Posts Tagged ‘long run’
Distance: 5.69k on August 19, 10.92k yesterday
Time: 38:39 on August 19, 85:16 yesterday
I managed to get in one more run before I got sick again on the 21st. This time it was a cold, starting with a sore throat and ending with stuffy nose, slight fever, and feeling crappy. I still have a runny nose, but I’m pretty much back to normal. I even jump started my running by doing a long run yesterday. I feel pretty good afterward, and I feel like I got my groove back. Hopefully, I’m done with being sick for a while, so I can get serious about my training to do the half in just a few weeks.
The first part of the run was on my own, running from my house to the Breakwater. It was nice, a bit windy, but still sunny. I only really noticed the wind when I met it head on. It was crowded through downtown, but I think I got there just after the Clipper arrived because lots of people on the sidewalk were dragging luggage behind them. Despite the crowds, I managed to average about 7 minutes per km to the Breakwater, a bit slower than my “usual” but not bad.
I got to the Breakwater just in time to meet Erika, for the other part of my run. We ran from there to Clover point and back, which was just over 5k. It was nice on the way to Clover point, still sunny and the wind was at our back, pushing us along. The run back was a bitch. It went by quickly because Erika and I were chatting, but the wind was so powerful we could barely hear each other. Of course, now the wind was pushing against us, which provided a good resistance. About 1k away from Erika’s car, the huge cloud started rolling in from the West, and it got darker and colder. By the time we got to her car, it was chilly. We did a really quick stretch and warmed up in the car.
I had forgotten how good it felt to have done a long run, even if this time it was only about 11k. I felt a sense of accomplishment and of well-deserved fatigue. Of course I also felt hungry because I only snacked before the run, so then I felt good about being able to eat whatever I want. I’m back to work tomorrow, but I’m hoping to get in a couple of short runs, so I can do another long one next week. I didn’t realize how much I missed them until I finished this one!
Any long runners out there? Do you miss the long runs when you don’t do them for a while?
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I’m so woefully behind on my blogging that I’m almost embarrassed to put up this catch-up post, but I’m also behind on my running, so it won’t take that long. I’ve been struggling to take the time to post because I seem to be doing most of my runs after the kids go to bed in the evenings, not leaving me much time to post before I need to get to bed. I promise to make more of an effort to post more often, but in the meantime, here are a few notes about the last few runs.
Tuesday July 13
Distance: 14.73k
Time: 1:39:38
This run went really well, although it was a bit late. I was originally supposed to do it last week, but it didn’t happen. Then I was to do it on Monday, but after two night shifts, I really wasn’t up to running such a long run the first day off. This now puts me about half a week behind my training schedule, and with doing 6 shifts in 8 days, I’ll likely get even further behind. I was actually tired enough the afternoon before this run that I fell asleep on the couch, which made me think that maybe I should just do the half in October. I really wasn’t sure if I would be up to doing the whole 15k. Fortunately, the nap gave me enough energy that I got it done, and even felt good afterwards.
My right foot got a bit twingey after the 11k mark, but it was gone by the time I went to bed that night. It only seems to happen after I do the longer distances, so I suspect that I just need new shoes. I can’t remember how long ago I started using these shoes but I’m sure the marathon did a number on them.
Thursday July 15
Distance: 5.67k
Time: 36:55
I almost didn’t do this run. I brought all my gear to work to go afterwards, but this day was absolutely awful. It was crazy busy and one baby wasn’t doing well. I was tired and cranky and just wanted to go home and have a beer. But I talked myself into going for the run because I knew I would be able to get out all the frustration of the day. And it did. I put on some Linkin Park, and just went. I felt so much better than if I had just gone home, and I got another run under my belt. Because I was so tired, I didn’t even try for speed. I just kept up what felt like a comfortable, relaxed pace, but I ended up less slow than I thought. Bonus!
