Running Notes by HJL

2/19/2006 through 2/25/2006 totals: 41.49 miles, longest 10.65 miles
Year to date: 251.28 miles.

Started off the week with the first set of hill intervals for the year. Also logged a longer midweek run of 8.64 miles.

I still feel sluggish compared with last year’s training, but can also tell that I’m making progress from a few weeks ago. The hill intervals went pretty well. I may try some T pace intervals this week. Not quite sure what pace that is at the moment, though. If I assume my easy pace is 10:00, it falls between VDOT 38 and VDOT 40 on the Daniels training intensity table, and suggests a T pace in the vicinity of 8:30 to 8:00 for distances between 1200m and one mile.

Today I ran a set of hill intervals on the treadmill. I like running intervals on the treadmill since everything is completely repeatable and doesn’t depend on my ability to manage pace and effort. The data from the heart rate monitor is also relatively interesting to look at afterwards.

This is the first set of intervals I’ve run on this training cycle. I find it psychologically helpful to complete at least 2 miles of 5% incline (today I did 3 miles) on a hill day, as this roughly corresponds to the ascent at Hurricane Point, the longest hill on the Big Sur Marathon course.

I normally run my intervals for 5 minute duration, rather than by distance. For hill interval days, I pick an “easy” pace and only change the incline between 0% and something between 5% and 8%. Whether it’s hill intervals or pace intervals, I normally try to keep a fixed level of effort for each rep. A 5% incline seemed to work out ok today. Unfortunately, at the moment, my “easy” pace is around 10:00 instead of 9:00 or 8:30. Today that put my HR at around 135-140, while the last couple of hill intervals ended up close to 170.

I’m still baffled by my elevated HR compared with log data from past years, but at least I’m continuing to make progress on this training cycle.

2/5/2006 through 2/18/2006 totals: 36.22 miles, longest 11.64 miles.
Year to date: 209.79 miles.

Started taking allergy meds this week. I’m continuing to feel tired and sluggish most of the time, and am performing well below my logged data from the past couple of years.

On the positive side, I’m making steady progress against this year’s starting measurements, and slogged through an 11+ mile, 2 hour run this week, a new high for the current training cycle.

I had been planning for an hour on the treadmill but kept going (was watching Ben Bernanke presenting to Congress, which went on and on). It’s good to know I’m easily able to run in this range at the moment, but my paces are still really slow right now, 9:00-10:00 most of the time, and I’m never reaching a point where I feel like I’m warmed up and running well, even on these longer workouts.

In the Hong Kong Standard:

Heavy air pollution and a record number of participants were blamed for 22 runners being taken to hospital - two in critical condition - during the Standard Chartered Hong Kong Marathon.
…
The Environmental Protection Department said the roadside air pollution index was “very high,” ranging from 124 to 149.

The air is probably better if you get away from the major cities, but in Hong Kong, Beijing, and Shanghai, the air is pretty bad a lot of the time, not what you’d want for a long run. I usually stick to the hotel treadmill while travelling in a lot of Asian cities because of the smog.

2/5/2006 through 2/11/2006 totals: 28.45 miles, longest 6.24 miles. Year to date: 173.57 miles.

Been trying out the Hurricane 7’s this week, and have been generally happy with them so far. Running has been so-so. I’m still feeling sluggish and am not feeling any signs of improvement, but just keep plugging away for now.

I’ve tried them out on a couple of short (3-5) mile runs, and I think they’ll work out as replacements for the Hurricane 5’s I’ve been running in. The fit is similar, and the main difference I’ve noticed is that the Hurricane 7’s feel slightly cushier than the Hurricane 5’s. They don’t seem to be squishy or heavy by comparison, though.

1/29/2006 through 2/4/2006 totals: 31.23 miles, longest 6.65 miles.
Year to date: 145.12 miles

This week’s schedule has been a little improvised, as we have been out of the house while it was being fumigated. Aside from residual fumes, breathing is getting better but still not great. I’ve been feeling sluggish all week.

1/22/2006 through 1/28/2006 totals: 33.50 miles, longest 9.59 miles.
Year to date: 113.89 miles

Some improvement in breathing, continuing to increase mileage and single run distance.

I’m probably going to need replacements for the current set of shoes in rotation before too long. They’re still OK on the treadmill, but I’d rather have a fresh set of midsoles before starting higher road mileage. I’ve mostly been running in GT2100’s and Hurricane 5’s for a while.

I like the GT2100’s being a little lighter, but have also noticed that if I run exclusively in them I tend to start having small nagging joint aches after a few months. I’ve gotten more consistently about rotating them with the slightly heavier Hurricane 5’s. I’ve been happy with them since I started running a few years ago, and have gone through something like 8 pairs now.

Continuing to cautiously ramp up mileage and longer runs. The heart rate monitor is returning better data now, after a new battery. Yesterday I logged 9.5 miles on the treadmill, at 9:00 pace. Taking out the warmup and cooldown, the HR data for the middle 80 minutes looks substantially better than a similar run a few weeks ago. I’m still starting out 10 points higher than my 2005 baseline, but I’m not getting the steeply increasing heart rate anymore, and it seems to be tracking about 10 points higher than the baseline all the way out now.

Some of the improvement is just adaptation to having resumed longer runs, but I’m starting to get some improvement in my breathing. It still doesn’t feel great, but it’s definitely not as bad as last month, and I’ve also stopped having random episodes of feeling out of breath while sitting at the computer.

It’s hard to gauge my current conditioning right now, but having the flatter, if elevated HR curves, is encouraging. I may try resuming a little bit of hill and T pace training if things stay like this, working from whatever VDOT seems to fit. The fallback plan will be to just continue on base building.

My goals for Big Sur emphasize having an enjoyable run, as opposed to going as fast as possible, although I’m still holding out hope for improvement over last year’s time (3:50:34). Last year I got beat by a 70-year-old (who turned out to be George Hirsch, founding publisher of Runners World).

1/15/2006 through 1/21/2006 totals: 29.02 miles, longest 8.01 miles.
Year to date: 80.39 miles

Still easing into things. Breathing is still off, but feels slightly less congested.

Tried using the heart monitor transmitter with the new data recorder, it seems to work ok but the strap needs a new battery, there’s a lot of noise in the recorded data. Also successfully imported the database from the old version of the Timex Trainer software. The new version of the software includes better support for GPS, since the new Timex TrailRunner GPS hardware provides “3D” data, i.e. elevation along with position. Haven’t tried it yet, but it looks like it might also be able to import GPS tracklogs from other devices as well.