Mileage Reporting 37th week 2013

[Owlrun]

Ah yes it is very nice to be back out. Had to stay in Monday due to cold but back in the groove with a sweet 4 mile with decent time even with fat 75% humidity. Started at 5 am with a star strune sky in 78 degree temp. No varments only a lonely bat chowing under a steet light. It felt excellent to be out again. No harking barking or any sort of resparory distress. Life is good.
Looking forward to doing my 1st ever 7 mile on Saturday.

Feet, legs good
Head vaguely stuffy

 

[Bare Lee]

Sunday - got in most of the mid-body exercises I missed on Friday. No running, up very late the night before partying with my wife and friends, slept in till 8am.

Monday - Just bench press. Failed at 225, so pyramided down starting at 215. It's taking forever to stabilize at 225. Not so many years ago it used to be easy, like 175 is for me now. Gettin' old . . .

Tuesday - about one mile morning run-commute, some of the rest of my upper-body st leftover from Monday, then 5 miles of track work, and about three miles of bike-commuting in the afternoon (about 80F).

After two days off from running, it took a lap or two to warm up on the track, but then I settled in at a nice 9:15-9:30 mm pace, which is somewhere between an aerobic and tempo pace for me. I wanted to do a proper tempo run, but the legs felt a little stiff from the inactivity. After four miles I did a bunch of strides on the grass field, maxing out at around 6mm pace. Couldn't quite manage a full-out sprint.

Today, after a nice 1-mile run-commute, with my new Gregory Fury 24 Daypack (bought it on clearance from REI)

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my legs are feeling better. I mis' well admit it, I've become addicted to the ED running. Seems like anything more than a day off and my legs stiffen up. Will do a little more running this aft on my way home to do my lower-body st in the garage.

Here's a few photos I took of the Junior High School track where I do my track work, so you can get an idea of what I mean by 'sandy gravel' / 'gravelly sand' (that's my bicycle in the background of the first pic):

 

[migangelo]

Lee,
how is it running with the pack? how loaded down is it? move much? computer? water bottles?

 

[Bare Lee]

Lee,
how is it running with the pack? how loaded down is it? move much? computer? water bottles?

Today it was just clothes and shoes and some strawberries. In the near future I will be bringing heavier stuff like half-gallons of OJ and frozen fruit for my smoothie operator (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004P2OLB8/ref=oh_details_o08_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1), so I'll have a better sense of it then, but it seems to fit really well. Very snug and comfortable. I'm a little over 6'1" with a 36 waist and it fit me fine. It might not work for someone really tall or really short (like Dama Beija-flor), but I suppose that's true of most things. The pockets and interior seem well-designed too, but that's also something I'll have a better sense of with more use.

Here's the specs and a semi-worthless video: http://www.rei.com/product/828843/gregory-fury-24-pack#video-inner

I figure if I can run-commute most days, that's already 10-20 mpw right there (one mile in the morning, one to three miles in the afternoon, depending if I go straight home or take a detour through the neighborhood). Hence the latest splurge down the road towards tech-whoredom hell. I got it for a little more $50 after using my REI 'dividend' from all my purchases last winter. For $100 you can get different colors. I really regret getting the plastic winter base layers from REI. Should've followed Dutchie's advice right from the start and gotten all Merino wool.

Woot.

So last week I applied the winnings I got from summer bowling league to buying a new Timex ironman watch. Not really winnings so much, since it's kind of a refund of weekly dues, although I did get a $14 prize for having the 2nd highest handicap score game. I took the watch with me to the short run I did at the township park that's near where I work and has a paved loop that covers .82 miles. Because of that, I've done lots of loops there back in 2007 to 2010. The loop has posts set every tenth of a mile, so today I looked down at the watch as I loped by easy-like since it was hot and I wanted to run easy, looked down and saw that the first tenth of a mile had been covered with 51 seconds showing on the watch face. Yikes. In the past, I've only run that fast when it's wonderfully cool and I've been fully trained and cranking up for a speedier sort of loop.

But there I was, running easy, and the first tenth of a mile had clocked in somewhere under 52 seconds. It's a little downhill, so it's not really 8:40 pace, probably something like 9:00 pace. And so I cranked along and was rewarded with covering the loop in 7:21.75 or 9 mm pace. Easy. I wasn't stressed for breathing or legs, although I could feel the heat. I'd imagine if it had been cooler today I probably would have shaved some time off that. Then I ran a half-loop more and said that was good after doing 3.5 miles yesterday and the fact that I was already dripping sweat after 10.5 minutes of easy-paced running.

My running log tells me that I've had very few loops covered under 7:21.75. And I've only ever had one sub 7-minute loop. I could have run one today.

