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I can’t stop thinking about the senseless murders in Aurora, CO early Friday morning. So incredibly sad & beyond words or comprehension. Nothing to do but pray.
Two weeks ago at our weekly track workout with the Jim Spivey Running Club (JSRC), it was 102º at the start with full sun. Last week it was 72º with overcast skies and some rain. Tonight the roller-coaster continued with temps around 94º and a heat index of a whopping 106º with the nasty humidity.
Tonight it felt like running inside a bowl of very warm soup, and honestly the conditions were more difficult than when the temps were at 102º a couple of weeks ago. All of this led us only having 5-people at the track tonight and me taking a very conservative approach to the workout. Here’s a rundown…
- 2-mile warmup
- 6 x 100m stride outs
- 800m straights and curves (400m recovery)
- 4 x 250m gfgf (150m recovery / 400m recovery)
- 3 x 500m f (200m recovery / 400m recovery)
- 800m straights and curves
- ~.75-mile cool down.
I generally felt pretty good through the intervals tonight, though the humidity did start to get to me during the 500m repeats. It was also about this time that John started pulling people out of the workout due to the conditions. However, because of my fairly conservative pacing, I was able to finish the entire workout with my legs still feeling fairly good.
Sometimes when I overdo it during a workout, I feel so trashed at the end that my cool down is more like a shuffle. Well, I’m pleased that tonight this was not the way I felt. I only needed around .75-miles for the cool down to finish off 7-miles total for the night, but my legs felt fresh enough to run quite a bit farther.
It was nice again tonight to have Nick with us at the track, which gave me someone to run with for at least half the workout. We stayed together through the 250s, but he had a gear at the end that I just didn’t want to try tonight.
At the end I spent some time talking to John about the night, and also about my training in general. So far I’ve been really pleased with the schedule he has put together for me, and also with how my body has been responding. I’m really excited about my training, and already looking forwarding to racing season this fall.
Beast Mode…ON!
Today’s schedule called for 70 minutes at easy pace, so Nathan and I met at the Bellevue United Methodist Church parking lot and ran a route that included the streets of Bellevue, Edwin Warner Park, and the Harpeth River Greenway. The temps were a bit cooler today at 5:45am (around 75º), but the humidity was still pretty tough.
My legs were good throughout the run, but overall I felt tired. Because of this the pace stayed very chill from start to finish with mile-splits ranging from 9:33 at the beginning to 8:26 near the end. I’m glad to have more than 24-hours before my next scheduled run on Thursday night, because this intense humidity has sucked the energy right out of me.
Nathan and I always have good conversations on our runs, but today the topics jumped all over the board from The Far Side cartoons, to Biblical fiction, to Batmobiles, etc. The discussion about The Far Side reminded me of my all-time favorite from that brilliant series…
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve done this!
Back to our run….In total we finished just over 8-miles with an average pace of 8:51 per mile. That makes almost 26-miles finished for the week so far. Looking like I’ll land squarely in the mid 50s this week if I’m able to stay on schedule.
Beast Mode…ON!
P.S. Anybody else have a favorite The Far Side to share?
When I sent out the group text to organize this morning’s run, I suggested we start from the main gates at Percy Warner Park. Josh wrote back and asked “the one on Hwy 100?” I responded with “No, at the end of Belle Meade Boulevard. There can be only one ‘Main’ gate!” This led to him stating that the phrase “There can be only one” should only be used when referring to The Highlander, which led to continued discussion on the same topic this morning. I have not seen this movie in a LONG time, so I had to look it up on the web to have any idea what he was talking about.
And I digress….Today’s scheduled called for 50 minutes at easy pace with 6 x 100 stride outs at the end. Josh, Nathan, and I were joined by Paxton, who made an appearance after a hiatus from our weekday runs. We did indeed start from the Percy Warner main gates, and ran through the streets of Bellevue. Even though the humidity was nasty, it turned out to be a really good run.
I really expected my legs to be dead today after two consecutive tempo workouts, but in actuality they felt pretty good. We finished our first mile in 9:21, and then followed with splits of 8:40, 8:37, 8:25, 8:09, and were on pace for a sub 8min 6th mile when our 50-minutes expired.
