I ran a little stupid today. I drove the Glenwood Middle School Track to run 3x800 meter repeats at about 5:30 p.m. The Weather Channel website informed me that it was 88 degrees, but felt like 84, with 14 mph SW winds that were gusting to 22 and 22% humidity. I warmed up with a mile around the track and 800 m. of strides. My goal for the workout was to run my 800 reps in 2:55 or so with 400 m. recovery jogs between them. I ran the first rep in 2:53.15,which was quite a bit faster than I really wanted to run for the first one. My HR at the finish was 187 and when I finished my 400 m. jog and took a sip of water my HR was 160 (2:45 after the rep). I went out a little slower on the second rep and finished it in 2:55.55 which was closer to where I wanted to be. My HR at the end of the 2nd rep was 198 and I was starting to feel the heat. I allowed myself 3:00 to run my 400 and take a few swigs of water and when I started my third and final rep my HR was 184. My 20/20 hindsight tells me that I should have waited to let my HR drop about 15 to 20 more points but instead I started my last rep. As I started I could tell that I wasn't going to run the last one nearly as fast as the other two and it was confirmed when I went through the 400 in 1:38. At that point I called off the last rep and drove myself home after dumping my water bottle on my head and cranking the A/C in my car. When I got home I ran a mile around my neighborhood and called it a day.
The lesson I learned today was to alter the expectations of my workout when the weather isn't what I was hoping for it to be. I also learned that if I am going to drop the money on a decent HR monitor I probably ought to pay attention to what the darn thing is telling me about my effort. If I am expecting to run a high quality workout at a pace that is significantly faster than my 5k pace I need to give my body adequate time to recover between intervals to prevent a blow-up like I experienced today.
Monday, April 30, 2007
Sunday, April 29, 2007
A Little Background
I started running track when I was 11. I stuck with the sprints and jumps in 6th and 7th grade and never knew that cross country existed until 8th grade when they announced tryouts during the morning announcements. "Tryouts" was a bit of a misnomer because if you showed up you were on the team. I went to the first practice with one of my buddies and we ran 2 miles the first practice, which was probably 1.75 miles further than I had ever run before. We only had 5 meets and I can't really recall any of my times. Our first meet was a small duel with a school the next town over and we ran a co-ed race. My friend and a guy from the other school shot to the front and I settled into third and watched my pal duel it out with the other guy. Much to my dismay a girl from the other school parked herself right off my shoulder and ran with me the whole race. I finished the race with a hard sprint, my lungs burning and my quads screaming and ended up beating her by about 3 seconds. My friend would have never let me live it down if she beat me. Little did he and I know that 16 years later I would be constantly trying to run down, or keep ahead of, Katie McAfee.
We ended having a co-op with the other school and competed together the rest of the season. My two teammates and I ended up being the 1st, 2nd and 3rd guys to not make it to the IESA State Cross Country meet that year. Unfortunately, that would end up being a constant thing with us throughout high school.
I grew up in Brimfield, IL which is a little town about 20 miles west of Peoria. The "Welcome to Brimfield" sign said the population was 910 people but the sign was lying. I attended Brimfield H.S. through my freshman year and moved to Farmington H.S. the first semester of my soph year and then to Elmwood, the school Brimfield co-oped with, the second semester.
My high school cross country career was not very impressive. I had season bests of 17:53 as a frosh, 18:20 as a soph (My training over the summer was deficient), 16:32 as a junior and 16:26 as a senior. I had trouble staying healthy during cross season and I wasn't good about taking it easy on my easy days. I liked to go hard all the time and I've learned the hard way that you can't do that all the time.
I was fairly decent in track and finished high school with personal bests of 56.5 for the 400, 2:06 in the 800, 4:40 in the 1600 and 10:34 in the 3200. I was all conference a few times and ran the 1600 at state as a junior(where I finished last in my heat but beat two other guys in the other heats) and a senior (where I ran my 4:40 and got 17th in the prelims). I also ran in the 4x800 relay with my teammates my senior year, which was the only time we all made it to state in anything together.
