Yesterday morning on my run, somehow we ended up talking about girls (particularly young ones) participating in organized dance. The general consensus was that it wasn't a good thing. They were required to wear their warm-ups at all times at competition if they weren't performing because their outfits were essentially inappropriate. My friend was talking about how he pulled his daughter out when one of their routines (at age 8) essentially involved twerking. I'm sure there are different programs in different parts of the country (and likely even in Dallas) that are perfectly appropriate, but from my running buddy's perspective as it related to his daughter, this was not.
I'll also say for the record that at my last job, my coworker's daughter was super into dance (and then drill team) and somehow I got talked into going to one of her daughter's weekend competitions and I dragged my husband along. His comment to me afterward was that he was concerned he'd been placed on some pervert watchlist for even being there. He found the whole thing hyper-sexualized and inappropriate and he said if I went to another one, he was absolutely not joining me.
But I actually wasn't writing about dance. (I should add as a final point re: dance that I wished more than anything as a child that I'd gotten to take fun dance classes and wear make-up. A few years of ballet in my early childhood weren't even close to enough to compensate for my awkwardness, and ballet wasn't "fun" or "cool." When I got older, junior high and high school, I so wished I could have been on a drill team or something like that with all the cool and pretty girls, for which years of dance competitions was essentially a prerequisite.)
Anyway, my friend was saying that his daughter didn't really care that he pulled her out of dance. She bounced into soccer and then gymnastics. He said he guessed she wouldn't be in gymnastics long term because she just won't have the build to do well. We discussed whether he'd try to get her to run and/or do cross-country or track at some point. He said that really, it's all about what her friends were doing. She's content as long as she's with them. They're all doing gymnastics together now and she loves it at least as much as she loved the dancing.
At that point in the conversation, I thought (and likely said) that I feel like I'm not that different from his 8 year old daughter -- the main reason I'm up and running in the horrendous cold (well, by my standards), in the dark, and at 5:15 in the morning, is because my friends are there. And the main reason I go to boot camp with such regularity is because my friends will be there.
I remember all those times my mom said something along the lines of, "well, if all your friends jumped off a cliff, would you?" Ha, mom, maybe. Especially if jumping off the cliff is something like bungee jumping. Bottom line is that I feel very lucky right now to have an awesome running group and boot camp crew that keep me getting out there on cold mornings when all I want to do is stay in bed. They take the place of the need for internal motivation AND they bring all those good things into my life that come with a strong network of friends from all different walks of life. Feeling lucky.
Friday, January 22, 2016
Wednesday, January 20, 2016
Cardiac Drift
Cardiac drift is basically when your heart rate increases during exercise with little to no increase in workload. It's normal: even over 30 minutes of easy running, your heart rate may go up 10-20 beats. So heart rate rises while pace stays constant, and there is no harder effort, no heavier breathing, and notably no higher calorie burn.
According to wiki:
Cardiac drift is not a new concept to me. I've trained by heart rate for at least half the year pretty much since the first year I was training for Boston.
And I've had cardiac drift set in on long runs, and particularly on long runs with pace work, and 100% of the time when racing a marathon or even a half-marathon.
But yesterday I might have experienced something new...
Cardiac drift on a weekday? On a short-ish weekday no less???
Is that even possible???
(At the outset, I'm ruling out dehydration or warm temps. As I mentioned, I recently finished reading Megan's book, so I've been hyper-vigilant about hydration, and uh, it's insanely cold here right now.)
As I mentioned, I feel like my running is slooooowly coming back. I ran a 5k a couple weekends ago and I managed to keep all my miles within a tidy little 5 second spread. It was disheartening to realize that that little spread was slower than my half marathon PR pace (now just over 2 years old), and only a tad faster than my marathon dream goal pace (a pace I have never actually attained, but I still regard as goal MP).
My running would certainly come back faster if I could lose some weight, but even staying right where I am (about 5 pounds over the top end of my "acceptable" range, and about 10 pounds over where I usually am, and where I prefer to be), my paces are starting to steady out and get a bit faster. It has certainly been a long road back from my ankle injury (I actually still have 2 months left of wearing a brace for boot camp). But I 100% feel like I'm improving, and I love seeing the progress. Definitely feeling optimistic about the state of my running at present.
So anyway, yesterday's workout was a taste of my least favorite kind of run -- progressive tempo. Just a taste though. Instead of a true PT run (which I really hate, and usually on my schedule is 4 progressive miles, plus 2-4 warm-up/cool-down miles), it was just 2 miles warm-up, 2 miles marathon pace (well, it's heart rate training, so not actually marathon pace, but the heart rate zone where you'd usually run your marathon), 1 mile in the next higher zone (equating roughly to half marathon pace), then 1 mile cool-down.