At the end we did 6 x 100m stride outs by the main entrance. My average pace for these strides was 5:12, but both Nathan and Josh flew past me like I wasn’t moving. As a matter of fact, Nathan made me look like I was sitting still, and Josh made Nathan look like he was sitting still. He was absolutely flying. Oh well…in total we finished just over 6.25-miles with an average pace of 8:17 per mile.
Beast Mode…ON!
I don’t know anyone who has one, but did read a review of it back in the January 2012 issue of Runner’s World. You can access that article (and videos) by going here.
Clock Wise – Use a powerful, high-tech watch to run your best
Having just completed a long tempo run on Saturday, I wondered if John would delay my normal weekly tempo interval run from Monday until later in week. Well last night I got my answer…
- 30 minutes – easy pace
- 10 x 2-min at 6:20 to 6:30 pace
1-min active recovery between each repeat - 30 minutes – easy pace
Last week we did a series of 5-minute repeats at 6:50 pace, but today things were shorter and much faster. I was a little nervous about how my legs would feel after Saturday’s effort, but looked forward to running fast.
Obviously having a Garmin is critical for these types of workouts, however when I was getting ready to leave the house this morning to meet Nathan, I realized I had not charged my Garmin 405 after Saturday’s run. I turned it on to check the battery and it immediately gave me the “Battery Low” message. I ran upstairs quickly and grabbed my old 305 that was sitting on the charger, hoping it would get me through just for today.
Nathan and I met at the Edwin Warner Park Nature Center, and as usual ran our 30 minute warmup through the park and on the Harpeth River Greenway. The temperatures were in the upper 70s, but unlike last week we were greeted with full sun. Just last week Nathan commented that if the humidity stayed really high, it would be especially nasty when the sun returned. Well, today was pretty nasty!
Even with that, my legs felt really, really good from the outset. We slowly increased our pace from 9:12 to 8:03 through the first 30 minutes before starting the intervals on the Harpeth River Greenway. Just before we reached the greenway, I looked down at my Garmin 305, and the screen was blank! The battery only lasted 28 minutes! Awesome.
Well, for the remainder of the workout I was dependent on Nathan to be my pacer and timekeeper, and he did a fantastic job. I was a little annoyed that I couldn’t track my heart rate, but was grateful to have Nathan taking care of everything else. For all but two of the intervals the biggest thing I had to fight was going too fast. My legs continued to feel great.
We ran all 10 intervals and recoveries on the greenway and onto the streets of Bellevue, completing five on the way out, and five on the way back. The fourth and fifth repeats were completed on a slight incline, which was a bit of an increased challenge over the other eight. However, this led to numbers six and seven feeling fairly slow on the way back down.
According to Nathan’s Garmin, all of the repeats were completed at a pace between 6:20 and 6:26, which was right in line with our target range. We closed out the morning with an additional 30 minutes through the park and on the greenway back to the Nature Center.
All-in-all, Nathan looked great today and I felt pretty fantastic considering the hard effort on Saturday and the nasty weather this morning. In total we finished just over 11.25-miles with an average pace of 8:10 per mile with warmup and cool down.
Beast Mode…ON!
My original schedule called for 14 to 16 miles at easy pace today, however that ended up getting modified a bit before this morning. Our group had a marathon pace workout planned in Percy Warner Park, and I asked John about joining them when I saw him at track on Thursday. He recommended that I not do their run, but said he would give me a modified workout before Saturday morning.
Last night John called and gave me a progression tempo workout divided into 3 x 30 minute segments. The first 30 minutes was to be done at easy pace. The second 30 minutes was to be done at 15 to 20 seconds slower than goal marathon pace (7:05). The final 30 minutes was to be done from goal marathon pace (7:05) up to 20 seconds faster than goal marathon pace.
He advised that I should not try to blast up to the target pace as soon as each 30 minute segment started, but instead progressively work toward the faster pace. He also said that ideally the run should be done without stopping, however if I needed to take a fluid break he wanted me to continue the previous segment for five minutes or so before increasing my pace.
I decided to run in the same location as our group so that I would intersect with them occasionally and be able to join them for breakfast at the end. I started around 5:45am from the Beech Grove picnic area in Percy Warner, and headed out of the park onto Chickering Road. My pace after about 10 minutes was around 8:30, but I slowly worked my way to a 7:57 average for the entire segment. While the temperatures were pretty low (71º), and I was feeling very good, the humidity was oppressive and I could tell it was going to be a problem (more on that later).
