Category Archives: 05mi

Back to Pacers!

0, 05mi, custis, pacers arlington, tempo

Start Time: 5/1/08, 7:00pm
Location: Clarendon & Custis Trail
Distance: 5 miles
Average Pace: 8:35min/mile
Total Miles For May: 5 miles

I haven’t run with Pacers in literally a year. So what better time to go back? Katie and Blair wanted to try the Pacers group, and like I said, it had been a while. So we headed on over, and it was a lot of fun. I ran with a woman named Kelsey, and we chatted a great deal for the first half of the 5.4 mile course. (Have I mentioned that for my mile counts this year I’m rounding down to the nearest half-mile? So that’s why it says 5 miles up there.) Of course, the second half is uphill and… ooooooooof. We were both feeling it. We definitely passed a bunch of people on the way back, though, so we weren’t the only ones who were feeling it.

My GPS glitched a bit and claimed that the course was 5.6 miles, so I don’t have quite accurate splits. But here’s what it claimed: 7:30, 7:47, 8:08, 9:01, 8:21, and 5:34 for the last bit. (I’m guessing/hoping mile 4 is the one that had the extra .2 miles. But that was the uphill portion in full blast, so who knows?)

Mile Repeats (or, Oops)

0, 05mi

Start Time: 4/29/08, 7:30am
Location: Arlington Boulevard Trail
Distance: 3 miles & 2 miles
Average Pace: 7:31min/mile & 9:28min/mile
Total Miles For April: 26 miles

After a late start in the morning (I’d planned to start running about an hour earlier!) my plan was to run the mile repeats workout; run 3 miles, each at around 85% effort, with “full recovery” between each one. But how long should I recover after each mile? I puzzled on that one as I ran my warm-up (9:09). I finally figured I’d play it by ear, and set off for the first mile… which was done in 7:09, aka faster than the mile I ran on Saturday. Oops! A bit too fast. Now to be fair, there is a slight downhill grade for this stretch of the trail, but still.

After 3 minutes of slowly walking around, I started heading back and quickly realized two mistakes. First, I should’ve rested a tiny bit more, I was feeling winded really quickly. And second, if the previous leg was slightly downhill, this stretch was slightly uphill. I figured I would be at least a minute slower, and I was only off on that guess by a few seconds (8:04). This time, I waited about 5 minutes before finally heading off on the last mile, which was much more reasonable (7:21). Then a low cool-down run home (9:47) and I was all done for the day. Since I knew I wouldn’t be running on Wednesday, a good wrap for the month of April.

Return to the 28 minutes of hell

0, 05mi, hell

Start Time: 4/24/08, 7:30am
Location: Arlington Boulevard Trail
Distance: 5 miles
Total Miles For April: 14.5 miles

Oof! This was a return to Fred’s fabled “28 minutes of hell” workout. I didn’t feel like marking off specific distances to run things like halves or quarters, so instead I picked this workout. After a mile warm-up, it’s as follows:

Run 2 minutes, HARD
Recover 2 minutes (slow jog or fast walk)
Run 1 minute, HARD
Recover 1 minute
Run 30 seconds, HARD
Recover 30 seconds
repeat three more times

The nice thing was even with the slower moving for recovery, I polished off 3 miles in those 28 minutes. Considering only half of it was actually running, a 9:20min average speed means I was definitely trucking. Even the cool-down mile was around that speed.

Cherry Blossom 5-miler

0, 05mi, dnf, race, sick

Start Time: 4/6/08, 7:50am
Location: East Potomac Park, mostly
Distance: 5 miles
Average Pace: 8:58min/mile
Total Miles For April: 5 miles

Bleah. This was an important lesson—when to not run a race. I was still feeling a little cruddy from the National Half Marathon eight days earlier, and when I woke up it was cold and raining on and off. With 20/20 hindsight, I should have just stayed home and scratched the race. But my pride got the better of me, and suddenly I was on the last possible train downtown to get to the start on time. Now, at that point what I should have done was just run the 5K instead, I think I might’ve enjoyed that a lot more. But instead I hopped into my corral right as the one in front of it was starting, and headed off into the crappy weather.

Well, how I felt matched the weather quite nicely. Within a mile I was regretting running. Within two miles I began to seriously wonder why I was there. And at mile three I was trying to remember when the course swung near the start again, so that I could quit. This was the first time I’d ever quit a race and gotten the dreaded DNF (did not finish). And I won’t lie, at the time I was utterly destroyed by it. I felt horrible, and down, and just… yeah, really really bad. Looking back on it now, the fact that I was in fact in the middle of a full-blown cold (and not just allergies like I’d thought) certainly wasn’t helping matters. But it was absolutely the right thing to do. The fact that about five minutes after I quit, it started raining again? A bit of vindication.

