A tempo run outside??

Ran 6.2 miles today. Supposed to be either a Tempo/Speed/Hill workout today. Instead of going to the YMCA and the treadmill, the weather was too great & perfect to not run outside! 54*F and partly sunny. Fantastic! So away I went. Ended up being a tempo type of run anyway! 6.2 miles in 55:56:60 (at least that's what my Garmin said when I stopped it--so technically I ran 55:57 but I thought it was cool stopping it so precisely!) This was the closest I have came since last fall to my 10k PR of 55:14 in 2007. Oh well. I also forgot my heart rate monitor. It would have been interesting to see what it was in my last quarter mile when I was going at an 8 minute mile! :-)

I figured out that I run my best in 45-55 degree weather. The high 60's are pushing it a bit. How about you? Are you cold or hot weather runner? Or maybe lukewarm like myself!

Of course, on the day that I don't bring any electronic device with me at all, I see 4 doe(s) on my route. I ran towards them heading east. I said something so they know my voice. They all scampered off into the woods and stood as still as possible while I passed, watching me. Very freaky! Then I turned around less than a quarter mile past them. I didn't see that they had run across. But as I ran towards them (west) I saw one scamper across the path. Then another one. The third stopped dead in their tracks in the middle of the path. So very funny. I asked it to move but it just stood there. Finally it got scared and joined its pals. I saw the 4th one, on the original side just waiting for me to pass. The three that was on the other side, also watched me and one got a little scared of my loud running and got scared. One of them started walking down a grassy path in the woods towards me as if to say "Hey, watch it or else!"

Yesterday, St. Patrick's Day, I took my new bike out for a spin. I went down a ways on the route I had planned and then I realised that I could take my Garmin out as well! I doubled back and back to my apartment, grabbed my Garmin and then saw it was dead. WTF? It was plugged into the charger! Not sure what happened there but it was all ready to go today. Poop. So I have no idea how far I went but it was a tough ride though. Winds were very strong, 23 mph winds with 32 mph gusts. I think I also need to learn my balance on these tiny tires. I got knocked over by the wind. Yes, all the way over. Trust me, I felt stupid for that. Luckily into the grass but it hurt anyway.

So Saturday. This will be a doozy. I'm already not really looking forward to it because of the 18 miles. But on top of all this, I'm going to do it in the town I went to high school. A town of 700 people. I already talked about this possibility before. You can find the post here and the route that I had planned to do. I went back up to northern Illinois on the Friday evening so I didn't have to try to run this loop route. But this is going to be a total other type of run. 18 miles. It's going to take me a while to figure out a way to get 18 miles out of this town.

I'm also going to post on Facebook to see if anyone is willing to be my "in case of emergency" person. My mother will be in no shape to pick me up, in case anything happens to me. I have a couple options; one in particular, already in mind. I just hope that they will be able to. I'll give them the map and what time I should go out running. This will be a 3 hour run. 7am-10am is what I'm figuring. I hope someone would be willing; not that I would need to use them but a "just in case" type of thing. After that run a few weeks ago, I'm not taking any more chances.

Tomorrow, I'll post my route in Google Maps.

Activity Route: -- Elev. Avg: 858 ft Location: DeKalb, IL Elev. Gain: +7 ft Date: 03/18/09 Up/Downhill: [+246/-239] Time: 04:56 PM Difficulty: 2.6 / 5.0 Weather: Partly Cloudy 52 F temp; 24% humidity 52 F heat index; winds NW 7 Performance Distance: 6.20 miles Time: 0:55:57 Speed: 6.7 mph Pace: 9' 01 /mi Calories: 660 Map Elevation (ft) Pace (min/mile) Splits Mile Pace (min/mile) Speed (mph) Elevation Gain actual +/- avg actual +/- avg 1 8' 50 -0' 11 6.8 +0.1 +19 ft 2 8' 54 -0' 07 6.7 +0.1 -13 ft 3 9' 03 +0' 02 6.6 -0.0 +7 ft 4 9' 17 +0' 16 6.5 -0.2 +19 ft 5 9' 20 +0' 19 6.4 -0.2 -3 ft 6 8' 56 -0' 05 6.7 +0.1 -33 ft end 8' 03 -0' 58 7.4 +0.8 +9 ft Versus average of 9' 01 min/mile

Posted from bimactive.com

Categories: 6 miles, biking, Bluford, DeKalb Nature Trail, mid-week run

An early morning workout during the week!

I stayed late at work on Tuesday night for an extra hour. So I decided that I might try to run in the morning before work and go in late to make up for that hour. Believe it or not, I did it!

