Training Log Archive: Stroud

Normal Sunday trail run. I was expecting it to be extra difficult after the previous day's 28 miles but that didn't seem to make much difference. What did make a difference was the miserable heat & humidity. Practically unbearable and soaking wet with sweat in the first 2 miles. I thought we were supposed to be into Fall now?

First triple loop of the season and it was tough. Kept the speed down on the first "headlamp" lap and ran 1:24. First half hot & second half in pouring rain. After about 5 minutes in parking lot the Second lap more rain but not as hard and again ran a conservative 1:22. Rain stopped and got quite hot, approaching 80F, on the 3rd loop and struggled greatly for an embarrassing 1:35, but I got it done.

Had my training buddy Dean not been in for a triple this would not have got completed. First half of last loop was slow & second half had several walk breaks which I tried to limit to the hills. We did finish the last 1.5 miles a little stronger as we leap-frogged each other a time or two before finishing together. Training partners are indispensable for the weak willed like me!

Could definitely feel this weeks hard hill workout & stairs in my gluts. Also a lot of calf & foot/toe cramps as I try to nap on the sofa after getting home. And I hydrated pretty well.

45 minutes on the stair master on the top level. Unlike last week I felt like I could have done an extra 15 minutes to make an hour since I took Wednesday off. But after a hard hill run on Tuesday I decided discretion was the better part of valor and did some weights with the extra 15 minutes.

I'm in a crappy hotel gym which get notoriously hot when you workout and operating on little sleep so the prospects for today were not looking good.

My intent was to do the 1hr of Ultra Pace, which would be about 9:30 (6.3 MPH) at 1%.

I did this, actually 9:20 pace (6.4) for 7:00 which made 0.75 miles and made a quick pit stop so I called that a warm up.

I came back and did 9:20 pace at 9:30 pace for 7:30 and decided to move up to 2% just to break the boredom. This lead to the idea of increasing by 1% every 7:30 to the halfway point (4%) then decreasing by 1% on the way down.

Well when I got to 30:00 I felt pretty good so I continued raising the incline 1% through 5% & 6%. I was beyond feeling 'good' at this point but was wondering if I could take it through the full hour like this. So I went through 7% and I'll admit I had to 'cheat' a little on the last 8% but I made it through. Then a 5:00 cool down at a very slow 4.5 MPH & 3.0 MPH.

So this was way off the intended Ultra Pace run but made for a great incline ladder. Part of my enticement was the treadmill had a vertical reading and I originally wanted to get to 1,000 ft. Ended up with 1,539 counting cooldown.

I don't get home until close to midnight so I'll probably miss tomorrow mornings workout. Another reason for pushing harder today.