Maria's Running Blog

No running - Moving Day. It was crazy, we stayed up all night, ran out of boxes, but got it all done in time. The move was only 1 mile from our old place, but the pain is almost the same as our move from NJ to CA, or from NJ to the UK! Now there are 30 boxes and 6 suitcases all over the apartment, but at least we don't have to unpack them all right away.

In the evening had to go to the old apartment to clean up. I was really dead by the evening with the lack of sleep and all the stress. Thank God it's over! The good news is that we like the new place and the neighborhood much more than the old one.

Again, was very busy with unpacking and settling in, but decided to get out for a run anyway, because I can be this busy every day for the next month. I wanted to do a long run, but being extremely tired and also at 8:30PM, I figured I should do about 10 miles if I want to get any sleep.

I tried a new route to Regents Park from the new apartment, and I think it's a good one. It's measured 0.75 mi. on Garmin, so I think I'll start around the corner to make it 0.8 in the future. I have to stop for 3 or 4 lights on the way, but it's not bad for central London, then I can just run inside the park or on the outside perimeter with only 2 lights in 2.75 mi. loop. I did 3 loops yesterday, and then ran back home. One stretch of the road is really dark, and another stretch goes inside the pedestrian path that has tall concrete walls on both sides, so it's a bit uncomfortable running in it at night, because it's so dark, but it's only for 50m or so.

Total time: 1:27:xx (have to check the watch to make sure).

I was determned to run, but things didn't go my way at all. First, the London tube maintenance workers union called a strike at 5PM, right in the middle of rush hour. Out of 12 underground lines, only 3 were left running. Luckily for me, one of them was my line, but it was extremely crowded, traines were delayed, and general chaos ensued as millions of people tried to get home from work. In addition, my managers called a meeting at 5PM, and I didn't even get out of the office till 6:15!! By the time I got home, it was 8:30 (and I was still lucky as others took 3+ hours to et home), I was absolutely starving and exhausted and couldn't even think about getting out for a run.

The strike is supposed to last till Friday morning, so I'm in for a fun week. I could have worked from home, but because we just moved, we still don't have internet connection (or phone land line) at home, so I wouldn't be able to do anything, not even dial in for conference calls!

I managed to get home at 7:30 PM, having spent 1:35 on my commute. The strike continues to affect everyone, and even though my line is running, I'm missing my National Rail train due to local street traffic getting to the station on the way back home. In the morning, it's okay for some reason.

So, I had a quick bite, and got out before it became too late for any sort of workout. I ran about 20 min. warmup, and then did fartlek, 6x (3'on +3'off). My Garmin never picked up the signal, so I didn't know my pace, but I just ran hard at what felt like 5K pace. By the 5th and 6th reps, I was very tired, but generally I felt much better and more efficient than last week.

Total time: 1:01:55 (8:43 pace).

Easy run. I ate shortly before going out, and felt heavy and sluggish as a result. It's tough for me to balance eating and running in the evening. Maybe I should go back to just having a Powerbar before my run - it seems to sit best without giving me the heavy bloated feeling.

I plodded through the first loop of Regents Park, Garmin still dead (only watch function), but it felt like I was doing over 9 min. pace. Legs felt tired. Thought of doing just 1 mile of the second loop and turning back, but when I got to the turn-around point, decided to keep going for a full second loop. My mileage has been so dismal lately, I might as well try to keep it up as high as I can. I started feeling a little better on the second loop and my pace quickened as well.

Total time: 1:03:29 (8:56 pace).

Ran fartlek again, but this time I did 7 x (2' on + 2' off). Felt surprisingly very decent, and was able to push the pace pretty well. Garmin caught signal about 2 miles into the run, so I got all the fartlek splits:

2:08 - 7:38 pace
2:06 - 7:16
2:01 - 7:01
2:03 - 6:57
2:01 - 7:01
2:01 - 7:11
2:07 - 7:04

I wore new pair of Mizuno Wave Riders, and they really make a diffrence in how I feel - they are great shoes for faster running, light and not as soft as Nimbus, so I can feel the road better, and they give me a nice push-off. It may all be psychological, but it works for me, so I'll take it!

Total time: 1:01:38 (8:40 pace).

Easy pre-race run plus some strides. Maybe I ran a little too late (the race is Sunday 10:30 AM, and I ran at 5 PM), but I don't think it will matter. Ran 1 loop around the park, and did 4x100m strides. Felt okay, but not super.

