Win Some, Lose Some

0, 03mi

Start Time: 8/13/08, 6:45am
Location: Wilson Boulevard
Distance: 3 miles
Total Miles For August: 35 miles

Today’s schedule (since I have no spinning class this week) said to run 8 hill repeats, plus a mile warm up and a mile cool down. So, feeling brave, I headed off to the massive hill on Wilson Boulevard near the retirement center. Oooooof. I’ve ran up that hill once before (towards the end of what I think was a 10- or 12-miler, it’s all a little hazy now) and it kicked my butt so bad I had to walk a portion of it. And it’s only an eighth of a mile long! Well, let me just say that I’m glad I had a good run yesterday, because this? Not a good run. After four repeats I called it quits; I thought about running a fifth repeat and actually felt sick to my stomach. Bleah.

Next week my goal will be to up the repeats to six, I think.

Progressive Goodness

0, 06mi, progressive run

Start Time: 8/12/08, 6:10pm
Location: Mount Vernon Trail
Distance: 6 miles
Average Pace: 8:48min/mile
Total Miles For August: 32 miles

My last attempt at a progressive run was seriously off-pace, never really hitting the times I was supposed to, always too fast or too slow. The idea is to start the first mile at a 9:30min/mile, then drop 15 seconds off each mile. I was originally going to run this on the W&OD trail, but on the way home the Mount Vernon Trail just looked so nice… so I took a detour and ran there. (Which turned out to be nice because during my warm-up walk down through the creaky bridge, I ran into canis_lupus_va on his way home from a bike ride, and we stopped and chatted for about ten minutes.)

The first mile was a little fast, but from that point on the GPS swears I hit all of my planned splits within 3 seconds. Hurrah! Much, much better. Having the GPS certainly helped out a lot; I needed them because the mile markers are nowhere near the Roosevelt Island parking lot and are only on the full mile, but it helped keep me on pace a lot more. Very, very nice. (But can I do a 8-mile version now? *gulp*)

Splits: 9:07, 9:13, 9:01, 8:42, 8:30, 8:13

Group Make or Break

0, 10mi

Start Time: 8/9/08, 7:00am
Location: W&OD Trail
Distance: 8 miles & 2 miles
Average Pace: 7:59min/mile & 10:05min/mile
Total Miles For August: 26 miles

Eeeek. Saturday brought a group make-or-break run, where you run about a minute per mile faster in four 2-mile stretches, with a recovery between each one. I was a little worried only because I’d really cramped my legs up good earlier in the week (I don’t know what I was thinking, wearing my running shoes four days in a row), but things seemed to be juuust about back to normal.

So, we ran a warm-up mile, and then started heading down the W&OD Trail. The first set was waaaay too fast for me, which could have spelled real doom considering that not only were there three more sets to go, but sets 2 and 4 are uphill (while 1 and 3 are downhill). Happily, I did get to adjust a bit and on the whole it wasn’t too bad. Not quite where I wanted to be (set #3 was the best), but not bad. Especially for the overall average, which was perfect, really.

As an added bonus, though, it was “familiar faces on the trail” day; Deborah and Archie were both out running, and Ryan was walking a friend’s dogs. Yay for that!

warm-up: 10:17
splits: (7:26 & 7:38), (8:15 & 8:14), (7:49 & 7:58), (8:06 & 8:30)
cool-down: 9:54

16 feels so long ago

0, 16mi

Start Time: 8/2/08, 7:00am
Location: W&OD Trail
Distance: 16 miles
Average Pace: 9:31min/mile
Total Miles For August: 16 miles

Oops. Totally forgot to log last Saturday’s 16-miler! It was a hot (but not scorching) day, and I set out with Laura and Other Laura (hereby referred to as Laura O., even though I have no idea what her last name really is). The first three miles went good; warmed up, got moving, a-ok with that. Early on in mile 4, Laura made a detour to the bathroom, so rather than just stop (which I hate to do) Laura O. and I slowed down a bit with the idea being that at a slower pace, she’d catch us before we knew it. Sure enough, halfway through mile 5, Laura caught back up with us…

…except we didn’t really pick our pace up again. After mile 9, though, I was itching to start moving a little faster and I ended up pulling away from Laura (who was just not having a good run), and Laura O. stuck with me. It went pretty well, as you can tell by the splits, although we did have one small disaster: while stopping to refill our water on the way back, we saw another runner pass out not even 20 feet away. Eek! Fortunately Laura O. is a nurse, and the passed-out-runner had a friend with her. So we stopped for a little bit, got her some water and some gel, waited until she was doing good, and then headed back out. I felt a little stiff as a result for those last 3.5 miles, but it was absolutely the right thing to do.

9:44, 9:01, 8:54, 10:32, 10:07, 9:55, 10:16, 10:02, 10:04, 9:22, 9:18, 9:08, 9:16, 8:46, 8:53, 9:04

Owie

0, 05mi, indoor track

Start Time: 7/31/08, 7:00am
Location: Thomas Jefferson Community Center
Distance: 2 miles & 3 miles
Average Pace: 9:44min/mile & 8:03min/mile
Total Miles For July: 79.5 miles

Today’s scheduled run was a 3-5 mile tempo, plus warm-up and cool-down miles. It is still gross outside (when I left my house at 6:50, it was already 80 degrees) so off to the community center’s indoor track it was. (Sadly, the community center is closed for the next two weeks. Whatever will I do?) I was super-sleepy even when I got there, and had a feeling that I would end up more on the 3-mile side of things than the 5-mile side of things.

