Zombies, Run! Season 2, Mission 43: The Final Countdown, 5 Miles

5.06 miles - 1:25:57 hours - 16:58 min/mile

Another long run done! I set the alarm for 5:15 this morning, so I'd have time to get ready and drive to the park and be running by 6 AM. And I did! The sun was already coming up by 5:30—I think for the next long run, I might try getting up at 5 AM and see if I can get to the park before 6. It was nice and cool when I started, but already getting hot when I finished. Not too bad, though, and I felt fine. Drank about half my water bottle and ate one gel. I decided to try eating the gel very slowly, just taking a small bit on each running minute, and stretched it out over most of a mile, to see if that was any easier on my stomach, and it was. Still prefer the blocks, but I think I have one more gel left over from before, so I might as well use it.

Mile splits were 16:32, 16:20, 17:08, 17:18, and 16:59. I ran the uphill loop first, so the first mile was uphill, second downhill, third down and up, fourth uphill, and fifth downhill. Slowed down about a minute between my fastest downhill mile and my slowest uphill. Not too bad. Still, as usual, wish I could get my pace down nearer 16 min/miles, but also, still, running well and feeling good.

I'm planning a schedule that will get me ready to do a half marathon in early October, although I have no plans for specific races yet. I was looking at various races online, and found a couple of likely ones. Bakersfield has a marathon and half marathon on November 18. Advantage is it's close, and the half has the same time limit as the full, 7.5 hours, so I could easily do the half.

Another possibility is the Death Valley full and half marathon in December, which I just went to check the date and found is already sold out. Oh well, maybe next year! I love Death Valley, haven't been in years, so that's one to keep in mind for later. There were a couple of other trail races that looked interesting—one in Griffith Park, and one in Joshua Tree. And there are the old standbys, Long Beach (although I may have other plans that weekend), Honolulu (they have a half marathon on April 14 if I don't feel up to the full in December), and the other SoCal races, if I can get my pace down to a 3.5 hour time limit. Well, early days yet.

As for today's mission, spoilers below!

SPOILERS

Thursday

2.13 miles - 36:20 minutes - 17:00 min/mile

I decided not to use Zombies, Run! today, because the next mission says it's 75 minutes long! That will be perfect for my five-mile run this weekend, but it's way too long for a midweek run.  I thought about using Radio Abel or one of the other training runs, but I decided to go back to Jeff Galloway's training apps, which fortunately I'd already re-downloaded, and use one of those midweek runs. Then I could get a nice timed run with run/walk intervals included. And Jeff Galloway's encouragement!

Still running pathetically slowly. Surely, in the past, my speed has gotten better by now? Must go back and check previous training courses. Of course, the important thing is that I'm doing it, and feeling so much better—stronger, more energy, better mood. But I'm going to be disappointed if I can't get my pace back under 16 min/mile at some point.

The dogs only barked at me a couple of times today. (And I was playing Pink Floyd's Animals while I ran, so had the dogs in "Dogs" bark at me, too, heh.) I've gone through all the albums on my iPhone and made them into playlists, so I'll be able to use them for Zombies, Run!, which can only use playlists from within the app. I used to use the external music player, but I like having the app control the music so it can pause it during the mission broadcasts. If you use the external player, the app turns the music down, but doesn't pause it altogether, and if you're playing a really loud album, like Green Day or Rage Against the Machine, it's still hard to hear the mission. I had some longer playlists made up for long runs, but I wanted to be able to play individual albums on the shorter missions.

Zombies, Run! Season 2, Mission 42: Road to Nowhere

2.10 miles - 37:16 minutes - 17:45 min/mile

Finally, I got to run around the house! I decided to try again, because I don't like having to drive somewhere to do my midweek runs, and I don't always want to run up and down that steep road, so I headed 'round the house, and I guess the dogs have gotten used to me, more or less, because there was not a lot of barking. It was just the white one (I never even saw the two other dogs), who just barked a little as I came around the corner closest to their place, so it didn't bother me too much.

I ran with a one lap running, one lap walking interval. It takes me roughly 1:45 min to run a lap and 2:00 to walk it, so it wasn't quite even, but good enough for a midweek run. There was one zombie chase, at 33 minutes, which luckily came during a walking lap, so I managed to speed up and evade the mob.

Mile splits were 17:31 and 17:33. I'm still pretty slow, but able to keep up a steady pace the whole time, so at least that's good. Looks like I'm going to have to find a half that runs concurrently with a whole marathon so I can have a huge long time limit! Unless my speed gets a lot better in the coming months, which it still may do.

Anyway, I'm into week three and still going strong! Very encouraging. I'm already getting a lot stronger.

SPOILERS

Zombies, Run! Season 2, Mission 41: You Know My Name

4.07 miles - 1:09:18 hours - 17:01 min/mile

Week 2 finished! Got up at 5:30 AM this morning, to try to get to the park by 6 AM, but it was 6:20 AM by the time I hit the trail. I am going to have to start getting up at 5 AM if I really want to hit the park by 6 AM. And I should—it was already pretty hot by 7:30 when I finished my run. It was 60 F when I got up this morning and it's 76 F now. It's only going to get worse over the next months, and my weekend runs get longer. I felt fine, though, and finished my run with no trouble.

