the last couple weeks...

the last couple of weeks have been a study in contrast!

monday 2/18 - sunday 2/24

after i felt the lingering pain on monday, i decided to take a break from running for a couple of days. on tuesday i went to the gym and rode the stationary bike for 45 minutes. took wednesday off, except for doing the quad routines i picked up here. also, sweetie got me the polar rs400 :)!!! another post shall be dedicated to raving about it. on thursday, went out for a "shakeout" run (term i've stolen from nate jenkins :)). essentially, an easy run meant to get the blood circulating more than anything else. did the usual 7-miler from work @8:13. amazingly, felt nearly no pain in the knee, so it seems to have been a random flare-up more than a real problem (am keeping my fingers crossed - on both hands :)). took friday off, and switched my long run to saturday, as we were going to the portland film festival on sunday. the long run was probably one of my worst ever! i felt awful at around 11 miles, and actually stopped and walked most of the rest of the way home! don't know what it was, maybe just the fact that i hadn't done a long run in a while, or maybe the lingering cold i still had...whatever it was, it had me feeling pretty crappy and frustrated :)...

i'd been reading nate's blog, and noticed his emphasis on the easy-hard philosophy - have easy days and hard days, and go easy on your easy days, hard on your hard days. greg mcmillan also advocates the same approach, and i'd heard this advice in other places too, but had never taken it very seriously. consequently, i'd been doing my easy runs a bit too fast, i think. the other thing i hadn't been taking very seriously was warming up before hard workouts. i've decided to incorporate both these elements more strictly into my training, and so far, am liking the results :)!

monday 2/25 - sunday 3/2

this week, i set out to do two hard workouts, plus a long run, and easy runs the other two days. monday and friday were going to be easy, tuesday and thursday were workout days, wed and saturday were off, and sunday was the long run. miraculously, after a long long time, the week actually went to plan! monday i set out for the 5-mile route from work, but at jackson school road, was feeling great (it was fabulous weather), so went north towards evergreen instead of south back to sunrise ln. took evergreen to 15th, onto sunrise, for a total of just under 6 miles @8:22.

on tuesday, i did a progressive tempo run on the treadmill (the first time i used the treadmill's at the gym at work). warmed up for 10 minutes @ 8:27, then 10 minutes @ 7:48, 10 mins @ 7:42, 5 mins @ 7:36 and 5 mins @ 7:30, then cooled down for 10 mins @ 8:27. it felt way too easy, though...i should've gone a bit harder. next time, i'll try 10 @ 7:42, 10 @ 7:30 and 10 @ 7:18. the whole thing was at 0.5% incline.

on thursday, i tried a workout that mcmillan calls tempo intervals. the idea is to do 2 or 3 x 2 miles @ 10K pace. i did my usual 7-mile route from work, warming up for about 10 minutes @8:20, then 2 miles @ 7:15, 4 minute recovery (had planned on 3, but needed to get to my marker :)), 2 miles @ 7:17, and then cooled down for about 1.75 miles @ 8:15. was happy to be able to hold the pace well without struggling.

friday i went out for an easy 4-mile jog @ 8:40. was a lovely sunny day, felt great to be outside.

sunday was much chillier, temps down to about 30, and pretty foggy when i set out for my long run at about 9. i made a conscious effort to take the first 8-mile loop easy, and managed to do exactly that, running at 8:22 pace. came back to the car, switched my bottles out, and set out for the 5-mile loop to make 13. i was feeling great, so decided to try out running at mp the last 4 miles, and boy :)!!! i ran the last 5 miles @ 7:50, and the last 4 probably even faster, since i only picked up the pace after a mile or so into the 5-mile loop. it was hard work, but left me absolutely thrilled!!! am usually very cautious during my long runs, for fear i'll run out of gas, so i end up going pretty slow. this time, i decided to risk it a little, and am very happy with the results! even had two gulab jamuns for dessert to celebrate :)!