So I didn't write a blog for last week because of the holiday and I was out of town. It was a rest week so not much to report anyway. This week however, I do have some things to talk about. The first being SHOES!!! On new years eve I went in search of the elusive Asics DS Trainer 14's, even though I knew they were not going to be released until 1/1. No big deal I thought and went to my favorite store in LA, A Runner's Circle, which happened to be having a sale. Did they have the 14's? Nope, no they didn't and I doesn't look like they will be in stores until the middle of the month. A quickly got over my disappointment and purchased two other pairs of shoes. One a pair of DS Trainer 13's (the same I have been using all year) and a pair of Asics Gel Banditos (which are posted racing flats...more below). But what about the 14's you say? Well, on 1/1 I scoured the internet (did a Google search) and found two places selling them. Eastbay said they were back ordered until 1/12, and runningshoes.com who said they would ship directly from Asics in 1-2 business days. So of course I ordered them, and I hope that they do indeed ship out early next week and aren't delayed until the 12th.
Yesterday I registered for the Surf City half marathon. I am really excited about this race for a number of reasons. First it is a perfectly timed warm up for the Pasadena Marathon. It is on Feb. 1st which is about 6-7 weeks before Pasadena. Also, being on 2/1 it is the day after my birthday, and what better a way to combat the getting old feeling than by setting a new PR. I want to accomplish one of my goals for this year during this race, and that is to break 1:30 in a half marathon. I think this is very possible because Surf City is dead flat, and the hills really slowed me down at the City of Angels. Finally I want to try out my new racers before Pasadena to see how they hold up.
Speaking of racers (meaning my Banditos). I tried them out for the first time on Friday for a 6 mile tempo run. My first impression is that I like them...a lot. Wearing them was the first time I realized a potential problem stemming from the heat moldable insoles I have been using for the past year. The DS Trainers and Banditos are designed for mild-moderate pronating runners however, I think that the insoles I have been using has counter-acted the posting in shoes I have been wearing. I noticed that while wearing the Banditos I seemed to be making ground contact way on the outside of the sole, and therefore not really using the built in support of the shoes. I tried to correct this and make contact back more to the middle of the shoe. This is a little difficult to do however in the middle of a tempo run!! So today during my long run I really focused on making proper contact (this time with my DS Trainers). I now feel like I am getting properly centered in the shoe. It will take a little while to adjust (my calves and quads feel it a bit today), but my hope is to continue to adjust and maybe reduce the amount of pronation in my running.
Couple of other things. On Thursday I actually ran a legitimate recovery run. I tried keeping my heart rate in the low 140's which is about 70% of my max. It worked really well. I felt great on Friday after being kind of wiped out earlier in the week. Other thing is I am going to train all out for Pasadena. Meaning I am changing my goal time to 3:10, and I am going to try to BQ. To BQ is my other goal for the year and I was planning on making a serious attempt later this year. But I was thinking that my actual training paces have been close to the 3:10 times, and if I continue to train for 3:15 (my current plan) and miss 3:10 by a few minutes I will be very disappointed. This is essentially what happened at City of Angels. I trained for 1:35, and did a little better but I wasn't in shape for 1:30. The change is actually pretty easy. I just have to lower the pace on all my runs by 10-11 seconds from my current plan.
Last weeks training:
Tuesday - 5.03 Mile Run w/ Fartlek - 37:51 min, 7:31 pace
Wednesday - 7.75 Mile Easy Run - 1:04:36 min, 8:20 pace
Thursday - 3.15 Mile Recovery Run - 27:20 min, 8:40 pace
Friday - 8.23 Mile Run w/ Tempo - 59:26 min, 7:13 pace - Warm up, 6 @ 6:53, Cool down
Sunday - 18.06 Mile Long Run - 2:27:00 min, 8:08 pace
Shoe Mileage:
Asics DS Trainer 13.1 - 315.95
Asics DS Trainer 13.2 - 25.81
Asics Gel Bandito - 8.23
Weight - 132.2 w/ 8.9% body fat (down .3%!!!!)
