A Few More Steps

So I had to walk a few more steps this morning on the newly remeasured course. Kept it pretty easy, heart rate well under 150 bpm for most of the walk.

Mile 1 - 12:18
Mile 2 - 12:40
Mile 3 - 12:50
Average Pace - 12:36 minutes per mile
Total Workout - 37:49

Humm, just the other day I was thinking that I should be able to jump out of bed and walk 12 minute miles without even warming up--guess I'm not there just yet. Oh well, I'm still faster than I was just a couple of months ago and there's four months to go before the L.A. Marathon.

Re-measuring the Course

It wasn't as easy as I thought to re-measure the 3-mile course that I use for my daily walks, but I finally got through it. I put a steel measuring tape on the ground and checked the distance for one revolution of the bicycle wheel. Then I went out on the course and counted wheel rotations. On my first try I lost count a couple of times--probably because I was self-conscious I might look like the village idiot pushing a rusty bicycle around and counting to 754 and one quarter for each mile. I tried again after dark with one of Rosie's knitting counters.

If I measured it correctly this time, I wasn't too far off to begin with. In a way that was a disappointment because I thought that I was walking a longer course and that's why my time wasn't as good as the weekend long walks. As it turns out I have been walking a slightly shorter course all this time. It wasn't too big a discrepancy, about 30 yards. My first mile was about 50 yards short. The second mile, when adjusting for that 50 yard deficit in the first mile, was pretty much accurate. The last mile turned out to be about 20 yards longer than a mile. That explains why my mile pace kept getting slower all this time on those daily 3-mile walks.

Now I have new, hopefully more accurate, mile markers, but it looks like it will be even more difficult to hit a 12 minute per mile average because I've got to go a little further.

All in all, it was a rather disappointing Sunday. I started the day ready to do a long slow 26.2 miles. My nephew and I thought it would be great to go the marathon distance, at least that's what we wanted to do Saturday afternoon. However, he went out with a friend that night and came home with doubts about going the distance. Oh, well, I was willing to settle for a good 8-miles, but when he got up Sunday, even after the extra hour due to the time change, he wasn't feeling like doing even that, in fact he hasn't run for a couple of weeks now but doesn't want to see a doctor about his sore shins. That, and other things that kept piling up--Rosie's friend that slept in, my heel that was still patched up and a slight knee pain from yesterday's fast 800 meter repeats--and I finally threw in the towel. I ended up giving Rosie a short racewalking lesson. I only timed one mile of the lesson, 17 minutes. My heart rate didn't get close to any aerobic benefit zone but Rosie was huffing and puffing by the end of the workout. Now Rosie wants to spend more time walking with me so she can loose some weight and get fit. I guess I did the right thing by putting the family first today.

Now that we are on Standard Time, it won't be dark for my early morning walks--at least that's something to look forward to.

Speed Work with the Southern Cal Walkers

Whohoo--did some speed work today at Cal Tech with the Southern Cal Walkers. 800 meter repeats, here's how it went:

1st 800 meter time - 4:55
2nd 800 meter time - 5:28
3rd 800 meter time - 5:22

The fastest was about a 9:50 min/mile pace and the slowest was about a 10:56 min/mile pace. I don't think I could do a whole mile at the fastest pace, but the second repeat was feeling like my 12 min/mile long walk speed yet I was over a minute per mile faster. The last repeat I was concentrating more on form and was a little faster with about the same effort.

Of course we did a full set of warm up drills before and stretched afterwards.

Now I'm convinced that the course I marked around the block is way off so my weekend project will be to measure it. Maybe sometime in the future I'll get a GPS system like the one of the Garmin Forerunner systems, but for now I'll do it the "official" cheapskate method by counting revolutions of a bicycle wheel.

Time to Remeasure the Course

In my dissapointment at not reaching a 12 minute per mile average pace yesterday I forgot to note that it was a new PR for the daily walk. I edited that today. However, there was another dissapointment today--I tried again for a 12 minute per mile average and did even worse!

Mile 1 - 11:42
Mile 2 - 12:25
Mile 3 - 13:01
Average Pace - 12:22
Total Workout - 37:08

I started out even faster than yesterday and tried to maintain the same steady pace on the second mile but was way slower. I used the last mile as a cool down but sprinted the last 300 meters.

So why is it that I can walk 8 miles at a 12 min/mi pace but can't do it for 3 miles? The mile markers must be off. I searched the Internet and found several expensive measuring devices but then I came accross a couple of documents explaining how "official" road races are measured--they use a bicycle wheel. Sure, the official way is to use a wheel revolution counter, specifically a Jones-Oerth counter, but counting wheel rotations and calculating the distance should get a fairly accurate measurement. At least it will be better than the odometer on my car because I'll be measuring the sidewalk instead of the street.

One more thing--I've been trying to do strength training at least a couple of days per week. I did it today and on Wednesday when I walked my fastest mile--but was it really a mile?

Still Not Reaching New Standard

Today was the "easy" 3 mile walk. My heel is feeling better, though I still am using a pad on it and wearing heel-less clogs to work.

Mile 1 - 11:44
Mile 2 - 12:06
Mile 3 - 12:16
Average Pace - 12:02 minutes per mile * New PR
Total Workout - 36:07

Almost got my pace to 12 min/mi but the consistantly slower miles are concerning me. I'm thinking that maybe I haven't measured the course accurately.

Closing in on a 10 Minute Mile

My heel is feeling better so I once again tried for a fast mile followed by some strength training--this time I succeeded.

10:09 minute/mile * New PR by 46 seconds

That's a big improvement on the last PR mile walked two weeks ago.

I'm almost up to the speed I was running when I had to stop due to knee problems. Although I didn't post it when I started racewalking because I thought it was ridiculous, one of my goals is to walk under a 10 minute mile. I couldn't seem to be able to do it running. Now I'm almost there--walking.

There were some lessons learned this morning. One thing is that the Band-Aid Advanced Healing Blister pads hang on much better than the Dr. Scholl's Blister Treatment pads I used yesterday. Another thing is that Body Glide on the heels works better than plain petroleum jelly. Finally, I must be dropping some girth because the heart rate monitor strap is feeling a little loose. Before starting the walk the monitor was reading 195 bmp which was obviously wrong so I had to restart it. Then about 200 meters into the walk the chest band slipped down and I had to pull it up. In addition, the monitor was reading over 210 bpm, but that was impossible. By the time I finished the mile it was reading 178 bpm so I guess things eventually settled during the workout.

Goals for the next few weeks:

• Finish the long (20+ mile) walk without blisters - don't care too much how fast I go.


• Break the 10 minute mile barrier.


• Walk under 12 minute/mile for the 8 mile long walk.

Heel Still Not Healed

I headed out this morning after taking Monday off. I wanted to do a fast mile and strength training but my heel was still hurting so I just walked a very easy three miles instead. The first couple of miles I kept my heartrate at around 148 bpm and did pretty good time considering that I was 20 bpm less than Sunday's long distance. By the last mile my heal was a bit sore so I took it even easier.

Here are the results:

Mile 1 - 12:42
Mile 2 - 12:49
Mile 3 - 13:41
Average Pace - 13:04 minutes/mile
Total Workout - 39:13

Just a few weeks ago I would have been so happy with a 13 min/mile pace. How things have progressed--now it feels like a stroll around the neighborhood.

I'll be glad when my right heel stops bothering me. I don't want to patch it up for my daily walks. I've been wearing heel-less clogs to work to keep the pressure off--don't know what else to do to hurry up the healing process.