Training Log Archive: runninghils

10 min warm-up
10x3 min intervals, 2 minute recovery, cool-down
This was convenient time-wise because every interval started on a multiple of 5.
This was a stressful week, but today was the biggest stress day of all - external audit in our area. They didn't even end up coming through my building. Anyway, I didn't get a lot of sleep last night and have been pretty high strung for the past 3 days. Glad it's over and work life is back to normal. Bonus - my office is clean.

It was super humid today with a light mist for much of the run. Felt the humidity a bit in the lungs, but overall pretty decent run. Was expecting to churn out a bit faster average since a greater % of the run was intervals, but considering my stress levels and bad food choices, it's fine.

Warm-up then:
Strength
Every 2 minutes 3 front squats, holding the bottom for 3 seconds.
Man, this was frustrating because Jason called me out on breaking lumbar curve at the bottom and coming up from the squat unevenly by raising my butt a bit first. Grr... I didn't know I had this issue before, but when he held me in the right form, I couldn't stand up with the weight. Well, something to work on.

Workout:
3 rounds for time:
15 burpee box jumps - 24" box
12 slam balls - 20 pound ball
Time: 7:11
This was a pretty good one for me.

Skill:
5x5 hand stand push-ups. I CAN kip them, and I did a few, but again got called for being floppy in the core during the kip, so I should go back to practicing shorter range of motion strict.

All these things together go along with something I learned at physical therapy this spring - I have terrible posture and I can't hold my back straight and shoulders back for long at all. I have been working on it and I THINK that it's getting better, but I guess if I focus on doing things right, leveling my hips when I stand, etc, it will all come together eventually - I'll stand straighter, lift better, and be generally stronger/fitter all around.

Group split in 2 before the ride, and I went with the "steady" group rather than the herky jerky group. Don't quite understand how the race team seems to have so much difficulty holding a steady pace in a paceline.

Anyway, we did the longest route in the roster - the "Canyon Sprint" which has a mini race where the road goes down a hill into a drainage ditch and then back up. It's not much of a hill, but all we've got. People got a little premature on the sprint and burned themselves out. Meanwhile, I hopped on Mike's wheel and let him do the work leading up to the sprint. Once we turned onto the road, I grabbed Joe's wheel as he passed, which brought me right up into the lead group. At the bottom of the hill, they all seemed to be losing steam, so I cut through the middle, sprinted up the hill and WON the sprint! First time ever! It was largely due to strategy, which I did very well today.

Good ride today - I took lots of good pulls, many of which were in the 24mph+ range. Whew! After one particularly crushing pull (pace dictated by my pulling companion in the other line) I looked down and was up to 174 HR. Most of the other pulls, I got up to 164-167. Didn't really feel I could sustain that for much more than the 60-90 seconds I was pulling, but the HR probably would have continued to climb if I'd put in that effort for longer than that.

C • Awesome! 3

Well, this was mentally difficult for me, and I guess I did not rise to the challenge. Got my zones and today was the first day to employ them. I was nervous that I wouldn't be able to hit the desired heartrate today, so I did go into it in the wrong place mentally. I was supposed to do the middle hour at "tempo" pace, which meant 157-168 based on my test. I don't even get that average on the slaughterfest when I have the fear of getting dropped to get me to hang on.

Anyway, first 30 minutes: avg 129. This is below Z2 according to my test, but I went by feel anyway because I thought I was still putting in a decent effort for a warm-up
0:30-1:30 - avg 146 I was trying to go hard, and I thought I was. My legs were burning, I was breathing hard, but the HR just wouldn't go up - I hit 157 on climbs, and the best I could seem to sustain for any time was 153, but this was at the beginning. Often found it dropping down and I would have to push to try to get the HR up again. Seemed like the legs were the limiter here.
1:30-2:00 - avg 124 My legs were definitely feeling the 1 previous hour.

I feel like a failure because I couldn't even get out of zone 2. I have no idea how I was getting a HR of 166 on average for that 20 minute time trial and I couldn't even hit it at all today. Equipment difference?

