Hanson's (un)Group Run

There are soooo many things I could say about this run. Oh boy. Not impressed. Not impressed at all.

First we arrive to find the two shoe reps (Saucony and New Balance) standing outside in the cold with their boxes of wear test shoes. It was near dusk at this time and the ground was soaked. It wasn't raining or snowing, but it still had that "wet" feeling. Granted it would have been a little tight in the store with the two guys and their shoes, but it definitely could have worked. I'm still shaking my head. If I were these reps, I'd never offer to come back. That's not how you treat guests.

Next, we didn't get greeted by any of the regulars. I mentioned aloud to Matt at one point that we needed to try and find someone who was running our pace so we don't get lost. We're not familiar with Royal Oak's neighborhoods. One guy overheard me and asked our pace. I told him 8-9 min miles would work and he assured me that there would be plenty of people running that pace and not to worry. So I didn't. I guess I should have.

Out the door we went and immediately everyone took off at lightning fast speed. Are you kidding me!? It was all I could do to keep up. It wasn't an impossible speed, but usually I need to warm up to run like a cheetah!! Geez! We were stuck at that point since we didn't know the route. So this run turned into a tempo run without any warm-up or cool-down! Two days before a race, no less. Damn!

On to something positive. The whole reason we decided to drive down to Royal Oak was so Matt could test drive the NB Minimus and I could test the Saucony Kinvara. We were not disappointed! At least our rep boys came through for us! But I got one even better. The Saucony rep showed up with the Peregrine too!! YAY!!!! I've been wanting to try that shoe out so bad!! If only it were a trail run instead of a road run. Actually, the Peregrines weren't too bad on the road - just a tiny bit stiff. I loved them! Matt had good things to say about the Minimus too.

I know I said I'd do a shoe review for the NB 890 and Saucony Kinvara (now the Peregrine) and I will, but I still haven't packed for our trip to Kentucky and we're leaving at 6am! Eeep!! Gotta go!  Later!

Dear Kentucky, please be kind to us Northerners...

Yeeehaaaaw! (Sorry, but we're going to Kentucky this weekend. It kinda slipped.) That was a tough workout!  Just finished over an hour of Stairmastering. Felt great. Climbed 386 floors with an avg 93 steps/min, though I kept varying the step rate. I did a few 15 min sessions at 105 steps/min. At that rate it felt kinda like a tempo effort and I was sweating like a pig. I was a bit miffed that I forgot to grab a towel during this workout! Last "speed" session before my first trail race of the year - the Land Between the Lakes 23k! I'm ready! Will I break the course record...? Yet to be determined!

Did a nice little spin on the recumbent bike for a half hour after my Stairmaster sweatfest just to get a bit more easy-ish cardio in. I definitely had a little hard workout buzz going on when I was leaving the gym. Ahhhh... !!

Getting very excited to wear test the Kinvara on Thursday at Hanson's Royal Oak. Then I can do my shoe reviews for the NB 890 and Saucony Kinvara. Stay tuned...

HR Experiment - Fail!

Had trouble with my long spin session yesterday. The first 45 min were okay, then I blew up. I'm sure it is partly because I went out harder than I usually do for long rides - keeping my HR around 145, when I'm usually closer to 130. It was kind of an experiment after Jaime said she read somewhere that women our age should have our HR well over 140 for long rides. I was skeptical since I knew at that effort I'd have trouble talking normally. An hour in, I had to reduce my effort to a HR around 125-130 and then struggled with that!! After the experiment, I'm still convinced one formula does not work for all and that was way too hard an effort for a long ride. My right leg was giving me issues too. I really struggled even to do 2 hrs 45 min. Three hours (the original goal) was out of the question. No big deal since I'm still way ahead of my training schedule.
I got a kick out of the Garmin Connect map after uploading my long spin session. I used the Garmin only for timing and HR purposes, but forgot to put it on indoor mode, so it still tried to follow me with GPS. Here's what it looked like:





lol!!

With the right leg issue, I'm taking a week off from running. I have races the next two weekends so I want to give the leg a chance to do some healing.

Stony Creek 20

First 20 miler of the year. GREAT! 3 GUs and 30 oz of Gatorade later, I'm feeling pretty good. Hip flexor did get a bit bothersome out there, so I'll hold off a few days before calling this run a total success, but I'm hopeful.  Matty and I headed out to Stony Creek Metropark and did 2 loops including the nature center out-and-back portion. That put us at 18.75 miles so we just kept going until our Garmins said 20. It was sunny and only slightly breezy with temps in the 30s. Not too bad! Finished in 2:45.