October Summary

Another month in the bank and as per last month it’s all run run run!

A step up from last month in terms of distance and time, the numbers as follows:

24 runs, 28:28:15 and 203.04 miles, This is basically 3 runs and 2 2 hours more than last month, not such a big increase but it’s a whopping 23 miles more!

I am handling the volume without any issues, although this month was pretty much all road. It was a conscious decisions to stick to the roads as this weekend’s race is a road race (train terrain) and 3 hours on the roads often ends up being 4 hours on the trails and I just didn’t have the time!

That being said this is how it shook out on the terrain.

Once the Marathon and Becca’s Ironman is behind us we’ll be heading back to the trails for some of the longer runs for sure!

An extra hour…

This is pretty funny! Rest up for the extra hour if you are racing this weekend…I know I will be!

Santa Clarita Marathon; goal

That’s it…’nuff said.

SCM Week 12 (Step Back)

Ahhh Rest week, dialed down volume and dialed down intensity, enjoy it while you can!

Monday; 5 miles. On the treadmill, no real issues ankle is sore as a result from Sunday’s long run. Started easy and stayed that way!

Tuesday; off.

Wednesday; 6 miles. Ankle still sore, just taking this easy. New Kinvara 5s for this run, Threw in some Fartleks to check out the Garmin Run Dynamics features.

Thursday; off, just ran out of day, happy to do this as ankle needs some rest.

Friday; blah just ran out day.

Saturday; off

Sunday; 16 miles. Run with Becca and added a couple of extra miles which was fine as I was short a run this week. Ran three loops nice and easy. Ankle feeling better and it was nice to just run loops chatting.

So for the week 5:44:28 and 41.24 miles. By comparison a big drop off in mileage but that’s basically the point of a rest week!

2015…yeah about that!

Go big or go home!

SCM Week 11

Another week of training and now only two weeks to the Santa Clarita Marathon.

As a result of shifting my plan to align with what I can realistically do following lasts Sunday’s 12 mile long run, Monday was upping the ante on the back-to-back runs and was a 10 miler. But I am getting ahead of myself, so here we go;

Monday; 10 miles. On the treadmill, no real issues. Started easy and worked up and pushed down the pace.

Tuesday; off. Like a rock star!

Wednesday; 8 miles. I cut a longer local loop short and get this done early in the morning

Thursday; 5 miles. Nice and easy and I got to play with my new Garmin Fenix 2

Friday; 8 miles. Basically a rinse and repeat of Wednesday.

Saturday; off

Sunday; 22 miles. Reversed my usual loop and then added a couple of loop-da-loops to add mileage. Second run longer than 20 miles and really felt it on the final miles which were basically uphill followed by some more uphill. I hit the 22 mile mark and I was done. Final miles on my second pair of Kinvara 5s too, this pair lasted 241 miles. 2 miles longer than the first pair.

So for the week 7:44:28 and 55:01 miles. I am definitely noticing that the 20 mile mark is a threshold both physically and mentally. To that end the more of them I can do the better along with discipline around my hydration and nutrition.

SportTracks introduces automatic Garmin sync

I like easy, and I am sure you do too!

Last week SportTracks announced automatic sync with Garmin Connect.  This completes the trifecta of main websites where athletes can log their workouts using Garmin Connect Auto Sync; Training Peaks and Strava are the other two.  This automatic sync means that as soon as your Garmin device workout syncs to Garmin Connect, it’ll show up a few seconds later on SportTracks.  Just upload the data file or have it auto-upload, and hit F5 on the other webpage's and voila it’s there.

SprortTracks, Garmin Connect and Strava; the same thing three different ways…beauty is in the eye of the beholder!

To enable it in SportTracks just go to My Account, then Sharing, (I had already done this so I borrowed these screenshots from DC Rainmaker, thanks Ray)

 Click on Connect and you are presented with two options

Click on the Garmin Connect logo

You are then asked moved over to Garmin to authorize, click on Allow

 

You are given the option of importing all your history, there is logic to not import duplicates, but remember it won’t import any of the customizations so everything comes over as Untitled without any notes. Also it’s only one way, you can’t send data to GC from SportTracks.

Next you are prompted for your Garmin Connect ID and Password.

And that’s it, when you look again it will show you the last time you synced, If you do decide to import your history it’s just munches through the data in the background until it’s done, then it’s up to you to go back and rename everything…fun times!

