Week 12 Day 2

Interval trail run for 9.15 miles. A good trail run with 10 x 100m towards Hubbard. The speed run started at mile 7.

1 8:47   
2 8:01   
3 7:44   
4 7:41   
5 7:24   
6 7:43   
7 7:51   
8 8:00   
9 8:06

Week 12 Day 1

Cross workout for an hour. 8 min abs, lunge, weight lift, dumbbell bent-over rows, parallel bar dips.

Week 11 Day 7

Trail towards Black Point. Good run for 16 miles in 2:04:24. It was -3C and light snow. The form is better and my calves are only slightly sore. So it is much better than the run last Sunday. Both feet are a little painful on different areas. I am not sure the reason.

Week 11 Day 6

Trail run towards Hubbard for 5.72 miles in 45:27 minutes, pace at 7:57/mile.

Week 11 Day 5

Crossworkout for an hour. 8 min abs, chest, pull-up, hamstring stretches, lunge.

Week 11 Day 4

Although the road is snow cleared, I chose to run on treadmill, which is always tougher as the indoor temperature is about 20C.

I ran easy pace for 9 miles. The incline was set at 1.0 for 4 miles from 4-8. Most pace was on 8:00m/mi.

I am happy with it.

Week 11 Day 3

Today I slowed down a bit and ran at the recovery pace to get my calves recovered. The pace is about 8:30 for 5 miles. It is a good run on treadmill.

Week 11 Day 2

9 miles with 10 x 100m. 100 started from mile 8.5. The 100m quality wasn't great. The shoes are not quite good for speed workout. The padding is a bit slippy. Quite windy, some hills (Allen heights). Calves hurt.

mi Pace (min/mi) Elevation (ft) 
1 8:26 -167 
2 8:27 47 
3 8:13 -9 
4 8:11 -9 
5 7:57 -24 
6 7:50 0 
7 8:05 14 
8 8:40 16 
9 8:49 34

Week 11 Day 1

Rest as schedule. I did 8 min abs, 8 min chest, hamstring stretches and lunge for about 40 minutes.

Week 10 Day 7

Today is my high, 15 miles. I couldn't dare to try a hill again. I need to give my body some adjustment. So I ran on the trail towards Timberlea as it was cold (-5C). I thought towards the bay would be cold if wind blows.

RunKeeper lost signal between mile 3 and 5. When the signal came back, it reported I ran about 4 miles with average pace at 10:30. I knew it wasn't right. I never ran at such a slow pace.

I tried some marathon pace.

Mile Pace Elevation(ft) 
6 7:23 -52 
7 7:41 41 
8 7:17 -5 
9 7:33 -2 
10 7:38 -27 
11 7:24 -13 
12 7:34 -56 
13 7:21 -88

I think running at 7:30 pace is still my comfortable pace. On a flat course, I think I can run 7:30 as a MP, which would give me 3:17 for a marathon.

Having said that, my calves are quite sore after 15 miles. So I am not sure if my calves can take that pace for a marathon.

Week 10 Day 6

Easy pace on treadmill today. I tried one mile at 7:00 pace, which is my plan starting pace for my 10K race on Jan 5. I wanted to feel the pace to see if it is comfortable enough to start with and maybe keep another mile, then increase to 6:30 for next 4 miles. I am targeting to finish in 40 minutes but I am not sure if it is too ambitious or not. We will see.

Week 10 Day 5

Rest as schedule. I thought to do some cross workout, but didn't feel right after 15 minute biking, so I stopped doing abs or chest.

Week 10 Day 4

9 miles easy pace today on Allen height. The elevation and pace as following:
 

Week 10 Day 3

Today I covered 5 miles easy run on treadmill, 1% incline for the first 3 miles, then flat for 2 miles.

Week 10 Day 2

Today I ran on the trail. Tempo started from mile 4 to mile 8. The pace was:

7:11
7:18
7:10
6:48


I haven't run tempo for a while. I certainly felt comfortably hard. I am not sure if I could speed up another 10 seconds which is the McMillan's suggestion tempo pace (slowest) for me.

I felt good after the mile cool down (8:31 pace).

Week 10 Day 1

Rest as schedule.