C • temp? 2

10 min steady state, 3 min intervals
Decided to take the Chippewa today, but I think I should save the Chippewa for the spring. It's getting too low - often the water was so low that my paddle was hitting on every paddle stroke. I also forgot there was a high E. Coli warning on it last week. It is moving faster than the Tittabawassee, though. Note: out to the Pine River split is 3 miles exactly from the Tridge.

it started raining hard during interval 6. I couldn't even see what was going on with the river, so about 10 seconds before the end, I hit a sandy shallow spot and got stuck. Fortunately, a few minutes later, it lightened up and stopped after about 25 minutes. A guy in his mis-70s commended me for paddling upstream today. That was a nice change from the dumb "it's a lot easier the other way" and "you're going the wrong way" comments.

Power/zones testing'
These tests are hard! I didn't anticipate that based on the "Newleaf" test that was done for me previously, which just went to the point where my fat burning ratio dropped way off. Today was multiple time trials
3x10 seconds as hard as possible
1x1 minute all out
1x5 minutes time trial
1x20 minutes time trial

Found out that my pedaling is rather smooth at the lower power range, but once I got into the time trials, it got erratic and would jump around. I asked Bonnie if this was because I wasn't steady and she said that was correct. Guess I've got to work on pedaling smooth circles. Zones came out at a lot higher HR than I would have expected. They don't seem to match with my perceived effort. Apparently, I have to go a harder on the bike than I have been to get the desired training zones.

Easy spin before my testing tomorrow. Went down the rail trail. I forgot a sports bra today, so I had to wear my push-up gel bra with my jersey. I thought about unzipping it a bit and scandalizing the Midlanders with my cleavage, but it turned out that there was no cleavage. Oh well.

Brought a bag with me and 10 minutes before the end, I stopped my watch and picked a bunch of wild blackberries. Some were really good. Others were tart. I think I was a little overzealous with picking even when the berries weren't 100% ripe.

Anyway, good spin, tried to focus on pedaling circles rather than just pushing down. I still passed people despite how slow I was going.

Salzburg loop + to Price St, down Southlawn to Braun and home.
10 minute warm-up, then, 10x 2min intervals with 2 minute rest between. Had to add on some distance to the loop because I was going to end up running past my house on the last interval and wanted to leave some cool down time.
Overall, this felt actually quite good. Some of the intervals I felt like I was really getting the "lean" down and felt really good. Went hard on the intervals, but never felt like stopping or like I was going to die. I think this was much better than last time I did intervals about a month ago. The pace was faster, I know that. Even with slow recovery sections between the intervals, I was seeing <9 minutes/mile average during the interval section. That's better!

Strength 5 rounds of 5 deadlifts every 3 minutes
185*205*205*205*205

Workout: Tabata (0:20 on, 0:10 off, 8 rounds) 1 minute between movements. Score is lowest number of reps acheived for each movement.
air squats - 15
hand release push ups - 8
sit ups - 11

Skill: 8 rounds of 3 various grip pull-ups, strict (blue band) and 3 ring dips (red band)

Oh man, I was definitely "carnage" tonight. The group was crazy - we kept alternating between full sprinting and coasting or even having to brake to not run into the bike in front of you. 14 miles in, I was getting pretty tired from all this. Just after my turn to pull (10-15 seconds) I went to the back, and a few gaps developed in front of the two riders in front of me. All of a sudden, the group decided to sprint, so not only were we needing to quickly accelerate to sprint, but also to close the gap. The back is the worst place to be in this situation... and I was dropped. :( We had been going 23 into the headwind, but on my own it fell down to 14-16 (and sometimes a struggle at that) because it was such a strong wind. On the positive side, the ride home was a lot faster and I was able to hold 20-22 most of the time even by myself!

Event: Summer Fury Sprint Adventure Races
 

Wow, this was a tough course. Nobody cleared it - not even close. Our team got a bit of a rough start. We apparently didn't scout out the course ahead of time adequately because we ran out from the start in the lead... and took the road when there was a trail that cut distance off. This moved us back to the back third. (not a huge deal) Then, we had to go swim, which I HATE. Swimming sucks and I am terrible at it. I have no interest in practicing either. I swear I was close to the last one out of the water. We quickly started making up time after that. Everyone struggled a bit on CP3, then we had a rough time with CP4. We started making up time on the bikes and were in decent position by the time we got a few CPs in to the canoe leg, which was LONG for a race of this length. Some swamp paddling and then a river leg on a super tight twisty river, which is not where my boat excels. Run back to TA, bike on some roads to the next O-course. We missed the first point and ended up running out to the road to attack the farthest points first. Pretty much nailed those 3 points, but the going was slow due to thick brush. We were running low on time to finish this section, looking for the trail that had 3 points on it. Eventually got them all, but we left with 2:10 left in the race. They let us go get the 2 required single track bike points even though we were past the cut off (lots of teams were in the same boat) Last O-Course, we needed 2 to be official. Thought "no problem" but they were harder than you'd expect - even for the closest "easy" points. Also, we were slowed down because Jim Hafke's calf injury from last month was flaring up and he was hurting pretty badly with nothing we could really do for him. We got the two points, but missed the cutoff by 5 min. Even though the "other half" of our team pretty much sprinted back to the finish, they still missed it by 3 minutes. Bummer. We got the same number of points as MRA, but they were in before the cut off.

