Monday
AM 35mins with Uta, the dog, and Melissa in the snow. total 4.3 miles
XT whartons, YTI
Tuesday
AM on treadmill 3.5 mile warm up with four 15 second blocks at 13mph(4:36pace) for strides, quick bathroom trip and a shirt change, 1/2 mile to get up to speed then 7 miles of alternations 1/2 mile at 12.4mph and 1/2 mile at 10.7mph- 36:27 for 7 miles, 5:12 per mile. lost coordination and stopped. I have a very hard time keeping my shoulders back on the 'mill. 3 mile cool down total of 14 miles
PM Bear hill 4.2 with Uta, 30:08 total 4.2 miles
XT whartons, YTI
Wednesday
PM regular 10, 65:56, felt pretty good but roads were sloppy, total 10 miles
XT whartons, YTI
Thursday
PM on treadmill, 3 warm up on treadmill with 4 "strides" of 15 seconds at 13.5mph (4:24pace), 1/2 mile getting up to speed then, 10 mile progression run starting at 10.7mph(5:36) down to 11.9mph (5:04mph) 54:17- big fight with coordination, again I really struggle on the treadmill- I keep looking down at the darn screen!! 1.5 cool down total 15 miles
XT whartons, rubber band, YTI
Friday
PM road 8, 54mins footing not so great total total 8 miles
XT wharton, YTI, rubberband
Saturday
9AM with Ruben, all outdoors 20 degrees, 3.2 warm up 23mins, big of light drills, couple of strides, 10k moderate tempo around lightly rolling merrimack college 5k loop- goal was 34:00 ran 33:09.
splits
1-5:19
2-5:20(10:39)
3-5:22(16:01)
4-5:19(21:20)
5-5:22(26:42)
6-5:22(32:04)
Footing ok but we had to be very careful(slow) on all the turns(12 on loop) and there was about 100m that was quite slushy/slippery. Still this felt very easy.
3mins rest
10k at marathon pace- honestly I thought given the footing, the rolling course and the temps if we could run 32:00 I'd be thrilled. Before we started the loop Ruben said he would be happy with anything with a 32 in front of it. We ran 31:29 and it felt very good and controlled.
Splits
1-5:08
2-5:03(10:11)
3-5:08(15:19)
4-4:55(20:14)
5-5:07(25:21)
6-5:10(30:31)
2.5 mile cool down back to house 17mins total 19 miles
4PM 2.5 mile warm up, light drills, strides, 10k moderate tempo, again goal was 34mins, again we exceeded the agreed upon speed limit like Rubes. 10k in 33:20
Splits
1-5:19
2-5:22(10:41)
3-5:26(16:07)
4-5:22(21:29)
5-5:20(26:48)
6-5:24(32:12)
It was amazing how easy this was. Don't forget we are starting this with more than 21miles in our legs including more than 20k of running at a good clip. Also footing, rolling hills and the very cold temps. Really felt very relaxed.
2mins recovery with light drills
7x1k on roads with 2min rests
1- 3:02
2- 3:03
3-3:07
4-3:03
5-3:13
6- 3:08
7-3:12- completely bankrupt. called it.
Ruben continued on for 3 more reps. I jogged in the last 3k while he did it. I would catch up to him and send him off on his next rep. To be honest not being able to do the last 3 was a rookie mistake on my part I had only eaten 6 pieces of toast and two things of tea all day. Just not enough fuel for a run like this with all the extra miles of warm up and cool down.
2.5 mile cool down- by now I was in a pretty bad way but we headed home- NEVER do a marathon block with a cool down. I should have had Melissa waiting for us. I didn't. It was stupid. I have been bankrupt of fuel like this a couple times. You struggle to think straight and feel very hopeless and just want to stop. Also we were soaking wet and it was very cold, 20 degrees. With about a mile to go Ruben ran out of fuel to. He wanted to stop, I couldn't get him going again. He walked a bit but it was obvious he was done. I told him to wait and I ran the last mile to the house. I was so gone I couldn't drive. Melissa went out and found Ruben. I was supposed to go out to eat with Melissa's extended family instead they got us takeout and helped us get our whits back about us. We kinda ruined their night. total 18 miles
XT a good bit of light drills(a skip mostly), whartons, rubber bands.
Sunday
PM 36mins of snowy road jogging with Melissa- she took it easy on me. total around 4.5 miles.
XT whartons and rubberband.
Summary
97 miles for the week. Two good normal workouts and one GREAT special block. Even not being able to run the last few K's at the end this was an awesome session. To be able to run that fast that easily in the PM is really great. The way it went confirmed our monster aerobic strength down to about 5:05 pace but the lack of speed on the 1k's, really should have been about 3:00 shows we do need more half marathon paced work to round out the special phase. I really think though as strong as we are a few good alternation sessions should do the job.
A single session like this is a double edged sword and the key to super compensation is to recover from it. My father in Law was all worried that training like this would get us sick or hurt. He was exactly right to be concerned. If you try to jump back into your regular runs after something like this and it is like setting a time bomb in your system. You will break down. If you are really strong a couple easy days will do if not you may need much more. After my first I needed a light week. I felt pretty good today but I won't workout again until the middle of this week and I'm quite strong.
8 comments:
Wow - great super comp workout! Great news that your coordination is holding on the longer workouts on the road... Hopefully the weather will break up north (70 degrees in GA today)...best of luck with the rest of your training block!
Speechless.
Is ~10 weeks out from the marathon the ideal time for one of those special blocks? Do you plan to do it again before Boston?
Jacob,
There are a few kinds of block workouts. This will be the only special block that we will do. I did a fundamental block about 6 weeks ago. We will do a specific block in 4 to 6 weeks.
In selecting when to do each it is as important when your goal race is as it is the shape you are in and how your workouts have progressed to build up to the session. Generally speaking a special block like this one should be 8 to 12 weeks out from the goal race and you may do more than one in that period of time if you are strong enough and have built up to them etc..
A specific block should be 4 to 6 weeks out from a marathon and really not within 3 weeks because of the time needed to recover from such a session.
nate
Nice job Working around the weather. Not easy this month-might just be a good thing in your boston build.
Thanks for the response. I have two more questions.
1) What does the specific block consist of? I see that the fundamental block was quite a bit different from the special block, so if the specific block a lot different also?
2) For a block like this, what would your thoughts be on doing the first session one evening and then the second the following morning? I don't think there's any way I could do an effort like this in a single day. It'd still be ~34 miles in 12-14 hours, but do you think having a night of sleep in between defeats the purpose?
Jacob- A specific block is generally much more similar to special. The one I have planed is 10k in 34, 10k at mp in the AM(so the same AM as we did in this special) then repeat the exact same session in the pm (10k in 34, 10k at mp) So all that changes is I replace the 10x1k with 10k at mp.
Now there are other variations some of which are just tweaking it a bit but you could do something like 15k to 20k at MP in the am and then repeat in the PM.
In terms of doing it over two days. I guess that would be a possibility but it would certainly reduce its specific impact as compares with the marathon. I would suggest if you can't do a session like this you shouldn't do a session like this. This is not a good idea for most people. This does not belong in a 4 months to a 4 hour marathon type schedule. This is an extremely intense and grueling session for someone with a long hard training background who needs to push their limits. Keep in mind Ruben has run 2:18:47, competed in the world championships and Olympics and ran 2:19:05 at Boston last year and this was the first time he had done one of these. This is not first day shit.
Also for a lower mileage runner with less of a lifetime base and with less of a workout history you would have to recover so long from a session like this, think 15 to 20 days of light jogging, that it would be self defeating. The workout would become the race and that is very counter productive.
nate
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