Nate Jenkins Training

Renato Canova Pre xc training and my specific training suggestions

2009-12-02T18:01:00.000-08:00

"DO" recently asked me for my ideal training schedule for a cross country 10k on my running times blog. I will post my response here as well. Largely becuause the format of the Canova base phase I would use didn't fit into the blog response section on Running Times.
So for those coming over from running times the base would involve following this Canova schedule, which has been widely circulated on the internet over the last few years. The paces should be adjusted based on your fitness level and realistic goals.

PROGRAM FOR THE GROUP OF YOUNG RUNNERS
Augustin Choge – Justus Kiprono – Ronald Kipchumba – Samson Kiplangat
Courtesy of Renato Canova

Note: Six weeks from the beginning of December, before the cross season

Morning Afternoon

(1st Week)

Mon 1 hour easy running 1 hour easy running

Tue 50min easy running + 100m x 10 uphill sprint
(max. speed)

Wed 1 hour 10min progressive running (from easy to fast)

Thu 1 hour moderate pace

Fri 1 hour 20min progressive running (30min easy + 50min from 3min 40s to 3min pace)

Sat 50min easy + 100m x 10 uphill sprint

Sun 2 hour easy (personal sensation)

(2nd Week)

Mon
20min warm-up
10k “medium pace” at 3min 15 > 3min05

Tue
1 hour easy

Wed
25 min warm-up
3000m x 3 in 9’10” recovery 3min jogging
1000m x 3 in 2’55” recovery 1min30 jog

Thu
1 hour progressive running (3min40 > 3min 20)

Fri
45min easy
45min easy

Sat
25min warm – up
6 km climbing fast (gradient 7-10 % about)

Sun
1 hr easy jogging

(3rd Week)

Mon
1 hour easy

Tue

20min warm-up
20 times 60secs fast recov. 60secs easy

Wed
1 hour 10min moderate

Thu

20 min warm – up + 14 km at 3’20” / 3’10”
(about 46 min fast)

Fri
1 hour easy

Sat

45min easy + 60secs uphill fast (recovery 3min walking) x 10 times

Sun
1 hour 40 moderate pace

(4th Week - Block of Volume)

Mon 20min warm-up
2000m x 5 in 5min 55 (track) rec. 3min jog. 40min easy

Tue 45min easy + 10 x 100m sprint climbing 45min easy

Wed 1 hr 10min progressive 1 hr easy

Thu 20min warm – up
40min fast with short variations (40secs about every 3min) on cross country ground 20min warm – up - (Track) :
With recovery 3 min jogging:
3000m (8’40”) + 2000m (5’46”) + 1000m (2’45”)

Fri 1 hour easy 1 hour easy

Sat 1 hour easy 1 hour easy

Sun 30min easy
6 km climbing fast (same course of previous Sat.)

(5th Week - Second Period of Volume)

Mon 45min easy 45 min easy

Tue 1 hour easy 40 min easy + 10 x 100m sprint uphill

Wed
25min warm-up
4 groups of 400m x 5 (rec. between the tests:
60secs - between the groups: 4 min) in
64" / 64" / 64" / 64" / 61" the last, for every group)
40min regeneration

Thu
1 hour easy running
1 hour easy running

Fri

1 h 10min progressive running
40min easy + 10 x 100m sprint uphill

Sat
1 h 20min with short variations (30 / 40 secs)
every 3min about
45min easy

Sun
40min easy
10 km very fast on cross country ground

(6th Week)

Mon
1 hr easy regeneration

Tue
50min easy + 10 x 100 sprint climbing

Wed
1 hr moderate

Thu
1 hr easy

Fri
45min easy

Sat
25min warm – up
12 km (road) at 3’10” pace
25min warm – up + 10 x 1’30” fast climbing
recovery 3’ / 4’

