My Thought Spot

“Hot and sweaty” is a phrase we say a lot around here. Our daughter (3 years old) has gotten to where when she sees us all hot and sweaty she asks, “Are you hot and sweaty?”

This morning I had come in from running after the kids were sitting down for breakfast. They had already prayed for their meal and were enjoying their eggs. I sat down and was, of course, hot and sweaty.

When I bowed my head to pray our daughter was just starting to say “Daddy is hot and sweaty.” With my head bowed she added, “and tired.”

Today I had a “Tempo Run” thrown into my training plan [PDF]. This basically is a 1 mile warm up at an easy pace. Then you run your required distance at “almost race pace” which is followed by a 1 mile cool down. I was supposed to do 3.5 miles today but had to cut it short due to an appointment and the fact that I woke up 1 hour late. Not sure what happened this morning for that to take place.

I ended up with a great pace for a 3 mile run. Just a bit faster than my workout called for. 9:07 per mile was the prescribed time and I ran it in 9:03.

When I got home I needed to do several things quickly. Since I only had 25 minutes to cool off, eat breakfast, take a shower and enjoy a cup of coffee (not necessarily in that order), I had to combine some of my activities.

Breakfast was ready for me when I walked in the door (my wife is awesome about that). Since said wife does not like sweat puddles under the table, I decided to take my food out to the back porch and eat it there. While consuming a wonderful omelet with a few veggies and avocados, I started eying the pool as a great place to cool off.

In no time I was in the pool enjoying breakfast and cooling off so that within an hour of my shower I should be able to stop sweating. I often will spend time in the pool after a run. I can’t say I am swimming since my daughter will insist on getting in. But if I tell her I am cleaning the pool, she is cool with that. And, I almost always do give it a good skimming.

I don’t know if the pool time really helps me get my core temp down since the water is not that cold. But, it certainly does not hurt.

The only thing I missed on the list of post-run necessities is a massage. But, I guess the necessity of that could be argued.

I am training for the Phedippidations World Wide Half coming up in October. I followed a training schedule last year and did fine with my training. I even accomplished what I set out to do. But, race day was a bit of a disappointment. I did not stick to my plan totally and ran a bit slower than expected. That will be fixed this year due to more experience.

But what I did not do last year was stick totally to the training plan that I had. I did the runs, but not at the speeds that I should have been doing them. I did not see an increase in speed, just in endurance. And, honestly, that is all I was looking for. As a new runner I was not looking to really improve in the speed and strength areas. I just needed to be able to cover the distance.

This year is different though. I am using the McMillan Running Calculator to determine my paces for my different runs. I am running my speed sessions much faster than I would have ever done before. My endurance at higher speeds is increasing. At this stage in my training my long runs are not very challenging, but I am trying not to push the distance too much so that I can really focus on my speed and tempo workouts during the week. I am doing a simple dumbbell workout on my off days.

I am really focusing on my training at this point. I have started a bit late on the intense training, but I am not going into it as a slacker. I have been getting some good long runs in and I have also tried to keep my weekday runs at a higher intensity.

Just 9 weeks until the half-marathon. I may actually run it a week later. I have a bunch of friends that I am trying to talk into running the 5K that weekend. If they will do it, then I will run a (very) easy 5K on the 13th and then the half on the next Saturday. If I run with my friends we will probably be running in the 12 to 15 minute per mile range.