6.5 LSD on Lost Creek

6.50 at 8.25 min/pace @ 170 avg HR

1st mile in 8.30 @ 156 HR - My first mile I was making a conscious effort to hold my pace down. Felt fine, even though it was chilly out and all I was wearing was a long-sleeved T and shorts with Bike shorts underneath.

2nd mile in 8.50 @ 172 HR - HR jumps a little here as I go through a series of uphills. Still felt fine.

3rd mile in 8.43 @ 171 HR - Pace and HR held steady as I approached the turn around spot.

4th mile in 8.20 @ 173 HR - I turned around at about 3.4 miles so roughly half of this mile was before and after. Still, this is a little faster than I'd like on an LSD.

5th mile in 7.90 @ 172 HR - This is aLOT faster than I should be doing an LSD but in fairness, most of this mile was downhill. HR is holding steady. I really should try to keep the pace down to around 8.50 so my HR could take a break.

6th mile in 8.15 @ 170 HR - Still going too fast, but being mostly downhill, my HR is coming down a little bit.

.50 mile in 4.23 @ 177 HR - Going uphill now, so pace and HR suffers.

This was a good run overall. I specifically remember that my breathing was nice and slow and "conversational" so I knew I wasn't working my heart all that much. It's a good sign that I can run this somewhat hilly course this fast without working too hard. At the end I really felt like I could turn around and do it over again, which would be a half-marathon. May have to try that sometime. :-D

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Tips - My new Mizunos were giving me a blister on the inside of my right foot right where the "ball" is, so I tried an extra layer of sock on that foot to alleviate. I just grabbed a worn "dress" (i.e. nylon) sock out of the hamper and put that on my right foot, then my running sock on top of that. That did the trick: no blister and not even a sign of sensitivity on that particular spot. But, the long run popped up a blister on my left foot so maybe I'll do the sock thing on both next time.

5 miles @ TSFG

5 miles in 41.46 at 8.29 pace w/ HR of 174

1st mile in 6.82 @ 157 HR - Uh oh, I'm in trouble. That's way too fast to start out. By my record that's the fastest mile I've ever run. Not a great way to start out an easy 5 miler, even if it's aided by being mostly downhill.

2nd mile in 8.48 @ 176 HR - Not paying for it too much yet, at least not pace-wise, but that HR is spiking. Alot of this was still downhill though. All of this mile was in the new section/subdivision that I tried out for the first time.

3rd mile in 8.27 @ 173 HR - Okay, this is just plain screwy as my speed increased? I guess this was the remainder of the big downhill section as I turned around shortly after finishing the 3rd mile.

4th mile in 9.27 @ 179 HR - This is where I start to pay. Long stretches of uphill and I am really struggling. I even walked a few segments. HR was pushing 190 in spots.

5th mile in 8.62 @ 181 HR - I started to get my 2nd wind here and the last half mile honestly didn't feel that bad. I'd say I probably ran the first half of this mile in 9+ min pace, with the second half around 8 min pace. Not very consistant but I started to feel significantly better, despite that really high HR.

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This was supposed to be an easy run, but I obviously screwed that up by pushing it too much, a bad habit of mine. Just like last time I ran this course (1/7/09), I've got to start taking it easy on the first half.

4 miles at CH

4 miles at CH with Ollie with me. 8.55 pace @ 156 HR.

1st mile in 8.60 @ 137 HR - I think that HR is kinda low though.

2nd mile in 8.57 @ 159 HR - Pretty consistent running.

3rd mile in 8.50 @ 160 HR - More of the same.

4th mile in 8.57 @ 165 HR - More consistancy and a decent HR considering this was pretty hilly country.

Ollie did fine and seemed to have energy left. Pretty good for an eleven year old pup. It was chilly out (42) and I was cold in my performance shirt and shorts. Should've worn some gloves.

6 miles thru H Forest

6 miles, the first 1.50 was on the road from my house to the trailhead, then 3 on the trail, then 1.50 back home.

1st mile in 8.25 @ 143 HR - This was on the road and almost all downhill. Pretty easy going.

2nd mile in 8.85 @ 170 HR - The first half of this was on the road (uphill) and the 2nd half was on the trail. That's why the pace and HR spiked.

3rd mile in 9.40 @ 171 HR - Talk about pace spiking! All of this was on the trail. I didn't really expect it to slow me down this much, but wow.

4th mile in 10.47 @ 173 HR - More of the same, I was really slowing down and my HR was getting up there.

