during my 6 hours of flying almost immediately afterwards :) I probably should have planned the timing of things a little better somehow.

[finketr]

good job, alan!

I'm starting c25k tomorrow with 2 days of week 1 (WF) and then a whole week 1 next week (MWF).

[Alan T]

good job, alan!

I'm starting c25k tomorrow with 2 days of week 1 (WF) and then a whole week 1 next week (MWF).


Awesome! Hopefully it goes easy for you. Stick to it!

[Alan T]

Traveling to Las Vegas for work is a little rough on the workout schedule, I had to find time to get my runs in. I ran a bunch right before my flight and honestly was a bit sore most of the day on Wednesday, so took the day off from running. Thursday and Friday I was back in the swing of things though. I was waking up at 3am local time in Las vegas for some conference calls that I had to have with India, but finished most of those by 6 or 7am, but my conference did not start until 9am each morning. So that gave me the perfect chance to fit in a run or two during the week right when the Strip was not too crowded...

Thursday: 3.1 miles in 41:23 (http://app.strava.com/activities/44383169)

Friday: 3.2 miles in 40:24 (http://app.strava.com/activities/44502021)

For those that have not been to Vegas, one thing that I had to get used to was when running right down the strip, when you get to busy intersections, they do not actually have crosswalks for foot traffic, and you have to take overhead foot bridges over the street. They have escalators and elevators up to the foot bridges, but I did not want to mess up my run, so I actually took the stairs up and down each time. This caused a tougher run than I normally would have done since I had 8 different places where I had to run up and down stairs during my 3 mile runs. I guess it helps build fitness, but not something I necessarily enjoy doing :)

One of the good things about running in Las Vegas though was the weather this time of year. Having been stuck running in the snow and ice and cold for the past few months, this was a very nice change of pace for me.

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y19/Turlos/running/3-15weather.jpg

It makes it even more painful waiting for the weather here to get nicer, and I can't wait for the snow to finally melt away at home.

[Alan T]

One other note about Vegas, going out to run at 6am was kind of fun from a people watching point of view...

Walking through the casino in the hotel that I was staying at (The Bellagio), you saw two different groups of people.. you could tell the ones that had just woken up and went to gamble, they were freshly dressed and drinking coffee at the tables.. then you could figure out the ones that had been up all night at the tables. They were still drinking alcohol , had day old stubble and usually were pretty disheveled.

At one point in my run I had to weave my way around two women that had found themselves out on the strip and they barely seemed able to stand up much less walk to where they were trying to get to.

The bad thing with running so early though was I couldn't easily play the fun running game of counting how many Elvis impersonators I could pass in a period of time :)

[Alan T]

I got back from Vegas at something like 1am Saturday morning and had to drive an hour home, so was pretty wiped most of the day Saturday. I still managed to find time to put in my tempo run for the week though and it ended up pretty good for me.

The idea behind the tempo run is to run at a comfortably fast pace for the set duration. It is faster than my easy runs, but not completely exhausting as a race. I read some place a good idea is it is a pace that I should be able to hold for an hour uncomfortably.

I used a VDOT Calculator to try to determine what my pace should be and that gave me a 10:18 minute per mile pace that I wanted to set for my tempo run.

Here is the Wikipedia entry on the threshold run that I was going to do:

At 88-92% HR_max, this intensity is aimed to raise the lactate threshold. The runner should be able to sustain this pace for up to 60 minutes during racing. Daniels describe this intensity as "comfortably hard". In elite runners, the pace matches the half marathon one, while less trained runners will run at around 10k pace. Daniels points out the importance of keeping the given pace to reap the benefits of the training.
T runs are typically performed as continuous "tempo" runs for 20 minutes or more, or as "cruise" interval training with 3 to 10 long bouts of about 3 to 15 minutes each, having 20%-25% rest intervals in between. "T" runs of longer than 20 minutes can be done at slightly reduced pace, according to a table in his book. No more than 10% of the weekly miles should be run in T pace.


So I ran for four miles, including roughly a 3/4th mile warm up at slower pace, then 3 mile tempo run and then 1/4 mile cool down at the end.

4 miles - 42:22 (http://app.strava.com/activities/44689039)

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y19/Turlos/running/3-16-13-temporun5k.jpg

For the "tempo run" part of my workout, the 3 miles ended up resulting in the third fastest 5k that I had run before. 5k = 3.11 miles, so it was a little part of the tail end of my warm up plus my tempo run to combine for that 5k time of just under 32 minutes. I was able to keep my pace at 10:15 for that time which is pretty close to what my goal was, and hopefully would set me up well to try to beat my goal later in the month of finally running a 5k race under 30 minutes.

[Alan T]

The next day, I had another easy run scheduled. Need time in between the long runs and fast runs to try and let the body recover.

Easy / Long (E/L) pace

At 65-79% of maximum heart rate (HR_max), this non-straining intensity is used for recovery runs, warm-up, cool-down and long runs. The primary purpose is to build a base for more intense workouts by strengthening the heart and increasing the muscles' ability to use oxygen, and to recover between hard workouts. Daniels recommends that most training miles are performed in E pace.
Typical E runs include continuous runs up to about an hour.

I made a mistake though in an attempt to not run the same ole path that I usually do for my easy runs and I took a different road instead. I had biked it before, but forgot exactly how hilly it was. I don't think running up hills the entire time was the idea for an "easy run" :)

I found it slightly humorous at one point when running up the hill, someone flew past me running nearly twice as fast as me up the hill. I wasn't necessarily going my fastest possible, but it was a reminder how far I still have left to go to be able to become a better runner.

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y19/Turlos/running/3-17easyrun.jpg

Pretty much the entire second mile was up hill, 122 feet, and the entire third mile was pretty much downhill a total of a 225 foot drop. My heart rate didn't jump up into zone four, but I doubt I'll take this path again for an "easy run" and save it for more hill training type of runs instead.

4 miles : 46:21 (http://app.strava.com/activities/44823620)


http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y19/Turlos/running/3-17-weeksummary.jpg

This put me above 20 miles running for the week for the first time ever. I had several weeks where I did more than 20 miles, but that included bike time. This 22.3 miles was entirely running during this week. My goal was to try to at least start getting to 20 miles per week running and I finally hit it after several weeks working on increasing my running.

[Alan T]

Last week was a pretty boring week from a training standpoint until Sunday at least. Even though I had run several 5k distances in practice as well as a few 5k races, my target race was last Sunday. One thing that I have learned is generally when people are targeting a specific race, they will start backing off on the amount that they are running to help their legs be fresh or rested on race day. From what I read, people doing marathons usually start tapering off a few weeks ahead of time. Since this is just a short distance 5k, my backing off will all come in just one week.

I still had 3 runs planned for the week, but was then going to take off the three days before the 5k so I would be rested up for it. So without much fanfare, I did the following two runs on the treadmill:

Monday: 3 miles in 43 minutes (http://app.strava.com/activities/44988841)

Not only do I dislike using the treadmill, but for whatever reason, our cat decided to be extremely annoying during my workout. To give an illustration, the below picture is my work at home office, where I work every day, but it also serves as my home gym/ wii/xbox/whatever game room as well in the evenings.

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y19/Turlos/basement.jpeg

So when I work out, I usually watch the tv on the wall in the right corner of the picture. (Not the one actually on in this picture). The two sides of the room operate on different wall outlets and circuits in the house.

Well the cat decided he would hop behind the entertainment center on the side that I was watching and repeatedly turn on and off that side of the room with the power strip button. It was causing the tv/amp/cable box and all of the lights in the room to go on and off every few seconds.

I finally got annoyed with it enough that I went and shooed him off.. only for him to come back again a few minutes later and do it again. I think I ended up having to move him 3 different times during my workout which was annoying. No idea why he was doing that, he never had before and hasn't since then. Just guess it was one of those nights that he wanted to completely annoy me.

So.. then...


Tuesday: 3 miles in 38 minutes (http://app.strava.com/activities/45110330)


Pretty much the exact same run on the treadmill, but finished 4-5 minutes faster thanks to no cat annoyances.

[Alan T]

Last Wednesday was also a treadmill day, but it was my final run for the week before I took off several days to rest. Instead of an easy day, this was going to be an interval run day for me, but a bit shorter of a distance than my normal interval runs...

A little bit about what interval runs are trying to accomplish:

Interval (I) pace

Intensity at 98-100% HR_max. This intensity stresses the VO₂max to raise the maximum oxygen uptake capacity. Since the pace is very intense, it can only be sustained for up to 12 minutes during racing. To cope with the intensity, and to train for longer periods of time, this training is performed as interval training, hence the name. The interval between each work bout should be a little less than the time of the work bout. Optimum intervals are 3–5 minutes long. There is no benefit to exceeding 5 minutes at this pace, under Daniels' theory, which means that despite the popularity of mile-repeats in many running groups, Daniels discourages them for people whose pace is slower than about 5:00/mile, preferring shorter intervals such as 1200 meters.
For example, an I session can be 6 x 800 m at I pace with 400 m recovery jogs. At most 8% of the weekly training miles should be I pace.


So my goal last Wednesday was to run an easy paced 1 mile warm up at roughly 12:15 minutes/mile pace, then run 800 meters (1/2 mile) at 9:05 minutes/mile pace, 400 meters (1/4 mile) at 12:15 minutes/mile pace then another 800 meters at 9:05 min/mile pace and then my cooldown for roughly 3/4 of a mile.

The interval pace of 9:05 min/mile is faster than my goal 5k pace and as the quote above mentions is a pace that I theoretically can not keep up for longer than a few minutes. Ideally I should push my heart rate near peak during the interval run and then allow time to recover between intervals. This interval pace over an entire 5k would be exactly 2 minutes faster than the fastest that I have ever completed a 5k before.

Since I was on a treadmill, setting the speed in is pretty easy, and perhaps intervals is the only thing that I don't actually despise on a treadmill, even though I still prefer running them on a track perhaps.

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y19/Turlos/running/3-20-13-treadmill.jpg

So I met the pace that I was aiming for since it was just a speed setting on the treadmill, but my heart rate didn't get into the threshold range. Highest my Heart rate got to was 164 on this run, where I have had 5ks where by the end I was up in the 180s. So I am not sure if this is a sign that I should push even faster on these or what. I likely need to research it more, but I do know that after a 1/2 mile at that pace I was starting to look forward to being able to recover, so not sure how much faster I could go.

I ended up running:

Wednesday: 3 miles in 34 minutes (http://app.strava.com/activities/45228624)


This was my last run of the week until Sunday's 5k race that I had been targeting since early in the winter. My goal still is to run a 5k below 30 minutes, so hopefully 3 rest days would give me fresh legs for the run...

[Alan T]

So after three days off, race day was finally here last Sunday. I had been working well over a month to try to improve my time and try to beat my goal of a sub-30 minute 5k. My wife and I were running a 5k race out in Lynn, MA which for those not familiar with the area is a suburb of Boston somewhat near the Airport, right along the coast.

Since it is so close to the coast, the elevation of the run was fairly low and all things considered was a fairly flat race.

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y19/Turlos/running/lynn5k-elevation.jpg


Just looking at the elevation map, it looks like there is a monster hill less than a mile in, but it honestly was not too bad. Only about 50 feet climb and although it got a little steep at a point, it was pretty easy compared to the hills that I had been running. So this race, while not being a super fast speed-burner was well set up to give me a good chance at reaching my goal. After the small amount of climb in the first half, I should be in good position to book the last half of the race as long as I had anything left in the tank...

The start of the race was a little disappointing for me though, and not really my fault. There was quite a decent number of runners (about 800) in the race, but the starting line and first street were really small for that number of runners. They did not have any system of separating runners out by expected performance, so everyone pretty much crammed in to a small area, with people pushing jogging strollers and babys, dogs on leashes, walkers or whatever all together. Unless you were right in the front, you pretty much ended up being herded like sheep at the start until it thinned out some.

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y19/Turlos/running/news05.jpg

I am not in the above picture, I am a bit further in the back, but this is pretty much what the start looked like.

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y19/Turlos/running/lynn5k-startpace.jpg

You can see here what effect that it had on my run though, for the first two minutes, my pace was close to 14:00min/mile instead of my desired 9:40 min/mile. Finally after I made it through the mass of people the first two minutes in and got into a long straight away, I was able to weave through people enough to pick up my pace, just in time for the only up-hill of any note in the race.

So my plan going in was to try to run what is called negative splits. Here is a small excerpt from a web page on what negative splits are:

Negative splits simply mean running the second half of an interval or an entire run or race at a faster speed. Since you're running the first half at a slower pace, it seems you'd be put in the negative in terms of total time, but since you're reserving energy for a faster second half, you'll actually end up with an overall faster time. Here are some more reasons to incorporate negative splits into your workout.

Running at a slower pace in the beginning of your workout or race allows your muscles and joints to warm up thoroughly, which can help prevent injuries such as pulled muscles.
It gradually increases how hard your heart and lungs need to work, so it's less of a shock to your system.
Mood-boosting endorphins will naturally be flowing in the second half, so you'll have increased energy that allows you to run faster without feeling much effort.
Running faster in the end of a race puts you at an advantage psychologically. You'll feel more confident and have a sense of strength as you pass other runners by.
They offer quicker postrun recovery.
When consistently doing negative splits in training runs, you'll inevitably become a faster runner.

I had determined that I needed to run at a 9:39 min/mile pace through the entire race to meet my goal of 30:00 in the 5k. So my goal was to start off at a 9:40 pace and then try to gradually speed up over the next two miles to finish the race with a little buffer and meet my goal.

Immediately with the horrible start, that somewhat went out the window, and I had gone only .15 of a mile in the first two minutes (or a very very very bad pace). So I somewhat threw caution out the window as soon as I got a chance to try to get clear of most of the crowd, I sped up much faster than I had intended to run. I wanted to not be stuck in the crowd the entire way, but it also meant I was working much harder than I wanted to on the only up-hill segment of the race...

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y19/Turlos/running/lynn5k-hillpace.jpg

I ended up running once I got clear at between an 8:20 and 8:40 pace for most of the first mile, which realistically had been faster than most of my interval training had been the previous month. I somehow pulled off the first mile though in 9:33 even with the horrible start and was back on my track for the race, albeit with using much more energy than I had planned.

Once I got through the main uphill, I purposely chose to slow down a little bit and try to find a fast-comfortable pace that wasn't causing me to nearly explode and took it for the gradual up-hill that was a small incline for the next mile. I settled in around a 9:20-9:30 pace and just tried to keep it consistent.

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y19/Turlos/running/lynn5k-2ndmilepace.jpg

I did pretty well at keeping the pace consistant in mile 2, a few jumps, likely as I was passing people or trying to not get stuck behind people who were slowing down and getting pinned in. I do have to admit that it felt good catching up to people and passing them as they were running out of steam, but I wasn't necessarily feeling on top of the world at this point though. I did manage to finish the second mile in 9:28, 5 seconds faster than my first mile, but more importantly I was 2 miles down and under 20 minutes still. I had a pretty good shot at meeting my goal, but I was starting to run out of gas in the tank just a little bit thanks to the crazy start....

After I finished the gradual up-hill and knew that it was mostly all down hill the rest of the way, something in my head clicked off for a minute or so and my entire body started just kind of going through the motions for a minute I think... I looked at my watch, and saw that my pace was down to 10:04 min/mile and dropping slowly. While not the end of the world, I knew that I had no room to spare that it was going to be close for my goal and I couldn't stop there... So I turned it on with the goal of finishing the third mile with my fastest split of the race...


http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y19/Turlos/running/lynn5k-3rdmilepace.jpg

After my momentary lapse, I pushed strong, and did manage to finish the third mile in 9:10, which was pretty much my interval pace. I was having another issue though as you can see from the red line in the graph, my heart rate was going through the roof. At the end of the 3rd mile, my heart rate was 183, easily in Anaerobic. I was pretty close to running out of steam.

With 3 miles down though in a 5k, that is a sign that the race is almost finished. Only 1/10th of a mile left, or less than a minute. I was over 28 minutes at this point, so there was no time at all to slow down. Anything that I had left in the tank was going to be spent at this point. So I pretty much turned the last 1/10th into a full on sprint (or as best I could muster at that point)...


http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y19/Turlos/running/lynn5k-finalsprint.jpg

You can see from the blue line that my sprint got me to my fastest pace of the race a 6:44min/mile, which I can not keep up for even an entire lap around a track I would guess.

The end result though was:

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y19/Turlos/running/lynn5k-summary.jpg

I finished my 5k with a time below 30:00 for the first time ever!

My watch recorded a time of 29:18, but it went into the books about 13 seconds slower only due to the difference between when the start horn went off and I started my watch.

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y19/Turlos/running/lynn5k-results.jpg

My official time: 29:31.4

I finished 300th out of 746 runners and for males ages 30-39, I finished 52nd out of 78. All of which I will happily take!

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y19/Turlos/running/lynn5k-besteffort.jpg

I ended up setting a personal best for 5k obviously as well as a personal best for 2 mile distance in 18:29. I had my third best 1 mile ever in this race with a 9:11, only 10 seconds slower than my best mile that I have recorded.

I feel that I pushed myself pretty hard in the race, but proved to myself that I was capable of running a sub-30 minute 5k. I was a good 4 minutes faster than the first road 5k that I ran last November, and 15 minutes faster than the offroad 5k that I ran last September.

So what goals are next for me? I don't want to stop here happily, even though it was fast for me, plenty of people easily run much faster than I do. Perhaps go further? 5k is pretty much the entry level race, there are all kinds of further distances that people can run, and with all of the boston marathon talk around here right now I kind of have an itch to some day say that I ran it perhaps...

One thing is clear though, that while I have been working very hard on my running the past few months, I have neglected other types of exercise. I enjoy going out for a run now, but I don't enjoy doing weight exercises. Also my cross training has suffered as it has been too cold for me to have a desire to ride a bike, and I hate using my elliptical trainer as much as the treadmill.

My next goals are the following:

Move from a 4 day a week schedule of running only to 6 days a week, 5 running, 1 cross training and fitting in there 2 days of weight work a week as well. That gives me 1 off day during each week.

I plan on running a 10k race in June, and while I want to continue working on my base and thus improving my 5k time, I want to now get my 10k time under 1 hour.

I have planned a 5 mile race in May as an intermediate step between 5k (3.11 miles) and 10k (6.2 miles), and will see how I do on that.

[law90026]

Whoah did I see that right? An 80 year old did a sub-30 minute 5k? (the name above yours)

[Alan T]

Whoah did I see that right? An 80 year old did a sub-30 minute 5k? (the name above yours)

Hah, that is what it says... I don't recall seeing him, but another fun thing listed there is that he was 4th in his age group (60+ year old men).

To be honest, since I started running more, I have seen more and more people in great shape at late age. I do recall a race a while back reading where an 80 year old had a 21 minute 5k which is simply amazing to me to think about.

I ran about 5-6 weeks ago a 5k where I was huffing and puffing the entire time, and two guys 55+ year old Boston Marathoners were running behind me at the same pace and having a casual conversation talking about their kids as if they were walking :)

[finketr]

Whoah did I see that right? An 80 year old did a sub-30 minute 5k? (the name above yours)

What about the 8 year old just above that? :)

sorry.. i just hope to finish one in the summer.

[Alan T]

What about the 8 year old just above that? :)

sorry.. i just hope to finish one in the summer.


Kids beat me all the time in 5ks. Especially ones that have parents who run or stay active and encourage the kids to do so, they are so lighter and their legs are fresher, so if they have done any kind of running routinely, they usually fly pretty well through the races from what I have seen. (4 other boys age 12 or younger finished ahead of him even)

I have felt a little guilty that for a long time I have encouraged my kids to be couch potato video gamers, so been trying to get them into soccer or running or whatever they find interest in to get them more active. My oldest (12 year old) plays field hockey in school and has started running some with me. My middle child (8) likes to do dance and has recently mentioned she wants to try a 1 mile race this summer. My youngest (6) is the tough one. She reluctantly has been playing soccer, but would be just as happy playing wii or on the computer all day.

[Alan T]

What about the 8 year old just above that? :)

sorry.. i just hope to finish one in the summer.


How has your first week of C25K going for you? The toughest part always is getting going with it to make it a routine. I bet you can do one this summer, once you get going it will get pretty easy!

[Alan T]

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y19/Turlos/running/mar24-weeksummary.jpg

So the previous week, I only ran 13.3 miles total because of taking off 3 days before the 5k race. Plus I did not do a long run at all, it basically was 4 days of 3 mile runs and change.

So as mentioned previously, time to dig back in and start working on my next race. May 4th I have a local 5 mile race that I will be doing. It is 2 miles longer than any race that I have previously done. I have run over 5 miles many times now though, just never at a race pace.

My goal however is the 10k race that I plan on running in June, and that is what I am setting my training plan to try to prepare for. My hope is in the process of doing that, I'll also prepare myself for this 5 mile race. I likely will also throw in a few 5k races in some fashion, likely easy running over the next few months too.


So my new training schedule that I am planning on working is:

Monday - Cross training day. 1 Hour of some sort of cross training (likely bike preferred or eliptical as a fall back)

Tuesday - Long run day. Will ease back into things with a 5 or 6 mile long run this first week and then progressively increase it back to the 8 mile runs that I had been doing once I get used to the new workout schedule.

Wednesday - An easy run day of just 3 miles, plus 30-40 minutes of weight workouts. Focusing on Glutes, abs, legs, back, core.

Thursday - Easy run day, starting with 3 mile runs, but once I get used to the new schedule I'll progressively increase this to a secondary long run day, not going 8 miles, but more like 5-6 miles.

Friday - Off day, recovery day, rest day

Saturday - Speed day or Race day. I will alternate each week running intervals and tempo runs. I likely will try to schedule a few races to run as a tempo run (not full race pace) just for a change.

Sunday - Easy 3 - 4 mile run day plus a second round of weight workouts.


----------------------------------------------------------

So starting with the new schedule, last Monday was a cross training day. It was too cold for me to brave pulling a bike out, so I sucked it up and did the elliptical trainer. I like the elliptical as much or less than the treadmill, so doing an hour on it was rather painfully boring for me.

