Thor's Running Journal

 Dry streets made this run a bit more redemptive than last weeks disastrous performance.  1mi wu, x7@MP (7:14) 1mi cd 7:14 might be a bit aggressive. I could very well dial it back by about 10 and be in a little safer spot, but it also doesn't seem impossible. At least at this stage. Perhaps in another few weeks as the fatigue sets in I'll have my regrets and not be able to sustain it, but right now I'm giving it a go. I know I'm vasalating and should just commit. It's tough to know the line between pushing beyond what is realistic and finding the line where there is going to be optimal performance.  Hopefully having a pacer at the race will make it easier and keep me honest about pacing. I guess the way I see it, I'd rather stretch 10 seconds faster then pace and then race slower and more comfortably that train at recommended pace and still crash out. I don't know if this is a good idea or not.  Actually a pretty normal run.  Also the Brooks hyperion max fe...

 Rest day. Thinking about summer. Some of my most memorable runs were on vacation. I miss the early morning light as I toil through the dark cold days of winter. At least running gives me something to do. 

 2mi wp, x4(1200m@5k-10k pace, 400m recovery) 2mi cd The first three went well (enough). It might have been because I very conscientiously put the wind at my back. Is that cheating? well, at least the first one. The second 2 were more with the wind blowing in from the side. The last one I couldn't get my footing right. The side walk would be clear in one place and then there would be a big drift that was impossible to run through. Even the main road was a slush fest. Really a mixed bag. Its starting to be ridiculous. No. It has been ridiculous and I've just ignored it.  yeah yeah yeah...get a treadmill. no thanks. I'll continue to suffer a bit more. builds character.  The cool down went very slow. my mind couldn't compute distances real well so I took a few turns around the high school. I didn't want to do a step more than I needed to today. Which turned out to be ironic when I went to step inside and saw I had 7.99 miles on my watch. A trot to the end of the drivew...

  My 10-Mile Run I completed a 10m run by starting at the end of my driveway and landing precisely in the same spot before thinking, "Oh, he just did an out-and-back." Let me tell you, the run was one big loop through multiple neighborhoods. This reminded me that there's lots of ways to go from point A to B—or, in my case, from A back to A again. Starting Out When I first started running, I wouldn't have a lot of options about where to run to because I was only going for short distances. I might make it around the block once or twice, and then I'd be done. As the distances that I was able to run increased, I was able to make more elaborate routes and explore different parts of my city. One of the joys of running became making the maps that took me into different neighborhoods. The Art of Mapping It took a degree of pre-planning, but through a series of steps and mapping software, I managed to create routes with turn-by-turn directions right to my earbud. W...

 Super tough work out today. Snowing and blowing. Trying to hit marathon pace, but sorta impossible with surface and wind conditions. I did my best to stick with it, but certainly felt a level of disappointment. The silver lining is that it mirrored the feelings at mile 20 of the marathon so it gave me practice overcoming.  Also, the most unusual thing happened. A lady pulled up next to me with her window down (remember this is about 2:30am in the morning).  "have you seen anyone?" I pause my audiobook and approach the car. "I'm looking for my daughter" she said in a very distraught voice.  I let her know I haven't seen anyone.  She provides a description. she provides a phone number.  she drives on and I keep running.  It threw me for a loop, but I kept my head on the swivel for the next 5 miles. I don't know the whole situation, but one way or another, the whole scenario struck me as so out of the ordinary. 1mi wu, x6@MP (7:14-7:24) 1mi cd  

 Rest day was intense today. Woke up at 3:30am and went back to sleep hard. Up again a little before 6:30am and felt rested but couldn't move because of the weighted blanket. Took my time getting out of bed. Knocked my garmin watch off the bedside table reaching for my normal watch. Rest felt good this week. I won't lie, it helps having it so cold out. I mean,  yeah it makes me look tough running in subzero weather, but it's not what I would choose.  Marathon pace run tomorrow. Going into it feeling strong. 

 The polar vortex has set in.  The past two days the state of Michigan is dealing with single digit temperatures and below 0 wind chills The children are not going to school tomorrow because it is so cold.  How about I go for a run? I thought about not running today. It was just a thought. The problem is there will always be excuses. If ever there were an excuse this would have been it. Is it even safe to run when it is that cold? I won't pretend like there aren't risks, but so help me if I get out of my rhythm I know how slippery the slope is to find other reasons to skip a training session.  I know that if I can do this extreme cold running than it breaks down one more future excuse. Marathon training is physically rigorous, but it becomes increasingly mentally rigorous too as the weeks go by, mileage increases, and the race day comes closer. So I'm very mindful of the consequences of an excuse or skipped work out. I'm not going for perfection, but there better be ...

