My Journey to 50 miles (2nd attempt)... (comments welcome)

[disneygpa]

Something I forgot to mention but wanted to make note of. Saturday's run included getting clipped in the right arm by a bat! I'm glad one of us could avoid a head on collision. Gotta say, that's the first time I've encountered a bat while out for a run!!

 

[disneygpa]

Wednesday morning run. Up bright and early. Nice clear morning a million stars in the sky again. I'm really enjoying getting up early and running. The temp is perfect, the sky's are clear (at least for now) and it's peaceful and calm.

Run itself was my first CV run. Interesting run. It felt really good. I like running at that pace. Never really felt winded but my legs felt tired when I finished. Especially my quads and right calf. Nothing like I couldn't run any farther. Just could tell I had run faster than usual.

Overall I think my paces were pretty good. Especially for my first CV run. Though looking at the graph on Garmin, I can tell I was hunting for the elusive 9:06 mark. I would run a little too fast and then a little too slow. Not bad, hopefully I'll get it dialed in over the next few weeks.

 

[disneygpa]

Friday morning run. Another fine day to be alive and kicking! Weather was perfect again. 52 and clear, tons of stars in the sky. Really enjoying these great mornings! In a month or so it won't be quite so nice around here. Already feel like there's a bit of fall in the air.

Run was good, paces were decent.



Nothing too spectacularly good or bad. No run ins with bats, saw several cats this morning. Weird. I don't normally see that many of them. Thought maybe the local po po was going to stop and chat this morning. They drove by twice. Quite slowly the second time. I'm sure they want to see if I'm sane. What kinda crazy do you have to be to be out running at 0330....

Things are getting ugly at work. BIG layoffs, budgets getting slashed, no money for maintenance. Looks like we are going into a cycle of just keeping the place limping along until things get better. Fortunately for me, I have enough seniority to survive most anything at this point. Unfortunately for me, I'm not quite old enough to take a voluntary layoff. If they'd do away with the penalty on my pension, I'd leave tomorrow. Can't take a 32% hit on that!!! 8% for every year under age 58 :-(

Donna gets back in 5 days! Whew! She's been gone too long!!! Now that the apartment is finished, I'm really bored in the evenings. I'd start unpacking the stuff, but I'd just put it in the wrong place and she would have to move it anyway. I'll just wait for her to get home and then be the assistant putter awayer...

 

[disneygpa]

Weekend update!

Great weekend for running! Sorta slept in on Saturday and Sunday. Not so much on Monday.

Saturday was 4.5 miles @EA. Nice easy run. Fairly close on my pacing. Felt good to get some extra sleep and still get up and get done before the sunrise!



Sunday was 8.5 @ LR. I went back out to the Centennial trail. I like running out there for my longer runs. After my last run out there and the disaster it turned out to be, I was a little worried about this. Turns out, a 50 degree temperature difference makes a WORLD of difference. Everything went pretty well! At the halfway point I briefly walked and had my gummies. I still haven't perfected the art of eating on the run. Average paces were pretty good. A little fast on almost all of them except the 5th mile, which would have been me walking while eating. Today was a complete 180 from the last time out there. This run just felt good!

Turns out, not only did it feel good according to my newest Vo2 max reading, I'm higher than I've ever been. I know that it isn't super accurate and all, but I've been stuck at 40/41 for a looooong time. After Sunday's run it jumped to 43!! Pretty happy with this.



Monday. Well it's Monday. Got up early, 3 miles @ EA. Definite signs of fall in the air. A little drizzle but still fairly decent. Nice peaceful run.



Donna gets back Wednesday. Going to be interesting to see if she wants to get up EARLY with me, or do our runs together in the afternoon. This weekend is going to be "fun". I run all 3 days including an 8 miler on Sunday. I would need to get up at 2:15 to get that done before work. Hmmmm.... not sure how I'm gonna play that one just yet.

 

[disneygpa]

Yippee Skippy!!! Donna gets back tonight!! Haven't seen her since Aug 11th when I made my return to the PNW. That's too dang long.

Got up early, actually woke up 7 min before my alarm. Don't you hate it when that happens.

CV run #2. I'm really digging these runs. I'm running at a pretty good pace for me, and it feels good to go out and work a little harder.
Weather was great again. 56 with just a little high clouds. Big full moon almost made it possible to run without my headlamp.
Paces were good. Looking at the the graph, I still struggle to nail the pace and float around it a bit, the average is good, but need to work on keeping things steady.




Interesting note. Saw a group of 4 teenage boys and 3 teenage girls out and about in separate locations. They didn't seem to be up to any trouble. Just not really what you expect at 0330. I said good morning, they replied with good morning and I went on my way.

