Back hurdling hydrants, and phone punch down panel boxes (not sure what they’re actually called). Nearly biffed it on that last one as I forgot to take into account the fact that I was going downhill.
Went for a six mile run. I had forgotten how fun it is to run downhill for a mile and a half after having gone uphill for almost two. I ended up getting a 5K time faster than my race time.
Suburban Waxing Moon
The sun was setting as I started, and it was almost completely dark as i was finishing. I harvested some zucchini when I finished.
On the 10th I planned to go for a four mile run, but, got asked to bring a drum kit to orchestra rehearsal that night. It’s kind of a hassle doing so, but I’m happy to do it for the orchestra. I have to take a bunch of stuff apart, being careful with the stuff that stays behind (especially mics), bring it upstairs, pack it in my vehicle, unload it at rehearsal, and reverse the process when we’re done. I decided I should start the drums first before my run. It turned out I didn’t have time for my run.
Instead, I went for a run on Friday the 11th before my concert. (I left my drums in my car overnight, as I had to bring them to the concert as well.) My big toe was hurting where my toenail is still growing back, so I cut it short at four miles.
Nothing special about the run statistics wise. I did have a best pace of 6:40 on the downhill without trying.
On September 25th, I didn’t leave myself enough time for a longer run before dark, so I only went 3.1 miles. My fastest pace was only 5:19, with an average of 6:58 in my last 0.1 miles.
On the 27th, I did another hill workout, mostly the same route as on the 23rd. It was really hot out, max temperature during my run was 99°F, with an average of 94°F. It appears Garmin made an update that made it so my watch or Garmin Connect figured out I was doing intervals, so I can say that my interval average was 7:56. But, it lumped my hills with my last 0.1 mile. The hills were in the 8:xx range (8:31, 8:11, 8:53), while the last 0.1 was 6:47. My fastest pace, in that last 0.1, was 4:45, after having run over 6.5 miles. And once upon a time I could keep that pace up for at least a mile!
October 1st I went for an easy, short run, 2.11 miles, basically uphill then back down. This allowed me to get a new “fastest mile” (as far as Garmin knows) of 9:55, with a max pace of 7:29, but this was not pushing hard, just going downhill.
Last week I ran one more time. I planned to do six miles, but as I was finishing, decided to add 0.2 miles to make it a 10K. So it was my first run of 10K for a long time.
There wasn’t much special about it (it took almost 1:18:00), but I did have a fastest pace of 5:00 and an average pace of 7:18 in my last 0.1 miles despite being quite beat. Then I thought about how in high school, that 7 minute pace was my easy run pace.
Cycling
I didn’t run more last week because I went for bike rides instead: 18+ miles on the 17th, 26.2 miles on the 20th, and 35.2 miles on the 21st, for a total of just over 80 cycling miles last week. That 26.2 took me just under two hours, but taking out traffic lights and such, it was about 1:45.
The 35.2 took me 2:53:50, but 2:43:09 moving time. I was kind of beat before I was headed home. I stopped for a tiny rest at a place with a great view. I didn’t take pictures that time, but I had rested there on Labor Day, and took some then.
7 Miles and Hills
Today I decided to go for a seven mile run, because why not? I also decided to do a hill workout. So I ran three miles or so to a great hill by a river. I forgot to press the lap button for my first time up, which was going to give me a nice, slow baseline. Oh well. I ran up twice more, each time trying to go fast.
My first fast lap up was 0.09 miles in 0:43.1. Second was in 0:45.9. I was a little bummed that I didn’t get my second lap faster, but, my average pace was 8:04 and 8:41 on an average of 5.3% grade (there’s a fair bit of not steep distance, followed by steep stuff). And, my fastest pace for the run was not downhill, it was on my first uphill, 5:33.
It’s kind of sad to think I used to be able to run five miles in almost half that time (58%), but I used to weigh almost half what I weigh now (59%)
Fastest pace: 4:17 🎉🥂
During my last 0.1 mile speed challenge
Pace during that last 0.1 was 7:01
I’m happy with that fastest pace, even though the average for the last 0.11 was only 7:01. I really started slowing down at the end. I was kinda of winded. That 4:17 might possibly have had something to do with it.
That’s what I said comparing today’s run (well, it’s now early Saturday instead of Friday, but whatever) to Wednesday’s run would be like. I intended to do another 3 mile run, the same course, so I could have three runs in a row to compare, hoping to have a sub-11:00/mi pace today. But when I got to the top of the first hill, my body and my brain were both in agreement: I should cross the intersection and go up the next hill. So, it became a 4 mile run instead. Only problem was the app I’m using, if you’ve set a distance target, once you hit that target, it stops telling or displaying how far you’ve gone. It just displays that you have 0.0 miles to go. So I ended up stopping the official run at 3.92 miles, though I did cover enough in cool down to get 4.
When I got to the top of the next hill, and as I approached the traffic light, my belly, my lungs, and my quads were in agreement: I should head east at the light, get to my halfway point and turn around. That would prevent me from having to run down the other side of the hill, and then back up it. My brain though, it said, “Hey, as long as you give me the right song when we get to the intersection, I’m there!”
I’m still fast when sufficiently motivated by the right tune. Oh, and gravity.
I was basically trying to do a fartlek workout that became a hill workout as well, so this playlist is a pretty decent one for fartlek. Surfing With A Spoon was better for the uphill than I thought it would be. The end of Home was playing as I went 5:05; it was pretty decent for the pace. The only issue was I was at the end of the song, and there’s a bit of live outtro that didn’t help me keep up the pace. It was okay though. My body didn’t really want to keep it up much longer. I then reached 2 miles and turned around to go back up the hill.
After I was back on the relatively flat crest of the big second hill, I hit the lead up to the repeated but unanswered question, “Is It Now?”. I wasn’t intending to run fast, but that became the spike after the big spike in the middle.
As I approached the downhill of the second hill, I was listening to Summer Song, but was going to run out of fast tempo, so I switched it back to Is It Now? and got that third spike, at a 6:02 pace.
Summer Sessions Eye was a decent song for finishing out the downhill of the first hill. I feel like Impossible Shame would have been great for more fartlek if I had realized I wasn’t at 4 miles yet. The last two were cool down, but would have been good for fartlek as well.
Henry Hurdles Hydrants 