Music Saturday

It seems like everyone has been posting about their favorite playlists lately, either for running or not. Betsy posted some rockin tunes last week, and TK often posts her playlists at the end of a post about her run. I could have sworn there were more people out there posting about music, but I can't find them now so you're out of luck.

I was rocking out to my favorite playlist today while in the shower (runners high always sets in when I'm hitting the shower so I like to dance it out while I get clean) and one of my fave running songs came one "Human" by the Killers. It gave me the idea to post my own Super Running Playlist. It probably needs a few updates because I haven't used it since the fall, but this playlist rocks my interval-running world. I don't care for running intervals with my watch beeping away at me, and I can't hear my watch over my music, so I decided to make my own interval playlist.

It's a tough workout which consists of a Warmup song, a pickup song and then goes right into 2 "ON" songs. One recovery song is followed by 2 "on" songs and DAMN it kicks your ass. Many of the "on" intervals are nearly 8 mins long. There are a few songs tacked on the end of the list that haven't been worked in yet. I usually make it to "Lose Yourself" and then cool down. I didn't have my Garmin last summer but I mapped it to be about an 11 mile speed workout. I consider this workout to be my secret weapon that led me to those trophy winning races last summer and fall :)

I love to do this workout starting at home, running the ~3.5 miles north to Van Cortland Park and then running on the flats there. Ahh just thinking about it makes me excited for the summer. There are often so many people out enjoying the weather and walking/running/riding on the track and lots more playing sports on the fields. Its a wonderful thought! I used to grab a giant gatorade from a bodega and drag my ass up the stairs to the 1 train at 242nd all sweaty and completely wiped. My trusty blue shuffle stays tucked away in my pocket or clipped to my shorts for the ride.

Here she is, my secret weapon playlist:

#1-2 are warmup songs, #3-4 are the first "on" songs

Happy Running :)

Tuesday night speed

I did it to myself again.. I subjected myself to one of "SpeedySasquatch"'s speed workouts last night. The last time I did that was the week before the half when he was kind of nice to us, we did 4x1 mile repeats which were speedy but lovely. I recovered from that in day or so. I'm certain that when you talk to me tomorrow, I won't be recovered from last night!

to start it off we did 2x15 walking lunges and 2x20 sumo squats (if you don't know what that is, just imagine the most painful squats you can). The point of this was to do the workout "dead-legged". Well after those lunges and squats, I was already hurting! Lunges get me every time. Yow. We ran a nice easy 1 mile warm-up on the ever-familiar lower loop of the park before we hit "Cat Hill"which normally barely registers with me as a hill when I run in the park. For a point of reference, most of the other, bigger hills on that list in the Cat Hill link are in my neighborhood and I run them every week. We ran Cat Hill 6x, doing 10 pushups between each rep.

The hills felt good but tough, mainly because I feared my legs were going to cramp at any moment when I stopped moving for the pushups! Deadlegs hills hurt, there's no denying that. I do most of my runs in my 'hood and often have big hills at the end so I feel like in a way, I do a lot of deadlegs runs! Lunges are a different beast though.

Well here are the numbers I got:

Total mileage 6.25 miles

Warmup 9:58

Random 0.64mi 10:02 pace

1- 1:49

2- 1:48

3- (missed this one)oops

4- 1:48

5- 1:52 (stopped it late, this was a quicker one for me)

6-1:48

Cool-down 10:05

Heading back to the gym 9:33 pace until we started walking :)

Yay for consistency! I'm not so good with using the Garmin for speedwork, I need to work on my timing and the like. I'll get it down eventually.

All in all it was a good workout and I'm sore as can be. I actually poked myself in the piriformis this morning while I was sleeping (it hurt! ow) and started to blame my husband until I realized he was fast asleep and it was MY hand on my ass. Awesome. It could have been the cat walking on me, but he was curled up under my chin so I think I'm the culprit. I took a nice rest day today and will foam roll before bed, even though I know its going to burn.

Sure enough, I'll be back out there next week for more pain and torture, all for the promise of a spring PR!