Foolish? No, Just Slow and Tired 2.00 Miles

2.00 miles run
0.25 miles walk

total: 2.25 miles
course: COD track

What was I thinking? I spent the weekend switching stuff from one room to the other, then, painting one of those rooms. I had help painting, but the ceiling was mostly my job. Michelangelo has more respect from me than ever.

My legs feel like Jello. My arm begs me for permission to fall off. All I could suffer through today were two very slow miles around College of DuPage's track. Another lap seemed to be a bad idea, so I walked a lap and licked my wounds.

These are the workouts, in a way, which matter most, the one which are more about mental focus than physical exertion. Back at it tomorrow, rested or not.

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Lonely Night on a Strange, Bloody Track

1400 meters warmup (15:36)
6x100 striders
2x200 f (100)[400]
1x800 change of pace -- 3:06 (93, 93)
f first 200
g next 200
f next 200
g last 200
jog 3:30 vf (550 meters)
5x150 f (50)
4x100
600 meters warmdown

total: 3.90625 miles

82°F
Current:Cloudy
Wind: SW at 0 mph
Humidity: 50%
course: COD track

Just ran the math of my run... light workout all said (by mile count, not effort)- 3.90625 miles. I ran it all pretty tightly, done from start to finish under 60 minutes. Was surprised there was not much recovery listed.

2x200 -- ran too fast for first one, and adjusted 39, 44.

800 = 3:06 with even splits per 400. :47 my first 200. No idea about other times.

Felt very wiped by the time the 150s came around, but tried to hold pace. Hard to run those alone. Very hard.

How alone was I was suspect. Three guys -- two huge twins, and one thinner guy, were filming. One had fake blood covering his head and face. The two big guys raced each other for 50 meters, and the thin guy recorded it.

Lonely Days, Lonely Nights Bee Gees

College of DuPage Track - Glen Ellyn, IL

College of DuPage Track - Glen Ellyn, IL

This is a broken down, worn out track. Ripples on the surface are on the back stretch, and at the start of the 100 meters. I took these around 1 pm, August 20, 2008, while walking with my friend, David Dane. I have run here often.

Pre-church Run Nothing to Raise Hands Over

2.0 miles - 17:19 (8:34/mile)

64°F
Current:Clear
Wind: W at 0 mph
Humidity: 89%
course: COD track

Ugly run. The game plan was four miles fresh, or, I was guessing around 7:45-8:15/mile. Maybe faster. Nope.

Mile 1 - 8:26
Mile 2 - 8:53

Residual tiredness from yesterday's run is my best guess. I hit eight miles at a decent clip.

Time for church.

Jus' a Taste, Mister, Jus' a Taste: Two and A Quarter, and Then Some

3200 m warmup
2.25 miles - 21:32
6x100 striders

total: 4.625 miles

69°F
Current:Clear
Wind: NE at 4 mph
Humidity: 49%
course: COD track

Easy around a few laps, getting ready for tomorrow. Ran with Jody at COD. Not much to tell. Good weather.

Freedom Four tomorrow. 29:00 or bust.

Aching, Top and Bottom: 3 Miles

3 miles easy (27:04)

0.25 miles hard walk

total: 3.25 miles

66°F
Mostly Cloudy
Wind: N at 0 mph
Humidity: 50%

My left jaw hurts from today's trip to the dentist. So much so, I cut the run short. I cannot open my mouth wider than a finger-width.

My right calf also hurts. This might be from yesterday, or from the larger issue of going from out of shape to regular running. An ache, especially one unique to one side of the body, needs to be take seriously.

Three miles, all around 9:00/mile, with a hard recovery walk.

Time to rest.

Finding Luck at the Track, But Not Much Speed

1200 meters warm-up
4x100 meters striders
3x1600 meters hard (200)(400)
1200 meters warm-down

total: 5.125 miles

72°F
Clear
Wind: S at 10 mph
Humidity: 37%
course: COD track

The plan was originally to run 5000 meters pretty hard and see how it went. It didn't. The juice isn't there. Insead, I broke it into mile repeats.