Sun
50min easy

For the specific phase I would take about 7 weeks including taper. I would put in three hard efforts each week. The first and most important would be a 10K specific workout done on terrain that, as best I could managed, simulated the terrain that I would be facing for my focus race. In every one of these 10k workouts I would really hammer the first 400m of the first interval to simulate the start of the xc race as you need to fight for position. So if the workout was 12x800m at 2:24(30:00 10k pace) I would run the first interval too fast, running the first 400m in 62 to 65 and then settling in and running the second 400m in 72. So that 800m would be in 2:17 or a bit faster. the rest of the intervals would be done on pace.
I would progress these workouts each week as below
12x800m with 200m jog
10x1k with 200m jog
6x1600m/mile with 400m jog
6x1600m/mile with 200m jog
5x2k with 200m jog rest
3k, 400m jog rest, 2x2k with 200m jog rest 3 to 4x 1k with 200m jog rest
taper week 3k averaging 10k pace but alternating 400m in 62/63 and 3k in 80.

The second hard day each week would alternate weeks one session would be an long hard tempo/threshold on terrain similar or harder to that I would expect to face in my peak race. The other workout would be long hill reps. Some of those would have intervals mixed in at the top to focus on cresting the hill and putting the hammer down to get back on pace. On the days with the long tempo I would do a set of short hill reps as a second session, 10x15 seconds with jog down rest.
4 to 6 miles at 95% of goal race pace
4xlong hill(800m to 1 mile) with jog down rest
5 to 7 miles at 95% of goal pace
5xlong hill with jog down rest
6 to 9 miles at 95% goal pace
5xlong hill continuing into (without stopping) a 400m at goal pace then jog down rest
taper week- a set of short hills or strides after an easy run

The third hard effort each week would be a race or a workout. If I was getting ready for USATF world xc qualifiers i would make sure to run some under distance races on the track. Though it would be good to mix in one to two long hilly road races of 8k to 10miles if possible. If I was running an xc season I would try to only race every other weekend because 8k to 10k efforts on xc courses do take a good bit out of you particularly while you are training hard.
If you aren't racing on a given weekend then I would do a surge workout. Either a workout averaging goal pace as long as i can while running faster and slower. So if goal pace is 72 per 400m- 30:00 for 10k I would do something like 31/41 200's, or 62/80 400's, or Aussie quarters going 62 to 64 and the 200's in 46 to 44 for rest. If a session was short, ie you would probably only manage a mile or two of the 31/41 then I would take a 5min rest and do a second set.

Lastly on sundays I would do a 15 to 20 mile normal paced run but on very soft hilly terrain something that really saps the legs to get used to running on soft tough surfaces and not getting frustrated but also to build all those little muscles that will get really taxed on a tough xc course.

Build up to Olympic Trails 2007

2009-10-31T08:49:00.000-07:00

This is my training from July 23 to the Olympic Trials in 2007, this was all originally on trackshark, but that sight went down so I pieced it back together for this site.
My training from March to July 22 is posted on this blog in its original dates.
OK I couldn’t find the original blogs from July 23 to August 26 or from October 1 to 7 so I just copied them out of my hand written logs so you get no comments or summaries or quotes for those weeks.

July 23 to 29
Monday PM road 20-1:56:28, first Methuen road 10 loop with Garcia, then lake road 1
loop solo- hamstring bad! From an 1:15 on. Tot.20
AM ART and chiro adjustment

Tuesday AM 9 solo at mines falls, easy, 59:11 tot. 9
PM 8 shakeout with Shannon at mines falls, 1:01:03,
springing/bounding/straight leg bounding after tot. 8

Wednesday AM 3 warm up, 22:36, 20k on Tewksbury track, warm 85 degrees, 1:07:38
(major splits 5k-17:08, 8k-27:15, 10k-34:00, 15k-50:52, 16K-54:15) 1 ½
mile cool down tot. 17
2PM 18:56 warm up, 12x15 second hills, very tired, HOT!, 18:23 cool down,
tot. 8
6PM 42:33 shakeout with Shannon on Tewks trails- tot.5

