Same Time, Same Channel

Fartlek Run - 10 miles w/8 x 30 sec. @ 5K-3K pace. Average pace. 9:30.

Weather: 51°F, 87% humidity, wind 3 SE, sunny.

I think I ran too hard last week. I'm still tired. I had a hard time getting out of bed and getting out the door this morning. I thought about cutting this run short, but instead I did the full distance but at an easier pace than when I did a very similar workout last week. I did a better job of hitting the correct pace on the intervals this time. I was aiming for around 7:00 pace on the fast intervals. I did 2 miles at 10:08 pace to start and then I did this:

I've got a two/day scheduled for Wednesday this week. I'll run to work and run home. I've done that once or twice before, but now I'm going to start doing it as a more regular thing, once or twice a week. I've got to remember to take an extra change of clothes to work tomorrow.

Easy run. Average pace: 9:23.

Weather: 50° F, 74% humidity, wind 3 ESE, partly cloudy.

I got up earlier today because I need to be on time to work for a change. I was out the door for my run just after 5:30. I ran my normal 10 mile route in reverse. I think it's harder this way. Of course the total elevation gain and loss is the same. However, I think the uphills going this direction are more gradual but longer than the uphills going the same direction. So what is a long distance of a gentle downhill going the other direction becomes a long climb going this direction, while the steeper but shorter uphills of the other direction and brief downhills going this direction. That's why I like the other direction better and do it so much more. I should do the direction I did today more often because it's more of a challenge. Splits were 10:13, 9:49, 9:39, 9:39, 9:01, 8:56, 8:58, 9:14, 9:08, 9:12. I guess those last three miles are hard going either direction because they're normally my first three miles and they're always my slowest miles when they're the first three.

I think I've got everything I need for work tomorrow all ready to go so that I can leave it there today and run to work tomorrow.

AM: Easy run + 10 x 8 sec. hill sprints. 7.01 miles. Average pace: 9:46.

Weather: 57°F, 67% humidity, wind 2 NNE.

Everything worked out fine with the run to work. I added a detour at the beginning of the run to make the distance to work 6 miles instead of 4.5. Hudson says to do hill sprints on the steepest hill you can find, so that's what I did. There's a gully/green belt behind my office with really steep trails running through it. I did the hill sprints on the steepest hill I could find in that green belt. I don't know for sure, but I'm thinking it's got to be at least a 20% grade. When I get home this evening and am able to upload my workout from my Garmin to my computer, I'll see if I can tell what the grade on the hill is. As a result of doing the hill sprints on this hill, which is MUCH steeper than the hill I use at home, my hill sprints were much slower than I do them at home. The pace on the hill sprints was 7:26, 7:57, 8:10, 8:08, 8:44, 8:37, 8;16, 8:21, 7:09, 7:27. After I finished the hill sprints I ran another half mile through the trails to my office. The hill is not that far from my office if you could travel in a straight line, but the trails do switchbacks through the gully.

They have lockers in the dressing rooms here at work, but they've got a sign saying that you can't leave stuff there overnight and it will be confiscated if you do. So I had to leave my clothes and stuff at my desk last night, and then this morning I had to drag myself in my sweaty running clothes with sweaty headlights on my shirt up to the fourth floor to get my stuff, and then back to the first floor to the dressing room. I've got to find out of they really enforce that no overnight locker thing. It would be so much easier if I could leave my stuff there the night before.

It came to my attention yesterday that I should be doing doubles on hard workout days, not on easy workout days because the easy days are supposed to stay easy. I consider hill sprints days to be easy workout days because, while the hill sprints are intense, they are very short. However, I wanted to do hill sprints on a run to work day so that I could use the monster hills here. I've got a progression run that looks a lot like a tempo run tomorrow. It's 2 miles easy, 6 miles moderate, 2 miles easy. I figure if I find that I don't have the legs to do that workout tomorrow after running doubles today, then I'll change my plan and put my doubles on hard workout days so that I have the easy days to recover.

PM: Easy Run. 4.60 miles. Average pace: 9:47.