 

[disneygpa]

Wow, last update was Wednesday...

Friday was 1.5 miles with DW and 18 min at EA. Total 3.07 mi avg pace 13:14. Warm today, 81 and sunny!! Nice easy day.

Saturday was 2 miles with DW, I was supposed to do 30 min @ EA, but we had dinner with friends planned so I ended up skipping it. :-(
Total was 2.10 miles avg pace 14:20.

Sunday.... my Garmin failed me today. This is what I was scheduled to run:

2 mi @ WU + 3 x 1.25 miles @ T w/ 3 min rest + 4 x 100 @ R w/ 90s RI
@ WU + 1 mi @ CD

Should have been something near 8.04 miles. But my Garmin got lost in the trees and never really recovered.
It seemed to work fine on the way out, but somewhere during or just before my 3rd interval, it got lost and just started spewing nonsense.
My first two intervals were 11:41 and 11:41 for the 1.25 miles. Then my 3rd interval I finally had to stop at 13:51 and only recorded 1.01 miles.
Clearly this was messed up. I felt like I was running the same effort, but every time I looked at my watch my pace was getting slower!!!
So anyway, moral to the story is that I need to find a different place to do my long runs. Clearly the tunnel of trees is not good for my Garmin.

Stats after Lap 8 are all screwed up but here they are anyway.


This should have just been an out and back, but as you can see by the map, the Garmin definitely lost track after Lap 8.... frustrating.

Up until the equipment failure, the run felt good. I enjoyed the hard part of the running.

@DopeyBadger Billy, can you answer a quick question. What is the reason for the 100 meters at R? Not that I mind them, just curious why they are there. Also, some of these runs seem to be more challenging than the Dopey training. Is that by design? Or am I just a bit more out of shape than I was for Dopey? Again, I'm not complaining, I think this plan is great! It's just that at the end of the hard runs, I definitely feel them more than the long runs I was putting in for Dopey. I'm guessing because the goals are different for the 10k run. Just curious.

 

[DopeyBadger]

@DopeyBadger Billy, can you answer a quick question. What is the reason for the 100 meters at R? Not that I mind them, just curious why they are there. Also, some of these runs seem to be more challenging than the Dopey training. Is that by design? Or am I just a bit more out of shape than I was for Dopey? Again, I'm not complaining, I think this plan is great! It's just that at the end of the hard runs, I definitely feel them more than the long runs I was putting in for Dopey. I'm guessing because the goals are different for the 10k run. Just curious.

Daniels R pace is neurological in basis. They help create a mind-body connection that aids in running with good form. So they should feel fast and smooth. This pays dividends when running at other paces as you learn what good running form feels like and what fast feet feel like. We've done them in the past during the Dopey plan. This time around they're in combo runs to help you change gears late in a training run.

So in comparing plan #401 and #474, a key difference is your fitness has improved quite a bit. So I wouldn't say you're anywhere close to being slower or out of shape compared to Dopey. The Dopey plan focused mostly on endurance based pacing: HM Tempo, M Tempo, and Long Run. There was some R pacing and CV pacing early on. To this point, the 10k plan has been blind progressions and the T+R combo run. The T+R run and HM Tempo runs of Dopey are similar except I'm asking you to find another gear at the late stages of the training run in order to hit the R pace. So if I'm looking at these two plans, I would say the Dopey one is definitely harder (more volume with similar effort level pacing). So my guess is you're just adjusting to this plan as it is, because I wouldn't assume you'd find this 10k plan more difficult from an effort standpoint. It is faster pacing, but pacing we feel is justified by past performance. Are there other differences going on in life that maybe have added on additional stress that are contributing factors? Less sleep, worse nutrition, more stress, less recovery/stretching focus? It's possible those are increasing the perception of effort. It also may mean that after the 10k you need to take a multi-week break from training hard. When's the last time you took an extended break from training at a reduced volume and pace?

 

[disneygpa]

Are there other differences going on in life that maybe have added on additional stress that are contributing factors? Less sleep, worse nutrition, more stress, less recovery/stretching focus? It's possible those are increasing the perception of effort. It also may mean that after the 10k you need to take a multi-week break from training hard. When's the last time you took an extended break from training at a reduced volume and pace?

Less sleep, worse nutrition, more stress, less recovery/stretching focus.... probably a combination of all the above. With Donna gone my sleeping was terrible, my nutrition was TV dinners, work is insane with the layoffs and less people to work with and I've only been doing one set of stretching (most) everyday. With Donna back, I'm sleeping less, but I definitely get better sleep, and nutrition isn't frozen meals. Not much I can do about the stress at work, it is what it is. Sad to see peoples lives being upturned, it's tough to watch. Stretching I should definitely take more serious. You would think that the way it helped me through Dopey I would have learned to take it more serious. Time to make that change.

