Another Thursday Tempo day

First time doing this workout in 3 weeks.  3 weeks ago the tempo part of the workout was 4.5 miles at 6:40 pace.  

This time I got in 5 miles at 6:40 pace... actually I ran .25 miles at 6:53 pace.  Then 4.60 miles at 6:40 pace.  Then .25 at 9.3 and the last .15 at 10 mph.  

Overall my HR was staying in the upper 150s lower 160s.  Kind of crept up the whole workout... was at about 163 before I bumped up the pace.  The whole run was completely aerobic and I wasn't really breathing too hard.  I was hurting for most of it but in a controlled way and the minutes just kept ticking by.  I'm sure I could have kept going for several more miles with no issue.  

Not sure if this means I could go run 5 miles at 6:40 pace on the road and feel so "comfortable".   The treadmill really fucks with my head.  Also, seems to fuck with my knee as that was hurting again by the end of the workout... not so much during the hard part but during the .75 cooldown jog it was barking... maybe a result of sloppy slow jog treadmill form?  Doesn't seem like it's getting any worse and it feels better than it did on Monday where it was really an issue so I guess we'll see.   

Total workout:

8 miles

56:32

7:04 pace

January is almost over and I'm already at an all time mileage high for the month.  It'll be good to get through 1 month of being stuck on the treadmill.  Then I just need to get through February.  By March, outside running becomes possible for a bit until daylight savings time strikes.  If the temps are good I will probably find myself waking up early on Tuesdays and Thursday to get it in... April and May are the best months of the year.  Should be Covid vaccinated by then and ready to go.

1 extra day off, first day back

I took Monday and Tuesday off from running to give my (knee?) a rest, opting for the bike instead.  It made a pretty noticeable difference as it felt much better yesterday than the day before and even better this morning.  

I took some Ibuprofen (which I'm not sure is smart) even though it wasn't really bothering me and ran for 6.25 easy miles this morning at 8:36 pace.  I intended to go 5 miles but felt fine so went for the 10K.

Knee feels slightly more agitated now but not too bad.  I'll see how it feels tomorrow morning and go from there but for now I'm assuming I'll be able to run.  If it gets worse or stops getting better I guess I'll take a couple more days off.  I think that getting off the treadmill and back on the road will help the most.

I've been killing the pull ups lately. I can easily do sets of 16 now.  My pace is at over 10,000 for the year.  I didn't think 10,000 was a reasonable goal but now I'm thinking its possible... I figured I'd get off to a strong start and probably taper off at some point but they are actually getting easier (plus I'm getting lighter)…  I'm thinking now that 10,000 could be a pretty good stretch goal. 

  

4th straight 50 mile week

Finished last week with 52 miles...  my 4th week in a row breaking the 50 mark...  maybe not 100% surprising that I'm a bit injured now.

My left leg MCL area is tight and sore.  Kind of a strange thing.  It doesn't bother me that much when running but it's tender.  I ran hard on it over the weekend and it felt okay but later on it was barking.

  I'm thinking to take a few days off to see if I can snap out of it.  Hate to keep running on it and make it worse.  At the same time I'd hate to lose the fitness I've been building... always the conundrum, if I keep running on it will it heal?  Also, wondering if the treadmill has anything to do with it?  Just doesn't seem like a normal injury since it's not really used when I run and I can run on it without too much discomfort.

Despite my woes, I still (possibly inadvisably) whipped out a PR setting 15 mile run this weekend.  15 miles, 1:51:05, 7:24 avg pace.  It was my first time outside in 10 days and it was nice to be on the road.  Weather was 31 degrees and perfectly comfortable.  I work my Nike Zoom Fly Tempo Next% which I initially did not care for but have been growing on me with each run.  Primarily have been using them for long runs and have gotten better results out of them each time.  

My fastest mile was 7:14 and my slowest was mile 12 at 7:44.  Mile 11 and 13 were at 7:30.3 and 7:31.4…  every other mile I was able to keep under 7:30 pace.  I ran faster than generally but never out of control with my HR pretty much in the 150-155 range.  I slowed down a bit at the end as my steady effort started to result in reduced results but was able to pick it up at the end, hitting the last mile in 7:16.  

Really nice to get out to the country side.  Meant to go 16 miles but wasn't planning on running as fast as I did and decided that 15 was sufficient.  

I officially decided not to sign up for the 1/2 marathon in a couple weeks so now I'm back to training without a specific goal.  Thinking about a 5K in March... not sure if I'm really 5K ready but I could just do it and see how it goes.  

2021 GOALS PROGRESS UPDATE:

Since it's Monday, its time for a goals update

1. 10,000 pushups:  910 on the year which puts me on pace for 13286 for the year

2. 7500 pulls ups:  664 on the year which puts me on pace for 9694 for the year.  I even did 25 straight chin ups with no stops last week.

