8.26

I woke up to Dave cooking again. He kept trying to wake me up. By the time I was eating, it still wasn't long enough after I woke up so it was so hard to eat. How do people eat in the morning. I just can't do it. Dave made hash browns, bacon, toast, and eggs.  I ate maybe 1/10 of my food.

I watched some TV.  I napped for 5 hours.  We went to dinner.  I used my computer.  We watched some TV.

I didn't want to nap but I was just running out of things to do. Dave was watching some Starcraft tournament and that meant he wouldn't leave or watch TV with me.

I ended up staying up past 3am and finally going into bed and just playing Solitaire to get myself to fall asleep.

8.25 - TV All Day

I woke up to Dave cooking. I forgot to set my alarms so it was close to 9am. I slept well over 9 hours.  Poly was sleeping with me.

I sat at my computer for a little but just didn't feel like it. I was still exhausted.  I feel like that 8 mile run really kicked my butt. I was as exhausted as after running a marathon. Probably because I didn't sleep well Thursday night.

I decided to watch TV on the couch. I watched Rachel Maddow from Friday, the 10th episode of Necessary Roughness, and many episodes of Royal Pains. I had to start Royal Pains on the 5th episode of the season but if I waited longer I'd just miss even more.

I ate leftovers for lunch and dinner. I just watched TV all day.  I started watching Glee and had so many episodes that I kept watching them all until I fell asleep.  I woke up and started the episode again to find my spot then fell asleep again.  I figured it was time to go into bed instead of having a third failed attempt at watching.

8.24

Shirt: Loft (February 2009), Necklace: Lia Sophia, Pants: VS (January 2009), Shoes: Famous Footwear

Shirt: F21 (2012), Necklace: Lia Sophia, Jeans: Express (2006)

I hit snooze a bit.  I interviewed.  I read some Big Brother updates.   I ran (a long run).

Dave and I went to PF Chang's for dinner.  He always wants to share my spicy chicken but I never want what he wants so then I just get less dinner.  I was starving too.

I got back and was basically ready for bed but used the computer a little bit.
Man did that run make me so tired.

8.23

I stayed in bed a couple hours in the morning with Poly. She was just too cute. My laptop was just out of reach but at least I had my iPad. (You should be impressed I cut down the ~60 pictures to just 3.)

After I finally got out of bed, Poly still hung out with me.  I wasn't too productive. I spent a little bit of time going back through run and walk data to update my excel files. I still have some more missing data.  I'll work on it some more here and there.

I watched some TV with Dave after he got home. Poly hung out with me a lot.  I forget if I cooked or not.  I don't remember what I ate. Maybe I guess I need even more pictures of my day or else if I try to write about my day 2 days later, I already can't remember.

Like Father ...

May 7, 2003, I took this picture of my dad. May 9, Dave ended up taking a picture of me.    About a month later, Dave made this photo in Photoshop.   Pretty nice.   People always say how similar we are.

For those that didn't know me in college: I went to RPI which is Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and we called nerds at school Polytechnicians.  Poly got her name because it is short for Polytechnician.

(Note those shorts are shorts I made in sewing class in 8th grade.)

8.22

I woke up bright and early at 6:45 AM to run/walk with Dave.  We did 1.5 miles.   I stayed awake. I used my computer all morning.  Poly was cute and napping on my lap so I didn't get up to eat lunch until 2pm even though I was starving. (During that time I updated 2 years worth of walk data with Dave)

I was up so long before lunch, I got so many pictures of Poly.

I made grilled turkey and cheese and now I'm out of turkey. I sure like it when I get to finish eating something before it gets old.

I went for a run at Bay Trail with Hilary at 5:30. I was surprised how long it takes to get there at 5:30 PM.

I got home, loaded my numbers, showered, and we walked to dinner.  It was 3/4 a mile a way.  I was exhausted by the time we got home. My legs had had it too.  With all that exercise, I was still only 20 ahead of my daily goal (by 10pm). Sad times.

