Making Plans.

This is my last week of plan-free running.  Starting next Monday, I will be gearing up for the Bridge 2 Bridge Half Marathon in October, and I'm going to use a modified version of the Hal Higdon intermediate plan.  I had to switch some days around for life stuff (weddings, showers, travel, etc.) and to fit in some races.  Most of the races around here on Saturday, not Sunday like the plan anticipates.  (This is the South.  Sunday morning is for church, not racing!)  I may have to make a few more tweaks, but it should generally look like this:

Some thoughts:


1. I'm really pumped about the Hot Summer Night 5K.  I've never run a race at night before, but I usually do my runs in the evening, so I should be fine.  I'm curious to see if I race better than I do in the morning.


2. I'm a little nervous about the tempo runs.  I pretty much never run according to time.  I either have a certain distance that I want to do and I map a course around downtown/my neighborhood that will get me that distance, or else I do one of my standard routes so I know basically how far I'll be going and how long it will take.  I anticipate that I will be doing most of the tempo runs down at the Riverfront so that I can just run back and forth on the path for however many minutes and not have to worry about calculating a specific route.


3.  I'm also nervous that most weeks only anticipate one rest day.  If I feel like I need to take an extra rest day, I absolutely will.  I think that Monday's stretch + strengthen workouts will either become complete rest days or will be yoga.  For the strength workouts, I will be using the Nike Training Club app.  I did my first workout with it last week, and my booty was sore for days.  It's awesome.  (SN: When I click the NTC app link, the page is mostly in Spanish.  No idea why.  The app is in English, promise.)


4.  Anyone interested in a 10K in Charlotte?  This is the one I'm considering, but I don't really want to make the drive to go race by myself.


5.  Am I crazy for thinking that the Kill the Hills 10 miler sounds pretty awesome?  Technically, the plan calls for a 15K race that weekend, but apparently people in SC don't run 15Ks.  I couldn't find a single one, much less one that fit that general week 9-10 time frame.  I figure that I can use the first 0.7 mi as part of my warm up, then try to stick as close to HM pace as possible for the last 9.3.  The half has four bridge crossings (two bridges, over and back each one) so I definitely need the hill practice.  I'd love a running buddy for that one too!

Florida Fourth.

I decided to make the most of the weird mid-week holiday and take off for Florida on Tuesday night.  Our family has use of a condo in New Smyrna Beach and I hadn't been down there since law school, so I was excited to get down there again.  The weather ended up being absolutely perfect - hot, but with a breeze, and no rain.  My grandparents just live a short drive away, in Titusville, so they came over for a few days too.  It's extremely rare for me to get to have the attention of both my parents and grandparents all to myself - no other kids/grandkids/significant others around - so that was pretty awesome.

We were treated to an amazing fireworks show and an incredible moon rise over the ocean on the Fourth.

On Friday afternoon we went back to Jacksonville.  J drove down from Columbia to pick me up (I flew into Orlando on Tuesday), and he brought the dogs for the weekend.  They were very serious about their co-captain duties.

In between all of the beaching, boating, and fireworking, I did manage to get in three runs.  I did 4 miles with my mom following me on her bike on Thursday.  It was horribly hot and the route wasn't shady at all, so I felt kind of terrible, but I managed to hold a 9:07 average pace, so I was happy with that.  On Friday, I finally took Corey's advice about exercising early, and my dad and I knocked out about 3.5 easy miles down on the beach.  It was fun just to run and chat with him, and I didn't even take my watch, so I have no idea what our pace was.  Then on Saturday, Mom, Dad, J, and I took the pups (they have a dog too) on the trail by their house that goes down to the river.  It's about 3 miles round trip once you're on the trail, and probably another 2 miles to get to and from the house, so we were all good and sweaty by the time we got home.