3. 26 Hours on the Bike:  4 biking Mondays in a row.  No days off in 2021 so far.  

4. 2021 miles:  198.3 miles, 60 miles ahead of pace.

On the diet front I'm off to a strong start, stepping on the scale at 167.40 this morning, down almost 10 pounds from January 1st...  I'm just about 25% past my goal of mindful eating for 90 straight days.  

Thursday Workout

I wasn't really feeling it today until I was.  I was planning for a 9 mph (6:40 pace) tempo run on the treadmill for ~5 miles...  instead I opted for 5 miles at 8.3 mph (7:14 pace) interval tempo mashup alternating between .5% incline for .5 miles and 5% incline for .25 miles.  

I did 6 repeats at the 5% grade...  It was tough but manageable and definitely good for working some different muscle groups.  Each repeat was tough enough that I was hurting and counting down the seconds til I could decrease the incline... according to my chart, 7:14 at 5% grade on a treadmill is equivalent to 6:20 pace... not sure if this really holds true as I would have been hard pressed to keep this up for a mile, much less 3.1 (I assume I could run 19:40 in the 5K right now after running 18:25 over the summer but I guess I don't know that for a fact).

Garmin definitely thought it was a reasonable effort and my HR was up for a sustained amount of time.

Over all stats:

8 miles

1:00:52 

7:36 avg pace

I'm going into February with some pretty good fitness under my belt... but I still think I have quite a bit of room for improvement.  If I do wind up running a half marathon in 3 weeks I imagine I would PR...  If I don't I'll refocus and keep building for spring.  

The streak is dead

My unofficial streak of running more than an hour per session ended today after 17 consecutive sessions.  

6.25 miles

52:14

8:21 pace

I sort of ran out of time and also wanted to make sure I could help my wife get the kids out the door for their first day back in school after a COVID-19 learning at home break.  At least I got a 10K in.  Loving how running 6 miles pretty much feels like a day off.  

Should be a good deal, as tomorrow I plan to hit it hard.

Catch up post

First off... 60 mile week!  First one ever.  And I'm not even that beat up plus I'm feeling fitter than ever. I'll give the treadmill one thing... it certainly helps me keep the pace easy!

Weekend weather was shitty so I was on the treadmill Saturday and Sunday.  I really just don't want to run on snow or ice.  No need to slip and get hurt when I have a treadmill.  The one issue with that is my long run.  My treadmill is limited to 99 minutes... and I have a thing about stopping and then restarting (I'll need to get over that).  I stopped and restarted this weekend to get in 13.17 on Sunday but it totally killed my momentum.  It was a good workout overall though, and I ran mile 11 and 12 at 6:40 pace.  Overall I averaged 7:45 pace for 13.17 miles.

Other then that I ran 9 on Saturday at 8:35 pace and 9 today at 8:41 pace.

So right now I'm feeling pretty darn good.  A couple small niggles but nothing too serious... my left foot started  hurting when I got up in the middle of the night last night.  Kind of weird.  Feels like a tendon or ligament but not the plantar fascii… something slightly more inside.  Didn't bother me while running, so hopefully nothing.  Inside of my left knee too but also fine as long as I don't side load it.  

2021 GOALS PROGRESS UPDATE:

1. 10,000 pushups:  656 so far.  Hit the bench press yesterday for the first time in a while and capped it off with 60 push ups... feel it in my shoulders today.

2. 7500 pulls ups:  460 so far.  I m on pace now for 8837.  Pull ups are becoming easier.  I did 18 straight today.  I'm becoming a beast...  as I lose weight they should only get easier.

3. 26 Hours on the Bike:  3 biking Mondays... getting slightly ahead of pace with an extra 3 minutes a ride.  

4. 2021 miles:  152.73 miles... 47 miles ahead of pace

8.5 Easy

Back on the treadmill today.  Started out a bit tentative with my MCLs (I think?) a bit tender, but once I started running everything loosened up.  By the 5th mile I felt pretty much normal and I feel better after the run too.  Hopefully that means that whatever was agitated is recovering quickly.  

Still, I wanted to take it easy so I decided I would only do 7 miles at 6.8 mph (8:49 pace)... which ultimately led to 8.5 miles at 8:21 pace (started at 6.8 and worked up to 7.3).  8.5 is my shortest run of the week so I guess it was a recovery day.  It was easy enough anyway.  

Once more 9 miler tomorrow and I will officially have my first 60 mile week in the books... looking back to June of 2019 I had 60.93 miles for the whole month so I've come quite a long way in terms of endurance...  Really, I'm not even that tired, in fact I feel way better than I did last summer in terms of fatigue.  The one thing I will say is that I haven't had many workouts so once I start running workouts again I'd expect more fatigue.