RTTC #223 Proof of Time Half Marathon Training Week 1

In this episode of Running to the Castle, Dr. Ali kicks off her real-time proof of time training experiment as she prepares for a September 10K to earn a faster runDisney corral placement.

She shares why she chose a longer training runway instead of rushing into a summer race, how she structured her weekly schedule around speed workouts, cross training, and long runs, and what she learned during her very first week of pace testing and 30-20-10 intervals. 

Dr. Ali also gets honest about the realities of learning to strength train for speed, adjusting her run/walk strategy, and how a low blood pressure day on Mother's Day is a reminder that progress isn't linear  and consistency always matters more than perfection.

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  Hi, I'm Dr. Ali
  I've been running for 15+ years and been in the rehab space since 2012 when I earned my Doctor of Physical Therapy Degree. I get injury prone runDisney runners across the finish line without feeling broken.

Transcript

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Hey, how's it going? Today I'm talking about proof of time half-marathon training, week one. This is Running to the Castle, a podcast for injury-prone Run Disney runners on a journey to running magical miles. Join me, Dr. Alley, as I share the secrets I've gathered as a runner, doctor of physical therapy, and coach. You'll learn the exact ways I get my clients to the castle strong without feeling broken or held together with KT tape as they cross the finish line. So if I haven't talked about it enough, I am training for a race to get a proof of time for a half marathon for Disney. And so I am training for a 10K race that is going to happen at the end of September, September 27th, I think. It's like it's the last Sunday in September. It's here local to me. And so that's perfect. It looks like it's well supported, well organized. I am a little concerned that we are running on a shared space. It it sounds like it's still open to the public, like it's a park. I don't know. We will find out. It's an out and back 3.1, out back 3.1. We'll see how it goes. But anyway, I'm training for it and it is May. So you may be thinking, Dr. Allie, that is a long, long time to train for a proof of time. Why, yes, yes, it is. I would rather train a little bit longer and blow my results out of the water than push it too soon and panic, struggle, not get the proof of time. It's not the end of the world if I don't get the proof of time, but it will annoy me if I, or it would annoy me if I decided, like, okay, it's May something, and I'm gonna do one in June. A couple of reasons I'm not doing that is the the biggest one is what I just said. Like, I don't want too quick of a turnaround to try and get faster. And I am going to track my results as I go to see, okay, how long do I really need to knock off the time and and get the proof of time paced? Right. Like that was a lot of words, probably didn't make sense. Basically, like I'm going to track it every six weeks and see, okay, well, am I, would I have a proof of time? Could I consider having a proof of time each month, right? Like every six weeks. After six weeks, am I gonna have it? After 12 weeks, am I gonna have it? You know, 18 weeks am I gonna have it? After 24 weeks, am I gonna have it? Like at what point do I have that proof of time? Because then that translates to you. I can say from this study of one, now remember, this is always this is a case study. This is a single person. It's not until I start using this same process with multiple, multiple dozens of people that I can say, you know, this works for sure, right? Like, but I can say, this is what worked for me. This is how long it took me. So then you can have realistic results, right? Like if you were to decide to do a 10K in a month for a proof of time for a half marathon and you don't already have that proof of time, my gut says right now that's not enough time to get you that pace. Now, if you're like seconds away, okay, mi maybe, right? But I want to make sure that I'm I did my due diligence. I did everything I could. So I looked for something that was at least three months out. But I was looking in April and I wanted it to be local. So three months out from April, if anybody can count on a calendar, May, June, July. Do you think I want to run 6.2 miles in 120-degree weather? Now, you may be thinking, yeah, but you could get a 10K that's at like seven in the morning. Yes. Seven in the morning in July in Las Vegas is 95 degrees. Is it still okay weather for me? Absolutely. Like today when I went for my run, it was like 85 degrees when it ended. I was wearing my long leggings. I was wearing, I'm wearing that. I actually, if you're watching this on video, I actually haven't even showered yet from my workout. I am wearing a tank top, but I wear my UV, thin UV shirt over it. I wear a tank top just so that the I find that the sleeves of shirts, just as I run more and more, if I'm also wearing my UV shirt, just ride up in my armpits and it annoys me. So I just wear a tank top underneath to um allow it. Not because I'm going to take off the UV shirt and the tank top's gonna be, you know, my backup for cooler weather. No, it's the UV shirt is not coming off. Um, this just happens to be a zip up that is a very nice material. I really like it. It's super light. I don't feel extra hot in it. Like people will ask me, well, you're wearing long sleeves and a hood and it's 85 degrees out. Aren't you boiling? No, I am no hotter than I would be with just the tank top on. Like the parts of me that are sweating are the same parts of me that would sweat if I was just wearing a tank top. And it's like the band of my bra, it's the