Intervals and a Long Run

After some heel pain after a hilly run, I wasn't sure if my next runs would go OK, but it held up for 6x800 with 2:00 rest on the track. It was drizzling (FINALLY SOME RAIN during that heat wave two weeks ago) and I wasn't sure if my body was going to hold up, so I just did some basic 800s.

Wet track. Early and a bit dark yet.

My first one was normally slow, and then I was happy that #2 and #3 were getting faster. I couldn't hold on to the descend, but I was happy I ran them well and ran out of steam perfectly in the final few:

1:22 + 1:20 = 2:42.6
1:19 + 1:19 = 2:38.4
1:19 + 1:18 = 2:37.4 (happy I was descending yet!)
1:19 + 1:19 = 2:38.9 (lost the descend)
1:19 + 1:19 = 2:39.2
1:18 + 1:20 = 2:38.9

Average: 2:39.23 / 800

So my heel held up, but it wasn't 100%. I was glad it made it through the intervals, but didn't know if it would hold up on upcoming workouts.

My heel was still a bit sore and achy all weekend, but I tried to take it easy and baby my calf. We went up to a rented cabin a few hours north of the cities with family, and I stretched and rolled when I could. I headed out on a long run 3 days after those intervals and I wasn't sure if my calf would hold up. So instead of doing 11+ miles as running "out" for 5.5 and "back" for 5.5 (where if something hurt half-way through, I'd be stuck 5 miles from home), I first looped around a neighborhood before jumping on the paved trail 3 miles into my run ready to start some harder miles.

Sun coming up on my warm-up.


The paved trail is nice, but boring.


Half-mile splits. I got in a 2.5 mile warm-up as a loop to the
east, then a hard out-and-back from splits 5 through 17.

Pretty obviously, the line between split #11 and split #19 was the nice, flat, boring trail.

My leg held up! And my speed was decent!! I didn't have a major descend in my splits like I often do at home, so I was happy I kept it harder from the start. My half-mile splits were decently consistent: 3:06, 3:09, 3:04, 3:04, 3:05, 3:08, 3:02, 3:01, 2:58, 3:03, 3:00, 2:59 = 36:45 for 6 miles (6:07.5 pace).

Back with more vacation workouts shortly!!

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Starting, Pausing, and Re-Starting TC 10 Mile Training (with a Hilly Moderate Run)

As I mentioned at the bottom of my post about a run with a CRAZY HIGH dew point, I have (loosely) started training for the 2026 TC 10 Mile. I tried to kick that off a week ago with a hilly moderate run... a training run I remember having from Coach Jen as I was leading up to the 2010 TC 10 Mile where I PRed with 59:05. I hadn't looked back on my training from that year (or from 2024 where I used a similar version of those training runs) partly because Beginner Triathlete stopped hosting training logs and it's much harder for me to look up old workouts again. But I knew I had a hilly mid-week run in my first week of training.

I looped around some hilly areas between my house and the river:

Same map, but showing arrows pointing UPhill.


Up and down all the time.


Turkeys on my run - mama had a bad limp!

Normally, my easy mid-week runs are around 5.5 to 6 miles with less than 200 feet of elevation change:

A mid-week run from a few weeks back.

But this run was of "normal" length but 2.5x hillier:

Just an easy/moderate run like this made my left calf feel very odd for a few days. I thought I did a basic training run that ended up canceling my 10 Mile training just as it was starting.

But it held up for some intervals 2 days later, and after taking it easy all weekend, it held up for a decent long run the following Monday! Whew! So I need to look back at those old training plans and see if I can re-start some training workouts from back then. But back with a bit about those intervals and that long run shortly.

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A Gross PR: Highest Dew Point While Running

My last long run was HORRIBLE.

I came down stairs just before sunrise, and there was condensation on our front porch windows. I'd NEVER seen that before in the nearly 20 years we've lived in this house:

The dining room windows were COVERED too.

I knew it would be a thick run. And slow.

I opened the door and was SLAPPED with the humidity. I'd never felt that before. It was 6 a.m. and 80 degrees, with a "feel like" temp of 90 already THAT early in the morning:

I felt OK on my warm-up. Actually quite good. But I followed a set of foot prints for a MILE that were wet. If you walk through damp grass, you might leave a few foot prints. If you jumped in a pool fully clothed, you would leave a few more foot prints. But to leave a track for a mile means you are producing a lot of your own fluid! I hope this guy survived!

