Wednesday, February 16, 2011

Thoughts from the night-stand

It's 4:00am and I should be sleeping. I often have difficulties sleeping and don't know why. This time, I had a disturbing dream and couldn't get back to sleep. After tossing and turning for an hour and a half, I decided to get up and do something.

Anyway, Sunday's 5K was intended to be a fun run on my way to the Zoo Half Marathon. Next potential race on the schedule is a 10-miler that is 3.5 short weeks away. I haven't signed up for it yet and probably won't make a final decision on it for another 3 weeks. After that, I'm thinking of doing a 10K in April. Then the Half-Marathon on May 1.

I've been trying to figure out what went right on Sunday. Maybe it was the winter running. Maybe it's fact that I'm not injured for a change. Maybe it was the cake in the morning Maybe it was a relaxed attitude. Probably a combination of the above.

I plugged the results into the MacMillan race calculator and had several observations.

1) My long/easy paces are right on. It always seems like I'm running too slow, but apparently not. That's good to know.
2) Macmillan predicts that I could run a 10K in 58:30. I don't know about that, but I'm definitely hoping to break an hour next time.
3) Macmillan predicts a 2:10:00 Half Marathon. To be honest, If I can get trained up and achieve anything under 2:15:00, I'd be happy.
4) Macmillan suggests tempo runs in the 9:30-9:55 range. That sounds difficult to me. It also has something that it calls steady-state runs that are 9:55-10:12. That sounds more achievable. I'm not sure what the difference is between tempo and steady-state is. Does Anyone know?

Ran 4.5 miles solo on Monday with another half-mile walking. Ran 4.0 miles with the group after work yesterday. That makes three days in a row of running with the race on Sunday. Surprisingly, I feel okay. But today I will 'rest' and do yoga.

Okay, enough rambling for now. I'm going to try to get back to sleep. My alarm doesn't go off until 5:45. I can almost guarantee that I'll be sleeping soundly when it goes off and won't want to get up. Isn't that how it always goes?

18 comments:

  1. Ugh...I feel your pain on the sleep. I was up at 3AM today too.

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  2. Sounds like you've got lots of numbers rattling around in your head. My experience is if McMillan says you can, believe it!

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  3. I must say I never have problems sleeping. I’m just too dead tired by the time I go to bed. I don’t sleep long hours but the 4 – 5 I do I’m out like a dog. That pace that feels to slow is usually just right.

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  4. I been trying to figure the difference as well

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  5. It was the cake, for sure. ;)

    My understanding is that tempo runs should be at or around your LT - typically close to half marathon pace. Steady state would be slightly slower and you would run them for longer durations.

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  6. Wow, what a lot of numbers! It was probably the cake :) AND all your consistent hard work!

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  7. McMillan says I should run a 1:53 half marathon. giddy up :-)

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  8. I always need my sleep.
    I should start to run a little harder on myself. I just take it easy all the time. Not a good thing if I really wanted to speed up some.

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  9. I find that runs where I tend to be mellow and not too stressed out about are the ones where I do the best.

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  10. If I can't sleep, I might as well call in sick. Before I started running, sleeping was my favorite hobby.

    You have a lot of numbers going on.
    I'm sure you can achieve them.

    Yay on being uninjured!

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  11. Not a fan of the middle of the night wake ups either.

    I definitely think you can hit those numbers. You might just surprise yourself with your ability.

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  12. I vote "relaxed attitude". That's magic in a bottle of legs on race day.

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  13. this is awesome. i've found being mostly injury free for a year, and taking a more relaxed attitude has resulted in PR after PR. best of luck to you! can't wait to see you start racking those PR's up.

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  14. Sorry for your sleep, luckily I don't have any problem.
    I vote "relaxed attitude" too.
    Long time ago running was a simple thing now we have the garmin, the calculator, the training programs, the running logs, the cardio, the ipod...do I forget anything?........ great sport!!!!

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  15. Sorry about the sleep problems. My spouse also has a lot of difficulty getting to sleep and staying asleep many nights. I'm a big baby when I don't get at least 6.5 hours.

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  16. I was often up at that hour during pregnancy. Btw, great job on your last race and your PR!!

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  17. It's taken me a few days to catch up with everyone's most recent blog posts, but I note you posted this 5 days ago. Did you fall back to sleep and never wake up?

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