Race conditions should improve the time, but not enough.

• 7:39 (200)
• 7:53 (400)
• 7:47

My original guestimated time for Saturday's race of 23:30 looks unreasonably right now. 24:00 is where my money is going to be bet.

Oh, the clover? That's one of two five-leaf clovers I found in front of the bleachers. All of that work at Fermi and Argonne they are doing a few miles away is working for good.

20 Laps Around a Lonely Track

5.0 miles, mostly run, some walked

total: 5.0 miles

56°F
Clear
Wind: NW at 1 mph
Humidity: 56%
course: COD track

Still feeling achy from Thursday, after over nine hours of sleep, I hit COD's track. Happily, there was no football team or other runners. So I ran a slow mile, maybe 9:15, then jogged one in at 12-something, walked a lap, jogged another seven laps, then walked a couple. Summed up, a recovery day.

It is 1:25 now, and I'm boiling up some Oscar Mayer hotdogs. I'll follow that up with some coffee and a lazy Saturday.

Sing the hotdog song, kids. All of you oldies in America will know the words.

Places I Run in DuPage County

Forest Preserve District of DuPage County - Springbrook Prairie
Springbrook Prairie Forest Preserve
9S400 Plainfield-Naperville Road
Naperville, Illinois
Get directions
5.5 mile loop, with each half mile noted. Clean, semi-paved path, with some minor hills at around the three mile mark. Find me here on occasional Saturday mornings or mid-day, mid-week when I'm not working. Among my favorites when I need to run alone.

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Wheaton College Track
501 College Ave
Wheaton, IL 60187
Get directions
Excellent quality 400 meter track. Run with me here on Thursday evenings as part of the Jim Spivey Running Club. It can be crowded sometimes, but mostly, these are other serious runners who are aware of track courtesies and etiquette.

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College of DuPage Track
425 Fawell Blvd.
Glen Ellyn, IL 60137
(630) 942-2800
Low quality and beat-up, but convenient 400 meter track. Not only is it close to home, but I can run a track workout without competing for lanes with other runners. The COD football team often leaves equipment in the lanes near the 350 meter mark.

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Illinois Prairie Path
W Liberty Dr & Carlton Ave
Wheaton, IL 60187
Excellent 61-mile trail, with markers every mile. Convenient, and many runners use it. The downside is it can be buggy (bees, mosquitoes) and roads need to be crossed every mile or so.

You will see many runners here, including the Glen Ellyn Runners Club. Be polite, nod to other runners.

Sometimes I go north or south. Most recently, I have been heading southward -- fewer road crossings -- as far as the four mile mark for an eight mile run, and expect to push it further as I can.

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Elsewhere
There are other places -- occasional treadmills (COD's treadmill), paths, but either too infrequent (like Greene Valley), or too difficult to provide specifics (like road workouts that change course each time). The ones listed above are the most frequent, but also, the ones I expect to use the most moving forward this spring.

Chug, Chug, Huff, Huff: Six Plugger Miles

6 miles LSD (9:31/mile)
0.69 slow jog, strong walk

total: 6.69 miles
course: COD treadmill

Rich Flansburg dropped me an e-mail about my recollection of what I considered an LSD workout. It wasn't the distance at issue, or even the speed. That's relative. What he called me on was the pick-ups at the end. He's right.

It's not the terming of LSD that matters, but he understood what I was trying to accomplish wasn't most effectively done that way. I'm still building base, and long slow miles, aka LSD, are a great way.

So, in relating this preamble to this morning's workout, I ran 'real' LSD. Six miles at 9:31, pleasantly paced by a high-end LifeFitness Treadmill. I was talking the entire way (wasn't that Arthur Lydiard's thing?). I finished with another small bit in a very quick walk/slow jog (13:15-15:00/mile).

Details about a mundane workout are hard to find. No hyperboles that would make George Sheehan proud can be found. It was six easy miles, staring out a window facing a parking lot. I barely got tired. My pulse remained under 170 and was mostly around 150-155. My weight dropped from 135.0 to 133.6 over the hour.