Overall thoughts: I felt like I was doing better on the hills and running was feeling better. The team concurred that I did well on the hills. I could have run hard into the finish (maybe not as fast as Mark and Jim, but I had it.) I am definitely moving through the woods better these days - even through the thick stuff. It's a bummer to miss the cut off, and we said we should have known better and made some different decisions earlier in the race, but it's so hard when you're used to clearing the course to make the decision early on to skip optional CPs that are time consuming. I'm just saying "we got this out of the way" and we will do better at Wilderness Traverse.

C • Very nice job 18

C • road to #1 2

Easy spin to recover for the Fury.

C • Are Hafke and Hafke JV cooperating? 5

Missed the group - they were riding up over the tridge as I drove up. Guessed their route, and rode it backward, but thought I was wrong because I didn't see them when I had expected. Turned around and ran into Dave a few minutes later (doing the same thing) and we decided to ride back together. He recounted his crash and 2-day hospital stay last week with a concussion (riding again on Saturday!) Wow.
Maybe not as intense as a regular Slaughterfest group ride, but it was super hot and nasty out. Can't wait for this weather to break!

Man, they're killing us with long met-cons lately!
Strength: Deadlift every 2 minutes 5*3*1*1*1
195*215*245*245*245

Workout:
6 rounds for time:
7 Hand stand push-ups (3 boards)
7 thrusters (55)
7 knees to elbows
7 deadlifts
7 burpees
7 kettlebell swings (35 lb)
7 pull ups (jumping)

Shoot, noted my time and then immediately forgot it - maybe 26:39 or so? This was hard. I started feeling like puking on round 6 - probably due to the heat.

Actually convinced 2 people to come out and do a heat of the day Tempo ride with me! Yay! Did the Sanford Lake loop because it actually has some hills (small ones, but hills) once you get away from the rail trail. Took a nice warm-up, conversational pace (about 18) for about a half hour. Then, picked it up and pushed it into the 22-23 mph range. This was to go for an hour, but then we hit the wind (and I started running out of energy) so the tempo pace dropped to about 20-21. With 20 minutes of fast riding left, Dean got a flat so we stopped to fix that. It was so hot that as we stood there, our HRs stayed around 100. I could have used a 3rd (cold) bottle of water. It was a bit hard to get going again, so I added a couple minutes to the tempo time. Rode in the rest of the way at a relaxed pace - 18ish.

C • Great stuff! 10

After that ride, I was tired and beat feeling, so I went to Pizza Sam's and sat down by myself (in the AC!) to a salad and multiple glasses of unsweetened iced tea.
Took a bit longer to get the lead out of my arms today, but about 25 minutes in, things were going smoother.
10 minutes steady, 3 minutes hard - did 9 rounds of this. Ended up being a good paddle even though my overall energy level was rather low.

MS-1 pack on. Feeling fatigued from yesterday's run, but had a workout to do, so I just decided to get through it. Wanted to get the HR into the 130s, but this is about all my body had to offer today. Surprisingly, I believe that I came in at the same time from my full lap today as I did last week, when I held a higher HR average. Not quite sure how that happened.

This was something resembling a run. My legs had nothing and I just couldn't seem to go any faster than this. I promised myself to just keep moving for the time allotted, but it was hard not to walk (seriously, that pace looks like I walked, but I didn't except maybe a few seconds a couple times)
The first hour wasn't too bad. I asked myself the question "Would you be happy with how you feel right now if you were 16 hours into a race?" and the answer was yes for about the first hour and a half. By 2 hours in, I REALLY wanted to just stop and walk or stop altogether. I guess it's good mental training if nothing else.