Turned zombie chases off so I could just run whatever speed felt comfortable and not worry about saving energy in case I had to outrun zombies. My splits were 16:32, 17:14, 16:36, and 17:16. A good, steady pace, not slowing down too much on the uphill portions. Would still like to be faster, but it's early days.

SPOILERS

Zombies, Run! Season 2, Mission 40: Little Lies

2.04 miles - 38:27 minutes - 18:51 min/mile

All right, got that mission completed! I decided I didn't want to drive anywhere to run my midweek missions, and I was going to run around my house whether the dogs barked at me or not! That lasted one lap around the house, when the dogs set up a commotion, and I headed down the road. Argh. I suppose running down the road and back isn't so bad—I hate the run back up the hill, but it's good training. Maybe if I do a lap or two around the house each time, the dogs will eventually get used to me being out there at 6 AM and stop barking at me? Or maybe I will just decide heck with it, and turn up my headphones and run anyway.

Two zombie chases this time, at 4 and 10, exactly the same as the first two on my last time run. At first, I was thinking, well, maybe the zombie chases are already calculated for this mission, since I've already run half of it, and I'll get the same three as before. But when the third chase didn't happen, it seemed that wasn't the case. So that made me think that in some missions, if there's a zombie chase happening in the story, and you have Zombie Chases turned on, it's set to give you one.

Anyway, I'm very glad I didn't get any more chases this time, because the uphill mile is hard enough. Mile splits were 16:31 and 20:39, which is... very slow uphill. Oh well, the important thing is the run got done. Maybe if I keep doing that hill, I'll get better at it.

As for the story, all I can say is:

SPOILERS

Zombies, Run! Season 2, Mission 40: Little Lies

2.39 miles - 40:58 minutes - 17:09 min/mile

Pretty good run this morning. Got up around quarter to 6 AM, got ready and drove to the mailboxes to run down Dennison and back. It was a bit chilly and I wore my running jacket, although I wouldn't really have needed it. Wore it for the first mile, then took it off.

 

I used my watch to do 1:1 minute run/walk intervals, more or less. I ended up getting three zombie chases, all in the first mile, at 4, 10, and 17 minutes! Managed to evade them all, although they got within 50 meters each time. So those interrupted my intervals—running through the chases, then walking afterwards till the next interval came around.

I messed up my app in the middle of the second mile by trying to use the headphone control to turn the sound down a little—I was having a hard time hearing my watch chime the intervals. But I accidentally hit the middle button instead of the lower button and somehow turned the sound off? I guess that's the button to answer phone calls, it also turns the music off so you can hear the phone call. The Zombies, Run! app was still running, but I couldn't hear anything. I kept futzing with it and finally got it going again (I thought) but the music seemed to have been turned off. And it never seemed to want to end! It was supposed to be a 37-minute mission, but after running for 40 minutes I still hadn't gotten the "Mission Completed" message, so I finally gave up and stopped it. I see on the run log that it still thinks it was at 20 minutes into the mission when I quit. So all that pausing and stuff messed up the mission timing, although the sum up has it right. Argh! I will probably do this mission over on Thursday, just to get it logged properly.

My mile splits were 15:52, 17:21 and 17:19. Not bad for week 2.

I'm feeling so much better! I've been investigating possible half marathons to run this fall, if all goes well. Will take a month or two to get in shape before deciding.

As for the mission, I have Thoughts, but I think I'll hold them until I get the chance to do the whole mission.

Zombies, Run! Season 2, Mission 39: Psycho Killer

2.98 miles - 50:33 minutes - 16:59 min/mile

Went to the park to run today, and did the three-mile loop. I got up at 5:30 AM, hoping to be at the park by 6 AM, but ended up wasting 10–15 minutes searching for my waist pack with the pocket for a water bottle. Don't really need water/food for a three-mile run, but I wanted to have it along anyway. But when I couldn't find it quickly, I figured I'd better just take my smaller waist pack for the phone & keys and hunt for the bigger one later.

I ended up heading out just before 6 AM and got to the park around 6:15 AM. There were only two other vehicles in the lot, which felt a bit strange. Usually there are already a lot of walkers/runners/dog walkers there when I get there, but I guess I don't usually get there quite so early. I didn't see another person on the trail until I was nearly back to the parking lot on my last mile! But the parking lot was finally starting to fill up when I got there.

 

Anyway, it was still cool and pleasant when I started, and it felt good to be back in the park after so long away. I wore my watch so I could do 1:1 minute run/walk intervals, and tried to just take it easy, since it's still only my first week, and my first three-mile run, after not exercising for so long. I felt fine, though, and kept up my pace the whole way. My mile splits were 16:15, 17:49 (the all-uphill mile in the middle), and 16:16. So my final mile was just as fast as my first, which usually doesn't happen. Helps that I had my one-and-only zombie chase right at the end of the run, at 50 minutes, when I was nicely warmed up and going downhill—evaded without any trouble, the zombies didn't even get within 50 meters.

