Sunday, February 26, 2017

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.  

                  

5 comments:

Jacob said...

Nate - Why so much rest on the Thursday mile repeats? Is it so you have enough time for the drills? It just seems like someone in 14:40ish 5K shape should be able to do repeat miles in 4:55-5:00 with half that rest.

Beastman said...

Do you think it's pointlessly repetitive to do both Aussie quarters and the Mona fartlek each week? I'm talking for like a marathon base/ improve general fitness period of time.

nateruns@hotmail.com said...

Jacob- They are not specific work, more like Vigil miles during the base phase, not run hard and with full recovery so they stay easy. Focus on relaxation at speed and good form. If I were doing a specific 10k workout I would maybe go a few seconds faster, down towards 4:50 if they were on the track, and I would just do a 200 to 400 meter jog recovery at 7min pace or so.

Beastman- Mona did both each week. I have at times. They are similar workouts but with the track you can be much more specific about the paces and being very particular about how you balance the recovery and hard effort paces. For example running 40/70 and running 45/65 accomplish the same total time but are very different workouts in their focus. I would only suggest doing both if you are also doing a tempo session, a hills session and a long session in each week. You can mix the hills into either the tempo or the long run session but you need to hit all the systems and the fartlek and the aussies are very similar so it would be a bit silly to do both of those but not hit the other types of workouts. If you search online I wrote an article a while back for level renner explaining the complex training system. Also I wrote a blog touching on how I approached it last winter. Lastly you can find a PDF of a sort of long paper/short book that Chris Wardlaw put together on complex training with a google search as well.

-Nate

Unknown said...

Hi Nate, my name is Ariel, and I'm a fellow runner, also from Massachusetts, who is suffering from the same loss of coordination issue. I actually met you at FOSS Running Camp way back when I went with my team (I went to Wachusett HS). I just stumbled upon your blog this morning, after reading a Runner's World article about yoga in which you mentioned the loss of coordination. I would love to be able to speak with you about this, as it's really de-reialed my post-collegiate running career, and it seems as though you have found some ways of managing it; additionally, no other runner/medical professional has really been able to understand the issue! Thank you so much for all the information you provide here, I'll be sure to read through your blog.
Ariel

nateruns@hotmail.com said...

Ariel- Sorry you are having coordination problems. Feel free to email me at nateruns@hotmail.com and I'll hopefully be able to get you in touch with some people who can get you moving in the right direction.
-Nate