Category Archives: 03mi

“28 Minutes of Hell”

0, 03mi, explosive, hell, meter repeats

Start Time: 3/1/08, 8:00am
Location: Washington-Lee High School
Distance: 1 mile & ~2 miles
Total Miles For March: 3

Fred named this one afterwards “28 minutes of hell” and I must admit that I think it’s a pretty accurate description. The idea was as follows:

Run 2 minutes (fast)
Recover 2 minutes
Run 1 minute (faster)
Recover 1 minute
Run 30 seconds (still faster)
Recover 30 seconds

Only you do it four times. Uggghhhh. On the bright side you can do this anywhere because it doesn’t require a track to mark off distance. But it was a pretty kick-butt workout, at the end I felt like I was going to drop.

Backdated Backwards Ladder

0, 03mi, explosive, meter repeats

Start Time: 2/24/08, 8:30am
Location: Sidwell Friends High School
Distance: 1 mile & 1600m & 800m & 400m & 200m & 100m
Total Miles For February: 32

Fred had us run a “reverse ladder” where each distance was faster and faster. Uggghhhh. It was a little gratifying that four of the five of them had me finishing first, although that last one I was trying to just not throw up!

1600m: 5:59
800m: 2:46
400m: 1:09
200m: 29.92
100m: 15.64

Taper + Taper + Taper

0, 03mi, tempo

Start time: 11/6/07, 6:45pm
Location: Thomas Jefferson Community Center
Distance: 3.5 miles
Average pace: 9:49min/mile

This week is the final piece of tapering, with runs scheduled for Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. Tuesday said “35 minutes easy run” so after Sunday’s failed attempt, I decided to try again to discover a 10min/mile pace. (It’s hardest to hit early in a run for me, let along maintaining it.) I really need to be able to do that early on so I don’t crash and burn yet again with six miles to go. This worked much better (9:47, 9:41, 9:53, and 4:58 for the half) although I am still a tiny bit convinced that the track isn’t quite a full eighth of a mile. But still, I feel like progress is being made. (And episodes 1-2 of the Doctor Who story “Marco Polo” were absolutely wonderful to listen to while running.)

Start time: 11/7/07, 8:00am
Location: Wilson Boulevard & Clarendon Boulevard
Distance: 3 miles
Average pace: 9:09min/mile

The idea here was to do another 10min/mile pace (schedulebot: “30 minutes easy run”), but I went running outside and hit two problems. First, my GPS went crazy and I suddenly had no idea what sort of pace I was running, and second, it was just too cold to be bothering with that anyway. So I just ran the distance, took the average of the total time (27:27), and called it a day.

Start time: 11/8/07, 7:45am
Location: Thomas Jefferson Community Center
Distance: 3 miles
Average pace: 8:14min/mile

Today’s scheduled run was a 3-mile tempo, so back to the gym I went for one final circling around the indoor track. The paces were good (8:31, 8:09, 8:02), the audiobook was fantastic (episode 3 of “Marco Polo”), and hopefully? Maybe? Race day here we come.

Fingers crossed!

Proper Distance

0, 03mi, tempo

Start time: 11/1/07, 6:00pm
Location: W&OD Trail
Distance: 3 miles
Average pace: 8:22min/mile

There are times when you can’t help but wonder if you’re judging the distance that you’re running properly. With the past couple of runs being on an indoor track at the community center, I do start wondering if the faster times have to do with not really running as far as you think you are. So Thursday’s quick 3-miler was actually a big relief in that regard, because I didn’t feel like I was pushing too hard but the splits came out accordingly (8:35, 8:33, 7:59). It was also a relief because Dr. Cannon had put some padding under my right foot’s insert, with the instructions to give it a whirl and see how it felt. It felt odd for about half a mile but then everything was fine (and no foot pain, yay). Fingers crossed.

Catching Up

0, 03mi, 04mi, lactate threshold run, rightfoot

Start time: 10/2/07, 6:30pm
Location: McLean High School
Distance: ~3.5 miles
Average pace: 9:15min/mile & 7:00min/mile

You know what happens when you’ve skipped your LTRs for a month? They stink, that’s what. I ended up only doing a little over half of the prescribed amount and then thought I was going to go splat. (This strange “oh look, August temperatures” phenomenon isn’t helping matters either.) Right foot was cramping again, although it eased up after a mile or so.

Start time: 10/3/07, 7:00pm
Location: Wilson Boulevard (Clarendon, Virginia Square, Ballston)
Distance: 4.25 miles
Average pace: 9:11min/mile

Just a quick jaunt up Wilson Boulevard and back. And, yet again, right foot strange cramps were in the house. I’m now wondering if the problem is the new pair of inserts in the shoes, so I swapped the right foot insert out today before going to the gym to use the elliptical and rowing machines. No foot pain, so fingers crossed, a bum insert was the problem! We’ll see on Sunday.

Oh yeah, running

0, 03mi

Start time: 9/13/07, 8:00pm
Location: Arlington Boulevard Trail
Distance: 3 miles
Average pace: 9:12min/mile

So, after Sunday’s run I just didn’t feel like running for a couple of days. Lifted weights and used the rowing machine on Monday, did the elliptical on Tuesday, nothing on Wednesday… but I just needed a break. But, break’s over, so last night I went for a gentle 3-mile run in the pleasant evening air. Nothing big, just a little “don’t forget you’re doing 21 of these on Sundays” sort of thing.

More LTRs

0, 03mi, lactate threshold run

Start time: 8/28/07, 6:00pm
Location: McLean High School
Distance: ~3.75 miles
Average pace: 9:15min/mile & 7:00min/mile

This felt a little tougher than last week’s, but then again… I also had just run 18 miles two days before this most recent iteration. Other than that, nothing to report. Still on pace, still doing well.

Easy Breezy Threezy

0, 03mi

Start time: 8/23/07, 7:30am
Location: Arlington Boulevard Trail
Distance: 3 miles
Average pace: 8:50min/mile

With the 20-miler on Sunday, our normal Thursday tempo run was replaced on the schedule with a 3-mile “EZ” run. Yeah, I can do that just fine. I plotted out a long elaborate route through my neighborhood (a truncated version of my “Clarendon-to-Rosslyn” path up and down Clarendon and Wilson Boulevards), then decided this morning I just didn’t feel like dodging traffic and stuck to Arlington Boulevard instead. A nice run, and even better, the slowest mile was the first one. I can deal with that.

3 minute excitement

0, 03mi, lactate threshold run

Start time: 8/21/07, 6:00pm
Location: McLean High School
Distance: ~3.75 miles
Average pace: 9:15min/mile & 7:00min/mile

So, yesterday’s LTRs pushed the time of the faster speed from 2 minute bursts to 3 minute bursts. Happily, the number of repitiions accordingly dropped from 10 to just 4. It was a piece of cake, happily; the only real problem I had was that it was pouring rain when I got up in the morning to run my LTRs, so I had to wait until after work to do them and it was sort of like running through a big cloud.