Archives

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!

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!

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!

Just like last monday, my schedule today called for 70-minutes total running, which included a 20-minute warmup, 30-minutes at 7:15 pace, and a 20-minute cool down. The temperatures at 6am this morning were in the low 70s with ridiculous humidity.

Nathan and I met in the parking lot of the Forest Home Church on Old Natchez Trace in Franklin. Old Natchez is one of my favorite places to run in the area, but we try to avoid it on weekdays during the school year because of traffic. We completed our 20-minute warmup on a loop, which included Old Natchez, Montpier Dr, and Natchez Dr. with an average pace around 8:30 per mile. This loop actually took us 21-minutes to complete, so we just took one minute off of the cool down run at the end.

For the tempo portion we ran 15-minutes out and back on Old Natchez Trace, Old Hillsboro Road, and Del Rio Pike. We didn’t start off together because Nathan wanted to run a progressive tempo, while I was looking for even splits. When we did this workout last week, I felt really good, but today I felt even better. I tried to focus on staying smooth with my stride and keeping my breathing under control. As a result my average heart rate for the tempo section was 160 today versus 164 last week, even with the higher temps, nasty humidity, and slightly more undulating terrain.

Just like last week the only thing I really had to fight was the urge to run faster than 7:15. My time for the first 2-miles was 14:29, which was 1-second ahead of pace. After making the turn around I felt a little less comfortable during the third mile, which was strange since it was slightly downhill. However, things felt great during the fourth mile. Nathan was in front of me for the second half of the tempo, and I never gained an inch on him. As a matter of fact he gained a little on me. Nathan has been looking really strong the past two weeks.

For the 30-minutes I completed just over 4-miles, and my Garmin showed an average pace of 7:14 (a fraction too fast overall). Nathan also had a good effort with an identical 7:14 average pace. 

After grabbing a quick drink, we finished with a 19-minute cool down using some of the same roads we did during our warmup. As we were talking about the tempo portion, Nathan said that near the end he caught him self singing “Frosty the Snowman,” which seemed to fit his stride perfectly. I said that this must be a subconscience longing for cooler temperatures, and then told a story about how Kate used to sing it as “Kroty the Knowman” before she could pronounce “F” and “S” properly.

Our final total was just under 9-miles completed at 7:55-min pace with warmup and cool down. Great run, and great way to start off Memorial Day!

Beast Mode…ON!

Our group run this morning was a planned 10-mile trail run on the white, red, and candy cane trails in Percy and Edwin Warner parks. My schedule called for 12 to 14 miles at easy pace, so I got to the park a little early for two additional miles before the group run started.

Once the group arrived we ran up the main drive in Percy Warner for about 3/4 of a mile and then connected with the white trail. From the start of the trail run we essentially broke up into two groups, with Nathan, Bob, Kelly, and I taking the lead. About 5 minutes after starting on the white trail I tripped over a root or rock and started going down. Fortunately I had a handheld fluid bottle in my right hand, which I immediately stuck out to absorb the fall. I landed squarely on the bottle and my hand rolled over the top of it slightly scraping some of my knuckles. Other than this I just got really dirty, which was not a big deal.

Other than the fall I was feeling fantastic, even on the steep climbs. When we came to the red trail, we decided to run backwards to meet up with the rest of the group. Once we found them I ran with Paul for a little bit and showed him the “souvenirs” on my knuckles from the fall. He said “wow, so you went down? Down goes Frazier!” This famous quote from Howard Cosell led to an argument between Paul and Grady about which opponent had knocked down Frazier when the Cosell line was uttered. They went back-and-forth between Norton, Ali, and Foreman.

George Foreman knocks down Joe Frazier in Kingston, Jamaica in 1973.

They finally agreed it was George Foreman and then launched into another back-and-forth of Howard Cosell impersonations. At this point Nathan and I again broke away from the main group and were soon followed by Bob and Kelly. The four of us continued together on the red trail and then took the candy-cane connector over to the Edwin Warner nature center for a water stop. I was still feeling great all the way to the stop, but it was nice to get a break and some water.

