Little voice wins

6,5km Easy Run

7:30am, the alarm goes off. Hmmm. I was bad yesterday: had a beer and went to bed late (midnight is very late for me) because we had a guest.
Do I really want to go out and run in this cold, grey and possibly wet Sunday morning?
Oh, come on, it's just for a short run.

Exactly! It's not an important long run, it's not too bad if I skip it.
But then it will be 4 full days without running.

So what... it's cold.
It's not that cold and you know it, you've already been out when it was much colder.

But maybe it's raining.
I don't hear anything, it can't be raining.

It's no use doing a Magic Mile today, no way I can improve my time with these legs.
Just get out of bed and let's have breakfast, then we'll see. And didn't you want to try the new shoes?

Humpf.

So I went downstairs carrying that little annoying voice inside my head, had breakfast and checked my training program. 6,5km easy run, it said.

See? It's not even the Magic Mile thingy, now go get dressed. You'll be back before anybody even wakes up, from the sound of it. (Snoring noises from all of the rooms)

And out the door I went with my new shoes. It wasn't that cold and it wasn't raining, but it was indeed a grey morning. There were only runners (me and another woman) and dog walkers (a few) out.

km 5,8. Maybe I'll cut it short now.
Come on... you really want to take the shortcut? Make it at least 6km.

km 6. You got all the way here, now arriving home 3 minutes earlier would not make that much of a difference, would it?

km 6,5. Little voice wins. I think I'll hear from you again next Sunday, when it's going to be 17km.

My knees were quiet the whole time. My right quadriceps (particularly the VMO, now that I know what it is) must have noticed the extra support in the shoe and probably needs to adjust to it.

Schoo's!!!

(Only a few will giggle at the title, sorry... it would take too long to explain years of schoo-ness)

5,5km Speedwork.

Yesterday I decided I could not postpone my visit to a good running store anymore, so I put the kids in the car and off we went. Before talking about that though, I'd like to share a little bit of history of my running shoes. I bought my first pair at Fleet Feet in Davis, California (insert here big sigh). Without any fancy computer equipment, the guy assisting me just gave me a pair of shoes and send me in the street to run for a few meters while he was observing attentively. The verdict came quick and easy: I needed shoes with extra arch support, and he presented me with a pair of Asics GT2120. I didn't run much in those shoes, maybe even less than 100km, but I did walk a lot in them.

A few years later, when I was already living here in the Netherlands and I was carrying my son in a giant sized belly, I started having problems with my left foot. I though the time had come to replace my Asics, and went to a store nearby which supposedly also specializes (among many other sports) in running. A probably not-so-experienced sales representative made me step barefoot on a sort of foot-scanner, and decided (based on my footprint only) that my feet were perfectly neutral. That's how I ended up bringing home a pair of Nike Air Pegasus + 26. They were nice and comfortable, but my problems continued so I ended up seeing a podiatrist who confirmed the overpronation diagnosis. I'll skip the odissey with the podiatrist and custom made inserts... in the end I got some otc inserts with arch support specific for running, and that solved all the problems. Until now, that is.

And we finally get to yesterday and to my visit to the Loop Centrum (sorry, all in Dutch but there's pictures), which I can only define as a runner's paradise. It's all only about running and walking. You don't shop by yourself (unless you want to), you are accompanied by a sales representative and advised in all of your purchases. I was lucky to be assisted by one of the owners: he interviewed me for about 10 minutes about my running habits, had a look at my old shoes, had a look at my footprint (by means of a glass plate) and made me run on their indoor track equipped with high speed cameras just to confirm what he had already said by looking at shoes and feet. I do have a tendency to overpronate with both feet, but my Nike with the insert were enough to correct the defect on my left foot, it was the right one which needed more support. So why is my left knee hurting? Maybe running mostly on the right side of the road (must do that when I run with the stroller) has an influence on this... or maybe not... who knows. I went home with those shoes that you can see up there (Saucony Progrid Omni 10), a pair of winter pants and a headband (those that cover your ears and forehead, not those Bjorn Borg style). I'm ready for the winter runs!

The shoes were the only new purchase that I didn't use today (though the headband went flying in the stroller after 1km, it had served its purpose, thanks) because I want to walk a bit in them first and then I will gradually switch. I will probably try them on Sunday, I have a short run anyway.
No problems with my knee, by the way, and I think the type of workout helped with that: after the warmup I did a sort of "Galloway interval training", 1 minute running pretty much as fast as I could, and one minute walking. All good, let's see what happens on Sunday and if my time on the Magic Mile improves with the new shoes. You never know what a good Schoo can do for you.

Not my knee again...

Easy run: 5km

A piece about running gear was already clear in my head when 500m from the virtual finish line my left knee suddenly decided that it wanted to be the protagonist of my blog entry once again.
After Sunday's long run it was a bit sore, so I did some research and it appears I may have a mild case of "runner's knee". It improved quickly after one night, and the pain was completely gone this morning. As I had to visit my doctor for other things, I also mentioned this and she said that it's ok as long as it keeps healing this quickly, I only have to make sure I give it time to heal after the long runs. She also advised to make sure I have the right shoes, which is what had triggered the idea of a blog about running gear... but I'll talk about my shoes another day because that's a whole different story.

