Thursday, March 14, 2013

Tempo Triumph

Workout: 7 miles, 5 at tempo pace (9:44), Pace Gloves

Hey, it's my new hair!

Some day I hope to be comfortable enough to post normal, smiley selfies. That day has not come. Also, I need to sleep more. #darkcirclesfordays

I'm going to be vain and say I love it. I think it really balances out my oval face and long, long forehead. Attempting to arrange it for today's run, though, was a workout in itself. I'm going to go ahead and say I looked completely ridiculous. It was a sort of half-ponytailed (do people even wear those anymore?), Bic-banned, hair-clipped to hell situation. I would have taken a picture but I was afraid I'd lose the nerve to be seen in public like that if I looked at it too long. Must pick up some bobby pins.

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Anyway, today's run was an awesome way to come back from Tuesday's torture. Despite some major trail annoyances resulting from Sunday's snow dump, I felt really great the entire time and finished knowing I could have gone much farther. Always a good feeling.

I felt fantastic this morning following yesterday's rest day, which kind of surprised me. It's obviously way too early in the game to call my training plan a success, but I can't believe I just ran six days in a row. In the very recent past, three days in a row was more than I could handle. Even two days in a row was pushing it. I credit slow and easy miles (and the Hansons).


I was also surprised by how great I felt after my 400 repeats. Like, no soreness at all. I was worried I felt so sick because I was doing the repeats too fast, but the lack of soreness indicates otherwise. It seems the discomfort of the workout itself was magnified exponentially by the fact that I was doing them on a treadmill, it was 50 degrees hotter than my usual runs, and I likely didn't wait long enough after eating to do them. Lesson learned. I'm definitely on the lookout for a flat, well-paved stretch of road for next Tuesday's 600's. Wish me luck!


I admit I was worried about doing another challenging run just two days after Tuesday's repeats, but now that I've done my first tempo I can see the logic in it. Not only did I feel fresh following my rest day, but the 9:44 pace also felt really relaxed relative to the 8:30 repeats. In the past, I've found tempos to be much harder than repeats, but that was not the case this week. 9:44 was a breeze! It also felt great to stretch the legs out a bit and run faster than the 10:52 and 11:38 miles I've logged for the past five weeks.

I didn't bother to take any pictures, but I ran over by the dog park. This trail has been a pretty reliable winter running locale, but today it didn't deliver. The snow wasn't nearly as packed down as I expected, and while this was fine for my warm-up mile, as soon as I tried to speed up my feet started slipping all over the place, even with Yaktrax on. I decided that if I wanted to hit my desired pace, it would have to be a sidewalk run, so I veered off the trail to find some. This didn't work. Ice everywhere. As you can see below, I tried to find runnable sidewalks in three different directions. No cigar. It was extremely frustrating, and every time I started to get into a groove, I was forced to turn around.

In the end, I realized that the dog park actually had the most packed-down trail (dog park is a trail that circles University Lake), so I did my last two miles there. Finally, I was able to stop worrying about footing and just run. It felt great.

My strange route.

Let's check out some stats!

First warm-up mile was recorded as a separate workout.

I can't believe I just wrote that much about one run. If you skipped all that, you passed the Jeano intelligence test.

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I found out this morning my office is closed tomorrow. Spring Break, baby! Let's rage! I don't understand why a university-affiliated organization without any students gets a (very short) Spring Break, but I'll take it. Actually, I won't take it; I get paid by the hour so will still be working tomorrow. But at least I can do it at home in sweatpants!

Questions!
  • Anyone else have a Spring Break coming up? Are you doing anything fun?
  • WHAT ARE WE GOING TO DO WITHOUT GOOGLE READER?! Totally forgot to mention this in the post but we've all heard about it at this point. Rude!
  • New pope, huh? I love that he's Argentinian, but I haven't done my research on this dude so have no opinion on him as a leader. Not that the leader of a religion I'm not part of affects me in any way.

7 comments:

  1. If you have any crafty bones in your body (and access to a sewing machine), this might be workable: http://yum-run.blogspot.sg/2013/03/head-bling-tutorial-and-swimmer-is-born.html

    Otherwise, you can pay $15-20 a pop at Sweaty Bands. Not cheap, but pretty excellent.

    Glad that today's workout went well. Nice reward for busting your tush (and tummy) on Tuesday.

    I am totally bumming over Google Reader. I just have no idea. I'm a creature of habit, and don't care how awesome Feedly is. I LIKE my Google Reader...

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    1. No, and no! But actually, the issue isn't that I don't have a headband. I've got plenty of headbands, and they work extremely well when my hair isn't so short. Unfortunately, when I use them at this length, the hair's still flying all over the place as soon as the headband stops. I wore a hat for today's run, which was pretty awesome. If I could find a sort of "running beanie," that would work well! I might have to go the visor route but I'm afraid I think visors are terribly ugly. Meh, I'll figure it out. Thanks for the suggestions!

      I downloaded Feedly, but I don't know what to do with it. All the pictures confuse me. I just want my blogs laid out like my email!! I am definitely not an innovator; I hate change!

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  2. Way to go! I love that you are loving the Hansons training. I am not sure I want to follow the 6 day a week plan for a whole training cycle, but we'll see.

    Thank God for Spring Break. I am teaching this morning (to the whole 4 students who show up?) and then I am OFF for a week. Vermont here I come! (well, late rin the week, really).

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    1. I think (well, hope) I'll be fine energy-wise but you're right, committing to running six days a week is kind of a time-suck. I hope it pays off!

      I am SO jealous you're going to Vermont. I hope you take pictures of my old stomping grounds! And by "stomping grounds," I mean anywhere in the entire state.

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  3. Isn't it awesome how one run can turn everything around?!?! I feel like both my tempo and speed runs either went awesomely or horribly...and there was nothing ever in between and I never had any idea which was it was going to go beforehand, ha. I'm bummed about google reader - some other people have posted about alternatives, so I'm going to check some out.

    No spring break for me, BUTTTTT my work starts our "Green Fridays" next Friday, which means that March-August, we have like 10 Fridays off to "save on energy costs." Cannot wait.

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    1. I feel like in New York everyone BUT me had some version of Summer Fridays. The energy savings concept confuses me (I mean, in DC everyone's taking public transportation anyway, right? So you're not decreasing energy use at all unless EVERYONE has the day off, in which case they'll probably still take the metro anyway to do whatever it is they do in their spare time... right?), but I would definitely not say no to that!

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    2. I think it's more energy for our building - they shut the AC/Heat off and turn off all but the emergency lights...except for the museum/public portion, which obviously stays open like normal.

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