We didn't watch TV at all.

I put on my compression socks hoping that would help my calf soreness. I haven't really done that before but 2 different people recommended it.

I was in bed by 10:30 and playing solitaire under the covers until about 11.

I got pictures of the awards NA-YGN won this year.  I wrote the nomination form before I left Westinghouse but the actually award took place after I left so I had to get someone to show them to me.  They look impressive.

8.21

I basically tore apart the house trying to find my old camera. You know what... it was in the first place I looked. I need to quit doing this.  The camera was right there in the drawer that I thought it was in. I don't know how I missed it when I looked the first time.  I went through every bin or box in the apartment and left them in all the wrong places.

On an interesting note, my old camera will work with the battery my new camera says is dead.  The Eye-Fi card will work in my old camera and it doesn't even overheat.  Therefore I guess it is the camera that is broken and not the memory card and it was just a coincidence that the camera broke when I used the new memory card.  But the new memory card does overheat my new camera more than other memory cards do.  My "new" camera is 11 months old but since I have multiple cameras, that's what I called it.

I tried to take out the trash and take some stuff down to the dumpster but they were busy painting. The only reason the plastic was already torn to come in our apartment was because the maintenance guys came in to fix the air conditioner.  They were double checking ground wires on a bunch of units.  Then they had to test out the a/c before they left.  They commented how cool our apartment is compared to every other one they were in that day. Ours was a few degrees cooler.  I knew it was cold in our place. It was even warmer than most days because I was too cold so I closed the windows early to stop the cross flow.

I ate leftovers for lunch and dinner but also made grilled turkey and cheese for dinner. I finished my SQL book. I organized the closet a little bit. Nothing that exciting.

Week 6 - Training

Previous Summaries

The Smart Coach plan has me doing 3 mi, 6 mi (mile repeats), 2 mi, and 10 mi

Hal Higdon's have me doing 4 mi, 4 mi (tempo), 3 mi, and 10k race (plus lifting)
The other Hal Higdon one has me doing 4 mi, 2 mi, 4 mi, and 5k race

This week I have done 5 mi (tempo), 5 mi, and 8 mi.   See details below.

Monday: Since I missed my tempo run on the weekend I did it Monday. I'll miss a different run this week but figured the tempo shouldn't be skipped. 

The training plan suggested doing a 9 minute pace but last time I felt like that was too slow. I asked a friend and her recommendation was 8:20.  She didn't think it would have been that fast but based on recent run times I gave her, she said I should go for 8:20.  Since it was sunny and I didn't drink any water all day, I figured I'd go for 8:40 but with a reach goal of closer to 8:20.   I hear tempo runs are supposed to be challenging but manageable but that doesn't help me much.  My friend said that I wouldn't be going all out but that I would want to drop back.  That's pretty much how I felt on the run today so maybe I did an alright job.  If there was shade, it was so much nicer to run in. Too bad the only shad was about 100 yards worth in the park portion of my run. 

I pretty much felt dead after my run.  I'm taking that as a good sign.  I get a little bit bored on the streets around my apartment but I was afraid to try a tempo run at the trail since I run slower when it's not pavement.

Tuesday: Rest (Dave wanted to go for a walk but I didn't want to so that I could rest my calves.)

Wednesday:  I woke up bright and early and went for a run/walk with Dave.  We did 1.5 miles.  Normally I don't count my run/walk miles as running miles in my totals but maybe I should start.  I ran 5 miles in the evening with Hilary.  We were going to do 5-6 miles and did 5.  Later I walked to dinner with Dave and got another 1.5 miles in. 