So, back to today's run... I went out with the intention of being extra careful and to walk at the first warning sign from my knee, but everything went fine until at some point it started getting super stiff in the back. It was not a sudden stiffness, just very very quick. For the mathematicians reading this (and I know there's at least one), it was not an impulse, but rather an exponential function ;-)
I had a very hard time extending my leg fully, I walked slowly trying to extend it as much as possible with every step, and then I had to jog again to get home because I was getting cold. Ten minutes after I stopped running the pain at the back of my knee was completely gone. I've had this kind of pain already when I started running back in April, my knees would get stiff as soon as I stopped running (never while I was), but only for about 10 minutes. I don't know if and how this could be related to the runner's knee, which gives pain inside the knee, right behind the knee cap, but I think it's a separate problem.

Looks like there's another pair of shoes in my future, and possibly some strengthening exercises for my legs although I really don't think I have weak quadriceps, I think this is more to blame on my overpronating feet. Can anybody suggest an easy way to assess the strength of my quadriceps at home?

Weather-wise it was this kind of day, although this pic was not taken today because the windmill was not on my route.

Writer's block

Long run: 14.5km

Listening to Stephen Fry reading the Harry Potter books while I run the long distances really helps to keep my mind off the distance I still have to cover, but it also has a disadvantage: when I get home I have no idea what to write in my blog, while after the short runs I already have it all figured out in my head.
Well then... where should I start from? I'm having a little writer's block here...
14.5km, 1:1 ratio (1 minute run, 1 minute walk), I didn't like the idea but I had promised I would follow the Galloway guidelines, so I did just that. Except for the first 10 minutes, because the wind was howling and it was pretty cold, and I really didn't want to walk while I was still not warm enough. When you choose the Galloway approach there is one thing you really need to fight, and that is the urge to keep running (when you're supposed to walk) when you come across other runners. Will they know what I'm doing? or will they think I'm too tired to run? There is an inevitable sense of shame that I still need to chase away. Just as my body needs to train for the distance, my mind needs to train for this: to ignore thousands of other runners and the cheering crowd until mile 20, which is when I plan on ditching the walk breaks and start running continuously.
I did the same today, I just ran the last 3.5km and had no problems at all.

Ok, I just can't keep writing this with Mary Poppins at full volume and my kids clapping and singing along...

Here, the corn field was gone, as expected. Can you spot the windmill?

Turkey trot, black friday shopping?

6km, easy.

With my one and only long sleeve thermal shirt in the laundry bin and knowing that my wind jacket is actually a portable sauna, I decided to give my old tennis jacket a try. It failed miserably.
After no more than 500m I felt like the turkey must have felt a few hours later when it was in the oven all covered with aluminum foil. The jacket went flying in the back of the stroller and I was left with only a t-shirt, which didn't make my elbows happy. I was lucky because the temperature was a few degrees above freezing point so it wasn't that bad after all, but I really need to buy a couple of long sleeve t-shirts.

Just in case anyone is wondering... we celebrate Thanksgiving because my daughter was born in the US and is therefore also American, and we like to keep this tradition alive for her and for us, to remember our time in the US.

As for my pace today, I have no idea what that was because the Garmin died right after the jacket (a trained eye may be able to spot it face down in the stroller pouch). I think it was a good pace, and anyway I felt good throughout the run.

Corn and Fartlek

7km Fartlek

There was a corn field very close to my house that I had been meaning to photograph for a long time, but one day it was gone and I had missed my chance. So when this morning I ran by this other field, I took a few seconds to stop and take a picture, knowing that this too will not be there for much longer. 

And no, "Fartlek" is not a bad word. The runners among my readers may have heard this term already, or maybe not. It is a sort of interval training, but totally unstructured. Basically you go from walking to sprinting and anything in between whenever you feel like it, totally random. It was the first time that I did this type of workout, and it's fun! I find it difficult to keep a constant pace and I like to run faster segments, so this fits me perfectly. 

Just in case somebody very observant notices that today should've been my Easy Run day: I decided to be a lot more flexible with my weekday runs, at least for the next 3 weeks, because I will not be able to go out early on Thursday so I'll move the shorter runs then and run a little longer on Tuesday.

It works!

Thursday: 7km Tempo Run
Sunday: 5km with Magic Mile


This past Thursday I went out again later than planned, but I didn't have the problems I had last Thursday because I didn't rush it. I cut the workout from 7km to 6km, had a shorter warm up and finished taking another big chunk off my 5K PB. I will reach a plateau sooner or later, but at this point as my training progresses it is to be expected that my times get better and better.


As for today's run... it's getting cold! When I went out the temperature was at freezing point, even though it was a beautiful sunny day. I had decided to try the walk breaks strategy also for the Magic Mile, and boy it worked!!! Last time that I did this test (running continuously) I had a quite uneven pace with an obvious tendency to slow down throughout the whole mile. This time I alternated running for about 400m and walking for 20-30 seconds, and it went so much better! I kept a constant pace during the run segments and I got consistently faster from beginning to end, that is I ran the second segment faster than the first, the third faster than the second and the last faster than the third. It really helps to set your mind on a shorter distance, after all it's just 400 meters... 
The result was a fat 25 seconds off my last MM, and without that "I'm going to puke" feeling in your stomach that only runners will understand. I don't care much about time, but this result gives me a predicted finish time under the 5 hours, which would make me happy. 


As I was jogging to complete the 5km, this red giant greeted me... it was really beautiful against the blue sky. I wish I could bring my camera when I go running!