What ever it takes!

Humm, somehow missed a day in there :).  If anyone ever asks how to deal with Jetlag here is my advice, no matter how bad you sleep that first night, and no matter how tired you may be, get up early and go get that run in.  Kicks your body right in to "normal" mode.  I actually slept pretty well last night though so It wasn't to much an issue.

6:00am, record cold and snow here in Paris, the humidity just makes it bitter cold and since I really have no idea where in the city I am, haven't studied the map yet I went to the hotel gym.  Cutest little treadmills I've ever seen.  Normally cute or little aren't qualities I look for in a treadmill and was worried they wouldn't be able to go fast enough.  I'm only capable of doing metric conversions in 5K increments :) so I decided 15K in 1 hour was a good goal for this morning and to my surprise the treadmill was able to handle it (at first) started out a warm up at 14km/h and then started bumping it up.  Right about the time I started thinking to myself it's going to be tough fighting for the 1 working treadmill once a bunch of jetlagged americans get here for the conference, the stupid thing shutdown on me and I never could get it to reset.  So I finished up just lifting weights.  Could be a long week for running unless I toughen up and brave the elements.

So workout ended short.  I'm calling it 7.5 miles in 48:00  6:24 avg pace.

6:30 am.  I don't know why I fight it so much, When my alarm went off this morning I kept trying to tell myself to just go run on the treadmill again, but I had mapped out a run last night and finally gave in and went.  I brought 2 sets of winter running clothes with me this trip and put them both on cause I was afraid of the cold.  Found out quickly that 1 set would have sufficed.  

Set out from the hotel, there was a light snow the entire run this morning which was actually quite enjoyable, started running up the road and quickly decided that I had already ran way past the street I had planned on going down so I turned around, right about the time I got to the road my Garmin started working so perfect timing anyway,  headed down a road that looked much bigger on the map to the Louvre,  went through the Louvre courtyard and planned on running through the Naked Statue park (Jardin des Tuileries) but it was closed and I had to back track to run around it.  Ran to the Farris Wheel at the end of the Champs-Elysees and then run up the Champs-Elysees, slight uphill.  It made me really amazed to think how fast the Tour De France guys fly up that street up-hill with Cobble stones.  Made a victory loop around the Arc De Triomphe which wasn't very victorious cause I kept having to stop for traffic at all 7 intersections, then headed down to the Eiffel tower, I had to walk down some very slippery steps,  my plan wasn't to go across the river to the tower but once I got there I decided it didn't seem right to run through Paris without running under the Eiffel tower so I went across the bridge and ran to the end of the park (Champ De Mars) and back, which added 1 mile which I was happy about.  Ran back up the river to the Louvre the naked statue park was now open so I made some fresh tracks through the snow went through the Louvre courtyard and back up the same street I had come down.

Amazing run, so happy I did it and let myself know that I'm not stuck on a little treadmill this entire trip.  I have tomorrow off of work and plan to extend my run to 13 or 14 miles.

9 miles in 1:05:16  7:15 avg pace. 

Here is my garmin route and flyby just for fun.

    

6:00 am.  Slept terrible last night, I thought I was over Jetlag but I guess not.  I woke up at 12:00 am and couldn't get back to sleep, then by the time my alarm went off I was finally sound asleep and didn't want to wake up.  Got out of bed and my bedroom was freezing, apparently I didn't close the window tight and it had flung open in the night, so my room was like 35 degrees.  Figured the only way I could get warm was to go run, so I did.

I wanted to get in at least 13 today, did a similar route as yesterday except I took a more direct line to the Arc de triomphe, which was dumb cause it cut 1/2 a mile from my run and the Champs Elysees was the funnest part of my run yesterday so I wont do that again.  Then I circled the Champ de mars 4 times to try and get some extra miles in, and then coming back I ran along the river to Notre Dame to make sure I get all my sight seeing in and then back to the Louvre and home. 

For some reason my run only ended up being 11.5, Garmin said 11 but I added .5 for the time it took to start reading.  It sure felt longer than that, but by the time I got to the hotel I was ready to be done.

11.5 in 1:22:02  7:08 avg pace.

Garmin Link

6:00 am. Same route as Thursday with same added efficiencies. Took the shorter route around Some of the round a bouts to cut on the number of intersections I had to stop for, and then coming back along the river I took a lower trail that I had missed before that went under all the bridges so I didn't have to wait for traffic at every bridge. Much more fluid run today than the last 2. A bit nippy out this morning, tried to keep the pace up just to keep warm, Paris has the same sort of thing going on Saturday mornings that San Francisco does, lots of people wondering around the streets drunk still wondering where they parked. I'm glad I could add some entertainment to their lives.

