Inside Long Run: Sadness

It's raining.  It's been raining here since Sunday, which is when I would've liked to have done my long run.  Here we are at Thursday and I was getting desperate.  I knew I was going to have to do this mess inside.  Sigh.

Plan: Run on the track at least six miles, then go to the elliptical for at least an hour.  Try very hard not to go insane.

Route: I'm so sad because I had this excellent adventure at Elm Creek Park Reserve all mapped out.  Instead I was running in circles on an indoor track. 

Weather: Rain.  Clearly these bullet points that I created for my posts will never work for an indoor workout.

Execution - Run: I am surprised to report that the track running went better than expected and I stayed on the track longer than expected.  My initial goal was to run 6 miles on the track, with a possible bail point at 5 miles if I hated everyone.  Instead, I was able to keep my pace steady and my heart rate low.  At mile 6 I felt good and stayed out there.  At one point I had delusions of grandeur and was picturing all 10 miles done on the track.  By mile 7, the track was getting crowded and less fun for me, and my heart rate was creeping up.  So I stopped there and headed over to the elliptical.  I'm calling this a win.

Execution - Elliptical: It's always much easier for me to manage my heart rate on the elliptical.  With such precise measurements about incline and resistance, how could it not be? Even though this graph looks somehow worse than the running one, the heart rate is lower overall.

Nutrition: It was nice I didn't have to carry water with me.  The downside of track running is that I will not stop for water or food on the track, because I'll never get started again.  So I had a few gummies before I started, and a few at the end.  On the elliptical I had a couple gummies at 20 mins into the workout and 40 mins into the workout, and that was all the food I had.

Bonus: I have no photos because it's creepy to take photos at the gym. Sorry.

Palmer Lake

I had a weird schedule today and the best weather ever.  Which meant a fun run in the sun.

Plan: Enjoy the freaking weather. 
Backup plan: Manage the heart rate. It's hot.

Route: 2 laps around Lake Palmer.  Each lap is 3 miles.

Weather: 70*, crazy sunny, strong winds out of the south.

Execution: Plan A was a great success.  Backup plan, not so much.  But whatever, it was a gorgeous day.

Long Run Sunday - Ft Snelling 2

Plan: Keep a low heart rate.  Except on that one hill, anything is fair game on that hill.  Run all the way home and quick cool down, because I have to fetch a friend from the airport after.

Route: Ft Snelling Run.  Today there was no ice nor snow.  Excellent.

Weather: Winds were strong out of the SSE.  Therefore, I run SSE into the wind at the beginning of the run and the back half of the run is with the wind.  Excellent planning.  It was around 40* and cloudy most of the run, but sunny for about the last mile.

Execution: Pretty good I thought.  I kept a low heart rate until the hill.  After the hill, I kept my heart rate relatively under control until the last mile.  Things always seem to fall apart in the last mile.  Sigh.

Nutrition: I woke up early and had only yogurt (no fruit or granola) before the run.  I finished off a bag of chomps during the run.  One or two pieces every couple of miles.  My stomach was fine the whole time.  Thank you universe.

Bonus: I tried to take pictures of places I don't normally take pictures on this trail.

Treadmill runs

I read a bunch of other blogs and people always post these really interesting speed workouts they do on the treadmill.  In my mind I keep thinking it'd be great for me to do, but in my mind I'm also intimidated by running at speed for a while.  So I picked a speed roughly equal to my most recent 5K speed.   My brain was still intimidated but I tried it anyways.

Warmup - 10 mins
Run - 1 min, 2 min, 3 min, 4 min, 5 min, 4, min, 3 min, 2 min, 1 min at just faster than 5K pace with 2 mins slow jog in between each. 
Cooldown - 10 mins

Actual: I didn't make it the full 10 mins because my stomach got upset, but otherwise it went okay.  Sometimes it's fun to run faster than I normally go.  Not sure if this was a real confidence booster or an aberration, but it was fun.

Heartrate: Obviously I didn't care about my heart rate during the fast parts.  I wish my heart rate would've come down a bit more in the between times.  Recovery is always important.

Annandale Running

A friend told me that the lake in Annandale would be fun running.  This friend is obviously a country girl because her next sentence was "the road won't be too busy so you'll be fine."  The city girl in me drove the route once before running it.

Plan: The run is about 5 miles.  Run facing traffic.  Stay safe and have fun.

Route: Around the lake.  On the east and west sides of the lake, it's basically along the road.  On the north side of the lake there's a legit path and it was a pleasure.  The south side of the lake is in town and has sidewalks. Running northbound on Park St was not the most relaxing thing in the world, but after that things were really fun.

Weather: It was 15mph winds and 37*.  I was kind of cold, and very happy for warm clothes after I was done.

