Random Banter

 It's been awhile since I've posted here, for just myself, but I thought I'd go ahead and get this down as it will help with my thought process as I move through this off season.   But first lets look back on this season.  This was probably our most successful season.  The biggest takeaway was the half marathon PR of 1:59.04 in late September.  I'd like to say that I knocked off some stuff in regards to the 5K distance but it just didn't happen (only 1 5K race!).  I'm fairly certain that it would go down right now, without a lot of specific training, but we will leave it as it is.  I also set a new PR in the 8 mile Antelope Trail race distance.  Just by a few seconds but a PR is a PR and I'll take it. For whatever reason that course always gets me! And now we begin the off season.  No races have been thought about or planned so I'm considering this the start of my off season and my big goal for this next year is to just get faster. And t...

 The last race I did was a half marathon at the end of March and for my speed it was more of a shuffle than anything. This was my first race since then and with my coach.   The couple of weeks prior to this race we had backed off of the long runs and did some specific running focused on the 5K speed.  I had dreams of setting a new 5K PR at this elevation (I set a 5K PR at a much lower elevation that I hope to break some day!).  In order to set a 5K PR I needed to average a mile pace of something like 8:15 or less.  I was optimistic to start with but after a workout or two of trying to hold that pace I knew it wasn't in the books.  So I re-adjusted and just wanted to beat my time from the previous year (27:10).   It was kind of odd because the race was on Thursday rather than a Saturday when most races are held. But it is what it is.  The weather turned out to be pretty good because we had been having some high temperature's leading into ...

Today was the day I had been thinking about for the past 5 weeks or so.  It was race day! My last race, to recap, was the trail race at the end of August.  It went well but I came out of that race kind of down due to expectations being set to high and it messed with my head a bit.  I did get over and it's helped me reframe how I think about racing. Racing shouldn't be worrying about what place you will get or even what time you should get (mainly for trails I've discovered) but should be about you versus the course. So that's how I went into this race.   As I mentioned in my post last week my critical power did go down but I thought that was a mistake.  However I thought about it all week and thought maybe it was correct.  On Monday I did a work out of 6 times 2 minutes with 1 minute recovery which was about half of what I had done the previous Monday and I have to say it felt relatively easy.  So heading into the race I told myself that I was goi...

 I logged into the Stryd Powercenter yesterday after my long run to update my run with my thoughts and I noticed that my critical power, CP, had dropped.  It went from 322 to 312 (Stryd has a few bugs in their little graphs...they say it went from 325 to 312 but it was really 322!).  Which caused me to pause for a minute.  I should have known with running more on the treadmill and not doing any long hard runs that it would drop.  But after pausing for a moment I got it back together and told myself that I'd run what I had planned on running this next Saturday.   The race plan.  The Stryd race calculator says that I should race a 5K at about 319 watts and that will put me somewhere in at 27:37 which will not be lower than my summer 5K.  This might be subject to change but I think what I'll do it set my watch to run between 320 and 340 (Coros watches only do 10 watt increments).  My runs in the 330 area have felt really good.  I don't...

 I haven't posted here for a few weeks due to real life!  But I've been running and getting ready for this upcoming race in 2 weeks time.   Things have been going well...until recently.  I've been running 5 days a week and getting a couple of workouts in each week.  One workout is hard and the other isn't as hard.  However the last two times that I've run I haven't been feeling it.  Just felt kinda blah.  I got the runs done but on today's long run I cut it short by about 4 minutes and did not do any faster paced work which I've been doing on most of my long runs as of late.  I have a few theories as to why this might be the case.  Since I've started running 5 days a week my body hasn't caught up until now.  I've actually been gaining weight the last couple of weeks so I wonder if my body is under a lot more stress with this additional day or running.  So I've backed off trying to lose weight and am just going to try and m...

 I didn't expect to race again this year but there was a race that came up for early November so I went for it.  In all honestly I needed this.  It's a very long stretch from late August until sometime in the next year to not have something specific to train for. So this race was put on the schedule.  It's just a 5K race but it's reinvigorated me to get training for something specific.  Here's my plan.  This next week I'm just going to run like I have been running. So that means on Monday it will just be a very short run (25 minutes most likely) on the treadmill. Tuesday will be an outdoor workout of some sort.  I'm not sure what that will be but it will done at lunch time during work...if the weather permits.  I will run either on Wednesday or Thursday just depending on how I feel.  It will be another session like Monday. Friday will be the same.  On Saturday where I usually have a long run I will do a critical power (CP) test to see wh...

 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...

 As I right this I'm feeling a bit burnt out and I need a couple of day break that I'm going to get.  I'll take Monday off from running and possibly go running on Tuesday but we will see.  But lets recap last week! On Monday of last week it was the hardest workout we've had so far.  It was 10x2 minutes with a 1 minute break in between.  This was supposed to be 400 meter repeats but since I don't have access to a track I did the 2 minutes (which is close to what I think my 400 meter time would be...it's a bit more 2:20 I think).  We did these in the 305 to 320 watt range (CP is 306).  It's been a few days so it doesn't seem as bad now but at the time I think I was starting to feel some pukiness coming on. Thankfully I didn't.   Wednesday was supposed to be a tempo run but because I was still feeling it (tired) from Monday's workout I just did an easy run.  Also this was my first run with my new Topo Cyclone 2 shoes (may do a review on the...

 Week 14 is in the books and I'm feeling very good.  This morning for my "long" run I went and ran the 5K course that I'll be racing on in a few weeks time.  I don't know what it is or what it was but I came away from that just feeling really good.  I know it's going to be work when I'm racing but I just came away from it feeling really good like we will knock it out of the park. Who knows.  The Stryd racing calculator says I should race at 313 watts (my CP is 306) and that should bring me in around 28 minutes.  That doesn't feel right currently but maybe that's where I'm at.  I feel like low 27 is more possible...I know there will not be a new 5K PR but 28 just doesn't feel right.  I've cut back my volume a bit and maybe that's why I'm feeling so damn good.  Not a ton but just a little bit.   Week 15 has, for me, a huge workout.  I calls for 10-12 400 meters at 5K pace.  I don't have access to a track so I'm at about 2 ...

 This was the first week where we put in some specific 5K training.  I feel kind of foolish even saying this or even writing about it.  But I'm going to!   As I posted previously, my CP went up to 306, so my Stryd Race Predicted time has me racing at 312 (at the time) and I had 4 minutes at 5K pace with 3 minutes recover on Wednesday.  So that's what I did.  It was a lot of work but I'm hoping that as I get close to the race it will pay off.  This coming week I don't have any specific race pace stuff but I do have 12 strides (30 seconds with 1 minute rest).  On Monday we have "tempo" which is our half marathon pace...LOL!  But I really feel like running at something faster than what we have in the past ran at is helping us.  My pacing, so far, has been faster than it has been in the past and I'm kind of excited about that.  Now I'm not going to set a new 5K PR...I believe but I think my trail race in late August has a chance of...