Runs (and swims):

Sunday, August 1 – Run

Run: 7.9 miles.  9:57 per mile.  Strides: 167 per min.  Heart rate: 142 bpm.  Temps: 60s°F, windy.  9:03 am (8:03 am CST).

This run was still in Illinois.  This was an easy(ish) paced, flat(ish) (289 ft. gain) run.  The first 5.8 miles I did the same route as the previous day with my dad, this time on my own.  (The extra 0.2 miles is for making a wrong turn, stopping, realizing something had gone wrong, pulling up the map of yesterday’s run on my phone, and getting back on track.)

I didn’t mean to do this run so fast, but with the cooler temperature today and very easy pace yesterday, my legs wanted to move faster today. 

At 5.8 miles, I stopped by my sister’s to pick up my 13 year old niece who is going to run cross country for the first time this year.  She has been running 2 miles a few times a week all summer.  I let her set the route and pace for her two mile run.  It just so happens that she was running right around 10:00/mile (which is the pace I was doing today already).  She said this was a “new record” for her, she wanted to break 21:00, and did her normal route in 20:30 (it’s 2.1 miles according to my TomTom watch).

It’s so great to run with people – most of my runs are alone.  Even better when it’s family you have not seen in a long time and you can help them achieve things for the first time.  I’m thrilled with this run today, not because I ran so fast at what is mostly an easy heart rate zone heart rate, but that it did not feel nearly as hard as it used to to run this fast.  (Temperatures are helping out big time today, I think.)

Monday, August 2 – Tempo-interval long run

Run: 10 miles.  9:26 per mile.  Strides: 170 per min.  Heart rate: 153 bpm.  Temps: 60°F, sunny, hot.  9:38 am. 

10 minute warm-up, 7 x 6 minutes “tempo pace”, 4 minutes “recovery jog”, 20 minutes (ish) “cool down”.

Paces for intervals: 1.) 8:52/mile, 2.) 8:52/mile, 3.) 8:30/mile, 4.) 8:44/mile, 5.) 8:50/mile, 6.) 8:56/mile, 7.) 8:44/mile.  Overall average tempo pace for today was 8:47/mile, with ~4.5 miles at tempo pace total.

This was a very good effort.  The temperature was cooler today, and I was back home from Illinois, but I did not want to do an hour plus of tempo running, so I did tempo intervals instead.

I looked at my pace sometime during the first interval, and aimed to get up to around 8:45/mile during each interval after that.  (This is way faster than my last tempo run, which was around 9:00/mile, but doing intervals means apparently I can go much faster than what I think my tempo pace should be.)

For the first time in my life, I thought about “knee lift” during a run!  I did the cooldown at an “easy tempo” pace with the last mile at 9:10 in order to set a new 10 mile PR (which I did!).  This isn’t what you’re supposed to do on cooldowns, but I make the rules for what I can and can’t do, and setting a 10 mile PR superseded cooling down.  10 mile PR = 1:35:25, 15K PR = 1:26:49.  (These aren’t numbers I’ve ever tracked before, so I don’t know what I beat previous times by.)  My niece set a new record yesterday, I’m setting new records today!

Glutes were sore while running, so I will see how I feel tomorrow.

Tuesday, August 3 – Recovery Run/Swim

Run: 7 miles.  11:52 per mile.  Strides: 159 per min.  Heart rate: 127 bpm.  Temps: high 60s, low 70s°F, sunny. 9:52 am.

This was a very easy paced, hilly (369 ft. gain) recovery run.  My glutes (glute minimus? Or the muscle directly below the glutes?) were sore on this run; I was not surprised since it was sore during the run yesterday.  My right hamstring was also sore, and my right calf gave me moments of pain.  I gave up very early on getting my heart rate above 120-125 bpm.  (The average is only at 127 bpm because of some light infiltration causing high reading when I was headed east – it was very sunny and could not be stopped today.)

This is normal for me to have a low heart rate run on the day after a hard effort.  I still enjoyed the run today.

Swim: 3:36 pm. 60 minutes.  50 laps/2,500 yards.

100 yards each breast, free, back, breast kick, 500 yards free, 100 yards back, free kick, 500 yards free, 100 yards back, back kick, IM, back, IM, back, 200 yards free, 50 yards back, elementary backstroke.