Thursday AM rd. and trail 9 in tewks solo, 1:01:02, tot.9
PM Duffy 5 with Gary 36:22, bounding and stuff, then duffy 5 solo, 34:45
tot.10
XT 2x70y springing, 2x70y bounding, 5x70y straight leg bounds, 2x short hill
Springing, 2x short hill bounding

Friday AM rd. and trail 9 in tewks solo, 1:01:02 tot. 9
PM trail 10 in tewks, 1:20;54, first 5 with Shannon, tot. 10

Saturday AM in Keene, NH on track, 3 warm up, strides 200m in 35, 10k on track first 3k
with Josh Ference, first 8k with mark Miller, 30:05.8 (splits 3:00.3, 6:00.3,
8:59.4, 12:01.8, 15:01.9, 18:03.4, 21:02.8, 24:03.2, 27:06.2) 27:28 c/down
tot. 12++
PM 3 w/up, 15x13 second hills, 3 cool down, tot. 8

Sunday AM rd. and trail 27+ in tewks, 3:03:05, warm but I took water, tot. 27
PM rd. 5+ shakeout, first 3 with Shannon, 43:47 tot. 5+

Summary 157 miles for week.

July 30 to August 5

Monday AM 2+ jogging at camp, some light drills
2PM 9+ easy on road, 1:02:09, tot.9
PM 5+ shakeout with Shannon, 40:22 tot. 5

Tuesday AM 6ish at camp, including 1 mile with Keith Kelly in 5:20/30 range, tot.6-
3:30PM 3 warm up, strides, 10k at 95% goal mp- 32:45, on track, supposed to
go 15K but had bathroom issues 3 cool down, tot. 12+
PM 6+ shakeout with Shannon in Tewks, tot. 6+

Wednesday AM rd. and trail 9 in tewks, 59:19 tot.9
PM 10 shakout in tewks, 1:18;08, 2x100m bounding, 4x100m straight leg
bounding after tot. 10

Thursday AM 3+ warm up, 18K on tewks track at 90% mp, F-ing Hot 90+ and humid,
1:01:56, (10k in 34:32) mile cool down 7:41 tot. 15++
PM at mines falls, 26min warm up 20x9 second hills, 19min cool down tot. 8

Friday AM rd. and trail 9 in tewks, 59:34 tot.9
1PM duffy 5 with gary, 36:39, 2x110y springing, 2x110y bounding, 4x110y str.
leg bounding, 3 cool down tot. 8
6PM trail 5+ in tewks, 41:53 tot. 5+

Saturday AM 3 warm up 22:30, 12x400m with 200 jog rest, fastest 65.2 slowest 68.0
average about 66 mid, 3 cool down, 21:26 tot. 11
PM 3 warm up, 10k on track at 95% mp, breezy and hot 90+ but low humidity,
32:26(5k-16:21, 8K-26:02) 2 cool down tot. 11+

Sunday AM 30 easy on roads in Lowell, 3:16:26, first 16 with Rex, tot. 30

Summary 156 miles for week

August 6 to 12

Monday AM ART and chiro, then 9 miles at Maudsley st. park, 1:03:25 tot.9
PM trail 10 shakeout in tewks, very tired, 1:19:24 tot. 10

Tuesday AM tewks rd. and trail 9, 59:08, tot. 9
PM duffy 5, then 3xhill springing, 3xhill bounding, 5x100m str. leg bound on
flat, then duffy 5 again tot. 10

Wednesday AM Super humid, windy, on tewks track.3.5 warm up strides, 200 in 35,
3200m in 9:28.4(72, 2:22, 3:33, 4:44, 5:55, 7:06, 8:17), 3 cool down,
felt pretty easy, was tempted to push to 5k but decided to play it safe.
Tot. 9
PM 8 shakeout with Shannon at Mines falls, super humid tot.8

Thursday AM jogging and short hills and some hill bounding at camp, tot. 5+
2PM 6++ solo and easy on rds in Lowell, 41:02 tot. 6++
6PM rd. 5+ shakeout, 39:26 tot. 5

Friday AM 6+ rd. and trail in tewks, 40:03 tot. 6
PM 6 shakeout with Shannon in Falmouth, 48:31 tot. 6

Saturday PM 6 plus solo in Falmouth, drills after run. Tot.6+

Sunday 6:45AM 2 mile shakeout, 15:40 tot. 2
9AM 20min warm up, strides, drills, Race Falmouth Road race, dropped out3.5
mile with Achilles issue, jogged to 6.5 mile mark slowly to get ride home.
Tot.9+

Summary 100 miles, was running great! at Falmouth until Achilles went.

