Category: Running
-
Ex-runner? Cyclist?
I’ve become whatever the female equivalent of the mamil (middle-aged man in lycra) is. I am obsessed with cycling. There’s been a lot of water under the bridge since my last cycling-related post exactly a year ago. At that point I was all set up on Zwift and enjoying riding my aluminum tri-bike regularly, noting improvements…
-
Zwifting along
The Boston Marathon has turned out not to be possible for me. I spent three months babying my knee (after just barely beginning to run regularly in the fall) and still, within a month of starting marathon training it was as bad as ever. I was living on ibuprofen, and most mornings it was so swollen…
-
BQ
The stars aligned, and I had a really good race. In my last post I said “I would be happy, now four years older and well on the far side of 50, if I could better my 4:24 time from 2012. I think that’s definitely possible, and if all goes well I could cut quite…
-
Ready to Taper
T minus ten days to the marathon. Because the training schedule I’m using has a short taper, and I further offset it by two days to fit my weekly schedule, I still technically have one more tempo run to do. But I’m going to scale back the intensity on it. Basically the hard work is done, and I…
-
Fitting the miles in (Week 15/18)
This week is proving very difficult to fit my training in. I’ve had to give up cross-training on the bike because I’m out of town. But a combination of meetings, symphony rehearsals, performances, driving across the province and the impending onslaught of Music Festival is making it impossible to fit in everything I had scheduled. Maybe it’s not…
-
PRs
Ah, I was right. I’m getting faster! My weekend run was a 14.5k tempo run. It was sunny and I was feeling good, running at a moderate exertion level. About 5k into it I checked my Garmin and noticed that my average pace was putting me on track for a 10k Personal Record. So I…
-
Marathon Training Week 12
Oh boy this past couple of weeks has been tough. First I pulled part of the soleus muscle in my right calf. And then within hours I got sick. It’s all good now, but it’s been a heck of a couple of weeks. When I strained my calf, I babied it for a few days. I ran only short…
-
Marathon Training: Week 10
This week: First truly long run (23k) done. Fifth and final set of speed intervals done. These were big mental hurdles for me, especially the speed intervals. The speed interval training I’m doing reminds me of the Couch-to-5k program I used six years ago to get started running. Back then it was “jog a short time,…
-
Marathon Training: Week 8
Eight weeks down, ten to go. Nearing the half-way point my training. That would feel like a big accomplishment, except that training is always back-heavy. The second half contains most of the hard work. Deep breath. The weather has been crazy warm and spring-like for February. The lower-level trails are already clear of snow, which is…
-
Avalanche run
As soon as I left home I could hear them: shells exploding, dropped by a helicopter as part of avalanche control efforts along the highway. So I wasn’t surprised to see a line of cars waiting to be given the all-clear to head up the pass. I had to turn back and do a couple of…
-
Marathon Training: Week 6
I’m proud of my 28 black boxes. They mean I have done some sort of aerobic workout (running, biking or both) every day for the past 28 days. My total time spent exercising is going up by about an hour a week, with most of that increase due to running (the green bars). This was the first…
-
Something of Substance
This is where I really start training. It’s no longer about just building mileage through daily runs. SOS stands for “something of substance” and it refers to runs that have a particular training focus. There will be three of these every week from now on. One will focus on speed (or later strength), one will…
-
The trainer
Well thank goodness. I was just getting sick. That was why I was feeling so tired. Two days and three nights of low-grade fevers, aching legs, headache and fatigue. Then … nothing. My immune system seems to have won. So, this is my bike trainer. I got it last summer, used, for $150. It’s a CycleOps…
-
Cumulative fatigue
It’s a good thing, supposedly. At least in this case. But I’m feeling it today! The idea is to train your body for endurance without doing outrageously long or difficult workouts, but by simply doing them frequently enough that your body doesn’t recover completely in between. By pushing your body to do more work before…
-
Here I go!
I took the plunge the other day and signed up for a marathon at the beginning of May. The idea had been rattling around in the back of my head for at few months and I didn’t feel like I was getting any closer to committing, but then on a whim I clicked on an email…
