February 2019 Monthly Running Challenge

February Running Totals (miles)
2/1 –5.16 course preview
2/2 – 7.29 warmup, commute, 8K XC race
2/3 – 10.81 easy
2/4 – rest day
2/5 – 10.52 warmup, speed work, cool down
2/6 – 8.78 easy
2/7 – 7.59 warmup, speed work, cool down
2/8 – rest day
2/9 – 11.50 warmup, 8 mile race
2/10 – 13.33 MP with hills
2/11 – rest day
2/12 – 8.21 warmup, speed work, cool down
2/13 – 6.31 easy
2/14 – 8.33 easy to MP
2/15 – rest day
2/16 – 20.04 group run + solo miles
2/17 – 13.17 easy with hills
2/18 – rest day
2/19 – 9.55 warmup, speed work, cool down
2/20 – 16.01 easy with hills
2/21 – 8.09 warmup, speed work, cool down
2/22 – rest day
2/23 – 9.61 warmup, race, post-race easy run
2/24 – 9.10 marathon pace

February running total to date – 183.40

Nominal February mileage goal: 190 miles

Real Goals: Train well toward Boston. Work the February races into the training plan smoothly. Remain uninjured, even if it means cutting back on planned mileage or races.

Today's notes – Late nigh last night, out at a chorale presentation of Disney music with my daughter. Slept in this morning, skipped church . . . and got out to run about 10:30 AM. There are high wind warnings for today and tomorrow, and there were showers with wind in the forecast; so when it wasn't raining, it was time to run.

The initial plan had been 8 easy miles. Then I looked at the weekly plan, and 10 seemed like a better number for today. So I set out to run easy and see how I felt. It's been a long time since it was warm enough to run in shorts (42° F / 6° C), and I wouldn't have worn a jacket if it hadn't been windy with a chance of rain. The old HR monitor on the new straps seemed to work normally.

. . . and I failed to make myself run easy. Several times I told myself I was working too hard and slowed down, stopped challenging the hill, or stopped challenging the wind as the case may be. Didn't matter. The average came in about marathon pace, with the first part of the run slowest and the last fastest.

I would have liked to stretch the run to 10 miles, but I was beginning to get a pre-cramp sensation in my left vastus lateralis. Oops. I set out with no hydration belt. If I'd had water and Nuun with me, I likely would have been good for 10 miles. As things stood, I decided the better part of valor was to get home about 9 miles in and drink the bottle of Nuun that was sitting on a table inside my house while I was out running.

Next time I'll know better. Even in nice weather, if I intend to be out for more than 8 miles I need to put on the hydration belt.

2019 Races:
January 1, 2019 Freezeroo #2 (Resolution Run 7.5 mile) (Mendon, NY) finished in 50:55
January 5, 2019 Winter Warrior Half Marathon (Gates, NY) finished in 1:30:48
January 12, 2019 Freezeroo #3 (Pineway Ponds 5 Mile) (Spencerport, NY) finished in 33:10
January 26, 2019 Freezeroo #4 (Hearnish 5 mile) (Victor, NY) 4.9 miles, finished in 32:28
February 2, 2019 USATF XC Championship, Masters 8K (Tallahassee, FL) finished in 32:53
February 9, 2019 Freezeroo #5 (Tom Brannon 8 mile) (Greece, NY) finished in 55:55
February 23, 2019 Freezeroo #6 (White House Challenge 4.4 mile) (Webster, NY) finished in 28:34
March 16, 2019 USATF Masters 8K Championship (Shamrock 8K) (Virginia Beach, VA)
March 17, 2019 Shamrock Half Marathon (Virginia Beach, VA)
April 13, 2019 BAA 5K (Boston, MA)
April 15, 2019 Boston Marathon (Hopkinton, MA to Boston, MA)
November 3, 2019 TCS New York City Marathon (New York, NY)

Busy end to my week and next week is going to be frantic except a short break. I did make 4.5 miles on the treadmill yesterday, but am skipping my long run today. It is a little cold, very windy, and slick out, so I'm going to do my long run during that short break I've planned mid-week.

Got another 6.0 miles in this morning, taking advantage of this beautiful, sunny weather while it lasts. I was running into a strong head wind for most of my run and felt like I was basically running in place at times, but I ended up actually being two minutes faster than last week. Weird how that happens sometimes.

My students had a fantastic last regular season horse show yesterday - Reserve High Point Team (out of 14) by only two points! We're hosting the regional finals next weekend, so this will be another off-schedule week. There's no way I'll get to my goal this month. I'm so ready for this crazy schedule to settle down.

39.5/55.0 miles for February so far

February Running
02/01: 3.50 mile easy run
02/03: 6.05 mile long run
02/04: 3.01 mile recovery run
02/06: 5.05 miles- 4x(400/200E/200/400E)
02/07: 4.03 mile recovery run
02/09: 8.57 mile long run
02/11: 4.05 mile recovery run
02/13: 6.03 miles- 4M tempo
02/14: 3.07 mile recovery run
02/16: 8.66 mile long run
02/17: 2.31 mile recovery run
02/19: 4.06 mile easy run
02/20: 6.00 miles- 5x(0.5M/0.25M)
02/21: 4.04 mile easy run
02/23: 10.01 mile long run
02/24: 3.22 mile recovery run
Total: 81.67 miles

Run notes:
Just stopping by for a quick update- easy 3 mile recovery run today. It was super windy here...even for Chicago! 33mph with 50+ mph gusts. I almost got blown over at one point! Icing my foot now.

