I Didn’t Do Anything this Weekend, and #30summerdays Photo Challenge (days 2-8)

Except for running and getting coffee, I didn’t leave the house all weekend, and it was the most amazing weekend ever.
Every now and then I need a few days of doing nothing for a while. Sure, it sounds like a waste of time, I could have gone on a trip or to the park or at least do some shopping. But it wasn’t a waste at all.

 
It seems like life responsibilities always take away from the fun things we want to do, although they aren’t one bit less important, like playing with the kids, cooking, baking, taking naps, and getting home pedicures and manicures for me and my little girl.

 
I got a couple of good long runs in, so I was relaxed and happy. I am aware of the fact that I wouldn’t have been the most pleasant person to stay home with, without getting my running done.

 
#30summerdays Photo Challenge: Day 2 through 8

 
I’m really enjoying doing the #30summerdays photo challenge.
I’m not trying to take particularly pretty or interesting pictures. The goal for me doing this challenge is to take more pictures of my life and share them with you. I also love randomly looking through my phone pics a while later and remembering all the simple moments, when they become good memories they don’t seem so simple anymore.

 
Day 1 is here

 
Day 2: Monday, ugh! What’s keeping you going today?
Quite obvious, but coffee gets me going every day. 2 cups before I go work out, and another one in shake form after my workout, that keeps me awake all day.


 
Day 3: Who made you smile today?
My little girl, she’s such a source of smiling/laughter in my life.
We were watching my oldest during his swim lesson and she wanted to go in the pool, so she was crying. Eventually I started taking pictures of us to distract her, and she was a happy girl again.


 
Day 4: Look up. What do you see?
I love flying and I work for an airline. When I think of the sky, I think of planes. And I get to see them often too, right over my head!
This picture is from a past vacation to St. Marteen in the Caribbean, where the airport is right by the beach and they fly literally right above your head, quite an experience.


 
Day 5: #TBT Share a photo from a past summer trip!
Our first and last family trip to Uruguay, where I grew up. I wish I could go more often to visit family and friends, and for my kids to get a stronger sense of the culture I grew up in.


 
Day 6: National Doughnut Day! Snap a pic celebrating! Or, what did you have instead?!
We don’t eat a lot of doughnuts in Israel, but croissants and all kinds of sweet baked goods are one of my favorite treats.


 
Day 7: Saturday! What are you up to?
Family time and running!


 
Day 8: Time to relax before the start of the week. What does relaxing look like to you?
Long overdue pedicure and a funny movie while the kids took a nap, so relaxing!


 

Do you enjoy doing challenges? Which kind of challenge is your favorite: fitness, pictures, etc?

 

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A Long Run with a 1K Time Trial in Between

I’ve been wondering how fast I can run 1K, so I decided to do a time trial yesterday during my long-ish 15K/9.3M run.

 
A time trial is measuring how fast you can run for a particular distance. Decide what distance you want to run, and run it as fast as you can, keeping in mind that you want to sustain your pace over the full distance.
The main reason to do a time trial is to compare your times, and see how you improve over time. Do a time trial this week, remember the time you ran, keep training, and do another time trial for the same distance in a few weeks.
Sounds kind of like a race, except in my opinion there’s a lot less pressure. You do a time trial when you want, at the time you want. If you are not feeling it today, you can do it tomorrow. If you need another 5 minutes to warm up, take your time, you have it. The results are not official, it’s something you do and measure yourself.

 
Although I didn’t taper or anything of the sort for it, it was a very casual and informal experiment, I didn’t run the day before because it was swim day.

 
My run started earlier than usual, I was going by 5:20, since I had a busy morning and wanted to be back home, showered, and ready to go by 08:00 AM.

 
I ran about 3K at warm-up pace, then made a restroom stop. Unfortunately the restrooms I usually use on my long run route, which are very close to where I park my car and I can use before I start running, are closed this early in the morning. So I had to stop somewhere else, which I don’t particularly like because I don’t like to stop during running, but then at least I had an empty bladder for the time trial, which was good.

