A lot of interesting info, really

I will try to keep this post as short as possible without my usual blahblahblah.

Tomorrow is LA Rock 'n Roll 1/2marathon. The one I started training for in May and ended one month later because of ITB...

Nevertheless I decided to go to the expo for an hour or so to pick up some free stuff. I was mostly interested in running magazines. It was a pretty nice expo as far as I can say since I saw only 3 expos in my life.
But unfortunately they did not have any magazines there:( But those 33 miles I did to get there and back were worth it. (I biked there of course, buses are for pussies (what a nice rhyme) or for people who have some kind of responsibilities like kids and therefore cannot afford to get hit by car and die).

So 1 hour I said. Ok, I have spent almost 5 hours there!!!!
I pretty much ate enough bars, gels and whatever to keep me energized for a month or so. (I was hoping to try some Gu. I have an impression from blogs I read that everybody eats Gu during runs or races. Honestly, I had no idea what Gu was until like 4 months ago...But there was no Gu tasting at Expo:() and I have a backpack full of bars and other stuff that should last me for couple weeks. (Ok, I know myself and it will be probably finished by the end of next week)
Now back to focus because I promised to keep this short and do not deviate too much. I am sorry but I am such a poor writer and I have no idea how my applications essays got me into business school.

As I said, it was all worth it especially because they had some guests there speaking. They had Matt Fitzgerald (I think people know who he is, a sport scientist dude, he talked about an ideal racing Weight), Deena Kastor (everyone knows who she is, right?), Frank Shorter (won Olympic marathon gold medal in 1972) and Greg Meyer (last American to win the Boston Marathon in 1983).
There were discussions with them and it was sooooo interesting. I was a dork taking notes:)
So here is a couple of info I consider the most interesting:

62% participants in this year's LA 1/2 are women!!!! Isn't that just cool? Clearly we are behind times when people thought that anything longer than 800m will lead to uterus falling out...

Sport drinks are reproduction of human sweat. Sounds nasty but the scientists did research on human sweat and then tried to recreate it in a drink so that the drink provides all salts that people loose by sweating. FS said that those first drinks really tasted like sweat and not your own, but somebody else's:)
Different people have a different composition of sweat therefore some prefer Gatorate to Powerade and to other drinks. Everyone should try to find drink that suits her the best.

Barefood running: Everybody knows that Abebe Bikila won the marathon in 1960 running barefoot so people think that it is good. However, do people ever think about the fact that in 1964 he ran in shoes and run a faster time? He was a person who trained all his life barefoot and then when he put shoes on he was faster...

Carbsloading is not that important before a 1/2 because human body has enough glycogen in muscles and liver to last for a half (well, this was said by FS, so he might be little bias and be talking about people who run a 1/2 in 1:10...). However, for the marathon carbsloading is important.

Matt Fitzgerald (I thought he was an old dude, but he is pretty young actually) talked about an ideal racing weight. It was pretty interesting. he said that there is no formula or anything to calculate one's ideal racing weight, you can only estimate it but it is almost never exact. When you ask an elite runner or biker what his racing weight is, he knows the exact number. That's because he tried racing at different weights and then determined what his ideal weight is. You would know your ideal weight retrospectively.
He also talked about balancing energy sources. Older saying is that you should get your calories from carbs/fat/protein in this ratio: 40:30:30. However, each person is different and training methods are different. For example, an average American runner gets 40% of his calories from carbs, but an elite Kenyan runner get 78% of his calories from carbs!
Also nutrition timing is important. One should synchronize his caloric intake and expenditure. He talked about "front loading"- get enough energy before workout, do not eat a lot after. Because if you do not have enough energy for a workout body goes into saving mode and stores calories you eat afterwards as fat.

Deena Kastor talked a bit about 2008 Olympics when she broke her leg 3miles into the race. Because she is very prone to skin cancer she avoids sun so she did not get enough D vitamin and therefore did not absorb enough Calcium and developed osteoporosis that she did not know about, which lead to the fracture. And this is an elite marathoner working with the best coaches, nutritionists etc!!!!

And one last idea that I consider really interesting and that made me think (I was so absorbed thinking about this that I missed my turn on my way back home and prolonged my ride by 3 miles...). They talked about taking risks. GM was not an excellent runner in college (never NCAA champion or something similar) but he took a risk after college. He had refused a job offer (which freaked out his mother) and decided to only train for couple months and see where it can get him. And obviously it has paid off.
I have always wanted to do a triathlon. Since I was a kid. I do not know how old I was (sixth/seventh grade?), I read an interview with two guys from Czech Rep who did Kona. They talked about how hard it was, how they ended up getting blood transfusions at the end but they said that it was incredible. Then I told to myself that I want to try that when I am older (not necessarily Kona, but any Ironman). I am from a small town, plus back than nobody did triathlons in Slovakia, so of course I could not join a club or something similar so I just continue running. I love running, and have always been a runner. But maybe it is time to move forward and really go for triathlons. But I cannot decide. I still want to see whether I can run sub-18 5k (and I think I have found a person to help me get there). But I want to do an Ironman in the future. Should I take the risk of maybe never being able to run sub-18 5k and stop being a pure runner and move to triathlon training? In my mind you cannot combine those two things (fast running times and bike/swim/run training), because I do not think I am talented enough to be able not only run and still run fast times. Or aren't they mutually exclusive? I should probably ask someone who actually knows this stuff. Any triathletes out there? Or suggestions who to ask?
People say that when you are old you only regret things you did, there is only few things you did you regret.
But ok, I am "only" 26 (soon). I can still do a triathlon when I am 40, right? (But what if I am a triathlon prodigy and then it will be too late? Just kidding.)

