The Ruby Slippers

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A friend posted a picture of her new shoes on Twitter the other day... and I was smitten.

I coveted.

I needed.

While my current running shoes are far from run through, and while I do have a second pair of the same waiting in the wings, it really is only a matter of time before I'll be needing another pair of running shoes. Right?

Buying running shoes based on how they look is ill-advised. Different bodies have different biomechanics requiring different shoes. I used to work in a running specialty shop so I actually do understand this ;-)

I was certain that because these shoes were so perfect-looking, they would be the wrong sort of shoe for me, and I would be left simply longing for something ill-suited to my needs.

I was wrong.

The Mizuno Wave Rider 15 Limited Edition...Oooooo....Aaaaaahhhhhh...is a neutral shoe!

Of course, the fact that they are 'rare' adds to the mystique.

I have never worn Mizuno shoes, so I knew I wanted to try them on before dropping a whopping sum of cash. I headed to the local running store to see if they had what I needed. They did. They felt a bit small to me, so I sized up a half size from normal and fell head-over-heels in love.

I knew I could get them online cheaper, but in the interest of supporting the local economy and small business owners, I opted to buy them in the store. Add in the tax... awesome me, contributing to the state and city coffers... and the one dollar to the city parking authority (for a savings of $57 had I opted out of the meter and gone for the ticket instead)... and I was a well-shod, model citizen.

These shoes are totally different than the Saucony ProRide 3 I am currently wearing. The Mizunos feel like a lower profile, firmer shoe. I wore them for the cool down portion of my run last night. I can tell they will require some getting used to so I will not be racing in them any time soon. But WOW! Love the way they feel!

Aren't they pretty?

Click, click, click...

If I feel like it's taking too long to get to the finish line,

I can just click my heels together three times...

Another item I have had my eye on would be arm warmers. Not so sure why these appeal to me so much. I've never had a pair. So much has changed in the decade and a half since I was last running. Arm warmers and calf sleeves... who'd've thunk?

Given that I broke the bank on my fancy shoes, I knew low-budget was the direction to take for arm warmers. I had seen some made from tube socks with the toes cut out on other blogs. But I particularly wanted mine for Vegas and so ugly white, clunky tube socks were not going to be near glam enough. 

Enter: two-dollar knee socks at Target!

Sleek, color choices, patterned...

I went with black :P

I didn't cut the toes off because I like the optional mitten-effect.

I cut a small slice through the arch of the sock. This way I can cover my fingers or not.

The extra flap tucks up into the wrist very nicely.

Last night it was chilly, so I tried them out. They worked out perfectly!

And that was how the run went, too!

Three-mile tempo run at half-marathon pace after a two-mile warm-up and followed by a one mile cool down.

Warm-up:  2.25 miles @ 9:39 avg. pace  (21:24)

Tempo:     3.2 miles @ 8:39 avg. pace    (mile splits: 8:45/8:43/8:30 + 0.2 @ 8:00)

Cool down:  1 mile  @ 10:34 avg. pace

Sadly, I think I was pushing the pace a little too much. I wish I didn't feel that way. But for the sake of honesty, I need to come clean. The 8:45 felt really good...maybe if I had been able to just sit with that, I would feel better about it. If anyone has suggestions or advice, I'm open to hearing it :)

No nap and how bedtimes worked for the Waltons...

I did not nap today.

I ran.

And I changed the bedsheets.

That nap yesterday really did a number on me. It was even worse than I first thought. My single-parent coping skills were nil. I was tottering around like one of the undead all afternoon. When I finally started to get a little energy back, the kids effective sucked that right outta me during the bedtime routine. Why is bedtime so sucky? It is never like that on The Waltons.

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Mama:  You children go on up to bed now, y'he-ah? Yo' daddy n' I need to talk some things o-vuh.

All seven of the children, in unison:  Okay, Mama!