After all that, 25x each side @ 60 lbs on this twisting stomach machine they have.

By the way, if any of you know how I can get that treadmill to go longer than 60 minutes, drop me a note or post to this blog. Stopping and restarting it is going to be a pain, and my longer runs are getting close to an hour.

Who is Rich? See his website below to find out he's a top-notch marketing guy. Beyond that, he's a dynamite runner who has been with the Jim Spivey Running Club for many years, and a great encouragement to those of us newer to running and the club.

121 Marketing Resources, Inc.
http://www.121marketingresources.com/
1541 E. Harrison Ave.
Wheaton, IL 60187
630-653-4422

4 Miles of No Great Mention

2 mile wu
1 mile hard
1 mile wd

total: 4 miles

70°F
Mostly Cloudy
Wind: NW at 5 mph
Humidity: 49%
course: COD track

finish
69°F
Clear
Wind: W at 5 mph
Humidity: 49%

Nice maintenance run on the track. I didn't have much time, and am still catching up after last week's sickness.

First two miles were at around 8:25 each. The third mile, after around a two minute stretch rest, was 6:38, with pretty steady splits. The fourth was in around 8:37.

My goal was what I did. Nothing complicated, as I have a track workout tomorrow, but something just to get me back into the swing of things.

Watch a couple of COD football players practice kicking. Impressive. One guy said he had a 46 yard field goal once in a game. Amazing!

800 PR, Good Quick Workout

1700 meters wu
800 3:23 (400)
600 2:33 (400)
800 3:05 (400)
600 2:22
1800 wd

total: 4.6875 miles

78°F
Clear
Wind: NE at 5 mph
Humidity: 42%
course: COD track

I wanted to follow-up yesterday's workout with a somewhat hard, but not long, workout today. Accomplished that. With the race coming up Monday, I will not be able to get in a long hard run tomorrow. Instead, I'm planning a relaxed six miler, with a day off Sunday.

Once again, the difference between COD's track and Wheaton College's was evident. Dirt clumps through lane 1, especially in the final 100 meter section.

Tonight was simple: warm-up, plus a few intervals, then an easy warm down. The victory was my second 800, the fastest I have run yet in this era, a 3:05. It is a long way from my 2:07, but still, much faster than my first one a few months ago. Hopefully, from this can be extrapolated a faster 5K. We'll see on Monday.

Now, my legs are tired and ache a little. Hopefully no big deal. I'm doing exercises to mitigate shin splints, stretches for calf and other flexibility issues, and as many sit-ups as I can handle. A few push-ups now and again to get some upper body strength.

800 and 400 PRs at COD's track

1700 wu
800 - 3:07
1000 recovery
400 - 1:24
1700 warm down

total: 3.5 miles

78°F
Clear
Wind: SE at 10 mph
Humidity: 58
course: COD track

I didn't have a lot of time, hence the short workout. Nothing much, just a hard 800 and 400. The victory in each is that both were faster than my best in either prior. I need the speed at the shorter distances if I expect the speed at the 5K level.

With the 800, my first 400 was at 1:35, then the next at 1:32. I think, with others, I can go faster, but it was a tough run. My first 200 was in :49, so I had to pick it up. I'm not sure how steady my pace was after that, but the math suggests I held to :46 per 200 thereafter, or what could have been a 3:04 of I started stronger. With more experienced runners, ones who sense pace better, dropping five seconds is plausible.

It would be nice to break :75 and 3:00 by the end of the summer. 3:00 seems more likely.

PRs are still coming somewhat easily. That's a good sign that my progress is still moving forward. As I see it, a PR at any distance will reverb into the 5K area eventually. I need speed, endurance, confidence, aggressiveness -- just about everything needs improvement. I have not, even in the shortest of runs, found the next gear.

How much can I read into a slightly faster 800 - how does it translate into a 5K? I have no idea. If my very rough figuring (based on only relative comparisons of my 22:21 and 3:13) has any merit, I think I could run somewhere between a 21:18 and 21:39 today. That leaves 1:39 still to drop, presuming I actually got the job done. If I have hidden in me a 3:00 800, maybe, then, I could run a 20:50. All wild speculation.

