Half Marathon, Baby

ran 5 to frisbee, played frisbee for 3+ hours, ran 3 home. what a day! leg was feeling fine during the games! unfortunately, on the way home i noticed an achy bump on my right ankle, right below that bone that juts out on the outside. i'm icing it now though, and i was able to uncomfortably still run on it, so it should be fine

i swear to god if this is a fracture...

edit: ok, almost certain now that it isn't. the swelling and pain respond to icing, making walking no problem. walking before the ice was difficult/painful. haynes, what is that ibuprofen dosage you always suggest? i'm gonna ice/drug the shit outta this thing. not running today though. i hope i'm ok tomorrow.

did "the pillar" core workout and 2x20 pushups

okkkk, so tried out the run since most of my pain was gone by the time i went to sleep last night. the start was a little shaky, but after a few miles things were good and we actually ended up picking up the pace a lot for the last 3. decided to let it go today, whatever. no pain when i finished running, or almost none. the pain i did feel was not in my foot, but was instead up in my hip flexor again. what a relief! took some ibuprofen and going for the long run tomorrow. also did 5 min core with jake.

very very hot, rough run. something like 90 degrees out with very little shade

easy run, first time in a longg time that i have started a run feeling good. no injury pains, muscles not too heavy, light step. i guess that's what happens though when the mileage drops a little like that lol. i made sure to stay easy though so that i can channel this into tomorrow's workout, 6x3 min with 3 min rest, continuous over 9 miles. 

6x3min fartlek with 3 min rests. start around 5:20-5:25 pace, pulled down to sub-5:20 by number 3 or 4, and even close to 5:10 on the last one. great workout. felt aerobic pretty much all the way through. the last one was definitely a push, though, and i started crossing the threshold i guess. still, happy with this.

pillar core workout after dinner

noonish: easy 4 on a treadmill at work

6pm: 6 miles easy with nim, 6 strides after

beginning with yesterday and today, it looks like things are going to pick up a bit! oh boy

easy run. pretty heavy throughout, but felt a little better at the end i think.

6 easy instead of an off day. still heavy, yeesh. 8 steady tomorrow. also a MTG prerelease lol.

8 mile tempo. damn, that was a run. we coulda/shoulda warmed up, but whatev. overall jake and i did 49:35 (cab blocked towards end, shoulda been like 49:30-33). roughly 6:11 average. miles were:

6:19

6:03 (ow)

5:59 (ow, warm now, getting control)

6:10

6:10

6:13

6:16

6:20 (blocked by a cab at 6:15 pace)

it wasn't the MOST consistent run, but it was still decently consistent I think. never felt like i was racing, breathing was under control, muscles were where i felt it. i'm happy with it though!

nothin like a long run in the morning to shake off the grogginess (read "hangover").. 60 mile week last week! i think that's my first one haha

beast. 9 miles with 4 mile tempo in the middle. i wasn't feeling great, but not terrible either. goal was like 5:52-5:53 pace, so 23:30. we ran 23:32, which i am super happy with after the past two days, yeesh. the run was weird, we ended up going 5:56, (jake and i then ran into derek, who ran the next two miles with us) 5:57, 5:49!, 5:50! bringing in the goal time. again, not super even splits, but the first half was even and the second half was even after we picked it up (much thanks to derek; i definitely was cursing him for leading us out when he was so fresh). i must also say that the weather was pretty perfect by the time we started. the sun was basically covered, and the temperature was prolly mid-70s. next two days will be easy easy easy. thursday is fartlek, 7x3min on/off

followed up after dinner with pillar core workout

am: 4 easy on treadmill at work

pm: 7 easy, 4 strides with jake. had some momentary lower calf discomfort while stretching, but i think i was just over-doing the stretch. back to normal now.

8 easy, hottt 94 degrees out, finished with a stride lol

whattt a sloppy run.. 90+ degrees out. started the 7x3min on/off workout by myself and it just failed. i got through 1 at like 5:46 pace and most of another before i realized that it wasn't happening. from there i just sorta picked up when i felt it and slowed down whenever. it was pretty pathetic. basically a slightly faster easy run...

noon: 5 easy on treadmill at work

pm: 6 easy/moderate with jake

off day. core workout

2 days off in a row, FAIL... couldn't run in morning, was busy, during the day it was 95 out and i was busy, when i wasn't busy i had to decide between running or seeing Inception first and then running when it was dark. i decided to see the movie, then got home at like 9:45 and was like no way i'm running 14 starting now when i have work tomorrow. wtf. so i'm gonna double a bunch this week to hit the same mileage, minus a long run. blah. wtfever. first 2 days off in a row since May. at first i was gonna run at 5 am before work, then have 8 easy afterwards, but that didn't seem like a great idea... i had dreams about telling people i missed my long run! lol.. gotta take a step back and get over it, do the miles throughout the week, and keep going. two days with so little running made me realize i like the breaks. but no time for that yet...

11am: 5 easy on treadmill. beginning of make-up miles for the missing 14 from yesterday. i'm sure this treadmill moves faster than it says it does, but whatever. i did it's "8 min" pace and it helped me work on my turnover sort of.