Registered races:
- Excalibur 10 Miler (3/17)
- Wintrust Lakefront 5K (4/13)
- Ravenswood Run 5K (4/28)
- Space Coast Half Marathon (12/01)

February

2— 57seconds sally
3— 5.38
18— 1.0 TM
24— 2.76 mostly walk after 4.2mi bike

7.14 / 30 miles

Comeback races
2020 Psycho WyCo Kansas 10miles. February.

garygse wrote: »

@MobyCarp - Great race, and congrats on your 1AG!
@martaindale - Congrats on a superb PR in your 10K race! You attacked the hills perfectly, and no doubt next time you'll get that sub-hour result when the conditions aren't so warm and humid (although does that ever happen in Houston?)

The humidity is definitely killer here and I don't generally handle the heat great. This weekend was the first real taste of the crazy humidity we have had coming out of winter, so it just knocked me out! And I wasn't the only one. I passed 7 people being tended to by the medical crew and in a race of 9000 people, there were several thousand behind me still. I'm sure they were busy with dehydrated folks who underestimated the weather for a few more hours.
Last summer I was about 25lbs heavier and just starting to run on a regular schedule. I'm hoping to last a little longer outdoors this summer but I keep a gym membership mainly so I can use the treadmill from july-sept when it's just too hot.

I forgot earlier to congratulate you @MobyCarp on your AG win!! I love reading your race reports!

Only got 30 miles in this week, ah well. Pretending it was a cut back week.

Today's run was entertaining. It was like 40something when I started so I left my jacket at home. I ran 0.1 miles and cleared the hill into the wind. The 25mph headwind. Stopped and went back for my jacket! LOL It was too warm for the jacket, but without the North Face Wind Wall, it was way too cold. The jacket cost me a TON of cash several years ago, but there is no denying its effectiveness. My weather station is reading that the wind peaked at 35mph (56kmh) and any part of my body covered by the wind wall felt no wind at all.






I was planning to run longer, but got a late start and was going a bit slower than I wanted so had to turn in a bit early. Was hoping for more like 15, but 12 will do. Onward to a new week!

10k trail race at Shelby Farms, fourth and final race of the Memphis Runner's Track Club Winter off-road Series.

Yay! My husband and I made it through the whole series! This has been our first series, our first trail races, our first time running 8k and 10k distances. Neither of us got a cold or an injury and had to miss a race, no races got cancelled because of weather. We made it through! This series admirably served the purposes we signed up for, introducing us to trail racing and keeping us motivated during the bleak months of January and February. And we had fun.

And also: placed 3rd in AG today. Which gives me the 3rd highest points total in my AG for the series, only I think I'm actually 2nd because the Grandmaster winner is from my AG, which takes her out of the AG placings. They haven't posted the combined standings yet so I'm not sure. The awards ceremony / afterparty is next weekend.

We have flood warnings on the Wolf River at the moment, and I was a bit concerned the race course would be flooded, since it runs near the Wolf. Driving up to the race we passed the site where our February race was flooded out last year, and the water there was even higher - not even possible to get into the parking lot. But fortunately today's race was across a road, on slightly higher ground. So everything was sodden, with occasional standing water, but not flooded.

Beautiful weather for it - although it's been raining for the past week, today there wasn't a cloud in the sky. About 50 and perfect running weather except for a stiff 12-15 mph wind, which made waiting at the start a little brisk. My husband and I took shelter in the lee of a very tall truck, where we were joined by no other than the woman who ran the last race on her 81st birthday! I recognized her and introduced myself, telling her she was an inspiration, and she said that was her reason for doing it, to show others that it could be done. Could she finish a 10k trail race at 81? Never tried it, never know until you try it! (I checked later and she did finish, and not last, either!)

Eventually the announcer warned everybody to please be careful of the mud and not drown, and off we went! This race is unusual in that the start is gun time - actually they use a siren - and everyone starts along a giant line stretching from the finish gate to the road. There's a drone video of the start from last year which was done the same way:

https://youtu.be/kb6iRMndJAc

In the previous three races my husband and I took the approach of going out really fast, on the relatively open terrain, getting ahead of people, then easing back on the woods trails where it's harder to pass. We knew from practicing here that we were going to need to modify that tactic because there's almost two miles of running on irregular mole-riddled turf at the beginning of this race, and if we ran it too fast, it would wipe us out. So we planned to go out hard but not too hard. In practice on this first mile terrain, 10:30 / 11:00 was easy and anything under 9 was painful. So today was running it by feel and trying to hit a sweet spot. We ended up doing the first mile in 9:30 - faster than I expected, especially given a couple of stretches of really deep mud - and the second, which is partly rough trail, in 9:49. The third mile is the first really technical singlefoot through the woods, did 10:30 which is faster than I would have thought we could manage, walked through the 3 mile water stop, then a quick trot up a gravel road which we used to chill and catch our breaths a bit. By that time everyone was pretty much sorted by speed and spread out. We were stuck next to a guy who had some sort of breathing issue and listening to him was driving my husband, who has asthma and tries to keep his breathing easy and regular, absolutely bonkers. Kudos to him for being out there, and he was running perfectly well, but he sounded ready for an emergency extraction.

