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How bad do I want this? Bad enough to start my scheduled 15+ mile run at 3am this morning so I could get it in before our family left for vacation at 7am.
How good of a friend is Nathan? Such a good friend that he got up and ran it with me!
How CRAZY are we? INSANE!!
I honestly didn’t know when I was going to get my run in this weekend, but I knew one way or another it was going to get done. Yesterday Nathan texted me about running this morning with our running group. I said that we would be on our way to the beach while the group was running, and then half-jokingly threw out there that we could start at 3am! While I expected a “Thanks but no thanks,” he actually expressed some interest, and after a few more texts we had agreed to meet at the Edwin Warner Park Nature Center at 3am.
Because of packing, I was not able to get to bed last night until 11:30pm, so this was little more than a nap. Even though I was very tired when we started, it turned out to be a very good time to run since the temps were fairly mild (around 60 degrees).
With night-time reflective gear and head lamps equipped, we took off on a route that included Edwin Warner Park, the Harpeth River Greenway, and a very large section of the Bellevue community where we live.
After a very, very chill first mile, we settled into a nice rhythm with a pace in the mid to low 8:00s the remainder of the run. Even with the lack of sleep I felt very good throughout, and we just kept clicking off mile after mile.
A few highlights from the run…
About 3/4 of the way through the 5th mile I noticed a small object on the side of the road. I couldn’t really tell what it was, but assumed it was a piece of trash. As I stepped beside it I heard a sudden noise and then looked up to see a dove a few inches in front of my face flapping wildly. I jumped and screamed like a little girl, even causing Nathan to jump. This scared me enough that my heart went racing, and it took a couple of minutes to settle down.
A few minutes later we saw a woman standing in her front yard with a man laying down in the grass beside her feet. Even before we said anything, we assumed that one or both of them was very inebriated. Nathan made a comment that their reason for being outside at 3:45am was about 180 degrees different than ours. They were outside laying in the grass because they were plastered, and we were outside because we were in the middle of a 15+ mile run. Then he pointed out that we might be similar in level of craziness.
Near the end of the run, Nathan pointed out that we had set another “PR” this morning. He said the before today the earliest we had ever run together was 4am. He also said that our temperature “PR” for training was 9 degrees, which was two winters ago. Our previous 4am run was the day before the 2010 Marine Corp Marathon. Neither of us were participating, but our friend Paxton was going with some other members of our running group and needed a ride to the airport. In order to get our run in before I needed to pick him up we got up to run the Percy Warner 11.2-mile loop in the dark at 4am. That was a pretty interesting experience. The trees on that route are so dense that very little light can get through from the night sky, and taking on those massive hills in the dark was a much different perspective than running in the daylight.
As we finished up the run this morning in Edwin Warner Park, the sun was just beginning to come up over the trees. Nathan later posted this on Facebook…
There’s just something about watching the sun rise across the tree tops of Edwin Warner Park that makes you appreciate life and know undeniably that there is a creator. Praise God!
Couldn’t have said it any better myself. Even though it was early, it turned out to be a very enjoyable run with a really good friend. In total we completed 15.25 miles with an average pace of 8:29 per mile.
Beast Mode…ON!
With John (our coach) out of town for the next two weeks at the Olympic Track & Field trials, and not receiving an official workout from Jim Spivey, Dan suggested the group do 400m intervals at track tonight. However, our normal 400m workout is 3 sets of 3 x 400m repeats, but tonight we did 4 sets of 3 x 400m repeats! This is almost 4.5-miles of intervals, which is pretty long for our group. On top of this it was still 95º at 6pm, so needless to say it was fairly tough.
Here’s a rundown of the night…
- 2-Mile Warmup
- 6 x 100m Stride Outs
- 4 Sets of 3 x 400m vf (200m recovery / 400m recovery)
- 1/2-Mile Cool Down
For a normal 400m workout we will do a mixture of “fresh” and “good” paced repeats within each set. However, with the very high temps tonight, and the longer workout, Dan advised us to do each one at “very fresh” pace which should be 3 to 5 seconds slower than “fresh” per interval. Recently my “fresh” paced 400m splits have been around 82 to 84 seconds, so tonight I was shooting for something between 86 and 88.
