Weekly Sweats: A Sunday Long Run and Running App Round Up

In this week's sweat recap: 28 miles of running including an ultra rare Sunday long run, and I figured out how to fit the weights in for now. And a look at the running apps that I use and why.


I'm linking up with the Weekly Run Down, please head over to Kim and Deborah to check it out.

Monday: started with an experiment to see if it will work to do my weight workouts before running.  I set my alarm for 5 minutes earlier than usual, and hit the iron and then did 4 miles easy with some strides on the treadmill.  Check, check, check, everything worked out and my energy was off the charts for the rest of the day.

Tuesday: 5 treadmill miles, one mile warm up, then a ladder of 1-2-3-4-5-4-3-2-1 minutes fast/2 minutes recover.

Wednesday: off!

FYI, a big storm came in on Wednesday night, and I didn't leave the house other than for dog walking purposes until Saturday afternoon, which is my best guess as to why I felt off for the next three days.

Thursday: I felt pretty sluggish, 5 treadmill miles easy and called it a day.

Friday: weights (yay) and then 4 treadmill miles easy.  By rights it should have been a hill run, but I couldn't stomach the idea and went easy instead.

Saturday: started with single digit temps and my plan was my first double digit run of the year.  When I saw the forecast a few days earlier I knew that outside running was out of the question, so I switched from daydreaming about which route I wanted to run to which movie I wanted to watch on the treadmill (yes I daydream about my long runs, anyone else or just me?)

I made coffee and tried to psych myself up for 10 miles.  I run much faster on the treadmill than off it, I'd always rather wear a tank top and shorts for a run rather than all the layers that I have to wear outside this time of year, blah blah blah.  You know the joke about when you talk to yourself you know that someone's listening?  Nope, not this time.  The truth is as much as I love (or at least don't hate) the treadmill, nobody except nobody wants to do double digit TM runs.  And gah, I was just so tired, my feet hurt a little bit...and oh yes by the way the whole reason why Saturday is my long run day is just in case something happens I have Sunday as a fall back.  And hey there was a warm up in the forecast for Sunday.  I snuggled a bit deeper into the couch and took an extra rest day.

Sunday: I felt like a whole new woman this morning and I got my 10!  Because it's still fairly snowy around here, I had to stick to my neighborhood which isn't the most exciting route ever but it's low traffic.

For context, anytime my average pace is below 12 minute miles, it's a big deal.

Let's see, mile 3 isn't just 0 elevation, it's negative 0 elevation.  I'm not sure what slowed me down so much in mile 4, mile 6 included a minute or so walk for water and a gel, and mile 9 was sheer willpower in that I hadn't had a 12 minute mile up to now and by god that split was going to be 11:xx if it killed me.

And let's flip over and see what Smashrun has to say:

The 10:xx runs were on the treadmill and the 11:04 run was this race, so today's run was the fastest outdoor non race 10 miler that I've ever done.  And fun fact, half marathon #4 is 7 weeks away.

Running Apps Round Up
I loved Teri's recent post on running apps, and as a tribute here are the apps I use and why:

• Garmin: because duh, I have a Garmin.  I like it just fine but it does have a few limitations.  My biggest beef is that I can't see my overall mile splits if I have a workout set up (ex: when I do my 0.10 miles fast/0.01 miles recover, it shows me those splits but not the overall mile).

• MapMyRun: is a legacy thing for me, I've used it ever since I got my first iphone and I have my Garmin set up to send all of my data there.  I can't remember the last time I used the app, but the website is gold for planning my routes.  I also like that I can really zoom in on the elevation for my runs.

• Strava: 
• Likes: I use it to get the info that I can't get from Garmin, ex: mile splits as I mentioned above and the elevation per mile.  I like the challenges, and even though I loathe social media, for some reason Strava's social is an exception for me and I enjoy peeking into my (very few) Strava friends' running lives.
• One Big Dislike: whoa, Strava is not a fan of the treadmill.  If you pause your watch on an outdoor run, Strava doesn't count the pause toward your run time, but if you pause your watch on an indoor run, Strava counts it.  Strava also doesn't let you adjust the run distance, which is something I do for every treadmill run since I let the treadmill be the judge of distance and not my watch.  My workaround is to delete Strava's import from my Garmin and manually enter TM runs.

• Smashrun: is perfect for a run like today where I think that was a good time but thanks to Smashrun I can quantify that it was my fastest non race outdoor 10 miler.

• And last but not least:  Excel.  Even with all of these apps, I still log everything the old fashioned way, which gives me a quick way to see how many miles I've run per month, treadmill vs outdoor miles, and shoe mileage.

What running apps do you use and why?  Anything good that I'm missing?  Who's Team Saturday long run and who's Team Sunday long run?