Wednesday, May 31, 2017

Update: Threshold intervals STILL suck.

I don't know why but a small part of me somehow half-expected that doing the same threshold interval workout as last Friday (2 warm up, 3 x 2 miles @ HM pace / 2:00 jog, 2 cool down) would be a little easier, since I'm now on my *third* post-base training workout and have done a little strength training. Ha ha ha, WRONG! Nope, this workout still sucked, and if anything, it sucked even harder than last Friday.

I guess technically my average pace on the intervals was about one second per mile faster, but that's hardly anything to brag about. Turns out that it takes more than a week for your anaerobic fitness to improve!

From experience, I know that this is *always* how it is when I first go back to doing faster workouts, but getting halfway through even one mile at this pace and feeling like I want to die does sometimes make a person wonder how on earth they ever managed to run FASTER than that pace for 13 miles in a row. And shooting for 15 seconds per mile faster than THAT just a few months from now?

Monday, May 22, 2017

Threshold intervals are hard + not hip enough "for the Insta"

Let the actual training commence!!

Friends, I love running fast. Over the last couple of years I've also learned to love leisurely long runs and chunks of slow, easy base training, but letting loose for some heart-pounding intervals on the track or a comfortably-hard-but-not-TOO-hard tempo run is still my favorite part of training for a goal race. In fact, this is how I knew I needed a break back in February/March--when I'd see those workouts on my plan and feel dread, and wiping the training schedule clean felt like such a relief. And that's how I've known I'm ready to get back to work--starting to feel a bit bored with slow, easy jogging, and excited about scary-sounding paces.

Don't get me wrong, though; those first few post-base training workouts are never easy, and this week was no exception.

It was a short one since we didn't get back from Hawai'i until early Wednesday morning. Like most runners, at this point I know what all my funny little biomechanical things are, all the places that are injury prone if I don't tend to them with stretching and rolling and strength work (and let's be honest, I really have not been as of late). For some reason I still have this idea in my head that if I take a few days off or take a break from running due to vacation or recovery from a big race or whatever, all those things will heal up and I'll feel fresh and healthy and ready to run when I go back to it.

Except it's completely not true. Almost without exception, my cranky feet and gimpy right hip and curmudgeonly SI joints ALWAYS feel worse after a vacation or a week of post-race rest. It's actually getting back into running (and weirdly, running longer or faster or both) that settles them down (as long as I'm doing the work to take care of them).

Friday, May 19, 2017

Pretty Sunsets + My First Track Meet (...in ~20 years)

Hello again!

We made a valiant effort at coming up with some sort of plan that would keep us from having to return to the mainland, but alas that whole pesky bill-paying thing kept coming up, so finally we surrendered and shuffled onto the plan. I'll post a few more Big Island pics here & there once I've had some time to go through them, but there are a few down at the bottom of this post.

But let's be real, you don't come here to read about my vacations. The big news lately is that I just signed up for my first track meet in nearly 20 years, the 10th Annual PrideMeet on June 17, put on by the SF Track & Field Club.