Wednesday, July 31, 2013

Short, sweet and working on focused.

A race always helps ease the mind.  I've said it before, throwing in a short race to your schedule is great for racing mental health.  It lets you know how your muscles recover and how well your head is in it.

I ran the Quadzilla 15k again this year and enjoyed it as much as last year.  The weather was completely different and we had race morning temps already in the high 80's with 80% humidity.  Despite that, I was able to get my mind a little more into it and dropped three minutes from my time last year.  Although I enjoyed the drop in time and a finish in the top 20 women, I realized that I need to improve my mental running game.  I let myself walk more hills than I should and I can rationalize it by thinking ahead to my week in training, to how many miles are left in the race, to not wanting to suffer too much....it all does me no good. If I am going to continue to pursue racing more competitively, I am going to need to learn how to race and how to let myself hurt.

I am still struggling with the mileage.  I am averaging about 35 miles a week and although in general the running feels decent, I know I need to focus on getting my in.  I need to sleep better and longer or those things are going to add up and kill the rest of my season. I know I have a good solid base under my legs, but getting the mileage, the sleep, the eating all under control lends itself to a much stronger mental edge before toeing any start line.  I will start this next month recharged and focused on the mental side of things...getting my head back over my legs.  I will work on my race binder for Oil Creek to keep my head in the long term plan.

I read that it's your legs that get you through the first half of a 100 miler and your head in the second. My head needs to get in the game as much as my legs.  I am running into a new month with a stronger focus and plan of action.  My legs and my head are racing together, so they damn well better get training together.

Saturday, July 13, 2013

Back to the Grind.

I loved the 50 mile distance.  I'm thrilled to have finished and felt so good, however that brings up all the other feelings of "I should have pushed harder, moved faster...what could I have done then?"  I tried to push those thoughts from my mind and just concentrate on healing up. I had some tendonititis flare up in my left ankle and right foot and gave myself a full week off to recover.

I kept up with the ice, compression, and elevation. I ended up having to work a 9 day stretch post race, which delayed the healing just slightly, but in the end I came out unscathed.

The following week I jumped in to weight training and designing some cross training workouts to complement my running.  I also dead lifted more than my body weight for the first time, which was kind of cool, and then got back to it!

June 27:     4.22 road to trail, slow and steady.
It was glorious to get back in my shoes and moving!  With no pain--even better!!

June 28:  3.01   hill repeats with a jump rope rest
I am fortunate enough to live by the Manayunk wall, so it is where I head for a good amount of my hill repeats.  It is a 17% grade and will kick you in the guts.  I run up, grab the jump rope for 50 jumps, and head right back down.

June 29:     2.5   Nice and easy
Got the hill repeats out of my legs.

June 30:      8.52  Trail
Got back in the Wiss and on the trails.

Weekly:       18.24  time to get this mileage up!!!

July 1:    2 miles and cross training
8 box jumps                       hi plank-30 sec
10 dips                          30 arm hollers
10 uneven pushups-each side      500m jog
500m jog                         20 walking lunges

July 2:       7.5;    4.25 road to trail,   3 mile hill repeats with jump roping

July 3:      8.02   3.01 road miles-am             5.01 road after work

July 4:      2.6
Way too hot to keep moving

July 6:     8 road fartlek
1 mile easy warm up
5 min. hard finish, the mile easy
1.5 mile easy cool down

July 8:    2 miles (1 warm up, 1 cool down)
30 squats                    10 full push ups            20 tire flips
jump rope                   10 eccentric                weighted walking lunge partner plank               20 v-ups                      superman

-36.5 lb. bulgarian sandbag was weight for squats and lunges


July 9:      15.01      Forbidden Drive and road with stairs.
I won't lie.  My hammies and glutes were in rough shape for this run.  I was breaking in my new kicks (pearl izumi emotion n2)  I felt solid for most of the run and kept my pace around 9-9:15 until I hit the stairs at 13.  Everything sort of went to shit there and I sloooowly made my way home.

July 11:      5.01 road before work.


So there it is....back to it and pretty pumped for the runs, the mileage, and some upcoming races.

Go get some miles.