Thursday, October 26, 2006

Tuesday Oct 24, 2006

So, this was the same ol' Cherry Creek 10k. Great weather, a bit chilly/mid-fifties, and not too breezy. Warmed up FAST as I wanted to go out for about a 8:20-8:40 pace, and hopefully keep it kinda consistent...

So much for that. We took off fast (7:20 or so pace), and even talked about it, and figured we'd get to the gate (1.1 miles, about) and then slow. We did slow a little, but not enough. I only have myself to blame, because at that point I was leading. When we got into the woods though, I started hurting and Steve pulled away a little, pulling me along.

When he got back to the road/gate, he was 100 yards ahead and waited for me. He said something like, "You know, right now we're at 8:01 pace, if we kick it in, we can get under 8:00....so, I said, I'll see what I can do and TOOK OFF! That lasted 1/2 a mile, and then Steve teased that I was holding back, and I just died...so, he ran off again and finished about 100 yards ahead of me.

But, overall, I showed 49:33 for the 6.24 miles, which is an average of about 7:55 pace, which means that last 1.1 miles was about 7:30 pace, which matched the going out pace, almost...yowsers! I definitely felt it later that day and Wednesday.

We were supposed to run today, but, ah, we had a blizzard and the roads were closed so I didn't go into work, and my exercise was nearly 2 hours of shoveling snow drifts up to 2+ feet deep! So, if I make it into work, we should be able to run tomorrow.

Sunday, October 22, 2006

Compare two weeks

Hmmm...just to put them together, here are last Saturday's and today's run, side by side:


Miles OUT-Sat Sun IN-Sat Sun
Home to Sign 0.64 7:24 8:24
Sign to Bit Out 0.25 7:12 8:08
Bit Outer to In 0.32 8:35 8:35
Inner to Bit Top 0.51 9:06 8:31
Top to Inner 0.57 7:46 8:00
Inner to Outer 0.33 7:20 7:13
Outer to Sign 0.24 7:46 7:10
Sign to Home 0.33 7:45 8:12
Total / Avg Pace 3.21 25:24 25:06 7:55 8:08

So, I didn't fully recover from that slow start to go faster, but I was a bit more consistent overall. Saturday had a delta of 1:54 between fastest and slowest pace sections, while Sunday's delta was only 1:21. And Sunday had the fastest split of the two. The consistency is a goal...I'd like to be able to maintain 7:30 the entire route. Next weekend that will be my goal...even though I don't know how to maintain pace right now...I'll use my data to determine the splits I need for each leg and just try to hit those, and see how I feel. There should be enough splits to help me feel it out.

Sunday Oct 22nd, 2006

Home Run, just that little 3.206 miler like last weekend. About 45° and 5-10 mph winds. Not bad. While running I really realized the fact that I'm 1000+ more feet higher than at work. Yowsers.

Just ate a pretty good sized burrito about 1.5 hours before running so went out SLOW and wanted to do a bit of a negative split...which I accomplished. 26:05 total, for an average pace of 8:08 min/mi. Which is just a touch slower than last week, when I took off fast then came back slower. This week I started out slower than that and sped up.

I took splits at certain points. I dug into the data from last week to know the distances and here are the splits:

                       OUT    IN
Home to Sign 8:24
Sign to Bit Outer 8:08
Bit Outer to Inner 8:35
Inner to Bit Top 8:31
Top to Inner 8:00
Inner to Outer 7:13
Outer to Sign 7:10
Sign to Home 8:12

Felt pretty good. Need to strech and clean up now, though, and go play with the kid. Nice run!

Friday October, 20th, 2006

OK, so, Friday went out with the idea of running for an entire hour...We decided to go east, towards the neighborhoods. Temp was mid-high 50's with little wind (5-10, maybe) and sunny, so it felt very warm and comfy. We started out at about 8:30 pace. We felt, after that last run at 8 min/mi pace, which felt so fast, that we should shoot for 8:15-8:45, or something..so, our first mile at 8:30, was pretty good. We then picked up to 8 min/mi for a mile or so, then started slowing down a bit. We went past the water fountain from a previous run and went all the way to a local rec center. (Which doesn't show on the map...Google needs some more updated images!) Stopped for 30 seconds to get a quick drink of water and then headed back.

Steve wasn't feeling so well, as he's been eating Halloween junk food all morning lately...so, I actually was the one trying to keep up the pace. Overall, we had to run around work's parking lot to get in the full hour:

Around the Office
And that got us up to 7.16 miles. So, that's the longest run I've done in years! Felt nice, though. I'm proud to have gotten the full hour out of it! Our pace ended up average right around 8:45, which is pretty good for 7 miles, for me being new backto running!

The full run map says a bit less, but I trust Steve's GPS watch, which he was wearing that day. One thing I just noticed, though, was that gmap also has an elevation feature, so I put that on the map, too.

Full Run
So, that run felt good, and we stretched fairly well after, and I did some bench presses and also iced my heel.

Today is Sunday, and I would like to go for my little 5k around home when Summer takes her nap, we'll see.

Oh, and lastly, that was my 10th run, since I've gotten back into it! Yay, I'm into double digits. Additionally, here is the GPS data from Steve!

Tuesday, October 17, 2006

Monday Oct 16, 2006

Well today's run was odd. I think it was about 60 like Saturday, but I didn't look it up and I am posting this late...so can't say for sure. But it was nice and cool and not windy. So, I didn't know the course, again. Steve says it's about the last run/direction he has for me. Sure we'll take a few detours here and there, but now I know most of the runs. This one went south and along a little creek. The distance was only 3.75 miles, and we took 29:27, with negative splits, but DANG it felt faster than the 7:56 pace it works out to. Hmpf.

