Saturday, February 15, 2014

Below Zero Outside; Long Hill Repeats on the Treadmill Inside

As I've mentioned here before, I'm training for a race that looks like this:


Mastodon Challenge 15K
 
And so I'm trying not to miss any of the hill workouts on my training plan.  Here is what the plan said for Wednesday morning:
 
Long Hill Repeats, 8-10 Reps
 
Not having done Long Hill Repeats before, I looked it up in YOU (Only Faster) and read: 

Long hills are performed on a gradual slope and last around two to three minutes.  You run at a medium-hard effort . . . .  At the top, you turn around and jog slowly back down to the bottom of the hill before beginning again.  Most runners find that four to eight repetitions are optimal for a long hill workout.

Easy enough to set up on my Interval Timer app:


Did I mention that it was below zero degrees F outside on Wednesday morning?  So my hills would be at the gym, on the treadmill, which meant I had to decide on an incline and a speed. Time to consult my handy-dandy treadmill pace conversion chart.  At 0% incline, I usually use 5.3 mph for my "jog" or "easy run" speed, which equates to about an 11:45 - 11:50 pace.  To keep it simple, I decided to leave the speed setting constant and change the incline only.  Looking at the chart again, a 3% incline at 5.3 mph would equate to about a 10-minute mile which seemed right for me for "medium-hard."

There were more people at the gym on Wednesday morning than usual for 6 a.m.:


Would all those people on treadmills usually be running outside in the dark?

I thought I would hate this workout and wasn't even sure I would finish all the hill intervals.  They were challenging and I was working beyond medium-hard for the third minute of each one, but the 58 minutes passed quickly and I felt exercised but good when I was done.  Definitely a keeper for some of the times that the "dread-mill" can't be avoided!

Then I went home and treated myself to a delicious, thick and creamy Vanilla Nut Smoothie!
 



Smoothie Success!

One of my earliest blog posts was about my first three smoothie attempts. I was 1 for 3 and ended up having to eat (instead of drink) what was going to be my first green one:


Failed smoothie, but it tasted good anyway!

To recap, here is the recipe for my one previous success.

Banana-Clementine-Almond Coconut Milk Smoothie

1 peeled banana, cut into 1-inch chunks and frozen
2 clementines, peeled and sectioned
1/2-cup Almond Breeze almond milk-coconut milk blend

Blend until smooth.
(Freezing the banana is not mandatory, but it's the way to go if you want to feel like you are drinking a milkshake.)

Success #2 - Turn it Blue!

Banana-Clementine-Blueberry-Almond Coconut Milk Smoothie

Add a handful of frozen wild blueberries to the above recipe.  Yummy!

OK, pouring it into a blue glass might not have been the best way to photograph it, but it tastes great!

 

Success #3 -  A High-Protein Nutty Surprise!

Vanilla Nut

This is adapted from a recipe called "Chocolate Nut" in The Smoothie Recipe Book.  Besides being more of a vanilla kind of gal, I also cut the  original recipe in half to bring it down to 6 weight watcher points instead of 12.  It's described as "a first-rate, post-workout or breakfast smoothie," so I made it for breakfast after an hour on the treadmill.  Here's my version:

Like something from Dairy Queen!
1 tablespoon of vanilla whey protein (used a "meal replacement shake" powder that I have on hand)

1 banana, peeled, cut into 1-inch chunks and frozen

1/4 cup of rolled oats

1 tablespoon of almond butter

1/2 cup of Goya coconut water (purchased in a can in the ethnic food aisle, much less expensive than the trendy varieties found elsewhere in the grocery store)

Blend until smooth. 

I had my doubts about this one.  I was afraid it would come out gritty because of the oats, but it was my smoothest smoothie yet. I loved it!

But What About the Green Stuff?

If you read my first smoothie post, you might recall that one of my objectives was to consume more veggies, and you might have noticed that none of my successes to date are very "vegetably."  I'm using up the gigunda bag of frozen broccoli I had purchased by defrosting about a cup and a half at a time, combining it with some fruit (apples and /or clementines) and/or other veggies (cucumber) and 1/3 cup plain nonfat Greek yogurt, and eating it for lunch.  So I am EATING more veggies, just not DRINKING them.  I'll let you know if I try again!




Tuesday, February 11, 2014

My Legs Can Go HOW Fast?????

Yesterday's training plan said, "Leg Speed: 10-12X 30 sec w/ 1 min jog."

It was dark outside, the roads were covered with two inches of new snow and the "feels like" temperature was 6 degrees.

Time to go to the gym and get back on the treadmill.

Ugh.

Two and a half weeks ago, I did my weekly long run on the treadmill.  My feet hurt for three days, and I hadn't been back.

The good thing is that I like interval workouts, even on the treadmill.  In fact, on the treadmill I prefer them.

The night before, I consulted my training paces from this calculator and my treadmill conversions from this chart, did the figuring two different ways, and kept getting the same answer: that I should set the speed at 8.3 mph for the speed intervals!  Yikes!!!!! No way!!!!!  My best race pace so far has only been just a tiny bit faster than 6 mph, and the fastest I'd ever set the treadmill before was 7.5 mph and only for one or two intervals.  I decided to try 8 mph - fully expecting to be hitting the down arrow very quickly!

Before going to bed, I set up the program on my interval timer app:



Got up at 5:00; was a little slow so it was almost 6:00 by the time I got to the gym.  I was wondering if I had made a mistake in my training plan, since I had done a long run two days earlier and most other weeks call for an easy recovery run after the long run.  Well, easy enough to shift gears if it was too hard.

