Goals for my 5K

On April 21, 2009 By Emerging Runner3 Comments

Today was Day 1 for training for my 5K run on May 2nd. The 2nd is a Saturday and the start time is 8:00 AM so I only have one more weekend to focus on long runs. I haven’t seen an elevation map of the race course so I don’t know what I’m up against in terms of hills. I’m glad for the early race start because I suspect it will be warm. From what I see on the website map it will be mostly open roads with little shade.

My pace goal for the race is 8:39 per mile. It is definitely a stretch for me as I rarely beat 8:45, even on shorter runs. The reason I picked this target relates to one of my 2009 running goals: to maintain that pace for at least 3 miles. If I get a good start and the course is fairly flat I do think I have a chance at a sub 8:40 time. Like I said, 8:39 is a stretch. My other goal is completely ego driven: to pass more runners than I get passed. I’ll start the count after a couple of minutes to let the 5, 6 and 7 minute speedsters get by. In truth, I mostly care about those who pass me near the end, a mile or less before the finish.

I ran a couple of miles at 8:48 this morning. It was a relatively hard run considering I’d taken Monday as a rest day. The warm weather is already noticeable and I remained concerned about running in real heat this summer. Later this week I plan to do some speed drills on the treadmill and do some high resistance workouts on the elliptical for hill training.

I also realized I have no races scheduled after the 5K. I need to do something about that!

Bonus miles

On April 9, 2009 By Emerging RunnerLeave a comment

I’m home from work today, which gave me an opportunity to run longer than I usually do on a weekday. It may be the full moon, the atmospheric pressure, a cold or an allergy but I woke up feeling tired, weak and headachy. I announced last night that I’d do my morning run outside at 6:15 AM (celebrating the fact that there’s now good light at that time) but that was over ambitious and I didn’t actually set out until after 8:00 having had more than a few of cups of coffee.

I am in the narrow part of my training cycle and I want to put in as many miles as I can before I go into my ‘quiet period’ two days before my race. I’ve had a few recent conversations with other, more experienced, runners and they have kindly provided guidance in terms of preparation for the event. What they don’t say (because they’re nice) is “Four miles isn’t a very long distance so you don’t need to do too much to prepare.” That is probably true but you only get one first race experience and they respect that.

I didn’t set a distance goal for today’s run but I’d hoped to do at least 5K. I headed quickly to neighborhood #2 to get a couple of miles down before circling back to my main neighborhood loop. I felt good as I ran but I didn’t quite trust it since I was feeling very low just a few hours before. I dressed well for the weather (low 40’s) but the sun did get warm near the end. When I reached one of my either-or points on my route (where I decide to take either a longer or shorter leg to the finish) I was happy to note that I had just passed three miles. I wasn’t running especially fast but it seemed to be a good pace. I ended up covering 4.1 miles and calculated that I’d maintained an overall pace of 9:06/mile. I could have easily broken 9:00 minutes if I’d paid attention to the Garmin and picked up the pace for a few segments. I’m pleased with the results and glad I traveled more distance than I’d expected to cover. I have the weekend to work on strength and speed and will probably do one more long run early next week while I’m away on business.

Tapering on

On April 8, 2009 By Emerging Runner4 Comments

A couple of weeks ago AG asked me about my “taper plan” for my upcoming race. Being a race newbie I didn’t understand the phrase. I actually thought it had to do with taping my foot for support. She explained that runners often reduce, or taper, their running routine during the weeks leading up to a race. The object is to build an optimal balance between rest and conditioning.

With my race less than two weeks away I’ve been thinking about the best way to prepare myself for competition. Last weekend (counting Friday) I did longer runs for three consecutive days for a total distance just short of 12 miles. In deference to a slight but persistent leg injury, I have folded in a few elliptical sessions this week which provide less strain on certain affected muscles. I’m out of the office on Thursday and I’m hoping to do a long run in the morning plus longer runs over the weekend.

Next week is when the tapering will start. I’m going to be traveling on business for most of next week so I’ll need to work my routine around that. Happily I’ll be up at MIT and if weather and schedules cooperate I’ll get to spend some quality time running near the Charles river. I’m traveling back on Saturday and I’m not planning to do any running that day. In fact I’m thinking of resting on Friday as well, perhaps only doing core stretching.

Will it make a great difference to rest a couple of days before the race? I’ll let you know on the 19th.