I set my Garmin to 9:35 target pace since that is what Hilary and I ran last time.  We beat that.  We also added a mile.  It was really windy this time.  With 2 miles to go, my Garmin went crazy and the bezel kept clicking around. Now I know what other people talk about when it is overly sensitive.  I will lock it next time and see what happens. I set up virtual partner and I had been looking at it more than normal to update Hilary (even though I don't think she cared). But when I run on my own, I do my pace in my head and don't ever flip over to the virtual partner.  It got so messed up that it was stuck on the to location screen for awhile. I believe this slowed us up but then we picked up the pace after I got annoyed with it.  Before it went crazy, Hilary's watch was only.01 different than mine.  After that mess it got off by .06. I slightly adjusted the results to show the 5.06 that hers said we ran. 

I put on my compression socks around bed time and slept in them because my calves were already bothering me.  

Thursday: Rest  (I knew I had to rest because of being on my feet so much on Wednesday.  I probably could have lifted but I ended up not.)

Friday:  I will start off by saying I had 1 can of Diet 7up and ~1 oz of water all day prior to the run.  Because of that I thought it might be a bad idea to try mile repeats for the 2nd time in my life.  So then I decided I'd do a long run. I chilled in the car for over 10 minutes because I didn't really want to start. I just wasn't feeling it. I even noticed myself falling asleep in the car.   

Finally I got started and set out with a 9:30 pace goal in mind. I played bonus seconds in my head.  I knew I had a really good first mile and a good but not as good 2nd mile. Then somehow I sped up and seemed to keep doing it. I thought I would crash and burn at 5 miles since that's basically all the distance I had been doing.  I did not.  The 4th and 5th miles were all against the wind. The wind was very loud too.  I still can't believe my times were so good.  In the last mile, I was feeling though. I was getting very tired.  I kept it up though to finish.  I ran until .11 thinking that would take me at a minute into the 9th mile but I was going too fast for that.   It's not everyday that my worst split is only 1 second after my goal for each .25 (especially when that .25 goal would have put my mile pace 2 seconds better than my real goal.  And especially when the number rounds up to that number versus being round down)

My last long run was about a mile shorter but took almost 2 minutes longer!

I can't believe how exhausted an 8 mile run made me. I feel as fatigued as  I did the day of my marathons. 

Saturday:  Rest (and I was exhausted)

Sunday: Rest (I was just lazy.  I mean I was so lazy I took a 5 hour nap.)

Total Miles: 18.23 (I'm the most happy with this mileage of any week so far)
Total everything else: weights once (Monday), a few walks, plus a run/walk with Dave.
Total suggested by training plans: 21, 17, or 13.

Final Thoughts:
I started off with my missed speed workout from Week 5 but then I got myself screwed up for runs the rest of the week because of my sore calves.  Yet another week I only ran 3 times and I even told the Smart Coach I'd only run 4 days a week. I don't know how I only run 3 days a week.  I wish my calves wouldn't bother me. I've been forcing myself to take it easy so they don't get worse.  I wore my compression socks twice this week after tough runs. 

8.17

I woke up at 7. Well Dave woke me up at 7 trying to show me an email on my phone. He had a hunch so he checked my email and sure enough I did have an email from the recruiter wanting to schedule my on-site interview.

I worked out with Dave.  Got back, drank water, and ate half a protein bar.  I knew I was weak from the lack of food on the 16th.    Then I set out and ran 7 miles. They were 7 awful miles.

I used my computer when I got back but ended up lightheaded.  I ate a frozen dinner of macaroni and cheese for lunch.  I watched Necessary Roughness.  I did laundry.

I did a few things on my to-do list. I read facebook. I read Big Brother feed updates.  I played with data in R.  Man did I have fun with that.  There will be a post with those eventually. I just want to make some improvements and fill in some missing data.

At 5:45 Dave IMed me. I asked him if he was home. I thought he would be. I was just getting ready to stalk him on my phone (Find my Friends app).  This was the conversation that followed:

(5:49:53 PM) Dave: it's friday remember
(5:50:04 PM) gmail: oh
(5:50:05 PM) Dave: but i didn't go back to my desk
(5:50:06 PM) gmail: nope
(5:50:07 PM) gmail: i didn't know
(5:50:14 PM) Dave: you didn't know it's friday?
(5:50:21 PM) gmail: no wonder someone asked me what my plans are for the weekend
(5:50:27 PM) Dave: look at you
(5:50:32 PM) Dave: unemployed and fancy free
(5:50:37 PM) gmail: here i was thinking i had to finish playing with data because you'd be home
(5:50:50 PM) Dave: lol

Dave and I met at Five Guys for dinner.  As soon as we got home, we watched Big Brother.