I just do not know. But I think I will decide next year after I know what I am going to do after I am done with school in June.

Oh, and I almost forgot. I did an easy 6 miler today.

And tomorrow back to my usual nonsensy writing. I have so much Expo trivia to talk about but I cannot because I promised to keep it serious for today:(

Change of plans

I had very interesting 800s work-out planned for today but when I go to the track part of it was closed for that lines stripping that they were supposed to do one month ago....
So only 320m of track was open.

My workouts are divided into different categories and I had to think really hard to remember which workouts belong to "today's" category. At the end, I was 80% sure that 8 X 200m at 1500 m pace or 1-2 seconds faster (38-40 sec) w/ 200m jog rec is there.
I have checked it now and it has turned out that I was right. Still, I should probably memorize those workouts so I can adjust easily in case something comes up.

Anyway. This was kinda hard. As usual with speedy stuff.
I felt like crap during warm up. I do not know why because I felt awesome on my bike ride to track. So I shuffled through 25min, did stretching, drills, strides etc.
I do not have problems hitting pace for longer stuff but for speed workoust I need to WORK to hit paces.
I did 38, 39, 37, 37, 37, 36, 37. First three were a real struggle but the rest were much better. I still had to push but the legs were awaken by then.

Then went to do weights. There was some event going on so I got free muscle milk- protein shake. I chose banana flavour. It was jummy. But there is NO milk in it. I do not know why they call it muscle milk then. Probably to deceive people.

Then I swam for a bit to loosen up. I tried to alternate left and right-side breathing and I am getting better at it.

Now I have class soon...blah.

I should really start doing some school work

I am definitely not working as much or as hard as I should be. Most students here spend their days studying (believe me, it is true. We had to come from our Yosemite trip early because some people had a lot of school work do to on Sunday and people even brought books with them and were studying on Friday evening! And I know people who went to Vegas and spent the weekend in their hotel rooms studying!).
And people go to networking events and workshops and look for jobs actively.

I, on the other hard, spend my days running, swimming, biking, playing volleyball and playing on computer. Not good. I am starting to feel guilty.
Foe example today, I left home at 8:30am, had class in the morning, then swam during lunch break, then another class, then run 6 miles with group, then volleyball match (which we won. Ok, the other team did not show up:)) and I got home at 8:30pm. And I have not done anything "purposeful or worthy" (as some people might put it)

I mean, I am not failing classes or anything, I still get my work done, but it could be better.
But I am not looking for job/internship although I should.
And have not started my master thesis yet.
And need to submit 30+ page internship report soon and have not even started. (Honestly, I have no idea what to write there. My internship was only 15 weeks and French students usually do 12 months internship so they can write 30 pages, but me...And school does not want to change it for me. )

But I prefer spending my days running, swimming, biking. Who would not, right?

But I am thinking, this is my last year as a student (unless I decide to go to law school), then it will be work work work work until I die. So I should enjoy it now, right?
And if I do not find internship starting in January, no biggie, I will just go back to school in France and finish my degree taking classes instead of getting work experience. (Although I would prefer working to studying.) So I am not that pressured to look for something. So I can have fun for now.
I only need to find someone who is going to do my homeworks now and offer me a job in June...

(I hope this is just a short phase and my conscience will shut up and left me do my fun stuff guilty-less.)

Mile repeats, and swim workout

Well 1600 m repeats really, because I did them on a track. So just add 2-3 sec to each interval and you should get a mile time.
5 X 1600 m with 1 minute walk rest.

I was instructed that it is really important to respect the pace which was 6:40-6:55 because of only one minute rest.
I was supposed to do similar workout couple weeks ago but that was a complete disaster so this type of a workout was new to me.

At first I was little worried, but when I start thinking about it and figured that 6:40 is pretty slow and I should be able to do it even with only 60sec rest, right?

