So far, August hasn’t really been that much better than July, weather-wise. I’m heading out to Portland this week, and I’m really, really, really, really looking forward to running there. Current forecast low temperatures for Thursday, Friday, and Sunday morning (the days I plan on running) in Portland: 59, 60, 59. I don’t remember the last time I ran when it was less than 70 degrees. (Heck, I can’t remember the last time I didn’t run and it got below 70 degrees here.)
I guess I did OK with my running this week, all things considered. I had a little hiccup on Thursday that I had to make up for on Friday, but otherwise, not bad.
I’m going to have to re-work my training plan. My 25th High School Reunion is September 24th. That wouldn’t be a problem, except that weekend I’m supposed to be on call for work, and I adjusted my training plan so I wouldn’t have to try to do a long run while I was on call. Now, I’m going to be on call a different weekend. (No, I’m not going to skip my reunion because of work.) I won’t know until I get back to work and ask around for someone to swap with. Then I can re-work my plan to work around the new weekend I’ll be on call. As a side note, I’m probably more pleased than I should be at the thought of showing up at my reunion and telling people, “I’m training for the New York City Marathon.”
Weight Check: 167.7, down 2.1 pounds from last week. Tuesday was absolutely insane at work, and the rest of the week was no picnic. So I coped by drinking a lot of Mountain Dew. Otherwise, my eating wasn’t too bad. I guess the miles outweighed the soda.
I won’t be drinking nearly as much Mountain Dew once I leave for Portland, although I will be drinking a lot of Portland beer. Oh, they have amazing beer there. I’ll be walking (staggering?) around quite a bit, though, so maybe it’ll even out.
My next weigh-in won’t be until Tuesday the 16th.
| Day | Scheduled | Total Miles |
|---|---|---|
| Monday | Easy 6 | 6.01 |
| Tuesday | 1.5 mile warm up, 4 x 200M REP w/200M recovery, 4 x 400M REP w/400M recovery, 4 x 200M REP w/200M recovery, 1.5 mile cool down | 7.01 |
| Thursday | Easy 7 | 6.01 |
| Friday | Easy 5 | 6.01 |
| Saturday | Easy 13 | 13.11 |
Total: 38.15 miles
Monday was actually a pretty decent run, and my best average pace for an outdoor run since early July.
Tuesday’s workout would probably been easier logistically if I had a track. Like I mentioned last week, I used .13 miles for 200M, .25 for 400M, and 9:00/mile for my REP pace. Putting 12 splits in here would be more trouble than it’s worth, but I can say that I got under a 9:00/mile pace on every interval, and my last 2 intervals were the fastest ones, with paces of 8:16 and 7:56(!). Also, I meant to mention this last week, but it still applies: Referring to a part of a workout as a “cool down” when it’s over 70 degrees and humid is at best a gross misnomer.
I got a late start Thursday. Whenever I go out for a run where I expect to sweat a lot (Every outdoor run I’ve documented on this site so far has fallen into that category), I put my phone in a Ziploc bag. It’s not completely waterproof (or sweatproof), but it’s better than nothing. I try to re-use the bags, because I’m not using them for food, so it doesn’t need to be sanitary. The bags do take some wear and tear, and apparently, on Thursday morning, the bag I was using gave out, and of course, it was while I was in my kitchen, so my phone fell and hit the tile floor, causing the back to come off and the battery to fall out. So I had to put my phone back together, make sure it still worked (it did), and get a new bag. I didn’t get started until 5:58 AM, and I had wanted to start about 10 minutes earlier. I decided to cut this run back to 6 miles, and bump up Friday’s 5 miler to a 6 miler.
The run itself was pretty meh. Also, it was the first time I used a knuckle light since early March. (I have some lighting issues, I’ll explain some other time.)
That last mile on Friday was the worst. I kept thinking about that stupid Ziploc bag, and how I should be done by now. Still, I survived.
So, Saturday’s run. It was pretty freaking humid. We got a lot of rain late Friday afternoon, and it didn’t actually cool things off, it just made it muggy. I basically stopped to walk every half mile or so, stopped at all the water fountains, ate a Gu around 4.5 miles, another one at around 9, and found just enough energy to speed up at the end, including an extra .11 to make sure I got the half marathon distance. My time was 2:46:42, and I stopped at 13.11 miles. (My goal was to beat my first half marathon time, 2:49:35. Score.) I didn’t feel great by any means, but I felt like it was an OK run.
I found it interesting to go back and check my 13 miler from two weeks ago. That one was 2:46:36, but I stopped right at 13.10. This time, by less than a second, I had a faster average pace. My reaction to the last run was a lot less kind. Maybe I’ve lowered my expectations, or maybe I just did a better job of taking it easy on this run so I didn’t feel completely wiped out (even though this run was about 4 degrees warmer). I don’t know. Running (and my reaction to it) is a strange thing.
Next Week:
Monday: Easy 7
Tuesday: 1.5 mile warm up, 1 mile @ TH w/2:00 recovery, 2 miles @ TH w/3:00 recovery, 2 x .5 miles @ TH with 1:00 recovery, 1.5 mile cool down
Thursday: 4-ish miles
Friday: 4-ish miles
Sunday: 4-ish miles
No changes for next week yet, since I know I won’t be on call next weekend. I’m not going to be able to do long runs while I’m in Portland. So when I put together my training plan, knowing about my trip, I picked 3 days to run, and each day I’m going to try to get in around 4 miles. Maybe I’ll get to 5 miles on one day, maybe it’ll be closer to 3 another day, it just depends. We’ll see how it goes.