Hill Training – Running with Neal

Old Bikes and Speed Plan

June 4, 2018June 4, 2018 runningwithneal1 Comment

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Last Thursday I went on the 4 mile run with the group. And Coach V came and ran with me. And by ran with me I mean that we started at the same time and finished at the same time.

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Still, it was great to have her out there with me. I tried staying with a couple of the guys that are always near the front of the run. I stayed with them for the first mile and a half before I fell off a little. Still the first 2 mile where at a 8:54 pace. Which for me is pretty good and really consistent.

The third mile was horrible. My calf tried to cramp several times. My breathing got out of whack. Just not a good feeling mile. Still managed a 9:25 mile. The third mile was much better. Partially because I knew that the end was near. The last mile I ran a 8:34.

So……Here’s the plan.

I’m going to run 3 days during the week. Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. I’ve gotten word of a 4 mile group on Tuesday mornings. Wednesday I’ll do speed work. Either hills, fartlek’s, or pyramids. And then the Arrowhead Loop group run on Thursdays.

Saturdays will be a bit of a wildcard. Every other Saturday I am signed up for a 5K in the AZ Sunrise series.

The guys at breakfast are trying to get rid of my excuses for not doing a triathlon. As I’ve mentioned several times on here I’m not a biker. The guys on Thursday believe its because my bike is from the Carter administration (1970s for those who don’t know who that is). I have a mid 70’s Schwinn.

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Its not a bad bike. Technology has just past it by. One on the guys has offered to let me borrow one of his bikes that doesn’t fit him to get me started. Which is nice since they can cost a lot of money for something I’m still not sure about.

They also invited coach V and I to a weekly open water swim that they do to practice for tri’s and some rides that they go on.

The swim part doesn’t worry me that much. I’m a pretty strong swimmer and comfortable in a pool. Haven’t done much in the way of open water but how hard can it be?

When I was in high school I was the manager of the girls swim team. Which I know doesn’t sound like it would do much for my swimming ability. It was great for my social life though.

Anyhizzle…..

Once or twice a week the coach would let me swim the practices with them and I was always in the inter-squad meet that they would do a couple of times a season. I used it as off season training between cross country and track season.

I also plan on doing weight training on Monday, Friday and one of the days on the weekend. I need to get my upper body strength built up so that I can do better at the Spartans and Tough Mudders.

My goal is to get under an 8 minute mile average for 5ks and try to take as much of that speed into the marathon training as I can.

And all in the Arizonian heat. Should get interesting.

Until then….C-YA!

Missed runs and Refocusing

May 17, 2018 runningwithnealLeave a comment

So, its been awhile since I posted anything. That’s partially because I haven’t ran in over two and a half weeks. But I have a fairly good reason. At least I think it is.

Two days before the race I started to get a little bit of a sore throat. Not a big deal I thought. I started pushing vitamin C pretty hard and decided to take it easy. Friday I had a little bit of a sniffle but again didn’t think much of it.

Then came the plane ride to Indiana.

Flying with sinus issues is never fun. But, I’ve survived it before and was confident that I would again. As the nearly 4 hour flight wore on I began feeling worse and worse. I was getting colder and colder. Even my three year old daughter cuddling up next to me wasn’t warming me up any.

OK, I have a fever.

Then came the uncontrollable shivering. Coach V was getting pretty worried about me at this point and started mentioning that a half marathon in less than 12 hours might not be a best idea. I dismissed that thought at first because I’m stubborn and hated the idea of all this training and not taking my shot at a sub 2 hour half. I was sure that the fever was about to break and that with some sleep I’d be fine.

We landed, got our bags, and I made the very tough decision that it would be better not to drive to Illinois get 3 hours of sleep and then run. The better plan was to go to our friends in Noblesville and be able to sleep in the next morning.

When Anna pulled up to take us to her place she thought that I “looked like hell” and that it was a good call to not do the race.

They took my temperature right before we went to bed and I was still at 102. Honestly, I thought it had come down quite a bit from earlier.

So, I slept until 10 I think. Temperature when I woke up was still 102. But it broke shortly after I took a shower and I was feeling somewhat human again.

The decision not to run was the right one. Even though it killed me, metaphorically speaking, to bail on a race. I think that it may have come close to literally killing me if I had run it. Best case I would have been extremely disappointed with the result.

So, I suffered though the next week with a horrible cough, sore throat, and I completely lost my voice. Which is fun when a lot of your job includes being on conference calls. I was coughing so bad especially at night that I was waking myself up and couldn’t get back to sleep. A whole week of only 3-4 hours of fitful sleep is not a great idea. Finally the next Friday my boss came by and told me to go home and see a doctor.

