Mileage Reporting 9th Week of 2013

[scedastic]

Hey, I almost forgot, I've got mileage to post:

back to the early bird life: got out the door a little after 5am:

4.5 mi in slushy slushy slush slush-wet snow, a couple of inches accumulation and only a few areas where cars tamped it down.
Had to keep remembering to keep my head up b/c for whatever reason, I think my moc3s make cute prints in the snow, and I could see the prints from the previous mile loop on the subsequent one.
Almost thought I felt something naughty in my ankle, then I couldn't figure out which ankle, which told me i was making stuff up.

 

[5t3ph4n13]

3 miles this morning. Excited to be back in the 'teens for weekly mileage!

 

[dutchie53]

2 miles or so of a unintended tempo run. My daughter decided to join me today. She just ran a little in front of me as the sidewalks were on the narrow side. The more I tried to catch up with her the faster she went. She beat me home by about 10 seconds, as I got there all she said was "not bad for a old guy, keep working it and you might be able to keep up to me". Jeez, I'll show her, one of these days. In all reality, I always enjoy our runs together. I also signed up for a Dirty Donkey run here in Winnipeg in August. Should be fun as both my daughters and my son signed up as well.

 

[Spiderweb62]

11.3km (7mi), same distance but different route from Tuesday....That now makes 300km (180mi) in 2 month, if I can continue like that, I can reach the 1000mi this year !

 

[Sid]

50 min swim on Tues. Nice workout. Able to practice quite a bit. Was surprised at how long I went without fatiguing, and I chalked it up to carbo loading. I'm wondering if anyone else has experienced a boost from carbo loading and started a thread in the nutrition forum. It'd be nice to have 3-4 days like I did on Tuesday. Today was a rest day.

 

[scedastic]

50 min swim on Tues. Nice workout. Able to practice quite a bit. Was surprised at how long I went without fatiguing, and I chalked it up to carbo loading. I'm wondering if anyone else has experienced a boost from carbo loading and started a thread in the nutrition forum. It'd be nice to have 3-4 days like I did on Tuesday. Today was a rest day.

Possible Confounding factors.
I've been fatiguing less and less from swims. I think a lot of it is relaxation, technique and breathing. It's hard to be body aware enough to know just how tense a person is in the water. I had a lot of experience goofing off, swimming under water, jumping in the deep end, etc, that I thought I wouldn't have anxiety learnign strokes. I don't think I"m more in shape than I was. I think I"m just more efficient and not nearly as stressed about getting to the other wall as I was a month or so ago.
Fun fact: I used to teach skydiving. Not an aerobic activity, but stressful. Students would get all kinds of aches, pains, soreness, out of breath. Their control in the air was always so tenuous due to the stress. Once they would have enough experience, they would relax, use less energy, and be far more efficient, with fewer of the stress aches. I see many similarities in that and in swimming for distance.

I haven't read your carbo loading post; I would just say don't discount the progress you have likely made in adapting and learning to swim more efficiently.

 

[Sid]

I haven't read your carbo loading post; I would just say don't discount the progress you have likely made in adapting and learning to swim more efficiently.

Do read the article. Doubling the amount of muscle glycogen is pretty significant and correlates fairly well with doubling the amount of time that I was able to swim. The lap pool at the gym isn't all that stressful. It's only 4ft deep. I'm pretty comfortable in it. Besides, I'm not all that efficient quite yet, and certainly not enough to double my pool time in 5 days.

Rapid carbohydrate loading after a short bout of near maximal-intensity exercise

It's not only swimming. Carb loading also applies to my runs, too. However, I don't usually push myself when running, so it doesn't matter as much. Though, loading up will easily knock off a minute off my pace without trying. (I have the pace and mileage information disabled on my Garmin during runs so that I can just run without the burden of expectations. I don't see the info until afterwards.)

Without carbing up, I'm guessing that tomorrow, I'll probably be able to manage about 30min swimming. For me, carb loading is a nice boost. I don't have to work out any harder, I just have to eat a bit differently.

 

[Larry]

3km barefoot on the beach this morning. Cold southerly wind to remind me that it is the last day of summer.

 

[NickW]

1.88 miles today at the PT. Foot hurts pretty good tonight despite him doing the astym on my foot and shin. Hopefully the foot will mellow out by tomorrow. Got the ok to run three times a week with 2 days of light bike in between.

 

[Sid]

Possible Confounding factors.

50min swimming. I stand corrected. Maybe I am getting better! Although, I was trying harder, too. I figured that I wasn't going to be able to end the swim with a final vigorous 3min like in the article, since I'm just not that good yet, so I tried to make a solid effort. I also found that trying to go faster particularly at the end, seemed to improve my form. Perhaps similar to running pace, there's a range where swimming form is optimal.

I went to Dunkin Donuts afterwards and scarfed down a bagel, pure starch, and just polished off another one just now, 2.5 hrs later (in place of my usual protein bar). That article suggested 10g carbs per 1kg lean mass, which is a lot for me! That's not going to happen.

Lacking access to muscle biopsy tests and the desire to get poked, I'm going to have to play this one by ear. Even if it just motivates me to try harder, that's good, too.

 

[skedaddle]

5.08 miles, 9.03 pace, barefoot.
There was a disturbance in the force today, I just couldn't settle, but without over analyzing why I decided to say f$@k it three miles in and enjoyed myself for the last half of the run at a steady pace.
Some days are just hard work, and I suppose I knew that before I left the house, in hindsight would have been far more productive fixing the dripping tap in the kitchen and saving my run for tomorrow, but you know how it is my fellow BF addicts .

