Day 43 - Finally feeling better

Still need to recap the days I was under the weather but with work being busy (Valentine's Day volume) and trying to catch up on stuff I didn't do when I was blotto it is taking me longer than I would like.  Today I got in a swim workout and a shorter than I would have liked bike but time once again got away from me.

Today I swam 2000 yards - did a 400 yard warm up doing some freestyle and then some kickboard with fins.  Followed that with a set of drills - fingertip, catchup and one armed.  The third part was supposed to be a sprint set but I am sorta lacking in that regard right now so was more of a labored 800 yards of freestyle rather than a fast one.  Then cooled down with some breast stroke and back stroke and pounded out a length of butterfly just to show myself I still have it ... pretty sure it looked like near drowning to anyone that cared to watch though.

Did 45 minutes or so on the bike spinning high cadence on my big ring ... watched some Lake Placid bike course talks - sounds like a beast - I need some serious time in the saddle!!

Day 42 - 10 miler down but still not feeling good

Felt lousy all day at work today but had a 10 miler on tap today and had to put it down.

Ran a half marathon pace for the first five miles than turned it up to my 10k pace for the second five.  Was fun dodging puddles and leaping over snow - but ended up coming home with wet feet, sand and salt covered legs and a wind blown face.

Decent times but did nothing to make me feel better (physically) ... hope to feel better soon this cold has crushed me for 5 days now.

Splits:
mile 1 - 8:50
mile 2 - 8:59
mile 3 - 9:02
mile 4 - 9:05
mile 5 - 8:59  (first half 44:57)
mile 6 - 8:30
mile 7 - 8:08
mile 8 - 8:05
mile 9 - 8:10
mile 10 - 7:48 (total time 1:25:40)

Team SunRype and my rough weekend

Today I did the Webinar for my new sponsor SunRype ... I am really looking forward to this as the product sounds excellent and it is a much larger team than Team New Skin my sponsor for last season.  I will post a more detailed synopsis about Team SuRype and my responsibilities later in the week.

NY got crushed by a blizzard this week - almost at the same time that I got crushed with a wicked cold.  Other than today's 10 mile run and a bike session I got all my workouts in this week regardless.  Tomorrow I will recap the week and post the results of my 10 mile tempo run (which I will do tomorrow as I will hopefully feel better) ...

Lack of updates did not mean lack of workouts - it's still coming along - just first rough week so far (I am sure there will be others).

 

Day 35 - First 20 mile run ... done ...

I never did get to the Spinervals "sweating buckets" yesterday - had a 4 hour cub scout function and then various family stuff and then the Super Bowl hooked me in for the second half.  

My biggest run to date was today.  20 miler scheduled and at 31 degrees and ice on the ground I can't say I was stoked to hit the road.  Regardless - I set up my 10 mile nutrition and set up to do an out and back.  My coach wanted me to run a 10:40 pace for 10 miles and then run a negative split on the second half.  I can't settle into that pace - I tried and repeatedly settled into 9:40 so that is where I decided to sit for the first 10.  My coach also told me to run the first 10 with my arms below my waist - I did that and the run seemed effortless despite the wind.  Second half was harder but I did push the pace and my arms were much more involved.  

Miles 1-5 (9:40, 9:40, 9:31, 9:39, 9:45) 48:16

Miles 5-10 (9:23, 9:41, 9:36, 9:39, 9:31) 47:50  First 10 1:36:06

Miles 11-15 (8:42, 8:33, 8:43, 8:55, 8:32) 43:45

Miles 16-20 (8:18, 8:46, 8:57, 8:45, 8:27) 43:13 Negative split of 9 minutes

Spent 1:35 in my heart zone (the entire second 10 miles) and burned 4112 calories ...

I felt great the first 10 miles - started falling apart in mile 17 and had to use a lot of mind game stuff to try to keep a strong pace to the finish.  If nothing else this winter marathon training has shown me I can handle some severe weather and I will be able to run a much faster half marathon - I have to keep my goal for the marathon as just to finish and get a time goal out of my head because at this point I think that will be the deal breaker.

Having never run a marathon - right now my thought is to try to run a 9:20 through the first 10 - then try to take it to 8:45 for the next 10 and hopefully break down the wall and keep to 9:00 for the final 10k ... might be wishful thinking on my part but I want to go sub 4 hours badly.