On the way back, I saw a hige mob of people blocking the sidewalk right in my path! When I got closer I realised that the crowd was for members of English National Cricket Team, as yesterday was a big cricket match, and the team headquarters are apparently very close to my house (as is Lord's Cricket Grounds, a landmark). The team was boarding the bus to go the game, and all the people were trying to snap pictures or maybe get an autograph. There was absolutely no way to run through them, and I had to go around in the middle of the road.

Total time: 39:47

Ran one of my key races this season, the Middlesex AA Championship 10K in Victoria Park. This is competition between clubs, so the field was pretty top heavy, small numbers and absolutely no frills. Not even water at the finish, and no clock at the finish either. Timing was manual, no official results yet, so my time is from Garmin (which kicked in about 0.1 mi into the race).

I had no expectations given my crazy training last month (or lack thereof). I thought I would be lucky to get 47 min, so I'm happy with my time. I also ran a good race, paced it well, and had a strong finish. Generally, the effort was getting harder as I went, but I was able to maintain the same pace, and I'm pleased with that. The course was great, 3 loops in the park, only one sharp turn, and only one noticable incline, for all practiacal purposes it is a flat course. Conditions were perfect as well, so today was a PR day. I will remember this race for next year - hopefully I will be in better shape and can have a shot at PR there.

Here is how it went:

1km - 4:36, 0.53mi (Garmin kicked in late)

2km - 4:44, 0.63mi (7:32 pace)

3km - 4:37, 0.62mi (7:31 pace)

One woman passed me here, and I briefly thought of latching on to her, but then decided to stick with my comfortably hard pace - 3km is too early to surge, especially in my poor surrent shape. I never caught this woman, but I shortened the gap by the end and finished about 50-60m behind her.

4km - 4:45, 0.65mi (7:19 pace)

From time to time I'm passing people who started too fast and are paying the price now. I'm glad I am holding it steady.

5km - 4:42, 0.63mi (7:28 pace).

It starts getting harder for me and I'm wodering if I started too quck. But my pace stays constant.

6km - 4:41, 0.64mi (7:19 pace)

8km - 9:27, 1.27mi (7:27 pace)

I never saw 7km marker. I'm beginning to struggle, but still catching up to and passing some people. No one is passing me.

9km - 4:35, 0.64mi (7:13 pace).

I'm trying to speed up in these last 2 kms, and I do have something left. Definitely hurting now, but hanging on and trying to finish strong.

10km - 4:27, 0.63mi (7:05 pace)

In this last km, I caught up to a guy from my club and we engaged in a duel for about 100-150m. It was great, neither one of us wanted to yield, he was a big guy, and probably not happy about woman passing him right before the end, so he fought hard. But he was redlining and breathing like he was having an asthma attack, so when I sped up even more, he just couldn't hang on anymore. But I heard his wheezing all the way to the finish, so he was probably only 10m or so behind me. This little duel helped me to finish strong.

I'm happy with this race. Considering my current condition, this is about the best I could have hoped for. I felt faster than my last 10K in June, and I felt much better. That time I started too fast, and then suffered after only 3K, but this time I ran controlled all the way, and felt tons better.

P.S. I just saw that my first 5K was 23:24 and second 5K was 23:14, a tiny negative split. Yet, I notice that every time I run a negative or even split, I feel so much better in a race, then if I do positive splits. It may not necessarily yield faster times, but I certainly feel stronger. And for me, negative or even splits usually produce fastest possible time as well. Except, maybe, in 5Ks.

Easy run still at daylight! I am in training class again, and instructor let us off at 4:30PM, so I was home by 5:45. It was nice to run inside the park, and not on the outside perimeter next to all the cars. The bad news is that tomorrow I have certification exam, and I need to study tons of material still (being an internal class, we're covering 5 days of material in 3, which means large portions are skipped in class and left for self-study!).

Total time: 56:13 (8:55 pace). I felt some discomfort my right hamstring a little, also felt it yesterday at the end of the race. I hope it goes away soon. 

Today was progression run. Most of the run was easy, and after about 45 min. I picked up the pace to ~ 7:40-7:50 for 11:08. Not sure on the distance since Garmin was out of commission again (but it woke up for my cool down). I wonder why I even bother with it anymore, it's been terrible last few weeks. Afterwards, cooled down from the park home at about 9:00 pace.

The good news is that I passed my certification test yesterday!

Total time: 1:01:42 (8:41 pace).

Long run, total time: 1:49:59 (8:47 pace).

Ran progression run, last 11:18 at half-marathon pace. Don't know the pace, Garmin never kicked in.

