March 2019 Monthly Running Challenge

Morning all.

I decided to skip todays run. I spent yesterday stretching and foam rolling out my legs, concentrating on the left calf. I came across a video on shin splints and stretches to do for them, and have been following them religiously, 3-4 times a day. This morning my leg was only slightly achey rather than quite achey so I think that may have made a difference. Have you heard of Bob and Brad, the two most famous physical therapists on the internet (in their opinion). I followed their advice for the posterior tibial tendonitis and that fixed it up really fast. I'm following their advice for this too. They are so good. Their video titles are a little clickbaty but they explain their titles within the first few minutes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yZxnb1eqLfo

March Runing Goal: 4/20 miles

3/1 1 mile
3/2 1.5 mile
3/4 1.5 mile

Trying to come back after a long time off, some weight gain, and some health issues. I'm surprised it's kicking my butt this much just to run a mile.

GOAL: 140 miles
03/02 - 13.25
03/09 -
03/16 -
03/23 -
03/30 -
03/31 -

TOTAL: 13.25 miles

Thanks all for the kudos on my half marathon race! I usually like to preview a race course sometime before actually running the race, but in this case, I think I would have been overwhelmed with the hills and then lowered my expectations and thus, my pace and not have had a chance improve my PR.

This week I have been just doing easy runs... Sunday I got out in the snow for a 3 mile recovery run with my screw shoes and ran on the freshly plowed neighborhood streets, so was mainly a thin layer of snow pack. Bitter cold and the fact that I was going to be running short runs downtown Mon/Tue where I never know what the conditions of the sidewalks are going to be after a snow event, I have been on the treadmill. Tomorrow I am working from home, so will get back outside for a longer, easy run. I plan on getting back to doing some speed work starting next week.

04/21/18 - 4:20:27 - Marathon (My 1st) - Garmin Marathon, Olathe KS
06/02/18 - 1:10:12 - 7.7 mile - Hospital Hill - Kansas City MO
08/18/18 - 23:04 - 5K (PR) - Gardner KS
10/06/18 - (Rained Out) 5K - Jared Coones Memorial Pumkin Run - Olathe KS
10/20/18 - 1:57:04 Half Marathon - Kansas City Marathon - KC MO
11/22/18 - 27:59 - 5K - Turkey Trot - Overland Park KS (1st race with my son) 03/02/19 - 1:53:19 (PR) Liberty Hospital Half Marathon - Liberty MO (Heartland 39.3 Series #1)
03/30/19 - Jadon's Hope Bug Run 10K - Olathe KS
04/13/19 - Rock the Parkway Half Marathon - Kansas City MO (Heartland 39.3 Series #2)
05/11/19 - Running with the Cows Half Marathon - Bucyrus KS (Heartland 39.3 Series #3)
06/01/19 - Hospital Hill Half Marathon - Kansas City MO
??/??/19 - Garmin OzRun Half Marathon - Virtual Run (Date conflicted with Heartland #2)

Over dressed for 44 °F, but didn't want to take any chances 😁
Was an easy 7 miles, but first 3 felt like a struggle. But no white fingers! Yay me!

March Running Totals (miles)
3/1 – rest day
3/2 – 20.05 paced run + solo miles
3/3 – 8.28 easy
3/4 – rest day
3/5 – 10.27 warmup, speed work, cool down

March running total to date – 38.60

Nominal March mileage goal: 200 miles

Real Goals: Train well toward Boston. Cut back before St. Patrick’s Day weekend, run the 8K hard, use the half as a training race. Remain uninjured, even if it means cutting back on planned mileage.

Today's notes – Sunshine this morning, temperature in the teens F. Got cloudy, and we got light snow (if liquid, I'd call it mist) for the afternoon and evening. Winds picked up a bit, but not too much. All in all, it was a very nice January day.

So it's cold. Today was speed work on the indoor track. Got there, and Coach asked what I'm doing. 4 or 5 x 1600 at T, the 4 x 100m strides. How many miles am I running a week? 56, but this is a cutback week. Okay, run 4 of them, then see if you have a 5th one left.

