VT Dad’s fight vs. inertia & flab

I overslept this morning for the first time in nearly a month.  My run yesterday was terrible.  I am going to take a much needed rest day today.  Hopefully I am truly a new me, not the self sabotaging old me.  Tomorrow is an important day.  Tomorrow I need to hear my alarm.  Tomorrow I need to run.  Tomorrow I hope I’ll enjoy.  Rest today, play tomorrow.  Shut up those demons of doubt in my head tomorrow.

This afternoon was a glorious day for a run, sunny, with no wind, and temperatures in the 50’s.  I had a nice 4.3 mile route that includes 4 miles, 2 out and 2 back on a bike path, and marked, at the 1, 1.5, and 2 mile spots as part of a 5 mile race held annually in September.  The first mile is uphill, then flat, while the second mile is all uphill.  The reverse is then true for miles 3&4.

I began my run with a .15 mile warm up, and unfortunately I felt stiff.  My goal for the run was to try to run each mile under nine minutes.  I had left my HR monitor at home, so there wouldn’t be any beeping  if I was out of my target zone.  To my disappointment, I reached the first mile in 9:40.  With the uphill mile staring my in the face, I changed my goal to running every mile under 10:00.  I was at the 1.5 mile mark in exactly 5:00, so I tried to bear down during  the second half of that mile.  I reached mile 2 having failed again, in 10:03.  I had lost it for this run, my legs felt like led, and I clocked the downhill mile 3 in 10:32.  I trudged on, for about 2/10th of a mile, when I tried to concentrate on my form, and renewed my focus to keep this last mile from being my slowest one of the day.  The mile ended, like all my previous ones in disappointment, as I crossed the line in 10:39.

For the first time in 4 weeks doubts have entered my mind.  I am now planning to alter my running schedule to eliminate  Thursday’s killer hill run, and add a rest day before my half marathon on Sunday.  Of greater concern is that for the first time since I started wearing orthodics, about a year ago, my feet are hurting, reminding my of the plantar fasciatus that kept me sidelined for quite some time ~13 months ago.

When I play basketball, what I want most is for myself, and the people I am playing with to “respect the game. “   To play hard on both offense and defense and to share the ball.  Last week when I played with the high school kids, the games became somewhat of a joke, and it was frustrating to me.  The 2 best players on the other team weren’t respecting the game.  Today was much better.  My team dominated, although I only scored 3 baskets.  We played as a team, played hard, and shared the ball.  The starting center was on the opposing team, and he quit in the middle of the second game.  Once he was gone everyone on both sides played really hard.  After sitting for 2&½ more games he wanted to play in the fifth game, but the other players on the court wouldn’t let him back in the game.

After that game ended, he asked if I wanted to play him 1 on 1.  As we started, he bragged that he wasn’t going to let me win again.  I enjoyed beating him 7-3.  During the next 2 games he took the lead, I regained the lead, but I couldn’t close him out, losing 7-5 & 8-6.  I was exhausted, having played much more than I had anticipated.  Unfortunately, when members of the soccer team arrived hoping to play, I was the 8th player left in the gym, so I was dragged exhausted onto the court for 3 more games.

Tomorrow, I’ll cancel my pre-dawn run, and wait until my youngest is playing tennis to go for a 4.3 mile run starting and ending at my health club. This run goes along the bike path to the University of Vermont, and has measured miles.  Afterwards, I am planning a highly anticipated cool down in the hot tub.

Days Running 7/7  Tuesday’s run was a recovery run
Mileage 34.5 up from 32.3
Pace 9:30 an improvement from last week of 9:47
Long Run 11.1 miles, trying to reach 12 miles by Jan 20
Long Run Pace 10:52 with a goal of 10:00 by Jan 20
Avg. Hr 152, A little lower than last week
%HR too high 49.7% some runs too high intensity this week
%HR in zone 28.8%, a big drop off I’m shooting for greater than 80%
Weight 201, down 2 lb from last week, 6 more to go before New Years

This past week was a very positive one for me.  I continued to have a positive mind set, lose weight, and make progress.  I had a great 5K race, but my long run today has me worried about my performance in a ½ marathon next Sunday.  I have 9 weeks to shave 102 seconds off my 5K time.  I had my first training run with any mile splits under my Jan20 goal pace of 8:40.

