Easy run

 Today I ran at 4 p.m. because I will drink beer of course later in the evening, lol. Better to get the run out of the way. I did not run in the blasco park for laps on end today, I did almost 1 lap and then headed out to do a new route for the streets of Valencia. Luckily the traffic lights were at my favor today and I just stop once to wait for the green light to come. Ran easy pace for 47 mins total. I started running from home. Felt pretty good today and the weather was good.

If I sleep good today, I will do 12k tomorrow morning with my brother and  a friend. If I dont sleep well I ll run later on the day at least 60 mins. 

Have a great Saturday! 

Easy run and a rest day

 On Thursday I ran at 6:20 p.m. already dark with my brother in the Blasco park. I did 8 laps easy in 45:25. First half in 23:02, second half in 22:23. Was still sore, but kept the effort very easy. Felt good overall. My brother did only 6 laps. 

On Friday I took the day off as usual. 

Today I was supposed to run a workout, but did not wake up early enough, because I went to bed at 3 a.m., not by choice, though. Anyway, I will run at 4 p.m. and I will run 45 mins easy, or 8 laps in the blasco park. It has been raining a lot, so I dont know if the Blasco park will be adequate to run in.

No rush in doing workouts, no races in the horizon still, so its better to build up slowly. Training consistently of course.

Catching up

 Monday - Ran at 6:30 p.m. or something like that. But its already dark, so its the same if you run at 6:00 p.m. or 11:00 p.m. its already very dark. I did 8 laps at an easy pace. Halfway in 22:52, then did strides from laps 6 to 8 and did 8 laps in 44:01. Did around 5 extra mins, because I start running from my home and to the park and back, so total time of running was around 49 mins. Felt good and the weather was cool. No wind breaker though. Strides were " easy", around current mile pace. Everytime that I try to run with a full range of motion the left glute and hamstring bother me.

Tuesday -  I decided to do my workout today as the soreness was already gone. Went to the Turia park at 4:30 p.m. and wanted to do a 5k tempo run. But this time I would only look at the watch in the first km only. Then I would take the split at halfway and then would not look until the end. Warmed up 15 mins with 5 x 50m easy strides to loosen up a bit. First km was in 4:56 with the legs already burning, so I suspected that it would be the same as last week, but I was determined to finish that tempo no matter what. I tried to keep the effort, the heabyness in my legs eased up a bit as the run went by. Pressed the split in the halfway, and did not feel as bad as last week and my legs had coordionation still. I tried to keep the same effort until the end. Finished strong, but breathing was heavy at the end. Finished the 5k in 24:42. Halfway in 12:23, so a negative split of 4 seconds. Not as bad as last week, but still a lot of work to do to get back to the 23:50 mins where I was 6 weeks ago. I was happy to have finished and to have felt better than last week slower and shorter tempo. That means that I should improve each week and my way back to 23:xx is closer than I think?. Got back home for cool down after catching my break, so around 15 mins cool down. Around 6 miles for the day.

Wednesday -  I was sore from Tuesday workout, more sore than I like, but a tiny less than last week disaster. In the morning I walked around 10.5 kms to buy a salmom. I had not been there before so I watched places in Valencia that I had not seen before. Despite the temps being at 13-15 Celsius, the sun was shining hard and I had to take off my jacket because I was hot. On the way back I had the 3 kgs salmon on my backpack, so the wayback was harder than the first half, the good thing is that I learned the route and ont he way back I did not have to watch my google map every couple of mins to get to the desired place. It took me around 2 hours those 10 + kms. 

In the afternoon the plan was to run 8 laps which is my normal runs. I ran with my brother which is rare these days, even more in the Blasco park. I think the last time that I ran easy with him in the blasco park was on June. Anyway, we started faster than I would have liked, because we started at 5:27 for the first lap which is fast for being the first lap and I was sore from the tempo. Anyway, with each passing lap I felt better and better and the conversation was good. When we hit the 6 laps, he convinced me to run 50 mins, but after the 9nth lap in 47:47, I told him to do another lap, so 10 laps, which we did it in 53:02. Then I told him that I would run 60 mins, because I would run 60 mins today ( I type this on Thursday), but because I felt so good yesterday, decided to do it yesterday. I crossed the 10k in around 58:40 (11 laps =9.9k were crossed in 58:10 something like that), and completed the 10.2k in 60:00. I felt awesome and its weird because I walked so much in the morning ( maybe that help). Sometimes when you think you are going to feel bad, you feel really good and sometimes you feel like crap for  no apparent reason. cést  la vie. First lap was the slowest in 5:27, then we kept the laps in 5:17 - 5:13 for most laps. Felt pretty good, weather was pretty good, had to wear long sleeve, but I could have gotten away with short sleeves. A bit sore from the workout on Tuesday, but I think that did not affect at all once I warmed up.

Today I will run with my brother again, but I will keep it at 8 laps today. But I suspect that we will run sub 6 mins per km once again today. 

I hope your training is going well!

