Weekly Report-14

Monday: 5.65 miles Fartleks - untimed
Wednesday: Track Drills 2 miles warm up, 1200 (5:30), 800 (3:40), 400 (1:50), 800 (3:40), 1200... walked 50m and jogged 350m between each set, 1 mile cool down.
Thursday: 5 miles 42:50 (8:34 pace)
Friday: 6 miles

~moved over the weekend so I took Saturday off

4 Miles - No Watch

I got up early today after learning my lesson from my previous run. I just don't quite have it all together in the morning. I got up, got dressed, stretched and went out the door without a timing device. I had to resort to the rudimentary task of keeping time by the car clock. It counts off seconds so I was able to keep it fairly accurate and from what I could tell it took me 31 minutes to run 4 miles. It actually felt like I ran harder than that but I'll go with it.

4 miles - 31 minutes (7:45/mile)

Mike

3 Fiery Miles

I ran three easy miles today at 3pm with no cloud cover to speak of. When the breeze died down it felt like I was running through fire. Bad idea, but I got through it.

3 miles - 25:02 (8:21/mile)

mike

5.02 miles - 37:40

A good hard run. I'm not a morning person so running early for me is tough; it takes me a mile or two before I wake up. I really wanted to quit and take a break half way through but I persisted and got a time I'm really happy with. My goal was to make this a run of medium difficulty and come in right at 40 min. But I'm getting to where I can run seven and half minutes pretty comfortably so I just kept the pace.

5.02 miles - 37:40 (7:30/mile)

mike

Here they are...

Out With the Old ... In With the New (part deux)

Since running shoes are required at the new gym I splurged and grabbed a new pair. I was in obvious need. I'll post pics later.

As far as training goes, I think I'll be OK with using a treadmill as long as I use it more as a supplement to my regular road-running. The treadmill can do just as much for my cardiovascular system as anything else, it just feels like the muscle groups are being used in a slightly different way. This causes me to worry that it would be difficult to lower my 5k time.

Today I ran a real 4 miles and it felt great. It was raining and about 80 degrees outside but that didn't seem to bother me much. It was actually nice being one of the only ones on the trail. It was a hard run but I probably still could have pushed a degree or two harder, but that's fine. It was still quality. And the shoes felt great.

4 miles 29:54 (7:28/mile)

Weekly Report-13

Monday: 7.85 miles / easy - 1:07:00 (8:32 pace)
Tuesday: ? miles hills / easy - 44:06
Wedensday: 3.95 miles / hard - 30:45 (7:47 pace)
Thursday: 6 miles / supposed to be easy but i ran it medium - 49:24 (8:14 pace)
Friday: 6 miles / medium - 49:42 (8:17 pace)
Saturday: 4.5 miles / medium - 37:03 (8:14 pace)

I am really suprised at the 36% difference in 'cost' on the treadmill!! I would have never thought it was that much!

Today I am going to the MOC meet at Berkeley! I am so excited! I read up on the qualifying meets and it looks as though Washington's only representation is a girl miler, and that's only if she qualified... but it will be lots of fun regardless!

I also went to go see Washington's new track and it's pretty amazing. It looks just like Logan with the rubber track and turf center field. They also got all new hurdles and blocks... We were born about 20 years to early :(

2 Weeks till RACE DAY!!

~chrissy

Treadmill vs Road - Real Answers

Yesterday I went to Life Time for my first official workout there. They have some pretty high-tech treadmills that I wanted to try out as well as do some lifting. I set the treadmill up for 7 min/mile, positioned myself directly under the AC vent and took off. I wanted to see how long I could last. The last time I ran that pace in training I was pretty well spent after 3 miles but on the treadmill I lasted four. Based on that data alone it would appear that road-running is about 33% more difficult. I did some research online and found the following link:

http://www.pponline.co.uk/encyc/treadmill.html

This group has done a great job at compiling studies that compare a treadmill to the road as well as presenting arguments for and against each method. I'll insert the link permanently on the side-bar of the blog. But basically, according to their findings, the difference in "cost" as they put it between the two methods is 36%. Who needs research?

I think what I'll do for my running tally is just add 30s per mile to make things equitable.

4 miles - 30 min (7:30/mile)

Mike

5/22 - 5 Miles

Today was supposed to be a hard day but I could tell my body wasn't having it. I turned it into a medium day and it was still tough for some reason but doable. It's nice being under 8 min/mile with just a medium effort.