On today's docket, a 10 mile long run. Felt pretty normal with only slight increase in effort to maintain 7:54. Pretty spot on throughout the run. Just tried to stay relaxed and chill listening to an audio book about St. Anthony of the desert.  I ended where I started which is a bit of a feat. I'm starting to get better at that. Halfway through my run, I will plot a path back home. It might be variable to some extend, but it always amazes me how square the township is. There are lots of 90 degree turns. Lots of north south or east west roads with just a few curves here and there. Pearl, the road off of Weiss, Mackinaw goes off at an angle and then into the city there are all the streets parallel to Adams Blvd. I feel like the map in my head is pretty good at this point, but still not precise in a few places.  I would like to run on the East side more. It's just not practical to get over there. Maybe once this marathon cycle is done I'll figure out a way to make it happe...

Ah Saturday. Always the thought "maybe I'll run during the daylight hours today" and then inevitably my body just keeps waking early like it normally does, and I decide to go put the miles in.  I started listening to a art history course this training cycle and wanted to continue listening to a lecture about Michelangelo and the Sistene Chapel but I couldn't find my earbuds. I neglected my own advice about preparedness the night before and abandoned looking after trying my coat pocket, the table by the door, my pants from the day before, and camera bag. "Oh well" I thought realizing I needed to fish or cut bait. There are regular occurrences I don't listen to anything at all when I run and this would need to be one of those times.  I train regularly without music or podcast or audiobook in my ears so this wasn't completely foreign. I do this for a few reasons. First, my brain just needs a break from all the stimulation. Second, I don't want to be...

 

During this morning's run I ran into a goose. Not literally, although that is plausible. In the middle of a neighborhood, all by itself just walking down the street. There were no other geese around. It didn't honk or hiss and it wasn't bedded down and sleeping. Just sorta there. Hanging out. Then even stranger than the goose there was a guy in his driveway also watching to goose, "I just pulled into my driveway and thought that goose looked strange. It doesn't look injured or anything." What is happening. It is 2:33am in the morning and we're carrying on about a goose. His name was Ken. Not the goose, the man.  The whole morning felt like a bizarre sort a dream that I couldn't have made up if I tried. The kind of thing that normally I'd forget when I woke up. But it really happened.  Sometimes running is radically boring and other times instances like this make it unbelievably memorable. Often it is just a small little instance that is remarkable ...

I made a small change to my usual routine today. It is a rest day so instead of putting on my fitness watch, I put on my "just tell the time" watch. This doesn't seem like much, but throughout the day it reminded me this is a rest day and I should take it seriously. I know it will alter the every day metrics being recorded by the fitness watch, but that's ok. Does everything need to measured all the time? Apparently not because I have no idea what my "body battery" reading is this evening. I just know I feel sorta tired and should go to bed soon. I'm not sure my stress level, but I suspect it was a little elevated getting the kids off to bed. I didn't count my steps wheeling around the grocery store getting charcuterie materials for an exhibition opening tomorrow, but if I needed to guess, that would have been the highest concentration of steps in the day.  The deeper I go into the training cycle the more I will value the weekly rest day on Wednesday...

 The sidewalks, even after being plowed were too unreliable to hit speed work out pace so I ran in the road with the exception of the cool down. There were a few instances where I needed to briefly hit the packed snow on the intervals which is very unpleasant. I gave myself a lot of self talk "YEAH!!! Let's go!" ... "Two more intervals!" ... "That's it settle in. Feel it". I felt it alright except when trying to run right into the win. I checked my pace occasionally through the intervals, but didn't care that much so I ended up a little slower than last week, but still plenty fast and in target range. I feel a little self conscious about hollering out so early in the morning, but doubt anyone really cares too much. By the time anyone inside catching z's hears me I'll be long gone.  When I first started running around my town, I would make elaborate routes to explore different neighborhoods. During the winter here, I find I am far less p...

 Today should have been easier. It didn't feel as easy as it should have. I keep dwelling on it, but the snowy surfaces are a bear. Even while running in the street I feel like I need to go twice as hard for the same result. It's too early in the training to feel as tuckered out as I did this morning. Not awful. Just sorta plain. I came home and slept until 7:59am with some strange dream playing in my head. The kids ended up having a snow day. I joke that the school system called me up and told me run around town as a consultant for snow days, and we have a bit of a chuckle. On the way home from work I scouted which sidewalks might be drier than the others. It looks as though they (city? private good citizen?) took care of the sidewalks on Center, McCarty, Shattuck, and path behind the library are at least groomed. Since the repaving of Hemmeter, I know that will be pretty reliable. All things considered, I still expect speed work tomorrow to be a bit dicey. Tomorrow calls for...