Nerd x3

It's amazing how my  data has progressed in R.  I really wish I kept all the data as I went. It would have saved me so much time the last few days. 

All the graphs that say Dave Only are the times that I walked or ran with Dave. He did some walks without me and some walk/runs without me but I don't have those so they aren't included.

8.20

 I slept in. I did some stuff at the computer. I made lunch. I relaxed. I finally went for my run.  I had issues getting my new Garmin to pair with my ANT+ stick but eventually got that working.   As I was about to get up to go lift weights, Poly sat on my lap. I was basically forced to continue sitting there so I read Big Brother updates.   Finally at 5:30 I went to the gym for a quick 20 minute lifting routine.  Then I hurried back upstairs and got in the shower. I just got in the shower by the time Dave got home.

I had leftovers for dinner and he had Ramen.  Then we watched some TV.

At 8, we went for a walk. It was dark but the street lights helped on all but one little portion of the one road.

I ended up going to bed at 11. Go me.

I'm very upset about my new Eye-Fi card.  It was a refurbished one. It would overheat and drain the battery in 4 pictures.  Now I'm using my other Eye-Fi card again that is for my Rebel but 1 battery won't even hold a charge long enough for one picture.  The other one maybe lasts 4.  I'm so mad right now.  I want to find my old Canon to see if it is battery or camera related.  It all started with the faulty Eye-Fi card.  (After finding my camera, the memory card seems to work in  my old camera.)   I have started to use instragram more since I've had to resort to using my phone to take pictures.

8.19

I'm getting really good at not taking my daily picture at all.  Too bad this is not something I wanted to get good at.

Dave and  I didn't do much.   My calves hurt so I missed my run.  I also didn't work out at all.  Dave read a lot. We didn't cook.  We watched some TV.  We watched the Steeler game.  A very uneventful day.

8.18 - Cooking

 Dave and I cooked 2 out of 2 meals I ate. Pretty good. Dave had a 3rd meal of cereal but I slept in too late to end up eating breakfast.

We finally went to Goodwill and made what I think is our last of the Goodwill donations.  There are still a few boxes left so there might end up being more.   We went to the recycling place.  I hate that. So you pay an extra 5 cents per can and 10 cents or something per bottle when you buy drinks then you go and recycle them after to get your money.  Except it isn't like NY at all. There seem to be few places that do it. You go there and ask what you do and nobody answers you.  You watch some people and figure some stuff up but still aren't sure.  You wait what seems like forever even though only a couple people are there.  They weigh everything so then you end up with some money that isn't divisible by any can/bottle amount. Then you think that 40 minutes of your life was not worth the 3.81 that you just got.   It almost makes me not want to recycle. It was super annoying.  Now I know why people end up with garbage bags full.  It's because you try to go as long as you can before turning them in.   I still have to recycle other things.  I hear apartment complexes have to provide recycling. I haven't figured out how or where to do it. I also haven't asked.

We finally took our color printer to the storage room.  It's been sitting in the way the entire time we've been here.  We don't have room to hook it up but I want to keep it.  It is also really heavy.  It is now in our basement storage area. We are the slowest people at progressing with moving than anyone I know.

After that we bought gas and the gas station didn't accept credit cards. It was so weird.

We went to Whole Foods and Safeway to get ingredients to cook dinner.   We made Baked Penne.


