Tag Archives: Training

Winter Work-out Rollercoaster

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It’s been a couple months since I last wrote and despite my neglect of my blog, I haven’t entirely neglected my winter work-out plan…although it hasn’t exactly gone according to schedule. In November I ran the Richmond Marathon with a PR and had high hopes of maintaining my running base while re-building my swim and bike base and blending in reasonable sets of weight work-outs. My running plan was to run three times a week, with an easy 3-5 mile run, a speed work-out, and a hill work-out. The reason for this is because my goal this year for the Cooper River Bridge Run is to complete the 10K with an 8-minute pace (and beat my husband).

When I look back at my RunningAhead log, I did pretty well with my goals immediately after the race. I took a well deserved break the week immediately following the marathon with just one pilates class that week. I then did a good job maintaining five days of work-outs weekly alternating runs with swims and added sessions of pilates–something I missed terribly during the height of marathon training. And then December came and from the looks of the log, holiday season hit in full swing. Continue reading →

Pre-Race Jitters

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prerace_jittersI’m pretty sure I speak for the majority of runners when I say we are not elite runners. When I sign-up for a race it is not because I expect to win it. Never do I think I will leave a race with the cash prize nor do I expect to set any records. In a few smaller races I’ve placed well in my age group, but for the most part I am on the start line with the same goal as most of the other runners–to finish and/or to achieve a personal record. If we are not expecting to win the race, why then do we average runners get the pre-race jitters? Continue reading →

Big Fun at the Big Lick Triathlon

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Smith Mountain Lake; it was gorgeous the day after the race!

The Big Lick Triathlon in Smith Mountain Lake, Virginia, was my first Olympic triathlon. I learned about the race from my sister-in-law and her husband who have done the race before and we had a full crew of six of us ready for race day. We also had a full crew of family ready to cheer for us and we all arrived to Virginia in time for the Friday night packet pick-up and a hearty dinner at a local restaurant. Before I get into the event play-by-play, I must share an embarrassing side note only for the purpose of sharing my mistake so that hopefully no one else will make it. Continue reading →

Training, Races, and Life

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This weekend I am going to be doing my first Olympic triathlon in Smith Mountain Lake, Virginia. It’s the Big Lick. It’s also going to be a big milestone marking the end of many months of training and what I think is safe to call a significant obsession with triathlon training.

Every week I have been mapping out runs, rides, swims, time to get to the pool, looking at my gear, reading blogs, tweets, websites, checking and re-checking the weather, all in an effort to know as much as possible and be as prepared as possible going into this triathlon.

On top of the triathlon training I have been working my way through marathon training for the Richmond Marathon. I’m currently at the end of week nine in a 16 week schedule and am looking forward to re-focusing my training on just running.

Somewhere in between all this training I have been working, attempting to give some semblance of order to my house, and maintain an inkling of a social life.

My life is no different, or busier, than anyone I know and I wouldn’t trade the opportunities, the training, or the racing for anything. At some point it is all about balance and though I have yet to figure that out, this is my life and I’ll take it!

Long Slow Distance Lessons

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CB032718At the Annapolis 10-Miler this year I was behind a couple girls with t-shirts that read on the back “Trained on LSD and Speed” and as a runner I thought that was cute and a clever play on those two words. It wasn’t until days after the race that I started to really consider how the blend of long slow runs and speedwork really are the core tenants of training. And then I realized it was time for me to evaluate if I had been training on LSD and speed.

I’m on week eight of Bart Yasso’s Runner’s World marathon training program as I train for the Richmond Marathon. His plan very clearly spells out Easy runs, Hills and Hill Repeats, Speedwork, LSD runs, and rest days. This is the last week of the hill work-outs and then we move on to mile repeats and a variety of other track work like the famous Yasso 800s. Up until this last week the LSD runs have been between 7 and 13 miles and I have to admit I was only doing LDs. In each of the long runs, I went out with the goal of maintaining my 9-minute, or faster, pace. Over the weekend I was working the gracie’s gear booth at the Nation’s Tri with Coach Gracie Updyke and we each had a 16-mile long run planned for Sunday, so we got to talking about long runs. Continue reading →

A10 Traditions & Highlights

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Have you run the Annapolis 10-mile race before? Runner’s World rated it one of the top six 10-milers to run in the country. This year was the 34th annual event which is put on by the Annapolis Striders who hosted something like 5,300 runners and managed an enormous number of amazing volunteers who were integral to running a smooth event.

The gracie's gear set-up in the Fleet Feet booth.

The gracie's gear set-up in the Fleet Feet booth.

The A10 started for me in the Fleet Feet Annapolis booth representing gracie’s gear. I got a serious kick out of the entire experience. There were about a dozen great vendors at the Expo and I honestly didn’t even have a chance to see what anyone else was selling but I do know that gracie’s gear caught a lot of women’s (and some men’s!) eyes which gave me a chance to talk to lots of runners, which was my hope all along! By the end of the day I was once again motivated and inspired–I truly do love runners. Just a few of the cool  things from the day (to me anyway): Continue reading →

Triathlon Transitions: Tips & Thoughts

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I learned that it would've been fine to keep on my pullover and flip flops almost until the last minute since I had family there to hand the gear off to.