After high school I joined the Air National Guard instead of accepting offers to run for Greenville, Eureka and Western because none of those schools had a Radiography program and I wasn't sure I wanted to be a student athlete. I still ran and raced pretty steadily and was still running mid to low 17:00's for 5k and sub-40:00 for 10k.
Going into my second year of x-ray school I turned 21 but was still capable of running 18:30 for 5k and 1:03:16 in the Steamboat 15k. Looking back I am appalled at these times because I was running about 15 miles a week and my carbo-loading and hydration habits consisted of drinking mass amounts of Miller Lite.
I quit running in 2001 after proposing to my wife because I had been having some chronic knee pain that wouldn't go away and the trainer I went to at SIUC told me to quit and take up other activities. My "other activities" consisted of studying and not working out. I ended up expanding to about 198 lbs 6 months before my wedding, which was about 28 pounds heavier than I was when I met my wife a year and a half earlier. I took up boxing and dropped to 180 in time for the big day. Unfortunately I wasn't very good at boxing, as evidenced by the broken nose and two black eyes I had when I interviewed for a job up here in September of 2003. I got the job and my wife and I moved up here from St. Louis and bought a house in Chatham.
After moving away from my boxing group and buying a house I went back up to 190 because I hadn't been working out like I had been in St. Louis. I signed up for tae kwon do and was able to drop 5 of those pounds but just couldn't seem to drop the rest. I decided to run the two miles to TKD one day and when I didn't die I decided to run the 4th of July 5k in Jacksonville. I ran faster than I thought I was going to and won my age group. I then decided to run the Race for Brazil and after that the Lincoln Memorial Half Marathon. I signed on with the Half Wits and after completing the half set my sites on the Quad Cities Marathon.
I ran the QC Marathon in September of 2005 and haven't convinced myself that I am deranged enough to try another one quite yet. I went out too fast and hit the wall at mile 16. I ended up walking most of the way from their to the 20 mile mark and then walked/jogged the last 10k. I finished in 4:00:08, the first person to not break the 4-hour mark.
I used to think that there was no way that I would ever run my first marathon in a pedestrian 9:10 per mile pace and I used to sneer at people who did run that slow. After having done it and suffering through it I am in no way an elitist. Getting out there and finishing any distance in any amount of time is an accomlishment that no one should denigrate or sneer at. Breaking 4:40 in the mile was my Holy Grail as a senior in high school. Breaking 5:30 is my Grail now. Three years ago it was breaking 8:00 and then 7:00 and then 6:00.
I've lost my train of thought now and I can't remember exactly what I was going to say anymore. If anyone from Katie's blog or the HalfWits' blog reads this I hope you leave some comments.
Keep running and have fun. I'm going to go kiss my son goodnight.
We ended having a co-op with the other school and competed together the rest of the season. My two teammates and I ended up being the 1st, 2nd and 3rd guys to not make it to the IESA State Cross Country meet that year. Unfortunately, that would end up being a constant thing with us throughout high school.
I grew up in Brimfield, IL which is a little town about 20 miles west of Peoria. The "Welcome to Brimfield" sign said the population was 910 people but the sign was lying. I attended Brimfield H.S. through my freshman year and moved to Farmington H.S. the first semester of my soph year and then to Elmwood, the school Brimfield co-oped with, the second semester.
My high school cross country career was not very impressive. I had season bests of 17:53 as a frosh, 18:20 as a soph (My training over the summer was deficient), 16:32 as a junior and 16:26 as a senior. I had trouble staying healthy during cross season and I wasn't good about taking it easy on my easy days. I liked to go hard all the time and I've learned the hard way that you can't do that all the time.
I was fairly decent in track and finished high school with personal bests of 56.5 for the 400, 2:06 in the 800, 4:40 in the 1600 and 10:34 in the 3200. I was all conference a few times and ran the 1600 at state as a junior(where I finished last in my heat but beat two other guys in the other heats) and a senior (where I ran my 4:40 and got 17th in the prelims). I also ran in the 4x800 relay with my teammates my senior year, which was the only time we all made it to state in anything together.
