Training Log Archive: runninghils

Ran on the path along the beach in Long beach. I was hot in capris and a short-sleeved shirt. The local cyclists were all wearing long-sleeved jerseys. I did a 10-minute warm-up before doing 4 sets of 6-minute cruise intervals with 2 minute recovery in between. Nobody passed me. Woo!

Loved getting to run down the beach. FUN!!

C • --As you run down the beach... 2

Ran with Anna at Palo Verde. It starts as a downhill run so no problem. A few short up hill sections. Super pretty run with the ocean view. Most of the trials were just out and backs so we did quite a few trails. Walked the steep uphill sections. Fun time! LeeAnn and I have been plotting how we are going I find a way to move out here since yesterday. I saw a refinery along the route today and said ''look, a job for me!" And they said "gross Hilary". Also the quote of the day was "sometimes you have to use a firm hand with Hilary."

Oh, and the one that you guys would appreciate was that I was REALLY hot on the plane for some reason, which is really unusual for me. When I got off the plane, we were walking and I said to LeeAnn "I was so hot I just wanted to take my pants off." She was thinking "Really? All the people who were on the plane with us were still right there." Whatever.

C • I *completely* understand 5

We walked around the tide pools for about an hour and a half. I got in some good practice hopping around rock to rock. Despite the fact that I tripped over the chain in the parking lot, I moved really well on the rocks!! I was thinking that my teammates would be proud.

Walked on the trail and along the beah with Leeann and Anna. Not intense at all but about 4 miles and 1.5 hours. Fun! I love California!

Strength: Front Squat (1RM day)
115*135*145*155*160
Again, i was happy with this considering I haven't been doing the squat progression.

Workout: Fran
21*15*9
Thrusters (55 lb)
Pull-ups (Red band)
6:47 (I think.. got distracted talking to Heidi after class and then forgot the time I wrote down on the board.)

Ripped my hand, but only a little - it was already a blister that hadn't opened up from 12/24, so it shouldn't be too bad.

Was planning to run 45 minutes, but the snow was SO DEEP that my route that I normally run was super slow to run. I ran along the side of the ski tracks because I would hate myself if I ran in the ski track. Glad to have on full gaiters and goretex shoes. Though some snow got in, it wasn't packed in like it would have been otherwise. Heart rate was supposed to climb as the run progressed on the hills, but it was super high from about, oh, 1 minute in. Wow! Super pretty on the trail.

At one point, I heard a dog coming up behind me. I started talking to the dog and next thing I know, he was jumping up on me and while I was talking (mouth open) he licked my mouth. GROSS!!! Don't get me wrong, I like dogs. I just don't want to make out with them. The owner was skiing and called the dog back and held him while he passed me.

It was a very very good workout running through this snow. I think it was about 10 inches deep. The last few tenths of a mile were packed a bit better and once I got back to the parking lot to run to my car, I was amazed at how easy it was to run on the plowed surface.

Oops… got caught up doing things with the family and about 4:30 realized the day was almost over and I had to run. Set out, but about 3/4 mile from my house needed to turn around for a bathroom emergency. So, a fair amount of walking on the way back. Meh, at least I did feel better after the whole thing.

OH, and I announced that next year I am imposing a mandatory 20-40 minute afternoon Christmas walk around my neighborhood. We all felt pretty bad after an entire day sitting on our butts reading, playing games, and (most of all) staring down at the coffee table to put together the puzzle.

C • Ah, puzzles 2

"12 Days of Christmas"
follow the pattern of the song. Weight was 50 lb on the bar
1- Power snatch
2- Overhead Squat
3- Handstand Push-ups
4- Pull ups
5- Power Clean
6- Front rack lunges
7- Sumo Deadlift High Pull
8- Slam ball (15 lb)
9- Kettlebell swing (35 lb)
10- Knees to elbows
11- Push ups
12 - Dead lift
I think I was at 27 minutes, but there was something weird with the clock, so not sure. Also did my shoulder PT afterward. All this shoveling seems to be adding to some irritation of my rotator cuff. Noticed it a bit skiing too. That's why I went a bit lower on the weight today too.