band of my leggings and the small of my back. That's what's sweating. And that would sweat anyway. So, anyway, not to say that 95 degrees in July, like that I won't go for some kind of run then, but I'm not going for a proof of time at that temperature at that time of year. So that means I need to push it out further or I need to rain it in. And we just talked about I don't want to rain it in. I don't want to cut down that time and do it at the end of May, which will still be hot because it hit 101 earlier this week, right? Like, not no good. But September, that will be nicer. It will still probably be like 80 degrees at seven o'clock when we start, but I need to get the proof of time. It needs to be done in one hour, seven minutes, and 59 seconds. So I'll by the time I'm done, it's not like I'm going for an eight-hour run. By the time I'm done, it's not gonna be that much hotter. And with the way the sun is at that time, like it still will be, it will probably be fine. And if it's not, it's not. And then I just schedule out a 10K for October, November, probably not December. That's getting cold for me, right? But this is this is some trial. I've never gone for a proof of time before. I've never felt the need to. I actually don't feel the need, the quote unquote need to now. This is an experiment to see what does it take to do this. Right? Because I run like a three and a half hour marathon. Mm-mm. That is not even close to correct. None of those numbers were what I meant to say. And I didn't mean to say a marathon. No, I run a three-hour, five-minute half marathon. I'm leaving it in. I keep it real here. Those words were a jumble. I don't know where those words came from. But I I'm not super speedy. Now, of course, some of those were bathroom breaks because hello, if you've met me, like the tiniest bladder ever. I peed two or three times on the 10 miler at springtime surprise. And I had to go catch up with the people. I think I told the story. I had to pee a couple of times. And so then I was like, oh, I'll catch up with you. And at one point, I blew past the runners I was pacing on the 10 miler. And we will just blame my teeny tiny bladder and me being oblivious or something. But they saw me running by and they're like, oh, look at her. She's booking it. As I'm like texting them, where are you? I can't find you. So if you two are listening, I still find that hilarious. And I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry that I lost you. And I blew past them for like a mile. I had to stop around mile seven or so and wait for them. Because I was like, oh my God, I'm such an idiot. Such an idiot. But we'll blame my tiny bladder. Could I have held it? Probably, but that's just makes you uncomfortable. I don't want to be uncomfortable. Anyway. So now I'm training for this proof of time, um, 10K race. And if you are new here, I recommend training for the shortest distance that can get you a proof of time for whatever distance it is that you want. So for a half marathon, you could do a full marathon, you could do a half marathon, or you could do a 10 miler or a 10K. Why not just go for the 10K? It's less strain on your body, it's fewer weeks or months training, and the end result, like the actual race, is shorter. Why put your body through that? Now, of course, if you happen to be in a race for a half marathon, and it is like it's a half marathon, and you happen to get a proof of time, great. Love it. Love it. Use it. Don't try and get a better half uh a better proof of time with a 10K, unless you like really want to, but if you have it, you have it. Use it. And then for a marathon, the shortest distance would be a 10 miler. You could use a full marathon, you could use a half marathon, you could use a 10-miler. Why not just go for the 10 miler? Now you do have to have a chip-timed race. You can't just go out for a run and use the stats on your watch. Run Disney does not take that, but it has to be chipped timed. And so just make sure that the race that you're signing up for has that. So anyway, last week I started training for this proof of time. So how did week one go? And what did I do? I'm going to give a week by week, play by play, week play by play, however we want to say that. Um as long as you're interested. If if this is not interesting and people are skipping through, I'm gonna stop the series. So um make it known if this is interesting to you. I'm I'm happy to keep doing it. But the only, unless somebody tells me otherwise, the only stats I can go by are the ones that like Apple Podcasts and Buzz Sprout give to me of how many people download it to see which episodes are popular, people want. And I I do use that information, but I also use the information of you giving me feedback either in DMs, Run Disney DPT, or your podcast reviews or your fan mail, things like that. So please make it known because if you like it and you don't make it known and I think nobody likes it, I'm just gonna stop talking about it because I want this to be relevant to you. If it's not relevant, I don't need to talk to just to talk. So, how did it go? What did I do? So, first off, I planned it all out. I used my training spreadsheet that I use for my runners. So, my runners in Stronger, Faster Finisher, my one-on-one runners. I use the same spreadsheet. I put my race dates in there, I put when my training starts, and that was May 4th, the week of May 4th. I have my training start on Mondays. May 4th it is. So I have my skeleton training plan of speed works, speed workouts on Monday and Wednesday, cross training on Tuesday and Saturday, long run on Friday, and rest days on Thursday and Sunday. And that may actually change because right now I have my rest day be on Thursday because Thursday mornings typically were