If you follow me on Twitter, you maybe saw that I signed up for 2 races recently.  I'm gonna be running the Bridge 2 Bridge Half in Georgetown in October, and I forgot that I had a free entry for the Columbia Half in March 2013 (because I had to defer last year).  Sooo, that means that this week is my last week of no-plan running.  I'm working on a 12 week plan for Bridge 2 Bridge that will start next Monday.  Exciting!  

How was your Fourth of July?  Any new races on your calendars?

Heat Wave.

So here is the forecast for the next 5 days...

{WTF, Mother Nature?!?}

This upcoming weekend was supposed to be my first "long run" (7-8 miles) of my yet-to-be-determined-half-marathon training cycle.  But, yeah, that's not happening.

I mean, I grew up in Florida playing soccer year round.  I can exercise my little tush off in the heat and humidity (and I actually kind of like it), but I don't think I've EVER seen a forecast of 108... and that's the LOW end.  The weather app on my iPad is predicting 113.  I'm really stymied by the situation, actually.  I don't think I've ever felt it was too hot/dangerous for me to run before.

I did get in two runs this week.  On Tuesday, I did 5 easy-ish (and snake free) miles back at the river.  I wanted them to be near HMGP, which is like the 9:00-9:10 range.  After a slightly slower first mile, I ended up with an average pace right in the middle.

Yesterday, I went for 3 slow miles around my neighborhood.  I really wanted to go longer since I won't be doing that this weekend, but I just couldn't get it together.  I could tell I was dehydrated all day long even though I was drinking, and my toes started cramping up right before I left the house.  As always though, I was glad I got out there and ran, even if it was a slog.

So what do y'all do when it gets too hot to run?  I guess I'm gonna get really bendy and go to a lot of yoga for the next five days.  If I wake up early enough on Saturday or Sunday, I might try a few miles, but we'll see.

Snakes on a Path.

On Wednesday, the zombies and I went running down at the river/canal front.  It was a glorious night, not too hot (relatively speaking - this is SC after all) and with a slight breeze.  There were tons of people around, including lots of kids and dogs.  This is concerning, given what happened about 4 miles in.  

Since it is so close to the river, and there are signs warning that there could be alligators in the canal (I am skeptical), I guess I shouldn't have been SO surprised... but regardless, I was definitely NOT expecting a 4-foot-long RATTLESNAKE to be chillin' up on the path.  Yeah.  Thank God for the runner good Samaritan who stopped and waved me away from the side or else I would've probably stepped right on its head.  By the time I calmed the eff down enough to get my phone out, the other runner had scared it off, and it crawled back into the bushes, so I don't have a picture.  (When I texted J that I had almost stepped on a rattlesnake, his immediate reply was "Get a picture!")  I don't know if anyone from Cola even reads this blog, but if you do, BE CAREFUL down there.  Just last Sunday I had the pups down there and even on a leash, the path is narrow enough that they can wander into the grass to sniff around.  It makes me sick to think of what could've happened if a dog or child had found that snake before the runner in front of me did.


Ugh.  So anyway, I ended up finishing the last mile, and I'm a little surprised it wasn't faster, because I ready to skeedaddle after that.

On Sunday, J and I hit the trails again.  You can be sure I was on hyper-alert rattlesnake watch.  Paying that much attention to the ground turned out to be a good thing... I didn't see any snakes (or any animal of any kind, surprisingly) but I didn't have nearly as many close calls as last week.  I only almost busted once.  J, however, took 3 spills and was covered in dirt by the time we were finished. (He then suggested that we go out to lunch.  Ummm, no.)  We officially bought our annual parking pass for the forest, so I guess we're really doing this trail thing now!

Trailblazin'.

This Saturday I finally convinced J to try out the trails at Harbison State Forest with me.  I think we were both surprised at how much we loved it.  We ran the Midlands Mountain Trail -  approximately 4 miles, kinda hilly, and mostly shaded.  

We ran in the heat of the day (we got out there at like 12:45) but the shade made it bearable.  I'm gonna need some trail shoes if we're gonna keep doing it because I tripped several times and very nearly twisted my ankle.  Woops.  But it was so pretty, it was totally worth it.