I haven't really taken a break since we started the 5k plan a few months back. Good news is that I'm "HOPEFULLY" heading to Hawaii the day after I run the 10k "race". I'd like to do some easy runs there. Most likely some run/walks with Donna. Just enough to say I did a 5k in Hawaii. Then I'd like to get back to training for Princess after we get back.

Thanks for the explanation of the R paces. Very informative as usual!! I knew there was a logical reason for it.

 

[DopeyBadger]

Less sleep, worse nutrition, more stress, less recovery/stretching focus.... probably a combination of all the above. With Donna gone my sleeping was terrible, my nutrition was TV dinners, work is insane with the layoffs and less people to work with and I've only been doing one set of stretching (most) everyday. With Donna back, I'm sleeping less, but I definitely get better sleep, and nutrition isn't frozen meals. Not much I can do about the stress at work, it is what it is. Sad to see peoples lives being upturned, it's tough to watch. Stretching I should definitely take more serious. You would think that the way it helped me through Dopey I would have learned to take it more serious. Time to make that change.

That sounds like a very possible explanation as to why things feel harder this time around.

 

[disneygpa]

Wednesday's run. Donna opted to get up early and avoid the heat today! Her 2:55am wake up was greeted with how crazy this is.... I reminded her we could do it this afternoon and she decided that 50 was better than running when it was 80+. I agree. Also, agreed with her that getting up in the middle of the night is nuts too!!

Donna did 1.5 WU, 6 x 30sec at R and .5 CD. All went well! She survives just fine at her R pace. It's funny to see her going through the same doubts as I did with the Dopey plan. Every time, a longer distance or faster pace is tried she has doubts about her ability. Guess that's why this running thing is so much mental....

I did 4 x 5min at CV after Donna's run. Gosh I like these faster runs! This felt so good this morning! Maybe a little too good as some of the paces were a touch fast. Even so, it felt great in the cool morning air!


@DopeyBadger Billy, I know that on the training plans we have Donna's TT set for Saturday and my "race" set for Sunday. With me running both of those, do you think it would be better to swap those days? I'm curious if from a fatigue standpoint doing Donna's TT with her, might effect my chances of PR'ing my 10k?

 

[DopeyBadger]

@DopeyBadger Billy, I know that on the training plans we have Donna's TT set for Saturday and my "race" set for Sunday. With me running both of those, do you think it would be better to swap those days? I'm curious if from a fatigue standpoint doing Donna's TT with her, might effect my chances of PR'ing my 10k?

Close to zero effect. Her 10k TT pace is 11:39 which is between your EA/EB pace. So doing 72 min of EA/EB pace the day prior to your 10k TT will have little, if no, impact. If you want to swap them, then go ahead. I would consider moving the Wed workout to Tuesday if you move your 10k one day closer. But you should probably be fine either way on that workout as well.

 

[disneygpa]

Close to zero effect. Her 10k TT pace is 11:39 which is between your EA/EB pace. So doing 72 min of EA/EB pace the day prior to your 10k TT will have little, if no, impact. If you want to swap them, then go ahead. I would consider moving the Wed workout to Tuesday if you move your 10k one day closer. But you should probably be fine either way on that workout as well.

Got it! Thanks!! I'll probably leave it as is since the impact will be minimal!

 

[disneygpa]

Small weekend update.

Friday 1.5 miles with Donna.

Saturday 5 miles with Donna! Whoop whoop!! That's the first time she's done 5 miles! Super proud of her!

Sunday was supposed to be 9.5 miles for me. I'm pushing that off until this evening. We have HORRIBLE air up here right now.
The smoke from the wild fires in CA and OR has made its way up here. Currently we are teetering on unhealthy to VERY unhealthy.
After Saturdays run, I felt like I'd been in a casino all night. Slight burning in my throat and chest. Decided not to push it.
It's supposed to clear out by 11am today, so, I'll probably give it a go this afternoon and slide today's run into tomorrow.

 

[disneygpa]

Well.... Monday's air quality ended up being worse than Sunday. Ugh...


Now they are saying it won't be until Thursday before it clears out.
This morning it looks like this....


I'm the little red dot in the center.
New plan is to skip Sunday and Monday's run entirely and see how things are looking come Wednesday.

Heck, I'd be happy if it would just drop into the orange. I'd probably run then. But it's just nasty right now. Never seen it this bad around here.

On the plus side, we are making progress on probably the toughest puzzle we've ever done.


