I'm glad to be done with another building week and on a rest day today...and an easier recovery week coming up. Tomorrow I get to move home after about a month of housesitting and am looking forward to a little re-charging of the batteries this week. The last few weeks have been a bit crazy.
Thursday was long run day (9 miles) and I had to do it at 5:45 a.m....in the dark (stupid time change last weekend made me cranky and tired all week). It was a super slow one, but I did pick it up the last 2 miles, as per the plan, and I was damn happy when it was over. I did get to run in West Seattle, though, along Beach Drive and Alki, and having a different route was nice... it was cool to hear the water while it was still dark and I couldn't yet see it.
Yesterday was brick day...and I had a packed day afterward, so I had to get cracking pretty early so I could be somewhere by 12:30. I was on the bike by 8:15 a.m. and it was gorgeous out, but about 38 degrees. I chose the right gear, so I wasn't cold and the sunshine was great. The brick was supposed to be a 40 mile bike + 30 minute run, but I cut the bike a little short, mostly due to time constraints and how I did my route. I rode to Mercer Island and did the long side twice (out-and-back) and got in 34 miles without any stops...definitely felt the legs by the end of the ride since I've done so few "real"rides and so many on the trainer. Did a pretty quick transition...about 2:30, and ran an out-and-back in my 'hood. My legs felt very brick-ish...mission accomplished...and I was done by about 11:00. The rest of the day was work, fun, and dancing...and I got to bed at 1:00 a.m. with my feet and legs feeling completely flattened...did I mention I'm glad today is a rest day???? It's the first day of spring and sunny, so I'm a little bummed that the weather is great on a rest day, but I'll try to enjoy it without sweating. I'm working this afternoon doing chair massage at the "Big Climb" event, and that'll be close enough to a workout for me.
Brick:
34 mile bike
2:14:45
Avg HR 127
Avg pace: 15.1
Transition: 2:30ish
3.3 mile run
30:10
Avg HR 143
Avg Pace: 9:11
Sunday, March 20, 2011
Tuesday, March 15, 2011
Who wants my autograph?
Well, after almost 45 years on this planet, I can finally say I've reached my career goal of being a professional athlete. A few days ago, Cheryl forwarded an email to me that advertised the need for runners to do some paid research on GPS devices in Seattle. I applied immediately and yesterday, I'm proud to say, I was paid to run 3 miles. My whopping salary was $25 (and the thing was downtown so I spent $7 on parking,one step forward...), but hey, it's the PRINCIPLE of the gig, right? And I'm going to call the free Gatorade my signing bonus! My friend, Kerry, got in on the study today (she made $50, clearly I need an agent!), and we're planning to go out for dinner with our cash sometime soon to toast our new careers!
Anyway, I have to say I wasn't that thrilled to run yesterday as it was a non-running day in my training schedule and they had me run 4 loops of a kind of ridiculous .75 mile loop in downtown Seattle...with lots of stoplights (read: I was jaywalking like a New Yorker despite their "safety first" directions on the waiver), but it was a cool project; they had me wear 2 Nike GPS gadgets and one Garmin (so 2 on one wrist, one on the other), to run 2 loops of the course....then go back indoors, change to 3 more gadgets, and do the same thing again. Interestingly, the Nike gadgets sucked and lost signal in the urban environment....the Garmin performed better. I overheard one of the tester guys who was supervising with his laptop say into his cell, "We have a serious bug..." Anyway, I was thrilled to post the photo above of my earnings to Facebook and I received many comments on my wall!
This morning it was time to do a "real" scheduled workout run...and it wasn't so fun. Today was Interval day and I did the working early on a treadmill at a gym in West Seattle...had to do 5x 2 minutes hard/1 minute recovery. I got it done...but did the last 10 minutes on the elliptical machine. I was bored, feeling the hamstring a little, and mostly I'm just feeling kind of tired this week. I'm trying to schedule some more sleep to recover...anyway, I didn't wear a HR monitor for the workout, but checked and the HR got up to 165 during some of the intervals, so I know I pushed it. I did each of the 2 minutes hard at 8.1mph (7:24 mile pace if the treadmill is accurate) and recovered each minute in between at an easy 5 mph jog, although those little rest minutes went by awfully fast!