I honestly think I could’ve tricked myself into at least one more mile had it not been for a small foot issue. Around mile 2 of the tempo run, my right foot on the inside started to feel like something was poking at it, or perhaps a twig was in my shoe. Odd, and annoying. By the time I was finishing up the third mile, it had gone from annoying to hurting. Fearing it was not because of a stray object in my shoe, I called it quits, sat down, and shook out my shoe. Nothing. Hmmm.

All through my cool-down run, it continued to bother me and got worse. A little worried, I headed home, pulled off my shoes and socks… and there was a blister on my foot.

It’s nice to know it wasn’t some horrible internal rupturing of organs or such. Sheesh.

10:02
8:12, 8:06, 7:52
9:26

Code Orange

0, 06mi, new shoes

Start Time: 7/29/08, 7:00am
Location: Arlington Boulevard Trail
Distance: 2 miles & 4 miles
Average Pace: 10:02min/mile & 8:08min/mile
Total Miles For July: 74.5 miles

Uuuuggghhh. Today’s run was a small “make-or-break” run (2x2miles, plus warm-up and cool-down miles) and thank god it wasn’t more or I would be a smear on the pavement. The official air quality is orange, and “unhealthy for sensitive groups”. Um, yeah, I would agree. My throat actually hurts a little bit now. I think I am going to leave the car at work (I don’t need it for anything tonight) and take the bus home so I can at least feel a little better about not pumping more nastiness into the air.

Anyway, I ran this on the Arlington Boulevard Trail, which of course means that the first mile has a gradual uphill and the second mile reverses it. I was happy with my first 2-mile set, not quite as thrilled with the second but honestly I was glad to have survived without any asthma-esque problems. I did feel fat and slow as I lumbered through the second set, which really means that I was overheated and running out of gas. I must have looked like a right mess by the end, my shirt clinging to me with sweat. *shudder* And I am amused that both times the second mile was 20 seconds faster than the first.

warm-up: 9:34
2-mile sets: (8:08, 7:48) & (8:28, 8:08)
cool-down: 10:30

All Over The Place

0, 06mi, progressive run

Start Time: 7/26/08, 9:30am
Location: W&OD Trail
Distance: 6 miles
Average Pace: 8:44min/mile
Total Miles For July: 68.5 miles

After taking a few days off while starting the lung steroid (yay), the plan was to run a 6-8 mile progressive run on Saturday; start at a 9:30min/mile, then drop 15 seconds each mile. Well, that was the plan. Half a mile up the trail, I glanced at my watch and I was just over 5 minutes. A little slow. So I picked up the pace a bit, hit the mile more or less where it should be… and then my times were all over the place.

What happened to my old pacing ability? I think I somehow killed it with all that trackwork in the winter, which is counter-interintuitive since that’s what gave it to me in the first place back in 2005. I don’t get it. Argh. Oh well. I got a late start, the sun was beating down on me, and I called it a day after 6 miles. (Amusingly, my average pace is faster than if I’d hit the times where I should’ve, which would’ve been an 8:52. Heh.)

9:26, 8:43, 8:42, 8:27, 8:39, 8:28

Abort

0, 03mi

Start Time: 7/22/08, 6:30am
Location: Thomas Jefferson Community Center
Distance: 3 miles
Total Miles For July: 62.5 miles

Aborted early due to breathing problems. Am now on an inhaled steroid for my lungs. Yay.

Hot hot hot

0, 14mi

Start Time: 7/19/08, 6:30am
Location: W&OD Trail
Distance: 14 miles
Average Pace: 9:16min/mile
Total Miles For July: 59.5 miles

It was going to be a hot day today, so our running coach had said he was cutting our planned 14-miler short a bit, suggesting everyone break it up into two 7-milers. Did I do that? Bah! Instead, my plan was to get up early and go to the run site about an hour early and knock out 6-7 miles before they got there (and the heat got bad), then run the other 7 with them and all would be good.

Weeeelll, except that I got a late start and instead of having an hour beforehand, only had half an hour. Still, I knocked out 4 miles on my own, then got back just as they were about to begin. So, I ran 7 miles with Laura and Donna, then pushed through another 3 miles on my own. Victory! It wasn’t too bad, aside from the fact that the last three miles had no shade whatsoever. I could really feel my strength sapping, especially in mile 12, which was the worst of it. Oof! Uphill and in the hot sun! But all done now, so hurrah for that.

(9:19, 8:54, 9:04, 8:55, 9:09, 9:13, 8:58, 9:17, 9:07, 9:16, 9:28, 9:52, 9:26, 9:19)

Hilltown

0, 04mi

Start Time: 7/17/08, 7:20am
Location: Highland Street, Arlington
Distance: 4.7 miles
Total Miles For July: 45.5 miles

Today I finally went out and did a “just hills” workout; I jogged up to Highland Street (with its oh-so-apt name) and then ran down it from Hancock St all the way to Lee Highway, then back up, and repeated it for a total of four times. I was up for more, but I had gotten a very late start this morning (just couldn’t wake up!) so I called it good enough and headed back home. It was a nice little run; non-timed, just powering up and down the hill while passing people on their way to work or out walking the dogs.