Quick 200s with Henry (and Upcoming Race!)

I recently posted about doing 400s with Henry, and we hit the track again this week for some quick 200s. We are doing a 1-mile race tomorrow!

Here's Henry in the distance finishing up his 2nd 200:

A few intervals later.


10x200... nothing fancy or too hard.


Turkeys on my cooldown jog home.

Henry did 8 and I did 10 (all with about 0:45 rest, so pretty snappy). Mine we all 0:34.x or 0:35.x with the last one being 0:33.5. Henry started around 0:38, but got some down around 0:35 like me! They weren't meant to be KILLER, but just some fast sprints for our legs to remind them how to run fast for the 1 mile tomorrow.

Speaking of the 1 mile... I'm pretty sure I'm looking down the barrel of a PW ("personal worst"). I set my personal worst at the 1 mile distance last year at this race (5:04), and between a glute injury in January and a calf injury in April, I'm NOT feeling ANYWHERE near my best. My training has been decent (meaning I've been getting in my workouts), but they haven't been fast since December. I've noticed that as I age, I REALLY need to have SOLID AND CONSISTENT training to get fast (like I did all of 2024 where I set a few lifetime PRs as a 43 year old). I've been getting in the workouts, but I'm only slowly getting my speed back. That "build up" is taking longer and longer as I get older. But I'm actually OK with all of that. I know I won't be "as fast as I'd LIKE to be" forever, and I may have started my "old age slowdown." That's 100% OK. I'm not "in it to win it" all the time, but just to enjoy my fitness. We'll see if I can hold off a PW tomorrow, but I'm 80% sure that I'll be the slowest I've ever been at a mile. And that's OK.

I don't know what to expect for the race, but I'm thinking my first half will be about the same as last year's (where my 1/4 mile Garmin splits were 1:12, 1:17, 1:16, 1:14, and an extra 0:02 to the finish line). I think ideally, I'd run 1:13-1:14, then see if I can keep split #2 at 1:17 or under, and then just suffer for the rest. The final 2 splits will really be the race. We'll see what it holds.

Henry is pretty sure he'll beat last year's time of 6:01, but not set a PR (from track season of 5:26). And same with Charlie: he ran a 7:32 last year and hopes to break that, but he won't crack his track PR of 6:52 (set in May in a "city league" track meet).

I hope to be back with a race report shortly!

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400 Repeats with Henry

Last week, Henry and I hit the track together for some 400s. He was not excited.

I waited for him to get up, so I pushed back my normal start time by about 2 hours. So it was hotter and sunnier on the track. We decided to use the 200 meter mark for our start/finish because it was in the shade (I'd never done that before on the St. Thomas track). I planned to do 3x(4x400) with 60 sec between 400s and 3:00 between sets, but figured after the first 4 that I would quit early. I didn't want to overdo anything on my calf that I'm still nursing back from an injury. So did 4, 4, then only 2.

I had Henry just do 8 intervals (2 sets of 4 intervals) because that feels a lot easier. So we took off together knowing that I would be slowly starting subsequent intervals before him.

I ran a slower 1:18 to start, but then the rest of my "first set" were all 1:14. I was trying to work hard. Here's what I ran:

1:18.8
1:14.2
1:14.3
1:14.2

1:15.6
1:14.5
1:14.6
1:12.3

1:14.8
1:12.7

Sure, it would have been NICE to get in 12 and not just 10, but at least I did a few in that 3rd set - those final 2 hurt.

Here's a pic of Henry finishing one of his middle intervals:

Ready on the watch, ready to hit the line.

He was faster than I thought he would be! I does NOT like running hard, but he knows it helps him to get faster. He had just ran some 200s at 0:45 each with his cross country teammates (that's 6:00 / mile pace for 200s, which is NOT fast for high school boys). So I wondered if he could keep up that same pace for 400s... so I told him his goal was to try to hit 1:30 for his 400s. His first 400 was 1:24! I think all of them were about 1:22 through 1:27, with him dying a bit more on his last one that was 1:29. That's not bad for someone still learning pacing!