My Garmin had a harder time waking up this morning than I did, so it was a bit buggard. I'm going to say

9 miles in 1:04:00 7:06 avg.

No run today, went down to the hotel gym for 45 minutes just to get the blood moving and stretch out a little bit before a busy work day.  Then I went outside and it was warmish and no traffic on this Sunday morning.  I totally should have gone for a run.  Oh well.

5:00 am.  Early work morning so I had to wake up early after another terrible night sleep. Ran the abridged Tour De Paris this morning, out around the Arc De Triumph, down to the river and back to the Louvre and back to the hotel.

7 miles in 46:12  6:36 avg pace.  It's very difficult to keep a pace under 7:00 running through the city, even at 5:00 in the morning.  Probably good for interval training though, stoping and starting at every intersection. 

5:00 am, Well I'm finally on Paris time I think, got a full night sleep last night, that must mean its time to go home.  Woke up early to get my run in but then I started reading FRB posts and before I knew it I was behind schedule.  I thought this blog was suppose to help me run more, not less.  I guess that will teach me to be the first one to post on one of Allies' races. 

Just ran in autopilot mode this morning, wore headphones this morning and listened to music.  It was a very nice morning not to cold, not to hot, a little bit muddy by the river but not bad.  Another long day sitting at a desk in a crowed IT room watching bits move, fun fun.

8 miles in 56:00.  7:00/mile pace exactly. 

5:00 am.  So there was absolute mayhem in the streets of Paris last night, it snowed all day and there was a least 1 inch of snow accumulated on the streets.  People were abandoning their cars, taxis refused to take people places,  just crazy, we took the subway down to the Christmas shops on the Champs Elysees last night and it was a huge icy slushy mess, no shovels in France apparently.    So last night I pretty much decided my chances of running today weren't looking promising but at 4:00 am some wrong number from Provo called me and woke me up, I threw on some clothes and went downstairs to see what the roads looked like, to my dismay they just looked wet, no ice that I could see.  Knowing that I would feel bad I didn't run all day if I didn't go I went back up to my room and changed in to running clothes and off I went.  Well turns out the 20 feet in front of my hotel was the only non-icy spot in Paris.  The rest of the run was pretty much what I had feared, icy, chunky, mess.  I just went really slow, I was just wearing my Nike Free's not the best traction shoes in the world but it wasn't terrible, I never really felt out of control.

Ran to the Arc De Triumph made a circle around it and down the Champs Elysees, some delivery guy on a motor scooter making a left turn totally wiped out in the middle of the Champs Elysees, I ran out and helped him pick his scooter backup and pick up random pieces that had fallen off, I think we determined he was OK, he could have told me he was bleeding on the inside, both arms and legs were broken and he was having a hard time breathing and I wouldn't have know better, but anyway, he jumped back on his scooter and scooted away.

Ran back to the hotel,  6 miles in 45 minutes.  7:30/avg pace.  It actually felt really nice to slow it down, I should do it more often.  Now off to work, finally the last day, I am so ready to go home tomorrow. 

Home at last, woke up at  4:30 am Paris time to get one last run in, I wanted to try and get a longer run in for my last run in Paris, but I would have been better off wearing ice skates, it was really slippery and dangerous so I had to go really slow, I ended up running down the middle of the street most of the time betting taxi drivers were safer than black ice,  Humm, it's a toss up.   I realized I hadn't seem the miniture statue of Liberty and figured I should probably go see it so I could say I saw all the common tourist sites.  Ran back to the hotel, downed a quick breakfast and headed for the train station to the Airport,  Got home for the most part on time,  I have been awake for 20 hours straight so far, hope I can get a good night sleep cause I'm planning a long run tomorrow morning with Ryan to try and get back on schedule.

 9 miles in 50 something, 7:10 avg pace. 

I made plans with Ryan to go running outside this morning to try and get over Jetlag, last night on my way home from the Airport it was rainy snow mix and I texted Ryan and said I didn't want to run in the rain and snow, he concurred and we decided to just carpool to Life Time and run there.  Met at 5:30 and went to the gym, turns out it probably would have been a great morning for an outdoor run but oh well.

We did a nice progressive run starting at around 6:40 pace for 3 miles and then started bumping up the speed .1 mph every 5 minutes, at 9.5 miles in 1 hour at the treadmill reset we took it easy for another 1.5 miles and then tried to sprint out the last 1.  Set the treadmill at 5 min/mile pace but my heart rate immediately shot up and I felt like I was going to pass out after about 1/4 mile and had to slow it down.  I'll blame it on jetlag, it was a very uncomfortable feeling which I haven't really felt before.