36 darn seconds

On March 21, 2009 By Emerging RunnerLeave a comment

This morning, with the temperature in the high 20’s, it didn’t feel like much like spring. My right side soreness was better but I was concerned about aggravating it with a long run. As I prepared to start, my next door neighbor (a CPA) was preparing to head to his office to deal with corporate tax filings. He said he’d rather be running than doing that (who wouldn’t?) and I said “Cheer up April 16 isn’t too far away.” For me it was time to run.

I decided that I would run a minimum of 5 miles today and planned my route on Gmaps to help me stay focused on the goal. My secondary goal was to stay under 9:00 per mile but I knew that running 5+ miles puts me at the edge of my distance capability. I set out on a road with an incline to help me get my heart rate up quickly. It was cold and I dressed with a minimum of layers anticipating that I would build heat as I ran. I was running an 8:55 pace as I reached my first mile and I started wondering how long I could maintain that rate. As planned, I cut over to neighborhood #2 and did the big loop. Not being fully familiar with that area I made a navigation error and I ended up running about half a mile away from my planned exit. I didn’t mind, miles are miles no matter where you take them.

Around the 4.5 mile mark I started struggling and I had another episode of hyperventilating. What was different about this is that I was relatively far from home when it happened. Like last time, I simply held my breath and ran until I felt rebalanced. I took a couple of slow deep breaths and soon returned to my previous rhythm.

I’ll admit that the last leg, about 1/3 of a mile, was a struggle and I tried to generate as much speed as I could but I knew I was near my limit. I Gmapped my actual run and compared it to the Garmin and was happy to see that they were within .01% of the distance of 5.22 miles. I calculated my overall pace at 9:07 which meant that if I’d run 36 seconds faster over 47 minutes I would have averaged 9:00 min/mile. Later I’ll look at my split times to see if I’d held pace under 9:00 for the first 3 miles which was the original goal.

I’ll decide tomorrow whether I’ll try for another long run or shorten the distance and turn up the speed. My injury seems no worse for the long run and I’m hoping the pain doesn’t return later.

Spring training

On March 20, 2009 By Emerging RunnerLeave a comment

Today is the first day of spring, marking the end of my second season (fall and winter) as an emerging runner. I’m pleased with the progress I’ve made in the past six months and now, with 29 days to my first race, it’s time to get serious about training.

It’s interesting to think about the benchmarks I’ve passed since last September. Not long ago I struggled through my first mile and I’m proud to say I can now run more than five. My training approach has been anything but scientific but I like the way things have worked out. Back in December, when I signed up for the May 5K race, I was barely able to run three miles. Before I do that race I’m facing a 4 miler in April with no concerns about the distance. The goal now is pace and that’s where the training comes in.

Two of my running advisors, CK and CMC, have given me great guidance on using speed work to increase fitness. I read blogs from other runners who are much more disciplined about these methods and this explains why they run 6 and 7 minute miles and I don’t. I just like to run and by integrating some faster paces into my normal pacing I’ve been able to improve my overall pace. I’ll start stepping that up this weekend and will try again to run over four miles at under 9:00 per mile.

This morning I achieved that pace at half the distance, running 2.01 miles at 8:46 per mile. I felt like I could have sustained or even exceeded that pace if I had time to run a couple more miles. Some of that comes from conditioning and some comes from the fact that I only did upper body exercise yesterday. I’m beginning to appreciate rest days as a training tool.

Low impact, high diversity

On March 16, 2009 By Emerging RunnerLeave a comment

I’ve been taking it fairly easy over the past few days. A real rest day on Friday, a normal long run on Saturday (5 miles) and a shorter run on Sunday (2.5 miles) made a little more challenging via trails and mud. I do think there’s something to resting but I also think it’s important to get my heart rate up every day to maintain a good level of conditioning. This weekend I found mixing up the workout to be a good way to isolate muscles and give them a rest while staying true to my daily routine.

I felt as though yesterday’s trail run provided a greater than average effort-to-distance ratio, meaning that I worked harder than usual to reach my distance. All the same I felt like I should have gone longer so later in the day, when my wife went upstairs to do the elliptical, I joined her by doing about 20 minutes of core and 15 minutes working my arms with free weights.

Keeping in mind that I had already exercised in the morning I didn’t push too hard but I finished feeling energized and satisfied that I made some gains. This morning I continued the low impact routine with 15 minutes of elliptical set to medium resistance. The rest of the week will be more intense but I wanted to give myself a break for a few days. Tomorrow I’ll be running in a 4K training session and I’m sure I’ll appreciate the rest I’ve taken.

