The Key Runner

My parents are gone, and we had a good visit, but my wrap-up is late.

Now, in addition to my March wrap-up, April wrap-up, and Teal Diva 5K recap, I now have a May wrap-up that’s late. Sigh.

At least my running was fairly decent, even if the weather wasn’t for most of the week.

Weight Check: 172.5, up 1.3 pounds from last week. I love my parents, but I always end up eating more (and drinking more beer) when I’m around them. Once again, I’ll try to buckle down a bit this week.

Total: 26.96 miles

I really need to start paying better attention to my totals so I don’t end up just a few hundredths of a mile short of the next whole number of miles.

Monday felt like a sauna. My legs were pretty tired. Somehow, I got through it, and even finished all 6 strides. I did need to walk a bit after the 3rd, 4th, and 5th stride, but I still managed to make the last stride my fastest one.

On Tuesday, all I can say is I survived. Miserable weather and tired legs. I did manage to push a little bit at the end, and I guess my legs got a little less tired later on.

Wednesday, the weather was still terrible. My legs felt a little tired at the beginning and they got better as I went on. I did feel a little bit of fatigue on the last mile, but that was understandable. Because the weather makes it difficult to measure easy, moderate, and comfortably hard effort, I just aimed for around 12:00/mile for the first two miles, around 11:00/mile for the next two, and 10:00 for the last one. Other than the first mile being a little slower than I’d like, I was pleased with my paces.

On Friday, it was still humid, but slightly less hot, 68 degrees. I think I got a psychological boost from seeing a temperature below 70. My legs felt OK. It was a pretty good, uneventful run.

Saturday, it was time to finally hit double digits. It was a couple of degrees cooler, but still humid. There was an occasional breeze, and the sun never broke through the clouds, so that helped. My legs felt OK for the most part, maybe just a little tired near the end. I stopped for water about once every mile, and had Gu just after the 5 mile mark. I avoided walking outside of my water/Gu breaks. I had enough left to push it on my last mile. Considering it was my longest run since my half marathon last December (and it was over 30 degrees warmer than on race day), I was pretty happy with it.

Next week, I have a hill workout on Global Running Day on Wednesday. I think that happened last year, too. That which does not kill me makes me stronger, right? I’m also on call for work, so we’ll see how my running schedule works out.

The heat and humidity stuck around. I survived.

Weight Check: 171.2, down exactly 1 pound since last week. I’ll take it. Mostly, that was my long run. We’ll see if I can improve on that, because I’d really like to get back down below 170.

Total: 25.98 miles

So close to 26 miles. I hate when that happens.

Monday, the weather was pretty miserable, although there were a couple of spots where there was some drizzle, and I guess it helped a little bit. My legs felt tired on the first mile, but they got better, at least until the strides at the end. I did walk for a bit after the 3rd, 4th, and 5th strides, but I still managed to make my last stride the fastest one.

On Tuesday, the weather was still miserable, but slightly less terrible than some of my recent runs. My legs were a little tired, not quite 100%, but they were good enough. I managed to speed up a little on each mile and was able to make a nice push at the end. I’ll take it.

Wednesday was hills. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, hill workouts are rough in any weather, so I might as well do them when it’s miserable out there. My legs felt a little tired during the warm up, and while they didn’t feel great during the main workout, I expected them to feel worse based on the warm up. I walked for about 30 seconds after each uphill interval, and for almost a minute after the last interval, but jogged slowly the rest of the time. Since the hill I was running on takes more than 45 seconds to run all the way up, I tried to position myself for the last interval so I’d need to push it to get to the top in 45 seconds, and it worked, the last interval was the fastest. I lengthened the cool down so I could get to 5 miles.I did push it a little bit near the end, I just wanted the psychological boost of finishing in under an hour.

On Friday, I decided I was tired of the heat and humidity. I decided to give my legs (and I guess my body, too) a break and I got on the treadmill today. It’s still mentally excruciating, but it’s a lot less humid. My legs felt fine. I went with a 11:46/mile pace until around the 2.5 mile mark, then bumped it up to around 11:19/mile until the end. The effort felt pretty easy, even near the end, but as much as I wanted to get it over with, I didn’t want to push too hard the day before my long run.