I earnestly believe that barefoot running has been teaching me proper form and building springiness into my legs. It's making me faster. That's pretty damn cool. Now bring on the fall weather.

Then all drunk on my new running awesomeness, I pulled off the Xeros (still waiting for that nick to fully heal) and walked back to my car. I tossed them on the car roof while I got the door open. After starting the car and AC and cooling it off some, I headed for home.

Headed for home until about 2 miles away I realized I had left the Xeros on top of the car. At a stoplight, I quickly rolled down the window, reached up and felt nothing there. I pulled into a parking lot and turned around and then watched the road carefully as I traced my way back.

When I got back to the park, still hadn't seen them off in the road or anything. But I'm thinking, shit, they're gone, I was stupid and they're gone.

But nope. Fortune smiled on me again today and they were laying in the parking lot, just a short distance from where I had been parked. I picked them up and went home.

Jeez Scrath, you're starting to write as much as I do. The slow readers on this forum will be doubly pissed.

Butt seriously, great report! I love narrative detail about everyone's different approaches and general progress.

 

[Scratch]

Jeez Scrath, you're starting to write as much as I do. The slow readers on this forum will be doubly pissed.

Butt seriously, great report! I love narrative detail about everyone's different approaches and general progress.

I just got really psyched by it. Historically, running there, when I've been my fastest, I would run easy loops at around or a little over 8 minutes per. Any time that I ran loops there which were sub 7:30, I would feel like I was working hard to do it. Yesterday, except for the heat and humidity, that 7:21 felt fairly easy, like I could run multiple 7:30 loops if it were cool and I wasn't already dripping with sweat. So it came across as a clear signal that ditching shoes and running barefoot or minimalist has seen a major change in running form and ability for me. Right now I think there's a very good chance that I will be able to run my target 5K at the end of October under my PR time and I won't even have to run hard to do it. I might have to run something like a tempo pace, comfortably hard, but I won't have to run 5K pace to beat my 5K pr.

Should that happen and I'm still running happy and injury-free, I might write a more detailed post about everything. Because my thinking about running has been revolutionized by this change and some others in training philosophy. It won't mean that the lessons I've learned will be applicable to all, but they might well be applicable to someone whose done some running in shoes and thought they would maybe never go sub-25 in a 5K, that they just weren't built for it. I certainly don't know if I'm built for it. Relative to the torso and arm length, I've got stubby and short legs.

In short, the brief points are like this --

-- feel that spring like Dr. Mark Cucuzzella says. If you feel the spring isn't there or gives out, be happy to walk.
-- finish a bit stronger than what you started at, but always leave something in the tank so if you had to, you could run again the next day.
-- enjoy it. If you aren't enjoying it, slow to a walk.
-- imagine that the feet only lightly tap the ground
-- don't turn your hopes and expectations into ground to die on. Have fun.

 

[DNEchris]

Here's a few photos I took of the Junior High School track where I do my track work, so you can get an idea of what I mean

Ah............ a well maintained track

 

[Bare Lee]

-- feel that spring like Dr. Mark Cucuzzella says. If you feel the spring isn't there or gives out, be happy to walk

It took me a while to learn this, but nowadays, when I start to feel a little strain in my legs, I usually shut it down quick and walk the rest of the way home. Same with weights, if something isn't feeling quite right, stop and move on to the next exercise or call it a day. "Live to fight another day" -- consistency is where it's at, which means staying injury-free at all costs.

-- finish a bit stronger than what you started at, but always leave something in the tank so if you had to, you could run again the next day.

That's a good principle for weights too. I like to end with higher intensity stuff, but I never end drained or exhausted.

For me there's tired, fatigued, and exhausted. Most of my workouts, weights or running, end with tired, some with fatigued, but never with exhausted.

Ah............ a well maintained track

Right?!!

 

[happysongbird]

How could anyone steal invisible shoes?

 

[Line Kolbe]

Today I did a 6 km morning walk in my vff and it was great. Then an afternoon 5 km run in my shoes which also was great.
And then finally I went to the gym and did a back workout.

 

[scedastic]

ok, think i was posting in the wrong week, as I have been wont to do.

sunday:
3.5 mi
swim: 1 hr

monday:
4 mi run
swim: 35 min or so

tuesday:
about 3, early
swim: about 45 min

wednesday:
2.5 run, early
some weights and abs

 

[Larry]

Just back from 7.7km around the streets. Cold and wet. I read the Morton's toe thread yesterday and it must have spooked me. For the first time ever I felt some nasty pain at the bottom of my second met, like I was stepping on a rock with each step. I wonder if there was a mental component to that happening? In the end I stopped and walked, hopefully there's no damage done.

 

[Runlite01]

Great 8.75 mile run at 4:45 am., 79 deg., 69%rh... Went on a new path should have been a little over 8 but I took a couple of small detours. Saw opossum and rabbit.
Enjoyed all 8.75!!

