Back on the Horse

I have spent this past week on a business trip to Europe - a couple of days in Liverpool for a board meeting followed by a couple of days in and around Hamburg to meet with one of our collaborators.   Long week and very happy to be home!

I enjoy my international trips and always take my work out gear, but find it very difficult to actually do anything!  Generally there are dinner engagements every evening and I find that my craving for sleep seems to quickly overcome any desire to get up early and exercise.   This week all I managed was 45 minutes on the treadmill on Tuesday morning in the Liverpool Hilton (which happens to have one of the best gyms I've ever seen in a hotel - and I've seen a lot!).   Ah well.....

On the plus side I managed to eat pretty well.  I didn't go too crazy on my old favorites while in Liverpool and the food around the Baltic coast is designed to be eaten in  moderation - how much eel, zander and pickled herring can you eat?  

A light week now and again is probably good for me, but now it's time to get back on the horse and do some serious work. 

Albert Dock in Liverpool

Hamburg

Uh oh!

Went out this morning for a run intending to do about nine miles.  Took one of my normal routes around Virgil Road in east Durham County.  Hilly but not as steep as my regular 5k hill loop.

Everything went well for the first four miles - crusing along at around 9:30 pace and enoying the sunshine and the scenery.  For some reason though somewhere during mile five my legs just decided that they didn't want to go anymore.  I had been drinking Accelerade and had a Hammer Gel at mile four, so it wasn't lack of fuel.  Lungs also felt good - it was just my legs!  Shortened the route slightly and kept going slowly to finish about eight miles, but was at 11 min plus pace when I finished - ugh!  Heart rate was only in the 155-160 range, so plenty left in the tank.

The only thing I can think of is that the bike workout that I did on the trainer yesterday took more out of me than I realised. 

On the plus side I did keep going and ran for a total of 1 hr. 17 mins, but it's disappointing.

I head to Europe on business this evening - will be taking my workout gear, but maybe it's a good excuse to give the legs a bit of a rest?

Todays wildlife count:  a wild turkey; a small eastern box turtle; more squirrels than you can count, a nice wood duck family and a large black snake of some sort.  No deer, which is very unusual! (oh, and I can add a possum if roadkill counts!)

Planning for the OBX Half Marathon

So, the Outer Banks Half Marathon is coming up in about a month from now on November 14th.   http://www.obxmarathon.com/Top_Nav/Outer_Banks_Marathon/fpraces_courseinfo.htm   I did the same event last year and finished (with a sore knee) in about 2 hrs 19 minutes if memory serves me correctly.  I think I could certainly have been a few minutes faster if my knee hadn't been bothering me so much over the last few miles.

Anyway, what should I expect this year - should I set myself a target?   I'm a little leery as last year I did only run training in the lead-up to the event and put in several runs in the 10-12 mile range and one 14 miler. This year I have been mixing-in swim and bike training because of my triathlon obsession and so haven't done as many miles.  That said, however, I think I'm probably running faster over my normal run circuits than I was this time last year (I need to check that!).  I definitely need to up the milage over the next few weeks and get in some double digit mile runs over the remaining weekends.  My cardio should be OK, I just need to make sure that my legs (and that pesky right knee!) can take the pounding.

I would really like to be able to break two hours (roughly 9 min 10 secs/mile pace) but I think that it's highly unlikely at this point.  10 minute miles over the full 13.1 mile race would be 1 hour 10 mins 6 secs.   That certainly sounds a bit more like it and potentially an achievable target.  Yep - that's my goal.

So how realistic is it?   There's a nifty tool availabe called the McMillan Running Calculator that allows you to plug in the time you run for any distance and it spits out what it estimates your potential to be at a range of other distances.  You can find it here:   http://www.mcmillanrunning.com/mcmillanrunningcalculator.htm

One of the problems that I have is that around where I live there is barely a flat spot anywhere.  This isn't a bad thing in terms of getting a good work out (those hills are good for you!) but it means that it's very difficult to get a good benchmark on what pace I'm running at.  I  know for a fact, for instance, that I run 5k on the coast several minutes faster than I can run my regular 5k "hill circuit" at home.