Saturday had miserable weather, and it rained pretty hard right before I started, so everything was wet. My legs felt a little tired at the start, but I didn’t notice it as much later on. I stopped for water pretty much once every mile, and had Gu just after the 5 mile mark. I had just enough left to speed up on the last mile.

Next week, I have a 10 miler on the schedule. The weather doesn’t look like it’s going to get any better any time soon. I’ll figure out a way to get through it. And who knows, maybe I’ll get a monthly wrap up for March or April done, or my recap of the Teal Diva 5K.

Summer came early this year. Rough week (and it would have been rough even if I hadn’t gotten a year older), and I even added a day of running, but I survived.

Weight Check: 172.2 pounds, same as my last weigh-in. I suppose it’s good that I didn’t gain any weight, especially considering that I kind of indulged a bit to celebrate my birthday. I’d still like to lose at least 5 pounds, though.

Total: 24.25 miles

So, uh, Monday. Not a great way to start the week. The weather was fairly uncomfortable. My legs felt pretty bad, probably from my long run on Saturday. With the extra day of running scheduled this week, I decided I’d be better off stopping after 4 miles. I didn’t do any strides.

On Tuesday, the weather was worse, but my legs felt better. They still weren’t 100%, but they were close enough. After a slow first mile, I was able to pick up the pace a little bit while still keeping the effort fairly easy until right near the end.

Wednesday was possibly my first Progression Run. There isn’t even a category for it on RunningAhead. I called it a Tempo run, which was close enough, I guess. The weather was miserable, but my legs held up fairly well, with just a little bit of expected fatigue near the end. It was hard to estimate my effort, since I felt like I was running in a sauna, and anything faster than a brisk walk felt really difficult, but I did what I could. I was pretty happy with my pace on the last mile (10:09), especially with the heat and humidity.

On Friday, the weather was still miserable. My legs felt OK. I had a little trouble finding my pace on the first mile, but after that, I kept it fairly steady and as close to easy as I can get in these conditions, with a small push near the end.

Then came Saturday.

I forgot my watch and had to use Runkeeper instead. I also forgot to bring Gu.

Anyway, the weather was pretty bad, although there was an occasional breeze, and at some point (somewhere around mile 3 or 4) there was a little bit of mist, and that was kind of refreshing. My legs felt surprisingly OK. My coach had recommended that I try to include some hills in my run if possible. I didn’t actually do that, since I was worried about the conditions, but based on my performance, I probably could have handled a couple of hills.

I was pleasantly surprised. I did have this one spot where the path was covered in mud from recent rains, and I walked through there, mainly because I didn’t want to kick up a bunch of mud, and I had to cross it twice (the first was during mile 2, the second was probably during mile 6 based on my splits), but other than that and when I stopped for water, I didn’t take any walk breaks. When I got to the last mile, I felt good enough to really push it, so I did, and finished with my fastest mile.

This week, I’ve got hill repeats on the schedule (another reason I figured I could skip the hills on my long run), and generally miserable weather. I’ll get through it somehow. Also, maybe this week I’ll catch up on some of my backlogged posts (Teal Diva 5K write-up, March and April wrap-ups).

Today I turn 45. I’ve moved up into a new age group. Yeah, if that’s the first thing you think of on your birthday, you might be a runner.

44 was a difficult year. My DNF in New York City still sucks. I had hernia surgery. But I got through it, I’m still running, and I’m going to finish New York City this year. I don’t know that I’m any better physically as a runner now than I was a year ago, but I’d like to think I’m better mentally after going through all that.

Here’s hoping that 45 will be a great year.

I know, I’m late. I visited my parents this weekend and didn’t have time to post this after I got home on Sunday. I was up there for Mother’s Day. Mom isn’t a runner, but I have to point out that she won her age group two years in a row at the Teal Diva 5K. Yeah, that’s a spoiler for the 2018 Teal Diva 5K, and I really need to finish that recap.

