I was on vacation this week which meant I had a lot more time which basically meant I slept a lot more which was wonderful! This week off also saved my first specific workout as we had a blizzard last Sunday when the workout was scheduled and I was able to move it to Monday because I didn't have to work. Now I also did some vacationy things like eating out and a few trips up to Maine. Melissa, my wife, has to schedule her time off from work about a year in advance and we have been going to Hawaii each winter during February vacation but I put a kibosh on that this year because the two long flights in a 9 day period tend to undo any recovery you could get during that time and I wanted to be able to get as many hard workouts in as possible during my time off. Given the winter we are having Melissa giving up a trip to Hawaii to escape from the 2nd coldest and soon to be snowiest winter in Massachusetts history is a pretty huge sacrifice, all because I basically was being very picky and specific about my training plans. She is super supportive so the least I could do was go along for a few day trips. The eating out is about my favorite thing so no sacrifice on my part there.
Monday
PM COLD! 16 degrees but windchill well under 0. With Ruben. 3 mile warm up to Merrimack College 5k loop. Loop was in real bad shape in terms of footing. Only the 4th K was pavement. The rest was a mix of packed ice, loose snow, ice and a bit of slush. There are 12 turns on each loop and they were all very challenging. The plan was 30k specific workout. 10k at 80 to 85% of mp, 5k of 1min fast 1 min moderate, 5k back at 80 to 85%mp, 5k at mp and 5k max effort. In the end we only did 25k as footing really beat up on the legs and it meant that though we were on pace in the first 10k our effort was greatly in excess of the proper effort which you can see by how fast the 4th K was on each loop. The full run was continuous but I'll break it down below by section
10k at 80 to 85% of mp- 35:56.5 (4th k was 3:20 and the 4th k on the second loop was 3:20 again) This means that we were probably running 33:20 effort or faster as really the 4th k felt easier than the other k's)
5k of 1min fast/1min moderate- 16:39.19 (4th k was a 3:05)
5k back at 80 to 85% mp- 18:09.51( 4th k was 3:23)
5k at mp- we just went about as hard as we could we knew with the footing there was no way we were going to get down around 16:00 we ran 16:45.34 (3:10 for the 4th K)
Total this was 1:27:30 for 25k, 5:37 per mile pace, though I have no trouble believing the footing alone cost us 60 to 80 seconds per 5k loop. So 5 to 7 minutes overall. Never mind the cold and all the extra cloths we were wearing. No cool down on this one as Melissa and Uta were nice enough to pick Ruben and I up at the finish. Total 18.5 miles
XT whartons, rubberbands
Tuesday
AM road 7, shitty footing, cold 10 degrees real feel 2. 47:26 total 7
PM road 7, same loop, same conditions except temp all the way up to 20 and real feel up to 8, balmy! total 7
XT whartons, rubberbands
Wednesday
AM 3 mile warm up, 19:45, skipping warm up, light drills, 4 strides, 20k of 1k/1k alternations on Merrimack College 5k loop. In bit better shape than Monday, 1st and 4th k were clear footing, 2nd and 5th were about the same and the 3rd was a bit better but the turns were still real bad. Temps were about the same as Monday. Which means wearing a LOT of cloths which adds to the effort. In an ideal world my goal would be the fast k's between 3:00 and 3:05 and the recovery K's around 3:20. This was not ideal.
1k-2:59.8
2k-3:33.8(6:33.6)
3k-3:07.5(9:41.2)
4k-3:21.0 (13:02.2)
5k-3:15.5- yes that was an 'on' k (16:17.7)
6k-3:26.7(19:44.5)
7k- 3:05.9(22:50.5)
8k-3:33.3(26:23.8)
9k-3:01.2(29:25.1)
10k-3:37.7(33:02)
11k-3:04.4(36:07.2)
12k-3:32.2(39:39.4)
13k-3:08.3(42:47.7)
14k-3:24.5(46:12.3)
15k-3:17.0(49:29.5)
16k-3:26.7(52:56.2)
17k-3:08.1(56:04.3)
18k-3:34.1(59:38.4)
19k-3:04.1(1:02:42)
20k-3:41.2(1:06:23)
Those splits look all over the place but really if you compare the same K's on each loop to each other they are much closer than you think. IE the 4th k hard reps were 3:01 and 3:04 and the recoveries on that K were 3:21 and 3:24. On the 5th k, the slowest you see the same relationship 3:15.5 and 3:17.0 for the fasts and 3:37.7 and 3:41.2 for the recoveries.