 
I ran another half KM or so as warm up after stopping, and then did a couple of accelerations, a new concept to me, where I ran about 200 meters at a fast pace, but not going all out, and then a minute or so of easy jogging. I really liked doing the accelerations, it got my legs moving fast, something that a regular warm up doesn’t do, but didn’t get them tired at all since it was a short distance and I only did a couple, which was enough.

 
And then I ran as fast as I could for 1K, well, I wouldn’t say 100% effort because I knew I had another 10K/6.1M or so to finish my run… although I knew I’d be doing them at an easy pace I had to save some strength for them. But I went about 95% effort, and finished in 03:56 (06:20 Min/Mile pace).

 
I was pleasantly surprised to see the final time, but I know with some speed work I can reduce a few seconds off that.

 


 

Have you ever done a time trial? How do you measure your running progress?

 

Long Run, TLC, and the Real Reason I Don’t Post Pictures of Food

I know I take bad selfies, but I don’t have anyone to take a picture of me at 06:00 in the morning, especially on the weekend.
I just had to take one to show you my new Mizuno top, I love it. Worked great on my long run today, very airy and fresh, no chafing whatsoever, and the racer back is so cute.

 



 
21.3K/13.2M at average pace 05:04 Min/KM (08:09 Min/Mile). Not bad for the morning after a race. I wanted to take it easy, which I did, I am trying to make speed runs not more than 15% of my weekly total running.

 


 
I’m good with my average pace for the run, but my pacing wasn’t the best:

 
2KM/1.2M – warm up at average pace 05:45 Min/KM (09:15 Min/Mile)
9KM/5.6M – taking it easy at average pace 05:14 Min/KM (08:25 Min/Mile)
10.3KM/6.4M – loving running, but not keeping the easy pace I intended, at average pace 04:47 Min/KM (07:41 Min/Mile)

 
The pace of the last 10K, that is my “happy” pace. My favorite pace to run, especially when I get there gradually, after a few KMs at an easy pace. My legs are warm and feel strong and I get to that pace so naturally. I feel fast, that is definitely not an easy pace for me, but I feel strong and not winded at the same time.

 
On weekends I usually come home after I run to shower and get ready, during the week I usually shower at the gym. It’s nice to come home and spend a bit of time with the kids before I jump in the shower, and especially not be in the usual rush that is the work week.

 
After getting ready, I hit the fridge big time. By then it had been over an hour since I finished my run, so I was starving. All I had after the run was water with NUUN.

 

I really don’t know why I used my daughter’s Hello Kitty’s plate

 
Recovery shake with banana, cacao, glutamine (yum), soymilk, flaxseed, and molasses.
The healthiest bread sold in Israel, at least that I have found, and the most delicious hummus, I did scrub that container clean.
A few almonds, my husband likes to soak them overnight, it makes them softer. I prefer them dry but I don’t really mind, I don’t eat them too often.

 
A couple of hours later I had another snack, and this is the reason why you don’t see a lot of food pictures in this blog, I remember to take pictures after I’m done eating.

 



 
I ate the whole pineapple, it really wasn’t too big, leftover apple pieces from my kids’ snack, and a Clif bar.

 
I took my knee high compression socks out of circulation for running because it’s officially too hot, but my calves were feeling a bit tight so I decided to use them for recovery. A bit of TLC can’t hurt: freeze spray, foot cream, tight socks, and lying down. Followed by a glass of water with apple cider vinegar, and Grid rolling.

 


 

What is your “happy” pace and why?

 

Memoir of a Long Run

My weekend long run was 25K/15.5M. It was only my 2nd time running this distance, but truthfully, I wasn’t nervous about it. I’m used to 21K-23Ks, so 25K shouldn’t pose too much of a challenge, I thought. I was wrong, it was a tough run.

 


 
As I was about 1.5KM/1M into the run, a couple approached running in the other direction, both looked about 40 years old and very fit. When we were just a few feet apart the woman passed out and fell on the floor, with her body convulsing and white foam coming out of her mouth. They both didn’t have a phone, and neither did I, and the boardwalk was deserted because it was still fairly early. I went down to the beach where there was a young guy listening to music, and asked to borrow his phone to call the ambulance.

