Week's running record

I ran a 5K at work in 28:39 about 2 weeks ago.  That means that I've lost 4 minutes since surgery.  It's weird - every other physical activity I'm back up to where I was before (even pullups).  Oh well - we'll get it back.

My wife, our 10yo, and I were supposed to run another 5K the weekend after the work one, but the 10yo got queasy and we left.

This week, I did 3 runs:
The treadmills 20 minute hill workout (I walked about 2 minutes of it)
a 2 mile easy run in the middle of the week
5 miles yesterday, at 6mph.  I walked 30s in the middle.

3 runs this week

So I have a race next week, the one I sponsor twice a week at work.  I'm still a bit slower than before the surgery.  (I can do most everything else I used to could (sorry, I had to say it that way), such as pullups, pushups, situps.  I guess I can't reach the first knuckle past my toes either...)

Tuesday I wanted to see if I could do it at a 7mph average.  I couldn't - I made it 1.5 miles.
Saturday, I wanted to see if I could do it at 9 min/mile.  I made it 2 miles, but I ran out of time and had to go to...

... the finish line to watch my daughter finish a "Girls on the Run" race.  She's been running for about 2 months, and this was her first 5K.

(I tried to get her into running a few years ago, but she was (and probably still is) more into short sprints).

They finished sometime between 45 and 55.  The timer at the finish line had shut off for some reason.


Later in the afternoon, I decided that part of why I'm still slow(er) is that I haven't done anything to strengthen my legs (since muscle strength contributes to oxygen consumption rate or something like that). So I did a hill session on the treadmill, doing each incline level between 2 and 10, running at 5mph at each one and walking at 3mph between each one at the same level.  I did 2,3,4,5,9 at 2 minutes and 6,7,8,10 at 1 minute.

Going up the stairs was hard after that.

Runs of the week

I tried some speed work this week.

Tuesday I wanted to run a 7 minute mile, made it halfway and then did 2 more half miles somewhere around 7 or 7.5.

Saturday I wanted to run a 24:45 5K (7.5 mph), did a half mile (see a pattern?), and then 8 mph for .5 miles, .3 miles, and .25 miles.

Exercise update

I haven't exercised properly in over a week.  Oops.  I've been staying up too late and not sleeping enough, and have been exhausted pretty much since last Tuesday, so I haven't felt the desire to exercise. 

But after my 2-hour nap and 10 hours of sleep, I might be ready to start again in a few days.  Or later.  I have already put on the "you're not exercising" buffer weight.

I guess you might count biking with the children and being throttled in a sparring match with my instructor as exercise...

4 miles

So today I decide to try to add some distance if it kills me.  I have a problem though, and that is I find running slower than a certain speed "unacceptable".  This is part of why over the last few weeks I only made it ~1.8 before finishing on all but a few of the runs.

Anyway - I pretty steadily increased from 6.0 to 6.5 and back down for the duration of the run and ended up with 4 miles at 38:42 (5K split at 30:03).

We were sore.

Another small run

I'm never going to get to that half marathon in November if I never try to run further. :)

Today I wanted to experiment with speeds on the treadmill.  So I did minutes at the following (or something like this):
5
6
6
9
8
7
3
6
6.5
6.6
6.7
6.8
3
7
310 - 9 (20s at 10)
3
8
7
3
6.8
4.5 * this and below is my "standard" cooldown
4
3.5
3
2.5

Saturday small run

So, I start running on Saturday, intending on doing 4 miles (1 more than the last run), but only made it about 1.8.  Got too tired, and decided to not push myself more this week.

But my wife ran a 10K!  Isn't that awesome?  She's never done one before.  And, she wanted to be able to beat me in a race.  Well, there's no way I'm up to 10K right now, so she got me.  Well done!

Ode to the Sweat Line

Oh, sweat line, how do I love thee, let me count the ways:
1 - It feels cool to exercise hard enough to earn it
2 - ...
3 - ...

I made it 5K tonight!!  In 31:12, slightly less than an average of 6mph.  That almost makes me feel comfortable enough to start planning a work 5K.  Yesterday, I made 1.5, going from 6 - 7 and back down.

Running

Hey, I get to do a 'running' post!  Well, it's not really running yet, but we're twice as close as we used to be.

The last status was that I did .25 miles in 8:45 (1.7mph).  Well, a day or two later, I did it in 7:30 (2mph).  Yesterday, I did .5 mile in 11:00 (2.7mph average), with the first quarter at 2.5 mph (6 min) and the second quarter at 3mph (5 min).  Which is almost a respectable walking pace.  When I was done, I was almost starting to sweat, and I had to do a cooldown walk in the 1s to give my legs a break.

Then I took a half hour nap at work a few hours later, and had to catch up a little bit in the evening.

The ironic part of this is that a month ago, 2.5 and 3 were the slowest pace I would ever be willing to go, and they would be the tail end of a cooldown of a hard run.

On the other hand, at this rate, if I can drop my quarter mile time by one minute every day or two, then tomorrow I'll be about to do a 49 minute 5K, and the next day a 36 minute 5K, and the next day 24 minutes, and the next day 12 minutes (world record), and then 0 minutes (Buzz Lightyear speed).

