Last Year

Last year I was driving home from Alabama, ran in Chicago and found 5 inches of snow in MN.  Week 10 didn’t go well last year! I was a little sick, my leg hurt, and more traveling.  My unscientifc poll showed that only 1/3 of my readers stretch before and after every run. You might recall that after finishing last year’s Little Rock Marathon, Adam Nickel died suddenly.  A month later his cause of death was announced.  This time last year was the London  Marathon – with lots of Ryan Hall hype I highlighted the Massai Warriors and their marathon attempt – before and after. Last year’s Foto Friday was the last of my memoribilia from my wall of fame.

Mileage

Run – 15 Miles
Bike – 8 Miles

Monday since this is Spring Break I had hoped to have some fun with my training this week – going places I don’t usually get to go.  Today I decided to check out Pike Island.  We had walked around a little bit yesterday there so I knew it would be flooded – I wasn’t expecting what I found though!  I ran through 4 flooded areas.  The first was easily traversed with a fallen tree, the second went over my ankles in cold water, the third was a muddy mess that had me completely losing the trail and turning around, and the fourth was about to the middle of my shin (around 6-10 inches) deep of cold water.  I think it was about 3.5 miles and the time is pretty irrelevant.  Be sure to check out these videos that I created after running there.   I should also note that my Garmin is still at the repair shop.

Tuesday was interval workout. 5 x 800 at 10k pace was on the schedule.  The only local track that I know is open to the public is at the University of St Thomas so I drove over there and did my warm-up.  My goal 10k pace is 6:26 which would make a 3:13 800. I handled that pretty well – 2:39,2:53, 2:54, 3:04, 2:57.  I had about 200m active recovery time in between (all less than 2 minutes).  After a short break I decided to finish the workout off with a 400 and a 200.  I ran them in 1:13 and 0:35 respectively.  I had to share the track with some female track members and the football team was using their field in middle so that was a little different than I expected.  Obviously I felt tired, but I felt pretty good about the workout and enjoyed running on the track.

Wednesday I decided to try something a little different.  I had just been reading about recovery days and hard days in Running Times and it was saying that you could do two hard days back to back as long as you followed with two recovery days.  Since the schedule called for two off days before the weekend’s race I decided to give it a try and ran my 30 minute tempo run.  It seemed a little odd today given my schedule to drive 30 minutes to run 30 minutes so I just ran along the Greenway. I actually ran on the rocky section next to the Greenway which does have some nice flat trail (but not recommended).  I did about 4.25 miles (still no Garmin) in exactly 30 minutes, ok 30:06.  My legs were pretty tired from yesterday’s track workout (as expected)!

Thursday I didn’t run.  However, we did have a staff versus student basketball game.  We got ripped off – students reffed and the scorekeepers did a terrible job.  We lost by 3 points in over time.  Not too shabby for 7 “old people” who don’t play much against about 15 middle schoolers who play all the time.   This may have been a mistake because my foot was almost done hurting and it started back again.  I was also a lot more tired and sore than I expected to be – so maybe I ended up having 3 hard days in a row.  The game also ruined a lot of the benefits of the massage I received in the morning. I also stood around at a bonfire for a few hours which tends to make my heel hurt worse. Ugh.

Friday I didn’t run. I didn’t bike. I took the day 100% off.

Saturday I ran the Fred Kurz Memorial 10 mile run.  This was a time-handicapped race – with the handicap being assessed at the beginning. The first runners left at 8:30 and I left at 9:30 with several runner starting after me.  I ended up running the 10 mile race in 1:10:31 which was pretty close to my goal of 1:08.  I cramped about halfway through otherwise I’m pretty happy with my performance. My Garmin arrived which was great timing!

Sunday was a great celebration of Easter and the resurrection of Jesus.  We enjoyed time with friends and spending the day together.  We rode our bikes around the neighborhood hanging up flyers for an upcoming event and put about 10 miles on the bike.  It was all at a nice leisurly pace which felt good.

Weekly Mileage

Run – 23.5 Miles
Bike –  21.7 Miles

Last Year

Week 9 last year of training was pretty low due to traveling (coming home from Easter weekend and flying to Alabama for a wedding), not to mention that I had some  severe pain on a mid-week run.  Last year I was doing monthly highlights of blog posts – you can see March’s here.  Let me know which format you like better.  What do you think about Zen Running? Last year’s Foto Friday was a nasty picture of me finishing the Human Race.

Weekly Mileage

Running –  22 miles

Monday was my standard 3.24 miles around the Metrodome loop.  It was 34 with a 29 wind chill and a nice sunrise hitting the skyline for an easy run.  I felt pretty good and I was wearing my new Brooks Adrenaline GTS 8. I finished in 26:08.

Tuesday was a 3x mile repeat at race pace.  My goal race pace is 6:50 so that was the goal for these along the Greenway. It was 34 with a 24 wind chill and a little bit of rain.  I did a 10 minute warm-up and then one repeat before turning around.  It was a nice tail wind on the way out which made for a not so nice head wind for the last 2 repeats.  My times were 6:19, 6:47, 6:34 so I did well – except the workouts purpose was to train your body to run the right pace not an all out effort.  Still, I’m not going to complain.

Wednesday I did my modified loop around Powderhorn which turned out to be 3.5 miles on a snowy morning.  A dusting on the ground and flurries falling.  It was 34 with a 24 wind chill.  Nothing too exciting on this almost 29 minute run.