We finally have internet connection in our apartment so I can update the log and catch up with everyone else's. Work has been crazy with late hours, but I'm hoping to run more consistently in coming weeks, as I settle in at the client site. I got my temporary ID today which lets me use GSK's (GlaxoSmithKline, my client) shuttle to the tube. Today my journey to and from work was only 1 hour! I'm pretty excited, it's 20-25 min. less than to my office, and I have to be at GSK 3 days a week for now, and 4 times a week later.

Total time: 1:01:49 (8:42 pace).

I ran easy, but it turned out to be fastest easy run on this route yet. For some unknown reason, I averaged 8:39 pace, faster than Wednesday's progression run. Garmin was out again, and so I ran purely by feel, but my breathing was easy and I slowed a little on the inclines, not pushing it. I'll probably pay for this pace tomorrow on my long run.

I'm encouraging my daughter to set up her own blog on this site, even though she is a swimmer and not a runner. She is having problems with motivation now, having come back after the summer break. She lost a lot more fitness in 6 weeks than she expected, and swam way off her PRs in the first meet of the season last Sunday. She is a little down now - after working so hard last year, she finds herself again towards the end of the pack on her team. Most kids lost some conditioning, but she thinks she lost more than others.  She is questioning her commitment to hard training and has doubts if she can ever be good at swimming. It would be good for her to blog about her swimming and read blogs of other high school girls. I don't know if she will do it, but I hope so.

Total time: 1:01:31 (8:39 pace).

Ran long today after getting caught up in things and never making it out yesterday. I felt great today, and ran 3.5 minutes faster than last week on exactly the same route. I'm rather puzzled by this - how is it possible for me to run faster from week to week when I'm hardly training?? Surely, my fitness cannot advance with such chaotic running! My theory is that I'm simply very rested each time I do run, and so I have a lot of stored glycogen which allows me to maintain faster pace, compared to when I'm running every day and not so recovered. But it sure is nice to feel so great on my runs (not that I'm advocating running 3 times a week!).

Total time: 1:46:22 (8:30 pace).

Very late run today, 9:30PM. I thought I would just do one loop of the park, which would give me a measly 4.3mi, but I decided that doing few miles is better than none at all. However, when I finished one loop, I felt silly going home, since I just warmed up and felt really good. So I did another loop and got my regular distance. I did 14x20 sec. strides with 1:00-1:30 recovery between strides. It was cold and windy (first time in long sleeves this season), but I felt good nevertheless.

My record trend continued today with another course record and fastest pace average. I asked Jonas about this "more for less" phenomenon, and he said this is not uncommon, but my aerobic base will eventually begin to erode. I don't really want this to happen after 2 years of building my fitness up, so I will try to run every day for the rest of this week and going forward. It's only a matter of discipline. I just have to accept that my weekday runs will be done very late.

Total time: 1:00:03 (8:27 pace).

This week I only managed 2 runs, that's like a long time low... I thought I could get out yesterday, but we went to the US College Day in London, and then I got pretty stressed out about the subject and running was the last thing on my mind. It is not an excuse, but I allowed it to derail me. My daughter is only a freshman, but it's good that we went - at least we can start exploring the options. She definitely wants to study in US, and both I and my husband know almost nothing about US colleges, since we didn't study in US. It doesn't help that right now, she only wants to consider art and design majors, which makes us pretty nervous. I'm trying to turn her to psychology/neuroscience in which she is also interested, but not as much as art. On top of all that, she would like to continue swimming in college, and from that perspective, a school in NCAA Division 3 would be the best option, as she will unlikely to play a role in Div. 1 or 2, even she walks on. So, I'm trying to look at good colleges in Div. 3 - of course I don't know what they are! She will start working on her college application process next year in her school (they start it in grade 10).  So if anyone knows of a good Div. 3 liberal arts school, please let me know.

So today, I finally got out for a run, and decided I need to make it a hard workout since I had 3 days of no running before. I did a long run with a tinman tempo embedded. My garmin unbelievably woke up only a mile into my run, so I could see the pace for the tempo. Ran about 3.5 mi. warmup and hit the faster portion. Felt good and watched the pace in 7:40s for most of the first 2 miles. I knew it was way faster than I should have run, but I felt good and went with it. After about 3 miles, it became clear that this pace was too hard, but I still maintained it as best I could, although it creeped into 7:50s. I pushed it a bit at the end and got 39:20 for 5 miles (7:52 avg.). I am pretty happy with this, as I really should have run 8:00-8:05. Then jogged one more loop around the park and home. Got another course record for my long run.

Total time: 1:44:01 (8:19 pace).