busier for us, and it just wasn't possible for me to work out. So I made that a rest day. But that day may be switching to Tuesday. So I may switch and make Tuesday be a rest day and Thursday potentially be a cross-training day, but that would mean four workout days in a row. I'm not thrilled with that. So right now, as it stands, it's three workout days in a row, then a rest day, then two workout days in a row, and then a rest day. I think that's a really good balance. So I may just kind of suck up Tuesdays and see how it is. I like Sundays as a rest day because if we're gonna do something with family, it's usually on Sunday. It's always changeable. And that's why it's that's why I say it's my skeleton. Like that's what I anticipate being, what I will do week to week. But within the week, as long as I'm following the rule of two rest days, two speed workout days, one long run day, and two cross-training days, most weeks, then I'm good. Some weeks I might have an extra rest day. Some weeks I might have to cut down on a rest day because the following week I need to add an extra rest day, like if I'm traveling or health stuff with royal, you know, busy weeks, doctor's appointments, dentist appointments, vet appointments, whatever it is. Maybe I know that I actually do need Tuesday to be a rest day, but I also still need Thursday and Sunday to be a rest day. So I might do an extra workout the week before to, if I can, to balance it out. But also I can just do my normal week and then the following week when it's busy. So what if I miss a cross-training day? So what if I miss one speed workout? One is not going to kill your momentum. It's not going to kill your ability to get faster cross the finish line or anything like that. It's it's when it happens week after week. And if it's happening week after week, I I hold your hand while I say this. I say this in the kindest way possible. If week after week you cannot consistently do every workout that you have planned out here with two cross-training, two speed, one long run, and two rest days, then something is not right. You either haven't been honest with yourself about what you realistically can do, like with however your life is going on, or you're not being honest with yourself about what you like to do and what you will be motivated to do. Like as an example, if you say you're gonna go ride a bike for cross-training, but you hate riding bikes and you just chose that because that's what you see everybody else do for cross-training, but you would rather walk. Well, if you don't like the thing, you're gonna skip it every single time. So you need to be honest with yourself about what you realistically like, not just based on what other people say you should be doing. Like for cross-training for my clients in Stronger Fast or Finisher, I think I have like eight options this next round. Like you could do paced walking, you could do incline walking, you could do the rower, like the erg, you could do a stationary bike like a Peloton or a spin class, you could ride a bike outside, you could use the elliptical, you can use the arc trainer, you can swim, you can play another sport, you can use the stair stepper. Which one do you like? Which one do you have access to? And which one are you going to actually use? It doesn't matter to me. The most important thing is which one are you going to do regularly? And maybe you don't like doing the same thing every time. Maybe you need riding a bike on Tuesday and pastewalking on Saturday. Okay, great, great. Or what if you aren't consistently getting to the workouts, but you do like the workouts? Are you being realistic and honest with yourself about what your family life or your work life actually allows you to do? Because if you have family members that are pulling you every which way and you're gonna say yes to them and say no to yourself, you're going to consistently let yourself down because you're gonna look at your week and you're gonna see, oh, I only got one speed workout done, one long run, and one cross training. Now, I'm not saying that's the end of the world because that that's bare minimum to cross the finish line. That's fine. But if you're upset about that, that's the problem, right? And are you upset at yourself for not doing it? Or maybe you're upset at yourself for not saying no to the family member who is asking you and pulling you away from doing your thing, right? It's very cliche. And I don't know everybody's family situation. It is a hard conversation to say to have, but it's very cliche, but it is true. Like you have to put your mask on first before you can put somebody else's mask on them. That comes from like planes, right? Like if the mask falls out of the ceiling of the airplane because it's lost pressure and the oxygen mask drops down, they all say put your mask on first before helping somebody else. Because if you're trying to put on somebody else's mask to help them, but you run out of oxygen, you're going to die first. And I'm not saying like, don't put the other person's mask on, but you have to help your health, have to help yourself first before you can help anybody else. Because if your mental health starts taking a toll down the line, you're also not going to be able to help them. Or if your physical health takes a toll, then you also aren't going to be able to help them either down the line. And maybe it's not that you can do a full 45-minute workout. Maybe you split the difference and you do what's half of 45 minutes, right? Like 22 and a half minutes of a workout instead of 45. 