Trainer Chad is back to show us a few exercises that will engage your whole body to improve your form as a runner and prevent injury.
7 Minutes to Strength is Road Runner Sports workout plan for runners who add these 7 minutes of exercises before or after a run to increase strength and prevent injury. We want to keep you on the road for as long as possible!
Website: http://www.roadrunnersports.com/
Oh well at least I swam again. I made plans to meet up with one of the runners I've been running with the last three months to meet at 8am. That gave me some time to do a quick swim workout. After
today I'll be swimming on Sunday's for an hour at least. Well I plan to. The last 13 weeks I've been running with a small group of friends who are non-runners. I put together a 13 Week Training Program to run a 12K. I've been posting a bit about it under The Lazy Man's Guide To Running A 12k LINK. It's been more hit or miss but at the end of the run next week I'm going to post the full plan for others. It's been fun watching these friends and coworkers run more and more each week feeling more comfortable running.
More on that later...before the run came the swim. It wasn't much of a swim. About 30 minutes and 1,550 yards. I got to the pool about 6:45 and started an easy warm up.
Swim 200
4x50's Pull on 1 minute, i think...
1 :41.1 50 1:22
2 :41.0 50 1:22
3 :40.9 50 1:22
4 :40.5 50 1:21
Then I modified a set I've done before. Nothing to easy but nothing to kill me, actually it was easy or should have been easy. But I'm out of swim shape so it wasn't so easy.
3 Rounds:
3x50's Swim on1:10
100 on 1:45 (round one IM, round two and three backstroke)
1 :35.4 50 1:10
2 :34.8 50 1:10
3 :34.7 50 1:09
4 1:26.1 100 1:26
5 :36.8 50 1:14
6 :36.5 50 1:13
7 :36.0 50 1:12
8 1:23.3 100 1:23
9 :36.9 50 1:14
10 :37.2 50 1:15
11 :37.0 50 1:14
12 1:23.7 100 1:24
I was going to do a 4th round but time wasn't on my side or maybe I was just being lazy. Yeah, lazy.
4x100's Free Pulling w/paddles on 1:30
1 1:18.3 100 1:18
2 1:18.6 100 1:19
3 1:21.0 100 1:21
4 1:21.1 100 1:21
Then that was it. 1,550 yards in 30 minutes.
My Progress for Go The Distance 2013
Month Total Distance
Jan 6.96 miles (=12,250 yards, =11,201 meters)
Feb 6.25 miles (=11,000 yards, =10,058 meters)
Mar 2.50 miles (=4,400 yards, =4,023 meters)
Apr 2.81 miles (=4,950 yards, =4,526 meters)
Total 18.52 miles (=32,600 yards, =29,809 meters)
Hey look at that I'm ahead of my March yardage. Of course I only swam twice so whatever.
Time to go running.
It was a taper run and my runner wasn't feeling good. I think they were hungover so I made the run a little easier and we went slower. Hopefully they'll rally next week. We started with a small group of non-runners and week by week the herd thinned out. Oh well, at least we are running.
Ahh...Sunday my day off from work. Which means it's my day! Not my day to sleep in but my day to do my workout stuff. Ya know, running and swimming and swimming and more swimming. Although of late one may wonder if I swim at all anymore and I admit I really haven't been. Not enough time, to tired, to cold outside, to this and not enough that. Excuses, excuses, excuses and
then...self defeat starts to set in. Why bother swimming today it's not like I'm swimming any other time so why swim today? Ugh! Self defeat in swimming is winning over my thougths. This past week has been the anti-swim week in my mind. But I'm moving past that. I'm going to embrace the few times I can swim. And with that today was one of those days. I was going to swim with the gang around 8:30/45 after my run but I was freezing after that run so I put off the swim. More on the run later. When I remember to use my Wahoo HR Monitor I can track my spinning classes. Of course I forget to put in on me or even to turn the app on most of the time. Last week I even forgot to put it on for my run. Doh!
Let's talk swimming! After my second breakfast or very early lunch I relaxed a bit. Then hit the pool after 11. I figured everyone would be way gone by then so I wouldn't have to explain how I'm busy and lazy and just don't swim to anyone. I had a printed workout and figured I'd go with that. So that it what my plan was. Got to the pool and realized I didn't have a battery for the deck clock but did find my Speedo kickboard that I left behind a few weeks ago. Funny cuz' it wasn't around in the storage room last Sunday. Glad someone returned it. I almost bought a new one yesterday!