1/2 lb. extra-lean ground beef or Italian Sausage  - We used 1/3 lb Sweet Italian Sausage and 1/3 lb ground beef.
1/2 cup chopped onions 1/2 cup green peppers - We didn't measure. I think it was more than 1/2 cup green peppers. It seemed about 1/2 c of onions but I wish there was more
1 jar(24 oz.) spaghetti sauce
1 tub(10 oz.) Philadelphia Italian Cheese and Herb Cooking Creme, divided (I used reduced fat)
1 cup Kraft Shredded Mozzarella Cheese, divided - Probably used a little bit more
3 cups cooked penne pasta - just poured in the entire box of wheat penne

Heat oven to 350°F.

Now I felt the directions were pretty vague for making this on the website. I added some notes in parenthesis.
Brown meat with vegetables in large nonstick skillet. Stir in spaghetti sauce, 3/4 cup cooking creme and 1/2 cup mozzarella; cook and stir 2 to 3 min. or until mozzarella is melted. (Cheese melted right away but we cooked the sauce a bit longer first) Add pasta; mix lightly. Spoon into 2-qt. casserole (we totally filled our 2.5 qt casserole dish); top with remaining cooking creme and mozzarella (we also put Romano and Parmesan on top). Cover. Bake 20 min. or until heated through, uncovering after 15 min.

Now we used way more pasta than it said and I still felt that it was too saucy. Next time we said we'd use more meat and more onions.  We'd put less cheese on top because we didn't care for it like that. We added TONS of spices to the veggies, meat, and sauce. So we did that at 3 separate times.  There was no mention of spices in the original recipe.   Make sure you salt the meat when cooking it.  Dave actually cooked the meat and veggies but I asked him what he did.

Put oil in the pan and get it hot. Put in onions, salt, and pepper.  Then put in peppers, salt, and pepper.  Put in meat, salt, pepper (more salt on the beef). Stir and break it up good.  Let it cook for awhile.  When it is about done add basil, garlic, and spices for about 30 seconds. Then put in the sauce. Stir. Then more Italian seasoning was added. Once it was boiling, turn it down and simmer for about 20 minutes.

The toasts were delicious.  I didn't want garlic on mine so they are just butter and cheese.  Dave's have butter, garlic, mozzarella, Romano, and Parmesan.

We watched TV after dinner and I still ate the rest of my cheesy toast. I sat on the couch eating it. I figured it wouldn't be good leftover.  I love to make garlic toast or toast from a fresh loaf of bread.  It is way better than the box of Texas Toast that you buy in the freezer section.    I love eating pasta and bread.  I would eat it everyday.  Some people cook pasta because it is easier but I cook it because I love it. Also making meat sauce or meatballs and fresh toast make pasta not as easy if you just open a jar and boil the pasta.

I did read some of my SQL book around bedtime and I ended up staying up extra late.  It was just too easy to keep learning.

Nerd x2

Well I was unhappy with my data from a few days ago so I dug out my old excel files and did some updating and now graphed 3.5 years worth of data.  (The type of runs aren't all updated for past years.  Also who isn't fully updated either.  It's basically impossible to remember what type of run it was 3 years ago.)

The disclaimers from last time are still in effect.  I know this data isn't perfect.

I need to run more with people to get more data here.  I did go back and add a bunch of runs with Kelly and all the runs with Jen. I was able to figure those out but it was time consuming.  Too bad years ago I didn't think of all the stuff I'd want to track.  Back filling out data is hard work.  My runs with Callie are deceiving. It makes it seem like she's slow but really two of those are at a very high elevation that is hard to run in for me and another one we were running on extremely muddy trails and had to climb over some trees.

Before I thought there should be more of a trend that if I ran further I would run slower.  Look at 2010 and 2011.  That's the data I was talking about.  In 2012 I was injured for almost all the months of it so that makes sense too. In 2009, I started off running after knee surgery so I ran .5 or 1 mile at a time and really slow and I slowly increased and improved time so that trend also makes sense.   The labels wouldn't show up right on the graph with the years. If I changed one of the points to something with letters, then it would work but then I had 5 graphs so I just went with manually labeling this one.