Last night I worked my first evening at Life Time Fitness. It's a very cool place and I think it'll make a nice part-time job for the summer. The problem is it requires that I work during my running time so it might have an effect on my training. The way I choose to look at it is that I was counting on the heat taking a toll on my training anyhow so I might as well make some money and give myself the chance to stay in shape in a cool, fitness-centered environment.

4 miles - 32:19 (7:49/mile)

Mike

Two-day Report

Friday after work I ran 3 hard miles and this morning I ran 3 easy miles. I almost did the hard work-out in sub-seven miles but couldn't quite pull it off. I'm excited to get into running 6 minute miles for training ... then I'll be on my way to 5 minute miles in competition. Today's slow day felt kind of hard even with a day off in between. Amazing what recovery does.

3 miles hard - 21:05 (7:02/mile)
3 miles easy - 25:10 (8:23/mile)

Mike

5/17 - 4.82 miles

An easy day. I never really even got out of breath. I was surprised with my pace; it felt slower. Still a little sore today but in more normal places like shins and calves. The weather has been ideal.

4.82 miles - 39:57 (8:17/mile)

Mike

Back in the Saddle ... Again

I finally felt like myself yesterday so I knew I had to run. I was a little apprehensive after taking so much time off but I actually felt great (especially for having mowed the lawns a couple hours earlier.) The weather was nice as well. The only thing different is that I'm sore in a few different places than I'm used to.

5.02 miles - 38:06 (7:35/mile)

On a side note, it looks like I might be getting a part-time job in the evenings at Life Time Fitness. Their facilities are amazing and it would give me a free membership there this summer so I can workout and stay out of the heat. It'll also be nice to have some spending cash.

Mike

Weekly Report-12

I'm going to keep my weekly report published on the blog, and just edit it as I go through the days... That way Zach can take a look at my times on a daily basis ;) You're welcome Zach! ha :)

Monday: 6 miles hills/easy - 52:00 (8:38 pace)
Tuesday: 6 miles/medium - 49:00 (8:10 pace)
Wednesday: 4 miles/hard - 31:36 (7:54 pace)
Thursday: 6 miles hills/ "easy" :)- 49:06 (8:11 pace)
Friday: 4.45 miles hills/ - 35:00 (7:51 pace) ~I have no idea how I did this... but from what I can tell, it is indeed the truth! I just set out to run and figured I would drive it when I was done to see how far I went. The car gave me almost 4.5 miles and I ran for 35 minutes on the dot. I am pleasantly surprised with this, considering it wasn't difficult at all...my lungs felt great and my legs were strong. PROGRESS! (especially from Wednesday's run!) YESSSS!
Saturday: 5 miles/ easy - 42:37 (8:31 pace)

~chrissy

Licensed to ill

My cold flared up in a major way yesterday and is still wreaking havoc. I took a couple of Tylenol PM's last night and I'm still having trouble opening my eyes after every blink. This morning at school I was greeted with, "Mr Freeman, you need your morning coffee!"


Probably won't run today. It's been since Saturday so I hope this thing goes away quickly.

Mike

May the Best Woman Win

I can't wait for all the construction to finish in the new neighborhood because that is where I run my hills and I'm SICK of being gawked at by all the Mexican workers. To make it worse, sometimes I happen to run at the same time the mid-morning taco truck comes passing through, so they are ALL out eating and socializing as I run by... and the little senorita that drives the truck quite obviously doesn't like me coming in and stealing all the attention. Today she had on a cuter outfit than usual AND her hair was all done... she's stepping up the competition...

~chrissy

Weekly Report-11

Good Job yesterday, Mike! 20 second improvement in just two weeks and we have another four weeks until the next race!

I am just now passing into the longest duration of training I have ever had... Chabot ran from mid August to the end of November, about 12 weeks. This is very exciting for me! I really am feeling good about my myself and my running abilities... I have already surpassed the times I ran! Although I didn't set the bar very high back then, it still feels pretty great to beat it. Every time I run I am better than I have ever been...it feels great to make such 'strides' ;)

Monday: 5 miles- G.F,'s 39:56 (7:59 pace)
Tuesday: 7 miles- medium 57:57 (8:16 pace)
Wednesday: 5 miles -easy untimed, and I'm talking EASY...depressingly easy
Thursday: 5 miles- medium 40:41 (8:08 pace)
Friday: 6 miles- medium 49:20 (8:13 pace)
Sunday: 5 miles- easy 44:35 (8:55 pace)

I felt more 'bad' during my runs this week than 'good'... but my times are still getting faster, which is all the encouragement I need!

