Back On Track

Sooner or later I knew that I had to go back to track after my 'craptacular' performance at CIM. I originally planned to go back in January but because I'm so good at following plans I went back today. Not entirely out of my own will. I ran into Darren yesterday at the gym and he normally does track on Tuesday so I decided to tag along with him and some other coworkers. I am so suggestible.

I'm the worst...apparently the last time I was at track was back in August. I've been feeling awful lately so I'm not even sure how I was able to run one of my fastest mile repeats. It's probably some freak accident that will probably never happen again.

In other news, the holidays are here! This is why I've been feeling so awful. I'm just not a fan of this time of year.

The treats have been good...really really good...just not for my waistline.

I've unofficially started cleaning up my plate prior to January 1.  Not really because I wanted to but more because I was starting to feel like an overgrown slug. So here's to getting a head start!

Last week on Twitter a discussion was started by Krissy, Heather and Becka on costume ideas for the 2013 Tinkerbell Half. I'm unfortunately not even signed up for that race so I wasn't sure how I even got into the conversation. I guess I'm just nosy. Maybe it was because I heard the word 'costume' because you know that's my bag baby. Anyhow, I think they are going to dress up as varies characters from the Sugar Rush gang. I must have been on crack because I volunteered to dress up as Adorabeezle and I'm not even registered for the race. I haven't seen Wreck-It Ralph yet but I think Adorabeezle is...well for lack of a better word...adorable! I can probably throw this costume together pretty quickly...now all I need is a bib. :0)

Catching Up

I'm so behind on blogging that I don't know where to start. So here is a general blanket recap of last week and what I have been doing this week. I was under the weather last week so I didn't run much during the early part of the week.

I did eat a lot of frozen yogurt. Some on my own and some were eaten at a blogger meetup with Sarah, Heather, Julie, Margot and Monica. The Yogurtland where we had the meetup had the not-yet-released Twin Stars spoon that is not scheduled to be released until August 7. I asked the guy at the counter why they had them and it was because they were shipped the wrong box. Instead of Tuxedo Sam, they got the Twin Stars spoons. I know, my life is so exciting. I'm going to slow my roll now.

After some consideration, I decided that I am going to stop playing tennis. It seemed like a good idea for a while until I almost pulled a hamstring one day playing doubles. Tennis is not really good cross-training for running and now that I have started training for my fall races, I don't want to end up doing something stupid that will put me on the sidelines.

So last Wednesday I went to track to do mile repeats again and yes this was the day after coming out of being under the weather. I should have skipped it but the new me who is trying to stick to a schedule won in the end. I did 3 sets with a 5-minute rest in between. As you will notice, I was still somewhat consistent despite being a couple of seconds slower. I'm suppose to go out there again tomorrow but I'm going to skip it this week because I have a mild calf strain.

Yesterday was the first day of CIM training. To be honest, I haven't made up my mind on which plan to follow so I am pretty much going to mesh a couple of them together. They are all pretty much very similar with some minor differences here and there. For the most part, I am just going to listen to my body like I always have and do what feels best for me. I think this is the reason why I have never really followed any formal plans. I mean my body can only handle so much and I am not willing to compromise my health for a PR. I'm going to keep track of what I do and if it works well, I will use it for future training.

So I had 5 miles on the schedule yesterday but I ended up running 6 at pace. I have this game that I made up a couple of weeks ago called the Treadmill Death Race and I've been trying to sucker convince my running friends to do it with me. [*Okay, so I don't know if that is an original idea or if someone else had already came up with that name or the premise of this exercise and if so any similarity is purely coincidental]. You can do it solo but it is more fun with at least another person. What you do is do some stretching and then hop on the treadmill and start running. The warm-up is included in your final time and the first person to reach 6 miles wins. Or you can set up a time perimeter (as in 6 miles in under 50 mins) which was what I did yesterday because I was running it alone. Obviously, this is much easier outside or on a track but I've been running inside a lot recently because of the heat and treadmill running is just sucky and boring sometimes. So this helps a bit. On top of regular training, I also have 2 half marathons thrown in the mix for some long run pace training. I've discovered that for me, racing a half is just as effective as doing a long run. I mean I still plan to do a couple of 20s but racing a half is just so much more fun. I want to keep this training cycle as fun as possible.

Finally, this week I'm doing a vegetarian challenge with my spin class. We did salad week two weeks ago and last week we did seven servings of fruits/veggies. They are doing this for points and I had 17 participants the first week and 7 the second week. I'm curious to see how many people are taking part this week. I won't know until Friday but they have all been doing an amazing job. I have a ton of restaurant reviews to come with lots of food photos. I will get to that eventually.

WTW: The Mile Repeats

Seems like forever since I did my last track workout but it was only 3 weeks ago. I took a week off earlier in the month and then last week...well I just overslept. I really need to be more discipline. I keep getting the feeling like I am running out of time to train for CIM which is still many months away. I actually don't officially start training until the end of this month.

