No resting on this Labor Day

Hard core

Today's  workout (core, upper body): 30 minutes

Happy Labor Day. It has always bothered me that this holiday serves as a gateway to the start of the new school year. After all, how can you enjoy the day knowing that your summer will end abruptly at 6:00 AM the next morning? It's been a while since I've personally experienced that dread, but I still feel it for my kids. However, they seem to be just fine about it.

Grey skies and high humidity undercut the opportunity for outdoor fun most of the day, but we managed to get out for a while for some backyard fun. Monday is usually my rest day, but I felt the need for some additional activity. I pulled out my floor mat and my four year old issue of Runner's World that has my favorite set of Lolo Jones core exercises. I followed that with some upper body work, along with a set of sit ups and push ups.

That may sound like a lot of work, but it really wasn't too bad. Just like yesterday's experience on the elliptical, I realized how long I've neglected core and upper body exercise. Does my departure from running over the last two days mean that my workouts will now involve more cross-training? Based on my history, I'm guessing no. But for now, it may provide some extra dimension in my Cow Harbor training.

An object of neglect provides the perfect workout

Today's perfect choice

Today's workout (elliptical): 30 minutes

Yesterday's run affected me more than I realized, and I found myself exhausted by the end of the day. This morning I woke with a pressure headache that was quickly dispatched by my standard cure of aspirin and Sudafed. Unfortunately, pseudoephedrine and running don't mix well, so I decided to put off my workout until later.

Once the day got going, I started to doubt whether I could fit in a workout. I generally dislike afternoon running, especially when I plan to run again the next morning. I remembered that tomorrow is my weekly rest day, so even with a late day run, I'd have plenty of recovery time. All I needed to do was figure out a workout. Given yesterday's tough going, I didn't think a speed run was advisable. I also didn't want to do a recovery run outside, in conditions that matched Saturday's oppressive humidity.

Then it hit me - the elliptical, that I've neglected for months, would be a perfect workout. I decided that a hill simulation, done at  moderate speed, would provide a good a balance. I set up the floor fan, put the speed on high, and set the machine's resistance to 80%.  Once I got past the first few minutes, it was smooth sailing and the time went quickly from there.

It's often hard for me to focus on cross-training, because I always prefer to run. But after today, I won't be so quick to dismiss the elliptical, especially on the day after a really difficult run.

I really should have thought this through

Accidental self portrait after the run

I was trying to get this shot of the new gates and info kiosk

Today's run (Bethpage State Park): 7.4 miles

As I made my way along today's Bethpage route, I came up with various titles for this post. At the two mile mark, it was something like, "Great base run at Bethpage." By the time I'd reached my turnaround point it was, "Oh the humidity!" By the time I reached the end of my run, the above title popped into my head.

Today was a base building run to help prepare me for Cow Harbor. With all the focus I've been putting on speed, I didn't want to neglect the fact that the Cow Harbor course is 6.2 miles and hilly. I thought that Bethpage's bike trail would be a great place to duplicate those properties. Cow Harbor's race day weather can be oppressively hot and humid, so today I hit the trifecta for simulating conditions.

I didn't plan a particular distance this morning, although I knew I'd run at least six miles. Once I arrived at the park, I decided to run a mile on the north trail before changing directions so I could do the bulk of my distance on the older, somewhat more challenging section. I had little trouble getting through this first part. It was cloudy and 73 degrees, so despite the 89% humidity, it didn't seem so bad.

My new-found speed allowed me to pass numerous runners. This was gratifying since I'm often passed by club runners who populate this trail on weekends. My pace for the first couple of miles was on par with what I've been running lately, and I felt encouraged. By the time I reached mile three, I started to feel the effort, especially as I took on a couple of tough hills that come before the Plainview Road roundabout.

Despite growing evidence that my smooth base run was about to get rougher, I tried to maintain a brisk pace. The trail between miles three and four trends slightly down, so I was able to keep going without a lot of extra effort. By the time I passed four miles, it became clear that my glycogen level was depleted. I did my best to hold on while my body figured out what to do next.

Between a lack of fuel and the overwhelming humidity, I was hurting. Why, after seeing the weather report showing close to 100% humidity today, did I forget to bring a water bottle? My pace had slowed 90 seconds per mile compared to the start, and I switched to a more mechanical stride in an effort to just keep going. I nearly bonked at mile six, but instead slowed my pace even more. I needed to prepare for the dreaded hills that make up most of the last mile leading to the trail head.

By the time I reached the biggest and longest hill, I was moving slowly. But I was moving. I even passed a woman on a bike who was struggling to get up the hill. About 4/5ths of the way to the top, my energy began to return and I stepped up my pace enough to put me back into target range. I was thrilled to run the final section of trail leading to the lot. Stopping never felt so good.