Quick, But Slow
So, iced my foot after the run and took some advil, so even today my foot is feeling OK, so I am definitely going to keep up the icing. Our plan is to do a longer run tomorrow, but we'll see how that goes, since today it is snowing. If not snowing, I say we should still go and just stick to the streets. We'll see.

Sunday, October 15, 2006

Saturday Oct 14, 2006

Hmmmm....About 60-63°. 5 MPH winds, nice running weather. Summer went down for a nap, Jessica was showering, so I just took off. Started off kind of fast, sub 8 pace, then went around that loop, which is kinda uphill, so I slowed a bunch. Then I picked it up a little. I carried my GPS, which I'll try downloading the data to the PC later. Basically it said 3.206 miles, a touch more than the gmap. Basically ran the distance in 25:24, which is 7:55 pace. Here's the route:

Un-Even 5K
I mapped this out before I ran it, hoping I'd run it. And it worked. It's a nice run, not really hilly, and running on that dirt road is nice. This will be my normal quick little weekend route, until I'm ready to go longer distances. For now, my work runs are my longer runs.

So, how'd I feel? Not bad, but not great. I've been icing my left heel and taking ibuprofen. Trying to keep ahead of the pain. I should ice it now, even, just to keep the swelling down, especially since Steve and I are supposed to run tomorrow at work. I wish I had been able to keep my pace up, more consistently, was about 8:00 pace, again. I'll see if I can get some data off my GPS.

Stupid Extra data taken from my GPS unit:

More Data
I started out fast and finished a bit quicker, but as seen in the slower pace as the altitude increased, I definitely slowed down up/around the loop. Will be fun running this ovre and over to see how my pace changes. I will try to do a consistent pace throughout sometime down the line. You'll note the graphs don't match the max/min numbers, because I averaged the data points to smooth the lines somewhat, because the GPS was taking data every 3-5 seconds.

Ran this again next week (yeah, this is a later edit on 10/22) and did up the stats from the GPS, based on the stopwatch locations...and here's the paces...check these compared to next Sunday's Run:

                       OUT    IN
Home to Sign 7:24
Sign to Bit Outer 7:12
Bit Outer to Inner 8:35
Inner to Bit Top 9:06
Top to Inner 7:46
Inner to Outer 7:20
Outer to Sign 7:48
Sign to Home 7:54

Friday, October 13, 2006

Friday Oct 13, 2006

So, today it was about 60 or something with hardly any wind. Left heel is kinda hurting...plantar fascitis/heel spurs...or something along those lines.

Steve felt bad from eating sweet-tarts, I felt sluggish and just not into it. But, at least we had some negative splits. Started out SLOW (another new route, with no idea where/how far we're going, so I took it easy...) and it was also uphill most of the way out...so, on way back we slowly picked up the pace, to 7:20...which is fast. I knew it was faster but literally could not tell it was that fast, because it was painful and it felt like I was just trying to maintain the pace. Oops.

Steve wore his GPS watch, and I got this link. Pace was 8:28...not too bad, for being kinda tired.

A Slow, Not so Fun Run
So, we went twice this week. Next week we'll try to go 3 times, MWF, I imagine. We'll see. I feel fine now..heel feels warmish, but overall I feel pretty good.

Wednesday, October 11, 2006

Tuesday Oct 10, 2006

OK, that was cool!

What a Run
And by cool, I mean it was 38° with about 5 mph westernly winds. So, we took off againt the wind, and were a bit faster than 8 minute pace, and kept it up. I forced a slow down for a bit and then we picked it up at the end. Overall it was an 8 min/mile average for the entire 5.25 miles. Good Run!

After the run, though, my right calf muscle hurt a little. Just need more stretching, especially on the cold FAST run days.

Friday, October 06, 2006

Friday Oct 6, 2006

Wow, so I did it, I really did...I ran twice in one week! And after that long super painful one, too! Yippee!!!

So, what'd we do? Well, just about 4 miles in about 32 minutes, right around 8 min/mile pace. mid-high 70's, bit breezy (Web said wind up to 23 MPH...didn't feel that much.)

Route:
Quick 4-Miler
So, the trick with this run...took a slightly different route than expected, not too big of a deal. Still right around 4 miles, so not too bad. The two tricky parts were kicking a stump and taking a tumble, and a portion of the path was run over and basically a mud-pit...basically walked through it to not splash, but still was a few inches deep and got shoes and socks soaked.

Run felt pretty OK. Steve was cool and gently prodded me and kept the pace up. We started the the first bit to the gate at around 7:30-7:45 pace...then slowed a bit, then from the gate back we kept it to about 8 min/mile pace. Not too bad.

Right leg tight right now, I hit it yesterday while shooting pool with Chuck, another guy from work. Had a big ol' protein shake and took my vitamins tonight. Will TRY to run a short distance on Sunday, next run at work is tentatively planned for Tuesday.

Wednesday, October 04, 2006

Tuesday Oct 3, 2006

Felt more like 7 miles... mid-high 70's. Light/no wind, felt really hot out in the sun. Legs were dead, breathing was a chore, but legs felt it the most.

First tim running this loop, so being unknown where going, or the distance, made it hard, as well.

Painful Today