Fast track to performance gains

On August 24, 2013 By Emerging Runner2 Comments

Flow of the workout

Today’s workout (track): 1 mile tempo, 12 x 100M, 1.25 mile cool-down = 3.1 miles

This morning I headed out early to the local track to run intervals and tempos. I took the Virratas out for their first run, and thought they responded well to fast pacing. My plan was to run one mile at 5K race pace, which I’d follow with intervals and a cool-down run.

The track had a few walkers and a couple of runners when I arrived. I got started quickly on my tempo warm up and found a pace that felt hard, but sustainable. I locked into that pace for four laps, guided by perceived effort. Along the way, I passed everyone including the other two runners on track. After last Sunday’s low point of the race, when I was being passed left and right around mile five, it felt good to be the one who was doing the passing. I averaged 8:18 for the mile.

Next, I ran a set of 100 meter repeats, averaging 6:40 per mile. I was surprised when I later looked at heart rate data and saw that I’d averaged between 74-80% of MAX. Knowing that, I can probably get my pace down to 6:25, while still staying under 90% MAX. However, I’ll probably keep it to 8 x 100’s for that session.

I finished the workout with a 1.25 mile cool down, run at a moderate (9:21) pace. In total, it wasn’t a lot of distance, but the intensity made up for that. I’m planning a long run tomorrow, either on the Bethpage path, or another route that will facilitate a 6+ mile distance better than my neighborhood roads. My performance has improved greatly for runs between 3-3.5 miles. It will be interesting to see how my pacing holds up, when I double that length tomorrow.

Elite sale yields bargain Virrata

On August 23, 2013 By Emerging Runner4 Comments

New running shoe day. Guess which ones are mine.

Today’s run (street): 3.4 miles

So far so good on the training front. This morning I went out with expectations of matching my recent pace range and I managed to do that. When I first entered time and distance into the pace calculator, I thought I’d missed the mark. I quickly realized I’d entered the time incorrectly, adding in an extra minute. It turned out that I’d actually exceeded my target and ran today’s distance four seconds per mile faster than yesterday’s.

I assign two factors to these recent gains: a constant focus on pace (via perceived effort, not watching the Garmin’s display) and the continued recruitment of fast twitch fibers in my leg muscles. In other words, I’m thinking about running fast and building fitness. Runners come closest to their potential when racing and an active focus on speed while training does the same thing, to a lesser degree. That’s why I’m not yet achieving sub-9 training runs, but I’m getting closer.

The family went out for a “Next to the last Friday before school starts” lunch and afterward we swung by the Gallery at Westbury Plaza. I wanted to check out Sports Authority’s new SA Elite store that only sells adult size sports apparel and running shoes. I had no intention of buying anything, but they were having a sale, so I checked out the deals.

I’ve been looking for a lightweight running raincoat for a while. My venerable ASICS rain jacket committed zippercide last year and I’ve been on a quest to replace it. SA Elite was light on raincoat options, but they had some genuine bargains in their shoe section.

The store was running a sale, and this was no bottom of the barrel clearance. I did a double-take when I saw a pair of Saucony Virratas priced at $79 with a label next to it saying 20% off as marked. The best price I’ve seen on the web for these shoes has been $78 plus shipping. I asked for a pair in hi-viz yellow, but they only had my size in black. I was disappointed, but I tried them on the treadmill and liked the way they fit.

At the same time, my wife found a pair of ASICS Nimbus-14’s that fit her well and were priced amazingly low with the included discount. I’ve been on her to replace her GEL-2160’s that probably have more than 2,000 running miles on them. I’m serious, you should see them.

I’m thinking about doing a long base run this weekend and a shorter speed workout on the other day. I’m pleased with my progress and excited to be runnning in shoes with less than 500 miles on them. I hope the Virratas feel as good on the road as they did on the treadmill today.

Today’s good run becomes tomorrow’s expectation

On August 22, 2013 By Emerging Runner2 Comments

The daily burden

Today’s run (street): 3.5 miles

I was a little sore this morning, possibly because my last three runs were done at high effort (though perhaps not at high speed). I haven’t put up any sub-9 runs yet, but I’m moving in that direction. My saving grace today was the need to have an early call to Asia. That allowed me an extra hour to loosen up my leg muscles before my run.

Have you ever thought about how great everything seems after you’ve completed a fast run? You can point to it with pride and feel good about what you’ve accomplished. But as they say in Hollywood, you’re only as good as your last movie. And when training for a race, you’re only as good as the last time you ran. Time for resting on your laurels = 1 day. And that day ended for me this morning at 8:00 AM.

I started to prepare for my run after completing my call. Wednesday’s good experience had now become today’s burden. I knew I couldn’t default to my easy running pace and, while I wasn’t planning to go all-out, I had mentally set my target. I was determined not to come up short.

