Dogs Gone Wild

I am definitely sticking with the Pfitzinger program until the end. How else to tell if it works? The long runs, over and over, are just very time consuming to a slow runner like myself. I look at my messy house and think of what I could be doing if I wasn't spending endless hours running. But, oh well.

After cleaning the teenage boys bathroom -- which hadn't been properly cleaned since January (gross!) -- I hit the treadmill for 8 miles with 6x600 at 10k pace for my LT run. Maybe it should have been 5k pace, but I don't think I could have finished at that pace.

First 4.5 miles were at marathon pace: 9:55, 9:57, 9:59, 9:58, 5:11 for the .5. Funny that, with the exception of the .5 which was slower, these were on the treadmill set at 6.0. Hmm...

Then the intervals (90 sec. jog in between): HR between 169-171.

Appropos of the dog discussion on Hal Higdon earlier today, I let my dogs outside in between the 2nd and 3rd interval. Guess what? They escaped. Both of them. 2:30 I get a phone call: "I have Kimo and Olympia." They stuck together, fortunately, and wound up about a mile away but through the woods. It was about a 10 minute drive for me! Thank goodness a dog owner had the good sense to check for tags and hold onto them while he called me. I can't tell you the number of times I've called dog owners from the dog's tags, but it's unusual that someone does this. Definitely only a dog owner would understand how devasted we would be to lose our dogs.
Anyway, Kimo and Olympia are home safe, sound, and very dirty. Especially Kimo, the white Eskie. They are locked up in their kennels for the time being until I can shower them.

I hope they didn't terrorize any runners while they were on their adventure.

Best Laid Plans

I love to have a plan.

Today's plan was to run my 10 mile general aerobic run like this: 10:00 for three miles, 9:50 for three miles, 9:30 for three miles.

It didn't exactly work out like I planned, but the plan did keep me focused and motivated. Here is what really happened:

*Mile 4-5 involved a quick stop to remove my gloves, adjust my ipod, eat a gu, put gloves back on.

I realized right away that I was going faster than I had planned, but I decided to just go with it, as long as I didn't slow down. Now, before you are tempted to say something like "Natalie, you really should have gone a little slower because look how much you slowed down those last two miles," first take a look at this elavation chart:

Notice how the line at about 7.5 goes almost vertical and even more so at 8.75.
Now, let's hear the applause.

*Clap* *Clap* *Clap*

Christmas training

Well, well, well. After starting Hal's program yesterday, I went ahead and began the Pfitz program today. I laid in bed an extra hour this morning saying to myself "I don't want to run seven miles today," but eventually I got up, got dressed, and did it. Ack! I just realized that I forgot the speed! I was supposed to run 7 w/ 10x100 m strides, but I was so caught up in wondering what a "general aerobic" run was supposed to be that I completely forgot. Oh, well, it was a good run anyway. The CW-X compression tights and the UA compression shirt felt great on my sore muscles.

My average pace was 9:51 and my average HR was 160. The chart is really beautiful. The elevation goes up and down, but the pace and HR stay very consistant.

Mile 3 was a water stop and Mile 6 was an ipod/water issue. Still, this is nice:

I hope everyone is having a nice Christmas. It looks like we are breaking the movie tradition. The boys have made their own plans with their friends which involve, what else, Chinese food and a movie. We're invited to spend Christmas with my brother-in-laws' family but my boys don't really want to go. Did we raise these guys right or what??? I admit, it is a little bit of an odd feeling to be the Jewish family at a Christmas celebration. We're not going to force the boys to go, though. They're right... it's not their relatives and it's not their holiday either. From their perspecive, it's a boring day with their parent's friends. Instead, they will be spending the day with kids their own age from BBYO which is a philanthropic/social group for Jewish teens.
Sarah and I will watch the final episode of last seasons' Ugly Betty.

Heart Rate

I'm trying to remember to wear my HR monitor more often these days. I wore it today, and it's quite interesting to see the improvement.

In April 2005, when I ran my first 1/2 marathon, I wore a HR monitor. At the time, I had been training with the monitor and I knew that when my heart rate was about 177, my pace was about a 10 minute mile. I wore the monitor for the race, kept my heart rate at 177, and finished in 2:10. Pretty accurate, huh?

Today, I ran four miles which included a 30 minute tempo run. My heart rate NEVER went above 170, even at the end of the 30 minutes when I hit my fastest pace of 7:50 which came at the end of a hill climb. Now that's a pretty dramatic improvement.

P.S. Ignore the % of Max HR data. My Garmin refuses to believe me when I tell it my max is 189.