After high school I joined the Air National Guard instead of accepting offers to run for Greenville, Eureka and Western because none of those schools had a Radiography program and I wasn't sure I wanted to be a student athlete. I still ran and raced pretty steadily and was still running mid to low 17:00's for 5k and sub-40:00 for 10k.
Going into my second year of x-ray school I turned 21 but was still capable of running 18:30 for 5k and 1:03:16 in the Steamboat 15k. Looking back I am appalled at these times because I was running about 15 miles a week and my carbo-loading and hydration habits consisted of drinking mass amounts of Miller Lite.
I quit running in 2001 after proposing to my wife because I had been having some chronic knee pain that wouldn't go away and the trainer I went to at SIUC told me to quit and take up other activities. My "other activities" consisted of studying and not working out. I ended up expanding to about 198 lbs 6 months before my wedding, which was about 28 pounds heavier than I was when I met my wife a year and a half earlier. I took up boxing and dropped to 180 in time for the big day. Unfortunately I wasn't very good at boxing, as evidenced by the broken nose and two black eyes I had when I interviewed for a job up here in September of 2003. I got the job and my wife and I moved up here from St. Louis and bought a house in Chatham.
After moving away from my boxing group and buying a house I went back up to 190 because I hadn't been working out like I had been in St. Louis. I signed up for tae kwon do and was able to drop 5 of those pounds but just couldn't seem to drop the rest. I decided to run the two miles to TKD one day and when I didn't die I decided to run the 4th of July 5k in Jacksonville. I ran faster than I thought I was going to and won my age group. I then decided to run the Race for Brazil and after that the Lincoln Memorial Half Marathon. I signed on with the Half Wits and after completing the half set my sites on the Quad Cities Marathon.
I ran the QC Marathon in September of 2005 and haven't convinced myself that I am deranged enough to try another one quite yet. I went out too fast and hit the wall at mile 16. I ended up walking most of the way from their to the 20 mile mark and then walked/jogged the last 10k. I finished in 4:00:08, the first person to not break the 4-hour mark.
I used to think that there was no way that I would ever run my first marathon in a pedestrian 9:10 per mile pace and I used to sneer at people who did run that slow. After having done it and suffering through it I am in no way an elitist. Getting out there and finishing any distance in any amount of time is an accomlishment that no one should denigrate or sneer at. Breaking 4:40 in the mile was my Holy Grail as a senior in high school. Breaking 5:30 is my Grail now. Three years ago it was breaking 8:00 and then 7:00 and then 6:00.
I've lost my train of thought now and I can't remember exactly what I was going to say anymore. If anyone from Katie's blog or the HalfWits' blog reads this I hope you leave some comments.
Keep running and have fun. I'm going to go kiss my son goodnight.
Catching Up
I haven't had the chance to write since I created this thing so I have three days worth of workouts to catch up on.
Thursday night was scheduled to be an interval workout so I headed over to the middle school track and decided I was going to run 1600 meters as fast as I could. I did a mile warm up and a mile worth of strides. It was a cool and windy 57 degrees with the wind out of the West at 22 mph and gusting to 28. The humidity was 82%. I keep track of all that stuff because I like to see how my heart rate responds to temp and relative humidity.
I haven't done much speedwork to speak of this year and I wanted to see where my fitness level was after running a less than stellar half marathon(1:44:45) and a 5k(20:23) on a hilly course in less than ideal conditions: rainy and cold. Two weeks before my half I had run a 3200 meter time trial in 12:25, which is 4 seconds slower than my post-married life personal best of 12:21(Parade Run '06), and I felt that I had a decent chance to run my 1600 in the 5:45 range.
As I started my time trial I realized that I forgot to change my max heart rate on my watch and was dinging the alarm before I even hit the 200 m. mark. I spent about 50 meters getting the thing to shut up and passed through the 400 in 1:28.32. I made a conscious effort to get back on my hoped for 85 second/lap pace and burned the second lap in 1:25.01 passing through 800 in 2:53.33. I don't know about you but in high school I always had a hard time maintaining pace on the third lap of my 1600 races so I forced myself to surge hard on the back-stretch of my third lap and passed 1200 in 4:20.32 with a lap time of 1:26.99. I knuckled down and pushed myself through a little O2 debt and finished in 5:46.01 with a final lap of 1:25.69. I ran my second half in negative splits: 2:52.68 Not bad for negligible speedwork.