Strength: Back Squat
Go for a 1 Rep Max
I worked up to 170, and felt good there… was starting to lose form, so I stopped increasing. This is only 15 lb below my 1RM when I was doing 5x/week of cross fit

Workout:
7 rounds for time:
6 burpees
4 power cleans (95-Rx)
2 hand stand push ups (1 board + abmat)
25 double unders
Time: 15:12
had a "bad double under day" on the first 6 rounds. Finally strung all 25 together on the last round.

Hanson hills. So. Much. Snow. They kind of rolled the trail but there was so much snow they couldn't keep up with the new snow. There were no set tracks and it was very soft. I guess that's one way to force yourself to do something you're bad at- I pretty much suck at diagonal striding outside the track. I only had classic skis so there was no option to skate instead. Tried to do a 20 minute and a 30 minute tempo sessions but that was hard to do when fighting with my skis. It was like backcountry ski conditions but on skinny race skis. I hope this helps make me more efficient when I get back on nice hard tracks.

C • I just realized 3

Hanson hills - did all the trails red brown yellow blue green. Nice trail today!

Strength: Overhead Squat
3x every 2 min, 5 rounds
65*70*70*70*70
Wanted to go up to 75, but 70 seemed about the max my shoulder wanted to do. OHS is the only movement that still seems to be affected by my shoulder issue.

Workout: 4 rounds for total reps of 1 inute each:
KB swings (American) - 35 lb
Burpees
Thrusters - 65 lb
Slam balls - 20 lb
Rest
Total Reps: 277

10 minute warm-up
4 x 6 minutes 8:20/mile with 2 minute recovery between
5 minute cool down + some walking at the end.

3rd pair of shoes tried for treadmill running and feet still giving me trouble. Took a video. nothing obvious to me...

10 min warm-up

2 x 20 minutes at cruise interval pace at high cadence (90-95) This was hard enough that I had to focus, but not so hard that I couldn't maintain it. 5 minutes easy in between

Easy riding rest of the time continuing high cadence.

Set treadmill at 6.2 mph for the whole time:
10 minute warm-up, 2 minutes at 0% incline between each "hill interval"
5 x 2 minutes at 5% incline
2 x 2 minutes at 5%+1 minute at 6%
2 x 1 minute at 5% + 2 minutes at 7%
1 x 2 minutes at 5% + 2 minutes at 7%

6 minute cool-down at 0%

Strength: Every 2 minutes, 5 dead hang pull-ups
Had to do blue band… Since my shoulder injury this spring and months of no pull-ups, I still suck at them.

Workout:
5 Rounds for time:
25 air squats
15 hand release push ups
5 power snatch (70 lb)
Time: 11:11

Did PT on shoulder afterward and some foam rolling

Easy trainer spin - high cadence.

Went to Aspen Park in Gaylord for a classic ski. Had a little rubbing from yesterday. Hmm… think I need to stretch the front of my right boot a bit or something. (Heat molding?)
Anyway, Gaylord got a ton of snow and they'd just groomed the trail shortly before I got there! Awesome!!! Trail was good except for a few parts where it was completely blown over. Nice easy, technique-focused ski. Not really sure where I was going, so stopped several times to look at the map.

C • Woo! 17

Skate Ski at Hanson Hills. Glad I made it down when I did because the drive from Gaylord to Grayling was a bit harrowing. Several multi-car accidents, cars upside-down, cars way off in the ditch, police and ambulances everywhere… I made it, though!

Hanson Hills had a lot less snow than Forbush or Aspen. It was still good though. There was a good hard-packed base with some soft snow on top, which didn't make for the fastest of skiing, but whatev. There were some small twigs and grass sticking through on the far parts of red, but nothing that would damage your skis. Took the red loop, ran into Bob Smith and chatted for about 5 minutes with him. At about 8K, I remembered what Andy taught me last year about climbing hills and re-implemented that. I think it made them easier/faster. No matter what you do, the first skate of the year, I'll guarantee it's a killer. Today was no exception, but I was glad to be out there and focusing on technique! C'mon more snow!!!