It was a very tough workout and I'm still feeling the effects seven hours later (although I did participate this afternoon in our family's annual obstacle race - a summer tradition). I don't know if today's experience was due to fitness gaps or if it was more about the weather. Last weekend I ran almost the same distance and performed much better, so it probably had more to do with conditions than conditioning. Next time I'll think about going out so fast on a base run and I'll definitely remember to bring along water.

Work versus run, guess which won.

Timed out

I needed to complete a big project this morning, so I couldn't go out for my early morning run as planned. I realized that finishing that work would interfere with my run, because I needed to leave the house before 10:00 for another obligation. I decided that I'd go for a late afternoon run instead. Well, that didn't happen, and I decided instead to give my legs a break from a week of fairly hard running.

Tomorrow I'm planning another base run that will include hills. I'm not sure about speed, but no matter what, I'll keep it more intense than normal for a run of this type. I have high expectations for this workout, so I'm hoping that taking the day off today will help make things go smoothly tomorrow.

Great progress, suddenly

Surprising results

Today's run (street): 3.4 miles

I think my training program is working. I've been encouraged by the improving paces I'm seeing after taking a more performance-oriented approach to my training runs. Overall, my average pace has dropped about 5% since I started training for Cow Harbor. The trend line was getting me closer to 9:00 per mile, but I hadn't yet reached that goal. That is, until this morning, when I blew right past it.

I wasted no time getting out today, hitting the road about 7:00 AM under very cloudy skies. Going out fast is becoming easier now, although I still suffer through the first few minutes while I hit my aerobic stride. The visual I keep in mind these days is putting my foot on the gas with no letup. Just like in a race, I know that to run faster, I have to think about running fast. Complacency only leads to slow results.

Like yesterday, I used my heart rate as a guide and saw that I was pretty much where I wanted to be. I considered breaking out of my 3 to 3.5 distance range that I typically follow on weekdays. I decided that while I'm developing my speed technique, I'll take a careful approach to adding weekday distance.

When I reached the last few streets that lead me back home, I decided to step it up even more. No reason to reserve more energy than what was necessary to get me to my driveway. After reviewing the metrics, I saw that I'd covered the last half mile at 5K pace. After mapping the run, I calculated that I'd paced 8:50 overall for the run. That was the fastest training run (excluding speed sessions) I've done since early February.

I was both surprised and pleased to have cracked the 9:00 threshold and encouraged that I surpassed my target. Tomorrow may be a good time to start working in a little more mileage while I try to hold the gains. I'm not expecting to repeat today's performance, but hey, you never know.

One of these routes is not like the other

Post run relaxing

Today's run (street): 3.36 or 3.41 miles

It was another mid-high intensity run this morning. My heart rate (the only performance metric I'll view while on a run) was close to target, and I knew I'd be happy with my finish time. A quick look at the Garmin confirmed that I'd managed another good run. I cooled down by the pool when I finished and tried mapping my route using the Gmaps web app on my phone

I was pleased to see that the Android OS was finally supporting Gmap's functionality. That allowed me to record my distance and calculate my true pace. I liked what I saw: 9:05. Although I worked for it, getting there didn't feel as hard as I thought it would be. Looking a gift horse in the mouth, I mapped the run on my laptop after I'd finish showering and discovered a surprising disparity in distance.

Distance: Android version

Web version, same route

For some reason, the route on my laptop registered 5/100ths of a mile shorter than the exact same map on my phone. Weird and disappointing, because that small disparity meant my average pace was actually 9:12. Not bad, but not what I wanted to see. I remapped the route to see if I'd somehow missed a street, but the distance came up the same each time.

So what if the phone mapping is actually the correct measurement? That would be nice. But I use the web version as the standard, so I'll have to go with that. In the end, the difference is measurement is minimal. Unfortunately, the difference in pace is not.

Alarming morning affects my run

Rude awakening

Today's run (street): 3.2 miles

This morning's fun started early. It was 2:39 AM to be exact. That was when we were woken up by an incessant beeping. It turned out that our alarm system was signaling that the backup battery was low. Apparently our street had lost power some time earlier. After a bleary-eyed call to LIPA's outrage line (that was a typo but I'm leaving it in), we went back to sleep, only to be awoken around 5:00 AM when the power came back and reactivated the alarm.

We had overnight guests down the hall and thankfully they slept through the craziness. Since I was up early, I decided to go out for my run sooner than I normally would. The skies were overcast, but there didn't appear to be any rainclouds in sight. I went out fairly fast (at least it felt that way) and hoped I could carry that urgency through my full distance.

My effort seemed moderately high and I tried to maintain a steady cadence. A check of my heart rate around mile 2 showed that I was 8 BPM below where I wanted to be. I hoped that was due to improved conditioning, but it was probably a case of perceived effort not matching actual effort. In the end I completed the run both pleased and disappointed. Pleased, because my time was better than average, but disappointed because I was still 15 seconds per mile slower than my last weekday run.

