Thursday, April 2, 2009

Needles and Running

Wednesday:
We went to bed thinking that another 5" of snow would greet us in the morning. Not the case. Lake Superior saved us again. The lake can be our friend or enemy... this morning it would serve as our friend. As I stepped out the door it was calm with a fresh inch to two inches of snow along with temps in the upper twenties, small snow flakes falling and a subtle bank of fog. I tried to hit the quiet streets and made my way out to Vermilion and completed a small loop to Pleasant View, (where is the pleasant view?) before making my return trip. I felt super and the legs have recovered from yesterday's work.

Totals: 54:40   6.6 miles  (HR 125   8:14 pace)


Thursday:
To reflect on the blog title I have to say I was lucky this morning as I started my run and I thought I had a small piece of wood stuck in my sock that was picking my big toe. I finally stopped after twenty minutes of running and realized it wasn't a piece of wood. Somehow a small sewing needle made its way into my shoe and was stuck in the insole of my shoe and was poking up and into my big toe! Wow, that could have been a disaster. Luck was on my side.

Today I chose the 'stamina' workout over the strength workout, (hills) primarily because of the road conditions I was faced with and I didn't want to run on the treadmill again. That was OK with me as I was looking forward to the workout. I ran west on Skyline to Piedmont and returned home. I found myself running pretty hard at times and had to calm myself down to keep within the workout and not hit it too hard. I guess that is a good problem to have rather than slugging just to keep pace. Very happy with the effort and more importantly how I felt after the workout. My legs recovered well and I am looking forward to the easy recovery run tomorrow morning. The workout was warm up, 8-10 repeats of 2 min. at ~5k pace with 1 min. recovery, followed by a cool down home.

 Here is a breakdown of the workout:
warm up 27:43  3.6 miles
repeat 1=  2:03  HR 147  5:39 pace
repeat 2=  2:03 HR 152  5:29 pace
repeat 3=  1:57  HR 153  5:24 pace
repeat 4=  2:02  HR 150 5:34 pace
repeat 5=  2:04  HR 148 5:24 pace
repeat 6=  1:55  HR 153  5:39 pace
repeat 7=  2:01  HR 149  5:27 pace
repeat 8= 2:05  HR 155  5:28 pace
repeat 9=  2:01  HR 151  5:19 pace
*course was mostly flat, but some minor hills on some of the slower splits. The HR's are an 'average' for the two minutes and I saw mid 160's several times at the end of each interval.
warm down 28:02  HR 133  3.9 miles

Total: 1:22:14   11.6 miles



2 comments:

Patrick said...

Gregg you really need to get on the ball, because I've checked Letsrun and you haven't posted that workout asking "Based on this workout, what can I run for a 5k?"

But seriously, it sounds like you're doing pretty well for yourself with the fickle weather. This is the time of year when the treadmill starts to wear on me as well. I want to be outside!

Also the "pleasant views" are the hallucinations you get after running up from Jean Duluth. Psychedelic.

Gregg said...

PR
I was going to post this week but I found out that I will not be running Fitgers 5k since it is FULL! No too happy about that since I am getting into shape and it's a race I have enjoyed in the past.

Maybe the reason I haven't seen the 'pleasant views' is due to the fact I don't usually run UP the hill, I go around via Elk. I'll have to give it the old college try!