3 mile cool down total of 19+ miles
XT skipping warm up, light drills, whartons, rubber bands
Thursday
AM road 10k, first 4.2 with Uta, then 2 miles solo, objectively speaking this was one of the most beautiful runs I have ever been on. We were running just at Sunrise and the orange glow of that through the freshly coated snow on the trees and reflecting off the fresh few inches on the ground. However I'm pretty much finished with winter and it was very cold and I was slipping all over the place. On the plus side Uta was able to enjoy it for its beauty and seemed to have a great time. total 6.2 miles
PM road 7, 46:15, not as snowy but still a couple of icy snowy miles road out front of the house was clear enough for me to do some strides which was very nice total 7.5 miles
XT whartons, shoveling, rubber bands, YTI
Friday
AM Super cold wind chill 15 to 20 below zero, wind was very heavy and very steady. 2 mile warm up and strides then did a 10 mile moderate progression run on my regular 10 loop(rolling)
Footing in 5th and 7th and 8th miles was very bad. The last 2 and 1/4 miles were pretty much into the wind the whole way and it made them VERY hard. I had hoped to run them at 5:20 pace for 8 and 9 and about 5:00 for the last mile. I'm sure the effort was there but the pace was not!
1-5:49(into wind)
2-5:46(into wind)
3-5:32
4-5:29
5-5:35(footing and uphill)
6-5:34 (uphill)
7-5:27(Footing!)
8- 5:43(footing, hill, wind!)
9-5:42(wind)
10-5:23(wind)
After this run Melissa asked if I was alright. I basically threw a fit in response. This is not normal for me. In my defense it was REALLY cold and REALLY windy. Still Melissa had a pretty good laugh about my little fit later. total 12.5 miles
PM on curve treadmill- I had had enough of the outdoors for one day. 15 minute warm up, 10x20 seconds hard with 1minute jog breaks. Sort of simulating short hill reps giving how the curve works. total 4.5 miles
XT whartons, rubberband,
Saturday
AM regular 10, cold 12 degrees, -6 degrees windchill, footing a bit better than yesterday and sadly this was a good bit warmer than yesterday too. 66:47, did strides after total 10.5 miles
XT rubberbands, whartons
Sunday
AM 3 miles warm up on treadmill, with 4 strides at 12mph mixed in. I also jacked up the mill to 2% instead of 1% because it seemed a bit easy like perhaps the grade was off a bit or the floor not flat. 7 miles at 11.8mph- 35:35, losing coordination so I hoped off and did whartons, got back on 45 seconds later and did a half mile in 3:30 felt ok so I did 3 miles at 12mph, 15:00. I had the shoulders back on and Melissa was on the Mill next to me and said my shoulders looked good. I really have been struggling to hold coordination on the mill. I think it may have something to do with how I don't really use my glutes and hamstrings much on it. But I'm not 100% sure. total of about 14 miles
XT rubberbands, whartons, shoveling
Summary
107 miles for the week but the real story is that with the strides and workouts more than 100 kilometers of that was at a workout effort. Just a huge amount of quality work. Really a great week of work.
I was scheduled to race the USATF-NE 10 mile champs but really didn't want to deal with the snowy roads getting out there, though I have since heard they weren't that bad. Anyway I played it safe. If I had raced this next week would be much lighter but with just the moderate workout today I'll keep it rolling through next week.
Hope you are doing well and for those of you who are as sick of winter as me I hope the weather treats us a bit better in the coming weeks.
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