Warmed Up
200 Swim
200 Pull w/o Paddles
200 Pull w/ Paddles
Garmin Swim registered an extra 25 yards for some reason.
4x75's Kick w/ fins on 1:30 (300/900)
3x100's w/fins - swim/kick/pull/build on 2:00. The Garmin Swim registerd each as a 75 ignoring the 25 kick. (300/1200)
Crazy Time! Motivation Time! I keep telling my students in my spin classes to push themselves to break out of thier comfort zone. So today I decided to do that myself. I was going to swim or pull a 1,000 but decided I'd pull a 1,650. I used all my toys: pull bouy, paddles and d-band pulling band. I wasn't going for speed I just wanted to prove to myself that I can swim a 1,650. I needed something to motivate me.
Distance: 1,650 yd
Pool Length: 25 yd
Time: 22:19
Avg Pace: 1:21 min/100 yd
Calories: 314 C
Avg Efficiency : 30
Avg SWOLF : 27
Grr…I can't see a 100 by 100 since I didn't hit the pause button at every 100 of the 1650. I can only assume I was on a steady pace. I felt like it. Tired at the end but controlled.
This chart is damn fucking useless pretty much like the Garmin Swim. I can sorta see highs and lows and if I place the cursor at the peaks and valleys I get sorta splits but not real ones. My slowest average pace was 1:34 and fastest 1:05. Meh. I'm going to use this workout as my "Base Workout Set" and do it in theory once a month to see how I'm doing in swimming. I may actually do it again next Sunday and try to go faster. Not that one should compare swim meet times to workout times but the last time I swam the 1650 I did it with a time of 18:06.41. So I'm 4 miutes off. That is horrible! Oh! (1650/2850) I then did an easy 50 for 2,900 yard workout.
Jan 6.96 miles (=12,250 yards, =11,201 meters)
Feb 1.65 miles (=2,900 yards, =2,652 meters)
Total 8.61 miles (=15,150 yards, =13,853 meters)
I think that might be an all time low for a month! 12,250 yards? Holy no longer a swimmer batman! I gotta snap out of this!
So running. I ran again this morning with a run mate. A few of us at work are going to run a 12K in April. Most of us are pretty active and in shape but none of us are runners. I'm the most experienced with a few runs under my belt but haven't ran much in 2012 if at all. So a few of us run together on Sunday mornings at 7am. It's damn cold at 7am! Almost too cold!
So I can do this. 7.4 miles or 12K. Hopefully all of us will be able to do this! My run today was different then what I planned out for everyone else. Mostly cuz' I got to the Polo Fields early and was so cold I decided to warm up a mile first.
After I mile I paused and waited for everyone to run. Then I ran another 3.7 miles. At the end I didn't run the full loop but cut through the half way point which is the polo viewing stands.
One loop around the Polo Field is about a mile.
Splits
mi Pace (min/mi) Elevation (ft)
1 11:53 0
2 9:07 4
3 9:08 -1
4 9:29 -3
5 10:01 1
I took a pee break in the portajohn which is why I slowed up after mile 4. Forgot to pause the Wahoo HR Monitor app. You can see the two breaks in the red line on the chart above.
Overall it was a good day. Swimming and Running. Now I got the day to relax and watch House of Cards and Downton Abbey.
To swim or not to swim is not the guestion. The guestion is how do I find the time and energy to swim. Spin, spin, spin is my mantra these days. Teaching 10 classes in a week is taking it's toll on my swimming. I love to teach spin but I gotta at some point get use to spinning and find time for swimming. It's the 27th of the month and I had only swam 6 times with a wimpy total of 10,000 yards. Which I'll admit I was thinking this morning while swimming that I better at least swim 10,000 yards this month. But before I went swimming I went running. In 3 months a few of us will be running a 12K together. So we are getting together Sunday mornings and running. This morning I was 4 miles.
4 miles use to be nothing but these days it a bit long for me. Actually mile one felt bad after that it was okay. I could have ran 5 miles. On my last lap around the Polo Field I kept thinking how I miss the Thursday night Nike Run Club at the Beverly Hills Nike store. That way I ran at least 5 miles once a week. I need to get to that again. Just for cross training reasons. But then again when do I find the time. I do need to let my body recover from spinning and weight training. OY!
