New shoes! And Consistency...

Saucony Grid Pro 2! I'm so happy! I didn't even expect to get them. I went to Big 5 expecting to pick up some of their on-sale-cheap running shoes and my mom ended up insisting on the better ones! The Saucony were also on sale, but still... they were  more expensive than the others... and it seems like everyone is strapped for cash at the moment!

The cool thing is that my calf tightness is gone. I don't know if it was the 4 day rest (involuntary; things got seriously busy!) or the shoes. The shoes feel really good, though. I don't feel like I'm pounding my calves when I run down hill.

They have little to no heel drop, and the soles aren't too thick anyway. I wouldn't call them a minimalist shoe, but they definitely have less to them than what I would call a "traditional" highly padded running shoe.

Another thing I like about them is the fact that they are ventilated so well! My feet are always cool, now. They were getting warm in my other shoes, but with these... well, the first time I wore them, my feet were practically cold in them and keep in mind that we're in the middle of August and I'm in a fairly warm climate!

As far as actual running goes, I've been doing well - despite the unintended 4 day break. Actually, I think it might have helped. At least mentally. I'm getting my mind more focused on what I'm doing - marathon training. I'm not just  running. I'm training.

Today was an especially good run. It was supposed to be a semi-long run, and in the past those have been 3-5 miles on my schedule. I didn't look, assuming it would be the same, and just did 3, since it was getting late. Turns out I was supposed to do 4-6. Oh, well. No matter.

I've been struggling with my pace, and with the amount of walking I've been doing when I run. It's like my mental walls are building back up again, walls that I broke down when I first started running, when I was training with C25K. R knows about this. He's been talking to me lately about consistency in running, I think because of this.

He knows that I want to be fast. He knows I sometimes have trouble pacing myself. He knows that I hate it when I have to walk.

He mentioned that he found that consistency - just keep running, slower than you normally would if need be - in order to keep on running as much as possible. This helps you go faster and go better.

So, today, I felt great. My heart rate had been nice and low all day (in the low-to-mid 60's, which is good for me; used to be mid-to-high 70's!) and R had mentioned that a low resting heart rate is a good indicator of a good run later. I was stoked, then. So, later when we went on the run, I was feeling pretty good just from that confidence alone, of course.

I also have had no soreness or muscle aches at all. My feet are getting used to the new, less cushioned shoes, but that's no biggie.

I also had a Green Smoothie before we left, which I have always found to be great before-run fuel, and I've been, I think, unintentionally carbo-loading with beans the past couple of days.

I only mention all of this because it might have something to do with my state of mind and the way my muscles were feeling.

So, I ran. I felt really good. I kept my pace such that I knew I was slightly pushing myself (in marathon training, you never, ever, have to seriously push yourself, I'm finding out... unless it's through patience or endurance) with just a slight ache in my legs, just enough to let me know I was using them.

I calculated that, on a bad day - or even a medium day - I have about 5-7 spots - usually 7 - that I walk on, habitually (that's part of it; I made it a habit to walk certain parts of the "course"). This time, I made the word "consistency" my mantra. I ended up walking about 4 times.

The first time was up the Big Hill. I usually do stops and starts of walking up that hill. This time, I walked for maybe 10 seconds, ran a bit, walked for 10 seconds. That was all the walking I did. Just for that one little part.

The second time, I was on flat ground and everything, but I had to fix my iPod. Fix as in turn on the shuffle because it was going alphabetically through the songs - which I didn't mind, except that for some reason my podcasts are on my songlist, and I didn't want to listen to those. I wanted music! So I walked for about a minute, maybe 1:30, then.

After mile 2, I walked again. Don't ask me why. I guess I crashed into a mental wall at that point. Walked for about a minute, maybe slightly longer.

Fourth time was up the backside of a hill. See, I'm not, according to the plan, supposed to run up hills. I decided to give myself a break on that last one and not run up it. I'd already run up it once, anyway.

And that's it! That's improved on 5-7 walk-sessions in my opinion!

Also, at the bottom of the second little hill - the one I walked up the backside of - there was a dog, a pit-bull pup, that was following me. I didn't think he was more than a year or two old. I've heard about this dog; he's nice and friendly and sweet and he doesn't look mean at all. Nevertheless I was a bit scared because I don't really know the dog first hand. I slowed down a bit, and he trotted behind me. I finally held out my hand for him to sniff, which always seems to be a good thing when meeting new dogs (unless they look like they're going to bite it off!) and he was fine and then just a second after sniffing my hand, he tucked his tail between his legs and jumped back about 6 feet! Whaaaat? If anyone knows why this happened, I'd be glad to know!

