The Non-Tempo Alternative

On the weekend I planned to go for a tempo run. But those little niggling excuses got in the way. You know the ones - it's storming outside, my body is exhausted, I need a rest day...
So then I made a plan to go for a tempo run yesterday. But the thought of doing a tempo run made me shudder. Tempo runs are not my friend! So - can you believe it? - I ran hills instead. Hills. I prefer hills over a tempo run! I must be nuts! I guess what I like about hills is that you get a recovery on the way down. Whereas a tempo run...no breaks, just running.
My intention was to do 5 reps, but I started running short on time so I only did 4. The first hill was a 'test hill'. After running up it I decided it was too rolly for a decent hill session. I needed something that went straight up. So I ran back to the street where I first lived in Rocky. That has a hill. And I mean a hill.
I won't get into my heart rate, because that would scare people who believe in the "max HR = 220-age". (I don't.) Let's just say I was working hard!
My "warm-up" including the first hill took 10min, so technically I only did 3 hill reps.

Total distance: 4.64km
Total time: 32.57min
Avg pace: 7.06 (including recoveries. There may have been some walking involved.)
Total elevation: 128m

1st rep: 2.54min, avg pace 7.08
2nd rep: 3.07min, avg pace 7.33
3rd rep: 3.15, avg pace 7.54

As you can see, this hill absolutely wiped me! I got progressively slower every time. I maybe could have fit in a fourth rep, but I was soooo exhausted I just couldn't find the motivation. Still, it was fantastic.

Mathematics

There are three types of people in this world. Those who can count, and those who can't. I classify myself in the latter category...at least while running. I may be able to multi-task some things, but clearly not addition plus running. Once again, I ran not 4, but 5 x 60sec reps. And this time I even cut my first recovery short from 90sec to 60sec. Ooops! In mathematical terms,
[count + (run + intervals)] + distractions = error
I guess I can say, at least I overshoot rather than undershoot my workout. Maybe I should start running with an abacus. Although then the movement from running might shift the beads around and I'd be doubly confused. On second thought, an extra 60sec interval isn't such a big deal.

Time: 21.49 (did I mention I also started my first interval early? Adding an extra 15sec onto the initial 90sec time. Oops!)
Total elevation: 31m
Total distance: 3.86km
Avg pace: 5.39 (woohoo!)

"90"sec rep/recovery: 5.14/6.18 \ 4.46/6.06
60sec rep/recovery: 5.05/6.50 \ 5.45/6.41 \ 4.56/ 5.57 \ 4.56/6.35 \ 5.13/6.21
30sec rep/recovery: 5.16/6.56 \ 5.02/7.26 \ 5.24/5.58 \ 5.37/6.25
15 sec rep/recovery: 4.48/5.48 \ 4.53/6.44 \ 4.25/5.43 \ 4.48/4.59

There is one discrepancy in the 30sec recovery. I had to wait for an impatient truck to turn in front of me. The downside to running on the roads!

Stomach of not-so steel

Most runners seem to have difficulty eating anything before a run. I have never had that problem. I've always had a bit of a stomach of steel in my family. I could eat almost anything and go out for a run (not guaranteed fast, but a run nonetheless).
Until today. For whatever reason, I suddenly understood that icky feeling I've always heard described but never felt. That "ugh! I shouldn't have eaten before this. I can feel the food like a hard rock in my stomach" feeling. It was terrible! I'm so glad I only get this once in a blue moon and not on a frequent basis.
As with last week's fartlek, I pre-fatigued doing plyometrics first. Going out on a run afterwards was so, so hard. Excuses of why I shouldn't do it danced in my head as I dragged myself out the door. Considering my starting heart rate in the morning, I would say I was having an off day. Perhaps a day I should have done recovery. But one thing for setting my alarm at 5am - I'm a morning person. It's a darn waste if I wake up at 5am, choose not to exercise, and proceed to waste the next hour and a half because I slacked off. I have done this before, but I need to be feeling pretty awful to do so.
And in the end I did it - both plyo and sprints. And (in a twist of irony), I was feeling so fatigued that I did extra sprints! Not on purpose!!! What happened was, I was worried I wouldn't get through it, so I just focussed on the present and ignored what was left. As a result, I did an extra set of 60sec rep/recovery. Oops! Even more funny, I knew I'd lost track of the 30sec reps and thought - if anything - that I might have pulled an extra one of those. I never thought I'd done an extra 60sec set. Bonus to me! Todays times were not fast (surprise surprise). But I did it. I finished it. No injuries. Good day.

