Nike+ Human Race 10k Post-Mortem

Awwwww babies. What a day.

For whatever reason, sleep just wasn't in the cards last night. It was my last day in San Diego, and even tho I'm running a sleep deficit, I just couldn't catch a wink.

Ah, such is life.

Packed up, shipped out, waited at the airport, flew home to San Francisco, and got ready to run the Nike+ Human Race 10k with @LosBee on our home turf. I initially planned to get in the run in San Diego, but LosBee was up for it so we ran it together.

Exhausted, I was determined to knock it out, and do it faster than I'd 10k'ed before. A lot of folks on Twitter were running, and I was particularly inspired by @Bruno43's first 10k as well as @gdwscott's 18+ mile long run. I was set.

@LosBee had not run more than 2 or 3 mile stretches since finishing the San Francisco Half Marathon about a month ago, so we started off slow together. A little ways in she had to stop and walk a bit, so I picked up the pace after. Nike+ is indicating a much slower time than I think I ran—I'm pretty damn sure, as a matter of fact, that I was hovering above 11min/mile, and coming close to sub-10min/mile. But whatcha gonna do.

The weather was absolutely beautiful out. A nicer day in San Francisco than in San Diego, if you can believe that. Much less humid, and a wee bit cooler. Beautiful day for a run.

I sincerely tried to run negative splits, and tried to put myself in a race mindset. Instead of going as fast as I felt I could, I just tried to ramp it up a bit at each kilometer marker. I notice when I go as fast as I think I can, I still don't have the gas to maintain it over a longer run. It's short-lived. So, I tried to bring it up over time.

By and large it worked. My starting time was much slower than normal, as I was pacing with @LosBee, but once we broke off you can see how I got up to speed and then incrementally ratcheted things up. It was only in the last 1k that I felt pretty gassed, and the last 500 meters were very, very sad. I kept thinking how many times Usain Bolt could have run the 500 meters back and forth as I slowly plodded along.

The Results:

Strollers That Passed Me: 0
Place Overall: 24,419 out of thousands upon thousands
Men: unknown out of thousands upon thousands
Age Grade: unknown
Place: unknown
Finish: 1:09:43
Pace: 11:10

Friggen MISSION ACCOMPLISHED! Take that, crappy 3 mile run!

I Think I'd Benefit from a Running Club

After a couple days off this week from the plan—as well as missing my last 2 long runs—I'm gearing up for tomorrow's long run/Nike+ Human Race.

Today's run went great. At first.
As you can plainly see on the right, I was cruising along under and around a 10 minute mile pace for a while there, which is pretty damn good for me.

But somewhere around 2 and a half miles I just quit. My proclivity for what Vanilla at Half-Fast calls "The Quitter" expresses itself once more. I just quit.

The Rundown

♠ The scenery was great; I ran along Mission Bay in San Diego just at sunset, which has a nice lighted, paved path along the water.
♠ I love San Diego, so the warmth and wetness of the evening air was pretty fantastic. It was a wee bit warm, which I don't do well with. But not that warm.
♠ The legs felt great.
♠ The lungs felt great.
♠ The heart felt great.
♠ I did have to run through quite a bit of dizziness early on (which I seem to get quite a bit when my sleep cycle is jacked up—which is very much is right now).
♠ I wasn't running to Hella Sound stuff; having recorded pretty intensely this week, I wanted to step away from what I was working on to get a little objectivity and a little perspective—something I generally do with creative projects. As a result, the iPod was on shuffle, which does have a potentially negative effect.

But shit, I should be able to knock out 3 miles with my eyes closed.

To this I say WTF.

I'm thinking I might benefit from joining a running club. Lord knows there's plenty of them in San Francisco. I have about a month before the San Jose Rock & Roll Half-Marathon, so if the group runs fit well with my training schedule, it's on like Donkey Kong. After the R&R, I'll adjust my plan to accommodate group runs regularly.

Long post, I know. Was it good for you?

Yeah, So I'm Down in San Diego

So I'm down in San Diego this week, helping out a friend and taking care of some bidness.

@LosBee and I lived here for 6 (or was it 7?) years before moving to San Francisco in the summer of 2007. It's a beautiful place, and while it's great to be back, it's not without mixed feelings.

Funny how that works. I guess it's not always easy to change—to pack up everything you own and leave everything you've become familiar and comfortable with and start something wholly new.

Yeah. Anyway, here I am back in San Diego for the week, hoping to get some sun, stay on track in my half-marathon training program and record, record, record.

After spending an inordinate amount of time making like Georgie does in this pic, I hit the gym for some treadmill and some weights.

Got in a little less than a 3 mile run with hills (5.5 degrees) and did 3 sets of squats @ 135lbs, 5 reps each.

Tomorrow's a full day, and I'm looking to hit it hard.

Photos courtesy of Michael in San Diego and jsome1 on Flickr, accordingly.

Finally Back In It To Win It

The last few days I've been feeling more like joining <--- my boy George here than hitting the road and the gym. But today I finally was able to get back in it and get the blood flowing.

As mentioned previously, I had fallen off track quite a bit. Today I was committed to halting my progress down the slippery slope. I've written off Saturday's run & circuit training, Sunday's long run, and Tuesday's run and weights; I've decided to consolidate the squats, lunges and deadlift into Friday's workout, and do upper body stuff today. Missing so many runs, I settled on doing 4 miles today and tomorrow, 3 on Saturday and then 6 miles on Sunday. Maybe I'll do 7, to make up for the 7 miler I missed this past Sunday.

Run went well—got a little hot at the end, but it was good. Weights was a very modest 3 sets of bench, 5 reps @ 155lbs; 3 sets of 5 reps pulldowns @ heavy weight; 3 sets of still-half-assed dips. The dips are getting better, but they're still not on the money.

I think to push myself down the road I'm going to need a partner/spotter. I always used to lift with @LosBee, and it's nice to have someone watching you when you heft a large amount of weight. With her schedule now, it'll be rough to find a time when we can both hit the gym together.

We shall see.

Anybody running the Nike+ Human Race? Hit me up—I'll be running it down in San Diego.

I Pretty Much Suck

Yeah, I pretty much suck.

Due to things somewhat within my control, I've missed both my running and weightlifting workouts for every day starting on Saturday. Missed my circuit training, missed my Sunday long run and missed today's speedwork and lifting.

If I'd have been truly dedicated to getting it done, I would have made it happen. Unfortunately, I let work, visiting guests and catching up on sleep get in the way.

I'm debating now if it would be unwise to move everything over one day starting tomorrow and cutting out my Friday rest day. That way I'd only have missed 2 runs (last Saturday's and Sunday's long run).

On another note, while I've been shaping up nicely and trimming down a little due to sticking with the revised plan, I've managed to gain like 6 pounds or so in the last few weeks. Granted, I've had some Roman orgy-style dining experiences during that time, but I look more trim.

I'm going to assume it's added muscle weight and go from there. Hey, I could be right and not delusional, right?

Here's to being dedicated and on top of it for the rest of the week.