Same Time, Same Channel

Easy run. Average pace: 9:06/mile.

Weather at 6:45 am: 55°F, 82% humidity, light rain at the start, but then the rain stopped. The weather data I'm getting from motionbased.com says no wind, but I did feel a little wind from time to time, but nothing like last night's huge windy thunderstorm.

My intentions to get up earlier this morning fell flat. I set my alarm for 5:30, but then I hit the snooze alarm for over a half hour, and then I dawdled and did things like change the laundry before getting my lazy butt out the door.

My legs felt pretty good this morning, so I decided to push the pace just a little bit, but still keep it conversational. Splits were 9:44, 9:49, 9:25, 8:42, 8:18, 8:37.

My mp3 player is really a Sansa, but we sometimes call it I-Can't-Believe-It's-Not-an-Ipod, or Not-Pod for short. In any case, I have been listening to it on my runs quite a bit recently. I very rarely did that during the winter, but I like it this time of year because my headphones give my ears just a little bit of covering. And I'm enjoying the occasional song that comes along that I can match my cadence to. There were two song like that this morning. The first was "Love Lies Bleeding" by Basia and the second was "Another Postcard" by the Barenaked Ladies. I seem to always get something by the Barenaked Ladies with a good cadence. But this song is longer than the ones off of Snacktime that I've been hearing recently, so that was good.

I just looked out the window and it looks like it's raining again now, harder than before. So I guess I got in from my run just in time.

Easy/moderate run. Average pace: 8:54.

Weather: 46°F, 100% humidity, wind 14N, steady rain.

This run is dedicated to Snoqualmie. The rain would not have deterred her. I got up at about 5:45 and it was raining and blowing pretty hard. I did No More Trouble Zones because I want to do it 2 or 3 times per week and I thought maybe the weather might improve a little bit while I was doing it. Maybe it did, maybe it didn't. It was still rainy and windy when I got out for my run. I got soaked to the skin very quickly. I am very cold and wet right now. I've got to go take a hot shower and get warmed up.

Progression Run - 10 miles easy w/ last 10 min. moderate. Average pace: 9:17.

Weather at 6:00 am: 45°F, 84% humidity, wind 9 S. It was a little on the cool side this morning, but at least it was dry.

I've been pushing the pace a little bit the last couple of days, so I tried to keep it easier this time. Except this was a progression run, so I pushed the pace at the end, but kept it easy other wise. Splits were 9:44, 9:26, 9:39, 9:30, 9:45, 9:22, 9:11, 9:05, 9:16 (for 0.75 miles), 8:06 (for 1.25 miles).

Also, I tried to focus on running with flat feet, thus resulting in a mid-foot strike for the whole run. I think running this way also shortened my stride but increased my cadence. None of my music really matched my cadence well except for, surprisingly, the second half of Bulbous Bouffant, by The Vestibules. I don't have a link to a good sample of it. It's a very strange spoken thing. My husband and kids and I performed it once for a Ward talent show.

I've been working on a training plan for the ADT marathon the last few days. I looked at the marathon level 3 training plan from "Run Faster" by Brad Hudson, but it looked a little too agressive. I did marathon level 2 from that book to train for Ogden, so I took the training schedule that I used for Ogden and deleted 6 weeks to knock it down from 20 weeks to 14, since that's all the time I have. I made the first two weeks a little easier since I'm still sort of in marathon recovery from Ogden. Otherwise, I bumped up the mileage a little by adding a 4 mile easy run home from work one or two days most weeks. I put those PM runs on days that I had easier runs, usually just an easy run or an easy run with hill sprints. I figure I'll do the prescribed workout in the morning on the way to work, and then just run home from work at an easy pace.

In keeping with my self-devised marathon recovery plan, I did not run today. I'll run tomorrow and Saturday, which will give me 5 days of running this week. I'll go back up to my regular 6 days of running per week next week. This morning I did No More Trouble Zones since I had time as a result of not running. While I was doing it my 6-year-old daughter asked how come I was doing that instead of running. I tried to explain the marathon recovery plan to her. I don't think she was really interested.

Yesterday's problem with comments on the blog got me thinking about what the blog and the comments mean to me and what it would be like if the blog went away. I realized that it would be much harder for me to be consistent in my running without the blog. I like to think that I would still train hard and consistently without the blog, but the fact is that I'm not sure I would. It's not that I run just so that I can post it on the blog. But being able to post and get comments and talk about your running with other people makes running and training much more fun in my opinion. So thank you to you all. Here's to many more years of running and blogging.

6 miles easy + 4 x 10 sec. hill sprints. Average pace: 9:26.

Weather @ 6:45am: 54°, 90% humidity, wind 5 WSW, overcast. Very nice weather for running. More humid than it usually is here, but at that temperature, not a big deal.

I've got a very busy day today. I'm very busy at work plus I've got to take Thing 3 in for a physical this morning so he can go to scout camp next week and I've got to get DH as well as Things 2 and 3 off to Fathers & Sons campout this afternoon. All kinds of camping that I don't have to participate in. Yippeee!

I worked on the mid-foot strike again this morning. I tried to do that throughout the run and periodically I worked on lifting my knees higher, but I didn't maintain that the whole time. I'm thinking it's time to get some new shoes. Snoqualmie, is it the Brooks ST3s that you call Magic Shoes?

Last Wednesday when I ran I turned off the auto lap feature on my Garmin so that I wouldn't get a split during the 1.25 moderate I did at the end of the run. I forgot to turn it back on, so I don't have mile splits for my 6 miles easy this morning. I didn't look at my watch hardly at all during that part of the run, but I'm pretty sure I started slowly and got faster over the course of the 6 miles. In any case, the average pace for that portion was 9:23. I do have split times for the hill sprints because I use the lap button to time the hill sprints. Average pace on the hill sprints was 6:00, 6:27, 6:30, 5:54. I tried to really push it with the hill sprints and walked back down the hill in between them. I really like hill sprints. They're a hard effort, but they're very short duration and so they don't wear me out too much. I feel like they really help me build leg strength.

Easy run. Average pace: 9:27.

Weather: 65°F, 31% humidity, wind 10 SW.

I ran the Highline Canal Trail with what might be the beginning of a running group. I ran the whole twelve with my friend Chalyce, whom I ran the Georgetown Half Marathon with last summer. We're both running it again this year. We ran the first 8 miles with my friend Michelle and her friend Michelle. They're running the Run the Rockies Half next Saturday. I've run with them a couple of times recently. And on the trail we saw another friend, Carly, running with her neighbor. If we would just get organized, we could have a nice little running group. Chalyce isn't able to run every Saturday, though, because she sometimes teaches classes at 24-Hour Fitness on Saturday morning.

The trail was quite pleasant. It got a little on the warm side, especially towards the end of the run, but it was shady in places now that the trees have leaves.

Michelle #1 wanted to push the pace a little at the end of her 8 miles, so I ran with her at around 8:00 pace for about the last 1/3 of the 8th mile. It was a bit of a struggle for her, but she did great! Splits were 9:27, 9:31, 9:32, 9:31, 9:44, 9:36, 9:38, 9:15, 9:16, 9:14, 9:26, 9:10.

Thus ends week #3 of marathon recovery/week #1 of marathon training.