Total time: 22.00
Total distance: 3.39km
Total elevation: 14m
Avg pace: 6.29

90sec rep/recovery: ?/6.18 \ 4.37/6.05
60 sec rep/recovery: 4.56/6.25 \ 5.37/6.46 \ 6.00/6.08 \ 5.44/6.44 \ 5.17/5.59
30 sec rep/recovery: 4.56/6.01 \ 5.10/6.49 \ 5.23/7.08 \ 5.24/7.17
15 sec rep/recovery: 5.05/6.36 \ 5.06/6.31 \ 5.04/5.31 \ 4.46/5.40

The first 90sec rep my watch wasn't fully turned on (aka, no satellites found for GPS part). Thus, my pace registered as 0.00. Lightening fast!

2012 Goals

Eesh, but this is a hard entry to write. Putting down goals in writing and then sharing them is a bit like engraving them in cement. The capacity to fail becomes much more obvious. But then my other option is to keep it secret, and only announce it if I achieve it? Yikes! A bit like those spell tests in elementary school where you couldn't remember if the word was spelt with an 'e' or an 'a'. So you decide to do some chicken scratch writing, that you can argue it out either way if the answer comes back wrong. Imperitive? Imperative? ... how about imperᴂtive?
But back to it! Tempting as it is, I guess I'd better write it down now. The worst I can do is fail, afterall. But if I succeed, all the better.

Goal 2012: Achieve a PB (personal best) in a distance I have already raced. In other words, running a 16k race is fun, but will not count towards a PB as I have never run one before.
Current PBs:
5k: 28.30 (I've only raced two 5ks. This is a rough estimate of one I ran in Rockhampton 2011)
8k: 42.25 (Mother's Day Classic 2010)
10k: 54.18 (Doomben 2009 - yes, this is getting a little old to be a standing PB!)
21.1k - 2.05.28 (Doomben 2011)

Races I hope to sign up for in 2012:
Noosa 10k (May 6)
Mother's Day Classic 8k (May 13)
Doomben 10k (June 3)
Gold Coast Half Marathon (July 1)
Redcliffe Jetty2Jetty 5/10k (July 15) - pending
Ipswich Park2Park 10k (July 29)
Sydney City2Surf 14k (Aug 12) - pending
Bridge2Brisbane 10k (Sep 2)
Whitsunday Trail Run 28.7k (Sep 23)
Melbourne 10k (Oct) - pending
Endeavour 500k relay (Nov) - pending

Stop, Laura, Stop!

I did not want to go for a long slow run today. After a beautiful weekend of running along the beachfront with friends where it was less like running and more like floating on air...how could I go back to dogging it solo for the next 90 or so minutes?
By the time I dragged myself I knew just what I'd do. You see, I have two runs to get done this weekend - LSD and sprints. Why not combine them for a long slow...sprint? What better way to pre-fatigue than to slog a couple of k's beforehand?
So out I went, mentally changing my route every couple hundred metres. In the end, I did a nice easy jog around the park, starting flat-side first. This lasted 4k. I climbed a hill for the next km (it's a long hill!), recovered down the other side, and...blast off! Away I went with my sprints.
Too easy, right?
So it would seem. In km 2 I started to get twinges in my shins. Nothing worth stopping over, but mildly concerning all the same. Not concerning for this run, but concerning because I shouldn't be feeling any twinges in my shinny shin shins.
Luckily, that went away when I hit the hills. Onto sprints! And you know the weirdest thing? I really am liking sprints. I think it's because it's mentally so easy. First, it's just 20min. 20min!!! Seriously! Second, I don't count the recovery parts in my mind. And third, I mentally break it down by thinking of it as mini-challenges.
Mini-challenge #1: 2x 90sec intervals. No worries. After the first one, there's just one left!
Mini-challenge #2: 4x 60sec intervals. Again, just a simple countdown. And after 90sec, 60sec is nothing! Too easy. I might start getting tired by the 2nd one, but then there's only two left!
Mini-challenge #3: 4x 30sec, 4x 15sec. I'm not even sure if this could be classified as a 'challenge'. Afterall, that's a grand total of 3min of sprinting. And it's so short I barely get going before it's over.

I was happily cruising through the sprints. I got down to the 30sec intervals, my mind chanting out "Go, Laura, Go!". When out of the blue, my body cried "Stop, Laura, Stop!". The back of my knee flared up in pain. Nothing super serious, but more than concerning. I had less than 5min to go in my sprints - less than 5min! My mind desperately wanted to finish it off. The pain wasn't that bad, just a bit of a red flag.
I stopped. I walked home. It was so, so hard to do that. Much harder than if I'd finished the sprints at a gentler loping gait. But live to run another day is a creed I follow.
Don't worry all you concerned readers: as soon as I stopped running the pain went away. It made it all the harder to call it a session, but I did.

