Training February 20 to 26, 2017

  Before getting into this weeks training rather then repeat myself constantly through each day gushing about the weather let me just say if I had this weather during my April vacation I would be thrilled. The long term implications of winters like this are obviously bad but short term every run this week was a pleasure.  Heck today's run would normally be some of the best February weather I would get and it was some of the worst I saw all week.   Awesome for the motivation, bad for our future.

Me at USATF-NE last weekend, that is my college coach and former boss, also one of my groomsmen Gary Gardner on the infield. Also notice the dude behind me barefoot!  I like me some barefoot running but not on a mondo track surface that will peal some skin right off. Photo by Leslie Whiting Poitras

Monday 7AM bikram yoga-90mins
               9AM 10.1 solo, 1:04:20 on roads.
               2PM road 4 solo, 26:25
               3:45PM drills, strides and massage with Anna

Tuesday 8AM 3 warm up with Uta, half mile more solo, drills, stides, 3 mile rolling tempo run 15:17 (5:02, 5:05, 5:10), 2mins recovery with drills- 10x30 second hills focus on form and power.  3+ cool down after run 6x10 weighted lunges starting at 45lbs up to 95lbs.
               5PM road 4 solo, 28:25

Wednesday 7AM bikram yoga-90mins
                    9AM road 16.1 solo, stopped for drills because of coordination at about 13 miles, 1:43:15

Thursday 8AM 3.1 warm up, drills- about 12mins worth, strides, 6x mile on road. Lightly rolling point to point stretch, more up on even reps, 3mins recovery with 3 to 4 drills in each recovery. 4:59, 5:04, 4:54, 5:02, 4:54, 5:03, 2.3 cool down, 16:00, after run 6x6 deadlifts starting at 135lbs up to 185lbs.

Friday 7AM bikram yoga-90mins
            9AM road 10.1 mile with Uta, 1:07:13
            5PM road 4 solo, 28:25

Saturday 9AM road 4 with Uta, who was tired from yesterday and watching over her Mom and I all week, 29:51
                11AM massage and treatment with Brad
               3PM at North Andover Track, 3 warm up, full drill set about 15mins, 30x100m focus on relaxation, felt great- average 15.3 but felt controlled and easy, jog back recoveries then a 200 in 30.7 just to hold the pace a bit longer, again felt smooth and great. 200 jog then a mile cool down- short on time.

Sunday 8AM 2.7 warm up,20:23, drills about 15mins worth, 19.1 mile fundamental tempo run, 1:49:34 about 5:44 pace, felt great but had to stop for drills because of coordination just after 8 miles and just after 15miles. ran 6:10 for the 9th mile with drills but really rolling in the closing miles and ran 5:47 for the 16th mile with the drills.

Summary 109 miles for week, first 100 plus mile week of 2017.   Two good hard sessions and two good moderate sessions.  I'm thrilled with the progression of the form in terms of how I feel at speed.  I have maybe never felt as good running 15 second hundreds as I did Saturday.  Keep in mind my all time 400m PB is 58.8 (14.7 per 100m).  I continued to feel just amazingly easy on the fundamental tempo today. But and it is really a BUT!!! As easy as it felt I started to come apart form wise after 5 or 6 miles and I started to feel the coordination going so I did the 3 hop exchange.  The nice thing is that is like starting over in 20 seconds and I then get right back in the game without letting the heart rate drop and so I can do workouts like this.  Actually if I find I go about the same distance at marathon pace 7 to 9 miles without loosing coordination I might even consider doing a marathon and just excepting that I'll be giving away a minute or two doing drills three times during the race.   Not ideal but if your in 2:15 shape a minute or two back isn't really all that different.   Still my hope is that with the continued drill work, all told I did over an hour of drills this week, and strength work I will get stronger and be able to hold the form for longer and longer and perhaps finally put the coordination problems to bed.  

                  

USATF-NE 5000m Race Video

  This is the race from this weekend with some pretty detailed commentary from Mike Giberti, including a shout out to Melissa which she appreciated...

