I apologize for stepping away from this place. I had no idea that it had been two weeks since I last posted! Crazy how much time flies. With Hospital Hill coming up, and some recurring nagging injuries resurfacing, it has been a tale of two weeks, that is for sure.
When I last left you, I was coming off of a big week, with a 10 mile run capping it off. I followed that up with another speed/track workout with the Sunflower Striders, but then I hit a major wall. It was already set up to be a light week, but I pretty much lost all desire to run at all in the middle of that week. The switching of my shifts, the crazy sleep schedule, and just fatigue all sort of hit me at once, and I was frustrated. Couple that with the fact that my shoulder stiffness had returned, and my lower back was tightening up, and I just felt I needed a break. Considering we were inside of a month until Hospital Hill, I could not have picked a worse time to start taking it easy. I've got all summer to recover from any ailments, so I was just going to have to pick myself up off the mat and get back to work.
After I got done pouting, I decided to finish strong in my training for this race, because I figured that I had come this far already, I might as well go out with a bang. Luckily, running at Lake Shawnee and the Shunga Trail is a breeze with the water fountains turned on, so I've been able to get back into the swing of things without missing a beat. I came close to 30 miles last week, and might pass that this week leading up to one final taper before tackling the Hill. If I were to somehow hit my goal of 1:50:00 in this race, I might just get drunk in the parking lot immediately after I run. It is going to be difficult.
Coming down the pipe on this blog will be a couple of interviews, and another guest essay. I've started contributing to another blog, www.sportingego.com, so that has taken up part of my time. Also, if you noticed the link on the front page, I am helping to spread the word about the North Face Endurance Challenge, a race series in KC in August. I'm hoping to have interviews to spread the word about both of these things, as well as a race recap and final race week thoughts soon. Sorry again for the lag, and thank you so very much for reading. Until next time...later.
Tuesday, May 24, 2011
Tuesday, May 10, 2011
A Big Week, Pt. 2
Now that we are basically a full week past the relevance of this post, you are still going to get it. I left off with the recap of the Run for Ronald 5K, followed by the 9 mile Sunday run at Shunga. But my exciting week of new challenges was just beginning.
I recently decided the throw down for a year long membership to join the Sunflower Striders, the local running club in Topeka, and last Tuesday I decided to get out there and join a group workout, just to see what it was all about. They have a speed/track workout scheduled every Tuesday at Washburn, and since I've been mixing in speed workouts every week, I figured I would give it a shot. There were 21 people there, including me! That's nuts! That's a pretty large group of people just getting together to run and get better. I was impressed. The spectrum was wide, with guys who clearly had already run Boston, or had qualified for it at one point, to women who also were Boston Qualifier's and Triathletes. There were also a few newbies there as well, so I didn't feel like a total dope.
The scheduled workout for last week was something called the Yasso 800s. The theory behind these runs is that you can predict your marathon time and fitness based on how you run two laps on the track, based on ten repetitions. For instance, if you can cover two laps in 4:00 by your tenth 800, in theory, you should be able to run a full marathon in four hours. Of course I don't know if this works, but popular reading seems to show that this is a pretty well accepted theory. I didn't make it to 10, as it was recommended that newer runner (me) start with three or four sets, with light jogging in between. I ended up doing five sets, and I was pleased to see that I was able to do them all under 4:00. So high five to me. But it was certainly a learning experience, as I am constantly finding out new things in regards to pacing myself and not expending all of my energy at the start of a run.
Wednesday was another set of hills out at Wanamaker. I am happy to say that I still have not been hit by a car out there. I have learned a long time ago to just stop wondering about the odd things in Topeka, so why there is a 3/4 mile stretch of Wanamaker without sidewalks while damn near every other part of the busiest road in the city has sidewalks is beyond me. Probably the same answer I would get if I asked "Why are there stoplights at 29th and Fremont and 29th and Van Buren when there is absolutely no reason for them because those areas are virtually abandoned?", which would be "We don't know". Anyways, running hills once a week served me great in preparing for KC, and I can only imagine it would help for Hospital Hill. But to sum up, it was a pretty tough and beneficial week. Only eight months until I run a marathon, by the way. Weird to say. No hurry, that's for sure. That's all I've got. Until next time....later.
I recently decided the throw down for a year long membership to join the Sunflower Striders, the local running club in Topeka, and last Tuesday I decided to get out there and join a group workout, just to see what it was all about. They have a speed/track workout scheduled every Tuesday at Washburn, and since I've been mixing in speed workouts every week, I figured I would give it a shot. There were 21 people there, including me! That's nuts! That's a pretty large group of people just getting together to run and get better. I was impressed. The spectrum was wide, with guys who clearly had already run Boston, or had qualified for it at one point, to women who also were Boston Qualifier's and Triathletes. There were also a few newbies there as well, so I didn't feel like a total dope.
The scheduled workout for last week was something called the Yasso 800s. The theory behind these runs is that you can predict your marathon time and fitness based on how you run two laps on the track, based on ten repetitions. For instance, if you can cover two laps in 4:00 by your tenth 800, in theory, you should be able to run a full marathon in four hours. Of course I don't know if this works, but popular reading seems to show that this is a pretty well accepted theory. I didn't make it to 10, as it was recommended that newer runner (me) start with three or four sets, with light jogging in between. I ended up doing five sets, and I was pleased to see that I was able to do them all under 4:00. So high five to me. But it was certainly a learning experience, as I am constantly finding out new things in regards to pacing myself and not expending all of my energy at the start of a run.