At the Nature Center, the main group again caught back up with us after a few minutes. Paul came up to me and said something to the effect of “Tim, you look like Salazar out there” followed by a description of how my form mirrored that of Salazar. He then said “you look like a real runner.” Before I had a chance to soak in the compliment, Marc came up and said “Tim, he doesn’t mean the famous runner Alberto Salazar, but just an Italian guy he knows named Sal Azar.” Without missing a beat, Paul added that his friend “Sal” runs a “metal emporium.” We had a good laugh! I love my group.

Alberto Salazar leads Dick Beardsley in the famous “Duel in the Sun” – Boston 1982

For the second half of the trail run we headed back down the candy-cane connector to the other half of the red and white trail. For most of this half, Nathan and I ran by ourselves, but were occasionally joined by Bob and Kelly. I told Nathan later that this was as good as I’ve ever felt on a long(ish) trail run in the heat and humidity. My legs felt strong until the last big climb on the white trail coming back when my quads began to scream “UNCLE!”  The total elevation gain for this route was 2,182.5 ft!!

Now THIS is a trail run…2,182.5 ft of elevation gain!

Final total for me was just a hair over 12-miles with an average pace of 10:04 per mile. Nathan’s Garmin showed an average pace of just under 10:00, but I joked with him that this difference was because he failed to pause my watch for me when I fell. He said that next time he would dive into the dirt beside me 🙂 

Overall this was a great run. I love running trails and I felt fantastic today. Nathan also looked strong and it was good to run with him as always.

Beast Mode….ON!

Wow, it was hot at track tonight! 90 degrees at 6pm!! Here’s the rundown on the workout:

• Warmup – 2 Miles Easy
• 6 x 100m Stride Outs
• 3 Sets of 1000m f (200m recovery) / 400m f+ (400m recovery)
• Cool Down – .75 Miles Easy

I felt sluggish all during the warmup as my body was trying to adjust to the warmer conditions. It was quite a shock to my system after a couple of morning runs this week with temps in the 50s and low 60s. By the time we got to the stride outs I started feeling a little bit better, and tried to push the pace a bit to get my body ready for the workout.

John, our coach, was not at the track tonight so we were on our own to complete the workout. Once the first set started I was essentially running by myself (there were two guys who were faster than me, and the rest were behind me). When I finished the first interval and recovery I decided to just go straight into the second interval by myself instead of waiting around for others to join me.

As for the workout, my legs still felt sluggish during the first 1000m but this improved greatly with each set. However, unlike my legs, my breathing and heart rate were really feeling the effects of the heat throughout the workout. In spite of this I was very happy with the consistency of my splits, and came out of the workout with a big confidence boost.

My 1000m splits for the three sets were 3:49, 3:51, 3:49. My 400m splits were 1:24, 1:22, 1:24. The 400m intervals were especially tough tonight since there was only a 200m recovery after the 1000m. This didn’t allow much time at all to bring your heart rate down before starting the 400m interval.

Even though it was very hard in the heat, I thoroughly enjoyed doing the workout with the JSRC (as usual). My final total with warmup and cool down was just over 7-miles completed. After the workout, Olivia and the girls met our group at the Dog of Nashville for an enjoyable dinner. Great night!

Beast Mode…ON!

The weather for today’s run was very nice. Finally a spring morning that actually felt like Spring! Temps were in the mid 50s, and the humidity was not too bad at all. The schedule today was for 60 minutes at easy pace followed by 6 x 100m stride outs.

After two really easy miles over 9:00min pace, the average pace for the remaining miles was around 8:40 pace. I tried to keep everything very chill and focus on a short stride with good form. Overall the run felt great except for the lingering soreness from P90X Legs and Back on Monday. I increased my weight slightly for P90X, and today I’m pretty sore. This didn’t really affect my stride, but it was slightly uncomfortable until I got good and loose about halfway through.

I really noticed the soreness again on the stride outs at the end. For the these my pace was around 6:30, which is slightly slower than usual. This had to do with the soreness and also being on a slight incline for all six. My final total with strides was just over 7 miles completed at 8:46 average pace.

Beast Mode…ON!

