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
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…
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!
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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!
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…
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!
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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!
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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?
Today’s schedule called for 50-minutes at an easy pace with 6 x 100m stride outs at the end. After our tough tempo effort yesterday, Nathan and I decided to get in a nice recovery run on a softer surface by utilizing both the Vaughn’s Gap Cross Country Course and the Steeplechase Course within Percy Warner Park.
This morning we were joined by our friend Josh who is training for the Murfreesboro “Middle” Half Marathon this fall. With another round of rain and storms last night, the grass on both of these courses was pretty wet, but the continued lower temperatures were very nice.
We kept everything very chill with regard to pace, starting out around 10:00 and dropping into the mid 8:00s by the end. Due to some construction on a couple of foot bridges at the cross country course, we decided to take a little detour on the Candy Cane Connector Trail over to the Steeplechase Course. The grass at the Steeplechase was fairly long, which left our shoes pretty soaked and heavy, but the surface felt very nice as it always does.
After heading back to the Candy Cane Connector, we finished things off back at the cross country course before starting our stride outs. For the strides we stayed in the grass on the course as I continually watched Nathan and Josh blow past me.
One unusual thing this morning is that we kept seeing rabbits along our route. By the end of the run I had counted seven that went scampering out of our way. Guess they were enjoying the cooler temps and the wet grass!
In total we completed around 5.75-miles this morning with the stride outs at a 9:05 average pace. It was the perfect recovery run for me, and a great way to start the morning with friends!
Beast Mode….ON!
Last night we finally got a good rain as storms passed through the area. This also cooled things off a bit, leaving the temperatures around 75º at 5:45am. However, even though the temps were down slightly, the humidity was nasty.
As for the workout, things got cranked up another notch today with over 100 minutes of running, including 40 minutes of tempo intervals in the middle. Here’s a rundown of the schedule…
Nathan and I met at the Edwin Warner Nature Center and completed our warmup along the Harpeth River Greenway and within Edwin Warner Park. I felt a little sore from my two falls on Saturday, but nothing compared to what I was expecting. Overall I felt pretty good throughout the warmup, though I was really sweating with the humidity.
For the tempo intervals and recoveries, we ran these continuously out-and-back on the flat part of the Harpeth River Greenway behind Ensworth High School. Even with the muggy conditions I felt really good throughout, and didn’t have much trouble hitting the target pace each time. I did comment to Nathan that the coming back always seemed harder than the going out, but we were pretty consistent in completing the first two intervals with .72 total miles each, and the last three with .73 total miles each within the five minutes.
After completing the intervals, we finished up with our 30-minute cool down, which actually turned into a 35-minute cool down. We ran all the way to the end of the Harpeth River Greenway to take a peek at the construction that has been going on for some time. I had thought they were just putting in an access road to the cell tower that is back there, but instead they have built a small parking lot and trailhead for the greenway. It looks pretty nice.
In total we ran for 1 hour 45 minutes and completed 12.6-miles with warmup and cool down at an average pace of 8:21 per mile. Our average pace for the tempo intervals was 6:55 per mile, which was right on target.
Beast Mode…ON!
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It has become somewhat of a tradition with our group to do a Red, White, and Blue trail run on or around the 4th of July each year. These represent the colors of all the major trails in Percy and Edwin Warner Parks, so the run involves completing all three trails plus the Candy-Cane connector trail which links the two parks together. This is quite a challenging run with almost 12-miles of trails and over 3,000 ft. of cumulative elevation gain…
Since my schedule called for 14 to 16 miles today I got to the park a little early to complete just over a mile on the blue trail before the group arrived. For the group run we started out from the Edwin Warner Nature Center on the Candy-Cane connector trail. Since I was already warmed up, I ran out ahead of the rest of the group on the Candy-Cane and then onto the Red Trail in Percy Warner. My legs were feeling fantastic.
However, as has become the recent norm, about two miles into the group run I caught a jagged rock with my right foot and went down hard to the ground. Thankfully my hand-held water bottle took the brunt of the fall, only leaving me we a few scrapes on the knuckles of my right hand, and a bit of soreness in my right hip. After taking a second to clean myself off, some of the group had caught back up with me, and I continued on with them.
