Tag: strava

NOT a biker and Sub 8 miles

runningwithneal1 Comment

This week’s schedule got a little weird on me.

Monday despite all the running around over the weekend I felt GREAT. I was itching to run all day. But I needed the recovery. So, I went on a bike ride with Coach V and the kids. She is training for a tri the first weekend of May so the kids trailer was hooked up to my bike.

I have not rode a bike in almost a year. I have a vintage Schwinn from 1973. Its a heavy all steel bike. Add to that the 2 35 pound kiddos and the weight of the cart and I had my work cut out for me.

I am not a biker. I’ve always kind of wanted to be but it can get quite expensive and those seat! OMG those seat are the worst things (pause here for dramatic effect) in the word!

On top of it being uncomfortable about 3.5 miles into the ride the darn thing came loose.

Despite all of that it was a little fun. The kids at one point just started signing. Which was cute. And it was a good non-running workout.

I’m going to keep periodically trying to bike but I’m still skeptical.

We finished the evening with a 1 mile run so that coach could work on the transition from bike to run. She thought it felt awkward. I most felt relieved to be off the darn bike and back to something I know.

Generally on Tuesdays I run during lunch. I don’t particularly like getting up early and I was still recovering from the weekend. Besides on Tuesdays I normally run during lunch anyway. Well this Tuesday I had several meetings get scheduled over lunch fairly last minute. So I didn’t get to run. I have other commitments on Tuesday night so no joy there either.

SO I moved the run to Wednesday. It was suppose to be a hill training run. For other reasons I worked from home and there are no hills nearby. So I decided, since I’m running a 5K this weekend to see what a 3 mile run would look like.

I made a couple of mistakes.

  1. I waited until 11 am. Its starting to get hot here in the valley of the sun and 11 am was already approaching 90 degrees F. But its a dry heat right?
  2. I, for reasons I’m not really sure of, decided to eat several pieces of beef jerky and a cheese stick before heading out for a speed run. This is dumb, don’t do it. about mile 2.5 my stomach started to cramp hard.
  3. Its trash day. So what does that mean? It means that once I left the major roads that all the neighborhoods back up to I had to run right by everyone’s trash cans. I found myself in a debate over whether the full but closed cans or the emptied but open can had a worse smell. I eventually decided they were both really bad and it didn’t really matter so I would hold my breath as I went by. This is extremely hard to do while running.

Despite these mistakes that was the fastest 3 miles that I’ve ran since high school. For those of you who follow me on Strava you may have seen that I averaged 7:57 min/mile. that’s a little ridiculous since when I started this I was really excited about a 9:30 min/mile for just 2 miles.

Mile 1 was 7:33. I don’t’ even know what to say. I’m supper excited by that.

Saturday I’m running the Cookies and Cream 5K in Scottsdale. Coach V wants me to see how fast I can burn it. I’m both nervous and excited.

But before then I have another training run tomorrow morning. So, until then…C-ya!

Lunch Runs and Musical Randomness

runningwithneal2 Comments

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Tuesday during lunch I decided to use the Fitness Center at work and go for a run. There were several reasons that I did this and I’m so glad that I did.

First I was up late on Monday night. I wish that I could say that it was because I was out late having a good time and livin’ it up. But it wasn’t. I was up late helping Vicky grade papers. Exciting stuff I know. We finished up around 1 am and I decided that sleeping until 6 was a better idea than getting up for a 4 mile run.

Why 4 miles? Because I am part of a running challenge\club called Project 1:59. It is a group on Strava and lead by two-time Olympian Kara Goucher that includes a training program with the aim of helping people run a sub 2 hour half marathon. I’ll put a link for it here Project 1:59.

Anyway, Tuesday’s run was a 4 mile run at faster than race tempo. And I wasn’t going to be able to in the even because on Tuesday’s I go to Trivia with Vicky and her parents.

Another reason was it was the last day of a challenge that I was a part of on DietBet. Which is an app that runs challenges to help motive and provide accountability for people trying to lose weight. This was a 4 week challenge to lose 4% of my body weight. I had another 1.5 to go so I didn’t want to skip the run.

So, at lunch I walked from my building over to the fitness center about .5 mile away. Changed into my running gear. which now includes a new Garmin 645 music. I was super excited to use this on a run because it meant that I didn’t have to carry my phone to listen to music.

And apparently I was really excited to go on this run. My first mile was 7:54. I haven’t ran a mile that fast since college. The rest of the run went about as well with the 4 miles coming in at 34:44 for an average of 8:41 min\mile. For me this is seriously fast.

I learned several things on this run.

I’m way faster than I thought. I know that isn’t fast for some of you out there but I have considered myself to be an 11min/mile guy for a long time. I am not pushing hard enough.

Running next to a large airport is alot of fun. I really like watching planes take off and land. Running beside Skyharbor airport is like Christmas for me. I watched a V-22 Osprey come in and land.

When one lives in the valley of the sun and its starting to get warm again (80+ degrees) don’t wear a black shirt on a mid day run. Seriously, I got super hot and felt like it zapped some of my energy.

I have a very odd playlist when I run. I was just discussing playlists with thedancingrunner earlier and hers looks somewhat cohesive. I make huge jumps from DMB I did it, Eric Clapton’s Layla, Reel Big Fish Sell Out, Britney Spears Get Naked, Trombone Shorty’s Like a Dog, JT’s Supplies…..and the randomness goes on.

Anywho…I need to figure out how to do a 6-8 mile run tomorrow and the group 4 mile run. Maybe I’ll go early and just do the course twice. I’ll let you know how that goes. Until then, C-ya!