Anyway, felt good to get the legs moving this morning and hopefully get back on Utah time.

12 miles in 1:15:38  6:18 avg pace.

So, I'm not exactly sure what happened in Paris, if it's wind burn or acid rain but my face is totally red and peeling.  I look like Mike Tyson hit me in the face, all red around the eyes.  My 3 year old asked me if my eyes were bleeding.  Really odd. 

5:20 am.  Talked to Paul for a little bit about his injury and how nice it is to run injury free,  I thought about it more on my run this morning and realized I had pretty much assumed all last year that running had to hurt, because it did.  It really is amazing to run without hurting all the time.  I do have the normal soreness after a good hard run but last year I pretty much was in a state of barely being able to walk most of the day between Plantar fasciitis and problems with my tibialis muscle.  Going into my schedule starting up in a couple of weeks I'm going to take on a new approach.  Run as hard as I can without hurting myself but at any time along the way I start to feel "injured" I'm going to scale back and recover before moving forward again.

Anyway, good run this morning, I've only ran 10 miles in 1 hour or less twice, and both were during downhill 1/2 marathons.  I decided it would be a good Monday morning challenge to try and do a 10 miler in 1 hour.  Splits went like this.

1 - 6:24  (Took the treadmill a few seconds to get to speed)

2 - 6:15

3 - 6:11

4 - 6:07

5 - 6:03

6 - 5:58

7 - 5:56

8 - 5:52

9 - 5:49 

10 - 5:26  (Realized I was behind target and really had to push this last mile)

10 Mile total  1:00:01.  (Missed it by 1 second, I know if I keep up my training someday I will be able to make up that extra 1/10 second per mile  :)  ) 

5:45 am.  Planned to do a nice easy run today, started at 7:30 pace, screwed around with different form, toe striking, short quick strides trying to stay above 100 spm, focusing on keeping my abs tight, leaning forward pretending I was falling forward.  Fun Fun stuff.:) After 3 miles of this I got bored and decided to start running with an incline, started at 7:00 pace 1% incline, kept bumping up the pace and incline to 6:40 pace at 3.5% incline for mile 7.  After mile 7 I decided to simulate say Ogden with a steep downhill following the hard uphill so for the last mile I set it to -3% decline and ran the last mile in 5:15.

Ended up being a much harder run than I had set out to do, I have a real hard time with recovery days, I'll need to get over that.  But I am happy with the incline run, I'm definately going to incorporate incline into my program. 

8 Miles in 55:00  6:52 avg. 

So yesterday my wife called and said we had $500 left in our health savings account to use before the end of the year and maybe I should make a dentist appointment for a checkup to use some of it up.  Being an obedient husband I called and made an appointment for yesterday afternoon, left work early for a routine check and cleaning.  Well to make a long story short 4 hours later I had myself an emergency root canal, and crown put on.  Last time I listen to my wife concerning a routine dentist appointment.  At least I used up the remaining money in our flex account.

I decided it might be fun to try and run being on heavy pain medication, I had a pretty hard run on the books for this morning and just decided to see how it would go.  Workout called for a 10 mile run with 5 x 1 mile intervals at 5:15 pace.  I knew the 5:15 was going to be a stretch seeing the last time I did 1 mile intervals I had a hard time holding a 6:00 pace, but that was probably 6 months ago.

Did a 2 mile warm up, and then started my 1 mile intervals, did 1/2 mile very slow jog in between each.  started out slower than goal and thought I could work my way down to 5:15,  I'm going to start keeping better track of all my runs with the chart below from now on.  As you can see, splits went 5:27, 5:20, 5:17,  (That 5:17 about killed me), 5:25 and then the final one 5:56.  Just couldn't do it anymore.  My stomach was having all sorts of issues and I was about to throw-up all over the treadmill. 

Pretty good run all things considered, stomach issues and pain meds.  Pretty surprised my HR never went over 170, that's only like 85% of max.  I'm not sure why my HR always spikes when I start running, it always does that but I don't count it, I've had it go all the way to 220 before. 

Distance	Time	Avg Pace	Avg HR	Max HR
1	6:30	6:30	164	186
2	6:39	6:39	148	155
3	5:27	5:27	166	169
3.5	4:14	8:28	151	169
4.5	5:20	5:20	167	170
5	4:29	8:58	151	169
6	5:17	5:17	167	170
6.5	4:50	9:40	148	169
7.5	5:25	5:25	166	170
8	4:21	8:42	152	168
9	5:56	5:56	162	166
Total	0:58:31	6:30	158	170

 

5:00 am.  I'm not sure if it was the incline workout Tuesday or 1 mile repeats yesterday, but my right hamstring and glut was a bit sore today.  Going off of my new "no tolerance for pain" moto I decided to swim today.  I'd kind of planned on getting a swim in this week sometime anyway but it was very nice.  I haven't swam in about 1 month with traveling and all.  

