The BoormanBlog

I’m taking a rest day today. Last night, my legs were killing me. My knees were in especially bad shape. Moreover, I was just dog gone tired. Today calls for an “Easy 5 miles”. Sorry, but I think if I tried it, I’d be overtaxing my body and risking injury. So after 3 straight days of training, I’m resting.

Thursday calls for a “Tempo” run (whatever that is) of 8.5 miles. I’ll rest again on Friday and try to get back on my regular schedule with a long run on Saturday.

Cool runnings. Stay tuned…

Today was my first ever speed work session. I guess it is also called “interval training”. Today’s workout consisted of the following.

1) Ran at a 10K pace (not easy since I had never run a 10K before)
2) Run for 800 meters (I hate the metric system. Call it 1/2 mile)
3) Walk/jog for 90 seconds (I chose to walk )
4) Do this set 8 times.

Boy, that was a workout. I was wheezing like I was back in February training for a measly 5K. Thankfully, I’ve made progress since then, or I wouldn’t have been able to do this workout.

All told, I covered 4.x miles in XX minutes, including 7 walking breaks of..oh..let’s say..95 seconds each. Not too shabby.

Admittedly, I held back a little, which I assume one would do in a 10K. After all, it’s not a sprint. My running schedule actually calls for doing the long runs on Saturday. Since I did mine on Sunday, I only had one
light cross training day between my long run (my longest run since October) and today’s speed workout instead of two. That may have affected my performance this morning.

At any rate, I’m glad to have worked in some of the finer points of training into my running at least once in my life

I’ll stick with the speed work as long as I can. I’m told it also helps you on longer endurance runs.

Stay tuned.

Spent 45 minutes swimming today after work. Whew! I’m planning on trying a triathlon next year, and an Ironman the year after that, and I can say without a doubt that the swimming part is going to be the most difficult. I’ve never been a great swimmer. My legs have a lot of muscle and always sink instead of float. I can never quite seem to breathe in without also getting some water up my nose

But I’ll have a wet suit for the triathlon, so that might help a little. May help me look better too.

I made sure to get up very early this morning so I could go running. Had a bit of a run in with some large flying insects at mile 3 who just kept buzzing around my head and would not stop, even as a flailed my arms around my head as I ran. I knew I couldn’t keep that up on the way out, let alone on my way back, so I doubled back and changed my route to an open road. Much better than the paved trails deep in the woods.

This long run called for “Pace Plus” which means running 20 to 50 seconds slower per mile than your planned marathon pace. I chose the 50. As it turned out, my 10 minute mile pace is much more of a challenge this year than last thanks to the extra weight from the off season. Plus I was carrying another 5 pounds of water on my back. As a result, I didn’t have to struggle to run at a 10:50 pace. Well, actually I did, but I was struggling to keep up!

In the end, I ran at an 11 minute mile. Not too bad for a long run. This was my longest run of the year, beating out the half marathon I did on June 1. This time I made sure to walk a bit after the run and do a little stretching as part of a cool down. After a nice hot shower, I made myself a protein shake. Much better for recovery than my usual Red Bull or a Starbucks (although I admit I’m drinking some Starbucks right now)

I’m slowly but surely coming back. Hopefully the protein shake will help me recover and I can do some cross training tomorrow.

Stay tuned folks. I’ll keep you posted. Cool runnings!

After the 8.5 miles yesterday, my legs were too tired to do a long run today. I’ve got a little discomfort in my hips too. That was the source of my last two bad injuries, so I definitely want to take it easy.

We’ll see what tomorrow brings. I’m going to get up extra early to do my run because we are officially in a heat wave these days and I don’t want to get caught outside trying to run in 90+ degree heat. I’m also carrying at least 10 extra pounds on me, plus another 5 pounds for the water pack.

Say a prayer for me and stay tuned…

Well, not exactly a land speed record, but respectable, especially considering I had to wait for the light to change during my run…twice. It’s amazing how tired I am from pushing it two days ago.

My schedule calls for a long tomorrow of 20 miles. There’s no way I’m going to be able to that. In fact, my knees are giving me trouble today after that run. I may put off the long run until Sunday. We’ll see.

Take care and stay tuned…

Still hurting from kicking it up a notch yesterday. Of course, my friend Scott can just turn it on like it ain’t no thing

I’ll try tomorrow morning for 8.5 miles, which I’m supposed to run at “Tempo”, whatever that is…

Man, I really had to kick it up a notch to make this. I was on my usual pace of about 10:20/mile or so, and then about halfway I decided that it had been too long since I completed a workout at my usual pace of 10 minute miles.

So at mile 3.5 I really kicked it up. I had about 0.2 miles to before I got to my condo complex. My condo sits about half way up a VERY steep hill. By the time 6 miles clicked off on my Garmin, I was wheezing like a guy that smoked a carton a day for 30 years. But man it felt good to come in under an hour

I’m going to pay for this later though.

Well, this went pretty well despite the circumstances. I set my alarm for 6AM to get an early start today, but I forgot to arm it. Sooooooooooooooooo I just woke up when I wasn’t tired anymore. At least I was well rested!!

As a result of my extended early morning nap, I didn’t get started running until a little after 9AM. My training regimen called for 18 miles today, but after skipping too many days, and injuring my hip, I knew I wasn’t going to make that. At the 6 mile mark, I thought I would split the difference and try for 13 miles, at least that would be a half marathon. As the miles wore on, though, the heat from the July morning in New England got to me and I settled for 10 miles.

Although I didn’t make it to 18 miles, or even 13 miles, I felt good about reaching 10. It was double digits. It was the most I had run since the half marathon on June 1. At least I’m making some progress. The new stretching exercise I added, as well as the cool down walk and cool down stretching appear to be helping.

Stay tuned and cool runnings.

Back to running again this morning. Took me a little longer to do 8.5 miles, but for having to wait for a traffic light for quite awhile, not to mention carrying some weight around, it’s not that bad. Looks like the new stretching exercise I added is working. No shooting pain in my hip, although I did have some discomfort.

After my running, I was tired, but not in pain. After a full day at work, I’m in a little more pain.

Tomorrow is a rest day. I’ve got my first long run in over a month on Saturday. My training scheduled calls for 18.5 miles, but I think that’s way too much for having just gotten back in the game.

Stay tuned and cool runnings.