Progress Check In

After my bummer of a long run, I was a little down on myself. Running does that sometimes, but I'm thankful it happened on a training run vs. a race. When this happens, instead of dwelling on the bummer, I try to make myself focus on progress instead.

So Sunday, while procrastinating my recovery run in the blazing heat and humidity, while enjoying a relaxing afternoon, I decided to pick up my training log from last year to see where I was at. Last summer was the first time in years that I really felt like my training was coming together. I was running some consistent miles, including some bigger weekly mileage. I was staying consistent-ish with my weekly long runs, and was having success adding in some speed work here and there. Last summer I was finally having some fun with training.

I took a look at my long runs to start. Most of them were in the 10:40+ pace range, with the exception of some that had race pace finishes. These long runs were half the distance of my long runs this summer. And my stinker of a 20 miler? Was a 10:20 pace. Whoa. Ok. That's some much needed perspective check.

Then I took a look at my tempo workouts. Last summer my tempo goal paces were 9-9:20 pace. That was a pretty big jump up from the spring, and I was really proud of that. Now this summer, that's my goal marathon pace. What I would shoot to do for 20-40 minutes at a time last year, I'm now (hopefully) in shape to do for ~4 hours. That blows my mind.

So I would highly recommend that any time you're feeling a little ho hum about a performance, to take a few minutes to look at where you are compared to where you were (just avoid looking at those years where all of your PRs live, because that's a different comparison trap altogether :P).

Focus on Strides

On the way home from our Chicago race, I had Toni pull up her race data for me to look at. As her unofficial coach, I was curious to see how her splits played out, as she said she didn't look at her watch much throughout the race, and just ran by feel.....hard.

While looking at her stats, I noticed that her cadence was 160. Which is the same as mine. This should come as no surprise, since our running form is almost identical. But I also know that ideally your cadence should be closer to 170-180. I recently listened to a podcast by Jason Fitzgerald, who stated that a cadence of 170 on an easy, regular ol' run day is a pretty good goal to shoot for, since on speedier days, you'll be closer to 180.

Since 2017 was spent building a strong running base, I told Toni that 2018 we would make a conscious effort to increase our running cadence. The training programs we follow always have strides and hill strides in them. Anywhere from 2-3 runs a week are supposed to have strides in them. Every day I tell Toni what our workout is. At the start of each run, I tell her to remind me of the strides that we're supposed to do, because we just get talking and I forget about them.

So while we were driving home, I mentioned that we should really try hard to remember to do the strides to help with our turnover and speed. And Toni, while driving, said, "Uh, I have a confession."

Me: Ok, what's that?

Toni: I always remember that we have strides to do, and I purposely don't remind you.

Me: What?!?!?!?

This girl, who can bust her booty for a crazy long time in a half, or ten mile, or whatever race distance she's doing, doesn't like to run a little bit speedy for 100 meters at a time?!?!

So I fired her from stride reminders, and will be taking over in that capacity for all of 2018. Here's to some speedier legs and quicker turnover! No thanks to Toni. :P

Progress Post

I am heavily inspired by seeing progress in my running. Sometimes it's hard to see progress once you've been running for years and years. The major PRs every race are long in the past. For me, mine are in the very far past, but I hope to change that!

For the past several years, I've trained loosely by heart rate. The last season I used heart rate training for was Fall 2011. I ran the Fargo FM half in 1:55 after being up all night, and morning with food poisoning. I ran the Philadelphia marathon with friends and ran a 4:25, helping a friend snag a 25 minute PR. If someone offered me $1000 to run a 4:25 right now, I wouldn't be able to do it. And that was a comfortable 26.2 miles.

So I firmly believe that heart rate training works, and works well, especially for those who've hit a wall with their progress and improvement as a runner (heart rate training post coming soon!).

Over the past several years, I have trained loosely by heart rate training, but because I was rarely in really good shape, heart rate training can be very defeating. When you're out of shape AND trying to keep your heart rate in a super easy zone, it can result in paces that look more like walking than running, especially if you're running in the summertime!

During my last "long" run for the Too Cold to Hold half, I was shocked at where my heart rate stayed during a run where my pace looked and felt speedy for my current fitness level. Two days later, I had a 5 mile general aerobic run. The first mile was around 11 minutes, which is pretty typical for my general aerobic heart rate zone, at some point I looked down at my pace during the second mile and it was 10:15. I waited for my watch to switch to the HR screen as I assumed I was running at too hard of an effort level, and was shocked to see I was on the low end of my heart rate zone for the run.

Whoa.

I ended the run with an average pace of 10:22, and that's with an 11 minute first mile. To see your pace drop almost 45 seconds/mile on a run is huge, and I let that propel a massive runner's high the rest of the day.

I may not be shooting for a massive PR this spring, but I am excited to put in the work to see where I can get my body. I'm excited for the base building cycle I'm doing right now, and I'm excited to continue that base building once I start my actual training program. I think this base will help to keep me injury free once the speedwork (my fave!) starts up.

So cheers to celebrating and taking time to notice your progress along the way. You deserve it!