Not only is today my daughter Sara’s birthday, but it is also the birthday of my dear friend Nathan (@inthewright). Today Nathan and I did a short, but enjoyable trail run on the Blue, Orange, and Yellow trails in Edwin Warner Park.

My scheduled called for 40-minutes easy, so I decided that would be perfect for a nice little jaunt on the trails. Overall the weather was much better than yesterday’s sauna, with temps around 60 degrees and overcast skies.

As we started off on the flat part of the blue trail, we came across a very small, vividly blue bird that hopped down the trail in front of us for a little bit. I made a comment about the color of the bird and Nathan responded with something like “Based upon my research of looking at the hastily crafted bird chart on the back of the bathroom stall in the Nature Center, I would say that is an Indigo Bunting.” I knew exactly what “document” he was talking about and (1) found this funny (2) was amazed that he could remember obscure bird names simply from looking at a chart for a couple of minutes.

Anyway, the Blue trail has one challenging climb (see elevation chart above), but was otherwise perfect for a nice recovery run. My legs felt very good this morning, even on the big climb. This was nice after the tempo effort yesterday and P90X Legs and Back with Olivia last night. Our final total was just under 4-miles at 10:53 average pace. Great way to start the day.

Beast Mode….ON!  ….And Happy Birthday Nathan!

After two weeks of easy training runs it was nice to get back to a little tempo work this morning. My schedule called for 70-minutes total running, which included a 20-minute warmup, 30-minutes at 7:15 pace, and a 20-minute cool down. The temperatures this morning were in the high 60s, which was fairly nice, but the humidity was somewhat stifling.

Nathan and I met at the Edwin Warner Park Nature Center and completed our 20-minute warmup on the Harpeth River Greenway and through the park at around an 8:30 average. For the tempo portion we ran 15-minutes out and back on the greenway, but didn’t stay together because we were running at a slightly different goal pace.

Everything felt really good throughout this section, and the only thing I had to fight was the urge to run faster than 7:15. The humidity felt uncomfortable but did not seem to have much effect on my legs or breathing. I completed just over 4-miles and nailed the 7:15 average. Nathan also had a good tempo effort with a 7:17 average pace.

After grabbing a quick drink, we finished with a 20-minute cooldown on the greenway and my legs still felt good all the way to the end. Our final total was 9.2-miles completed at just under 8:00-min pace with warmup and cool down.

Beast Mode…ON!

Friday

After a pretty hard track workout last night I was surprised at how good I felt on the run this morning. The schedule called for 50 minutes at easy pace, and I ran in my Saucony Hattoris through the streets of Bellevue with Nathan and Paxton. We kept the pace very chill with the first 3 miles in the low 9:00s, and the final 2.5 miles in the high 8:00s.

Even with the easy run, the humidity was high enough that I was in a full sweat by the end of the first mile. We mixed the route up a bit with a loop around the mostly empty Bellevue Center Mall. Overall another good run with the Bellevue Trio.

Saturday

Today’s group run was through the streets of Belle Meade and incorporated the infamous “Zig Zag” route introduced to us by Edward. Note the “Zig Zag” pattern during miles 2 through 4 in the map below…

We started at Bread and Company on Hwy 100 and I was a bit unsure how many total miles the planned route would include. My schedule called for 12 to 14 miles at an easy pace, and I was hoping to not have to run extra at the end.

The entire group ran together for the first 7 miles, and kept the pace very easy (9:40s to 8:30s). After 7-miles some who only wanted 10-miles total headed back to Bread and Company where we started. The rest of us kept going down Tyne Boulevard to add a few extra miles. After the 8th mile I decided to pick up the pace a little bit and ended up running most of the rest of the route by myself. 

For the next 3-miles I dropped the pace a little below 8:00, and then decided to back off a bit for the final two as a cool down (8:20s). Even though it was fairly warm throughout, I felt really good during the run, and especially during the final 5-miles. Total for today was 13.1-miles at 8:41 average pace.

Beast Mode…ON!

Tonight’s track workout with the JSRC was tough, but it was a good kind of tough. Part of the challenge was the heat which was still in the low 80s at 6pm. The other was short recoveries. Those short recoveries made it hard to maintain effort throughout the intervals.