22 and a half, that's great. And then you just be realistic with yourself. Okay, I got, I got something done, right? Your week to week may change. It's only a problem when it is happening week after week and you're consistently missing multiple workouts. You're consistently missing the same kind of workout. If you're missing the same kind of workout each week, it's either a scheduling issue or it's a you don't like that workout issue. And you're you just need to be honest with yourself on what kind of workout you're going to do. Okay. So anyway, my skeleton is Monday, Wednesday speed workouts, Tuesday, Saturday, cross training, which for me is pace talking right now, Friday long run, Thursday, rest day, Sunday rest day. So last week I did my pace testing. So the first thing I do whenever I start a new training block, whether the training block is training for a race, I pace test, or if it's training for this speed workout. Now, notice how I'm saying that just a little bit differently. That's another way that I keep myself interested in training. I frame it differently. Now, you know that I have five phases to a successful running journey. And some of these phases are related to each other, like training for a race is related to the taper phase, is related to the race phase, right? Then we have rest and recovery, and then we have the build phase. So the build phase is what I'm in right now. Build, you can build strength and you can build speed workouts. And they, the strength actually helps the speed workouts. Now you may know, I don't really care for strength. I just don't. I would much rather run. However, I want to get faster. And as I'm getting older, as all people are getting older, especially women, I will lose muscle mass. I will lose bone density. And I can combat that by increasing my skeletal muscle and how much, uh strong I am, how much I can lift. Plus, I need to be able to lift and carry Levi. Plus, I need to be able to put my 45-pound carry-on bag overhead in the airplane, in the airplane overhead bin. And that's what really catapulted this new strength journey. But anyway, strength is a nice to have. It's not a need to have for most runners to cross the finish line. But if you do want to get faster, strength is a component of that. And so I am working on speed and strength in my build phase. And to keep it Interesting, I decided to make it a proof of time training block. It's five months long, but I'm breaking it up. I'm doing strength workouts, heavy strength workouts for three months. And I'm doing the speed workouts and I'm checking my pace with pace testing at the beginning. And then every it's about every seven weeks. So you need six weeks worth of the speed workouts. So that first week maybe doesn't have any speed workouts. So then on that seventh week, you can pace test again. So I pace tested. I did it on the treadmill and I'm using new intervals. So I'm doing three minutes running, one minute walking. Whereas before I was doing 10 minutes running, five to 10 minutes of walking. And I was noticing the whole reason I'm changing is because I was noticing myself getting bored and getting annoyed during my running portion. It would hit like five minutes and I'd be like, when can I walk? Like, not because I needed to, but because I was just like bored of running and I wanted to change it up. So I don't want to hit that boredom. And I'm hitting that boredom at five minutes. So I chose a three minute, so then I never hit that boredom. I chose a three-minute runtime and a one minute walk time, honestly, just because 30 seconds is too short for me. And I didn't want to do a one-to-one ratio. So I didn't want to do three minutes running, three minutes walking. And then I was like, well, why don't I just try one minute? And we will see how it goes. I may change it. So new pace testing. So Monday I took Levi for a snifari. He's he was tired. We went to the um nursery the Saturday before to go pick out some plants and trees and things like that. And we brought Levi and he was just exhausted. So he didn't really want to walk too much. I ate my breakfast oatmeal with some protein, peanut butter powder, applesauce, and a pear's cup for breakfast. Drank a Coke for some caffeine and carbs. And then I chose my paces based on what historically I would have. I don't know if you want to know my paces, but I decided to do 5.5 miles per hour for my easy pace, 6.7 for my moderate pace, and 8.5 for my hard pace. I got nervous choosing that 8.5. I was worried that the treadmill was going to take me for a ride and basically I was gonna fly off of it before I ever actually set the 8.5 mile per hour pace. So I chose that based on paces previously. And then when it came down to it, I actually just chose like 7.7. And as I was doing it, I was like, this is way too, this is way too slow for for what I'm looking for. So then I did up it to the 8.5 and I did not go flying off the back of the treadmill. And it was fine. And that was a good pace for me. Overall, it felt good. I felt recovered in less than 10 minutes during my cooldown. The cooldown should be 10 minutes. So could I have gone faster based on that? Like my recovery didn't take that long. Maybe. But also maybe I'm just in shape. Ooh, look at that. Maybe I'm actually fit. The world may never know. How many licks does it take to get to the center of the Tootsie Roll Pop? The world may never know. I don't know. And it's not that important. But that was a good notation to make that I did feel recovered sooner than the full 10 minutes cooldown. And so it's kind of just information. Do we need to know what it means? No, we don't. But I'll track it over time because sometimes you can't see trends until you start looking at it over time. Like you can't see the forest through the trees. You can't always know what to do or where to go while you're actively in it. Right? Then after my pace test, I also did my first leg day on my new workout equipment. And I had to guess my