Monday July 19
Distance: 19.78k
Time: 2:22:32
This one was a challenging run. I was tired. My last set at work was rough, although the last night was blessedly quiet, so I was recovering from that. Also, I didn’t have a great sleep the night before. And just to be crazy, I missed two other runs this week; instead of making them up, I decided to just try for the long run so I could move on in the schedule. So when I started, I really only planned to do the Elk Lake trail once around, which is about 10k. I brought enough water and Gatorade (I thought) to do two laps, but I wasn’t sure if I was up for it. I struggled with the first lap, and I should have listened to my body, but of course I didn’t.
I made two mistakes after I finished that first lap. Firstly, although it was a struggle, I decided to push through and turn around at the 4 k mark and come back, making a total run of just under 17k (I started at about the 0.5k mark). But that wasn’t the mistake; the decision at the 4k mark to just finish the lap was. Secondly, I decided not to take my Gu at the 10k mark, because I was planning to do only 17k. To be fair, I did take the Gu after I decided to finish the lap near the 14k mark, but by then I think it was too late. I also ran out of fluid to drink at the 17k mark. So, the last 3k were not great. I was surprised my splits weren’t worse, to be honest. I felt like crap and wanted to stop, but I still had to get to my car and it was faster to run than to walk. So I ran. Now I feel good that I did it, but at the time I wished I had listened to my body instead of my stupid head. Lesson learned.
Thursday July 22
Distance: 5k
Time: guessing around 32 minutes
Tonight was a naked run. No, not that kind of naked, nobody needs to see that. My son hid my iPhone and when I found it just before my run, the battery was dead. No RunKeeper, no tunes. I thought it was going to be boring, to run with no music, but it wasn’t bad. I also got some new shoes, so I got to test them out. They didn’t have my regular shoes in my size, so I decided to go for something different. I was a bit nervous about that, because my other shoes got me through my marathon. But these seemed comfy in the store and (I hate to admit) they are prettier. They were only $10 more, and I had a $10 coupon, so it evened out, right?
Since I didn’t have music, I got to focus a bit on my form, and I noticed that I don’t really land on my heels when I run; I land on the outside middle of my foot and then roll in. I think that’s good, isn’t it? I did notice that my pinky toes got a bit squished in my new shoes, but I was wearing slide-y socks so maybe that’s it. And they didn’t hurt, they just felt crowded.
So now, I’m only about one run behind on my schedule, and I’m still not sure if I will upgrade to the marathon. I’ve now done almost half that distance only 4 weeks into my schedule, but my biggest challenge has been making the time, while still having time with my kids. Sometimes I find I have to choose between running and spending time with my 3 year-old, especially for the longer runs, since I can’t wait until after the kids go to bed. I’m considering instead just staying with the half marathon, and making it a goal to (1) run the whole thing, and (2) finish in less than 2 hours. I’m giving myself until the 6 week mark to decide for sure, but I’m surprised I really don’t know what I’m going to do yet. The suspense!
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Posted in Running Marathon | 
Tags: iPhone, long run, marathon, music, RunKeeper, runners, Running | 
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Distance: 7.91k
Time: 55:02
Yesterday’s run was more than a run. I had missed my “hills” run for the week, so I decided to combine it with the “long” run, to make it a bit of a challenge. But it was more than even that. I needed to push myself, to feel like I was good at this, because my night shift was awful. I won’t go into details, but it was really busy for me; I had three admissions that night, two of which were back-to-back. I felt like I was scramblling just to get caught up all night. Partly because of that, and partly because I haven’t been in this job that long, I made a mistake that resulted in a baby being admitted to the NICU. I felt horrible, which looking back on it, is a good thing. I know what I did wrong, and it will never happen again.
One of the reasons I left my other position was that I was worried about becoming too hard. Surgical nursing requires a certain amount of internal armour, just to be able to work with people that are suffering and in pain, not to mention navagating oceans of bureacracy every day. Those that wear their hearts on their sleeves are easily crushed on surgical floors. In contrast, I find working on mother-babe to be much different. For the most part, you are working with families at the happiest part of their lives. It doesn’t happen with every family, but with some you get to feel that, in a small but significant way, you are helping to make their experience even better. But without that armour, if something goes wrong, you feel it much more keenly. When it happens to a baby, you feel awful.