 
I obviously didn’t get to talk much with the guy who had been running with the woman, in the few minutes we waited for the ambulance we just tried to figure out how she was holding up, we kept checking her breathing and seeing if she opened her eyes, but he told me they didn’t know each other well, and he didn’t know any of her family members to call and let them know what had happened.
I know from now on I’ll be running either with my phone or with my personal details in case of an emergency.

 
After they left in the ambulance, it had been about 15 minutes since I had stopped running, so I figured I’d start counting the 25K again.
I ran the first 17K/10.5M at an easy pace, average 05:14 Min/KM (08:25 Min/Mile), and the last 8K/5M as fast finish, average pace 04:40 Min/KM (07:31 Min/Mile). This was pretty much what I had in mind for this run, so I’m glad I was able to pull the fast finish off as planned, but my legs were feeling it big time.

 


 
I was a sweaty mess when I was done, and it was only 08:40 AM on a relatively nice day, it wasn’t too hot. I even used the seat cover I got at a race to drive back home, it would have been disgusting to sit directly on the car seat.

 


 
My legs were sore all day afterwards, I don’t think they had been that sore since my first race. I wonder if it was the distance, the fast finish, the kind of warm weather.. it worries me that this run was so tough. Marathon training is a long way away, but if 25K felt like this, how will I ever run a marathon?

 
Average pace of the total run was 05:03 Min/KM (08:07 Min/Mile), which comparing with the only previous time I ran 25K is 4 seconds faster per KM (7 seconds faster per mile). Not exactly a big difference, but maybe one of the reasons for the soreness. Or the fact that overall I ran 26.5K/16.5M, although I’m counting only the last 25K.

 
I tried to pay attention to recovery for the rest of the day, eating healthy food and drinking a lot of water during the day.

 
My husband and I had some errands to run afterwards, but we didn’t have to walk much, gladly. We even took his motorcycle, so we could park right by where we had to be, and not even have to walk to/from the parking lot or the street. He drives one to work because traffic is crazy to Tel Aviv where he works.

 
I was at the grocery store and bought some apple vinegar, it’s supposed to help with soreness, sounds crazy but I’m willing to try.

 


 
Finished our afternoon at the port, eating dinner with the family. Taking every possible opportunity to rest my legs, I have a couple of hard runs scheduled for this week, a tempo and an interval.

 


 
We went out for beer at night, that worked for sure. And I foam rolled after we came back, yes, even after a night out and a few beers I make foam rolling a priority.

 


 

Would you ride a motorcycle, for fun, or if it made sense due to traffic/cost/etc.?
Is there a distance or time length when your run becomes really tough?

 

Weekend Runs

Friday: Long Run

 
I don’t have any long races left this season, no half marathons, and I’m not running my first full marathon anytime soon. I am running a 10K early May, a 5K mid-May, and that’s it most likely. So I wondered if I should keep doing long runs.

 
And then I remember that I was doing long runs way before I started racing, that long runs are very enjoyable for me, and that they provide many other physical benefits, besides training for a race.

 
So Friday I ran 23.25K/14.4M. 01:58:46. Average pace 05:06 Min/KM (08:12 Min/Mile).
My first split was 06:06 Min/KM (09:50 Min/Mile), and my last split was 04:43 Min/KM (07:36 Min/Mile), getting progressively faster through the run. Mostly negative splits, with a couple seconds positive splits here and there.

 
It wasn’t an easy run, only because my legs were a little tired from a hard Fartlek run the day before. Usually my long runs come after a cross training day, so my legs are more rested than they were this Friday. Still, it was a good run, and if my tired legs helped me keep the pace relatively easy, that’s a good thing.

 


 

 
Saturday: Tempo Run

 
Starting the run with tired legs from Thursday and Friday’s runs, I was hesitant about this run. But, I had it on my schedule, so I had to try.

 


 
I am happy I was able to pull it off, although I know I could not have run even a second faster on the last 3K, I was giving it all I had.
I’m satisfied with this run because it went according to plan, however I doubt on race day I can do faster splits than 04:18 Min/KM (06:55 Min/Mile), which is too bad because I am counting on the last few KMs being faster than that.

 

Do you keep long runs all year round?