 

[happysongbird]

Paced the halls of the court house barefoot during our jury duty selection break. Was actually barefoot the whole time. Wasn't chosen, so got to go home midday. Rode the spin bike 60 minutes.

 

[jldeleon]

1 hour of weightlifting and various strength exercises. My hips are now securely where they belong! Yay

 

[rickwhitelaw]

Mid-week recap

Sunday - 10 miles trail
Monday - 6 miles bike, 7 miles of hill repeats (shod) trail
Tuesday - 30 min elliptical, 4 miles chip seal
Wednesday - 4 in the morning (one of my favorite Night Ranger songs) trail - 19 miles of trail (shod) in the evening. Rain and mud. Difficult, but very good run. Can't be a fair weather runner if I want to run Ultras, gotta get out in the nasty. Shoes got so heavy at times, but at the end I was happy with my pace at 10mm, I was hoping to avg 12mm. Ran the last four in the dark by feel (note to self - remember a headlamp).

So I've got my forty in already, that means I can kick back the rest of the week.

 

[Bare Lee]

Wednesday, one-mile run-commute in the morning, 2.5-mile run-commute in the afternoon. Then lower-body st.

The run-commutes home before I do my afternoon st really help set me up for the weights, get me nice and warmed-up. Ten years ago I used to do 5-10 minutes of aerobic warm-up before I hit the weights, wonder how I forgot about that. I may finally be finding a good pattern for my everyday running -- do the longer mezzo and macro runs first thing in the morning, but otherwise just do the quick one-mile, morning run-commutes and then do another 2-3 miles in the afternoon coming home for my st.

This morning woke up late, so just run-commute instead of my regularly programmed Thursday morning mezzo run. The pattern has already been broken--will have to do a mezzo run this aft. Pity, it's a perfect running temp outside.

216 lbs at this morning's weigh-in. Yippee, the weight's coming off again, hopefully.

 

[Scratch]

My weigh in this morning was 143.6 lbs.

Went to the park after work yesterday to run an easy mile. Even hotter than Tuesday. Still, I wanted to see what would happen or if Tuesday was just some fluke or mismeasurement. I slowed myself down even more, I went out at the kind of pace you do when you're training up the long runs for a marathon.

The result was a .82 mile loop time of 7:44.24 or just about 9.5 mm pace. I then sped up for the last .2 miles and finshed the 1.02 miles in 9:25.72. Then I walked back to the car and congratulated myself on not getting too sweaty before heading to my brother's for dinner and then bowling league. Later on I had a daunting thought: what if the timer on the watch was off? Maybe that would explain these freakishly fast easy-paced runs, that the clock isn't right. So later when I got home, I tested it. I watched both the computer clock and an alarm clock, and timed minutes off them. Measurements all came in around 60 seconds with variation being explained by me not hitting the moments exactly with the thumb on the watch.

I still have some incredulity by these times. Perhaps there's been a weirdness in the space-time continuum and the township park has shrunk inwards, squeezing the loop down into a smaller size. Maybe I was hallucinating in the heat and not taking accurate measurements.

Or maybe it is all just very much about learning to run with good form, quick feet and fun.

 

[Owlrun]

Easy 3 miler this morn at 5am 78 deg. A few bun buns here and there otherwise uneventful. Humidity still in the tropical zone makeing me gulp air in an unbecoming manner. Dreaming of my fantasy cocktail of conditions of 60 with 30% humidity. I thing I might be able to run like a prize filly then.

All parts good

 

[Scratch]

Around 2.8 miles, barefoot except for duct tape patch to protect nicked area still healing on left foot. Good strong finish, seemed to float up the hill to home. Like Owlrun, I'm dreaming of cool and dry air. Dreadfully humid and hot in front of that red line of thunderstorms coming this way.

 

[dutchie53]

2.5 miles yesterday in mugginess, and 5 miles today with 1/2 mile cool/stretch walk at end for 5.5 miles today. Today at the end of my run, the last mile, I caught up to the grade 4-6 running club from the elementary school in my neighborhood. Damn those grade 6'ers are fast. They kicked my butt, the fast bunch had great form and ran like gazelles, no heel strikers in that bunch. I did manage to pass a good portion of them though and heard a lot of "did you see that guy, no shoes", "wow, that's neat", and a lot of quiet whispers, also heard their teacher comment as to how there are not to many barefoot runners here in Manitoba. I would like to have been a fly on the wall when that group got back to their gym. But I am not mad that I got poned by those grade sixers, if I use Dama's age handicaping system I would have kicked their butt and come in first to win the cash like she did. All in all a great day running on a cool day for change, tomorrow a quick fast run and back to chasing golf balls in the afternoon.