As has been the case for the past few weeks, I basically ran tonight’s workout by myself. While my legs felt pretty good throughout, I did have some difficulty dealing with the heat and this led to a little less consistency between repeats than I would have liked. This was especially true during the first one and last one. Here is a rundown on my splits per set:
- Set 1 (86, 88, 84)
- Set 2 (88, 88, 86)
- Set 3 (86, 88, 89)
- Set 4 (88, 89, 90)
By the last set I could feel the heat pulsing in my face, but tried to stay as consistent as I could until the end. I lost a couple of seconds during the final two repeats, but overall I’m pretty happy with the workout and how I felt. Just like last week I drank 64 ounces of fluid during the evening + a little bit more from the water fountain at the track, because it was HOT! Final total with warmup and cool down was 8-miles completed at 7:35 average pace per mile.
My daughter Kate came with me to the track tonight, so we got to enjoy another impromptu daddy-daughter date night after the workout. We had dinner at Pei Wei followed by FroYo at Sweet CeCe’s. Great night!
Beast Mode….ON!
This post’s title is one of my favorite Tony Horton quotes from P90X, and has very little to do with our run this morning except that we did see a Tin Man hanging from a tree (more on this in a bit), and we did talk about Tony Horton quotes (though not this one).
Today’s schedule called for 60 minutes at easy pace, so Nathan and I decided to run the reverse of a route we used for a 60 minute run a couple of weeks ago. We started off very, very conservative with an opening mile of 9:29. From this point forward every mile got progressively faster. This wasn’t planned, but just happened that way. You can see our splits below…
I was actually surprised at how good I felt, especially after the first 3 miles. At no time did the pace feel fast or forced. It just felt comfortable throughout. My shin continues to improve, and only felt like a slight twinge this morning. We completed the route in 60:57, which is almost 6-minutes faster than two weeks ago (though that was a Hattori run, and this was not). Our final total was 7.44-miles completed at 8:12 average pace per mile.
As for the “Tin Man,” during our second mile I looked over and noticed about a 3-foot tall tin man hanging from someone’s tree that was made entirely out of old cans. I’m guessing that it was a bird feeder, but looked kinda strange.
Anyway, it was another good run with Nathan in the books!
Beast Mode…ON!
Even though my right shin has been doing better than last week, I’ve been trying to be as cautious as possible. To that end, Nathan and I did today’s scheduled 40-minute, easy paced, run on the grass surface at the Steeplechase course in Percy Warner Park.
This course is a great surface for running and is the site of the annual Iroquois Steeplechase equestrian race, which is one of the oldest and most prestigious steeplechases in the country. The ground is very soft and consistent, with no rocks, roots, or holes. The only downside is that the grass is EXTREMELY thick, which forces you to work a bit harder than on the road.
Overall the run felt great, though we did have to deal with very humid conditions and soggy turf (from the dew). By the end of the run my shoes and socks were completely soaked through, but my Dry Max socks again kept me from getting any blisters. In total we ran just under 4.5-miles during our 40 minutes, with a pace right around 9:00 average per mile. At the end we did 6 x 100m stride outs on the grass, which felt a little strange in high grass with wet shoes. Our final total with strides was 4.81-miles completed at a 8:51 average pace per mile.
Beast Mode…ON!
Lolo Jones on HBO Real Sports – Very compelling interview with American 100m Hurdler Lolo Jones. The interview originally appeared on HBO Real Sports, and was conducted by former tennis player, and current sportscaster, Mary Carillo. I for one will really be pulling for Lolo this week in the Olympic Trials, and hopefully all the way to London for the Gold! Definitely worth a watch!
Go Lolo!
(Source: http://www.youtube.com/)
After four consecutive Mondays of 60 to 70 minute workouts with a 20 to 30 minute tempo section, today the schedule got cranked up a notch with 85 total minutes of running, including:
- 30 minutes easy
- 5 x 5 min repeats at 7:00 pace (1 min recovery)
- 30 minutes easy
Due to my work schedule this morning, Nathan and I started the workout from the Edwin Warner Park Nature Center just before 5am, when it was still quite dark. About 10 minutes into our initial warmup, Nathan was telling me about finding a Brown Recluse spider in their house last Friday. I was listening to him, looking slightly down, but looked up just in time to see a deer standing a few feet in front of me on the road.