Written out, yesterday's schedule was:
2 mile warm-up
2 miles zone 3
1 mile zone 4
1 mile cool-down
How did my run go? I basically started the pace work 1 mile early just to delay getting dropped.
1 mile warm-up
2 miles zone 3 (first mile was just staying with my friends as they finished their warm-up, but it was pace for me, so I counted it)
1 mile zone 4
1 mile zone 5 (very bottom of it, zone 5A as it is defined on our schedule)
1 mile zone 4 (by chance, would have walked for a minute to bring down the heart rate and get back to zone 2, but as I slowed, a friend I hadn't run with since November caught up to me, so he and I ran most of the last mile in together; kept the pace easy, but the HR never really came down)
So on paper, that looks okay. Not great since I have no business being in zone 5, but it does look progressive and it looks like I worked very hard. (Pat on the back? Not so fast.)
But when I look at the paces I actually ran yesterday, it's a different story:
1 mile easy
1 mile goal marathon pace plus 30 seconds (zone 3, in theory, marathon pace)
1 mile goal marathon pace plus 15 seconds (zone 3 still, in theory, marathon pace) (but I did stop for water in this mile, so it lowered my HR at least a bit, without water, I may have snuck into zone 4 already)
1 mile goal marathon pace (in zone 4 though, so in theory, should have been half marathon pace)
1 mile goal marathon pace plus 30 seconds (zone 5A, yow, zone 5A should be around 5k pace, not slower than marathon pace!)
1 mile easy pace, but heart rate still zone 4
See that bold mile? Um, that's not good. I mean, I shouldn't be running in zone 5A at all, but if I do, gosh darn it, that pace better be significantly faster than 10k pace, and likely faster than 5k pace. And uh, yeah, this was not. Not even close.
So is it possible that cardiac drift set in to this extent after only 3 "tough" miles???? I didn't think it was even possible for that to occur in a significant way in far less than an hour. Is there a chance I was essentially sweating plasma? I wasn't even that sweaty. I warmed up a lot (unzipped my half-zip top and took down my ear band), but I just don't know how much my core temperature could have really increased in the cold weather we're having. I drank water once during the run (at about mile 2.1).
But as I write this post, the answer stands out in my mind, clear as day now: I need more lactate threshold endurance work.
Sigh. Just have to keep at it I guess...
According to wiki:
Cardiovascular drift is the phenomenon where some
cardiovascular responses begin a time dependent change, or "drift" after
around 10 minutes of exercise in a warm or neutral environment without an
increase in workload. It is characterized by decreases in mean arterial
pressure and stroke volume and a parallel increase in heart rate. It has been
shown that a reduction in stroke volume due to dehydration is almost always due
to the increase in internal temperature. It is influenced by many factors, most
notably the ambient temperature, internal temperature, hydration and the amount
of muscle tissue activated during exercise. To promote cooling, blood flow to
the skin is increased, resulting in a shift in fluids from blood plasma to the
skin tissue. This results in a decrease in pulmonary arterial pressure and
reduced stroke volume in the heart. To maintain cardiac output at reduced
pressure, the heart rate must be increased.
Effects of cardiovascular drift are mainly focused around a
higher RPE (Rate of Perceived Effort); that is, a person will feel like they
are expending more energy when they are not. This creates a mental block that
can inhibit performance greatly.
Prevention or minimization of cardiovascular drift includes
consistently replacing fluids and maintaining electrolyte imbalance during
exercise, acclimatization to the environment in which one is performing, and weight
training[citation needed] to supplement cardiovascular efforts.
And I've had cardiac drift set in on long runs, and particularly on long runs with pace work, and 100% of the time when racing a marathon or even a half-marathon.
But yesterday I might have experienced something new...
Cardiac drift on a weekday? On a short-ish weekday no less???
Is that even possible???
(At the outset, I'm ruling out dehydration or warm temps. As I mentioned, I recently finished reading Megan's book, so I've been hyper-vigilant about hydration, and uh, it's insanely cold here right now.)
As I mentioned, I feel like my running is slooooowly coming back. I ran a 5k a couple weekends ago and I managed to keep all my miles within a tidy little 5 second spread. It was disheartening to realize that that little spread was slower than my half marathon PR pace (now just over 2 years old), and only a tad faster than my marathon dream goal pace (a pace I have never actually attained, but I still regard as goal MP).