These 2 photos are about a half-mile apart!

I cut my run a little short (10 miles instead of 11.5, and only 4 harder miles instead of shooting for 5 [and normally doing 6]), and made a point to test myself mentally every now and then to make sure my brain was still functioning and it wasn’t crossing into a dangerous zone. (If my brain started to act up, would I still have enough brain power to recognize that my brain was acting up? That was my concern!) At mile 9 (which was 1 mile from home), I first started to get a little confused, and was glad I was nearly done. (I expected a major landmark on my normal long run route to be 0.05 miles BEFORE mile 9, but it was 0.05 miles AFTER, and I couldn’t figure it out until I was done running. ALL of my landmarks were after each mile after my turnaround on this run, but at mile 9, I got that mixed up and didn’t know what was happening.) Lost a few good brain cells that morning, but I survived.

I got home and saw the weather on the morning news: we nearly broke a dew point record that morning, with our dew point being 81° before sunrise. The all-time recorded high in Minnesota is a dew point of 82°.

For reference.


From the National Weather Service. WILD.

Here's where I took off my shorts:

I don't wish to do another run like that in a while...

p.s. Here's a post from 2 years ago talking about dew point vs humidity.

p.p.s. I've loosely started (specific) TC 10 Mile training, and this run was the first official run. Not a good start...

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Weight-Loss Long Run!

My last "normal" long run was 12 days ago... I skipped my run earlier this week because of the Raspberry Run 1 Mile. It was a bit sticky, and I knew it was going to be a sweaty one... but hopefully NOT as bad as my last long run at the end of June where my heart rate SPIKED.

I happened to weigh myself before the run. I was 160.0 lbs.

Then I drank a lot of water before my run. And I stopped for 3 drinks during my run. All-in-all, I figure that I drank about 1.5+ lbs of water (that would be drinking 6 oz of water each time, and that's being conservative as it was probably more). Here's the pace chart of my run, and you can see the 3 times I got a drink during my run (in red), along with when I turned around (in blue):

Because it was warm, I only did 5 "harder" miles instead of my normal 6, but I was OK with that. Here's my route with half-mile splits, and I ran harder at split 5 and then eased up at split 16 (and then actually walked for a moment to split 17):

After weighing 160.0 lbs before my run and drinking 1.5 to 2 lbs of water during my run (meaning I should be 161.5 to 162.0 lbs), I weighed 156.4 lbs after my run. I had sweated out 5+ lbs of fluid during my run!!

But I felt fine. Again, it wasn't nearly as sticky and horrible as the run a few weeks ago. Ready for some cooler weather!! We had a few cooler days this week, but now it's back to being hot.

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1-Mile Race Photos

I haven't found any race photos of me (or my boys) from the Raspberry Run 1 Mile last weekend, but I am BARELY visible in this start line photo:

See the tall guy near the left? He slowly passed me early in the race, and then he's one of the guys I gained on as I mentioned near the end of my race report. If you look closely, you can see my forehead next to him. Here's a close-up:

100% me! Really!

Here are a few more photos from Twin Cities Track Club and ThinkHopkins on Facebook:

Heading to the finish, with 5-mile walkers finishing up ahead.
(And the firetruck spray visible off in the distance.)


Many of the leaders. I'd be back there. A ways back there.


Battle for lead female!!


The smaller "wave 1b" full of 50+ year old USATF runners that took off just 3 mins after us.


And then the BIG wave 2 full of EVERYONE! (Including my boys.)




Fun in the water after the race!






A big parade after the race!


We saw this clown after the race!




A creepy raspberry.

Again, here's my "Raspberry Run 1 Mile" race report if you missed it. I did a LOT better than I thought I would! (I mean, like 10 seconds better, but that feels like a lot to me!)

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RACE REPORT: Raspberry Run 1 Mile

This race report starts with the air quality issues from a few days ago. I didn't sign up right away because the northern MN / Canadian wildfires made our air look (and smell and taste) like this:

Pic from my bike ride on Thursday morning...


... when it SHOULD look like this.

Charlie and I were fishing in the Mississippi River on Thursday afternoon and things were fine:

We literally got home after this and the air had started to stink. It moved in LIKE THAT.

On Thursday, I checked the "air quality forecast" (which I never knew was a thing), and it showed this for Thursday, Friday, and Saturday:

"Hazardous" on Thursday with the worst air quality reading IN THE WORLD in Mpls.


... but clearing out in the next few days. Phew!