1600M in about 36:00 then I went and lifted weights and did some core exercises.

This week could turn in to a disaster for running if I don't try and get out for lunch today, we are heading up to Wyoming to visit family for Christmas and are worried about the storm coming in.  Driving through Wyoming in a blizzard is about the worst thing on earth.  So anyway, I had to wake up this morning and instead of running I drove my puppy dog down to my parents in Layton to babysit in case we decide to make a quick escape out of here today to beat the storm.   Waking up at 4:30am and not running is really hard, I'm really tired right now.

Finally, I got to run this morning,  I really wanted to get out for some runs the last few days but ever since we arrived in Wyoming the high temperature has been around 5,  -5 in the mornings and I just didn't think it sounded like a good idea to go out in that.  So I bought a 5 punch day pass to the local YMCA and woke up at 5:00 this morning and hit the treadmill.  It felt really good to get the legs moving again,  4 days off of running is the longest I've taken off in about 2 years.   I could tell that all of the Christmas candy I've been eating was taking it's toll, felt a bit out of it, and had stomach cramps but I was able to work it out.  It's funny to see the looks people give you in a small town gym when your cranking 6:00 min/mil pace on their treadmill.  :)

Good run, hit the weight room for about 20 minutes and stretched out with weights a bit, really happy to finally be able to run again.

Distance		Time	Avg Pace	Avg HR	Max HR
1		6:34	6:34
2		6:17	6:17
3		6:15	6:15
4		6:10	6:10
5		6:07	6:07
6		6:03	6:03
7		6:00	6:00
8		5:56	5:56
9		5:52	5:52
10		5:56	5:56
Total		1:01:10	6:07

I made Britt open some of her Christmas presents last night, one was a pair of Nike Free's (which she told me not to get her) The other was a pair of Saucony trainers.  (the ones she did want).  The Free's were to big so she picked the Sauconys and woke up at 5:00am with me and went to the gym.  We don't get to work out together often, the only reason staying at the inlaws is good, built in babysitter.

Treadmill workout at the Y again, did incline repeats with 1 mile MP after each climb.  My new Tuesday workout.

Distance	Time	Avg Pace	Incline	Avg HR	Max HR
1	6:40	6:40	0
2	6:18	6:18	0
3	6:22	6:22	2%
4	6:32	6:32	3%
5	5:47	5:47	0
6	6:39	6:39	3%
7	5:47	5:47	0

Total

44:04

6:17

.85%

170

I need to start following a marathon schedule just to slow me down a little bit.  I have a hard time taking it easy on the treadmill if I don't have a paper telling me what to do. 

Decided to do a 9 mile run with 7 mile Tempo,  so I warmed up for 2 ran my tempo run, after 5 miles I had to slow it down a bit, but still held on to 6:00 pace, and then did a 1 mile cool down just to make it a full hour.

Distance	Time	Avg Pace	Incline	Avg HR	Max HR
1	6:48	6:48	0
2	6:33	6:33	0
3	6:00	6:00	0
4	5:56	5:56	0
5	5:52	5:52	0
6	5:48	5:48	0
7	5:45	5:45	0
8	6:00	6:00	0
9	5:56	5:56	0
10	6:33	6:33	0
Total	1:01:16	6:07	0		168

OK, I feel really dumb right now.  I just started a "plank" contest at the inlaws.  I kept bugging my wife that she couldn't do a 2:00 minute plank, being the competitive person she is she got down and did a 5:05 just like that, no practice just did it.  Then my 60 year old mother in law (yoga instructor, but still) did it for 5:24.  And then not to be out done my 8 year old son did it for 6:07.  I'm done with the plank forever.

So, all pumped about her 5:05 plank last night (I'm never going to hear the end of that) Britt woke up and went to the YMCA with me this morning.  I told her I was going to force myself to run easy today, so I started out at 7:00 pace, after 2 miles of that I decided if I was going to run slower I might as well throw some incline in, and then I decided if I was going to do incline I should do some fast striders after the hill and before I knew it, I was sweatin up a storm and didn't have a very easy run at all.

