Feeling a bit off

 After a stellar July so far, my momentum was slightly impeded by a routine scheduled medical procedure that required me to fast for roughly 40 hours.  This required a day off on Wednesday.  The day off left me feeling off and the fasting left me feeling not fast.  

I settled for running an extremely easy run this morning.  I left the house with a plan of at least getting 1 mile in... that got stretched to 2, which got stretched to 20 minutes, which got stretched to 3 miles, which got stretched to 30 minutes.  Finished with 3.13 miles at 9:35 pace and a 132 average heart rate.  It was a situation where I started off not feeling great but felt stronger and stronger as I found my groove.

I'm back to eating and waiting for my digestive system to steady out.  Hopefully by tomorrow I'll be rested, recovered, and ready to go.

I'm at 86.34 miles for the month of July and barring any unforeseen setback should easily clear 100 miles this month.  This will be the most running I've done this year and if I can run more than 101.16 it will be the most I've done in 3 years.  More important than the numbers though is how I'm feeling.  

Last September when I broke the 100 mile barrier I really had to push it at the end and wound up a bit burnt out.  I dropped to 60 miles in October and just about took November and December off.  This month I have 7 days to run 14 miles.  I feel energized and think that this months 100 could just be a stepping stone to even more miles next month.  I don't want to get too far ahead of myself but might even start thinking about sniffing 1000 miles for the year.

Tangible MF Progress

I'm finally starting to see and feel tangible progress.  Running is getting easier and more enjoyable while my heart rate steadily falls into a more reasonable rhythm.  

Friday, my plan called for a 2nd recovery day in a row.  Instead I ran a track workout of 8X400

My previous track workout was 6X400, three weeks ago.  I averaged 2 seconds faster per lap, 3 seconds less recovery per rep (100 meter walk between reps which is fairly consistent but will start to slow down as I tire).  Also, I ran my last lap at 1:22 and it felt easier than 1:30 the previous time.  

Sunday I ran 8.14 miles and ran another 4.31 today.  The Garmin auto-coach is starting to push the mileage a bit which is a nice deviation compared to a couple weeks ago.  Garmin still hasn't asked me to do an actual workout.  I'm 19 days away from my planned 5K so starting to run out of time for workouts.  Things are going well so I'm not going to try to do too much but maybe I'll get in a hard session or two before too long.  Probably a faster workout this week and maybe 2 next week along with a long run or 2 before it's time to taper.

I'm at 78.9 miles for the month so far and VO2 max has moved up to 49 which is the highest it's been in quite a while.  It's less about the numbers though and more about how I feel   I'm starting to be able to go harder without totally hurting. 

Recovery X 2

Wednesday, 32 minutes at 8:52 pace and 138 average HR.

Today, 27 minutes at 10:04 pace and 126 average HR.

Tomorrow... was originally supposed to be a workout but now my watch is saying another 27 minute recover run.  But who knows maybe that will change again by tomorrow.

The recovery run felt good though and even at the 10 minute pace I kept my cadence at 174.  I compared this to my last recovery run on July 1st and the cadence was 162 (at 10:52 pace and 123 Avg HR).  Just seems like my running is getting a lot more natural and efficient and I'm actually starting to feel a bit more fit finally after months and months and months of stagnation... So maybe slowing down to speed up isn't such BS after all.  

No matter what, I'm running a workout tomorrow.  Planning to hit the track for what would be my 4th track workout of the summer.   Could be a good test to see if my fitness has advanced at all since last workout.

6 miles... why the hell not?

 When I went to bed last night I didn't think I'd be running 6 miles this morning but when I woke up, that's what the Garmin training algorithm had come up with (or rather 54 minutes at 9:20 pace was the suggestion).  

I was surprised because this is the longest run it had suggested so far (previous was 52 minutes at 9:20 pace from Saturday) and I didn't expect it to come up with the longest run on my 4th day of training in a row...  not that I'm complaining.

Wound up running 6.10 miles in 54 minutes at 8:51 pace with an average HR of 144.  Not as good as my average of 139 yesterday but its hot out and my HR inevitably continues to creep up over time.  

Halfway through July and I'm sitting at 55.48 miles which is the most miles I've run in a July since 2021.

Tomorrow I'm supposed to run 9:20 pace for 32 minutes and Thursday recovery run and Friday a workout?  I'd be shocked if that doesn't change but also not sure why it would... I guess we'll see.

