2007 Done.

Well here it is, December 31, 2007. Did 6.2 miles on Saturday with three miles done at LT pace and the rest at long run pace. Did 17.4 miles yesterday at about 8:45 pace. Total for the week was 54.2 miles.

Time to reflect on what was learned over the past year and see how I did. It was at this time a year ago where i was reflecting where I was at and setting goals for 2007. Unfortunately none of my goals from last year were met so I guess looking at that is a bit of a downer. I did kinda set these unofficial PR's in the 5, 10k and half as part of longer races:

5k-20:48 (1st 5k of 15k race)
10k-42:02 (1st 10k of 15k race)
half - 1:33:20 (1st half of marathon)

It would have been interesting if I had done a couple of these distances to see how well I would do but I guess that'll be in the new year. Of course the elusive marathon PR and obvious BQ was absent for this year, but I'm hoping that'll come sometime next year. I did do 9 races this year but only really two of them were done in peak condition and as an all out effort. The rest were either training runs or where I was in pretty bad shape. Races were a 5k, 10k, 15k, two 10 milers, two half's and two marathons.

My mileage this year was slightly down from 2006's total of 1865. Total was 1825 miles for 2007. I've been reflecting a bit more and think that it might be necessary to up my mileage a bit to something in the 60-70 mile per week range. I think I've basically plateaued for speed doing the 55 mile per week thing so the next jump in performance may need to be a result of an increase in mileage.

As for races in 2008, I do have plans for a winter marathon and maybe another BQ attempt in the next few months just so that I can try and get to Boston 2008. I'd really like to be there since the woman's Olympic trials are there this year and it would be neat to be a part of it. But alas, want-ing and do-ing are two different things. For now, I've removed the countdown timer since I'm still not sure what the plan is or what marathon I'm doing. I did splurge and register for a US marathon in the next couple of months, but that's just to force me to train. Not going to tell you all which one it is yet, since I may change my mind at some point. Final decision will have to be based on how the training goes over the next month or so.

I also have plans for a fall marathon, not sure where yet. I realized that if I get a 3:15:59 in a fall marathon next year, I will have qualified to run Boston in 2010, but that's a long way off, so the hope is still to gun for 3:10:59 in 2008.

Of course there will be a lot of little races that I'll do next year, including a 9k race tomorrow, maybe. I'm thinking of doing as an LT run. I've had a hard time trying to do LT runs lately and I think it would help if I had some people pushing me (not actually "pushing" me like I'm on a sled; you know what I mean)

Anyhow, here's to 2007 and may all your wishes and dreams and goals for 2008 be met. HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Finishing up the year

Got a couple of running related gifts this year including a Garmin 205! The prices of these things has just dropped over the past year which kinda starts making me think that Garmin is going to introduce a new model in the new year and they're trying to clear out some of their inventory. Now I can get all those neato satellite pictures of my runs and things. Only problem is that it seems to be DOA as the thing doesn't charge up or turn on and yes I did read the manual. Going to try and get it exchanged.

So running for this past week has been pretty good. I did 10.2 miles on each of Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, doing the exact same route each time. Averaged 8:30 pace on Tuesday, 8:15 pace on Wednesday and did a longish recovery run at 9:25 pace on Thursday. I think this is the first time I've ever done three straight days of double digits runs. I'm going to try and do a faster LTish thing tomorrow for about 6 miles or so and a longish long run on Sunday. I passed 1800 miles for the year with my run on Thursday and add to that the 20ish or so miles this weekend and I'll be about 40 miles short of the 1864 miles that I was able to put down last year. I don't think this is too bad considering I was injured for part of this year it and I only went through one real marathon training cycle.

Treadmills

So I'm starting to hate running on the treadmill at the gym. Went to the gym on Wednesday to try and do 9 miles and ended up doing only 5. Wanted to try and do a 7 mile LT run Thursday and only ended up doing 5miles total with only 3 at LT pace of 7:06 pace. Treadmill running is getting boring. They've added these new hi-def tv's which is good but the only way to get sound is to plug earphones into the side of the machine and the wires get in the way of the arm swing. I think the new layout at the gym isn't the greatest since there really is nothing to look at other than the TV. Before you could look at your form in the mirror or at least watch other people but since all the treadmills are now in a row, it's not possible to do either.

Did 10 miles on Friday outside at about 8:35 pace. Was going to try and do 16 miles today as a long run but slogged through about 10 and called it a day. My HR is definitely higher than it has been in the past. Total for the week was about 43 miles which is cheating a bit since the 14 miles I did on Monday was actually supposed to be for last week.

