It’s amazing how good a nice, easy, short workout can make you feel. Almost all my runs for the last few weeks have been so intense and at least 40 minutes. Today I had planned, and did, a 30 minute treadmill training mix. It was still tough.  It has some hill work and some speed work, which I took very seriously. But the absolute shortness of the workout was so refreshing.

Since it was so short, I wasn’t afraid to push it a little. The treadmill training workout starts out with 3 or so minutes of walking with some ‘warm-up’ movements, then 3 minutes of easy running. You use these 3 minutes to find a good base pace for the workout – one that is comfortable, but that you know you are still working.

Then starts the hill work. Without changing your speed, you do three different percent inclines (between 4 and 6 %) for 30 to 45 seconds each. After a 4 minute recovery from this you start speed work, my favorite part!

These are relatively short intervals – 50 seconds, 70 seconds, 90 seconds, and 50 seconds. The goal is to go as fast or faster every interval. The workout ends with 3 or 4 minutes of easy running to cool down.

I did my intervals today at paces of 8:20/mile, 8:00/mile, 7:40/mile, and 7:20/mile. How impressed with myself am I?

One thing that gets me about this workout (proudly produced by Nike+) is that the narrator keeps telling me to drink water. The workout is only 30 minutes – you want me to do to what? Usually I wouldn’t ever think of drinking water in a 30 minute workout, because I would expect it to bring a small side-cramp.

But I learned something recently from runnersworld.com. If you are drinking water/electrolytes/other while running, don’t sip the liquid. Gulp it. It actually does work to reduce the frequency of cramps from drinking. It helps your stomach absorb the liquid better.

Last night’s run was different for me. I didn’t go into it wondering about my ability to finish. I went into it wondering about my desire to do it.

My afternoon just wasn’t great. I was stressed, unhappy, depressed even. This itself is unusual for me, but it was an even more unusual degree of these feelings. Of course, this was why I knew I was going to do the workout, even though I just wanted to go home and eat ice cream. Even if I ended up crying through the whole run, I knew it would feel better afterward.

So here’s what I did: 1.6 mi warm-up, 1 mile @ 8:34, .5 mile jog, 1 mile @ 8:34, .5 mile jog, 1 mile @ 8:27, .5 mile jog, 1 mile @ 8:27, 1 mile cool-down. That last mile was pretty tough, but I made it through. The day had actually started with me in a good mood and thinking I could do the miles even faster than planned. With as bad of a mood as I was in, I’m still pretty excited that I did as well as I did.

The run did get some bad, nasty thought out of my head. Plus it left me so exhausted that I had no chance to go back to them before going to bed. Am I glad I did it? Of course. Am I equally as glad that, other than my long runs, the rest of the next two weeks are easy with no mile intervals or tempo runs? Yep!

I loved the time change this morning! My alarm went off at 7, and it was great! The sun was already up. Not so surprisingly, I didn’t have any problem getting out of bed.

The weather was predicted to be cold this morning. But it was about 8 degrees colder than the weather had predicted last night. The problem was that starting out at 25 degrees, I knew it was likely to be 40 degrees by the time I was done. Those two temperatures call for totally different wardrobe choices.

But I’d rather deal with being a little hot for a few minutes toward the end of my run than cold for a long time, so I bundled up in pants, a long sleeved shirt, a jacket, a winter hat, and sunglasses. It was the first time I’ve worn the long sleeved shirt – a $1 purchase at a garage sale this fall, so there was some question as to how the shirt would do (it was perfect).

The time change didn’t only affect me this morning. I never see anyone else out on my runs around Oakley/Marion. This morning I saw 6 people out walking in my first half hour. It was great to see other people out, waving and saying good morning. This also meant that dogs were out, so I adjusted my run just a little so that I didn’t have to listen to them barking at me. It’s just more peaceful that way.

I didn’t run as fast as planned this morning. I attributed this mostly to the cold and the accompanying cold muscles, and partially to the fact that it was so pretty out that I just enjoyed myself. I was plenty warm – no need to rush I did my 11.25 miles at close to an 11 minuter per mile pace.