60 min Sunday mid day run

 Today I ran at 12:00. Very late to what we are accostumed to run on the weekends After the break it has been difficult to get back to early morning weekend runs. Plus I am going to bed later than I would want, for others reason that I would not discuss here.

I headed out to the Turia park with the sun shining hard, but with the temps in the 13 Celsius, so it was very good. I ran until the watch said 30:30 and turned around, got to the starting point in 59:48, so negative split the run by 1:12. Kms that I could time there were in 6:11. 6:04, 5:47, 5:50. However, on the way back my legs were very uncoordinated, they hit each other sometimes. They felt like jelly. That happens to me a lot on tempo  runs, but I dont remember the last time that I experienced in an easy run. Now I know why my tempo run on Wednesday was that shitty. My legs felt the same way today and I was running much slower. The mini stops on intersections got me back to normal and I finished the run very loose in the last km. Its strange though.

60 mins run, around 10k. Felt good, but not great. And the legs incoordinated makes the run much more unconfortable as you feel it on every step.

6 runs for the week, back to the 6 runs per week. Low mileage, and 1 shitty workout, but the consistency is there. NO rushing, we dont know when real races are gonna come back.

Easy run

 I know I said that I was going to do a workout, but the soreness continues and I dont want to do a shitty workout once again. My timex`s belt broke so this morning I went to buy a basic watch like I had for the 2018-2019, the same watch, but red. The old one is blue and is alive and kicking, but I took the seal of the old one to put it on the timex, but it broke and it was very unconfortable to wear the watch with the belt hanging, so I decided to go to the store and buy another watch, its only 10 EUR after all. My brother is always pressing me to buy a GPS, but I dont like them, I always have been a blue collar runner and prefer to run by feel. GPS are not accurate and can mess with your head.

I decided that I will use my watch for all my runs, given that I invest on it I might use it. I ran at 04:00 p.m. today and went to the park, ran 8 laps there and then got back home, so I gauged 7.2k, but I ran almost 8k. 8 laps were in 43:52,  first lap in 5:40, halfway in 22:33. I incorporated 6 easy strides to loosen up a bit, because my quads were very sore yet. Felt much better after the 1 st stride. The strides are the explanatio of the 1:14 negative split. Felt pretty good and the weather was just fine. I walked around 5k this morning, to the store to buy the watch and back. Now to drink 2-3 beers.

Have a great Saturday!

Up and down

 Tuesday - At 6:30 p.m. 8 laps in the blasco park , from laps 6 to 8 I did 6 strides. Did not feel bad on the strides, but I could feel my glute and leg bothering me again. Not much, but enough to reconsider my return to workouts. Felt good overall though.

Wednesday -  At 5 p.m. I went to the turia park and the plan was to do 5k tempo, but not as hard as usual ,just sub 25 mins to get the feel of things again. I wanted to do 400s but I did not want to run that fast, because of the injury. Warmed up 15 mins to the turia park and incorporated 5 x 50m strides. In the strides I could feel the hamstring and the glute to be honest, but given that tempo pace is not a pace were you have to alter your form much I went with it. I thought that this workout was going to be a piece of cake given that on my last tempo I did 23:51 for the 5k feeling strong and a couple of hours later I did 1 mile in 6:52. However, I did not know that in this month that I have been running easy and resting I would lose so much shape. I ended up only doing 4.1k or somehting like that in 20:52, when I saw the 4th km split in 5:07, huffing and puffing and my mind played with me and I called it a day. Splits were 4:56,5:03, 2:27 (500m out), 2:30 (500m back) and 5:07. 5:07 was my pace in the fast portion of my long runs and I felt very confortable. On Wednesday, I felt like s·%·t. Oh well! Ran 20 mins cool down, to finish up a 55 min run day. I will stop looking at the watch, watch is holding me back and playing with my mind. I will only look at it in the first km and then wont look at it until the end. 4k were in 20:06.

Thursday - At 6:30 p.m. I went to the Blasco park my quads were very sore, as if I had run a race the day before. The run was not easy either, I mean, it was at a very easy pace to recover without a watch, but I feel demotivated and sore. Sometimes questioning why I am still in this sport. I have 18 years trying to find an answer.

Today Friday I rest and I am still sore. Tomorrow morning I will do 3 x 1 mile with 1 min rest. I dont have a goal in mind, I just want to feel better than on Wednesday and luckily run in the 7:40s. Its not optimal to run 2 tempos in one week, but as I dont want to run fast because I dont want to burry myself with the "injury". its clear that rest in not the antidote.

1st run of the new cycle

Yesterday I ran my first run of the new training cycle. Motivation for workouts is coming back. I dont know there the races are going to be, but I tend to eat a lot and get a lot of weight very fast, so I do better start doing workouts again to not lose that edge. Races are gonna come back when they are going to be come back. We cannot control those things, best we can do is to be prepared when they come.

I have two weeks off from work, I get back on November 30th, so it would be good to get in a couple of workouts before I get back to it. 