Thursday was a nice day off, too bad it was a nice day outside too.  I had discovered that my Garmin was no longer beeping during workouts and talked with customer service.  It sounds like my speaker stopped working so I’m sending it in for repairs.

Friday was my first workout with out my Garmin and it was a little weird.  Not a lot of data to crunch – but I didn’t feel the freedom that I sometimes feel when not wearing it.  I ran between 7 and 7.5 miles around Lake Calhoun and Lake of the Isles – tacking on a little bit at the end to get to the 50 minute mark.  It was 40 with no wind chill but the breeze coming off the lakes was still pretty cool due to ice still hanging on.  I’m not sure of my “tempo” but I’m pretty sure I got down pretty close for awhile.  I’m glad they maintain porta-potties around the lakes all year long!

Saturday we met at the Jensen Lake Trailhead again and did an hour warm-up on the East side of the park’s trails. We maintained a pretty steady pace throughout and enjoyed the cool morning – it was about 30.  It warmed up during this part of the run and most of us shed layers as we headed out for the second part.  The second part was a tough hill workout on the “zoo trails” section of the Lebanon Hills park.  It includes one killer hill (that we run twice) and lot of other hills.  I was dragging pretty bad by the end of the 2 hour workout.  It is somewhere around 15 miles.

Sunday my wife and were going to go swimming at the Midtown YWCA, but when we got there the pool was closed for their indoor triathalon.  We decided to drive over to the Uptown YWCA, hoping that their pool would be open.  There is a different feel at their pool.  It feels more like a lap pool – the Midtown  YW has a huge slide and kid section in the same area as the lap pool.  Also most of the time that we swim it is during a Master’s class and they take up all but 2 lanes, while this morning at the Midtown pool there was no closed lanes.  Finally, the Midtown YWCA is 25 meters not 25 yards like the Uptown one.  All that to say I swam 500 meters.  My right shoulder hurt this week again about 3/4 of the way through.

Weekly Mileage

Running – 35.3 miles

Swimming – 500 meters

Last Year

Running – 39 miles

This was Easter week last year and between the Human Race 8k and traveling home for Easter my Week 8 training was a little messed up.  I discovered how to create “blog bling” or the little picture of me in the address bar.  Being back in Indiana and having easy access to dirt trails made me long for trail running.  I think I’m at that point again this year, I think in part because it is a long wait for trails to clear and not be a complete muddy mess.  Even before the 100 push-up craze hit the blogosphere I was extolling the benefits of the push-up for all around physical fitness.  Last year’s Foto Friday was a terrible picture of me finishing at the Human Race.

Monday I ran the Metrodome 3.25 mile loop in 25 minutes.  It was a nice 42 outside with a wind chill of 38.  It had rained earlier in the morning, but didn’t while I was out.  I was sore from the Human Race but loosened up by the end of the run.

Tuesday was another great morning for a workout.  Today was 4 x800 meters in around 6:30 pace (or 3:15). It was 51 with a little wind and overcast.  I did the intervals on the Greenway, heading East.  My splits were 3:04, 3:04, 2:59, 3:00.  Obviously I was quite pleased to have all the intervals under goal pace – even with the wind.  This workout made me feel a lot better about where my running is.

Wednesday I did a nice easy run around Powderhorn.  This time I actually ran my old two lap route around the lake. it was 3.3 miles in 27 minutes. The temp was a nice 38 but the gusty winds brought the wind chill down to 14.  It was also flurrying and starting to stick – though it never accumulated.

Thursday was a nice day of rest!

Friday I went looking for a different place to run and decided to head to Wirth Beach and run around Theodore Wirth Park.  I haven’t run there very often and stuck mostly to the Grand Rounds Parkway before.  I could clearly see some of the trails and decided to take them.  I didn’t really know where they went or anything, but soon found a map that showed some general directions.  I was a little disappointed because I was on the paved trail section but they went North and caught the parkway and that’s what I decided to do.  After catching the parkway I was presented with a dirt trail option or staying on the paved trail – obviously I took the dirt path and eventually found myself back on the road – but not where I expected, nor did it have anything to offer besides sidewalk running so I turned around.  I retraced my steps and stayed on the parkway heading back south.  I got back to the beach area with about 10 minutes left so I kept running and found another little trail near the Bird Sanctuary and ran the dirt paths for a little bit.  It was a good run – didn’t really hit tempo pace but I pushed the pace when I could and felt solid with it. It ended up being 5.77 miles in 43 minutes on the sunny and windy morning – 24 with 14 wind chill.

Saturday we met at Jensen Lake in Lebanon Hills which was a great change of pace and scenery.  The plan was to run between 90 minutes and 2 hours but after arriving back at our cars after 90 minutes most of us were ready to be done.  We had logged a tough 12 miles on the rolling hills around the park.  It was a sunny and brisk morning in the mid-20’s when we started and into the 30’s by the end.  It took us about 94 minutes and I was feeling it more in my legs than anywhere else.  If you want a tough hill workout this is the place to go!  The trail was virtually ice free with some small remnants here and there.  One nice thing about the freezing temps was that the trail wasn’t muddy at all.

Sunday my foot was hurting last night so I opted to go for a swim again this morning.  I managed to get 400 yards out of the morning before becoming worn out.  I did a mixture of freestyle and using the kickboard.  It was nice to finish off with a sit in the hottub!!

Total Mileage:

Running – 29.6 miles

Swimming -400 yards

Biking – 7.8 miles