Four miles. Plus a 0.1 speed challenge. Even though I already did four sprint segments.
Stats:
4.1 mi
49:28
Fastest pace 4:30 during last 0.1 mile
Also the fastest for the run!
Average pace for the last 0.1 mile: 7:02
The big downhill:
0.09 miles
0:35 time
6:38 pace
The second big downhill:
0.08 miles
0:29.5 time
6:06 pace
I slept decently last night, so my body battery wasn’t stuck at 5 like it was on Friday. It’s now at 20, with my workout impact of -22. My 965 estimates I lost almost 0.9 liters of fluid. Good thing I’m about to replace it.
Similar distance. But no comparing, because the route differences made it harder to keep my pace up: it was substantially darker, so I couldn’t see my path well enough to go faster at times. Also, I had my phone weighing me down, and I didn’t try as hard to go fast going downhill.
Stats:
3.12 mi
35:46
Fastest pace 5:01 during last 0.12 miles
Average pace for the last 0.12 miles: 6:32
My “Body Battery” according to my 965 is at 5 now, down from 79 this morning (with a max of 100 possible). My watch tells me it was a demanding day, and that I should focus on rest and recovery for the remainder of the day.
I didn’t hit my goal of a sub-35:00 5K on last Friday’s run, but last night I did it. I changed several things, so it’s hard to say which had the most impact, and which had little or no impact. But here’s what was different:
No phone weighing me down
I got a Garmin Forerunner 965. This allowed me to not lose time unlocking my phone in the dark. It also enabled better visibly for my stats, so I could see how fast I was going downhill, and try to keep the pace from slowing too much. I could see when I was dragging (especially as I approached the 2 mile mark) and pick up the pace.
I uploaded a Spotify playlist to my Garmin, with songs specifically selected with running in mind, rather than random every eclectic thing I’ve ever liked on YouTube Music. This focused list made it easier to run harder, and let me not lose time to skipping or rearranging songs (and more phone unlocking).
Because I was thinking about high knee workouts last time, I tried harder to use my hamstrings when I started going slow.
I stretched deeper and longer before my run, and I didn’t do an upper body workout the night before.
Here’s my stats:
3.1 miles
34:50, more than 9 minutes less than four runs ago
Average pace was 11:14
Top pace in last 0.1 was 4’36”
My last 0.1 mile overall was slower than it should have been because I tried to see what my instantaneous pace was while running
I’ll probably bring my phone next time, as I like being able to reflect on my run (viz. make these post-run posts) during my cool down walk home, I like being able to take pictures on my run, and it looks like I can’t control the Spotify playlist from my Garmin while in the middle of an activity. I also can’t get messages from Live Tracking if I’m sharing a feed without my phone.
After finishing 3.01 miles, on my way to the spot where I do my end of run sprint (slightly uphill), the back of my right knee was hurting, stiff, not wanting to move. Like I’d been going uphill a lot, and it was never getting the full range of motion. Because it wasn’t. This is a large part of why I missed my goal of getting faster than a 35 minute 5K: my feet were dragging because I wasn’t using my hamstrings like I needed to. So, I did a little bit of a high knee drill as I walked to my sprint spot. That helped a lot.
And even though I didn’t get my 5K time faster (oh, also there were very few sprinklers to cool me down today, as I ran an hour earlier), I did improve my sprint time:
3.11 miles
38:17
my 5K time after accounting for screen unlock time was probably 38:07
Best pace 5’32” during the last 0.1 mile
A better improvement than the Monday to Wednesday improvement
I might have one more single run dramatic improvement left in me, but I think I’m going to have to start actually training— fartlek, hill workouts, longer distances, sprint drills, etc.—to get better improvements. Losing weight will also help. For some reason a 17 minute 5K wasn’t too hard when I was skin and bone and quadriceps. Well, age may also play a role. Perhaps. Just maybe.
I did an upper body workout yesterday, so after my run I just went to the sauna for a half hour or so.
Losing fluid in the sauna
Oh, and I think I need new shoes. I’ve had these for a while, 4 years or so. They would be fine if I were my ideal weight, but….
It’s a song by Aussie band Midnight Oil. It’s great for fartlek workouts. Starts off slow, picks up speed, then just rocks. I was still going a touch uphill when it came up. It got me going a lot faster just knowing it was going to speed up. But it was over before I really got going downhill, so I took some time to unlock my phone, go back, and put the slider about half way through. I was kind of dying when it ended the second time.
I also had issues unlocking my phone at the 3.0 and 3.12 marks. So my time should have been faster. That said:
3.12 miles
38:06
1:17 shaved off of Monday’s run
37:56 was my 5K time (there’s that difficulty unlocking my phone in the dark with my pin)
Best pace 5’47” during the last 0.1 mile
After a post-run stretch and a little snack (frozen grapes, havarti, chunky peanut butter and crackers) I went to the gym for strength training. I planned to do a fairly complete upper body workout. (Most people have to be told to not skip leg day; for me it’s the reverse.) But after the torso twists, with a max load of 200 lbs., and the rowing and lat pull downs, I was feeling pretty beat, so I headed to the sauna.