Execution: I had a surprisingly fun time.  I ran in NB Minimus.  I wish I'd had something with a bit more protection from the rocks/gravel on the side of the road.  I decided to not pay any attention to my heart rate and just have fun.  Mission accomplished.

Nutrition: After the run I had a great latte and an hour drive home.  The latte was legit.

Sunday Long Run - Mississippi River

Plan: Warm up for 0.5 miles, run with a low heart rate, stop when I get to the coffee shop near my house, buy coffee and walk home from there.

Route: Along the creek to the river, up one side of the river, back down the other, then home.  I used this route a lot when marathon training.  The route itself is around 12 miles and I haven't used it at all in training the past couple of years.  It's not my favorite route, but today was nice to change things up a bit.

Weather: It was windy.  But winds were out of the south so they were quite warm. I started the run around 43* and finished the run above 50*.  I went in shorts and a shirt with arm sleeves.  The arm sleeves were down by mile 1 and not back on until I got my coffee.

Execution: Warm up and low heart rate worked for a long time.  Longer than I'd expected, especially given the up/down nature of this route.  I kept reminding myself of when I started heart rate training and could run 15:00/mile with a heart rate of 154.  Today I was 10-15 beats/minute below that and not quite as slow.  (Almost, but not quite.)  Once I got near the Ford Parkway bridge I was pretty much ready to be done.  I started moving a little faster and stopped caring about my heart rate.  Obviously.

Nutrition: Today's nutrition worked significantly better than my last long run.  I took a couple chews whenever I was hungry and had a sip of water or two whenever I was thirsty.  No stomach issues, which is always nice for a long run.

Surprise Saturday - indoor track

Weather: When I woke up it was 29*, 28mph winds, wind chill of 14*.  So yeah, I'm working out inside today. 

Plan: When I entered the gym, my plan was to warm up and run my mile on the track, and then jump on the elliptical for an hour to finish the workout.

Actual: I started doing my warmup on the track.  It felt good.  I was in the unusual position of not hating everything and everyone and I was running in circles.  So I just kept going on the track.  I decided I didn't really care about heart rate as long as I was having fun.  I ran a solid five miles, and then used mile 6 as a "cool down" to slow my heart rate back to normal.

This should count as my one track workout for the month I think.

Before and After - Baker Park Reserve

This is odd because the "after" shot of the summer is actually taken last year and the "before" shot of early spring was taken just now.  A good reminder that green is coming and beautiful things are on their way. 

Long run on paved trails - Baker Park Reserve

Long run Tuesday - this is a new thing for me.  Actually reading some older posts made me believe I could do a long run after work and survive the experience.  I remember this run as one of my most favorite experiences ever.  I tried for the repeat today.

Plan: Two loops?  Maybe just 11 miles?  Maybe 10?  10 miles sounds good, so out five and back five.  And then, at the end of that, I'd like to go to TRX Kettlebell class and survive the experience.  

Route: I was figuring on an out and back on the paved trail.  I know the trail goes in a loop, but I was thinking the loop itself was too big for two circuits.  Out and back is what happened.  I got to 4.75 miles and was at the top of a hill.  I was all "no way am running a quarter mile down just to run back up". 

Weather: Big part of the reason I'm doing a long run on Tuesday.  It was 60*, partly sunny and windy.  I see rain and other junk in the weather for pretty much every other day this week and the temperature is going to drop a lot too.

Execution: I did a really good job of keeping my heart rate in check for like the first seven miles.  I was proud of that because there were a lot of hills.  Then I got hot and tired and wanted to be done and went a little nuts.  Whatever.  I had a good time.   Ultimately I decided to forgo TRX Kettlebell class in favor of not puking on anyone. But it was a great run and I was happy for all the time out on the trails.

Nutrition: The weak link tonight was my stomach.  I carried a bottle of water and some chews with me.  The next race I'm running has water every 2.5 miles so that's how I tried to drink and eat.  But my stomach was not having it.  Like, not even the water when it was 60* and sunny.  My stomach was in a full on knot by the end.  Not good times.

Hanging out on the Rum River Trail

This is a step back week for me so I'm not running super far nor super hard.  Thank god after that race on Saturday.

Today at the end of the day, I found myself near the trail head for the Rum River Regional Trail.  The trail is one of my favorites because it's gorgeous.  It also meets my post-work requirements of having a place to park and a place to change into running gear.  

I had a slow, low heart rate run and took lots of pictures.  I was shocked when Strava told me my last run on this trail was last summer.  What have I been doing?!?! This trail is not super hilly, but has lots of little ups and downs which keep things interesting.  Perhaps I should make more of an effort to run here this year.

Race Shirt - Tuesdays on the Run

Tuesdays on the Run asks all about race shirt etiquette.