6pm: 8 easy/moderate

6 strides

9 steady at 6:30 pace became 9 cutdown-ish... prolly overdid it but whatever. first mile was sort of a warmup at 7:00. after 2 miles or so, i just started looking at the half-miles and shooting for (under) 3:15. starting with mile 4 or so things got faster somehow. i probably just got warmed up finally. then i tried to keep it fast etc. anyway, overall time was 57:29, which is about 6:23 pace average. last 8 miles were in 6:18 pace, and last 7 were like 6:17 pace, and last 6 were 6:15 pace. the first 3 miles (mostly the first one) throw off the time a little, but whatever. bowels didn't like this run, so i felt a little sick afterwards, especially after downing wayy too much sushi. but it was ok. i felt tired and crummy before the run, so i am glad that this turned out with a decent time. i've been tired and heavy since last week's shenanigans and i think this finally broke down the wall that was building. i hope it doesn't build another one by wrecking me for the week. i didn't feel thatt good doing it.

meant to split this 10 into a double, woopsss. i forgot my shorts at home though when i went to work.. then i left my shoes at work lol, so i just used old shoes to run in. gonna double the next two days to finish making up for sunday. anyway, today felt pretty nice once nim and i got going. 4 strides afterwards. these strides are my speed work, for now at least lol

11:30am: 8 easyish on treadmill. i still think that thing goes fast, or else my form is off when i'm on a treadmill. doing the longer run early today since i have to make it to a dinner with family and guests tonight.

6pm: 5 easy. with this doubling, if my week was Monday through Sunday, i'd be doing a 74 mile week lol

edit: by 74 i mean 80... ba-bam

decided not to double today. i'll only miss 4 miles, which isn't a big deal in the long run, and the recovery/not overtraining will do more for me than the 4 miles. 9 miles at 5:30pm, 8 miles with 4 mile tempo tomorrow.

9 easy in the evening with jake and his friend mike levine from his school. apparently mike is very fast lol, but he's out of shape right now. darn genes! lol.. the run was kinda crazy, started hot and muggy, then the storm rolled in and things cooled off and there was lightning all over the place! lol. it was sweet

4 mile tempo with 2 warm up and 2 cooldown. we weren't feeling great, my knee was hurting me.. jake wanted to at least go under 24, which i was sure we'd do. jake's friend mike was with us too. we ended up running 23:29, and mike went ahead the last mile to do 23:10. the time is fine by me, but the way we ran it was silly. 5:58, 5:58, 5:58, last mile some asshole driving doesn't want to stop for us and slams his brakes, even though we had stopped already to let him go and even though 2 other cars were already stopped for us; this causes a shouting match, i flip him off, mike moons him (LOL), and we take off to run 5:35 (mike does like 5:16...)

moderate pace, had a couple of stops, but probably averaged about 7 min pace, with a few miles under 7

9 steady. usually these are supposed to be around 6:30 pace, but that's tough to pull out when it's a 9 mile run and 9 mile day, so no warmup sort of. it's also kind of lenient. after the past two days i decided not to run this one as fast as last time. this whole short tempo long run, long tempo stuff is tough, so i think turning it down a notch was a good call. ran it in 59:57 (6:39.67 pace) with the first mile in 7:12 to start warming up (last 8 miles in 52:45, 6:35.63 pace). a couple miles after that were around 6:45, then finally got to 6:30 around 4 miles in and kept it there, plus or minus 3 seconds. felt pretty good i guess, even for being tight-ish at the start. i'm beginning to think that miles 3 to 6 of this run are marked wrong though. 

noon: 40 min = 5 easy. i don't trust treadmills anymore

evening: 7 easy-moderate, mid-low 7s, maybe under 7 for some. we ran with a girl who was this year's illinois state cross country champion (she ran 17:11 for 3 miles at State). she's going to wisconsin next year and hasn't really trained much yet, so she and mike got to jump-start their training with jake and I lol.. anyway, we went faster than we shoulda, and today was supposed to be 4 and 7 but i was gonna do 5 and 6 to make an early-ish dinner till jake called... it worked out though lol

9 easy/moderate.. been doing the easy runs kinda fast lately and i can feel i'm not getting as rested as i'd like. also prolly because of a lack of sleep. i dunno. but once this run got going, things were better. we picked up the second half a bit.

originally this was 10 with 6x4 min hard with 4 min rest, but in the interest of time and because of my own fatigue/frustration at the time, I decided to do 9 miles (did an extra one two days ago) with 5x4 min with 4 min rest. i also haven't done one of these workouts in a few weeks, and i'd like to build back into them. this went much better than the last time i attempted it. first 800 of first bout was 2:48, kinda slow, 5:36 pace, so i picked up a little. no time on the next two, but they were considerably faster than the first one. probably mid 5:20s for the second bout and low 5:20s or maybe dipped under 5:20 for the third one. fourth one i had a time on, 2:36 at the half, 5:12 pace. last one, i didn't have an exact time, but at a half-mile marker i took the time (1:36) and then wanted to see how close to 800 meters i would get in the remaining 2:24. i was pretty close, maybe 50-75 meters away. the calculator says that 750m in 2:24 is 2:33.6 pace, 5:07. i felt kinda crappy (mostly sleepy) before the workout, but the 2-mile warmup was fast and helped. by the end of the second bout i felt good. at the end of the workout i felt like i could have run another one, but was breathing heavily. i'm happy with this workout, despite the lack of accuracy for some of the times. 1.5 mile cooldown

easy 8, swapped tomorrow's run with today's off day. pretty uncomfortable, weird places hurt. like my knees.