Never the less...

1 hour elliptical : 7.0 miles (http://app.strava.com/activities/45868161)

[Alan T]

Last Tuesday was my first long run in two weeks, and I didn't want to jump right back in at 8.5+ miles as I had been doing. Since I was adding extra run days plus extra workouts to the schedule, I didn't want to kill myself in all aspects at the same time. So I planned a pretty easy 10k run (6.2 miles) on a path that I knew did not have too many horrible hills for me.

Up til this point, my best 10k time was roughly 1 hour and 11 minutes, but my goal is to try to reduce that time down to under 1 hour. I can run at a pace for a 10k under 1 hour run, but can only do it for half the distance or at best 4 miles right now. So my problem as always is not necessarily that I need more speed, but instead I need more endurance. So I get that by just running more, running longer and putting in more miles every week.

My long run pace that I was setting out for was approximately 12:00 minutes per mile. That would put my 10k at somewhere around 1 hour 14 minutes to 1 hour 15 minutes. Not race pace here, just wanted to get miles back under my feet again.


http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y19/Turlos/running/3-26-13longrun.jpg

I actually was feeling pretty fresh and pushed the pace quite a bit faster, closer to 10:30 or 11:00 minute miles which I kept up for the majority of the run. I fatigued a little bit in the 6th mile, slowing down to 11:30, but I kept my pace faster than my goal for the entire run with the exception of one traffic light that I got stuck at.

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y19/Turlos/running/10krecord-3-26-13.jpg

My pace ended up being quick enough to break my old 10k record by a bit more than 3 minutes. Still a long way away from my goal though, I have a ton of work to do.

Long run: 6.2 miles : 1 hour 8 minutes (http://app.strava.com/activities/45945993)

[Alan T]

Nothing super spectacular on my Wednesday or Thursday workouts. Both days were just easy 3 mile runs at an easy 12:00 minute/mile pace.

Wednesday is one of my new weight workout days that I am trying to include in, so I added that to the end of my workout by adding weights for 30-40 minutes.

Wednesday: 3.3 miles in 41 minutes (http://app.strava.com/activities/46077096)

Thursday: 3.1 miles in 37 minutes (http://app.strava.com/activities/46191786)

[Alan T]

Friday was an off day for me, and my wife went out of town until Sunday, so since I had kid duty, my Saturday run was stuck on the treadmill.

Saturday I was planning a tempo run of 35 minutes. My plan is to roughly every other week increase my tempo run time by 5 minutes until I get to approximately 55 minutes - 1 hour around race day for the 10k race.

I would run the tempo runs at the uncomfortably comfortable fast pace for me of approximately 9:47 minutes/mile, which is just a hair slower than my best 5k time, so while this is not race pace, it would be a pretty strenuous workout for me and only getting tougher each week.

Since I was stuck on the treadmill this time, setting the speed is pretty easy to lock into for the tempo run. I warmed up for about 1/2 a mile at a pretty slow pace and then set in for the 35 minute tempo run followed by a slow pace cool down at the end.

Including warmup and cooldown, I did the following run:

4.0 miles: 41 minute (treadmill) (http://app.strava.com/activities/46574019)

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y19/Turlos/running/3-30-13temporunbests.jpg

If you take the best 5k during my tempo run it ended up coming in at right around 31 minutes which had been my previous best ever 5k up until the one the previous Sunday, and I then ran another 4 minutes at that pace beyond that.

I think the real challenge will come this next Saturday when I have to keep that pace up for 40 minutes, that is when my heart rate will start showing me exactly how not in shape I am just yet :) From this run alone, my max HR got up to 160, which is not too bad but we will see where we are this coming week.

[finketr]

How has your first week of C25K going for you? The toughest part always is getting going with it to make it a routine. I bet you can do one this summer, once you get going it will get pretty easy!

Started last night. I'm doing c25k week 0...

as in: i did the first two jogs, walked the rest of the time except for the last jog.

So it was 27 minutes of brisk walking and 3 minutes of jogging.

most important thing I learned: I am old.

[Alan T]

Sunday my wife flew back in town and I picked her up at the airport around lunch time. It was a beautiful day outside though, and roughly an hour after we got home I managed to sneak out for an easy run.

3.2 miles in 37 minutes (http://app.strava.com/activities/46683653)


Sunday is also supposed to be a weight workout day for me, but I was bad and just did not feel like doing that. I think that is going to be a struggle for me forcing myself to do the weight exercises. For whatever reason running has become more fun for me now that I feel that i can do it better. Weights just feel like a chore for me. My next Weight workout is Wednesday and I'll have to force myself to do it...


Also this closes the month of March for me , and from a cardiovascular standpoint, I think it went pretty well!

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y19/Turlos/running/march2013activities.jpg


94 miles (combined all activities, not just running, but 84 of those were running miles) is a pretty good jump from the previous month for me.

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y19/Turlos/running/march2013monthlyreview.jpg

Keeping in mind that most of January I was out due to back surgery, but looking at Feb to March I jumped from 65 miles to 90 miles which I am happy to see.


From a weight standpoint, while that has become less of a focus for me to just trying to be more in shape or more fit, it is still one of my driving factors to my exercise.

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y19/Turlos/running/march2013weight.jpg

For the most part I was weighing weekly for a while, but am trying to get back into more regular weigh-ins. I find my weight goes up and down during the week (as I assume it does for most people). At the start of the month I was around 216 pounds and now I am at 208 pounds. According to this graph I lost 7 pounds this last month and will get to my current goal of 200 some point in a few months or so.

One other thing that I was looking at which I felt was pretty cool was:

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y19/Turlos/running/march2013BMI.jpg

Looking back since Jan 2009 when I started trying to lose weight (and was 260-263 or so pounds), I've gone from Obese in the BMI scale to 1/3rd of the way down through Overweight. I can now see the line for "Normal" and maybe would like to try to make it there some point later this year or early next year.

[Alan T]

Started last night. I'm doing c25k week 0...

as in: i did the first two jogs, walked the rest of the time except for the last jog.

So it was 27 minutes of brisk walking and 3 minutes of jogging.

most important thing I learned: I am old.


Have to start somewhere, and just getting out there and doing it is the toughest part. Keep up the good work! :)

[finketr]

Have to start somewhere, and just getting out there and doing it is the toughest part. Keep up the good work! :)

Oh yeah..

I also need some better headphones that don't fall out while running/jogging like my iphone5 standard ones do...

or maybe actually get an ipod..

[Alan T]

Oh yeah..

I also need some better headphones that don't fall out while running/jogging like my iphone5 standard ones do...

or maybe actually get an ipod..


My wife and I both actually got bluetooth wireless headphones to use with running because we got annoyed at the wire being pulled out while running.

I got a little bulkier pair of headphones that I feel has better sound quality for me. Amazon.com: Motorola S11-Flex HD Wireless Stereo Bluetooth Headset - Retail Packaging - Black/White: Cell Phones & Accessories (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B009M27MB2/ref=oh_details_o03_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1)

Kind of funny since when I am running, I keep the sound down pretty low to listen for traffic and only wear them when running.. but whatever!

My wife got these: Amazon.com: JayBird BlueBuds X Sport Bluetooth Headphones - Midnight Black: Cell Phones & Accessories (http://www.amazon.com/JayBird-BlueBuds-Sport-Bluetooth-Headphones/dp/B00AIRUOI8/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1364934686&sr=8-1&keywords=jaybird)

A little more lightweight but she says they sound find and are pretty easy for her to wear while running. She says she loves them.

[finketr]

My wife and I both actually got bluetooth wireless headphones to use with running because we got annoyed at the wire being pulled out while running.

I got a little bulkier pair of headphones that I feel has better sound quality for me. Amazon.com: Motorola S11-Flex HD Wireless Stereo Bluetooth Headset - Retail Packaging - Black/White: Cell Phones & Accessories (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B009M27MB2/ref=oh_details_o03_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1)

Kind of funny since when I am running, I keep the sound down pretty low to listen for traffic and only wear them when running.. but whatever!

My wife got these: Amazon.com: JayBird BlueBuds X Sport Bluetooth Headphones - Midnight Black: Cell Phones & Accessories (http://www.amazon.com/JayBird-BlueBuds-Sport-Bluetooth-Headphones/dp/B00AIRUOI8/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1364934686&sr=8-1&keywords=jaybird)

A little more lightweight but she says they sound find and are pretty easy for her to wear while running. She says she loves them.

are your headphones "over the ear" in that they rest on the ear as opposed to the free-earbud of your wife's type? also, if you wear glasses while running how do they feel?

[Alan T]

Yes mine are over the ear which I prefer so they don't move or call off at all. I do not know how they are with glasses though, I actually don't like wearing any sunglasses when I run and I don't wear prescription glasses. I can imagine it might get a little uncomfortable over the ear with glasses.

[finketr]

I wear prescription glasses and contacts give me headaches.. so as a result I wear sunglasses during the day.. i guess i' should go to best buy or somewhere similar and test drive.

[Alan T]

I wear prescription glasses and contacts give me headaches.. so as a result I wear sunglasses during the day.. i guess i' should go to best buy or somewhere similar and test drive.

Yeah, I did some web searches but not sure if I could find any great recommendations since I do not wear glasses. My wife wears contacts when she runs as well.

Another option if you have a pair of earphones that you like other than they keep falling out might be to try to figure out why they are falling out and fix that instead.. My old earbuds would fall out because as I ran, my arm motion would pull the cord out of my ears eventually. I know some people have that problem due to the size of the ear bud not fitting their ear well.

For a while my wife had a clip thing behind her neck that you clipped the earphone wire into and it helped hold it in place which solved some of her problems with the wires being pulled out.

Another option could be going with something like yurbuds. I have never tried them, but they are still wired but shaped a little differently and I have heard some people comment that they like them for running. Plus I believe (don't quote me on it) that you can get a few different sizes of buds to find the one that fits most comfortably in your ear. The yurbuds start pretty cheaply so not a huge investment if you don't want to spend a lot for their low end stuff.

[Alan T]

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y19/Turlos/running/3-31-weeksummary.jpg

So last week had me at just under 27 miles of activity. 7 miles of that was elliptical which gave me 19.9 miles of running. I kind of wish that I had run 1/10th of a mile further now, but close enough to 20 miles for my first week back after the last race and with the new training plan.

That leads to Monday, which was cross training day. The weather was starting to be a little more spring like finally and I decided to pump air into my bike tires and get out for a ride. It was still cold enough when riding, that the extra speed needed me to bundle up a bit more than I would have for a run, but it was still nice to get out on the bike. This was only my second ride of the year and I think my second since last September maybe?

I realized a few things on this ride though....

- I hate hills just as much on a bike as I do when running.
- I think I am almost to the point where it is easier for me to run a distance to bike it, or at least it feels more comfortable.
- Just because I've been improving my fitness over the last few months, it doesn't fully transfer to my biking. At the bigger hill, I literally felt that my heart was going to jump out of my chest and actually had to rest for a minute or so before continuing...

Either way, I did manage to ride:

9 miles in 43 minutes (http://app.strava.com/activities/46817966)


To be fair, most of it was a pretty easy ride, and enjoyable. I just had trouble with one hill in the middle of it...

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y19/Turlos/running/4-1-13bikegraph.jpg


My max heart rate for the ride, even on the hill didn't get over 158 which when running, I'll usually go well over on hills of the same size, so I guess my biggest problem was just the leg muscles needed to power up that hill aren't as defined for me as my running leg muscles right now.

Hopefully as I bike more this spring, that will get better for me.

[Radii]

Newegg.com - SONY MDR-J10/WHITE 3.5mm Connector Earbud Clip Style Headphone (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA0AT0MB7430&nm_mc=KNC-GoogleMKP&cm_mmc=KNC-GoogleMKP-_-pla-_-All+Headphones+%26+Accessories-_-9SIA0AT0MB7430)

This is what I use when I'm jogging. I keep my glasses on when I'm jogging and the hooks/clips that go around your ears to keep them in place are perfectly comfortable for me even with my glasses on. I got them at Wal Mart for probably about the same $$ as on newegg, I'm not one to spend a lot on this type of thing heh.

[Radii]

Started last night. I'm doing c25k week 0...

as in: i did the first two jogs, walked the rest of the time except for the last jog.

So it was 27 minutes of brisk walking and 3 minutes of jogging.

most important thing I learned: I am old.


I started at Christmas. Week 1 of Couch to 5k IIRC calls for 60 seconds jogging/90 seconds walking. I couldn't do this even once. My first time out I did 30 seconds jogging/90 seconds walking and after about 10 minutes of that I had to walk the rest of the way. It took a week before I could even do 30 seconds jogging/90 seconds walking for the full 20 minutes. After that I increased to 45 seconds jogging/90 seconds walking for a week or two. Again when I first made that leap by the end of 20 minutes I was only walking.

Finally about my 5th week I got to "week 1" of couch to 5k doing 60 seconds jogging/90 seconds walking for a full 20 minutes.

My pace is very slow (20 minute mile at best, maybe closer to 22 minute mile), but I can see improvement as long as I go out and do something and don't skip a bunch of days. About 3 months after I started I was able to jog a mile without any walking, which felt fucking great. I'm very slowly trying to increase my distance now.

So don't worry about your starting point, pace yourself and you can improve really quickly!

[Radii]

double dola,

Thanks for the advice in the other thread Alan, I ordered a Garmin Forerunner today. I've been following along here, I'm enjoying the updates, good work!

[Alan T]

Yes, absolutely don't worry about your pace at all. The entire focus to start and really even where I am right now is all about being able to go further. Just gradually work on going the distance and increasing the distance you can go. That is the most important thing right now.

[Alan T]

Radii, which forerunner did you end up getting?

[Radii]

Radii, which forerunner did you end up getting?

Amazon.com: Garmin Forerunner 410 GPS-Enabled Sports Watch with Heart Rate Monitor: GPS & Navigation (http://www.amazon.com/Garmin-Forerunner-GPS-Enabled-Sports-Monitor/dp/B0046BTK14/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1365030621&sr=8-1&keywords=garmin+forerunner+410)

It was on sale at a pretty good discount. I'm a bit concerned about some of the complaints in the reviews about the touch screen thing. But I can return it if that ends up being a problem, seems to have good reviews overall though.

[Alan T]

I looked at the 410 but got scared away from the negative comments about the touch bezel. I use a 210 myself and love it.

[finketr]

I couldn't find the sony j10's at the walmart here. i did see a sport philips headphone/over the ear wired... Didn't get them because just not sure about them yet. I also see that i could get earbuds with mic/remote (like my current earbuds) that appear to have difference earbuds to use.

Anyone have experience with them?

Regarding week -2, day 2: aven't done it due to soreness on wednesday (none on tuesday, weird) and an unstable knee last night... Must get back to it even if I all I do is a brisk 30-45 minute walk.

[Alan T]

Regarding week -2, day 2: aven't done it due to soreness on wednesday (none on tuesday, weird) and an unstable knee last night... Must get back to it even if I all I do is a brisk 30-45 minute walk.


I know when I first started, I was around 260 pounds and was having knee issues where they hurt from the little jogging I was doing. I talked to the doctor some and he mentioned it mostly was due to my weight and recommended if I was having pain to try something a little less weight bearing such as elliptical which I did for a while. When i came back a while later I didn't have that knee pain any longer.

Your issue might be something else though, but generally if there is pain, you don't want to push it, finding a different activity that doesn't hurt is a good replacement.

[finketr]

I know when I first started, I was around 260 pounds and was having knee issues where they hurt from the little jogging I was doing. I talked to the doctor some and he mentioned it mostly was due to my weight and recommended if I was having pain to try something a little less weight bearing such as elliptical which I did for a while. When i came back a while later I didn't have that knee pain any longer.

Your issue might be something else though, but generally if there is pain, you don't want to push it, finding a different activity that doesn't hurt is a good replacement.

Yeah.. hate elliptical as i feel herky-jerky if you know what I mean...

i'm at the 270 level and trending down, but the strange thing was, Tuesday after week -2 day 1, i felt great, the soreness happened on wednesday and the strange lock/collapse-ish of my right knee was thursday.

i'll go back to doing walking on the treadmill (for pace reasons) and some strength exercises for a bit...

sigh.. i'm still aiming to run a 5k by August even though it's damn hot (100+) here then.

[Alan T]

So last Tuesday was my long day for the week. I truly enjoy my long run days most of the time for a few reasons. I don't try to kill myself with the pace, so usually it is a fairly comfortable pace that is setting and pretty relaxing. Also my long runs more than any other run help me see how much I have improved, going from sitting on the couch all of the time to now running 9 miles in a single run. I also know that adding more miles is the best way to help further improve my running and this is perhaps my single most important run of the week.

That said, I sometimes get bored running the same routes and end up looking for new routes to take. For a while, i was measuring out routes with google maps, but lately have been just letting mapmyrun pick a route for me. It has a "route recommender" feature on it that you can put in your starting location and the distance you want to run and it will help recommend a route for you. A few things to keep in mind however is that it really does not take elevation into consideration when recommending the route, so I have had a few that ended up being pretty rough courses for me to take. Probably not something that I really want to do for my long runs, but whatever.. its just running :)

So my current training plan that I am on for my upcoming 10k has my long run at 5 miles for the week, but I had planned on just putting it at 6.2 anyways, since that is what I had been running and I did not see any reason to drop it down a mile. Plus I like the 6.2 distance to help me get a feel for how much easier running 10k is becoming for me.

So I popped in the route recommender and went off running!

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y19/Turlos/running/4-2-13-longrun.jpg

One interesting thing that I noticed from this run, I had a hill that was both steeper and higher than the hill I did the previous day when biking. I had no problem running up this hill at a decent "easy pace" for myself, where the easier hill on the bike the day before was a chore. I guess that shows how much better that my running has gotten and how it does not transfer directly to biking.

Another thing I encountered on this run was at the last mile or mile and a half, I was on a highway that had horrendous wind.. 20mph wind with 30-40 mph wind gusts pretty much pushing directly against me while I was on a small incline the entire way. It was pretty tough after 5 miles to have the leg strength to push through that and only then I found my pace slipping back to right around 12:00min/mile. I think I'll take hills over strong wind any day after that.


Because of the wind and the hills, I didn't break my best 10k time, but did still make it my second best 10k time which is good to see on such a difficult run for myself.

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y19/Turlos/running/4-2-13-10krecord.jpg

I also found that someone had created a "segment" within Strava (one of the apps I use to track my running) for the big hill that I ran up. I ended up 4th on the leaderboard for that segment during this run. The hill they measured was 88ft incline in 1/2 a mile (4.3% average grade).

Don't get too excited for me though, I am 4th out of 4 :) The first place on that leaderboard did that hill 2 minutes faster than me, which is almost half the time. And it was not like he was just sprinting up that hill, it was only 1/2 of a mile of a full 6 mile run that he did where his entire pace was faster than my normal interval training pace. :)

Anyways...

6.2 miles in 1 hour 11 minutes (http://app.strava.com/activities/46980648)

[Alan T]

Wednesday and Thursday are both easy run days for me.

Wednesday was supposed to be 3 miles and Thursday 3.5 miles. Thursday I am gradually working up to be a second long day of the week for myself. Probably not as long a run as Tuesdays, but hoping in a few weeks to be up to 6+ miles on Thursday runs as well.

Wednesday I am also supposed to do weight training, but yeah that did not happen. I just have no motivation right now for it and not sure why. I just do not enjoy it too much. Maybe when softball season starts later this month that will change for me, but right now I just make excuses to why I do not want to do the workouts after my run.

So I ended up just running 3.5 miles both days at an easy pace and was done with it. Thursday's run I actually ended up doing with my wife who was a wreck the entire time worried that we would not make it home before our youngest daughter made it home on the school bus. I spent half of the run explaining to her that we could probably walk the 3 miles in time if we had to and make it, but oh well :)

Wednesday: 3.4 miles in 40 minutes (http://app.strava.com/activities/47110577)

Thursday: 3.5 miles in 43 minutes (http://app.strava.com/activities/47248846)

[Alan T]

So Friday was an off day for me and my planned schedule was to do interval training on Saturday and Sunday was an easy run. Because of family and kids and such that did not go quite as planned though.

I have been trying to encourage my oldest daughter to run more with me, she is 12 and I want her to do more than just play video games and watch tv. For the past couple of months she has been running off an on, starting primarily after she got into playing Field hockey in school. My biggest challenge is that she is only with me on every other weekend, it makes it difficult for me to try to build healthy habits for her.

Saturday morning, I went with her to a local weekly race that is held just to run it with her for fun. It had been over a month since I last ran with her, and it did not go that well for her. She did ok for the first mile but then started running out of gas quickly, a clear sign that she just hasn't been running much. My goal wasn't to drive her into the ground though, I just wanted to be supportive and encourage her, so we just took an easy pace and finished 33rd and 34th out of 34. On the plus side though, she did win a free shirt out of the weekly raffle :)

3.1 miles in 39 minutes (http://app.strava.com/activities/47475380)

[Alan T]

With the running that my wife and I have been doing and my oldest daughter, it has had an effect on the younger two kids wanting to get into it as well. Obviously I want to encourage that, but they just aren't able to go for long distances, so Sunday I took them out for a little jog around the neighborhood (1 mile almost exactly loop).

Younger kids don't really do a jog though, they like to sprint full speed for as long as they can and then they stop to walk and catch their breath again until they can sprint again. I pretty much just let them do that while I kept up with whatever pace they wanted to go as we went a mile.

.9 mile - 13 minutes (http://app.strava.com/activities/47771563)

My youngest seemed to enjoy it a bunch and asked if we could do it again the next day. Now that the weather is getting nicer, I will start trying to plan some afternoon walk/jogs with her as well, or perhaps try to get to her school on some days to walk home with her from school. She normally rides the bus home, but I have measured the distance to her school on other runs that I have done and it is pretty close to 1 mile (just a hair more), so that might be a fun activity to do with her on occasions.


----------------------------------

Later in the day on Sunday I was able to get my planned Saturday workout in. Since I had done an easy run with my daughter the previous day, I just swapped the two days and did interval training today.

