Back at it after a week off

My last run wasn't the most fun, and it knocked some of the MoJo out of me, so I took the week off. Not something I can do in a month or so, but nothing that I'm too worried about now. Plus I have a big meeting (oh yeah!) this week so I was putting in a bit more time at work than typical.

Today's run was supposed to be nice and slow, but I didn't really have that discipline and ended up going out reasonably fast (for me).

Run: 10.27 miles (I don't care anymore what MapMyRuns says, it's always too short).
Time: 1:31 with a couple of stops - for water, to tie shoes, for traffic, blah, blah it was a training run

Felt great and it was nice to be in the double digits again.

Next stop Vienna - I hope to run there on Monday afternoon local time, with an immediate blog to get on my MapMyRun globe to the right here.

Finally a run during the week....

Wow....been a long time. After my sore knees got better (only a week or so) and my broken toe healed (it's been 6 or 7 weeks now) I finally committed to get back out there even if it means giving up some sleep time.

I ran the Colon Challenge cuz I signed up, but the 15k after not running for a month was brutal on me and my toe was complaining most of the way. Despite that I was pleased with my time and ran a consistent 10min/mile pace. You can see from the photos that I was suffering though...






Yesterday morning I was up at 6:30 and hit the pavement. Here are the stats:



you can see that I did have to walk a couple of times - I went out a little too hard at first, and had to do the first walk, then the second one...just lazy I guess....the third walk, I manage to power up a major hill without walking which pushed my HR over 180 so I had to walk that one off before jogging the long hill back down to home.

Grabbed a quick shower, saw the kids, talked to Susan then zoom out the door to make it through the 60+min commute to the office in time for 9am. Today I took a day off. My legs are a little sore but my knees and toe both feel fine and I'm in better spirits in general. Will hit the pavement again tomorrow for another run.

Here's the map of my route:
http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/?r=2753532 apparently my nike+ is off a bit as it logged me in at less mileage than the map reads. My footpod on my HR was a little more accurate tracking me at 3.95miles and a 9:55 pace. In the end, I ran, didn't die and am psyched to get up and go again tomorrow so I'm not going to worry about the small mileage and pace differentials!

More Tomorrow!

Who needs the subway? Ran to the race and then ran the race.

While preparing for today's race last night I learned that it's about the same amount of time to run to Central Park as it is to take the subway. This is particularly true with weekend service delays.

So before running in the official race I jogged up to the start - which left me relatively tired and without a number (didn't have enough time before the start). So I comfortably snugged in with the back of the pack and awaited the start.


4 miles and a little over 31 minutes later I was done. Of course this is much, much slower than my recent PR. But I was proud to finish (these were miles 6.6 through 10.6 run today - so from that perspective not bad). Also, my last 1/2 was run at above an 8 min per mile pace, so compared to that I was moving...

Last Name	Overall Place	Gender Place	Age Place	Finish Time	Pace/ Mile	AG %
PARKS	1662	1369	275	31:21	7:50	55.2 %

Still I never felt in the groove today and fighting all the people (even though I passed a pretty good number of folks, which felt good) took its toll.

Next week will be better and I'll run more than this week. Also, I'm looking forward to running in Vienna at the end of the month!

I think I can get my per mile down to somewhere in the mid-7's (7:35) for these longer runs. But even the progression from 8:05 to 7:50 is okay considering how I felt.

Needless to say, I took the subway home! The $2 was well spent and so was I.

Slow recovery run

Simply put I've been taking the concept of 'rest days' way too seriously. Who knows when the next time I'll get to run. Clearly not tomorrow night as my father in law is coming to dinner (thankfully!). So in the last hour of sunlight I threw on the shoes and hit the streets.

My goal was to keep my heart rate below 155 bpm at all costs. So I ended up walking whenever I hit 155 and showed a considerable amount of discipline to keep an average rate of 148 throughout the run. Needless to say I absolutely adore my Heart Rate Monitor. One simply cannot run this way without the instant feedback. Perhaps I am overly technical but that's the way I am, so this is the way I train. The result is that I ran 9.13 miles (by both MapMyRun and the GPS, so that's a first!) and I felt very, very strongly that I could have continued.

However, I'd already run 20 + miles in 3 days and also had run for 1:24.09 - so I'd probably had enough...still I didn't feel tired or 'done'. Instead I felt great. This is the huge advantage to running aerobically.

At this pace I can enjoy the scenery - something that I noticed today that I 'zone out' on my typical run.

Another funny one - as I was crossing the Manhattan Bridge I really had to slow it down (but NOT walk) to keep my heart rate down. It wasn't until a couple of miles later that I realized that I was running straight into a 12 - 25 mile an hour wind. When I turned off of the protected West Side Drive, on to the causeway in Battery City Park, I was hit straight in the face with the river-level cold breeze - 'that explained my slow cross of the Manhattan Bridge' I thought. That way I ran back, I only got the wind at my back for the Brooklyn Bridge crossing.

Still 9:15 average at 148 isn't horrid. And this race was designed to clear out anything from the 10k and to continue to build the base.

10k Scotland Run results in another PR

As the announcer said, 'the Scots managed to bring their weather with them' and he wasn't joking.
Distance: 6.2 Miles, 10.0 Kilometers
Date/Time: April 11, 2009, 10:00 am
Location: Central Park, NYC
Weather: 48 degrees, 93% humidity, rain.