Interval Run
15 min warm up (1.5 miles)
5x 2 minutes at 8.1/1 min at 5 mph
Jog at 6mph up to 4 miles
10min elliptical
47:30 total
Saturday, March 12, 2011
Another brick bites the dust
Well, another brick has been checked off the list...which included another somewhat purgatorial ride on the bike trainer. Pretty sure these workouts are harder mentally than physically...
I've moved from one dog sit gig to another and am now shacked up in West Seattle for about 10 days. When Zion, the dog, and I woke up this morning (slept in till 7:30, whoop!), it was pouring. No brainer...went home after breakfast and set up the bike trainer, grabbed the remote control, and had at it.
The workout was supposed to be 35 miles on the bike and a 30 minute run...I think I rounded down a little on the bike (don't know mileage indoors, just time and HR) and threw a little extra credit at the run. Fortunately, I had a few unseen episodes of my favorite show, "The Good Wife," that I on-demanded while on the bike...interspersed with some women's college basketball. 2 hours was about all (my butt and) I could take...stretched it out to 2:05 because the UCLA/Stanford game was almost to halftime, so I stayed on to see the end of the half. I made a quick transition and slopped out into the cold yucky rain for the puddle stomping run...went down to Lake Wa Blvd and out-and-back toward Mt. Baker beach. I have to admit that I added extra time because I knew I'd have to figure out my distance later (was using my Garmin with only HR and no GPS because I'd cycled indoors) and I wanted to run to a landmark that I'd be able to find on geodistance. And yes, I realize this is completely OCD and represents an over-dependence on statistics, but hey...I like my numbers...and now know that I went...about 4.2 miles total) I also figured it wouldn't hurt to run a little more since I biked a little less.
As I was approaching Genesee Park on the way back...and my hands were freezing (thought gloves wouldn't be necessary, wrong-o) and I just wanted to be done and eating a peanut butter sandwich...a funeral procession passed me going the opposite direction. I first hoped that this was not some kind of foreshadowing of my next race...then thought that well, I'm pretty happy to be alive, healthy and fit (albeit slightly uncomfortable and slopping through cold rain wishing for sunshine fairly often these days) and not horizontal in a black car! Could be worse, right?
After I got done, I drank a V8 immediately...then took a shower and had that PBJ soon after, but could really feel the workout catching up with me fast. About an hour later, I was having that old familiar "slow motion" loopy feeling...with the echo-y headache...that means I pushed it and am doing it right. :) I made it to a Starbucks a little while later and some caffeine (god love that drug) wiped out the headache pronto. Glad tomorrow is a rest day...I got in just about 10 hours of training this week and it's time to chill for a day.
Tonight I'm going to a small dinner party/movie night at my friend, Angie's...where I will do my best not to eat the entire pork roast she's going to have in the Crock Pot...better have a(nother) snack first!
Bike/Run Brick:
2:05 bike
134 Avg HR
1:05 Transition
4.2ish mile run
40:00
Avg HR 147
I've moved from one dog sit gig to another and am now shacked up in West Seattle for about 10 days. When Zion, the dog, and I woke up this morning (slept in till 7:30, whoop!), it was pouring. No brainer...went home after breakfast and set up the bike trainer, grabbed the remote control, and had at it.
The workout was supposed to be 35 miles on the bike and a 30 minute run...I think I rounded down a little on the bike (don't know mileage indoors, just time and HR) and threw a little extra credit at the run. Fortunately, I had a few unseen episodes of my favorite show, "The Good Wife," that I on-demanded while on the bike...interspersed with some women's college basketball. 2 hours was about all (my butt and) I could take...stretched it out to 2:05 because the UCLA/Stanford game was almost to halftime, so I stayed on to see the end of the half. I made a quick transition and slopped out into the cold yucky rain for the puddle stomping run...went down to Lake Wa Blvd and out-and-back toward Mt. Baker beach. I have to admit that I added extra time because I knew I'd have to figure out my distance later (was using my Garmin with only HR and no GPS because I'd cycled indoors) and I wanted to run to a landmark that I'd be able to find on geodistance. And yes, I realize this is completely OCD and represents an over-dependence on statistics, but hey...I like my numbers...and now know that I went...about 4.2 miles total) I also figured it wouldn't hurt to run a little more since I biked a little less.
