Zapping the zero

 I was going to run tomorrow, but ended up stuffing myself with fried chicken. DNR.

Today I ran in the evening at 7:50 p.m. after work with my brother in the blasco park. Felt good, but in the last almost 3 laps I had to speed up for 2 laps because a guy that runs regularly there was going to pass me, I told my brother that he was not going to pass me, so I sped up. Its an indiscipline, I know, but I am sick that that guy pass me. As I have run in the morning for the last almost 7 months, did not have the opportunity to run with him. He often runs in the evening, anyway, he never got to pass me, but I was running harder than I thought at a slower than tempo pace. I am not very good changing the pace from easy pace to a " fast" pace. Ran 50 mins total. Around 8.5k or something like that. Ran laps in the blasco park, but did not count them and we started running from my home, but finished there until the watch read 50 mins. All in all a good run.

The plan is to run everyday for the remaining of the week.

Sunday morning run

 Today I headed out at 7:10 a.m. with my brother to the port. The plan was to do 60 mins of running. I did 62:15 or something like that. Very confortable run, but cramps in my left ankle. The glute and hamstring are behaving quiet well, but now that cramp make me start limping, then it gets better and I can run normally, but I dont know why I have that cramp, because in my last day of running ( race day) I felt awesome and even after the race, next days I did not feel any soreness or nothing.

The training for fall races has started yesterday, so workouts start on Wednesday. No time to lose. Yesterday started doing push ups as well, for upper body strength. Did 4 x 5 repeats, its a shame, but better to start easy and do it consistently than doing 4 x 10 and last 1 week sore. 

Basically a rest week this week with only 2 runs. Goal for next week are going to be 6 runs. 

Today I did around 6 miles for the day. Around 6:20/km pace, so very easy.

Back on the wagon

 I rested  6 days from running. The plan was to rest 2 days, but one rest day bring other. I decided that it would be my " break" from the season to feel less guilty. At the same time, it marks an end and a beginning. On september / october there are a couple of good races. I even signed up for the 10k Ibercaja, one of most competitive 10k in spain, generally around 20 000 people run, but this time there were only room for 6000. Race is October 3rd and I signed up on Wednesday, because it will run out quickly. Today I put a rest at my rest.

But contraty to popular believe, rest is not always good for you, in fact I today started my run with cramps in my ankle, and my calves were very tight, as if I was very still, if today was a workout/ race day it would have been a disaster. I felt good in the first 10 mins, but then after that I felt horrible and dragging to complete the 45 mins.

At 7:10 a.m. today I headed out to the port 23 mins, then turned around and got home in 45:15. My brother and I met at the port. I explained to him, that sometimes rest can be detrimental to your fitness. 

Or maybe I just eat too much, and when I dont run for 6 days that extra calories adds up quickly, oh well. 

Today is the start of a new cycle of training. I hope not to lose what I had already built until week ago.

Have a great Saturday!

5k PONLE FRENO VALENCIA

 This was a very fun race and the route was great. The only bad thing is that it was not an actual 5k race, it was a 5.11k according to several GPS watches. I dont wear a watch in races, but the 5k mark was well ahead of the finish line.

However, if that would have been a 5k I again ran 23 and some change, so I did not get sub 22 mins I think. I felt pretty good and strong. What stole the opportunity to get down from 23 mins was that We headed in the starting line well back and in the first 800m, I had to dodge a lot of people, thus running from one side to the other so that made me lose a lot of time. Ran hard and strong and in the last stretch of 600m really increased the pace and passed a lot of people, finishing in a spint, but not as strong as last week`s race. 

I enjoyed the race and route, felt pretty strong and could have kept going, the thing is that I cannot find another gear to run faster in the very moment. The heat was not as strong as last week. Total time was 23:32 or so, in the results the clock time is showed and I appears like if I ran 24:10. My brother ran 24:04 and I beated him by 32 seconds. Never watched him in the race.

Good effort, but run 23.00 or over for the 5k let me a bitter taste in my mouth. Right now, I am taking a mini break of 3 days off and I will run this evening to start a new block of training for the upcoming races. Maybe I wont race more until August as I cannot find another race soon. However, I have to put racing in the back burner for a bit and start training hard again.

I have run 5 races in 5-6 weeks which is plenty. Time to rest a little. From next week also, I will ramp up from 5 days of running to 6 days of running. I have been training 5 times per week for 7 months now, and its time to get back to 6 days per week to see if I can improve my performance like races pre covid.

I will updated photos this evening. 

Shake out pre race

 Today I was up at 06:10 a.m., but headed out to run at 7:15 a.m. to the blasco park. Did only 40 mins easy, but then did 6 x 20 seconds strides with 40 seconds rest in between. Felt better in the last strides. In the beginning of the run felt the heart at 1000 beats per minute and felt tired. Then after the 20 mins started to feel better. Did several laps until complete the 40 mins. My brother was there doing an easy run, but he showed up late so when he showed up, I only had 10 mins remaining or something like that.