Now I'll see if I can get him to the track with me with any sort of regularity. I was making sure I was nothing but positive with him while he was out there! (Which was easy because he TRULY was doing well.) He really did NOT like working that hard, but I hope he knows how helpful these hard workouts are for his cross country speed!

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Semi-Wordless Wednesday: Henry's Training for a 5K

My whole family ran "Get in Gear" this past weekend, and Henry had the best training leading up to it. Here are 2 pics from an early April training run in the snow:

Spotted a bald eagle over the Mississippi!


Running along Town and Country Club in the snow!

And then about a week ago, I took him on his final training run pre-race:

Nearly the same spot as the photo above (same tree on the left, just a different angle).


We scared up a turkey along the RR tracks near I-94.

He knew he wasn't going to PR (well, I also knew I wasn't going to PR, but I ended up surprising myself...), but he turned in a solid time! His PR from last fall is 22:15, and he ran a 22:45 on Saturday! Nice work Henry!

Oh, and I don't have any pics of him, but Charlie PRed on Saturday! His old PR was just over 30 mins, but he ran a 28:02 at Get in Gear!

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Semi-Wordless Wednesday: a Stroller Running Anniversary!

12 years ago was my FIRST run with Henry!

And he ran a 6:12 mile this past weekend!!

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Upcoming 5K Thoughts: Henry and Me!

Henry and I are racing the Brian Kraft 5K coming up shortly! He's put in some work this spring. Nearly 2 weeks ago, I took him on his 2nd longest run ever: he'd went on basically a 10K run with my wife early this spring, and 2 weeks ago he did 5 miles with me.

About 2 miles in, along River Parkway.


Crossing the Franklin Ave Bridge.


Running on the MPLS side of the river.


Pointing out the bald eagle nest that I always check on during my runs.
The arrow is pointing to a bald eagle peeking up from their nest.


Crossing back towards home across the Lake/Marshall Bridge.

He started by running 9:00 miles, and slowed down to around 10:00s by the end. He did 5.0 miles in 47:35, which includes a walk-break (I kept the time running).

Then last weekend, he wanted to do intervals on the track. I took him for 8x200 with 2:00 rest between. We had no time goals, but just to run hard for a few laps. He ran the first one in 0:47, and then mis-hit something on his watch and guessed that his 2nd was 0:41. "I don't know Henry... I don't think we can assume it was suddenly THAT much faster" I told him. But then the next one was 0:41... and the next 2 were 0:40! He was dropping time!

Here were his 8 splits from his 200s:

47, 41, 41, 40, 40, 38, 41, 38

= 40.75 sec average.

And he looked like he was FLYING the whole time:

As far as my recent training: I had a pretty NON-confidence boosting long run this week. It was just after a thunderstorm, and it was a bit humid... which I've learned zaps my speed. My "normal" long run is 11-12 miles with the middle 6 harder, and I said from the start that I was just going to do 5 miles harder so they could be faster. Well, those miles weren't any faster. Earlier this month, I had my best long run ever with those 6 harder miles at 6:04 pace. This last long run, I was only able to muster up 6:15 pace for 5 miles. Dang.

How do we hope to do at the race?

Henry hopes to shoot for a PR again! He ran a 22:50 at last month's 'Get in Gear' 5K, but he noted that he ran with another kid who really pulled him well. So he's not sure how well he'll do without a "race buddy" to help pace him. (That's decent insight!)

After I PRed a 5 mile and a 10K last month, I can honestly say that I'm NOT PLANNING TO PR THIS 5K!! I ran this race PERFECTLY last year (and on a nearly perfect morning to race), and if I race well coming up, I COULD beat that time (which was 17:29). But I have no goals of hitting my PR of 17:11 from when I was in my 20s. I don't have any specific goals: I don't need to hit XX:XX pace for the first half mile, don't hope to negative or positive split, and I don't really have any specific finish time goals. I'd LIKE to go sub 17:30 again, but I'm just really going to try to race hard and suffer a lot and see how I do.

Back with a dual race report soon!