5th mile in 10.17 @ 174 HR - The second half of this mile was back on the road and downhill. That tells me that first half still on the trail was SLOW.

6th mile in 8.08 @ 175 HR - Fast road running. At least I had something left over, even though I'm pushing that HR pretty good there.

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Not sure what really happened here. I ran pretty much this same course last April with consistent 8.58 splits each mile. And that was all trail. Oh well, at least I got a good HR workout out of it. I'll skip the interval/repeat work tomorrow and count this as that instead.

4 miles on the Treadmill

Don't really like the treadmill particularly, but this day was cold and rainy and I didn't want to be outside.

8.80 min pace w/ avg HR of 154

Each mile was consistant (it was the treadmill) with the HR going from 130 in the first, to 158, to 162, then to 167 in the last mile.

4.00 (repeats) at CH

4 miles Sunday morning 1/18/09 in 8.16 average with HR of 156 (questionable).

This was my speedwork out of the week.

1st mile in 8.05 at HR of 110 - This was supposed to be a warmup mile, but I obviously took it too fast. I guess I was a little anxious about doing speedwork for the first time in a long time. That HR figure is probably wrong as my Timex device always starts to pick up the "real" HR at least a mile into my runs.

.45 mile at a 7.98 pace at HR of 160 - Remainder of the warmup. Again, too fast, but at least this was almost all solidly downhill. HR probably about right.

.693 mile at 7.86 pace at HR of 171 - The first half of this was my first interval: .33 mile at 5k pace. The second half was my recovery period. I figure the speed part was about 7.15 with the recovery at about 8.57.

.341 mile at 7.18 pace at HR of 177 - The second repeat of .33 mile. Pretty fast, but I'd like to get one of these repeats down below 7 min pace.

.347 mile at 8.73 pace at HR of 170 - Recovery period.

.331 mile at 7.49 pace at HR of 178 - Last repeat. Not as fast as I'd like but my HR was working even hard on this one.

.354 mile at 8.90 pace at HR of 171 - Recovery period.

.483 mile at 9.25 pace at HR of 174 - Cooldown half-mile. Mostly uphill and back to the house. I stopped right at 4miles and was pretty spent.

This was a decent speed session. It was very cold out (around 20 degrees), I wore a performance shirt under a longsleeve cotton tee, running gloves, and I put a backwards ballcap on my head since it was drizzling a bit. I was comfortable despite the conditions.

Note - On that first repeat by the clubhouse, a pack of deer came running around the front on the other side of the lake of me, bounded into the water, swam over, and crossed right in front of me. They freaked out as they saw me and scrambled across the road about 30 yards away and into the field on my right.

6 @ Lost Creek on 1/17/09

6 miles Saturday Morning on 1/17/09 at 8.50 pace w/ HR of 171

1st mile in 8.22 at HR of 162 - This was my easy warmup mile, mostly downhill, but it was cold out at right around freezing. I compensated by wearing a sleeveless performance shirt under a cotton long-sleeve Tee, spandex shorts under my running shorts, and running gloves. Didn't wear anything on my head though.

2nd mile in 8.85 at 173 - This mile is mostly uphill so slowing down is normal, that HR jump is a bit of a surprise though.

3rd mile in 8.73 at 173 - Another mostly uphill mile. At the end of this mile is the turnaround.

4th mile in 8.68 at 172 - Start of the turnaround. So far, I'm keeping my speed and HR pretty consistant.

5th mile in 8.08 at 170 - Sped way up on this mile as there was a good downhill section.

6th mile in 8.50 at 177 - Mostly uphill mile with lots of big jumps in elevation.

Overall a good solid LSD run. The cold didn't bother me one bit after the initial shock of it.

4 @ TSFG

Overall - 4.0 @ 9.03 pace w/ HR of 157

1st mile in 8.95 w/ HR of 115 - Basically don't know if I believe either of these numbers. The "avg pace" on my watch was showing 8.25-8.50 the entire first mile prompting me to consciously try to slow down. Not sure how there could be such a huge difference.

2nd mile in 8.68 w/ HR of 161 - These numbers seem more accurate. Half of this mile was a huge downhill and the other half was back up that same hill.

3rd mile in 9.57 w/ HR of 176 - This was a series of huge uphills coming back but I still think this was a little slow. My GPS died during the next (4th) mile so maybe it was being wonky because of that. Anyway, I handled this series of hills much better than I did when I ran this course on 1/7, even if the numbers don't show it.

4th mile in 8.92 w/ HR of 176 - This mile was much flatter and I felt a lot better. As I said above, the GPS died during this mile so the distance is estimated using Google Maps Pedometer.