I will NEVER do another mosaic puzzle. This thing is tough! Actually had to get out the magnifying glass to see the details in the little pieces.

 

[disneygpa]

Today's air quality is trending better. I could actually see a star, yep, one little star this morning when I went outside. I'll take it as a sign. A couple days ago, I could barely see across the street.



I have a CV run tonight. I think if the trend continues down, I'm going to run it.
There is a middle school in town that I did a lot of my 5k training at and it is basically at sea level, so I figure I'll go try and run there.
Being the lowest point around and close to the water, I'm hoping it'll be at least ok.

Oh, on a personal high note! My youngest Grandson Finnian, he's 14 months, said papa the other day while we were face-timing. Cool beans for a grandpa! He also kissed the screen bye-bye. Gonna be tough to be away from him for the next 3+ years until I retire. :-(

 

[disneygpa]

Last nights CV run didn't go so well.

I'm not sure if it was the poor air quality or maybe the fact that I hadn't done any runs since Saturday.
During Donna's portion of the run, everything seemed fine. Obviously her portion is easier, but dang. When I tried the CV pace it felt horrible.
I didn't pay any attention to T & D but I probably should have adjusted by 1.5 - 2 % and then maybe another adjustment for the air quality?
Not sure how to adjust for that, but it was still in the low "unhealthy" to high "unhealthy for sensitive group" range.
I don't consider myself to be in any sensitive group. So, I figured I'd probably be ok.
I only managed one interval at pace and then a partial 2nd interval before I called it a day.

It's supposed to rain today. That should help with the air quality. Maybe tonight's easy run will be better. I'll be back on my training plan schedule tonight if everything goes well.

Hawaii is closed until Oct 15th. So we have to reschedule. Bummer! I think we are going in April instead.

On the plus side, It frees up some vacation time to make another trip to FL, probably over Christmas.

 

[disneygpa]

Well, what a difference some rain makes! Thursday the air quality was bordering on the unhealthy range somewhere between 145-150. By Saturday morning, it was down in the good range at mid 20s where it remains today.

Friday - 1.5 miles with Donna and then 30 min @EA. Nothing really stands out about this run. It was nice and easy, and the weather was already starting to get better. Pleasant evening.

Saturday - 2 miles with Donna and then 48 min @ EA. Another nice evening for a run. Best thing about this run is that Donna admitted that she is actually starting to like running!!! Now this is a big deal for me! I kind of "influenced" her decision to start training for Princess. I told her how much fun it was to run down main street and thru the castle. I told her it was something she'd never forget. Now, of course, with covid... who knows what the experience will be. But regardless of how all this turns out, she is enjoying it now!

@DopeyBadger Billy, she has said that she likes running at her faster pace. I'm thinking we may have to up the effort for the next plan. Not enough so that she gets burned out, but enough that she still enjoys the harder run/walks.

Sunday - I spent this weekend working again. I'm really getting too old to work so many weekends, but the younger crew members don't want to and the work has to be done on the weekends to accommodate the production schedule. Anyway, it was another weekend of working out of a 135' boom lift, removing 750 watt light fixtures and replacing. Working in a lift at this height is a lot like being on a boat at sea. You are constantly adjusting your body to compensate for the movement of the lift. At the end of the day, it's pretty tiring. After work, I went home, took a nap, stretched and got busy! I'm currently out of Muarten, so pre run fuel was a GU and water. 2m WU, good no sweat, well a little sweat cause it was warmish. First 2 mile interval. When I started running at the T pace I felt "off" it felt like I was still in the lift and I felt weirdly wobbly. T + D was something near 120 so I had already decided to try and run this at the upper end of my pace window. For some reason I struggled to manage this. First mile 9:33, wobbly feeling has now passed but dang this feels hard today. Second mile 9:21 better. At least that one was within the +/- 10 sec of my 9:17 goal pace. This still felt difficult to maintain.

Now came the 5 min RI, I started walking, took in a GU and some water then went back to my WU/CD pace for the last 4 min. Second interval another 2 miles @ 9:17 goal. I felt so much better during this mile! 9:18 breathing was better, legs felt better, just overall it felt easier than the first two mile interval. What the heck? How can I feel better at this point? Second mile, 9:09. Where did that come from? Everything just felt better during this interval. Weird. this isn't the first time I've noticed the second interval feels better sometimes. Makes me wish I would have pushed a little harder on last Thursdays CV run. Maybe I just needed to get the first couple out of the way.

Finished up with another 5 min WU/CD jog, then 4 100 meters at @7:41 goal.
Managed to do 7:34, 7:42, 8:03 and 7:53. Not too bad I think.
Then a nice 1 mile @CD.



