cardano Training Blog

Workout:

• Type: Run
• Date: 11/30/2007
• Time: 18:34:42
• Total Time: 1:10:10.00
• Distance: 8.5 miles
• Average Pace: 8:15.19/mile
• Max Pace: 6:55.22/mile

Yikes! It was 19 degrees out side this morning. It’s really winter now (now that I’ve said that, it’ll probably be into the fifties within a week)!
Repeat miles, cross-country, at 7:00/mile, with brief breaks in-between:
Rep 1: 6:55 (net downhill)
Rep 2: 6:55
Rep 3: 7:05
Rep 4: 7:01
Rep 5: 7:21 (uphill)
Rep 6: 7:40 (steeply uphill- also pretty tired at this point)

Workout:

• Type: Run
• Date: 11/29/2007
• Time: 16:36:38
• Total Time: 00:41:45.00
• Distance: 5.2 miles
• Average Pace: 8:01.93/mile

Easy 5-miles. It was really windy! Here’s proof:
2.6 miles out: 21:40 (downhill, into the wind)
2.6 miles out: 20:05 (uphill, wind to my back!)

Workout:

• Type: Run
• Date: 11/28/2007
• Time: 14:40:00
• Total Time: 1:05:29.00
• Distance: 7.19 miles
• Average Pace: 9:06.28/mile

This run was made up of:
1 mile warm-up +
5 x (2 x 200m in 45s with 200m recovery + 1 x 400m in 1:30 with 400m recovery) +
1 mile cool-down.
I slowed down gradually through the run- mostly on the recovery, not the reps.

…is now 14.7 miles. I felt really crappy the first 8.5 miles (my first loop),
but after a quick stop for water, I felt amazing the final 10K (a second, different loop).
The funniest thing was, I passed some guy walking through the arboretum at mile 4, and said hi. Imagine my surprise when, 10 miles of running later, on the other side of town, I see the same guy again, still walking!
Miraculously, my sore hip and hamstring vanished without a trace after this run. They felt pretty bad midway through, but went away ne’re to return during the second half. I guess the moral is, when you feel bad, run farther!
I recorded a few splits:
Mile 8.5: 1:11:54
Next 10K:
Mile 1: 7:40
Mile 2: 7:26
Mile 3: 7:46
Final 3.2 miles: 25:27

Well, that’s over with.
I enjoyed the race a lot- cold, snowy, partly sunny on a very nice course. I cruised through the first 5K in about 21 minutes, right on pace to hit my goal time. I felt pretty good. I ran the next mile in about 7 minutes, slower than goal pace by a good bit. I wan’t worried though- I figured I could pick it up a little the next 2 miles. Which I tried to do. Unfortunately, my muscles had other ideas. At about mile 4.5, everything cramped up, and my stride length was drastically reduced. This continued for the next mile (which I ran in about 7:40- waaaay slower than goal pace). At mile 5.5, things loosened up a little and I finished off the last 0.7 miles at an average pace of 6:30 or so.
All in all, I enjoyed my first 10k, and look forward to improving my time with the help of experience.

Workout:

• Type: Run
• Date: 11/23/2007
• Time: 13:00:00
• Total Time: 2:00:13.00
• Distance: 14.7 miles
• Average Pace: 8:10.46/mile
• Max Pace: 6:50.02/mile

First 8.5 Miles: 1:11:54
Final 10K: 48:21

Tomorrow, my biggest race of the fall season: The Berbee Derby. Not huge by other’s standards, but huge by mine: over 2000 people will compete in either the 5K or 10K. That’s almost 10 times as many as raced in any of my other races this season. I want to do well. Based on past years results, I think I can hit top 5 in my AG. Place isn’t my primary focus though- time is. I want to race as hard as I can and as well as I can, both to prove to myself that I can race well in a distance greater than 5K, and to give myself an idea of what my goals should be over the next year of racing. With luck, this time tomorrow I will be planning out the glorious arc of… never mind. This time tomorrow I will be stuffing my face full of food.
Anyway, after this race, I plan to start building up mileage over the next 8 weeks (7 miles/week with a drop down to the base of the 4 week cycle every 4th week), getting ready to begin a training program focused on a spring marathon. Finally, I will run as much as I want to.
During this 8-week period, I will be trying to: increase my speed at a easy intensities, build endurance, and become comfortable with higher mileage. I may not make it to my current hoped-for mileage levels- I don’t know if I’ll be able to handle it. I have decided that if at any point during the build up I quit having fun or come close to injury, I will stop at that mileage level and adjust my plans.
Well, I wish everyone a happy holiday, and good luck to others who are racing tomorrow.

Warning: this post has absolutely nothing to do with fitness.
Ouch!
I spent 12 or so hours last night through this morning cranking out something like 20 pages of code for my most recent project (a computerized beatbox simulator). I got it running okay, but it still has an unnacceptably huge number of bugs in it. Well, I’ll just hope the TA doesn’t mind too much.
If I had been doing this in real-life, I just would have worked on it until it was a useable application, but since I had a kind of artificial deadline… I had to stop before I really reached that point. I may work on it a little more on my own, just so I can play around with it, but no one else will care if I do.
I forgot to go running yesterday, what with all the digital excitement, but I don’t think it really matters since I’m tapering and wasn’t going to do anything hard anyway. I’ll just move my easy run to today instead.

Workout:

• Type: Run
• Date: 11/18/2007
• Time: 14:46:20
• Total Time: 1:02:47.00
• Distance: 8.01 miles
• Average Pace: 7:50.59/mile

I’m now tapering for my peak event of the fall. I feel a little silly, tapering for something as short as a 10K. I also have more energy than I know what to do with. Well, I hope all this eagerness will pay off in 3 days!
I went rock-climbing yesterday with a bunch of friends. It was quite a bit of fun. However, aerobic fitness doesn’t really translate to climbing skill- in short, I suck. I don’t have the muscles in my forearms to keep at it more than a couple hours, or the neccesary skill and flexibility to do any difficult routes.
Apparently, rock-climbing is almost as expensive a hobby as triathlon- couple hundred for shoes, couple hundred for rope, fifty for titanium screws, etc. I doubt I’ll ever do it regularly until I’ve settled into a steadier income- I’d rather spend on a bike.

Pretty fast 4 miles.