So, I did. and that’s when I was told it was an upper respiratory infection and that it would be a good idea to take a couple of days off work. They also gave my antibiotics and REALLY good cough syrup. Well, I call it really good but it was really effective. It tasted absolutely horrible.

Now in week three of the illness that won’t quit. I still don’t feel great. my throat is still sore and I can’t hardly stand the thought of running. And at the same time I am very eager to get going again.

I’ve taken this time to really think about where my priorities are in running.

I need to get faster.

Like I want to be ALOT faster.

That started with shorter distances and working on my form. I’m going to incorporate hill training into my weekly routine and I am looking to find a track to do some speed work like pyramids and intervals. If anyone reading this has ideas on increasing speed I’m open to try things.

I’m also doing more short (5k) races over the summer. The race schedule for the year currently looks like this:

5/26– ARIZONA SUNRISE SERIES – KIWANIS PARK

6/9- ARIZONA SUNRISE SERIES – SCOTTSDALE SPORTS COMPLEX

6/23- ARIZONA SUNRISE SERIES – FREESTONE PARK

7/7-Spartan Stadium Series Sprint – University of Phoenix Stadium

7/7- ARIZONA SUNRISE SERIES – ARIZONA FALLS

7/21- ARIZONA SUNRISE SERIES – RIPARIAN

8/4- ARIZONA SUNRISE SERIES – RIO VISTA PARK

8/18- ARIZONA SUNRISE SERIES – FOOTHILLS

12/2 Hot Chocolate 15K

12/9 Buckeye Marathon

12/15 Estrella Trail 10K\5K Challenge

Most of them I will do in person, 3 I’m going to do a virtual run since I can’t be there on race day. I’ll probably add some more to fill in September through November. Although that will be the height of the Marathon training so it might be best to lay off the races for a little bit.

Its a neat series with each race adding to a point total that makes you eligible for a drawing in the fall.

Hopefully my throat calms down soon and I can get back to it this weekend. Until then…C-YA!

Recovery and Hills

March 28, 2018March 28, 2018 runningwithnealLeave a comment

Today I did my run on the dreaded treadmill. That bane of every runner. The necessary evil that we must endure when the weather is too bad to be outside. But wait I live in Phoenix! The weather this time of year is as close to ideal as it gets.

Well, today there where a couple of factors that made the dreadmill, as my cousin calls it, an attractive alternative to the usual run outside. First, I’m still in recovery mode from the weekend. the 9 mile run and tough mudder where kind of hard on the old body and I’m still pretty sore.

Reason number 2: I’ve basically been up since 2:30 am. Adam, who ran the tough mudder with Vicky, Krista, and I had a 5 am flight. This meant that he wanted to be at the airport at 3:30, which lead to leaving the house at 3, and in turn meant getting out of bed at 2:30. Since I basically work at the airport I just went to the parking lot and tried to sleep in the truck. As you can imagine that flew like a lead zeppelin and at 5 am I gave up and went inside to start working. Coincidentally I got a great parking spot today. This lead me to think that I would just do a light workout.

Reason number 3: This is probably the best reason. As mentioned I work at an airport. Airports are notoriously flat places. Today’s training schedule called for 9-10 hills. Basically sprint up the hill for 60 seconds and then slow down the hill. Rinse and Repeat. So I could use the incline on the dreadmill and seriously up the speed to simulate a hill.

So that’s what I did. 10% incline at 7 mph for 60 seconds the flat at 5 mph for 2 minutes. Made for a nice 30 minute workout. I coupled that with a 2 mile warmup @ a 9:20 pace and a 1 mile cool down at about a 15 min/mile pace and it was about an hour. Not bad for a long lunch. Actually I felt like it was a pretty hard workout.

Couple little odds and ends here. I’m still needed to look into the nutrition side of this running thing. I’ll keep you all posted on what I find.

I have officially signed up for a half marathon in April. The Christie Clinic Illinois Half Marathon on April 28 at the University of Illinois.

The dietbet folks have started a new thing called runbet. Same basic concept you choose a challenge, pay into it and then follow the training challenge submitting your runs either through runkeeper of with some photos. At the end if you make the challenge then you get your money back plus a portion of the extra from the folks who didn’t make it. I know for the dietbet it was a pretty good motivator.

Next run is 8-10 miles on Thursday. Until then…C-ya!