Last night I had my final speed workout of this training cycle. For my last date with the track I did 4 x 1200 meters with a 400m recovery. Despite my legs feeling very fatigued (I ran 48 miles from Thursday through last night), my workout went well. It seems that I really enjoy these longer intervals. Maybe it’s because you don’t do as many of them?

Last night’s workout equated to the same distance (interval-wise) as my first track workout of training. At my first one I did 12 x 400m, which seemed very intimidating. But it also added up to 4800m total for the speed portion, just like last night. And last night I was actually running a bit faster for an extended period of time, and with less rest. I guess that means I have gotten stronger over these past few weeks 🙂

The goal last night was 6:42. My splits came in at: 6:40 / 6:37 / 6:38 / 6:38. It was a bit warmer this week (around 78 degrees), but I still felt pretty good. I’m especially happy with that given that I’m coming off of a 47 mile week, which included a 15 mile long run this past Sunday. With last night’s workout in the books I said goodbye to the track for now.

My Tuesday workouts are not done, however. They’re just moving away from the track. For the next seven weeks, I’ll have strength workouts on Tuesdays. These are longer workouts that are at a slightly slower pace than my track workouts, but still faster than marathon pace. The Hansons describe these are more marathon-specific workouts. The five weeks of speed workouts are meant to prepare you, physiologically, for these longer workouts.

The strength sessions place an emphasis on volume in order to prepare you for the type of fatigue you’ll face while running a marathon. They’re actually double the volume of the speed sessions, with a much shorter relative recovery. I’ll start with 6 x 1 mile with 400m recovery next week (frightening) and gradually build up to 2 x 3 miles with 800m recovery (terrifying).

These workouts are too long to be done on the track. You risk injury when you are making a left turn continuously for 8-10 miles, not to mention it would be really boring. So the Hansons advise that you find a relatively flat section of trail to do the repeats. I have a spot in mind for next week, so we will see how it goes.

What type of workout is your favorite? It seems I enjoy long repeats (greater than 800m) best

My mileage continued to increase this week, but I’ve been feeling pretty good. My legs are in a constant state of fatigue, but they’re holding up. It seems like my calves have been feeling rough since training picked up about three weeks ago. This past week I started putting a focus on lots of stretching, foam rolling, and icing after every run and it seems to be helping.

Oh yea, and I’m halfway through training now. Eeeek!

Monday- Easy 5 miles with Sven (the treadmill). My calves were a bit sore but overall I felt pretty good. I enjoyed watching the first half of the Blind Side while I ran. Football season is finally here (almost)!

Tuesday- 6 mile track workout. This week my intervals continued to increase and I had 5 x 1,000 meters with 400m recovery on tap. I felt really strong during this workout and it was a big confidence booster for me. I’d say this was my best track workout so far during training.

It was in the mid-70’s outside and rained on an off, with steady rain during the last half of my workout. The gnats were really bad and I had them all over my face, arms, and chest. It was disgusting! I kept getting them in my eyes, too, which really sucks.

I completely forgot to check what I was actually supposed to run my intervals at before I left the house (oops!). So instead I just ran them at the same pace all the others have been at. For 1,000 meters that equated to 5:37. My splits were: 5:34 / 5:35 / 5:36 / 5:32 / 5:29. When I got home I found out I was actually supposed to run them at 5:30. But the good news is I was usually backing off right at the end of the interval to come in above 5:30, so I feel alright about that.

Wednesday- Rest day. My kingdom for a rest day!

Thursday- 8 mile tempo run, 10 miles total with the warm up and cool down. This week I jumped from 5 miles to 8 miles for my tempo run. There were a lot of strong storms moving through the area, so I ended up doing this run on the treadmill. Hopefully next week I can do my tempo run outside. There were a few times where our power flickered and the treadmill would kind of stall and then start up again. Luckily I was able to get my run in with no catastrophes. My middle 8 miles were right on marathon pace, which is not surprising since all I had to do was set the speed on the treadmill and run.

