Buttsweat Towel© season has begun

58F, S 16-21 mph.  8:02 AP.  Nothin much to say about this one.  Stare-down with a cow (he won) but that's about it.  Here is my crazy mileage plan for Boston (subject to some probable tweaks - I posted a training review request in the discussion forums).  I'll either get really fast, or die trying.

39F.  7:25 AP.  Legs actually had a little life today.  Cruised along for awhile and realized toward the end I was actually kinda tired.  Going uphill and going fast (I did a few strides at the end) are still hard to do.  It typically takes me a good month to 6 weeks to get fully back to normal after a marathon so I think I'm on that track so far.

I will do a couple easy runs this week and then attempt a simpler LT workout, like a 3 x 1 or 4 x 1.  Not sure I can get down to LT yet, definitely not for a continuous tempo, so that should test the waters well enough.

61F, S 15 mph.  8:20's on the pace I think.

52F, N 16-22 mph.  7:49 AP.

Before this cycle really starts, I am seriously going to need some new shoes.  Just noticing the mileage on all of them...

35F.  So, my first workout since the marathon.  I wanted to do a few LT miles, but didn't think I would be ready for a continuous run at that pace.  I was annoyingly indecisive about what to do though.  Road or track, 3 x 1 or 2 x 1.5...  Finally decided to go down to the track to avoid the hills and give me a good idea about how my marathon recovery was going.  Plus the wind was down today.  I decided that I would wait and see how the first 4 laps went before deciding on the workout.

So after 4 laps I was at 6:17 and not feeling bad, so I decided to keep going for 2 x 2400m, the next best thing to doing 3 miles continuous.  I jogged a 2-minute lap between the 2 repeats.

9:28, 9:26.  Right around my target, 6:20 pace.  Hopefully I can build up to doing 30 minutes continuous at this pace before my HM next month, once I have recovered the rest of the way from the marathon.  For now, this was a good re-introduction to running faster paces again; not too strenuous, but still got me breathing a bit.

46F, S 14 mph.  8:16 AP.

43F, N 13 mph.  7:51 AP.  Cold front is coming Sunday - this is probably the first one I won't be celebrating.

43F, 8:04 AP. 

Went to the mall to see Santa today.  The kids both (maybe for the first time ever) went right up to Santa with no fear, and gave him a hug.  Then we saw this thing though, and it was kind of a different story:

Caption contest?

45F, N 16-24 mph.  7:04 AP.  I dumped Pfitz for the time being and am following Mark Hadley's training methods for awhile.  Today's run was 15 @ steady state pace (zone 5).  What does that mean?  For me it's about 7:05-7:10 -- a pace that I always thought was kind of "no-man's land" but this guy uses it in the fundamental phase of training, before the marathon specific stuff starts.  Once I get 11 or 12 weeks out from Boston, these basically get replaced with MP work.

I enjoyed the run, and suppose I can even call it a "workout," which is part of the reason I like this guy.  Splts were 7:26, 7:00, 7:02, 6:58, 7:05, 6:57, 7:07, 7:05, 7:01, 7:09, 7:04, 7:06, 7:00, 7:02, 6:54.

I was not surprised to be able to complete it, but I was surprised how comfortable it was, 3 weeks after a full marathon in which I only ran 13 sec/mile faster.  Normally I still have marathon stink on my legs for 5 or 6 weeks, before I'm back to normal.  Maybe it was supposed to be somewhat easy though, I've never really tried anything similar.  Maybe the extended break after the race actually got me ready to roll sooner.  Either way, I'm feeling good about where I'm at right now; 2013 will hopefully the year of a bunch of big PRs.

34F.  8:06 AP.  Evening run.  It was 22 degrees this morning, which might have been ok, but the wind was blowing pretty hard so I opted to run after work.  I still have that luxury now, since my mileage is low and I'm not doing doubles yet.  Gonna have to get used to it eventually though; I think I might test the waters tomorrow morning since the wind will be down.

20F, 7:49 AP.  Little chilly.  Still wore shorts though.  One day I will have to break down and get running tights or something.  Today was not that day.

21F.  Down to the track today for 16 x 200m, with 200m jog recoveries.  The goal was my theoretical 1-mile pace, which I would round to a nice even 40 seconds/repeat.  I thought it might be tough to crank it down to that pace in the cold but it turned out not to be an issue.

Averaged 39.02s, which is about 5:14 AP; likely faster than I could run a mile but it's all a guess anyway.  Fastest was 36.7 (4:55 AP), slowest was 40.7 (5:27 AP).  Standard deviation of 1.02 seconds.  I had a lot of fun with Excel this morning.