The day before the race, we had a quinceanera where I had 5 tacos, 6 taquitos, and a lot of cake:

The night before the race, some of the wildfire smoke moved its way back in again. It wasn't NEARLY as bad as Thursday, but it was a little hazy and smelly again. It was that way for the race too, but luckily I have no lung issues.

My boys and I got to the race site, and the porta potty we first found had no toilet paper. But then I spotted this one off in the distance...

Like a beacon shining in the night.


... and it had TOILET PAPER!!!


A final pre-race photo with my fellas before heading to the start!!

In my pre-race post, I noted that I was 80% sure that I'd set a "personal worst" of slower than 5:04. I figured I had a 3% chance to break 5:00... that was NOT the goal. It was to see how close to 5:00 I could get. It was hot, my training hasn't felt great, and I didn't get in many short, hard, "1-mile specific" track workouts. I told my boys that I was concerned what my 2nd and 4th 1/4 mile splits would be: would I ease up too much after the opening split? And then would I be dying in the final split?

I lined up and chatted with Brooks G as my boys waited off to the side for their wave to start 10 minutes later. "Love you Dad!" said Charlie with about 30 seconds to go.

"ON YOUR MARKS...." [airhorn noises]

I took off DECENTLY fast on the right side. The 1/4 mile markers were on the right, and I wanted to see if they were going to line up with my Garmin (set to take auto-splits ever 1/4 mile) to see if I'd be running an extra few seconds to get to the finish after my Gamin said it had been a mile. I really didn't know what pace I was running, and I was ready to see ANYTHING on my Garmin at the 1/4 mile mark...

• FIRST 1/4 MILE: 1:10.5. "WHAT?!? 70 seconds?!? Am I going to DIE before the finish!??"

That was fast. I was instantly concerned about "crashing and burning" before the finish, but I still felt OK, so I was going to hold on for this ride.

• SECOND 1/4 MILE: 1:14.8. "2:25 at the halfway mark? NEVER thought I would see that today!!"

I was "on pace" to hit 4:50, but I knew I wasn't GOING to hit 4:50 as I didn't have another 1:10 and 1:14 left in me. But I did start to believe that I could maybe break 5:00! Which was INSANE. I didn't feel like I was giving back much time, and I was sticking with the same crew since about the 1/8 mile mark. It was time to hold on and see what this 3rd 1/4 mile split was going to be...

• THIRD 1/4 MILE: 1:15.1. "I have a REAL shot at breaking 5:00! Keep it strong!!!"

It was at this race 2 years ago where I crashed and burned HARD in the final 1/4 mile, so I was aware of what that feels like. And I was NOT doing that at this race! I was hurting, I was maybe giving back a LITTLE time, but I was feeling good about what I was doing! And I was actually slowly GAINING on the small pack in front of me!

• FOURTH 1/4 MILE: 1:14.9. "Just another second to the line! Sub-5 is happening!!"

I ran another 1.4 seconds to the finish, and saw 4:56 on my Garmin!

OFFICIAL RESULTS:

Steve Stenzel, M, 45, St. Paul

4:56

44 out of 128 overall (USATF wave)
3rd in 45-49 age group (USATF wave)
42 out of 85 men (USATF wave)

Unofficially, looking at both waves:
54 out of 609 total
3rd in 45-49 age group (1st master in all of the 2nd wave)

My unofficial Garmin 1/4 mile splits.


Started fast, then held on! (I don't believe my HR... I'm sure it was climbing.)


USATF wave results.

I don't know how I did that. Seriously. It was 90 degrees and a little humid with the smell of wildfires in the air. I've felt a bit burnt out and overtrained for months, and I've rarely had a "good" training run. My track times were nothing great over the last few weeks. I didn't plan on going out that hard, but I did... and then I held on. I had a little hope of turning in a decent time at the 1/2 way point, felt like I was able to go sub-5 at the 3/4 mark, and then didn't feel horrible in the final 1/4 mile. Happy to be 45 years old and crank out another sub-5!

My wife and I headed out for a little shopping, drinks, and dessert that evening to celebrate our 23rd wedding anniversary:

At "Crave" at MOA.




We were at MOA because the boys had a fencing team party there.
So our date was there only because we had to get our boys there.

Time to rest my legs for a few days. Then back to TC 10 Mile training! I'm not going to follow my old coach's training plan like I did in 2024, but I might look at some workouts and throw in a few "different" training workouts that I'm not used to.

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