Posted on Aug 09, 2009 under running |
I didn’t get to run on Thursday because we were having dinner with a co-worker of mine who is leaving us to go to medical school at Harvard. I don’t think there is any better reason to skip running. I was able to get in some pretty good workouts in this week if you look at the times. However, from my perspective, a lot of the runs didn’t really feel that fast. Meaning, after many of the runs this week, I would think to myself that I didn’t run that fast, but looking at the overall time and splits, it looks like I ran really well. After Saturday’s run, I have come to the conclusion that I have simply moved up a level in my training program. I am going to attribute this level up by switching to running at night. Since that switch, I have been able to get some quality runs in, at very fast times and paces. And from those workouts, my body has gotten a lot more comfortable running that fast. So now when I am running, even though I feel like it’s slower, the time and pace is significantly faster than a month or two before. So on those rare occasions that I have a really good workout, my time and pace will be that much faster. Now is probably a good time to start increasing the mileage, although the reason why I haven’t done it yet (other than the fact that I wasn’t physically capable) is the time factor. Running in the mornings was hard because I was waking up so early just to get in a short run, waking up any earlier would have been very hard for me, especially since I’m not really a morning person. Now that I’m runnning after work (which I come home fairly late), running for too long is not something that I really want to do, since I still have to shower, eat dinner, do a little more work, relax and then go to bed. I’m hoping increasing the mileage on Saturdays will be good enough, maybe throwing in a slightly longer run once or twice a week.
Nike+ graph of my pace during the Brick ride and run. Notice the sluggish start where my legs felt like 'bricks'!
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Posted on Jul 30, 2009 under running |
No new running events for a while now. There is a race on Saturday that I heard about through the local newspaper, which I’m considering. If not, the next race I have signed up for is in mid-August, which feels like forever. I’m trying to start posting a recap of my runs for the past week, which can also be viewed on my account at DailyMile. There are weeks however, where nothing incredible happens during my runs. But I’m sure I will be able to think of something to say about 4-5 days worth of runs. This past week, I had some great runs. Last week was the first week I started running after work at night. I am fairly convinced that running at night makes me run a lot faster. My pace for the past two weeks have been the best ever and even the easy runs feel a lot more comfortable. Last Monday, my first day running at night, I had run my fastest on that route. This past Monday, I improved on that same route and only two days later I had run the fastest 4 miles ever! All of that happened within a two week period! I don’t know if I’ll ever get close enough to break that time for quite a while. Once I start using my Nike+ and I find new routes to run, I may consider running a lot more miles. But for now, I will enjoy this running high that I have had since yesterday.
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Posted on Jul 22, 2009 under Random |
I was recently asked to be interviewed by Dave Tiefenthaler of tips4running.com. I have never been interviewed before and although this was not a traditional interview in person, I still felt pretty special to even be asked in the first place. Just so everybody knows, Dave interviews many runners on his site, which you can read here. Either way, it still felt cool to be asked about how I got back into running, what kind of workouts I do and a lot of other personal questions that showed that he was truly interested. The answers to some of these questions I have never mentioned on my blog before. Not necessarily because I didn’t want to, but just never found the right time to say them. Dave did a great job asking interesting questions that allowed me to really express how into running I currently am.
The interview is linked at the top of my blog, but click here to read the running interview.
Posted on Jul 16, 2009 under Training |
The great debate about running in the morning and running at night.
Morning Running
Athletes have different preferences when it comes to running in the morning or running at night. Back in high school we would run in the mornings during the summers and weekends. But once the school year started, we would run in the afternoon after class. The reason why we ran in the mornings during the summer was because it would have been way too hot to run in the afternoons. It worked out because big invitational races were always on Saturday mornings, so we would be running in the same conditions. However, when the school year started, we had no other choice but to run after school, which was a lot harder than the mornings. But during the school year, our league meets against other high schools were after school, so we would be used to those conditions as well. There were a few times during the year where we decide to run at night..
Night Running
Night running is a lot different from running in the mornings. We once ran with glow sticks, but that didn’t really help and my teammate just threw his into the trees on the run back. Running at night is actually pretty scary for a couple of reasons. When we ran on the trail, we wouldn’t be able to see the path ahead or anything on the ground so we could have tripped on rocks, branches and other stuff. It was also dangerous because there could easily be an attacker hiding in the bushes and we wouldn’t be able to react or anticipate it. Because of those reasons, I always ran a lot faster at night than when I would run in the mornings, similar to how I sometimes run faster in the rain. There are a lot of reasons why I run faster at night, and fear is definitely one of the main reasons. There have been many runs where I ran faster because I was running with the fear of my teammate catching up to me and beating me. In the case of running at night, I was always afraid that there was something or someone coming up behind me, so it was like it was being chased the whole way.