I had not run on the high school track in a while, and felt like doing it for this run, so I headed there for the intervals. Running on a track is both good and bad, it is bad in the sense that it is not very exciting and only a step up from a treadmill in scenery, but easier than normal outside running in that there aren't hills to deal with.

My plan was to warm up at an easy pace and then run 8x400m with 200m recoveries in between the intervals. 400m is one lap around the track, so pretty easy for me to measure. My interval pace that I was aiming for was 8:56min/mile pace, which is pretty much the fastest intervals that I have attempted, so I was not sure what to expect.

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y19/Turlos/running/4-7-13graph.jpg

I ended up going way too fast for my first two intervals, both at closer to 7:00min/mile pace, which is waaaay too fast. I settled down for the remaining ones though. I still ran them a bit too quickly, but was in the 8's at least for those. I felt by the time that I was on my last repetition, I was running pretty low on gas, but pretty much willed my way through the last two repeats. Each time, my heart rate climbed just a little more and by the last I was getting close to my threshold, but stayed just under it.

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y19/Turlos/running/4-7-13records.jpg

I was able to set a bunch of personal best records for myself during my run though, my fastest 400m yet (as expected from going way too fast on my first two repeats), which also led to my fastest 1/2 mile, fastest 1k and fastest mile yet.

It was the first time that I have run a mile in under 9 minutes, beating my previous best by about 7 seconds which is pretty cool!

I also managed to run a 5k distance in under 30 minutes for only the second time ever as well during this run, without expecting that.

[finketr]

Saturday morning, I went with her to a local weekly race that is held just to run it with her for fun. It had been over a month since I last ran with her, and it did not go that well for her. She did ok for the first mile but then started running out of gas quickly, a clear sign that she just hasn't been running much. My goal wasn't to drive her into the ground though, I just wanted to be supportive and encourage her, so we just took an easy pace and finished 33rd and 34th out of 34. On the plus side though, she did win a free shirt out of the weekly raffle :)


You came in 34th right?
:)

[Alan T]

You came in 34th right?
:)


Yes, actually I did let her beat me :)

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y19/Turlos/running/4-6-13cmsresult.jpg

[AnalBumCover]

BTW, thanks for this thread. It's helping me get my own going. :)

[digamma]

Another thanks here--renewing my interest in semi-competitive running again.

[Alan T]

BTW, thanks for this thread. It's helping me get my own going. :)

Another thanks here--renewing my interest in semi-competitive running again.

Glad to hear from both of you. It is good to know others are reading along!


I rearranged my first post in the thread by the way. I wanted a place to keep a track on my personal triumphs and track my current goals. You can see how when I first was finishing up couch to 5k, I wasn't able to go a full 5k without walking either.. and when I finally did run a full 5k, it was over 40 minutes. I've managed to cut around 15 minutes off of that time since then, and now have new goal times that I am aiming for as well as goal races.

[AnalBumCover]

Wow. I like that first post idea. Mind if I steal it?

[Alan T]

Wow. I like that first post idea. Mind if I steal it?


Don't mind at all!

[finketr]

Wow. I like that first post idea. Mind if I steal it?

just give proper attribution so that we don't run afoul of the grammar police.

[Alan T]

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y19/Turlos/running/4-7-13weekend.jpg

So last week, I ended up putting together 30 miles of activity. 9 miles of that was biking, so that meant 21 miles of running, or pretty much where I wanted to be for right now.

As I get ready for my 10k coming up, I'll slowly expand this up to around 25 miles in a week.


So Monday, cross training day for me. I want to get to about an hour of cross training, but so far have only been going about 40-45 minutes. I did the same today, not because of running out of steam though but I actually had a night out with my youngest daughter planned so had to fit it in quickly. I had some contractors doing work on my house on Monday, putting up new gutters since my old ones got destroyed this last winter with the bad storms. They finished up by 4:30 which left me less than an hour to bike. I quickly got ready and took off!

I actually decided to take a path that I have biked before, and make a loop that is the same as my longest run that I have done (roughly an 8.5 mile loop). I knew it would not take too long so figured I could get there and back in time before my wife had to leave for spin class.

One of the fun things that I like about using strava to record my runs/rides is they have a social competition type of section where you can create segments that you can then use to compete against your own personal bests on those sections or compete against others that have done that section. There are privacy settings that you can use if you don't wish to participate or if you want to make your segment private to just you only as well.

On my planned ride, I knew there was one segment that I had taken a few times before.

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y19/Turlos/running/4-8-13roadrageprevious.jpg

Now I'm not a great biker, but trying to ride more (once a week) than I have in the past. Last year I was riding this segment in 9 1/2 - 10 1/2 minutes. You can ignore the Jan 31st time, it was one of my first activities after I had back surgery so was taking it pretty easy.

So I knew where this segment was, and decided I would see how I would do this time around for fun.

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y19/Turlos/running/4-7-13roadragedetail.jpg

The segment in question was 2.2 miles and more downhill than up. There were a few uphills in it, but nothing overly tough or difficult. It is a fun segment because for the most part it is fairly flat which means people who are far better bikers than me can get a pretty good speed going on it.

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y19/Turlos/running/4-7-13roadrageleaderboard.jpg

Well, I did improve my best time by almost two minutes.. and it actually put me in the same ballpark as many of the other bikers. Only 10 seconds behind 28th place instead of the 2 minutes I was previously :)

Anyways, that was just for fun and pretty early in the ride, after that I had another 5-6 miles to go and just made it a comfortable easy paced ride.

8.6 miles in 37:12 (http://app.strava.com/activities/47922808)

[Alan T]

Tuesday was my long run day, I guess my most important run of the week. I did a route roulette and it ended up sending me down a pretty nice highway towards Tufts University Veterinarian school. So alot of the surrounding area is big open fields that they use for the horses or dogs or other animals that happen to be visiting.

Along the way, part of the road goes parallel to the railroad where the Commuter rail runs into Boston. I got quite the startle when during the run an Amtrak train was going down the track and decided to blow its horn right next to me. Made me jump a good bit! After a bit, the path I took winded up finding its way to an industrial area that was not quite as pleasant but it was a pretty fun run and new scenery for me at least!

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y19/Turlos/running/4-8-13graph.jpg

I had a pretty good climb during the middle of the run, I think it was around 400ft total for the entire run, but the big climb part was about 2 miles all up hill. It was followed with a pretty nice sprint down hill where the grade was so steep that I had little choice but to full sprint down the hill. Overall it was a very beautiful day though, nice and sunny with a cool breeze so it made the run very enjoyable.

I realized near the end of the run though that I had made some pretty good time without really trying to do so. With just a mile left, I knew that I was within 10 minutes of my best 10k time, so pushed myself a little in mile 6 to make it close. I wasn't sure if I had beat it or not until I uploaded my data from my run....

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y19/Turlos/running/4-8-13topresult.jpg

I set a new personal record for my best 10k time, beating my old record by 24 seconds. Still a pretty far distance away from my goal of trying to get a sub-1 hour 10k though, but I still have 7-8 weeks left before the 10k race to try to get there. I am not sure that I will as that is a pretty big gap, but it gives me something to work for!

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y19/Turlos/running/4-8-13diet.jpg

One of the complications that I have with my long run days is after my run, I get pretty substantially hungry. My current calorie budget is around 2500 calories per day, which would give me a goal of losing 1/2 a pound per week. Nothing earth shattering, but I am not trying to diet but instead I am trying to just live healthier (both diet and exercise).

I don't believe that calories burned off by exercise is a direct correlation to calories you can eat in extra as many fitness apps suggest, but it does represent the large amount of food that I burn off that I need to replace. Seriously shorting my calories is probably just as bad for my health as taking in too many calories is. On Tuesday I ended up eating out twice (Subway for lunch and a mexican restaurant for dinner) as well as had a snack of various fruit in the afternoon, and I still came a mile short on my calories for the day.

I guess figuring out my Tuesday diet is going to take a little more work on my part.

[AnalBumCover]

I got quite the startle when during the run an Amtrak train was going down the track and decided to blow its horn right next to me. Made me jump a good bit!

Sometimes I wonder if they do this on purpose.

[Alan T]

Sometimes I wonder if they do this on purpose.


I was no where near an intersection where they would blow the whistle so I assumed they did. Dunno though :)



Also for anyone interested, I put in the first post below my goals/personal records a section listing the various apps or websites I use with my running. I may have forgotten or neglected to put in a few, but at least you can see most of the things I have tried in case any is of interest to anyone else.

[AnalBumCover]

That's me following you on Strava (Rob Ordona)

[Alan T]

That's me following you on Strava (Rob Ordona)


That's cool, the more the merrier! :)

[Alan T]

Here is an article in the newspaper that I was interviewed for talking about the various fitness apps and how they help newer runners. Even though they say I have lost 90 pounds, it is really only 60 pounds. Maybe in another year it really will be 90 pounds :)

Fitness apps get users moving, improving - Worcester Telegram & Gazette - telegram.com (http://www.telegram.com/article/20130415/NEWS/104159859/1116)

[Alan T]

I am traveling this week, am trying to keep on my running schedule but will be a little slow to post updates until next weekend when I get back

[Alan T]

I'm a little behind in updating this again thanks to more traveling. Trying to catch up!

Wednesday before last and Thursday were both pretty easy runs. Wednesday is supposed to also be a strength workout day which I skipped once again and Thursday I had bowling after running. Nothing much eventful otherwise in either run, just easy short runs.

Wednesday: 3.1 miles in 38 minutes (http://app.strava.com/activities/48191563)

Thursday: 4.1 miles in 49 minutes (http://app.strava.com/activities/48315744)

I guess the one thing of note on my Thursday easy run, it took me up one of my segments with a small hill on it. a .4 mile stretch where the road climbs 88 ft.

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y19/Turlos/running/4-11-13segment.jpg

My Thursday run on the 11th was not my fastest, falling short by 4 seconds from my run a little over a week before. One interesting thing I noticed though is my heart rate was a good bit lower to do the same work. In fact it was lower than a few months ago where it took me 30 seconds longer to go up the same hill. I would like to believe that this is a sign of my improving fitness (hopefully)

[Alan T]

Friday was an off day for me, Saturday was scheduled to be a tempo run. I decided to do the weekly 5k race that is hosted by a local running club that I am a member of. I went with my wife and a few friends to do the run, but I did not plan on treating it like a race. I just was going to stick to my tempo run pace through the distance. My goal pace was going to be a 9:47minute/mile pace, which would leave me right at about 30:30 for a full 5k.

One of the fun things about this club is there are a large assortment of talents when it comes to running. There are the marathoners all the way down to beginners. They do a good job of not being elitist and try to encourage newer runners as well as older runners. With the Boston Marathon scheduled for 2 days later, a large number of the marathon runners in the club were still doing this race with plans to "take it easy". Keep in mind their taking it easy pace in many cases is faster than my race pace though :)

Setting out at my 9:47ish pace, I ended up right in the middle of a pretty decent group of marathon runners and started chatting it up while running with one of them who pretty much just matched my pace and ran with me. It was pretty cool getting to meet him while running, and even more cool for me the fact that I was able to run sub-10 minute pace and have a conversation, something that i never could do before. We literally ran 2.5 miles of the 5k together just talking. He gave me various pointers for handling the hills better, and I asked him random questions about his experience running marathons and such. He is 50 years old and this was going to be his 5th Boston marathon. He told me that he had just started running a few years ago, before that his "long run" was from the recliner to the fridge. It is always encouraging to me to realize that people who run marathons are just ordinary people who decided to change their lives to become healthier. If they can do it, I can as well.

As running, I got to the final 3/4th of a mile home stretch in really good shape, was not tired at all and he actually pointed out the guy running about 400m or so ahead of us was struggling. he told me that I should try to catch him and see if I could finish strongly. Even though I had planned on running a tempo pace the entire time, I decided to go ahead and kick it up the final stretch and see how I could do.

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y19/Turlos/running/4-13-13graph.jpg

I ended up finishing strong, running the last 1/2 mile at around an 8:00 pace. I did pass the "rabbit" that I was chasing, and as soon as I saw the finish line, I kicked it up another notch to the point where I finished the race with pretty much my highest heart rate that i recall seeing (189).

I didn't set a new PR for my 5k mostly due to not racing the first 4/5th of the run, but I did finish with a 29:07 5k, which was right among my best. I did also set a few other personal bests for myself:

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y19/Turlos/running/4-13-13topresults.jpg

I actually beat previous best records on 1 mile and 1/2 mile that I had done during interval training. This was a very strong run for me, perhaps one of my best yet. Plus I felt really good afterwards (once I caught my breath that is). I didn't have any aches or pains.

I found my new friend that I had met and introduced him to my wife, and we added him to the list of people that we were going to follow with the marathon tracker on Monday (where it sends updates to your cell phone when they reach certain checkpoints).

Writing a little after the fact about the marathon makes it a little more surreal I suppose. Going from a horrible tragedy to actually being worried about people you know was very disheartening. I had been talking just that weekend about my goal to try to run the Boston Marathon by the time I turned 40 (basically have 2 years to try to do it), and then to see what occurred. Happily the people that we knew all checked in unhurt on facebook and through other means, but what happened did not change my goals a single bit. I still plan on running a half-marathon later this year, and a full marathon next year with the goal of trying to get into the Boston marathon by the time I am 40.

[AnalBumCover]

He is 50 years old and this was going to be his 5th Boston marathon. He told me that he had just started running a few years ago, before that his "long run" was from the recliner to the fridge. It is always encouraging to me to realize that people who run marathons are just ordinary people who decided to change their lives to become healthier. If they can do it, I can as well.

Quoting this so I can read it over and over again.

[Alan T]

Sunday was just a recovery run day after the previous day's "tempo run". Nothing super exciting, just an easy pace to get enough miles to meet my weekly goal of 20+ miles for the week.

Sunday : 3.3 miles in 40 minutes (http://app.strava.com/activities/48821548)

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y19/Turlos/running/4-14-13weekend.jpg

This gave me 22+ miles of running and another 8.6 miles biking for the week over roughly 5 hours of time. I am still behind in posting here by 1 week, so upcoming next is looking back at my vacation week from last week and then I have more vacation and a 5 mile race upcoming to fit in for my 10k training.

[Alan T]

This past week was school vacation week in Massachusetts. We had plans to travel for the week, so that presented two big problems for me:

1) Trying to keep up with my exercise around the travel and vacation and family schedule

2) Trying to keep to some sense of a healthy diet while traveling and eating out 90% of the time.

We were to fly out Tuesday through Saturday to California, so that left Monday in town. I had softball practice later in the evening so we had planned on Monday to be a day out at Six Flags with the kids.

Six Flags was fun, but obviously the marathon bombing occured while we were on our way home. With three kids in the car, we were not really able to listen very well to what was going on, so my wife kept up to date online on her phone and was telling me as she found out stuff. By the time we got home, the kids just stayed upstairs to play while my wife and I watched the news downstairs. I ended up completely skipping my bike ride that I had planned for crosstraining that afternoon. I still did an hour of softball practice, so I guess that would have to suffice as my exercise for the day.

Tuesday morning we were to head out to the airport for our flight. Due to the bombings, we decided to get to the airport earlier than normal just in case there was extra security. We were to leave at 10:30 in the morning, so my wife and I snuck out in the morning for a semi-long run before we left. I took her down to the 5 mile course for the race that we are doing May 4th and ran that with her. While I try to fit in some decent hills on my runs, she doesn't necessarily do that as much, and the hills on this course killed her. For the first time in a few weeks, she had to stop to walk up the bigger part of one of the hills. I got to the 2 mile mark and waited for about 2 minutes for her to catch up to me. From there on, it was pretty much mostly down hill and we ran it together without any problems.

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y19/Turlos/running/4-16-13graph.jpg

It ended up being 376ft in elevation gain, I felt pretty good on the run though, but was taking a slower pace than normal. I plan on running it again by myself in the next week if I can find time just to get a feel for what pace I want to take on the race. I think for the most part, taking it easy until the top of the hill and then all out from there as if it was a 5k will be my strategy during the race. I guess I will see how it goes!

Tuesday: 5 miles in 1 hour and 2 minutes (http://app.strava.com/activities/49079572)


After the run, we showered and got the kids ready and went to the airport. We were flying American Airlines and got to the airport to see perhaps the largest line I had ever seen at the check-in. Not even security yet, so I had no idea what was going on. Until I found out that American had a system wide computer outage. After an hour or 90 minutes, we got through it and security was a breeze compared to that line, only to get to the gate to find out that no flights were taking off until the computer issue was fixed.

So we sat there at the gate for several hours, and got to see so many people who were trying to fly home from the marathon, this probably was adding to one of the worst experiences of their lives I imagine. After a while, they finally announced that all flights were cancelled and they couldn't do anything to help with all of their computers down. We talked to several agents and they echoed the same thing, the company line was to try to talk to other airlines to see if they could help. My problem was that I didn't have a spare few thousand dollars to fly the family on another air-line. So we went and picked up our bags from baggage claim and headed back home to figure out what to do next.

We got home and pretty much it was time to get the kids in bed, while we sat on the phone on hold with American for 3+ hours and never was answered before we went to sleep.

The next morning, I got lucky and got a hold of someone in American and they were able to re-book our flight through United instead, but it was for 1pm. So we were going to have to get everyone up and ready and out the door again. I decided to go for a quick and easy run while the kids all showered and got ready. Nothing spectacular, mostly just getting out for fresh air after the very stressful past two days..

Wednesday: 3.1 miles in 35 minutes (http://app.strava.com/activities/49246840)

I got home, showered myself and grabbed our bags and we went back to the airport. Luckily we had not unpacked anything, so did not have to re-pack it all. Getting to the airport, we find that due to American rebooking us on United, there were some issues with the e-tickets not being cut over, and we had to wait yet another 1 hour in line trying to get it resolved. Once that was done, we came to find out that United had a 2+ hour delay on the flight we were taking for a quick lay-over in Denver. The problem is that meant we would now miss that flight... Awesome!

I talked to a ticket agent and she rebooked our second flight for a later one, giving us about 30-40 minutes to spare at the Denver layover.. which hopefully would be enough.. but once we were on our flight we got stuck without clearance to take off for nearly 30 minutes... This vacation was getting to be very stressful... The flight itself was uneventful other than the United flight crew being among the most unprofessional that I have ever experienced. In the back of the plane where we were sitting, we heard them openly making fun of passengers as well as their company they worked for. Anyhow, we get to Denver pretty much right when our next flight was to take off but luckily found that it too was delayed by about 15 minutes, but we had to get across to the other side of the terminal. We did a family speed walk and made it to our next gate in 10 minutes, and were the very last people to board, but still managed to get on and get to California much later than planned but still we got there.

We celebrated by eating breakfast for dinner at Dennys at 11pm at night and then checked in the hotel and crashed for the night.

I had runs that I wanted to do both Thursday and Saturday, but my wife seemed doubtful if we would have time... I'll cover those days in my next post :)

[Alan T]

Blah, been staying pretty busy so falling behind in keeping this updated...

A few quick updates to try to catch back up here...

To finish out the vacation week, traveling is horrible for both exercise routine and eating routine. My goal was to meet my workout plan and also to try not to eat everything in site considering we would be eating out the entire time.

Thursday: 4.6 miles in 52 minutes (http://app.strava.com/activities/49424534)

Was a pretty easy run through San Bruno, California. Did not have any specific time that I had to be back, but did not know the area that well so just ran down the street until the sidewalk ended, turned around and came back. nothing super special.

Friday: normal day off, we spent most of the day walking around town anyways though.

Saturday: We had to leave for the airport at like 6:45am, including getting all of the kids packed. The Sun rose at like 6am though, so that caused me a problem. I decided to go before the sun rose and headed out at 5:45am since the street had lights on it and it starts getting a little lighter before the sun rises anyways. I had very little time though, so literally booked it.

5k in 29:42 (http://app.strava.com/activities/49892942)

Ran down the same street as the day before, but ran a shorter distance and pretty much tried to haul butt. I recorded my 3rd best 5k time ever, including having to pause for a few lights and it being way too early in the morning.

I got back to the room, packed everyone up and headed out to the airport.

[Alan T]

We got back late Saturday night, and Sunday started my youngest daughter's Spring soccer season, but I was a few miles short of my weekly 20 mile running goal, so fit a run in later that afternoon.

I was going to take it easy, but changed my mind and did some hills instead. (bleh)

Sunday: 4.3 miles in 47 minutes (http://app.strava.com/activities/49989635)

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y19/Turlos/running/4-21-13run.jpg

Well, I made my weekly goal for 20 miles.. barely... with 20.1 for the week.

On the bright side, I moved up to 2nd place on a hill segment on this run. I had previously been third. No chance in catching first place though, the guy ran a 6:53min/mile pace up a 6% grade for half a mile. I'm pretty sure that I would lose a lung if I tried that.

[Alan T]

So last Monday was supposed to be a biking day for me, but it was in the 40s to low 50s most of the day and after being in California the previous week I was just being a wimp and decided to not ride. Instead, I walked to my daughter's school and picked her up and walked home with her. (2.6 miles round trip). She loved it and wanted to do it again some time, so I guess that was a good trade off family-time wise. But I need to try to motivate myself in my non-running exercises. That is two straight weeks of biking that I skipped and I hadn't done any strength exercises in more weeks than that.

Tuesday is my long run day, and I had been doing 6.5 mile runs weekly for a while, and felt it was time to start pushing that back up a little more. So planned a new route that I had not run before that was a little over 7 miles. The weather was brutal, almost May and it was 37 degrees, raining and windy. I just put on my rain running gear and got out and suffered through it.

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y19/Turlos/running/4-23-13graph.jpg

The hills did not end up being too bad for me, but much of this run was on a local truck route, and those guys driving at 50mph plus the wind just made the route not too much fun at all.

Tuesday: 7.2 miles in 1 hour and 23 minutes (http://app.strava.com/activities/50282952)

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y19/Turlos/running/4-23-13results.jpg

I did record my third fastest 10k time before, but I think that says more for the fact that I just don't run 10k very fast yet than how good this run was, since it was not a very spectacular run at all.