Definitely slower than my road paces, a better workout too.  My legs are sore in different places than usual, which feels really good, actually.  

We will definitely be doing trail runs more often!  If you can offer any advices about shoes/gear, let me know. 

Zombieeeeeeessss!

Even though I'm not technically training right now, I still want to be doing some speed/interval workouts, so when Jess wrote about the Zombies, Run! app, I knew I wanted to try it.  It sounded like a fun way to work in some speed and just generally entertain myself since my current running playlist is getting a little old. 

It works on the iPhone or iPod touch, and the website says that an Android version is coming out next week.  It's $8 for the app, wayyyyy more than I've ever paid for one before, but in the world of running gear, that's a drop in the bucket, so I figured why not.  For your $8, you get 22 "story missions" and 7 "supply missions" as part of Season 1.  I believe the 7 supply missions are designed for you to replay.  (It appears that more missions will be released at a later date as Season 2.  Also, they are working on paid extras like Beginner 5K and Interval Training add-ons, which sounds cool.)  

As expected, it's awesome and totally worth the price.

The premise is that there's been a zombie apocalypse, and you're on some kind of supply/recon mission to a base called Abel Township when your helicopter is shot down.  You become Runner 5, part of a team of runners that help supply and defend the base.  You have to evade zombie mobs, perform missions, and make it safely back to the town.  As you run, you pick up supplies which you can then distribute once you get back to base.  

The app tracks distance and pace, and before you start your run, you can choose a playlist from your iTunes to play in between the bits of the story.  The default setting is for missions to be about 30-40 mins long, but you can change that so they take about an hour if you're doing a longer run.  (It will play two songs in between the story instead of just one.)  Also, if you just want to go for an easy/recovery run, you can turn the zombie chases off.

And if you aren't up for some serious sprinting, you definitely want the zombie chases turned off.  I sprinted my little tush off last night, and I still got caught once.  (Like, I was seriously sprinting... my watch was giving me numbers in the 6:xx range, which is ABSURD for me.)  The sprints last about 60 seconds, so plan your route well... the zoms caught me during an uphill section, and I won't make that mistake again.  

My one complain is that, as far as I can figure out, the app does some kind of calculation to figure out how fast it wants you to run to evade the zombie mobs, but it doesn't display that figure anywhere for you.  I assume it's based on how fast you've been doing the rest of your run, but I don't know.  Other than that, I'm hooked!

So basically, if you want to run around grinning like an idiot, laughing at yourself, and checking over your shoulder for zombies, you should buy this app.

*No one from Zombies, Run! asked me to write this post or is giving me anything in return for doing so.  I'm telling you about it because it's awesome, and I like sharing awesome things with my friends.  That is all.

Blank.

Yeah, like my race schedule currently.  Womp.  Womp.


The problem is that summer/early fall is a pretty dead time for races around here.  There are plenty of 5Ks, but anything longer than that is few and far between.  I would really like to try another half at the end of the summer, but I don't know if that's gonna work out.  If you know a good half in September, let me know!


So since I don't really have anything to train for... uh... I haven't really been training.  I've just been running when I want, how far I want, how fast I want.  This non-training is actually purposeful though.  I really want to work on building a base this summer so that I can train for a marathon in early 2013.  To date, that 13.1 is my longest run ever, so I do need to work on that.  


Starting this week, I'm back to actually making a train plan, but I'm only doing about 7-10 days at a time, and I'm staying super flexible.  If I feel like I need more rest, I'll take it.  And if I feel like I need to shift some workouts around, that's fine too.


Here's what I've got so far...

After this weekend, I'll be adding some longer runs to the Saturday/Sunday schedule.  But this weekend is special because we're going to the mountains.  There will be hiking, and also probably a decent amount of tequila, so I'm keeping things (semi) realistic and only putting 3 miles on for Monday.