A lot of times they would see-saw back and forth between 38 and 40; I could always tell in the last 50m if I had accidentally started out too fast; those were usually the 37-38s.  They would almost always be followed up with a 40.  Toward the end, they were more consistent.

Long, uphill "cooldown" back to my house, followed by some coughing and wheezing at home.

33F, 8:23 AP.

I'm moving up my Sunday long run / workout to tomorrow.  Danielle will be out of town from Saturday - Monday so it's either do it Friday or do it on the treadmill on Sunday while keeping one eye on the kids (no thanks).  Usually my legs need more than 1 easy day between stress days but I'll give it a shot tomorrow; I think it will be fine since it's a completely different stress (like 90 sec/mile different).

53F, S 17 mph.  7:13 AP.  I hopped on good ol' Watts road and did a long out and back (nice, lonely east-west road to minimize effects from the wind).  First 9 easy, next 8 as a "predator" GMP run.  Basically means center on your goal marathon pace (for now, 6:45) and do a progressive tempo around it.  So I wanted to start at 7:00, end at 6:30, or something like that.  The idea is to closer simulate the end of a race in the last few miles (it worked).

8 Tempo miles: 6:43 AP (6:56, 6:53, 6:49, 6:46, 6:42, 6:36, 6:32, 6:30).

Well executed run.  I was sluggish today, still not recovered from Wednesday (true speedwork always seems to take me a really long time to bounce back from) so I was happy to pull it off anyway.  To get the splits to work out like that, I had to really race up some hills.  Usually I let the splits fall where they may, knowing I'll make it up on the downhill miles but I decided to maintain pace going up today.  So although this is an AT workout, I definitely worked LT as well by the end, even if the paces weren't quite down there.

Good news about packing in the workouts is that I get a bunch of easy days in a row now, which I will definitely need.

8:34 AP - 7mph on the treadmill.  Danielle left a day early so had to start a 3-day treadmill odyssey today.

I got my updated Boston confirmation card in the mail yesterday.  Yep, I updated my seed time for the 1-minute PR I ran.  Obviously.  I don't want to be lumped in with all the lowly 3:01 people, you know.

9 on the treadmill @ 8:00 pace.  At least the Texans were on TV though.  I almost fell off the TM trying to help Andre Johnson make a catch on an underthrown ball.

43F.  8:07 AP.  Ran in the evening so I could run outside (Danielle is back).  It's been a harrowing 3 days but me and the girls survived with mommy gone.

35F, 7:41 AP.  I retired my oldest pair of Kinvaras at 700 miles and ran in a new pair of shoes today, the Kinvara 2's.  Did y'all even know they updated the Kinvara?  Well, they did, and I have them.  Not just everyone can have the latest and greatest update, though.  Just keep that in mind before you get too jealous.

Anyway, am I the only one who doesn't like running in a new pair of shoes?  It feels like I don't have feet.

42F. 7:41 AP. Early, sluggish start. Been struggling through a headcold all week - seems to be hanging around for awhile.

The one thing I want to keep from Pfitz is the MLR, but not at the expense of workouts this time. This week it was doable.

32F, NW 20-35 mph.  8:36 AP.  Fortunately all the 50 mph gusts were last night.  Unfortunately, they blew part of our steel-and-concrete-reinforced fence down, not to mention the neighbor's huge trampoline somehow ended up in our backyard.

Gotta pick a 5k-10k pace interval workout tomorrow.  I'm even tossing around the idea of just running a 5k time trial on the track.  5k's count as 5k pace, right?  As usual, I'll probably decide as I'm jogging down to the high school...

23F.  I decided to do a 5k, broken down into decreasing amounts, keeping the laps at 5k pace or better.  So I did 2400-1200-800-400-200.  1 lap easy between each.  Results were:

8:56

4:26

2:54

1:20

33.7

Adds up to 18:09, but obviously I got some good rest in there.  My goal was to keep it under 90 seconds/lap avg, so misson accomplished there.  I liked the workout.  Each subsequent interval was like a treat because it was shorter than the last.  A good reality check too -- I am nowhere near being able to run a sub-18 5k.

34F, 8:23 AP.

42F, N 15 mph.  7:25 AP.  I waited to run until after church and it turned out to be a really nice day to run.

I had 2 hours and 14 minutes to think about my training a little.  Something Sasha said on the message boards kind of turned on a lightbulb for me, that my 5k time was a problem.  I think for most of this past year, even though my race times have been stagnant, my aerobic threshold has actually been improving.  That's why it feels like my "easy pace" is getting faster and faster.  It's been closing the gap on lactate threshold, which has NOT been improving.  Neither has 5k pace, vo2 max, etc.  I have not done enough to address those other paces and it's kind of putting a ceiling (or a floor?) on how fast I can run a marathon.