Tomorrow I will race another 5k called ponle freno Valencia. I was not going to run it since I have done a lot of racing in the past month, but on Monday I registered, that 23.00 really let me a bad taste in my mouth. I hope to break 23.00 tomorrow. I already did one month ago, but I want to do it again in the heat. My brother will race in this one. On Thursday he did 23.38 in practice with a lot of heat. We will see how it goes, maybe we can work together during the race.

I hope I feel better tomorrow and ready to rock and roll. 

Morning easy run

 Today I was up at 05:30 a.m. and sleep good so I woke up and headed out at 06:10 a.m. to do the Blasco ibañez route. I thought that I would feel pretty tired and with the hamstring and glute bothering me. That was not the case. I felt pretty good and the glute and leg did not bother me at all. The weather was much fresh than in the evening, but still hot. 51:31. A bit slower than I wanted, but I will take it, the effort was pretty easy. However, I can feel some tiredness, maybe its from all the racing that I have done in the last month.

Second evening run of the year

 Today I again ran in the evening after work. I started the run at 7:15 p.m. with the sun shining hard. The plan for today was to do a recovery run of 48-50 mins to simulate my morning easy runs. I did a lot of laps in the blasco park, first one was 5:34, last one in 5:22, all the rest in between those ranges. Felt good really, but the sun and the heat bother a lot and I sweating a ton. However, generally felt good.  The reason I ran in the evening today and yesterday is that I am waking out of no where at 4 a.m or before and I cannot get back to sleep until 1+ hour later. These days are stressful at work and sleeping less than necessary guarantee a headache the whole day. A headache at the work place leading with stress is not good. When I get up at 07:15 a.m. I hardly ever suffer a headache, but when I wake up at 5:15 a.m. on workout days for example, the headache is guarantee. I will get back to the morning running of course, because its much more convenient, but sometimes you have to adap for your own particular situation. Sometimes is not easy to do a hard workout in the morning and then deal with a very stressful day at work. Likewise, is not easy to do a hard workout after a hard long day at the office. You have to find what works best for you and that might change from time to time. The most important thing is to keep training consistently no matter the time of day.

49:10 total for the day sweating a lot. I would guess it was around 8 -8.1k. Did not felt sore at all from the workout.

Another thing that I forgot to mention is that yesterday the hamstring/glute bothered me a lot in the second half of the tempo, I almost quit, but then felt better. Today It bothered me a lot in the office. When I was running I could feel it, but could run easy without problems, but the pull / strain is there.

Evening 5k tempo run : First evening run since December 31 of 2020

 Rested Monday and Tuesday. I am running 5 times per week, but lately I am resting Monday and Tuesday and then runni from Wednesday until Sunday. I dont like it so much, because its better to rest on Monday and then rest on Thursday for example, that allows for more flexibility. Anyway, its my fault because I have been lazy sometimes to wake up early. 

Today I did not wake up early either, so given that my 2 rest days budget was over I had to run in the evening. Today was my first evening run of the year. I had not run in the evening since December 31, which was a 5k time trial with Jorge, his brother, Danilo and myself. 

I did not want to run easy today, because I had rested 2 consecutive days and today was a workout day so no point in running easy. 

I headed out at 07:30 p.m. to the blasco park to do my warm up, at that point I did not know if I was going to do a 5k fartlek of 1 min fast and 1 min slow, or a 5k tempo run. When I finished the warm up which was 15 mins including 5 x 50m accelerations after the 8 mins. I opted for the 5k tempo, which was 5.5 laps in the blasco park. 

Honestly it was pretty hot, but I felt good. The pace did not feel hard and I thought that I would finish more tired. The goal was to do a controlled effort, maybe 24:45-24:50 for the 5k. I finished in 24:17 accelarating the last 500m (no sprint). Unlike, my tempos in the harbor, I checked the watch on every lap today.

At the end, I was a bit tired, but even running easy was hard today, it felt like a sauna.

Splits per lap (900m or so) were: 4:22,4:28,4:20,4:30, 4:24, 2:13 ( last 500m), I checked the last lap ( I mean exactly one lap until the point that I finished and I did it in 4:13.

then stopped for a couple of mins, then started my cooled down which was 17:30 of easy running and very thirsty. I did around 6 miles of total running today. Not a very hard workout, but hard enough that stress my body.

It felt nice to run in the evening today, you see a lot more people than in the morning. However, on a regular basis is better to run in the morning, because its something comes up in the evening, the run is out. Luckily, I planned my run very well today and I was going to do my workout today no matter what.

Have a great night!

