Tempo in the Cold Cold Rain

Goal:
8 miles at MP with the option to run the last 3 miles at the same pace or at 5:50-6:00

Actual:
3.62 miles warmup
8 miles in 49:15 (6:09 pace) with splits of 604, 606, 610, 609, 608, 608, 617, 613
2.3 miles cool down for ~14 miles total

I would have liked to have finished a bit stronger on this workout, but the terrain and the rain didn't make this easy.  In fact, I felt pretty terrible overall throughout the whole workout.  I had been in the car for 6 hours the night before, but that is no excuse.  In Greenville for Thanksgiving, I went towards ECU campus and then headed down the greenway that goes about 5 miles.  I did an out and back 4-mile course, so the last 2 miles were somewhat uphill and on very slippery wooden planks.  I felt the worst on those two final miles, and contemplated stopping about every 800 meter.  However, Garrett was there biking with me in this miserable, cold rainy day, so I felt like I had to at least make his effort worthwhile.

In the end, I don't normally feel fantastic in the last big workout leading up to the marathon, so I'm not really putting any extra thought around it.  In the end, I did hit around goal marathon pace, so that's always a plus. I will note that once I got home from the workout, my left hamstring was ridiculously tight so I rolled it and had Garrettt do some work on it.  I'm hoping it's just from the slippery boards and nothing a deep massage can't fix.

8x3 Min with 2:30 Rest

Goal:

8x3 min at 5:30 or faster with 2:30 jog rest

Actual:

3 miles warmup

8x3 min at 5:11, 5:26, 5:22, 5:21, 5:26, 5:28, 5:25, 5:25 pace with 2:30 jog rest

1.1 mile cool down for 10 miles total

That's right. I just posted a picture of the ECU Pirates. Why? Because I did my workout in ECU country, in the heart of Greenville, NC. Fortunately I did not wear any of my Wake Forest gear, for fear of being insulted or having things thrown at me while working out. I'm staying at the Bullocks house for the next five days to say my final goodbye to Garrett before he goes off to Florida and other destinations to play minor league baseball for 7 months. I'm mentally preparing to not see him for at least two months, so I figure I deserve to spend some quality time with him before that long distance clock really starts ticking.

Fortunately for me, I was able to easily recruit Garrett to bike alongside me for this workout. I had mapped out a 900m loop right outside of his house, which added to the convenience factor for Garrett. I had set a goal to run at goal 5k pace or faster for these intervals. This was before I discovered that it was relatively cold and very windy. The temperature was hovering right around 40 degrees and, with the wind chill, it really felt like 35 degrees. After I warmed up 3 miles on my own, I concluded that the wind was not going to force me to adjust my goals and met Garrett on his bike at the designated starting line.

I won't bore you with the details of each and every interval, but let's just say that on the first one both Garrett and I went out way too hard (5:11 pace) and this made me hurt a lot more on the intervals that followed. Despite the speedy first interval, all of my paces were below my goal pace and I ran 300m-900m into a significant head wind. Mu slowest interval happened to be when a car was coming at us and we had to slow down.

Admittedly, I walked for a little bit during the rest on the last three because I was sucking wind and hating Garrett for being on a bike and for having it so easy. All the same, I was really grateful for his presence because it motivated me to keep going fast when all I really wanted to do was call it a day at #6. After I shouted "una mas" to a perplexed Garrett, I finished the final interval and cooled down for 1.1 miles - just enough to get me 10 miles for the day. This is another workout in the books that I can't really complain about. I'll walk away pleased with this one, and feeling ready for my 10k/5k double next weekend.

Next up: 30 minute tempo on Friday

Treadmill Funk

Last Sunday, January 31, I ran 16 miles on a treadmill. Bad idea.

There was about two inches of snow on the ground, along with an inch of ice on the streets of Greenville, NC (boyfriend’s hometown). This mixture had melted some the night before, frozen over, and created a hellish of a footing situation for crazy people such as myself, who wanted to run on it for over 16 miles. Unfortunately, there are no parks in Greenville in which I could actually try to avoid the sloppy mess on the roads. After talking with my high school coach who urged me to just run on a treadmill, I grudgingly decided that I would do it.

Not entirely confident that I would actually complete the entire 16 miles I intended on running, I paid fifteen dollars to get into Gold’s Gym and hopped onto the best and worst machine ever invented for runners. Worst part of all, I had no iPod (forgot it in Charlotte) and I had no handheld radio that would allow me to tune into the TV channel (who has those anymore anyways?). Apparently, this Gold’s Gym did not have the most up-to-date treadmills with personal TVs. I was up a creek without a paddle. In the end, I ran 16 miles in 30 minute increments, which meant that I had to stop every 30 minutes and start the treadmill back up. Quite annoying at first, but I soon appreciated how it broke up my run into four increments. After the first 30 minutes at sub 7 pace, I decided that the faster I ran, the sooner I would be off of the treadmill, so I dipped down into the low 6’s and then eased off towards the last increment to 6:50s for a “cool down.” After losing about five pounds from the amount of sweat I produced, I was done. Ready to eat, shower, and lie down and do nothing.

The next day I took off from running because my legs felt entirely different than they typically do after a normal long run on soft surfaces. I decided then that I hated the Life Fitness Treadmill I had used at Gold’s Gym. It became my forever enemy, one that I wished to never face again. At first I thought that I had beaten the treadmill, but, on Monday, the treadmill had won the battle.

Tuesday came around and my legs still felt heavy, as though a million needles had been packed into my muscular fibrous tissues to send piercing pressure to new found knots throughout my quad. Somehow I managed to do a revised workout of 5-4-3-2-1 with half rest instead of the 7x800m track workout I had on tap. There was cold rain and (perhaps as a blessing), the JCSU track had flooded out.

Friday came around, a day in which I was supposed to run 50 minutes at 630 pace. Yet again another cold, rainy day, I had no motivation to do this on my own. Megan was originally supposed to run with me, but she opted for the treadmill, which I politely said no thanks, and scrambled to find my own motivational running partner. I immediately thought of Jordan because I knew that his work schedule was flexible. Jordan and I decided to meet around 130 at the Park Road Shopping Center and to run around Freedom Park and Myers Park.

My dad and I pulled on our cold weather gear, and drove to meet up with Jordan. While Jordan and I ran, my dad ran much slower behind us, but still braved the weather at sixty years old. Do I want to be like him when I’m sixty? Yes, please!

Throughout the entire run with Jordan, we had a nice chat, and I felt more tired than usual. It could have been the six inch puddles we were running through, or the inches of rain that were pouring on our faces and soaking into our clothing, making us five pounds heavier. Regardless, when Jordan told me that we had averaged 6:30 pace, I was much happier. Most of all, it was great to have him around for company. Once I got home, my legs were unusually sore, AGAIN, which I still account to the treadmill run.

All in all, I spent a week of running in cold, wet conditions with a leg that is beat up from Life Fitness (and probably also the 70 miles I’ve been doing for the past two weeks)