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Our track group has been temporarily displaced by the Nashville Strider’s Track Series which is being held at Vanderbilt on Thursday nights in June. Fortunately, Jenny from our group is a teacher and the cross country coach at Harpeth Hall, so with her help we received permission to use their awesome track facility in the interim…
Tonight I felt really good during the workout, and I’m sure the continued mild weather conditions had a lot to do with it. The temperatures were around 80 degrees at the start with clear skies and low humidity.
Here’s the rundown…
- 2.5-mile warmup
- 6 x 100m stride outs
- 600m f (200m recovery)
- 400m f (200m recovery)
- 800m straights and curves (400m recovery)
- 2 x 400m f (1-min standing recovery / 200m recovery)
- 2 x 400m g (1-min standing recovery / 400m recovery)
- 1000m f (200m recovery)
- 1-mile cool down
Beginning with the second interval, John split us up into groups based on our pace, and I ended up running the entire workout by myself. The thing that made tonight’s workout challenging was the relatively short recoveries between intervals. However, I felt good enough that even with the short recoveries I ended up running faster splits than normal.
For example, lately I’ve been running my 400m “fresh” intervals around 84 or 85, and my 400m “good” intervals around 80 or 81. Tonight my three “fresh” 400m splits were 83, 81, and 80. My two “good” 400m splits were 76 and 77. On a side note, that second “good” 400m repeat was a mistake. The workout actually called for a “good” followed by a “fresh” on the second 2 x 400m repeat, but I misread it.
Final total for the night was 7.6-miles completed with warmup and cool down. My daughter Kate came with me to track tonight and ended spending most of her time playing on the school playground. After track we had a little impromptu daddy-daughter date night with dinner at Pei Wei and dessert at Sweet CeCe’s. Fun times!
Beast Mode…ON!
Happy “National Running Day” everybody! After several weeks of really nasty weather, the past 6 days in Middle Tennessee have been AWESOME. Much lower temperatures and humidity. I could get used to this!
Anyway, today’s schedule called for 60 minutes at an easy pace, and I decided to run in my Saucony Hattoris. Nathan and I devised a 7ish mile route beginning at the Bellevue United Methodist Church parking lot and winding through the streets of Bellevue, Edwin Warner Park, and the Harpeth River Greenway.
For this run we kept everything very chill with regard to pace. Our first mile was 9:24, followed by 5 miles between 8:55 and 8:42. For our final full mile we slowed a bit to 9:02.
Overall this was a very comfortable and enjoyable run with lots of good conversation with a dear friend. Our final total was 7.45 miles completed at an 8:58 average pace.
On another note, today my total mileage for 2012 crossed the 1,000-mile mark. This is well ahead of pace for my beginning of the year goal to complete 2,000 miles in 2012…
Just for comparison I ran a report on my total mileage as of June 6 in 2011 and came up with just over 638 miles…
That’s a difference of 367.3 miles year over year! When I look at the first half of 2011, my mileage was very inconsistent from week to week, month to month. For 2012 I haven’t had any massive mileage weeks or months, but have consistently landed between 175 and 210 miles for each month so far this year. I know that with my training for the Milwaukee Lakefront Marathon in October those monthly totals are only going to go up (if I stay healthy).
Beast Mode…ON!
What do you do? Are you an attorney?
I’m actually an IT Consultant. Our consulting group is a subsidiary of a public accounting firm here in Nashville.
Today’s schedule called for 40 minutes at an easy pace with 6 x 100m stride outs at the end. I really wanted to run trails at least once this week so Nathan and I decided to hit the Blue trail in Edwin Warner park (plus the smaller Orange and Yellow to add some distance).
Our running friend Susan Johnson always says that she hears at least one woodpecker on every run. Well, today Nathan and I heard at least three while running on the trails (unless there was one that kept moving around). One of the awesome things about running trails is being enveloped in nature and getting away from the distractions on the road.
Just as we started on the flat portion of the Blue trail we came across a lady who I see quite frequently in the park. She was standing in the middle of the trail by one of the bridges, pointing at the ground. She said something to the effect of “there’s a snake right there, be careful!” Neither Nathan nor I saw anything on the trail that resembled a snake, but she kept standing there and pointing. Not exactly sure what she was looking at, but Nathan and I just kept running.
On the flat and downhill portions of the trail our average pace was between the mid 8:00s and mid 9:00s. For the steep climb(s) we fluctuated between 10:00 and 10:30 per mile. As I’ve mentioned before, the Blue trail is fairly short, but does have one significant climb right in the middle that will get your attention…
Even after the fairly hard tempo effort yesterday, and P90X Legs and Back last night, my legs felt pretty strong on the climbs and throughout the run. Before we started our stride outs, Nathan and I had completed just over 4 miles at around a 9:30 average pace per mile on the trails.
