Heart Rate Training

To build my base cardio, the last two runs I've done have been heart rate training. Specifically, I ignored my time and pace, and instead focused on keeping my heart rate in zone 3. For me this was about 150 bpm. I was actually a bit surprised that doing this made the run much more enjoyable. I didn't come back and feel utterly exhausted or feel like I might pass out. I think I may have been pushing too hard in general these last few years instead of building the solid base.

Rename to Muddy Buddy?

Earlier in the year I was considering doing the Muddy Buddy which features a large mud pit at the end of the run/bike race. I may get my chance to get truly muddy anyways this weekend. It has been raining every night during the past week and the trail for the run portion was already fairly muddy and waterlogged on Sunday. The forecast continues to call for more rain through the rest of the week, thus the trail is going to be essentially 3 miles of muddy fun. And when I say fun, it really won't be. The trail isn't that wide and mountain bikers ride through it so there are deep gashes in the trail in many places. Therefore, I suspect I'll have to either walk a fair bit in order to not slip & fall, and/or just kick up a bunch of mud onto myself. I predict run times overall this year will be slower. That being said, I'm still going to try my best.

Quick results & video!

The MJ8K folks were amazingly on the ball this year, the results are already posted. My team finished 7th out of 8 teams. Much like the triathlon song says, "won't be first, won't be last, but I'm sure I'm going to have a blast." That definitely holds true for over 3 miles I ran with David and finished strong with him. Becky also ran about 2 miles with us, but we sprinted the final part. During the time we all were running together we were bantering, having fun, and keeping those around us entertained.

My personal time was not as high as I estimated earlier. The official time was 53:55 which is a 10:53 pace. Definitely my slowest pace of any race I've ever done (of all 4 run-only races). That put my 49th out of 56th. Once again... at least I wasn't last!

This year for those of us finishing 45 minutes through 63 minutes they posted video on youtube. I'm in the red pants, grey sweatshirt, and pink bandana.

Publish Post

Martha Jefferson 8K Results

This morning was the Martha Jefferson 8K run. As my last post states, I didn't really train for it this year and I knew my time was going to suffer. That being said, my time was around 53 minutes. That is about a 10:39 pace. This is all conjecture because I didn't stop my watch until 55 minutes at which point I was just out of the shoot (walking area to hand over our number).

The good:

• It wasn't raining this year!
  
• I spent most of the race chatting and running with a friend.
• I was part of the awesome PQA team.
• The t-shirt fits better than last year's.
  

The bad:

• I had to walk multiple times because I just wasn't in good enough shape.
• It was kinda chilly out (40ish degrees).

The ugly:

• My time last year was 45:41 thus I was about 8 minutes slower this year.
• Did I mention the walking thing?

Overall, I'm glad I did it. It really felt good to cross the finish line so I'm now again motivated to start training. I still don't think I'll do the 10 miler in 3 weeks, but definitely start working towards the triathlons again.

Time to get Realistic

There comes a time when you must face reality and accept the consequences. One of my stated goals and races was to do the Cville 10 miler. I would like to do it, it just won't be this year. I haven't trained sufficiently for it so actually running it would only be setting myself up for failure and possibly injury. As it is I'm hoping to even be able to finish the Martha Jefferson 8K (~5miles). Again, I haven't trained enough. I know my time will be worse than last year and that is just the consequence of not training.

Women's 4 miler

The whole notion of running being part of my life started last year with the women's 4-miler training program and race. I did the training program again this year in the advanced group for most of the summer but Pennsic kinda threw everything off for me. That being said, it was still a good race.

The fun stats:
This year 36:00. Last year 38:42.
This year 352 out of 2505. Last year: 567 out of 2240.
This year 45 out of 277 in my age group. Last year 69 out of 146. (Note, I moved up an age group to 25-29)

Eep!

The Cville Sprint Triathlon is this Sunday. Yes, as in 6 days from now. I waiver between feeling not ready and knowing that I will be fine. I won't be first, I won't be last, I just hope to survive. In training I've done the entire distance and even done some of them on the same day.

In other news, I knew I was not going to be ready for the biking and running for the International distance so I will be participating in that as part of a relay team. I will be doing the swim portion. 1500m of pure swimming joy.

Last piece of news that isn't really triathlon related is that I've also registered for the Charlottesville Women's 4 Miler again. I'm doing the training program again this year and put myself in the advanced group since that starts at 2 mile runs. Since I'm doing over 3 miles for routine practice, this is entirely reasonable. I'm going to try to follow the training schedule the best I can but after this triathlon I'm still going to need to get in swim time and I really want to up my boxing time to twice a week.