First, the warm-up.  In addition to my 15K-training, I'm also doing the Beach Body challenge from the 30-day Fitness Challenge app. 


Yesterday was Day 23, which called for 50 reverse lunges and 100 skaters.  Seemed like a good way to wake up my legs! 

Then one more stop before the "dread-mill":   a quick visit to my absolute favorite  piece of equipment in the whole gym:


The stretching cage!  I love this thing!  You get to hold on while you stretch.  There is a chart that tells you what stretches to do for which activities, and pictures of each stretch.  Here are the pictures of two of my favorite stretches:



If it didn't cost $2400 I'd have one in my cellar!

I saved the two stretches shown above for after my run; before it I just did some quick and simple quad, hamstring and calf stretches.

OK, couldn't put it off any longer.

First, 5 minutes of walking, increasing the speed each minute.

Then, time to set the speed intervals. 

Push the "Speed Interval" button; first it says "Enter Jog Speed."  5.3 mph.

Then it says "Enter Run Speed."

 
I really did enter 8.0 mph!
 
 
After 5 minutes at jog speed, the app bell rang and I hit the "speed interval" button to toggle to run speed for 30 seconds . . . then back to jog speed for a minute . . . and I did that 12 times!!!  And I never hit the down arrow!!!  I did hold on for interval 4; not sure why, just found myself doing it but it's bad form so I kept myself from doing it again.  Except for every time I toggled down to jog speed, because it felt like something embarrassing might happen if I didn't!
 
Five more minutes of walking to cool down, and then back to the stretching cage to do the full suite of "running/walking" stretches.  Then, wash my hands and home by 7:00.
 
A great and surprising workout!  And, best of all, my feet don't hurt today like they did last time I used the treadmill.
 
Anyone else have a good treadmill workout to share?
 



Sunday, February 9, 2014

In Training for Mastodon Challenge 15K: 23 Degrees Outside for a Long Run with Hill Repeats

Way back when "Couch to 5K" was just a teeny tiny germ of an idea in the back of my brain, a co-worker talked about the Utica Boilermaker 15K.  I went home and looked it up, and I remember incredulously saying to my husband, "Holy cow; that's 9 miles!" 

Fast forward to 2013, when I signed up for the Mastodon Challenge 15K as part of my training plan for a half marathon a month later.  Of the three race distances I've tried so far in my short time as a runner - 5K, 15K, 13.1 miles - holy cow, 9 miles turned out to be my favorite!  More challenging than 5K, but not as grueling as a half marathon.


Holy cow, what am I saying?  I should be saying "Holy Mastodon!"  The race is named after this big guy, found along the route in 1866 and now living in the New York State Museum.  The race motto is, "Can You Survive? They Didn't."

I'll write a belated "race recap" some other time, but suffice it to say I survived and I want to do it again - this time without walk breaks.  The race is in early May, so at the beginning of 2014 I opened up my copy of You, Only Faster by Greg McMillan and designed a training plan.  For me, it really should be called, You, Only Less Slow, but in any event I like having a plan to follow.  It breaks up the monotony and keeps things interesting.  And it seems worthwhile to try to improve.

McMillan's method consists of a 12-week program that can be lengthened by adding various "modules."  I had a few extra weeks to play with, so I added a "mileage base" module and a "hills" module to the beginning.   I missed a few runs during the "mileage base" module because of motivational problems in the cold and the dark, and because of sore feet after a long "dread-mill" run.  But with the race still over 3 months away, and knowing I CAN do it because I DID do it, I wasn't too concerned.

Now I'm in the "hills" module, and based on the race profile, I'm considering this module to be really important:

 

But still, I missed my first set of "medium hill repeats" on Thursday because it was dark, the roads were icy, and it was really, really cold outside.  I just couldn't get psyched to go to the gym before work and do it on the treadmill.  So, yesterday I decided to work some hill repeats into my long run, outside.  On Saturday I don't have to go in the dark, so I can at least see the snow and ice on the side of the road.  Based on the hourly forecast, the highest temperature of the day would be 25 degrees, at 3 pm.  I got out by 3:30, when the temperature was 23 degrees.

Here are the two workouts I combined:

Thursday:  medium hill repeats, 6-8 reps
Saturday:  long run, 75-100 minutes

Beneath the pavement where I live and run are ancient sand dunes, so it is somewhat hilly.  There is one hill on my usual route that I consider pretty tough, so I decided to do the repeats there.  I arrived at the base of the hill 25 minutes into my run.  I measured how far up I could run, running medium-hard, in one minute, and did that 6 times, jogging back down in between.  Then I continued along the way, for a total time of 88:34.  Here is the profile, with my tiny (0.09-mile) repeat section marked. 


Looking at this, I'm not sure why I always think that particular hill is harder than any of the others!  Here are two pictures:  the one on the left looking up and the one on the right looking back down; can you tell that it's a hill?


 
 
It was as cold as it looks!  Here is what the winter sun looks like about an hour before it sets.
 
 
 
Adding the repeats to the route made my total run about 7.3 miles.  I don't think I ever went that far without walk breaks before!  It felt slow, but actually right on my target "long run" pace according to the McMillan running calculator.
 
I was hoping to run into some of these sweeties that were hanging around behind my backyard earlier in the day, but they were hiding.  Saw plenty of their footprints in the snow, though.
 


 
This week I'm supposed to do a "leg speed" work out (whatever that is!) on Monday and long hill repeats on Wednesday.  Haven't looked at the forecast, but that gym is always open!
 
Anyone else in training for a hilly run?