Suck it, expectations!

[Day 134]

Lol I think I'm better at tempo runs than I am at intervals. Or maybe I'm just better at working out when my stomach isn't pissed off at me? Who knows. I had a great run today. Was expecting it to be tremendously horrible because the set was tough, but it was actually super great. Numbers first, then thoughts.

Today's Workout: Tempo run, 1.5 mi WU, 4 mi @ HM pace (8:10-8:25), 4 mins recovery (under 11:00), 1 mi @ 10k pace (7:35-7:50), WD (should've taken a longer WD but really didn't want to so...yeah...)
Summary: 7.53 mi, 1:06:01, 8.46 pace, 180 spm average (!!!!!!!!)
Interval Splits:

• WU: 1.5 mi, 14:33, 9:42 pace
• 4 mi @ HM:
• 1-2: 16:40 (8:20 pace), 105 ft gain, 10 ft loss
• 3-4: 16:30 (8:10 pace), 66 ft gain, 125 ft loss
• Recovery interval: 4:00, 0.41 mi, 9:43 pace
• 1 mi @ 10k: 7:42 pace
• WD: 0.62 mi (loooooool), 6:46 (loooool), 10:54 pace

Hit Rate: 8/8 (100%)

Notes/thoughts:

• Little bit of anterior knee pain in the R leg, probably related to the fact that my IT band on that side is really tight, but it's okay b/c I'm taking 2 days off from running (probably gonna ride my bike tomorrow and I'm also hitting up the gym with a friend who wants to get into lifting) over the weekend and will be sure to do lots of stretching and maintenance stuff to get that fixed up.
• Mile 2 of the 4 mi tempo was rough. It was mostly this long protracted low grade uphill and I was thinking that if I had to maintain that effort for another two miles I might die. Turns out it made the rest of those miles feel like cake because yay subsequent net elevation loss! Lol
• My brain is definitely adjusting its definition of "pick it up" pace. Like HM pace used to feel insanely fast to me and now it feels sort of just like generic quick running. Gotta focus to stay there, but not as destructive as it used to feel. 
• The 1 mi interval started off really great. The first like 1/4 mile-ish of that was fast and fantastic and then things started to gradually fall off. It's kind of like swimming I guess, the third leg is always the hardest, b/c the third 1/4 mile of that was bad. And then it was like, DON'T FALL OUT OF THE PACE RANGE RUN JESS RUN for the last bit so it all turned out fine in the end, but uh trying to figure out what a consistent 10k effort is is something I'm gonna have to work on.
• I didn't walk the recoveries! I walked a little bit after the 10k effort, but even then it was a tiny bit before I was back jogging again. I just didn't feel as generally wrecked by this run as I had been feeling after the last few fast runs, which is good. My stomach cooperating had a big role to play in that I think.
• The crazy thing is, I'm here like, omg I did so awesome yay! And then I look at next week's workouts and obviously they get harder because that's what workout progressions do and I'm back to freaking out. xD But not in a bad way. I actually felt really confident going into today's workout because I felt really good on yesterday's easy run and so I had faith in the ability of my legs to do what had to be done, which was nice. I'm going to try and carry this momentum forward into next week so I don't spend all my time cowering in fear of upcoming workouts. It'll be tough but I think I have it. And I'm getting back in touch with my inner age group swimmer who is all like "tough things are the funnest things to do ever!" and half of me is like "yeah!" and the other half of me is like "who is this crazy chick and why are we still friends with her?!" Lol crushing workouts is/are immensely satisfying though, I'm pretty lucky I get to do this in my free time. 

Work work work work work for the rest of the day now, followed by the screening of our med school class show!!!!!! Just listen to this awesomeness: click here. So pumped! Happy Friday everyone!

Much love,

Jess

Learning to train faster

[Day 128]

I psych myself out a lot when I try to run fast. I consider myself a slow runner. You can put any amount of distance in front of me and I don't generally find it too daunting because I just tell myself I can run slowly and go forever. Fast running freaks me out and for the most part I feel like I can't do it in contexts that aren't racing. I'm trying to work on that though because I want to be faster and today went a long way towards boosting my confidence in my ability to run fast on just a normal day of the week.