Day off tomorrow - working on kids Pinewood cars ... derby is Saturday and the procrastinator I am we are still only 50% done ...

Day 33 - The quest continues and Zico is my manna

Holy bad luck - went to swim today and again a swim meet had the pool on lockdown for 6 hours!!

I guess I need to get the weekly schedule ahead of time so I don't waste an hour driving there from work just to go home.  At least I made it to the gym yesterday and caught up on my missed weight training.

What I did get to do today was my interval training and it gave me a nice sweat.  I really suck at running inclines but I guess in time I will get better and be able to go at high grades for longer.  I made it 2 minutes at 10% grade and 7mph for 2 minutes before I had to drop the grade back down.  The 10 week plan has me maxing out at 14 degrees and 5 minutes - can't even imagine that right now.

My Sunday is filled with family and cub scout stuff but I do have a Spinervals workout planned - I will be doing Sweating Buckets and will give feedback on that DVD tomorrow night.  The only other Spinervals DVD I have is Threshold Test and Sufferfest which was filled in a car dealership and the leader tells you when to shift or ride harder.  I assume Sweating Buckets will be more of the same but I guess I will offend my family faster by dripping everywhere.

Today's random stuff - my race last week fulfilled my obligation to Team New Skin and I have accepted a new sponsorship opportunity as a member of Team SunRype.  If anyone is interested in something like this you need an ActiveAdvantage account and you need to fill in information about yourself and your race plans for the season - Active puts together at least 30 teams of 20-50 members and you get race kits, free product and other goodies - in turn you need to rep the product.  I am fairly outgoing and forward anyway - just gave me more of a reason to talk to people at races and give them free samples.  After my phone conference with the team leaders on Thursday I will know more of what is expected of me from my new team.

Is there a product you love?  After my running workouts I always grab a Chocolate Zico.  During my long runs I have been putting one at the mid point of my run and having another when I get home.  To me the taste is just better than any sports drink and the potassium content is as high as a banana (I don't like banana's).  At $2.50 a bottle though it is pricey and while I love drinking it my wallet cries every week when I need to buy at least 4 of them at $10 ... about a year ago Amazon had a deal for 12 bottles shipped to your house for $22 postage paid once a month ... I was ALL OVER THAT.  Of course the program ended immediately most likely due to high demand.  

Days 30 and 31 - Keep on keeping on!

One month in and I know I am already a faster runner with so much more improvement still to come!

Two days of pretty hard workouts and I am really beat.  Working 10 hours and trying to fit in 2 hours of workouts is nice in theory but leaves me pretty zombified.

Yesterday my workout consisted of an hour of swim drills - I never used to do drills - I would just pound out laps of freestyle - do as many laps for a mile or a mile and a quarter or mile and a half and go home.  I never got faster but I could confidently say I could swim the distance.  Drills whup my butt and help me get better with form - which in theory should then help me perform better come race days.  So here is what I did at the pool:

    WU-  100 Swim free
         150 Kick w/fins and board
         100 Swim free
         150 Kick w/fins and board

   12 x 50  (First and fourth time use fins)
         1- 6 count catch-up free
         2- 3 count arm switch
         3- breaststroke w/buoy
         4- fingertipdrag

    3 x 200 Pulling Free w/paddles and buoy
                       (breathing pattern 3/5/7/3 per 100)

WD-   200 choice

TY-     1,900 yards

I really really suck at fingertip drag drills and it become hard to hold my breath for 7 strokes but I can see how both of these can help me become a better swimmer.  I was pretty tired after this but then went home jumped on my bike and rode for an hour and 20 minutes (I watched the movie Daybreakers - not bad) .  I was supposed to go 5 minutes hard 5 minutes easy repeating over and over but eventually I just fell into a pattern and just dripped.  For the record I have multiple sensors on my bike and I record all my rides inside as "bike rides" and not "other workouts.

Today I was supposed to run and do the gym but only got the run in (my day off tomorrow will now have a gym workout).  I was slated to run 10 miles with a 9 min average for the first 5 miles and then go negative split on the second half.  Today it was about 44 degrees out which was nice but there were wind guts of 40-50 mph which made for a challenging run.  At times I felt I was standing still I was being buffeted so hard but when I hit the five mile point at exactly 45 minutes I got fired up and did run the negative split. 