My alarm went off at 6:00am.
I finally got out of bed around 6:40am. (I was seriously tempted to just skip it)
I got to the YMCA at 7:05am. (barely anyone there! Awesome!)
Did a 4 mile tempo, with a half mile warm up and half mile cool down in 46 minutes! 10:00 min/mi warm up/cool down and 8:57 min/mi tempo speed. (Schedule says 5miles but eh, 4 was good enough for me, I don't have any down weeks in my training)
Done running at 7:50am.
Got home around 8:05am.
Showered at 8:10am.
Left for work around 8:35am.

I don't think I'll be doing that again on a normal workday, unless I go in late. I am just not an early morning person. I did notice that today, my legs felt really heavy all day. On top of all that, I didn't eat breakfast before hand (no time since I got out of bed 40 minutes after my alarm went off) and by the time I got home, my stomach was growling and making noises. I also didn't have any Gatorade on hand to drink immediately afterwards. Another not so smart move. But I must admit that it feels good & different to be done with my run early and not have to worry about it when I came home from work. :-)

Tonight was a NITRO meeting & seminar. Our first seminar of the new year. It was on weight training and core workout. *sigh* I know that as a runner I _need_ to do that but I just don't have the discipline to keep it up all the time. I remember to do it once or twice and then I get lazy. My core especially will help me be a better runner but do I really need to be a "better" runner? I'm pretty happy at where I'm at speed wise and distance wise. My core is not really gonna help my toe tendon problem.

The NITRO shirts came in as well. I saw 2 prototypes. The squirrel logo printed out well with what I did to it. Unfortunately, it was not the logo that I created. My squirrel had running shoes, a water bottle and was running on a trail. I also had it coloured brown instead of the red and the 5 o'clock shadow that it had. On one version I had (that no one saw) I also gave it a visor & earbuds for it's ears. It really looked like a runner then! Very cute. But only a few liked the brown version. And apparently, no one really cared for the shoes or the water bottle. One person actually said they looked creepy. Oh well. This is why I'm not an illustrator for a living.
I went to Wal-Mart before the meeting and bought a big bag of chocolate; Whoppers, Kit-Kat, Reese's Peanut Butter Cups & Hersey's Milk Chocolate bars. I walked into the new FitWorkz gym with one of each in my hands. I felt bad but hey, it's not like I run to lose weight. When I wasn't running, I was pretty much this weight --OK, maybe like 5-10 lbs heavier but I could have lost that with not drinking as much beer & Taco Bell after the bar!-- so I'm not really doing it for the health benefits. I still watch what I eat just cause I'm a vegetarian but my candy I will still have and overindulge in, if I want to. :-)

Categories: mid-week run, NITRO, tempo run

6 miles along Grant's Trail

Not much to say about this run. It was ok. I didn't get a good breakfast. I only brought water with me. I was warm near the end of the run. It was bit breezy, but manageable. I did the same Grant's Trail as I did a few months back. So you can see pictures there. It's a lot more greener too. I took video so that will be posted later when I get it off my camera.

Activity Route: -- Elev. Avg: 540 ft Location: Kirkwood, MO Elev. Gain: -13 ft Date: 03/04/09 Up/Downhill: [+170/-183] Time: 10:25 AM Difficulty: 2.2 / 5.0 Weather: Partly Cloudy 46 F temp; 29% humidity 46 F heat index; winds S 13 Performance Distance: 6.00 miles Time: 0:57:54 Speed: 6.2 mph Pace: 9' 39 /mi Heart Rate: 175 bpm (Avg) Calories: 640 185 bpm (Peak) Map Elevation (ft) Pace (min/mile) Heart Rate (bpm) Splits Mile Pace (min/mile) Speed (mph) Heart Rate Elev Gain actual +/- avg actual +/- avg 1 9' 50 +0' 11 6.1 -0.1 162 -46 ft 2 9' 36 -0' 03 6.2 +0.0 172 -26 ft 3 9' 39 +0' 00 6.2 -0.0 175 -43 ft 4 10' 20 +0' 41 5.8 -0.4 176 +39 ft 5 9' 55 +0' 16 6.0 -0.2 180 +23 ft end 9' 38 -0' 01 6.2 +0.0 182 +39 ft Versus average of 9' 39 min/mile

Posted from bimactive.com

Categories: 6 miles, Ballwin, Grant's Trail, mid-week run

Running in Kirkwood

Very excited about my run today.