Friday- Easy 6 mile run. Once again I ended up on the treadmill (lots of treadmill this week). When I got home from work I was tired and just didn’t feel like running outside. To be honest I didn’t feel like running at all, but I got it done. The treadmill has become very convenient for my occasional introvert tendencies.

Saturday- I decided to take it easy in the morning and sleep in, because my body was really tired. I had a low key morning with the dogs while doing some stuff around the house. Around midday I headed up to do my easy 5 miler on the Huckleberry Trail (about 40 minutes away) because I had other errands to do in the area afterwards.

I had a decent, leisurely run. It’s not hard to hold myself back to my easy pace when my legs are already tired 🙂

Sunday- 15 mile long run on the Dora and New River Trails. Kim joined me for the first 3.5 miles, and then I was on my own from there. I had a pretty good morning for a long run – mid-60’s. It was 100% humidity outside, but it didn’t feel that bad initially.

I was feeling pretty good initially, but then I hit a rough patch shortly after 3.5 miles through 5 miles. I actually stopped when I got to 5 miles and stretched briefly and took some fuel. With my head on straight I continued down the trail to my turn around point (7.5 miles). My turn around point was just a bit after the Draper junction. It’s pretty neat when you run to another town as part of your long run 🙂

I stayed pretty strong from miles 7.5 through 13, but after that hit another rough patch for the final two miles. I fell off my pace a bit but I never stopped or walked, which took a lot of willpower. Overall I finished with an average pace about 10 seconds slower than what my goal long run pace is. But I’m not beating myself up too much. It was a high mileage week (a new personal mileage record, in fact) and I have plenty of long runs ahead of me to nail my pace.

In the evening we celebrated Scout’s second birthday with some puppy ice cream!

Total Miles: 47 miles

 

Today is Scout’s second birthday!

It feels like just yesterday that we brought her home, on a cold day in November when she was 14 weeks old.

Scout enjoys spending her days mainly napping. She’s the lazier of our two lazy dogs.

When she’s not busy sleeping she likes to play with toys….

….and chew on rawhides. She especially loves to chew on rawhides.

She also really enjoys spending time outside, as long as it’s not too cold. Even as a small puppy she would have her nose to the ground tracking things in the yard. Bloodhounds are made to track and it’s a strong instinct for them.

On a warm sunny day she loves to bask in the sun, and will often take a nap on the deck or under our shade tree.

Since the day she stepped foot in our house, she has been in charge. Despite being the smaller of our two dogs, she rules the roost and always has.

Scout enjoys going camping and getting to smell the smells of new places.

But she also secretly likes camping because there is a comfy couch in our camper for her to nap on. Occasionally she even gets to sleep in our bed.

As I mentioned, Scout prefers the warmer weather. She likes the summer time and in the winter she can often be found sleeping under the woodstove in the basement. When she’s upstairs she likes to crawl under the blanket with me on the couch. She’s our little cuddler. But occasionally she also likes to spend short amounts of time outside in the snow.

But she’s most happy when it’s warm and sunny outside.

During Scout’s first year she got a bit underweight because she was growing so quickly, so we started free choice feeding her. But during her second year she stopped growing as much but continued to love to eat 🙂 We had to switch to scheduled feeding because she got a few pounds overweight, earning the nickname “Tubbo.” She now will respond to either Scout or Tubbo. She’s pretty funny when she begs at the dinner table, too.

Instead of putting her chin on the table or her head in our laps, she lays on the floor and growls. When we look down at her she puts a happy look on her face and wags her tail. The growling often goes on during the entire meal.

This year her birthday celebration will include some time spent outside in the backyard, enjoying the sunshine. We may also take a nap (since I have to run 15 miles this morning) in my bed, which is a special treat. Finally, she also will get a new rawhide and possibly a puppy ice cream!

If you have pets, how old are they?

It’s time for another Runners Tell All link-up! This month, the we’re talking about your favorite person to train with and your favorite training plan: What’s the scoop on your day-to-day training? Are you a social runner or do you prefer to run solo? Any training tips?

I’m mostly a solo runner, but mainly because that’s just the way it works out during the week. If there were more running groups in our area, I would probably join in. But on the weekend I often run with my best running friend, Kim.

