A Virtual Race and a Long Run

 

Laura at Mommy Run Fast is co-hosting a virtual race to raise money for the Red Cross's efforts on behalf of Hurricane Sandy victims (it runs through December 1, so you can still sign up; click the bib image above for more information). Dan and I had been looking to donate anyway to a hurricane-related cause, and I had a speedier one-hour run on the books this week, so I thought I'd make a "race" of it.

Yesterday's run was a "steady state" run, in which I was to start out with 15 minutes at a very easy heart rate (145 beats per minute), ramp up to 15 minutes at 150-155 bpm, then to 15 minutes at 155-160 and finish with 15 minutes at 160-165. I figured I could do at least 10K in that period of time, so that's what I'm calling my virtual race.

Here's how it ended up:

Overall: 6.35 miles; 1 hour 6 seconds; avg pace 9:28; avg HR 152

Mile 1: 12:03, avg HR 136 (Garmin was wigging out as usual during the first mile; I'm not sure how accurate the pace or the heart rate is for this mile)
Mile 2: 9:09, avg HR 144
Mile 3: 9:21, avg HR 154
Mile 4: 8:46, avg HR 160
Mile 5: 9:01, avg HR163
Mile 6: 8:49; avg HR 164
Last .35: 8:33 pace, avg HR 163

It wasn't my fastest 10K, but I nailed the workout and felt fantastic. Plus Darren was happy with it, which makes me happy. Thanks for hosting the virtual race, Laura!

Today I followed that up with a 2 hour 15 minute long run, this time all at an easy heart rate (below 150). I ran it slowly, but I returned to the tough course in Boulder where I ran long two weeks ago, so the terrain made up for the pace.

This was my last long run of the cycle. Darren has already posted next week's workouts, and the "long" run next Saturday is only 90 minutes. There's a tough speed workout on Tuesday, but I can truly say now that I am tapering.

Two weeks to the California International Marathon.

Labor Day Virtual 5 Mile

Laura at Mommy Run Fast is hosting a virtual 5- or 10-mile Labor Day Race this weekend. I signed up early for the five, knowing I'd be assigned at least that distance for the weekend's long run.

Turns out Darren gave me 70 minutes with 20 tempo-paced minutes in the middle, more than enough time for the virtual race and a "warm-up" and "cool-down" mile on either side of it. I wasn't able to truly race the full five, as Darren wanted me to keep my heart rate slow and easy for the first 30 minutes and the last 20....but I was able to speed up and have fun with that middle 20 minutes!

My body clock has really gotten used to getting up early. Even without setting an alarm, I was ready to go at 6:15 a.m. yesterday. The weather was beautiful, cool and slightly cloudy, but not so cloudy that I couldn't see the blue moon setting over the mountains to the west. I had decided to test my body out on a full concrete course for this one. After all, my two scheduled races in Detroit and Sacramento will be all asphalt/concrete affairs and I need to start getting used to that, as well as to having some hills to contend with.

Keeping my heart rate below 150 for the first 30 minutes proved easy enough. I concentrated on slowing on the uphills and speeding up on the downhills. It did touch 150 at the top of a long but gradual hill, but then quickly fell back to 126 as I went down the other side. All of this, and I was able to gradually increase the pace while still staying "easy." Score!

Mile One: 10:24 (the warm-up mile for the virtual race)
Mile Two: 10:08 (mile one of the virtual race)
Mile Three: 9:37 (mile two of the virtual race)

At 30 minutes on the dot, I picked up the pace to begin my 20 tempo minutes. For this part of the run, Darren had instructed me to keep my heart rate between 155 and 166. Since I was on a downhill at this point, I had trouble getting it above 155, so I took a detour that I knew would lead me up again. After that hill, I had no problem staying in the tempo heart-rate range. The last several minutes of it saw rates in the 160s but I never got above 166.

Mile Four: 8:28 (mile three of the virtual race)
Mile Five: 7:56 (mile four of the virtual race)

Then came the hard part: the cool-down. During this phase, I was once again supposed to keep my heart rate below 150. I had to slow my pace notably to achieve this, and even so it took me a good minute and a quarter to be able to stay down there. Mile Seven felt SO slow.

After a while, though, my pulse steadied, and I could run without checking in so much.

Mile Six: 9:38 (mile five of the virtual race, run partly during the tempo section, partly during the cool-down; slowing down this much is NOT how I would finish if I were allowed to race for real!)

Mile Seven: 11:08 (cool-down mile)
Last Quarter-Mile: back to a 10:25 pace, heat rate safely below 150

My total time for the five-mile virtual race: 47:48
My total distance for the 70 minutes: 7.25 miles

That's more than five minutes slower than my Snowman Stampede five-mile time, set during the last race I ran before taking my injury break. But I'm happy with it because only during less than half the duration was I really trying to run fast, and one of the miles during that time was significantly faster than any of the miles I ran during the February race. Perhaps more importantly, I was able to execute my heart-rate instructions for the day to the letter.

Big thanks to Laura for hosting a fun event (and a fun way to add variety to a Saturday morning long run). Fingers crossed that I win one of her great prizes!

Late Dark Horse Ellimpics Entry

XLMIC (many of you know her funny blog) recently hosted a special challenge for us injured folks.

Fittingly on many levels, she called it the "Ellimpics."

I signed up right away for the "One-Hour Recumbent Bike" category. I knew I would win....because who with a choice would ride a recumbent bike for an hour?

XL, being competitive, wanted me to go for something truly epic, like a recumbent century, or even just a metric century. But I balked. I wanted to stick to my training plan, modest as it still is. Moreover, I was three days late in completing the event (the Ellimpics, like their namesake, were supposed to be finished on Sunday).

What can I say. I'm a wimpy sort of Ellimpian.

Perhaps, though, XL will give me points for doing my event on London time (I arrived at the rec center this morning at 5:15 a.m.)...and maybe, if I'm really lucky, she'll take into account all of the miles I've done on this supportive yet boring bike since March, which must have added up to several centuries. I didn't keep track of mileage while on the recumbent. It didn't mean anything to me, and I cared more about RPM. However many miles they were, they certainly felt geological in scale as I was doing them. It was truly Ellimpic level training.

Anyway, here are today's results!

Nearing the end......

I rode exactly 15.75 miles in the allotted 60 minutes.

It's no coincidence that today happened to be one where Darren scheduled me for the bike anyway (I'm down to just one recumbent ride a week now!). So within my Ellimpian effort, I did a typical Darren bike ladder, which today looked like this:

5 minutes easy pedal

4 minutes at 90 RPM
8 minutes at 85 RPM
4 minutes at 80 RPM
4 minutes easy

3 minutes at 90 RPM
6 minutes at 85 RPM
3 minutes at 80 RPM
3 minutes easy

2 minutes at 90 RPM
4 minutes at 85 RPM
2 minutes at 80 RPM
2 minutes easy

1 minute at 90 RPM
2 minutes at 85 RPM
1 minute at 80 RPM

5 minutes cool-down easy

The photo above shows my notebook off to one side. I'd never remember these ladder workouts at that hour without a cheat sheet. Also, you'll see by the low resistance level (5) and the remaining time (only 2 plus minutes left), that I was in the cool-down phase. During the RPM-specific phases, I ratchet that resistance up quite a bit. For the 80s today, I was up to around 10. Probably some of you veteran cyclists could whup me (the thing goes up to 20)...but fortunately none of you were competing against me in the Ellimpics.

So there you have it! Do you think that's good enough for Ellimpic gold?