I wanted to start at 6:40 and see how it goes. It turned out, the workout was very easy. I am obviously responding to this training plan very well.
I did not have to work hard, even the last one was pretty easy and I felt nicely controlled. Legs did not feel tired, only my shoulders were little sore (probably from carrying the backpack full of other people's water...)
I did 6:35, 6:34, 6:32, 6:27, 6:23

I am not sure whether it is ok that I go faster than I am supposed to but if pace feels too easy it makes sense to me to go little bit faster because how else will I progress.
I know that keeping the pace and increasing the number of intervals is better than keeping the intervals and increasing the speed but the schedule called for 4-5 x mile. So I could not increase the number of intervals.
Maybe I should have jogged the 1min recovery instead of walking.

This training period ends on Oct 31 and then I am sure the paces get adjusted.

Then I had swimming workout, which I loved almost as much as I loved mile repeats workout:)
I warmed up and then we did 2x100m on 2 minutes (you swim 100m as fast as you can and then rest until 2minutes are up), 100m easy, 5x50m on 1 min, 100m easy, 2x100m, 100m easy, 5x50m, c/d.
It was pretty hard, especially 50s because those were fast.
I did 100s in around 105-110sec, then 15-20sec rest till 2min are up and repeat.
50s were around 40-45sec.
I was pretty slow, but because of all that running I have endurance. So a guy I was swimming with would be way ahead for first 100s and first 50s but then on next 100s and 50s I was able to stick with him because he was getting tired. I felt like a real swimmer:)
He told me that during his collegiate swimming career they would sometimes swim 8-10miles a day! OMG, 8-10miles of swimming!!!!

I had 1-4pm class afterwards and wanted to do weights after class but I was too tired. If I do not do weights immediately after a workout I do not persuade myself to go to gym....I know, I am bad and should be more disciplined!!! Next time.

Lots to say (300m workout, Yosemite etc)

A friend asked me on Wednesday whether I want to go to Yosemite park with them on Thursday. I had a lot of schoolwork to do but whatever, it can wait. (OK, it cannot, but the one and only advantage of doing problem sets in groups is free-riding. Well, that's what I did this weekend. Which means I did nothing.)

But weekend was awesome. But let's start with my Thursday workout.

I was told that I might enjoy this workout. Well, I did not.
3 x 5 x 300 with 100m jog between intervals and 500m jog between sets.

First set was horrible. Hard. I was struggling with pace and my running form was horrible because I was trying too hard. And break between these was only freaking 45-50seconds, that's like nothing. I did 61, 65, 63, 62, 62.
Second set was better. I stopped concentrating on trying to hit the pace but tried to concentrate on form. I told to myself, just keep a nice form and you will hit the pace. It worked: 61, 62, 61, 61, 61
Third set: I started my 11th interval and I could hear lactic acid to flood my legs after at 200m mark. But surprisingly this set felt the easiest and it went by very fast. This time I did not try too hard to hit the pace or to concentrate on form. I know that I can pull off a fast 200m but blasting a fast 300m is a different story. If you are not trained you "die" after 200m. My tactics was to just ran as fast as I could for 200m aerobically and then used the pure muscle power to get me through last 100m. And it went pretty smoothly. But I wanted to be done. I wanted to sprint the 100m rest to get it over with. But of course I did not:) I did: 60, 61, 60, 60, 60

I am pretty satisfied with the results, I was sore and ate two servings of protein powder.
Speed work sucks. Ok, it does not suck, it is me who sucks at it. I know I need to do it.
I will do this workout again in couple weeks to see whether I am improving.

We left for the Yosemite at around 7:30pm. Because I and one other person had class till 7 (I did not have time to go to store because I had to run and then classes so I let one of the guys to buy my food. He got us 10 cans of RedBull and 10 bottles of Vitamin water...I nicely explained to him that those are not real drinks.).
Yosemite is little over 300miles from LA so we were hoping to get there around 1am. No such luck. There was a road construction and it cost us way over 1hour. I usually go to sleep around 9:30-10pm so you can imagine me driving till 3am (and after that 300m workout)....But I managed and nobody died.

Friday:
Slept until 7am...I am a light sleeper so when people around us started to move they woke me up. 4 hours of sleep!
We went for a short 7 mile hike (3.5 up, 3.5 down), I let the others in a dust after few minutes but always had to wait for them every couple minutes because one person did not have backpack and I was carrying his water...But finally we got to the destination- Upper Yosemite Fall. Very nice! It was 2pm. From there it was 2.9 miles to Eagle peak and 4.9miles to El Capitain. I calculated that I can still make it to Eagle peak and get back to camp before it gets dark at 6:30pm. So I left the others to their misery and took of. I had hill workout planed for Saturday but I figured I should take advantage of this hike. I did not do intervals as I was supposed to, but I just run uphill continuously (when it was not too technical or too steep) I got to Eagle peak in less than 30min so decided to continue running/walking to El Capitain. It was little scary because it was late already so I have not met anyone. It was only me and bears. That's also one reason why I did run. I made it to El Capitain, took pictures (might post some later) and run/walk back to Yosemite Fall and walked the technical downhill back to camp.
It was a very good workout. Legs were definitely trashed afterwards. But I was nicely surprised that I managed to run those uphills. I went to store and got some protein bars and strawberry milk, I think that it helped me a lot to recover.
I got to the camp at exactly 6:30pm and it was pitch dark 10min later. Perfect timing.
Everybody was tired so they did not have energy to stay out late and drink so I could go to bed at around 10:30pm. I got full 8 hours of sleep!