Overall, a decent hills run for maintenance.

6.209 @ Lost Creek

Overall - 6.209 m at a 8.32 pace with avg HR of 159.

1st mile in 8.23 w/ HR of 105 (don't trust this figure). Felt fine. It was cold out (40ish) and I was still getting used to the temp at this point.

2nd mile in 8.62 w/ HR of 169. Still felt fine. The slight slow down was due to a steady climb for this entire mile.

3rd mile in 8.32 w/ HR of 168. Still felt fine here. The course levelled out some (even though it's still uphill) so I ran a little faster.

4th mile in 8.50 w/ HR of 170. I felt fine and most of this mile was after the turn around so it should have been mostly downhill so I don't really understand the slow down here. Maybe that 3 mile was not as level as I thought (read: it was actually mostly downhill)

5th mile in 7.97 w/ HR of 168. Obviously this was where the course really started downhill (equivalent to that 2nd mile above but back the other way). I didn't feel like I was running this fast at the time and obviously I wasn't working my heart much as this was the lowest HR since that questionable mark on the first mile.

6th mile in 8.27 w/ HR of 170. I'm pretty proud of this time because the last mile is pretty steeply uphill. I manaed to keep my speed up without drastically working my HR.

.209 in 1.75 w/ HR of 178. Obviously this was some steep hill work as judged by that super high HR.

Good solid LSD run.

High Ankle Sprain

On 11/1/08, I rolled my left ankle coming down the stairs at Williams Brice. There was a double step following a series of single steps and I misjudged the distance and landing on the left foot and rolled the ankle outward. I felt a "pop" at the time and remember thinking "oh no, this could be bad. I've been keeping up with my running so well for awhile now and this is going to really set me back."

I was a little surpised as I walked on it right away that there wasn't that much tenderness, even though I still had that sick feeling that I had done something really wrong. I sort of limped around the rest of the game and came home afterwards and went to bed.

The next morning, the ankle had swollen up to the point there was no "definition" to the outer ankle at all and it was pretty stiff and sore. I could still walk fine though.

Using the "ICE" method, I elevated it a lot that day and applied ice (actually a frozen bag of lima beans) whenever possible.

Strangely, my walking was fine with only a small amount of tenderness. Only when I tried to roll the ankle out (as it was injured) did I encounter a LOT of pain.

I ran for the first time 8 days later on 1/9/08, 5 miles really easy-going in about 44 minutes (8.79 pace). Didn't really feel much pain at all while running, just a little stiffness in the shin and front of the ankle because I was probably favoring it. Still, I was encouraged that I could still run.

I ran fairly regularly from that point on...going 2-3 times a week at 4-7 miles each time. Pace seemed to be largely unaffected (8-8.75 min miles)/

I was discouraged that the ankle was still giving me soreness and pain when I attempted to roll it out though, and this endured until right around 2 months post injury. At that point, I saw great improvement for some reason that I can only attribute to my physical therapy that I performed whenever possible. Below is what I did:

Physical Therapy:
Heel lifts - I was doing these already for an injury to this same ankle (on the inside though). These strengthen the tendons but only really work the back (achilles and calf). I d0 20-25 of these at a time. Serves as a good warm up prior to running too.
Stretching - Ankle rolls, achilles stretch, pushing the ankle out/down to the point of mild pain. I started seeing big improvement in my flexibility at the 2 month part.
Ankle "pulls" - Using an elasto-band, position it such that you pull the front part of the ankle towards you and/or to the left/right. These are hard to pull off because it's difficult to anchor the esto-band away from your body, so I didn't do as many of these as I'd like.
Plain old running/walking - I'm pretty convinced that my regular running schedule helped with the healing too, by strengthening the overall ankle area.

It's still not 100%, but I'm okay with where I am now as it's not impeding me from doing anything active-related.

3.52 m @ TSFG

Overall - 3.52 miles at avg HR of 161

1st mile in 7.72 w/ HR of 112 (don't trust this figure). Felt great, apparently because I was massively running downhill with a huge tailwind (see below).

2nd mile in 8.13 w/ 174 HR. Again didn't feel too bad quite yet.

3rd mile in 9.27 w/ 181 HR. I'm sucking wind here. Huge tailwind and lots of hills just took it right out of me. I even walked a few times which I really never do.

.52 miles in 4.62 w/ 181 HR. More of the same in the 3rd mile. I'm wiped.

Gotta remember on this course to take it more easy in the beginning.