As a back of the pack runner, I feel strongly that race directors should give shirts at packet pick up instead of after the race.  One of my favorite organizations, Twin Cities in Motion gives out 10-mile and Marathon finisher shirts after the race in the finisher chute.  I was pretty hacked off when and they didn't have a shirt for me.  The 10 Mile race is a lottery and it sells out every year.  You knew how many shirts you needed.

"Finisher" Shirts - I get that these shirts say finisher, and should therefore be earned.  But poor planning on the race directors part means that the slower finishers (who've probably been practicing for months and months and months) get screwed out of something they worked really hard for.  It's such a head game to be in the back of the pack anyways.  It sucks to show up at the finish line and hear "well if you'd gotten here sooner..."

To answer the original question - the only time I think I'd wear a race shirt at the race is if I did same day packet pick up, no bag check for my stuff, and I didn't have time to run back to my car to drop the shirt.  In that case, I'd probably throw it on over whatever else I'm wearing and hope it's not too hot.

Hot Dash 10 Mile - the one where I make all of the mistakes...

Race number 2 in the TCM Summit Challenge is the Hot Dash 10 Mile.

Registration - online, one registration for the entire series of races.  Also, apparently yes I will have the same number for these races, or it has been the same so far. This was a question I'd had from the previous race.

Weather and Wardrobe - This morning I went outside, and saw a full inch of snow.  Oh fuck.  Air temps 28*, winds around 10mph in my face for the first 4 miles.
Top: Smart wool base layer and wind breaker
Bottom: Lined fleece tights
Socks: Compression socks with smart wool socks over top
Shoes: Altra Lone Peaks (I've run both road races this year in my trail shoes because of snow)
Also: gloves came off around mile 1, hat come off around mile 8 and I instantly regretted that decision

Packet Pick Up - I did a light rail/bus combination to get myself to the start line today.  When I arrived, I stopped by the Big Book of Numbers to find my race number, then grabbed my packet.  I estimate it took about 3 minutes and the volunteers were nice.  Bag check was a bit busy because everyone had to wait in line for the stapler to attach their number to their bag, but I used a spare pin so I avoided that line.

Start line - the start line is where things really began to fall apart for me.  The website said they'd have pacers for 11:00/mile, 12:00/mile and 12:30/mile.  I wanted to stay with 12:00/mile, because I knew I could hold it and move up if I wanted.  One was way too fast and one was too slow.  Except the 12:00/mile pacer was nowhere to be seen.  Ever.  The roads before the race were crazy icy and some people from the 'burbs couldn't make it in so I'm wondering if that's what happened.

Course - this course blows.  Even if I'd been having a good day I would've hated this course hard.
Partial Road Closures - Mile 2 -7 were largely on Marshall Ave which was partially open to traffic.  Normally this wouldn't bother me.  I mention it becuase..
Two Way Running Traffic on a partially open road - This course starts with a long out and back section.  Somewhere before mile 3 the leaders started coming "back".  The course got really narrow and very confused with cop cars and lead out bikes telling us to move one way and volunteers telling us to move back because there were cars allowed on part of that street
Industrial NE Minneapolis is boring - The volunteers cheered for us and tried to be interesting.  But we were literally running by seven miles of factories.
Cobblestones at the finish - Whose idea was this?!?

Race - I didn't have a back up plan when the pacer was a no show.  I thought I'd be in a group and just let everyone drag me through this.  I hadn't thought at all about what kind of pace I thought I could hold on my own, or what kind of race I wanted to have (other than "please don't make my ankle worse").   Since I was alone, I wasn't mentally prepared for this race at all and that was the real mistake of the day.  Sigh.  I went out a bit too hard and paid for it near the end of the race.

Finish - I hate cobbles.  Also, there wasn't a big "FINISH LINE" with a sign and balloons that I could see from far off.  Once I turned onto the cobbles I had difficulty telling how much farther I had to run.  Am I there yet?!? 

Race Recommended For - Um, well... I wouldn't run this race again unless it's part of a race series.  The course is not fun.  And the pre-race logistics (ie parking in NE Minneapolis) make it a pain in the ass.  This hurts me to say because the race is well organized and well supported, both things I've come to expect from TCM.  But the scheduling and the course felt like "we needed a spring race and these are the roads the Minneapolis police would let us close so let's see what we can throw together". 

Goals/Outcomes - Before the race I was thinking I'd stay with the 12:00/mile pacer and then if I was feeling good late in the race I'd pull on ahead.  Instead, there was no pacer and I went out way too damn fast.  In the end, I beat my time from October. Barely.  Given the week of not really running, that surprised me.  I wish I'd believed in myself that I had that fitness level in me.  I think I could've paced better and squeezed out a bit more at the end.