Pine Haven trails with full MS-1 pack.
Felt better than last week when I ran this long, but last 40 minutes or so were still a bit of a sufferfest and WAY slower. Fell fairly hard about 10 minutes into the 3rd lap and had to walk for a couple minutes to shake it off - my troublesome (right) knee went right down in the dirt, but the trail was pretty soft there. Despite this, there was no knee pain today! WOO! Also, ran in my new Inov8 trail shoes. These were much more appropriate than the barefoot shoes. They are still quite lightweight/minimal, but they do offer more protection. Not sure if it's really enough. I plan to try them out next week at the race. No blisters, though a few spots got a little warm on my right forefoot on lap 2. They never got past that stage, though.
Lap 1: 5.75 miles 1:07
Lap 2: 5.75 miles 1:12
Lap 3: 5.1 miles 1:17 (ouch!)

C • holy crap, nice run 6

Warm up
Then:
Push Press 2 every minute on the minute - 85 lb
May have been able to go a little heavier, but I really needed to focus on keeping my heels down and my core tight/back straight for this

Workout 1: AMRAP 12
25m lunges
50m run
Was about 10m into my 12th round of lunges when time ran out

Workout 2: AMRAP 12
25m Sled push
50m run
?? number of rounds... maybe 9? I was sharing the sled with 2 other girls, so I decided to run 100 between my pushes. Then, one dropped out, so we went down to running 75 each between pushes. I happened to end up with the "easier" push direction, so when I hit 50m and my partner was still staring at the sled, I offered to take it and switch directions with her. She was grateful and I got a better workout. Bonus!

West Branch Fairview Hill
6 trips up the hill, using different gears throughout the climb. Legs a bit sore going into it, but it was not really a problem for completing the ride.

It is clearly much more uphill (and into the wind today) on the way out to the hill. I think I did the return trip about 6 minutes faster despite having to stop and wait for traffic at an intersection. (22 vs 16 minutes)

Strength:
Deadlift - 2 lifts every minute on the minute for 5 minutes 215 lb

Workout - for time:
Run 1 mile
50 Wall balls (14 lb)
40 Hand stand push ups (used 3 boards under abmat)
30 Chest to bar pull ups (jumping)
20 box jumps (24")
20 "muscle up transitions"
Time - 23:50

Recover, roll out with foam roller, forgot to stop watch until about 10 min after I finished the workout.

Rain and thunderstorms were threatening, so we took a shorter route tonight. Only one group, and we went FAST! Lots of sprints, and I even went with the breakaway group a couple times when I got a good wheel. I got a shout out on the ride's Facebook page tonight for being a badass, so I'd say it went well.

Just before heading onto the rail trail section, my average was 23.1, which counted the rail trail section going out, so our group average on the road was probably closer to 23.6 mph! Wow!

The ride time was perfect because the rain started shortly after I got the bike in the car and a few minutes later, it started down pouring. We saw some lightening on the way back, too. Glad we got in what we did.

C • Awesome! 5

West Branch "Fairview Hill"
Hill took about 4:45 to climb each time - a good steady grade hill that is consistent for the entire length (well, a little weak at the top and bottom, but gear choice can make those parts worthwhile still.)

Rode out with a small detour to get in a 25 minute warm-up, then did 6 repeats, HR getting up to about 162 for them. Climb times were pretty consistent for all 6 climbs, ride back to the bottom (up to 32 mph!) was fun and adequate recovery. On the way back, I saw another potential climbing hill that's on a lower-traffic side road. May have to try that one out another time. I think I want to determine my own gravel-road hill route up in West Branch and get people out there to ride it (on mtn bikes). That would be fun. At least I'd have company for the car ride. Really, it's just under an hour from my house, which isn't that ridiculous. People drive that far to work every day.

It's funny how after the hill repeats are over, everything else feels so easier and the riding seems better. Not sure if I'm a slow warmer-upper or if it's just that everything feels easy relative to hill repeats.

C • Zilwaukee 4

Did 10 minutes steady state, 3 minutes hard for 9 rounds and then the last 10 minutes paddled back to the start. Paddled the Tittabawassee by myself, and it was pretty much stagnant. I usually try to turn around to hit exactly my time goal, but I was way off today. Turned around at 1:09:25, and I should have turned around probably around 1:06. (It's a game I play) Anyway, good paddle even if I didn't have any company.