I had to go to a different pool today because my local pool is closed for two weeks for yearly maintenance/repainting.  The water temperature at this pool was supposedly 83.9°F, but felt really warm to me, and several things (a small toy dinosaur, a black plastic bin, and a snorkel) floated into my lane (presumably all these things were placed on the half submerged lip of the pool, and then migrated towards me).  I almost hit my head on the black bin as it was positioned at the black cross at the end of my lane that I use to flip turn at, and I stopped myself from flip turning into it just in time.  I can’t express how much I hate things floating randomly into my lane and disrupting my swimming focus.

I didn’t like the warm water either, and felt overheated for most of the swim.

Still, this was a good effort today.

Wednesday, August 4 – Run

Run: 7.5 miles.  11:07 per mile.  Strides: 162 per min.  Heart rate: 142 bpm.  Temps: high 60s, low 70s°F, sunny.  9:43 am.

This was an easy paced, hilly (404 ft. gain) run.  Light infiltration early on (headed east) artificially elevated heart rate (for miles 1 and 3), but I kept it at ~135-140 bpm for most of this run.

I did ~20 minutes of mobility drills after the run – I was feeling tired and not at all wanting to do mobility drills, but I convinced myself to do 2 rounds instead of 3 (I ended up doing 3 anyway).  My legs felt tight and not at all flexible – I was probably still recovering from Monday.  (I’ve also skipped doing mobility drills for several weeks… so that also might be contributing to not being flexible.)

Thursday, August 5 – Run

 Run: 8.5 miles.  10:48 per mile.  Strides:  164 per min.  Heart rate: 145 bpm.  Temps:  mid-high 70s°F, sunny.  9:48 am.

This was an easy paced, flat (200 ft. gain) run, with a slightly faster pace towards the end (130-142 bpm first 5.5 miles, ~145-157 bpm for miles 7 and 8, and 168 bpm for last 0.5 miles).  This was a very good run.  I felt good, I’m still enjoying training by heart rate, and I did not feel “hot” until I bumped up the target heart rate for the last couple of miles.

Friday, August 6 – Long Run

Run: 16 miles.  11:30 per mile.  Strides: 161 per min.  Heart rate: 141 bpm.  Temps: low 70s- low 80s°F, sunny.  9:48 am.

This was an easy paced (average 141 bpm heart rate), hilly (743 ft. gain), 16 mile run.  I had planned to do 15 miles but talked myself into 16 sometime within the first hour of running.

I tried to keep my heart rate around 135 bpm.  The first 11.6 miles was hilly, so this was easier said than done (I don’t try to keep heart rate anywhere on hills – it goes up and that’s ok).  Lately, I’ve been turning up the pace for the last 3 miles of a long run, but today, my legs felt fried and I was doing well to keep coasting along at a steady, even pace.

In hindsight, I front loaded the first half (or more) of the run with lots of hills, and my legs were tired and sore by the time I hit 13 miles.  At 14.5 miles, things really got tough, but unless I’m dizzy with heat exhaustion/dehydration, I rarely quit when things get tough (an excellent skill to have when running marathons or for life in general). Temperature in the 80s might also have played a role with the heavy leg feeling.

Hours later, I was feeling tired, my legs were achy, but I remembered that it was tax-free weekend for Ohio and just snagged a pair of Nike Peg 37s for $52 so I was feeling very good.  (They are black – which is not my style – I love very brightly colored shoes, but any brand new Nike Pegs for $52 is a very good deal, can’t pass up.)

Saturday, August 7 – Recovery Run/Swim

Run: 7 miles.  11:48 per mile.  Strides: 158 per min. Heart rate: 128 bpm.  Temps: 70s, low 80s°F, sunny.  9:44 am.

This was an easy paced, flat (189 ft. gain) recovery run.  My legs, especially my inner hip bone area, both legs, felt quite sore before this run, and I would have taken an ibuprofen if I had remembered to, but I forgot until my first few running steps and by then I did not want to go back inside.

I aimed to keep this run very easy, and the beginning was so rough, I planned to do 6-6.5 miles.

The amazing thing about recovery runs is that I felt much better at miles 6 and 7 than I did at miles 1 and 2, and the last mile was in 10:39 (not exceptionally fast, but considering the hip pain at the beginning of this run, amazing).

Recovery Swim: 1:14 pm.  50 laps/2,500 yards.