There is almost never any backtalk. No one says, "I don't want to!" and runs away like it is some awesome game. Jason never demands to know, "How come I have to go bed at the same time as Jim Bob? I'm 15...and he's SIX!" There is no door-slamming, no screaming, and no 'hmph, hmph, hmph'-ing. They simply go to bed.

And once they are in bed, no one is running around upstairs, opening and closing doors or sneaking playing with legos. They say the good night deal... "good night, mama," "good night, Mary Ellen." "good night, daddy," "good night John Boy." And they are done.

Who here has that? Anyone? C'mon... anyone?

I know why it worked for Mama and Daddy Walton. A woodshed and a belt. They never had to use them or even threaten to use them, but they were there... the looming and omnipresent enforcers. Or maybe kids back then were just more respectful by nature.

Anyway...

By the time my kids were all finally in bed, I was collapsed in a heap again... but this time on the living room floor. No way was I going out to do a tempo run. Instead I did important sedentary things like played on Twitter and Facebook and read some blogs and tried to drum up votes for yet another contest I had entered. After that disastrous nap, sleep was kind of scary to me.

All that led to my run this morning. Since I'm getting ready for this race, running was kind of important. I was set to do a 3-mile tempo run at a little faster than my half-marathon base pace... so looking at about 8:50 per mile. It was hot and sunny. I planned to do the run on a flat, straight road... next to the Bay with no shade and no protection. Water on one side, freeway on the other.

My 2-mile warm-up stunk. I considered just going home after it. But no, I needed to get this run in. Ugh, I was so cranky about it. So I set off... and just could not control my pace. And the heat was really hot so I took off my shirt... which added a whole new voyeuristic element to the run. The volume of vehicles because I was next to the freeway meant a vast number of hecklers/oglers. I am so not used to this! I run at night in my little development. No one sees me. No one says anything to me. I got a lot of "Go, baby! Go!" and truck honks. Okay... a little ego-feeding but I recognized that they were traveling at a high rate of speed and were some distance away, so it was mostly distracting. Whatever.

The tempo pace... not 8:50 at all... 3 miles @ 8:24/8:25/8:22.

At least I was consistent.

And I got it done.

What does it mean when you almost 5K PR in the middle of your tempo run?

After kicking that PMS to the curb and getting more efficient support (I hope), I decided to tackle my tempo run last night...20 min/30 min/10 min....hr zones:  z2 /z3/z2 = around 141-154/154-160/141-154 based on my personal calculations.

But how fast was I supposed to be running?

I did all these calculations but don't have a heart rate monitor. I could just count my pulse periodically, but that seemed just too interrupting. So I needed a pace.

I looked up Rate of Perceived Exertion charts.... thanks, Patrick. And found that the appropriate heart rate translated into HARD. I recall this level of exertion from my rowing days... this heart rate zone we called Anaerobic Threshold, and it was my least favorite type of workout for years. It hurts. And it hurts for longer than you want to hurt. But unlike race pace, you can do it again. And now as a runner, I love this workout ... in theory.

Still needing to pick a target pace, I remembered that my blogger friend Danny at one point made a remark about "being able to repeat the workout at that same pace"... totally out of context, Danny, I know, I know... but bear with me :)

I figured that doubling 30 minutes would yield about a 10K, so I should use a projected 10K pace time based on that timed mile I ran last month. Using the Mcmillan Running Calculator, this gave me a per mile pace of 8:33 (which happens to be very similar to what Jill mentioned the other day). This made sense because a 10K is HARD. But if you run a 5K at 10K pace, you should be able to repeat it immediately :)

For some reason, I was scared. But I just reminded myself... what's the worst thing that could happen? Oh, right... I could be slower than I had hoped. I could crash and burn. And I would learn from that. So I shelved my anxiety, and I went ahead...

