Quick Training Totals

It's been a while since I posted. I'll catch everybody up later, but here's my training totals for the last couple of months.

August
184.92 Miles

September
181.88 Miles

I had a recovery week at the end of September so that was the reason for having less mileage.

This Should Explain It

I've been having people tell me I'm crazy again so I'm bringing this video back out to help explain it. If you run, you'll get it. If not, you'll still probably be confused as to why we punish ourselves everyday.

One Month Down

Well, I have completed the first month of my marathon training. I am really loving this new training program. I am a data person so it is perfect for me. I'll elaborate more on that part later. It is quite a bit more challenging than the program we used in Pearland Fit last year, but I think I'll hold up just fine.

Like I said last time, all of the runs are done based on heart rate zones. This is a much more accurate way of training than using speed or pace. My coach loads all my workouts into the eNewLeaf program so I can look at them and download them into my Garmin.

Here is one of my interval workouts. All the workouts start with a ten minute warmup and end with a ten minute cooldown. This workout was 1:00 in Zone 1, 1:00 in Zone 2, 1:00 in Zone 3, 1:00 in Zone 4, and another 2:00 in Zone 1. This sequence was repeated 7 times in 40 minutes. My Garmin will beep for five seconds before each time you switch heart rate zones. It will also let you know when you are not in the correct zone. There's no way to cheat without your coach finding out because it records everything.

After the workout, I upload the results from my Garmin back into to eNewLeaf and leave feedback on my run. On eNewLeaf, you can look at all your data from the run. Do you remember when I said I liked data? Well, I'm about to blow your mind with all the data you can see from your run. It provides you with a workout summary, including time, distance, speed, and heart rate. It also has speed and heart rate plotted against time layed over color blocks representing the correct training zones. The workout log shows calories, time in zones, heart rate, and a compliance screen where it grades you against how often you were in the correct zones.

Summary

Calories

Time in Zone

Heart Rate

Compliance

Since we have gone over the ins and outs of how the program works, I guess I'll let you know how it has been working for me. I can actually tell that I am getting faster because I can see that each week my workouts cover a little more distance in the same time periods, one of the benefits of all the data. I'm feeling stronger on my "hard" days than I did when I started four weeks ago. The most miles I ran with Pearland Fit in a week last year was 32. I ran 36 in my first week this year, and I felt great. We never have two hard days together. A hard day is always followed by a easy, or recovery, day on the schedule.

Overall, I think it's shaping up to be a great fall race season, and I'm looking forward to setting some new PR's. Until then, I'm just going to try not to burn up in this heat.

July Mileage = 160.64

Total Program Mileage = 160.64 (Since July 1)

And So It Begins...

I officially kicked off my training for the 2012 Chevron Houston Marathon on July 1. I'm doing heart rate based training this year with Team Elite here in Pearland, TX.

Before I could begin training, I had to head over to see Johnny Shelby at Third Coast Training to get my testing done for VO2 Max, Lactate Threshold, and Resting Metabolic Rate (RMR). The purpose of these tests were to find out what my heart rate zones and metabolic profile were before we got started. I learned a lot throughout the whole process, and Johnny is kind of like an endurance sport mad scientist. He's constantly running calculations on his laptop or iPhone the whole time the tests are going on. I learned my aerobic base is not quite up to par, and that I have not been taking in nearly enough calories to fuel my workouts. It's ridiculous how much I eat now. It's really going to get out of hand in a few months when we start doing longer runs. I may as well take up residence at the kitchen table on those Saturdays.

The workouts look pretty cool. I'm going to be spending three days a week just running in Zone 1 to improve my meager aerobic base. The other two days will be spent doing interval workouts to improve my speed. Johnny said the tests showed I had a lot of untapped speed.

I think it's going to be an exciting fall race season, and I'm looking forward to see what April and Kat have in store for me leading up to the big day on January 15, 2012.

It's Official...