I really didn't know how this run was going to go. I was a little worried after Thursday's not so good performance and then working all day on top of that.

Other than the struggle during the first mile, I feel things went pretty good.

I do wonder though, why sometimes the second mile feels better? Is it just getting into a rhythm, or what?

Looking forward to a nice easy run tonight and then I gotta mow the lawn. Darn rain making the grass grow and all.....

 

[DopeyBadger]

Donna admitted that she is actually starting to like running!!!

@DopeyBadger Billy, she has said that she likes running at her faster pace. I'm thinking we may have to up the effort for the next plan. Not enough so that she gets burned out, but enough that she still enjoys the harder run/walks.

The R pace at 30 seconds was really just for fun. I mean, it'll do some stuff, but it's pretty minor. So it's like a taste of something, but all the while the author knows it won't really push you at all. Don't worry Donna.... I got you for the next time around... (j/k)

I do wonder though, why sometimes the second mile feels better? Is it just getting into a rhythm, or what?

Sometimes it takes just warming up the system. That's why sometimes it's important not to give up too soon. Sometimes it takes getting over the hump. And it goes to show that sometimes if you just take a short break, you can come back stronger the next time. Not always, but sometimes. Anecdotally, my long runs almost always feel harder at the start than the middle. At some point, the breathing settles and everything starts to gel. Usually around the 4 mile mark for me. Then until we get deep into the mileage things certainly seem easier.

One thing you could try is during your WU to include a few brief strides. Just to open up the legs and say "hey guys, we're working today". Might loosen things up sooner.

 

[disneygpa]

The R pace at 30 seconds was really just for fun. I mean, it'll do some stuff, but it's pretty minor. So it's like a taste of something, but all the while the author knows it won't really push you at all. Don't worry Donna.... I got you for the next time around... (j/k)



Sometimes it takes just warming up the system. That's why sometimes it's important not to give up too soon. Sometimes it takes getting over the hump. And it goes to show that sometimes if you just take a short break, you can come back stronger the next time. Not always, but sometimes. Anecdotally, my long runs almost always feel harder at the start than the middle. At some point, the breathing settles and everything starts to gel. Usually around the 4 mile mark for me. Then until we get deep into the mileage things certainly seem easier.

One thing you could try is during your WU to include a few brief strides. Just to open up the legs and say "hey guys, we're working today". Might loosen things up sooner.

A few strides is a great idea! I'm going to give that a try!

I'll make sure Donna knows the pain is coming!!

 

[disneygpa]

So, where to start?

Monday's run was good. 2 miles with Donna and then was supposed to be 30 min at EA, but the clouds looked angry and I needed to get the yard mowed before the rain started. So I ditched the last 30 min and mowed the yard while Donna pulled weeds.

Tuesday.... well the disappointment of Princess going virtual set in. I wasn't sure how to tell Donna and I wasn't sure how she would react. Remember, she's claims to not be a "runner". It really could have gone either way. I thought she might just say to heck with running since she couldn't run thru the castle. But to my surprise she took it pretty good. Obviously she was disappointed, but we decided to go ahead and keep training and we'll run the race in FL just like we had planned. Just not at the parks. I requested a refund for my race and left Donna signed up for just the medals. Our kids in FL have agreed to find a suitable place to run a half and to set up a "course" for us. So it'll kinda be a "race". I'm super excited that she has decided to keep on training toward the goal of a half!!! That little seed of running insanity planted a couple of months ago might just be taking root.

Not sure if I mentioned it earlier, but October Hawaii has been postponed and rescheduled for April now. Our friends that are going with us came over so we could reschedule things. I mentioned that I was kicking around the idea of a 50k and they questioned my sanity. Now, Donna questions my sanity quite often and with good reason. But for some reason it kinda stung that my best friend of 30+ years thought I was crazy. Then last night David Goggins put up a instagram post that hit home for me. In it he said "I'm not crazy, I'm just not you". I thought that was really appropriate for the situation and now that 50k is looking more interesting all the time. I'm going to make that decision after we run the 10k's.

Wednesday... Wow! What a difference a week makes. Tonight's run was a bunch of easy stuff with Donna and then 3 7min intervals at CV for me. After last weeks miserable failure at CV I wasn't sure how tonight's run would go. It went splendid! The weather was kind of iffy. We had gale force winds blowing something between 15 and 20mph so I kept the run to the local neighborhoods where the houses block most of the winds. This turned out to be a good decision. Only ran into a few spots where it was like running uphill the whole way!

Intervals felt good! Was a little fast on a couple, but also had a slight decline so I think it was okay.