May 2013 – end of month running report

Summer arrived early in Virginia Beach. The humid days are here! It’s pretty much impossible to avoid the heat so I haven’t really changed my running schedule. I gear up and head out whether or not it’s sunburn territory. So much for moderating my summer tan.

May was harder than April, because I pretty much stopped cross-training. I think it’s had a significant (detrimental) impact on my recovery period and it’s been more challenging than usual to convince myself to squeeze in the weekly speedwork. It doesn’t help that the air feels sticky all day.

Here’s what worked:

• Eating beans and legumes is just as good as Whey Protein, which makes me pretty happy.
• Doing more easy runs than scheduled is not bad for my training.
• Doing Short Tempo Intervals is excellent prep work for long tempos.
• Steady State runs helped me add just a bit more speed instead of my usual Easy Runs.

Here’s what didn’t work:

• My 10 x 15sec sprint work lacked structure and it compromised my running form. I was just running as fast as I could to hit top speed, but either didn’t recover enough between each sprint or I was reaching too much in each interval. So I’m switching it to cruise intervals.
• Cutting out cross-training was a massive fail. It certainly wasn’t intentional, but I definitely need to bring it back to keep myself out of injury. My right knee has been bugging me lately, I occasionally feel my shins, and my legs just feel out of shape.

We had a crazy busy month with Smashrun in May. We finally pushed out some major backend changes to alleviate the rapid growth of our database. It required a lot of meticulous data testing, cross-checking and gathering more test files, evaluating data integrity of files generated by different apps and devices, and fine tuning features for PRO.

We also released Garmin integration! YAAAAY! It was a long time coming. 8 months? Maybe 1,000 hours of work? Actually, probably more. We’re super super proud of it.

I also put together a run tracking 101 page for runners that don’t really use apps or devices and an app finder section for those who are keen to give them a go. I’m proud of those too.

Anyway, my overall impression of my running progress in May rests heavily on what happened on the 30th, when I ran a Cooper Test. It estimated a VO2max of 45 ml/kg/min. It also placed by fastest mile (although certainly not my fastest mile split) this year at 7:25 min/mi (5:16 min/km). I feel pretty good about those. I’m gonna resume my cardio circuits and I need to figure out some sort of strength work for my legs, but otherwise … if I can keep up with the heat waves we’re about to get in June, I should be able to maintain my speed.