Yesterday at 6:25 p.m. already dark I headed out to the blasco park, starting the run from the building I live in, before I walked to the park without the mask, however, as the masks are mandatory, I always paranoid because I thought that the police were going to stop me. Now I start the run from my home ( runners can run without mask) and avoid those kind of worries and I run 600-800m more on my easy runs. I went to the park, did 8 laps easy feeling pretty good and fresh as last week I only ran 4 weeks. So the last 2 weeks have been quiet easy and very low volume, perfect for a break. After the 8 laps, came back running again. 

Felt pretty good, weather was in 18 celsius or something like that, I did not use a windbreaker, I am not using it. I have learned that I dont need to run with one, if the temps are over 15 celsius. This was a watchless run as I am doing since July.

Caaaatch uppp

 Hello folks, 

I have been running but not that much, pretty much took a break of 3 weeks of easy running and 1 week completely off. I was training hard as you can tell, I assumed that races will be resumed at the beginning of the year so I better was prepared for it. However, mid October corona is getting worse and worse all over the world, especially in Spain where I am at, and even thinking about the possibility of lock down us once again. At that point  I knew that races are not happening any time soon. Some places in Spain are doing races, but starting 10-15 secs apart from each other, what race is that, I want normal races to come back when you can race head to head with other and to make packsof people to help each other. Anyway, I was very dissapointed and decided to take my break right now and then do another cycle until april or may before taking another break. The left glute and hamstring were bothering me in workouts so that break was almost necesary. So here I am running easy at the moment, well sometimes I dont run that easy becasue I start to race some people, as I have no workout to recover from, running easy can become in moderate efforts pretty much every run.

Before the break I did a 3000 meter trial ( yea my last post was minutes before my 3000m time trial) where I wanted to run sub 13:30, but deep down I wanted to get as close to 13 mins as possible, I ended up running 13:20, dropping my brother in the last km where i closed hard. I ran without a watch, warmed up 15 mins, did 5 50m strides and we headed out, I dont know splits, but the second km was very slow and I think that ruined our chances to run a " fast time".  I felt good when I finished and I decided to do 4 x 200m by feel, around 42-43 seconds, I should not have because thats where my injury get worse, the next day I ran easy, but on Friday I did my long run and I felt it, I did 1:36:52 and did a progression, but splits were very slow, it was too cold though, 5k were in 5:27,5:19,5:14,5:07,5:11. It was slow , but it felt the same as when I run 5:08 average pace for the progression.  

The day after that I tried to run a 5k tempo run with my brother, but after the first km in 4:55 I decided to run easy, my left glute and hamstring were bothering me a lot and the cold was not helping.Did around 8-9k total. I had 10 days of running straight. I rested on Sunday because i was in a trip in a couple of towns. Meeting new places.

Ran 8 laps easy On Monday and Tuesday and on Wednesday the injury was not bothering me and I felt relatavely fresh. At 4: pm ( I was still on vacation) I headed out to the turia park to do 5k tempo run. My brother wanted to do a mile time trial, but I prefered to do the tempo as the primary workout, but I also did the mile time trial at 6 p.m. so I ran twice and both times hard. I think that is the first time that I do that.  I had ages without running a double and I try a double running hard both times, what clever!! Anyway, warmed up 15 mins easy plus strides of 50m. Then did 5k in 23:51, with splits 4:32,4:51,4:48,4:55,4:42. Halfway was 11:46. So I ended running a positive split by almost 20 seconds. My legs were quiet heavy at the end. I skipped the 200s because I was doing a mile time trial with my brother on tired legs. Cooled down for 15 mins. Got showered and at 6:00 p.m. I headed out again to the Turia park to warm up 15 mins plus strides, I felt tired, but thought that I could defeat him nonetheless. I wore my watch for that time trial to track my 400s. I ran out of gas pretty quickly. my splits were 1:37,1:44,1:47,1:42. Halfway in 3:22, but finished in 6:52. I felt good on the lugs, but my legs were done and not cooperating. I was running head to head at 1k mark with my brother, but I had to surge several times to catch him and then he pulled away again. I never told him that I had already ran a tempo run, I told him that night before going to sleep hhaha. Ran around 18k or something like that for the day. I thought that I could run 6:30, but my legs did not cooperate. Happy with the effor tthough. That was my last workout of the cycle. As in the next days leg and glute were bothering me so I decided to take my break right there. After that all my runs has been watchless and 8 laps to the blasco park , sometimes easy, somtimes moderate. Before taking the week off last week. I pretty much races a young child for 3-4 laps . In the end I think I ran that run at 5 min per km pace, but I dont know since I did not wear a watch and I wont wear one until my next workout, which it might be on Wednesday. I have run 4 times this week and I was going to run this evening, but I am hanging out with my house mate, so I will probably will skip the run, really does not matter as I am in my break yet. Next week I will be back to my 6 days a week of running and taking it more seriously, but will continue to skip the watch on easy days.

I hope that you running is going well!