100 yards breast, free, back, 25 yards back, 75 yards breast kickboard, 400 yards free, 200 yards back, 100 yards free kickboard, 400 yards free, 200 yards back, 100 yards back kick, IM, back, IM, back, 200 yards free, 100 yards elementary backstroke.

My local pool is still closed, so I went to the downtown YMCA for this swim.  This was a very good swim, and I was feeling much better after swimming – swimming also seems to be very helpful for recovering from yesterday’s long run.

Running wrap-up

1.)  I’ve skipped strength training this week.  I’m not sure what happened, but this is probably the longest I’ve gone without any “big strength training sessions” since January.  Hopefully I will get back on the wagon.

I did work on speed this week, went on a 16 mile long run, and got in 2 swims even though my normal pool is closed, so I feel like I’ve put in good effort (despite skipping strength work).

2.)  64.1 miles running this week – this seems like a lot, especially when I’m not training for any marathons.  I do like to throw in a longer long run every so often, so without the 16 mile run, this would be around my normal 56-57 weekly miles.  I think that’s fine.

3.)  My weight is slightly up from last week.  My head is still in the same place it has been for awhile – I’m fine with my weight where it is now.

I need to continue with the strength training to maintain the muscle mass I have now, but removing tracking calories or worrying about what a number is on the scale has been great for my mental health.  Neither of these things really impacted my mental health in a negative way, but not tracking calories is great for time management and not wasting time on things that ultimately do not matter.  As long as my weight is not going up significantly, not letting it bother me is a great approach for now.  Plus, I’ve been focusing on running and swimming (and except for this week, strength training) and not nearly as focused on my weight as I was back in 2017 when I was losing weight.  I’m running faster, lifting heavier and heavier weights, and those are much more fun to track than calories or numbers on the scale.  (I will continue to track my weight because it’s a habit like brushing my teeth.)

Total walking + running miles this week (August 1 – August 7): 84.39 miles (up 21.57 from last week) – it looks like my watch goofed, but it also screwed up last week and didn’t track miles or steps on my 7,000,000 mile run, and it seems those missing 7-8ish miles have time traveled to this week, so it will all even out if this doesn’t continue to happen.

Total walking + running miles this year (2021): 2,203.9 miles

Total steps this week (August 1 – August 7): 151,990 steps (up 23,370 from last week) – also looks like a watch goof, but last week was missing steps and the missing data seem to have time traveled to this week as well.

Total steps this year (2021): 4,241,84 steps

Average steps per day (August 1 – August 7): 21,712 steps (up 3,338 from last week)

Average steps per day (2021): 19,364 steps

Total running miles this week (August 1 – August 7): 64.1 miles (up 6.91 from last week)

Average running mileage per week (2021): 57.26 miles

Total running miles this year (2021): 1,791.34 miles

Average running speed this week (not including hill repeats) (August 1 – August 7):  10:55/mile.  (21 seconds faster per mile than last week)

Average running speed this year (2021): 11:37 per mile

Average running heart rate this week (August 1 – August 7): 140 bpm (up 3 bpm from last week)

Average running heart rate this year (2021): 138 bpm

Average resting heart rate this week (August 1 – August 7): 54 bpm (down 2 bpm from last week – this downward trend is amusing, if nothing else)

Average resting heart rate this year (2021): 58 bpm

Elevation gain this week (August 1 – August 7): 2,383 ft. (down 291 ft. from last week).

Elevation gain this year (2021):  80,579 ft.

Average elevation gain per week (2021): 2,576 ft.

Swimming distance this week (August 1 – August 7): 5,100 yards/102 laps/2.90 miles

Average swimming pace this week (August 1 – August 7): ~1:13/50 yards lap or ~2:26/100 yards.  (This includes stoppage time and a variety of laps including kickboard laps)

Average swimming pace this year:  ???  To be determined.

Swimming distance this year (2021): 87,750 yards/1,755 laps/49.86 miles

Average swimming distance/week (2021, starting on April 23): 5,740 yards/115 laps/3.26 miles

Current thyroid medication: 137.5 mcg/day levothyroxine + 5 mcg x 2 times a day liothyronine. Started on Aug. 11, 2020.

Weight, weight fluctuate

Weight: 163.9 lb (up 0.6 lb from last week).

Weight January 1, 2021: 163.3 lb

Weight change since Jan 1, 2021: +0.6 lb

Previous week:  July 25 – July 31, 2021

Next week:  August 8 – August 14, 2021