 

[scedastic]

skedaddle, I felt that disturbance here too! crossed the oceans i guess.
Alarm went off at 435, then 445, then snoozed until 455, where i concluded that getting up to run wasn't going to happen and i would "sleep in" until 6.
six oclock came and went and at 645 lazy got up.
excuses: I think i'm just on the edge of having some sort of rhinovirus that's been going through my family the past few weeks. been low level wheezing, a bit sneezy, chilly, yada yada yada.

still managed: 2miles on the treadmill at school, some st, a few abs and a not-high-intensity 40 min swim. good nuff.

 

[NickW]

Did an hour of ST in the gym today with a new routine and it whipped my butt. Same exercises but different routine and combined differently. Today was shoulders, back and legs. I had planned on riding the bike but ran out of time as my morning chores delayed me some and I got a late start.

 

[scedastic]

Did an hour of ST in the gym today with a new routine and it whipped my butt. Same exercises but different routine and combined differently. Today was shoulders, back and legs. I had planned on riding the bike but ran out of time as my morning chores delayed me some and I got a late start.

ST takes a while, doesn't it. Always nice to mix things up.

 

[scedastic]

bribed the kids with the possibility of a movie for 1.5 mi around the block and no whining. They did, and so we have "the wizard of oz"
are you a good witch or a bad witch?

 

[Sid]

bribed the kids with the possibility of a movie for 1.5 mi around the block and no whining. They did, and so we have "the wizard of oz"
are you a good witch or a bad witch?

That's good. Have them watch the classic, before the new one comes out.

 

[NickW]

ST takes a while, doesn't it. Always nice to mix things up.

Yes it does. My full routine probably should have taken 1.5+ hours, but I had to get my son back home for lunch so I had to cut it short. My wife usually has lunch at 10am so I try to wait for her to call (she has to call and talk to our son, kinda cute if you ask me) before going to the gym. Sometimes she's late which then makes me late for getting a workout in.

 

[happysongbird]

30 minutes swim + 45 minutes of spinning yesterday

Today, my youngest (nearly 17 years old) asked me to be her workout partner for her track assignment because the rest of the long distance runners were going to a basketball game. SO we ran 4 miles, sort of with Fartleks. Then, 8 x 100 meters speed drills, which was pretty fun! Core and upper body work when we got home. Am I a cool mom or what? (she kept thanking me over and over, so I know she likes me)

And she showed me that my blood stains are still there from my injury in August. Wonder what the residents thought!

 

[Bare Lee]

Wednesday afternoon
Top St & .3 mi micro-run
34 F / 1.1 C
18 F / -8 C windchill

Did everything at about 2/3 max weight, to make sure I didn't overtax my left shoulder. I finally got through my whole shoulders-n-lats routine for the first time in several weeks.

Thursday afternoon
6.25 mi / 10 km
29 F /-1.6 C
20 F / -6.7 C windchill

It took nearly two hours to get through an appointment with the optometrist lady and glasses dude, so I didn't start running until 5pm. I drove up to the fairgrounds again. Most of the sidewalks in my neighborhood are clear now, but there are still some lazy folks whose walks are covered with slush, and a lot of big puddles where walks are uneven or have settled below ground level, so I thought it best just to do my back-n-forth route up at the top of the fairgrounds, to make sure I could do the whole thing bare. It was colder than Tuesday's run, but this had the happy effect of preventing the thawing run-off, so the asphalt was bone-dry. Also, the section that had the slush on Tuesday had completely cleared after yesterday's above-freezing temps, so instead of running a half mile back and forth, I could run nearly a mile before turning around--basically the breadth of the fairgrounds--which reduced the tedium quite a bit.

I kept to my program of staying within the 5-7 mile range for the weekday runs, and always at least 1-2 miles less than my last max run on the weekend, aided by the fact that I was running late and needed to get home to help my wife with dinner and the kids. The temps were colder than on Tuesday's run, but because there was no moisture, just the occasional small patch of ice, my feet didn't numb up as much. I surprised myself when I came home and saw my pace had improved by almost a minute over Tuesday's run. I guess the numbness does slow one down quite a bit.

Basically I've knocked off three minutes per mile since my calf cramp, and am getting closer to the 9 mm pace I had going for me mid-January before the never-ending virus reappeared. If I were measuring my heart rate, I would say the improvement came from measuring my heart rate, but I know that it's mostly a result of running more consistently, continuously, and farther these last several weeks. I'm hopeful I'll see continual improvement over March too, before reviving my tempo runs and intervals. I'm going to hold off on that stuff until I have another whole month of problem-free running behind me (knock on wood), and just focus on adding another mile or two to my max run. It would be nice to finally break the 10-mile barrier this month.

The week's total mileage is at 21 miles. This is the first time I've topped 20 mpw in many months. I had an Inversion IPA to celebrate. Now that my mileage is back up, I've been sleeping well again and seem to be losing weight again too. Thank you ye running gods.

@HBS: what happened last August?

@HBS, Dutchie & Scedastic: I think it's so great that you guys get to run with your kids. I can hardly wait for that day to arrive for me.

Got the ok to run three times a week with 2 days of light bike in between.

 

[happysongbird]

@HBS: what happened last August?

@HBS, Dutchie & Scedastic: I think it's so great that you guys get to run with your kids. I can hardly wait for that day to arrive for me.

I took a slice of skin off due to running where I couldn't see into the powdery dirt. http://dailyimprovisations.com/basic-barefoot-rule-breaking-cuts-run-short/