Progress + Happy Birthday Mom

As a runner, I thrive on progress. Yes, I enjoy competition, but when I compete, it's primarily against myself. Occasionally I'll use a person in front of me in a race or on the bike trail during a speed session as a competitive figure head to drive me forward, but to me a PR is a win.

It's been three years since I've set PRs (uff, that hurts to type a little bit) and it's safe to say that my decreasing speed, and increased school load contributed tremendously to me losing my love of running over the past couple of years. I'd get a wild hair to run, or train for something, and I'd be so discouraged by how slowly and painfully I was moving, that I just couldn't get the l-o-v-e back.

Sometime after the Madison Marathon, or possibly during the training for it, I finally stopped comparing myself to the runner that I used to be. Instead of focusing on the training paces I used to run, or the PRs that I haven't come close to hitting, I started searching instead for progress. Of any kind.

• I didn't want to die on a long run! Progress.

• I took 44 seconds off my half marathon time in 6 months (lolz). Progress

• I was able to complete a long run without walk breaks. Progress.

• I was able to start adding speed sessions to my training. Mega PROGRESS!

• I took 12 minutes off my half time in six weeks. Progress!

And in doing so, I've slowly but surely started to feel more like my former runner self. I'm still not where I was prior to starting grad school, but I can see that runner not too far in the distance.

Two weeks ago I hit my fastest mile repeats in over two years. When I look at my mile repeat paces from a couple of years back, it's easy to be discouraged by my "new" fast time. But I also would've thrown in the towel two years ago on a mile repeat workout in the temps and humidity that I completed them in. So, I consider that progress. Of the mental kind. which I've always desperately needed. Wahoo.

When I was doing my May in Review post, I was excited that I spent 90 minutes less running in May than I did in April, and ran roughly the same miles. Which prompted me to look at my other months of running this year. I did some rough calculations, and came up with the following:

Month	Mileage	Time	Avg Pace
Jan	60.5	11	10.91
Feb	80.2	14.66	10.97
Mar	52.2	9.25	10.63
Apr	65.7	11.33	10.35
May	61.5	10	9.76

To go from an 11 minute overall pace to a 9:45 pace in the past five months, gives me the much needed inspiration to tackle my marathon training cycle in a week and a half. Bring on the progress!

And now to switch gears completely:  Happiest of Happy birthdays to Mama Bear, the biggest Team Green fan on the planet!

Progress + Injury Prevention

After my not-so-awesome half marathon performance in NYC in March, I was rattled. I even blogged about passing on a fall marathon because of my finishing time of 2:14:09. When I was planning my spring races, I thought it was feasible to run sub 2 in NYC and potentially shoot for a PR, six weeks later in Brookings.

Instead of panicking (other than that blog post, of course) I reassessed my training. I had zero speed work. I had no fast finish long runs, or long runs with pickups in them. Both things I could add that would make my legs speedier and drop some time off my half marathon.

But I was TERRIFIED of speedwork. Anytime I do speedwork I break. And I didn't want to break.

It was around this time that I was reading yet another running book, and there was a whole chapter on running form. Oh yes, let me read on. One of the pictures in the book was identical to my running form, and of course it was a big no-no. Grr. But in reading on, it explained that someone with that form likely has weak glutes causing the hips to collapse, pulling the legs all wonky on their follow through, LEADING TO IT BAND ISSUES, HIP PAIN, AND KNEE ISSUES. Oh yes yes yes, tell me more!

I started searching for glute strengthening exercises. I bookmarked this one from runners world (click here to go straight to the video) on my iPhone. I also bookmarked this hip stretching exercise and had been doing the leg swings before all of my long runs, and it was helping considerably. I also found a "never get injured" set of exercises from runners world that also got bookmarked on my phone. (I also forwarded most of these to every injury prone runner I know, we're in this together, yo!)

The glute exercises were so hard. They still are, but they've gotten easier. My booty was BURNING when I finished them the first time. The guide says to do them 2-3 times, reps of 15 a time, twice a week. I usually end up doing them on my rest days, so 3x a week. I continue to do the hip exercises, particularly the leg swings, and hurdler exercises before long runs and speed sessions.

Before the St. Patty's 5k, I made Jenn hang out with me as I did dynamic stretches that we did in track practice: high skips, low skips, high knees, butt flicks, kick outs, carioka (lolz, up until five seconds ago, I thought this was karaoke, bahahha). She felt dumb, but my legs felt great. Every time we hit the track, we run our warm up mile and then do that same run through before we hit our hard miles. And it's seeming to work! I'm not sure why it didn't occur to me to do these sooner. I did them every day before a run for 6 track seasons. Derp. (these explained here, mostly)

Better late than never, right?

So in six weeks time, I feel like the strongest runner I've been in a really long time. Taking 12 minutes off my half marathon time in six short weeks is the sort of progress that used to come when I was a newbie runner. But I'm confident that if I can keep injuries at bay, continue to do these strengthening exercises, I can get back to speedy Jeri very very soon!