I loved my stability ball workouts, increasing their frequency to 5/7 for the week. One of the nights I missed was last night, when my eldest daughter’s field hockey team was at the house celebrating their 3-0 victory in the state championship game.  I’ve all but dropped pliometric shoes from my routine.  I had another great week, and will try to keep my head screwed on correctly.

Today was a cold biting morning, with a relentless wind.  Not ideal conditions for a long run, especially not the day after a 5K race.   I began my run with my friend’s from SD concerns and encouragement  ringing in my head.   I wasn’t too concerned, since my base runs were longer than yesterdays race.   I struggled some in the first mile with the wind and my fatigue.  The old me would have turned around at the mile point, but I continued in the pre-dawn darkness.  I could see my second mile split, it was over 10:00, so I had already failed one of my goals, to run all my long run measured miles under 10:00.  I decided to focus on my form, and was able to run nice and relaxed for the next 4 miles or so.  At mile 6, I couldn’t get my watch to stop the split time, and in my frustration, I stopped my watch completely.

Annoyed, I ran on, without the distractions of  my beeping watch. I was alone as the sun began to rise.  But I wasn’t alone, I had a smiling friend in NZ who is doing so well, and is so encouraging;  a running Pixie in SD whose love for cardio is infectious, Miss PP from Ontario who is making great strides, and where the 6:00A.M. temperature was probably colder than VT; FD who has set some lofty goals for himself; I found myself hurdling fallen trees and thought of my friend in ATL and her hurdle training; I thought about a WA princess whose cut diet has her so cut; I was daring to soar.  I wasn’t alone on my run anymore, and I felt great.  Even with my tremendous help mile 8 was difficult, and I struggled during mile 9 to lengthen my stride, and take advantage of gravity on the downhill.  Today, I survived my long run.  Tomorrow I’ve scheduled a rest day…………..But I know  I won’t rest 100%, I know I’ll be playing basketball with the HS boys Monday afternoon.

I had my first 5K race in quite some time today.  My 5K PR is 25:05.  If I string my three fastest recent miles back to back to back, I’d run a 26:24.  My goal by January 20th is to run sub 24:00.  I woke up early and ate breakfast, then took my dog for a walk.  Although it was overcast, it was a great morning for a run, I thought I should wear shorts and short sleeves, my running hat, and socks as gloves until I warmed up. I registered for the race, then returned to my car to listen to my favorite running tunes and relax.  While a light drizzle was dampening my windshield, I was getting pumping up by the music.  I looked at my HR monitor, and was thrilled to see that my resting HR was in the 50’s.

This race was different than the 10K I ran 2 weeks ago.  This race was filled with recreational runners, while the 10K had a much higher percentage of serious racers.  The first ½ of the course was mostly uphill and the second half mostly downhill.  I felt like I was moving along at a pretty good clip, when my mind began to wander, I was searching for mile markers, and there weren’t any.  During the first  ½ of the race I was surging and responding to another runner’s surges.  I tried to strike up a conversation , but he wasn’t having as much fun as I was.  Unfortunately he surged again, but this time I couldn’t counter.  At about the 2.5 mile point I began to catch a kid.  He had been way ahead of me, but now his mind had wandered, and he had totally lost his focus.  As I passed him, I pointed out the police lights ahead, which signified that the end of the race was near.  This picked up his spirits, and now I found myself in a race with a 12 year old kid.  As I made the final turn, I saw that in addition to the kid, there were 2 more runners  right behind me.  I sprinted, I mean I sprinted, (normally at the close of race I can only surge), but today I sprinted.  I kept that 12 year old, and the other runners at bay, finishing 18th out of 59 runners in 25:42, averaging 8:18 miles.