Signs of improvement

My last 3 runs (Saturday and Sunday and Monday) have actually felt pretty good.  I'm think that the last couple weeks of slow, steady, and consistent work are starting to pay off.   I also made another tweak this weekend with my cadence.  I made a focus to up my cadence and wound up averaging about 177 the last 3 runs instead of the typical 170 I had been running at.  While it takes some focus and doesn't feel completely natural, it does seem easier and also my hips are less sore. I ran 6 on Saturday, a workout on Sunday, and 3.67 today with hardly any fatigue.

The Garmin auto-coach still seems kind of wonky.  I ran an easy 6 on Saturday at 8:43 pace after a rest day on Friday.  Then I woke up Sunday, it told me to do another rest day.  I wasn't going to waste a Sunday training day so I set up my own workout: 

• 10 minute warm up at 8:45 pace
• 10 minutes at 7:12 pace
• 5 minute recovery at 8:43 pace
• 5 minutes at 6:51 pace
• 6 minute cooldown at 8:55 pace

It seemed to be the perfect workout for my current condition that day.  I ran hard but never really hurt to much and remained in control and had no problems with exhaustion.  

I woke up Monday and was expecting the watch to tell me to do a rest day since I ran a workout on my rest day but nope, instead it told me to run 32 minutes at 9:20 pace.  I would up running 32 minutes at 8:43 pace and averaged 139 HR for the run which made it one of my best "easy runs" for a while.

Garmin has me scheduled for another workout tomorrow.  I'll be shocked if I wake up tomorrow and it still recommends a workout but who knows.  If not, I can start ignoring the watches suggestions and run my own workouts from time to time until the training algorithm sorts itself out.

Steady 9 min pace

 I've been steady hovering around the 9 minute pace for my last 11 runs... this is based on actually following the Garmin training schedule I'm testing out.  When I look forward in the schedule it typically will tell me that I have a workout coming up the next day but normally once the next day comes it replaces the workout with another base run at 9:20 pace.  Not exactly sure why this is but I'm guessing that part of the issue is that 9:00 pace on a hot summer day hits harder so maybe I'm working harder than the algorithm thinks I should but generally speaking the running has seemed relatively easy and my HR has averaged 140 as long as I run in early enough in the morning that it's not in the upper 80s yet.

Don't think I'll really know if I'm actually starting to get any improvements or am at least building a base to build improvements on top of for a few more weeks or until i try to push it a bit on a cooler day.  I'm starting to get a little antsy though as I have been kind of running these "base" types of runs all year and was hoping to start introducing some workouts.

the one thing I can say about slowing down the pace is that my mileage is slightly up.  Not a ton since I'm following the Garmin training plan which is telling me to do 3-4 miles a day (normally I have to run for an extra minute after the workout is done if I actually want to get to 4 miles).  

I'm a bit conflicted because I have my yearly race coming up in August and want to perform as well as possible but also think that long term if I can just get my mileage back up to the 30-40 MPW level that considerable fitness advances will follow.

Today I was supposed to run one of those workouts but when I woke up it told me to rest... so I'm going to rest.  Looking ahead, more base runs tomorrow (51 minutes at 9:20 pace) and Sunday (35 minutes at 9:20 pace) but then maybe some workouts next week.  We shall see.

  

Hot summer reset

 I actually took my own advice and slowed down.  It allowed me to run 7 out of 8 days so far in July (with one scheduled rest day).  I've got 27.44 miles in so far so almost 4 miles a day at a 9:02 average pace.  including a couple of runs in the middle of  90+ degree and sunny afternoons.  

My legs have taken the effort well and feel less fatigued than they have for a while and my motivations is doing ok too.  So far I'm on pace for over 100 miles this month.  I've only broken the 100 mile plateau once in the past 3 years so doing so would be a good sign of progress.  

I've been following a Garmin automated training plan.  So far it pretty much tells me to run between 32 and 42 minutes at 9:20 pace every day.  Sometimes I'll look ahead and it will hint that maybe I'll run something different but then the next day I wake up and it tells me to run 9:20 pace.  I've been running closer to 9 minutes than 9:20 but still have been slowing myself way down compared to 8:30. Its kind of been nice to have a plan and I'll try to keep following it until the end of July at least and then reevaluate.