Saturday:
One reason why I do not like trips with people is that people do not think and most people are less trained than I am.
I and one guy wanted to do Half Dome hike. In a guide it says that it takes anywhere between 10-12 hours. And you cannot start at 10am if you want to do 10 hours long hike and it gets dark at 6:30pm, right? I managed to persuade him that we need to leave at 8am. He however wanted to get free coffee that was given out at 8am, but have promised me that we will leave between 8 and 9. I eventually managed to wake him up at 8:20 and we left at 9:30...I hate people.
Hike was very very nice (and much easier without running). I promised the guy I will stick with him and I did although it was not easy. The other problem (apart from the fact that I had to carry his food and drinks because he did not have a backpack so we had only mine and if I had given it to him to carry it he would have been even slower) was that he drank all his water in first 1/4 of the way and then of course I had to give him half of my water. Have I already mentioned that people are stupid?
Anyway, I was trying to be pleasant and not to loose my temper.

Apart from those few issue, I really enjoyed the weekend! I love hiking. I am very glad they asked me to come.

Unfortunately we had to go home on Saturday and not Sunday as we planned. We got home at around 1:30am and I went to bed at 2am. This weekend was a mess sleep-wise for me.

Sunday:
Since car was rented and paid for we decided to do a small trip to Long Beach. I had to get up at 7am (only 5 hours of sleep:() to do an easy 6 miler before we left.
I was drizzling so I was glad we did not stay in Yosemite because it would have been a waste.
Sky has cleared up a bit so Long Beach trip was ok.

I am really tired. I need to do some school work still but I think I will go to bed soon although it is only 7pm.

Off to Yosemite Park tomorrow

Just wanted to share:)
I did not plan this but people asked me today whether I want to come and I said yes. They are taking huge volumes of alcohol but I hope we will get some hikes in as well....

It might be the only trip I do while here.

I do not know whether to take my bike or not. Need to think about it more.

I swam today and did 6 easy miles.
And we had our first volleyball game. We did not win, which is nothing new, but we had fun and we were not as bas as I though we will be:)

See you on Sunday:)

5k prediction work-out

I recently read a post about a prediction workout for 5k and I had (almost)the same workout planned for today. What a nice coincidence, isn't it? (Ok, it is not a complete coincidence since person that proposed the prediction workout created my training plan.)

Work-out goes as follows: Proper warm-up, followed by 4 km tempo (half marathon pace), 3 minutes easy jog. 5 X 1 km with 90-120 seconds easy jog between. The sum of the 1 km repeats should predict my 5 km race time.

My plan called for the same except that I did 4k at 4:19 pace (I do not know what my 1/2marathon pace would be, but probably slower...), then 3 min FULL rec (I had to go to bathroom, so I even sat for couple seconds:), but I made it in 3min) and I took 120sec jog between intervals.
Other thing is that my workout called for running 1k intervals at 5k pace so obviously it should predict my 5k race. But the question was, CAN I DO IT????
If I can then I might become confident enough to believe that I can hold 1:35 per 400m for 12.5 laps.

Onto the workout:
It did not start that great. I do not know what happened when I was leaving locker room but as I stoop up from sitting on a bench I felt a pain in a muscle around hip/hamstring/quad area (how is that for scientific explanation?).
But it was only for a short moment and then it was away.
I warmed up for 2miles, stretched, warmed-up the body (neck, arms, shoulders, core, legs, that's what we, Europeans, do)and started strides. During the second stride, the pain was back. And it was worse. So I walked for a bit, did not try to stretch it because it was even worse, just tried to loosen it up.
I told to myself, I am done with strides, let's see how it goes for tempo, which is slower than strides.

I usually struggle first 800-1200m ( I usually have to start at 4:25ish and then try to pick it up to move to 4:20ish) but this time, I felt great from the beginning. Hip/hamstring/quad muscle bothered me a bit for first few strides but then I have not heard from it since. Cool.
4k tempo 17:17, which is 4:19/k pace (6:54/mile if anyone is wondering). Cool. Started at sub 4:20 and then just effortlessly kept it there.

Quick 3min pit-stop and on to 1k repeats.

My plan was to try to do them @ 3:55 and see how that goes.
First one: 3:52. Close enough. Of course I started too fast but managed to slow myself down.
2nd: Oh, my legs are tired. Oh, wait that's because I am running 3:40 pace. But do not worry only for first 200m. 3:52 again. Ah, what the heck, forget about 3:55 and try to keep it at 3:52.
3rd: 3:50. No feelings worth mentioning during this one. Felt pretty good.
4th: Ok, my legs are getting tired for real now. But nothing unmanageable. I felt controlled. 3:48
5th: Still feeling controlled although last 150m were starting to be painful. My arms were hurting. Legs did not hurt, just felt tired. 3:46

I think I still had something left in tank to be able to do 1-2 repeats before crashing exhausted on the track.

