Running With LeMire

This morning the wind was wipping and the temps were in the low 20's without any windchill considerations. Therefore, I decided to take my workout to the treadmill and I ended up running a 2 mile warm-up downhill then took out the 2"x4" and ran 4-800meter repeates with 300 meter jogs at 6mph inbetween each repeat. My heart rate seemed to catch up and it allowed me to run these at 10mph and/or 3minute/800m pace. These are not the fastest 800 meter repeats but all of them were performed at the exact same pace which is still alot faster then marathon goal pace. Overall this pace felt fast but that's the treadmill. After the workout I did some push-ups, back raises, and elbows to knees from the pull-up bar. Great workout and now I'm tired!!!

Easy 4 miles on the treadmill after work. Was planning on getting 5 miles in but was tired and a little sore from yesterdays speed workout. Then unpacked all of the fun weight lifting items that we purchased to create out own little CrossFit gym in our basement. I was thinking we should name our little basement gym something and make a little sign for it. My ideas as of now are LeMire X-Fit, or maybe J²-Box. So far we have a squat rack with pull-up bar, barbell(45lbs), bumper plate sets of 10,15,25, gymnastics rings, ab mats, and then the treadmil and eliptical that we already owned. We can also have our road bikes on our trainers. The womens barbell(35lbs) should be delivered today and we are waiting on some kettle bells to be delivered also. Once we get those we will pretty much have a full crossfit gym in the basement. It is going to be a blast!! I have a lot of ideas on how to deck this little gym out which will be fun doing over the next year. 

6 fairly easy miles on the treadmill and my legs felt better then yesterday evening. I did the usual progressive pace on the treadmill were I up the speed 0.2 mph every so often and then finished off the last mile at 8, 8.2 and 8.4mph to wrap up an early morning run on the treadmill. I might just take tomorrow off and rest up for my long run otherwise I might just lift weights.

Saturday was 18 miles of fun on a very hilly course through some pretty nice parts of Kansas City. This route takes you through some of the very high end mansions which house families with the last names of Block, Helzberg and Kaufmann which are all owners of companies named after them or former owners major league sports teams. The homes are rediculous and one was for sale for $15million and below is a link to the map my run site for this route.

http://www.mapmyrun.com/routes/view/628029228

The weather was amazing for the first week of February 34 at the start and finishing temps in the 40's. At the start there were a couple of slick spots but then it was pretty smooth sailing besided the hills. We have been doing this slow first 1mile then a little fast 2nd mile then finally hitting pace about mile three. Today this was driving me crazy the first around 9 the second a little faster then we started hitting 7:05/mi pace for quite a few miles but when you start so slow your average time is jacked up. My average was 7:33/mi on my watch and that is using auto pause at thrughout the run. I finished with Terry who perfers to use the manual stop button and his average was 7:26/mi. The total difference in our running time using the two various functions was quite supprising at approximately 1:30. My watch read 2:15:++(mid) and his was at 2:13:++ (low). Either way with the hills that we ran and the first 2 super slow miles that is a pretty darn good average and if I through out those first two miles I'm sure the average would be in the low 7's. I may just have to figure that out if I ever find some time.

Splits: 9:03, 8:08, 7:38, 7:34, 7:10, 7:34, 7:05, 7:24, 7:28, 7:12, 7:38, 7:33, 7:35, 7:37, 7:25, 7:19, 7:03, 7:33

6 easy miles this morning with temps at 34 and a slight breeze. Overall my legs felt good after Saturday's long run but my stomach had a few issues and I had to make a pit stop at mile 5! I have been trying to eat better the last couple of weeks and this weekend I did not and I paid for it this morning. Overall average was just over 8/mi which is were I wanted it to be on this easy day.

6 mile run this morning that was suppose to be a fartlick run but turned into more of a progression/tempo run. I just wasn't feeling the Fartlick workout that was proposed on the schedule and after not having my hill legs on Saturday I decided I would run the hills harder instead. Which is always a good conversion for any run. I ended up with a loop record for this 6 mile course from home even with an easy pace to begin the run at 8:28 for the first mile. My average overall ended up being 7:17/mi for this route and the previous record was 7:18/mi average. Doesn't seem like much but when you start with an 8:28 mile the rest of the miles are pretty fast as shown with my splits:

           8:28, 7:22, 7:16, 7:03, 6:45, 6:43

Once I was warmed up the legs were just moving and it didn't feel all that fast. Feels great to wip out a faster run than usual at times.

Ran 6 miles this morning and my intentions were to try and replicate Tuesday's run since I was feeling good. Good thing I looked at my phone before I headed out the door because I made sure I had my mask, winter hat, gloves, wind breaker, compressions socks to knees and my warm tights! My ohone said 16 degrees not counting the wind chill and man that wind was strong right from the north. I started off feeling good and my first mile was about 10-15 seconds faster than Tuesday's run then the second mile you could feel the cross wind and the gusts hitting your side as I headed east. Then at mile two I turn north for a mile in which I was planning on running that hill hard which I did but my time doesn't reflect that because of the wind. There were a couple of gusts that felt like they almost stopped me in my tracks and even without those gusts my jacket was wipping in the wind. Then at mile 3 I turn and head west again in which that stretch running on the north side of the road you are protected for most of the way but when you hit the open areas that wind was cold on my face because I pulled the mask down and put it right back up. Then mile 5 is straight south in which I ran a sub 7 easily and a few of those gusts gave me some good pushes. Overall even with the wind I still managed a 7:23/mi average. When I got home Jamie had the news on and the reports said 10 degrees with -3 wind chills in our town. Don't know what I was thinking since I have a perfectly good treadmill in the basement but at this rate Boston may still have snow on April 20th so this was definitely a run that builds character.