So, if you’re a distance runner, you know you typically don’t run the whole distance of your race before hand…you run long enough to cover the time it will likely to take you to finish your race, just to get your body used to moving that long.

Well, for this half-marathon, I’m trying something different. I have no doubt that my muscles can recover from a 13 mile run within a few days, and I don’t want to be struggling through the last few miles. If you think ‘gee, Amber’s running a bit long for this point in her training’, you’re right. I’m planning on doing 2 or 3 runs of 13 to 14 miles in the next month, and then doing a normal taper (meaning, running only 8 or 9 miles for a long run) the week before the half. It’s certainly not what most training programs would recommend, but I want to see if it works for me.

First let’s back up a few days. After my mega-hike on Sunday, I knew my legs needed some rest so I didn’t even attempt anything Monday.

Tuesday I did a 40-minute workout; I did the Kara Goucher intervals. It was very difficult as my legs were still very tired. Plus I had to avoid a slew of rude people at the gym who were uninterested in proper gym etiquette. Okay, mostly it was the people using the workout room off the track that don’t look before they start taking up the WHOLE track.

On to today. Planned was a 7 mile workout, including 5 miles at a 9:15 minute per mile pace. I don’t know when it happened, but at some point I started getting nervous before workouts like this. It didn’t help that I had a really good (yet really bad) lunch yesterday that was still irking my tummy.

My warm-up started okay. I developed some pain in my shins and right knee toward the end of it, and for the first mile or so on the treadmill for the ‘fast’ part of my workout, I really thought I was going to have to quit early due to the pain.

Finally my Nike+ said ’3 miles completed’, and I thought, ‘gee, only 1/2 mile to half-way. I can do that!’ And thoughts about ‘only 1/2 mile’ got me through the rest of my workout. I did have to stop and walk to get rid of a bad side cramp, and had to stop about 3.6 miles into the 5 to take a potty break (no more huge bowls of Indian food at lunch for me during training!)

Even after my potty break, I got back on the treadmill and was unsure I could finish the 1.4 miles left…the 1/2 mile at a time was the only way I got through.

I guess I’m still facing the mental battle with myself over my ability to complete the workouts meant to prepare me to do a half-marathon at about a 2 hour pace. This will probably only get worse in the coming weeks when my tempo and interval workouts extend from 6 or 7 miles to 8 or 10 miles.

But I haven’t failed to complete any of these workouts yet.

According to the ‘schedule’ I should have done a 10-mile run yesterday.

Nike+ had their annual Human Race yesterday, which is a 10K. I was very excited that the Salt Lake City Running Company had an event this year. It’s not timed or anything, because the timing is taken care of by your Nike+, but it’s a chance to get a t-shirt! And it’s a super t-shirt. And it’s a chance to run with other people, which is also great. It was a very fun run, and I did the 10K is 56:20 per their timer! Yay! That’s great because it puts me within range of 2 hours for the half-marathon. It was a great reaffirmation that my training is going well.

I was initially planning on just running another 4 or 5 miles yesterday in the afternoon. But on Friday I found this new hike very close to my house, and got it into my head that I really wanted to do a 10-mile hike today. So the 4 or 5 miles additional of running yesterday didn’t seem as imperative, and I didn’t do them.

Despite a not-as-early-as-planned start, I did set out about 12:45 on my hike. While I had asked multiple times if anyone wanted to join me, I didn’t get any takers. So I went alone. It was so solitary. It was much more solitary than, say, a 10-mile run on roads. While I could see a road most of the time, and hear and see multiple boats almost constantly, it was so not connected to that world. I didn’t see a single other person until about 7.25 miles in, when I passed a group of four hikers who were just out for a walk and who turned around about 10 minutes after they passed me and were about a mile behind me the rest of the way.

It’s a fairly well maintained trail…or, at least, it’s not a rustic trail. I don’t think it’s well traveled, but is well maintained. And I think it might be a great running trail if I ever want to go closer to my house than PC.