weights. That was terrible. So I will be doing a um one rep max test. So that's what I recommend my runners do. And I do it myself, but I'm following somebody else's strength training program right now, and they have different recommendations on how they do it. Neither mine nor theirs is wrong. It's different. It's it's just another way of looking at it. And so I am following their plan, but it makes it so that I'm really guessing how much weight to use and I don't like it because it's actually taking time away from my workout, trying to figure out how much weight I should be using in the moment. Whereas if I do a one rep max test, I know how heavy is the maximum amount I can lift. And so then within their parameters, my strength coach's parameters of like two reps left in the tank, something like that, I can know, okay, well, if my leg press is like one rep max is 10 plates, well, I know that if I need to be doing five repetitions with only one or two reps left in the tank, then I need to have like eight plates on that for the leg press, right? Like one of the exercises I was supposed to do last week. I don't know if it was this day, I would have to go back and look. But it was using the leg press. And I was supposed to choose a weight that I could only do eight repetitions for. And I chose a weight that I thought was heavy, but remember, this is my first time doing legs on this machine. Like literally hadn't used the leg press besides making sure that it worked, hadn't used the knee extension, the leg extension machine, the ham curl, anything like that. And so I was completely guessing. And I could have done way more than eight reps, but I was like, well, I've already done it. Like I've already done the workout. So I'm not going to add more weight and try and get the eight reps, because then that may hinder or disrupt what the rest of the workout is. So now I take that information and I move it forward for next week, this week. And so I did eight reps and then I was supposed to drop the weight by 10%. Now on the plates, I don't, I don't know what if I'm actually dropping it 10%, but I just dropped it by one plate. Friend, I did 80. I was supposed to do am wrap. So as many reps as possible. I did 80. And then I finally said, my legs are getting a little tired and I'm bored. So I stopped at 80. And then I dropped it again for the next set, and I did 100. And I literally stopped it because I was bored. And so I, you know, what am I supposed to do? I'm in it. It is what it is, but that's where doing a one rep max test comes in. And so I will be doing that in the future. I'll talk about that next week or maybe the week after. I think I'm gonna have to split it because doing a one rep max test, it's going to take me one to two hours per workout to figure it out. And I will, I will talk about it once I've done all of them. It's probably gonna take me four workouts to do, which means it may take me two to four weeks to do. So anyway, I felt like afterward, I felt like I had eaten so much for the day, not because I was super hungry, but I'm trying to track my macros. As part of this strength training, I'm trying to get more protein in and make sure that my carbs are appropriate and everything. And I had to force myself to eat by the end of the day. I was just like shoving food in my mouth. I I don't, I don't have food noise. I never think about food. I'm one of those people that people don't understand where I just like forget to eat and then I'm like, okay, well, I guess I'm hungry. I guess I need to eat something. And so I was just like forcing food in by the end of the day on Monday. So anyway, then the next day I did cross training. I was sore. And it was interesting. My adductor, so your inner thigh, and my hamstrings, so back of the thigh, those were both pretty sore when I would squat down or unload the dishwasher. Otherwise, they didn't feel that sore and they really weren't super limiting. But it was interesting to note based on the day before the workout, the workout from the day before, where I was sore. And I had done sumo squats. So it does not surprise me that my adductors were sore. And I did, you know, I walked Levi, he did 1.15 miles. So he was ready to go again. And then I went on the treadmill and I did pace walking. And so I'm doing paced walking with my intervals. So three minutes, one minute. So instead of three minutes running, though, I'm walking three minutes at a faster pace than I normally would. And then my one minute is my normal walking pace for my normal walking pace for my running interval, my run walk interval. So this is how I'm going to get a faster walking pace by paced walking, keeping my same intervals, but walking at different paces to improve my overall pace. And the way I have it structured right now, the pace for my three minutes actually felt too slow. So I will likely be upping that. And then we get to Wednesday and it's a speed workout. So I had a 30-20-10, which is 30 seconds of one pace, 20 seconds of a second pace, and 10 seconds of a third fastest pace. So it's basically jog run sprint or walk run sprint if you can't jog the whole thing. And I did make a whoopsie during the speed workout and I had accidentally programmed 50 minutes for me. I did catch it while I was in the workout. And I was like, thank goodness I caught this and I didn't just keep going because that would have been miserable. That would have been awful. And so with 30 2010, you start off with a 10-minute warm-up, run the easy pace for five minutes. So that includes my run-walk interval. So it's three minutes of running, one minute of walking, but that's only four minutes, friend. So what did I do? I just added one minute of running my easy pace after for a total of five minutes. It's a perfect way to