This is my “fatigued smile” in the sauna.
I think for my next run, I’m going to do the same course as these past three, and try to push myself to a sub-35 5K.
I went for my second run since ’21 tonight, by the light of the full moon. I knew it was a Blue Moon, so I decided a picture was in order after my run was done.
With Samsung S23 Ultra, Pro Mode, don’t remember the settings, 10x zoom Same, but with the shutter speed allowing more light inS23 Ultra normal picture mode, night filterAppropo that I’m wearing a shirt with an owl on it
It turns out not only is it a Blue Moon, it’s also a supermoon!
[This] full moon is a Supermoon; a Blue Moon; the Sturgeon Moon; the Red, Corn, Green Corn, Barley, Herb, Grain, or Dog Moon; Raksha Bandhan or Rakhi Purnima; and Tu B’Av.
I remembered to stretch both before and after my run. I also discovered Dave Brubeck Quartert’s 1961 Castilian Blues is a tad too mellow for the end of a run, but Gaelic Storm’s One More Day Above The Roses works quite alright, and the instrumental outtro that lasts just under a minute is pretty good for my end-of-run final 0.1 push.
Oh, and there was a cat stuck on a chain link fence as I was leaving the park that I helped get down.
First run since summer of ’21. Late, dark, so not too hot.
5K in 44:28.
Shoulder injury from long ago now aches. Quads are tired (but they still hadn’t recovered from the 490 lb max load on Wednesday. Hams need to be put to better use. Probably need to strength train them better.
Legs feel like they haven’t overheated, so I can probably do this again without an eczemaflare up.
I packed up my jersey, purchased when I was considering doing Salt to Saint as an employee of the featured company.
And off I went. My throat started to get dry at 1.5 miles, so I went to take a drink, and realized I forgot my water. And my sunglasses again. So home, and back on the road again. I took Winchester to get to the Jordan River Trail system, which meant a fast, steep, downhill, followed by a, “I’m close enough to my parents’ house; I should stop by real quick.”
Along the JRT system, in the South end of the valley, I saw two mule deer, a red bellied bird, some lizards, and of course a lot of other birds and waterfowl.
I also rode past the location of one of my first scout camp outs. The Jordan Narrows. My first “snipe hunt” (after which I learned there is such a bird as a snipe, it just isn’t as described). But it’s fallen victim to progress. It’s now used for gravel or sand or something.
I was planning to ride 55 miles, and as I reached the half way point, I was only 7 miles from the Utah Lake Inlet, so I decided to make it to the lake. When I got there, I was beat, and out of fluid. I also clearly didn’t have enough daylight to make it home.
Utah Lake, primary source of the Jordan River
I made a call, and arranged to just keep riding south, after I replenished my fluids at a store, and my sweeper would pick me up however far south I got, with a 30 minute delay before leaving to get me. They only waited 15 minutes, which was fine because my quads were killing me. I went to Maverick and bought some Gatorade and water. As I stopped to put it in my bike bottles, some guy, who kind of looked like a coworker of mine, and was dressed up for the evening, gave me a look that seemed to me like “what are you doing here,” but probably because I thought he looked like my coworker.
Now that I was on the open road, instead of the trails, I was able to get some speed and keep it. My fastest mile was not the one where I almost hit 40 mph downhill in Taylorsville / Murray. It was along the west side of the lake, at just over 20 mph.
Green = bike ride, blue = car ride home via an Iron Strong at Roxbury.
So, I took screenshots of many workouts, but never blogged about them. There was an eight mile run in Saint George on April 9th, with a killer uphill, and a couple of downhills so steep I couldn’t really take advantage of them or I’d kill my knees. I did half of one backwards, and part of the other using an S-weave.
There was a hill workout on April 19th that was up and down five times, with my fastest pace uphill. It really helped the pace of my next run.
On May 1st, there was a six mile run, split between city roads, trail running, country ranch roads, and open highway (with a fair bit of uphill there as well).
Today, I finally did it. I achieved a sub-10:00 average pace!
I even beat my fastest pace recorded on my phone, at 4:41 min/mile during my post-run “speed test”.
And with this achievement, I will stop blogging every run (or trying to).
Nothing remarkable about today’s run, except that it wasn’t as awful running into the wind as I was expecting it to be. But also, my quads were still stiff from Saturday’s run. Apparently I needed to stretch them more. It affected my hydrant hurdling. I started off as a rabbit again:
My playlist was actually pretty good. I think I should repeat it on my next run, and go the reverse direction.
Henry Hurdles Hydrants 