I managed to do it! Am I more confident? Hm, I do not know...Probably yes. I am sure I can run faster than 21min, and I should be able to run faster than 20min. It will all be about my mental strength, but I am working on it. I am telling to myself that this time, I am going to do it! Run as hard as I can and be exhausted at the finish line. This time, I will not worry about burning before the finish. It will be better to burn at 4.5k mark than to have enough fuel to run another 5k at the same pace!


By the way, my reasoning behind dropping Goethe class did not work out that well today. I still was not able to do weights immediately after work-out. Because I forgot I had swimming immediately afterwards. (You ask me how I could have forgotten? Well, this was only 2nd session and it was on Wednesday last time, so my mind is not set up for that yet).
So I went there after my running workout. People there are no stars, we do not swim that fast, so it is not like I will injure myself or anything doing this back to back.
We warmed-up and then did 5x50m fast, 50m very slowly, 5x50m fast. I do not know what I was hitting for 50m and I did not really care. It was actually fun. I like swimming a lot. And there were 5 of us so I has some company, not my usual alone rides and runs. Then some cool down and run to class.

And guess what. I was EXHAUSTED in that class. I really like this class (and it has nothing to do with smokn' H professor, who is by the way German. I have a weakness for Germans, not sure why) so that's the only thing that kept me awake.

I am still exhausted.
I was thinking about doing weights after class, but I do not think so...

Some friends are meeting for volleyball so I might go check that out.

Rather no. I need to do some school work and I am starving.

5k race I want to do is on Oct 31. I still have not signed up. I do not know whether I should sign up. I mean, I want to race it, but I am worried that ITB will start acting up and than I will loose that money.
I do not have any ITB problems now, but it always come suddenly without any prior notice. But what if it is sold out by then? I do not know....

Ok, I just got a call that I have to come to volleyball because they do not have enough players. I am off.

PS: Can you tell I am little bored since I have time to write these long nonsenses about nothing here?

Hmmmmm

No run today. But I had to do something because I would go crazy.

I swam during lunch (little over 1.5k. Am I good or what?:))and then wanted to go for a bike ride but had to run some errands (like buying a ball for our volleyball practice, buying a rear light for my bike because I ride in dark a lot and I decided to quit risking my life (I know I still risk it but now I risk it with a light) and by the time I was done it was almost 5pm and I had to do some school work (which I did not do of course. It is a group work, maybe someone else in group will do it...) and then volleyball practice at 8pm.

It was a disaster....I will be surprised if people show up next week. Because we cannot reserve a court so there were a lot of people and ...just disaster.
And I had to play a coach. I did not make anyone vomit but I have a feeling that they would prefer that to what we were actually doing. Well, you cannot do much on 8mx8m space (because that's all we had), can you?
I need to think about solution to this because it would be a waste of time and I will be soon the only one coming.

It is way past my bed time, but I decided to drop my Goethe class so I do not have to get up at 6am to do the workout before class and I can sleep in until around 8.
Who in the US even cares whether I speak German or not? And I do not understand poetry so I am just sitting there and listening and it is not even interesting. I am sure I would understand Goethe better if I had run this race but since I did not, I do not understand. And I am sure that Goethe will not teach me business German. And I do not even get credit for it!
Plus a company I used to work for in France- film sales company- offered me to do a small thing for them during American Film Market in November and I would not be able to do it if I had this class because of a time conflict. (I am not sure whether I will do it but I am 85% positive)
So the opportunity cost of taking that class is way too high now. (It was pretty high even before, because it meant I could not do weights immediately after workout, which I am sure everyone agrees is a huge opportunity cost:) But now it is also about $$$!!!)

I was flying today

probably because of all the food I ate yesterday. I ate 4 English muffing, couple apples (like 5), 2 cheese bagels, 2 Luna bars, 2 bowls of cereal with milk and uncountable number of Reese's peanut butter pieces so I was filled with carbs.
Plus I spent the whole day on my butt working on computer. (I wanted to do everything at the same time and ended up not finishing anything)

Anyway, I went for a bike ride just past 7:30am. Weather was perfect. I wanted to do the same route I did 2 weeks ago and take it very slowly and take pictures:

This is me and couple pictures I took :)








I actually took the road closest to the ocean so I can see nice houses so it was little bit longer than last time but I rode faster overall. Because of those carbs and frequent stop to take pictures I guess. I caught up to one guy at a stop light at around mile 40 and told to myself to stay with him. And I stayed for next 8 miles or so and we were moving fast.
It was a very enjoyable ride. Even with hills, it felt great. I am pretty fast at uphills, I pass people and then they pass me on flat :(

I was not as trashed as last time so I decided to run immediately afterwards. 9 miles. My longest run in a while!!!!! And it felt great. I wanted to keep a faster pace and started out little too fast because it was slight downhill but slowed down on my way back for average 7:18 pace. Great. I had a small crisis from 5.5-6.5 miles but other than that it felt pretty easy and good.