It startled me enough to cause me to jump the side, which in turn caused the deer to jump in the opposite direction into the deep grass. There was another deer immediately behind that also ran away quickly when I jumped. That is the second time when running in Edwin Warner that I almost ran head-on into a deer (This one was a doe….the other time is was a many-point buck). Anyway, we completed the 30 minute warmup through the park with a total of 3.43-miles completed at a leisurely 8:47 average pace.
For the tempo intervals, we ran out and back on the Harpeth River Greenway, and things went very well. 7:00 min pace felt extremely comfortable and controlled. My Garmin “average pace” indicator did some weird things as we ran in and out of tree cover, but according to the distance reading we were very consistent between sets with .72, .71, .72, .72, and .72-miles completed. In total we completed 3.59-miles in 25:06 for an average pace of 6:59.6.
During the tempo intervals (and again during the cool down) we heard a couple of woodpeckers that sounded like machine guns going off. I was again reminded of my running friend Susan who always says that she hears at least one woodpecker on every run.
For our final, 30-minute cool down section we ran back in Edwin Warner Park on a reverse route to our 30-minute warmup. We were running through a short section right beside the Little Harpeth River, when I noticed a majestic looking hawk (I’m guessing red tailed) standing on the ground beside the path. We will occasionally see owls sitting in trees in the park, but I don’t ever recall seeing a hawk that wasn’t in flight. What a beautiful, beautiful creature!
We finished our run back at the Nature Center after adding another 3.5-miles at 8:36 average pace during our 30-minute cool down. Since our pace was a bit quicker than the warmup, we ended up doing a very short section on the blue trail to add a few minutes to our time.
In total we finished 10.51-miles for the morning at an 8:07 average pace with warmup and cool down. Another good morning!
Beast Mode….ON!
A few weeks ago our good friend Ashley with Dogwoods and Dragonflies took family portraits of us on the stone steps at Percy Warner Park. She is an amazing photographer, and I LOVE this picture of Kate and Sara. I had to share!
You can see the whole album here.
During the 6 weeks since my last race (500 Festival Mini Marathon in early May), John and I have been working on building my base in preparation for more intense training in July and August. Having just finished another week of running today, I was looking back at my log and noted that this has probably been the most consistent stretch of running I’ve ever had. See the charts below…
Beginning in the middle of last year I stepped up to running 6-days a week, with Sunday off. Following this same pattern with John as my coach, I have not missed a scheduled run for the past five weeks (red boxes are running days / dashed boxes are where I had 2 or more activities on the same day).
I’ve had bigger mileage weeks in the past, but never have I had 6 consecutive weeks with 43+ miles completed. I think there are at least three reasons for this improved consistency in my running: (1) Having a coach who monitors my logs brings a higher level of accountability. (2) I’ve been running a lot recently with Nathan, and it is always easier for me to get out and run when I’ve got somebody to go with me. Also, having a group to run with on Thursday nights and Saturday mornings is awesome. (3) I’ve been injury and illness free.
All-in-all I’m very blessed to be able to run, to enjoy it, to have friends to share it with, and to have a family that supports me.
Beast Mode….ON!
Friday
This morning I just couldn’t get myself out of bed early enough to get my run in. Nathan is out of town for the weekend, and sometimes it’s really hard for me to get up and get going when I know that no one is going to be waiting on me. I owe a lot to Nathan and Paxton for my running improvement/success over the past two years.
So, as punishment for my lack of morning motivation, I ended up running in the late afternoon when the temperatures were right at 90 degrees (nasty). My schedule called for 30 to 40 minutes at easy pace with 6 x 100m stride outs at the end. I started my run at the Edwin Warner Nature Center, and for two reasons did the first and last mile on the flat part of the blue trail instead of the road: (1) It always feels cooler on the trails with all of the tree cover (2) I’ve been feeling a bit of soreness in my right shin over the past couple of days and wanted a slightly softer surface for my easy run.