Week 9 Day 7

Running 11 miles (pace 8:12) on Hammonds plains to practice a hill run. It is the first time running on a hilly course.
It was tough. My lung has the capacity but my carves are killing me.

Week 9 Day 6

Easy run for 5 miles then did some cross workout:
8 min abs level 2
8 min chest level 1
a few variety of Hamstring stretches

Week 9 Day 5

Rest as schedule.

Week 9 Day 4

As usually, it is a 9 mile run today. So I had to get up early. Yesterday it was raining, luckily today it is not raining.

In order to take care of myself not to get injured, I slowed down my pace. As usually, mile 3 is always a hard mile, then my body was fully opened up, so it was easier. I tried not to run too fast to get my knees warning signal back. It was a good run and I didn't feel knees pain at all.

Because of this knee issue, I suspected I probably over strided or running with a poor form. It could be the sudden mileage increase and run too fast. I read an article saying if you don't take the expert advice, that is, slow down and build mileage gradually, it is not whether you will get injured. You will get injured. Only the question is when you will get injured.

Anyhow, I did some research on the perfect running form. There is a great analysis on youtube. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mTMgIViinuQ

Looking at the video, Moses Mosop seems to apply his leg muscles strength efficiently when the foot touched the ground. It is some kind of leaping from the ground. As I remember, My legs are usually more lazy lifting from the ground.

The other point I notice is that his feet were never pointing up to the sky. They were always down towards to the ground and when touching the ground, the foot was parallel to the ground forming a middle-foot strike.

Today I concentrated on this technique and tried to apply it. However, I don't think I quite get there yet. Having said that, I certainly felt the power from the ground especially running up hill feeling so much lighter and easier. I will keep practising. Here is today's pace:

mi	Pace(mi)Elevation (ft) 
1	8:26	-104 
2	8:44	-37 
3	8:10	43 
4	7:47	-45 
5	8:02	32 
6	7:47	-30 
7	8:05	44 
8	7:41	-11 
9	7:53	18 
10	7:43	43

Week 9 Day 3

This week is a step down week, so today is a rest day but I did some cross workout.

8 min abs Level 2
8 min Chest Level 2: 15 x 3 x 3. This is hard. I couldn't finish the last inner chest 3 sets in full. My arms are not strong enough and too tired. I only covered 5-8 reps on each set.
Lunge 2 x 12 each side
Hamstring stretches 2 x 30 seconds each side

Week 9 Day 2

Another long run during the week day, I got up early and covered my 7 miles with 10 x 100m intervals. 100m interval started at mile 6.

Week 9 Day 1

Today is a rest day, but after work, I did some cross workout:

Bench press 3 x 8
One-Arm Dumbbell Row 2 x 15 each side
lying hamstring stretch 2 x 30s each side

Week 8 Day 7

After getting up, I didn't want to have breakfast and wait for a couple hours to run. So I drank a little water to recover dehydration during the night and had a couple bites of banana. I made some sport drink (lemon juice + a pinch of salt and a pinch half tea spoon of sugar) and put on running gears and off to the trail.

It was quite chilly outside but not too bad. Running along the trail and looking at the bay, it was so wonderful. I saw a few people walking with their dogs and a couple runners.

Last week hard runs caused my knees having some warning signal, a little aching occasionally during the run. So I had to ease a bit. Today I slowed down a little but probably still fast according to experts. The pace for my 14 miles are as following:

Mi Pace(min/mi)
1 8:42
2 8:34
3 7:31
4 7:39
5 7:55
6 8:04
7 7:56
8 8:33
9 7:47
10 8:07
11 8:05
12 7:33
13 7:41

Week 8 Day 6

Today I ran on trail to cover 4 miles requirement, but ended with 4.9 miles. I tried MayByRun Adroid app, but I didn't set the voice notification, so I didn't know how long I ran. I stopped at Bike & Beans and set the voice however, I didn't like the artifical machine voice (text-to-speech). So I switched back to RunKeeper.

Back home, I did some cross workout. I focused on my hamstrings which are quite tight. I need to work on the flexibility in order to increase my stride length to increase speed.

Side plank 3 x 15 seconds each side
Hip rotation stretch
Gluteal Stretch 2 x 30 seconds
Lying hamstring stretch 2 x 30 seconds
Kneeling hamstring stretch