I had a great race.  In 4 more weeks, on Thanksgiving, I have my next 5K, and 5 weeks after on New Yea

I followed yesterday’s killer hill run with an night session on the stability ball, and I felt great when I awoke.  Those Montpelier hills made the ones I face on my daily run seem like speed bumps.  I also was feeling great because yesterday I punched some new holes in belt to keep my pants up.  The one thing that I didn’t like about my hill run was that I felt that my form deteriorated, and I relied on powering up the hills rather than running efficiently.

Today was another amazing morning.  It was cold and clear.  It was the first morning I contemplated wearing gloves.  I like my top, which has a slits for my thumbs, and works like a half glove, so I didn’t put on the gloves.  I concentrated on my form during my first mile, and I couldn’t believe it, for the first time I surpassed my 8:40 goal for the mile.  I was happy, but I told myself that now was the time to concentrate not relax, and I pressed on with hopes of setting a PR for this base run.  I was ahead of my best pace at the 17:20 beeping, so I had to remind myself to concentrate, that my run was still less than half over.  At the 26 minute point I was still ahead of my PR pace, so I wanted to continue running strong.  At the 34:40 mark, I new I would eclipse my PR, so I set two more goals for myself, to try to complete my run in less than 41 minutes, and to have my pace for the run to be sub 9:00 miles.  I kept going, finding power in every stride, keeping my strides efficient.  I could feel the difference made by strengthening my coreusing the stability ball.

I finished the run elated.  My time was 40:00!!!  I averaged 8:50 miles!!!

This afternoon was a fabulous day for a run ~55 degrees with brilliant sunshine, and little wind, but today’s run was  a bear.  I returned to Montpelier and repeated a 4.7 mile run that I first completed 2 weeks ago.  The first hill, came about 4 minutes into the run had an extreme grade, which left me gasping for air.  I hadn’t fully recovered from that hill, when  I arrived at the second hill.  My memory from 2 weeks ago was totally  different than  what I experienced today.  The hill never stopped.  I was huffing and puffing and chugging along with an uphill grade for ~12 minutes until the turnaround point.   During the downhill return portion of the run I had trouble maintaining an efficient stride.  At least once on each hill the grade was so severe that I had problems getting my legs to turn over as fast as I needed them to.  My quads took a pounding.  It was an amazing run.  I was also thrilled with my improvement form 2 weeks ago.  I ran the uphill section ~2 minutes faster this week, while I improved by ~30 seconds on the downhill section.  I plan to keep this run  as part of my weekly schedule.

I slept in today, knowing that this afternoon I’ll be in Montpelier, and I’m planning do that killer hill 4.7 mile run of 2 weeks ago.  I’m also excited about this Saturday, I’ve found a 5K race in Underhill, VT.  It will be a good test to see how close I am to my goal for Jan20 of being able to run a sub 24 minute 5K.  I still think that I’m a long way off since a 24 minute 5K is a 7:44 pace, and my fastest mile since my return to running October 1st is an 8:41.

Yesterday I got soaked watching my eldest daughter’s victorious semi-final field hockey game. I was soaked to the core including my orthodict insoles.  I was worried that they’d still be wet, but my morning they’d dried out.  As a set out for my run I found a new problem, my head lamp’s batteries had died.  I solved that with a win-win solution, taking the batteries from the TV remote.  It was another glorious morning to run, warm enough for shorts, and cold enough that my exhaling breath was heavy in the morning air.  I ran well, but at my first 4 beepings of my 8:40 timer, I was falling farther and farther behind the record pace I set on Monday.  I was tinkering with my stride, still trying to find the most efficient way to run.  At the 32:20 point in the run, I knew that I wasn’t going to catch my best time, so I changed my goal to improving that last mile.  I found renewed energy, and ran with a renewed focus, finishing 12 seconds faster on that closing mile, and only 4 seconds slower for the run.  Again I had another enjoyable and rewarding run.