 

I find myself deliberately running slow so that I'll have some energy to speed up if I get chased by zombies. At some point I will have to either turn off the chases or  just hope for the best and live with the fact that I might not always be able to evade them if the chases come at a bad time. Maybe I will turn them off for longer Saturday runs.

I seem to be already planning my runs as though I'm training for a race, although it's pretty early days to be thinking about that. At this point, if I keep up my running, I could do the Long Beach half, or Las Vegas (I always think about it but have never managed to do it), or even Honolulu, if I can work my way up to a full marathon. I've got the time for it, we'll just have to see how the running goes. I would want to get my pace down under 16 min/miles if I'm going to do another full. Don't want to be out there all day.

One week done! And feeling good and enthused about it. Yay!

Zombies, Run! Season 2 Mission 38: Jailbreak

3.35 km - 37:37 minutes - 11:14 min/km

Got my Zombies back! They've made changes—it looks like all my old run logs are now being stored in the cloud, except it only goes back through Season 2 and none of the Season 1 missions are there. (I must have deleted them from my phone before the logs started being saved.) Also, for some reason, it never logged the last mission I did, so I decided to run it again—it's not like I remembered it all that well from last September anyway! I thought I'd set all the preferences again, but obviously I didn't remember to change from km to miles, so that's what I've got this time.

I'm half-inclined to go back and run Season 1 again, just to get it logged. Maybe I'll finish Season 2 first, then go back and do Season 1 before moving on to Season 3.

Anyway. For today's run, I drove down to the mailboxes and ran along Dennison to Valley and back. I've measured that and know it's a mile each way, so I did about two miles today. Pretty slow, but felt good and got it done. I got up at around 5:40 AM (because I was already awake, and wanted to get on the road as soon as possible) and got started running a few minutes after 6 AM. The sun was already up, but it was still reasonably cool and shady. Since I was running a mission, I didn't use my watch for intervals, but just started out running very slowly, planning to just run and walk as I felt like it.

Had zombie chases turned on, and there were two: one at 4 minutes and one at 12 minutes. The first one was really hard, coming so early in the mission, but I managed to evade. The second was a bit easier, both because I was more warmed up and probably because I'd walked a while after the first one to catch my breath, so the speed I had to increase by 10% was slower.

 

Feels good to be out on the road again.

Tuesday

About 30 minutes, 1.7 miles, 1:1 minute run/walk ratio

So, here I am again, finally making a real attempt to get back into running. I see my last attempt was in September of last year, so about nine months ago. I haven't done any regular exercise at all since then. I've gone out for a walk a few times, but without any plan or schedule, so without any real expectation of keeping it up. As I wrote in my last entry, I was just feeling worse and worse when I tried to exercise, instead of better, so I just gave it up entirely.

I started seeing a new doctor earlier this year, trying once again to figure out why I feel so weak and exhausted most of the time. I was diagnosed with mild sleep apnea, and started using a CPAP, which seemed to help a little but not really enough. So my doctor sent me to a surgeon who found a huge nasal polyp that was blocking my breathing on the left side. I had surgery to remove it in April and it has made a huge difference in my breathing! I can actually get air in without a struggle. It has taken quite a while for my nose to completely recover, though. I was very congested and bleeding a lot for over a month, but finally it seems to be settling in. I've been using a humidifier in my room at night to keep my nasal passages from drying out, and saline rinse several times a day, and my nose has almost completely stopped bleeding. So I decided it was time to try getting in shape again.

Of course, this came right when the weather is starting to get really hot again, and my improved breathing doesn't seem to have had any effect on the way direct sunlight saps my energy, so I decided to start setting the alarm for 6 AM again and getting in a half hour's run before the sun got too high.

This morning the weather was perfect—mid-50s, with a light breeze. I got up ten minutes before the alarm and was ready to go right around 6 AM. The first frustration with this morning's run was that when I went to re-download my Zombies Run app last night, which I'd deleted to save room when I wasn't using it, my phone refused to download it using cell data because it's over 150 MB in size. It wanted me to use WiFi. But I don't have WiFi right now, so I couldn't download it. I will be having new satellite internet installed tomorrow, so I'll be able to download it then, if I don't go into town today and use Starbucks or something. Oh well, I figured I'd just play music and use my watch to mark intervals.

Second frustration was the neighbor's dogs barking their heads off when I went outside at 6 AM in my running clothes. They've sort of gotten used to me being outside during the day, but I guess this was too weird for them, so they set up a commotion. I didn't want to run with them barking at me the whole time, so I decided to run down the road and back instead of around the house.

(Another minor frustration was getting my music set up right. I don't use my phone's music app very often so it took a bit of fiddling to get it playing. I listened to Alan Parsons Project "Tales of Mystery and Imagination" while I ran.)

After all that, I had a pretty good run. Tried to just take it easy. Did about 12 minutes down the road and then turned around. By then I was almost to the mile mark. By the time I got back, I'd just hit 30 minutes. Plus I futzed around for nearly five minutes at the house before setting off down the road. So I don't really know my actual time and distance, but whatever. I got out there and did it and felt pretty good. I am going to do my best to keep it up this time.