Training Log Archive: Tundra/Desert

A very slow run: technique non-existent, a plod. Home, Rancho 2VWU3MHJ7, Pasture Crossroads, Black Mtn trail to 2285', shortcut through chamise to 5 (met one person there... we both were very surprised), 54V2, home.
But I hopefully got: (1) some beneficial innervation, capillarization, etc. (2) cleared my muscles from the previous I session; and (3) worked a bit on the downhills on 54. Also, felt good! (but not as good as choclolate).

I felt a bit tired, so went home early and slept, deciding to do the interval session whenever I'd wake up. De Anza is 24 hours.
And then, something weird happened. I know this sounds way out there; but I doubt the information would add much to Vlad's weirdness coefficient. About an hour and a half, as I was asleep and having some dreams, I suddenly became aware of my heartbeat. I was still asleep and having my dream, unrelated to the heartbeat. There were two rhythms competing; one "regular" one and another one, much faster. At some point, it felt like different parts of the heart were going at the different rates, for maybe 5–10 seconds. Then, the faster beat took over, and gradually slowed down to normal rate; as soon as it was more-or-less normal, the exact same experience repeated itself again over. I wasn't having any dreams by the end of the second sequence, and slowly woke up. Consciously, I could feel that the beat I was observing when awake was a continuous extension of what I was aware of before waking up—i.e. I don't think I had dreamt up the whole sequence. I felt competely normal as I woke up, and fell asleep again.
Yeah, that's it. No, I was not on any drugs tonight.

Woke up, felt fine. Ran to De Anza.

Did 7×(1000 at I + 400 jog), starting the intervals every 6:30 or so. I was going to do the first one and see how it felt, continue as long as I felt well. The first one went so well that I decided to try for 8×, but was slowing down and ended at 7×.
The only sensation that was unusual was that I could physically feel my heart beating between about 200 m and 600 m of every interval, with an amplitude so great that I had to consciously correct for this motion to stay inside the lane. Weird, I know. Towards the last lap of each interval, things felt totally normal; I could put together a finishing 38–40 200 without any problems. The HR was quite low, probably the lowest in the last few years for I.
The intervals, by the way, were 3:29 3:26 3:28 3:30 3:33 3:35 3:32.

Ran back home. They were setting up for a crafts fair in De Anza's parking lot, and people just started to walk there through the track. The sun came up.

To meet Jim Waite near Twin Creeks. The weather just started to get nasty.

Stretched the quads and the lower-leg muscles.

We did 3×(12:00 at T + 1:00 jog) + 4×(0:20 at R + 0:40 jog). It was windy and started to sprinkle near-freezing rain towards the end (the air was warm, though). The threshold part was exactly 6.00 miles in 39 minutes—faster in the beginning, horrible in the middle—mostly directly into the wind, and OK in the end. The T pace was at 6:16/mile average, +/– 2 seconds.
I did the strides with more of the R technique, putting some effort into shoulder/arm work, rather than simply going with regular technique but faster. It felt much better than the other way around.

Got back to work; the rain got worse.

My only conclusion from analyzing Flying Pig splits: I need to run faster and not worry much about navigation. The splits where I did the worst compared to the "field average" were the minimum-nav legs: fields, uphill. I did best in the green, fine navigation. Sure, I made errors, but the people who placed above me made a similar or greater amount of errors. It just looks like some people have higher gears they can kick into when the going gets easier, and I struggle to maintain the same uniform slow pace.
Unfortunately, it's hard to run very fast when worrying about one's health. I'll see what a treadmill stress test shows this week.

More bus chase.

W = 163.

The bus.

Ate.

Warming up before the third ray of the Pig. Decided to run in gloves (which, fortunately, I did have).

Some stretching... every once in a while...

2×110 m stride and a jog.

Pig Day 3. Went well for a while. I had a hard time maintaining the intensity after booming at #11, and lost most enthusiasm near the end. Lost two seconds to therock because of the sluggish run-in.
The map was very good, and the course, excellent.

Blue - Splits