Also, coming into the workout my legs were a bit fatigued from P90X Legs and Back on Monday and running trails yesterday, but I was able to loosen them up pretty good during a 2.5-mile warmup.

Here is a breakdown of the workout…

• Warmup + 6 x 100m stride outs
• 800m f (300m recovery)
• 400m f (1-min recovery)
• 800m f (400m recovery)
• 1200m Straights and Curves (1-min recovery)
• 600m f (200m recovery)
• 300m f (1-min recovery)
• 600m f (cool down)

With warmup and cool down my total was 7.2 miles completed. By far the toughest part for me was going from 1200m straights and curves directly into a 600m with only a 1-min static recovery. However, I was able to maintain fairly consistent splits all the way to end, and am pretty happy with my overall pacing.

Just like last week, I ran this entire workout with Nathan McCall who has made incredible progress since joining our club last fall. Unlike me (adult onset runner), Nathan was a 4-year collegiate runner at Appalachian State, so I’m expecting that pretty soon he will be lapping me during the workouts 🙂 …In the meantime it has been great to have someone else running at my same pace the last two weeks.

Beast Mode…ON!

Today I returned to the trails for the first time since running in southern Honduras on our mission trip. It was a nice change of pace from all of my recent road running and I hope to get back into a normal routine of incorporating trails at least once per week.

My schedule called for 50-minutes easy and 4 x 100m stride outs. Of the three main trails in Percy and Edwin Warner Parks, only the red is long enough to occupy 50 minutes since it is 4.5 miles. It would take two laps on either the white or the blue trails because they are only 2.5 miles each.

My legs were really sore heading into this run from doing P90X Legs and Back on Monday night for the first time in two weeks. Overall it didn’t have a big impact on the effort, but was something I could feel for the first half of the run. For the run I kept the pace very conservative with with a steady progression from a first mile of 12:23 to a final mile of 10:27. The red trail has a total elevation gain of almost 1,200 ft in only 4.5 miles, so needless to say this is a challenging route. However, I felt pretty good throughout, even on the tough climbs, and really enjoyed being back on the trails in the beautiful Percy Warner Park.

At the end I completed the 4 x 100m stride outs on the main drive near the trail head. It felt weird to run strides in trail shoes, but I was still able to crank them out at a 6:35 average pace.

Beast Mode…ON!

Nathan and I had been talking recently about shaking up our normal running routes, so today we just kind of made it up as we went along through the streets of Belle Meade. My schedule called for 65 to 75 minutes at easy pace, and we started off with a first mile in the 9:30s. My legs felt a little tired at the start after doing P90X Legs and Back last night with Olivia, but they felt better with every mile, and felt really good at the end.

Our pace steadily increased throughout the run and landed in the 8:20s and 8:30s for the final 4.5-miles of our 8.5-mile total. It was fun to just make random turns down unfamiliar roads to see where they would lead. This strategy brought us to one stretch where it felt like we were going uphill for a LONG way, but overall was very enjoyable. The only downside to this ad-lib route was that we reached the 75-minute mark with about a half a mile to go back to our cars.

Not wanting to break my schedule from John, I decided to walk the rest of the way back to my car, and encouraged Nathan to keep running if he wanted. However, he also decided to walk and we both enjoyed a nice cool down stroll on Belle Mead Boulevard that felt pretty nice. Great way to start off a day.

Beast Mode…ON!

Let’s just say that this morning’s run was a little more interesting than we had planned.

The schedule called for 50 minutes easy with 4 x 100m stride outs at the end. Nathan and I met at the Edwin Warner Park Nature Center and did most of the run through the park and on the Harpeth River Greenway. As expected my legs felt a little creaky at the beginning after the hilly run through Percy Warner on Saturday. This steadily improved throughout the run, though our splits were pretty chill from start to finish. It was nice to enjoy a very easy recovery run until…. 

On our way back to the cars it became apparent that we would be about 5-minutes short of our 50-minute goal, so Nathan suggested we cross Hwy 100 and run a few minutes on Harpeth Bend road before returning to the park. When we came to Hwy 100, the traffic was so thick it appeared as though it would take a while to cross. As an alternate plan, Nathan suggested that we run through the Ensworth High School campus which is next door to Edwin Warner Park.