It’s been over five years since I’ve been the new kid on the block, and it’s not always a comfortable place to be. Although I was ready to leave that floor, I was good there. Not the best nurse, but good. I could walk into a room and tell right away if someone was not right, and I knew exactly what to do, and more than once helped keep a patient from going sour. I didn’t even realize how much I missed that until I didn’t have it anymore. Working with babies is a completely different world from adults. When they start to go bad, it can happen quickly and seemingly without warning. I know at least part of why I felt so bad was that when the baby went bad, I felt helpless, and I’m not supposed to be the helpless one. I’m supposed to be the one who knows what to do. I know that it’ll come with time, but it’s still not a good place to be.
So yesterday I did a harder run, and the longest run I’ve done since the marathon. I’m good at running, or at least I’m better than I used to be. I needed to have that feeling of competence, of strength, of setting a challenge and meeting it. Needed to be working my body and having nothing to think about but my breathing and my feet hitting the pavement. And Lady Gaga. Do I feel less bad about that shift? Not really. But I know that I can do better. I used to be content with being a good nurse, but running has taught me that I don’t have to be settle, and that I can always strive to be better, even if I don’t reach it. Now I want to be a great nurse. And I don’t have to accept anything less.
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Distance: 16.2 recorded
Time: 1:55:07 recorded
Today’s run was different than most of my runs, for several reasons. Firstly, I decided to run along the Galloping Goose Trail for the first time. Doing a new route is not that unusual, but I didn’t really decide to try it until after I left the house. I contemplated running near Beacon Hill Park, but once I left, I remembered the Galloping Goose and decided to go there. The advantage is that, unlike my last run, the route is linear, so as long as I ran far enough out, I had no choice but to run back. So no wimping out and cutting my run short. I had heard that it was pretty flat, and it was. The only real disadvantage was the traffic lights that I had to wait at along the route. Call me spoiled, but I hate stopping at lights during my runs.
Secondly, I had some serious RunKeeper issues, all due to the phone calls I received during my runs. This is the first time I’ve had problems with RukKeeper since I did a re-install a couple of months ago, and I hardly ever get phone calls during my runs. For some reason today, I got three phone calls during my run. Each time, the RunKeeper application would stop (which it has to do because Apple won’t allow other apps to run during phone calls), but then when I would resume the program, it wouldn’t play any music. So I had to stop the program and restart it again. This happened even when I ignored the phone call, which was really annoying because RunKeeper used to resume on its own after the phone call, as long as you didn’t answer it. So, I actually had three “runs” recorded on my RunKeeper and had to add them up. I’m sure there’s some time/distance missing in between, and I wasn’t able to see my pacing over the whole run.
The other problem was that the program seemed unable to handle having a training program running while the voice prompts were turned on. For both of the longer segments of my run, the voice prompts did not let me know my per-kilometer pace until partway into the run, where it would suddenly start working again.
Finally, I decided to try to incorporate more walking into my runs, to be more like what I’ll be doing during the marathon. On my last half marathon, I used the ratio of a walk break every 5 kilometers for a drink, and a gel every 10 kilometers. This worked well, but I suspect I will need to either take longer walk breaks during the marathon, or to take them more frequently. I had heard about Jeff Galloway’s run/walk method, and although that seemed like too much walking, I decided to try longer, more frequent breaks than I was doing. So today, I set up the RunKeeper for run intervals of 20 minutes, with 5 minute walk breaks.
As mentioned earlier, RunKeeper seemed to have trouble with intervals and with giving my per-kilometer pacing. But aside from this, I’m not sure the walk intervals helped my overall time or energy level for this run. Apparently people have found this run/walk method has decreased their overall run time because they can run faster when they have breaks. I did not seem to run much faster than I usually do, although I can’t be sure because I did not get accurate pacing. As for whether it lowered my overall time, I can’t be sure of that either, because the last time I ran the same distance was in March, and that run was not that great. If I had done this course without walking and kept an even 7 minute-per-kilometer pace, I would have finished only two minutes faster. So maybe I did run faster.
