Easy Run

Distance: 2.25 miles
Time: 30 minutes
Mileage for the week: 4.25

Yet another trip to 9th street active feet yesterday to see if they had any further advice for the hip pain. This time, I came home with a 3/16" heel lift in my left shoe, on the assumption that one leg is slightly longer than the other. Going to try it out for a couple runs and see what happens.

Today's run was pretty straightforward, didn't want to push too hard testing out the new insert. Minor ache in the hip when I stopped, could be residual from last week though, it's hard to tell. No other pains to speak of.

Going to try to get back up to 9 miles next week.

Distance: 2 miles
Time: 25:35

First mile was at 13:35 pace, second mile was flat 12 minute pace. I stepped up for the second mile because I kept running into the console on the treadmill (and I just wanted to get the two miles out of the way, lol!)

Got my christmas pressie from mom early! Underarmour clothes! One sleeveless top, one pair of shorts and one pair of coldgear tights. Yay! I has running clothes! Wore the tee and shorts for my run, so coooool! The shirt wicked the sweat right off my chest and it's almost dry already.

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easy run

Distance: 2 miles
Time: 27:18
Total miles for this week: 8.25

Dialing back the mileage. I checked in with some other folks on the Runner's World forums and the general consensus seemed to be that the Smart Coach plan was pushing me too hard. So I'm dialing back a couple weeks on the mileage and holding the pace for a while. My general plan is to do each week on the plan at least twice from now on before proceeding, and dropping the speedwork and tempo runs. I need to work on endurance and getting my body more adapted to running before I start working on speed.

Tempo Run

Distance: 4.25 miles
Time: 54 Minutes

I'm not sure if this counts as success or not... Tempo run is 1 mile at 13:58 pace, 3 miles at 12:21, then 1 mile at 13:58. I made it through the warm up and tempo, couldn't keep running for the cooldown. Much better than last time I tried this run, though.

Once again, my hip is bugging me, but not as bad as sunday.

I think I'll go ahead and try to do the 6 mile run this weekend to finish out the week and move forward. The mileage for next week is the same as this week. I'm still not happy with my progress the last couple weeks, but maybe this will break the stalemate.

Easy Run

Distance: 2 miles
Time: 27:19

Fairly much a standard run, did it on the treadmill at 1% incline. Minor aching in my hip, but it's been tweaking since sunday. Took some advil after the run. Hoping thursday will be a good run, trying the tempo again...

Ok, wtf not a long run.

Distance: 2 miles
Time: 27:20

Shortly before the two mile mark, my hip started burning. Like, painful burning. The burning feeling passed pretty quick, but my hip kept aching pretty hard, so I called it quits at 2 miles. I couldn't see bulling through hip pain for 3 more miles.

Very upsetting, this is the first incident of hip pain I've had since I got the new orthotic inserts for my shoes. I wonder if it's weather related, really crappy cold front rolling through right now.

Anyway, going to try and roll on with the training program next week. Total miles for this week is a paltry annoyingly low 7 miles.

1st attempt at a Tempo run

total distance: 3 miles
total time: 38:05

Didn't quite make it. The plan was a one mile warm-up, three miles at 4.9mph, then a one mile cooldown. At 2.65 miles in, my fraggin' shoe came untied. I had to stop and tie it, lost my pace, lost my breathing, lost my will. I struggled, gasping through the rest of the 2nd tempo mile and called it. Will be redoing this week on the training plan next week.

All in all though, the tempo portion wasn't as bad as I thought it would be up to that point. I have the measure of the pace now, will drive home the five mile distance on sunday and nail it tight next week with the tempo run.

Bad runs make the good runs better.

Easy run

Distance: 2 miles
Time: 27:18

Decided to follow the plan this week, since the 5 mile run on sunday was a little hard on me and I didn't want to follow it two days later with another, harder 5 mile run.

Per the training plan, stepped the pace up to 4.4mph (13:38/mile). No noticable difference in effort level, no pain. Good strong run. I doubled up my hip stretching before and after the run, just to be sure everything was ok.

Due to scheduling of real life things, I'll be doing another run tomorrow instead of Thursday. Depending on how I feel, it's either going to be the planned 5 mile tempo run (1 mile warmup at 4.4, 3 miles at 4.9, 1 mile cooldown at 4.4) or a 3 mile run at 4.4. I'll probably make the final decision at...mmm...about 3/4 of a mile into the run :)

If it's the tempo run, Sunday will be 6 miles. If not, it'll be 5 and I'll consider this a repeat of last week and consider moving on to the tempo run next week.

Sunday Long Run

Distance: 5 Miles
Total Time: 69:39
Total miles this week: 10.1 miles

At 3.52 Miles into this run, I crossed a major mile marker (for me at least). Since starting running in July, I have been tracking my distance and progress using the iRun app on my iPhone. Today, I moved into the triple digits. My total distance is now 101.48 miles. Huzzah!!

I was running really good for most of this long run. Strong pace, good breath control. The last half mile really took everything I had in me to complete, though. I was going to kick for the last half mile...let's just say I made it about a 10th into that before I could feel myself flagging and went back to the standard pace.

No aches and pains, feeling really good right now. The only oddness in this run was my fingers starting to tingle around the 4th mile.