I have officially been deemed crazy by almost everybody I know. The only people I know that still consider me sane are other runners, triathletes, or endurance athletes. Can you believe the other day my wife actually told me I might need to be committed? She is about as opposite of a morning person as there is so she doesn't understand why I would get up at 5:15 AM on a Saturday morning. She's supportive of me. She just doesn't understand the early mornings. I don't really like them either, but it is REALLY, REALLY hot in southeast Texas right now. I've even started getting up at 5:00 AM and running before work since it has been so hot lately. We've already had temps over 100 degrees the past week. That kind of suffering is usually reserved for August. While my wife lives with this everyday, and she is starting to either understand it, or tolerate it. I haven't figured out which one yet. Other people still think I'm nuts, and I might be starting to agree with them. More on that later.

I'm Coming Back for 2012

Well, I've signed up for the 2012 Chevron Houston Marathon. I got a guaranteed entry this year with the new qualifying time system they implemented so I didn't have to go through the lottery. Registration opened at 8:00am on May 10, 2011. I was done with registration at 8:04am. Can you tell I was a little excited? Finally, after nine days of waiting, I got my registration confirmation saying my qualifying time had been verified, and I was officially in the race.

I've got about one more month of light running, and then, training officially starts on July 1. It's going to be a long hot summer. I have no clue what my goal for this year's marathon will be. It would be easier to come up with a goal had I not bombed this year's race. Hopefully, I'll do much better this year.

Run for the Rose 5K

Every year, the Dr. Marnie Rose foundation host the the Run for the Rose 5K to benefit brain cancer research. It has grown every year, and it is now hosted at Reliant Center. They had over 4,000 participants this year. Since Reliant is only a short 15 minute drive from my house, I decided to sign up.

I ran as part of Team Brandi's Memory Rocks On! in memory of my good friend Brandi Ward. Brandi and I were friends from the time we were in elementary school, up through high school, and onto Texas A&M. She was diagnosed with glioblastoma (a very aggressive form of brain cancer) on Christmas Eve 2003. Over the next two years, Brandi would fight the disease with many ups and downs. She would inspire us all with her courage and faith. She even had gone back to her dream job, teaching kindergarten, but in early 2006, God called Brandi home. It was the same weekend she made her national TV debut on Extreme Makeover Home Edition. Now, her mom and sister organize a team in her memory every year to help find a cure for this horrible disease. I believe this year the team was 60 members strong.



I did not have high expectations for the race. I had been taking it easy for the past month, and I had only been running for the two weeks up to the race. I set my goal for the race at 21:00. I kept questioning it though and thought it might be kind of fast. Friday morning, I woke up with what I thought were bad allergies. These continued throughout the weekend. Sunday morning when I woke up, I had a slight headache, and I was pretty stuffed up. I took some Claritin, and I was happy to readjust my race goal to 22:00. I thought 21:00 was kind of fast anyway.

The race started at 8:00AM. I went out at a comfortable pace, but I thought it might be a little fast. I looked at my Garmin around the 1/2 mile mark, and I was running at a 6:30 pace. HOLY COW!! I had to ease off, or so I thought. I slowed down, but my speed must have crept back up. I went past mile 1 in 6:35. I panicked. I've got to slow down. Mile 2 was 6:37. By this point, I decided to try to hang on and see what happened. There was only 1.1 miles left, and I could still finish with a respectable time even if I ran out of gas. With a half mile to go, I continued to feel good. I looked at my watch and saw I would have no problem hitting my original 21:00 goal so I put it on cruise control. I wish I would have looked a little harder. Mile 3 was 6:33. I finished with an official time of 20:01. I could have easily finished under 20:00 if I hadn't packed it in. Total shocker. I had never dreamed I was capable of running under 20:00 in a 5K this weekend, especially, with the way I was feeling. I hadn't done that since high schoool. Let's just say I was more than pleased with my performance.

I went home, and slept on the couch for pretty much all of Sunday afternoon. I also stayed home from work on Monday and a half day on Tuesday. What I thought was allergies, turned out to be a sinus infection that I'm still trying to kill the last of.