I could have saved today's 10 miles for later in the afternoon, but per usual my body woke up at 4am something and I decided not to waste time getting out the door. This worked out well because the sidewalks were all jammed up with snow, but the road was clear. Running on the road in the middle of the afternoon would be a nonstarter, but in the wee hours of the morning I can see the very very little on coming traffic and have more secure footing. It might sound wild, but I feel safer running on the road in the morning like this than risking twisting an ankle on the half plowed sidewalks in the afternoon. I did duck into a neighborhood at one point for about a block, but otherwise just made sure my headlamp was bright and my light vest was blinking.  I set my target long run pace at 7:54. This is a bit faster than my goal pace calls for but wanted it felt good and I gave myself leeway considering the ambitious pace setting and the ground conditions. I found it challenging to settle ...

 

There are no short cuts in running. I can only make a measured amount of progress everyday. The only way to get better is in increments. There are apps for helping make progress, but there's no magic button to go from being able to run a 5k to a marathon. The process itself is straight forward and not necessarily hard to understand, but applying the process takes focus and stamina.  Once these are achieved, it's possible for the process to become at least a little easier because there is clarity about how things get done. The internal dialogue  moves from " if I run today" to " when I run today". This mental status is what endurance is built from.  And endurance builds upon itself. When I finished my first marathon, one of the most enlighten moments came when my brain thought "if you can do that, what else is possible?!" My body changed from a physical processes, but I realized my mindset changed just as much. This empowering mindset not only work...

When I tried to take a swig of my water a few miles into my run this morning I recognized things didn't flow through the nozzle quite the way they should have. When I got home I figured out why. Although the whole thing didn't freeze, enough of the water at the top of the bottle did preventing the free flow cold water. I considered this a remote possibility, but figured with it being close to my body heat the possibility was remote. I guess nature proved me wrong. Water is no match for being outside in single digit temperatures for an hour. Of course with weather this cold you'd think the rest of my body would freeze too, but thankfully the mittens, head band, gator, jacket and leggings proved enough to keep me from shutting down. The thing I get most freighted about is the moisture developing from sweating and then having that cool to the point of chilling my body. In other words: hypothermia. I know there's some risk there, but without sounding caviler, not any more t...

 I'm not exactly sure when I figured out that listening to foreign language pop music helped make speedwork more tolerable, but since that moment, it's become the antidote for dreaded intervals. I think it has something to do with the novelty of having completely no understanding of the words, but appreciation for the energy that come from the hyperproduced beat driving hit making tunes. I am operating under the assumption that the words might be exceptionally shallow like much of the pop music originating out of America, but in Korean or Japanese or Italian, it doesn't matter.  The other benefit is I'm less likely to get the songs "stuck in my head". I may be caught humming a tune, but without understanding the words, I'm not going to have phrases pouring through my brain for the rest of the day. Don't get me wrong, Taylor Swift has some bangers, but I don't want the angsty heart break coming with me through the day.  So what's the best way to...

Work out: 2mi Warm Up,x8(600m@5k-10k pace,400m recovery) 2mi cool down I felt very in control during these intervals. I felt at any given moment I could have gone a touch faster or slower if I wanted or needed to. I am getting use to knowing what this speed feels like. I'm not going to go as far as to say I liked speed work today, but certainly good to have a sense of progress.  Just to confirm there has been actual progress I took a look at the same workout from 6 months ago. 10 seconds faster and a heart rate about 7-10 beats less might not seem like much, but in fitness terms, this feels like an extraordinary accomplishment. More telling is my work out in July I classified as "HARD" and feeling"Weak". Today I classified "Somewhat hard" and feeling "normal" I know it isn't completely apples to apples because of the temperature difference, but I am calling it a win. Its sorta fun to run the numbers and see the story the tell. Today Janu...