The Swim! So after running I stopped at home to change and get more water/G2. Grabbed my gear and headed to the pool. I was the only person there at first. I filmed a quick vid on Vine of the empty pool. By the time I got my gear to my lane and filled in some liability paper work for swimming in 2013 other swimmers started to show up. I got in a 700 yard warm up mostly pulling without paddles.
8x50's on 60 (4 kicking / 4 kick/drill) (400/1100)
Main Set:
2x175's Odds Catch Up / Evens Swim on 3 Minutes
4x125's Pace on 2:30 (maybe? i forgot the interval)
4x75's Swim on 1:20. 1st one sprint last 25, 2nd one sprint middle 25, 3rd one sprint first 25 and last one all fast) (1,150/2,250)
Distance: 1,150 yd
Pool Length: 25 yd
Time: 18:53
Avg Pace: 1:18 min/100 yd
Calories: 227 C
Avg Efficiency : 31
Avg SWOLF : 28
1 2:28.0 175 1:24
2 2:20.1 175 1:20
3 1:35.2 125 1:16
4 1:32.7 125 1:14
5 1:33.3 125 1:15
6 1:35.6 125 1:17
7 :56.8 75 1:16
8 :58.1 75 1:17
9 :59.1 75 1:19
10 :52.7 75 1:10
Meh. So 2,250 yards. Not great but better then nothing. Haven't swam in over a week. I am so out of swim shape. So sad! At least I am swimming. But since I'm not swimming very much and not at all close to fast I'm skipping the Valentine's Swim Meet I've gone the last two years to down in Clearwater. I'm saving myself the horror of finishing dead last! I was thinking of going just to see how I'm doing but I know that answer. BADLY! Something has got to change next month or I'll be skipping IGLA this summer and I really don't want to. I gotta find the time.
I need to swim at least 15,000 yards this month. Anything less is just sad! Note to self: Wake up Wednesday and swim!
Oh in other swim related stuff. The fine folks at Swim Spray has sent me a little care package of Swim Spray to test out and blog about.
So after I was done swimming I used Swim Spray in the shower. Now one use isn't going to be enough for me to judge the product on but so far I like it. I don't have the smell of the pool on me. Usually that is all I can smell. In fact my hair smells sorta nice and I didn't even use conditioner. I'll be using it for the next 30 days so I'll be posting about it and giving my final okay or no way verdict then.
(NIKE+)+(SMASHRUN)= Runner's Geek Heaven
Now I've been using Nike+ for a few years and I love it. I've started with an old iPod Nano, to the iPhone, to the Nike+ Sportband and back to the latest iPod Nano. Well the Nano is a backup if I forget my Sportband. So yeah I feel invested in the Nike+ ecosystem. For years the graphs of information about my runs have been fine and dandy. But as time has gone on I think Nike+ hasn't kept up. I know I haven't tried the all new or almost a year old new Nike+ GPS Sportwatch or any heart rate monitor. Maybe that would give me different graphs to look at. So let's look at today's run...
Back to Nike+ and it's graphs and data. Let's look at a sad chart of my sad running habits...
I gotta admit that after January 9th running became not such a big focus for me. On the 9th I finished the Disney Marathon.
"
I made a mistake after that run and that was by taking time off. Too much time off. I didn't run at all for a whole month! So so bad. Now I didn't run in June but that was a health issue. I got back to running for short 3-4 mile runs. I don't have much motivation to go out and run 10 or 13.1 miles. I am spending more time at the gym then ever so that cuts into my time. But really I keep putting a goal for myself to be running at least two short runs around 4 miles during the week and a longer 8 - 10 mile run on the weekend. Hopefully I can start working on that after this week. The last few days I've spent hours on the bike learning a release so I can sub teaching starting tomorrow morning. So I've been spinning like a mad man. But I'm loving it! Really, really loving it! So maybe running went on the backburner in 2011 but it's a New Year and that a lot of new roads to run down!
So I lost my iPod Nano at my gym last week. Damn you who ever has it. It had been crashing a lot and one of the buttons was sticking. I so should have sent it back to Apple for repairs. But I didn't and I guess I lost it. So now comes the big question? What do I replace it with?
The Cheap Solution: The Shuffle?It's only 50 bucks. If I ever do somehow misplace it I won't care so much. Plus I'm poor and broke right now. So 50 bucks isn't so bad!
The moderate solution with more options: The Nano?
More control of music. More music? Playlists? So much better but with options of 8GB: $129.00 or 16GB: $149.00. 16GB in Pink is pretty cool!