So that's what I did. After 4, I wasn't totally sure about the 5th; but when I got around to the start line, I felt good enough to start. Target time for the 1600s was 6:32. I brought them in at 6:32, 6:28, 6:29, 6:27, and 6:31. The last one was really hard, but then the strides felt pretty good. Coach told me that if the last one was hard, that's how many I needed to do.

The point of this type of workout is to increase endurance at speed. I think I'm in pretty good shape right now; the trick will be to maintain that and not overtrain in the remaining 6 weeks till Boston.

And for those of you wondering how on earth can anyone stand to run 10 miles on an indoor track, here's how: Do a 2 mile warmup, kind of zoning out on the monotony and dodging the pole vaulters whose practice has squeezed the track to 2 lanes at one end. Run 6 miles concentrating mostly on holding pace for specified speed intervals. Then run a 2 mile cool down while chatting with other runners and just getting the lactic acid worked out of the muscles.

A 10 mile continual run on an indoor track is much tougher mentally. I've done that, too.

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)
April 28, 2019 USATF Masters 10K (James Joyce Ramble) (Dedham, MA)
May 19, 2019 Lilac Run 5K (Rochester, NY)
May 19, 2019 Lilac Run 10K (Rochester, NY)
May 25, 2019 Sunset House 5K (Rochester, NY)
November 3, 2019 TCS New York City Marathon (New York, NY)

@shanaber I appreciate you all taking the hit with the rain for us, but I hope you don’t have to endure too much more!

The sun keeps tricking me into underdressing, so I had a super chilly bike ride with my kids on Sunday, and a cold run today. Oops. And now I’m headed to a high school info session in my running clothes, so that should go over well 😀. (My teen is actually remarkably tough to embarrass in any way despite our best efforts) But I got the evening run in after a busy workday, so whew!

March goal: 60 miles

3/2 6 mi
3/3 cross (easy bike ~10 mi)
3/5 4 mi

March total: 10 mi

Races:
3/16 Kirkland Shamrock Run 5K
5/6 Vancouver BMO Half Marathon?

Went out for round two this evening! A coworker and I braved the group run that meets at our store because 1) it was a whisky + girl scout cookies pairing/tasting night and 2) our On rep was there and we wanted to demo the new shoes we just got in. I liked the whiskey and I liked the cookies (duh) but less a fan of the shoes. The rep told me I'd like a different one (Cloud Surfer) since I love the trail shoes (Cloud Venture) so we'll see if I can get my hands on a pair.

And now to bed since I've got a big ol' Workout Wednesday planned for tomorrow!


March miles:
3/1: 10 miles
3/2: Rest day
3/3: 17 miles
3/4: 5 miles
3/5: 6.3 + 3.5 miles

March total: 41.8 miles


2019 Races
March 16: Four Courts Four Miler (Goal: Fun!)
March 24: Caesar Rodney Half Marathon (Goal: PR)
April 7: Cherry Blossom 10 Miler (Goal: Sub-75)
April 28: New Jersey Marathon (Goal: BQ)
July 6: Finger Lake Fifties 50k (Goal: Finish)

@kristinegift I'm totally down for whiskey & girl scout cookies! At one time the On CloudVenture used to be my favorite trail running shoe. It felt like I was running in slippers with great traction. I'm not sure what happened but now I find them pretty spotty. Sometimes I enjoy the shoe, sometimes I feel the "pods" too much under the ball of my feet. I used to be all in on those but now I don't know that I'd buy another pair. Strange how it would change. Even when I loved the trail shoe though, I never liked their road shoe. I don't like how the pods feel on pavement.

shanaber wrote: »

I am still way behind on all the posts but did read @7lenny7's race report - wow! You guys are awesome! I love Kody and can't believe he is 11! One question - do his paws and ears get cold?

@shanaber while running tonight it occurred to me that I never answered your question. My apologies. I don't think they do get cold. From experience I know that if there's anything bothering Kody's paws, it shows in his gait. If he gets a small clump of ice stuck to his paw hair, I can tell something's wrong by his gait. As far as his ears, I've never thought of that but I've not seen anything which would lead me to believe that there's an issue. Finally, I asked our veterinarian one time about Kody hunting in sub-zero weather, and what conditions he could handle. The vet said that he's better suited for cold weather than I am and that anything I could handle, Kody could handle better. Wolves and fox can handle these temps, so I guess there's no reason a Labrador retriever, bred for swimming in icy water of Newfoundland, couldn't handle it. I'm much more concerned about his welfare when we run in hot weather than in sub-zero.