72 and sunny

72 and sunny is perfect weather for just relaxing, enjoying the slight breeze, and taking a stroll. It's not so good for going on a 4 mile run along the side of the road. By mile 3 I was really feeling the heat and it was slowing everything down. In addition, my face turns and stays red for quite some time after from the heat. Guess it's time to consider doing running in the morning and only biking & swimming midday. Though I'm sure I'll hit a point soonish that biking midday will also be out.

Bike Goal

Yesterday I did a group brick workout (biking then transition into running). We biked 11.6 miles then did a 1.7 mile trail run. Wow, I am not used to so many biking hills and it just killed me both in my cardio and in my leg muscles. Though I guess that is why we practice because the short bike distance is ~16 miles and as I am now, I wouldn't make it.

Also, given that I really don't like going fast and was rather frightened that I hit 28mph, I'm a bit worried about making the time cut-offs. Even for the running because it is trail running and that takes a different set of muscles to stabilize everything. Guess it's time to hit the woods.

Training by-product

In general I've been focusing on increasing my distances and keeping my speed roughly around 10min/mi. To some extent I thought time on Saturday was quicker because I was running in a (MUCH) larger group. Yet today I ran a 5k by myself and ended up doing it in 28:30 which included a long nasty hill and a bit of walking. I know at somepoint I will need to work specifically on speed but right now I'm still in the phase of wanting to increase my endurance.

5th!

I took 5th place in my division! I was only 3 minutes behind the 3rd place winner. The results are at posted for your browsing pleasure.

Before you congratulate me too much, remember that there are lies, damn lies, and statistics. While I placed 5th in my division, there were only 8 women (guess all the college girls were still home on spring break). Next year I move up an age division and the woman with the closest time to my own placed 24th out of 46 so that is probably more representative. Overall I was 231 out of 435 runners. So just barely outside of the top 50%. Though Congrats to David for making the top 50% cutoff.

I am still very happy with my run and given that I've been doing this for less than a year, I think it's pretty good.

Martha Jefferson 8K race

This morning I ran in the Martha Jefferson 8K race. It was cold (40-45ish) and wet (mostly drizzle but one good down pour right before the race), but I ran it anyways. Despite the conditions I had my best time and pace yet for anything over a 5K.

I ran the 4.9mi (according to my Garmin) in 45:38 with an average pace of 9:18/mi. I was honestly expecting to be closer to 10/mi so that's quite a jump. Guess I just REALLY wanted out of the rain. My heart rate stayed mostly in zone 4 & 5 (as it should be) which means I was pushing at a reasonable pace for myself but could probably up it a little as I get more fit.

Based on last year's results, I would place in the 45-50 percentile range overall but dead middle for my division (female, 20-24). However, with the weather keeping all but the die-hards or the crazies (you may guess which I am) away I would suspect I might end up ranking lower. That does not diminish my achievement since I still ran and set a new PR (personal record).

Edit: Looks like this race knocked out all sorts of my time based running goals. Only original one that I had remaining was 10K in 60 minutes. I'm pretty confident I can do this and on a surface besides the UVA track. Just a matter of getting out there and doing it. I may add some goals to increase distance such as becoming comfortable running 10 miles, though I don't think I will be to that point by March 29th for the Cville 10 mile race. I need to work more on sustained energy.

Longest run ever.

Luckily it didn't feel as long or as draining as the nasty hill run. Though, I did accomplish my goal of a 5 mile run in under 50 minutes outside. I did it in a 45:34 so a pace of 9:06/mi which is pretty good for me.

Just for full disclosure, it was on the UVA track so nice, flat, springy surface. My knees were not up to road running so the track gave me the ability to do the distance, work on techniques, and get used to running in the cold without the extra pain of concrete. I do still plan on running where there are more hills and course variation, but it's still kinda neat to run farther than I ever have in my life.

Just for the nerds out there, I'm including a graph of my HR & pace. I don't think my pace varied all that much, but then again, I know I stayed in the exact same lane on the track and the GPS map has my path of ranging quite a bit from side to side. Therefore, I take it all with a grain of salt, but I do believe the pace average and that I sprinted at the very end.

3 Miles before breakfast

::: starts laughing::::
Who are we kidding, I don't do anything before breakfast. I did however run 3 miles before work and while it didn't meet any goals, it thoroughly convinced me that I really don't like treadmill. I'd rather have that nasty hill by work. I think the one I was on was also particularly bad because of how they had a TV set up, so I was either looking in the reflection (it was off) or looking at an angle around it. Perhaps if I more wisely choose a machine next time... though I think I'd rather just go run outside.