The first 20 minutes were completely consistent at 10:20 pace... which felt agonizingly slow... but I stuck with the plan. About 2/3 of the way through the 3rd lap I kicked into the HARD part. If you are new here, I usually run 0.75-mile laps... so keep that in mind when reading my splits. I settled into something that was slightly uncomfortable... if you can truly settle into uncomfortability. Here is what followed starting at the next lap mark:

lap #4  ... 6:28.95  (8:40 pace)
lap #5  ... 6:24.37  (8:32)
lap #6  ... 6:21.06  (8:28)
lap #7  ... 6:14.82  (8:20)
the little bit from my mailbox to a tree halfway around the block that marks 0.1 mile + 47.61  (8:00)
which yielded a 5K time of 26:16 (just 4 seconds slower than my "return to running" PR set in March)
the HARD continued for another 58 seconds and then...

I returned to that slower pace... the last 10 minutes were run at 10:30 pace.

Honestly, I probably ran it a little faster than I should have, but I felt great. I would have liked to run that last 10 minutes at a little perkier pace and with a little more spring in my step... I was having to work for that 10:30.

Half-marathon training feels so much different to me than marathon training. When I trained to run a marathon, it was all about building the endurance ... putting in the miles... and if some speed came, well, awesome. But I have picked a goal time for this half. And yes, I need to bank some miles but I also want to be sort of fastish. I'm not sure I am digging the self-imposed pressure :P

And how did the Seven Wonders work out? The jury is still undecided. It did what it was supposed to do, I think. Not so sure if it was comfortable... or if I am just used to my immobilizing, truss-like set up. I'll keep you posted.

"Poison" – Bell Biv Devoe

The only reason why I kept running last night ... as I suddenly felt poisoned by a Sloooooooow Potion (probably slipped to me by the crazy druids at Parc Astérix while we were on our trip)... was that this song came on and jarred me back to life. It isn't that it's such a great running song, but it transports me back to 1990... when I was in my prime. lol  Can I say that? Or is that too cheesy for words? Both? When I feel like I'm in my prime, I feel invincible and fast and nonstop...

non. stop.

So my apologies to Emz for stealing her titling style... I couldn't help myself... it was just too fitting. I needed to honor the juice that spurred me on to finishing the first of my two 2-mile tempo pieces.

(and if you don't know who Emz is... well, she is a training machine trapped in a gorgeous, funny blonde mother's incredibly fit body... go check her out here if you haven't already).

This is my third run this month. I did nothing while on the trip except walk millions of miles and climb tons of stairs (here and here). My Tenner at the beginning of the month was a good test of my mettle. My run on Friday was a sweet, mellow return. Last night, I kicked my own booty... but good. For me, anyway :P

Here are the numbers for those who care... lol... there probably aren't many of you, but I care and will refer back to this at some point in the future... probably.

After a mile and a quarter warm-up and a few drills and striders, I did my first two-mile tempo piece. Both were supposed to be done at 9:24 pace (my 'threshold' according to the Automated Training Program) with 2 minutes off in between.

I have a weird route, so the "splits" don't mean much except to me for finding consistency. All the 2:30's cover the same stretch of ground, and the other numbers cover the other stretch of ground, and when added together they make a half-mile, which is noted by the parentheses:

2:38
1:34 (4:13)  first half
2:31
1:42 (8:27)  first mile
1:41
2:31 (12:39) mile and a half
1:32
2:39 (16:50)  second mile

So... kind of on the fast side. I needed to rein it in a bit. I have got to get settled on a good pace for my race. I need it to feel like second nature to me. Or I will not finish the race well. And I want to finish it well.

Second of my two-mile tempo pieces:

2:40
1:34 (4:14)
2:33
1:45 (8:33)
1:41
2:39 (12:53)
1:37
2:45 (17:15)

A little better. I think I am just too dang rested.

This second piece finished with me listening to "Satisfaction" (Rolling Stones). It was perfect. I started to think that maybe I have turned into a 50-year old guy. Stones, Doors, Dead while running. What is up with that?

And I think yesterday I did set a new record... 5 posts in one day. I think I am Muffy :(  click on it if you don't know what I mean... you will laugh... or cry.