Well my watch is not working so when it does I will provide my splits but today was the fastest 14 miler I have probably ran since my College days back in the flat frozen tundra of Brookings South Dakota. The day ended up being pretty nice compared to what the weather reports stated although the wind picked up the last two miles drastically like the forcast stated. I started out with the group and ran the first 6 miles with everyone then the group started to fracture and split up into each persons individual workouts. At mile 6 some people started their 6-3x2 minute fartleks at 10k pace where I'm sticking to what worked for me last year a 6 mile goal pace run. Even though these miles were not all at the same times I tried to keep the effort level equal between the ups and downs on the course which I have provided the route map below. My overall mile average pace was 7:03/mi which is defintely faster then last years workout. I know the first mile was around 8:24 so I was definietly flying on the way back to get that avearge to drop almost a minute and half in just 14 miles.

http://www.mapmyrun.com/routes/view/632851970

 Splits: 8:24, 7:46, 7:31, 7:17, 7:09, 7:01, 6:38, 6:25, 6:43, 6:43, 6:29, 6:34, 6:55, 6:58

Put together a little CrossFit workout in the basement today while Nathan napped and Jacob relaxed this afternnon. It wasn't a very grueling workout but it is definitely a good start in the at Home gym.

 3 Rounds of each Lift:

Cleans 5 reps at 75 lbs

Snatch 5 reps at 55lbs

Squats 5 reps at 75 lbs

Ring Pull-ups 5 reps

Ring push-ups 3 reps

10 Abmat Sit-ups ( last round did 15)

4 easy miles on treadmill this morning I just wasn't feeling like heading out into the cold this morning even though I should have. I'll try squeezing in a few more mile over lunch or after work this evening.

Over lunch I ran home and put 3 more miles on the treadmill. I started off at 6.8 mph and increased every quarter mile by 2mph. The last 400 was at 8.8 mph and then the last 200 I upped it to 9mph which is equivalent to my goal pace of 6:42. This run seemed to go a lot better than this mornings run.

Easy 5 miles on the treadmill this evening. This weather is killing me though being so cold!!

Since I couldn't get my butt up out of bed this morning I ran right after work & it still was only 18 degrees with a little breeze. Tried to stay on side streets to be protected from traffic since most of the sidewalks had not been cleared yet.  Average for this run was 7:23/mi. Not bad with the cold.

last night it had rained & then dropped to around freezing which was going to make this mornings 18 mile a little interesting. The group run got delayed by a half hour to hopefully allow some of the roads to defrost s bit. Well that didn't quite work as well as planned. The roads were in completely different conditions every which way we turned. We ran through the Sprint campus and those roads were glare ice then the roads were good for a couple of miles. We turned east then which should have or I thought would have been good conditions that street was terrible!! 133rd was terrible for 3 miles and it was just enough that you slipped at the end of every stride. We turned off that and the neighborhoods have lots of trees that where basically raining on us. We zagged and zagged through these neighborhoods of ice slush and very few good traction places. Some people ended there runs early because it was a little strenuous and took a lot more effort than typical conditions. I knew people would modify their plans so I ran 2 miles before the group then 12 with a group then 4 miles by myself at the end. The last couple miles were very difficult to get through but I did my 18. Mentally I needed to since I have a few 20 milers coming up the next couple of weeks. Average pace for the run 7:45/mile. Still not bad considering the conditions.

  http://www.mapmyrun.com/routes/view/636835514

Sunday's CrossFit workout at (X-Fit LeMire) was made up of a little warm up then a 25's workout. 

Warm up: 15 air squats, 12 mountain climbers, 9 thrusters, 6 push ups, 3 ring ups

WOD: 25 kettle bell swings (American)

            25 push ups

            25 squats (45 lbs)

             25 burpees

             25 abmat sit ups

WOD time for me was 9:10 

5 pretty easy miles on the treadmill this morning since my phone said it was 10 degrees and felt like -2 degrees. Today is suppose to be a recovery run anyways so there is no point in trying to go outside in the cold to run. Ran the first 3 miles with the 2x4 under the back to get some solid downhill strength training.

Easy 4 miles on the treadmill at a progressively faster pace starting at 6.8 mph and going up to 8.4 mph. I'll try getting a few more miles in after work on the treadmill. This cold weather and wind the last week has been hard to handle!! 

a very easy 4 miles outside since it was 27degrees and 21 with wind chill. Compared to rest of the week this is warm.

4 downhill miles on the treadmill this morning. Everything I have been reading lately on the Boston marathon has been about how the downhills hurt athletes more than Heartbreak Hill so every treadmill run has had some portion of downhill incorporated. Our group runs here in the KC metro area are always very hilly so I'm confident that those runs will help with the smaller rolling hills of the Boston Marathon.

This weekend was  16 mile run with some GP miles within the run. It didn't quite end up being that kind o a run but more of just a warm up and then tempo run. Overall run was 1:53:16 which ends up being a 7:09/mi average. The forecast for this morning was wind and cold with snow starting around noon. But it ended up being in the 20's and around mile 7 it started to snow. I would say the wind was about 5-10 mph but it wasn't to bad and I ended up running about the last 5.5 miles on mine own pushing the pace on my own. Well looking at the watch after the run I was more or less just keeping the pace not pushing it.  Below is the link to the course:

http://www.mapmyrun.com/routes/view/638740334

Miles went like this: 8:27, 7:48, 7:46, 7:28, 7:14, 7:13, 7:04, 6:44, 7:06, 6:55, 6:48, 6:50, 6:33, 6:45, 6:54, 6:53 

Overall it was another good workout with no major issues.