August 13 to 19
Got ART every other day
Monday pool workout 10x3mins
Tuesday pool workout 16x2mins
Wednesday pool workout
Thursday jog 4 and ½ minutes
Friday jog ½ mile on track 3:56
Saturday Jog mile 8:14
Sunday nothing
Summary 2 miles for week

August 20 to 26
Monday AM 2 miles on track 14:30
PM pool workout 30x1min

Tuesday Noon 3 miles solo, 21mins
PM massage

Wednesday AM ART
PM rd. 5 solo in tewks, 32:28 tot. 5

Thursday PM 7 easy 48:14 tot. 7

Friday Pm 7 at mines falls, 50:21 tot. 7

Saturday rd. and trail 11+ in Tewksbury, 1:16:53 tot. 11+

Sunday rd. and trail 12, 1:20:43 tot.12

Summary- 47 miles for week

Training August 27 to September 2

Monday AM rd. 7 in tewks w/ Sean, 46:37 tot. 7
PM rd. and trail 9 solo, 58:34 tot. 9

Tuesday AM 3 w/up strides, 2800m on tewks track (3:14, 3:15 (2:35 last 800) had hoped
to go 10k at this pace, roughly 95% goal mp but Achilles started to tighten
so I stopped. 1 lap cool down tot. 5
PM 9 miles at mines falls, first 44 mins w/ Sean, Achilles tired but ok, 58:27
tot.9

Wednesday AM got ART and chiropractic adjustment
PM 1:12:22 at Walden Pond, first 63 mins w/ Sean tot. 10

Thursday AM drove up to camp Foss in Barnstead Nh, to join uml’s xc camp in progress
PM road (mostly dirt) 12, first 9.5 w/ Ruben Sanca (who is very fit), 1:11:47,
we ran the normal Foss 9 loop (for anyone who has gone to camp there) in
54:54 then went out camp road which Gary had marked every 400m the
day before for there 5 mile tempo run, Ruben turned at the half to get 10 I
turned at the 1 and a half. This stretch was flatter, but not flat, I ran about
5:35 pace for the last 3 but it was the same effort we had been running.
Tot. 12

Friday 6:50am 6 w/ gary easy, 47:32 tot. 6
10am 10 w/ uml guys, well a couple of them, 1:03:33, used the same loop as
Thursday and hit 9 in 57:33 then ran 6 flat again the same effort just flatter
for the last mile tot. 10
PM drive home from Foss

Saturday AM Got ART and Chiropractic adjustment spectacular appointment left feeling like
Achilles was 99% healed
Noon at battle road trail in Lexington and Lincoln 10 miles in 1:04:50, wanted
to do a tempo run and had heard this thing was marked but after it took
over 5 minutes to reach cover the first marked “800” and then 54 seconds
to cover the next marked “400” I should have realized there was no way
this was going to work and slowed down but I really liked the trail so I
ran the whole thing and ascertained that the markers were put out by
someone just guessing at location who had no sense of distance what so
ever. Great trail though. But long story short I ran harder then I should
have because now I had to move my tempo to the pm tot. 10
4PM 3+ w/up 2x5k on tewks track, little windy but not bad, 15:38.0 and 15:42.0
with 800 meters in 2:56.6 for rest felt controlled and Achilles was good but
I opted to stop at 2 repeats I’ll revisit this workout once or twice before the
trials and do 4 or 5 repeats and try to change the rest to 1k in about 3:30,
3+ cool down, my right abductor was very tight after the run probably from
favoring the Achilles over the past few weeks tot. 13