I was a little worried about trying to find out where to run here in Ballwin. Especially after last months debacle at Queeny Park, where I was crying going up the last hill in mile 5.5 of a 7 mile jaunt. So I decided to use a little know-how. I posted comments on both the LiveJournal community runners and stlouis asking for help. The St. Louis community was more helpful. Only one response on runners and she's a friend of mine of my own journal! The stlouis people suggested the Katy Trail in St. Charles (which is a bit of a haul from here), Grant's Trail which Brent & I found out last month while visiting Grant's Farm, Creve Couer Park (which I've never been too but know where the area of Creve Couer is) and finally Pere Marquette State Park, back in Illinois.

After seeing the first comment about Grant's Trail and the accompanying link making out mile markers, I decided on that was the best bet since I have seen a little bit of it before, it was relatively close to where Brent lives. I asked the commenter where I should start and the best way to get there. He suggested at the very northern part and I'll work my way south. After comparing his notes to Google Street View (thank you Google gods!) I was ready to go.

I ate a bowl of oatmeal, stopped off at Target to pick up some Gatorade and PowerBar Protein Plus and on my way. I ended up not taking the interstates he suggested but the roads I know and I got there in 20 minutes. I'm sure it would have been faster if I would have taken the interstates. No biggie.

I got everything all situated and off I went on the trail. 56 seconds later, I ran into my first stop light across a major road (the road I came in on, Big Bend Rd). Welp, I have a feeling this is going to be the entire way. Sure enough, at .5 miles into the run (around 4 minutes) another stop light. Didn't see another one until 1.5 miles. The one at 3 miles. That was at Grant's Farm. Right before this I was passing all the pasture fields for the Clydesdales of Grant's Farm and they were soooo close to the fence! There were signs that said: Don't feed the horses or CAUTION: Horses may bite but didn't say anything about not petting the horses so technically I could have but I didn't want to stop. I took pictures instead.

Then I had a nice long mile before I had to stop again for a road. This was halfway and technically I didn't have to cross but I didn't want to run to the car and then get in and drive off so I did cross and came across a park which had a path into it. It was daylight, so I decided what the hey and went in. Sooo glad I did too! Shaded, cool breeze and lots of foilage. Came back out and that was 4.3 so I had plenty of mileage left over to play with. After I exited the park, I decided that I should take some Sports Beans. Yes, they are chewy like the Shot Bloks I had last week but in smaller more manageable pieces and dissolved better. I took them with water. At mile 3, I already guzzled a bit of my Gatorade. (I only took 2 bottles with me in my belt)

On the way back, passing Grant's Farms pastures again, a group of Clydesdales where all standing together, near the back of the pasture, which was closest to the trail, all looking in the same direction. And since they all had their white blazes on their face, it was like they were all looking at the same thing. It was a very neat picture. Ended up stopping at a very old cemetery and there they had a restroom and water fountains (of course turned off). I walked through the old cemetery took some photos and then walked the remaining little bit back to the car for a cool down.

Now about the path itself. Aside from the constant stopping at the beginning, it was OK. I would probably run it again. Very newly paved, not very busy (for a Thursday at noon of course not!). The bikers are NOT friendly at all. Though I have yet to come across any biker that yells out "Passing on your left!" even in my little town they don't do it. The runners or walkers are not very friendly either. I waved at every single person on the trail, and only a handful waved back at me. I wave at everyone who is on my trail in DeKalb and they all wave back. I knew better to even try in Chicago so I didn't there, plus there was too many of them. There was this one point that it was Woolly Bully alley. So many of them scooting across the path trying to get to the other side. I took some pictures of them, all within 30 secs of each other. Of course there were plenty of birds too and some dead Wooly Bullies that bikers never saw. Poor things. There were 2 best parts, the horses at Grant's Farm and Clydesdale Park near I-55. Very pretty in there, I now wished that I would have ran around more in there. It felt very nice.

I'm still not over the biker thing though. How hard is it for them to yell out "Coming up behind you!" and then "Passing on your left!"? Srsly! I totally do that when I come up with walkers. I recently added the "Behind you" part but I've always said "On your left." On top of being nice, it also is a good indication of my breathing. Now bikers at RAGBRAI did that all the time but most of them are professional. One guy today, comes whizzing by me, on a road bike and scared the daylights out of me! He almost made me pee my pants! I jumped a lot. My heart raced which then screwed up my breathing. I don't think these guys realise that at all. Even in Chicago, for 2h20' only 1 biker the entire time said "On your left" as he was passing us. I couldn't believe it. I thought for sure with the traffic that I was going on there would be more.