We did our 6 x 100m stride outs in the parking lot, still wearing our trail shoes. This felt a little strange with the big lugs on the bottom of my Saucony Peregrines. My pace for the strides was around 5:55. I don’t know what Nathan’s pace was for these, but he absolutely blew past me on the last few to the point where I felt like I was standing still.
Final total was 4.5-miles completed with a 9:18 average pace per mile. Great run!
Beast Mode…ON!
For the third monday in a row my schedule called for the 20 / 30 / 20 workout. This included a 20-minute warmup, 30-minutes at tempo pace, and a 20-minute cool down. The only difference from the previous two weeks was that John had me take the tempo section down just a hair from 7:15 to 7:10.
The temperatures at 6am this morning were in the mid 60s with overcast skies and fairly high humidity after early morning rains. Just like last Monday, Nathan and I met in the parking lot of the Forest Home Church on Old Natchez Trace in Franklin. We completed our 20-minute warmup on a loop through Montpier Place subdivision, with an average pace around 8:25 per mile. Even though the humidity was high, the overcast skies help a lot with the conditions.
For the tempo portion we ran 15-minutes out and back on Old Natchez Trace, Old Hillsboro Road, and Del Rio Pike. Nathan decided to run with me this week instead of running the tempo portion as a progression like last week. It always makes it easier when you are running with someone, and this morning I felt fantastic. It has been interesting how I’ve felt progressively better each week while doing this workout. Today we nailed the splits on the first three miles with a cumulative time of 7:10, 14:20, and 21:30, exactly 7:10 for each one. For the fourth one we were three seconds fast with a cumulative time of 28:37. After the final 2 1/2 minutes my watch showed 4.18 miles completed with a 7:10 average pace.
Two weeks ago my average heart rate for the tempo section was 164 at 7:15 average pace. Last week it was 160 at 7:14 average pace. Today it was 158 at 7:10 average pace. Not sure why my heart rate is getting better, but I’ll take it! On a side note, during the second mile on Del Rio, Nathan pointed out a large Owl up in one of the trees on the side of the road. We occasionally see owls in Percy and Edwin Warner Parks, but I still get a kick out of seeing these magnificent birds out in the wild. He kept a close eye on us until we were well past.
After grabbing a quick drink, we finished with a 20-minute cool down back in Montpier Place subdivision. We ended up running on some different roads this time, and they turned out to be quite hilly. Pretty close to our turnaround point, I noticed an almost neon pink Volkswagen Beetle (modern version) sitting up in front of a house. Don’t think I’ve ever seen a car quite that shade of pink, and have a hard time believing it was a factory color. I commented to Nathan that it was like the shade of the old Hubba Bubba bubble gum.
How many of you remember Hubba Bubba?
Anyway, our final total was just over 9-miles completed at 7:47-min pace with warmup and cool down. Great run with Nathan!
Beast Mode…ON!
What an awesome morning for a run! Can’t believe it was actually 49˚ at 5:45am this morning.
Our planned group run was a 10+ miler that included 4.5-miles through the streets of Belle Meade and then the 5.8-mile loop in Percy Warner Park. My schedule from John called for 14 to 16 miles at easy pace with a few quicker miles in middle.
To keep from having to run all of the extra at the end I started a bit early and got in just over 1.5-miles before starting with the group. During this short warm up, and the group run through Belle Meade, I just never felt comfortable. My legs felt heavy and I couldn’t find a good rhythm. Once we got back to the entrance of Percy Warner we made a very brief fluid stop and then headed onto the 5.8.
Even though it is short, the 5.8 is quite challenging with well over 1,000 ft. of total elevation gain. Since I had not been feeling great up to this point I was a little apprehensive about how things would go during this section. However, once we started the first climb I started feeling a lot better.
Not hard to tell where we entered the park!
Since I was feeling better, and my schedule called for some quicker miles in the middle, I picked up the pace a bit beginning in mile 8. Prior to this point my average was somewhere around 8:50, but my splits dropped to 8:02, 8:36 (BIG Hill), 7:52, 7:51, and 7:43 for miles 8 through 12. Near the end of the 5.8-mile loop I took a bit of a detour to add a little extra mileage in the park so I wouldn’t have as much extra to do in Belle Meade after getting back to the main gates.
Once I got back into Belle Meade my legs were feeling heavy again so I decided not to try and push up to the top end of my scheduled range. At the gates I was just over 12-miles so I ran a couple of easy cool down miles in Belle Meade to finish with 14.3 total miles.
On a side note, we have a new guy named Rob that has been running with our group for the past few weeks and is obviously very fast. Today I got to spend some time talking to him and asked him about his lifetime PRs. His half marathon PR is 1:06, and his full marathon PR is 2:27 (Won Rocket City Marathon in Huntsville)!!! WOW! It is very cool to be able to run with someone of that caliber. He was very encouraging to me about my Quest for Boston, and even told me that thinks I’ve got the ability to go well below 3 hours. Not sure that I have that level of confidence in myself quite yet, but it is always nice to hear that type of encouragement.