Then I watched Ironman Hawai live broadcast. I only saw the marathon but the race was awesome! Both men and women. Those people are unbelievable!

Some people are just not nice and do not care about the others

Today's workout was pretty eventful...
I decided to do the same 600/300 workout I did 2 weeks ago but to add the forth set into it. I wanted to see whether it is easier now. Not really. 600s were relatively easier but 300s...58 is almost like all out for me. At least it felt like that. I did 2:10/58, 2:07/58, 2:07/58, 2:06/62. Which is better than last week except for the last 300 but I will get to that one in a second.

I did the workout during lunch so there were quite a lot of people on track.
Some random people doing their lunch break runs.
There was a guy doing fast 200s and his coach was screaming so loudly that everyone could hear him. Little annoying but ok.
Then there was a group of 3 people with their coach and apparently they were learning how to do hammer throw. But they were not very good at it and everything ended in a safety net.
Then there was a group of 20 or so people doing some kind of training: jumps, runs and stuff like that.

So I do not know what happened but during my second 600 those 3 coaches started to scream at each other. What my understanding is that one of those hammer throw guys threw the hammer over the net and it landed on a track. And other two coaches started to quarrel with the hammer throw coach about it. I mean come on, it could have killed someone. They kept shouting and shouting until someone actually called the security and athletics personnel. I do not know how they resolved that but hammer throwers stop their practice.

That was first even of the day.
Second is: there was this guy doing sprints in lane 2 starting at 110m mark and he has a transparent water bottle on a line between lane 1 and 2 as a marker. Since there were quite a lot of people on track and everyone runs kinda unorganized I had to go around people and go from lane 1 to lane 2 and stuff. And during my first 600 I had to move to lane 2 and suddenly there was a water bottle right in my way but I managed not to step on it. I was like WTH, who leaves a bottle in the middle of the track. So I moved it. I did my second 600 and water bottle is back!
Then I saw the sprint guy drinking from it so I asked him whether he could move because it is pretty dangerous. He told me that it was a normal practice to keep water bottle as a marker. I mean, yeah, I understand, but if you have a lot of unexperienced people running on a track at different paces and people have to keep switching between line constantly it is dangerous. So on my next loop I told him so and asked him to move it again. He told me not to touch his bottle and again that it was common practice. Then other sprint guy came and told me that first lines are for sprinters anyway so I should not be bothered by that. What a bullshit. For faster people ok, but not for sprinters doing sprints on straight part. So I asked him that if he wants me to run in lane 5 what we were going to that at 100m mark when we will inevitable crush into each other (since I will be cutting them off at every single lap). They did not respond just grinned at me. I told him I can not see that transparent bottle so he said that if I am blind I should not be on track anyway. They were not impolite, but they just had this grip on their faces that said we are awesome sprint bigshots doing our hard sprint workout and you are obviously not experienced enough since you do not know that having a bottle as a marker is a common practice and therefore you and your tralalala pace move.
Come on! It is soooo dangerous for all those other people who can step on it. And what difference does it make to them to run in lane 4 or 5 and have that bottle there where nobody else runs. Or at least if you want to run in lane 2, why don't you put that bottle on a line between lanes 2 and 3, why does need to be between line 1 and 2? I am not a sprinter and do not know, maybe it makes difference, but during a practice?
I got sooo pissed. But I constrained myself and did not send that bottle flying over the fence out of track. But it took a huge self-control, believe me.

Last confrontation occurred before my last 300, so I got distracted, accidentally took longer rest and then just had to think about it and did not concentrate on my pace.

Ok, I was the only one complaining but I was the only one running fast. It makes a difference to step on a bottle when you run 12min/mile pace and when you do a legitimate workout. Other people probably were not concerned but I was.

I am having so much fun

Seriously.
Of course I had 2 classes today but that's not important (and definitely not fun).
Important (and fun) is that I went to pool with a guy who used to be a collegiate swimmer and a water polo player and he gave me some advice.
There were supposed to be more of us but since it was raining, I was the only one who showed up. So it was like a private lesson. Pussies! Come on, you are wet anyway. (Talking about rain. It rained this morning so I put on my backpack, poncho and reflexive vest on the top. I looked like a hunchback of Notredame on a bike).
Sure he has not swum competitively for couple years now but probably knows what he is doing.
He told me my strike with arms is very good, but showed me how to kick because honestly, in retrospective I know my kicking was pathetic.
The only problem is that he used to be backstroke and breaststroke swimmer for short distances so he does not know everything about distance swimming. He suggested I do not roll my whole body only my head. I am not listening to that advice, because I have read that distance swimmers should roll the whole body otherwise after couple k their neck will get too tight. He said I should be very careful then because once I swim in open water I will probably get of track to one side.
But he told me he will teach me flip turns and we can do intervals once I learn that. Cool.