Sunday AM woods 10 easy w/ uml guys, 1:13:12, was going to go long but abductor was
very tight and didn’t loosen up. I have spent the rest of the day iceing it and
trying to roll it out with a tennis ball I may take tomorrow off I have had this
in the past and it is rarely bothersome for more than a day or two tot. 10

Summary 101 miles for the week. The Achilles (my computer insists on capitalizing this every time I type it) is much better. I’m very happy with the comeback so far and being able to do some mp work on Saturday was great news. I’m a little worried about the abductor thing but am hoping its just from coming back so quickly, the hills at foss, and favoring the Achilles over the last couple of weeks and that a little rest, a lot of ice and a bit of tennis ball will get it squared away. I’m starting my specific phase for the marathon this week which means that my focus will move away from getting good efforts and move to hitting a specific pace. I will do 4 types of workouts,
1. marathon pace work which will make up the lions share 90% or more of my workouts, this includes repeats like Saturday’s 5k’s and possibly runs of 20 tot 25 kilo meters, varying pace runs of 30 to 40 kilometers that involve running mp off of faster and slower paces when I’m tired, easy long runs of greater then 2 hours, at 7min pace or so, that are finished with running at mp to teach the body to run this pace after severely depleting my glycogen stores, I’ll probably do one super compensation workout which will be designed to do the same thing only in a different way. In that workout I’ll run 10k quickly followed by 10 or 12k at mp then repeat the same workout in the afternoon.
2. Long runs of race time (ie between 2:10 and 2:20) at 90% race pace. These are basically to get the body used to pushing for the amount of time they will have to in the marathon. These are very very tough. If mp is 3:08 a kilo (5:04 a mile) then 90% is 3:27 a kilo (5:34 mile pace).
3. Alternate pace runs, these are 20 kilometer( 12 and a half mile) runs where I run one kilo at half marathon goal pace, roughly 3:00 and then one kilo slower hopefully by the end of the phase roughly 3:18. The idea is that my avg. pace should be marathon pace. This workout teaches the body to handle the extra strain of faster running (surges) and to relax and recover at a pace very close to mp.
4. Progression runs, I do 1 to 1 and a half hour progression runs a few times just to try and maintain my aerobic threshold. These are solid efforts but should not be the focus of what I’m doing.
Most everything else that remains is light running, I’ll do some short hill repeats and bounding, drills ect… but nothing that will take much out of me. My miles will be slightly, 5 to 10 miles a week, lower then during my base phase and I’ll be doing a bit more easy running between hard efforts.

Training September 3 to 9

Monday off for sore abductor, iced it about 12 times, basically 20 minutes out of every
hour for the vast majority of the day

Tuesday AM rd. and trail 9 easy in tewks, 1:05:28
PM get ART and chiro adjustment

Wednesday AM rd. and trail 9 in tewks solo, 55:45, ice abductor after tot. 9

Thursday AM rd. and trail 9 in tewks solo, 55:55, tot. 9
3pm light ART work
6PM 8 shakeout in tewks w/ Shannon, 104:57 tot. 8

Friday Noon, hot!! 95 degrees, 2+ w/up, 6.3 miles medium pace (roughly 80% mp)
36:01, into 5k alt. 1 min hard 1 min medium (16:13) 3.2 miles medium
(19:01 (passed 5k in 18:24), 1 mile in 5:18 was supposed to be 5k at mp but
the heat had gotten to me and I stopped, 13.6 miles in 1:16:35, passed half
marathon in 1:13 so all and all a good run with the heat, 11 minute c/down
tot. 17++ Ice bath after

Saturday AM 6 mile easy shakeout w/ Shannon, 50:01 tot. 6
PM 6 mile easy shakeout solo, 48:23 tot. 6

Sunday AM rd and trail 9 easy solo in tewks, 58:01, tot. 9
PM 8 shakeout w/ Shannon at mines falls, 1:04:31 tot. 8

Summary 81 miles for the week, 1 ok workout. I’m healthy and got in one of two planned workouts this week. It was hot so I’ll take it for what it was. Hot or not I really struggled with the 1min hard 1 min medium stretch basically I am still really struggling with anything that involves shifting paces, but I have a few more workouts that will target this. Ok this week was not what I hoped for but it was successful, hopefully this coming week will be better.