I did a nice little stretch at the end near the park benches and I'm feeling good now. Off to take a shower and chill with Brent's kitties before I go pick him up from work whenever he calls me.

Activity Route: -- Elev. Avg: 517 ft Location: Kirkwood, MO Elev. Gain: -23 ft Date: 10/16/08 Up/Downhill: [+213/-236] Time: 12:02 PM Difficulty: 2.7 / 5.0 Weather: Partly Cloudy 58 F temp; 53% humidity 58 F heat index; winds NW 8 Performance Distance: 8.02 miles Time: 1:17:05 Speed: 6.2 mph Pace: 9' 37 /mi Calories: 836 Map Elevation (ft) Pace (min/mile) Splits Mile Pace (min/mile) Speed (mph) Elevation Gain actual +/- avg actual +/- avg 1 9' 40 +0' 03 6.2 -0.0 -36 ft 2 9' 33 -0' 04 6.3 +0.0 -23 ft 3 9' 34 -0' 03 6.3 +0.0 -43 ft 4 9' 36 -0' 01 6.2 +0.0 -16 ft 5 10' 08 +0' 31 5.9 -0.3 +7 ft 6 10' 04 +0' 27 6.0 -0.3 +17 ft 7 10' 12 +0' 35 5.9 -0.4 +32 ft 8 10' 09 +0' 32 5.9 -0.3 +33 ft Versus average of 9' 37 min/mile

Posted from bimactive.com

Categories: 8 miles, Ballwin, Grant's Trail, mid-week run, pictures

What a difference a week makes

Last week I had a 7 mile run. It was an awesome run. Average pace of 9 min/mi. I didn't even bring any water with me either. Today I had the same 7 mile run. It didn't go so well.

I had taken the last three days off after a sore calf muscle reared it's ugly head. Today, walking around, I felt just fine. I could stand on my tip toes and it wouldn't hurt. So off I ran today. Even before the first mile ended, I felt my calf muscle. I wasn't happy. But I still ran. Around the 2.5 mile mark, I quit being so tired and my body accepted what I was doing. After having 3 days off, it didn't know what was going on! Of course, it could also be because I ran the first mile way too fast again, 8:34 and then the second mile 9:10. After that I slowed way down. Around 9:30 min/mi - 10:07 min/mi. For an average pace of 9:38 min/mi, finishing 4 minutes slower than last week.

I did my half marathon with an average pace of 9:23 min/mi. If I did that then I would finish in 4:05, which is awesome and what I want to do. Maybe I should figure I'll finish the marathon in an average of 10 min/mi and then I'll finish around 4:22. Which I think is still good. As long as I beat Oprah, 4:29:20. :-)

I also didn't have my iPod with me on my run today. Well, I did but it wasn't charged up so I ran the 7 miles without music. I've never done that before. But it was all good. Of course then I heard my negative voices a lot more. As I was finishing, I was thinking of this is how I'm feeling at the end of 7 miles, I'm not even halfway on my 15 mile run for Saturday. It's going to be interesting to say the least.

Categories: 7 miles, mid-week run

Define Yourself

I need to remember to bring my water belt on my runs for Wednesday, especially as they're getting longer. I am now up to 6 miles on Wednesday, a mid-week run. The longest I'll run is 10 miles by November. Today was warm, 80* and a small amount of humidity (as it's supposed to rain sometime today and it hasn't yet).

I also should get some new insect repellent. A friend had a spray that was pretty neat. When you sprayed it on, it was dry immediately. No stickiness or wetness. Since I run through some woods for part of my run, I need to use it. Today, I have 4 new bites on my back. Ick.

Listening to the Phedippidations podcast is something a bad thing for me on my runs. Today's podcast had a race report from a guy doing a 50 mile race. Listening to Steve Runner read his email, got me all choked up. WHILE RUNNING! Stupid emotions. Anyway, this runner was reading an older issue of Runner's World before his 50-miler and saw this title of this blog and repeated it as his mantra.

I'm not quite sure how I missed this movie. http://www.journeyfilm.com/deankarnazes/. I watched the Spirit of the Marathon and thought, "wow, I definitely want to do this!" I bet that if I watched this movie with Dean, I probably would have decided NOT to do it! HAHA! I did read his book, UltraMarathon Man and I must say, it was a good book. I'm debating getting it on audio so I can listen to it again while running.

Grumpy Old Men is such a good movie and especially moreso now that Walter Matthau is gone.

Categories: 6 miles, mid-week run, Phedippidations, podcast