Picture below is of one of the stranger looking houses in Nashville, called “Small World,” located on Chickering Road (on a much sunnier day than today)…
About 25 minutes into the first segment I knew I needed to make a pit stop and grab some fluid, so I headed back into the park. After making a very brief stop back by the picnic area right at 30 minutes, I continued on for another five minutes at the same pace as John had instructed. It was during this final five minutes that I first ran into the group as they were doing their warmup.
I ran the five minutes up to the 8-mile marker on the main drive in the park, and then began my second segment headed back toward the 7-mile marker. Just before reaching the 7-mile marker I turned left and headed out of the park again onto Chickering Road, headed in the opposite direction from before, toward Christ Presbyterian Academy. After looping the school, I headed back toward the picnic area in the park.
Just like in the first segment I tried to slowly increase my pace throughout, but this time things didn’t go so well. I was moving steadily from 7:25 pace toward 7:15 pace when all of a sudden at the 20-minute mark I just started feeling rough and had to slow down. The humidity just felt like it was crushing my lungs, and my legs felt dead. I think my average for the segment at the 20-minute mark was around 7:17, but by the time I finished it had dropped to 7:27. I stopped briefly around 28 minutes to grab a quick drink, and then ran another five minutes back toward the 8-mile marker.
At this point I was thinking there was no way I was going to be able to hit the target range for the third segment, but decided to just do what I could based on how I felt. I again started this segment from the 8-mile marker headed back toward the 7-mile marker on the main drive. My average pace for the first few minutes was around 7:20, and then out of the blue I started feeling a LOT better.
I again turned left before the 7-mile marker and headed out of the park onto Chickering Road. By the time I reached Chickering my average segment pace had dropped to 7:10 or so. For the remainder of the segment I ran a couple of out-and-backs on Chickering and my average pace steadily dropped from 7:10 down to 7:03. I glanced at my watch a few times during the last 10 minutes of the segment, and my pace was consistently between 6:45 and 7:00, which was exactly what I was shooting for.
I finished the final segment on Chickering just as it started to rain, and then ran easy back to the picnic area as a cool down. In total I finished 14-miles with an average pace of 7:36 per mile. Overall I’m fairly happy with the workout. I ran the first and third segments pretty close to how I had planned, though the second segment was a bit of a mess. I guess “two out of three ain’t bad” …
In all seriousness, I’m happy the bad section was in the middle and not at the end. I’m also pleased with how good I felt during most of that last segment, and that I was able to bounce back after feeling so lousy.
Beast Mode…On!
In other news, once we got to breakfast at Bread & Co we learned that two members of our group had set Tennessee state records in the 1,500m this morning. Paul ran a 4:34, which was a new record by approximately 18 seconds in the 50 to 54 year-old division. Grady ran a 5:38, which is a new record by 17 seconds in the 65 to 69 year-old division. Grady joined us for breakfast and gave us a blow-by-blow account of each race, which was fascinating. Major kudos and congrats to both of them. They will both also compete tomorrow in the 800m, and are again hoping to break state records. Wow!
This morning’s schedule called for 45-minutes at easy pace with 6 x 100m stride outs at the end. Josh, Nathan and I met at Bellevue Church of Christ parking lot, and did our 45-minute run through Bellevue, including a loop around the vacant Bellevue Center Mall. Just like last Friday, I did this run in my Saucony Hattoris since my right shin is continuing to feel just fine.
We kept the pace extremely chill throughout the run with nothing faster than a 9:19 mile. This felt great as a recovery run after last night’s track workout. The weather was actually almost a duplicate of the conditions at track, and it even started raining lightly near the end of our initial 45-minutes.
With about 10-minutes to go we turned onto a street called “Green Meadows,” and I started singing the “Green Acres” theme song replacing “Meadows” for “Acres.” For some reason this led Josh to start singing “The Final Countdown” by Europe from 1986. I feel confident this song came out well before Josh was born (he’s a young pup) and right after Nathan was born (I feel old), but this lead to Nathan jumping in and singing it as well and telling a story about one of his former bosses that had this song as their ring tone.
Anyway, back to the run, we finished up our 45-minutes with a couple of loops around the Bellevue church building, and then did our strides in the parking lot. I honestly think I was only at about 60m when they finished each stride, but neither of them did the track workout last night. Even though I felt like I was standing still next to them, I’m pleased with the run this morning and how my legs felt after the hard effort last night.
