Fun Stuff at the New York Times

The New York Times had an interesting piece last week on the physiological effects of short, high-intensity training sessions. While there are many reasons to run long when training for races, this article definitely will give you some food for thought. Be warned: After reading this you might be tempted to skip a long workout!

And speaking of food, while you're there you can check out this cute video of Olympian Deena Kastor and Food Critic Mark Bittman. Mark is well known in the food world, but a couple of weeks ago I was surprised to learn that he is an experienced mid-pack marathon runner.

Enjoy and have a Happy Holiday!

Running Funky but Stronger

This past week Steve had several days off of work which allowed us time to work on the outside of our new house. On Thursday (a rest day) we got up early and spent all day digging, sawing, building, etc. etc. etc. By Thursday evening we were both exhausted, plus Steve had managed to tweak his knee while helping me assemble our new raised garden beds. I decided to make Friday a second rest day since we were both so tired. Still, Friday was another day of working in the yard... at some point I will put up pictures of our ever-improving acre. Saturday I did an easy 4-miler (and a little less home improvement) and felt quite good; while I was trying to run easy I did notice that I felt as strong on our homeward hill as I have since we moved here. Yay.
This morning I planned to do a longer run, so I was a little unnerved by exactly how sore my thighs were when I woke up. (As far as I can tell, this fatigue was coming from the muscles you use to push a landscaping shovel into very rocky ground!) Still, I headed out and found a new, flatter course to run a large loop on. It turned out to be a nice run, although periodically I would become very aware of my leg fatigue. I finished and was happy to discover that I had come in at just over 8 min/mile for 10 miles. Go me.

Today I am going to avoid the yard, with the exception of sitting on our patio furniture and reading a book. It is also the championship final for the Confederations Cup; the USA is playing Brazil in a final that no one expected. The game is at 2 PM EST on ESPN. Tune in for some of the World Cup flavor that Steve and I were lucky enough to enjoy during our trip to Germany in 2006.

A mile too far (or 2)

Another consequence of moving to a new neighborhood is the loss of your list of premeasured workout distances; suddenly you have to calculate and estimate your way to your planned distance. Case-in-point; today I MEANT to do 8 miles with some tempo work. Instead I found myself running a much larger loop than anticipated, which put me out in the sun and heat without the supplies I would normally carry on a longer run. I finally quit (at what turned out to be 9 miles) and walked the remaining 1 mile of hills home. I figured I had done my workout and I certainly didn't want to end up with heat exhaustion!

I was really tired at the end of the run, and my upper thighs are still burning from the hills and the tempo. But it was still a productive workout and now I am confident I will really enjoy my rest day tomorrow!

Speedy and Sore

I've realized that my smaller recovery loop is actually almost 6 miles long, which means I have probably been running my recovery miles a little faster than ideal. (I thought it was somewhere between 5 and 5.5.) Still, my legs are holding up pretty well and I just have some general soreness in my hill-climbing muscles. I'm definitely aware of them for the rest of the day after running our "homeward-bound" hill. But, my lungs seem to be improving and even my knees are coping with the 220 foot down hill that is 3/4 of a mile into my warm-up. Tomorrow I'll try for a little bit of tempo on an 8 mile run... and hopefully my new running shoes will show up before then!

Still adjusting

My legs continue to feel more tired than normal, but I'm trying to "take it easy" and be cautious without just succumbing to laziness. This morning was typical; despite a rest day yesterday, my legs were tired when I woke up. My lower calf felt odd in particular, which I've learned is due to all of thes new hills. After some mental arguing, I convinced myself to get up and run an easy 4 -5 miles. The problem is that once I come down off of our huge hill around the 1-mile-mark, I hit this beautiful green straight away along a golf course with several other runners, a little bit of traffic, and a nearly eternal tailwind. My training brain turns on, and the next thing I know I am pumping along faster than planned. I'm sure that this reoccurring phenomenon is partly to blame for my notable fatigue.
I also have decided that my running shoes are way past due. I stopped using my training log in February; this is the first time in three years I don't know exactly how many miles are on my shoes. I DO NOT like it. This weekend I'm going to buy a new pair and start working with a training journal again. But for now... off to the BIG wine sale!

New Bearings

I think the trickiest part of moving to a new neighborhood (aside from the new hills) is that you have to build up a whole new repetoire of runs. While this is certainly fun and a great cure for the running doldrums, it does make it hard to really evaluate your fitness. With a new succession of hills, straight-aways and traffic lights, you don't have the same ability to compare your current run to the hundreds of others you've done on the same course. I've been dealing with that for the last week or so; its seems like I can't get a good grasp on where I stand in my training. On one hand, I can always calculate my pace with the help of a map and stopwatch, but it's hard to figure out how the hills (did I mention we now live on a big HILL?) affect your pace. Yes, they may slow you down, YES, they definitely make you stronger in the long run, but how much slower would you expect? It's hard to figure out which of my tired muscles are from these new, more demanding routes, and how much are from a few too many days of sleeping in or skimping on miles. :) I am definitely running a little short on miles these past few weeks.

Having said that, I think Steve and I had a pretty good run this morning- maybe my strongest in a while. (Of course, it was only 8 miles... making it my longest run in a while too!)
We ran out into a neighborhood that is on the opposite side of our little valley, and we ended up getting a pretty rolling run with very few flat portions. It was tough, but not unreasonably so, and I'm kind-of-excited to see where this hillier training takes me. (Not that I ever avoided hills, but in our old neighborhood you had to choose routes to find the big ones, so they were very defined by a "start-of-the-hill, end-of-the-hill" type of mentality.) I'm still more tired than normal, but I'm sure this comes from all the work I've been putting in on the house and at my job. A few weeks of lazy summer part-time teaching should cure that.

Lots to Report!

It's been an interesting couple of weeks in the life o' Jaye. The day after the Windermere half-marathon I was stung by a bee on the bottom of my right big toe. Like any bee sting, there was a lot of pain (and some four letter words) but I didn't think much of it. I decided not to run on it the next morning to be safe. Well, long-story-short, by the end of the next day my foot was approaching grapefruit-sized dimensions. This necessitated an emergency trip to the doctor, which resulted in antibiotics, crutches, and a "just-in-case" prescription for an epi-pen. It turns out I have developed some type of allergy to bee stings... which unfortunately could mean that I will become more allergic to them over time. (Hence the epi-pen in case the worst happens.)

It took the rest of the week for me to be able to walk on the foot, and I returned to running that weekend. This was just in time to do a couple runs before our move to our new house this weekend. I've now been out running from our new property twice and it is really nice. The biggest challenge is the enormous, steep hill we have to negotiate in the last third-of-a-mile to the house. Right now I am running half of it, with the goal of going further each time. Other than that my running route takes me along a golf course, through subdivisions, and eventually will include more rural roads as the runs get longer. It's fun to explore a new area!