Oh My Did I Win Lottery Option: MotoACTV GPS and Music for runners? Oh wait how much? $249.99 for 8GB! HOLY COW.
I think the shuffle will just be the stop gap filler till I can afford another Nano. I do think the MOTOactv is great but I just can't afford it right now. Maybe I should give up running?
When The Wheels Fall Off The Bus or When I Swim Breaststroke.
Last night I went to bed early and without a drop of wine. I was just wiped out. So I was hoping to have a good morning swim today. But for whatever reason my body just couldn't wake up. It wasn't a struggle to swim but during some of the breaststroke swimming I felt like the wheels had fallen off the bus. My stroke was a mess and I was just sloppy at times.
Warm Up
Mixed 450 / 200 Kikc (650)
Tune Up
5x50's on 50
400 Pace
My 400 pace was about 16/17. I was aiming for 15's. Nothing too fast since I felt like I was still warming up. I just couldn't muster any speed out of my arms today. (650/1300)
IM Set
6 Rounds - 100 on 2 Minutes followed by a 25.
I did a modified IM - 25 fly/25 back/ 50 breast then 1 25 rotating fly/back/breast. By the time I was in my breast rounds of the 25's I was feeling the wheels fall off the bus. So my 3rd 100 I did it IM and the 6th I did 50 fly/ 25 back/ 25 breast. (750/2050)
Then I just warmed down an easy 150 to round up the yardage to 2,200 yards.
Yesterday I did get some good gym time in with the noon time Group Ride (Spinning) followed by a quick run outside, 18 minutes on the Precor Crossramp (while watching the end of Days of Our Lives) then finished up with 30 minutes in another Group Ride class with my boss.
As for the run it really wasn't much. I wasn't feeling like going running so I had to force myself. I went into an area I hadn't been before. I really should map these out before I go outside running. I'm trying out a few alternate routes around the gym that have less traffic as the snowbirds return in mass in about a week. For the next month or two the population explodes around here and it has been already ramping up. My last time running I had to dodge a bit of traffic and it was frustrating. So I need to find the less busier and wider streets to go running.
Today I'll be taking Group Power at noon. Other then that it's all up in the air. Tomorrow I'll be skipping swimming as I have an early morning at work. But I'll get in a Group Ride tomorrow.
After yesterday's swim I headed to the gym for the noon time Group Ride. After the class it was time to run.
Just 3.92 miles. It wasn't the greatest run but felt better then my last run on Wednesday. I'm hoping to get another run in this weekend. This month I've run 16.5 miles. I was hoping to be at 20 miles by now. But whatever. I'm running for crosstraining not for any race right now.
This morning it was swim time. Quick workout. Had a 8am appointment to get my hair cut so had to cut short my swim.
Warmed up 400 swim / 200 Kick (600)
500 Breathing every 3 (500/1100)
3x200's on 3 Descending and Negative Split (600/1700)
3x50's easy warm down (150/1850)
Okay so it was a pretty bad slim. Too much wine and not enough sleep. Good thing I had to get going out of workout early. But at least I got a workout in. Today at noon will be Group Power so strength training before the weekend.
Yesterday after the 12pm Group Power Class I headed out for a short run. Nothing too long. Just a chance to be outside for a bit. I didn't really have a route planned so I sorta winged it. Not always a good idea for running. I ran over the street bridge and headed to the older section which I've never been before. I wasn't really in the mood to run and felt like crap while running. But I really need to cross train more with running.
This morning it was back in the pool time...
I sooo took my time jumping in the pool today. Talk about unmotivated. My warm up was a lazy stroll down the pool for 400 yards then 3x100's kick (1 fly / 1 back /1 breast) (700 warmup)
Main Set:
4 Rounds -
100 Catch Up Freestyle on 1:40
3x50's Switches on 55 (Fly/Back, Back/Breast, Breast/Free)
150 on 2:30 (50 Breast, 50 Back, 50 Fly)
Why so much breaststroke? I hate breaststroke! I screwed up the intervals more then once. During the 2nd round when the coach was talking to me. Then the last round cuz' math is hard! (1600/2300) Towards the end I was really hating on breaststroke. Kept thinking I should cheat during the damn horrible stroke. The whole workout I was having negative thoughts. Really wasn't a good workout for me this morning but I did fight the voices in my head and finished the set just the same.
Warmed down a 100 25 finger tip / 25 pull. (100/2400)
So 2,400 yards for the morning.