Training Blog February 13 to 19, 2017

Monday AM snow removal, about 3 hours of it, after a large storm.  School was canceled so I also slept in.
               PM road 10 with very snowy, 1:09:41

Tuesday AM 5 miles with Melissa and Uta in 40:30
               PM 5k warm up, drills, strides, Moneghetti Fartlek,roads much improved but definitely not great, almost fell twice and had to be very careful on the turns.  Covered 3.75 according to the garmin, exact same as two weeks ago but in tougher conditions so another improvement. 3.6 mile cool down

Mona rates this fartlek an "atta boy.  Keep moving forward"

Wednesday PM medium long run of 16 miles- felt like shit on a stick at the start but started feeling ok around 7 or 8 miles.  The coordination leg also felt off very early on and I was sure I would have to stop and do drills, not all that uncommon last week on the same loop I stopped at around 11.5 miles, but as I approached 11.5 I was ok but not great so decided to work to 12 or 13 but as I continued on it felt better and better so by the last couple miles it felt perfectly normal and I never did drills. 1:47:38 running time, roads still improving but certainly still stretches that are not so hot- I purposely run a lot of side streets and culdesacs to avoid traffic but sometimes they don't get as cleaned up as the main streets. 

Thursday AM snow removal.  I had school so I didn't have much choice had to do this rather than the morning run. 

                 PM 5.8 miles with Uta.  Now if you haven't caught on I hate winter.  I would move to Hawaii in a second if Melissa would let me but she likes the seasons.  That said this was an absolutely beautiful run.  The sun was setting and shining through the branches of the trees and every single branch was still covered in a couple inches of fresh pure white snow and every other surface was covered in that perfect white blanket as well.  The soft setting sunlight setting off it just gave me a feeling of being happy to be alive. 

  Dropped Uta off and did 15 short hill sprints.  I didn't time them though I would guess they were about 10 to 12 seconds based on doing hills in the same spot in the past. 

Friday AM road 4 with Uta, 29:34

            PM road 10 solo, 1:08:32, very tired, 6x6 squats starting at 95lbs up to 145lbs.

Saturday AM road 10 solo, 1:05:03, footing mostly ok but a couple miles were a good bit icy and slushy.
                PM 6 and change solo, 43:03

Sunday AM 3.5 or so warm up, some on track 2.75 on 1200m loop around Harvard facilities with a group. Drills, strides and a bit under 200m hard effort.  Race 5000m at USATF-NE Indoor Championships. 1st place 14:41.78.  So that makes 15 straight years of at least one sub 15 5k race which makes me happy.  This was much faster then the same race last year, 14:55, and again I felt really strong for most of it so I'm very happy.  Obviously I have run much faster but a more apples to apples comparison is that my fastest 5k without specific track work is only a 14:20 so being only 20 seconds off of that makes me very happy and I feel I could certainly go 20 seconds faster with 6 to 8 weeks of specific work.  Now the weather and my schedule doesn't have me doing that just yet but it really does have me getting excited for the racing to come later in the year.  Post race I went for a long cool down with a large group, 10.25 miles in 1:11:40.  Mostly around the Charles.  Mixed in some of Dan V's 5/55 sprints that he loves for cool downs.

Summary 97 miles for the week.  One good hard workout, one nice moderate session and one nice race.  Another solid but not spectacular week.  I though for sure I was finally going to get a hundred mile week in but the snowy morning on Thursday killed that. To be honest I'm not sure I have ever run a 5k much under 15 before without at least some 100 mile weeks in the months before.  Now that is a bit of a misleading stat because there are very few times in the last 20 years when I haven't run a number of 100 mile weeks in any two month stretch.   Anyway very nice to be back racing in a normal range at last.  It is even nicer to be feeling good and running feeling free and loose.   I ran basically 3 seconds per K faster then at the same race last year.  If I can do the same at New Bedford I would be looking at being a minute faster.  I'm not sure I'll see the same improvement and I'm still have a lot of coordination stuff but it is really nice to be going in with an honest reason to have some bigger better goals.  Hope your week went well.

  

Training February 6 to 12, 2017

Monday AM 4 on roads with Uta and Melissa, 31:47
               PM road 10.1 solo, 1:08:03

Tuesday AM 4 on roads solo, 29:22
               PM massage- back has been not so hot last few days

Wednesday PM road 16 solo, 1:45:29

Thursday off we had a large snowstorm and I didn't feel like getting hit and the gym was closed.

