Death of a thousand steps

I got myself up out of bed super early (6 AM!!!!!) and over to the club Thanksgiving day run. The turnout was sparse but Danielle, Danny, myself and Ken did 57 minutes of slow jogging around the WVC campus under lead gray skies. I had run my normal 10 minutes prior to driving over so I ended up with 67 minutes total.

The rest of the club ran the 7 miler. I could probably have done it. The distance wouldn't have been the issue but the time it would have taken me would have been more than I wanted to run. Even if I had stayed up I would have died the death of a thousand steps and been worthless on Sunday.

Back on Track

I feel like I am back on track. I woke up, drank my usual tankard of coffee and ran the neighborhood for ten minutes. The traditional dump run. My legs felt great. It was on the cool side (low 40's) but I didn't feel slow or stiff. However I did run slow.

I drove over to WVC and hooked up with Danny and Tom and ran an easy 60 minutes. Even with a good hill thrown in, I continued to run effortlessly. I had to slow the game down several times to keep Tom running easy. He does tend to surge at times (plus he is getting stronger) but in each instance he slowed back down and kept things friendly.

Danny and I drove up to see Big Bad Billy (our chiro) and got adjusted. We had breakfast afterward.

Rain Run

I went out around 9 am and ran in the rain. Well, it was more like showers which is actually quite pleasant. I ran over to the college to see if the track was still there and........

IT'S STILL THERE!

Don't think they'll get to the tearing up and laying down until spring.

I took it easy for 45 minutes. I gave half a thought to doing some 100's but decided that speed can wait until next week.

So far, no ill effects from my stomach problems of this past week.

Finally threw in the towel and wore tights or as they are better know....

Under armor....

Stress Test

I woke up feeling pretty good this morning after stress testing my system with a pizza last evening for dinner. I ended up running 30 minutes total between the neighborhood and the club workout. My legs felt good but I decided not to run hard (like 100's or 200's.)

The weather was cold but clear. Another spat of rain is supposed to coming our way Sunday but as long as I feel okay, I'll run.

Bagel for dinner

Felt better last evening. Slept well. Had a bagel for dinner. A banana this morning.
No running yet. If I feel good Saturday I may jog a bit.

We'll see.

First Illness: A trip south

Last evening things started to go south. It's funny, when you are healthy for a good long time, you can't imagine being ill. Now something swooped down and has a grip on my digestive tract. No appetite. Need to stay close to the house. Cancelled my run and just as a precaution, my Sunday workout. I'll take it day to day until I feel right again and I am my normal ravenous.

Could be a mild case of the stomach flu or it to could be a touch of food poisoning. No above normal temperature. But I felt pretty lousy last night.

My rule about illness is don't try to train through it. Your body is sending you a message.

Hopefully back in the saddle next week.

Turn City & 70 minutes

Hard to believe it's winter. 50's and 60's today. Tom, Danny and I ran our normal route at an easy pace.
With my home dump run that added up to 70 minutes.

I asked Danny to work with me on the track at the end. I needed help running the turns. I did a stride on the far turn where the 200 meter sprint would normally start. He picked out my problem right away and pointed it out. Tom saw it too. I was leaning my upper body into the turn while keeping my lower body straight. No wonder I was losing ground and stumbling.

Danny had me just run and pick up the tempo slightly as I entered the turn. Both he and Tom immediately noticed that my whole body was naturally leaning. It felt much better. My other technique cost me at least a second on Sunday's 500.

I was throwing off my center of gravity the old way. 

The lesson here was to stop reading articles on how to run the turns. The plain fact is that I am not running at speeds where I need to adjust.

Running the first turn at Hayward Field, Oregon

Mission Accomplished

This morning was the business end of the training week. I jogged 27 minutes slow slow around the house and over at Foothill College. It was on the cool side but the sun started to peak through and by game time it was warming up. I did some strides. Legs felt strong.

We did a shake down 200 in 38. I felt good.

I asked Dimitri to take me through the 400 in around 79-80 and then we could work the turn and try to hit 1:38-39 for 500.

1:38 would predict a 2:45-800.  Right now that was a bit of a wet dream. 1:39 sounded realistic. A second is lot in the world of mature men of the 800.

We went out and hit the first 200 in 39, floated the next 200 in 40 for a 79 and then we worked the turn to cross the 500 in 1:39.  It was 1:39:13 so close to 1:38. It was tough after the 400 and I lost form a bit on the turn but recovered as we came off the bend. I'll need to work on this!!!!

