5 Miler Today

Today marked the last day of Christmas vacation for the kids - they went out in style.  Abby went to the movies with Beth, Cade had a Birthday party to go to, and I got in 9 holes early this morning and a 5 mile run in tonight.

For golf , I played again with my Father-in-law along with my Brother-in-law.  I was 8 over after nine but I was 5 over on just two holes (small implosion).  My back felt really good afterwards with I was suprised, usually I'll have a pretty sore lower back after a round and that didn't happen today.

Tonight with clear crisp skies, Bogey and I made it out for a run.  I was going to keep it really short (2.3 miles) but once again I turned a different direction and before I knew it I had gone almost 5 miles with my cool down.  My pace was slightly slower than yesterday's (9:55 pace vrs a 9:49 pace) which I wanted so I'm pleased with the run and my effort.  I feel really strong right now and I plan on logging runs for the rest of the week.  We'll see how I feel on Friday :).



The night sky was beautiful today - clear and very bright as I watched the moon rise over the ridge to the east.  I love night like this, it's almost a religious expirence.

Keep Steppin'
Bob

A new PB in Distance.....

The picture is from Beth's Grandfather's house in Ill. He past away this past summer at the age of 90. It really doesn't have anything to do with the post, but I liked seeing his backyard again.

Well another week has already past and I wasn't thrilled with my effort in getting out the door this week. Because of this, I decided to go out and run 7 miles tonight just so I can say I put in a PB for distance.

I chose a location that I'm familiar with and easy to run - flat and fast. In fact I still have my 3 mile PB on this course from earlier this year. The course itself is a single mile loop that I decided to run 7 times. I wasn't sure if I was going to get bored running this loop over and over but I do enjoy people watching and this course does get a lot of foot traffic.......

Mile 1 split was 9:45 on the nose - a little faster than I had planned. My goal here was to run an average of a sub 11 min mile so I felt this was a little fast, but I felt really good and my breathing was coming easy. Because of this I decided to keep going at this pace to see how long I could hang on.

Mile 2 split was another 9:47. Still feeling really good. Now I NEVER bring along any water on my runs, but because I knew I was going 7 today I brought long a bottle that I was taking sips about every half mile. (It lasted until mile 6 so it worked out well.) I was worried that it would be too hard to keep pace carrying a water bottle, but it wasn't causing any problems.

Mile 3 split was unsure - I do know I was at 29:23 at the mile marker though - so I was still on pace and feeling pretty good. Right about here I started to eyeball a possible sub 10 min mile average. The first 30 mins seemed to click along rather quickly and with the sun starting to go down, my 'people watching' group was dwindling - soon I wouldn't have any distractions, would it make the final 5k difficult?

Mile 4 I really stopped watching splits - I was in around 39:40 though. Slightly slower, but I was still feeling good. Sun dipped below the ridge and the sunset was beautiful.

Mile 5 was around 49:30. Faster than mile 4, but I started hurting a little though. My bad knee (left) was a little sore under my messed up kneecap (old HS injury). By now the sun is gone and it's starting to get dark. I'm pacing myself by seeing where "Running Sucks" t-shirt guy is.....

Mile 6 I'm on the home stretch now and already know I'll be finishing under 1:10:00 - I feel that good. 59:50 at the marker and I start to pick up the pace a little.

Mile 7 - t-shirt guy is finished - couldn't hold our pace and I blow past him, now it's only the 'serious' runners out on the path and I'm starting to pick off some of the slower people. 1:09:45 at the finish, and I could have run another 5 without any difficulty. Maybe I should consider running races longer than 5k? I'll wait until my race pace is under 9 min miles though.

Overall I am very pleased with the run. All the stroller runs are making me stronger and keeping my everyday pace down that helps with my recovery. When I get out without the stroller and my 30 lbs kid I feel like I'm moving along without any difficulty. Pretty soon I'll have to start mixing in some speed work since I'm planning to keep my base around 120 mile per month. (I'm around 100 now.)