Having just completed my first sprint triathlon, I am by no means an expert or even a well-versed triathlete. However, from that first experience I think I learned some things during the transitions and in hindsight have realized some things about the transitions that are definitely valuable to me as I prepare for triathlon number two. If for no other reason than to be able to remember them later, I wanted to share some of the thoughts I have on triathlon transitions and perhaps this information will come in handy for others as they prepare for triathlons. And please, if you have triathlon transition tips or suggestions, please feel free to share them!

The transitions were a part of the triathlon that I agonized over during training. Despite my anxiety over transitions the most I did to prepare was to go for a short run after half a dozen or so bike rides. I also talked to every person I know who’d done a triathlon to get their advice and my husband and I watched an ING triathlon on TV one day and I got to see how the pros do their transitions. Needless to say I was floored when I saw that they did not dry off after the swim, didn’t wear socks, and seemed to be in and out of the transition area in a matter of seconds. The only other real “preparation” I did was all mental; I visualized how I thought my transitions would go. I am one that definitely learns by doing so I knew that there was no way I’d really understand transitions and how to make them go smoother until I’d actually done them. Continue reading →

First Triathlon, First Impressions

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We arrived early to get set-up and fortunately the dark sy didn't open up on us with any rain during the race.

We arrived early to get set-up and fortunately the dark sky didn't open up on us with any rain during the race.

In late April I set my mind on doing my first triathlon. My sister and her husband had moved to upstate New York last fall and her husband signed up for the Cazenovia Sprint Triathlon which was August 9th. I thought signing up as well would be a great way to tie in a visit to their new home and I was eager to mix up my running with cross-training for a tri. After months of swimming, biking, running, searching for the best thing to wear, practicing transitions, and mentally preparing to do a triathlon it was finally time to put all that work to the test.

The days leading up to the tri I tapered my training and kept my meals consistent with what I’d been used to eating. The day before the race I had three square meals with slightly more carbs in each than I would normally have, a race routine I’m used to. We all (myself, my husband, and my brother-in-law) went to bed at a reasonable hour with a 5:45 a.m. alarm set. As happens before any race, I woke up several times to make sure I didn’t miss the alarm and at 5:30 I was ready to get going. Continue reading →

Interval Awareness

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Intervals involve hard runs for short times or distances followed by recovery jogs so it's helpful to have a watch to time each interval. Photo by Michael Lokner.

Intervals involve hard runs for short times or distances followed by recovery jogs so it's helpful to have a watch to time each interval. Photo by Michael Lokner.

Until recently, the last time I ran intervals was during track and field practice in high school. I’ve read plenty of articles about interval runs and there are some great folks on Twitter to learn from whose focus is interval training. The last few weeks of my triathlon training plan have included threshold interval work-outs. According to the plan this means to run for three minutes at 5K pace followed by a three minute jog. The first session I repeated this three times and the next three sessions I was to repeat four times. Each interval session begins and ends with a little over a one mile jog which happens to be the distance from my house to the local track, quiet convenient!

The first round of intervals were eye-opening. Even though I’d been preparing my body for speed with strides and tempo runs, attempting to maintain what I thought to be my 5K pace for three minutes was much more challenging than I thought it would be. I’m sure that part of the problem is that I still don’t know my actual 5K pace. My goal pace is 8-minute miles but I have not measured that on the track. I measure my 5K pace by my form, the length of my stride, the little extra push from my arms, and my breathing. I’m so familiar with my 9-minute pace that I feel like I can tell when I’ve pushed past that to something faster and that is what I consider my 5K pace. Continue reading →

Breaking Consistency

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j0390441I have been running 9-minute miles for as long as I can remember. Every now and then there is a little variation with my slower time hovering around 9:12 which I usually see on runs of 10 miles or longer and my lower end averages 8:54 on my shorter runs. And for as long as I can remember I have been perfectly content with my 9-minute mile pace. Until this spring. After I ran my first marathon and tacked some other races onto my spring and summer schedule I got my head wrapped around the idea that I wanted to run my 10K in 8:30-minute miles and maybe even try to run my 10-miler at the end of the summer in 8-minute miles.

I ended up dealing with ITBS recovery after the marathon and wasn’t able to ramp up my training to make my 10K goal but there is still plenty of time to work on my 10-miler goal. I’ve always thought it would be nice to have a slightly faster pace, but I never sought out the ways to make it happen. Since I have been triathlon training, however, my eyes have been opened to a whole new way of training. Instead of just going out and running at my same old 9-minute pace and consistently adding miles, I have *gasp!* been training with variety! Not only have the weekly work-outs included swimming and biking by necessity, but even the weekly runs are different. Continue reading →