The last two years, the Teal Diva 5K was on Mother’s Day weekend. I’m really, really glad they moved it up a couple of weeks.

Also, I found out this week that I can’t count to 10.

Weight Check: 172.2 pounds, up 0.9 from last week. Since I knew I wouldn’t be home Sunday morning, I did my weigh in Saturday morning before my long run. Sure, it might have turned out better if I had done a Sunday weigh in, but I shouldn’t have to rely on a long run to end up at a decent weight. I’ll try to buckle down a bit this week.

Total: 23.83 miles

Monday felt cooler than 55 degrees, but I didn’t mind. My legs were a little bit tired, mainly on the uphills and during the strides at the end, but it wasn’t too terrible. I kept a pretty steady average pace throughout the first 5 miles. The strides were tough, but I still managed to make the last one the fastest one.

On Wednesday, the weather was fine, 53 degrees. My legs felt OK at the beginning, but got more tired as I went on.

So I still don’t know how I screwed it up, but I did 12 repeats instead of 10. Counting to 10 is apparently too much for me to handle.

I ran until I hit 5 miles, so I didn’t actually run any extra total distance, I just did two extra hill repeats. I definitely had to walk after the last one, but was able to jog, slowly, after that for the rest of the cool down. My paces were all over the place for the repeats, although with 30 second intervals it’s tough to keep a consistent pace. I did push a little harder on the very last interval, and tied for my fastest pace on that one.

Friday, the weather wasn’t too bad, 58 and overcast. My legs were a little bit tired from Wednesday’s workout. I managed to speed up just a little bit on each mile, but I kept the effort fairly easy until the end.

On Saturday, summer arrived. The weather was bad, 66 and humid, but I expected it to be worse. My legs felt a little tired at first, but later on, I didn’t notice the fatigue, and maybe that was the weather distracting me. The later miles were definitely slower, and it wasn’t that my legs felt tired, it was just a general lack of energy caused by the heat, and it didn’t help that this was my longest run since my half marathon in December.

I stopped at several water fountains along the way, and had Gu at around 4.3 miles. I managed to not take any walk breaks other than those. I just took it slow and got through it. It was pretty miserable, though.

This week, I’m going back to 5 days of running. Four days a week was nice while it lasted. I’ll miss my Tuesday mornings, but I need to train 5 days a week if I want to have any chance at a good race in New York City. Also, I hope to have a Teal Diva 5K recap, plus another post on Thursday.

This is where I started my long road back. The good thing about being so far behind is that now (May 7) I’ve finally seeing progress, where if I had done this wrap-up at the beginning of March, I probably wouldn’t be as optimistic.

February 2018
Total Mileage: 16.66 miles
Average Pace: 12:52/mile
Number of Runs: 7
Last Month (January 2018): 30.96 miles
Last Year (February 2017): 130.10 miles
Races: None

Yeah, that wasn’t a very good month. And seeing February of 2017…I still have a long way to go.

I suppose I should point out that from a running perspective, my month didn’t start until February 15.

Best Run: February 28, 3.11 miles, 11:54/mile

This was the first run that I was actually happy with, and I guess it’s a good note to end the month on.

Worst Run: February 21, 2.17 miles, 13:53/mile

Egads, that was bad. It was 65 degrees and humid on February 21. My legs felt as bad as the weather. And that pace…oof.

The lottery for the New York City Marathon was on February 28. I didn’t get in through the lottery, but I signed up with Team For Kids, so I’m still going to run it.

I missed out on my planned trip to Savannah, and my planned run in Georgia. I’ll have to wait for another time to add to the list of states I’ve run in. (At this point, the only out-of-state trips I’ve got planned this year are Portland and New York City, and I’ve already run in Oregon and New York.)

I can’t say it was a good month, but it was necessary. I had to start out very slowly, and be patient. Like I said at the beginning, I’m finally starting to see results, but when I was in the middle of it, it was no fun. I’m just glad I hung in there.

Well, I got one monthly wrap up completed, then April ended, so I’m treading water. Maybe I’ll catch up a little this week.