First part of the brick workout - 2 hours on the mountain bike. Felt some fatigue in my legs at first, but it got better after I got warmed up. Well, they were still tired when I stood up on the bike. I got the satisfaction of passing someone on the trail, which was good motivation and helped me keep the pace up because I wanted to ride away from him. Many updates to the trail with new mini bridges on the muddy parts and re-routes to add a little distance to the trail. City forest is tight and twisty, so it's slower, but good for trying to move faster on the single track. Zone 2 training is about right for this trail, but I couldn't get much higher than that for long.

Legs a bit heavy, but much better than Thursday's run. Did a bit of stretching after the bike and before starting the run, and the knee felt good. To stay at a lower HR (Z2-3) I had to go pretty slow. It seems like when I was focusing on keeping my hips forward and staying tall, I naturally started to run faster, but the HR would raise up. It took a fair amount of focus to stay where I should be, though I did naturally fall into about the 148 HR most of the time, which is exactly my "MAF" number... seems like a good Z2-3 number. Frustrated at being slow for these runs. I know it will take some time, but when putting in the time, you just want the results. Now.

I love running trails with these Inov-8 barefoot shoes - especially on the pine needle parts of the trail. They won't work for AR, so I finally ordered some more substantial Inov-8 shoes for AR. Salomons seem to give me blisters, so I hope these new shoes are the ones I've been searching for.

I seem to be recovering better from this than Thursday, but my post-workout appetite was pretty low.

Oh, man! I am bummed that the day that they decide the workout is a 10K is the day that I have a LONG running workout to do in the afternoon. That just didn't make sense together. So, I chose the alternative work out.
237 Burpees
237 Pull ups
237 air squats
It took me just over an hour, but the clock stopped at 60:00, so I don't have a time. Even though I used a band for the pull ups, my arms and hands are super tired.

Trails at Pine Haven. This was a tough run for me. I went in tired even though I took a 1.5 hour nap after Crossfit. I knew I should have walked out and just done something on my own in the evening.
Plan was 3.5 hours, run hard up and down hills, easy on flats. I was tired pretty much from the start, but OK until the 3rd (last) lap when I started to really fall apart. I struggled just to keep moving and not stop. Quads, glutes, hamstrings all tired. Glad tomorrow is a rest day.

Drove up to Edenville to do hill repeats on the biggest hill I can find around here. Warmed up for 18 minutes, then started repeats of about 75 seconds in a hard gear. At the bottom of the hill, I had to go in my hardest gear because it was stretching the requirement a bit, but about halfway up it got steeper and I could shift down a bit and still be in the muscular zone. Found my little routes for the short recovery between the repeats and the 4-5 minute recovery between sets.

After last recovery interval, rode straight down Curtis Rd for 11 minutes at a hard pace with HR eventually settling on about 156-158, turned around for a total of 20 minutes at this pace and then rode at a recovery/cool down pace until I got back to the car. I got all the planned "hard" work in, but total time was a bit short because I got out of work quite late today.

Warm-up, then:
Strength: Deadlift 3 EMOTM for 5 min
205 lb

Workout: Fight Gone Bad "championship" 5 rounds (instead of normal 3)
1 minute each:
Sumo Deadlift High Pull (55 lb)
Box Jump 20"
Push press (55 lb)
Row for calories
Wall ball (14 lb)
1 minute rest between rounds
Total Reps - 383 (78*78*75*76*76)

Foam roll out (included in time/average HR)

Was trying to make it to Slaughterfest, but got caught up at work and then hit every red light between work and the tridge. Ended up arriving 5 minutes late, took a few more minutes to get my bike out, helmet on, etc. Thought they were doing the Sanford Lake route, so I decided to do it backward and time trial it out until I met the group going the opposite way. I never saw them. Either they went the same direction as I did or they changed their plan and did a different route. I met some tri guys on my way out on the rail trail. I was doing over 20 mph, and they blew by me like I was standing still. Managed to talk to one guy who told me they do an hour of biking and an hour of running as a brick every Tuesday and Thursday. He seemed nice and invited me to join them. He said I could ride with him the whole ride, but I wanted to try to get with the Slaughterfesters, so I peeled off a mile later.

Tried to keep the effort level high, but did a few focused efforts on the North/South segments - Was running the HR around 158-160 for a good portion of the rail trail and Northbound segment. I tried to really go hard for the southbound Stark Rd. part of the TCC time trial course (5 miles) The wind was a bit brutal going east by myself. Good ride even though I was alone for most of it.

C • I haven't been to the tridge in forever! 2