I cooled off with 13 and a half minutes of running around the middle school playing fields and drove home for an ice bath and dinner with my family.
On a side note: my HR at each 400 m. split was 177, 187, 189 and 190. Based on the fact that my max HR is 203 and that I can never seem to push myself hard enough to get that high in practice, I predict that I am capable of running a 5:25 mile in July at the Sizzling Mile as long as I stay healthy and get in some quality interval practices.
Friday evening's run was an easy 5 mile jaunt through the streets of Chatham. I set my HR monitor for a peak of 79%(170 bpm) and focused on running relaxed and not pushing the pace. I run pretty slow on my easy days and generally try to keep my pace between 8:30 - 9:00. I ran my five miles in 42:09 with mile splits of 8:45, 8:43, 8:27, 8:32 and 7:42. You're probably wondering where the 7:42 mile came from, let me tell you. During my last mile I was setting my watch to countdown a minute and was counting my stride rate. Jack Daniels, the coach, not the whiskey, says to try to keep your stride rate at about 180 per minute. I was running about 165 on average and was surging during my one minute intervals. I was about 3 blocks away from finishing my run when a truck with some testosterone overdosed high school boys drove by and started yelling at me. I hate getting heckled especially since I don't yell at them while they're in football, track or baseball practice. I finished my last three blocks a little stronger than I would have at other times and that is why I ran a 7:42 mile. I also think my five mile course is a little short.
The temp on Friday was 68, with a 15mph wind out of the West gusting to 23. The relative humidity was 44%. I ran 41:42 seconds of my 42:09 run within my 79% ceiling and had an average HR of 156 for the day.
Saturday was a long run day. I ran miles through the hilly part of Chatham, which really isn't that hilly. It was 57, or so, W13 with 75% humidity. It got pretty hot when you weren't running west and I'm pretty sure it was hotter than 57 when I finished my run. I was a little dehydrated and slightly sleep deprived because my little boy hasn't been sleeping well. I hit the road around 0900 which was a mistake, I should have left earlier.
I ran my 9 mile run with a 79% ceiling and finished in 1:15:32. I had splits of 8:53, 8:46, 16:40(2 miles), 8:22, 8:08(surging through "hills"), and 24:40(last 3 miles). I spent 1:01:50 in zone with an average HR of 161.
After my run I got cleaned up and took my wife and child to the mall to buy some clothes for work where I discovered that my 9 month old can drink through a straw. When we got home we ordered a pizza, watched "Smoking Aces"(which was actually reasonably stupid once you started thinking about it) and drank a few beers.
I ran a total of 28.5 miles this week and only got heckled during two of them. The other incident was during an easy 5 miler on Tuesday. It was hot so I wasn't wearing a shirt to cover my HR monitor and some junior high kids were yelling "Nice bra!!!" at me as I ran by. I may not be as lean as I used to be but I sure don't need a bra! It kinda had me wondering if my monitor strap made me look fat.
Thursday night was scheduled to be an interval workout so I headed over to the middle school track and decided I was going to run 1600 meters as fast as I could. I did a mile warm up and a mile worth of strides. It was a cool and windy 57 degrees with the wind out of the West at 22 mph and gusting to 28. The humidity was 82%. I keep track of all that stuff because I like to see how my heart rate responds to temp and relative humidity.
I haven't done much speedwork to speak of this year and I wanted to see where my fitness level was after running a less than stellar half marathon(1:44:45) and a 5k(20:23) on a hilly course in less than ideal conditions: rainy and cold. Two weeks before my half I had run a 3200 meter time trial in 12:25, which is 4 seconds slower than my post-married life personal best of 12:21(Parade Run '06), and I felt that I had a decent chance to run my 1600 in the 5:45 range.