~chrissy

I Got Beat by a Banana!

This guy ran in a banana suit! He started off fast and I thought he would surely fade but I never saw him again until the finish. I think he actually placed and won an award.

In looking at the results I'm not feeling so bad about being one place away from an award. Apparently the guy who finished just before me ended up beating me by nearly 40s and not 5s like it seems from the picture. The official timing is done by computer and his "chip-time" tells the real story. Even if I had held on to my brief lead I probably still would have lost to him. Weird but understandable in a race with hundreds of people.





Here's a link to the Venture On! 5k results:

http://www.doitsports.com/newresults3/client/99283_197889_2007.html

Mike

Race Day 5/12

Well, another race-day today. Only two weeks since my last one but it was so close to home and I was curious about my improvement so I went ahead with it. A real 5k race that actually costs money is definitely an event. Food, sponsors, marketing toys, T-shirts, prizes. It was a lot of fun. I cut almost 20s off my last time so I'm happy with that. Again, we managed to be running late but nowhere near as bad as last time. In the pictures I look like I just rolled out of bed (because I had); one of these days I'll get my act together for a well-prepared race.

5k - 21:24 (6:53/mile)

Mike

4 Easy Miles

Nothing special except that it felt surprisingly good coming off of a hard day. I really never labored during this run at all except for maybe a little pain in the shins.

4 miles - 34:07 (8:32/mile)

Mike

First Time Fartleker (sounds so gross)

I did a Fartlek workout for the first time today. It is to be the only hard day for me this week. I ran 3 miles and ran hard every 3/4 of a mile. I'm supposed to run hard for 200m so I just counted off about 170 paces figuring each one was slightly longer than a meter. I plan on running a couple light days Wed and Thu, taking Friday off and then running the 5k at Cinco Ranch. Should be fun.

3 miles - 22:20 (7:27/mile)

Mike

Does This Sign Mean Anything?!

A stubborn old man in his big-red-texas truck almost ran me over today. I was encroaching upon 'his' shoulder lane. He honked about 10 times as he came up behind me, and then got as close to me as possible as he whizzed by. You know, to teach me a lesson. :)

~chrissy

Yancy says...

...I need to start doing Farleks. I emailed him today and asked him for some training recommendations and he said, "You need to do one hard run, one interval
Day (600's and 400's). One fartlek day, where you would do a four mile
run with sprints of about 200 meters every 3/4ths mile. no stopping
aloud between sprints. two easy days."

This is beginning to make sense to me because I am finding that I can't put in more than a couple of hard days each week without it taking a huge toll. I feel completely spent; even on an easy run. With sprinting I never seemed to have any problem with this but distance really seems to be a completely different animal. It's just so unnatural to give myself an "easy day."

Today I intended to run a medium 5 miles but ended up doing 2.51 with a break and then 2.01 with a half-mile walk for a cool-down.

2.51 - 21:05 (8:24/mile)
2.01 - 16.24 (8:09/mile)
totals: 4.52 - 37:29 (8:17)

Mike

Gischler Fartleks SUCK...

...but they work.

Monday: 5 miles: G.F,'s 39.56 (7:59 pace)

~chrissy

Weekly Report-10

Monday: 8 miles: 1:10:32 (8:49 pace)
Tuesday: off
Wednesday: 7 miles: 58:37 (8:22 pace)
Thursday: 4 miles easy: untimed
Friday: 7 miles: 59:43 (8:31 pace)

I had planned on running Saturday, but between research, church activities, and my nutrition final, I was going non-stop yesterday from 7am till 10pm. And my conscience got the better of me when I wanted to make up the miles Sunday morning ;)

~chrissy

5/5 - 4 Miles

Just an average paced run today. I forgot to bring my watch but judging by the clock in my car I was running for 34 minutes.

4 miles - 34 min (8:30/mile)

Mike

Intervals 5/4

I never thought I'd say this, but I think I'd rather run a hard 5 miles than do another set of intervals on the track; though temporary, the pain is so acute. Perhaps it's just that I am well-conditioned for distance now having run nearly 160 miles compared to maybe 4 or 5 track workouts. But man, I really wanted to quit early today. In fact, I was half way to the car before I made myself go back and finish that final 200. I was just hurting. Anyway, here are the results (pretty much the same as last time.)