I started the year using four sites to track workouts; Strava, Training Peaks, Garmin Connect and SportTracks, TP was the first to go by the wayside by the end of May. TP wasn’t providing me anything that the others wasn’t, I know Becca and here Coach use it but for me it was redundant. Then my Strava Premium lapsed in June and I didn’t renew. Strava IMHO is better suited to cycling and given that I am in a run mode I don’t need the Premium features. So that left Garmin Connect which is the backbone of my device world, I have data going back as far as April 2007 on it, and SportTracks which I have been using throughout this year.

I am a little behind in devices now that the 920XT is out of the bag and I do not have the run dynamics data that the FR620 and Fenix is generating on my 910XT but I have seen that that data is also being imported into SprortTracks without issues, more on that when my 920 arrives!

If you are new to SportTracks, check it out you can have  45day free trial and it’s only $59 a year.

SCM Week 10

It would seem that this month has simply become weekly summaries with the occasional product review interspersed with something funny I came across and if you were to say this I would say you are correct. Sometimes it’s just like that and you don’t really have anything much to say so you just shut up and run and that’s what’s been going on. Combined with a busy month or so at work and Becca’s Ironman training it’s all business really. So without further ado here’s the week that was!

• Monday; 5 miles. Recovery run.
• Tuesday off. Yup managed that but no PR!
• Wednesday. Midweek long run. 10 miles. Got out early to get it in before leaving the house for the school run so I was on the road by 4:45am. It’s dark and cold at that time of the day, so there’s no hanging about. 10 miles in 1:18. I was happy.
• Thursday; 5 miles. Nice and easy on the treadmill.
• Friday; 8 miles. Mid tempo,so just under 8:00 pace.
• Saturday; off.
• Sunday; 12 miles. I had planned to run the XTerra Pt Mugu 18k but the entry fee was just under $100! That’s really steep especially when you consider the Santa Clarita Marathon was only $85! So I passed and headed to Westlake Village to run a well worn loop around the lake. Unlike where I live it’s pretty flat and would be a good race terrain practice run. My training plan doesn’t specify paces so I thought I would target 7:45-8:00. I went out much too fast and struggled to hang onto the last 3 miles. Such a rookie mistake but a good reminder that negative splits are crucial! I ended up with an average of 7:24 for the 12 miles but it should have been around 7:30 and more in control! Better to make stupid mistakes in training though!

So the week’s totals were;

5 runs, 5:22, 41.25 miles. All three main runs were sub 8:00, that’s a good thing. This is a bit of a step back in miles from last week but Sunday’s run will be followed up by a 10 miler on Monday which if I was following the plan day-to-day would have made this week 47 miles as it would have been in last week’s totals.

So I am ten weeks in; 57 runs and 460 miles. The Marathon is only 3 weeks away, this weekend I have a 22 miler, then a step back week and then race week. It feels about right given that’s it only a training race and stepping stone to LD50.

Headsweat giveaway…

Click on image to enter, contest ends October 15th

SCM Week 9

After last week’s step back week, this was a build week. It included the first 20 mile (of 6, 20 miles or longer) run between now and April. I have another in two weeks and then the week after that is Santa Clarita Marathon, the second training race on the way to Leona Divide, Bulldog 25k was the first back in August.

This is how it all fell into place;

• Monday. 5.55 miles recovery, nice and easy on the treadmill.
• Tuesday. off. Yup check!
• Wednesday. 10 miles. Nice long midweek run, I was out the door by 5:30 and back before 7am. Needless to say very happy to have clicked this off at just over a 8:00 pace.

• Thursday. 5.76 miles. Nice and easy on the treadmill.
• Friday. 8.13 miles at race pace (8:35), more on my goal in another post.
• Saturday. off. That was easy!
• Sunday. Forecast was for crazy hot temperatures and so I was on the road by 5:45am! I made a point of getting up early and having breakfast, a cup of tea and let nature take it’s course and that set me up for a solid run. Goal was to average race pace for the run. While the terrain is rolling and there are couple of tasty hills at the beginning and towards the end. I hit it square on! Becca came out to cheer me on in the last mile and that helped with a strong finish. Missing the heat of sun made the run very doable and compared to a couple of long runs ago this was very manageable! A telling sign is how I feel later and while I was a bit tired I think this was more a function of the alarm clock of than the run.

A couple of doozy hills; Mile 2-3 and 16-18.

Very happy with the consistency of the splits for the middle miles.

Sunrise and long shadows!

So the week’s totals;

5 runs, 7:02:16 and 50.15 miles in the bank! This week sees a difference with the long run being split over a back-to-back days so recovery will be important!