My hands felt frozen in the warm-up and in the corral waiting for the start of the race. There was really nothing I could do to get warm - and the first mile's heart rate shows it - it was a real bear to get started - and I had to slow myself down about the 3/4 mile point not to speed through. I was very happy to have heart rate feedback, as I slowed dramatically (in the first mile and again on the big hill in Mile 4 to keep from blowing out).

Splits:
Mile 1: 7:13
Mile 2: 7:09
Mile 3: 7:09
Mile 4: 7:40 (huge hill)
Mile 5: 7:10 (regained focus)
Mile 6: 7:23 (lost focus? Or just couldn't keep the pace...)
Rest: 1:32

Last Name	First Name	Sex/ Age	Bib	Overall Place	Gender Place	Age Place
PARKS	JOSHUA	M36	1503	1041	917	191

Finish Time	Pace/ Mile	AG Time	AG Gender Place	AG %
45:17	7:18	44:03	1102	60.9 %

Overall I'm overjoyed. I beat my goal time of 46 minutes by a mile. I almost made my long ago stretch goal of completing a 10k in 45 minutes (but that will have to wait until another time).

Looking back, there is only really one thing that I'm not happy with - my 'kick' or lack thereof. I tend to go out too fast and then hold on until the end. This year and last year I ran the last 0.2 miles in the same amount of time (90 seconds in 08 and 91 seconds this year). I'd like finish stronger. Still taking 30 seconds per mile off my time feels pretty great. And too think that it felt like moving last time!

Comparison of my per mile times in 2008 (pink) and 2009 (blue) - you can see that the slow first mile cost me last year and I never really recovered. Still the 40 second per mile faster pace through the first few miles increased that lead (hard to see here).

Heart Rate (upper) and Altitude (lower) '08 vs. '09

Here you can see how hard I had to work over the first mile this year to get started. Nice to see though that I was moving more quickly and spending less effort to do it - that's text book better training. And to think that I'm 'only' running a couple of days per week. Let's see how this Summer's training goes.

Over all a very good result. I'm happy, especially that I didn't let the rain interfere with getting the work done.

Scotland Run warmup - Maintenance Drop

Ran to drop off the monthly maintenance and just kept running. Stayed in the 145 - 155 bpm band - using my new hrm band.



Time taken - 44 mins

Generally pretty uneventful, save the fact that I'm nearly two minutes faster at this relatively sane bpm band relative to when I started slowing down to go faster. It is amazing how long it takes to improve and then how quickly the results build up.

Tomorrow's the Scotland 10k - last year I did it in 48:24. I can safely say that I will crush this PR tomorrow. Last year I ran with my good friend Mika. We ran that race like this:

Mile 1: 9:25 (huge crowds to manage at the start)
Mile 2: 8:00
Mile 3: 8:05
Mile 4: 7:35
Mile 5: 7:25
Mile 6: 7:20
Last: 1:30 (I hope that works out)

Average pace 7:48 - My PR is 7:47 from December 7th.

I don't want to put too much pressure on, but I do expect to perform considerably better in this race tomorrow. Let's see where the splits come in. I am going to go out on a limb and predict a finish of around 46 minutes or thereabouts. My personal goal from a long, long time ago was to run a 45 minute 10k. I've clearly never done that, but tomorrow I might just go out and try.

Sub 28 minute 4 miler sets new PR! By almost 30 seconds...

My goal for today's race was to at least beat my time from last year's race of 28:53 or 7:13. I was thinking that, more likely, I would run between my most recent 5k pace of 7:09 and my PR pace for 4 miles of 7:04 (last Mother's Day). As a stretch goal, I hoped to break 28 minutes, maybe. Instead I got a great start and ended up blowing all my expectations away.

Distance: 4 miles (with a 1 mile warm up and cool down)
Breakdown:
1 - 7:05 (crowded and hilly)
2 - 6:48 (thinned out, downhill)
3 - 7:09 (slightly uphill)
Put me spot on 21 minutes at the 3 mile turn - I said to myself 'I've got to finish this strong and beat the 28 minute mark!'
4- 6:45 (downhill)

Last Name	First Name	Sex/ Age	Bib	Team	Overall Place	Gender Place
PARKS	JOSHUA	M36	1458	BRRC	439	411

Age Place	Finish Time	Pace/ Mile	AG Time	AG Gender Place	AG %
100	27:48	6:57	27:02	558	62.3 %

Needless to say I was elated at the finish and very pleased with my performance. This the first time that I've gotten out of the 60% AG and into the 62%s.

For more information on the results of all the races I've run with NYRR click here.

Times Square to Home (nearly)

Tonight I ran from just West of Times Square to home, cutting across Chambers and then back across the Brooklyn Bridge.

GPS suggested that the route was 6.6 miles. Mapmyrun says 6.3 - oh well.

I tend to think that the 6.6 was right as I was MOVING and my watch suggested that I averaged 7:45 over the distance - that feels about right. Not necessarily pushing it but definitely focused and concentrated. Felt fantastic and would have gone longer but want to run hills tomorrow (perhaps) and have a race on Sunday (short, but still want to have some legs left). Imagined that I could have done another 3 or even 4 miles no problem at that pace...