Of course, linear progression is very impossible, so we'll take what we can get.

First real hard run since being sick

Oooh!  I made it - I did a hard run again.  I did part of a hard run on Wed, but did full out.

10 min: 20s 9mph, 1:40 8.5, 2:00 8.2, 6:00 8
3 min easy
8 min hard - same pattern, but with 4:00 at 8 (and I except I had to stop and poop in the middle, so I'm not sure how to count that)
3 min easy
6 min hard - just at 8mph
3 min easy
3 min 8 mph

I measured my heart rate with the fingers on my neck, and got 174 20s after the last 3 min.

Still not better... running anyway

So the day after that run a few days ago I felt like utter crap.  I debated going to the doctor again.

So I did nothing that day and got like 10 hours of sleep.  Then the next I felt a *little* better, and ran 5 minutes at 5mph to make sure I didn't kill myself, and did some singing and trumpet playing to "exercise my lungs" (stupid theory, they're staying closed because I'm not using them).  I felt okay yesterday and today so far, but still a little congested.  So I ran again today, saying to only run at 6mph, but after 15 minutes I got bored (I guess that's a good sign) so I increased a few points and then 1 point every minute to hit 30 minutes at 7.7.

We'll see if we're dead again tomorrow.

Finally running again!!

So, I've been sick for about 2 1/2 weeks.  After my 4.5 mile run 3 Saturdays ago, I felt a cold/flu coming on.  I was pretty sick Sunday-Tuesday, but was still having breathing issues. Like an awesome stubborn person, I didn't go to the doctor.  One reason was I had a follow-up dr appointment for ANOTHER problem, last Monday (8 days ago).

In the middle of that, last Wednesday, I run about 5 minutes at 5 mph and got exhausted.

Anyway, I finally go to the doctor last Saturday.  He said my virus causing my problems had passed, but my asthma kept the airways tight.  So he gave me Prednizone (oh yeaaaah), and now we're finally clearing up.

So today, I ran 2 miles, 1 mile in 7:30 and 1 in 12:30 (warm-up and cool-down).  More harder later.

Side effect of not running in 3 weeks, and worsening in junk food habits: gaining about 4 pounds.  Poop.

On the mend

So I ran 4.5 miles on Saturday at about 7.1 (avg) mph.  I was going to run for an hour, but I gave up early.  Maybe I noticed that I was getting sick with a cold, since I did that evening, and stayed home from most of church on Sunday, rested most of Monday (reading a book), and worked yesterday and today, but still not quite better.

So I haven't run since then, but I think I'm on the mend.  This morning I hit the "creamy snot" phase.  You know what I mean.

23:45 5K

Whoo!  Good 5K just an hour ago.  I did:

Mile 1 - Start at 7.5 and increase over 4 minutes to 8.3, finish at around 7:30
Mile 2 - Rest minute at 7, Remainder at 7.7 for around 15:30
Mile 3 - Rest minute at 6, 1 minute at 8.3, remainder at 8 for 23:45!!!!

When breathing got hard, I focused on my legs and how my legs aren't strong enough to handle that pace with the stride I want, and counted steps of 'good pace', and ironically I could breathe easier.

6x1/4

Last week was a bad week for running.  And a bad week for asthma.  Well, not really bad, just enough to make me want to sleep 12 hours a night.  The last goal I met was about two weeks ago.

Tonight I tried a set of quarter miles at 9.5mph.  I made it through about 5.5 of them.

Stupid calories - it seems you burn most per mile at 6-7mph, and more or less than that you burn less calories per mile.

According to my treadmill.

Running log o the week

Great run today! 8mph, 12 minutes (4 min walk), 8 minutes (3 min walk), 4 minutes
Easy run yesterday and tomorrow.

Running intro

I like to run. Why? I'm not exactly sure. Maybe it's the feeling after finishing, or the mental battle required to finish the run, or maybe just a sense of masochism. Who knows.

I ran in High School, and I sucked then (I PR'd a 5K at 20:30 at low altitude), and I suck now. I have been treadmill running for about 7 years now (I had about 5 years off after HS). I plateaued around 30:00 for a year, and then all of a sudden I was able to hit 27:30 for a few years, and then all of a sudden I was able to do 24:30 for a few years. That's where I am now, and I can't seem to get past it.

I sponsor a 5K race at work twice a year. There's one particular guy who was 2 minutes slower than me on the first one, and then a little faster than me every run after that. I'm trying to beat him in the Spring. He did have foot surgery a few weeks ago, and he instructed me to use that to my advantage.

Anyway, today I ran 7 miles in 70 minutes (6mph) - pretty easy. I figured it was an okay run after not having run in a week and a half (I had some health issues which I'm too embarrassed to discuss in a public forum). Next week I'll try to do some intervals, a medium run, and then as much as possible at 8mph - my next target speed, which would be a 23:15 5K. My current best is 10 minutes, 8 minutes, 5 minutes, and 4 minutes at 8mph with a 3 min walk between them.