My running would certainly come back faster if I could lose some weight, but even staying right where I am (about 5 pounds over the top end of my "acceptable" range, and about 10 pounds over where I usually am, and where I prefer to be), my paces are starting to steady out and get a bit faster. It has certainly been a long road back from my ankle injury (I actually still have 2 months left of wearing a brace for boot camp). But I 100% feel like I'm improving, and I love seeing the progress. Definitely feeling optimistic about the state of my running at present.
So anyway, yesterday's workout was a taste of my least favorite kind of run -- progressive tempo. Just a taste though. Instead of a true PT run (which I really hate, and usually on my schedule is 4 progressive miles, plus 2-4 warm-up/cool-down miles), it was just 2 miles warm-up, 2 miles marathon pace (well, it's heart rate training, so not actually marathon pace, but the heart rate zone where you'd usually run your marathon), 1 mile in the next higher zone (equating roughly to half marathon pace), then 1 mile cool-down.
Written out, yesterday's schedule was:
2 mile warm-up
2 miles zone 3
1 mile zone 4
1 mile cool-down
How did my run go? I basically started the pace work 1 mile early just to delay getting dropped.
1 mile warm-up
2 miles zone 3 (first mile was just staying with my friends as they finished their warm-up, but it was pace for me, so I counted it)
1 mile zone 4
1 mile zone 5 (very bottom of it, zone 5A as it is defined on our schedule)
1 mile zone 4 (by chance, would have walked for a minute to bring down the heart rate and get back to zone 2, but as I slowed, a friend I hadn't run with since November caught up to me, so he and I ran most of the last mile in together; kept the pace easy, but the HR never really came down)
So on paper, that looks okay. Not great since I have no business being in zone 5, but it does look progressive and it looks like I worked very hard. (Pat on the back? Not so fast.)
But when I look at the paces I actually ran yesterday, it's a different story:
1 mile easy
1 mile goal marathon pace plus 30 seconds (zone 3, in theory, marathon pace)
1 mile goal marathon pace plus 15 seconds (zone 3 still, in theory, marathon pace) (but I did stop for water in this mile, so it lowered my HR at least a bit, without water, I may have snuck into zone 4 already)
1 mile goal marathon pace (in zone 4 though, so in theory, should have been half marathon pace)
1 mile goal marathon pace plus 30 seconds (zone 5A, yow, zone 5A should be around 5k pace, not slower than marathon pace!)
1 mile easy pace, but heart rate still zone 4
See that bold mile? Um, that's not good. I mean, I shouldn't be running in zone 5A at all, but if I do, gosh darn it, that pace better be significantly faster than 10k pace, and likely faster than 5k pace. And uh, yeah, this was not. Not even close.
So is it possible that cardiac drift set in to this extent after only 3 "tough" miles???? I didn't think it was even possible for that to occur in a significant way in far less than an hour. Is there a chance I was essentially sweating plasma? I wasn't even that sweaty. I warmed up a lot (unzipped my half-zip top and took down my ear band), but I just don't know how much my core temperature could have really increased in the cold weather we're having. I drank water once during the run (at about mile 2.1).
But as I write this post, the answer stands out in my mind, clear as day now: I need more lactate threshold endurance work.
Sigh. Just have to keep at it I guess...
Monday, January 18, 2016
Fishy
How would you feel if an employee gave you the employee discount at a local business that you regularly patronize but where you don't work?
Like if you fly regularly, and at the place where you always grab a coffee in the airport, an employee you regularly encounter gave you his or her discount?
Does it change your answer if the person is the opposite sex?
This happened to me last week and I'm not sure how I feel about it.
For the record, same sex, so nothing too fishy going on.
My penny-pinching personal self of course thinks it's great, but the business/law part of my mind isn't very comfortable with it. Does the employer know this is happening? Is it happening regularly and therefore cutting into profits? Is the employee trying to screw the employer? (This is particularly possible because I know there has been some management turnover and morale isn't super high right now.)
I'm torn, but the purchase is made (with discount), and of course I'll keep going there, but I'm not sure how I feel about that. If she rings me up again and says something like "that's $146, wait, let me see what I can do, okay, that's $98," I might just say, "aw, thanks, I'm okay with the $146."
Like if you fly regularly, and at the place where you always grab a coffee in the airport, an employee you regularly encounter gave you his or her discount?
Does it change your answer if the person is the opposite sex?
This happened to me last week and I'm not sure how I feel about it.
For the record, same sex, so nothing too fishy going on.
My penny-pinching personal self of course thinks it's great, but the business/law part of my mind isn't very comfortable with it. Does the employer know this is happening? Is it happening regularly and therefore cutting into profits? Is the employee trying to screw the employer? (This is particularly possible because I know there has been some management turnover and morale isn't super high right now.)