What do you think?   My brother told me this is all ridiculous.

Nerd x3 post

8.16

I started my morning not feeling great. I thought it was allergies so I bagged my run.  I did a few things on my to-do list but just didn't feel like sitting at my computer.

I ate some cereal for breakfast at 11:15 and watched TV.  I used my laptop there for a little bit.  I was freezing. I wore my hoodie with the hood up plus Dave's hoodie with the hood up.  I had a blanket plus an afghan on.  I wasn't warm until Poly decided to share her body heat.   I napped about 2 hours.  

I slept through lunch (but had a late breakfast) so at 4:30 I ate a little pub cheese.   When Dave got home, I didn't want to eat. I had warned him so he brought a sandwich from Google.   We watched some TV.

We both went to use our computers but I was miserable again. I decided to nap on the couch and watch TV.    I napped another 2+ hours.   I woke up to go into bed. Well Dave woke me up when he turned off the TV.  The sound of it turning off is loud.   We ended up talking on my way to bed, in bed, so I didn't fall right to sleep. I know if I nap I can't talk on my way to bed or I stay up for hours.  Yet I did it anyway.  Then I couldn't fall asleep until 3.  I read my email, played solitaire, read big brother feed updates, read facebook, and played more solitare. I stopped a few times and put the iPad down but then after tossing and turning I picked it back up again.

8.15

Since I have been spending so much time reading and learning, I needed to clean desperately.  I woke up and started doing that with breaks of sitting at my computer to check my email.  I did wake up to 25 emails and most were from actual people.  I finally carried some stuff down to our storage room.  I carried the recycling to the car. (Maybe one of these days we'll recycle it.)  I carried our Goodwill donations to the car too. I might have made 6 trips downstairs.

We got our grill back.  They opened our balcony days ago but we were waiting for the contractors to get it back to us.   Now we just have to buy propane and we can cook on the grill.  Well it's scary high out there (to me anyway).  So maybe I'll make Dave cook until I can somehow get more used to it out there.  Dave even said it was slightly scary for him because he's too tall for the railing.  I told him now he has me even more scared.

I did laundry and used my drying rack outside on the balcony.  I believe this is the first time I will have clothes dried outside in all my life. I had to put one shirt under another shirt because it kept blowing off the rack.

I talked to my mom on the phone for an hour.

I made grilled turkey and cheese for lunch and then the same thing for dinner. I made Dave grilled ham and cheese.  He tells me it is supposed to be grilled cheese with a touch of ham not grilled ham and cheese. I said to me there should be a substantial amount of ham.  What is your opinion on this?  I made mine about an inch thing with meat but knew Dave wouldn't like that so his was less than half that. He still said it was too much.  Too bad I didn't have a picture of his to compare to mine. I almost called my  grilled turkey and cheese a turkey melt but I think they have more things on them which I didn't have.

I cleaned off the counter height counter and most of the normal counter today.  It was the first time the junk has been off of there since we moved in.  Now I want it to stay neat.  I doubt that will happen.  As soon as Dave came home, he opened a package and had the box, fan, packing material, and receipt already all sprawled out over it.   I also swept and mopped the kitchen floor and vacuumed the rest of the apartment.  It is nice to see stuff clean but boy do I wish it would just magically get clean.

Our hallway is finally clean going into the office. Stuff accumulated there that needed to go down into storage.

After dinner, I went for a run. I almost forgot too! I finished a few minutes after 8 and it was still light enough for my liking.

I showed Dave stuff I did with all my photoshopping skills on the running pictures. Then he got distracted and said he knew how to fix something.  Over an hour later he was still sitting at my computer doing stuff in Photoshop. I also showed him how to remove the signs on the edge of the trail.  He was impressed.

Here's an example of a before and after that I showed him. I'm impressed by it. I'm no professional so my standards are lower. It doesn't take that long to edit the photos but my problem is that I go in and edit all 150 instead of picking the best 5.  What do you think of the photos above?  Can you pick out everything I removed?