A slight soreness in my legs threw me off on the first half mile. I willed myself to run faster, but I’m not sure the effort fully translated. I do know that when I’m actively thinking about performance, my speed will usually move into the acceptable range. My goal today was to do better than that, so I kept up the mental pressure and hoped that would yield a good result.

I was pleased to see that I ran 5 seconds per mile faster than yesterday. It was great to repeat a good performance and I feel I’m heading in the intended direction. I have the rest of the night to enjoy today’s gains. Tomorrow morning, expectations return.

I think, therefore I pace

On August 21, 2013 By Emerging Runner4 Comments

Today’s run (street): 3.4 miles

Okay, now we’re talking. After two days off from running, I went out this morning for the first time since the Dirty Sock race. I recognized the need to keep my focus on speed, despite having come off a fairly hard run. It’s always a lot easier to do that if you’re energized from the start. I was pleased that my legs responded to the challenge.

Everyone has a different default running pace. By that I mean the speed that you’d run if you didn’t care about performance. It’s probably what people think of as their easy pace. For some, “easy” is 8 minutes a mile. For me, it’s much slower than that. When I need to run faster, I know I need to think about running fast. No zoning out and letting my legs carry me along. I’ve read that running performance is largely mental and my experience supports that.

Today I put priority on cadence and form. I focused on holding a faster pace than my body naturally wished to run. At times, my mind would drift and I’d detect a little deceleration. I dialed back up to “urgent” and tried to reengage my focus. This was not running at 10K race pace, but it was much faster than I’ve been averaging.

For all that work, I’m still worrying about my readiness to sustain that pace for 6.2 miles in Northport next month. With James Street, Waterside Ave. and Pumpernickel Hill in the mix, I’ll have to do a lot more than I did today. But it was a start.

To whom the Cowbell tolls

On August 21, 2013 By Emerging Runner2 Comments

Pointing out James Street after last year’s race

Oh, how the mighty have fallen. After some high mileage training weeks leading up to last weekend’s Dirty Sock race, I haven’t run a step. Mondays are my usual rest day, which works out great when I race on Sundays. Today started early because I had to get into the city for some morning meetings. I went to bed thinking I might run today, but I slept until 5:15 AM, which didn’t give me enough time.

Even without running, I still managed to meet my daily requirement of Fitbit steps. Between my backpack and sports jacket, combined with 81% humidity, I worked up quite a sweat. So it was sort of like a workout, but I really missed the part where I get to shower.

Tomorrow I’ll officially start my Cow Harbor training. The good news is that I’ll be starting on two days rest. My plan right now is to go out early enough to minimize the heat. If I’m training for this race, I’ll need to start pushing the pace right away. As for the hill training, that can wait another day. But not too long, James Street looms large.

Redemption run gives hope for Dirty Sock

On August 16, 2013 By Emerging Runner6 Comments

The Garmin doesn’t lie

Today’s run (street): 3.25 miles

With the Dirty Sock trail race happening on Sunday, I had one more run to go before I finished my taper. Yesterday’s run was disappointing and Tuesday’s was similarly mediocre. I’ve recently committed to pushing harder on training runs and that paid off last week with a few decent runs. When I say decent, I mean closer to last year’s average pace. Certainly not as fast as the paces I used to hit while training for a race.

The Dirty Sock is a tough course. The terrain isn’t especially bad for trails, but the steamy weather conditions and muddy paths make the last miles difficult. My time expectation for this race is about 59 minutes, which is five minutes slower than my 10K PR. I’m usually happy to run it in under an hour. Actually, the way I’ve been running, I’m concerned about breaking 62 minutes.

Hope came this morning with a run that redeemed my spirit. The difference today was that I kept a steady focus on speed. It wasn’t an impressive pace for many readers of this blog, but it was almost a minute per mile faster than what I “achieved” yesterday. I’m not going into Sunday’s race with a string of fast runs under my belt, but at least I ended training on a good note.

Memories of a rainy run

On August 13, 2013 By Emerging RunnerLeave a comment

Soggy and humid morning, or so I remember

Today’s run (street): 3.1 miles

This morning’s run seems so long ago that I’m thinking about it like it was yesterday. I wanted to go out very early to beat the rain, but my stalling worked against me. I walked outside and felt a few light drops. The sky was uniformly gray and I didn’t see any dark clouds that might drench me. Despite my aversion to running in rain because it distorts my vision, I couldn’t face a treadmill workout today.

My weekend of hard running has taken its toll. Even with a rest day on Monday, my leg muscles felt tight. Although I had no issues with either anaerobic or aerobic energy levels, I couldn’t generate the speed I was hoping to maintain. Exactly one mile into the run, I felt a pebble that had landed in my shoe. I tried to ignore the problem, but I finally gave in and stopped to clear it. By then, the light rain had become steadier and I wondered how bad conditions would get.