Today's Workout: PM tempo run, 1 mi easy, 4 mi @ half marathon pace (8:10-8:25), some amount of WD
Summary: 5.82 mi, 51:54, 8:55 average pace, 175 spm average
Pace splits by mile: 9:31, 8:22, 8:17, 8:17, 8:19, 11:07
Hit Rate: 3/3 (100%)

The run didn't feel as hard as I was expecting it to. Once I settled in, it took a lot of focus to hold the pace but it didn't really get painful until about 2.5 miles into the run. The last mile hurt but it didn't feel like I had to reach too hard to stay on pace, it was just that it was starting to get to me by then. I really tried to focus on my breathing because Henry had commented that my breathing yesterday was atrocious, and I think it helped today, both with my running and with keeping myself mentally calm so I could stay relaxed through what my body was feeling. Henry biked alongside me while I ran today and really helped keep me positive and keep my confidence up which was super key. I was definitely scared going into this workout and doubtful of my ability to do a training run at this pace and to have him reassure me as I was going really helped get me through enough miles to objectively look at my effort and say to myself, "everything is okay and I can do this". It's crazy that I still doubt myself even though I've done a half marathon at that pace but honestly I just never train at anything close to race pace so playing around with that on a normal day is still a new phenomenon for me.

Between yesterday and today, I'm feeling really good about everything that's coming up with run training. Seeing as I can't really bike or swim or lift for the time being with all the bike crash related injuries, I'll just keep focusing on my running and trying to make the best of this situation. I'm excited to spend a bit of time just working on getting faster and building confidence in my ability to train faster than the moderate pace I like to take all my running at. Happy Saturday! (:

Much love,
Jess

I am unstoppable (but also very tired)

[Day 61]

Double day report! So I was pretty ambitious with the gym plan as always. Didn't quite get all of it done, but had a solid 1.5 hr lift followed by some rowing so I'm not complaining at all. I was actually a little freaked out going into the workout because I knew it was gonna be a big day, but I really tried to be positive about it right from the get go (like literally from the moment my alarm went off) and I tried really hard to focus and talk myself up instead of down and it paid off so much. I felt like this was one of those days when taking myself seriously helped me instead of hurt me and I was able to accomplish so much by just telling myself that I could over and over again. I'm really proud of how this morning went down.

Today's AM Workout: Lift + rowing, 1.5 hrs + some
Summary:

• Back squats: WU 12 @ 75#, 3 x 12 @ 105#
• Flat bench: WU 12 @ 55#, 3 x 8 @ 85#
• Deadlifts: 4 x 8 @ 135#
• Pulldowns: 4 x 12 @ 7 plates, alt. wide/narrow grip
• Giant set: 3 rounds at 55#
• 8 clean and presses
• 6/side (12 total) back loaded forward lunges
• 12 bent over BB rows
• 6/side (12 total) back loaded reverse lunges
• Tried to do these no rest within rounds, rest between rounds. I didn't ever put the bar down within an exercise but I did put the bar down between exercises to reset/reload.
• Incline bench: 3 x 12/10/8 @ 65#
• Accessory work: 2 rounds of
• 12/side single leg bridges
• 12/side single leg Romanian deadlifts @ 25# (better on the R than on the L)
• 15 band squats
• Shoulder press: 3 x 12/7/5 @ 25#/side
• Rowing: 
• Set: 1000 m warm up, 1000 m hard, 500 m easy, 500 m hard, 500 m easy
• Numbers: 3521 m, 17:06 total time, 22 strokes/min average, 2:25.6 average per 500 m

Hit Rate: 65/71 (91.5%)

Notes/thoughts:

• Back squats: These were interesting...harder than I thought they would be. Or maybe just as hard as I should've been expecting. First round was rough, 6 straight and then 6 singles basically, I needed to stop at the top every time to breathe. On the second round I did a little bit better, found the pop in my legs towards the end when the reps were feeling a little desperate and all of a sudden everything got better. Felt like I was launching out of the bottom of my reps instead of squeezing them out, which was pretty cool. The third set was pretty bleh. Right knee spent almost all of the reps trying to cave inwards, so it was a good thing I did some stability work later in the day to try and get at that particular weakness. Next week I'm probably gonna go same weight same rep scheme, hopefully it'll feel a little more comfortable, I might throw in a drop set at the end if things are looking good. If that goes well, I'll try and push up to sets of 8 at 115#.
• Flat bench: felt strong, gonna try and work up to 12 rep sets.
• Deadlifts: THESE WERE SO SATISFYING. I was expecting them to be hard because they were hard last week (and I was only expecting to do 3 sets, not 4), but I think the pop I found with the squats really came out in the deadlifts too. I think getting my legs involved today was just easier than it typically is and I tried to focus more on driving the whole way into the lock out and they just came so easy. But then this happened...
  