Training to train

On March 14, 2009 By Emerging RunnerLeave a comment

This morning I did a 5 mile neighborhood run, including about 1.25 miles running around neighborhood #2. Considering the length of the run I am happy with my 9:17 overall pace although my target was to average under 9:10/mile and my goal was to stay under 9:00. I guess you could call that a stretch goal. Maybe if I did more stretching I’d have made it.

The Garmin 50 pulled a new trick, about 3 minutes into my run I noticed that while it was happily reporting time, speed, cadence and heart rate the distance stopped incrementing after .08 miles. I couldn’t figure that out so my only recourse was to stop the timing and restart. Somehow it took that action as starting a new split but at least the Garmin was recording distance again. I felt really good throughout the run (gee maybe there is something to taking rest days) but in the final minute I experienced a reaction where I suddenly had difficulty breathing. This was hyperventilating and not related to being out of breath from the run. I had a similar experience the last time I ran over 5 miles. I recovered by forcing slow breaths and holding my breath until it re-regulated. I’m sure it’s psychological. I just hope it doesn’t continue to happen.

The reason I’m training hard this weekend is that I’m participating in a group run next week that’s been organized by Adventure Girl to start her team’s training for the Ragnar relay race in May. This relay is a 175 mile race from Woodstock to the Bronx with 12 members who each run three legs. I’m not participating in that race but I’m excited about this training run because it will be the first time I’ve run with people in over a decade. I have to admit I’m a little concerned about carrying a conversation while running but I’ll do my best. My other concern is that I’m going directly to the office afterward without a shower. The run, which takes place in Central Park, is only 4K so if I under dress I might be abe to minimize the amount that I sweat.

I’m going to try some trail running tomorrow to take advantage of the weather and to exercise some different muscles.

Training without straining

On February 22, 2009 By Emerging RunnerLeave a comment

After yesterday’s long run I considered taking the day off from training. It’s the last day of our vacation and it made sense to relax a little. I had a headache when I got up (due to a sinus condition) and my wife suggested that we take a walk around the neighborhood as a low impact activity. We set out with my daughter and walked for 40 minutes but, in the end, I still felt tired and my headache was still there. After lunch I decided to do a light workout on the elliptical using only the arms. I have discovered that by setting the resistance to 3 or 4 and standing in front of the unit (facing the back of the display) I can get a very good upper arm workout that’s similar to the upper body effort of cross country skiing.

I did the upper arm workout for about ten minutes and then ran an easy mile on the treadmill, mostly to see how the Garmin distance tracking matched up to the treadmill’s. After yesterday’s long run I bumped up the Garmin’s calibration slightly in hopes of reducing the 3% variance from actual distance covered. I was pleased to see that both the Garmin and treadmill were in synch with the Garmin running slightly ahead by a couple of 100ths of a mile. This is similar to what I experienced when comparing the Nike+ Sportband to the treadmill’s distance tracking.

Today’s walk, elliptical and run activities didn’t add up to a highly taxing fitness day but after getting my pulse rate up on the treadmill, followed by a quick shower, I feel pretty good and ready to contend with the start of a new work week.

Speed bumping

On February 13, 2009 By Emerging Runner2 Comments

Earlier this week I caught up with a friend over lunch and covered a number of subjects including running. This friend is an accomplished runner and one of my best sources of information about training. He’s also an accomplished writer and poet and, as a top executive at Rodale, he helped bring Runner’s World to that publisher.

We talked about my upcoming race and he reinforced the need the work on intensity running to help prepare for competition. He was gracious enough to send me a summary of his points. He reinforced the reason why speed training is important by closing with “What’s the good of this if you can’t show someone your heels?” That’s the positive side of the argument for participating in races.

I ran two strong miles this morning and incorporated speed intervals into the run. I maintained a 9:20 pace for the first .75 mile then accelerated to an 8:06 pace for 90 seconds and then dialed down (I was on the treadmill) to 9:05. I folded in a couple more 90 second speed bumps before completing two miles. I haven’t yet calculated the overall pace but I expect it was close to 8:55. Tomorrow I’ll do more of this on the track. If I can beat a 9:30 pace for 4 miles I’ll be pleased. If I can beat 9:00 I’ll be proud.