200 - 32s
400 - 75s
800 - 2:52
400 - 72s
200 - 33s

Mike

Just Checking In...

Mike, I love what you've done with the place! :) Your analysis are hilarious and the site feed was a great idea... I have those links saved to 'my favorites' on my browser, but it's nice to have it all in one place. Also, now all of our readers and fans can check out the sites easier! ;) ha. And I'll be more active with the the blog when school slows down; about a week ;)

The run-mapping site is great! I will use that quite frequently since none of my runs are ever marked. I was pleased to see that all of my runs are accurate in their mileage (thanks to Zach's nifty watch... Zach, if your reading this... shout out! :)

I'm trying to finagle a way to do the run in Brakenridge Park on May 12. Mom and Dad are out of town, Brit has to work, and so I'm on Chloe duty. I really want to run it. This week's runs are coming along nicely. I am mostly concentrating on putting in tons of miles, though I know I need to do speed work as well.

Finally, the next Woodlands run on June 9th is the weekend right before the A's v Astros games, which means I'm headed to Houston back to back... kind of a lot of gas. I don't really have any solutions yet, but something to keep in mind...

Keep up the good work!!
~chrissy

More Interesting Analysis

I have burned 26,220 Calories since February 9th when I began running - that's 7.5lbs! I can see why people get fat; what took 10 weeks to sweat away would probably only take me a week to eat if I really wanted to. Amazing.

I have also inserted a site-link for easy access to the sites we post on here.

Mike

Yet Another Cool Site

A great way to map out a new running route, complete with precise mileage.

www.mapmyrun.com

3 Miles - 5/2

Today's workout prescribed 20-30 minutes of running at a pace of 7:25/mile. I figured three miles at that pace -- although a little short -- would fill that time perfectly.

Along the trail there are designated markers at random places -- 1.34mi, 2.68mi, 5.02, 6.94mi. But someone has taken it upon themselves to spray paint the mile-markers at normal intervals -- 1 mile, 1.5 miles, 2 miles etc. This is great except for the 1-mile mark of which there are two spray painted markers probably about 30m apart. I started out pretty fast and hit the first 1-mile mark in 6:52. I'm not sure if this is accurate but I know I've never been to that spot in anywhere near that time. I made a conscious effort to slow down to the 1.5-mile mark and then reset my pace for the last half. It worked well. The goal-time was precisely 22:15 and I came in just under at 21:56 and felt great. Very tired but not wasted like I have been during some workouts. Very encouraging. According to the training schedule, I really shouldn't push myself to exhaustion unless I'm doing speed work and running in short bursts with recovery time.

I'll probably take Thursday off since Marci is working and run intervals Friday with a long run Saturday and another day off on Sunday.

3 miles - 21:56 (7:19)

Mike

5/2 - 5.02 miles

In keeping with my new training recommendations from fasterrunning.com, I was due for an easy day today. This meant running a good amount of miles at a very slow pace (8:55/mile). It was somewhat unnatural to run purposefully slow but knowing that a very hard day was to follow helped. I got close to the goal time.

5.02 miles - 43:25 (8:39/mile)

Mike

Interesting Analysis

Since I began running February 9th I have run a total of 145 miles (the distance from my house to Austin) and it took me 19 hrs 56 min and 20s. An average pace of 8:15/mile. I could run to Austin in less than a day :)

Mike

Future Runs

It looks like the first Run The Woodlands in June will be on the 9th, so mark your calendar - it'll come fast. I'm also 95% certain I'll run a 5k in Katy on May 12th as well. It gives me something to look forward to in the very near future and it is right in my back yard at Cinco Ranch. It will also be cool to experience a "real" 5k - the ones that are usually in support of some cause, offer T-shirts, have food, have large turnouts and cost money.

4/30 Report

4 miles - 32:21 (8:05/mile)

I entered my race-time into the fasterrunning.com training calculator to see what kind of paces I should be setting for myself. My easy days should be run at 8:55 pace. Hard days should be a 7:25 pace for only 20-30 minutes. Speed work should be run at about 6:11 pace. I'm going to try this out for the next couple weeks and see how it goes. Today I'll run 5 miles at my easy pace and try to run 3 miles tomorrow at my fast pace. I'll probably throw a long, easy run in at the end of the week as well.

Mike