I woke up at the wrong time this morning. 12:30am.  A few more hours of sleep and it would have made sense, but even by my low standards, 12:30am is too early to get out for a run. I navigated the sleeplessness something like this. "What? Too early. Maybe if I am not back asleep in 20mins I'll go for my run" "But that is 20 minutes I could be running rather than wondering if I am going to fall asleep. It would be disappointing to still be up at 12:50 and have nothing to show for it" "If I do fall back asleep, I'll probably be up at 5am and then there won't be time to go back to sleep at 6am" "Ok 10 mins. If I'm not asleep in 10 minutes I'll put on my miles. I need a reset anyway because I ran early afternoon today... errr... yesterday" I stay very still for 5 minutes. My brain drifts toward how I can't sleep despite efforts to trace through my go to sleeping thoughts; visions of the ocean sunrises during family vacation, a...

  About 98% of my runs are loops. I end where I started. This seems intuitive, and likely the case for most runners, but is notable. So what about the remaining 2% where I end where I did not start? Those runs are usually more memorable because there is some logistical element that makes the run more complicated. Sometimes these runs are races, but more often they are just goofy ideas.  For instance, for a long run last year, I ran 16 miles from my door to a few towns over. Thankfully I have a friend at the destination who agreed to drive me back home. Another time I needed to figure out how to drop off a rental car and then get home again. You guessed it. Why not just drop the car off and then run a route home?  Today, I went to Mass, changed into my running gear and got my mileage running home. This provided a good change of scenery and didn't disrupt the family life. It filled my vision with places I am familiar with, but don't get too very often because they are furth...

[Thoughts from the perspective of it being 6:30am on a Saturday morning] You would think because it's Saturday I would take my time getting out the door for an easy effort 6 miles. Drink my coffee. Eat breakfast. Leisurely put one shoe on at a time. I might even wait until it is light out.  Well, sometimes that can happen on Saturday mornings, but my kid is full of ambition and needs to be at work by 8:15am. I guess I could run after I drop him off, but by that time the other youngsters will be rolling out of bed wrapped in fuzzy blankets or robes and with right expectation that my lap will be available to lounge in and gaze out the living room window at the harshly packed cold drifting snow.   Anyway I'm awake now and I have an hour to pack in the miles so it's out the door.  The miles are easy effort, but which is not the same as no effort. The running part is easy, but the sharp wind that smacks my face is brutal. I've got work twice as hard to go half as far on m...

 Just moving along minding my own business running through a snowy storm like it is a starfield simulator computer wallpaper from 1999 and bam! I'm on my backside from hitting a little piece of ice laying in wait under a thin layer of fresh snow. From upright to sideways in a literal instant.  It's such a shock, I stay down not from pain, but from the surprise of suddenly finding myself covered with a bit of snow. I take my time getting up. At this point there's no rush. Better slow and make certain the footing is sure for the return to vertical position. Thankfully nothing serious other than a bit of tenderness in my shoulder. It happened so fast I don't even remember landing on my shoulder, but I must have. Here I am .33 miles from home. Do I dial it in and just head home? Nah. I'm alright. Carry on a little further. Easy does it. If anything starts to feel quirky in the next few blocks I can still get back home.   Nothing does. I keep going. Watching my step and ...

 Speed work out this week after pretty much just easy effort runs since October. There were a few faster 'tempo' type runs in there and a 5k Gobbler Gallop, but nothing to serious like speed training.  Precisely: 2 mi Warm Up x12 400m @5k-10k pace (which is ~6:35-7:00) | 400m Recovery 2 mi Cool Down The first few intervals are ok, but at some point I feel think "oof, is this going to end" Sometimes from discomfort and other times from boredom or perhaps some combination of both of these.  Fluctuating between hard effort and recovery, I ended up putting my gloves in my coat pocket around the 5th interval. Usually this is not a problem. I shove them in and so they don't bounce about, but apparently I didn't shove my one glove in far enough because undenounced to me it fell out. I really like these Turtle Gloves because they slide on and off easily and turn inside out. Sometimes they run a bit hot for my taste, but they do the trick most of the time. I'm sor...

  New Year. New Resolve. January 1 is arbitrary but a good point to start from. It's nice how it coincides closely with the start of a training cycle for me this year. Ironically Wednesday (yesterday) is my rest day so I didn't actually run on the first of the year. Resolution with out a plan rarely works, but making a plan without resolve is a contradiction. Both are needed in right proportion and bolster each other. I'm resolving to maintain my health (physical, mental, emotional) through running this year and that includes a plan to run a marathon in the spring. The resolve won't change in the spring, but I'll need to develop a new plan based on the same resolve. Running helped me understand how to set big goals and break them down into smaller goals. Keeping things realistic as well as floating dreams out in the open. Sometimes my goal is to make it through all the workouts in a given week. Sometimes the goal is just to make it through one individual hard worko...