[Alan T]

Wednesday I had softball practice later in the afternoon and was pretty busy with work and a doctor appointment, so no time to run until right before practice. So I just turned my run into a warm up run for practice. Got to the field a little early and ran around the neighborhood for 3 miles, getting back in time for practice.

Wednesday: 3 miles in 32 minutes (http://app.strava.com/activities/50546315)


Thursday, I am not really sure what the point of my run was to be honest. It had been a while since I had gotten out and tried to run fast just for fun. (Well I guess less than a week, but felt like it had been a while) and some times I just want to run fast to see how I have improved. So I pulled out one of my old courses that I used to run a bunch last fall to see how I could do.

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y19/Turlos/running/4-25-13graph.jpg

I basically ran a half mile warm up, then 1 mile at interval pace and then the final mile or 1.3 or so at a recovery pace. Nothing exciting, but I did set a few personal records for myself.

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y19/Turlos/running/4-25-13results.jpg


The tougher part of this run was that it was very windy. We had 20+mph winds against me the entire time I was running fast. It helped on the way back I suppose, but caused extra work on my attempt to run faster.

Thursday: 3.2 miles in 32 minutes (http://app.strava.com/activities/50630924)


Edit: This also is a new personal record for my fastest 1 mile time, so I got to update that on my 1st post!

[Alan T]

Friday was an off day for me, and my wife and I were headed out of town again for a friend's wedding. Once again it is a case of trying to fit in my exercise plan and trying to not eat everything in site. (Especially with a brunch buffet planned for Sunday morning.. ugh)

Since we were traveling without kids, my wife and I planned to do the run together, but were up in the mountains, so finding courses gave us two options:

1) Run with hills and enjoy the scenery
2) Drive down the mountain into the town and run on a more flat and less scenic surface.

So we both agreed on just doing the scenic run and take it easy/slow. I made sure to let my wife know there would be quite some hills.. and she said it was fine. I am not sure she knew exactly what 1000 ft of incline would feel like over 3 miles :) (She had only run 2000 ft worth of elevation thus far before the weekend this year over several hundred miles).

We started off with the plans to run 5 miles, a loop of the area, and where we were staying, there is no way to go up, we had to go either one way or another both down-hill to start. So we went to the right and the first 1.5 miles we went from 831ft of altitude to 508ft. Went from virtually the highest point in the run to the lowest, all down hill.

Running that much down hill, not being used to it is pretty tough on the quads, so we just took it easy and didn't race down the hill, settling in for a comfortable 11:00min/mile pace. My wife complained a little bit about her legs bothering her from the decline, but nothing huge and we found the only real easy part of the course a stretch of 1.5 miles with no real elevation increase or decrease. Since I was running with my wife, we took it easy at about a 12:30 pace. It was actually quite beautiful and I wish I had brought my phone or a camera or something to take pictures!

This is when the pain began. We were roughly half way through the run (2.5 miles in approximately), and at 480ft of altitude. We now had to spend the next 2.5 miles going practically all up hill to get back to a 871ft altitude we started at. The first bad hill was only 1/10th of a mile, but climbed 100ft in that span.. including this doozy:

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y19/Turlos/running/4-27-13grade.jpg

I am not sure exactly how to describe running up a 26% grade, but I felt like I needed a rope at one point. You can see from my pace, that I wasn't necessarily burning it up that section by the time I had gotten 30-40 feet up there. Once at the top, I waited for my wife to finish getting up there as well and she asked how I ran up that. She couldn't hardly even walk up it!

Now it would have been nice if we had stayed at that altitude and continued climbing, but instead following that hill was another down-hill which took us back another 100ft down. I made the offhand comment to my wife that the downhill was nice, but we would have to run back up it at some point!

Sure enough, we had another long straight-away come up that went directly up hill. .8 of a mile with a climb of 260ft. The worst grade on this stretch was only 12%, but the length of it wore me out.

Once again that was followed by another downhill and then the final uphill 200ft over .6 of a mile with another 12% grade. The final hill my wife just walked, she was pretty much done with the inclines, so I waited for her at the top again.

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y19/Turlos/running/4-27-13graph.jpg

You can see the fun that I had myself with the inclines. I made the goal to run up all of the inclines, and I didn't have to walk once which I am proud of, but it took a toll on my heart rate. With each of the inclines, my heart rate shot up to 170+, and my pace slowed as I started suffering. It came back down each time when I paused and waited for my wife, otherwise it would have looked a little differently probably but not too much since the downhills would likely have settled my heart rate anyhows.

Even though I run "hills" fairly regularly at home on my courses, I wasn't anywhere prepared for the size of these in the mountain. I think to myself in awe that there are people who run these type of trails and even tougher/longer ones in mountains all the time with little effort. Every time I see how much I have improved in my fitness this last 6 months I am reminded of how much more room there is for improvement.

Saturday: 5 miles in 1 hour and 3 minutes (http://app.strava.com/activities/50982398)

[Alan T]

Sunday morning I looked and was roughly 1.6 miles short of my 20 mile a week goal of running... We had brunch scheduled with friends at 10:30, so around 8am I looked at my wife and asked if she wanted to go for another shorter run...

I don't really remember what she said, but the look she gave me was something close to what someone might have looked like if I was a convicted serial killer. It was pretty obvious that she was out for the morning run, so off I went on my own.

Everyone always says that you have to be flexible with your running plan and if you are feeling out of sorts, or pain or just not feeling it to change it as needed. This might have been the first day that I have encountered where I should have just taken my losses and just not met my 20 mpw goal. Instead I was a stubborn mule and set out to run anyways, despite still being sore from the hills the previous day.

Right at the start, I had to decide which downhill that I wanted. The previous day was pretty brutal so I decided to run down the other hill instead. It was not any better honestly. Went from a start of 818 ft of altitude down to 459 ft within 1.5 miles. Most of the downhill was between 9% and 12% grade down other than one 13% spot and then coming down off of a highway overpass that got to 20% grade. You can tell it is steep when the whole run down you pass caution signs to trucks telling them to downshift, etc.

I already could tell something was not right as I just didn't feel right going down the hill. Normally on downhill stretches I can just let go and sprint, and can pull out sub-8min pace times without struggling. My fastest time on this run downhill was only 8:35 and my first mile pace was only 10:40 on an entirely downhill segment. It wasn't my quads that were hurting, but instead my lower calf muscles were screaming out a bit.

At this point though I was at the bottom of the hill and had reached the town where it was for the most part flat. I figured I could run up main street and just see some of the town and take it easy for a few miles. That didn't work out too well for me, I was totally struggling. My pace stayed between 11:30 and 12:00 but I just felt like I was going through the motions. After roughly a mile in the town I decided to turn it around and head back up the mountain.

The uphill was just as bad as could be imagined. I averaged about 13 min per mile up the hill, but the disappointing part was that I had to stop and walk three times during the run up hill. Now there isn't anything wrong with having to walk to catch your breath or whatever.. but my heart rate wasn't that bad.. it wasn't my breathing that was dead.. it was my legs. They were just toast. I finally made it up the hill and just went back to the inn and stretched and got ready for brunch.

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y19/Turlos/running/4-28-13graph.jpg

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y19/Turlos/running/4-28-13results.jpg

Hey, I made my weekly running goal though, went 22.4 miles for the week, but it wasn't worth it.

My legs are dead and I have a 5 mile race coming up this Saturday that includes some decent hills. I wasn't necessarily targeting this race for any personal records, but I was hoping to not finish last. We will have to see how I can work through it for the week.


Edit: forgot the link to the run.

Sunday: 3.8 miles in 45 minutes (http://app.strava.com/activities/51159652)

[finketr]

how much does 4 15 minute walks carrying around the dead 30lb weight of an 18 month old count?

[Alan T]

how much does 4 15 minute walks carrying around the dead 30lb weight of an 18 month old count?


Sounds like it would get pretty heavy after a while :) Do you do it with a backpack or how were you carrying your 18 month old?

I remember last fall I was in a trail race 5k and some guy passed me at about the three mile mark with a kid in their backpack that they were racing with... I was like.. uh no way am I letting someone carrying a kid beat me and nearly blew out just trying to stay ahead of him. :)

[finketr]

He was in a diaper and shoes as he didn't want to have clothes on after a change of diaper. So, I wrapped him in a blanket (around his shoulder) and him resting his head on my shoulder, arms wrapped around him.

So in front of me.

[Alan T]

He was in a diaper and shoes as he didn't want to have clothes on after a change of diaper. So, I wrapped him in a blanket (around his shoulder) and him resting his head on my shoulder, arms wrapped around him.

So in front of me.


Yikes, I would have to assume that would get your arms tired after a while

[finketr]

Yikes, I would have to assume that would get your arms tired after a while

Well, my shoulders paid for it last night and this morning...

[Alan T]

Added this little widget to my first post. I think it will show my current week's updated stats in real time.

<iframe height='160' width='300' frameborder='0' allowtransparency='true' scrolling='no' src='http://app.strava.com/athletes/1638491/activity-summary/4a88d0e2bf832b2985e28be940a849ecb65c9868'></iframe>

[Alan T]

Last week was a weird one for my training schedule. My legs were pretty tired from the mountain runs that I did, but I also had a race at the end of the week. For the race I already knew that I wanted to take off Thursday and Friday from running, and Monday is my non-running cross-training day. So I was pretty much stuck with just two days for runs (Tuesday and Wednesday) but was feeling a good bit of fatigue.

Monday - nothing special, just my bike cross training. I rode the furthest in one ride thus far this year.

13.6 miles in 1 hour and 2 minutes (http://app.strava.com/activities/51391945)


Tuesday, one of my two run days for the week. I had to take my car to the shop for routine maintenance and they told me that it would be roughly 1 hour and 15 minutes for the service, so I just planned that time to do my run. I did not know the area well at all, but the Wellsley area is the part of the Boston Marathon course just before the famous Newton Hills that are often talked about. I didn't make it to the marathon course as it was a little to the south, but instead I just ran in a loop.

My legs felt utterly dead during the run. I took it easy, didn't have any problem with my breathing, but my legs just seriously did not want to move at all. My calves hurt from the hills that I had run, and it was just way more effort than it needed to be.

7.3 miles in 1 hour and 25 minutes (http://app.strava.com/activities/51606531)


Wednesday morning, I woke up and my legs surprisingly felt better. After the lousy Tuesday run, I wasn't even sure if I was going to run or not that day. I felt pretty good though, so went on out for a run. The legs felt much fresher, what a difference just one day made. However half way through the run, I felt my IT Band starting to annoy me again for the first time in about a month. Perhaps a sign of leg fatigue or just a reminder that I have been completely awful in my strength exercises that I should be doing. I decided during this run that I needed to get back on track with that part of my work outs every week.

Anyways, the run was a little better than Tuesday, but not great. Somehow I ended up with my 3rd fastest 10k time ever during this run.

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y19/Turlos/running/5-1-13results.jpg

6.3 miles in 1 hour and 9 minutes (http://app.strava.com/activities/51754878)



Later that same Wednesday, my 6 year old really wanted to go biking and my wife was going out running with a friend on a nearby trail, so I decided to go to the same trail. My daughter found it fun to try to bike past her mom and friend, and I was having to keep up with her on the downhills. This trail had some decent hills for a 6 year old on a bike though, so on the uphills I helped push her and the bike up a little bit too.

Does that count as a cross training exercise for me? :) I didn't bring my heart rate monitor or anything, just wore my watch and carried my iphone that I used to take some pictures as we went.

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y19/Turlos/running/photo.jpg

We didn't go too too far, after the first 10-12 minutes she started stopping every two-three minutes for water so I had her turn around to head back to the car. She had a blast though, so I am thinking I'll do something again this week for "Ride your bike to school day" on 5/8 for her.

2.5 miles in 30 minutes (http://app.strava.com/activities/51863076)

[Alan T]

With the 5 mile race coming up on Saturday, I was going to take off Thursday and Friday from running to rest my legs. I have found lately with my training that I have gotten my cardiovascular fitness to a level where on my runs my limiting factor generally has been how tired my legs are from the amount that I have been running. So my hope was taking two days off would rest them enough to be fresh on Saturday for the race.

I have problems just sitting around and doing nothing though, so my wife talked me into a quick bike ride Thursday before Elena got out of school. We rode 8.2 miles in 38 minutes, and set a new personal record for my wife on one of the segments. The running and spinning and yoga and such has really helped her be able to keep up on bike better with me now. Even though I was not necessarily speedy myself on a bike before, I always had to slow down to wait for her.

Friday I truly took the day off from running and biking and instead took my oldest daughter to Six Flags for the afternoon. We got the way overpriced Speedpass to make sure that we could go on all of the roller coasters while there. Since we normally go with the younger kids, she doesn't get to ride the ones she likes that much so this was all about that for this trip.

I'm not sure when it happened, but I think it was after going crazy in the tea cups that I suddenly started feeling motion sickness, which is very odd since I never get motion sickness. Maybe it was just something I ate, or maybe I am just getting older but the last 30-40 minutes at the park before it closed I was suffering a bit with my stomach on every ride after that point. We still managed to hit up all of the rides though and she had a blast, so mission successful!

[Alan T]

Saturday the 4th was race day for my 5 mile run. I have done a handful of 5k races (3.1 miles), but this was my first race of a longer distance, and it was not necessarily going to be my easiest course that I had done either.

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y19/Turlos/running/graftongazeboelevation.jpg

Virtually the first half of the race was all up hill, a total climb of 378 feet. Once again not a ton for people that are used to running in the trails, but considering it was a longer distance than I had raced before, I was not exactly sure on how to pace myself.

I knew on a flat course, I could do 9:30min/mile pace for well over an hour without running into problems, but this is a race in my own town and I had run parts of this course a few times before. The main hill I had never done faster than a 12:00-12:30min/mile pace, albeit I had never raced it before.

What I had decided to do with my plan was to take the first mile and its incline at around a 9:40-10:00min/mile pace (trying to find somewhere comfortable so I did not burn myself out), and then I was going to try the big hill and the second mile at a 10:30min/mile pace. My hope was going to be that I reached the 2 mile mark at around 20-21 minutes. From there it would be 3 miles to the end or a 5k race that would be for the most part down hill. I was going to just cut loose on the downhill parts, run as fast as my legs would let me go while I regained my breath from the hills. I was hoping to run the last 3 miles in around 30 minutes and was aiming for a 50 minute time for the entire course.

The fastest that I had run this course before was a little under 1 hour, when just running it at a casual pace on my own so I felt 50 minutes was entirely within my grasp...

I ran a quick 1/2 mile to warm up and then it was race time!

As normally happens on these races, at the start everyone bolts out running super fast in the easy initial straight away. I usually fall guilty of that myself, and found this time I was running along at a 8:40 pace to start. I quickly reigned that in before I blew up my entire plan and I found a good group of people running at the pace that I wanted. I pretty much just fell in with them and made it to the first mile marker at 9:40. Everything so far was going according to plan, but the tough part was about to start.

The second mile was entirely up hill, a climb of 155 feet with no rest at all. I had an idea of what I would run it pace wise, but didn't focus any on my watch and instead tried to just run with the same effort that I had been using. I wanted to make sure that I was not worn out at the top of the hill. I started passing a few people on the hill as they started walking, and then passed a whole bunch more people that stopped at a water station that was about 1/10th of a mile from the top of the hill. I normally do not drink water during my runs as it has not been hot enough yet to need it on such a short distance. I didn't stop for this one either, honestly didn't feel that I needed it. I made it to the top of the hill and the second mile marker at 20:05, pretty much exactly where I was hoping that I would be in best case. I ran my second mile in a 10:20 pace and felt home free at this point. I was on pace for roughly a 49 minute finish but had some easy segments coming up.

The third mile was mostly flat, there was a little downhill followed by a small up hill in the center of town. This is when I settled in on my normal race pace of about 9 min/mile. I felt good even after the hills and still felt fresh. My two days off helped my legs tremendously and I was enjoying the run tremendously. Running through the center of town uphill, I passed quite a few more people including one guy who talked with me as we ran for 20 seconds or so. He asked me how much more uphill was left and i pointed and told him almost done until the very end. He then said thanks I'm going to take a break and stopped right there to catch his breath :) I got through the third mile at 29:08, I ran that mile in a 9:05min/mile pace and was just now getting to the fast part of the course.

The fourth mile was pretty much 200 feet downhill the entire time. It required absolutely zero effort from my breathing and I ran as fast as my legs would let me. I found there were alot of people in this part that were just afraid to run fast and I passed many of them. I felt like a real runner at this point, everyone always says that races are much more fun when you start out conservatively and then pass people the entire race and they are right. It is not as much fun running out of steam and being the one being passed, so this felt really good. I hit the 4th mile marker at just under 37 minutes, I had run at a 8:01min/mile pace in that mile and at this point would have to break a leg or something to not make my goal time of 50 minutes.

The final mile had some small up and downhills during it. Nothing as large as the first few miles, but after the downhill I was starting to feel my legs a little bit. The fifth mile was probably the toughest one for me in the entire race. I think it started being more a psychological thing more than a physical one. I knew that I had been doing well and my body was trying to let off the gas a little bit. I looked down at my watch at one point and saw that I was up to a 10:00min/mile pace and willed my legs to start moving faster again. The last 2-3/10ths of a mile were all uphill though and at that point my heart rate had worked itself up into zone 4-5 but the race was almost done. I pushed and pushed and saw the finish line. I saw my mother on the side with my kids there watching and I flashed them a sign and smiled for them and then booked to the finish!

Going to see if I can embed the finish video here:
<embed width="600" height="361" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowFullscreen="true" allowNetworking="all" wmode="transparent" src="http://static.photobucket.com/player.swf" flashvars="file=http%3A%2F%2Fvid2.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fy19%2FTurlos%2Frunning%2FMAH00786.mp4">


http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y19/Turlos/running/5-4-13raceresult.jpg

Final result was 5 miles in 46:09 (http://app.strava.com/activities/52290056) according to my watch, but I forgot to stop it right away when crossing the finish line.


http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y19/Turlos/running/5-4-13results.jpg

During the run, I set some new personal records for myself as well. Endomodo says my best 5k in this run was 27:13, but it had too much downhill in it for strava to count it. So I'll go with Strava's 28:41 for my official personal record.

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y19/Turlos/running/5-4-13officialresults.jpg

Official race results gave me a 45:43, a good 4 minutes faster than my goal. I'm pumped and was excited about it for the rest of the weekend :)

[Alan T]

I have gotten very negligent in updating this ever since we started the Runkeeper/Strava thread. Most of the day to day satisfaction from my runs are commented out either there or in Strava comments. Pretty much everyone who is interested in following the daily runs is already following me on Strava as well.

So I don't have a huge need to post day to day information here and think that I need to revamp what I am using this thread for. Focus it more on my goals (both trying for and achieved) as well as my planning and other random things to do with training .

I updated the first post, May was a pretty good month for me all things considered.. I made several of my goals and set plenty of new personal bests..

May 29th, I officially broke the 200 pound weight barrier and have continued my downward trend with that. This morning, weighed in at 197.6 (after my run I was 195.4).

I ran in a 5 mile race on May 4th, and technically not may but June 1st ran my first 10k race. I was disappointed in my results of the 10k race, the heat and humidity killed my chances for breaking 1 hour which was my goal.

I did set several new PRs this month though, best 5k, 10k, 15k and 10 mile times as well as longest distance run thus far. I do not expect to be breaking more PRs as we enter June, July and August though as the heat will make it tough, but we will see what happens.

So I still have goals for breaking an hour on a 10k, as well as a less likely 25 minute 5k. I think 26-27 minute is possible with the right weather for me right now though. I also want to run a half marathon distance some point this summer (By mid-August) to be ready for a half marathon race I want to run in September.

What I have been working on lately is putting together a half marathon training plan to be ready for September 15th.

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y19/Turlos/running/sporttracks-fitplan.jpg

I am doing a relay race with my wife (Half marathon relay) later this month up in Maine, so I'll be running roughly 6.55 miles or so... I'm kind of viewing it as a second chance for me to get under 1 hour 10k though as long as the weather cooperates hopefully. So I decided to give myself a few days to rest before that race. Since it is just in the base building phase of the training plan, its no huge deal.

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y19/Turlos/running/sporttracks-trainingload.jpg

Here is the "training load" of my previous training leading into my training plan through mid-august. Kind of neat to see in a graphical layout, but you can see why it is important to taper before a big race. It also helps illustrate why you can't just simply keep running further and further every week without some down time or rest time.

The Blue is my "fitness" level, as I do more exercise, my fitness level continues to increase. Even the smaller runs help increase it, which I guess is a reason why everyone talks about building a base.. You have to build up your fitness level to be able to run faster or further.

The Red is my "fatigue" level. As you can see, the more you exercise, the more fatigue builds up. It is interesting to note that fatigue builds up faster than fitness, it has more volatile peaks, especially from longer runs or harder runs. One of the many reasons why everyone recommends running the bulk of your runs at an "Easy" pace or a comfortable pace I assume. You can also see where I back off on the training and even take a few days off at the end of May, the fatigue drops much faster than the fitness level does.

Leading up to my 10k race I had on june 1st, was the only time since Feb that my fitness level was higher than my fatigue level, and that leads into the third line, the beige one that measures the Training Stress Balance (TSB). Anything above 0 says my fitness is higher than my fatigue. The further below 0 I go, the more my fatigue is getting in the way of my fitness. For optimal performance in a race or attempt for a PR, I want that TSB to be as high as possible.

Leading into June 1st, my TSB was 13, and I think I was set to have a great race if not for being unprepared for the weather. My backup chance is coming June 23, and according to this predicter, I should be somewhere around a TSB of -3. Not as good as previous, but I am trying to find a balance between being fresh for this race and focusing on my bigger goal of building the base for my half marathon in September.

With my current plan I put together, my training load will continue to increase into September, where I reach around a -35 TSB before I start tapering for a week or 10 days. The Half marathon I am targeting is September 15th, where my TSB will be back up to a 6. Not great, but I haven't put this many miles on before.