After a first mile around 9:00, I settled into a very nice 8:30ish pace for the remainder of the run, and felt pretty good considering the heat. I completed my stride outs in the parking lot of the nature center (in full sun) with a pace a little below 6:00. Final total was 4.86-miles in 40:36 with an 8:22 average pace per mile.
Saturday
Today’s planned group run was the 11.2-mile main drive loop in Percy Warner Park, which is quite challenging. Since my schedule called for 14 to 16 miles total I got there a little early and completed just over three miles in Belle Meade before joining the group in the park.
I mentioned on Friday that I had been feeling some soreness in right shin (shin splints), so this morning I decided to run in my old clunky and cushy Nike Vomeros since we would be doing so many hills in the park. This turned out to be a good decision and my leg felt pretty good. However, for the record, I now hate how these shoes feel compared to my Saucony Kinvaras. Gotta be diligent in my leg exercises so I can get out of these things as soon as possible on hilly runs.
Dan led our group run, and his strategy today was to run very easy on the downhill and flat portions, but push the pace on the uphills to build strength. Also, right at the start Dan told the group that he would be counting the hills we ran the loop today. This led to a persistent debate about what counted as a hill. As you can see from the elevation chart below, Percy Warner Park is not lacking in hills…
Even though the humidity was very high this morning after rains last night, I felt fantastic throughout the run today. I pushed pretty hard up most of the hills, even the daunting, named ones like 3-mile-hill, 7-mile-hill, and 9-mile hill (miles 6, 10, and 12 on the chart above). This was very encouraging after my miserable trail run earlier in the week in the same park.
When we came to end Dan and the group had counted 21 total hills in the park (very unscientific), which is pretty good in only 11.2-miles. For my entire route (including warmup miles) this equated to over 2,000 ft of cumulative elevation gain. My final total was 14.29-miles completed with an 8:48 average pace per mile.
Beast Mode…ON!
Thursday night means track workout with the JSRC. Tonight was the second of our three week stint at the Harpeth Hall while the Nashville Strider’s Track Series is being held at Vanderbilt. After having great weather last Thursday evening, the heat was back tonight with temps around 90 degrees at the start.
With the heat I was nervous about how I would feel considering I’ve already had one bad run this week. Also, my calves were REALLY sore from my Hattori run yesterday. I didn’t run any more mileage in my Hattoris than usual, but my pace was a bit quicker than I normally do in them.
Here’s the rundown…
- 2+ mile warmup
- 6 x 100m stride outs
- 4 x 200m f (100m recovery) [400m recovery]
- 600m g (400m recovery)
- 4 x 250m f (150m recovery) [400m recovery]
- 600m g (400m recovery)
- 4 x 200m f (100m recovery)
- .8 mile cool down
While I did notice a slight slowdown in my pace from last week due to the heat, I otherwise felt fantastic! Don’t get me wrong, it was very hot, but for some reason the heat did not seem to get to me tonight (though I did drink 64 ounces of fluid during the workout). The only issue I had at all was that my form felt a little sloppy in the curves during the first set of 4 x 200m. This got much better as we went along, so I’m guessing it had a lot to do with my sore calves.
Overall I was very pleased with the consistency of my splits. The two sets of “fresh” 400m repeats were 44, 44, 45, 43 and 43, 42, 42, 42, and my two 600m “good” intervals were 2:08 and 2:07. My final total with warmup and cool down was 7.39-miles completed at a 7:43 average pace.
Beast Mode…ON!
This Sunday I will be preaching the morning and evening services at Maple Hill Church of Christ in Lebanon, TN. Being at Maple Hill is always a thrill, because it is my home congregation, and my parents still attend there. Since this Sunday is Father’s Day, my lessons will revolve around this theme…
- Sunday Morning (9:00am) – Honoring the Father Who Gave Birth to Your Faith – How children can truly follow the command to “Honor Father and Mother” – Will include a survey of the book of II Timothy.