Then back into the woods for a bunch of leaping up and down hills, over fallen pine logs and roots. I honestly love running through deep pine needles, so nice on the legs. Not so nice, deep holes full of piney water. This was the part we had saved ourselves for, because if you hit this part with tired legs, it's really brutal. My husband and I were hanging in there pretty well, but heavy breathing guy and a young lady who was also in front of us were starting to lose it. No room to pass in this part. About then I noticed that I could walk as fast as they were running and with about a tenth the effort. So we walked swiftly and recovered, while they trudged miserably along at a run. Then we hit the open field again and passed them.

The last mile is the same as the first mile, heading back. Only, now the soggy mole meadow had been churned up by several hundred runners sliding around in it, and it was truly spectacularly awful - 100m stretches of calf-deep thick mud. The young lady with us had to stop and look for her shoe. I was caught by surprise at how hard a workout it was, pulling my feet out of sucking mud at a run. But if you stopped running it was even worse, because the mud wouldn't let go. This was about when my husband started to lose it - his Merrills were just not up to the task and the tread completely clotted with mud so he couldn't get traction, plus we had gone out too fast for him. Since I was up for a series award we had agreed ahead of time that if he lost it I should keep going, and I did. There were three of these stretches of mud and they took every last bit of energy out of my legs. I was running next to a tall, athletic man about my age who I had been surprised was running so far back - he had the form of a much faster runner, maybe someone coming back from an injury or something - and we hit the third bog and he announced, "I'm done, I am officially over mud, no more mud for me." And he wasn't kidding, he stopped and I went on without him.

So that brought me to the nice grassy home stretch. Time for a finishing kick. Right? RIGHT??? Anyway I walked about 30 seconds to let my legs recover from the mudfest. Then kicked myself repeatedly into a run. Which according to my data was about 9:55 pace so not as hopeless as it felt at the time. A lady I didn't recognize but who looked plausibly like she might be in my age group passed me and I doubled down, but couldn't keep up with her. Turns out she was one age group younger. But she gave me the motivation I needed to get over the line. Time, 1:06:52, average pace 10:47. Slowest mile 11:46 through the piney woods, fastest 9:32 on the grass at the start. My husband made it in 25 seconds later.

Afterwards we walked over and petted noses at the horse rental place, then drove to a BBQ joint and ate everything that wasn't nailed down.

Well after feeling a bit light-headed on Friday morning I was still a bit dizzy on Saturday so decided to rest! Which meant that to get my distance in I'd have to go longer on Sunday! Had planned 15km on Sunday but ended up doing 20km! I have never done as much in my life! It was foggy and misty and meant my sweat was stuck to me the whole way, no comfortable!

Went out this morning for a 5km recovery, just to make sure my legs will still function! And they do!

Going to go to my first parkrun on the 2nd march to see what my 5k time is! Hopefully I'll be able to do a non stop 5k!


I'm using "first day to 5k" program on www.podrunner.com

2nd - 10.44km (w4, w3, w2)
3rd - 10.31km (w4, w3, w2)
4th - 1.84 km (short due to leggings being too big!)
5th - 3.84km (w4)
6th - 4.08km (w4)
7th - 4.11km (w4)
8th - 4.18km (w4)
9th - 11.12km (w4, w3, w2)
10th - 11.18km (w5-1, w4, we)
11th - 4.08km (w5 d1)
12th - took the morning off... After 10 days straight my body needed a rest!
13th - 4.15km (w5 d1)
14th - 4.00km (w5 d1)
15th- 4.18km (w5 d1)
16th - rest (taking my son to fortnite competition!)
17th - 13.35km (w5d2, w5d1, w4 & a bit of w3!)
18th - 4.11km (w5d1)
19th - 4.35km (w5d2)
20th - 5.97km (w5d2, part of w5d1)
21st - 4.63km (w5d2)
22nd - 4.62km (w6d1)
23rd - rest (felt dizzy...)
24th - 20.25 (w6d2, w6d1, w5d3, w5d2, w5d1)
25th - 5.00 (moved to freeway to 10k w1)


Total so far - 139.8km/ 161.93km (86%)

Planned races
14th April - great Ireland run - 10km
11th May - kungsholmen runt - 10km

i tried to run outside. the trails were pretty icy. the wind was 30-50mph gusts. i ended up high stepping thru snowbanks and walking slowly over ice. it was so frustrating. still ended up in two snow banks. but we did get to see the sunset. the wind sounded like the ocean which was kinda peaceful.