I ran 6.5 miles today around Barton's Creek and Wood Valley neighborhoods - plenty of hills!   I deliberately didn't push too hard and I tried to maintain an even 10 min/mile pace.  My splits were up and down slightly but my overall pace averaged 10:01 mins/mile over the full 6.5 miles, so I guess that I was pretty close!

My time at 10k (6.214 miles) was 1 hr 02 mins 23 secs.    If I plug that into the McMillan calculator I get an estimated half marathon time of 2 hrs 18 mins 49 seconds - very close to my time last year.  

There's no way that I'm settling for that!!!!, so I guess the question becomes - what time could I run 10 k in over flat ground and if I pushed it?  The simple answer is that I don't know!   I think that 30 secs faster per mile is probably a reasonable estimate (9:30 per mile, over 6.214 miles would be a fraction over 59 minutes).  If I plug a 59 minute 10k time into the McMillan calculator I get an estimated time of 2 hrs 11 mins 17 secs for a half marathon - that looks a bit more like it!

I'm going to see if I can find a flat(ter) circuit this weekend and see what I can do for 10k.  I'll report back!

Ooops, I did it again!

What do I have in common with Britney Spears?.....

Well, actually not much, but I did manage to "do it again" today and improve my best time on my regular 5k hill circuit by a full thirty seconds!   After I ran the circuit last week I told myself that I would try to get my time down to under 30 minutes by the time of the Outer Banks half marathon in November - well I did it today!  I'm very happy with the way that my times are coming down so consistently at the moment and am itching to get onto a flat track to see what I can do for a "real" 5k. 



What a slob!

Went camping at Kerr Lake on the NC - VA border this weekend with a host of good friends.  Took my running gear and intended to put in at least one long run.  What was I thinking?  Late nights around the campfire; a few too many drinks; being woken by a friend's car alarm on Saturday (courtesy of his four year old who stepped on his car keys!) and, perhaps more pleasantly, and owl on Sunday.

Needless to say my running shoes stayed in my bag.  Does chasing after about 20 children count as exercise?

That said, some fabulous weather and a little down time should be part of everyone's training schedule.....

Progress!

Since the Lake Royale Event on Saturday I have deliberately taken two days off from my workout schedule and then had another enforced layoff yesterday because of work commitments.

This morning, with no great expectations, I went out to run one of my regular training loops.  This one is 5k long, all hills - the same one that I talk about in the post "putting it into practice".  For some reason it felt great from the start.  I really felt as if I was "running" rather than "jogging" or, as is often the case for me "plodding".

Suffice to say I kept feeling good and completely trashed my personal best benchmark on that circuit by awhopping 53 seconds!   Just a week ago I took 42 seconds off my best time before that.  I'm sure the cooler weather and the three days rest helped, but it's really encouraging to see improvement like this! 

Here's how my previous three "benchmark" runs on this circuit compared:

	September 3rd		September 28th		October 6th
	Split	Avg. HR	Split	Avg. HR	Split	Avg. HR
Mile 1	9:46	141	10:13	150	10:01	148
Mile 2	10:05	152	9:53	166	9:42	160
Mile 3	10:02	161	9:56	176	9:24	171
Final 0.2	8:43	164	8:33	180	8:01	173
TotaL:	31:59	152	31:17	164	30:24	159

My notes tell me that I didn't push hard on Sep.3rd, hence the lower heart rate.

More than a minute and ahalf shaved off in a month.  I guess the training is starting to pay off a little.  Now I have to work out how to take this out onto the race course with me!

Inspiration....

Just last Friday our friend Lisa told me that her short term triathlon objectives were to get a podium finish in her age group and to complete a sprint event in under 1 hour 30 minutes.

Yesterday Lisa took part in the Set-Up Events Jordan Lake Women's Sprint Triathlon and crushed it!  She finished second in her age group and finished in 1 hour 21 minutes 17 seconds.  Mission Accomplished!

I'm in awe of Lisa's splits:

750 m swim:        11:34
14 mile bike         44:10
5k run                  23:29

I can only dream of being that fast - awesome!

Lisa became a "triathlon junkie" a little before I did, but has really dedicated herself to training; hired a coach and so on.  An inspiration! - now that I have "got the feel" of what it's all about I'm going to take a page out of Lisa's book and really dedicate myself to some hard work and serious improvement next season.