We watched Big Brother.  Then I went back to my computer to work on all the little things on my to-do list. I really don't know what people do that don't use a computer all the time. I feel like there isn't much else to do around the house.

I accidentally stayed up past 3am and still only got 72% of my to-do list done.  There were more things I could have done but the time wasn't worth it at that late in the day.  I wanted it to be my top completion and it's tied with 7th. Maybe someday I'll post my To-do list completion percent graph.

Week 5 - Training

Previous Summaries

The Smart Coach plan has me doing 3 mi, 5 mi (tempo), 2 mi, and 10 mi

Hal Higdon's have me doing 4 mi, 4 mi (400 repeats), 3 mi, 3 mi, and 8 mi (plus lifting)
The other Hal Higdon one has me doing 4 mi, 2 mi, 4 mi, 40 min cross, and 6 mi

This week I have done 3 mi, 3 mi, and 7 miles.   See details below.

Monday: I went out to run in the evening.  I was debating not running because I felt I should be doing something else. Then I thought more about it and realized runs are short.  I was going to run 2 miles since that was a minimum suggestion for the week.  Then I thought that why should I start with the least. Every time I run, I should run as far as I can that day (within reason/training plan) so that I don't end up with too many longer runs pushed together at the end of the week.    It was starting to get dark and the last mile or so was past my comfort zone but I stayed in the well lit park.

I ended up finishing near my door at 3.03 and when I run 3.03 I might as well make it a 5k. I did that but then realized I still can't get in the door near me so I started the timer back up and ran to the other door.   The first 2 splits were my worst but I still thought I made my 9 minute pace but my 2:18 was really 2:18.7 and other splits were on the high end so when I guessed that each split was .5 higher I was still wrong. I was close though.   I set out to run a 9 minute pace and hit 8:50. I set out to run 2 miles and ran 3.15.  I could tell the 3rd mile was harder but I was also going faster.   I am so glad I still have my old Garmin to use while my new one is being shipped back.

Tuesday: Rest (Well Dave and I went to the trail to take pictures so I got a touch of running in.)

Wednesday:  Since I didn't run in the morning because I was waiting at home for our grill to be delivered, I ran in the evening.  Since it was late and I didn't have time for the full speed workout, I thought I'd do the other easy day. I set out to run 2 miles but maybe 3.  I was going to do it slower to rest up my legs for a run Thursday morning.  

I planned 9:30 pace. After the first 2 splits, I was not doing well.  I got a 2:25 and 2:26 (really 2:25.8 and 2:26.8 so even worse than I thought) and my goal was 2:21. Starting out a run with penalty seconds is never good for me but then I made it all up in the follow 2:11 split.  The weather was cool that even for the first 2 miles I was chilly.  I almost went back at 2 miles but figured what's an extra mile and I need to get these extra miles in when I can.

This is my second run in a row that I got better with each mile.  I got lucky both times crossing the main street because people were already waiting at the cross walk and they already hit the button.

All these fast times recently have me curious what I should make my tempo run pace.

Thursday: Rest


Friday:  I moved my long run to Friday since I had been missing them in the past. The bad news is I still need to get in my speedwork for the week. 

I set out to do 9:30 pace and then switching to 9:40 pace  even though Smart Coach says to do 10:35 pace.  I changed to 9:40 before even looking at my watch.   I started out at a 9:51 pace. I thought that was bad but then my next split had me at a 10:46 pace.  It was just all around bad.  I tried to speed up and only managed a 10:20 pace for the 3rd split. 

My legs felt like lead.  I wanted to quit but I didn't. Before leaving the house I wanted to do 7 miles or 7.1 miles. (The .1 is because I ran/walked with Dave right before and we did 1.4 miles so technically I would get 8.5 miles on my legs.)  

I  would have done the distance perfectly but instead of standing waiting for the walk sign I just kept doubling back on the sidewalk.  I always hate to turn around because all the distance doesn't get accounted for so the Garmin says your speed is slower than it really is but I figured I could get an extra little bit and that'd help my overall mileage.