All together, my phases are breaking down as such:

Phase 1 (Base) - 6/4/13 - 7/1/13: 101 miles in 20:30:00
Phase 2 (Building) - 7/2/13 - 7/22/13: 93.2 miles in 18:31:50
Phase 3 (Training) - 7/23/13 - 8/19/13: 148 miles in 29:19:50
Phase 4 (Final) - 8/20/13 - 9/15/13: 147.5 miles in 29:28:50

I guess we will see how it goes! I've mixed in Hill runs, Interval Runs, Fartleks, Tempo Runs into the schedule with 5 other easy runs per week.

[Radii]

That Sporttracks software and training load addon are amazing. I have no need for it at all yet but downloaded the trial version because I'm a nerd who loves graphs and numbers and oh god look at the numbers its awesome.

The training addon does say I'm at a -37 TSB right now using its default settings, I wonder if that's off because I only started tracking my runs in the last couple months, or if that's a sign that I am bordering on trying to do too much too soon (I went from 3 days/week to 4 to 5 fairly quickly).

[Alan T]

That Sporttracks software and training load addon are amazing. I have no need for it at all yet but downloaded the trial version because I'm a nerd who loves graphs and numbers and oh god look at the numbers its awesome.

The training addon does say I'm at a -37 TSB right now using its default settings, I wonder if that's off because I only started tracking my runs in the last couple months, or if that's a sign that I am bordering on trying to do too much too soon (I went from 3 days/week to 4 to 5 fairly quickly).

The math involved to truly compute TSB is pretty complex and needs to have a very solid understanding of your body, so what is in the app is likely a good generalization but perhaps not 100%. My guess though is if anything, just having started tracking your runs actually is causing the TSB to error more on the side of too much fitness rather than too much fatigue. It is likely looking at your heart rate as a judge of effort during your runs to determine how "easy" it was for you. A 2 mile run where your heart rate is hammering at 90% is going to give you a higher TRIMP than someone else doing the same 2 mile run at the same pace but only 50% HR. Thus it will build both your fitness and your fatigue faster.

I wouldn't let a computer program dictate my training plan, you can likely go off of how your body feels. If you feel every run that you are fresh, then likely I'm guessing you are fine. If you are feeling fatigued though, maybe you should let your body have a bit more time to recover. Not a very scientific answer from me I guess, but I've always tried to be very cautious about not ramping up too fast to try to prevent injuries from occuring. So I still take the majority of my runs nice and easy pace and doing ramp up weekly mileage or such too quick.

[Alan T]

Looking back at my own scores, I had back surgery in December and took almost 6 weeks off from running. So when I picked it back up, I had to rebuild my fitness level a good bit.

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y19/Turlos/running/2-3-13trimpscores.jpg

You can see the Blue (Fitness) climbing gradually with the exercise, but my red (Fatigue) shot out like a cannon . That caused my TSB to be very very low also, same range as what you were saying Radii. You can see I hovered around -30 TSB for nearly a month before I took a few extra days off before a 5k race that I was going to run. After the 5k, I look like I backed off my workouts a hair for a few weeks, and took it a little easier. Perhaps I realized I was pushing too much, I don't recall honestly, but my fitness level started catching up to the fatigue and my TSB was improving, and only in the -10 range for most of April.


http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y19/Turlos/running/5-6-13trimpscore.jpg

As I entered May though, my workouts started getting more involved again and my fatigue started building up more and my TSB once again dropped back to the -20s and I remember feeling a bit tired during this time. At the end of May I tapered down to get ready for my race on june 1st. Even though the race didn't go well for me, my TSB score on that day was +13, and that morning I felt totally fresh. TSB obviously doesn't say much about my ability to handle the weather though so I somewhat crashed and burned I guess.

Since then, I've taken it a bit easy with my workout. I don't really start my next training plan until the end of the month, so the next few weeks I have a few mini-races in there plus just keeping a decent base of running miles. You can see the projection based on what I have put in for my plan, that my TSB should stay somewhere around 0 to -10 up and down until the last week of June, when I start kicking it in again. My fitness level during that time doesn't really climb much, but doesn't decay either, just keeping status quo, but neither does the fatigue.

Into July you can see my fitness start picking up with the harder workouts again.. but the fatigue shoots through the roof once more. By the end of August, the lowest point my TSB gets to a -40 with these projections before I start tapering for a few weeks to get the TSB back to a -6 or so in time for my half marathon I am thinking about running.

Now, in the projections, I may be overestimating the TRIMP values a hair, but I would rather do that than underestimate myself. So far this week, each of my workouts have actually produced TRIMP scores a bit less than my projection, and ideally as my fitness improves that should continue. So I am interested in seeing how the end result works out for me, since this is the first training plan that I have used with the sportstrack stuff.

As a stats/data guy, this type of thing is right up my alley though, I've fallen in love with the software. I have a bunch of various plugins that I have installed that I am using as well:

Elevation Correction
Old Man's Biking Plugins (Has some interesting activity report stuff that can be used for running too)
Performance Predictor
Record Book
Training Analysis
Training Load
Weather Plugin
FitPlan
Withings Wi-Fi Body Scale Sync

[Alan T]

I have realized recently that one of the reasons I really get into this phase of my running training is the same thing that attracts me to Text sim games. I love the stats, the analysis, the training schedule, etc. I basically turn myself into a simulation game while getting ready for the next "season". Just like a game of FOF or FM, my season involves setting up the preseason goals for that "season", setting up the training plan, incorporating the practice, then the execution of the "season", followed by the analysis of how things went and where things went wrong.

So far this year, obviously with my back surgery, I had to start a little late after taking off 6 weeks without running, but my three "seasons" were my 5k goal to run under 30 minutes in a race in March, my 10k goal for running under 1 hour in a race in June and my goal to run a half-marathon in September. I was successful with my first "season", the training plan went as well as I had hoped. My second "season" was close, but no cigar. My 10k, I came a little over 1 hour. I have spent plenty of time analyzing what went wrong and am pretty comfortable saying that I did the training, just wasn't ready for the sudden weather change.

The nice thing about running that is different from FOF or FM or OOTP is that I get a chance for do-overs in a sense. I have the Any-Way 10k challenge from Strava this coming weekend, and then my half-marathon relay where I will be running 6.55 miles the following weekend. Either one of those should be a good chance I think to reach my goal of sub-1 hour 10k. Both will have challenges though, next weekend, in addition to the Any Way challenge, I also am signed up for 6 hours of Relay for Life in the morning. I'm not sure if I want to do the 10k before or after, but am leaning to trying it before. Either way, that is a boat-load of miles on my feet for just one day. (My guess is I will go close to 20 miles that day in combination of the two). The half-marathon relay race, I'm running with my wife, and she's getting the easier mostly downhill leg. So about 80% of mine will be a slight incline. Not enough probably to be horribly bad, but not necessarily ideal for me to run a personal record.

Either way, those are my last chances to get the unfinished business with a 10k in a race completed before I really buckle in for my next "season". June 23 is when my true training plan for half-marathon begins, and if I keep messing around with 10k PR, I'll lose complete focus on my real goal that I am trying for. You can't burn the candle on both ends in running and get away with it. I need to keep my easy runs easy, and my hard runs focused on what the goal is.

A small excerpt from an article written by Dr. Jack Daniels on the subject of training: Training intensities that fall into 'No man's land," are either too easy or too hard to reap the benefits you want. You are not, as may sometimes be assumed, achieving the purpose of training the two systems on either side of the chosen intensity. What you are doing might be termed, "Quality-junk" training. At the least, it is training aimed at accomplishing an unidentifiable purpose. Always have a purpose for every training session; ask yourself the following questions: "What system do I hope to improve by doing this workout,' and 'What am I really trying to accomplish?"

You can read more of that article here: http://www.coacheseducation.com/endur/jack-daniels-aug-00.htm

So I briefly discussed my next training plan in a previous post, but one thing that I realized is that I had not really re-qualified my times, or determined what my true paces for this next round of training should be. I was running off of numbers from last March, and I felt I had a decent amount of extra fitness from what I had previously. (At least 1 or 2 on a VDOT scale). I recently posted the below quote, but pay close attention to the bolded part...


So I still have goals for breaking an hour on a 10k, as well as a less likely 25 minute 5k. I think 26-27 minute is possible with the right weather for me right now though. I also want to run a half marathon distance some point this summer (By mid-August) to be ready for a half marathon race I want to run in September.



So, I did exactly that, and ran a 5k race last weekend. Partially to help myself feel better about a tangible increase in my running, but also partially to find where my current fitness level was at. Not only did I beat my previous 5k record, but I pretty much crushed it, beating the time by over a minute and close to 90 seconds. The official scorer put me at 26:29 for the 5k, which is exactly where I guessed I would be in the above bolded quote. For Strava purposes, my watch ended up measuring it just short of the 3.11, so it did not recognize it as my new Personal record for that distance. Not a huge deal, but for training purposes, I wanted to make sure that I did not mess with the numbers too much. I took what my watch measured, and plugged it into the Performance Predictor, and it said it would have been a 27.12 5k. I likely was faster than that since I was booking at the end when I stopped, but just to play it safe, that is the number that I went with.

I have a huge spreadsheet of Daniels calculations and training tables that I'll post next time (hopefully tomorrow), but the 27:12 time definitely changed some of my paces just slightly. Since I have a softball game to go to tonight, I'll cut this off here and cover that part of my training plan next time.

[Alan T]

So to continue from my post yesterday, in putting together my training for a half-marathon in September I have a training schedule that I plan to run. I have slowly increased my days running to 6 days a week now, and starting off the beginning of the plan with 31 miles the first week. That is pretty similar to where I left off in May, and in June I am planning a pretty steady 25-27 miles per week. So I don't see any issue with the weekly load to start.

My long runs to start will be 8miles, which once again is within the range that I have felt comfortable doing up until now, so I think I should be able to pick this plan up fairly comfortably to start. During the plan however, I'll slowly increase miles per week as well as long runs to the point late August I'll hit my max of 47 miles per week including a 15 mile long run. This is far greater than what I have done ever before, but part of the reason I am trying to work up to this for the half marathon.

Now, I know there are plenty of training plans that have people training for a half marathon by only running 10 miles as the longest before the race, and likewise those plans have people only running top of 20 miles per week, with half of their weekly run coming in that long run of 10 miles. Most people who do that are able to complete the half marathon, but they don't necessarily enjoy it.. I want to enjoy my running, and not do it because I feel that I have to. So I am choosing to build a much much larger base, where my long runs are not more than 30% of my weekly workload. I'm trying to keep in mind that it is the base that is more important than the rest, and by building the larger base, it will make the half marathon distance easier for me to handle, as well as trickle down to all of my other distances and make me able to run the 5k or 10k runs faster as well (or be able to maintain the faster pace longer without running out of my aerobic threshold).

In addition to the base, working in speed work every week is also pretty important, and I have roughly 10-15% of my weekly miles involving some kind of speed training from week 2 through week 10 of my training. As I mentioned in a previous post, I'm planning on putting in Fartleks, Hills, Intervals, and Tempo Runs. It has been heavily stressed to me to start doing Strides as well during the end of easy runs, but I have never done those before and want to better understand when and where and how I should fit those in before I jump in on those.

Now that I have a fairly solid idea of what I want to do for training, that leaves the important part that I talked about yesterday of how fast it should be. The idea is to keep my easy runs easy so I am not too fatigued to do the hard workouts when those are due. For that, I need to know what my pacing should be for each type of workout, so I know exactly what I want to aim for pace wise when I go out there. That is where my Daniels spreadsheet comes in. It is a spreadsheet that I found somewhere on the internet at some point that has all kinds of great tables and tools for all different aspects of my running training....

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y19/Turlos/running/danielsspreadsheet1.jpg

There are some parts of the spreadsheet that I don't really use much, but I'll go through the parts that I do. To start, I put in my vitals, my birthdate, weight, resting heart rate, max HR, etc into the top left. Then next important I pick a recent race distance and time to put in, and chose to use my 5k 27:12 that I talked about yesterday. Once I put that data in, the spreadsheet does the rest like magic!

The first thing it figures out is my VDOT score based on my vitals. In this case, I score a 34.7, which is an improvement over the 33 that I had been working out with the past few months. When I first started running, I scored so low that it wouldn't even register anything for me (I guess scores below 30 don't do anything in most VDOT calculators). SO I have been pretty happy with the progress that I have made the past 8 months or so.

Now with the VDOT score calculated, it then spits out what expected race times would be for that VDOT score as well as giving information on Lactate threshold, and recovery/aerobic workout zones. This is the first part that is important for determining my training paces.

For much of my interval training, I'll have smaller periods of recovery in between. I might run 880 meters at a faster pace, but then recover for 440m at a recovery pace. This spreadsheet tells me that 12:30 would be my ideal recovery pace for restoring my heart rate and catching my breath in between intervals.

Even more importantly for me, the vast majority of my runs are at an Easy Pace. Taking again from the Daniels article that I posted yesterday is the discussion of my Easy and Long Pace Runs:

E and L Runs. When you do easy (E) runs to recover from strenuous periods of training or to carry out a second workout on a particular day, and when you do your long (L) runs, you should run at a pace which is very close to (E) (easy-run) velocity, which is about 70% of V02max. Long runs (L), improve cell adaptation, and lead to glycogen depletion and fluid loss (important considerations for distance runners), but should not be demanding in terms of the intensity (pace) being utilized.

Be advised that the benefits of "E-pace" running are more a function of time spent exercising than intensity of running, and 70% V02max, which corresponds to 75% vVO2max and 75% of HRmax, is all the harder you need to go to get the benefits you want at the cellular level and in the heart muscle.

So from the spreadsheet, my Easy Aerobic Zone, 70-75% of my HRmax would give me a pace of 10:54 - 11:38. Just for a comparison of how an increased VDOT score affects the training, my previous several months I had been running an easy pace of 11:37-12:04, so the next few months I will be taking my easy pace at roughly 30 seconds per mile faster. This is not a huge surprise to me as I had noticed for a few weeks that I have been able to handle 11:00min/mile without my HR climbing.

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y19/Turlos/running/danielsspreadsheet2.jpg


In the next part of the spreadsheet, it gives me Tempo Run pacing. A little information once again from Daniels on the Tempo Run pace training:

T Runs. Threshold pace is about 88% of V02max (90% of VO2max or of HRmax). Subjectively, T (threshold) pace is "comfortably-hard" running. For many people it is slower than I OK race pace and for most people it is about 24 see per mile slower than current 5K race pace.

In the caw of T-pace training, it is important to stay as close as possible to the prescribed speed; neither slower nor faster velocities do as good a job as does the proper speed. Here is a case where going too fast -- which many runners automatically try to do -- is simply not as good as running at the right pace. T-pace training improves your lactate threshold.

So for each period of time, the spreadsheet gives me a tempo run pace such as 9:11 min/mile for a 20 minute tempo run all the way to 9:41 for a 60 minute tempo run. In my training plan, my tempo runs are not defined by time but instead are by duration. I'll have a 3 mile and 4 mile tempo run which I'll handle at a 9:20 and 9:28 pace.

The next section gives me help on interval pacing, and my training plan has virtually all 880m interval workouts. So that is easy to see that I should be aiming for 4:13 for each of those, which works out as an 8:26 min/mile pace, not too horribly faster than where I was before on those. Here is the Daniels comments on my interval pacing:

I Pace. The next important training velocity is the one that stresses and improves V02max V02max-interval (I) velocity. The intensity here should be equal to vVO2max- I believe most people should shoot for 98% - 100% of HRmax, rather than always demanding a 100% value, if using heart-rate as a guide. This is suggested because if maximum heart rate coincides with a pace of 6:00 per mile, for example, then certainly 5:50 or any pace faster than 6-minute pace will also elicit maximum heart rate, but is too fast for the purpose of the training session -- optimum result with the least possible stress. No single run, which makes up a series of Intervals, should exceed 5-minutes.

Interval (I) training is demanding, but by no means is it all-out running. In the case of I pace, the harm of going too fast is that no better results are obtained and the excessive pace will probably leave you over stressed for the next quality-training session.

That virtually is all of the training paces that I'll need to worry about for the next few months. I have a few places where I'll be looking to run at 5k or 10k race pace, but I already know that from earlier. (such as hill repeats I want to handle at 5k race pace).

The rest of the spreadsheet that I took a screenshot of are fun little tools that don't necessarily impact my training, but interesting to look at. Such as the affect of hot weather on runs, or even more so the affect that weight has on running time. With my current level of fitness if I weighed 184 instead of 201, which would put me in the "normal" BMI category instead of the overweight one, I would be able to run pretty close to a 25 minute 5k right now and cut an additional 2 minutes off my time.

Obviously increasing a running program while trying to tackle weight loss is a pretty difficult balance. In order to have the energy needed to train properly, you need to make sure to be eating enough and not starving yourself, or you will feel tired or sluggish or unable to finish training. For the past several months now, I've stopped my aggressive weight loss and focused pretty much at 1/2 pound per week which I've been pretty good at keeping for the most part. Perhaps something for next winter to think about though might be another push to drop an extra 10-15 pounds, I don't know...

[Radii]

This is really awesome Alan. I love seeing training plans and race reports from folks doing this kind of thing, and this is definitely the most detail I've seen, its pretty neat to see it in action. In my ideal world, I will lose a ton of weight this year and build up my general fitness level and be doing things like this next year. Reading the stuff you and others here are doing is great motivation :)

[Alan T]

This is really awesome Alan. I love seeing training plans and race reports from folks doing this kind of thing, and this is definitely the most detail I've seen, its pretty neat to see it in action. In my ideal world, I will lose a ton of weight this year and build up my general fitness level and be doing things like this next year. Reading the stuff you and others here are doing is great motivation :)


I am glad that you like it. I have gotten so hooked on running, I read and research and talk about it all the time these days. In part, I think one of the reasons I do this log is my wife gets tired of talking to me about it. :)

One regret that I have is that i did not start this log sooner. I really struggled for a long time even before I did the couch to 5k program, in trying to get active and lose weight. I had many days where I just decided to give up for a week or two because I felt that I never would accomplish my goals. You're so far ahead of me, where I was when I started, it is hard to even explain it, but I think that you and several others are doing an outstanding job getting out there every day in an attempt to claim your health back.

I remember before I could even do day 1 of C25K, I was just trying to walk with slight jogs and it just hurt my knees so badly. I went to the doctor twice about the pain, thinking maybe there was something wrong there and he very politely told me that it was pretty much just a result of being so much overweight (at the time I was in the 260s). He pretty much told me that I would likely enjoy doing the elliptical trainer better if I was having such knee pain. The Elliptical is perhaps the one thing more boring than a treadmill, so I had a love/hate relationship with it for quite some time.

Eventually it all got better, got easier and I started seeing progress from it. I am convinced if you and others stick with it, you'll see the same success of reaching your goals too. It just takes hard work and time and determination.

[Alan T]

I had noticed for the past week or two my weight loss had stalled a bit. Nothing horrible to be worried about, but just different. I spent a little time today looking through my weight reports to see if I could figure anything out.

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y19/Turlos/running/6-12-13weight.jpg

They say that it is demotivating to weight yourself every day or at least pay attention to the daily weight as normal fluctuation and water weight can play havoc with you. I have a withings scale however that I use every morning and it automatically uploads its data which is then automatically pulled out by several different programs (Runkeeper, Lose It!, etc) to give me updated data on my weight.

So I learned somewhere over the past few months that my weight loss progression actually had a pretty interesting pattern to it. Each week I would have a spike downwards and then a few days of small decreases of weight, then suddenly would have a spike upwards for a day or two. Then the following week it would start over again, with each week being just a little lower in weight than the previous one.

I wasn't really looking for quick weight loss any longer, and had been focusing more on trying to improve my running and fitness. Since I was losing about .5 to .7 pounds a week, I figured that was a good and comfortable level to continue it at. So never really analyzed what exactly caused this pattern that I saw every week.

Suddenly the past two weeks, I kind of plateaued off a little bit. Now after working on losing weight for close to 5 years now, I've gotten used to plateaus many times in the past, but often times I ended up just giving up and settling with that weight as being where I stopped. I hit a plateau at 235-240 for over a year, I hit another one at 220-225 for almost 2 years... this time I wasn't really interested in just giving up and instead I was curious to try to look further and see if I could find some correlation with other data that I was collecting.


I mentioned in another thread.. maybe the weight loss thread, or possibly Sir Fozzie's thread that I used to count calories religiously. It helped me a great deal by helping me learn what different foods cost. It helped me learn what was good foods to eat and what was not. I also learned that a very simplistic approach to weight loss was calories in - daily calorie burn - calories burned from exercise would ideally be a little negative. (Not too much of a deficit as that is just as unhealthy as eating too many calories) What I ended up finding was a nice comfortable level where I tried to eat enough "good" calories to cover my daily calorie burn from just normal daily activity and then whatever I worked off was in essence the weight that I lost. I'm no nutritionist, so I am sure that wasn't the best or most ideal plan ever, but it seemed to work well for me.

I went with that plan for months and continued to improve my running fitness while also losing weight.. that is until this month. I haven't re-started any bad habits lately such as snacking or sodas or such.. so didn't think my diet fell off the tracks or anything.. To be honest I was still losing a little weight, just not that much so i wasn't too overly troubled by it but more curious than anything. I suddenly started thinking.. the other half of that equation is my exercise.. and in fact since the end of May, I cut back on my miles that I was running after my 10k race on June 1st. I've been running only enough miles to try to keep my fitness level until the start of my next training plan later this month. Considering I was running less (only 25 miles last week vs the 32+ from previous weeks in May), I began to wonder if that might be a change that caused the different weight loss pattern.

I went back to my trusty SportTracks program and put together a report where I compared weight by day with calories burned per day from exercise....

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y19/Turlos/running/6-12-13sporttracks.jpg

I noticed that there were big peaks or jumps in both lines, the black one indicating weight each day as well as the green which indicated my calories I burned from exercise. For the most part (with some exceptions), the weight would be highest right before my long run each week. Normally from an exercise standpoint, I usually rested or went easy the day before my long run. Then the day after a long run is almost always when my weight dropped the largest amount.

Looking at it further, the weekly pattern of weight loss pretty much mirrored my weekly workout routine.. Off Day - Long Run - Recovery - Mid run - Rest - Speed - Recovery. Since I did almost the same pattern every week with my training, I guess it makes sense that my weight loss pattern went with that as well.