My splits today were 8:41, 8:46, 8:55, 9:17, 9:19 (first 5 45:00), 8:29, 8:09, 8:22, 8:27, 8:14 (second half 41:37) ... total time 1:26:37

I have only run one competitive 10 mile race and did it in 1:34:24 ... I need to do another one sometime and see how I do in a race situation.

Day 28's recap on Day 29 ... running in freezing rain sucks ...

My session yesterday went like this:

The weather called for early snow switching to freezing rain so I wanted to beat the rain ...

I executed my plan for a change and was out of the house by ten after nine. ... snow flurries but nothing terrible and I paced nicely for the first three miles.  I had to watch my feet and run more in the street then usual because I didn't want to wipe out on any ice.  From mile 3 1/2 to mile 5 1/2 were pretty bad - I ran into a headwind and was getting my face blasted with the blowing snow.  Kept telling myself I turn almost 90 degrees - and the wind would no longer be at my face - that is the good and the bad part of doing the same long runs - you know every mile mark.  Felt good to get the snow out of my face and I continued fine until the 8 mile mark.

At this point I had to turn back south and into the blowing snow.  I took an eGel and 10 ounces of water as I waited for a passing train.  Got a bunch of weird looks from people in cars as snow was actively sticking to me at this point.  Next 1 3/4 miles was directly into the snow which was fine as the wind had slowed a little and over heating was not an issue at all.     

When I left the house I had geared up with my 4 bottles on the fuel belt, 2 waters and 2 eFuel.  I also took two efuel gels and one Gu gel with caffeine.  By mile twn as I approached my mom's house I was down to one bottle of eFuel and still had an efuel gel and the Gu.  The bag that I had my son place on the bench in my moms back yard with my second half nutrition was missing !!!

I looked in every other hiding place on the back porch and back yard - nothing.  Could my mom have brought my bag inside?  I find her hide a key (the plan was to NOT go inside this time - so much for that) and I check the fridge - nothing!  Grabbed a banana off her counter and ate that while I fumed - and then I saw my bag on her couch - with my now warm stuff in it - ugh.  I drank my Zico - refilled my bottles - 2 with water and 1 with efuel and set off.

The next mile was good - and I figured I could go another 4 before my pace would falter but then the sky opened up and I got poured on for 20 minutes solid.  In hindsight a cotton sweatshirt was a REALLY bad option at this point but I had planned to beat the rain and now I had a good 6 miles to suffer through it.  I trudged on and I could feel my strength and will sapping with each puddle I crashed through and each rain drop that hit my face.  But the real kicker was when I ran down by the water between miles 14 and 15 - I had a headwind and I was cold - and I actually walked being mad at myself the whole time.  Forward motion - almost done - in my marathon I will walk through water stops in the second half - none of this made me feel good so I tried to run on - and I did.

The rain slowed considerably from mile 16 to the end - more of a mist with spritzing but I was already soaked and carrying a ton of water weight in my sweatshirt (at least it felt like that) and I near sprinted the final 3/4 of a mile just desperate to be done.  

Now over 24 hours since my run my quad and glutes are sore - but otherwise I am no worse for wear - tomorrow is a swim and bike so another "run recovery day" hopefully my wheels will be ready to hit the pavement again come Thursday.

Splits:

1 - 9:04

2 - 8:58

3 - 9:13

4 - 9:17

5 - 9:17

6 - 8:57

7 - 8:53

8 - 9:07

9 - 9:11

10 - 9:35

(stopped 9 minutes at Mom's)

11 - 9:11

12 - 9:39

13 - 9:46

14 - 9:57

15 - 10:04

16 - 9:45

17 - 9:48

18 - 10:17

Was at a 7:12 pace the final 3/4 mile ...

Spent 2:38 in my heart zone out of 2:57 running ... 18.76 total miles, 4003 calories burned, total run 9:27 average.

Did the good husband thing and stripped just inside the front door and dumped all my clothes into a laundry basket I had left for myself.   Was cold and drenched - drank a zico and heated up some hot cocoa.  My legs were super stiff so I took 2 advils and took a warm shower for way longer than I usually do.

Very rough run with the weather but I have to be ready for any conditions - who knows what weather the marathon will be like less than a month away in New England.