Quote of the week “We shall show mercy, but we shall not ask for it.”
Sir Winston Churchill, speech in the House of Commons, July 14, 1940

Training September 10 to 16

Monday Noon woods 24 easy in Lowell into 3200m on track in 10:11. Hamstring
bothersome everything else (adductor, Achilles) good tot. 26, 2:50:10,
tot.26

Tuesday AM rd. and trail 8 solo shakeout in tewks, 1:01:23 tot. 8
PM rd. and trail 8 solo shakeout in tewks, 1:01:50 tot. 8

Wednesday AM got Chiro adjustment and ART
Noon 9 easy, solo in tewks, 56:17 tot. 9
8PM rd. 8 solo shakeout in tewks, 1:04:16 tot. 8

Thursday 1PM at mines falls, 4 w/up 1 hour progression run around factory loop, 5 laps
(13:24, 13:00(26:25), 12:36(39:01), 12:08(51:10), 11:48(1:02:59) 11
minute cool down. Honestly I would have liked to do another loop and
really open it up but my hamstring started to get a little funny and where
this isn’t really an important workout for me I decided to leave it. Tot. 17

Friday AM rd. and trail 9 easy in tewks, 56:55 tot. 9
PM 8+ shakeout at mines falls, first couple with Shannon, 1:03:35 tot. 8

Saturday off- sick Shannon has had a cold all week and I caught it had a workout scheduled and decided to try and kick the cold with a day off

Sunday 1Pm 9 at mines falls easy, 57:19, felt ok but ended up feeling crumby after tot. 9

Summary 102 miles for the week. Ok week I’m worried about the hamstring which has been an off and on problem for a year now. I think I have it figured out though. My working theory is that the problem isn’t the hamstring itself( I’ve had it worked on by a few different people and they all say basically the same thing that it doesn’t seem to be in very bad shape) I believe the problem is that my quads are way to tight and that when I run faster the hamstrings have to fight the quads more( because my heel comes up higher ect.) and that when I run quicker for long periods of time this exhausts the hamstring and causes it to fatigue out. So I have started doing some active stretching for the quad and it seems to be working, though I haven’t had a chance to really test it yet with the cold. Which is pretty much finishing up now(Wednesday).

Quote of the week “I've had a few setbacks in my life, but I never gave up” Harry
Truman

Training September 17 to 23

Monday Off sick

Tuesday Noon rd. and trail 9 in tewks solo easy, 56:28 tot. 9
PM rd. and trail 8 solo shakeout in tewks, 58:47 tot. 8

Wednesday Noon rd. and trail 10 solo in tewks, 1:01:27 easy, congestion starting to clear
up tot. 10
PM 8 shakeout solo in tewks, 1:02:06 tot. 8

Thursday Noon at mines falls, 3 w/up (23:30) Progression run around factory loop, lap 1-
12:49, lap 2-12:30(25:19), lap 3-12:09(37:29), lap 4-11:47(49:17)
straight only-4:08(on last lap I went 4:18 to this point) 53:25, 2 min rest
2 c/down tot. 15+
PM 8 solo shakeout in tewks, 1:00:16, tot. 8

Friday AM rd. and trail 8 solo shakeout in tewks, 59:40 tot. 8
PM trail 8+ shakeout at mines falls w/ Shannon, 1:04:30 tot. 8