As I started my time trial I realized that I forgot to change my max heart rate on my watch and was dinging the alarm before I even hit the 200 m. mark. I spent about 50 meters getting the thing to shut up and passed through the 400 in 1:28.32. I made a conscious effort to get back on my hoped for 85 second/lap pace and burned the second lap in 1:25.01 passing through 800 in 2:53.33. I don't know about you but in high school I always had a hard time maintaining pace on the third lap of my 1600 races so I forced myself to surge hard on the back-stretch of my third lap and passed 1200 in 4:20.32 with a lap time of 1:26.99. I knuckled down and pushed myself through a little O2 debt and finished in 5:46.01 with a final lap of 1:25.69. I ran my second half in negative splits: 2:52.68 Not bad for negligible speedwork.
I cooled off with 13 and a half minutes of running around the middle school playing fields and drove home for an ice bath and dinner with my family.
On a side note: my HR at each 400 m. split was 177, 187, 189 and 190. Based on the fact that my max HR is 203 and that I can never seem to push myself hard enough to get that high in practice, I predict that I am capable of running a 5:25 mile in July at the Sizzling Mile as long as I stay healthy and get in some quality interval practices.
Friday evening's run was an easy 5 mile jaunt through the streets of Chatham. I set my HR monitor for a peak of 79%(170 bpm) and focused on running relaxed and not pushing the pace. I run pretty slow on my easy days and generally try to keep my pace between 8:30 - 9:00. I ran my five miles in 42:09 with mile splits of 8:45, 8:43, 8:27, 8:32 and 7:42. You're probably wondering where the 7:42 mile came from, let me tell you. During my last mile I was setting my watch to countdown a minute and was counting my stride rate. Jack Daniels, the coach, not the whiskey, says to try to keep your stride rate at about 180 per minute. I was running about 165 on average and was surging during my one minute intervals. I was about 3 blocks away from finishing my run when a truck with some testosterone overdosed high school boys drove by and started yelling at me. I hate getting heckled especially since I don't yell at them while they're in football, track or baseball practice. I finished my last three blocks a little stronger than I would have at other times and that is why I ran a 7:42 mile. I also think my five mile course is a little short.
The temp on Friday was 68, with a 15mph wind out of the West gusting to 23. The relative humidity was 44%. I ran 41:42 seconds of my 42:09 run within my 79% ceiling and had an average HR of 156 for the day.
Saturday was a long run day. I ran miles through the hilly part of Chatham, which really isn't that hilly. It was 57, or so, W13 with 75% humidity. It got pretty hot when you weren't running west and I'm pretty sure it was hotter than 57 when I finished my run. I was a little dehydrated and slightly sleep deprived because my little boy hasn't been sleeping well. I hit the road around 0900 which was a mistake, I should have left earlier.
I ran my 9 mile run with a 79% ceiling and finished in 1:15:32. I had splits of 8:53, 8:46, 16:40(2 miles), 8:22, 8:08(surging through "hills"), and 24:40(last 3 miles). I spent 1:01:50 in zone with an average HR of 161.
After my run I got cleaned up and took my wife and child to the mall to buy some clothes for work where I discovered that my 9 month old can drink through a straw. When we got home we ordered a pizza, watched "Smoking Aces"(which was actually reasonably stupid once you started thinking about it) and drank a few beers.
I ran a total of 28.5 miles this week and only got heckled during two of them. The other incident was during an easy 5 miler on Tuesday. It was hot so I wasn't wearing a shirt to cover my HR monitor and some junior high kids were yelling "Nice bra!!!" at me as I ran by. I may not be as lean as I used to be but I sure don't need a bra! It kinda had me wondering if my monitor strap made me look fat.
Friday, April 27, 2007
Constantly Heckled
I chose this name for my blog because it seems that when I am out running I am constantly being honked at, yelled at, and in some cases, pelted with random objects. I'm not sure why this occurs but it must have something to do with my devastating good looks (snicker). Maybe I'm just an easy target: a guy running in broad daylight, clothed in spandex.
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