Monday
PM 2.5 miles warm up with Uta, the dog, strides, started what was supposed to be 90mins at 5:50 to 6:00 pace but as I was coming up on 30mins the temp dropped and the roads went from wet to ice. I have been on icy roads many times but I have never had them ice under my feet like that. I could still run, I have good balance, but I couldn't run 6:00 pace, I said I have good balance not that I was a freaking ice hockey star or ballerina! I decided to run straight home as some of the cars were sliding and round and getting hit by an out of control mercedes is not high on my to do list. so after 5 miles in 29:30 I ran the next 4 miles at about 7 min pace. Total 12 miles
XT ankle drills, whartons, YTI
This is Uta back in the summer
Tuesday
AM solo 4 miles 29:10, very cold a little too cold for Uta, total 4
PM road 9, first 4 with Uta in 28:30, rest solo, 1:00:33, followed by strides tot. 10
XT whartons, YTI
Wednesday
PM on treadmills with Ruben, don't judge it was cold and dark and I'm pretty sure Wolves are repopulating the greater Merrimack valley. 25mins steady on 'mill 4 1/4 miles, bathroom trip and some whartons, back on 'mill for 3/4 a mile at 6min pace and then did 6x1.5 miles at marathon pace(5:07) with half mile recoveries at 5:56, covered 11.5 miles in 60:40 (5:16) pace 2 mile cool down easy. (as an aside I always put the mill at 1%) total 19.5 miles
XT whartons, YTI
Thursday
AM dale 4 solo, 29:57, tot. 4
PM road and trial 55mins with Uta, light snow, footing in woods was ok, Uta gets really charged up for this so I was just doing my best to keep up and not fall on my face, tot. 8++
XT whartons, Ankle drills, YTI
Friday
PM 4.5 miles with Uta on trails, lets say this was more than a little faster than I generally warm up. dropped her off, bathroom, 1.5 more miles solo, strides. Then started what was supposed to be a Moneghetti fartlek(2x90s, 4x60s, 4x30s, 4x15s with equal rest run quickly) at 11:47 I forced to make an unplanned jump in the woods, 2mins in there to the second- I didn't stop the watch, then going again I accidentally added an extra minute rep when I got into the 30second reps I realized what I had done and made up for it by dropping two 30 second reps. When I was running I averaged about 5:08 pace. I wasn't hurting that bad I just couldn't make myself go, not surprising two days after Wednesdays session. 2 mile cool down tot. 12+
XT YTI, whartons
Saturday
AM on curve treadmill (manual) 45mins steady, 6.76 miles, then 4 strides with 1min after each for 5 more minutes running. total 7.55 miles
PM 48mins on trails with Uta, getting a bit icy but that did not slow Uta one bit. I had one run in with a tree but other than that it was good. We covered a bit under 8 miles but the effort was certainly better than 6:00 pace. That dog loves her trails! tot. 7.5+
XT ankle drills, whartons, YTI, pull ups on assisted machine- I know weak sauce but I still can't do pull ups. It is embarrassing but what can you do I'm still a work in progress.
Sunday
AM early with Ruben. Out and back on roads from my place in North Andover out to Haverhill, not much for flat running but able to keep it to rolling hills much easier than last weekends course. Plan was first hour at 80%mp (6:00 to 6:10) then 30mins faster then 30mins faster than that. We just ran by feel and it was a great run. We talked the whole way but both admitted the legs were getting tired at about 17 miles. We stopped at 20 miles in 1:55:02
splits
6:23
5:54
5:51
5:49
5:46
5:51
5:40
5:53
5:53
5:49
5:51
5:41
5:48
5:41
5:38
5:34
5:38
5:28
5:29
5:19
As you can see much faster than last weeks long run but it actually was a much easier effort. Weather was much warmer and the hills were much more rolling versus ass kicking last weekend. In terms of coordination I was fighting to hold the shoulders back in the last couple miles but not before than which is a huge improvement over two weeks ago when I was really working hard on holding my shit together from 8 or 9 miles on. total 20 miles
Summary
104 miles for week. Three good sessions and one aborted one thanks to New England weather. Very happy with this week. The two sessions that really mattered, the mp session which was supposed to be 6x7mins at mp with 3mins at 6:00 fartlek but because of ice and cold and dark we changed to a treadmill session and the long run went really well. It is very early but the strength is improving a ton week to week and my coordination continues to march forward. Not that I don't have moments of struggle and my shoulders and thoracic area are still weak as you can see with the pull ups but I'm really feeling myself getting in the groove. What makes me excited about this is that I still have time on my side before I am actually racing a marathon.