Saturday 9:30AM 3+ w/up, 24:30, 2x10k on Tewks 2.1 mile loop(lightly rolling), first
10k 35:15, 1:28 rest w/ 1/10th a mile jog, a bit of water and a quick
stretch, 10k in 31:19 (splits 5:06, 5:01, 5:01(15:39 5k), 4:53, 5:03,
5:11) bad side stitch the last two miles hence the slow down on the
plus side other then the stitch running 5:11 felt like a walk if you’d
asked me what pace I was running I would have guessed 6 mins. 1-
c/down 7:48, it was warm 75 or so tot. 16.5
4:10PM 3 w/up, 22:30, warm again 80, 2x10k on same tewks 2.1 loop, 1st 10k
34:46, 1:58 rest, little water, light stretch 1/10th mile jog, 2nd 10k 31:28
(splits 5:06, 5:06, 5:03 (15:47 5k) 5:00, 5:05, 5:04), 51 second rest, 1
mile c/down, 8:01 tot. 16.5

Sunday AM rd. and trail 6 solo shakeout, 45:52, tot.6
PM rd. and trail 6 solo shakeout, 47:43, tot. 6

Summary 122 miles, two real good workouts. I measured the factory loop and the progression run was a little over 10 miles and I averaged about 5:09 a mile so that is a real solid effort and the super compensation workout on Saturday went great. I figure mp must be about 5:05 over the rolling hills, though they aren’t as tough as the ones in central park but then it won’t be 80 at 7am on November 3rd there either, at least I hope it won’t. It was nice to finally get over that cold and hopefully that will be the last unplanned hurdle for this training phase.

Quote of the week “To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson

Training for September 24 to 30

Monday AM rd. and trail 10 in tewks solo, 1:01:36 tot. 10
Noon ART and chiro adjustment
PM rd. and trail 8 shakeout w/ Shannon in tewks, 1:04:55 tot. 8

Tuesday AM rd. and trail 9 solo in tewks, easy 55:17 tot. 9
PM rd. 8 solo shakeout in tewks, 1:04:06 tot. 8

Wednesday AM at mines falls, 3 w/up 22:40, factory loop progression run, 14.25 miles
(6 loops), splits 13:32, 13:15(26:47), 12:50(39:38), 12:32(52:10 ten
second stop on that lap to tie shoe included in that time), 11:54(1:04:04)
11:35(1:15:40), 2 mins rest then 12:09 c/down, very hot, 80 degrees
despite early start tot.19
PM woods 8 shakeout w/ the umass Lowell girls, 1:05:10 hot 90 degrees
plus tot. 8

Thursday AM rd. and trail 10 solo in tewks, 59:57 tot. 10
PM rd. and trail 8 solo shakeout in tewks, 1:04:10 tot. 8

Friday AM in tewks on 2.1 loop, very warm again 75plus w/ humidity, 3 w/up 24:30,
3x4.1 miles at goal mp w/ half mile jog rest, 20:47(5:12, 10:11(4:59), 5K
15:46(5:02), 5:01. half mile in 2:45 rest, 4.1 in 20:39(5:00, 10:03(5:03), 5K
15:37 (5:01), 5:02, half rest in 2:41, 4.1 in 20:40 (5:00, 10:04(5:04), 5k
15:37(5:01), 5:03, 2 mins standing rest then ¾ mile w/down. This loop is
lightly rolling tot. 16
PM at mines falls 3 ¾ w/up 10 x 9 second hills jog down rest, nice to get back to
these, I’ve been worried about adding them in before the achilles was strong
enough but it was fine, 3 ½ c/down tot. 8

Saturday AM 8+ solo shakeout in Keene, NH on rail road tracks, 1:03:09 tot. 8
PM woods 8 solo shakeout in Lowell, 1:00:16 tot. 8

Sunday Noon just over 1 mile w/up at 8 min pace then just over 40 km (40.11) at
between 90% and 95% of marathon pace on a very very hilly loop
(2:16:56), ran four 9.25 km loop and finished w/ a loop that was just over
3km loop splits (32:09, 31:18, 31:08, 31:37,(3.11k in 10:41) my average
pace was 5:29.65 a mile (3:24.8 a kilometer) oh ya, I almost forgot 40.11
km is 24.92 miles tot. 26