So today I was back at it! I decided to do 3 sets of 1600s with a 5-minute rest in between. I warmed up and cooled down for 1 mile each. I've never done mile repeats before. Not on purpose anyways. I wasn't sure how I would feel compared to doing 800s. When I looked at my times afterwards I was surprised to find how consistently I ran them since all 3 sets felt different. For example, I felt like I was running the last set super slow as compared to the other 2 sets but it turned out to be my fastest mile. I'm going to repeat this workout for the next two track sessions to get some consistent data to play around with. Seeing these times is encouraging as it shows that I am on track with my goals for the Long Beach Half as well as CIM, well according to the McMillan chart anyways.

Speaking of training for CIM, I recently reconnected with one of my running buddies (Darren) who now blogs over at Buddha Belly Runner. We had trained together for his first marathon (the OC Marathon back in 2009). He and his current running buddy are also signed up to run CIM and they will be training together using the infamous Hanson Brooks Plan where you basically train at lower mileages with higher effort. He will be documenting his experience using this plan to break 4-hours at CIM. If you have ever been curious about this plan, go and follow along as Darren goes from average runner to Hanson Plan graduate.

I'm playing around with the idea of following the HB plan as well but the training schedule is completely different than my current workout/life schedule so I will need to change up a lot of things to make this plan work for me and frankly I am scared to death to go into a race with my longest run peaking at 16 miles (per the HB Plan). I might do a variation of the HB plan with some 20s thrown in for good measure. I have another week to think about it and think about it I will.

WTW

Guess what day it was today? If you guessed that it was Wednesday Track Workout (WTW) day then you would be correct. If you didn't guess that, then you don't know me at all.

It was really hot out. It was so warm that I couldn't believe that it was actually 7am.

Today was the third week of track workouts for me. I haven't officially started training for the Long Beach Half yet so I will be spending another month warming up at the track until I do. I think I am going to do another week of 800s before moving on to some ladder workouts, 400s or mile repeats. I need to work up to that stuff.

So this week I repeated the same workout I did the last couple of weeks. Which was six sets of 800s with a 2 minute recovery. I'm improving but it is slow going. Set 5 felt the easiest of them all but aside from the first set which was sort of a warm-up lap, it was also one of my slowest lap so that explains that. The last set is my fastest lap to date, since I started 2 two weeks ago. I felt pretty good running it. Maybe that just means that I could have spread some of that energy out to even up my overall pacing.

Summer, Summer, Summertime!

Time to sit back and unwind! ~ Fresh Prince

So sitting back and unwinding are probably two things I won't be doing too much of this summer...by choice.

One of the things I will likely be doing is cross-training on the X-Box playing Dance Central 2. Okay, so I don't really think DC-2 is cross-training as it pertains to running but it is a fun way to burn some extra calories. I came across this write-up comparing the calorie burn of running and dancing. I'm not too concerned about the calorie burn aspect as I am about learning to dance. This girl needs to find her rhythm cause it's no where in sight.

Source

I am also doing a spin challenge with my spin class in July and August. H'up h'up!

Source

Another thing I will be spending my summer doing is going to track more regularly. I went again this morning. I know, who am I? I did six sets of 800s again, just to see if there is actually something with this track thing. Apparently, there is. I know, who knew! I guess everyone else but me. I noticed that my pacing is evening out a bit more and it felt easier than last week. So I guess I will continue to do this.

In running related news as it pertains to me, I've signed up for the CIM on December 2nd! It will be my fall "A" race. I want to prepare myself enough to go out there and run a strong race. I've also never been to Sacramento before so I hope the restaurants in that area will be ready for my visit! I heard that Pam, Heather and Becka are also coming to play! Speaking of...Heather will be running her FIRST marathon ever this weekend at Rock n Roll Seattle!! Go and tell her that she's got this because she does!!

Back On Track

I went to track this morning. Can you believe it? I can't. I had wanted to go yesterday with OUAL and FasterBunny for TPT but I've been having a hard time getting out of bed early lately. Okay, who am I kidding...always. I've always had this problem.

I wasn't looking forward to doing this on my own but the bright side is that I didn't have to eat anyone's dust. I'm always picking up the rear. Eating-Dust is my middle name.

There is a track about a mile from my work which makes it the most perfect track in the world because jogging there is my warm-up and jogging back is my cool-down. Perfect. The only down side is that during track season it can get crowded or the track becomes off limits but the worse would have to be when the track athletes makes your 800s look like you're standing still. Yeah.

Source

Speaking of 800s, I did some this morning. Six of them with a 2 minute recovery in between. One uglier than the last. I was dealing with some shin splints that just wouldn't quit. I'm really rusty to say the least. Hopefully, it will be better next week.

Set 1 - 3:18
Set 2 - 3:32
Set 3 - 3:43
Set 4 - 3:46
Set 5 - 3:40
Set 6 - 3:38

Track and Fail

Today's post will be in list format because I am short on time but not on talking about useless info.  