Weather: 73°F, 50% humidity, wind 11 N.

It's interesting to me how close my average pace is on this mornings run and this evenings run. I felt like I took it pretty easy on the way home and the hills didn't bother me too much. I'll have to see how I feel tomorrow.

I looked in Training Center and it looks like it's got the grade on the hill where I did hill sprints at about 10%. I really think it's more than that. I might take my camera tomorrow and see if I can get a good picture of the hill.

Progression Run. 2 miles easy, 6 miles moderate, 2 miles easy. Average pace: 9:06.

Weather: 57° F, 51% humidity, wind 2-5 ENE.

I didn't feel great this morning. I think I'm going to revise my training plan and put my doubles on hard workout days so that I don't lose my easy days. I'm glad I have an easy day tomorrow. Splits were 10:15, 9:46, 9:10, 8:57, 9:13*, 8:35, 8:32, 8:10, 9:06, 9:12.

* This mile was hard. I was going due south and up hill. While the weather info I got from MotionBased says that the wind was 2-5 mph ENE, that data is from the regional airport, which is quite a ways from here. I swear I was going straight into a strong wind on that mile.

Speaking of MotionBased and weather info, MotionBased seems to be pushing people to switch to GarminConnect. I'm happy to use GarminConnect, except the main thing I get from MotionBased that I can't get anywhere else is the weather info and I don't see any weather info in GarminConnect. Does anyone else use GarminConnect and have any thoughts about it?

I ran through quite a few sprinklers this morning. Some I could not reasonably avoid and others I chose not to avoid. I guess that's a by product of running early in the morning.

 Very easy run. Average pace: 10:11.

Weather (thanks to JD's recommendation of wunderground.com): 55°F, 69% humidity, wind 2 S. With motionbased.com, I was getting weather info from Centennial Airport, which is at least 10 miles from here. With wunderground.com I can get historical weather data (meaning from this morning while I was running) from a weather station that's actually very nearly on my running route!

I took it very easy today because I've had a pretty intense week so far this week and I've got a long run tomorrow. I also had a hard week last week, but I decided to keep it hard this week rather than backing off because I expect to have a very easy week next week of necessity.

In other news, my Garmin and I have reconciled. I sent an email to support about my inability to delete or upload courses. I got a response yesterday and and followed the recommendations in the response, which were to use the webupdater to update the chipset on my device, update Training Center, and perform a hard reset, which deletes all the user data on the device. So now my Garmin is happy and can delete and upload courses and even uploaded to Training Center this morning much more quickly than I'm used to. I guess it just needed a little TLC.

I posted this on the discussion board yesterday, but I know a lot of you don't read the discussion board. It's just something funny.

Finally, here's a picture of the hill behind my office where I ran hill sprints on Wednesday. I don't think I'll be running hill sprints there anymore because I revised my training plan and moved all of the doubles off of hill sprint days and onto harder workout days. So I won't be running to work on hill sprint days anymore. I don't know if it looks like much in the picture, but it's really a tough hill. Also, this hill, and others like it, are on the route of the local 5K that I'm tentatively planning to run on the 4th of July.

Long run. Average pace 9:26.

Weather: 67° F, 62% humidity, wind 10 SSE.

Another Saturday morning slogging it out on the Highline Canal Trail. My original plan was to go north from the rec center (where I parked) 6 miles and then back and then south 2.5 and then back. Sometimes it's mentally easier if I break up a long run like that. But I was afraid I might be tempted to stop after 12 miles if I did that, so then I thought I would go north 7 miles and back, and then south 1.5 miles and back. But then I might stop after 14. So I finally decided just to go north 8.5 miles and then I had no choice but to finish the 17 miles. I won't bore you with my splits. The first two miles were the slowest and then I was pretty consistently between 9:20 and 9:30 after that, but I managed to do the last .13 at the end at 7:31 pace.

I'm ready for an easy week at sea level next week. It might be hard getting very many miles in on the ship. I'll be online today and tomorrow to check on all the racing people and others, but then I'll be completely offline for a whole week.