Climbing Uphill

In knowledge it is commonly said that you don't know how much you don't know until you start to learn more about the subject. I believe it is similar in actions, you don't know how much you can or can't do until you try. The last two times I went for 5K runs with coworkers outside, I didn't make the entire distance running. Both times I had to walk for a portion of it. As in the opening statement, I didn't realize I would have such great difficulty with long gradual hills and also steep short hills, and having them back to back. (Also doesn't help that these hills are on the way back.)

Today, I was victorious against those hills. I did the 5K in 31:44 (which isn't spectacular) but more importantly, I did it all running. Now next instead of worrying if I can even make it, I can focus on bringing the time down.

Running Book

Back when I did the Women's 4-miler training program, one of the items they gave us on the first day was a book called "Run for Life." I read through initially but really didn't make much away from it since it seemed to be either common sense (stay hydrated) or beyond me (improving your pace). At that time all I wanted to do was to complete the 4-miler... running was not going to be for life. It was just something I was trying. Skip ahead many months and now I'm doing a triathlon in which I will be running 6 miles. Having taken a number of months off I started out slower and not able to run as far as in September, yet still better than last June.

I re-read the book tonight and much more of it sunk in and seemed applicable. I am going to try to start doing some of the stretches and actually try some of their suggestions about pace. I am considering getting another book about marathon motivation that a coworker recommended because it had great ways to keep yourself going for long races (which this one will seem to be for me).

5K in under 30 min inside

It took me a few tries, but I made my first goal of running a 5K in under 30 minutes on the treadmill. To be exact I ran it in 29:22. Woohoo! Only a few weeks ago was the first time I ran just under 5K and felt SO good about it. It was an amazing feeling - the first point where I realized that I was in better shape than I thought and that I truly could do this! No excuses, no wimping out, I'm going to finish this thing because I'm in good health and BIFC.

While the HR (heart rate) graph may not be interesting on the treadmill, I will post fun stats such as avg HR. Look forward to future times when running outside I can combine the HR, distance, and pace. Yes, yes, I admit it. I love my data.

Goals

I work best by setting small incremental goals and trying for the next highest one. I may not make it in the next work out I do for that portion, but it is what I'm trying for. On the right side it displays my current goals. Some have two goals for inside & outside since I know the treadmill, stationary bike, and pool are nothing like the trail run, roads, and lake that I will be doing. Whenever an outside distance is accomplished it will automatically fill the inside goal if the inside one has not already been achieved.

Swimming
One length = 25m. So 60 lengths = 1.5km of race.

• 30 lengths of any style w/o stop - DONE 1/25
  
• 40 lengths of any style w/o stop - DONE 4/25
  
• 50 lengths of any style w/o stop - DONE 5/1
  
• 60 lengths of any style w/o stop - DONE 5/1
• 40 lengths freestyle w/o stop - DONE 5/1
• 50 lengths freestyle w/o stop - DONE 5/1
• 60 lengths freestyle w/o stop - DONE 5/1
• 30 lengths freestyle w/o stop in under 18 min
• 30 lengths freestyle w/o stop in under 15 min
• 60 lengths freestyle w/o stop in under 35 min
  
• 60 lengths freestyle w/o stop in under 30 min
• 750 m in open water
• 1500 m in open water
• 1500 m in open water in under 35 min
• 1500 m in open water in under 30 min

Biking
Full length for biking is 40K (~25 miles)

• 15 miles inside - DONE 1/27
  
• 20 miles inside (see outside)
• 25 miles inside (see outside)
• 10 miles outside - DONE 4/27
  
• 15 miles outside - DONE 5/17
• 20 miles outside - DONE 5/17
• 25 miles outside - DONE 5/17
  
• 25 miles outside in under 90 min
• 25 miles outside in under 85 min

Run
Full length for running is 10K (6.2 miles)

• 5K in under 30 min inside - DONE 1/21
  
• 4 miles in under 40 inside (see outside)
• 8K in under 50 min inside (see outside)
  
• 5K in under 30 min outside DONE 3/8 (Appears to be about 28:30)
  
• 4 miles in under 40 min outside DONE 3/8 (Appears to be about 37:30)
• 8K in under 50 min outside DONE 3/8
  
• 10K in under 60 min outside

Combining
Eventually I need to combine them and get my body used to the transitions. I'm not entirely sure what those goals are going to specifically be. My training plan will be to do things in the correct order and perhaps start small. For example bike for 30 minutes then run for 10. Then up it to bike for 30, run for 30. When I get closer to really focusing on these I will revise these goals with actual distances.