In total we completed just under 5.25-miles with the stride outs at an average pace of 9:20 per mile.
Beast Mode…ON!
I’m not completely sure, but I think this might be one of the signs of the Apocalypse.
At 5:30pm last Thursday night it was 102º when I started my “warmup” for track. Tonight at the same time it was 72º and sprinkling rain, and it felt AWESOME. It was still crazy humid, but the lower temperatures were none-the-less very welcome.
All of this led to the best I’ve felt at a track workout in quite some time. Here’s a rundown for the night…
- 2.75-Mile Warmup
- 6 x 100m Stride Outs
- 600m f (200m recovery)
- 400m f+ (200m recovery)
- 4 x 150m f (50m / 400m recovery)
- 800m f (300m recovery)
- 400m f+ (200m recovery)
- 800m Straights and Curves (400m recovery)
- 600m f
- 1-Mile Cool Down
It was good to run most of the warmup and cool down with Paxton since we haven’t run much together lately. Also, I’ve basically run the track workouts by myself for the past month and a half, but tonight we had a new guy join our group named Nick who ran most of the intervals with me. He was a 400m track runner in college, and is now training for a full Ironman this fall. It was obvious that he has some serious speed in his reserves, and a very enviable running form. It’s easy to forget how nice it is to have someone to run with a track.
I felt like I had my target pace dialed in tonight, and this resulted in consistent splits throughout the workout. For example my 400m (fresh+) was 1:21 in the first set and 1:20 in the second.
My 600m (fresh) was 2:06 in the first set and 2:06 in the second. My 800m (fresh) in the second set was 1:26 for each of the two laps (2:52).
In total with warmup and cool down I completed just under 8 total miles with an average pace of 7:59 per mile.
After the workout, Olivia, Kate, and Sara joined me and the rest of the group for dinner at the Dog of Nashville, which was a great time as always.
Beast Mode…ON!
My current Saucony Hattoris are just about at the end of their useful life, and I’m facing the dilemma or re-ordering the exact same thing again (which they will continue to offer) or trying the new Hattori LC (with laces) that was just released today…
Per Saucony, the laces were added to provided a more snug and secure fit than the velcro overlay from the original model. However, this has never been a problem for me with the original. The other change Saucony made was to re-enforce the material over the toe to reduce wear. This was by far my biggest complaint with the original, but is only addressed in the new LC version with the laces.
What to do? What to do? I think I’m leaning toward trying the LC, but probably won’t order until next week.
As Nathan and I were getting ready for our run this morning I noticed there were several sticker type things on the bottom of one shoe that I don’t think I’d ever seen before. Nathan took one look at them and said that they looked like Goat Head Stickers like he used to see in Lamesa, Texas where he grew up….
He then commented that he’d never seen any of these since moving to Tennessee. I’m guessing that I got them while running in Florida a couple of weeks ago, because these were the same shoes I wore that entire week.
After starting our run, the discussion turned from Goat Head Stickers to “Hooker” weeds that were apparently another despised botanical from his family’s farm in Texas. Since I had never heard of either of these, I found the discussion quite interesting. Anybody else have to deal with these things? I love Nathan’s farm tales!
Back to running…today’s schedule called for 60-minutes at easy pace, and we started from the Bellevue United Methodist church building and ran a 7+ mile route which included several neighborhood streets in Bellevue, the Harpeth River Greenway, and Edwin Warner Park.
I’m really enjoying the cooler temperatures this week, but the humidity for the past couple of days has been intense. Other than dealing with the thick air, I felt pretty good today. After an initial mile around 9:15, we then completed the additional 6+ miles around with an average pace in the mid 8:00s. In total we finished just under 7.5 miles with an average pace of 8:36 per mile.
Beast Mode….ON!
Hobie Call, Would-Be Sub-2:00 Marathoner (Runner’s World)
This is a fascinating read, though I don’t personally believe 2 hours will be broken in the marathon in my lifetime. There are some who are calling Hobie “innovative” or “thinking outside the box,” while others say he is out of his mind and only doing this for publicity.
What do you think? If you had unlimited disposable money would you sponsor Hobie in this effort? Will 2 hours ever be broken in the marathon?