So close to 50 for the month!! Had I known, I'd have tacked on an extra quarter mile at the track or something. Darn it!

Workout In The Wind Wednesday! It's pretty darn chilly here today (for Virginia). I headed out for my workout at 10:30 am and it was ~28F with a "real feel" of 17F thanks to 15-24 mph winds. Lucky me, I got to run a track workout which means running into a headwind for what felt like 75% of the time because wind is a fickle and petty enemy. I thought up my workout last night pondering what I haven't worked on in a while, and that would be fast-than-HM paces/leg turnover. I've been practicing my HM and marathon paces but neglecting the faster stuff. So I did 1.5 miles to warm up, then three sets of 800m HMP/800m 10k pace/800m 5k pace/800 marathon pace to recover. I thought I was just a bit off on all my sets, but reviewing my splits afterwards on Garmin and Strava, I nailed them. But it was super tough with the wind and the cold. I stopped after every split to breathe through my buff and warm my lungs back up.

All in all though, it was a fun workout. I struggled, per usual, to find my 10k pace but fell into the HMP, MP and 5k paces pretty easily. It was good to get my legs moving and my lungs burning. And tomorrow is a rest day, hooray!


March miles:
3/1: 10 miles
3/2: Rest day
3/3: 17 miles
3/4: 5 miles
3/5: 6.3 + 3.5 miles
3/6: 8 miles

March total: 49.8 miles


2019 Races
March 16: Four Courts Four Miler (Goal: Fun!)
March 24: Caesar Rodney Half Marathon (Goal: PR)
April 7: Cherry Blossom 10 Miler (Goal: Sub-75)
April 28: New Jersey Marathon (Goal: BQ)
July 6: Finger Lake Fifties 50k (Goal: Finish)

3-1 Rest
3-2 10.5k easy
3-3 11k slow
3-4 10.5k recovery
3-5 Rest
3-6 7k slow

March Total: 39k
March Goal: 175k

Next year when you pop in here claiming your December 2019 mileage, what accomplishments will you have made?
Run at least 4 5k races.
Get under 30:00 and a PR for 5k.
Average at least 135k per month, which would put me over 1,000 miles for the year.

Run the Year Team: Five for Nineteen

16 degrees F; another inch of fresh snow; variable winds; and an enthusiasm level at rock bottom. Slogged my way through, but didn't enjoy it.


2019 Races:

4-13 Shine the Light 5K
6-1 Freedom 5K
6-30 Strides for Starfish 5k

Sparx_81 wrote: »

Yikes.. I'm a bit behind on my reading here ... I'll try to catch up...

I just popped in to ask a diet/ running question. A friend of mine has recommended intermittent fasting to try to lose weight ... But I'm starting to work towards marathon training (32 weeks away yet!) So I'm tempted to try until I get nearer to the more intensive training.... So I'm wondering if anyone here has used IF while running? Was it help or a hinderance?

Intermittent fasting isn't really consistent with regular substantial exercise. I cringe at the very thought of a fast day coinciding with a running day.

In training mode, I need to eat more often, not less often. The trick is to not eat a whole lot every time, so I can eat mid-morning instead of going into a slump, eat lunch, eat mid-afternoon instead of going into a physical slump, etc. Obviously, many of those times for eating are not full meals.

In marathon training, this gets even more pronounced. I eat for maintenance, add back some calories for running more than usual, and still end up losing a couple of pounds over the course of a marathon training cycle. To put this in perspective, I'm trying to make my weight trend sideways.

As far as managing the hunger . . . I know I need to eat enough protein, and eat enough fat. I don't pay much attention to carbs, they pretty much take care of themselves. And I need to distinguish real hunger from boredom, stress, and social eating, just like I needed to before I was a runner.

So to lose weight while running, what to do? Track what you eat. Limit calories to maintenance. Note what satisfies you, and what doesn't. I love pizza, but it's way too expensive in calories compared to satiety to eat regularly. Marathon training can make up for a lot of mistakes in my diet, but still . . . I can't out-run my fork.