House of Pain

I ran a nice 14.8 miles today. Wait, back up. Let's tell the whole story. I ran my first 7.3 miles on the way to cross training. I had to hurry a little bit. Ran it in 1 hour 3 mins, so a pace of 8:41. Not bad considering mile 7 was all hill, up hill that is. I held a very relaxed 8:30 for the first 6 miles. Yeah, I tanked the last mile. But the point is that I ran even splits. What's that you want to see my splits? Well you can't I'm married. OK, don't beg it's a little pathetic.
1st mile - 8:20 (as usual I had to make myself slow down to hold this pace. I am such a 5K runner. 3.1 miles push hard over and done. What's not to love?)
2nd mile - 8:29
3rd mile - 8:34
4th mile - 8:30
5th mile - 8:31
6th mile - 8:33
7th mile - 9:30 (think hill...that's my excuse or that I haven't been logging the miles in to do better. Yeah I like the hill excuse better.)
last .30 - 9:07

Not my best pace, but my most even splits. This is big for me.

Then I had a nice (can I say nice to describe The House of Pain?)time cross-training. Does that make me a sick-o? Not in a leather and bull whip sort of way... In a "my muscles are breaking down and rebuilding in a beautiful new tone" sort of way. But I digress. The House of Pain is what we call my track coaches cross-training. Today was an hour of tri-ceps. Then ran the rack, which means I start with 25 lbs (Kim 'the rock' started with 30 lbs) and go until failure. After failure I move to the other arm and then down to the next weight, which is 20 lbs for me. I was able to do 25 reps of each until 10 lbs and 5 lbs then it was 50 reps (which is the stopping point because the next person is waiting). It was great! At the very end my coach (with a little gleam of evil in her eye) had us do "the ladder" of push-ups. How hard can that be, you wonder? Well, let me lay it on you. You start in plank and you stay in plank until it's your turn to do push-ups. When you are done with your push-ups you return to plank. We did 1-2-3-4-5-5-4-3-2-1. Which means the first person does 1 push-up, then the next person does 1 push-up and so on until you return to the first person. The first person then does 2 push-ups and then the next person does 2 and so on and so forth it goes. Remember you are supposed to be in plank when not actively doing your push-ups. If you drop out of plank you start over. (although she was nice and let us do downward facing dog if we couldn't hold plank) It was very hard to do and I had to revert to DFD for most of it. Oh well, there is always next time.

After the House of Pain , I had to run home. Literally. I ran to House of Pain from my house so I had to run home. Christina, aka 'coach,' or 'evil sadistic one,' and Kim said they would run 3 miles with me. Crap, there goes my easy slow run on the way home. Good-bye 9:30 pace….hello work my tush off and still trail behind pace. My splits:
Mile 1 - 8:42
Mile 2 - 8:10
Mile 3 - 8:43
Finally with the mutant running-robots gone I could tuck my tail and run slowly. They headed back for the rest of their easy run and I trudged forward for another slow mile at 9:19. Ugh! At this point I was so freaking thirsty I couldn’t even spit.

I think I’m a freak who drinks more than everyone else. I woke up and drank 10 oz of water. I was well-hydrated yesterday and I drank at least 9-16 oz glasses of water or Ultima. Sure I only peed 4 times yesterday, but I almost always pee only 4 times a day. Five or 6 if, and only if, I drink a lot of tea. What’s that? Stop taking about pee? Oh, OK.

Back to today. I then drank 2-8 oz of my accelerade and then 4-8oz of water during my cross training workout. Then 2 more 8 oz of water on the run back. When I finally dragged my slow, sorry butt home I drank 3-16 oz of Gatorade and 1-16 oz of Ultima. [warning: pee talk is about to resume. For those of you annoyed with the pee talk skip the rest of this paragraph.] I have been drinking water all day and yes, I have peed 2 times. Well, once before I left for my run and once about 2 hours ago. Uh, maybe a little thirsty you think?

(Welcome back, anti pee-talk people!) Back to the rest of my run. It sucked! I almost made hubby come pick me up. I had two asthma attacks and couldn’t (or didn’t want to) hold a decent pace. So I will not post the times, as I am ashamed. Not because of the pace, but because I had to hike some of it. At least I kept going, right? So my total for today is 14.80 miles. It felt good! Again, not in a leather and bull whip sort of way... well, maybe... a little...or so I’ve read.

How to run using your heart rate as a guide

Last night I was supposed to do a 5 mile easy run. But here is the catch. I was to keep my heart rate at 150 bpm. Sounded like a nice 10 min pace run to me. Nope I was forced to go slower than that.

I decided I would try a new trail by my house. Bad idea. A little piece of advise. If you are to do a run using your heart rate as your guide, don't pick a new trail FULL of hills. I had to walk some of the hills to keep my heart rate down. That was the hard part. I like to pick up the pace on hills, however, if you are trying to keep your heart rate at 150 you can NOT do anything buy walk the freakin' things.

My husband was nice enough to join me for the run. So at least I had some great company and good conversation. My hubby is also great for making me stick to exactly what my coach has put on my training schedule. Needless to say my coach loves it when hubby runs with me. It was more like a nice stroll for us and not so much a run. But you know what, I liked it. It reminded me what an easy run should feel like.