When I ran/walked with Dave, I wore a long sleeve shirt. It felt cold. When I was standing outside waiting to acquire satellites, I still had on my long sleeve shirt and I was still chilly. I thought that was a good sign that the run would be cool. Man was I wrong.

Saturday:  Rest

Sunday: Rest (I was going to do my speed workout but I woke up and my calves were killing me. I decided it was better to rest them now than to make them get worse.)

Total Miles: 13.73 (Not happy with this.  An extra .25 is there to guess what I ran the day Dave took pictures of me running.  I did wear my Garmin but I paused it to change lenses and I forgot to unpause a few times. Also I walked with Dave to next photo spot and had it running)
Total everything else: just a few walks plus a run/walk with Dave.
Total suggested by training plans: 20, 21, or 16.

Final Thoughts:
I started off another week well and then fall apart on the weekend. I missed my speedwork this week but didn't miss my long run.  Sigh. I should miss an easy run.  I'll try that if my calves start to feel better. 

R - I'm a Nerd

I have recently discovered R.  R is a free software environment for statistical computing and graphics. I just learned about it recently. I started playing it in. I should probably do a few tutorials because I don't really know anything now.  I probably know less than 1% about the program and yet I still have fun with it.  When I started plotting, I emailed people to tell them about my plots. I'm pretty sure they all think I'm crazy.

If you want to make a histogram, they look way better in R than in Excel. 

I did graph a few things.  Most things I have done you can do in Excel, but then R takes it a step further and lets you do a little more.    Note the regression line. It isn't really that accurate.  Before creating these plots, I assumed that the further I ran, the slower I ran. I thought it would be distinct. As you can see it is not.

Then I thought about it and thought that sometimes I run with other people and I might run at their pace (slower or faster) so I figured out how to do some plots with Who I ran with too.

I like these plots a little more.  You can sort of see that the further we ran, the slower we ran.   I'm not quite sure why my runs with Jen increased so much. I think it might be because at the beginning we went slower and did 4.5 miles but then as we got better, we started going further but we were also in better shape.

Note:

1. In my base data, if I ran with more than 1 person, I only listed 1 person.
2. If I ran 1/3 of the run with someone else and 2/3 on my own, I listed the other person
3. Most of the times that I ran/walk with Dave, I did not put them in my base data.  If I ran/walked with him then ran on my own, then I put it in the file. 
4. I would have graphed the mile pace versus mph but couldn't figure it out.
5. I have run with more people but if I only ran with them once or twice, I removed them. I kept Jill on because I liked that regression line.
6. I had to go back and fill out half of March, April, and May last night because I was slacking off back then. So I might have missed running with someone. 
7. Update: Someone pointed out that the lack of trend could also be because I've run when injured.

 I need to make a file with only my data with Dave and not when I ran on my own before/after.

On a side note when I was going through the data, I had all the distances written in my file but not the total time. I was using my Garmin tabs to fill that out if I filled those out. A few weren't on there so I made a guess. Then once I realized since I ran it on the treadmill, it might be in my running notebook. It was. And I was 1 second off from my guess!   Then later I had another one I didn't know and guessed. Then I realized it might be on the Garmin site. It was. I was 1 second off again. Both of my guesses were 1 second too slow.  Maybe I don't even need all this data since apparently I can guess. Or maybe all the data, helped me guess the missing times.  I based my guess on where I ran and the time of year so I knew what shape I was in. I also know that treadmill runs tend to be faster because they weren't as hilly.

Time to look into this program some more to see what else I can do.  I have a lot of files of data but they don't mean that much so it's hard to play with the program to see what cool things to do. I just need more data.  I need to run more to get more data. I need to run with Hilary more times so she can be included.  I need to do other things (I just don't know what) so I can get more data.  Any suggestions?

Nerd x2 post
Nerd x3 post