Running was pretty good this week, but it definitely got warmer.

Weight Check: 171.3 pounds, down 1.2 from last week. Whew, finally. I’m still not sure what I did differently from some of my previous weeks with a slight gain, but I’ll take it. I’ll enjoy it while I can, because next weekend I’m going up to see my parents for Mother’s Day, and I think Mom still thinks I’m a growing boy.

Total: 20.02 miles

Monday was cool, but sunny. My legs were a little tired from my race on Saturday, but you wouldn’t know it from my paces. I kept the effort easy until I pushed it at the very end. I was definitely happy with my pace even if I didn’t feel 100%.

On Wedensday, weather was nice, 52 degrees. My legs felt OK. I managed to speed up a little bit on each mile, and I was able to do 6 strides. I’m supposed to decelerate near the end of each stride, and I did that for the first 5, but I kind of skipped the decelerate part on the last one so I could finish strong. Overall, I was happy with this run.

Friday was a little warmer, 60, but there was a light breeze to keep things fairly comfortable. My legs felt fine. I kept the effort easy, sped up just a little bit on each mile, and pushed at the very end. Another one of those uneventful short neighborhood runs, and I don’t have a problem with that.

I was a little worried about the weather on Saturday. It was 68 degrees and humid. There was an occasional breeze, and the sun couldn’t break through the clouds, so that helped. My legs felt fine. I stopped at a few water fountains, and had a Gu just after the 4 mile mark, but outside of that I didn’t need any walk breaks. I kept a fairly easy pace, and had enough left to really push it on the last mile.

I haven’t really said much about my average paces in a while (outside of races, of course), but this week’s paces stood out to me: 11:23, 11:21, 11:22, and 11:28. That’s pretty consistent overall, even if there were some slower and faster stretches within the runs.

This week, I have a hill workout scheduled. I am not amused. Also, I’ll work on catching up on my monthly recaps (Next up is, uh, February), and I’d also like to finish my Teal Diva 5K recap.

Yeah, this is a new record for longest delay in posting a monthly wrap-up. There’s not much to say, because my month effectively ended on January 17.

I’m also not sure what to do with part of my Monthly Wrap-Ups this year, since there isn’t really anything to report as far as my 2018 Goal until November 4. I’ll figure out something, I guess.

Numbers never go out of style, right? (Or maybe they’re just never in style.)

January 2018
Total Mileage: 30.96 miles
Average Pace: 11:22/mile
Number of Runs: 9
Last Month (December 2017): 89.44 miles
Last Year (January 2017): 127.77 miles
Races: None

Well, it was basically half of a month, and I cut back on my distance because I was afraid of aggravating my hernia. Also, I guess I should mention that I had registered for the Charleston Half Marathon on January 13, but decided to defer. I heard it was insanely windy that day, so hopefully next year will have better weather.

Best Run: January 16, 3.11 miles, 10:46/mile average pace

This was my last run before surgery. I was looking at a bunch of rest days in a row (as it turned out, about a month of them), so I decided to make this run count, and I did.

Worst Run: January 3, 4.01 miles, 11:53/mile

It was 21 degrees, I didn’t have a whole lot of energy due to a recent bad cold, and, oh yeah, I didn’t know I was running with a hernia. I don’t think the hernia affected this run (or any of my other runs), I just think it’s interesting that I ran with a hernia and didn’t know it. Still, for a “worst” run, it wasn’t that bad.

And that’s pretty much it for January. I had my surgery on January 17, and didn’t get back to running until February, but that’s a story for my next monthly wrap-up, which, at this pace, should be ready by October of 2022.

I finished the Teal Diva 5K. I do wish it had started earlier than 9:30 so it would have been a few degrees cooler, but it was still fairly comfortable. My time wasn’t quite as good as I’d hoped, but it was still respectable. It was still fun, and they raised a bunch of money for ovarian cancer research, so that’s pretty cool. My nephews were sick and couldn’t make it, so I was bummed about that, but I’m sure they cheered me on from afar.

