Doyle's Running Club

Wednesday night I went hashing. The first leg to the beer stop was a good haul but I ended up walking back to the start so it ended up not quite being the workout I was anticipating.

Thursday night I decided to head to the track for some mile repeats. On the way I decided that I was going to do 4 x 1M with a 400m rest in between intervals. I jogged over to the track (about a half-mile) as a warmup. Once at the track I took off on my first interval. My target pace was 8:00/mile. At first I started off too quickly, but I adjusted and was able to churn out a 7:54 mile at 146 HR. I had a bit of trouble finding the right pace for the second one, but I eventually found it and was able to run another 7:54 mile at 152 HR. After that the training wheels came off and I clocked the next two at 7:34 and 7:12 respectively. In hind sight I should have kept them to 7:54 as my HR was 172/175 for the last pair possibly too hard for the workout that I had envisioned.

Monday - Rest
Tuesday - Non-track intervals (10 min warm up, 4x(3 up, 1 easy), 10 min cool down
Wednesday - 3 miles, yoga
Thursday - 3 miles up tempo
Friday - Rest
Saturday - 7 Miles. Place TBA [Suggest: Creve Couer or Grant's Trail]
Sunday - Rest, yoga

Last of the three mile tempo days.

I met with Phil, Papaswoof, and LH at Forest Park on Saturday. LH took off before the rest of the group arrived as she was worried about starting out too fast. We ended up taking off about ten minutes after her. The run was at a relatively easy pace for me. The weather was great and we were able to get it done with little trouble. I noticed my HR going up towards the end of the run, so I made a concerted effort to slow down.

Sunday I did a yoga class in the morning. It's still kicking my butt but not to the same extent. Later we went to the pool to play with Oliver. I did four laps and that was about as far as I could go. It's a good thing I didn't try a tri, or I could have drowned.

Meet up Saturday at 6am in Forest Park by the History Museum.

I took Oliver out for a run last night at about 7:00. It was still very warm so I made a mental decision to gear down. I wasn't going to be setting any land speed records. I decided to do the Forest Park up Wydown to Hanley route. The hills and the heat had a AD-snack, but I finished the workout. I may have gone a little harder than I wanted to, but the mental toughness of finishing the workout made up for it. I still need to spend some more time acclimating to the heat.

I went for a run about 12:45. My original plan was to do 6 miles, but as I had missed a run earlier this week, I decided to "squish" them together. Note - I don't recommend the practice at all. So I changed my plan to run to Forest Park, around it, and back home. My consideration for the squishing and the heat was that I planned to run in the FB zone on everything except the hills. I did a good job adhering to the plan. I even managed to avoid my ego getting the best of me and let someone pass me. About the time I was getting to the ball fields it started raining. The rain was a nice change from the heat though. In the en I got back around Forest Park and was having trouble keeping my HR low enough to stay in the FB zone, so I decided to pack it in and walk home.

LH and I ran a set 35 minute runs at FB pace on the 10th, 11th, and 13th. The terrain had some rolling hills, but other than that it was very pleasant.

On the 14th, I ran an out and back course on the Naponset Greeway. Each way was 2.28m. I did the first half slower than the second half, but neither half got me beyond a cardio pace.

This week I've been on vacation. My wife and I went to the Smoky Mountains while the kids went to Grandma's. I didn't do any running on vacation, but I did some strenuous hiking. The first hike I did on Monday was 8 miles total (4 mi out and back) with an elevation change of about 2500 feet. The second hike I did on Tuesday with my brother-in-law was 10 miles (5 miles out and back) to the summit of Mount LeConte (~6600 ft) with an elevation change of nearly 3000 feet. Both hikes I averaged about two mi/hr, which is brisk for mountain hiking with a light pack. I was passing most other hikers.

Wednesday I did some light mountain biking (since I brought it). There really is no good place to bike in the Smoky Mountains. There was a short trail only two miles long where biking was allowed, so I rode it twice quickly for an 8 mile ride. It mostly sucked.

This weekend the wife and I have driven up to Grandma's to pick up the kids and see my wife's family. This morning I ran 6 miles. I was very tired at the end, but I finished the distance on pace.

A strange training week, but I'm happy with keeping up the activity and making a descent run today. I think I'm on track, and I can feel myself getting stronger. Looking forward to breaking into the double-digit distances soon.