As for my energy level, I was about as tired as I usually am after a longish run. I could have probably kept going, if I had the time and had brought a gel with me. I felt better than I did after my last run, and I certainly wasn’t anywhere near as sore as I was after the half. I guess that’s significant since I’ll have to double that distance in just under 3 weeks.
I think for my final long run, I’ll go back to my break every 5k, but I will take a longer break. At this point, I’m not going for speed, but for distance, so I can afford to take the extra time for more walking. As for the pacing, I probably won’t have the luxury of knowing that during the marathon because I’m positive my iPhone battery won’t last the whole race using RunKeeper. I’ll be lucky if it holds out just playing music. My sister will probably have her Garmin with her, but I doubt she wants to call out our time and pace every kilometer. Maybe every five?
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Posted in Running Marathon |
Tags: Garmin, grumpy, iPhone, long run, marathon, RunKeeper, runners, Running |
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Distance: 9.91k
Time: 1:10:31
This was an insanely slow run. Only two splits were less than 7 minutes, and my slowest split was 7:29. I haven’t gone this slowly in months. I was also supposed to do 15-16k today, but I couldn’t push through. I just didn’t have it in me today.
This is only the second run since the 1/2 marathon, and it has been 5 days since my last run. I got sick on Wednesday and Thursday, and then had to work Friday and Saturday. I felt optimistic when I started, but I started slow and couldn’t get into that zone where I’m just cruising along. It was a struggle, even going as slowly as I was. When I finished the first lap of the Walkway, I almost stopped right there. But, I managed to talk myself into doing another lap. I accepted that I was going to be slow, but I just wanted to get the distance in.
I guess these runs happen to everyone now and then, and I haven’t had one in a long while. It reminded me that not every run is going to be great, and that you have to listen to your body. I’m happy that I was able to push through to get 10k in, and that I didn’t let myself get discouraged by the slowness. Was it my best run? Not by a long shot. But it wasn’t my worst, either.
But now I’m left with a dilemma. I could try for another 15k run in a couple of days, if I’m not working. But then I still need to do my last long run of at least 30k, next week. If I make up this run later in the week, I should probably push the long distance run a bit, too. But then I’m pushing the long run into my two week taper period. Also, I’m a bit concerned about the fact that I haven’t run a distance greater than 22k at once, and I’m supposed to do 30+ in a week. Then, in three weeks, I’m supposed to do 42.2k. The marathon has gone from something in the distant future, to something that’s coming up pretty damn fast. I’m starting to worry about finishing it.
I’m no quitter and I’m pretty stubborn, so I’m still pretty sure that come hell or high water, I’ll finish the race. It might not be pretty, though. I was tired after the 1/2, but I was only a bit sore afterwards, and only for a couple of days. I’m concerned that I won’t get off so easy after the marathon. I know that lots of people get this panic at about this point, and are tempted like me to try to get in at least a couple more big runs. But I also know that it’s probably the worst thing I could do to myself, and is a virtual guarantee I’ll injure myself. So, I’m gonna try to be the voice of sanity, and if I can, do the 15-16k run in a couple of days, do the 30 within a week of that, and then taper.
I realized that this training is kind of like studying for a big exam. I used to be the do lots of studying right before the exam, sometimes with late nights; aka cramming. This training is more like what you should do, which is review the day’s stuff every class, then review everything up to that point every week, gradually building on what you know. It’s hard to give in to my temptation to cram in a few extra long runs to know I can do the distance, but I know that the taper is important to rest my body for the race. Because unlike an exam where all the work is mental, the marathon will require me to be at my best both mentally and physically. Look at that; I’m all wise and stuff. Better go have a drink.