For those of you outside of Nashville, Ensworth represents the pinnacle of elitism with an annual tuition that is more than many private colleges. As a matter of fact it actually looks much more like a college campus than a secondary school. When we started running through the entrance I joked that we would probably be setting off motion and heat sensors and Nathan fired back that there were probably snipers watching us.

I suggested that we follow the lower drive which is well away from the main buildings so as not to look suspicious. As we were running through there I noticed a small parking lot and said “I wonder who they make park all the way down here…it must be the house elves (reference to Harry Potter).”

Just as we passed through the parking lot we came to their athletic fields and decided to turn back for the park. Right after turning we saw that a Hummer H3 was headed our direction. It quickly stopped and a security guard jumped out (why does a high school need Hummers for their security guards?). He asked if we attended school there (I’m 37 ???). When we said “no” he said that we were trespassing on private property and had been reported to security by someone at the school. What was surprising to me was that we had only been on that lower road for about 2 minutes.

He then said that our being on campus represented a “liability issue” and we needed to leave immediately. I told him that we were simply cutting through on a run and would head back to where we came from. He told us that going back that way would take too long and we needed to go past the athletic fields out onto Hwy 100 (really pleasant guy). Though I didn’t want to go onto Hwy 100, we obliged and headed back to the park along the highway.

As we passed back by the entrance to Ensworth next to the park, the Hummer H3 was parked right by the entrance with the security guard enjoying a smoke. I assume he wanted to doubly make sure we did not come back onto the school property. I waved at him as we passed by back into the park.

After the 50 minutes was completed we did 4 x 100m stride outs on the greenway back to our cars. Our average pace for the 50 minutes was just over 9:00 per mile, and the average pace for the strides was 5:58. Other than our little adventure at Ensworth, it was a pretty enjoyable run.

Beast Mode…ON!

Friday

After a hard effort at track last night, today’s scheduled 50 minute run was a very, very easy shakeout run through Bellevue in my Saucony Hattoris. The weather was awesome with sunny skies and temps in the low 50s. This felt very nice after the hot conditions last week and early this week.

As the run started my legs and ankles felt pretty achey, so I kept everything extremely chill with an initial mile of 10:15. Slowly the aches and soreness began to leave my legs and the run ended with things feeling much better than when I started. I guess this is the sign of an effective shakeout effort. Overall I got in just over 5 miles in the 50 minutes with an average pace of 9:48 per mile. I haven’t gone back and checked, but I’m guessing this is one of my slowest runs of the year (if not the slowest).

Saturday

Our group run this morning consisted of the 11.2-mile main drive through Percy Warner Park. This is a busy day for the park because of the annual Steeplechase horse race (which is more of a socialite / partying event than a race), and we were hoping to be able to run by the course before the crowds started rolling in.

My schedule called for 12 to 14-miles at an easy pace, and I was initially hoping to land in the upper part of this range by adding a little extra before or after the group run. The temps were again very mild with overcast skies and temps in the mid 50s. I was only able to get in about a 1/4 mile before the group started, but just figured I would add a little bit to the end.

Our pace started off very easy and we slowly picked it up throughout the run with some fluctuation due to the significant elevation changes (a single loop of the 11.2 has a cumulative 1,500 ft of elevation gain). My overall pace for the run was 8:45 per mile with a range from 10:10 at the start to 7:54 at the finish. Throughout the run my legs felt very good, even when going up some of the more significant climbs. However, even though my legs felt great, I could tell that my body was tired and I decided to not try and push the run to 14-miles. I added just a bit to the end of the group run to finish with 12-miles total and am happy with the decision to not keep going.

Right now I’m in the middle of a couple of easy recovery weeks before John and I get started on more targeted training for the Milwaukee Lakefront Marathon in October. For some reason this has put me in a bit of a reflective mood. My total mileage was just under 44-miles on an “easy” week, and that made think back to when I first started running. I remember the first official running goal I set was to complete 10-miles over 3-weeks. Never in my wildest dreams could I have imagined running 44-miles in a week, much less 50, or 60+.

Beast Mode…ON!