Jodi’s Running Blog

Portland Marathon Training - Week 6

Posted by jodi in Portland Marathon Training 2006 (Tuesday May 23, 2006 at 8:33 am)

My fifth of twenty-four weeks of training for the Portland Marathon is now complete, and I still feel pretty good! No knee or leg pain, and while the muscles are stiff, it’s in that good I-can-tell-that-I-am-in-shape sort of way. Evan and I enjoyed our trip through Montana/Wyoming; I had a change of scenery for this past week’s training runs. Based on days when we were in the car for longer stretches, I had to switch a few of my days around, but I still managed to get all of my mileage in for the week.

Monday – Off (travelling back from Houston, packing up the car for our upcoming trip)
Tuesday – 0:39:50, 4.63 miles (8:36/mile pace), including 4×30 second hill sprints (see map below). Splits: 8:08, 8:12, 8:51, 8:49, 5:48. Of course, some of these involved a period where I was sprinting furiously uphill and then lightly jogging back down the hill. It was a fun workout, I must say! It reminded me of our hill workouts when I was on the high school cross country team back in the day…
Wednesday – Time Unknown (I messed up the Garmin stats), 3.50 miles, run took place in Clinton, Montana.
Thursday – 0:25:00, ~3.0 miles (again, I messed up the Garmin stats). I ran this foundation run at the Madison Junction in Yellowstone National Park.
Friday – 0:40:08, 4.63 miles (8:40/mile pace), included 6×30 second fartlek sprints. Splits: 9:45, 9:46 (first two miles were almost entirely uphill), 8:07, 7:31, 4:57. I enjoyed this run because it took me straight past the Mammoth Hot Springs in Yellowstone National Park. A coyote suddenly leaping from a bush I ran near (away from me, thankfully) gave me a heart rate surge, I am sure.
Saturday – 0:40:21, 5.00 miles (8:04/mile pace). Splits: 8:25, 8:08, 8:03, 7:49, 7:52. I felt terrific on this particular run, and was eager to get a good five-miler in under 40 minutes. I fell just shy of this goal, but I was pleased with the overall pace, as to qualify for Boston I need an 8:23/mile pace. It didn’t seem too difficult either – perhaps I was distracted by the gorgeous scenery as I ran along Salmon Lake in Montana.
Sunday – Off (was in the car the entire day from Waterton, Alberta to Seattle, WA). This was supposed to be my long run day, with Monday being my scheduled day off. So I flipped the two days and will include yesterday’s run in Week 5 although it should have been the start of Week 6.
Monday – Long Run, 1:15:04, 9.0 miles (8:20/mile pace). Included a run up the gigantic hill from Lake Washington back up to the tunnel. Again, I was pleased with the pace – still on track. Splits: 7:41, 8:28, 7:54, 7:57, 8:07, 8:12, 8:06, 10:29 (gotta love that hill!), 8:06. I felt great during the majority of this run, although the hill winded me. What I’ll remember from this workout is that in my attempt to wear my Camelback 750mL water pouch around my waist it chafed my lower back pretty badly. I didn’t realize it had happened until I took a shower and the water felt searing on the wound. I’ll need to be more careful about this in the future.

Total Mileage: 29.76 miles

A few words on my mess-up with my Garmin Forerunner over the week. On Wednesday I ran and the Garmin kept my mileage and time well, but on Thursday I was fearful that if I reset the watch then I would erase Wednesday’s run, and I did not bring my laptop with me to offload each run daily. So the two runs got meshed together and ended up offloading to the computer as a 200–plus mile run since I was in Montana one day and in Wyoming on, what it thought was, the same run. It turns out that the Forerunner can be reset many times and still keep each run’s stats, so now I know better for the future.

Here are my Google Earth maps, brought to you by my Garmin Forerunner and (again) by Evan Dodds, for this past week’s run on the Amherst Bike Trail:

Foundation Run with Hill Sprints – Tuesday, May 16, 2006