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Posted on Jul 13, 2009 under Training |
Since I haven’t been able to log as many miles during my weekly long run or for the overall total miles for the week, I was thinking about other ways to get in a workout instead of running. About a year ago, I bought a bike on Craigslist to just to go cruising during the summer. However, that lasted only about a month or two and then it just sat in the garage for the rest of the year. So I was thinking of putting it back into use and bike a couple of miles after my regular run. I mentioned this on DailyMile and got some great feedback and advice and someone mentioned something about a Brick Workout. I have heard other runners talk about this before, but I never really understood what it was. I read that it’s a great way to cross train and help improve overall endurance. This would be a good way to ease myself into running a lot more miles and get some use out of my forgotten bicycle.
My old bike I used for the Brick workout..
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Posted on Jun 22, 2009 under Race |
The Bonita 5000 5K Race is the 2nd race of my ‘season’ and I finished at 20:05 at 6:29 pace, 74th out of 387, and 9th in my age group. Looking at the finishing time, you can say that it was a pretty good run. But if you read on, you’ll see that I probably could have run a lot smarter and faster! So the last few workouts that I’ve ran before this race have not been that great. I would start off ok, but after each mile, I would just feel really tired and not be able to keep up the pace. I was afraid that I would come into this race and not run as fast as I was able to to run in the UCSD Grove Run 5K. And the fact that it was a 30 minute drive to this race would have made it even more disappointing to not run well. But I guess that didn’t really happen since I improved my time by about 15 seconds, and again, it probably could have been faster if I were a smarter runner..
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Posted on Jun 07, 2009 under track |
Workout: 1 mile warm up, 4-1 mile repeats at 6:40 pace, 1 mile cool down
Time: 6:39 (172 bpm, 127 calories); 6:38 (181 bpm, 137 calories); 6:39 (183 bpm, 140 calories); 6:23 (186 bpm, 138 calories) 1:24 all out last lap. Peak HR: 201.
Weather: Sunny and windy around the backstretch and final 100 meter
The last time I ran on the track, I ran one mile all out just to see what kind of shape I was in. I was pretty happy with running a 6:02 considering it wasn’t that long after I started running again. Fast forward a couple of months after a lot more miles and even an actual race under my belt, I decided to try mile repeats on the track, which is an interval workout which I used to do in high school all the time. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted on May 16, 2009 under Training |
Since I knew that I was going to run Lake Miramar today, I planned to have an easy run on Friday. But I wasn’t anticipating running as slow as I did. It might have also been that I decided to run an extra lap too. Either way, that just meant that I had no excuses for not running fast today. And after running the Lake Miramar loop today and seeing my time (36:00), it definitely looks like that easy run helped.
As I arrived at the lake, I noticed that there were significantly more cars today. I didn’t have the prime parking space like I did last time I ran at Lake Miramar. I noticed that there were two tents by the start of the loop. Apparently there was an event that was happening this morning called, “Ray of Sunshine Miramar Lake Walk”. The walk was going to start at 8, so I had more than enough time to finish before it started. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted on May 09, 2009 under Training |
I’m a little late with this post, but better late than never. I have to say, people who do post the same day they run or workout must be very diligent bloggers. I probably should post right away though because it’s like a dream to me: I’ll forget all details of a run by the next day. Hopefully I can at least post a few days after a run. So last week, I ran this 5 mile loop around the nearby lake. Most of my runs have been just doing laps around these one mile loops by my place. It was very convenient because I would walk out the door and just cross the street to the loop. But the lake was a nice change of scenery though. The drive there wasn’t too bad, only like 5 minutes. I’ve joined the San Diego Running Meetup Group to see if there are any meetups that I’d be interested in doing. However, most of the runs are either early in the morning or early evening right after work but it’s just too out of the way to do. They actually have meetups on that same lake, but I get out of work too late to do it.
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Posted on Apr 27, 2009 under Random |
UCSD Campus Loop: 4.01 Miles: 32:08 (8:02 min/mile)
The other night I was watching According to Jim on TV and his sister-in-law bet him that he could not beat her in the marathon, let alone finish. So what his plan was to start off ridiculously slow and trail off and hide somewhere while everyone else was running the race. He would then re-emerge back into the race and finish just ahead of his sister-in-law. Well, he dozed off during his pedicure (lol) and thought he wasn’t going to make it, so he started running to the finish. As he approached the finish line, he noticed the tape hadn’t been broken through; he was leading the race! The “real” first place runner was right behind him, obviously a lot more tired, so they battled it out and Jim won!
I recently experienced a situation very similar to that, but unintentionally, of course. I was running the campus loop (route that the shuttle takes) and noticed that there were people standing around the trail where local cross country races take place. So I assumed they were having a race on the trail, but I noticed chalk arrows on the cement on the route I was running. Then I noticed a couple of other runners ahead of me and people standing at the corners wearing some type of volunteer t-shirts. I accidentally jumped into a race and were passing people ahead of me and having the volunteers cheer for me!! Read the rest of this entry »