1) Thank you for the nice comments despite my lackluster performance at Carlsbad last weekend.

2) Track workout! Haven't done any in a really long time. Felt like an overgrown slug out there. In an effort to resurrect ORF (Operation Run Faster), I tagged along for some 800s with Sarah and Margot this morning. Let me just say that getting up at the butt crack of dawn to do track work is not my idea of a good time but it helps to have other people there to suffer with. It was all very casual and they did not make me feel bad that I was a giant slug. I did a couple of warm-up laps before Sarah and Margot showed up and then did a couple more with them. We did 6 sets of 800s. Well I did them at my own pace. I've gotten slower since the last time I did track work (even my best lap was about 10 seconds slower than my previous time) but this is a good start to build from. The important thing is that I am looking forward to going back to improve on these.

1) 3:39
2) 3:35
3) 3:43
4) 3:50
5) 3:47
6) 3:40

I guess eating this buffalo burger from Whole Foods last night was a good call. Ok, maybe not. It wasn't very good either.

3) I spent some time last night working on my Tinkerbell Half costume. I am a big arts and craft nerd so this sort of thing is right up my alley. It is almost complete!

4) Finally, if you happen to be looking for some compression wear, head on over to Aspaeris because they are having a 50% off sale this week. Use code "cooleronline" at checkout! 

Running Fast is Not My Thing

Yesterday evening I went to track workouts for the second time. I showed up in time for warm ups and was all ready to do what we did last week, then Coach suddenly announced that we would be doing time trials today. I've never even heard of time trials. So I looked on the white board of punishment to see what we were doing today. On the white board was written 2 miles, 1 mile, 800, and 400. We were to run these faster than race pace one after the other with a short break in between. Let me just tell you how much I hate running fast. Very much. This exercise was one of the hardest things I've ever had to do. At one point I couldn't feel my legs and towards the end I couldn't feel my feet. I was just trying to run them as fast as I possibly could so that I could be done with them.

So the way it works was that Coach had a sandwich board with times, ages, distances on some sheets for both male and female runners. You get a certain amount of points depending on how fast you run a certain distance for each age group. The max amount of points for each "event" is 25 and the max total is 100 and I scored 66/100. Obviously the goal is to get 100 points but I am not quite there yet. Let me tell you that it was motivating to do these and see what my body was capable of. I am assuming he is going to do this again in a few months to gauge progress.

I can't remember the exact times but it was something along these lines. I just glanced at the clock when I crossed the line.

2 miles: 14:33
1 mile: 7:06
800: 3:26
400: 1:36

I woke up this morning and was pretty tired, not sore but tired. I was suppose to go for a easy 4 miler but decided to do some body weight exercises in the gym instead. I will make up for it tomorrow, Friday and Saturday.

Photo: This is where I go to worship the speed Gods!



Photo: I've been really into juicing (green juice - spinach, cucumber & apples)

Random photos: My favorite ramen (Santouka), Butter cake that I baked, Uniq or Ugli Fruit (actual name), and recipe for butter cake on Sister K's ITouch.

Running at a Snail's Pace

Yesterday was speed work day so that means track time. I know lots of people do interval training or track once a week but this is pretty new to me. I mean I've done them before, but sporadically and when it was convenient for me. I've always just ran with very little structure. Track workout is very structured and I really liked it. Plus running on a soft track is really nice!

Last week I did my first real interval training in a while and outside no less with Cal Coast. Glenn invited me to tag along to try them out. I've been "shopping" around for a running group to help me BQ at Chicago in October. Cal Coast is a great group, they are very intense. Lots of very fast runners and the coach seems very nice. Plus the group runs very close to where I work which is great. However, I think after my workout with Snail's Pace yesterday, I've decided to train with them instead.

There are a couple of things I like about Snail's Pace. For one, the group is small (~25-30) and I am a middle of the pack runner in that group instead of a back of the pack runner and I think I run a decent pace. Also, even though the track workouts are structured, the group is more casual. I guess in the end, it was less intimidating for me. The practice location is a bit farther than Cal Coast but not by much. Plus, there are no membership fees to run with them. Although that was not one of the deciding factors anyways, just a plus.

So I will practice with Snail's for a couple of weeks and see how it goes. Yesterday we did 5x4:00mins at 5K pace and 2:00mins of rest/jog in between. I ended up clocking 6:50-7:10 pace for all 5 sets. That along with warm up and cool down, I ended up doing about 5.5 miles. I guess I am a very competitive person because I am really looking forward to being able to run closer to the front runners soon. I am already looking forward to going back next week.

I also met the coach and had a chance to talk to him a bit. He told me that I wasn't running enough. Here I thought that I was running too much so I've been holding myself back. Well that and the fact that I didn't want to get injured. But I think if I increase my milages a bit more over time and continue to do my speed work, that I think I will be more confident when I arrive in Chicago. I am on my way!