dedication, perseverance, self-discipline

Total time of 1:18:00 for about 11.15 miles acccording to the course tool.

TLDR:  2 x 10 min hard, with 2 min recovery between the repetitions.

Full Version:  I wanted to put in about the same amount of faster running today as I did last Saturday, but I decided to even things up a little more.  Starting at the 34 minute mark I began a 10 minute tempo, turning around at the 40 minute mark.  I was on the Murdock canal trail, so it was mostly flat, but there was a very slight downhill grade with a tailwind (before I left the forecast said 11-12 mph) from 34-40 min, and a very slight uphill grade with a headwind from 40-44.  I caught approximate splits at a couple quarter mile markers, timing myself at 88-90 (or was it 92?) seconds per quarter between the 40-44 minute mark of the run.

From 44-46 minutes I recovered before starting the second 10 minute tempo.  I caught an additional split at 46:58, having split the half mile which included the 2 minute recovery in 3:34, followed by a final quarter in 91 during which the wind felt like it was a little stronger.  Shortly after this point I turned off the canal trail and started running back up towards Alpine for the last 5:19 of the tempo.  I was running with a more definite uphill grade for the rest of the run, but I had a tailwind and I actually felt like it was easier to run fast than when I was on flatter ground on the canal trail.  I finished the final 10 minute tempo at the 56:00 mark, and crossed Timp Highway just before 61:00.

I was on track to make it back to the house by 1:18:00, but I was feeling tired and I slowed down after crossing Timp Highway.  As a result I hit the 1 mile to go mark in 1:10:40, and I decided to speed up in order to make it home in the desired time.  I then ran the next half mile in 3:14.  I will guess that I was running most of this half mile right around 6:00 pace, but I didn't speed up immediately, and I started to slow down before I hit the half mile mark.  I then ran the last half mile in 3:51 to make it back to the house in 1:17:45, before adding a little more time to finish in 1:18:00.  I will guess that The total hard work added up to about 3.8 miles when counting the half mile where I sped up near the end.

Total time of 47:00

I ran 80 minutes a day the first few days of the week.  I realized part way into my run today that I am sick as I almost threw up while running and had to stop at a bathroom with the runs.  I ended up cutting my run short as a result.

I then did not run on Friday or Saturday due to the illness.

No run today as I had to wake up at 4:00am to catch a flight out to LA and worked for the rest of the day until about 10:00pm

Total time of 1:20:00

TLDR:  8 loops of varying distance around MacArthur park in LA, running 4 loops hard in 4:17, 4:13, 4:17, 4:15.

Full Version:  I ran a speed workout in the park today.  It wasn't the fastest loop as there was some mild rolling hills in the park (I skipped the steep hills for the fast loops) and some sharp turns that resulted in near stops in order to navigate them.  I alternated fast and slow loops, running a slightly longer loop for the recovery which took between 7:00-7:30 for the most part.  I ran the shorter loop as a recovery once in order to see how much slower I was compared to the fast loops and I completed the loop in 6:20, so a little over 2:00 slower than when I was running hard.  I also ran too and from the park, which took about 17:00 each way.  On the way back from the park my calves were bothering me some on both the left and right sides as the intensity of the speed work took more out of me than I expected it to.

I measured the loop that I ran for the fast reps on the courese tool and it is approximately 0.8 miles long, so my average pace for those reps was between 5:16-5:21.  I am happy with this as I thought I was running more slowly, and the sharp turns led to a fair amount of slowing down/speeding up which made running fast hard. 

Total time of 1:25:00 for approximately 11 miles (maybe a little more as I ran the same course that I ran a couple Saturdays ago, and estimated using the course tool at 11.15, but I turned around maybe 15 seconds earlier).

I ran easy for most of the run but sped up for 1 mile which I ran in 6:24 (1:49, 1:37, 1:33, 1:25).  The first part of this mile felt pretty easy.  I didn't really feel like I was working at all until the last quarter, but I will count the last 0.75 as marathon pace.

Total time of 1:21:00

I ran easy for most of the run, but I ran 2 x 0.5 mile faster during the middle of the run.  Goal pace was 6:00/mile for these (3:00) as I didn't really want to run hard, I just wanted to pick up the pace a little.  I ended up running them in 2:53, 2:54.  I ran the second half of the run a little slower than the first because I was running uphill for the most part on the way back home and I made a conscious decision to not work harder in order to get home by the 1:20:00 mark.

Total time of 1:20:00

This morning I ran 2 x 1 "mile" (in quotes because the distance was estimated) in 5:49, and 5:46.  My best guess is that the first mile was just a little long, and the second was a little short of actually being a mile.  During the second mile my legs did not feel like they were working very hard, but my breathing felt labored.  I'm not quite sure what was wrong, but I wondered if it could have been related to poor air quality.

Total time of 1:30:00.

During the second half of the run I ran two tempos, with the first being approximately 2 miles in length, and the second being a little over 1.5 miles.  I am finally starting to implement a long run into my weekly mileage.  My achilles has been sore, and my calves have been tight, so I have needed to be careful lately, but I felt good enough to run some faster mileage so I did.

I ran from home past Lone Peak High School and onto the trails nearby.  I turned around at 45:02 and immediately started my first tempo.  During the second mile I timed three quarters on the Murdock Canal Trail in 87, 86, 84 after hitting an approximate mile mark in 5:56 (mile markers were missing near where I started the tempo, so distance is approximate), while I estimated that I ran the last quarter in 85.  Total time for this tempo was 11:38.

I started the second tempo as I reached the top of a hill just after entering back into Alpine.  I have previously measured parts of this area on the course tool, so I estimated from this location I was a little over 1.5 miles from home, with known locations for the 1.0 and 0.5 mile markers from the house.  I ran the first 0.5+ miles in 2:58 (I measured it after the fact on the course tool at 0.54 miles with 67 ft elevation loss), running most of this section on downhill or flat terrain.  The second 0.5 mile was also run in 2:58, but has a gradual uphill grade for its entirety (net gain of 27 ft).  The last 0.5 miles have a steeper uphill grade (net gain of 71 ft), and while I felt like my effort was similar or maybe even harder, I only ran a 3:08 for the final 0.5 miles (9:04 total time for the tempo).

I arrived at the house at the 1:25:02 mark of the run, and then turned around to run extra and finish with a total time of 1:30:00.

Total time of 1:22:00

This week I am increasing my daily running time again (by a whole 2 minutes!).  I plan on slowly increasing my daily running time every couple weeks until I am running 1:30:00 per day with a long run on Saturday.

For today I wanted to run a little speed work, with the key word being little.  I ended up running a workout where I ran 6-3-1 minutes hard with about 18.5 min between the first and second reps, and about 11.5 min between the second and third reps.  This wasn't ideal in terms of trying to produce a stimulus to improve fitness, but I believe that it was better than nothing.  I felt pretty good during the 6 and 3 minute reps, but I probably ran the 1 minute rep too hard and my legs felt pretty tired for the last 25 minutes of the run.