Beautiful Day

I written alot about difficult runs and PB's recently.  Mostly because these types of runs are important, memorable, and recently very common for me.  Tonight I wanted to comment on another 'type' of run, the so called 'easy' run.  That's the training run where you feel like your floating and effort-wise it doesn't feel like a constant struggle.  I always see people writing about these runs - you'll see comments about 'runner's high' or endorphines, etc.  These types of runs to me are the product of hard work and really only come at certain points in your training cycle(s).  It's not mysterious that they 'just happen', they occur because what you are doing is working.

Don't get me wrong, these runs I truly enjoy and they are one of the many reasons why I run.  But I always get confused when I see comments about "I'm still searching for that runner's high..."  If you're searching for that run/feeling then search your log books - find out what you were doing the last time you had that feeling.  Do it again.  I promise you, you will have that feeling again.  Running is a science as much as it is physical and mental.  "But Bob I don't keep a log..." well then keep looking because your 'runner's high' runs will be few and far between.  This might sound harsh, but this is my blog and it's what I believe - so you'll have to put up with it. :)



Enough of my soap box though.  I got in a nice 3.7 mile easy run tonight (9:35 pace) that's about :10 - :15 seconds faster than my target pace tonight, but still within my target pace variance so I'm pleased with the effort put in tonight.  I started my second week in my 10k plan and Wednesday night I have my first interval training scheduled (8x400's) I'll be doing these at my 5k race pace (approx 9:04 pace) so we'll see how that goes.  I'm a little concerned though since we're supposed to get another wave of rainstorms starting tomorrow.  Hopefully it's not a bad as last week and won't effect my runnng plans too much.

I had a nice little phone conversation with my oldest son tonight - he's 15 now and earlier this school year he promised he and his mother (my ex) that he was going to try out for the track team.  I found out that he was planning on flaking on this promise so I called him on it tonight. I actually got to use the phrase: "Cowboy Up."  I've been waiting a while to use that and I think it had a positive affect.  I told him that I on't expect him to become this great runner, but I do expect him to follow through on a promise and to put in the hard work (mileage) to find out what kind of man he's going to be.  And that maybe, just maybe he'll learn something about himself in the process.  He's going to be suprised though - two years ago without any training he clocked a 6:13 mile, and that was on the road.  The kid is fast I just think he's afraid to fail. It will be interesting to see how he responds to our talk.  I'll know by Wednesday if he signed up for the team....

Keep Steppin'
Bob

A So Called Rest Day

So yesterday was a rest day for me.  No I didn't break my streak (12 days now), I just took it really easy.  A couple walks and an easy 2.3 mile run.  Because I have put so many miles in for 2010 so far I wanted to take it really easy today but I didn't want to just sit on my butt.  Once again we had beautiful weather so I got out the door for the 2 miler around 7:30 pm.  With just a smattering of cloud cover, I did a VERY easy 9:50 pace.  This is pretty much what I want for my easy paced runs right now.  Just a tad under 10 min miles and I'll recover nicely.



This morning I woke with an upset stomach coupled with a pretty bad headache.  I know I haven't written about my headaches before, but I suffer from them daily.  I manage the pain pretty well and usually within 5 mins of waking I can tell how bad its going to be.  I've done everything possible to have this condition checked out but about 10 years ago I decided that I'll always have them and I'll just deal with it.  Most of the time I can just pop a few excedrine and I'm fine but every once in a while they just lay me out.  I try not to complain to my wife because I'm sure she doesn't want to hear it, and there's nothing I can do about them so complaining won't help.

Anyway this morning I could tell right away that it was going to be a struggle, hopefully when I get my run in today, it will clear my head a little, but with the stomach ache on top of it I'm a little worried I'm comming down with a little bug.  We'll see how I feel tomorrow.

Today the plan is to get in a 4 miler with Bogey at about the same pace as yesterday's run (9:50).  That with the cool down and my walks to Abby's school should give me about 7 miles for the day which is exactly what I want.  On Wednesday (tomorrow) I already know I won't have any kids in the morning so I'm planning a duplicate of my cycling distance from last week (27 miles).  That ride took a lot out of my legs last week and I want to see a few things:

• Thursday and Friday last week were pretty tough - can I recover a little faster this time?
• The ride itself was pretty rough on my quads, can I do this ride on back-to-back without my body crashing during the ride?

I should have answers to these two questions by the end of the week.

On my last post I mentioned that I was concerned about getting in a 'long' run and a trial 10k before my 10k training schedule kicks into play - well another blogger Casey who writes Running After Violet is doing a virtual 10k run on the 23rd of this month so I signed up for it.  It fits my schedule pretty well and I'll still be able to get my attempt at 9-10 miles in this weekend.  So I get the best of both worlds....... :)  (BTW I don't think it's too late to sign up, come join us.)  So the plan is to do a 27 mile bike ride tomorrow and a 9-10 miler this Saturday, then the following Satuday I'll be attempting a PB at the 10k distance.....  Hmmmmm all the runs in-between are going to be VERY slow.  On top of this, I'm looking at my PB's yesteday thinking it would be nice to attempt a new PB at the 2 mile distance....... Maybe I can work this in next month.

I almost forgot to welcome my new followers!  Thank you for stopping by, leave comments, thoughts, questions - I'll most likely incorporate them into a post (or two).

Keep Steppin'
bob