Training is heating up!

It's been awhile since I've posted a training update. I blogged regularly about my Boston Marathon training, and it helped me see the bigger picture of my hard work.

After the marathon, I took a few weeks of recovery. I did not run at all during the week following the marathon, and I took it extremely easy the following week, logging just a few very easy treadmill miles while on vacation. I eased my way back into things the third week after Boston, culminating in the Mother's Day 4-Miler. And then, "operation get Elizabeth speedy" kicked into full gear.

The plan is to keep the mileage relatively low (like in the 40's instead of the 60's) and to run two interval sessions a week. No tempo runs, no marathon pace runs-- just really fast stuff.  This means spending a lot of time at a sub-7:00 pace. Ultimately I hope to run the Army 10-miler at a sub-7:00 pace, so that work starts now. And of course, building this fast base will only help me when it comes to training for my fall marathon in November. On top of it, all of this work is happening in the heat and humidity of northern Virginia, which is great for both physical and mental strength.

Here's a snapshot of my training from the past five weeks:

I don't anticipate that my long runs will get above 12 miles for at least another six weeks. Running for an hour and 45 minutes is plenty to keep my endurance up without tiring my legs for the speed work. Let's dive into a few workouts.

I ran this workout about 10 days prior to the Twilight 4-miler. It was three sets of 1600m, 1-minute recovery jog, 400m. In between each set was a 3-minute recovery jog, which equated to just over a lap around the track.

I always start my track workouts conservatively and I find that it's hard to go fast for the first rep of anything. But this was different. I run my track workouts by feel (I don't use the Garmin pace) so imagine my shock when the first 1600m clocked in at 6:38. Oops! The good news is that it felt like a 6:50. The bad news is that the humidity would catch up to me, making the rest of the 1600's slower. My times were:

1600m: 6:38
400m: 1:30
1600m: 6:48
400m: 1:30
1600m: 6:43
400m: 1:29

The fact that I ran a 1:29 (5:56 pace) for the last 400m means that I still had plenty of energy at the end, despite the speedy start.

Onto another workout. On Thursday of this week, I ran a workout that was really challenging to commit to memory! I had to look at it several times and remind myself that the ladder climbed up (not down) for the interval parts.

The photo above just shows one rep. I've recently started using Instagram to share my workouts and I'm never sure how to quickly represent a complex interval workout! This one combined 10K effort with mile-race effort. It was 4 x (1000m at 10K effort, 200m jog) followed by a bunch of really short/fast intervals. I think I may have done this workout once before, but I'm not sure! It was 72 degrees and 99% humidity, threatening thunderstorms. Definitely tough. Here's how it went:

1000m: 4:23 (7:03 pace) -- too slow. I was being overly cautious about going out too fast!
1000m: 4:12 (6:45 pace) -- too fast. I was overcompensating for being too slow on the first one.
1000m: 4:17 (6:53 pace) -- just right!
1000m: 4:15 (6:50 pace) -- just right!

Then I had the three-minute recovery jog. Then I did this:

200m: 0:42 (5:38 pace) followed by a 200m recovery jog
300m: 1:06 (5:54 pace) followed by a 300m recovery jog
400m: 1:28 (5:52 pace) followed by a 400m recovery jog
600m: 2:23 (6:23 pace)

I wish I had given a bit more effort on the 300m and not completely wasted myself on the 400m. It was a challenge to run the 300m hard because I finished around the curve of the track instead of the straightaway, and usually the straight finish is where I pick up most of my speed. That 400m in 1:28 was a PR for me (or at least tied with my PR) so by the time the 600m rolled around, I didn't have much left. I would have loved for that 600m to be about 3-4 seconds faster. But, it was so hot and humid! Overall, I was really pleased with my effort level, and I think that this workout will help me immensely in my upcoming 5K.

