It appears I forgot to update last week. I know you've all been waiting on baited breath.
Week 3 started out rough. Later in the day after my Week 2 long run, my shins started to really hurt, even while I was sitting down. So, I skipped my Sunday run altogether, and still took Monday off.
Then I ran 2 miles Tuesday, 2 miles Wednesday (and skipped speed training), 3 miles Thursday, and 3 miles Friday.
My legs were doing pretty well, so I tried to get back on schedule at that point. I did my scheduled 6 miler on Saturday, and 3 miles on Sunday. Only minor pain.
So, I decided to attempt the regular Week 4 schedule, which was as follows:
Sunday: 3 miles (which I did, as you saw above)
Monday: off (also had no trouble with this)
Wednesday: speed work (had to skip this to go to a friend's guitar recital, but did a really hella hard 5-mile treadmill hill workout in the morning instead)
Thursday: off
Friday: 3 miles (did it on the treadmill)
Saturday: 8 miles (did it outside at about an 11-minute pace)
I'm happy to report that I did everything with almost no complaints from my shins. I felt some little tiny twinges now and then, but I've been icing after each workout and not feeling anything between workouts. I may just have managed to conquer this bout of shin splints.
So, I'm back on track and feeling great! I'm going to try to get some kind of hill workout in each week to prepare myself for the River Bank Run, which I've heard is really hilly. The treadmill workout I did on Wednesday was this:
-Run easy for 10 minutes. ("Easy" for me on a treadmill usually means a 10-minute mile)
-Run 90 seconds at 3% grade. Recover for 3 minutes. Repeat once.
-Run 60 seconds at 5% grade. Recover for 2 minutes. Repeat once.
-Run 30 seconds at 7% grade. Recover for 1 minute. Repeat once.
-Run 10 minutes easy.
I did it with two minor adjustments: After the last hill, I had to slow my speed to about 5.5 for a few minutes, and I ran more like 13 minutes at the end to make it a total of 5 miles. It was super hard, but I sort of liked it. It was a good substitute for speed work.
I'm feeling really good, not only with my shins, but also aerobically in general. Though I was kind of tired at the end of 8 miles, I felt like I had a couple more miles left in me if I needed them. (I met my friend Kim on the running path -- she was on an 18-mile run. Oy.)
Three other notes of interest:
1. I took the plunge and registered for the marathon. Ack! It's on 10/10/10 -- I simultaneously fear it and look forward to it.
2. I bought a Wii and Wii Fit Plus, and plan on using it to do strength training and yoga on my days off from running and hopefully some other times, too.
3. It's almost March, and as soon as the weather warms, I'm planning on buying a bike and biking to work once or twice a week. Both this and the yoga and strength training should make me less injury prone this year.
So, good news all around. Here's the plan for this week:
Sunday: 3 miles (did this outside, but no idea how fast, since I didn't take my watch)
Monday: off running, do Wii Fit!
Tuesday: 4 miles
Wednesday: speed training
Thursday: off running, do Wii Fit!
Friday: 3 miles
Saturday: 7 miles
That doesn't look bad. The next week, however, is much harder...
Miles on my 2150s: 51
Miles on my foundations: 42
Sunday, February 28, 2010
Saturday, February 13, 2010
Week 2 complete
Another week of the training plan done with one minor cheat.
Sunday I did the planned 5 miles outside, and it was a thousand times nicer than Saturday!
Monday I took off. (Somehow, I never have trouble with the rest days.)
Tuesday I did 3 miles on the treadmill in the am.
Wednesday, despite the 12+ inches of snow on the ground, I went to the speed workout. I was the only one of my group of friends to go, and when I got to the site, I found out the workout was mile repeats. (Ugh) So, I did three mile repeats in my Yak Traks in the snowy zoo parking lot. I'd be more bitter, except coach told me I got bonus points for coming out. My upper right shin was sore when I got home, so I iced. Nothing like icing when you get home from a cold workout. :-(
Thursday was an off day, and unfortunately my shins bothered me all day. So when I woke up Friday morning, I decided to skip my 3 miler, deciding that I could do it when I got home if I felt up to it. Shins didn't feel too bad in the afternoon, but I still skipped it in favor of a 15 minute yoga workout from YouTube, 30 minutes of hand weights, and 20 minutes on the Air Climber.
Today I went out and ran 7 miles. I thought it was going to feel bitter cold, but I'm quickly learning that it's not the temperature that matters. It's the wind. And it was pretty calm today, so I was comfortable. Comfortable in my long underwear, thermal running pants, wicking shirt, thermal shirt with thumb holes, running jacket, gloves, ninja face mask, and ear band, that is. :-)
Shins were bothering me pretty much through the whole thing, unfortunately. I have a hard time with this kind of thing. I felt twinges all the time, but never anything that really made it uncomfortable to run. What was uncomfortable was my worried mind asking myself if I should stop every 2 minutes. I ended up doing the whole run, though, and all that feels sore now is that same upper right shin that hurt on Wednesday. I'm going to have to watch that, but it feels more sore than injured, and I'm certain it's muscle and not bone.