We walked around. My recovery was surprisingly quick.

We lined up with the idea of running a 37 or 38-200 but we blasted a 36:03 and I called it a day right there. Mission Accomplished!

We jogged 13 minutes and then drove over to Starbucks for coffee and at least in my case, a scone.

Thursday and Friday

Thursday:

Another 70 minutes doing the usual. Tom and Danny was both there. Cool clear skies and cold temps. Kept the pace restrained and felt good afterward.

Friday:

The weather changed overnight with overcast and light rain coming on in. I ran a very easy 40 minutes in the morning. Very quiet streets due to Veterans Day.

Another 70

Another easy 70 minutes today with Danny and I holding back on the pace so Tom didn't get away from us too much. Tom isn't a problem. He just tends to push ( a bit) and pushing means less extra energy for when we want to run hard. For me that is generally the weekend. Danny admitted that he was tired last week too. Of course we're not talking about anything ominous. Our usual genteel stroll goes down under a 9 minute pace and we're dead meat.

It was colder this morning but with the time change we had more sunlight and that warmed us up a bit.

Breakfast afterward with Jake and Danny.

Fooled!

Daylight savings time ended and so did the rain. I went out and ran at 8 am (really 9 am) and jogged an easy hour which included a discovery run over to De Anza. I wanted to see if the work on track had begun yet.

IT HADN'T! I was fooled for a moment when I saw a porta potty and a piece of heavy equipment lurking.

Frankly, because I like the old track, I don't care if they ever do it but of course somewhere in the dim future they will tear the place up.

Anyway, it was mildly cold (mid 40's) but windless so the conditions were more than okay.

Miscalculation

The wages of sin caught up with me however subtle they were.

Decided to run a 600 meter time trial at 2:06 on Saturday afternoon because Sunday looked stormy.

Dimitri agreed so we met at the college at 1 pm. I jogged 25 minutes slow with my usual strides thrown in at the end.

We then ran a 200 in 43 after having gone through the first 100 in 20 seconds. We really backed off down the straight.

After a recovery walk we lined up to do the 600. The intent was to do 43-44-39. Simple...

I told D that I wouldn't look at my watch until the end. We took off and the first 200 felt very easy. I noticed that the next 200 felt faster like we were accelerating sharply. I still avoided glancing at my watch. The last 200 felt even faster but I expected that.

As we came towards the line I figured we were running 2:04-05 but when I finally did look down what I saw bowled me over.

2:10!

D was apologizing. We had gone through the first 200 in 47!!! He had misread his watch.

From then on we had gone according to plan running an 83 next 400.

I told him that it was a damn good thing I hadn't seen the 200 meter time because I would have run a 79 to hit 2:06.

We walked around and finally I said to D that we could run a 400 at 80. That would at least make it a decent workout. We blew around the track in 41-39 and hit 80 on the dot.

A ten minute easy jog and coffee at Starbucks.

HRM Test

I decided not to run (or rather play) on Wednesday evening. I was pretty tired from Tuesday's long run so I took the night off.

On Thursday I strapped on the HRM to get an idea of how hard I was running. I did my usual ten minute shakeout run and then met Danny and Tom over at WVC. It was slightly on the cold side. Low 50's old for California. We ran the campus and then headed up Fruitvale. My HRM read in the 120's and 130's. So I knew I was running easy but strangely still faster than my normal slow-slow jog. We then ran Valley Vista which has uphill and downhill and rolls in the middle. During one portion I was running in the high 140's all the way up to 150. But once we hit the downhill section my HR dropped back into the 130's. It stayed there on the flats.

It told me that while I normally I train very slowly that I need to be more mindful when I am training with others (like Tom). It also told me that I need to get used to running a bit faster. NOT FAST, just faster than what I have been doing. No wonder anything under a ten minute mile pace feels like I am pushing the pace.

The run totaled 70 minutes. We did not really take any walk breaks.

77 minutes of fun

I jogged around for 77 minutes this morning. Ten minutes at home (as usual) and the 17 minutes with Tom (he's back!) before Danny showed up. We ran the campus at WVC but also did Valle Vista before ending up back on campus running loops on the track and around the tennis courts. There is no question that Tom runs away from us. Both Danny and I noticed it. He just trains harder. But then back in the day, he was the same. It doesn't seem that hard and as long as I recover, I don't care BUT I have to recover!

This ain't us but you get the general idea.