As I was approaching Genesee Park on the way back...and my hands were freezing (thought gloves wouldn't be necessary, wrong-o) and I just wanted to be done and eating a peanut butter sandwich...a funeral procession passed me going the opposite direction. I first hoped that this was not some kind of foreshadowing of my next race...then thought that well, I'm pretty happy to be alive, healthy and fit (albeit slightly uncomfortable and slopping through cold rain wishing for sunshine fairly often these days) and not horizontal in a black car! Could be worse, right?
After I got done, I drank a V8 immediately...then took a shower and had that PBJ soon after, but could really feel the workout catching up with me fast. About an hour later, I was having that old familiar "slow motion" loopy feeling...with the echo-y headache...that means I pushed it and am doing it right. :) I made it to a Starbucks a little while later and some caffeine (god love that drug) wiped out the headache pronto. Glad tomorrow is a rest day...I got in just about 10 hours of training this week and it's time to chill for a day.
Tonight I'm going to a small dinner party/movie night at my friend, Angie's...where I will do my best not to eat the entire pork roast she's going to have in the Crock Pot...better have a(nother) snack first!
Bike/Run Brick:
2:05 bike
134 Avg HR
1:05 Transition
4.2ish mile run
40:00
Avg HR 147
Thursday, March 10, 2011
Unintentional extra credit
Yesterday was a good double...went to swim team at SU in the morning and then hit a spin class with my friend, Angie, at Allstar Fitness at noon. She hooked me up with a 1-week guest pass and the class was great--one of the best instructors I've ever seen and the class was huge (with really nice bikes, too). Good energy and I worked much harder than I would have riding on my own on the trainer, for sure. I was a bit body tired later in the afternoon and was wondering if the butt kicking I had on the bike would have an effect on today's long run. Fortunately, though, my legs weren't hungover and I felt good again today.
Today was long run day. I had a morning meeting and the weather forecast was awful, so I decided to sleep in and knock it out a little later after my meeting when there would be more light and with food and caffeine in my system. The morning news said it was supposed to rain with wind gusts up to 50mph by noon/afternoon, so I was both dreading it and wanting to get it over with before trees and houses started blowing around (the weather guy on TV was almost yelling "Auntie Em! Auntie Em!").
I got out about 10:30 a.m. and drove down to the BG trail by U Village to start. I guesstimated a route and took the GPS of course, to verify along the way. The workout was supposed to be an 8 miler with the last mile at a "pick up" pace. I ran the trail toward Montlake, over the Montlake bridge, up Eastlake and over by the Howe St. stairs (where I did what turned out to be an unnecessary out-and-back further south past the stairs). By this point, there had been a few wind gusts and showers, but also sun breaks and the whole wind/rain prediction was fiction...I was happily too warm and took off my gloves. Anyway, then I went up the Howe St. stairs, back down 10th, over/through Interlakken to 23rd, then back on the trail to the car. As I was approaching the 7 mile mark, I knew I had quite a bit more than a mile to get back to the car, but decided to do the 8th mile at the push pace and then whatever was left as slower extra credit. I took it up to a tempo-ish feeling pace, which turned out to be an 8:23 mile (not bad!), then took it back down to moderate and stopped at 9 miles. I was not looking forward to this run (and the stupid weather) but it turned out great. When I came back to the dogsit house, I did planks with one dog trying to snuggle and a cat who jumped on my back. Makes things a little more interesting!
Now it's blowing pretty good outside, but who cares!