I'm aiming to improve on that tomorrow. Perhaps the disrupted sleep affected my performance. Yes, let's go with that.

Full contact running on the Bethpage bike trail

Today's run had its ups and downs

Today's run (Bethpage State Park): 7.25 
1,600th Emerging Runner Post!

Speed is one thing and endurance is another. I've made progress on my pacing over the past week, but that was with distances ranging from 3.1 to 3.4 miles. Doubling that distance reveals opportunities for improvement. This morning's workout confirmed my need to focus on base mileage. The good news is that I'm not as far off from my target as I thought.

Bethpage at 7:30 AM is usually a quiet place, but when I arrived, the parking lot was 3/4 full. Judging from the streams of people with stadium chairs and kids walking with soccer balls, I assumed there was a tournament or clinic happening at the athletic fields. It didn't look like they were charging for parking, so I was lucky to get there before the whole lot filled up.

According to News 12 Long Island, the temperature was 64 degrees and, at that hour, the bike trail was mostly in shadow. I wore my new Virratas for the first time on pavement (yesterday's run was on the track), and they felt very good. I had none of the problems I'd experienced with the Kinvara 3's (when new) during my half marathon training. Then again, those issues could have been with my feet, not with the shoes.

My first half mile was a little rough, and I wondered if I was pushing myself too much following three consecutive hard workouts. I decided to ignore the discomfort because the transition from anaerobic to aerobic breathing is sometimes difficult. Once I hit the first mile, I knew I would be able to manage the planned distance.

Bethpage's bike trail is rolling, and the north trail is predominantly uphill, all the way to the end. Me and my friend KWL ran it all the way to Woodbury a couple of months ago, and that was brutal. Today, I viewed the hills differently, because I knew all the elevation I was experiencing on the way up would come back as downhills on my return. Yet there were times when the trail seemed to run uphill in both directions. While that was true, I had few troubles along the route.

My plan was to run as far as Washington Ave, turn around and come back, a distance of about 7.25 miles. I had the path more or less to myself on the way north, except there were some reckless riders zooming along without helmets. That's a dangerous decision when you're exceeding 20 MPH on downhills. By the time I changed direction for the return leg, there were numerous other runners, walkers and even more cyclists.

At around the five mile point, where the path is only wide enough for three people, I saw a man and two women running in my direction. They were running three across. As they came closer, I decided we had a math problem. I kept expecting the woman on the left (who was lined up with me) to drop back or move up to her right. But fifteen feet away, they were still spread out across the trail.

I moved as far to the right as I could go without spilling onto the shoulder, so I stood my ground. The woman tried to squeeze by, but she miscalculated the space and her arm caught the point of my elbow. I have very hard bones so I'm sure that hurt, although I didn't feel a thing except contact. It was too bad that we'd bumped, but she saw me coming for at least 30 seconds.

The remainder of the run was contact-free and I felt like I was moving well throughout every section. I focused on shorter strides on the two final hills, and tried to maintain my normal cadence. In the end, It was my longest run of the year. I barely squeaked in under 10 min/mile but this run wasn't done for performance. This week has been about speed, distance and a few hills. I'll need to keep it up this coming week. After all, you're only as good as your last run.

Fast track to performance gains

Flow of the workout

Today's workout (track): 1 mile tempo, 12 x 100M, 1.25 mile cool-down = 3.1 miles

This morning I headed out early to the local track to run intervals and tempos. I took the Virratas out for their first run, and thought they responded well to fast pacing. My plan was to run one mile at 5K race pace, which I'd follow with intervals and a cool-down run.

The track had a few walkers and a couple of runners when I arrived. I got started quickly on my tempo warm up and found a pace that felt hard, but sustainable. I locked into that pace for four laps, guided by perceived effort. Along the way, I passed everyone including the other two runners on track. After last Sunday's low point of the race, when I was being passed left and right around mile five, it felt good to be the one who was doing the passing. I averaged 8:18 for the mile.

Next, I ran a set of 100 meter repeats, averaging 6:40 per mile. I was surprised when I later looked at heart rate data and saw that I'd averaged between 74-80% of MAX. Knowing that, I can probably get my pace down to 6:25, while still staying under 90% MAX. However, I'll probably keep it to 8 x 100's for that session.

I finished the workout with a 1.25 mile cool down, run at a moderate (9:21) pace. In total, it wasn't a lot of distance, but the intensity made up for that. I'm planning a long run tomorrow, either on the Bethpage path, or another route that will facilitate a 6+ mile distance better than my neighborhood roads. My performance has improved greatly for runs between 3-3.5 miles. It will be interesting to see how my pacing holds up, when I double that length tomorrow.