LH and I went for a run by Niagara Falls. Since we didn't have any good distance markings, we did a 35 minute run at FB pace, figuring that that would be close to the right distance. The run was very pretty looking out over the falls, but the hill at the end was a killer.

I got together with Phil for a run before gaming. We took off on a three mile run winding through the neighborhood by Phil's house. The run itself was not terribly exciting. There are a number of people that need to keep a better leash on their dogs. The route was a little unusual for me in that there were not many sidewalks to run on. Personally, I'd prefer to run on sidewalks for the safety factor. It also featured a lot of rolling hills. The hills weren't ever severe, but by the end of the run, I knew that I had run over them. This would be a great RtR training course. Phil and I ran the route at a pretty good pace but it remained conversational albeit at the upper range of conversational.

We met just past 6:00 at Creve Couer Lake by the waterfalls. We decided to run first around the Mallard Lake loop and then around the far side of the Meadow Loop and then finishing up at the boat house on the lake loop. The total loop that we would have done was about 6 miles, so cutting off at the boat house brought it up to the right distance. As a whole, the run went fine. We stayed together as a group for the first half of the run before I stretched it out a bit once we made it back to the paved path. I really liked the Mallard Lake loop as it was much quieter than the lake and meadow loops. We'll have to revisit CCL again when we're running longer distances.

Growing up in Chicago, I didn't have much call to learn how to run hills. A long time ago they had all been bull-dozed and dumped into the lake to create more land. When I came to St. Louis, I was generally unprepared for all of the hills. Here. In St. Louis. You can imagine my surprise when I visited San Francisco. But I digress. Over time I've learned some of the tricks to running hills.

There are a lot of reasons that we run hills in the first place. The most obvious is that there are frequently no better routes to run that up and over the hill. But we look for hills because for a given pace and a given distance, adding climbing into your run makes it more difficult. Running hills helps build leg strength. Hills also use a slightly different set of muscles than flats. A long run can also be mentally broken into pieces using hills as landmarks. One other benefit is that a hill provides a focus during which you can work on your running form.

When I notice that I'm starting up a hill, I focus on my running form. Mentally I shift from third gear into first gear. I shorten my stride and maintain or increase my turnover (leg RPM) slightly. I relax my shoulders and my face. I lean forward into the hill slightly. I concentrate on swinging my arms straight forward and backward and not side to side. I focus my gaze on a spot about 25-30 feet ahead of me. I keep my momentum going as I crest the hill and slowly stretch my stride back to its original length as I keep going.

When I notice that I'm going down a slope, I have a different set of questions to address. I need to figure out how aggressive I want to be with the hill. The answer to that question determines whether I'll keep a neutral lean (aggressive) or a backwards body lean (passive). With a neutral lean, the natural thing to do is speed up and let the hill carry you away. This is fine as long as you are still able to control yourself. With a backwards lean, you are applying some breaking force which helps in keeping you in control. As you speed up, you can increase your stride length a little bit, but I'd look more to increasing your turnover. Increasing your stride length beyond its natural state makes you more susceptible to injury.

You can specifically add hill work to your workout with either incidental hills or interval hills. Incidental hills are the hills that just happen to fall into your running route. You get to work on your hill running form as you complete other workouts. Just be sure that you account for the hill in your workout plan. Interval hills are another form of interval running. Select a route with a hill that's 200-400m long. Do several intervals of striding to the hill, running up the hill and then jogging back down.

With some practice and focus you can make hills a strength in your running program. After doing River to River for the last three years, I look forward to the hills that I encounter in my runs and I can tell that my favorable outlook on hills carried over to my racing.

Ran the Millwell route which USATF aproximates at 3.56 mi. This has been my self-check route over the last couple of training efforts -- some light hill work, some smoother stretches, but a good route to judge progress and comfort.

Right now, however, it's a bit of a hazard as Midland is under construction between Millwell and FeeFee. There's almost no room to avoid cars but it looks like there will be a nice sidewalk to follow when the work is complete.

Besides the heat and humidity -- I could see steam coming off the street while I was running -- there was silt and mud in the construction area. I tweaked my right calf muscle and will probably take things a little easier going into the long run Saturday to make sure I don't create a stress injury. At least now I have a chance to recover.

Still running without a watch. I'm judging by breathing and effort with a focus on completing runs while I'm building my base back up.

Looking ahead:
6/1 - probably 2 miles (or rest depending on leg)
6/2 - rest (maybe travel)
6/3 - long run (somewhere)
6/4 - recovery run (TBD)