I could also see that once I cut out the weekly long runs, it meant my weekly large drops in weight also disappeared. I got a good drop the day after my 10k race, but otherwise it has been pretty stagnant for this month. Thinking about it for a while, I guess it makes perfect sense. I was eating the same, just exercising less, so of course I wouldn't lose as much weight.

No reason to panic or anything, just was something I was curious about and took some time to look at. I start back with my long runs the last week of this month (2 1/2 weeks from now), so if my hypothesis is correct, I should start seeing a new pattern occur. I'm doing a different training schedule this time around though, so maybe the week won't have the exact same pattern for weight loss, but I expect I'll be looking for what pattern does emerge.

I am curious though how this weekend will work for me weight-loss wise. On Saturday morning I am planning on running a 10k fast for the Strava Any Way 10k challenge, and then following that I am doing relay for life where I expect I'll walk at least 15+ miles.. I have absolutely no idea how my body will respond to that, so will be interested to see.

[Alan T]

One of the most difficult things for me to figure out is what my "race" pace should be for various distances. I have run enough 5k races by now that I have a pretty good idea how to handle the 3 miles that are involved. It is pretty easy to use various calculators to convert what my expected finish time should be to what my "pace" should be. Plus just going off of feel, it is a familiar race distance for me, I can truthfully feel when I am going too fast for a 5k. I have gotten pretty good at handling my pace for those races...

Going a longer distance is a bit tougher for me though. I've run only one 10k race, and then 1 10k challenge last weekend. Coming up this next weekend I am doing a half-marathon relay with my wife where each of us run half of it or roughly 6.55 miles. (basically just 1/4th of a mile longer than a 10k, something like 10.5k). Once again I am struggling to find where I want to set my pace.

I have run plenty of 10k distances by now (by my records, 20 times in total). On June 1st, my first official 10k race, I suffered from the heat and running too fast in the heat and withered horribly in the race. I ended up handling it in 1:03, or roughly a 10:14 pace. The majority of my 10k runs have simply been long runs of 6.2 to 11 miles usually at an easy or comfortable running pace. Not necessarily ran for my best time. My "Tempo Run" pace based on Daniels training tables would have me finish a 10k at tempo run pace in just a hair over 1 hour, which is pretty much exactly what I did on my previous tempo run where I had set my personal best 1:00:17 time.

So on Saturday, I had a chance to fit in enough time to run 6.2 miles for the Strava AnyWay 10k challenge and I intended to run it at "Race" pace to try to figure out exactly what that was but also to finally knock off the accomplishment of beating a sub-1 hour 10k. So the question I had to ask myself first of all was what pace I should run it at, and I wanted to try to understand where I was going to run it (since hills, both up and down affect pacing).

I already knew I could run it at tempo run pace 9:41 min/mile, but that wasn't going to meet my accomplished goal. Based on my recent 5k race where I recorded a 27:12 for my VDOT score of 34.7, my expectation on a neutral course was that I should be able to handle a 10k in 56:43 or a 9:08 min/mile pace. I knew the course I would run had a slight hill right at the first mile, but then gradual downhill for a few miles before a long and shallow climb for mile 5. So my goal was basically to try to keep a good pace going to mile 5 and hopefully have enough in the tank to finish the last two miles. If I went out too fast, I would likely be in trouble...

There are three different ways to handle race pacing:
1) Start faster than expected race pace, and try to hold on as long as you can through the end.
2) Try to run the same pace the entire race
3) Start a little slower than planned pace but speed up as you get closer to the end..

There appears to be no debate that #1 is never a good idea for races. It will lead to the worst possible scenario, but due to getting caught up in the moment or extra adrenaline I end up doing it far too often in races or race efforts.. Jonathan Savage, an American ultra runner has this to say on his running wiki about starting off too fast in a race:

However, running the first mile significantly faster than the average race pace causes a disproportionate slow down towards the end. This is because any race requires finding the right pace that will use all of the body's capacity for the race distance. Using too much of the body's capacity early in the race causes a debt that can't be compensated for later. For example, in marathon races where Glycogen (http://fellrnr.com/wiki/Glycogen) reserves are critical to performance, going out too fast will burn a disproportionate amount of Glycogen (http://fellrnr.com/wiki/Glycogen). This is because Glycogen (http://fellrnr.com/wiki/Glycogen) usage varies nonlinearly with pace. So if you run a mile at 7:45 and a second mile at 8:15, you will use more Glycogen (http://fellrnr.com/wiki/Glycogen) than running two miles at 8:00 pace. There are other mechanisms for shorter races, but the principle is similar.

Another study on the subject from Jeff Galloway in his book Galloway on Running says:

for every second you run too fast in the first 3 miles, you'll run as much as 10 seconds slower per mile at the end in a 10K. Presumably, in an extended event like the half marathon, the slow down will be more dramatic than this. Thus, a moderate early (even) pace or negative split race minimizes the threat of glycogen depletion and reduces your chances of premature exhaustion-your energy is economically burnt during the entire race.

So the first option is right out, as it is the one that leads to the worst possible performance. From everything I read, there seems to be a debate on which option #2 or #3 is better, running every split even or starting slow and gradually speeding up over the distance. Due to the nature of the route I was going to take, I was looking to take the even pace approach, or I should say even effort approach, as the 5th mile up hill I was going to run with constant effort, even if it meant a very slight decrease in pace.

So with that in mind, I had determined that based on Daniels VDOT table, I should be able to handle a 9:08 pace, I would try to go out with a desire to keep fairly even 9:10 splits, and after mile 5's hill if I had extra left, the last mile I would speed it up a little bit as able.

My plan was much better than my execution though.. I felt really good at the start, the weather was nice for once (it was 5am though), and I felt pretty fresh... So what did I do?

1st mile: 9:06

ok, not too too bad. A hair faster than I wanted, but not the end of the world. My HR at the first mile was 160bpm which is actually right near the very bottom of my Lactate Threshold so probably right around where I wanted to be... So far so good..

2nd mile: 8:50

I actually climbed 8 ft of elevation in this mile, so can't blame this really on a downhill. This is where feeling good so far got me a little carried away. I started pushing faster without realizing it and was able to handle it.. but this was a good 20 seconds too fast compared to where I was aiming for. After two miles, my HR was 168-170 which shows I was running too fast. I can keep this pace up for a 5k, but no way I would be able to sustain this for a 10k. I recall on my run remembering that I needed to slow down my pace a little bit going into the third mile...

3rd mile: 8:54

Yeah.. well I slowed down my pace a little bit I guess.. 4 seconds was no where near enough though. I did drop about 40 ft in elevation this mile which can perhaps explain a little bit of the speed, but I needed to be much closer to 9:10 to salvage my ideal race time.. During this mile, my HR climbed into the 170s for a brief bit but during the downhill fell back into the mid-160s. So I was barely hanging on here, but the second and tougher half of the run was just about to start...

4th mile: 9:19

So the 40 feet I dropped in the previous mile, I was now running back up hill in reverse on this mile. As soon as I hit the small climb, with my HR already in the low 170s, I was not able to tackle the hill fast enough without my HR hitting close to my max HR. It caused my climb to suffer a bit, and thus my pace dropped some. All things considered, 9:19 could have been worse, but at the end of mile 4 I was at 170 bpm, and the entire next mile was a gradual uphill climb (even though not much in elevation, the entire mile was uphill)

5th mile: 9:18

So I survived the last of the climb.. and did it with an ok pace still, but I was literally gassed at this point. My HR was at 178, and I had nothing left in the tank. So much for considering speeding up in mile 6, at this point my mind was playing tricks with me. I knew that I looked in pretty good shape to beat an hour at this point as long as I could keep moving, but my mind kept telling me take a stop and walk some.. or anything just to let my heart rate drop a little.

6th mile: 9:02

This mile was run with all heart. I fought myself the entire time, wanting to stop. I just kept pushing more and more to suffer through it. I did a good job of shortening my stride a little bit further and had my cadence close to 90 steps per minute (180 between both feet) which is really ideal here. The time on this mile was really a product of running down hill again as other than the downhill stetches, I was more of a 9:40 pace.

Final .3 of a mile: 8:39 min/mile pace

When you get past the 6th mile, you know that you only have 1-2 minutes left, so you just have to give it all that you have left. I ran the entire thing anaerobic, my HR was over 180. I still pushed as much as I could. I wasn't going to be able to do any 6 min/mile pace or anything, I really was gassed, but I did give it all I could. I went a little further than 6.2 miles, just to make sure I didn't get short changed by strava.. but finally got there...

End Result: A new PR in 10k, 56:19, and I beat one of my goals, trying to run a 10k in under an hour!

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y19/Turlos/running/6-15-13results.jpg

According to strava, was also a PR for my 5k, due to distance issues on my last race. Either way, I am not sure that was a good sign that I ran that fast in the first half of the run..

If we look at what Galloway said that I quoted above regarding running too quick for a 10k... Every second too fast in first 3 miles is 10 seconds slower per mile by the end of the 10k.. If that is true, my first 3 miles I completed in 26:50, but my goal was to actually run the first 3 miles in 27:30. So basically 40 seconds too fast. If Galloway is correct, that would mean if I had conserved my Glycogen better, theoretically I could have run it 400 seconds quicker overall (or almost 7 minutes).

I am not sure if I fully buy that 7 minute number, but even at a conservative estimate, I likely could have improved on my PR time a considerable bit. (maybe even under 55 minutes) without improving my fitness any.

So that leads back to my next race, this upcoming weekend. Its a little more than a 10k, and I'll be running mostly uphill the entire way.. so pacing will be that much more important for me. I ran this entire 10k at a 9:03 pace, in fairly optimal weather and road conditions. My race likely will be worse in both regards, so I think I'll set out next time to try to run that 9:10 pace once again, but this time do a better job of it. :)

[Alan T]

I find myself in an unusual place with my running right now. I'm currently in "maintenance" mode. I achieved my short term goals from my spring training:

- Get below 200 pounds in weight
- Run a 10k race
- Run a 10k in under 1 hour
- Run a 5k in under 27:30

I am constantly proud of the progress that I have made. I recently saw a friend at a softball game that I had not seen in about a year. The first thing that people comment on that have not seen me for a while is how much weight I have lost. It makes me proud, I enjoy talking about what a big accomplishment it felt like to me.

In a way, that is what running is for me as well, a way to constantly better myself, to see improvement each step of the way. I can work on this for the next 10 years and continue to improve. Running (and other forms of exercise) is an iceberg to move. It goes slow, but hard work eventually is noticed after considerable time. With that hard work comes a far greater sense of accomplishment. This isn't being proud that I got a high score in a video game, or that I figured out how to put together that toy for the kids on Christmas morning. Only I know how much effort and sweat went into reaching these goals, and perhaps only I can truly appreciate how much it means to me.

So back to where I am this month.. Practically the entire month of June I'm pretty much in maintenance mode. I have new goals for the Fall lined up. I want to get below 190 pounds before the end of the year. I want to run a half marathon and speed related, I would like to get to a 25 minute 5k time. None of these things will happen tomorrow, or next week or even next month. Just like every other one of my goals, these will take time for me to accomplish.

Maintenance mode for my weight loss means that I am not actively dieting super heavy these days. I am very careful to try to not run at too much of a calorie deficit with all of my exercise I am doing. To train properly, my body needs the energy or I'll not meet exercise related goals. I don't see the weeks any more where I lose 10 pounds in a week that I once did. Now a gradual 1/2 pound a week is pretty good progress. As long as it continues to go down slowly but surely I know that i will at some point reach my goal..

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y19/Turlos/running/6-19-13weightloss.jpg

Maintenance mode for my running has me in between training plans. I start my half-marathon training next Monday. The last few weeks has been pretty much looking to keep a base level of fitness. Trying to keep my fitness level up without greatly increasing my fatigue. I have used this month to try to have some fun with things, to have a little chance to see how my running fitness has improved. So far this month, I ran a 10k race, a 5k race, a 10k challenge and this upcoming weekend Doing a half-marathon relay with my wife. We don't expect to win, or come close to winning.. in fact we may even be the last place relay team.. but we're going to have fun doing it. We have a baby sitter (my mom), we have a hotel and a get away destination.. and are just going to enjoy the day and the race and have fun doing it. Not everything to do with my running or my exercise/fitness is about setting new personal records... I need to remind myself that one of my biggest goals was to get my health under control so I could be a more active part of my family and do things with the kids that I struggled with previously due to my weight.

I have an issue with Anxiety.. I let everything stress me out.. and constantly live on edge. I have been working on better handling my stress and anxiety perhaps just as hard as my running or my weight loss for the past 9 months. Absolutely everything stressed me out.. work stressed me out.. taking the kids somewhere stressed me.. dealing with money at home stressed me.. even going over to a party at a friend's house caused me anxiety... I feel like earlier this week I didn't necessarily hit a break through, but I realized how far I had come in dealing with my anxiety....

I recently taught my youngest daughter how to ride without training wheels on her bike. She did a good job, only took us 3 afternoons (about 45 minutes each time) before she got it. Now she rides entirely on her own. Sometimes she is a little shaky, but she's getting the hang of balance now. I decided on Monday that it was time to go out to a nearby bike trail with her, and actually ride my bike with her. In the past, trips like this with my oldest daughter, I stressed out the entire time. Was worried she would fall, would get hurt, would accidentally crash into someone else on the trail.. or numerous other reasons.. I spent the entire time waiting for the inevitable to happen.. and it caused me to not enjoy it.. to almost feel like it was a chore.. This time, I just relaxed and basically went along for the ride. She would go too fast on the downhill because it was fun.. and I just let her. She didn't crash (even though once or twice came darn close). When she wanted to stop for a water break we stopped.. After 3 miles we were done, and I realized... I actually had alot of fun.

So I guess during this month of just maintaining.. of not pushing super hard on weight loss or exercise, I've been able to spend a little time as well realizing that there are other parts of my life or my relationship with my family that have been improving as well. I need to remember that sometimes when I go out for a run it isn't to improve my fitness.. but instead it can be just to enjoy going for a run.

[Dodgerchick]

I find myself in an unusual place with my running right now. I'm currently in "maintenance" mode. I achieved my short term goals from my spring training:

- Get below 200 pounds in weight
- Run a 10k race
- Run a 10k in under 1 hour
- Run a 5k in under 27:30

I am constantly proud of the progress that I have made. I recently saw a friend at a softball game that I had not seen in about a year. The first thing that people comment on that have not seen me for a while is how much weight I have lost. It makes me proud, I enjoy talking about what a big accomplishment it felt like to me.

In a way, that is what running is for me as well, a way to constantly better myself, to see improvement each step of the way. I can work on this for the next 10 years and continue to improve. Running (and other forms of exercise) is an iceberg to move. It goes slow, but hard work eventually is noticed after considerable time. With that hard work comes a far greater sense of accomplishment. This isn't being proud that I got a high score in a video game, or that I figured out how to put together that toy for the kids on Christmas morning. Only I know how much effort and sweat went into reaching these goals, and perhaps only I can truly appreciate how much it means to me.

So back to where I am this month.. Practically the entire month of June I'm pretty much in maintenance mode. I have new goals for the Fall lined up. I want to get below 190 pounds before the end of the year. I want to run a half marathon and speed related, I would like to get to a 25 minute 5k time. None of these things will happen tomorrow, or next week or even next month. Just like every other one of my goals, these will take time for me to accomplish.

Maintenance mode for my weight loss means that I am not actively dieting super heavy these days. I am very careful to try to not run at too much of a calorie deficit with all of my exercise I am doing. To train properly, my body needs the energy or I'll not meet exercise related goals. I don't see the weeks any more where I lose 10 pounds in a week that I once did. Now a gradual 1/2 pound a week is pretty good progress. As long as it continues to go down slowly but surely I know that i will at some point reach my goal..

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y19/Turlos/running/6-19-13weightloss.jpg

Maintenance mode for my running has me in between training plans. I start my half-marathon training next Monday. The last few weeks has been pretty much looking to keep a base level of fitness. Trying to keep my fitness level up without greatly increasing my fatigue. I have used this month to try to have some fun with things, to have a little chance to see how my running fitness has improved. So far this month, I ran a 10k race, a 5k race, a 10k challenge and this upcoming weekend Doing a half-marathon relay with my wife. We don't expect to win, or come close to winning.. in fact we may even be the last place relay team.. but we're going to have fun doing it. We have a baby sitter (my mom), we have a hotel and a get away destination.. and are just going to enjoy the day and the race and have fun doing it. Not everything to do with my running or my exercise/fitness is about setting new personal records... I need to remind myself that one of my biggest goals was to get my health under control so I could be a more active part of my family and do things with the kids that I struggled with previously due to my weight.

I have an issue with Anxiety.. I let everything stress me out.. and constantly live on edge. I have been working on better handling my stress and anxiety perhaps just as hard as my running or my weight loss for the past 9 months. Absolutely everything stressed me out.. work stressed me out.. taking the kids somewhere stressed me.. dealing with money at home stressed me.. even going over to a party at a friend's house caused me anxiety... I feel like earlier this week I didn't necessarily hit a break through, but I realized how far I had come in dealing with my anxiety....

I recently taught my youngest daughter how to ride without training wheels on her bike. She did a good job, only took us 3 afternoons (about 45 minutes each time) before she got it. Now she rides entirely on her own. Sometimes she is a little shaky, but she's getting the hang of balance now. I decided on Monday that it was time to go out to a nearby bike trail with her, and actually ride my bike with her. In the past, trips like this with my oldest daughter, I stressed out the entire time. Was worried she would fall, would get hurt, would accidentally crash into someone else on the trail.. or numerous other reasons.. I spent the entire time waiting for the inevitable to happen.. and it caused me to not enjoy it.. to almost feel like it was a chore.. This time, I just relaxed and basically went along for the ride. She would go too fast on the downhill because it was fun.. and I just let her. She didn't crash (even though once or twice came darn close). When she wanted to stop for a water break we stopped.. After 3 miles we were done, and I realized... I actually had alot of fun.

So I guess during this month of just maintaining.. of not pushing super hard on weight loss or exercise, I've been able to spend a little time as well realizing that there are other parts of my life or my relationship with my family that have been improving as well. I need to remember that sometimes when I go out for a run it isn't to improve my fitness.. but instead it can be just to enjoy going for a run.

What a great, inspirational post. Thanks for sharing :) I think it's great that you and your wife go running together, those are some real bonding moments.

[Alan T]

So this weekend, my wife and I are getting away for about 36 hours or so to spend the night up in Maine and then run a relay race together on Sunday morning. The distance is half-marathon combined, 6.55 or so miles down on a river rail trail in Augusta and 6.55 or so back to the start/finish line again.

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y19/Turlos/running/6-21-13railtraileleveationRK.jpg

I found this elevation map of the trail through Runkeeper, and we are using it to try to determine our strategy for how to approach the race. Since as a relay team, we effectively will be splitting this in half, it looks like the first half of the race (mostly downhill) is easier overall than the second half which is mostly up hill. So our immediate plan is to have my wife start off the first half of the race since I run hills much more often than she does, I likely won't suffer as much on the back half... One problem is, I despise Runkeeper's Elevation maps now. They don't seem very useful other than giving a rough idea of what the course is like. The elevation maps are over-exaggerated and don't give me the numbers to know if those steep climbs are 10ft or 200 ft.... So I took the map in Runkeeper and plotted out my own in Garmin Connect as best as I could believe I figured out the course.. and I got this:

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y19/Turlos/running/6-21-13railtraileleveationGC.jpg

So this shows the same basic idea where the majority of the first half seems down hill and then uphill in reverse. The peaks smooth out a bit, and the entire elevation goes for about a 20-30 ft change which really is nothing I don't think. So I don't view this as a huge problem at all. The only steep incline there is where the race leaves the rail trail for a brief bit to a street, and that jump might simply be Garmin Connect's inability to understand the change of topology there. I'm going to assume the entrance to a rail trail is not quite that steep.. So we're going with the game plan of having her start the race, and I'll finish it.

Next, now that it is close enough to race time, we can get some initial hourly weather forecasts for Augusta (even though weather channel seems wrong half the time)..

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y19/Turlos/running/6-21-13railtrailraceweather.jpg

Initially the weather was looking a few degrees warmer with about the same 80-85% humidity, but now there is a small (30%) chance of rain, that I guess they are calling for enough cloud cover to keep the temperature in the high 60s for the race. Personally, with temps near the 70s and high humidity, I hope it does rain. Running in the rain is refreshing, keeps you cooled off and lets me run better since my body does not have to work as hard keeping myself cool. Even if it doesn't rain, the temperature isn't as high as it was on the last race earlier this month, but still not necessarily ideal enough where I am thinking that I'll set a new personal record here.

My wife does not necessarily enjoy running in the rain too much, but she also doesn't enjoy the heat.. so I don't really know which she will prefer. To help her keep from blowing herself up in the race trying too hard, I've been keeping it low key and telling her that we're just doing it to have fun. Which is really the truth, we know that we won't be a winner here, as there are teams that have run this in under 1 1/2 hours in the past. My best guess is that my wife and I are looking closer to 2:15 to 2:30 for our finish time. I do want her to feel like she did well or improved though since that is always a motivation boost, but for her keeping it low key so she enjoys herself is the best path to get to that goal.

For myself, I don't expect to beat my 10k time from last weekend. This trail is about the same difficulty as what I ran before, but the weather is not quite as good and I have to go a hair further. As long as it is raining, or the weather doesn't get too hot, I think I can still do this 6.55 or so miles in under an hour. My goal this time out is to do a better job of pacing myself than I have the last two 10k race/challenge scenarios. I want to start out and run pretty much a 9:10 pace for the first several miles. It looks like the first 3 miles for me will be a bit more of an uphill than my last 3 miles. Without knowing the course that well, my goal is to run fairly even 9:10 pace those first 3 miles and then see about speeding it up the last 3 just a hair (9:05 range - 9:00 range). Then whatever I have left the last .5 I'll just see what I can do.