- Sunday Evening (6:00pm) – Becoming Like Children – What fathers can learn from their children about being a true servant in God’s Kingdom – Matthew 18:1-5
If you are in the Middle Tennessee area, we would love to have you join us this Sunday for worship!
I ended up with early-morning work meetings today, so I decided to just decided delay my run until the afternoon. I guess I could have started at 5:00am but knew this would not be smart based on how things went yesterday. My run yesterday morning was less than stellar, and for some reason I just felt tired all day. With this in mind, I didn’t want to compound my fatigue by having to get up super-early.
With all that being said….I hate, hate, HATE it when I can’t get my run done in the morning for at least three reasons:
(1) It usually means that my run will cut into family time (in this case I was not able to eat dinner with them before we had to be ready for mid-week worship)
(2) It almost always means that it will be a solo run, without my friends Nathan or Paxton (again this was the case today)
(3) During the Spring and Summer it is often very warm in the late afternoon
The only good thing about today was that it gave my body a little more time to rest, and I could really tell the difference from yesterday. My schedule called for 60 minutes at easy pace, and I decided to make this a Hattori run through the streets of Bellevue.
Even though it was hot, I knew immediately that things would be better than yesterday. My legs felt pretty fresh, and the aches and stiffness I felt on the trails yesterday were mostly gone. After a first mile of 9:02, I settled into a very comfortable rhythm in the low 8:00s (and even one 7:58) for the remainder of the run.
As I was finishing mile two on Sawyer Brown Road, I saw an older gentleman riding a bicycle headed my way. I gave him a courtesy wave just as we were about to pass, and then he yelled “Wanna Run Together Sometime?” I had never laid eyes on this man before and was a little taken back by this question. Stammering for an answer I blurted out “maybe” and just kept running. I turned my head briefly and saw that he also kept riding. No idea what that was about.
Anyway, for 60-minutes I completed 7.29-miles at an average pace of 8:15 per mile.
Beast Mode….ON!
On a side note, I have now put 240 miles on my Saucony Hattoris. Since the Hattori has a mostly foam outsole (as opposed to rubber), I really thought it would wear down very quickly. The irony is that today my big toe finally wore a hole in the sock-like upper, but the outsole is still going strong. The hole in the upper is fairly uncomfortable, so I guess this means it is time for a replacement. I’m really curious about the new Hattori LC (with laces), but these do not come out for another three weeks. Not sure how many more miles I can get out of my current pair before they become unwearable.
Some days you’ve got it….some days you don’t. Today was clearly one of those days where I did NOT have it. However, I’m not down about it all, because before this I’ve had the longest string of days where I DID have it in my running life.
The schedule for this morning called for 45-minutes easy with 6 x 100m stride outs at the end. Nathan and I decided to meet at the Edwin Warner Nature Center and run 22 1/2 minutes out-and-back on the Candy Cane and Red Trails between Edwin and Percy Warner Parks. I could tell from the outset that my body was just not going to cooperate. The humidity was still very high and my legs felt heavy and achy.
I spent the whole run trying to maintain pace with Nathan, especially going up the steep hills on the red trail (still had over 1,100 ft of elevation gain even though it was just a 45-minute run), but eventually just let him go. It didn’t help that three times during the run I had to stop and re-tie the laces on my Saucony Peregrines. I love these shoes, but the stock laces have got to be the worst ever included on a pair of trail shoes. I absolutely cannot keep them tied, even with double knots. Any of my trail-running friends out there have a recommendation for a good pair of replacement laces?
Love the symmetry of the out-and-back on the elevation chart
Anyway, I started to feel slightly better on the way back to the Nature Center, but coming back was mostly downhill and much easier than going out. At the end of the trail portion my total was 4.5-miles completed at just under 10-minute pace. We finished up with stride outs in the parking lot of the Nature Center. Recently Nathan has been blowing by me on the strides, but today I was able to keep up with him through the first 3 reps. However, for the final 3, he again blew past me like I was sitting still. My average pace for the strides was 5:48.
Final total was 4.9-miles completed at 9:40 average pace per mile.
Beast Mode….flickering…..flickering……flickering……ON!