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.
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.
4 comments:
Hey Nate, 5/10k age group runner from across the pond. Love your blog and your insights... and those Mona captions... great stuff. Just curious about the Moneghetti Fartlek - do you always run it on race week? I have found it gives me a good shake-out if i do it mid week, a couple of days after a specific session, and then race over the weekend.
Keep up good running!
KAV- In this cycle I'm hitting it every other week. I have done it weekly in the past. It is a regular workout for me in winter when I have limited training options thanks to snow and ice and whenever I travel. Depending on how you approach it the Mona can be a killer main session, a bread and butter good but not killer workout or a good moderate session to flush the legs. I tend to aim for the middle. Good effort but not lights out.
-Nate
Congratulations on another sub 15:00 5K - Very impressive, inspirational stuff! I would think you'd be closing in on some kind of record clocking at least one of those for 15 straight years!?
Thank you for maintaining such a great blog, including all the details of your training/workouts, philosophy, diet. It's fascinating to think about the different "levers" we can pull to improve human performance, and I believe you cover most (if not all) of them on your site. I'm looking at the plant-based diet stuff now, trying to determine if I have the "appetite" to move in that direction. Frankly it's a scary thought, but i'm more convinced every day that it would be the right thing to do (on many levels).
Matt- thanks. I have no idea what the record is for that sort of thing but given that running sub 15 as a college Freshman is not unusual and it has been done by a 49 year old I would guess 20 straight years has been done by many and that you would need to get towards 30 years for any sort of record.
Vegetarian didn't work for me but for a lot of people it is life changing so why not give it a go. Worst case scenario it doesn't work out and you go back to normal.
-Nate
Post a Comment