Now don't get me wrong, I had a hard time with my pace being slower. Since I can get a little obsessed about my pace (unless I'm running with some of my friends, then it's all about hanging out with them). Last night I made myself only look at my heart rate, because every time I looked at the pace I would try to pick it up. I didn't realize that I tend to push my pace too much on my easy recovery runs. I would assume that because I was running a 9 min pace that I was running an easy run. Well I guess not. Maybe I need to go by my heart rate more? Maybe then I wouldn't have been in an over training deficit for the last month or two?

All in all this was a great lesson to learn. Sometimes an 11 min -12 min pace is just what I needed. Who knew? What's that my coach? You mean I should listen to him? Well that's a novel idea. But come on...this is ME we are taking about. I always have to learn the hard way. Stop laughing at me.

The price of cute shoes.....

I went to a friend's wedding yesterday. And if I might say so myself, I looked rather cute in my new dress and old cute shoes. Well, my feet are not used to high heels anymore. Needless to say both of my feet have lost a few layers of skin. See the above photo. So I may not be able to run tonight. But you know me, I'll do it anyway.

I am determined to throw out my 'cute shoes'. As I was about to do that, I saw new cute shoes in a store. Maybe I just had the wrong cute shoes. So now the hunt is one for cute dress shoes that don't make my skin peel off. Who say's you can't teach and old dog to buy new shoes?

Cross training..the right way

I took Sunday and today off from running. I decided to cross train instead. Only I did it the right way.

The coach from my running group has been helping one of the other pace leaders do cross training. So along with the other pace leader, we did push-ups...from hell.., sit-ups that were evil, arm weights (one appropriately named skull crusher), and the craziest wheel barrel I've ever seen. It was fun. I can't wait until next Monday.

Today was supposed to be a 14 mile run. Instead because I am still healing, I ran only...ready...4 miles. But I enjoyed it. I was able to run with one of the other pace leaders that I don't get to run with enough. It was a very nice run, reminded me of why I enjoy running. Before the run I was able to walk a mile with my coach/friend. We drank coffee, he yelled at me for over training.....I yelled at him for having stress fractures and not being able to run with me.

After the run, I trained in my martial arts. It reminded me of how much fun training can be.

Trying to take it easy....

Yes, today I ran. Yes, today I ran slow. Yes, today's run hurt...slowly.

I had on my training plan to run 10 miles. I was good and decided if I need to cut it short I would. So I ran 8.66 miles. I had to walk the hills. But at least I was able to get a short run in. See I took it easy.

Over training

Last night after track practice, I was depressed. Not because I ran slower than I wanted. But because I couldn't run. I am still hurting from Monday’s cross training. I’m in a funk. And I just figured out why. I’ve been hit with over training. My miles have been lower than in previous weeks, so why over training? Off to the great and expansive knowledge that is the web. Here is what I found:

Signs of over training:
1. Moody (I read as being a witch) OK, this is very common around my house once a month. You know what I mean. What, you can’t believe I’m blogging about mensuration? Oh, stick around honey, stick around.
2. Can’t sleep (Sleep what’s that?) This is more than my kids are waking me up kind of sleep. This is I wake up at 1-2am and can’t get back to sleep until 4 or 5am. This is very unlike me as I have been known to fall asleep in 2 seconds flat. No exaggerating here. Really, 2 seconds after saying something to my husband in a conversation I can be asleep. Impressive, huh?
3. Don’t feel energized.(read a lazy bastard) I am known for going all day 7 days a week at full speed. I don’t sit down and do nothing. Ever.
4. Stale training (yep)
5. Poor race performance see my last race post. 7:38 pace. Again I say what the hell? Now it makes sense. Even though I tapered for the race, it was not enough to recoup from the previous months of hard training.

This week I’ve been moody, irritable, ah hell just a plain witch!! I thought it was because I couldn’t run. Now I find out it’s because of running. That’s just wrong.

So information on how to correct it is scant. But here is what I have been able to find with my Scooby senses.

1. Take some time off from running. Sounds like common sense. But how much time is enough time?
2. Rest. Uh? That sounds like #1

That’s it. I can’t find much else. So how much time off? One day? Two? A week? A month? OK, I’m going to kabosh taking a month off, because I have worked too hard to take a whole month off.

Today is day 3 of no running. Yes, technically I ran a little last night. But I was jogging not running. And I was pushing the triple stroller so that makes it impossible to get a really good run. I ended up having my husband pace lead my group of guys. That‘s an improvement for me… to ask for help. Baby steps, baby steps.

I feel better today. Maybe just being able to identify what was wrong with me helped? Sure last night I woke up at 2:30 am thinking about my Saturday run and how I should run the 13 miles with my guys, but then I wouldn’t be done until 10:30-10:45. That’s over 2 hours of running but only a net gain of 13 miles. And I want to run with one of my friends at 7am to get some miles in with her at a little faster pace and just to chat with her. But then I’d have to bail out on my 13 mile run as a pace leader. But I also have a martial arts seminar this weekend that starts at 10am on Saturday and goes until 5pm. Then I’m cooking dinner for all the guys from the seminar... usually 20+ people. So I have to stop training a little sooner to get dinner started. Sunday I have training again from 10 am to 3pm and then a 7 mile run in the evening. Don’t even get me started on tomorrow.

So I go back to no running today and I might end up skipping my cross training of sit-ups, Pilates, push-ups, and bike ride. Maybe I won’t get my 10 mile run in tomorrow. Who knows. I guess the remedy is to take it day by day. Slowly. Let me try that again. S-L-O-W-L-Y. I’ve heard of that word. Slowing down, taking it easy (oh great, now I have that song stuck in my head). Maybe it’s time for me to give it a whirl?