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Week of Biking: Two Good Trainer Rides and Three Short Rides to Work

My 2 "normal" bike workouts of last week were good ones! It's been about 4 weeks since having 2 better/longer bike rides in 1 week.

On THURSDAY, I wasn't really planning on doing much, but I ended up kicking it into gear and doing 4x10 min efforts for a total of 95 mins of trainer riding. My efforts were just a normal "hard" effort, a standing effort, a descending effort (starting in an easier gear and shifting to a harder one every 2 mins), and ending with an "alternating" effort (alternating standing and seated every 2 mins). My heart rate looked like this:

The 3rd descending effort is very visible, but I don't know what happened in the 4th alternating effort.

On FRIDAY, I hit the track for some 800s and 400s between these 2 trainer rides. Whew... I guess it was a solid 3-day stretch of workouts!

Because then on SATURDAY, I hit the trainer for another longer ride (100 mins). Henry ran on the treadmill next to me for a while (shoot... I should have snapped a father/son selfie!), so I had a longer warm-up as we chatted and watched the start of a newer Home Alone movie. I did shorter efforts for this workout: 9x3 min efforts with 2 mins easy between. The efforts were just generically "hard," another hard effort, standing, descending to a harder gear every min, hard, alternating mins of standing and seated, standing, hard, and standing.

Besides those 2 trainer rides, I also biked to work THREE times last week on my mountain bike as I've been doing for a few months. I biked on my 2 normal teaching days, and then again on Friday (after my intervals on the track) to do some grading before finals.

And all 3 of those rides to work had just a LITTLE more tacked on the end as I had extra time, so in total I had 34.5 miles biked outside on my mountain bike as well as 3 hours and 15 mins of trainer time between 2 longer workouts. Nice bike week! (For December! And for me!)

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Two Track Workouts: Nasty 200s, and some 800s and 400s

Two weeks ago, I posted about 2 speed workouts: one on a treadmill in Italy, and then one 2 weeks later once I got home and things were a bit back to normal. The Italy workout was 3 miles HARD, and then I ran a ladder workout on our local track on the 18th: intervals of 1 lap, 2 laps, 3, 4, 3, 2, and 1.

After those "longer" workouts, it was time to do something shorter. So 10 days ago, I did 16x200 done 4x(4x200) with 200 jogging between the 200 meter reps, and 3:00 of rest between the sets of 4. I did the same workout back in late June to help prep for the Raspberry Run 1 Mile in mid-July. I was well aware that I'd PROBABLY be slower now as I didn't have a speedy goal sitting on the horizon to keep me extra motivated.

My first set of four 200s was a bit slower than back in June: 0:35.80 in June, and 0:36.45 now (0:00.65 slower). And my 2nd set of four 200s was a bit slower too: 0:34.23 in June, and 0:34.75 now (0:00.52 slower).

And I just kept slowing down. In my 3rd set, I felt like one interval was really easy (my 10th 200), but it was because I turned in my slowest split since the 1st set at 35.4 sec. Oops. Damn. My 3rd set of four 200s averaged 0:33.73 in June, and was 0:34.60 now (0:00.87 slower). And I was was more than a second slower in my final set: 0:33.23 in June, and 0:34.50 now (0:01.27 slower - ouch).

Not great splits, but a solid workout.

Nice and early at the track!


Four ladies joined me near the middle of my workout.


I HATE standing around in the sun, so this shows the sun just
starting to creep down to me as my workout finished. I made it! :)


Four sets of (200 HARD, 200 jogging) with rest between the sets. Pretty obvious.


Most of my efforts ended in the 4:2x pace area.


Half lap fast, half lap easy.

---

Then I hit the track again last week for 4 x (800 meters then 400 meters) with 2:00 rest between all. I did this workout back in May and hoped I was faster now.

Lots of stuff on the track for new student orientation-related things.


Henry came with and did sprints on the infield for soccer!