5k Marta Fernandez de Castro: 23:00

 It was a fun day. However, I wanted o run 22:59 for the 5k and ran 23:00. doing a mega sprint in the last 200m, probably I closed in less than 40 seconds in that 200m. I was very happy because I thought that I had run 23:00 in 5.2k, because initially the race was supposed to have that distance. Well, in the end it was a 5k race and I felt short from my goal. The race was not easy, you had two climb a couple of bridges and the weather at 26 celsius. When last week you ran at 17 celsius, running at 26 celsius, you really note the difference. No excuses though, I tried during the race to throw an extra year, but the legs did not go any faster. In fact I suprised myself when I did that sprint, because I thought that I would not have the strength to do so. I race without a watch and I really feel good doing so. you really get in tune with your body and know when to push and when to hold back. I climb the hills very slowly, but I catch runner back up in the downhill.

I started from my home, warming up easy until the starting line, then ran some more and did 6 x 80m strides or something like that. Controlled, but faster than  race pace. Then I lined up and was in the 3rd row.  I tried to go out as controlled as possible, in the first 100m a lot of people were passing, but I tried to maintain composure. I was not feeling pretty good at the beginning. Felt somewhat hot and thirsty, then felt better, but legs would not want to move. I am frustrated, but a  couple of women defeated me by 90 secons in the last 5k race and yesterday they only defeated my 50 seconds, so I think  it affected everybody. I think I did not run that bad, but that 23:00 really left a bad taste in my mouth. 22:59 looks much better. I am not really sore today, it seems that my body is getting usted to being sore from races, or maybe I did not push enough yesterday in the middle kms. Oh well, it is what it is. Did what I could. After the race ran around 15+ mins easy to home. I seldom see nobody doing cool downs except the faster runners, but medium pack runners dont do cool down. I have the behavior of an elite, but I am very slow lol. They say you have to copy what elites do, so I will keep doing what I am doing. Some photos from the race:

I think the fist photo says it all. 

Easy run and pre race shake out

Yesterday morning, I was out at 6 a.m. to do the blasco route again, I felt much better than on Thursday. Basically ran the same time, just 1 second slower than on Thursday. Felt good, but the heat is increasing and the race tomorrow ( I type this on Saturday) will be hot. I will give my best though. Did 50:45 for 8.3k.

Today morning, I was out at 7:15 a.m. to the blasco park and started doing laps till the watch read 40 mins, then stopped and did 6 x 20 seconds with 1 min rest or so. First one felt very slow and then felt better as the strides went on as usual. Then jogged a couple of mins to home. The strides and the jog home took me 8 mins, so I did 48 mins for the day. Did around 7.6k or so total.

I am feeling a bit tired, and feeling a crap in my left ankle. It seems that the left leg is a mess these days. Maybe I am getting old. No excuses though, I will run my best. Also trying to lose a few pounds. 

Easy does it

 Today I was up at 5:25 a.m. and out at 06:00 a.m. alone to do the blasco route. Glute and hamstring was bothering me a bit. I felt good cariovasculary, but I thought that I was going was faster than what I did. Did 8.3k in 50:44. Had stomach problems eventhough the dinner was light. Go figure! A bit hot today as well.

Back to the blog

 I have decided to get back to my blog and leave Strava behind. After several months using it, its not for me. This blog is more personal. I have been training very well and have raced 4 times in the last 5 weeks. These races have been:

5.7k in 26:35

 Valencia corre 5k in 22:42

5k for the oceans in 22:37, this was 100 m short and the headwind was very strong for 2+ kms. This was a fun race though and the next day we could get a long run in. Race was on Saturday.

I will race this sunday in a 5.2k race. The heat is going up and a couple of bridges on that race. I will give my all though.

I have been training 5 times per week, did 2 hour long runs for 8 weeks or so. Then Given that the races are short I am doing my long runs of 90 mins and its amazing how easy these 90 mins feel once you have gone up to 2 hours.  Intervals on Wednesday and tempos on Saturdays.

Today I was up at 5:07 a.m. and was out at 05:50 a.m. to the Turia park alone, my brother cut his finger and cannot run for the next several days, maybe he wont race either. A bummer. His finger will be fine in the next week or so. 

I warmed up 15:40 today easy to the turia park and there I did 6 x 15 seconds with 45 seconds rest walking. Then did 8 x 400m with 200m jog rest in between. It was hot this morning, and this workout was slower than the one I did 3 weeks ago, but I felt controlled though. Splits were :1:38, 1:40,1:35, 1:37,1:34, 1:37, 1:35, 1:32. If i recall correctly this was the splits. A bit slower than last time, but it was hotter today and I was somewhat tired from the weekend of training eventhough I rested on Monday and Tuesday, so that means that I will run for the rest of the week to get my 5 runs in.

All in all I felt good with this workout and the effort was there. 15:14 easy cool down to home. Around 9.5k or 6 miles for the day. 

Now easy until race day.