When I'm not at the track, I'm taking my easy runs really easy. Those are typically 50-60 minutes in duration, but can be as short as 30 minutes. My pace is typically 8:50-9:10 depending on how my legs feel and how hot/humid it is. This week I have a workout that's so challenging that my coach told me to stand still during the recovery period to catch my breath. I've never done that before (I always jog) so I'm excited to see how it goes!

My next race is the Firecracker 5K on July 4th, which I did last year and the year before. It will be great to see the year-over-year progress.

Special thanks to Greg for taking all of these photos of me! I love being able to share these workouts on Instagram.

Firecracker 5K: Age Group Award

Continuing on with my summer racing frenzy was the Firecracker 5K in Reston, VA this morning. I was debating between running this race and the Independence Day 5000 on Friday night. I ultimately opted for this race because Reston seemed like it would be flatter than Fairfax and I prefer running in the morning. It also gave me the opportunity to volunteer at the Independence Day 5000 race on Friday night.

Before the race started today, one of my runner friends, Sarah, informed me that this course would be hillier than the Independence 5000. And unfortunately, it was hotter. The 8:00am sun seemed much stronger than the 7:30pm sun at the other race. But oh well. I had made my choice and I was going to still try my best.

Greg and I warmed up for 1.5 miles and then headed to the start line. For hot races, I don't like to warm up for much longer than that. For a colder 5K, I think that a 3-mile warmup would be ideal. My goal for this race was not to PR, but to beat my previous PR. In other words, I wanted this race to be my second-fastest ever 5K. Sounds like a tall order for a hot and hilly race, but considering that I recently smashed my 5K PR by over a minute, I thought my increased fitness would still allow me to do better than I used to do at hot 5Ks. My previous "hot 5K PR" was 24:17.

I didn't start as close to the front as I typically do, so there ended up being a lot of weaving during the first mile. The course was narrow, and I didn't want to add too much extra distance by weaving, but I also didn't want to go slower than my desired pace because of the crowds. The first mile included a large hill, and I ended up logging a 7:30.

The second mile just blew by. Almost the entire mile was downhill. Parts of it were shaded by the buildings in Reston Town Center, but other parts were really hot and sunny. I knew that the last half mile would be uphill, so I really pushed hard to take advantage of the downhill. I passed a lot of people. My pace was 7:06.

I knew I was going to have to dig deep for the last mile. Sarah had told me that the last half mile was all uphill and I had done that hill during the warmup. It wasn't very steep, but I knew that I would certainly feel it at the end. I pushed pass a bunch of runners, and was happy that I was passing more people than were passing me. I was closely monitoring my Garmin and was in the 7:20 pace range for the first half of the mile, but after that hill at the end, my pace slowed, so my time for mile three was 7:43.

I pushed hard during the last 0.1, even though that hill had taken it out of me. Average pace was 7:23.

My overall time was 23:21, which is exactly 1:00 slower than my PR. However, it is exactly 0:01 faster than my previous PR, making it my second-fastest ever 5K. Goal attained by the skin of my teeth! And. . . I blew my "hot" 5K PR out of the water. According to my Garmin, my average race pace was 7:26 for 3.14 miles. Greg's Garmin read 3.2 miles. He ran a 22:14. The course may have been a bit long, and we also did some weaving at the beginning.

We stayed for the awards ceremony and I found out that I got third place in my age group! I was called up on stage and awarded a gift certificate to a running store. It felt great! In terms of all women, I placed 29 out of 358, putting me in the top 8%.

I'm pleased with this race, but I do wish I had pushed harder on that final hill. I wasn't as winded and incoherent as I normally am at the 5K finish line, which makes me think I had more in me to give. My HR also didn't get as high as I think it could have. But it was a nice race with much lower humidity than what we've been having for the past month.

For the fun of it, I plugged my time into the Runworks calculator, based on Daniels Running Formula. My time today equates to a 48:25 10K. My previous two 10Ks were a 49:50 and 50:13-- and I think that's because they were much more humid.