3 Runs (Sunday, Wednesday, Friday)

Today I went to run at Adam's Township Community Park.  I didn't want to take the 20 minutes to drive to North Park. Poly was on my lap so she delayed me leaving for over an hour and I was pushing how close it was to dark.  I planned to run 5. My goal was 9:30 pace when I started. I decided to play bonus seconds* with a 9 minute pace though.

At the end of the loop (that was slightly over 1.25 miles), I reset my bonus seconds.

There were a lot of walkers and runners out.  The weather was just too good. Even though the windchill said it was 33 degrees, it was still very warm.  Half the loop was sunny and half the loop was shady. It was too warm on the sunny portion and too cold on the shady portion.

Earlier in the day, I saw people running in shorts and short sleeve shirts. This winter weather is purely amazing this year. I'm getting spoiled. 

I did better than my goals. I need to set goals that are harder to meet I guess. I don't go to this park often. My pace was 8:48 on September 21 before Body Pump, but I only did a touch over 1 loop. On August 8, 2010, I did 1 loop with an 8:52 pace.  I might have only done multiple loops 1 other time and that was with Christina.  This all makes me think my goals are too easy. I should quit making goals up off the top of my head and look at past data. I just remembered it was hilly and figured I'd be slower.

The loop

4 loops + a little

On Wednesday, I didn't know where to run. I wanted to run earlier but work got in the way.  Dave wanted to go to the track so we went.  I noticed in lap 1, I was going around in lane 1 but wasn't getting close to .25 so that would mess up my numbers.  I started running all the bends in lane 2.  I still ended up having to run extra at the end to get it to 5 miles.  My right hip started hurting near the end.  I was just running to run. I thought about doing an interval workout to work on speed but my heart wasn't in it.  Some girl showed up shortly after I got there and ran intervals but she didn't seem to have any particular routine to it. Sometimes she'd run 600 sometimes 300 sometimes 700. Sometimes she walked after. Sometimes she crouched down and breathed heavy for a few minutes after and then walked.   It made my 5 miles go quicker trying to figure her routine out.  She would run much faster than I ran but her walking/stopping made it so I'd catch up to her.

I wanted to switch directions but since the other runner was there, walkers were there, and 5 lanes were covered in snow in a portion, I didn't think I should change it up.  I noticed as soon as I was done the other runner swapped directions. 

If you look at the map from the garmin you can see that it didn't quite show I ran in lanes 1 and 2.  Also it doesn't round on the edges.  I zoomed in and you see all the straight lines.  I think my old garmin was much better on a track.  I may google later what other people thought of track workouts and if they thought their data was accurate in the 110 or the 405. I probably won't though.  If you have a garmin, how does the data look on a track?

Sunday I ran at the gym at work because it was about 2 degrees outside.  I wanted to run 15 miles outside. I even had people that I was going to run with if it wasn't so cold.  A treadmill is a lot harder for me to run for long distances. I just don't know how people do it. I did something different this time hoping that it would get me to last longer. I ran 1 mile, walked .1 and repeat.  I ran at a slower speed than normal and trying to go further.  I ended up having to stop at 4 miles to go to the bathroom then as soon as I came back my left hip was hurting.  I think switching the speed every minute (or 2) actually passes the time a lot quicker than what I did here so I probably won't do this method again.

So out of my last 3 runs, my left hip hurt twice and my right hip hurt once.  Also, when I woke up on Thursday morning both of my hips were hurting.  I'm wondering what is going on. I'm wondering if it is over training. My hips hurting is a reason I didn't push speed as much this week.

* for those that forget bonus seconds are when I set a goal and beat the goal each 25 mi, the amount of time I beat the goal become bonus seconds. If I'm slower than the goal I subtract those seconds from the bonus seconds I've accumulated or I end up having negative bonus seconds.  You never want negative.  You want to bank a few extra bonus seconds so if you have to subtract from it, you still have a positive number.