Anyway, it was a good morning and a good run with the group!
Beast Mode….ON!
Those who have followed my blog for a while know that I’m a big Saucony fan. Earlier today Running Warehouse posted an entry on their blog about a new lightweight trainer coming from Saucony in early 2013, that will be called the Virrata. Per the post It will be …
(1) Zero drop from heel to toe with only 18mm of material in the outsole.
(2) 6.5 oz for men’s size 9
(3) Very flexible due to deep grooves in the outsole (think Nike Free)
Even though I’m pretty content with the Kinvara as my everyday, lightweight trainer, the Virrata is kind of intriguing to me. Since I’m trying to become more of a mid-foot striker, the zero-drop design is appealing. Also, it will be a full ounce lighter than the Kinvara, and actually looks a LOT more like the original Kinvara than the current Kinvara 3 (Notice the laces and the the upper). Doesn’t look like it will be able to match the Kinvara in the style department, but might be worth taking a look next spring.
What do you think?
Tonight’s track workout was long and TOUGH. With a storm front bearing down on Nashville, we started everything a few minutes early. Also, even though the temps were slightly lower than the 90 degrees we faced last week, the humidity was NASTY! Here’s a rundown of the night…
- 2-Mile Warmup
- 6 x 100m Stride Outs
- 800m f (300m Recovery)
- 2 x 400m g (200m / 400m Recovery)
- 600m f (300m Recovery)
- 2 x 400m g (200m / 400m Recovery)
- 800m f (300m Recovery)
- Two Laps of Straights & Curves
- 1/2-Mile Cool Down
After our first 800m interval, John broke us up into two groups with Nathan, Sue Anne, and I taking the lead. Both of them were just a hair faster than me tonight, but it was nice to have someone to run with after basically running solo last week. All three of us were struggling with the humidity, especially for me during the 600m interval and the final 800m were my heart rate went above 190.
Even though the humidity was awful, I still managed to crank out fairly consistent splits throughout. My beginning and ending 800m intervals were 2:57 and 2:55 respectively. My four 400m repeats were 1:24, 1:21, 1:21, and 1:21.
The total for the night was 7.2-miles completed with warmup and cool down, and 4.3-miles of this was the actual workout. This is a fairly long workout for our group, and I really felt it at times tonight. However, even though it was a hard one, it was a very good workout. At the end Nathan commented about how this was the type of workout where it would have been easy to quit if you were by yourself. It is really awesome to have the camaraderie and accountability that come from running with our awesome group!
Beast Mode…ON!*
*John said this to me tonight about halfway through the workout with a fist-bump, and I really needed it 🙂
The nasty storms last night left us with two things this morning (1) Cooler temperatures (2) A dense fog. While the fog was obviously a sign of high humidity, it was nice to run in temperatures around 60 degrees.
My schedule this morning called for 60-minutes easy with 6 x 100m stride outs. Nathan and I met in Percy Warner Park next to the Steeplechase course and ran a 2-mile loop through PW before heading over to Edwin Warner for miles 3 through 7. It was a good thing that Nathan wore his “ViZiPRO” colored Saucony Kinvara 2s this morning to help lead us through the fog 🙂
We took the first two miles very easy with splits of 9:16 and 8:55. Unlike yesterday, I was feeling quite a bit of soreness from P90X Legs and Back on Monday, so it took me a little longer to get everything loosened up. Beginning with mile three, we settled into a nice rhythm and cranked out splits of 7:46 (mostly downhill), 8:08, 8:08, and 8:08 for miles 3 through 6. These miles felt very comfortable and relaxed and it was cool to keep seeing 8:08 pop-up on my Garmin. Mile seven was mostly uphill so our time increased slightly to 8:31.
By the end of our 60 minutes we had completed just over seven miles and were back in Percy Warner Park. We finished our 6 x 100m stride outs at just under 6:30 pace, and my leg soreness was very noticeable when trying to run fast. However, my soreness always peaks two days after doing a P90X workout, so things should be much better by time for our track workout tomorrow night.
Anyway, our final total was 7.53-miles completed at 8:18 average pace. As always, it was another enjoyable run with Nathan.
Beast Mode…ON!
I wasn’t able to get in my schedule 30-minute easy paced run before work this morning, so I decided to hit the streets of Bellevue for a run in my Saucony Hattoris after putting the kids to bed tonight. We had a pretty nasty storm move through Nashville shortly after 5:00pm, which cooled things off a bit into the low 70s, but cranked up the humidity to 11…
Even with the intense humidity, my legs still felt fantastic. No leftover fatigue from the tempo run yesterday, and very little residual soreness from P90X Legs and Back last night. For the thirty minutes I completed 3.83-miles at an average pace of 7:51 per mile. This is a little bit faster than most of my recent “easy” or “barefoot” Hattori runs, but it felt very comfortable. Each mile was progressively faster throughout the run.
Beast Mode…ON!