  ...Which was pretty traumatizing. Um I'm super embarrassing. Don't know what I'm gonna do with this particular tidbit of information now. :\
• Giant set: More cardiovascularly taxing than I was expecting. I have to be better about not breaking between movements. Also on round 2 when I was getting tired I definitely unloaded the bar sort of unsafely a few times and caught myself and focused more and was better about it on round 3, but just for future sets like this I need to remember to be safe when I'm putting weight down. Probably going to try and up some reps on this the next time I do it. I wanted to play it safe with the lunging because I don't normally lunge with this much weight and I wanted alignment and form to be good, but I think I can go for more. 
• Incline bench: Super proud of this! Feels like I'm getting stronger every day or something. Gonna work my way up to 3 x 12. (:
• Accessory work: Should have probably done three rounds, but my brain was really going at this point...Sometimes when I don't control my core correctly, there's some back pain with the bridges, which can get exaggerated by the Romanian deadlifts. Gotta focus on that more so it's all done perfectly. 
• Shoulder press: Sadface this was so bad lol. First round was pretty solid and then I just had no push. Could've probably squeezed out more reps but my brain and my arms were just totally gone by this point. 
• Rowing: Couldn't decide if I wanted to go steady state or a few efforts so I threw some short efforts in there. My butt and hamstrings were really feeling this. 
• All in all it was a great morning workout. Also apparently I had A LOT of comments to make about this.

Between workout one and workout two was a looooooong med school day. I was pretty exhausted honestly by the time I got home and I vegged out for a bit but eventually convinced myself to take this run. I decided that because I wasn't feeling too hot, instead of running by time goal, I would run by effort. The original plan was to go 2 mi easy, 4 mi hard at under 8:45 pace (I think ideally the goal would have been to average around 8:30), 1 mi easy. I ended up playing it by feel and the numbers will speak for themselves.

Today's PM Workout: Tempo run as 2 mi easy, 4 mi hard, 1 mi easy by effort (no watch checking today)

Summary: 7.02 mi, 1:04:53, 9:14 average pace.

Pace splits by mile: 9:46, 10:02, 8:46, 8:50, 8:43, 8:38, 9:56

Hit Rate: 66/72 (91.6%)

Notes/thoughts:

• I was really hoping for faster splits in the tempo effort but it was the right effort so what am I gonna do about that right? Keep working, get faster, you can't force that kind of thing. 
• It felt really surge-y today, which isn't how I like my running to feel. My best running days tend to come with this kind of momentum that doesn't necessarily make the effort easier but does make maintaining a nice consistent pace easier. Today though, it felt like every time I stopped actively monitoring my pace, it fell off and I'd have to catch up again, which sort of sucked honestly. It was a tough 4 miles and I knew I wasn't going as fast as I wanted because I could sort of feel that just in terms of my stride length and ground contact time, so it was hard to feel slow and know that this was probably the limit to what effort I had to give.
• I was pretty wrecked after this workout. I came home and had a post-workout snack and showered but then pretty much like couldn't convince myself to move for another hour or so and eventually managed to do enough to make/eat dinner but it was a rough evening all told. The soreness is starting to set in from the morning too, so I stretched but we'll see how that changes overnight into tomorrow.

So I'm pretty tired now. It's a good thing I get to sleep in tomorrow. I'm so behind on work though, which is a bit rough. Feel like I want to sleep in but also feel like an early start could help me a lot with how behind I am. Conflicted. Will work it out somehow. Trainer brick in the books for tomorrow in the afternoon. Freaked out but also a little excited. As hard as those days are, I get a lot of enjoyment and satisfaction out of running off the bike. Hopefully my legs will recover a bit overnight and cooperate with me tomorrow. Happy Super Tuesday! (:

Much love,

Jess