9 mile run:
7.1 miles: 1:12:31 (Avg pace 10:13, Avg HR 137)
1 mile pick up 8:23 (Avg HR 155)
.9 mile 8:25 (Avg pace 9:21, Avg HR 149)
Total time: 1:29:19
Today was long run day. I had a morning meeting and the weather forecast was awful, so I decided to sleep in and knock it out a little later after my meeting when there would be more light and with food and caffeine in my system. The morning news said it was supposed to rain with wind gusts up to 50mph by noon/afternoon, so I was both dreading it and wanting to get it over with before trees and houses started blowing around (the weather guy on TV was almost yelling "Auntie Em! Auntie Em!").
I got out about 10:30 a.m. and drove down to the BG trail by U Village to start. I guesstimated a route and took the GPS of course, to verify along the way. The workout was supposed to be an 8 miler with the last mile at a "pick up" pace. I ran the trail toward Montlake, over the Montlake bridge, up Eastlake and over by the Howe St. stairs (where I did what turned out to be an unnecessary out-and-back further south past the stairs). By this point, there had been a few wind gusts and showers, but also sun breaks and the whole wind/rain prediction was fiction...I was happily too warm and took off my gloves. Anyway, then I went up the Howe St. stairs, back down 10th, over/through Interlakken to 23rd, then back on the trail to the car. As I was approaching the 7 mile mark, I knew I had quite a bit more than a mile to get back to the car, but decided to do the 8th mile at the push pace and then whatever was left as slower extra credit. I took it up to a tempo-ish feeling pace, which turned out to be an 8:23 mile (not bad!), then took it back down to moderate and stopped at 9 miles. I was not looking forward to this run (and the stupid weather) but it turned out great. When I came back to the dogsit house, I did planks with one dog trying to snuggle and a cat who jumped on my back. Makes things a little more interesting!
Now it's blowing pretty good outside, but who cares!
9 mile run:
7.1 miles: 1:12:31 (Avg pace 10:13, Avg HR 137)
1 mile pick up 8:23 (Avg HR 155)
.9 mile 8:25 (Avg pace 9:21, Avg HR 149)
Total time: 1:29:19
Tuesday, March 08, 2011
Morning Tempo run
Did a rainy tempo-ish run this morning...but at least there was some day light, so seeing the GPS wasn't so hard. I'm still staying up north, just about a mile uphill from the Burke-Gilman trail, so I ran down to the trail to do the tempo part. The workout was a 5 mile run with 3x 4 minute tempo pieces.
13 min warm up (1.4 miles)
4 minutes Tempo: .5 miles (8:05 avg. pace), 156 Avg HR
3 minutes moderate (.31)
4 minutes Tempo: .51 miles (7:57 avg. pace), 159 Avg HR
6 minutes moderate (.65)
4 minutes Tempo: .52 mile (7:43 avg pace), 157 Avg HR
12 minutes moderate (1.23)
Total: 5.1 miles, 45:54, Avg HR 144/Max 169
13 min warm up (1.4 miles)
4 minutes Tempo: .5 miles (8:05 avg. pace), 156 Avg HR
3 minutes moderate (.31)
4 minutes Tempo: .51 miles (7:57 avg. pace), 159 Avg HR
6 minutes moderate (.65)
4 minutes Tempo: .52 mile (7:43 avg pace), 157 Avg HR
12 minutes moderate (1.23)
Total: 5.1 miles, 45:54, Avg HR 144/Max 169
Saturday, March 05, 2011
Fate and the forgotten shoes
This was another pretty good training week...ran hills on Tuesday morning which made me sore, but just sore enough to know I did something and to recover before running again on Thursday...that was pretty cool. Receiving a massage on Tuesday afternoon probably helped...had a trade lined up with another LMP that was timed perfectly, whoop!