So, yeah. I got fairly consistent splits, which I'm happy about. Those wildly changing ones with a fast one here and there and then a slow one (usually much more often, there were slow ones) were cool, because of the fast ones, but I'd rather have some sort of descent, gradual splits going on.

Now, these splits, today, weren't negative. I'm totally okay with that. But check out how consistent and smooth they are!



Break Down:
Warm Up: Abbreviated Lunge Matrix
Mile 1) 13:09
2) 13:40
3) 14:00
last .16) 1:54 @ 11:55 pace

So I'm happy!

Also, I have to apologize for not writing for 10 days. I got busy and distracted. The runs I did do in those 10 days were fairly good, however! I may write  about them at a different time. Since it's late, though, and I'm sleepy, I think I'll call it a night as far as blogging goes, for now!

Thursday

Thursday (last) I ran 9.11 miles. The number is coincidental, by the way. I wasn't trying for that, that's just how it turned out.

Anyway, it was hard. By mile 5 or 6 I didn't care how slow I was going because my muscles hurt. I wasn't getting injured or anything like that; it was just fatigue! Part of it, I'm sure, was the heat. I was sweating so bad by mile 3 even that I had cold sweat dripping from my hair to my neck. Ugh.

Anyway, as I was going up the Big Hill on mile 4, and the second, though not the last, time I was to go up that hill, I was walking for a bit. I admit, my muscles were starting to hurt. Lately, my feet have been hurting if I go past 3 miles (I think it's shoe related) so that was going on too. Then this man, who's probably about 50 or 60, and is watering his plants, says:
 "How far are you walking?"

Me: "Not walking..."(sheepish grin)
Man: "Running?" Knowing nod.
Me: "Yeah... kind of taking a walk break."
Man: "Yeah. That's what I do."
Me: "I'm going 9 miles today."
Man: "Oh, really?" (surprised, pleasantly.)
Me: "Yeah, well, I'm training for a marathon."
Man: "oh, really? Which one?" Even more excitement here.
Me: "(Tells which one)"
Man: "Oh! I've run it! It's awesome; you'll love it!"

So I was able to do mile 5 in a neat 13:~. Which was nice because, you know, I was on mile 4... and you already know how slow I am, haha.

So it was hot and sweaty and miserable and fun.

I also saw a firetruck from the volunteer station filling up/testing the fire hydrants or something. woo!

Also, R, while he was working, was introduced to another runner who, apparently, is very good. She's still in HS, but she has a running scholarship to a prestigious school. How cool is that?

It's been half-arranged for us to run with her on Sunday...well, today...later... well, R will. I'll be left in the dust, for sure. I'm intimidated.

Oh! Also! I finally got a handheld water bottle! It's a 10 oz'er from Roadrunner Sports. In pink, of course!

Also, I won JOSHATALIE's giveaway for a Road ID woo! I didn't even realize it until 4 days after she announced it because I was getting bad about keeping up on things... yeah...

Okay, so here's the Break Down:

Warm Up: None. I will never do this again; I don't think it helped things.
Mile 1) 14:53
2) 13:43
3) 15:11
4)16:14
5) 13:28
6) 16:33
7) 17:28
8) 14:33
9) 16:07

Double Post...

...and it's late, so I'll be brief.

Yesterday, I ran a recovery run, 3 miles. R decided to run right along with me because we were going to try a different route and we wanted to do the same one, because I had the Garmin and we wanted to be sure of the mileage for both of us. He decided that since it was a recovery run, he would just go at my pace, which was perfect.

We did a little experiment where, right before we ran, we weighed ourselves and didn't drink or go to the bathroom after that. We ran, and then weighed ourselves again - still not having drank or evacuated anything since just before the initial weigh in. R lost 2.4 lbs and I lost 2.2. Amazing! Admittedly, it was warm, so we probably sweated a bit more than, say, if the temperature was more mild, but on the other hand, it was a recovery run, thus quite easy.