Keep Steppin'
Bob

Stoller Pacing

Pace for my stroller runs....

I'm improving on these runs, but I'm not sure if it's because I getting into better conditioning or if it's because I'm getting used to pushing the stroller. I'm guessing it's a little of both. Over the past few weeks - I feel like I'm getting stronger, and it's reflected in my pacing here.

Now please understand that I never start a training run with a pace in mind unless I'm planning on running a tempo run. Stroller runs have been strictly 'easy' runs on my calendar so effort wise I'm not trying to 'bust' these runs out so I feel good about my progress at this point in time. I still can't understand the runners in my races that pass me pushing someone at a 9 min pace. That to me is just a monster pace.

Maybe in a few months I'll re-run this report and publish it again. That may be interesting, hopefully I'll be pleased at the results then also.

Last night I got in a easy run with Bogey - I only went 2.2 miles, but that put me at 9 miles for the day so I was pleased with the effort here also. 10:29 was my pace so I was right where I wanted to be for this run. Even with my legs feeling really tired it was nice to run this with little effort.

This morning's run was only 1.6 miles - just enough to test out my legs after yesterday's big mileage. Tonight I'm planning an easy 5k which will put me over 70 miles for the month. My mileage goal this month is 79 miles so I'm well on pace to reach that goal and I feel pretty good about that.

Saturday is my mile TT date. 8:44 is my current PB and I really want to beat this. It's been sitting at this time for a while now (I haven't tried to break it to be honest) and I'm not feeling too confident right now in being able to beat this. Mainly because even though I've put in some good training runs over the past few weeks, I don't feel like the speed is there to break this yet. My weight hasn't gone down like I've expected and I think that's going to hold me back this weekend. (I'd rather be around 198 rather than 203). Oh well we'll see how it goes - I'll keep you posted.

Stocks are going well, I reached another cash out goal this morning (that's five this month, where I was only planning two). Right now I'm just sitting back and waiting for some purchases to move before I can cash them out. I'm guessing sometime before Friday I'll be making another cash out. Currently I have two different trading accounts, an IRA account that is non-taxable and setup for long term investments. On this account I'm also invested in companies that hand out dividends. My other account (which is much smaller by about 60%) I use for income. Here I work in $400.00 groups. Every $400.00 I make, $300 comes out as income and the other 25% get re-invested so I can grow this account to over 25k (for those who don't know 25k is the cutoff the government has created to let investors have unlimited day trades. Right now I'm only allowed 3 days trades in a 5 day period.) All this means is that I need to make sure I hold onto a stock overnight in most cases. Most of the time this is good because I can then catch the up gaps that have been occurring recently on this market's bull trend we've been having since March of this year.

Keep Steppin'
Bob

Log entry 1/13/09

Last night's run was nice - after missing the day before I was itching to get out the door and the weather helped a ton (91 during the day and it dropped to 58 by 8 pm). I planned an easy three miles with another mile as a warmup and cooldown.

The three miles I wanted to do at 10 min pace - and this is where I'm glad I've been running for so long.

Splits

Mile 1 - 10:01

Mile 2 - 10:01

Mile 3 - 10:02

The only time I even looked at my watch was at the mile markers. At the second mile I thought I had pressed the wrong button and my watch had stopped after mile 1. Imagine my confusion at first when I finished......

Overall it was a very good run, and I'm pleased with my progress over the last quarter. I've increased my cooldown distance to force myself into doing some slower miles throughout the week. I was noticing on my log graphs that I'd been trying to get in too many 'quick' miles. This was a good way to 'trick' myself. Right now my cooldown is .94 miles and I'm doing that at a 15 min pace. (OK now everyone can open the debate over 'junk miles') My though is: I am putting in another mile, and that 5 additional miles for the week, and less time spend sitting on my ass in front of the TV.

Keep Steppin'

Bob