I had the opportunity to head directly to my house at that point, the loop I was on took me within a block. Instead, I decided to run my route regardless. I hoped that the rain would lessen, or at the very least, that it wouldn’t turn into a thunderstorm. Lightning is scary when you’re out running on the street, miles away from shelter.

The rain did get worse, but the thunder held off until I got home. The rest of the day was spent either on the phone or staring at my laptop. I’m glad I got out today, but I didn’t get through the conditioning run I’d originally planned. On the bright side, the humidity was extreme and that provided some good preparation for next Sunday’s race.

Speed work, if you can call it that

On August 4, 2013 By Emerging Runner2 Comments

Running in circles makes me lose my tempo

Today’s run (track): 3.1 mile tempo, plus 5 x 100m – total: 3.4 miles

This morning I headed to the local track to run intervals. I was not looking forward to the workout, but if I wanted to improve my speed, I needed to do my homework. Conditions were good, 66° with indirect sun, so I had little excuse to take it easy. I decided to start with a few warm up laps before taking on intervals. I ended up doing a three mile tempo run, followed by 5 x 100 meter strides, run two minutes/mile faster than 10K race pace.

I was concerned that I’d be dealing with some leg fatigue after yesterday’s run. Once I got going, I became confident that I’d be okay, although I was frustrated with my limited ability to hit my targeted pace. By the second mile, I was running faster. There were others on the track during the time I was there, but it never got crowded. I appreciated having the first lane to myself, with no need to shift around any walkers or slower runners.

Observations:

1. I’m still running pretty slow these days. My goal was to break 27 minutes, but I didn’t succeed. However, I did run negative splits, with a 9% improvement between miles 1 and 3.

2. I was able to meet my speed target on the intervals. While these runs felt faster than the 6:54 average I recorded, the last time that I did speed work, I averaged under 6:30. Like I said, I’m still slow.

Overall, I’m pleased with this weekend’s training. With a couple of tough workouts coming up this week, I feel like I’m setting up well for the competition on the 18th.

DNA extraction and the dog that didn’t bite

On August 2, 2013 By Emerging Runner2 Comments

My morning encounter

Today’s run (street): 3.4 miles

For some reason I had it in my head that yesterday was Friday. When I got up this morning I started thinking about where I’d go for my first weekend run. The rain had moved out, and it looked like nice weather to be outside. I started going through my options for running venues when I realized that it wasn’t Saturday and I had to get some work done.

My business schedule is less structured than when I worked in an office in NYC. I can now start my day with a run after the sun has come up, or work for a while and run later in the morning. My schedule also gives me the flexibility to do things I used to miss because I’d be in the city. Today I was able to attend my son’s presentation on gene extraction methodologies at the Cold Spring Harbor DNA Learning Center. The most impressive thing I ever did at summer camp was make a lanyard.

Saying goodbye to his Beijing camp mates

Before all of that, I went for a run. Since I didn’t have the time to cover much distance, I stuck to the neighborhood and followed one of my usual routes. A few minutes into the run I was accosted by an unleashed dog whose owner called to me, “He’s only going to follow you to the end of the street.” This annoyed me. Recently, I read a quote by Peter Magill, a Running Times columnist, who said, “Every dog that has bitten me was a dog that didn’t bite.”

The dog kept its distance and it stopped as the owner had predicted. I was soon past my first mile, enjoying cooler conditions than I’d expected. I tried to carry over the intensity of yesterday afternoon’s treadmill workout into today and was only partially successful. I ended up pacing in the acceptable range. If the weather holds tomorrow I’ll probably return to Bethpage and do a hybrid run on both the dirt and the bike trails. I need to build my base in preparation for the upcoming 10K that happens in just two weeks.

Speed decline, is it nature or nurture?

On July 30, 2013 By Emerging Runner2 Comments

My story in two axis

Today’s run (street): 3.25 miles

Conditions were near perfect when I went out for my morning run. The 7:00 AM sun was low enough to cast great shade along my route and the air felt cool and dry. The neighborhood was quiet, with just a few cars and a couple of walkers. I moved along well and thought about the fact that my running performance has suffered greatly this year.

A few years ago, I would average around 27 minutes for a three mile training run. Over time, my normal training pace has edged up almost a minute per mile. Back in 2010, I went out on every run with a pace goal in mind, and I was racing far more frequently than I have this year. That may explain some of the loss of speed.

I’m not willing to concede any performance drops to age at this point. Although I really want to run for the sake of running, I do find myself thinking about turnover and stride length while on the road. If I look at my pace on the Garmin during a run, I’m often surprised by how much effort it takes to break 9:00 minutes.

Every time I find myself on a run, struggling to stay under 10:00/mile, I vow that I’ll go back to doing core exercises and speed work at the track. Somehow I forget that commitment once I get home. I think it’s time to get serious about speed. I’m due to run with a friend this week who tends to push me past my comfort zone. Maybe that’s exactly what I need right now.