Repeats

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Running, heat, childhood and me

I am not a summer person.  I love the cold.  I’m originally from Pennsylvania and I don’t think I miss the cold winters, but I do remember the hot summers.  We would get into the 90s and we had no air conditioning.  I just had to sit and melt.  I learned then that heat was not my friend.  I can remember trying to sleep in my room at night with the window open and listening to the trucks on a far off highway… and sweating!  Fast forward to more recent times.  Before I began running, I would never go out in the summer.  The most I’d be outside was just enough to walk to my car.  I hated the heat – and I still do.  I love the fall.  I love the winter.  I love the spring.  I hate summer (which only begins tomorrow).

I started my run yesterday… 3:00 in the afternoon.  Five days in a row.  Four days of 100+ heat index.  The real temperature was in the mid 90s.

I got about 100 yards and turned back, went home, got on my headsets and decided to walk.

Honestly, until this week I’d only run 4 times in all of June.  So I am feeling good about my running at this point, heat included.  I ran my mountain for the second week in a row last Sunday and ran 4 miles in my neighborhood Monday – Wednesday.  Yesterday I ended up doing an even amount of running and walking.  My legs were shot and I only had 5 hours of sleep the night before.

On to a quick thought about the heat index.  Does anyone know how they decide what that is?  As a runner who hits the streets at 3:00 in the afternoon, I have a feeling that the heat coming up from the asphalt is about 100 degrees hotter then that index taken from some field in the shade.  Just sayin’.

Moving forward.  It was a the best week for me in about 2 months.  I have no idea why and I have no idea why the past two months have been so difficult.  I’m not going to question it anymore, I’m just glad to be feeling better.  Today is Friday and we have the whole weekend ahead of us.

Life is good better!

Tom

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Exciting news – and a good run!

I’m excited. No, not that I had a great run yesterday (although I did)! I am going to be used in a book being written by Runners World. You could just blow me away with a feather (although I would have to lose a few more pounds first). I saw an article saying that Runners World was going to do some articles and write a book about how running changed your life. So I decided to write my thoughts based on the questions they asked. Low and behold, I got a response back saying that some of what I wrote interested them and they want to use it!!

I really don’t know much other information right now, but I will be sure to write about it when I do. 🙂

Now on to my run yesterday… It was a 7 miler and the first 3 went well. I felt pretty good, but I was still sore from running my 5K and my workout on Monday. When I got to mile 4, my brain started to rebel. It was telling me to stop. It was telling me to walk or just give in. Mind you it was only 72 degrees out which is almost like winter in Alabama in July, so this was not heat related. I then decided to try something I have never tried before. I just blanked that thought from my mind. I refused to think about wanting to stop and I kept going. In the past when I would get those thoughts, I run anyway, but my running form would go down hill and it would end up being a difficult run. However, after I blanked that thought from my mind, I felt rejuvenated. My form came back and I suddenly had strength and power again in my legs.

This was an amazing thing for me to experience. I went from my run falling apart to having a really good run. Even my splits tell the story. Mile 1-3 were negative splits. Mile 4 was a much slower mile. Mile 5-7 were back in the same range as mile 2 and 3.

I don’t know if this was a one time event, or if perhaps, I have stumbled onto a key to my upcoming marathon. I am hoping for the second option here. If I can somehow stop the negative thoughts before they take over my run, that could change everything.

So all in all, yesterday was a great day. Hopefully today will be even better!

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Final running workout before our 5K

One day left to workout before the Spring Scramble 5K.  It’s funny, TJ likes to run the day before a race and I don’t.  My best runs are usually the day after a rest day, so I’ll be running today and taking tomorrow off.

Yesterday I completed a hard workout (finally).  I feel it has been forever since I was able to do a workout.

I started out slowly and got in my 2 mile warmup with no problems.  I remembered my KT Tape this time and was able to use my new headset which was nice so that I could see how it did before the race.  I also wore my Asics Piranha shoes for the first time in a workout.  I did my sprints to get warmed up and then started my 1/4 mile repeats.

There were a lot of distractions and obstacles yesterday as I ran my repeats.  School was letting out and buses were all over the place.  Kids were riding bikes and playing.  In fact at one point, I was running up to a 4 way stop and a little girl was in front of me riding her bike.  She started to turn around and noticed me and got distracted.  Right then a car turned onto the street and she did not see it.  I yelled, “watch out” and the car honked its horn and she got quickly out of the way.  It was scary for me, but gave me some adrenaline to run on for a bit.

I completed all 8 repeats and averaged about a 6:30 pace which is what I wanted to do.  It was tough near the end.  Also, I didn’t tie my shoes tight enough and half way through the repeats the balls of my feet started killing me as they moved around in the shoe.  I could tell I was getting blisters.  Good to find this out before the race.  So I paused my workout and tightened my shoes and started up again.

Finally after I completed the workout I ran a mile cool down and headed home.  My achilles did great until the cool down.  For some reason (probably the workout) I could feel some pain, so I stopped after one mile cool down and just walked home.  I immediately put my foot into a bucket of ice water and let it soak for 15 minutes.

So all in all it was a good day.  I’ll be glad when this 5K is behind me.  There is another one in 2 weeks I am interested in.  I may run it – just for fun. 🙂