Fast Finish

After a recovery day on Tuesday and a day off (with some brisk walking) on Wednesday, I finished up the month strong with some sprints.  

Another Garmin workout:  15 min warmup - 3 X 15 seconds sprints with 3:00 rest recovery -  5 minute job then 3 X 15 seconds sprints with 3:00 rest recovery - them 10 minute cooldown

I must admit that this wouldn't be the type of workout I would normally think of doing.  But honestly, it was quite effective.  I ran to the track for my warm up and did the sprints on the track.  The 15 seconds equated to about 90 meters.  Was approaching 100 meters on the last one.  I ran them at 90-95% effort.  

Sprinting is not something I do very often these days.  Even a month or two ago I don't know if my fitness was built up to a point where I would have wanted to try it.., but I'm feeling a lot more put together lately and my body was up to the task. I can always tell it was a good workout by the mild level of fatigue I feel after.  

The other thing about these Garmin workouts is that they include some walk breaks and rest.  Also not something I'm used to doing.  Good think about the workout setup is that it automatically logs the rests separately as different "laps".  Just makes it hard when I log my miles.  Normally, I try not to include walking on my log but its impossible to separate from the digital stats.  I think moving forward I'll just include the walking mileage and pace in my workouts.  It inflates the mileage a bit and deflates the average pace even more but I think moving forward I'll just save myself the trouble and mental gymnastics and log it all.

Last day of July.  114.81 miles for the month.  This is the most miles I've run in a month in years (since May of 2022 to be exact).  I'm at 495 miles for the year and need roughly 32 miles to surpass my 2024 mileage for the year.  And after years of on again off again training where I barely maintained fitness but never really saw much gains I'm starting to really feel some fitness.  

August 9th will be the first test to quantify my progress.  Upcoming goals...  get my VO2 max back up in the 50s.  Get my weight back down under 180.  Log a few more 100 mile months and hopefully a 1000 mile year.  And eventually... break 20 minutes for a 5K.

hit a hundo

 As of today I'm at 107.51 miles for the month.  I broke the arbitrary 100 mile barrier over the weekend with days to spare.

Today, I ran 4.24 miles at 9:01 pace and it was a bit of a struggle.  My legs didn't even want to go 9 minute pace and were just plain fatigued.  

I had some fairly decent efforts on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday (5.18 miles on both Saturday and Sunday at 8:41 pace following my speed workout on Friday)

Time will tell if today's effort was the start to some recovery or if ultimately I just need a day off.  Main thing is that I'm finally starting to really feel fit and good about my running so don't want to overdo anything and set myself back.  

Right now I'm exhausted.  Always a fine line between pushing to exhaustion and allowing space for recovery.

Garmin Workout #2

Garmin coach finally assigned me an actual workout.  15 minute warmup @ 9:20 pace, 8 X 1 minute at 6:50 pace with 3 minute recoveries at 11:15 pace and 10 minute recovery @ 9:20 pace.

A couple notes:

I am really liking the workout feature on the Garmin.  It's like wave-lights lite where I can just run and not overthink my pace, time or effort.  I just follow the watch's cues and try to keep the pace in the range.

I ran a lot faster than the prescribed pace for the most part.  I averaged 6:28 pace on the 8 X 1 minute parts and hovered around the 9 minute pace for the recovery.  3 minutes at my easy pace seemed to be plenty of recovery and 9 minutes seems pretty easy after coming off 6:30 pace.  

I had no problem completing the workout and ran the cooldown in the 8:20 range.

All in all, I wound up running 6.57 miles at an average of 8:13 pace.  

And I feel good afterwards.  I'm tired but don't feel like I overdid it.  Just a euphoric level of fatigue and a general feeling that I'm building fitness.  Most encouraging is that these efforts are not painful.  I haven't had to push through any pain barriers since the beginning of July.  

15 days until my 5K.  92.91 miles for July so far.  473 miles on the year 

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.