2008/2009 Training Season - Week 4

Saturday 9/20/2008
road - 6 miles (pre-RRFit run). Done - 49:59 (8:18 pace). Pleasant easy-paced run.
road - 8 miles (RRFit run). Done - 1:03:46 (7:58 pace). Another pleasant run. Ran hard first half and then played sweep behind the last runner.
road - 7 miles (post-RRFit run). Done - untimed. Ran with Nancy and pushed Gavin in the stroller.

Sunday 9/21/2008
road - marathon relay 10k leg. Done - 46:08 (7:26 pace).

Monday 9/22/2008
Rest

Tuesday 9/23/2008
pm - road - 5 miles. Ran an easy 5 miles with Nancy. Untimed.

Wednesday 9/24/2008
Rest

Thursday 9/25/2008
am - road - 6 miles

Friday 9/26/2008
Rest

Short Circuiting the Relay

Here's a tip for you - never volunteer for anything. More to the point, never be volunteered for anything. A few months ago I was "volunteered" to coach some work teams to run the Silicon Labs Austin marathon relay and pulled onto the "fitness and wellness" committee. The race is this coming Sunday, we have two full teams turning out and I was slated to run a 5k leg for the elite team (how the hell I managed to be an elite anything is beyond me). Everybody who committed to run had signed up except for the guy who pushed for us to enter corporate teams in the event and who pushed me to coach the teams. He was scheduled to run the first leg in the elite team, is a very fast runner but never turned up for any of our group runs and stopped responding to emails. He assured us he was fully committed to run until he suddenly dropped out yesterday. All our backup fast runners were already signed up for the B team which left me looking at running both the 10k and 5k legs in a fast time and sucking up a double entry fee (since I had to register and pay for the whole team beforehand). Fortunately we found a guy who agreed to run a 5k leg for us, allowing me to switch to the 10k.

Except that I've already committed to a 22 mile run tomorrow (including a RRFit run). If I was only running a 5k I could get away with a fast leg, but a hilly 10k is another matter. I'm not prepared to compromise my training schedule for a rinky dink fun run I never wanted to do in the first place, but at the same time I don't want to let down the other guys who've signed up to run on our team - we've had some good laughs running together over the last few months. So I'm going to do my 22 miler tomorrow, have an ice bath afterwards, and go out fast on Sunday and see how long I can hold on. Sounds like a good challenge - I've always said my main running strength is mental toughness so let's see if that's true, or if I'm just full of it.

Little Batman

Howdy Grandpa Wales and Nana. Good news - the batman outfit you bought for Gavin arrived in the mail last night. Here's little Batman modeling it - he loves it. He also needs a haircut, but that's another story :-)

Sunday Morning B-run-ch

Brunch, get it? Ha ha, not one of my better puns I will admit, but I like it.

Well I couldn't resist the temptation to get up and run Ken's this morning, and I'm glad I went. I met some friends out at the dog park and we ran a variation on the standard loop. I pushed the pace quite a bit at parts and turned it into a good interval workout. I've been running so much road recently it was nice to get back on the trail. We got in a good 5 miles and then I jumped in the car and headed off downtown to meet my work group for our final group run before the relays next weekend.

Angel, Barbara and James showed up and we set off at a leisurely pace. Angel was doing 4 miles and the others wanted to get in 6, so we headed up through UT. The wind was nowhere near as bad as yesterday, but it was still noticeable as we ran into it going up Speedway. Angel cut off at 40th street for his 4 miles, and we continued on to 45th before hopping over to Red River and coming back over to Duval from 38th (via the big hill). Barbara started overheating about here, so we slowed the pace down and I gave her my water. We took it easy coming down Duval and headed through UT on San Jacinto. Barbara cut off at 17th, but James and myself carried on down Lavaca to hit the big hill before coming back up through the capitol. We had a good run, and everyone was very happy that I had iced water waiting at the finish (shades of the Sweaty Twenty). We hung around for a while yapping before heading off home.

All in all, a good weekend of running - I got in 28 miles this weekend in less than ideal conditions. My training season is definitely going to plan.

Learned an excellent lesson about hydration yesterday from Ken at Therapy Central (he gave a very entertaining talk to our running group). He told us that research has shown we can only absorb around 4oz of water at a time (with slight variations), so drinking more than that at one time does nothing (except make you go to the bathroom a lot). Thus, hydrating regularly and in small amounts is super important, because once you get behind in your hydration it is very difficult to pull it back (because of the 4oz thing). That is why the advice to drink eight 8oz glasses of water a day is outdated. This is vital information for runners and something I didn't quite get until yesterday, so thanks Ken.

The Wind Cries Mary

Hurricane Ike smashed into the Texas coast this morning leaving a trail of destruction in its wake. There were all kinds of predictions that Ike would sideswipe Austin, with predictions of 2 to 4 inches of rain, and what did we get? Not even a drop. West Texas is struggling with torrential rain, Ike is devastating East Texas, yet here in the capitol city we are dry as a bone. That's just weird.

One thing we did get from Ike was very high winds which made my 17 mile run this morning a real bitch. Last week I had a great run and averaged around 7:50. This week I struggled running into a headwind for most of the run and averaged around 8:45. On the few occasions I wasn't running into the wind it was super humid which quickly turned my singlet into a soggy, slappy, clingy, chafing deadweight. Did I ever mention that I hate running in the wind? Heat I can handle, cold - love it. But the wind robs me of any rhythm and I expended a lot of energy just trying to stay upright. This was a real head down, grit your teeth, wait for it to be over run.

I started out at 5:30 and got in a 10 miler before meeting up with my group to do another 7 miles. I have to admit that I wasn't looking forward to going another 7, but I made myself head back out. My plan for these runs is that I would do my solo run beforehand, and then run with the group which would force me to keep up a fast pace on tired legs. Wearing a coach's shirt usually means that you have a target on your back and everyone in your group wants to finish ahead of you, which in turn motivates you to keep the pace going. Unfortunately most of my group weren't that motivated today and turned around at 3 miles, but three of us continued on the extra half mile to get in the full 7. On the way back I swept up one chap from one of the other pace groups who had missed his turnaround. I ran with him until we got back into the park when he stopped for water and told me to go on.

Once I finished, I had enough time to get in a stretch and gobble down some pretzels before heading off to work to manage some system upgrades. Tomorrow is my last group run with the work crowd before next week's Silicon Labs marathon relay. I'm debating whether or not to run Ken's beforehand. I must admit, the temptation of a rare lie in is very appealing.

2008/2009 Training Season - Week 3

Saturday 9/13/2008
road - 10 miles (pre-RRFit run). Done - 1:28:09 (8:49 pace). Very windy - horrible run
road - 7 miles (RRFit run). Done - 1:01:09 (8:44 pace). Still windy - glad it was over

Sunday 9/14/2008
am - trail - 5 miles. Done - untimed. Ran a variation on Ken's with Gordon and Talmedge. Pushed the pace.
am - road - 10k. Done - 52:42 (8:30 pace). Hot, humid and hilly downtown run. Ran an easy pace with James and Barbara.

Monday 9/15/2008
Rest day

Tuesday 9/16/2008
Rest day

Wednesday 9 /17/2008
pm - road - 6 miles easy. Did not do - got stuck at work.

Thursday 9/18/2008
am - road 6 miles. Done - 48:27.