With no lasting ill effects from the fall, I continued to run the trails pretty hard and ended up well in front of the rest of the group again. Just before we transitioned from the Red to the White trail I heard someone from our group yell behind me, and ran back to find that Sue Anne had also taken a tumble going into a hard left turn. She had a pretty good scrape on her left knee, but was otherwise OK. We continued on to the White trail, and again I went out in front.
However, after about a 1/2 mile on the White trail I realized there was someone coming up right behind me. I briefly turned around and was surprised to see Aine from our group. While Aine is a very strong runner, this was the first time she had ever run trails. Usually first-timers are very timid on the downhills, or underestimate how difficult the climbs will be, but Aine was tearing it up throughout the run.
We took a brief break at the point where the White trail connects with the Red trail to re-group and make sure we had not left anyone behind. From there we ran the second half of the Red trail. Again I surged out to the front, but this time Aine and Sue Anne stayed with me. We came to a section of the Red trail which is almost like a shale cliff. Most runners walk up this section, and I do frequently as well. However, today I was determined that I was not going to walk any part of the trails, so I began to weave back and forth like a billy goat up this climb.
I guess Sue Anne took this as a personal challenge, and powered up the shale face with me. Once we got to the top she powered past me and took off like a bullet. I had to pick up my pace just to stay within 20 meters of her, and she stayed out in front for the remainder of the Red trail. We again re-grouped with everyone before jumping back on the Candy-Cane connector trail to Edwin Warner Park. The connector is pretty flat, and I took it fairly easy to try and fully recover before hitting the Blue trail in Edwin Warner.
After a brief fluid stop at the Nature Center, we headed back onto the Blue trail and into a pretty difficult climb. Marc said something to the effect of “Tim you’ve been looking pretty strong today, you can lead us up this hill.” I went to the front, but by this point the combination of the heat, humidity, and hills had left my legs feeling pretty fatigued. I still had enough energy for the climb, but I was not picking up my legs like I should have been. Because of this I tripped and took a second fall on my way up the hill, this time scraping up my knee a bit…
After Kelly helped me back to my feet, I decided to just hang back with the pack and let Sue Anne, Aine, and Marc lead the group. By the time we finished the Blue trail I had completed 13 total miles, and was completely toast. Even though my schedule called for 14 to 16 miles, I just didn’t have another mile in me. I honestly think this is the most fluid I have lost on a run this year, and it was obviously a very challenging route.
Even though I did not get in my scheduled distance, I think I easily got in as much work (or more) as I would have on a 14 to 16 mile run on the road. I was on my feet for almost 2 hours and 15 minutes, and as I mentioned earlier, had over 3,000 ft. of cumulative elevation gain through the run.
The bad thing about only getting in 13-miles today, and missing my Wednesday run due to illness, and only getting in 6-miles at track Thursday due to the extreme heat, is that this broke my 9-week string of completing 40 or more miles in a week. I came in just short this week with 39.3-miles completed. However, I’m pleased with how well I felt today overall, and that I don’t seem to have any lingering effects from my mid-week illness.
Beast Mode….ON!
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After last night’s boiling hot workout at the track, it was nice to get in a super chilled pace recovery run this morning with Nathan through Bellevue. This was the first time in 2 1/2 weeks that I’ve run in my Saucony Hattoris. I had taken a temporary break from “barefoot” type running since I started having shin splint twinges in my right leg. Now that I’m essentially symptom free I’ve decided to slowly start re-introducing it back into my schedule.
Even though it was not 102º like last night, it was still very warm and muggy even at 6am. This was probably the easiest paced run I’ve done on the road in 2012, but it felt really good to just take it very easy. The good news is that I didn’t feel any residual soreness from last night’s workout, and do not seem to be suffering any lasting effects from my brief illness in the middle of the week.
In total we finished 4-miles with an average pace of 9:37 per mile. Tomorrow, our group is planning on a long trail run, so it should be a good test for my legs.
Beast Mode…ON!
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