So I'm thinking of bailing on the idea of a February marathon. I'm not liking the thought of putting in higher mileage in this winter slushy stuff and the treadmill running thing is just going to keep getting more boring so I'm thinking of just putting in maintenance stuff over the winter.

Not sure if I'll post again prior to Christmas so Merry Christmas all!!

Gym run

Didn't get out for a run on Saturday like I had planned. Sunday was basically a lost since we got about a foot of snow dumped on us. I'm taking today and the next three days off of work so I decided to try and do a long run at the gym today since most of the side walks still aren't clear.

The gym has finally opened up their new area. They've relocated the cardio and weight equipment down to where the pool and whirlpool areas used to be. But they've really packed all the machines in there and they didn't even move it all since they're still renovating another area where they expect to add more treadmills. I think there's only half the number of treadmills that they had previously. I have a feeling that come January when people start making their new years resolutions that this gym is going to be packed. Also, because of the renovations, they now have this convoluted way of getting to the locker room that requires one to walk through the shower areas which feels kinda weird. Plus everyone is tracking their dirt and muck from outside onto the shower room floor which isn't exactly the cleanest.

Anyhow, it's been 9 days since my last run. Looking back, I haven't skipped that many days since I skipped two and a half weeks back in April due to an injury. I wanted to do a long run today and started in at 7mi/hr (8:34min/mile) and almost ended up quiting after three miles since I just wasn't feeling right. Decided I'd quit after the 7 miles and ended up pushing the pace a bit right at the end of the first hour to 7.5mi/hr. Stopped, got off the treadmill to drink some water and then convinced myself to do do another 3miles to push the total into double digits. By this point I think I had gotten my second wind and I ended up doing another 7 miles for a total of 14 for the day. I did the last two miles at 8.3mi/hr (7:13 pace).

Not too happy with the HR since it was over 160 for portions of the run, considering that previously I was able to run 30 seconds per mile faster with the HR below 160. But I guess it's kinda expected considering the week off.

Looong week

Well it's been a very long week for me. Trying to survive on 4-5 hours of sleep a night. As I expected no running for me and no time to do much of anything else. I had intended on doing a short run this morning, but considering that I just woke up about half an hour ago and I 'm meeting the parental units for brunch (today's their anniversary) in about half an hour, that's not going to be possible. I may try to get a short run in later today, but depending on how it goes, I may go a bit longer. We're supposed to get a big dumping of snow tonight so running outside tomorrow might be a tad difficult.

Busy Busy Busy.

Was supposed to do a run on Friday, but I didn't get much sleep Thursday night. The LT run still had my pretty agitated. I guess it's true that you shouldn't do exercise before you go to sleep. So the plan had a 20 mile run for Sunday but I have a pretty big work related thing this upcoming week and based on past expereince of having to prep for it, it was going to be impossible to do it on Sunday. I decided to bail on trying to make up the Friday run and so I did the 20 mile run on Saturday night. Did 2 10 mile loops around my home which allowed me to refill my water bottle and use the little boy's room.

Lap	Lap Time		Lap	Lap Time
1	08:46.9		12	08:28.5
2	08:22.6		13	08:27.9
3	08:21.2		14	08:20.1
4	08:15.0		15	08:18.9
5	08:24.8		16	08:18.6
6	08:09.6		17	08:28.2
7	08:21.3		18	08:30.9
8	08:09.9		19	08:29.5
9	08:36.4		20	08:27.5
10	08:13.4		21	01:48.5
11	08:25.7

Lap times were pretty consistent. This was a comfortable pace, but I'd still like to be doing these faster. Total for the week was only 37 miles. I'm starting to rethink whether a February marathon is going to be possible since my training is really starting to get crappy. I'm pretty sure that I'm not going to be able to any runs until next weekend and I've already been skipping training days so I have a feeling my fitness isn't going to be so great come February.

I'm still reading everyone's blogs, but since I tend to do it at work lately, I haven't commented a lot. I'm still trying to keep this blog away from my work peeps and I have no idea what things they monitor there so I try not to acknowledge my blog in any fashion while at work.

Happy running all!

LT Run

Had my office "Holiday" luncheon today. We used to have a full dinner party where we could invite guests but my company has grown quite a lot since I started there and the size of the party got a bit too unmanageable and presumably quite expensive so now we just have a Lunch where only the employees attend.

So the plan today was supposed to be 1 mile intervals at 6:20 pace but I was still kinda PO'd that I skipped the LT run last week so I decided to do that instead. I'll try and work in some strides for my General Aerobic run tomorrow to compensate. Wanted to do it in the morning, but I'm still having difficulty getting up, especially considering that it means having to drive over to the gym at 6am in the morning since the snow and ice is preventing me from doing my LT runs outside. So lunch finished at4pm and I headed to the gym about three hours later still feeling quite full.