I'm torn, but the purchase is made (with discount), and of course I'll keep going there, but I'm not sure how I feel about that. If she rings me up again and says something like "that's $146, wait, let me see what I can do, okay, that's $98," I might just say, "aw, thanks, I'm okay with the $146."
Wednesday, January 13, 2016
Book Review: Start Here
Quick plug for a friend's book, but I promise, I wouldn't do this if it wasn't worth sharing.
After I'd been reading her blog for at least a year, Megan Lyons became perhaps the first blog person I met in real life. I invited her to boot camp with me one day, and years later, we still see each other at 5:30 a.m. a few days per week. As frequently happens with someone you talk to consistently in such a vulnerable state (early, no makeup, sweating), it was easy to connect and she quickly became a friend. Anyway, she has her first book going on sale today!
Here are two links where it is available:
http://www.thelyonsshare.org/starthere/
http://www.amazon.com/Start-Here-Diet-Free-Ultimate-Happiness/dp/0986133205/
I've gotten to read it already. My thoughts:
It's a good book that distills a lot of research and theories about health into concise and practical tips. It's well-researched, but reads conversationally and in a straight-forward manner. It's clearly targeted toward people who are starting a journey toward getting healthier, but I feel like I've been on the "healthier" path for nearly a decade, and I felt like there were a lot of points I was able to take away from the book as well. Suddenly, I'm looking at sugar grams on labels now. And I'm standing at work more frequently. These were things I certainly knew were smart before, but the book has inspired me to actually DO them. I'm thinking more about vegetable variety. I've been great about getting more than my share of veggies every day, but at the same time, every single day I think I eat beets, spinach, kale, peas and carrots. This book reminded me that I'd benefit from subbing those out for different veggies, giving me different nutrients (and the magical things she calls phytonutrients), at least on occasion, even if those 5 veggies stay in pretty regular rotation. Husband and I have been doing a "grateful list" of 3 things each before bed for some time, but I'm making a point to think about it more during the day now. I feel like there are lots of aspects of the book that resonated with me. As with most blogs I read and most healthy people I know, Megan advocates a healthy lifestyle over any type of "diet." So the suggestions she makes have a goal of being simple and sustainable habits. I would say it's a quick read, but at the same time, I'm certain I will continue to re-read parts of it.
Highly recommended, so if you're interested, please check it out. There's a kindle version available (I don't actually have a kindle, but I was able to read the kindle version on my computer), and of course a paperback version. Plus, of course if you buy it, I expect that there's some good karma for supporting a good person who deserves success!
After I'd been reading her blog for at least a year, Megan Lyons became perhaps the first blog person I met in real life. I invited her to boot camp with me one day, and years later, we still see each other at 5:30 a.m. a few days per week. As frequently happens with someone you talk to consistently in such a vulnerable state (early, no makeup, sweating), it was easy to connect and she quickly became a friend. Anyway, she has her first book going on sale today!
Here are two links where it is available:
http://www.thelyonsshare.org/starthere/
http://www.amazon.com/Start-Here-Diet-Free-Ultimate-Happiness/dp/0986133205/
I've gotten to read it already. My thoughts:
It's a good book that distills a lot of research and theories about health into concise and practical tips. It's well-researched, but reads conversationally and in a straight-forward manner. It's clearly targeted toward people who are starting a journey toward getting healthier, but I feel like I've been on the "healthier" path for nearly a decade, and I felt like there were a lot of points I was able to take away from the book as well. Suddenly, I'm looking at sugar grams on labels now. And I'm standing at work more frequently. These were things I certainly knew were smart before, but the book has inspired me to actually DO them. I'm thinking more about vegetable variety. I've been great about getting more than my share of veggies every day, but at the same time, every single day I think I eat beets, spinach, kale, peas and carrots. This book reminded me that I'd benefit from subbing those out for different veggies, giving me different nutrients (and the magical things she calls phytonutrients), at least on occasion, even if those 5 veggies stay in pretty regular rotation. Husband and I have been doing a "grateful list" of 3 things each before bed for some time, but I'm making a point to think about it more during the day now. I feel like there are lots of aspects of the book that resonated with me. As with most blogs I read and most healthy people I know, Megan advocates a healthy lifestyle over any type of "diet." So the suggestions she makes have a goal of being simple and sustainable habits. I would say it's a quick read, but at the same time, I'm certain I will continue to re-read parts of it.
Highly recommended, so if you're interested, please check it out. There's a kindle version available (I don't actually have a kindle, but I was able to read the kindle version on my computer), and of course a paperback version. Plus, of course if you buy it, I expect that there's some good karma for supporting a good person who deserves success!
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