Kim and I met through our friend, Nicki. She had a blog about running that I came across when I was looking up race recaps for a local race. After clicking around on her blog a bit, I realized she lived in the same area as me and that we ran roughly the same pace. So I emailed her about meeting up. We met up on a Wednesday evening for a run, and Kim was there, too. She had previously met Nicki just by going up to her on a trail 🙂 The three of us began running together in the Fall of 2011. Nicki and her husband moved back to Texas in Summer 2012, and we miss her! Hopefully all three of us can get together for a run the next time she’s here visiting.

As far as my day-to-day running routine, I’m currently training for the Marine Corps Marathon on October 26. So I pretty much run every day except Wednesday. I’m following the Hansons Marathon Method, which involves high mileage and six days of running. Both of those are new for me, but things are going pretty well so far. I was so set in my ways with four days of running per week, with 1-2 days of cross training, and never thought I’d prefer something else. But so far I like the Hansons program better, even though some of the workouts really freak me out.

I’m on week 9 of training this week and it still amazes me that things are going so well. Yes, my legs are pretty much always tired. But through this training plan I’m proving to myself that I can do more than I thought I could.

I still had my doubts after reading the book cover to cover, but their training philosophy makes a lot of sense. Hopefully it will lead to the ultimate payoff and I’ll have a great day on October 26!

Who is your favorite training partner? What type of training plan do you prefer?

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We have been lucky in that our six chickens have been pretty healthy up to this point. But at the end of July (a week before we left for the beach) one of our chickens injured her left leg. She is one of the three that we can’t tell apart, so Barry has decided she’s Lady. We noticed that she was not walking on her leg and was using her wing to try and balance herself. When we picked her up her leg just hung limp. We thought she might have broken it or torn a ligament possibly by landing funny when jumping down from their roosting poles. Luckily, we caught it right around the time it happened.

The other chickens started pecking Lady, as they often will when one amongst them becomes sick or injured. That’s something you have to watch out for with a flock of chickens. When that happens, it’s best to remove the sick/injured chicken so she can heal. And that’s what we did.

For the first few days we kept Lady in an old dog crate in the garage. This kept her safe from the rest of the chickens while allowing her to rest. It also allowed us to keep a close eye on her. We lined the crate with newspaper and then put shavings on top of that. We still have the chick feeder and waterer we used when they were in their brooder box . This gave her easy access to food and water without having to move around much.

During the first few days Lady wasn’t walking at all and would just kind of shuffle herself around the cage. She did, however, continue to lay an egg a day during this time. Towards the end of the week we moved the dog crate into the chicken coop. Chickens don’t do well by themselves, so if you’re able to have them around their flock-mates that’s best. We still kept her in the dog crate, though, because she still needed to be protected from them. Barry put the crate up in the air, so that the other chickens wouldn’t be able to roost on top of it (and drop droppings on her in the process…).

As you can see in the above picture, Lady was standing up a bit by the end of the week. She was still not using her leg at all to support herself, though. But when you held her up in the air she would pull it up against her body. That showed signs of improvement since she wasn’t moving her leg at all earlier in the week. She stayed in the crate in the chicken coop while we were gone at the beach, and Kim looked after her and the rest of the chickens. During this time she stopped laying eggs and lost a lot of weight, probably due to the stress of the injury.

Since we returned home from vacation, Lady has continued to improve very slowly. She will now stand on her leg but mostly does not walk on it. It’s almost like she can’t feel it, as she sometimes stands on her left foot with her right.

We have been taking her out a few times a day to allow her to walk around in the yard. Hopefully it will help her regain strength and she’ll continue to heal.

She still has to be separated from the other chickens for now, though. Meaning she is still staying in the dog crate in the chicken coop when she’s not out in the yard. Three of the other chickens ignore her when everyone is in the yard, but the other two have attacked her once. We are hopeful that they will stop doing this as she continues to heal.

I’ll do another update at some point when there is more to share. For now, we plan to continue to work with Lady a few times a day to get her moving around. We are also planning to give her extra food, like meal worms and a chicken treat I found that has a higher ratio of protein and fat, to help her gain some weight.