Distance	Time	Avg Pace	Incline	Avg HR	Max HR
1	7:01	7:01	0%
2	7:02	7:02	0%
3	7:04	7:04	3%
4	7:02	7:02	4%
5	6:25	6:25	0%
6	7:27	7:27	5%
7	6:07	6:07	0%
Total	47:39	6:48	1.7%

 

Well, that was an un-expected time off from running, even with Christmas being in there.  I had grand plans of running 18 miles on Christmas Eve morning with some people I met at church up here in Wyoming but Thursday night I was up all night with with a sick kid throwing up every 1 - 2 hours.  At 5:00am I decided to try and go running at the Y, got up from the couch walked over to the front door, and just blacked out, yep passed out and hit the floor, woke up 20 minutes later having no idea where I was, went down stairs and told my wife to come check on the kids and then started throwing up all over.  Spent the next 3 days, including Christmas along with the rest of my kids and nephews and neices sick as a dog.  I somehow am the only adult that caught it.

Anyway, felt a little better this morning, even after getting up at 2:00 to tend to my 3 year olds (issues) went to the Y for an easy run before our 10 hours long car ride back home.

Tried out my new 405 Garmin I got for Christmas,  I'm not sure which I like better the 405 or 305.  I'm going to wear the 405 as an all the time watch and probably keep to the 305 for races and days where I need to wear gloves.

 

Distance	Time	Avg Pace	Incline	Max HR	Avg HR
1	7:08	7:08	0	169	142
2	6:54	6:54	0	140	136
3	6:39	6:39	0	145	143
4	6:31	6:31	0	152	149
5	6:21	6:21	0	153	152
6	6:15	6:15	0	158	155
7	5:52	5:52	0	163	160
Total	45:44	6:32	0	163	147

Back to the old Life Time.  Feeling just Blah!  this morning, not sure if it's from the long drive yesterday or still getting over sickness but I didn't really have much in me this morning.  Set the treadmill to 9.2 (6:30 pace) and didn't push another button until I was done, no incline, no speed nothing, I don't think I've ever done that before.  Good HR test.

I was to lazy to even go through a treadmill reset which is why I ended at 9 instead of just going 10.  Pretty lazy, went and sat in the hot tub and steam room for a while after.

 Also learned that I gained 4 lbs from Christmas cookies, I wasn't as upset about it as I thought I'd be.  I think I was actually thinking it was going to be worse.

I was planning on mapping out a route for Saturdays New Years day run.  Let me know if your interested,  called Ryan last night to see if he wanted to come with me and he agreed.  Woke up at 5:00, looked out the window and quickly re-evaluated.  Texted Ryan and canceled due to Blizzard like conditions.

Took Britt's 4 wheel drive to the gym, when I got there I noticed noone was in the pool and thought to myself "I haven't swam in a while" and once again changed my plans and swam 1600 M in about 40 minutes.   Came home and shoveled 8" of the yuckiest wettest snow ever.  That took me an hour.  40 minutes to swim, 60 minutes to shovel.  Humm, doesn't seem right.  I think the shoveling was the better workout too.

If I would have ran yesterday I think I would have just opted out today, but I really wanted to punish myself for being a slacker the last week.  So I set my alarm early knowing I would have to shovel a 2' snow drift just to get out of my driveway this morning, and off I went.

Nothing says torture more than a good sub 60 minute 10 miler, so that's what I set out to do, last time I tried it I started out to slow and spent the whole second half of my run making up for lost time, so I tried to get to the 10mph mark as quickly as possible.  It paid off cause at mile 8 my legs felt a little rubbery and I had to slow down for 1 mile.

Distance	Time	Avg Pace	Incline	Avg HR	Max HR
1	6:16	6:16	0	148	160
2	6:09	6:09	0	159	162
3	5:59	5:59	0	162	165
4	5:56	5:56	0	165	167
5	5:52	5:52	0	168	170
6	5:52	5:52	0	169	172
7	5:44	5:44	0	170	173
8	5:41	5:41	0	171	174
9	5:52	5:52	0	171	173
10	5:44	5:44	0	172	174
Total	59:11	5:55	0	165	174

Those of you who travel may understand, but those who don't would probably just think I'm a materialistic Jerk :)  But last night we stayed at the Ogden Marriott.  Why, because I was only one night away from getting Gold status with Marriott by the end of the year, so we aranged to visit some friends in Ogden last night and let the kids play in the Hotel Pool.

So this morning I ran on the hotel treadmill, I don't know why hotel treadmills are so much harder, maybe the stuffy little room, maybe the treadmill itself, but the effort sure seemed a lot harder than it should have.

Distance	Time	Avg Pace	Incline	Avg HR	Max HR
1	7:03	7:03	0
2	6:40	6:40	0
3	6:40	6:40	0
4	6:30	6:30	0
5	6:31	6:31	0
6	6:40	6:40	0
7	6:20	6:20	0
Total	46:26	6:41	0		162