Total time: 50.42
Total distance: 7.90km
Total elevation: 354m
Avg pace: 6.24

90sec rep/recovery x2: 5.11/6.14 \ 5.38/6.54
60sec rep/recovery x4: 5.24/6.48 \ 5.37/6.50 \ 5.12/6.16 \ 5.05/6.18
30sec rep/recovery - incomplete. Live to run another day.

Hello, running

Speed session! The best part of this is the length...20 minutes! At Steve Moneghetti’s advice, I pre-fatigued my legs and headed out to fartlek training. I may have been a little less than impressed by him at the training camp, but world records and first place finishes in half marathon and
marathon events do not lie. So when I hit Steve up for advice on improving my times, I certainly listened to his suggestions! Especially when his rationales made sense.
So I started out the day with 45min of plyometrics before hitting a fartlek session. Plyometrics, for those who don’t know, is essentially jumping. Mostly, variations of a jump squat. Certainly something I would classify as ‘pre-fatiguing’.
Unfortunately, I haven’t figured out how to make my watch all pretty and give me lap times + pace, so I settled on arranging lap times and figured I’d see my pace at the end. The bonus of this is it’s teaching me to learn my pace sans technology to depend on. My goal for today was to run a
5min pace for the reps and recover at a quick jog. As I improve, I hope to estimate my pace better and have faster recoveries.

Total time: 20.11
Total distance: 3.68
Avg pace: 5.31
90sec rep/recovery x2: 4.49/6.32 \ 5.35/5.59
60sec rep/recovery x4: 4.53/6.08 \ 4.42/5.59 \ 5.14/6.37 \ 5.34/6.20
30sec rep/recovery x4: 4.47/6.09 \ 4.50/6.26 \ 4.59/5.41 \ 4.54/6.38
15sec rep/recovery x4: 4.55/5.19 \ 4.39/5.04 \ 4.04/5.04 \ 4.36/5.10

For anyone who didn’t mindlessly skim or skip the split times, you’ll notice discrepancies in the rep/recovery! In an ideal training world I would have driven the 30min to get to a nice flat track on which to do my reps. In the real world, the street outside my house felt much more practical
& accessible – even with the minor hills. Okay, I wouldn’t call them true “hills”, but there was obviously some kind of unevenness to account for some of those recovery times!
And you know what? As I was working through my reps I passed a few other runners. One of whom smiled and said “great job!”. My response? I grinned and waved back. I was pretty happy with how I was going. I felt no urge to make excuses – I was too busy running.

I promise I will post my running goals for this year soon. I planned them last weekend at training camp as I'd hoped I would - I just need to gather the courage to publicly announce them in writing! But I will say this: my pre-season training has officially ended and my actual training season has begun. I think it's going to be a great year!

GFRS Training Camp: Sunday

Run #4: Long Run
Once again, we looped around Noosa National Park. At least we got a sleep in this time - 5am start instead of 4.30am start. Yay!
The run was as gorgeous as Saturday - and no nudists today! It was suggested we do a nudist dash across the beach, but thankfully no one took it seriously.
Total distance: 11.71
Total time: 1.25.12 (no autopause today!)
Total elevation: 215m
Avg pace: 7.16
Avg pace minus stairs & uber rocky/slipper trails: ~6.20

I almost went the long route today. I was feeling good at the 7k mark where we split into long/short. But I didn't want to overdo it, so I reluctantly took the shorter way. I managed, however, to get split up from the group and slightly lost, resulting in my running an extra 500m. I should have just kept going an extra 300m to make it an even 12k, but I didn't think of that until later. Happiness was taking off my shoes and swimming in the ocean after! Double happiness was knowing this was the last run of the weekend. Aaaaaah.
This particular group run was tons of fun. We stopped about 4x to regather as a group. Stop 1: group photo-op at Hell's Gate! Stop 2: water stop. Stop 3: just chilling. Stop 4: some of the organizers not running brought us fruit, which we gobbled up. What a delightful mid-run treat! I felt like a champion racer with all the catering.
I also ran up every hill (except ones where terrain dictated a walking pace). I'm starting to like trail runs. I like how they make you work even harder for every step. I may have to do more trail running!
At one stage I found myself near Steve Moneghetti. So I decided to hit him up on some running advice. Why not? And let me say, when a World Class Athlete gives you personal tips, you listen!

There were great things and disappointing things with the weekend. But overall, I had two main reasons for attending the training camp:
1. motivate me to kick-start my year (check!)
2. Define my running goals for the year (check!)
Fait accompli!

GFRS Training Camp: Saturday

Run #2: Long run

Up at 4am for a 4.30 long run. Ugh!!! Of course, in
the excitement of camp and sharing a bed with another gal and all that goes
with it, I couldn’t sleep. On the bright side, no worries about waking up from
the alarm as I was wiiiiide awake.