Insects for Dessert

1 mile wu
800 3:14 (400)
800 3:20 (400)

total: 2.5 miles

82°F
Mostly Cloudy
Wind: S at 10 mph
Humidity: 74%
course: COD track

What was intended to be a pipie little run turned into an insect food fest. Some dined on me, and I dined on others.

I couldn't see my watch. It was late and cloudy. Humid, I was sticky right after my warmup. My clip for the 800s was OK, but, unable to see how I was doing, I could not adjust my pace either way.

Four Miles - 34:47.55 - Hot & Sweaty As He Goes

4 Miles - 34:47.55
800 wd

total: 4.5 miles

72°F
Rain
Wind: S at 8 mph
Humidity: 91%
course: COD track

Nothing fancy. Just a calorie burning run. Each mile was close to pace, completing things faster than I started. Averaged around 8:41/mile.

It rained just as I was leaving for the Prairie Path for a six-miler, but the humidity and water left over caused me to switch to a four-mile run on the track. I could get in and get out.

Ran into Dana G., who works at the COD fitness lab, on the track. She's recovering from an ankle injury earned while playing tennis, and is working out on the track to strengthen it.

Four Miles on a Hot Track

100 m wu
4 Miles - 38:08.29
900 m wd

total: 4.625 miles

81°F
Clear
Wind: S at 7 mph
Humidity: 56%
course: COD track

finish
83°F
Clear
Wind: S at 6 mph
Humidity: 51%

It felt hotter and more humid, as I suppose it must, only the lonely, tree barren track at the College of DuPage. Nothing blocks the sun, heat radiates from the track, and it is set into a hole of sorts. It was one of those runs that burn fat, and little more.

Calf Hurt, Quit Early

1 mile wu
600 (200)
200 (200)
200 (200)

total: 2 miles

77°F
Clear
Wind: S at 10 mph
Humidity: 43%
course: COD track

Right calf hurt when I ran on my toes - very tight. Football practice took over track. Quit early.

Quick Track Play

800 wu
7:36 m (400)
1:44 400 (400)
1:23.96 400 (200)

total: 2.625 miles

66°F
Cloudy
Wind: E at 9 mph
Humidity: 84%
course: COD track

I wanted to get out just a bit, given I skipped the race. Nothing long. Nothing hard. Just a quick sweat, and a little fun.

Sunday's probably a day off, and Monday will be a longer run. Although cool, the humidity made it as if I were running in a cloud. My glasses steamed up, and sweat poured off my bandanna, rendering it useless.

Ran a 7:36 mile, the first time I was under 8:00 outside. Didn't push. Just ran hard. Ran a little harder, and ran a 1:23 400. Not so fast, but my fastest in years, and three seconds faster than my last try at the distance.

Saw a yellow finch flying across the east side of the track. Always pretty. The track screamed with seagulls and geese, and some smaller birds courting.

5 Miles - LSD @ 47:59

5 Miles - LSD @ 47:59
1000 m wd

total: 5.625 miles

81°F
Clear
Wind: NE at 10 mph
Humidity: 35%
course: COD track

Felt OK in the heat, though I was slowly chugging along.

Birds were water dancing in the pole vault notch, in a puddle. Made good sense to me. I was hot, and now, am just cooling. My banana was drenched. Robins chased each other noisily, keeping me entertained while I trudged through the steps.

400 - :86

3 miles (27:50)
400 recovery
400 - :88
400 recovery
200
200 recovery
400 - :86
400 recovery

total: 4.5 miles

72°F
Mostly Cloudy
Wind: NW at 16 mph
Humidity: 44%
course: COD track

Felt OK. For the 3 miles, things were just lap-to-lap, like a long warm-up. For the 400, I just did it for fun, to see what I had. After the :88, I felt as if that was as fast as I have in me, then, I dropped in another 2 seconds.