First Nordic ski of the year!! Woo! Perfect Blue Extra day at Forbush Corner! They only had the East side groomed for classic, so I did 2 loops of "Rollercoaster" and "The Badlands" (apparently, this is a well-used name.) The tracks were good, though a bit shallow. I'm picky and they were good enough for me. Trail was pretty much all rolling hills, so I got to practice all the different strides. Lots of diagonal stride on the hills, but I still got in a fair amount of kick-double pole. Lots of transitions. That's good for a first ski because you're constantly thinking about technique and getting to practice transitions and turns. (The course is very winding.) Snow was a little slow and I didn't quite have the right glide wax, but that's ok for a training day. Very happy!!

Strength:
5 rounds every 2 minutes
2x 1.25 squats (at bottom, come 1/4 of the way back up, then go back down to the bottom before coming all the way up to finish it)
85*95*95*105*105

Workout:
50 Burpees
40 dumb bell snatches (25 lb)
30 front squats (85 lb)
20 pull ups (red band)
10 power cleans (85 lb)

Time - 12:33

Oh man, after this, my legs were hurting. Actually, I was feeling like my legs were starting to cramp up during the pull-ups. Yikes! Glad I didn't go RX on this at 95 lb. Walking tomorrow may be tough.

Easy spin on the trainer. High cadence, low resistance.

Nice day of yoga in my recovery week! I even got there early today.

Raced with Phil. Very tough field! Took 4th overall and first in the coed.

Started out with a short run to the first point and then the canoe put in. We started out a little slow on the run - a big mid-pack. We had to wait to punch on the first point! It didn't seem to hurt too much as we started picking teams off as the run went on. Got into the boat quickly, and stopped a team from taking a personal boat instead of a rental along the way.

About 30 seconds into the paddle I realized that the neoprene gloves were a huge mistake. Not very warm and difficult to hold the paddle because just bending the gloves was difficult. Suffered through it though and we did ok on the paddle. I think we finished it around 6th right behind MRA2. My hands were in extreme pain at the end of this but I pulled them into fists in my gloves and they were better by the time we finished the run back to the TA.

Decided to save time on the short bike and not change shoes. Flat pedals would have been nice instead of eggbeaters which are pretty much the worst pedals when not wearing bike shoes. I kind of sucked on the hills for this one. Thought I was doing better lately but hmmm. Only 5 miles anyway.

On the O course we made 3 errors which is 3 too many in a sprint race. First we veered odd the trail heading for 40 and got off-track and probably wasted 5-10 minutes. We did decide to bail pretty quickly once we realized it wasn't there so that was a good move. Also, we cut across the swamp from 44 to 45. It was quite slow. The third issue was going right past 51 and searching to the north of it for probably 10 minutes. The rest went well though.

I wish we'd brought our bike shoes for the ride back and the single track because I think it would have helped a lot. I am terrible at riding unclipped - especially on single teack. Phil did an awesome job navving out that last bike leg getting us through it quickly and efficiently. Got back and were surprised by our place as a few teams had missed a point and had to go back out! Crazy! You just never know at these races.

Overall, I had a really good time. The team is excited for next year to try to improve further and build on what we did this year.

C • awesome race 4

Event: December Chill
 

Easy ride with 4x 90 second race pace efforts just to get things going a bit. Woo hoo! Chill on Saturday!!

Easy run with 30-second pick ups. Was going to do 45 minutes, but my stomach started hurting/cramping hard core at 30 minutes. Confession: I took advantage of the 3rd floor bake sale a little too much today. So, I decided to go ahead and call it good at the 30 minute mark.

C • haha, bake sales. yum. 13

Easy taper trainer ride. Did some "trainer dancing" which is pretty much all arms since the legs are spinning.

Easy ride on roads to start taper for the chill. Dressed perfectly. Rode into the wind on the way out and with it on the way back. Got to add in a mile at the end due to extra time from the tail wind. woo!