Monday, August 20, 2012

NYCM Training: Weeks 4 & 5 (Garmin Images to come later)

I don’t know where the time went, but unfortunately I never got a chance to update my blog for week 4, and before I knew it, week 5 had passed. So this time, I will be making a combined blog entry. This means that there won’t be as much detail, but all the important points will be covered.

My goal going into this training plan was to follow it exactly and to not change days around, but the last couple of weeks, I was going through some personal stuff, and allowances had to be made.

Week 4

Week 4 was a little different than the previous weeks since instead of having speed work on Tuesday, I had a marathon pace run scheduled on Saturday as part of my long run. So on Tuesday, I woke up early, and set out to do eight miles. Apparently I can’t add properly at 5am, for at mile 7 or so I realized I calculated an eight and a half mile route. Oh well!!!

I was supposed to do my MLR of 11 miles the next morning, but I felt really sick when I woke up, so that didn’t happen. I was disappointed with myself, but I rebounded the next day when I ended up doing 10.5 miles before work. Since I took off Wednesday, I did my Thursday 5 miler on Friday, and ended back on schedule.

On Saturday, it somehow took me longer than I wanted to get going, but I was still determined to get my MP run in. I decided to do my route along summer streets, and then do the remainder miles in the park. I had planned on doing my faster miles on the streets, but that kind of fell apart when I realized that reception would be spotty, and that I wouldn’t really know my pace. So I bagged the MP pace workout, and just tried to average faster than usual throughout. I ended up with a 9:30 average, even after incorporating Harlem Hill towards the end when my legs were exhausted. The only reason I even did this was that I ran into someone I worked the NYCM water table with last year, and we ran a couple of miles together after playing a bit of leapfrog.

Sunday’s 4 miler went without a hitch, and although it was supposed to be a recovery run, it somehow once again turned into a 4.2 mile progression run. My total mileage for week 4 was 44.2 miles, which was another personal record for me.

Week 5

For some reason, I didn’t have much of an appetite on Monday, which would really play a role in how Tuesday’s workout went. I had 9 miles with 4x800 thrown in there, and for some reason, I didn’t even think of taking bloks with me. That and a lack of sufficient nutrition yesterday made things interesting. Very disappointing rookie mistakes on my part. I was able to hit the first three intervals, but I started feeling slightly faint and knew that the fourth one was just not happening. The last few miles were more difficult for me than usual, and the entire time, I was just kicking myself for not at least taking bloks with me. Sigh.

The rest of my week kind of got thrown off a bit. Since I didn’t run Wednesday morning (I swear, my Wednesdays are cursed!) I went to the gym that night and did my shorter 5 mile run instead of the MLR that was called for. When the five mile indicator hit on that machine, I pressed the stop button as fast as possible. Even while watching family guy, I find the treadmill almost unbearable. I could have done one additional mile if needed, but beyond that, there was just no way.

Since I got back late on Wednesday, I finally got to my MLR of 10 miles on Friday morning, and it felt surprisingly good. I wasn’t a fan of starting before sunrise, but watching it take place in Central Park was very beautiful.

I had a wedding the next day, so I could only manage to fit in five miles after waiting for the rain to stop and unpacking my grocery delivery. Thankfully, I got all my miles in and managed to get ready for the wedding. It was a very fun occasion, and it was great to catch up with some former coworkers.

However, I got back so late, that I ended up deciding to skip LTR #2. I set my alarm for 6am, but the moment I woke up, I knew that I wasn’t going to function as well as I needed to for my first 18, so I went back to bed for a couple of hours. When I finally woke up, I had some breakfast, and then headed out.

I decided to utilize a change of scenery, so after running a couple of miles in the park, I ran west towards the Hudson River Path and ran 6 miles down, and 6 miles back to make the 18 miles on my schedule. Although the day hadn’t started out as planned, I was really proud of myself for having the mental capacity to run for three hours on my own.

Since I ate before I started running, I tried something new with fueling that I probably wouldn’t do again – I waited to fuel until the 9 mile mark, and felt good, but after mile 14 or so I realized that I needed a little something more so I took a couple of more. From now on, I’ll probably stick to anywhere between 4-6 miles, depending on the total mileage, as it seems to work best when I do it that way.

Overall, I hit 47 miles for the week, and as of this morning, I don’t feel sore or anything. So far, I’ve been happy with how training is going. Hopefully, I can finally break my Wednesday curse this coming week!

Other Thoughts

So far, my average LR / MLR paces have been anywhere from 9:35-10mm, which is pretty much where I’d like to be. This week will have the longest MLR so far (12 miles), so waking up early enough to get that in will be a challenge. However, my long run will be 15 miles this week, so I’m deciding on whether I want to just stick to the park, or start incorporating more of the marathon bridges into the route. We’ll see how the week progresses, and who is available to keep me company on Saturday.

Garmin pictures to come later. My work computer is from the stone ages and will not let me put images in.

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