So anyway. That was my week. Friday was a minor cheat, but it was justified and probably better in the long run.
Miles on my 2150s: 35
Miles on my foundations: 23
Here's the plan for Week 3:
Sunday: 5 miles (possibly on the treadmill so I can do a longer hill workout)
Monday: off
Tuesday: 3 miles
Wednesday: speed work
Thursday: off
Friday: 3 miles
Saturday: 6 miles
I like this whole not-every-week-gets-longer thing. When I was making up my own training plans, I always made long runs get longer every week. But the pros say my long run goes back to 6 miles next week! Yay!
Hope the cold weather doesn't last much longer.
If Google Buzz put this on your feed, and you read all the way to the end... I'm impressed. :-)
Sunday I did the planned 5 miles outside, and it was a thousand times nicer than Saturday!
Monday I took off. (Somehow, I never have trouble with the rest days.)
Tuesday I did 3 miles on the treadmill in the am.
Wednesday, despite the 12+ inches of snow on the ground, I went to the speed workout. I was the only one of my group of friends to go, and when I got to the site, I found out the workout was mile repeats. (Ugh) So, I did three mile repeats in my Yak Traks in the snowy zoo parking lot. I'd be more bitter, except coach told me I got bonus points for coming out. My upper right shin was sore when I got home, so I iced. Nothing like icing when you get home from a cold workout. :-(
Thursday was an off day, and unfortunately my shins bothered me all day. So when I woke up Friday morning, I decided to skip my 3 miler, deciding that I could do it when I got home if I felt up to it. Shins didn't feel too bad in the afternoon, but I still skipped it in favor of a 15 minute yoga workout from YouTube, 30 minutes of hand weights, and 20 minutes on the Air Climber.
Today I went out and ran 7 miles. I thought it was going to feel bitter cold, but I'm quickly learning that it's not the temperature that matters. It's the wind. And it was pretty calm today, so I was comfortable. Comfortable in my long underwear, thermal running pants, wicking shirt, thermal shirt with thumb holes, running jacket, gloves, ninja face mask, and ear band, that is. :-)
Shins were bothering me pretty much through the whole thing, unfortunately. I have a hard time with this kind of thing. I felt twinges all the time, but never anything that really made it uncomfortable to run. What was uncomfortable was my worried mind asking myself if I should stop every 2 minutes. I ended up doing the whole run, though, and all that feels sore now is that same upper right shin that hurt on Wednesday. I'm going to have to watch that, but it feels more sore than injured, and I'm certain it's muscle and not bone.
So anyway. That was my week. Friday was a minor cheat, but it was justified and probably better in the long run.
Miles on my 2150s: 35
Miles on my foundations: 23
Here's the plan for Week 3:
Sunday: 5 miles (possibly on the treadmill so I can do a longer hill workout)
Monday: off
Tuesday: 3 miles
Wednesday: speed work
Thursday: off
Friday: 3 miles
Saturday: 6 miles
I like this whole not-every-week-gets-longer thing. When I was making up my own training plans, I always made long runs get longer every week. But the pros say my long run goes back to 6 miles next week! Yay!
Hope the cold weather doesn't last much longer.
If Google Buzz put this on your feed, and you read all the way to the end... I'm impressed. :-)
Saturday, February 6, 2010
Week 1 complete
Well, in a lot of ways, this was a bad week to start a training plan. But I have managed to stay on track. Mostly.
On Tuesday, I worked 10 hours, so when I came home, I really did not want to run. But, I put on my workout clothes and went down to the fitness room, determined to get in my 4 miles. But all the treadmills were taken. So, then my options were either going outside (which I just could not bring myself to do), not doing anything at all (which would have made me both mad and guilty), or substituting a workout on my Air Climber.
I pulled out the Air Climber and found the DVD, and started the workout. About 5 minutes in, the resistance band snapped, causing me to whack myself in the face with the plastic handle. At this point, I thought I would be justified in quitting, but I didn't. I stayed on the damn thing for 40 minutes. I don't think it really counted for 4 miles, but I'm counting it for 2 or 3.
The training plan for Wednesday said 4-mile Fartlek, but I went to the Fleet Feet speed workout instead. We (my running friends and I) got there for the early start and got to talk to Coach Leach. He told us the workout, which was to run 800 m out, take a recovery, then do the way back in two 400 m stretches, with recovery in between. We were to focus on "foot popping," or trying to get our feet off the ground quickly. He also said that when we were struggling for breath, to focus on long exhales.