Here's what I ran compared to my splits back in May:

1:20, 1:21 = 2:41.6 (0.9 sec faster)
1:14.9 (1.2 sec slower)
1:18, 1:19 = 2:37.4 (2.8 sec faster)
1:13.9 (1.0 sec faster)
1:17, 1:17 = 2:34.6 (3.1 sec faster)
1:14.1 (0.7 sec slower)
1:16, 1:15 = 2:32.4 (3.2 sec faster)
1:12.8 (0.2 sec faster)

So the 400s were similar, but the 800s got faster quickly! As I was a few intervals from the end, I noted to Henry that I felt like they were fast and now I was just trying to "hold on" and keep posting some good times (I didn't know my splits from the time before, but I recalled the 800s average around 2:40). I was happy with this! That final 2:32 might be my fastest 800 interval in years.

800, 400, 800, 400, 800, 400, 800, and 400. Yep.


All fast laps. (Different than the 200s from the week before.)


They had been doing minor track repairs, and we found the "tub" of purple
rubbery bits just off the track. They were warm, and Henry loved digging through it.

Between these nice track workouts and some great long runs recently, I'm really hoping to have some good fall races!

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Henry's First Interval Workout!

I hit the track WITH HENRY last week for intervals! He wants to get faster for soccer, so he came with me, put on his cleats, and did some sprints on the football field:

Pre-interavals.


Poop on the track. We avoided this.


Henry doing 12x100 yard sprints while I ran on the track!

I know, I know... 100 yard sprints is still quite long for soccer speed. But Henry has lots of endurance, so this was still a short/hard workout for him. We can shorten the length of these in the future, but it was a good workout for him! He was shooting for 10, but then felt like he had a little more, so he added in 2 more "all out." He had a watch going, but I told him he should mainly use it to focus on his rest time (which was 90 sec). In the end, he said his intervals were 15-25 secs. (I'm not sure what to think about FIFTEEN, but I didn't question him.)

While he was there, I did the 4x800 then 4x400 workout I did up by Lake Superior about 2 months ago (with 2:00 rest between the 800s, and 90 sec rest between the 400s). That time, I did it on a trail without a track (with my Garmin taking 1/4 mile and 1/2 mile splits for me), but this time I was on a track. When I was done, my workout looked like this:

Close-up of getting water and walking between intervals.

Here's what I did:

1:18.9 + 1:18.8 = 2:37.7
1:17.0 + 1:17.7 = 2:34.7
1:16.3 + 1:17.1 = 2:33.4
1:19.0 + 1:17.5 = 2:36.5 (dying on this one!)

1:13.1
1:15.2
1:14.9
1:13.0

800 ave: 2:35.56
400 ave: 1:14.05

That was about 0.7 sec slower/800, and about 0.5 sec slower/400 than when I did it in early June. It's harder to run FAST when you don't have a specific race in mind! I did these 800s and 400s and 200s on the track in June and July to be ready for the Raspberry Run 1 Mile, but I find it really hard to push with no race on the horizon.

Pooped at 3 in the afternoon after intervals followed by day camp. :)

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Semi-Wordless Wednesday: Mountain Biking in Minneapolis

A few days ago, my boys and I mountain biked around Theo Wirth. I was wondering what they'd think after we spent a few days in Cuyuna State Park mountain biking last month:

On the border with Golden Valley.


Finding our way to the trails.


On the trails!




Tackling some skills!






On the paved trail back - Henry's practicing no hands.


Here's what we did.


Same map, but labeled.

We covered over 9 miles that day! The boys loved it.

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Semi-Wordless Wednesday: First Outdoor Runs and Rides

As I mentioned in Monday's Hot Dash 5K race report, that race was only my 2nd outdoor run in MN in 2023. Three days before that, I headed out in a 37 degree rain at 5:45 a.m.:

Nothing fancy.

I had my race on Saturday, and then the boys biked 8 miles or so with my wife (as she ran) on Sunday:

On the Franklin Ave Bridge.


The boys took a running break on the Greenway.


Biking back home across the Lake / Marshall Bridge.

Then just because they needed to "get some squirrels out" on Monday evening, I took the boys for a quick ride down by the river:

Along West River Road.




We spotted 15 turkeys total. Here are a few from a group of 10.


An easy ride with the fellas.


Faster down to the river, but slower everywhere else.

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