Speaking of which I finally pulled the trigger and I will be announcing my marathon tomorrow. This will be a very ghetto fabulous announcement as it has been the better part of a decade since I ran a decent marathon so the only person making or caring about said announcement is me but I like pretending I'm still a pro so tomorrow will be marathon announcement day!
Hope you had a good week!
8 comments:
I really appreciate your explanations and breakdown on training. I've learned a lot and look forward to your future posts. Thanks.
Michael,
Thanks for the comment. I'm glad you like it!
nate
Another great blog post! I really like your writing. If you don't mind my asking, I've got two questions:
*What exercises are ankle drills?
*You're clearly very much influenced by Canova. Many of his athletes do short uphill sprints weekly. You don't seem to integrate them in your training. Is it because of the demands of the marathon you don't do them?
Alex,
1. walk on outside of feet, walk on inside of feet, charlie chaplin toes out walk, reverse that last one and toes in walk, heel walk, walk backwards on tippy toes.
2. I did short hill sprints very regularly for a long time. They are a great session. here is a blog I did on them http://nateruns.blogspot.com/2008/11/why-do-short-hills.html .
Now why am I not currently doing them. With the shoulders back focus to fix the coordination I have noticed uphill running is the greatest challenge and sprinting uphill I simply fall back into bad habits and it is a lot of repetition of the wrong form and that would really slow my improvement at this time. Down the line I will get back to them but currently I'm just focused, in terms of hills, on trying to run up hills at training pace down to maybe marathon pace with good posture, when I get that then I can think about half marathon pace, 10k pace then 5k, then mile then longer sprints and finally short sprints.
In place of the short hills I'm doing all the strides. The strides accomplish a lot of what the short hills do but they are not as good for your stroke volume as the short hills. They are better as an injury preventer because they open things up more. In the long term a good balanced program would be using both. In the short term I won't be doing any short hills for a while.
nate
Great thoughts on the long run Nate. Being a weekend warrior myself, around 45 mpw, I've found that it comes down to form/fatigue for me and trying to extend much beyond 12 miles on a long run increases my exposure to injury as my form goes to crap and I continue to grind away. Based on this observation of my own ability I've sort of come to the conclusion that unless I can get some base mileage of about 55mpw comfortably without injury-I probably can't adequately build to a marathon-that is without really risking injury. There certainly is a strong correlation between weekly mileage and length of a long run-as you noted-and the penalty for exceeding it for me has been injury. .
SJ- Generally speaking it is very hard to really prepare for and RACE a marathon on less than around 55 to 65 miles a week. For some of the exact reasons you point out. Without the accumulated muscular endurance it is very hard to do the specific workouts needed without getting hurt and without that endurance as well as the endurance from the specific workouts it is very hard to put out a solid aerobic effort for that volume. If however you wish to finish a marathon more as a test of endurance rather than a race than, which is how the event is most often approached and is an entirely respectable goal, it can be done on much less than 55 miles a week.
nate
Go Get'em Nate!
Wow! That is an awesome running itinerary. I really admire people like you who are keeping on training themselves, despite feeling some pain. Just don't strain your body too much, especially your shoulders and thoracic area. Thanks for sharing that, Nate! Take care!
Madalyn Oconnell @ SHC Denver
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