I decided today to try something different. Most of my gym runs start off being uncomfortably warm and only after I've built up some sweat to assist with cooling do I seem to get into a groove. So I decided to pre-wet my shirt to help with the initial cooling and that seemed to help bunches. It was cold and clammy and just generally icky putting it on, but once I started running it didn't bother me. The goal was to do 2 miles warmup and then 6 miles at 8.6mi/hour or just under 7 min/miles. Got through it pretty good and the HR didn't creep up as much as it normally would and remained at or below 180 for the entire run.



Normally I would run on the treadmill with a 1.0 grade elevation but I've found that I end up using the exact same muscles each time which causes them to get sore so I let the treadmill pick random elevations this time. Hopefully that'll add enough of a mix-up to prevent my legs from getting sore.

Knee ache

Just got back from doing 9 miles outside at about 8:45 pace. Most of the sidewalks were clear but there were a few places where I almost turned over my ankle. I think I'm going to try and do my long runs and general aerobic stuff outside rather than on the treadmill. I'll probably have to do the LT stuff and intervals inside though which I'm not looking forward to.

So my left knee was aching quite a bit yesterday. I didn't get a chance to cool down or stretch after getting kicked off the treadmill on Sunday and I think it led to tight hamstrings which usually causes me knee pain. I was thinking of making an appointment to see my A.R.T. guy but it got me thinking a bit. At the race two Sundays ago they didn't have the normal massage therapist but rather they had a chiropractor there. While checking out their setup, I noticed they had an A.R.T. manual so I signed up for the service thinking that I would get a free A.R.T. treatment. I explained to the nice chiropractor the symptoms of my knee pain and after feeling around on various parts of my leg, she ended up doing chiropractic adjustments on my knee and hip. Completely different from what my normal chiropactor would do. So who's right? Trying to find out a bit more about the chiropractor, I plugged her name into Google and I found out that she is quite the accomplished runner and has ran sub19 minute 5k's. Suddenly her opinion seems a lot more credible considering that she is a pretty good runner and is way faster than me. Her practice is a bit out of my way so I probably can't get treatment from her clinic, but it's caused me to think that maybe I should look around for another chiropractor.

Getting Tougher

First off congratulations to Jen and to Quinto Sol for setting PR's at CIM!

This past week was tough to get running.

Last Tuesday I did 8 miles on the treadmill at the gym. Did a first mile @ about 9min/mile pace and then tried to do the rest at 8min/mile but was feeling a bit pooped at the 3 mile mark. SLowed it down to 8:15 pace or so for mile 4 and then slowed it down again to 8:30 pace for the remaining 5 miles. Probably not too recovered after the semi hard race on Sunday.

I didn't run on Thursday or Friday even though I was supposed to. Thursday was supposed to be a moderately difficult 6 mile LT run at 6:53 pace, but I just didn't feel like it. Skipped the Friday run also. Not too good.

Headed to the gym on Saturday in the hopes of doing the 6 miles LT run that I had skipped, but that went kinda blah. Did 2 miles slow and then wanted to do 6 miles at 7 min/mile pace. Got through about 2 of the LT miles and then had to stop to walk for 2 minutes. Tried to do another 2, but bailed after only one more mile. Gave up on that.

Yesterday, we got dumped on for the first snowfall of the season. With the relatively light 5 miles on Saturday, I wanted to try and do the 18 miles that I was supposed to do for a long run. Left home at around 9:00am in the morning but my brain clearly wasn't working cause it was pretty clear that since the sidewalks and roads weren't clear and there was a good couple of inches on the ground that I wouldn't be able to do the run. Bailed on that and went to the gym later in the afternoon to get my run in. For some reason, I had thought the gym closed at 8pm when in fact it closed at 7pm. I thought it was kinda weird that I was the only one left at 7pm . The maintenance guy seemed kinda pissed when he stormed over and told me I had to go at 7:10pm. Whoops. Anyhow I was able to squeeze in 16 miles on the treadmill.




What I find kinda interesting is that during the 2nd hour, my HR seemed was a bit lower than it was during the first hour even though the 2nd hour was 0.1 mile/hour faster than the first one. During the last little bit I was trying to ramp up the speed to 7.5 miles/hour but I had to stop after 2 miles cause of the maintenance guy. I think it may have something to do with whether I'm getting proper cooling. The first hour I typically find very uncomfortable, but by the 2nd hour I've usually built up enough of a sweat that my body starts cooling down a bit. Maybe that has something to do with it.