Every Run is a Great Run!

Crosstrain day: 20min Bike, 20min Stairs

Weight-train day

Disastrous weekend. Went to bed Friday looking forward to a nice 16-miler LSD run the next day but then promptly got some nasty stomach flu and spent most of the night running to the john. Also got fever/chills and achey all-over. It was obvious by about 2am that the Saturday day run was NOT going to happen. So I spent all day Saturday pretty much laying around feeling horrible, didn't eat much and tried to sleep when I could. I've guess I should feel lucky I haven't been sick for about a year and a half and haven't had to miss a long run forever.

Payback Day!! Finally..what a beatiful day for a run. With the Saturday sickness laying around there were a few things (besides the run) I hadn't accomplished that needed to be done so I decided to take 1/2 day off work.  Went out for a run-in-the-sun and decided to do something I haven't done for a while---just run for fun, don't look at the watch and just enjoy the beatiful day. I was totally pumped by the weather and decided to run down a few roads I've never tried before. This was mostly good but I did sort of get lost for a bit and ended up going a few more miles than planned. But at least this makes me feel better about the missed Saturday run. I did run out of gas pretty good after about 11-12 miles, probably due to lingering effects of flu and not eating much over the weekend (but hey I finally may have finally got rid of one of those holiday xtra pounds!!)

Crosstrain: bike, weights, stair

Tried doing my usual Monday treadmill interval workout outside in the nice weather. Thought I felt good at the start but it was quickly obvious I didn't have it going today. I guess (hope?) between the weekend flu and running long on Monday I had no gas in the tank. Ended up averaging about 15 sec/mile slower on my interval pace compared to what I had been doing.

Hopefully next week will be better.

Crosstrain 40 minutes: 20 bike, 20 stairs. I think I'll stick with this routine for another month or so and then replace this workout with another run workout as I start adding 2-a-day and eventually even a few 3-a-day runs to get ready for the relay.

Crosstrain: Weights, bike, stretch.

Tried to hold my flat course marathon pace (around 8:00) for most of the run. Was able to get 7 miles between 7:45 and 8:15 and felt pretty good until about mile 9 or so. Hamstrings seem to be getting a little better.

After a slow mile warmup on the treadmill I ran the Eagles View hill course with Paul for the 1st time in a very long time. I was pleased that it felt a bit easier than expecting going up the hills but I was pretty much spent the last 1/2 mile or so and couldn't quite keep up with Paul who finished very strong. Our GPS watches didn't want to agree on pace but I think we decided we ended up somewhere just over 38 minutes and something under 8 min/mile overall pace. I definitely get a better workout running with others rather than solo...thanks Paul.

Note: This was also 1st day breaking in some new Asic Gel 2120's, the shoes felt great.

Crosstrain day: Bike, Weights, Stair

Lakeview run with Paul, Nate and Cory. Plan was to follow Sasha's suggestion to do 3-5 mile run at 7:00 pace rather than the interval workout I have been doing. Since this was the first time doing this workout we decided to play it conservative and just go for 3 miles today. All-in-all I think we did pretty good, it was a little tough the 1st mile and 1/2 with the wind against us but once we turned around and got the breeze out our back we picked up the pace and were able to speed up each mile. I was certainly impressed with all the other runners who all had legitimate reasons not to do well on this run. According to my GPS paces for the fast miles were 7:02, 6:57, and 6:46 which I think averages to around 6:55.

Perhaps next week we can shoot for 3.25 or 3.5 miles

Crosstrain: 20min Bike, 20min Stair

Crosstrain: Weights

Longest run since SGM. I misjudged a bit and ended up going a little longer than intended. Had to go the last 5 miles by myself and pretty much felt totally out of gas the last 3 miles or so. I ran the first 10-12 miles around 8:00-8:45 pace and the last miles very slow (9-10). I should have probably ran the first 1/2 slower and saved more energy for the last 1/2 and maybe I could have picked it up toward the end. Felt pretty tired all day Saturday.

Originally intended to run up Loafer canyon in the morning, however the snowstorm quickly ended that idea. Didn't actually run until 4pm, for some reason I never seem to have a good run at this time of day. I ran from my house down to the river bottoms and did some half-hearted hill repeats. Had an upset stomach for some reason so I didn't push it much and was happy to get home to quickly head for the john. Maybe I have the same lingering junk that Kerry has.

Crosstrain: Bike/Weights/Stair.  Still low on energy today, didn't work very hard. Decided to start estimating/indicating equivalent runnings for my cross-training workouts. I'm not sure exactly how accurate this might be but I wanted to at least get some credit for my cross-training efforts.

Lakeview tempo run with Paul and Cory. Went a 1/4 mile further than last week, averaging just under 7 min pace again. Considering 7 min/mi. is supposed to be my 10K pace I was really hoping this run would feel a bit easier.

Crosstrain 40 minutes: Bike/Stair

Crosstrain: Weights/stairs

Saturday AM long run with the SF running crowd. Lots of people showed up, made for a fun, social run. Wanted to hold 8:00 - 8:15 pace for most of the run and was able to for the most part. However I still find I tire out after around 8 miles. My high hamstring tendonitis seems to have a lot to do with it.

Here are my mile splits:

1- 9:37

2- 8:12

3- 8:09

4 - 8:16

5 - 8:05

6 - 8:19

7 - 8:21

8 - 8:14

9 - 8:23

10 - 8:12

11 - 8:10

12 - 9:00

12.6 - 8:29

After mile warmup on treadmill ran Eagle View with Paul and Cory. I don't think any of us were terribly motivated to begin with, however we charged up the hill in pretty good time and I felt like we pushed it pretty well on the way back.  I was grateful to be running with the group today as I never would have worked nearly as hard running solo.

Splits as follows (my watched glitched the 1st mile so I'm just guessing on that mile):

1 - 8:30 ?

2- 8:24

3 - 8:32

4 - 7:35

5 - 7:04

Oh yeah, I guess I also ran a slow (9:30??) mile on the treadmill.

Crosstrain: bike/weights/stairs

Good day. Bad run.  Ran later than usual today due to taking day off from work to take my son to the MTC. The last couple days have been a bit of an emotional roller coaster. I had hoped to continue the Wednesday pattern of doing are 7:00m/mi tempo runs doing something over 3 miles at that pace. However after 2 miles it was obvious it wasn't going to happen today as I fought nausea for most of the run. Rather than list my pitiful split times I decided to list my top 5 excuses for having such a bad run, listed in order of probability.

1) The gigantic breakfast I had this morning at IHOP (Spinach & mushroom omelette with 3 huge pancakes on the side). I was burping it up throughout the run, eccentuating the nausea effect. I may not be eating at IHOP for a while.

2) Running solo instead of with my inspiring running partners.

3) Emotional letdown after all the MTC excitement during the week.

4) Ran too hard on Monday.

5) I am a wimp (actually this should be probably be higher in the list)