We did three sets of 800-400-400, plus the mile to and from the store, plus the mile and a half to and from the train... so my total for the night was about six and a half miles.
I took Thursday off, and on Friday I did 3 miles on the treadmill. Because the River Bank Run route apparently has a lot of hills, and I don't do much work with hills in Chicago, I did a treadmill hill workout that I got from runnersworld.com. I did a half mile at 0%, then did 1 minute at 2%, 1 minute at 3%, and 1 minute at 4%, followed by 3 minutes back at 0%. I repeated the 2-3-4-recovery thing 4 times, then tacked on 2 more minutes of recovery to get to 3 miles. While the hills were hard, it sort of made the workout go by faster.
Today I went out and did one of the most miserable runs of my running career. It was cold out -- 25 degrees with 10-15 mph winds. I have run in colder conditions, though, so I thought I was prepared. And for the first 3 miles, it wasn't bad. However, what I didn't realize was that the reason it wasn't so bad was that the wind was at my back. When I turned around, I thought I might die. Icy winds were coming almost directly at me. The cold was making my eyes water, and then the tears were freezing on my face. But somehow, I finished. Six miles in 1:07:04, which is like an 11:10 pace or so.
Miles on my 2150s: 21.5
Miles on my foundations: 15
Right now I am icing my shins, because they are still giving me some trouble. Still nothing on the level of last year, but I'm trying to make sure I don't let it get to that level. If they are bothering me all day, I'll skip my run tomorrow, and maybe Tuesday too.
But if all goes well, here's the Week 2 plan:
Sunday: 5 miles
Monday: off
Tuesday: 3 miles
Wednesday: speed work
Thursday: off
Friday: 3 miles (perhaps the hill workout again unless we do hills on Wednesday)
Saturday: 7 miles
On Tuesday, I worked 10 hours, so when I came home, I really did not want to run. But, I put on my workout clothes and went down to the fitness room, determined to get in my 4 miles. But all the treadmills were taken. So, then my options were either going outside (which I just could not bring myself to do), not doing anything at all (which would have made me both mad and guilty), or substituting a workout on my Air Climber.
I pulled out the Air Climber and found the DVD, and started the workout. About 5 minutes in, the resistance band snapped, causing me to whack myself in the face with the plastic handle. At this point, I thought I would be justified in quitting, but I didn't. I stayed on the damn thing for 40 minutes. I don't think it really counted for 4 miles, but I'm counting it for 2 or 3.
The training plan for Wednesday said 4-mile Fartlek, but I went to the Fleet Feet speed workout instead. We (my running friends and I) got there for the early start and got to talk to Coach Leach. He told us the workout, which was to run 800 m out, take a recovery, then do the way back in two 400 m stretches, with recovery in between. We were to focus on "foot popping," or trying to get our feet off the ground quickly. He also said that when we were struggling for breath, to focus on long exhales.
We did three sets of 800-400-400, plus the mile to and from the store, plus the mile and a half to and from the train... so my total for the night was about six and a half miles.
I took Thursday off, and on Friday I did 3 miles on the treadmill. Because the River Bank Run route apparently has a lot of hills, and I don't do much work with hills in Chicago, I did a treadmill hill workout that I got from runnersworld.com. I did a half mile at 0%, then did 1 minute at 2%, 1 minute at 3%, and 1 minute at 4%, followed by 3 minutes back at 0%. I repeated the 2-3-4-recovery thing 4 times, then tacked on 2 more minutes of recovery to get to 3 miles. While the hills were hard, it sort of made the workout go by faster.
Today I went out and did one of the most miserable runs of my running career. It was cold out -- 25 degrees with 10-15 mph winds. I have run in colder conditions, though, so I thought I was prepared. And for the first 3 miles, it wasn't bad. However, what I didn't realize was that the reason it wasn't so bad was that the wind was at my back. When I turned around, I thought I might die. Icy winds were coming almost directly at me. The cold was making my eyes water, and then the tears were freezing on my face. But somehow, I finished. Six miles in 1:07:04, which is like an 11:10 pace or so.
Miles on my 2150s: 21.5
Miles on my foundations: 15
Right now I am icing my shins, because they are still giving me some trouble. Still nothing on the level of last year, but I'm trying to make sure I don't let it get to that level. If they are bothering me all day, I'll skip my run tomorrow, and maybe Tuesday too.
But if all goes well, here's the Week 2 plan:
Sunday: 5 miles
Monday: off
Tuesday: 3 miles
Wednesday: speed work
Thursday: off
Friday: 3 miles (perhaps the hill workout again unless we do hills on Wednesday)
Saturday: 7 miles
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