Weight Check: 172.5 pounds, up 1.1 from last week. Yeah, after the race we had a big party, and I overindulged. I’ll just have to work my way back down this week.

Total: 14.39 miles

Monday had rain. It was mostly light but it did pick up a little bit near the end. (It would have been much worse if I waited another hour, though.) Temperatures were in the upper 50s with very little wind, so it wasn’t too terrible. My legs felt a little bit off. Most of it felt like a slog, but I did manage to pick things up a little bit on mile 4. Between my legs not feeling great and wanting to get out of the rain (not to mention my race coming up on Saturday), I just did one stride at the end. One of these days, I’m going to do the correct number of strides (typically 5-6), but Monday was not that day.

On Wednesday, I missed the rain (that waited until I had to drive to work) but it was still pretty damp. 57 degrees wasn’t too bad, though. I did some squats as part of my bodyweight routine on Tuesday, and I think I felt those squats on the first mile. After that, my legs loosened up, and my pace improved, with a nice push at the end.

Thursday, the weather was OK, 57 degrees again, but not as damp. My legs felt pretty good, definitely better than Wednesday. I did some foam rolling Wednesday night, and I think that really helped. I didn’t really push the pace until the end, but I ended up going faster than I expected. Just a really nice run.

Saturday was my race, with a 1.01 mile warm-up before it. I’ll do a full write up of the race, but the quick summary is that I probably went out a little too fast, struggled a bit on the last mile because of it, but did manage to rally right near the end.

I have my January 2018 monthly wrap-up completed, I’ll just wait until Monday (you know, the last day of April) to publish it. I’ll work on my other monthly reports (and on Tuesday, April is over and another monthly wrap-up gets added to my to do list) and a race report for the Teal Diva 5K.

Maybe I’ll even do some running, too.

Still no January wrap-up. Busy week. I mostly got my running done on schedule, though.

Weight Check: 171.4 pounds, up 0.7 from last week. OK, now I’m starting to get annoyed. My diet may not have been perfect, but right now, I feel like I have no margin for error. And my parents are going to be here next weekend, so I’ll mostly be doing damage control this week (and probably the following week). Sigh.

Total: 19.19 miles

Monday was a strange run. It was kind of windy, but the temperature was still pretty comfortable. I started a little late due to some, uh, bathroom issues. Maybe subconsciously I knew I didn’t have as much time as I’d like, so I sped up a little. My legs felt kind of tired, and I don’t know how much of it was from the 8 miles on Saturday, and how much of it was the fact that I was probably running faster than I should have been. Between the fatigue and the time constraints, I decided to only do 1 stride at the end. I wasn’t sure what to think about this run until I could see how my legs felt on Wednesday.

So on Wednesday, I was definitely curious to see how it would go. The weather was really nice, 54 and sunny. My legs were tired late, but I’m pretty sure it was because of the workout, not because of my previous runs. I really pushed it on the last interval, and had to take a walk break afterwards. Overall, it was a pretty good workout, and based on that, I’m pretty sure Monday was a fluke. Whew.

Friday was a bit colder than it’s been lately, 38, but still not too bad. My legs felt fine. I gradually sped up over the course of the run, and I pushed a bit at the end. Just an uneventful 5K worth of running in my neighborhood, and I’m OK with that.

I’m not sure what was going on Saturday morning, but for some reason, I just did not want to run. Because of that, I got a late start, and I decided to stay in my neighborhood instead of driving to a greenway. Once I finally did get out there, I was fine.

It was a cool start, 41 degrees, but it warmed up nicely. My legs felt a little bit of fatigue on the uphill parts, but otherwise they were OK. I kept the effort fairly easy until the end. Overall, I’m happy with it.

I’ve got a race next weekend, the Teal Diva 5K. Last year, the course was short, but we’re in a new location this year. Since it’s an out and back, I’ll know at the halfway point if it’s going to be an actual 5K. I’ll be happy if I can finish in under 30 minutes.

I’d really like to get a little bit caught up on my monthly recaps, but I’m not all that optimistic. We’ll see how the week goes.