We ran uphill and downhill as we wound our way
through Noosa towards the National Park. There was the option to do an extra 4k
for a total of 15k, or a bitty 11.3k. Guess which one I chose? Yep! 11.3k for
me!

The view was astounding. We ran through the National
Park on wide, easy dirt trails. And rounded the corner to see the sun rising
over the ocean and the waves crashing against the rocks. We stopped a few times
to take in the view. I had opted out of running with a camera – I took mental
photos instead. It was just stunning!

I went with a good friend who was a little sore and
needing to walk bits. No complaints here! There were also sections where the
trail got narrow and rocky, so walking became necessary and not simply an
indulgence. Through the national park, across the nudist beach (yes, there were
even two nudists – both male, of course. My friend and I were grateful that one
kindly thought to strategically use the towel he’d brought when we ran by) and
up around the cliffs back onto our beach, which was Sunshine Beach. And after
we finished, a lovely swim in the ocean in our running gear. What better way to
cool off? Of course we all took off my shoes before going in. But I’m grateful
our run didn’t end at the nudist beach, just in case it gave any fellow runners
the wrong idea.

Total distance: 11.3km (although my watch said only
10.63km – stupid autopause!)

Total elevation: 215m

Total time: about 1.45min. Including all our
sight-seeing and gawking stops – for the sunrise over the ocean, not the
nudists! My total ‘running time’ says significantly less – but as with Friday’s
run, the autopause skewed events.

Run #3: Steve Moneghetti’s Fartlek session

After a 90minute paddle in which my poor kayak buddy
was stuck with Miss Gung-ho me in the front (“Of course we can make it
around this island! Let’s just go a little further...” It will be farther if we
try to paddle back now. We should keep going.” “Don’t worry, we’re strong
enough!”), I was ready for a nap! Or maybe it was because I hadn’t slept the
night before. Or the4am wake-up to run this morning.

Regardless, I crashed out in the arvo, hauling myself
out of bed to go to the fartlek training session run by Mr World Champion. To
say I wasn’t in prime condition for this session would be an understatement. I
was one foot out of a catatonic state when I dragged my boneless carcass down
to the beach with the group. We did a warm-up of 2k (I may have cut it a
*little* short, but I was not alone!) followed by a 20min fartlek session, than
a cool down of 2k (or less, for some of us. *Ahem*).

Steve’s fartlek training runs like this: you aim to
do your 5k race pace on the reps, with a slightly slower pace on the recovery.
So if my 5k race pace is 5.00, that is what I run on the reps, while I run
about a 5.30min pace on recovery. The rep-recovery goes as follows:

90-90 x2

60-60 x4

30-30 x4

15-15 x4

Collapse.

I might have added on the ‘collapse’ part. To pretend
I ran at my 5k race pace would be pushing into the realm of fantasy. So
let’s just summarize it into the following:

Total time (including warm up & cool down) 34.22

Total distance: 5.34km

Avg pace: 6.26min

Fastest rep (my first 90sec): avg 4.50. Hmm. A
bit fast. Can’t say the same for the rest of them! Let’s just say I got the
eyeball from Chris (my coach) a couple of times when he yelled out that we were supposed
to be doing the rep. I would have yelled back that I was – if I’d had
breath to spare.

So how was it to work out with a World Class Athlete?
Well, Runner Steve at full speed felt like I was watching dolphins surfing in
the wave – magical, graceful, fast, surreal...and untouchable. Coach Steve was
rather unimpressive. But I suppose that’s why he’s the famous athlete rather
than the famous coach.

GFRS Training Camp: Friday

GFRS Training Camp: completed! 3 days, 4 runs, and over 33km logged. Not bad for being so unfit! As with the 500k relay, I've divided this up into days, as otherwise the blog length would be ridiculously long.
Friday: drove 7 hours to Noosa. Ugh! Construction gave me such a headache (and a 1 hour delay). I got there exhausted, had a short time to myself until 4.30pm and then started Run #1: Beach Run.
Steve Moneghetti was supposed to coach this session, but was unable to make it. So Chris Gale coached us instead. My first ever (official) beach run! We ran to the end of the beach, climbed the cliffs into Noosa National Park (via stairs - not real climbing!) and then headed back.

Total distance: 4.62km++

I can't give you any authentic further details because - as I discovered the next morning - Smart Watches don't always work smartly. In this case, I had mine set to 'autostop'. This is when the watch stops automatically when you are not moving. Great when in the city at traffic lights and street corners. Not so great for climbing stairs when you are not going enough horizontal distance for the watch to register you as moving. And so it pauses everything. Sigh! If only I'd thought of that earlier.
Let's just say the run took about 35min, and was about 5k long. With lots of stairs.
And boy, beach running! I felt muscles I'd never felt before. It made for fantastic conditioning. There may be something to this...