I've gotten good at pacing for 5k races through experience.. but still a challenge for me on the 10k side as a fairly new race distance for myself.

[Alan T]

Two posts in one day, I am getting a little carried away with myself.... :)

I have mentioned before that I really get into the Techy side of things, and that also includes running. I really enjoy looking at endless stats of how my run went, my cumulative data, projected data, training data... whatever data that I can find as long as it seems to have some sense of meaning and not just some made up garbage. So I've been playing with some new sites lately that have been drawing my interest because of the data they provide.

The first site is actually an old site that I checked out several months ago and was mostly biking focused, but a recent check shows that they have it updated for both Biking and Running, which falls much more in line with my interests. It is a third party add on site for Strava data and is quite neat in my opinion. It focuses quite a bit on segment interaction from Strava as well as different ways to look at that data. It also gives you a "score" on your various segments based on how you do vs others in the segment. The higher your place and more people who have attempted that segment, the higher your score.

Veloviewer - My summary page (http://veloviewer.com/athlete/1638491/summary)

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y19/Turlos/running/6-21-13veloviewersummary.jpg

On the summary page you see the big graph that shows you either Distance/Duration/Elevation or number of activities during the year in a pretty easy way to read it. You can see when I started running last year in late 2012 and how my distance started to climb after I recovered from my back surgery earlier this year. You can see the Activity Stats box that gives the totals as well as records for the main categories.

In the top left is the Veloviewer score box. This is their score for you based on your performance in the various segments. They comment it is a way to compete with friends to see who can have the highest score. The score is an average of your top 25 (I think) segment scores as rated by Veloviewer. I don't know how good of a scale this score really is since I am in the middle of nowhere and it is usual for me to run on segments with only 5-7 others where others in a city might have 100s of people on their segments for competition. I would imagine someone like Subby who rides through a major city and has some pretty high level rankings on segments would have a much better score than I do for instance.

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y19/Turlos/running/6-21-13velovieweractivities.jpg

On the activities page, it shows all of your strava activities and also has the option to show you a heat map for your activities. On this heat map, I am showing all of my bike rides and Runs, but you can choose to only show one or the other if you wish. The darker the Red color, the more often that you ride in that location. The faint red lines are places that I might have only been on once, where the really dark lines could have over 100 visits from me. In this particular map, it is a little tough to distinguish between the Highways that are pink and my activities, but there are several map options to choose from...

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y19/Turlos/running/6-21-13velovieweractivities2.jpg

In this map view, you don't see as much of the city information, but it is very easy to see my heat maps and which ones are the more commonly used paths. I can zoom out and see different parts of the country that I have strava activities for as well if I am interested.



Veloviewer also has an entire section for your segments that you have participated in Strava. You can go to any of your segments and pull up more information on it as such:

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y19/Turlos/running/6-21-13veloviewersegment.jpg

It tells you segment information, as well as your information and how far behind the King of the Mountain you are. In this case, this segment was a 5k that has been run 68 times, and I am currently 42nd on the list. My time was a little under 31 minutes but the King of the Mountain had a 19minuteish time.

From here you can choose one of the external links to go to Raceshape that will let you compare your attempt on the segment with any other member that has done that segment. It will compare where you are on the segment vs another person at any given time. Can be a fun way to see where you fall behind someone that may be close to you on the standings.

You can also choose to go to O'Keefe's segment history page which will give you the entire history of that segment. Tell you how many times the leader of it has changed hands, when, what time, etc. Instead of showing one of my boring segments, here is one from a major city that has been ridden over 10,000 times by close to 1500 bikers:

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y19/Turlos/running/6-21-13okeefe.jpg


You can see the history of the top 3 on the segment as time goes on and the times all improve... As you continue to scroll down through this segment history, you eventually get to the current King of the Mountain, someone that some people on this forum may recognize...

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y19/Turlos/running/6-21-13okeefe2.jpg


There are other various things you can do on veloviewer, such as create a signature for yourself for forums (that support images in signatures), plus there appears to be a pretty decent sized list of new features that he plans on incorporating in the future with the new strava API changes that were implemented recently.

Anyhows, for those that use Strava, this might be something that interests you to look through even more data! :)

[Alan T]

As I mentioned previously, my wife and I ran a relay race together on Sunday morning. We both had a great time, and I would guess this has been our favorite race that we have run so far. Something about doing it as a team made it pretty cool for both of us and we're already talking about other relay races that we may do in the near future, including a Marathon relay with a couple of our friends.

The trip was partially a get away day for us both as parents, any time having no kid responsibilities and a day/night away is something that we relish. With the race on Sunday, we pretty much planned Saturday as a casual travel day with no real plans. We eventually headed out on the road around 10:30am and started the roughly 3 hour drive up to Augusta, Maine. On the way, we found a cracker barrel restaurant that I convinced her to stop at for lunch. We probably had not eaten at one of these for 6+ years, but I always used to love eating at them as a kid years and years ago.

Now, there are probably many Dos and Don'ts the day before a race and on this trip I pretty much put together a very long and successful list of things that you should not do before the race. The first being eating a bunch of fried foods at Cracker Barrel. I ended up having some fried catfish, and it tasted great, but the next 4-6 hours my stomach really was having issues with it. I am not sure if this is a by-product of my improved eating lately and just not being as used to fried foods or something else was going on there. My wife was having similar issues but she never does well with fried foods. I remember when we both went down to Georgia to visit family years ago, she got sick for a week from the food.

After lunch, we got back on the road and made it to Augusta, Maine at the hotel and checked in/ settled down for an hour. By settle down, I mean we both ended up falling asleep for about an hour.. woops :) We woke up in time though to go down to the city center to pick up our race packet/shirts/timing chip and then decided to walk a little bit of the course just to check it out. We realized a little difference from our planning, that the start and finish lines were about 1/4th of a mile apart from each other, and the first leg would end up running about 1/2 a mile further than the second leg. We decided to keep things as planned though, since the first leg was more down hill and in the end that 1/2 mile shouldn't matter that much.

After walking about an hour and just checking out the center of town and some kind of neat historical significant stuff, we made our way to the movie theater for a date night movie and went to see the new Superman movie. This is where our 2nd poor eating the day before the race kicked in. The movie was at 6:50pm, and we basically kind of just skipped dinner. my wife had popcorn, and I ate peanut m&ms and had an icee to drink. I don't know why I chose that, I have virtually cut M&M and other candy out of my life, and definitely would have been better drinking the water. I don't know if it was something about being on a trip that told my brain to completely go off of the reservation.. but thats what I had.

We both enjoyed the movie, and it finished around 9:50 or so. Too late for dinner, but my wife wanted a bagel at Panera before we went to the hotel for sleep. I decided for dinner, from Panera I would have a blueberry muffin... So yea, eating a blueberry muffin at 10pm the night before a race is likely not a good idea either... We made it back to the hotel, and called it a night.

Morning wakeup was 5:45am, the race started at 7:30am, so an early going for us. My wife grabbed an oatmeal and coffee for breakfast. Since I had been eating like a champ thus far this trip, I continued by completely skipping breakfast. I have all kinds of issues when I eat within 2 hours of running, where I have to really use the bathroom bad, and just can't keep running. I have gotten to the point where it is really difficult for me to run after having eaten at all so I just went with it as that was what I was used to.. So just for the record, the 3 meals I had before a race was: Fried catfish, Peanut M&Ms and a blueberry muffin. Awesome :)

We head out about 6:45am to get over to the race, and as soon as we got in the car, like the very second, the skies opened up and it was crazy hard rain. The rain continued right up until about 10 minutes before the race would start at that rate. By the time the race was to start, it was just a light drizzle. My wife was definitely going to have to run in the rain though. We had a big debate on whether or not she wanted to bring her iphone and headphones with her or not (fear of it getting ruined in the rain), as well as if she wanted to bring her hydration water bottle which we had packed just in case it ended up being super hot and humid instead of the rain. She finally decided to change her mind with 3 minutes before the start of the race and wanted to bring it with her afterall. I literally ran up a huge grass hill to the car and back to get it all for her before the start.. and then she was off!

We had gone over the game plan before she had left. The goal was for her to just have fun, not stress about it too much and she wanted to try to set a new 10k record for herself. We felt if she could keep even 12:00min/mile paces for most of the race, she would do great. The obvious exception being the big hill in mile 3 that she had to cover, but otherwise just coast through til mile 6 and then she could speed up if she felt she had more to give. That would put her to the relay hand off at around 1:20:00 - 1:25:00 somewhere and put us in pretty good position to beat our goal of a 2:30:00 combined half-marathon we felt without having too much pressure on ourselves.

After she was off, I took a few final pictures and then went to get in my car. I found my route to my relay handoff stop was somewhat parallel to the race path, so I was able to stop for a few more pictures of her before I went on to my place. (A big parking lot of a grocery store where the rail trail ends). Once I got there and parked, I had a good hour or so till she was going to arrive, thus no need for me to warm up yet. Instead I just took time chatting with some of the other relay team members that were also waiting. There were 11 teams, and about 5-6 of us were standing together chatting. I found one other team was from Massachusetts also, and actually lived and worked near me which was kind of neat.

The first half marathon runners arrived a little bit later (about 40 minutes or so in to the race) and I decided to start warming up a little bit. I just ran easy pace around the parking lot for 1/2 a mile to try to wake up my legs and just figure out how my stomach was feeling. I felt pretty good surprisingly for the horrible eating and all of the travel plus sleeping in an unfamiliar hotel bed. I did realize though that the weather was going the wrong direction for me. The rain I was hoping for had ended, and now it was just getting gross and sticky.. not really what I wanted.

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y19/Turlos/running/6-23-13raceweather.jpg

The temperature suggested perhaps a 10 seconds per mile slower pace from my original plan perhaps.. nothing major but the dew point was not helping things much either...

<table><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center; background:#f0f0f0;">DEW POINT (°F) </td> <td style="text-align: center; background:#f0f0f0;">RUNNER\'S PERCEPTION </td> <td style="text-align: center; background:#f0f0f0;">HOW TO HANDLE </td></tr> <tr> <td> 50–54</td> <td>Very comfortable</td> <td>PR conditions </td></tr> <tr> <td> 55–59</td> <td>Comfortable</td> <td>Hard efforts likely not affected </td></tr> <tr> <td> 60–64</td> <td>Uncomfortable for some people</td> <td>Expect race times to be slower than in optimal conditions </td></tr> <tr> <td> 65–69</td> <td>Uncomfortable for most people</td> <td>Easy training runs might feel OK but difficult to race well or do hard efforts </td></tr> <tr> <td> 70–74</td> <td>Very humid and uncomfortable</td> <td>Expect pace to suffer greatly </td></tr> <tr> <td> 75 or greater</td> <td>Extremely oppressive</td> <td>Skip it or dramatically alter goal </td></tr></tbody></table>


I decided after running warm up and feeling pretty good that I would perhaps alter my plan slightly but not too much. I would still aim for 9:10 pace, but not try to push it too much on hill sections and if I slipped to 9:20 or 9:30 in some parts, I was not going to worry about it too much. My big goal was to try to pace myself well enough to have a strong finish rather than just holding on as best I could.

I made it back to the relay hand off station, and cheered for the various half marathon runners as they came through. I saw most of the other relay teams come through, which was no big shock since we did not expect to compete to win this thing. My wife ended up coming through as the 10th team, but she did great with her time and pacing. She came in at 1:21:00 and averaged a 12:15 pace over her 10k Personal record that she set for herself (1:16:25). I gave her a kiss, handed her the camera and car key and headed off for my turn to run (after posing for a picture on my way out). I wasn't in a super hurry on the hand off transition since I knew we wernt competing for anything and just wanted to have fun with it. My exact words to her was that 30 seconds wern't going to make a difference. Remember that for later in this post as that would come back to bite me :)

So I headed out, and the run was fairly pretty, along the river almost the entire way. My entire run was a gradual ascent, but I would say most of the trail felt pretty flat and easy for me to run. There were a few hills, none any worse than what I normally run on at home so I just kept to my pacing as best as I could to find a pretty comfortable pace that wasn't winding me much.

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y19/Turlos/running/6-23-13racesplits.jpg

Not a whole lot to talk about most of the splits, I felt that I ran the first mile a little faster than I wanted, so slowed down a hair in mile 2, and then ran into a couple of small hills that I pretty much just ran through without it affecting me too much. The mile 4 split looks like I sped back up some, but it was mostly due to my one big downhill that I had that I sped down and then ran through the middle of a small Maine town for about 1/2 a mile. I pretty much kept my pace still around 9:10 other than that hill and by the time I got to mile 5, I was feeling really good, not struggling at all.

During the race, since I was running the relay in the middle of a few hundred people running a full half-marathon, I was able to catch up and pass a good 20-30 people as I ran. That was actually a pretty cool feeling for me since it made me feel really dominant even though in reality those people had run 6.7 more miles than I had at the time, so wasn't really fair. At one point though, I was surprised as I heard foot steps coming up quick behind me, it was the last placed relay team's 2nd runner had caught me. He was literally flying and blew by me like I was doing nothing. He was likely running around 6:45-7:00 pace easily. In talking before running, he had told me that he ran tons of marathons and half marathons, and had come here to do this with his wife also who was a beginner runner. I thought that was pretty cool, even though I now was in last place for relay teams :) No big deal though, I knew I wasn't going to be able to keep up with him, and even trying to would sabotage my race, so I kept up my pace. and ran my own race I guess you can say.

By the time I had hit mile 5, and was feeling good as I had mentioned above, I had come to the realization that I was likely not catching any of the other relay teams (most of them had too much of a head start on me I figured), so I focused mainly on just trying to finish my 10k strong. I kept to my 9:10ish pace through the 5th mile and knew at mile 6 that I had a 45:33 time. Doing the math in my head, I knew that gave me 11 minutes for the final 1.22 miles to try to beat my PR. I had 1.4 miles or so left in the race, so decided that it was time the final mile to see what I had left in the tank. I pushed up to about a 8:50 pace, or so but then found a few downhill stretches that let me comfortably pick up even more. I reached the 6 mile point at 54:32 and saw the bridge right before the finish line and just gave the rest that I had (which wasn't too much at that point). I ended up running the last 3/10th of a mile at an 8:16 pace, or pretty much treating it like an interval and ran across the finish line.

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y19/Turlos/running/6-23-13racegraph.jpg

For the most part, I was pretty happy with how I ran the race. I definitely think it was my best run 10k race so far, not only because of the time but just how I handled the pacing. When I passed 6.22 miles on my watch, it was really close to my previous PR time, but I knew that it would be close. I laughed with my wife a bit on the way home as I asked her if it made me obsessed that I wanted to get home to sync my watch to see if I got a new personal record for the 10k or not :)

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y19/Turlos/running/6-23-13racerecords.jpg

Well, I did set a new 10k PR by about 30 seconds. Not quite reaching my goal of 55 minutes, but I did not expect to make that goal with the weather the way it was. I actually didn't expect to set a PR honestly when I started out, so this was a happy result for me. My 1 mile second best time of 8:24 was actually the last mile that I ran in this race. I guess it is a good sign when the end of the race is your strongest, and perhaps the strongest that you have ever felt as a runner.

As for the race results.. well we did finish last, which was not a big deal to us. We met all of our goals, both of us set new 10k Personal records, and our combined Half-marathon time was under our goal of 2:30:00. We had a great time and were super satisfied...

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y19/Turlos/running/6-23-13raceresults.jpg

Looking at the results though, I realized.. the relay team right in front of us finished only 5 seconds before me! I went to go look at the pictures that my wife had taken at the finish line.....

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y19/Turlos/running/IMG_1953.jpg

Yep.. the guy right in front of me is team #478.. and I came through without realizing that I only needed a little more to pass him and not finish last... Going back to what I said at the hand off.. 30 seconds wouldn't kill us.. whooops :)

Ever since we found that out, my wife has been telling me that I was fired, or just saying to me "5 seconds". We both had a really good time though, and look forward to another relay in the future. As for the other relay team that passed me earlier on.. he finished a good 10 minutes before me and had passed a few other relay teams. Pretty incredible on his part!

[Alan T]

This is going to be another post about fun stats. If you aren't that excited about endless amounts of stats about my running, this post may bore you a little bit. You have been warned :)

Previously I wrote about calculating TRIMP, ATL,CTL and finding your Training/Stress Balance to determine your level of fitness vs fatigue in a way to calculate your performance level. A few weeks ago, I put in my entire training plan from the start of June through mid September with estimated guesses on my part to what TRIMP value those workouts would have based on previously similar runs that I had done. Once done, it mapped out what my Training season for my half marathon would like like in terms of fitness, fatigue and performance (TSB)

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y19/Turlos/running/6-26-13tsbgraph.jpg

As a refresher, the Blue is CTL (or fitness), the red is ATL (or fatigue) and the Grey is TSB (or Performance level). TSB is measured up and down around the 0 line, where the higher above 0 the better, the lower below 0 the worse it is. For both Blue and Red, the higher it goes the larger the value.

You can see the end of my last training cycle that ended in May, the one that got me up to the 10k race level and helped improve my 10k PR time from 1:15:00 to 56:00 thus far (19 minute improvement from the start to the end). At the end of the training plan, my fatigue level had climbed pretty high from the amount of miles that I had been putting in (30+ a week for a few weeks), however in turn my fitness level had also been going up, albeit slower. The month of June was mostly keeping status quo. Keeping roughly the same level of fitness from where I had finished in May while keeping the fatigue down before I start my next training plan. Plus gives my body some time to rest and recover from the taxing May that I had. Now that it is time for the new plan, once again my fitness level will start climbing, but in turn so will fatigue. Both values will continue to climb until the first week of September where I begin to taper for the half marathon, allowing the fatigue to wear off prior to the race. This all depends on the calculated TRIMP scores that I put in for my workouts though. Thus far I overestimated most of those values as my improved fitness has allowed me to undertake these exercises with a bit more effeciency. The overall effect will still remain the same even if a slightly changed angle that my fitness and fatigue will both climb until September where I hopefully will be ready for the race.

I wanted to dig more into the various measurements regarding CTL/ATL/TSB and to better understand how my fitness level has been improving, and found a bunch of pretty useful information on a site that I have referenced before: Running tips for everyone from beginners to racing marathons and ultramarathons (http://fellrnr.com/wiki/Main_Page)

Jonathan actually has a plugin for SportTracks and a good deal of information regarding some of the data within it. Of course I dug into it and started looking over the data for my various runs. The more stats that he offered piqued my curiosity to start looking up the information and trying to understand the value in them. He has a graph page similar to my graph above that will measure out your CTL/ATL/TSB but he has four different methods of calculating it: TSB Model, Banister Model and Busso Model. Without going into a whole bunch of detail explaining the different models, here is his summary of the differences:

Comparison of the Models


The TSB model is simpler than the other two models as it only has the two decay parameters.
The Banister model has more experimental verification than the other models.
The Busso model is the most complex, but is the only one that allows for Training Monotony.

Once I started looking more into what the Banister and Busso models had, it gave me a whole new slate of calculations or things to look at, exactly the type of thing I enjoy to dissect. With the plugin, I can actually pull up a page for each run that has a bunch of analytical data in it. I'll include my recent half-marathon relay race from Sunday as an example of this page.


http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y19/Turlos/running/6-26-13analytics.jpg

The first three lines are pretty self explanatory. The distance, duration and number of activities in the last week, 2 weeks, 4 weeks, year and year to date. So far in the 146 days this year, I've run in 113 of those days. When you factor in that I didn't run at all for most of January due to my back surgery, that means I have run a bunch this year so far :)

The next line is all Heart Rate data. Most are likely familiar with what your Avg heart rate and max heart rate during a run signifies. The higher your Heart rate, the harder your body is having to work to handle the pace/effort, weather conditions or terrain. During any moderate exercise of 10 minutes or more at 50-75% VO2 max, you'll start to experience cardiovascular drift. At a constant effort, your heart will reduce the amount of blood that it pumps and thus have to beat slightly faster to compensate and maintain the level of blood flow. This is due to many reasons, possibly dehydration, overheating or similar causes. Having a measurement for drift seems interesting, but there is another calculation that is covered later that seems to be a better measuring stick (Efficiency).

The next line gives information about TRIMP which I've talked about before so will gloss over here, but also has two new measurements for me, the monotony and training strain. The two go somewhat hand in hand together with monotony being one of the factors in calculating the training strain of an exercise. We all probably know by now that you can't do hard runs every single time out, eventually your body will just fall apart. It can lead to overtraining syndrome and be counter-productive. There evidently is also some thought that you need to change up your runs somewhat, by doing the same run repeatedly will lead to monotony and be counter productive as well. This goes for the same easy runs repeatedly as well. I had previously read something about that on strength-running blog as well but am not too versed with this line of thinking. The basic idea as I understand it is you can measure your training monotony by reviewing the previous 7 days of exercise. change in pace or distance helps break up the monotony as does rest days.

Values of Monotony over 2.0 are generally considered too high, and values below 1.5 are preferable. A high value for Monotony indicates that the training program is ineffective. This could be because the athlete is doing a low level of training; an extreme example would be a well-trained runner doing a single easy mile every day. This would allow for complete recovery, but would not provide the stimulus for improvement and would likely lead to rapid detraining. At the other extreme, doing a hard work out every day would be monotonous and not allow sufficient time to recover.

Based on the above quote, my training monotony is 1.52 at the point of this run so I guess borderline getting too high. Looking through the measurements of last week, for most of the week my monotony score was below 1, and this week it is still around 1.57.. but that leads to the question of.. am I overtraining or undertraining? My guess is undertraining since I had been taking it easy a few weeks here. That is where training strain comes in though. It uses the monotony score along with the TRIMP score to give a strain score. The higher the training strain score, the more likely you are overtraining. His page does not give much in the way of specifics to what score would be too high as it is independent of the runner involved. Most of my training strain scores last week were 800-1000 and for this race I was closer to 2000. Still is that high? I am guessing not since my monotony is not near 2.0. I went back to look at the end of May to see where I was during my peak TRIMP days of my last training schedule and found that my strain was around 2200 most likely due to the monotony back then being lower. I think this will be something that I watch over the next 2 months just to see how I can use this calculation or better understand it.