adjust it. Okay. And then it's jog, run, sprint. So jog 30 seconds, run 20 seconds, sprint for 10 seconds. And I do it based off my pace testing. So I knew exactly what to do. I did it on the treadmill. And because I'm running it on the treadmill, I also added in a ramp up accommodation time. So meaning the amount of time it will take for the treadmill to change paces, either get faster between the jog, the run, and the run to the sprint, or get slower from the sprint to the jog. So here's where Apple Watch was not great. And I have no idea if car Garmin would be different because I don't have a Garmin. But what I decided to do was because I wanted to keep my actual paces separate, like in my watch, the different segments. I'm not going to do that next time. And here's why. So what I did was I added a four-second ramp up before the jog, a four-second ramp up between the jog and the run, and a four-second ramp up between the run and the sprint. And then from sprint to jog, I have that four second ramp up right before the jog. So it all works out. The treadmill took the longest to change speeds from sprint down to jog or sprint down to walk when I got to the walking segment. So that four seconds before the jog, that was accurate. I needed that. But I did not need four seconds for run and I did not need four seconds for sprint. So it meant I was sprinting for longer than I needed to. And I felt like I was gonna die. You know how I say you're gonna curse me on your speed workouts? I was sitting there cursing myself. At one point, I had to jump off the treadmill and just put my feet on the sides because the sprint was going too fast and I was, I really felt like I was gonna fly off the back of it, but I hadn't changed the pace. It's just how tired I was. And the fact that the changeover wasn't happening fast enough for my liking. Now, was it not actually happening fast enough? Or mentally was I thinking that it was just so slow because I was so tired. Again, the world may never know. I don't know. I'm gonna try something different the next time I do a 30, 20, 10 where I'm not going to have specific, where I'm not going to have specific um four seconds between. I'm going to add it to the workout. So instead of the jog being 30 seconds, the jog's gonna be 34 seconds. I'm also going to go down for between the jog and the run, it's gonna be a two-second ramp up. And for run to sprint, it's gonna be a one-second ramp up. So I will do the run for 22 seconds, the sprint for 11 seconds. And we're gonna go from there. We're gonna try it out. But as I was getting further and further into the workout, and this is why I don't know if it was delayed on my watch or if I was just exhausted, because it it happened, I noticed it later in my workout where it felt like my watch should have buzzed me, saying now it's time to switch, but it felt like it was super delayed and I couldn't like look down at my watch and really see it because I'm just running so fast. So take it for me. If I've said in the past to do a separate ramp up for the 30, 20, 10, don't, don't do it. Just add the seconds on to each of the intervals because it just didn't work out well for me. And then on top of that, I noticed I had five rounds of 30, 20, 10 instead of just four. I was like, what the hell is going on? This sucks. Why do I have so many? And then I figured it out because each segment, total segment, is five minutes. So if I'm going, if I have an easy five minutes at the beginning plus a warm-up and a cool down that are each 10 minutes. So that's 25 minutes right there. For a 45-minute workout, I should only have four 30, 20, 10 segments. I have it like that for easy math so that I can look at it and be like one, two, three, four times five, that's 20 minutes. And I looked at it and go, one, two, three, four, five. So I just cut it short. I did not do those. Um, and it it was really, really hard. And I had to keep telling myself, I can do anything for 20 seconds. I can do anything for 10 seconds. Like for those last two rounds, that's where it really hit. And I remember this. If you've never done a 30, 2010 before, the first round of 30, 20, 10, most runners say to themselves, well, this is too easy. I should ramp it up, friend. Don't. Don't. Because it's not about it being too easy or too hard every single time. It's cumulatively, right? It's after doing so many rounds of it. After doing three rounds of 30 seconds jogging, 20 seconds running, and 10 seconds sprinting, after doing three rounds of that, you get a two-minute walk. You should be wanting and begging for that two minutes. In that first round, you may not feel that way. That is a false sense of security because by number two, three, and four, you should be like, oh my God, when's the two minutes happening? How many more do I have? What? How many? How many? Am I ready? Am I ready? Can I walk? Can I walk? And then you should be telling yourselves, I can do anything for 30 seconds, I can do anything for 20 seconds, I can do anything for 10 seconds. I wanted to walk the jog of the last two rounds, but I stuck it out because of that mantra of I can do anything for this amount of time. But I was sweating and I'm not a big sweater. I did it on the treadmill. I did have the fan on full blast, but next time I will have my standing fan with me and I will be using that standing fan on me. I have been since just for the other workouts. It's getting hot in the garage too. It's like 80 degrees in the garage, but having my fan on me, it that's that's fine. Um, I also bought a thermometer for the garage. So now I know what the temperature is. I didn't have it when I did this workout. And then what did I do? How did I keep myself entertained? Well, besides like feeling like I was gonna die and that