Today was the usual brick Saturday...I'm dog sitting on the north end of town and went home to do the workout, waffling on the drive home about whether to ride indoors or outdoors. It wasn't raining, but still pretty cool and all the pavement looked wet (translation in my head = if I ride, bike gets dirty, I must clean it...), so I finally decided to ride indoors and run outdoors like I've done the last few Saturdays... and went about setting up the bike and getting everything organized...was almost all set up until it was time to put my shoes on and I remembered that the shoes for the indoor bike were at the dogsit house. OOPS. I figured it was fate making me get outside for a ride...so I re-organized all the gear, the other bike, and the shoes that were in attendance, and went out. After all the gear shuffling, I was really happy I rode outside! I went around Mercer Island and, although the bike did get kinda dirty, it was warm enough that riding was very comfortable. I know it was good for me to deal with some hills and wind instead of....just the remote control and a steady state ride. The workout on the plan was only 25 miles on the bike and a 25 minute run. Sounds easy enough, but "real" riding felt harder than indoor riding and my legs were a little slow on the uptake for the run. The run was really slow and clunky at the beginning...I really thought I was at snail pace, but was pleasantly surprised when I looked at my stats later and I was actually a little faster than a 9 minute mile pace, despite how it felt in my legs.
I felt pretty dragged out for a few hours after the workout and struggled a bit to give a massage...but thankfully, I only had one client and I think the "dragged out" effect may have had to do with recovery nutrition a bit, because the more food (and SALT) I continue to throw at the problem, the better I'm feeling (a can of V8 plus a can of soup in the last hour or so...probably the RDA of sodium for a week, but I'm thinking a salty dinner later may sound pretty good, so I must need it).
Tonight I'm going to see one of my favorite bands at the Triple Door...and tomorrow is a "rest" day which will include snowshoeing with some friends, but I'm hoping it'll be more of a glorified walk in the snow than a real hike. Let the weekend begin!
Brick:
25.85 mile ride
1:42:10
Avg HR: 131/Max 157
Pace: 15.2
1:45ish transition
3.1 mile run
27:43
Avg HR 144/Max 157
Pace: 8:55
Today was the usual brick Saturday...I'm dog sitting on the north end of town and went home to do the workout, waffling on the drive home about whether to ride indoors or outdoors. It wasn't raining, but still pretty cool and all the pavement looked wet (translation in my head = if I ride, bike gets dirty, I must clean it...), so I finally decided to ride indoors and run outdoors like I've done the last few Saturdays... and went about setting up the bike and getting everything organized...was almost all set up until it was time to put my shoes on and I remembered that the shoes for the indoor bike were at the dogsit house. OOPS. I figured it was fate making me get outside for a ride...so I re-organized all the gear, the other bike, and the shoes that were in attendance, and went out. After all the gear shuffling, I was really happy I rode outside! I went around Mercer Island and, although the bike did get kinda dirty, it was warm enough that riding was very comfortable. I know it was good for me to deal with some hills and wind instead of....just the remote control and a steady state ride. The workout on the plan was only 25 miles on the bike and a 25 minute run. Sounds easy enough, but "real" riding felt harder than indoor riding and my legs were a little slow on the uptake for the run. The run was really slow and clunky at the beginning...I really thought I was at snail pace, but was pleasantly surprised when I looked at my stats later and I was actually a little faster than a 9 minute mile pace, despite how it felt in my legs.
I felt pretty dragged out for a few hours after the workout and struggled a bit to give a massage...but thankfully, I only had one client and I think the "dragged out" effect may have had to do with recovery nutrition a bit, because the more food (and SALT) I continue to throw at the problem, the better I'm feeling (a can of V8 plus a can of soup in the last hour or so...probably the RDA of sodium for a week, but I'm thinking a salty dinner later may sound pretty good, so I must need it).
Tonight I'm going to see one of my favorite bands at the Triple Door...and tomorrow is a "rest" day which will include snowshoeing with some friends, but I'm hoping it'll be more of a glorified walk in the snow than a real hike. Let the weekend begin!
Brick:
25.85 mile ride
1:42:10
Avg HR: 131/Max 157
Pace: 15.2
1:45ish transition
3.1 mile run
27:43
Avg HR 144/Max 157
Pace: 8:55
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