Wednesday was another set of hills out at Wanamaker. I am happy to say that I still have not been hit by a car out there. I have learned a long time ago to just stop wondering about the odd things in Topeka, so why there is a 3/4 mile stretch of Wanamaker without sidewalks while damn near every other part of the busiest road in the city has sidewalks is beyond me. Probably the same answer I would get if I asked "Why are there stoplights at 29th and Fremont and 29th and Van Buren when there is absolutely no reason for them because those areas are virtually abandoned?", which would be "We don't know". Anyways, running hills once a week served me great in preparing for KC, and I can only imagine it would help for Hospital Hill. But to sum up, it was a pretty tough and beneficial week. Only eight months until I run a marathon, by the way. Weird to say. No hurry, that's for sure. That's all I've got. Until next time....later.
Thursday, May 5, 2011
A Big Week, Pt. 1
We'll start off with Saturday morning of what turned out to be a pretty big week/weekend for running action. Saturday morning was the second annual Run for Ronald 5K out at Lake Shawnee. (Results). I had been a little worried about how this would go, being as I just recently switched to working 10:30 PM to 6:30 AM shifts at the hospital, so I would now be going out to run directly from work, which is fine for a light workout but not necessarily for a race, at least to me. I have still not quite gotten the hang of staying up working all night after sleeping until 2 or 3 (if I'm lucky), so I was a little apprehensive about this race. I have not been injured much since tweaking my calf early in April, so I at least had that going for me. The weather last Saturday could not have been better, as the temperature was in the upper 50s with a stiff breeze coming over the dam.
I had intentions of setting a personal best in this race, as I was hoping to end up with a time of under 24:00, a full six minutes faster than when I ran this very race as my very first road race. This would be interesting because I had not participated in a 5K run since last September. I ended up getting off to a great start and really picking up steam after making the halfway turn. By the time it was all said and done, I crossed the finish line in 22:54, under 23:00, which was a goal of mine for the entire year! I did not receive a medal for my finish, but I was deemed the overall top fundraiser in the pledge/sponsorship collection area, so that was nice. I owe that to my tremendous support group, including my folks, friends, and co-workers, all of whom were so generous for a good cause. I went right to sleep after the race.
Sunday, though, it was back to the long run grind, getting ready for the Hospital Hill run. I could not sit on my accomplishments from Saturday because I had 9 miles to put in. Now, the more I read about training for a marathon (I start that in the fall), I continue to read about LSD, or long, slow, distance (hilarious and creative, I know). This says that in order to increase aerobic fitness, stamina, and other assorted fitness benefits, running at a pace that is 1-3 minutes slower than your race pace works the best on your long runs. Since I'm hoping to hit 1:50:00 at Hospital Hill, I would be pacing this run in the neighborhood of 9:30/mile at the quickest, and up to 11:20/mile at the slowest. For 9 miles at Shunga Trail, I was able to pace myself at around 9:45/mile, which was certainly interesting. First, it really does go against your instincts to purposefully slow yourself down that much. Second, this was going to increase the time on my feet (part of the whole concept, getting you to run for a longer period of time to get used to the punishment), so I had to be ready to not think about the fact that I was running for a much longer time. It actually turned out to be a pretty enjoyable run. Great weather, again, and lots of time to check out the assorted graffiti along the pathway of the Shunga Trail. I think it helped to take it easy, especially on my legs, as they were not dead when I finished, so I'll be trying it out again this next Sunday for a 10 mile run out at Shunga again. I'll post part two sometime later this week, and until next time....later.
I had intentions of setting a personal best in this race, as I was hoping to end up with a time of under 24:00, a full six minutes faster than when I ran this very race as my very first road race. This would be interesting because I had not participated in a 5K run since last September. I ended up getting off to a great start and really picking up steam after making the halfway turn. By the time it was all said and done, I crossed the finish line in 22:54, under 23:00, which was a goal of mine for the entire year! I did not receive a medal for my finish, but I was deemed the overall top fundraiser in the pledge/sponsorship collection area, so that was nice. I owe that to my tremendous support group, including my folks, friends, and co-workers, all of whom were so generous for a good cause. I went right to sleep after the race.
Sunday, though, it was back to the long run grind, getting ready for the Hospital Hill run. I could not sit on my accomplishments from Saturday because I had 9 miles to put in. Now, the more I read about training for a marathon (I start that in the fall), I continue to read about LSD, or long, slow, distance (hilarious and creative, I know). This says that in order to increase aerobic fitness, stamina, and other assorted fitness benefits, running at a pace that is 1-3 minutes slower than your race pace works the best on your long runs. Since I'm hoping to hit 1:50:00 at Hospital Hill, I would be pacing this run in the neighborhood of 9:30/mile at the quickest, and up to 11:20/mile at the slowest. For 9 miles at Shunga Trail, I was able to pace myself at around 9:45/mile, which was certainly interesting. First, it really does go against your instincts to purposefully slow yourself down that much. Second, this was going to increase the time on my feet (part of the whole concept, getting you to run for a longer period of time to get used to the punishment), so I had to be ready to not think about the fact that I was running for a much longer time. It actually turned out to be a pretty enjoyable run. Great weather, again, and lots of time to check out the assorted graffiti along the pathway of the Shunga Trail. I think it helped to take it easy, especially on my legs, as they were not dead when I finished, so I'll be trying it out again this next Sunday for a 10 mile run out at Shunga again. I'll post part two sometime later this week, and until next time....later.
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