entertaining me in itself, I watched The Eros Tour by Taylor Swift. And it did start off too slow for me. It was um the lover set when I was starting the the 30 2010. And for anybody who's not a Taylor Swift fan, that's just it's a lot of slow music besides a handful of songs, but it actually was Lover, and that was just too slow to start running at. So I'm gonna have to start. Maybe I'll start off with the man or you need to calm down or something like that because it was just too slow. Thursday was a rest day. Long run Friday. This sucked. This was awful. It felt so incredibly hard. And I don't know if it was the temperature. It was 78 degrees when I started at 755, 84 when I finished. It took one hour and eight minutes. So it took the amount of time that my 10K should take. And I ran, I ran four miles plus half a mile warm-up, half a mile cooldown. So in total, it was five miles. I need to get, I need to knock off 1.2 miles in that same time frame just to give some perspective on what we're working on here. But again, it was an easy long run. It was supposed to be super duper slow. And I nailed it on the timing. It took me an hour, eight minutes, and like 43 seconds. And it should have taken me one hour, eight minutes. I'd say I nailed it. 43 seconds off, that's right on the money. But I don't know, was it the combo of the new paces? Because remember, I just pace tested. And so this is actually a faster, easy pace than I typically do. And I was trying to hit my average run pace. Like the average pace between run and walk was supposed to be 12 minutes per mile, which meant that with my 17 and eight seconds per mile walk, I was supposed to be running 1055. So that's faster than I normally would do. Like previously, I was doing like 12 minutes per mile. Now I didn't necessarily get that whole minute faster. Maybe I did, but I like to take my easy run slow, as I recommend you do. Based on my pace testing, the 1055 for me right now is actually still slow, but it I don't know, it just felt hard. I did the new intervals, the three minute one. I had the heat, it was outside versus on the treadmill. I just the whole combo of it just made it harder. I did hit the average pace because I did hit my time frame. Overall, it was doable, but I I should try and do. I said, like I'm reading my notes here, that I should try and do a slower pace and see if that feels better. And spoiler alert for week two, it did. But I also used my pace alert on my Apple Watch. And for miles one and two, I had it alert me for my current pace to be between 1030 and 1110. And for the last two miles, I had it alert me for the overall average pace, still between 10:30 and 11.10. With the current pace alert, I was constantly alerted. I would be told I was going too slow, then I'd be told I was going too fast, then I was told I was going too slow because I was trying to adjust it. And then with the average pace, it barely alerted me, but it had verbalized during the current pace, the one in miles one and two, it would call out to me and it would verbalize the average pace if I was too slow, but nothing verbalized if I was over. It didn't even buzz at me. And like it just wasn't consistent. It it wasn't a great way to track, but I did hit my average pacing. So there's something to say about that. But overall, the run sucked. Like I had the right amount of carbs. I brought them, I ate them, I drank them. It wasn't going uphill too much. It I don't know what it was. It just wasn't great. So stay tuned for week two to see how things changed and whether that was better or worse. Saturday um was supposed to be a cross training day, but I went to an Aces game, the Las Vegas Aces WNBA. We are seasoned ticket holders. We actually don't get to go to a lot of games. A lot Of games are late at night, quote unquote late at night. They start at 7 p.m. But for your girl, when she goes to bed at 8 or 8:30, that's just too late. We aren't even at halftime yet. And it's a 30-minute drive to the arena, then parking and all that. And then, like some days we go to bed at seven. It all depends on how Royal's feeling. And it it was a Saturday game. It was new new season opener. It was a lot of fun. And it was at T-Mobile Arena, which normally it's at Michelobe Ultra, which is in Mandalay Bay. This was at T-Mobile Arena. It I don't know if it was sold out, but it was close to it. And because we're season ticket holders, we we had like, I don't know what they call it, like lounge access. Like we had a like a private bar area and a private snack area, private bathrooms. Like it was for the whole section. So it wasn't just like a small amount of people. It was still a lot of people, but it was so great. And they do like self-service at some of the places at T-Mobile Arena. And so you like, you just go up, get your like I got a beer. I rarely ever drink, but I was like, oh, mango cart sounds delicious today. Let me get one. So I went and got one. You just grab it out of the fridge, scan it yourself. And there's an attendant there, but they don't like touch anything. And I had no line. And she was like, you just need to open your drink before you go back to your seat. And I was like, oh, that's fine. That's no problem. Because of course they they don't want people throwing a full bottle or can onto the court, right? So anyway, did that. Um, but I used all of the walking that I was doing for that Aces game because it's far from the parking garage. You have to park at, we parked at Aria. So that's across the street. And like it's literally just across the street. It's it is super close. But then you have to walk through the arena, walk through security, go find your seat and everything like that. And so because I knew I would have all this walking, I did not set aside a separate