Friday AM road 5.1 with Uta, 35:56
            PM on treadmill, 3 warm up 21:20, with 3 strides mixed in, 2x2 miles with 2mins rest, 10:21, 10:15.  I was planning on a 4 to 5 mile tempo but I was out too fast.  5:04 pace at 1.5% and after a mile I was hurting.  3 mile cool down in 20mins

Saturday AM road 10 solo, very snowy, 1:11:37 tot. 10
                Late AM acupuncture and massage.
                PM Bikram yoga 90mins hot yoga.

Sunday Noon  road 10 with Uta, very snowy, 1:12:49 tot. 10

Summary not a very good week between weather and my back feeling a bit off early in the week.  I think it is pretty obvious I have been playing it very cautious.  The last few years I have tried to train like I did when I was running full time and it seems every time I start to get fit I get a set back.  So I have made up my mind to focus on just being steady and letting more slide.  This doesn't work too well with my personality but so far the results are pretty good.  I'm actually back to decent shape and hopefully I can move forward from here.  I could see myself running pretty well by May/June if I don't have any major set backs.  Only time will tell.

I think this is a 5k from faster days.  Anyway it is a good image of what the 5k feels like when you get a good effort out.  I'm racing one this weekend so good to remind myself what I need to to do.

January 30 to February 5, 2017

Monday AM road 4 with Uta, 30:42 tot. 4
               PM drills and massage with Anna

Tuesday AM road 4 with Uta, 30:51 tot. 4

Wednesday PM road 14.3, medium long run, 1:32:56

Thursday AM road 4 with Uta, 30:23
                 PM Moneghetti Fartlek, did 3 mile warm up with Uta in 21:11. dropped her off at the house, jogged another quarter mile or so, did drills- a skip, b skip, a+c skip, fast exchange, side shuffle, side shuffle with cross, karaoke, 3 hop fast exchange and sensory hops, 4 strides.  Did a Mona fartlek on my normal glendale loop.  Covered 3.75 miles, .05 more than 2 weeks ago and this got me back up to the area I was finishing in last year, albeit barely, but still nice to be back in the normal range.  Basically I have a 2/10th of a mile window that I finished all but one of my Mona's in prior to last years stress fracture. I was into that zone by about 30 or 40 yards.  I mean on gmaps this is 3.9 which is right in the zone I was very happy with last winter.  So I'm very happy now to be back in that range. 3.6 mile cool down.  I did 6x6 dead lifts after starting at 135 lbs up to 185lbs.

Steve Moneghetti rates this Mona a "good job" showing steady improvement and working back to competitive fitness.

Friday AM road 4 miles with Uta, 30:08

            PM road 10 miles solo, 1:05:03, felt pretty good for a Friday night normally I feel like death warmed over.  I did 6x6 squats after starting at 95lbs up to 145lbs.

Saturday AM boxford road 10, 1:03:29, felt a little heavy.
                2PM 6.4 miles road, 42:24
                4PM bikram yoga, 90mins hot yoga

Sunday AM Race Super Sunday 5 mile, Cambridge, MA.  3+ warm up, 22:15, full drill set, Strides, 30 second hard effort, Race, did most of the leading which I didn't mind.  I really just wanted a sub 25min time and didn't care much about place today.  Not my normal attitude but for today that is where my goals were at.  At 4 miles the pack just rolled by me and I didn't have a gear to shift to.  I ended up at 24:50 in 4th.  I'm really happy with this for a bunch of reasons.  first 14 straight years with at least one sub 25. Second this is one second faster than I ran last year which is a huge return to running in my normal range.  The low end of normal but normal all the same.  Third I split 15:25 which is about what I raced a month ago in very similar conditions. Fourth John Schilkowsky, I raced him in early December or late November and he beat me and today he was 1:34 behind me.  Now maybe he has been hurt or he doesn't run in the winter.  That's ok it is just very nice to be the one moving in the right direction for a change.  Splits 4:55, 9:54, 14:50, 19:49.  Then did a 3.5 mile cool down in 25:31. Total 12.5ish

Summary 81 miles for the week.  One good workout, one good race.  Good week with a rough start, not feeling very well, not sick just run down and feeling like I was going to get sick and played it safe. Feeling very optimistic about being back into regular shape and having a chance to build up to some good racing in the coming months.  Hope you are running well.