Then I went running with a group. It was much better that last week. More people and we ran faster. But we did 4mile loop and nobody wanted to add 2 more miles with me so I had to do those alone. But that's ok.

And volleyball starts next week!!!!! I am little pissed because I was supposed to be a team captain and they told me today that I will be a team manager. I know, team manager sounds better but as a manager I do not get to make those lazy asses throw up during practices. Hm, maybe that's the reason why I am not a captain anymore...Should have thought of that earlier.

Productive day

I left my apart @ 6:30am. Did workout. Went to class. Went swimming. Another class. Did weights. Group project meeting. Got home at 9:30pm.
What a miserable student life. And I took shower 3 times today.

Anyway, workout went great. Actually all my workouts go pretty great (knocking on wood). Which either means that they are easy:) or that I am on the right path.
4k sub-tempo followed by 3x1600 @ 5k pace + 5sec for 1k split. So somewhere around 6:28. I again struggled through first 1k of sub-tempo but then got into groom and it went just fine.
Mile repeats were actually pretty easy although I felt that legs were not fresh, which is good and that's what we want. I felt controlled and relaxed. I had 4min rec jog between and 4 min is A LOT! I did 6:26, 6:24, 6:20. I am a queen of negative splits actually. But seems that only at practice. Come race and I am all messed up. Actually the only race I remember I did negative split was my marathon. Pretty random, isn't it? I went through first half in exactly 1:45 (8min pace) and then after 32k I finally allowed myself to pick up the pace and did second half in 1:42.

I want to do weights on my workout days so I trash legs completely in one day so they can rest and recover during the rest days. But I do not have time to go to gym right after workout because I have to rush to class (chocking on English muffin with cream cheese, ketchup, mustard and mozzarella cheese and broccoli cuts as salad). By the way, I am of no use at this class after workout.

After class I have around 2hours which is enough time to either swim or go to gym (because I have to change, workout, take shower and all that stuff, so I would not have time to do both without sacrificing the quality). So I decided to go swimming because pool is open only during lunch hour. Second shower of the day.

Class. By now I was pretty trashed. Even the prof did not look as hot as last week.

Weights. Nothing hard because I really had to force myself to do them so I did few exercises to shut the conscience:) Just kidding, I love weights. Third shower of the day...
I was starving but it started raining so I was not in mood to walk anywhere to get food so I got honey wheat pretzels and ate those (which was approximately 1000 calories, but whatever).

Group project meeting- 2.5hours. I hate group work...

I am glad Tuesday is done. Tuesday and Thursdays are crazy. Other days I am bored. Why could not it be spread more smoothly?
I am off to bed now.

Wet and cold

Incredible, last Monday this time around it was over 30degrees in my room, now I am freezing (not literally, I am just exaggerating to make my point)

I woke up into rain. Oh, great. So either I take a bus to school or suck it up and ride a bike. I decided to be a suckuper. I put on the most bright t-shirt I have so cars can see me and off I went. I have not thought it through because I did not bring enough cloths to change for my way back, so after school I had to put soaked clothes on and it sucked. And my bike and backpack are filthy. But that's nothing new.
I was soaked by the time I got to school, good thing I have a locker there and could get a towel, shower and change to dry clothes.
And oh Americans and their stupid AC. I was freezing in classroom and the only place on campus where I could warm up afterwards was either shower or pool! Don't you just love heated pools? I surely do. I went there and it was kinda cool. Swimming in a rain. Then I took hot shower. But I had to do run some errand on campus so had to leave dry locker room to get rained on again.
I signed up for ski trip to lake Tahoe in December. That should be fun! I am looking forward to it. It is a 3-day trip organized for international students after exams. I do not look forward sleeping part because I know how it goes on these trips but days should be fun. But I do not have any skiing clothes with me. I am not sure yet what I will do. I will probably have to buy something.

I rode in rain (again) home and then my self discipline was almost put into test. If it rains, will I walk a mile to trail, run and then walk back or will I just run on road to trail, run there and run back? Luckily dilemma was solved when it stopped raining.
I ran 6.5 miles. Of course it started raining again at mile 4. What the heck, I just finished the run on trail and walked back.

Seriously I spend half my day soaked and cold.
I HATE rain. I want to move to place where it never rains.

Please do not rain tomorrow for my workout!!!

7.5 miles in perspective

I did my longest continuous run since mid-June today. I ran 7.5 miles this afternoon.
Ok, my workouts are longer than that but workouts are not continuous.

