Steve in a Speedo?! Gross!

Friday Funny 2387: Parenting Funnies

>> Friday, April 26, 2024

More funnies on SportsAndLaughs.tumblr.com.

Racing a 10K This Weekend!

>> Thursday, April 25, 2024

It's "Get in Gear 10K" season! Time for a gut-busting 10K this weekend. Ugh... I really don't like this distance!

I'm obviously coming off a high from my 5 mile PR at the "Spirit of White Bear Lake 5 Miler" three weeks ago, but I'm trying to temper my expectations for this weekend's 10K. It will be different for 3 reasons:

• This 10K is a bigger race. It was great going out in 2nd place and just keeping the leader in my sights at the 5 miler, but this has a much deeper field, and it might be hard to "run my own race" when there will be SO many people in front of me that I'll (subconsciously) want to catch.

• This is NOT a flat race. The 5 mile race was quite flat. This upcoming 10K isn't HILLY, but it has its challenges. Here's last year's Garmin map (race is clockwise from lower left), and I added GREEN for downhill sections and RED for uphill sections:

The short red sections up to the bridges are steep but short, and
the real noticable hill is the UP then DOWN on the hairpin to the east.

• I ran that 5 mile just about PERFECTLY. I started easy, but not TOO easy. As I explained in a follow-up post after the race, my first mile was 5:57, and then I ran the final 4 averaging under 5:41/mile pace. At the 2022 Get in Gear 10K, I went out a little harder, but then I PAID for it by slowly dying over the final few miles... and it's not like I "suffered" my way to a good finishing time - I was well off where I hoped to finish.

SO MY GOALS FOR THIS WEEKEND?................

Like at the 5 miler, there's a CHANCE to PR. So I'm not ruling that out. I feel great just being able to say that as a 43-year-old. (My "honest" PR is from 15 years ago at 36:46, my fastest Get In Gear was 12 years ago in 36:47, and I ran the 2018 Minneapolis Halloween 10K in 36:30 as a course that measured about 6.1 miles [SHOULD have been more like just under 37:00 as my 2nd faster 10K].)

But (and this is a big BBUUUTTTTTTT), can I run 2 perfect races just 3 weeks apart? That doesn't tend to happen for me. Will the weather be as perfect this weekend as it was 3 weeks ago? Doubtful. (This race has a history of being cold and wet.) Can I keep it at the PERFECT pace for the first 1.5 miles to give myself a chance at a good time without risking blowing up? These are the unanswerable questions right now.

I want to find the right (easy-ish) pace to start, work up the hills letting up the effort a LITTLE, and then really suffer on the St. Paul side of the river to see if I can lay down a good negative split and a fast finish! We'll see what the day (and my legs) holds! Stay tuned!!

Two Hard Workouts: Track Intervals and a Long Trainer Ride

>> Tuesday, April 23, 2024

I finished last week with 2 hard workouts:

First, I hit the track for 4 x (800 meters then 400 meters) with 2:00 rest between everything. I've done this a few times in the past, and here's a post from November comparing 3 of the times I did it last year. I wanted to be fast, but glanced at my Garmin 200 meters into the workout and saw that I was starting pretty slow... I was hoping to see 0:37 or 0:38 (as I run the first half laps a bit faster usually), but instead it was showing 0:41. D'oh. I picked it up for the rest of that interval.

In the end, I ran 800s and 400s that looked like this:

1:21 + 1:18 = 2:39.8
1:14.8
1:18 + 1:16 = 2:34.7
1:14.2
1:17 + 1:16 = 2:34.7
1:12.8
1:18 + 1:15 = 2:33.7
1:13.8

That wasn't too bad. In November, I dropped my 800 times in this workout from 2:41 to 2:36, so this was better as 3 of the 4 were faster than my fastest back then.

Pace and HR you'd expect to see for this workout.

Can you tell my water bottle was placed on the infield? ;)

And then the following day, I found myself doing a long trainer ride. I had HOPED to be outside, but there was lingering snow, and it hadn't warmed up enough by the time I had time to workout. (Initially, I was hearing it would be 50, which would have been great. But then they said lower 40s, and it ended up only being in the upper 30s by the time I was going to work out.)

I hit the trainer not knowing exactly what I was going to do. After a longer warm-up, I thought I MIGHT be able to put up with efforts of 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, and 1 minute. And I was able to hold on to that! That was a total of 2 hours and 12 minutes in the saddle, which was one of my longest trainer rides ever - I think I've just cracked 2 hours a few times. Here was my heart rate, and you can see I took 50% of my "effort" time as easy spinning after going hard (so 10 minutes hard, 5 mins easy, 9 mins hard, 4.5 mins easy, etc):

I tried to keep track, and I think the efforts looked like this:

10: hard
9: hard
8: standing
7: harder gear every minute
6: alternating minutes of standing and seated
5: hard
4: standing
3: alternating mins of standing and seated
2: hard
1: standing

I did a 40 mile ride when I turned 40 a few years ago, then I did 2 hrs and 13 mins on the trainer turning 41 two years ago just before my birthday, and finally 2 hrs and 16 mins on the trainer turning 42 last year about a week after my birthday. So this ride could be a month late ride for my 43rd birthday - an average of 19.5 mph would get me to 43 miles in 2 hours and 12 mins.

5K Training for my Boys

>> Monday, April 22, 2024

My boys are gearing up for a 5K shortly! I took them out this weekend for some longer runs.

Charlie REALLY WANTED to run a 5K on the track, so we hit the Macalester track for 12.5 laps. He thought that would be fun. For some reason...

One lap in!

I've never noticed it's such a "wide" track, with the 100 meter mark being still
well on the curve! It can fit a soccer field in the middle and not just a football field.

In a pretty bad place with 2 laps left...

... but then happy to be done after 12.5 laps!

Crashed on the high jump mats.

He started faster with his first 3 laps being under 3:00 (his first one was 2:23), and then many were over 3:00, around 3:15. He only walked ONCE with 2 laps left, and that made his lap be 3:43. (I wasn't giving him times, and I was just doing it to help keep track of counting the laps.) In the end, he finished 39:47, and his 5K goal is sub-40, so he's there!

Then later, I took Henry out. I only snapped one picture of him as I biked with him:

Down along River Road.

He kept changing his mind with regards to how far he wanted to go: it started out as 2-3 miles, then was a 5K, then was 5 miles, and then finally he settled on going about 4 miles. He was running half-mile splits of 4-4:30, and then walked up a big hill with a 5:00 half-mile split. He covered 4 miles in about 36:30.

Ready for a 5K shortly!!