Anyway, the training I have on tap now should address those shortcomings (thanks, Jake).  I have 2 big LT workouts planned before the Houston HM in a few weeks.  Then I will keep hitting the other systems more consistently (as I've been doing the past few weeks) while shifting the focus to MP.  Don't want to jump the gun yet, but I might even consider a longer 5k-focused cycle instead of a marathon cycle next fall (as painful and terrible as that sounds).

35F.  8:25 AP.  No work today -- nice to be able to wait until it warms up a little, and then go running.

Tomorrow on the other hand...well, it's neat to get a white Christmas in Oklahoma, but this is going to be a whiteout Christmas, with 40 mph winds to go along with the snow.  Anyway, might be treadmilling it.

Poor Keira - Santa is getting her a Power Wheels Jeep and she is only going to be able to drive it in circles in the living room tomorrow!

AM - 4 so far on the TM.  I'm actually breaking up my 8 miles today into 2 runs, that's how long my attention span is on the TM.  I can handle the 20 degrees outside, but not 20 degrees with 35 45 mph wind and horizontal snow (link to my front yard).  Or at least I don't want to.  Back to playing with all the new kids toys.

PM - 4 more when the kids went to bed.  Both runs in the low 8's on the pace.  Gotta do a workout tomorrow - I think the wind might die a little by the afternoon.  The question mark is how snowy/icy the roads are.  Or the track.

Merry Christmas all!

26F.  Big LT wave run today - I went down to the track to do this workout.  After all, Houston is flat.  There was some snow in a few patches that slowed me down a bit but it was workable.

So with the wave run, you alternate paces.  My mission was to alternate 800s between 3:05 and 3:20, and do this for 6 straight miles.  So you end up with 6 continuous miles @ HMP overall, but the alternating 800 paces make you step up your game a bit.

Unfortunately I didn't learn my lesson with the stupid Garmin.  When I left, it had 41% battery, but it fizzled out after 3 800s.  I don't think it liked the cold.  I would have loved to have the data for this workout.  I ran 2:59, 3:15, 3:04, then ???.  Kept going though, and finished it off by effort.  I think I had the pace pretty well dialed in by the second set, after being a little fast on the first set.

The absolute hardest part of this workout is the first "recovery" lap after the faster 800.  You already know the fast 800 is going to suck, but after running a hard 800, you have an urge to jog the recovery yet have to press on at faster than marathon pace.  This is why I think I met the intent, even though I wasn't able to time most of it.  I got the proper "hurt" at the proper times, and when I finished, I had the feeling that I REALLY would not have wanted to do another set.  But dang, I really wanted to see what the total time was for 6 miles, and whether it was faster than HMP overall.  The important part is that I got the right stimulus out of it and I'm very confident in that, at least.

AM - 19F, 6 miles @ 8:49 AP.  shorts.

PM - 33F, 4 miles @ 8:32 AP.  I wore the Mizunos again; the first time I wore them they rubbed my achilles raw, so I finally did some corrective surgery on them with some scissors.  Seemed to be ok this time, hopefully I won't have to throw them away.  Why would you make a shoe that pinches in right there?  Dummies.

27F, N 20-25 mph.  7:46 AP.  Sideways snow for the last 4 miles, my favorite.  Of course, I ran on my east/west road but the blowing snow made the right half of my face numb on the way back...ouch!  My eyeballs took hundreds of direct hits.

I was going to do some short time trials today, but the snow/ice never melted off the track.  It's one thing to clomp through/around it in a tempo, but another to all-out sprint through it.  I'll try next week.

Saw 2 brown foxes and an instruction book for a one-step pregnancy test while on the road today.  Someone really wanted to know!

33F, 8:21 AP.  Waited until it warmed up a bit, then did a short recovery run.  One nice thing about winter is that you might as well sleep in, because the cool temps let you run later in the day.  That option goes away in the summer (and surrounding months).

33F, S 10 mph.  Today the workout was 15 @ steady state, followed by 2 @ HMGP (~6:20).

15 @ SS - 7:01 AP - (7:16, 7:01, 7:05, 6:55, 7:04, 6:58, 7:04, 7:06, 7:04, 6:53, 6:55, 7:06, 6:55, 7:04, 6:56

Last 2 - 6:10, 6:03

AP for 17 miles - 6:55

I figured that it would be pretty tough to drop a couple 6:20's after 15 moderate to hard aerobic miles.  But the legs just sprung into a nice fast pace, and I let them go.  Not quite all-out-tank-emptying pace, but definitely harder than HMP.  Probably harder than I should have run overall, but this was a really good confidence-building run.

This ends a 75-mile week (biggest since April), and the legs are still very responsive.  80 next week, then down to 65 for the week of the race (mini-taper).

36F, 8:51 AP.