The next three lines are the different calculations I wrote about above, and the following line gives me an easy VDOT score for that particular run. I have spoken about VDOT previously and I use it pretty religiously in setting my pace for the various runs that I do. For this race, my VDOT was 35. I tend to score a little lower VDOT on my 10k due to not having gotten a full grasp on my pacing yet. My 5k PR time that I actually use the VDOT from was a 37 score. Just as a point of reference for those just starting C25K, less than a year ago, my VDOT was below 30, so I have managed to improve it quite a bit this year.

Most of the other fields are pretty self explanatory.. Cadence, Stride Length, weather... But the one that I found very interesting was the Efficiency measurement. I wrote earlier in the paragraph about Drift that efficiency might be a better way of measuring your... well efficiency... I went to do some research on this one and kind of found it very interesting...

From fellnr's wiki once more:

There are two components to running ability; fitness and economy. Fitness is the ability of our bodies to generate energy for running and is the focus of a lot of our training. Economy is how far and fast you can run with a given amount of energy. Good economy is a critical part of running, and Cadence is one element I focus on.



In an ideal world, we’d be able to easily measure our Running Economy and see if things are improving. If we could measure our breath, find out how much O₂ we consumed and how much CO₂ we produce, we’d know how much energy we burned (and from fat or carbohydrate). Sadly, this is not practical, so the best measure we have of energy consumption is our Heart Rate. This is far from perfect, as Heart Rate can vary for other reasons besides supplying O₂ for energy production. However, I believe it is a useful approximation.



The calculated efficiency value cannot easily be used to compare different runners. It can be used as to track how your running efficiency is improving over time. Over the weeks and months of training your efficiency value should gradually improve. For instance, I've seen my efficiency go from 110-120 to 130-150 over a period of a few months. Sadly, I've also seen my efficiency dropped when I put on body fat (see Weight Loss and Performance.) This evaluation of my fitness this proved to be remarkably useful to me.


Before I go back to look at how my efficiency has improved over time, he also mentions that efficiency can also be looked at in the course of a single run to see how you are effected by glycogen being depleted during the activity. In my race from Sunday you can see in the lap splits that it includes the efficiency for each lap. You can see as my run continues, my efficiency decreases. I honestly don't know why the 6th and final mile was so different as it appears that I just sped up without increasing my Heart rate at all. Maybe I don't remember there being downhills there, or maybe adrenaline has an effect there.. I honestly do not know there... Using this over even longer distance though probably would be even more telling, especially if you go past the point of depleting your glycogen stores such as a marathon or 20+ mile distance.

Now to look at how I have become more efficient over time with my runs.. In his quote above, he says he went from 110-120 to 130-150 efficiency over the course of a few months. My Race on Sunday I was 103.5. Obviously he is going to be in better shape than I since he is an ultra-runner and has been doing it much longer than me. I wanted to see though how much I had improved over time. Since it relies on Heart rate measurements, I can only go back as far as I had a HRM earlier this year in Feb.. My early runs in Feb had efficiency of 89 (and a VDOT score of 24). Looking through several other runs, most of my scores were low 80s to low 90s, so I've improved by roughly 20 there in the last few months which I gather is a good sign.

None of this data really changed my impression of how I approach things with perhaps the one part that i want to read more about is training monotony.. however the ability to look at even more stats and numbers after a run just makes me giddy :)

[Alan T]

June 2013 in review:

I mentioned at the start of the month that I wouldn't run as much as I did in May, being between plans and having a few races during the month meant that i would be keeping a base more than building on one. In the end though, I ended up running almost as much as the previous month still, and had my second month over 100 miles run.

http://dgalywyr863hv.cloudfront.net/challenges/the-junedoggle-run-v1-100.png

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y19/Turlos/running/june2013running.jpg


http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y19/Turlos/running/june2013runningbymonth.jpg



Even though my running was about 20 miles less than in May, my overall cardio went up again this month for a new high of 178.1 miles

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y19/Turlos/running/june2013allcardiobymonth.jpg


http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y19/Turlos/running/june2013allcardio.jpg

Mostly the increased cardio this month was due to the 62 miles of biking that I did which was up almost 20 miles from the previous month.

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y19/Turlos/running/june2013challenges.jpg

I didn't do as well in the running June Strava challenge obviously, and my biking place of almost 74 thousandth is pretty laughable :) However, was a pretty good month for me all things considered, setting new PRs in the 10k and 5k races.

From a weight perspective, slow and steady continues to be the theme..

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y19/Turlos/running/june2013weight.jpg

Lost almost 5 pounds last month which means I could see an official weight below 190 at some point next month hopefully. As of today, I've lost:

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y19/Turlos/running/june2013weightloss.jpg


So what's next? Time for my next phase in training for a half marathon race in the fall.

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y19/Turlos/running/june2013planoverview.jpg

The base phase is completed as tomorrow is a rest day for me. The building phase starts up on Tuesday and runs through 7/22 for me. I'll be averaging 31.1 miles per week during this phase, which is actually pretty close to what I ran this week. My long runs the next three weeks will be 9 mi, 10 mi, 8 mi and I'll start my speed work back up with some Fartleks and Hill runs.

The final week of July, my next phase starts and enters into August where the training plan really looks to put in the peak miles as it will be the time where my training influence will be highest for a mid-september race.

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y19/Turlos/running/june2013plangraph.jpg


So the month of July should have me running roughly 145 miles, which would be an all time high for me. The biggest struggle that i will have is trying to find time to continue biking in there somewhere without it affecting my running. I'll likely try to do some easy biking perhaps on Wednesdays which will be a fairly low distance running day for me each week.

[Alan T]

So this week is my wife's and my yearly trip where we sneak off without any kids for a few days to celebrate our anniversary. It actually is a pretty event filled period of a few days with the 4th of July, my wife's birthday and our anniversary all within a 4 day period. What we do is take turns planning our anniversary trip as a surprise for the other person. They don't know where we are going, how long we will be there, how we are getting there or anything. Just told the night/day before what they need to pack and off we go.

This year is my turn to plan the trip, and since we've been trying to be a bit more fit this past year, I decided to plan it around some "running destinations" so to speak. Now before anyone thinks that I have gone completely off my rocker, I didn't plan the entire focus of the trip around running. However it was definitely something that I considered when planning things. My wife asked me this morning what she needed to pack, so I told her the various clothes she would need.. oh and bring 3 days worth of running clothes and your running shoes. :)

So the plan this year is that we'll drive up to Niagara Falls tomorrow during the day and check in to the hotel some point mid-afternoon. She is supposed to run 3 miles tomorrow and I have a 5 mile run, I figured it would be pretty cool to run along the river there near where the falls are as it looks according to my running maps as a pretty popular running trail plus should have nice scenery I am hoping. Obviously we'll be there for the fireworks at night as well.

The next day we check out and drive an hour or two up to Toronto where we spend the next day. That will actually be her birthday, so we'll go out and stuff. She has an off day from running, but I have to figure out when/where I am going to run 6 miles without abandoning her for an hour. I might end up getting in trouble from my schedule on this day. Obviously the trip is the most important thing and if I can't keep my running schedule, then it won't kill me I suppose. Still eager to try to maintain the schedule through the trip.

After a day in Toronto, we head out a little further east to Kingston, Ontario later on Saturday. We'll probably spend a while longer in Toronto doing stuff before we go. Kingston is going to be more a place to sleep Saturday night than anything else. Sunday morning is when I have the running part of the trip planned. I've signed her and I up for the Sydenham Lakeside 5k race on Sunday morning. The race is reportedly a scenic one to run as it is part of the Trans-Canada Trail along side Sydenham Lake. I am not actually planning on racing this race, was going to run this one with my wife to keep her company/pace her.

After the super-hot 10k we ran on June 1st, my wife got a little discouraged about the summer heat. Even though it is further north from us, the weather there probably won't be much cooler though, so hoping for a lucky cooler morning, but that seems to be doubtful from the early looks at the weather forecast right now. One of the other things that was a bonus for this race was that this race gives out medals to finishers. One of the things my wife has been commenting about the races I pick out, that she really wants a medal. We'll get one from the half-marathon we are planning to do in September, but otherwise the only other medal we've gotten thus far was from the zombie run that we did. So I'm hoping that is a nice little touch for her.

After the race, we pretty much head back home, with that finishing off the trip. I'm hoping that it is a good balance of being able to see the sites, having stuff to do and keeping on our active schedules and not over-eat like I tend to do during most trips.. I guess we will see how it goes!

[Alan T]

So the long-weekend getaway was tough on the old schedule. I ended up running every day while on the trip, but ended up cutting 2 different runs short and had to change around things due to travel problems.

We got up to Niagara Falls by late afternoon on July 4th, and decided to go out for a mini-run just to see the area and the sites. I had been there before a very long time ago, but my wife never had. It ended up being pretty hot, I didn't realize it until later but it was actually the hottest recorded temperature that I have ever run in:

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y19/Turlos/running/7-4-13weather.jpg

I have been trying to confine most of my running in the early mornings to get out before the really bad heat. I have a large number of runs that start with the weather in the 70s or higher, but this was only the second run that I have had with an 80+ degree day. Ironically enough, the other one also was in the late afternoon, which is not my normal running time.

The difference here, with this run starting at 6pm, the temperature actually probably dropped from the 81 degrees as time went on, where most of my runs only get hotter. Such as this morning's run started at 75 degrees for me at 6am, but by the time I was done running 15k, the temperature was actually around 78 degrees and by the time I actually got through the door it was 80. The other thing that I have to realize is running in the morning is so much more humid than the end of the day. This July 4th run had humidity of only 66%, where my run this morning had humidity close to 100%, so today's run was actually much tougher on me weather wise than this "hotter" run on the 4th.

The bigger issue we found though was in a tourist trap, by 6pm, there literally is nowhere to walk, much less run. My wife visibly got annoyed by the people that were literally everywhere. We ended up having to play obstacle course just to run around and see the sites. Not really their problem, since it is kind of ridiculous for us to try to run during that time of day at Niagara Falls. I ended up cutting this run short due to the circumstances, and my wife and I then cleaned up and went to find somewhere for dinner and went off to enjoy the fireworks.

The next morning though, I got out before 6am, let my wife sleep in and enjoyed a nice and cool 10k that I ran along the Falls. Since it was morning, the humidity was higher, but I found running by the falls, the mist rose up and completely covered me, which was very very comfortable and helped me cool off. At that time of morning, almost nothing is open so I got to run pretty much anywhere without having to dodge people.

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y19/Turlos/478317_10152125048087119_1302576046_o.jpg


The next day, we spent in Toronto and took a nice early morning run together of the area. We just ran 3 miles, but got to run through some nearby parks and a local farm that was right in the middle of the city oddly enough. We ended up walking another 5-6 miles later in the day as well, so had a pretty active day while seeing the sites.

Sunday morning was the 5k race, and we got medals for completing it! Just our second medal that we have received from races. There was some good and some bad from the race though. The bad is that I have come to a conclusion that my wife just does not race well when I am running with her. She ends up putting way too much pressure on herself and it becomes counter productive for her run. I was purposely trying to be supportive of her and not pressure her any more than she already felt, but she just buried herself under the weight of the pressure on top of herself and got very frustrated. This is actually the second time we've tried this and both times with the same result. So lesson learned I suppose, that does not work very well. :) We can run easy runs together, but I won't pace her anymore in races.

The good of the event was that it was a really really cool event. It was all kinds of events actually that morning together. Various Triathlon distances (Sprint and Olympic as well as an easier triathlon that they called try-a-tri for beginner triathlon competers.) They had various kayak races, duathlons, 10k, 5k, 2k races, etc. Since neither my wife nor I had been to see such an event before, we went to watch the start of the Olympic Triathlon to see all of the people out in the water for the start. My wife is half-joking that I should get into that next, but that is a little more than I am ready to start trying to bite just yet. :)

I was supposed to run 9 miles on Sunday and had planned on doing it when I got home from the trip, but we hit every possible construction site imaginable on the way home and it basically doubled our return trip. I didn't get home until about 9:30pm and it was getting dark. You couldn't pay me enough money to run 9 miles on a treadmill, so I just put it off til this morning instead. It makes a mess out of my schedule for this week as today was supposed to be an off day and I have a speed work day tomorrow, so I am now going to see how I feel tomorrow morning. If a little tired, I'll probably make tomorrow a rest day and push most of the week back, skipping one of my 4 mile runs mid-week. Who knows! I'll figure it out as I go I guess.

Overall, the trip was great, and had a good time, but the damage when we got home was that my weight was +3 pounds from when I left. Now we did eat out every meal, but didn't really go super overboard, at least not 3 pounds worth, so most likely that is just a change in my schedule plus perhaps extra water retention from sodium causing the weight to read high. My guess is by tomorrow morning or the next day it will be back down to normal again.

[Alan T]

I guess it has been a bit over a month since I did an update here..

From the running perspective, I set almost all new monthly records in July all the way across the board:

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y19/Turlos/running/july2013records-running.jpg

Those are likely going to be beat again in August as my training plan has even more miles this month, ramping up for my Half Marathon race next month. Towards the end of this month, I'll be running around 45 miles per week which fits my goal of roughly 30% of my weekly distance being the long runs.

For new PRs, since the last time I updated them, pretty much every new one has been beaten. So I updated the first post with all of my new PRs to keep that updated. I think my goal after my half marathon race next month will be to plan an attempt to beat 25 minutes for the 5k and 55 minutes for the 10k. I'm pretty sure, like 90% confident that I could do it now, but I don't have a great place to fit it in my training right now. The next 2-3 weeks are the most vital for me before I start to taper leading up to the race.


I've also started trying to improve my biking more as well. That has been more in the past two weeks though. In 10 days of August thus far I've already biked more than any month previously. 65.4 miles so far this month. I might start thinking about trying to get more serious with the biking, but can't really focus on it currently plus ramp up my running. That is a recipe for wearing myself out. Not really sure how to fit it in any better, but that is something that I want to think about for the future.

From the weight perspective, everything is still going well.. maybe too well actually. I stalled out just slightly during my anniversary trip with the wife in early July for a few days, but once that was over I was back on track for trying to lose 1/2 to 1 pound a week. With serious running training, I really did not want to lose more than that as I did not want to effect the quality of my work outs, and I felt that was a good goal. With my additional running and biking though, I'm still burning through calories too fast and losing weight faster than I really wanted to.

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y19/Turlos/running/8-9-13weight.jpg

At my current pace, weightgrapher suggests that I'll reach my "goal weight" of 184 pounds by the end of this month. I targeted that weight as it would officially put me in the "Normal" weight category of the BMI chart.

I'm actually only .2 of a pound away from a total of 75 pounds loss though, and am very proud of that. I'll be happy in the low 180s.. I'm happy right now in the high 180s.. I think the next challenge for me once I get below 184 is to figure out where exactly I want to set maintenance weight at and more importantly how to do that.. Something that I have not had to worry about for a long time is making sure that I am eating enough!

[Alan T]

Updated my front page with the results from my Half-Marathon on Sunday. Lots of new records for me at various distances.

I also have achieved all of my running and biking goals that I had listed with the exception of running a 5k in under 25 minutes. So that will be a short term goal I think next on my immediate list.

Based on my run yesterday, my VDOT score would be 38.3, which would be equivalent to a 5k of 25:02. Since the VDOT score is based on my half marathon time, it means both my 5k and 10k VDOT scores are now way out of date. I'm going to guess that without any extra training, I should be able to run below a 25 minute 5k. So I think I'll try to knock that out soon.

For my next long term goals, I'm debating what I want to do next. Originally I had planned on trying to run a marathon before the age of 40, and perhaps try another half-marathon next spring, but I am re-thinking that right now. I might push up the marathon for next Spring, but that means training all winter for it, which should be fun in the snow and ice :)

I'm guessing with the weather getting colder, I'll become too much of a wimp to ride too far into the winter, so maybe will aim for trying to get a 50 mile ride in, but not sure when I'll achieve that, maybe next year.. or maybe I will just go for a 50 mile ride one day. Who knows~!

For now, going to spend a few weeks enjoying myself, and doing some smaller runs, and going to also go to cheer on some friends in their first half-marathon next month out on Cape Cod too.

[Alan T]

I made my last accomplishment on the list of running a 5k in under 25 minutes last Saturday with a time of 24:29. I pretty much assumed that I would be able to do it so was pretty happy not only in crossing that one off the list but also in how easy it felt to do so.

So, I have been trying to decide on what goal I want to work on next, basically it will be my winter running goal. Winter running in Massachusetts was quite interesting last year, I got to run in the tail end of Hurricane Sandy and then a few months later got to run in the beginning of a few different Nor'easters. The sidewalks are not plowed, and with huge snow banks on both sides of the streets, it becomes a little more scary when cars are coming. Plus I find I constantly have to pay attention to where I step so I don't hit an ice patch.

I wanted something long term or bigger goal-wise to work on, but also was looking for a time improvement on a shorter distance too. Right now my two best times from a VDOT standpoint are my recent 5k which gave me a VDOT of 39.3, and my Half Marathon which gave me a VDOT of close to 39. So I think the easiest winter goal of mine is improving my now out of date 10k PR. Currently my best 10k is 53:53 which I ironically enough set during my Half-Marathon so I can easily best that one. My VDOT score and relative level of conditioning leads me to believe that I should be able to run a 51:03 10k right now if I paced myself right. So that gives my first goal for the winter training season will be:

Run a 10k in under 50 minutes

That one might be rather challenging for me, but if we don't push ourselves, sometimes we get complacent. My bigger goal that I decided I will work on is I want to run 26.2 miles in a single run (Marathon distance). I've previously said that I wanted to run a marathon by my 40th birthday, and with a little over a year left, I don't see any reason why I need to delay the work on that. So another goal is:

Run 26.2 miles in a single run

Now, simply training for the marathon is good, but I really enjoy races so want to target a specific one to run. There are a whole bunch of early spring Marathons around here, including the Boston marathon. I decided to push it a little earlier than that though and am targeting the Hyannis Marathon in February. Yes... February in Cape Cod.. there is a good chance that it could be snowing during my first marathon.. so this should be very interesting for me to do. :) Anyways, the next goal:

Run a Marathon Race

Finally, simply running a marathon race will be tough enough, but I also want to give myself a goal time to try to accomplish. Just like I had set 2 hours for my half marathon goal, I want to set a time for my first marathon. Obviously completing the race will be goal #1, but a secondary goal will be to finish it by a time. I could say a fairly easy time to beat, but there would be no challenge in that. Based on my half marathon time of 1:55:xx, My goal for the marathon will be under 4 hours. That won't be anywhere near fast enough to qualify for the Boston Marathon or New York City Marathon, but it is a pretty realistic challenge for me to try to accomplish I think. Something to improve on down the road if I so choose. So my final goal for the winter:

Run a marathon in under 4 hours


The next thing I looked at was various training plans to determine what I wanted to use to train. There are seemingly millions of marathon training plans, but I had in my mind the type of plan that I wanted. I have become a pretty big fan of the Daniels and Pfitzinger running schools of thought, but most of their plans for the marathon I feel are a little too advanced for what I think that I am ready for my first time.

There are plenty of plans out there that will have you run 20 miles max before a marathon and it is pretty commonly accepted that if you can run 20 miles, you're ready to run a marathon, and adding the extra miles to running sessions just adds un-necessary toll on the body. For me however, a big need is the mental aspect of the running. Every run for me seems like a series of mind games that I play with myself, convincing myself that I can complete the distance or the pace or the climb. So I feel it is pretty important for me to run the 26 miles as part of the plan prior to the race just for my confidence. Knowing that I can make that mileage is important for me to be able to keep the goal pace that Aerobically should be able to handle.

So when looking at the plans that include training runs of 26 miles in there, many of them have weeks where you run a max of 40-50 miles but over half of that week is your long runs of 20-26 miles. I've come to the point where I think that is pretty un-wise and is actually more dangerous to the body than even running over 20 miles in the first place. I've consistently tried to plan my week long runs to be at most only 30-33% of my total weekly mileage. With that in mind, for a 26 mile long run in training, that would mean my weekly mileage would be close to 80 miles which is quite intimidating. The most I ran when training for the half marathon was 65 miles. So this would be an additional 15-20 miles on top of that, but I feel pretty necessary as part of training for a longer distance.

I finally decided on the following plan to use for my training:

Advanced Marathon Program (http://www.coolrunning.com/engine/2/2_4/129.shtml)

It tops out with mileage in the 70s, but I may alter it just a little on some of the weeks, but for the most part will be keeping to this plan for the majority of my training. With a 20 week plan and the date of the race, it means I'll start this one up in about 10 days from now and will pretty quickly get back to the training levels of where I had left off my half marathon training.

So this winter goal wise is going to be pretty intense, and might be the first time I don't make some of my running goals, but I guess we will see how it goes.

Once again for those who don't want to read the entire thing, here is my winter running goals listed out:

- Run a 10k in under 50 minutes
- Run 26.2 miles
- Run a Marathon Race
- Run a Marathon in under 4 hours

[Alan T]

Added a VDOT history to my first post to track my VDOT improvements as I have progressed in running. In a year, it has increased 18 points, with the obvious biggest increases coming in the beginning. During my Half-marathon training over the summer, it increased 2 points which I am pretty happy with.

If I can get another 2 points over the winter during marathon training, that would put my 5k times at somewhere around 23:00



VDOT History:

9/16/12: VDOT 21 2.59 - 33:12
10/18/12: VDOT 23 3.22 - 39:33
11/3/12: VDOT 27 3.11 - 33:36
11/16/12: VDOT 28 3.11 - 32:28
11/18/12: VDOT 29 3.18 - 31:50
2/23/13: VDOT 31 3.12 - 30:29
3/2/13: VDOT 32 3.13 - 29:16
5/4/13: VDOT 33 4.99 - 46:09
6/8/13: VDOT 35 3.08 - 26:57
6/21/13: VDOT 37 3.12 - 26:08
9/15/13: VDOT 38 13.24 - 1:57:14
9/21/13: VDOT 39 3.12 - 24:38

[lighthousekeeper]

you should update your post #1 for posterity sake