Break Down:
Warm Up: Lunge Matrix
Mile 1) 14:00
2: 16:00
3) 14:01
Last .16) 1:53 @ 11:59 pace 

My calves were a bit sore for this one; don't have any idea why. For the last part, it was my heart rate that was really holding me back. It was harder to keep down. I'm guessing because of the sweating and loss of water.

___________________________

Second Run:

Today, I ran with K and her son (him in the jogging stroller). It was so fun! I didn't pay too much attention to my heart rate monitor because it kept slipping down and giving me bad (like in the 200's) readings. Also, I was kind of tired of watching it so closely!

It was nice and cool. I'm not sure exactly what the temperature was, but while I was driving over to meet K, I had 3 out of 4 windows down and I was getting cold! Two of the three, by the way, I couldn't roll up. Yeah, that's my clunker of a car for you!

I tried not to push it too much on this run because I have a long run tomorrow. We still did good though; a time of 41:39, which is pretty good for 3.18 miles. Especially with a jogging stroller and multiple hills!

Break Down:
Warm Up: (Abbreviated, 5x4) Lunge Matrix
Mile 1) 12:43
2) 14:22
3) 12:57
Last .18) 1:35 @ 9:03 pace.

Yesterday's Run

...was a Long Run turned Semi-Long-Run for reasons that will be enumerated...

So, it was my mom's b-day. I wanted to do an early run (Honest!) and get out of bed and get it over with (I'm slow so 9+ miles will take me at the very, very, optimistically least 2 hours, probably), and then I didn't. I was kinda sure that I wouldn't be running. Why? Well, it's mom's b-day, as I mentioned, and she wanted people home - which is certainly not an unreasonable request - to help out with things, etc.

So, I was bummed that my week was going to be kinda crazy (as far as running goes) again. In other words, I payed little to no attention to the quality of my diet. Jeez.

I ended up eating a lot of (quite salty) tortilla chips.

I didn't drink enough water.

Later in the day, mom is like: "Don't you have a long run...?" and I'm like: "You don't mind if we go?" and she's like: "No! Of course not!"

So I guzzled some water (bad thing number 1, not including the late morning, the bad diet, and (dun dun) the chips) and we left. I drank some more water right before running.

At first, all was well. I did my warm up, got the Garmin all connected with the satellites, and started running.

Then for the first ~1.5 miles, I had a side stitch and couldn't run without horrible amounts of sharp, sharp pains. I'm sure we've all been there.

So my first mile was atrocious, as you will see when I put in the break down.

The next few miles, I picked up the pace, but the first mile had set me back so much, and the second mile wasn't so peachy either. I just knew that I couldn't do a long run. Thus, my mileage wouldn't be what it should have been for the week. Sigh.

As I went along, I debated at stopping at 2 miles. I actually doubled back for a second when I hit 2, and then went back again because I was like: "No way this is going to be a mere 14 mile week! Nuh uh!" so I kept going, trying to think about how long I could go and still live.

I had gotten some water at mile 1.7, and that helped. But I knew I couldn't do 9+ miles. At the very least, it would be too late.

So, it was humid, and hot, and in my dehydrated state, I did about a 50 minute 5k... which is really bad for me... anyway, I decided that I could do 4 miles. This would constitute a semi-long run. I could just switch my semi-long run with my long-run day and then it'd be cool!

Here's the thing: Sunday is a weird in-between day for me. It's both part of next week and part of the current week. It's the way my brain is wired; probably because I'm Jewish... so, anyway... technically this means that I've been getting in 2 long runs a week in, and also only 1... so yeah... weird...

I finished mile 4 like a champ! Well, imho. I made sure to get those miles in! I didn't stop at mile 3.95 when I got to my car because of a very slight miscalculation. I didn't even walk the last bit. I jogged around the fire hall parking lot until I hit 4.0 and some change. Booyeah!

So, I felt horrible, I finished strong. That's what counts, right?

When I was about halfway through the run, I was thinking to myself: "How am I ever going to finish a marathon like this? What if I get a side stitch then? OMG! My first marathon is, to me, going to be like an ultra, for pete's sake!" This may or may not turn out to be true. I'll let you know in ~9 weeks...

Break down:
Warm Up: Lunge Matrix
Mile 1) 17:19
2) 15:37
3) 14:52
4) 14:31
last 8.38 ft (hehe)) 1:42 @ 14:54 pace

And when I plugged that into the Garmin program, I'm like: "Hey look! Negative splits!" hahahaha

So, there it is...