7.5 miles. That's like nothing. I know. I used to run more than that every single day and now it is my long run. Pathetic? NOOOO.
I do not want to run more for now. My mileage this week was around 35-37 miles (somewhere there, I do not know precisely since I run by minutes except workouts of course). Which I feel is enough for me know. The ITB problem comes and goes in 3-month intervals and October is the third month. So I am keeping all my fingers crossed.
I am doing a lot of things differently now:
-have lower mileage,
-do not run on roads (I WALK over one mile to trail, do my run and walk back. I need to find a place where I can leave the bike so I can ride bike there instead of walking),
-do a lot of cross training (bike, swim),
-use foam roller (almost) every day and
-try icing after every easy run (I wish I could ice after workout but I am at school then so cannot do that),
-plus I wear ITB bandage during every run.
With all these small things I hope I can get over that stupid ITB problem.

I went to watch LA triathlon this morning. It was interesting. I have never seen a triathlon race.
But I only watched swim and bike, not run. I saw people running before.
Water swim was crazy. Waves were so huge, people were like in a whirlpool. Scary.
It was pretty amazing how all kind of people did it. Chubby, fit, old, young and although almost all of them had road bikes I saw couple tri bikes and couple mountain bikes and cruisers. Everybody can do it! :)
I watched them getting out of swim/bike transition and almost none of them put bike into right gear before leaving a bike in T1 and it was a slight uphill out of T1 and all of them were struggling so much first couple meters. I guess you learn from your experience (or preferably from other people's bad experience).
I actually rode over 20miles watching the race (ouch, my butt. I was not ready for it and I did not wear very comfortable shorts). People on bikes were so fast. It is either that I am a really slow biker or that 79 hilly miles day before took their toll or that my bike is a piece of crap.
I think it is a combination. I have still a long way to go since I am totally an endurance biker but can not get the pedals to move fast. My roommate asked me today why I do not get a real bike since I am going such long rides. Well, I would love to but I am not buying a real bike unless I know I am going to stay in one country (or at least in one state) for longer than 6 months. And she offered to lend me one of her clip pedals, but I would have to buy shoes. And that would be only a waste of money right now with that torture machine.

I did not watch PROs and elites because they started too early and come on, it is Sunday and I am not getting up at 6:30 to see some random dudes running into water.

Bike ride was from the ocean all the way to downtown LA and the whole boulevard was closed and cars could not cross the street. So if they wanted to get from one side of LA to another they had to go all the way around. And there were policemen at all intersections and drivers were so pissed and were quarreling with policemen. Funny.

BIKE!!!!!!

This was the awesomest ride I have ever done. It was also one of the hardest because of the hills.
I did around 79 miles total and it took me 5.5hours...

I usually do my long ride (that substitutes a long run) on Sunday but tomorrow is LA Triathlon and I do not know which roads will be closed and I would like to go and watch so I did it today.

I found a book called Bicycling Los Angeles County in store last week and really liked it. I did not buy it but instead went to see whether we have it in a library and we did, so I borrowed it yesterday. It has over 30 rides ranging from few miles to over 70. This ride I did today was #1 in the book and it said that it is also the toughest in the book. Ok, so lets see. Well it was pretty tough but it was awesome!!!

First 30 miles were at Pacific Coach Highway (it is not a real highway, it is only called that), which is basically what name says- PCH hugs the beach. My roommate has told me that their club goes there very often and that one can see dolphins ofter. I however did not see any. Maybe they were there but since I do not wear glasses...
I did around 10 miles alone and then these 3 guys passed me so I politely asked them whether I can draft off them and they let me. It felt so awesome. There was one pretty long climb and I almost died because I did not want to loose them:) They were chatting and stuff and I was dying...But then they went a different way (they went to do some kind of a bad-ass climb. Hm, no thanks, I almost died on that small one so cannot imagine climbing 5+ miles with you.) I did another 5 or so miles alone and than a group of 8 cyclist joined the road right in front of me (they basically cut me off). So I was like, one more biker, they won't even realize, so I just drafted behind them without asking for next 2 miles or so until they took another road. But I had only 5 or so miles left on PHC so no problem.
Next 40 miles were in Santa Monica mountains. It was incredible. I wish I brought my camera. But I will go there again so then I will take pictures. I hate stopping during my rides or runs. I do not think that it is "professional" and it somehow makes me feel that I am not serious enough. But I need to bring the camera because climbs and views were incredible.
I felt so bad-ass doing all that climbing. I felt very good and strong. But I was getting tired by the end. Now that I see the ride profile I understand why I felt like crap around mile 60 :))) It was up and down. And a lot of bikers and motorbikers. Almost no cars.
At mile 70 I joined PCH again and it was all flat until my apart from there.

I was hungry and tired. I ate and I wanted to eat more but I felt my quads getting sore so I knew I should take an ice bath. The problem with my ice baths is that it is around 3 miles away. So I had to force myself to climb the bike again and ride there and then back! But it was worth it because I felt much better after ocean ice bath. I could not go swimming though because waves were too high so I just stood waist-deep in the ocean.

I got home and ate some more. Well that's what I have been doing the whole afternoon since I came back...