[mountainmilers] Mid-month progress report

From: Terri Rashid <terri@xxxxxxxxxx>
To: "mountainmilers@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <mountainmilers@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Wed, 16 Jan 2013 02:15:28 +0000
I figured I should enjoy posting some progress reports early in 2013 since it's 
likely to be the only time that I am "on track" for my dream goal of 1000 miles 
for the year.  :>

So far the month is going well, from a running perspective.  I've run every day 
so far with short runs being only a little over a mile (just to keep my legs 
loose and keep me consistent), mid-length being around 4-5 miles, and "long" 
runs being around 7 miles.  Many, *many*, years ago I experimented with running 
every day and found it was great for my consistency, but of course not so good 
when I was on the verge of injury or burnout.  But I felt like doing it again 
for a little while at the start of this year, so I am.  I know it's generally 
contra-indicated, especially now that I am older, but I think I can compensate 
for that by being more conservative than historically - especially on the easy 
days.  I am making them VERY easy.  And on my warmups - I am doing those at a 
slower pace now too.

I've also been planning my training more carefully.  I have tempo workouts 
(though short) and I am starting to do what I call "baby" interval workouts.  
They are not hard enough yet for me to actually train at VO2max, but that's 
because I've historically gotten injured when I tried to jump right into real 
VO2max workouts because my tendons were not used to running fast.

So now that I am older, and possibly smarter (or at least more experienced), I 
am easing into the intervals by doing an interval-structured workout but having 
the workbouts only be a little faster than my steady tempo/threshold pace.  
(And we won't talk about what exactly those paces are.  Suffice to say that 
many of you could be sleep-jogging at my threshold pace. :))  Warmups and 
cooldowns are positively pedestrian.  (Think LOTS of walk breaks, and slow 
jogging in between.)

I am feeling the effects of beginning the adaptation to the higher frequency of 
runs, and addition of a few quality miles, in the form of slightly complaining 
tendons - mostly on the bottoms of my feet.  Usually that means I need to 
stretch my calves more, and carefully.  I've been lucky to not ever have PF 
(though my sister has had it) because I am pretty religious about getting warm 
and stretching when things like that start to crop up.  I am even careful when 
getting out of bed in the morning after a hard workout the day before, spending 
some time rolling my ankles and limbering up my calves before my feet hit the 
floor.

On the other hand my average HRs are starting to drop a little already, so my 
cardio system is certainly benefiting from the new schedule.  I haven't been 
doing it long enough to see a drop in my morning/resting HR, but that will 
probably take a few months.

I've got just over 50 miles for the first half of the month, so I am on track 
to break into triple digits for January's total if all goes well.

Of course, just this evening, after having a great & fairly comfortable run 
this morning, and feeling fine all day, I seem to have picked up a chest cough. 
 :<  Tieran was sick last week with a fever and a truly awful sounding cough, 
and he and Kylan were both sick this morning with GI issues, so my guess is 
that all this exposure has finally overloaded my immune system.  I'll be 
heading to bed early tonight - that's for certain!

Hope you are all having a great start to your 2013 running and/or walking!

.Terri
[mountainmilers] Mid-month progress report

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