Elite sale yields bargain Virrata

New running shoe day. Guess which ones are mine.

Today's run (street): 3.4 miles

So far so good on the training front. This morning I went out with expectations of matching my recent pace range and I managed to do that. When I first entered time and distance into the pace calculator, I thought I'd missed the mark. I quickly realized I'd entered the time incorrectly, adding in an extra minute. It turned out that I'd actually exceeded my target and ran today's distance four seconds per mile faster than yesterday's.

I assign two factors to these recent gains: a constant focus on pace (via perceived effort, not watching the Garmin's display) and the continued recruitment of fast twitch fibers in my leg muscles. In other words, I'm thinking about running fast and building fitness. Runners come closest to their potential when racing and an active focus on speed while training does the same thing, to a lesser degree. That's why I'm not yet achieving sub-9 training runs, but I'm getting closer.

The family went out for a "Next to the last Friday before school starts" lunch and afterward we swung by the Gallery at Westbury Plaza. I wanted to check out Sports Authority's new SA Elite store that only sells adult size sports apparel and running shoes. I had no intention of buying anything, but they were having a sale, so I checked out the deals.

I've been looking for a lightweight running raincoat for a while. My venerable ASICS rain jacket committed zippercide last year and I've been on a quest to replace it. SA Elite was light on raincoat options, but they had some genuine bargains in their shoe section.

The store was running a sale, and this was no bottom of the barrel clearance. I did a double-take when I saw a pair of Saucony Virratas priced at $79 with a label next to it saying 20% off as marked. The best price I've seen on the web for these shoes has been $78 plus shipping. I asked for a pair in hi-viz yellow, but they only had my size in black. I was disappointed, but I tried them on the treadmill and liked the way they fit.

At the same time, my wife found a pair of ASICS Nimbus-14's that fit her well and were priced amazingly low with the included discount. I've been on her to replace her GEL-2160's that probably have more than 2,000 running miles on them. I'm serious, you should see them.

I'm thinking about doing a long base run this weekend and a shorter speed workout on the other day. I'm pleased with my progress and excited to be runnning in shoes with less than 500 miles on them. I hope the Virratas feel as good on the road as they did on the treadmill today.

Today's good run becomes tomorrow's expectation

The daily burden

Today's run (street): 3.5 miles

I was a little sore this morning, possibly because my last three runs were done at high effort (though perhaps not at high speed). I haven't put up any sub-9 runs yet, but I'm moving in that direction. My saving grace today was the need to have an early call to Asia. That allowed me an extra hour to loosen up my leg muscles before my run.

Have you ever thought about how great everything seems after you've completed a fast run? You can point to it with pride and feel good about what you've accomplished. But as they say in Hollywood, you're only as good as your last movie. And when training for a race, you're only as good as the last time you ran. Time for resting on your laurels = 1 day. And that day ended for me this morning at 8:00 AM.

I started to prepare for my run after completing my call. Wednesday's good experience had now become today's burden. I knew I couldn't default to my easy running pace and, while I wasn't planning to go all-out, I had mentally set my target. I was determined not to come up short. 

A slight soreness in my legs threw me off on the first half mile. I willed myself to run faster, but I'm not sure the effort fully translated. I do know that when I'm actively thinking about performance, my speed will usually move into the acceptable range. My goal today was to do better than that, so I kept up the mental pressure and hoped that would yield a good result.

I was pleased to see that I ran 5 seconds per mile faster than yesterday. It was great to repeat a good performance and I feel I'm heading in the intended direction. I have the rest of the night to enjoy today's gains. Tomorrow morning, expectations return.

I think, therefore I pace

Today's run (street): 3.4 miles

Okay, now we're talking. After two days off from running, I went out this morning for the first time since the Dirty Sock race. I recognized the need to keep my focus on speed, despite having come off a fairly hard run. It's always a lot easier to do that if you're energized from the start. I was pleased that my legs responded to the challenge.

Everyone has a different default running pace. By that I mean the speed that you'd run if you didn't care about performance. It's probably what people think of as their easy pace. For some, "easy" is 8 minutes a mile. For me, it's much slower than that. When I need to run faster, I know I need to think about running fast. No zoning out and letting my legs carry me along. I've read that running performance is largely mental and my experience supports that.

Today I put priority on cadence and form. I focused on holding a faster pace than my body naturally wished to run. At times, my mind would drift and I'd detect a little deceleration. I dialed back up to "urgent" and tried to reengage my focus. This was not running at 10K race pace, but it was much faster than I've been averaging.

For all that work, I'm still worrying about my readiness to sustain that pace for 6.2 miles in Northport next month. With James Street, Waterside Ave. and Pumpernickel Hill in the mix, I'll have to do a lot more than I did today. But it was a start.