Or to be Star Trekkie about it, I should be dictating: “Athlete’s Log Star Date 2017.5996” since today we are 219/365 into 2017. I guess. Honestly I don’t know how they come up with those star dates. Gene Roddenberry had an answer for it that had to do with shifts in time, speed and warp so I don’t know how it would work on Earth.
WEEK 1:
I got through the first week of training relatively well. Unlike the running world who put Saturday and Sunday at the end of a week, my weeks always start on Sunday. I did Andrew Kastor’s 400 meter repeats workout from PEAR that day before I went to work. I copied my pace from GarminConnect under the description of the run below. There was a very long warm up and cool down so the overall pace was not terribly impressive but I really pushed it during the 400s which did take me out of my comfort zone like it was supposed to.
Monday, I did Cathe Friedrich’s Supercuts DVD which is a metabolic workout and contains cardio/weights segments in rapid succession with little rest in between. It got my heart rate way up there in the 160s just like running intervals would but did not require any pounding on the pavement because of the swift movements with 8 lb. weights incorporating upper and lower body at the same time. And I had quite the DOMS in my legs and butt for a couple of days. So that was good.
Tuesday brought a 50:00 tempo run from the Matt Fitzgerald 80/20 plan on my PEAR app. I got a very late start because I had to clean the house first, so it was already 2:00 pm and hot when I set out. The peak portion of the run was supposed to put my heart rate in Zone 3 (preferably by speed) but I ended up going slower to keep it from climbing into Zone 4 because of the temps having boosted it quite a bit. So it was not effective speed training but I got it done. I used a 2:30/0:30 Run/Walk because of weather conditions as well.
And I did employ the grueling foam roll torture device afterwards. It hurt like hell which I guess means it was good for me and I need it.
Wednesday, I tried to do the Jordan Metzl Iron Strength DVD despite the comedy of errors that represents my life some days. I got a late start because of crappy sleep thanks to my younger dog who decided to start barking at 4:30 a.m. Then I lounged in bed longer than I should have after that trying unsuccessfully to get back to sleep. Following that, my computer gave me fits and I wasn’t able to queue up the workout until I fooled with restarting and running diagnostics for 20 minutes. Then the dogs got on the yoga mat with me during my morning stretch. Then they wanted out. Then they wanted back in. Then I ran out of time because I had to go to work. So I only got 20 minutes of that workout done because of two happy knuckleheads who had other plans for me.
Along came Thursday and another run before work. Requisite stretching and drills complete, I did 45:00 Short Intervals — or as I nicknamed them “Walk, Jog, Haul Ass” Intervals — comprised of a minute in heart rate Zone 5 (which is basically impossible for me to reach in a mere 60 seconds) followed by a two minute recovery jog during which I would walk the first minute and then jog the second. It was a very effective workout because I really did haul ass like the Devil was chasing me until I thought my heart would burst, and that felt good.
On Friday I finally got the Jordan Metzl DVD done almost in its entirety. By the time he got to the 3 minutes of planks at the end I was spent and gave up. I know, I know! I said I’d do planks. But I didn’t. I was too worn out from burpees, mountain climbers and all the other draconian feats he put me through. I’ll do them next time. I swear.
Saturday brought more dog-inspired delays and I finally set out on the week’s long run at almost 9 am when it was already 70, sunny and pretty much windless. I managed 8.5 slow sweaty miles (carrying not one but two 16 ounce water bottles) and then called it quits. Ideally I’d like to have done another mile but I just didn’t have it in me.
Afterwards, I should have done a 15:00 foam roll masochism fest but I didn’t have time. Our dishwasher had died the night before and I needed to head to the Home Depot to get another one. Then there was lunch at Chili’s with a beer (just one though), and after that a nap. So I only rate my performance 9/10 for last week’s effort. I really will try to do better this week. I’ll do all the stretching and I won’t skip any planks that come up.
Really. I mean that.
Boldly running where I've never gone before 