So, my first and hopefully last DNF. Next time? If it comes down to that I hope I was smart enough to not even start. (8:49, 8:44, 8:42, 9:02, 9:34)

Racing the Sun

0, 05mi

Start Time: 3/10/08, 6:50pm
Location: W&OD Trail
Distance: 5 miles
Average Pace: 8:51min/mile
Total Miles For March: 18 miles

The idea was to get out to the W&OD Trail by 6pm, after work, and take advantage of the only good part of Daylight Saving Time—have enough time to get in a 5-to-6 mile run before it got dark. Instead I was stuck at work, and by the time I got out, getting in even a 5-miler was starting to get questionable. Fortunately I was able to finish up right as the sky began to get a dark purple, so that was good, at least.

Not so good was the amount of huffing and puffing. Sure, the first half was downhill while the second half was uphill, but those splits (8:15, 8:27, 8:54, 9:16, 9:22) were not good. I have got to shed those pounds of fat that are still around my belly. It’s not the number on the scale, it’s the composition of the body that’s bugging me as of late. So we’ll see.

The Massacre

0, 05mi

Start Time: 12/29/07, 3:30pm
Location: W&OD Trail
Distance: 5 miles
Average Pace: 8:30min/mile

My schedule had said to run 4 miles today, but I ended up tacking on an extra mile… so that way I could listen to all of the first two episodes of the 1966 Doctor Who story “The Massacre”. Not a bad run, although that second mile cost me a bit in the third and fourth! (8:37, 8:15, 8:41, 8:42, 8:12)

2, 4, 6, 8 (hundred)

0, 01mi, 02mi, 05mi, explosive, meter repeats, new shoes, speedwork

Start time: 12/2/07, 8:30am
Location: Sidwell Friends School
Distance: 1 mile & 6x100m

Start time: 12/4/07, 6:30pm
Location: Thomas Jefferson Community Center
Distance: 2 miles & 6x200m
Average pace: 43sec

Start time: 12/6/07, 3:00pm
Location: Thomas Jefferson Community Center
Distance: 5 miles
Average pace: 8:34min/mile

Start time: 12/8/07, 8:30am
Location: Washington-Lee High School
Distance: 1 mile & 200/400/600/800m

Oops… haven’t put the last couple of these in here. I’ve been starting a new speed training (“explosive running”) program for the winter, and I’m not entirely sure how to categorize a lot of these. But it’s been fun. Our first session we ran a warm-up mile, then did some running exercises involving “butt-kicks”, “high knees”, and “form runs”. Then we did six 100-meter runs, with the idea that each one got progressively faster. It was really enjoyable, but hard; I could feel it in my quads the next day!

Next up that Tuesday was six 200 meter fast runs, once again, trying to get each one a little faster. My fifth one slowed down a bit but I did recover in the end. I must say, though, having a 200 meter track to run it on is a little less than enjoyable. All those curves! (45.38, 44.57, 43.47, 42.00, 44.00, 42.06)

Thursday was a slower, enjoyable 5-mile run. It snowed out so it was back to the indoor track for me… but after all those speed drills, just having a breather was good.

On Saturday after some warm-ups and running exercises, we ran 200m, then 400m, then 600m, then 800m. The idea was to do them at a faster pace but to also maintain that pace through all four of them. Mine slipped a tiny bit for the third and fourth, but not too drastically so. (0:50, 1:41, 2:38, 3:33.) For the 800m we were supposed to try and speed up for the second half and I did accomplish that, so that was good. It’s been a very different running experience, but I’m actually looking forward to more torture drills ahead!

The Hills Are Alive With The Sound Of Running

0, 05mi, 06mi, 11mi, tempo

Start time: 9/20/07, 7:30am
Location: Wilson Boulevard (Courthouse, Clarendon, Virginia Square, Ballston, Bluemont)
Distance: 6.25 miles
Average pace: 8:54min/mile

I was scheduled for an 11-miler today, so I mapped out a 6-mile run for the morning. The problem was, I’d never actually just run down Wilson Boulevard beyond the 1.5-mile mark. So while my route was great in theory, the reality? I had not realized there was a massive, massive, massive hill in mile 3. I mean, we’re talking so huge that when telling a friend where I’d run their response was, “Um, that’s really hilly” and they only drive that area. I actually ended up walking on that hill for about 30 seconds to catch my breath, which is really bad. Still, I picked it up on the way at the end, which was nice. (9:08, 8:49, 9:21, 8:54, 8:58, 8:35, and 1:48 for the quarter (an 8:03min/mile pace).)

http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/?r=1332567

AnticipationStart time: 9/20/07, 7:15pm
Location: W&OD Trail
Distance: 5 miles
Average pace: 8:34min/mile

What a beautiful evening it was tonight. Nice and cool, a gorgeous sunset for inspiration, and after a long day at work it felt good to blow off a little bit of steam. I figured the last two miles might slow down because the last two miles were uphill, but that wasn’t a problem this evening. One normal warm-up mile, then four that just went slightly faster and smoothly. Well, aside from no less than four bicyclists who were riding on the wrong side of the trail and almost ran me over. For two of them I felt the bike whiz by about a millimeter from me. Nice. (8:53, 8:28, 8:36, 8:31, 8:23.)

A graceful and easy tempo. Hurrah!