time to do my 45-minute cross-training paced walking. I didn't need to because the idea of cross-training, now you can't do this every single week, but the idea of cross-training is you're doing another activity to keep yourself moving and work your heart and your lungs. Now, of course, this pace that I was probably walking, which was Royal's pace, so it was slower than a paced walk normally would be, it kept me moving. But, you know, I wouldn't have swapped that out for a speed workout. But every once in a while, swapping out a cross training for an activity that you are already going to do that involves you moving around a lot, totally A-OK. That's what I did. And then Sunday, well, I had a bad day. So Sunday was Mother's Day. And um, I didn't have a bad day because it was Mother's Day. I had a bad day because of the one beer I drank. And it's, you know, it's one of those big cans. So I think it's 25 ounces. I didn't even drink the whole thing. I maybe drank half of it, but I did not drink a lot of water. And so the combination I think of heat, lack of water, and alcohol the day before, oh, I had a blood pressure low. I did not feel good. So I got up um Sunday morning. I was not hungover. Even though I rarely drink, sometimes one beer would put me hungover. I I it did not, but I woke up and I tried to get up and I immediately felt poorly. Like I I have fainted in the past. I just I didn't feel good. I didn't faint. I catch, I caught it soon enough, but when I stood up, didn't feel well. So I sat back down on the bed and um got my coffee eventually, drank some water eventually, and took my blood pressure. And my blood pressure was all over the place. At one point it was 83 over 58. Um, I think the highest it got all day, and this was by the end of the day, is 115 over 65, which is pretty normal for me, but it's I still would have liked to have overshot on the blood pressure. But so I spent all morning just trying to take in electrolytes, take in fluids, and get my blood pressure back up. We we went to Royal Sister's house for Mother's Day, hung out with my nephew, Royal's parents, Royal sister, her fiance. It was overall a good day, but I was taking in salt pills. I was drinking soda. We stopped at McDonald's on the way and I got a cheeseburger and fries. Uh, we got another cheeseburger and fries on the way back because I just we were thinking about what I can quickly get to add, like what what what's something I like that will give me sugar and electrolytes and you know, and sodium pretty much. I needed it was mainly the sodium I needed, but I was drinking Gatorade, I was drinking scratch, I was drinking liquid IV, I had a Coke, I had water, I had my salt pills, and it just it was going up steadily in the morning for a little bit and then it plummeted again, and then it was going up. And it was just like this up, down, up, down. And I think I posted on Instagram saying something like, you can do all of the right things, and it can be slowly, steadily going up, and then it drops again. Like the same thing with your training. You can be getting better and better and better, more normalized, more normalized, and then something happens. And you know, progress is not linear, it's it's stepping. And then sometimes you get a divot and it happens. So with my learning of how my body is, this blood pressure low used to last me days. It it would last, like if it started on Sunday, it would keep going until Thursday. And so, with all of that, we've learned about what I need to do. I cut it down. So I still wasn't feeling a hundred percent by Monday, but by Tuesday, I was feeling pretty good. And so that that was good. Like being normal by Tuesday was great for me. And um it it just it stunk. It was a bummer that I couldn't do my workout on Monday, couldn't do my workout really on Tuesday. Think, I think it was Tuesday that I didn't do my workout. Let's find out. Yeah, I didn't do my workout on Tuesday. Like, and that's okay. So I took some extra rest days. You guys will hear all about it next week, but Sunday was the end of week one, and it just it was a bad blood pressure day, and it's not the end of the world. It is part of the training process. And I keep it real here. I keep it um, I'm as transparent as I can be without, you know, with my training and keeping it relevant, right? So that's week one. Overall, it was good. I did four out of four strength workouts, so that's a huge win for me. Um, I did my pace testing, I did my 30, 20, 10, and I did all of my other workouts. I did the long run, I did the cross training. I just had poor choices on Saturday with not that much hydration. And it bit me in the butt on Sunday and into Tuesday. But you will hear more about that next week. As I'm saying this, this week coming when you hear this, this episode will air May twice May 19th. Next week opens enrollment for stronger, faster finisher. So if this type of workout sounds right up your alley, if the information and the way I recommend training sounds like something matches with the way you want to train so that you can cross the finish line ahead of the balloon ladies, have more time for character stops, castle photos, or just have more energy to enjoy Disney parks after your races. I invite you to join Stronger Faster Finisher because the way I train myself is also how I recommend my clients train. If I'm not willing to do it myself, I'm not going to recommend somebody else do it. And so with that, I invite you for Stronger Faster Finisher. The wait list closes May 25th because enrollment for waitlisters starts May 26th. And wait list members get priority pricing and first dibs. So if you're not on the wait list and you want to join, you are interested, go to the link in the show notes to join the wait list now.