Random Banter

 Another week in the books and another critical power test done! This was the 4th week of training and thus had one less day of training.  I didn't run on Monday but ran Wednesday and Friday.  Wednesday was a 35 minute easy run and Friday was also 35 minutes easy but with a couple of strides thrown in.  Both of the runs felt good and are probably what was needed.  Once again I've hit the dog days of summer or of training or something.  I just wasn't feeling the training this last week and the idea of getting up early to go running is just getting to me.  But I'm pushing through for the next couple of weeks and then will have some vacation time where I'll be able to run in a new location and at different times.   I wasn't sure what to expect coming into this critical power test.  I was nervous about doing it because it was in the heat or more in the heat than my past CP tests.  I almost tossed in the towel to put it off a week but I ...

 Much like the previous week the Monday that I ran, with some strides, just didn't feel right.  I got in 8 strides vs the 10 I had done the previous Monday but I also decided that I wasn't going to do any of my "faster" work this week and see if I could get out of this funk.  So that's what I did and I think I might be out of this funk, after week 20. But we shall see.  Monday was a 36 minute run with 8 strides Wednesday was a tempo run/fast finish where the last 10 minutes were at a faster pace.  Friday was back to a somewhat easy run with 8 strides.  This one felt okay.  Saturday I ventured up to the park where my trail race at the end of August will be and I ran the course.  I also attempted to do some threshold on it and it was way harder than what I was doing on the road so I did one session of 7 minutes and then one session of 4 minutes and dialed it back!  Despite not being able to get a 2nd set of 7 minutes I think this was good becau...

 Another week completed.  I'd like to say that the feeling I had after completing my 5K continued on but it didn't.  It was a hard week on a couple of different days.  I don't know what the deal was but I think part of it had to do with lack of hydration.   Monday I did some strides and even though I was not hitting a ton of power and I felt like I was just dogging it. So for Wednesday's run I drank some sodium the night before and it felt a lot better.  I thought this was the key to having a decent run on Friday but nope.  It wasn't.  I felt off again.  Saturday's long run was okay but that one I'm fairly certain I didn't hydrate enough as I hadn't planned on running that day (had some work stuff to do and I thought I'd go running on Sunday).   So as you can see it was a mixed back.   I'm hopeful that this upcoming week, after getting used to some of the heat, will be a lot better.  We shall see.  Also this...

 After last weeks 5K race we went on a little vacation for the 4th of July weekend.  I decided that I was not going to bring any running stuff and just enjoy the down time. After all I'm not a professional athlete! As it turns out I could have brought my running stuff and been just fine but I think the time off was worth it for me.  When we got back into town on Tuesday, the 4th, I went out for a run and did some strides.  And my legs felt like bricks.  I think it was a whole combination of things.  Not having run since the race on Saturday, eat WAY to much food on the vacation and doing this right after a 2 hour trip Thursday when I went back out running, in the morning, my legs felt fine.  It was just an easy run for 33 minutes or so.   Saturday my legs felt heavy once again.  I'm not sure why.  It may have been because of the humidity or running at a higher power.  I did 2 x 5 minutes at threshold or high zone 2 for me with ...

 The day had arrived.  All week I had been thinking about this and getting nervous.  I don't know why but I was.  My thought going into it was this is going to hurt and be painful.  And I had resolved myself to that. However when the race was done...it wasn't painful and it didn't hurt.  It felt good and it made me want to run more which is quite the accomplishment.  Most races at the end I feel like shit and don't want to run anymore but since the race I've been thinking about all the running I want to do! But let me tell you about the race! I arrived at the race about 30 minutes early and found my friend who was doing the race with me.  Going into the race it seemed like we would be evenly matched and would be able to run together so that was good.  I asked if he wanted to go and do a warm up run.  He didn't but I went ahead and did a 6-7 minute warm up. The first half of it was just jogging easily.  The second half I threw in som...