Wednesday, February 14, 2007

Decisions, decisions...

I know I promised that this week was all about the miles and no quality stuff. But last night was too perfect and I was feeling mighty frisky so I had to make a decision. Do I follow Hal's program and do my regular mid-week, medium-long run at an easy LSD effort? Or, do I do a shorter, speed workout and get some quality in this week? Medium-long run or speed work? Oh, the decisions that must be made.

Not being able to decide, I did a medium-long tempo run. The best of both worlds. 7 miles at ~10K effort. Man, did that feel good! Here are the stats:

Venue - Memorial Park loop
Total distance - 7.0 miles
Total time - 1:29:14
Splits - 12:51 / 13:08 / 12:55 / 12:39 / 12:45 / 12:30 / 12:23
Average pace - 12:45

Despite the quick(er) splits and the intention to kick it up a few notches, I was conversational the entire run. I was huffing a bit that last mile but finished strong, not gasping and bent over like a mile time trial or anything like that. It was just a good, hard run.

I had the good fortune of seeing Steve out there a couple of times. Glad Steve decided to come out. After the run, we made our way over to Bubba's for another well-attended Strider's meeting. When I say well-attended, I mean we pretty much filled every chair in the joint. A good time was had by all and the HRM lecture was just dandy. At the meeting, Steeeve announced that the Strider's are funding this nice, little project to install mile markers along the Terry Hershey trails. I say little project facetiously. It's actually thousands of dollars that the Striders are contributing to give back to the running community. The money for the project was raised from hosting the RRCA national convention last year. I'm so proud of my club and proud to be a Houston Strider.

18 comments:

Humble Runner said...

Are you freakin' serious? Seven miles at 12:45 pace. Dude, 2007 is truly going to be the "year of the Vic".

Junie B said...

What? Year of the Vic? I thought it was the Year of the Bling?

dang.

:)

Junie B said...

What? Year of the Vic? I thought it was the Year of the Bling?

dang.

:)

Steve Bezner said...

Good seeing you out there last night!

Now go wash your car windows!

(June is a Double Poster!)

TX Runner Mom said...

Woohoo, look at those splits! It was great to see you last night. Striders rock!!!!

Anonymous said...

That's one funky tempo run... But sweet splits!

J~Mom said...

What a Suuuhhhweeet run!!!!!! Awesome job!!!

Denise said...

Wowie Vic, you are getting speedy!! Keep up the awesome work!

Red said...

ZOOOOOOOOooooooooooom!

Pony and Petey said...

Hey Vic...I talked to the HR speaker afterwards and she said to take my "running so fast I can't talk" heart rate, add 20 beats to it and that's the max HR.

I knew from the Park2Park that I was at that point a bit after the start and knew to back off from there. (that's why I remember it!) My HR at that point was 203 so I put 225 as my max HR.

So then I went to my profile on Garmin, put in the different numbers on the zones until I had 50-60%, 60-70%, etc.

Did anyone take notes on what the different zones were and where you're supposed to train in each one? I was REALLY hungry by that point and wanted to eat more than I wanted to take notes. But now I'm wishing I'd taken notes! She said so many useful things and I'm quickly forgetting most of them = ( And I promised Pizza Man I'd take notes to report back to him since he had to miss the meeting...

I went to the website but there's nothing free to print out...

I do want to wear my monitor overnight and see what my heart rate does...that sounds cool! I'll be sure and report on my blog what the results are = ))

Pony

Pony and Petey said...

THANKS! That last website was exactly the information I was looking for!!

= ))

Anonymous said...

I'm totally serious when I ask this - why does it cost thousands of dollars to mark the miles at TH? I know the park is big, but there's something more to it than what I see.

Maybe they're doing something more than spray painting #'s on the asphalt....LOL!

Unknown said...

well, the mile markers are the really nice markers, like you would get from a stone engrave or something like that. I mean permenant markers, kind of like they have at Memorial park. So, you know how much gravestones and the such are. Well, it's that kind of quality, nice markers. And each one will be cemented permenantly into the trail so that's a lot of labor. I mean, it's an expensive project. Oh, and there will be markers every quarter mile for 9 miles of trails I think. So, that's at least 36 markers. So, if each engraved marker is $100-200, that's over $4000 just for the markers. Then you have to have them installed. Plus, the survey.

IronWaddler said...

NIce splits and a good run choice! Keep it up-we're on the way to the Pig!

Anonymous said...

Dang Vic, good recap on the markers. There will be 34 in all ranging from 8"x8" to 2'x2'. We're doing 9 miles of trail every 1/4 mile, from Hwy 6 to the Sam Houston Tollway plus the 2.15 mile loop. The mile markers are granite with a non-skid top. This is a guess, but in total they weigh about 1 1/2 tons. Yikes! They will be installed directly into the asphalt path on the opposite edge from the bayou. The Striders have made the material purchase - $5,000, and the city is funding the surveying and installation.

What a scoop - your blog gets the first public recap of this project!

Steeeve

L*I*S*A said...

Vic, you did a great job. I like how you combined both for a quality workout. :)

Steve Bezner said...

Dump the chron, go to Run4YourLife.

Hey Vic! You need to post something!

WalkSports.com said...

Can't speak for Roberta, but an e-mail with all the details is all it would take to get it both on the Chronicle "RunHouston" blog and in Footprints.