Summary 146 miles for the week with three very good workouts/hard efforts. This was as good a week training as I have ever had. After this I feel I’m certainly fit enough for the trails. Now it will come down to staying healthy, racing intelligently, and being ready for the course. The long run at the end of the week was particularly gratifying. Frankly the course was much tougher then I thought it would be but I had little problem with it, at least aerobically, (I’m still finding my weakness is muscular). Still to run just a shade shy of 25 miles at under 5:30 mile pace over a course that was much tougher then anything I’ll ever have to race a marathon on and to do it at the end of a 146 mile week with two good workouts in the previous four days was a real good effort. It was a week with a lot of distractions so to still train this well was very nice. This coming week I’ll be mostly resting up for the BAA half marathon on Sunday. I’m not real sure who is going to be there, I know Samuel Ndereba and Linus Maiyo are in but other than that I’m not sure. I’m fit and ready to run well. Hopefully there won’t be a repeat of Falmouth and I haven’t left my race in the last few days of training. Really though I’m very confidant that I’m ready to run well. The course is a little tough but it fits my style of racing well.

Quotes of the week “By prevailing over all obstacles and distractions, one may unfailingly arrive at his chosen goal or destination.” Christopher Columbus

“Work is hard. Distractions are plentiful. And time is short.” Adam Hochschild

October 1 to 7
Monday AM ART and chiro
Noon 6 miles solo in Maudsley tot. 6
3PM 6 with Gary, 44:54 tot. 6

Tuesday AM woods 10 solo, MD, 59:35 tot. 10
3PM ART and chiro,
5PM woods 8 solo, 59:48 tot. 8

Wednesday 3+ warm up, 5k on track, 15:08, bad workout VERY tired/heavy. 3 plus cool
down tot. 10

Thursday AM 6 with gary and Amanda- 49:05 tot. 6
PM woods 6 with UML girls, 47:16 tot. 6

Friday Noon- woods 7 with Nikki, 55:45, 6 strides, tot.8

Saturday Noon- trail 5 easy at Franklin park, 34:36, drills after tot. 5

Sunday AM 20min warm up with Nikki, some jogging and strides, Race BAA Half Marathon, 7th 1:06:16, Hammy went after 8 miles stuggled after that. 20min cool down tot. 19

Summary 84 miles for week

Trackshark blog October 8 to 14

Monday AM ART and Chiro work with Brian McCracken (my normal guy and yes he is
a chiropractor with McCracken as his real last name.)
PM woods 6+ solo shakeout, 47:10 tot. 6

Tuesday AM woods 9 easy solo 1:03:32 tot. 9
Noon ART and Chiro w/ dr. Pete, the point is he is a different guy then usual.
Better then my regular guy. Yes he has a last name and no I don’t
remember it.
PM woods 7 shakeout w/ Jenna and Nikki, 55:20 tot. 7

Wednesday AM woods 9 easy solo easy 1:02:01, tot. 9
PM 1:00:32 shakeout on Hickory Hill Golf course well watching uml guys
workout tot. 8

Thursday AM woods 10 solo medium, 1:02:01 tot. 10
PM woods 8 shakeout w/ Ray Drewitz, 58:32 tot. 8

Friday AM On very hilly loop in Dracut, 3 w/up, strides, 7 miles at goal mp(36:00), 1
mile rest (6:02 but that is including a 29 second) 5 miles at goal mp (25:46) 1
cool down tot. 17
PM 2.5 w/up 10x14 second hills jog down rest 2.5 c/down 50:01 total runnig time
tot. 6

Saturday AM woods 7 solo shakeout, 52:56, tot. 7
PM woods 7 solo shakeout, 49:53 tot. 7

Sunday AM woods 9 solo, 59:24, tot. 9
PM woods 9 solo shakeout, 1:08:09 tot. 9

Summary 112 miles for the week w/ 1 workout. A good week. I bounced back from the
race well. The only thing that bothered me was that during the workout my legs did the same going dead thing well I was still feeling good as they did at the BAA so I’m a bit more worried about that. I don’t know if it is that my aerobic system is just ahead of my muscles or that I screwed up my training or it could be that I’ve been eating poorly and that I’m running out of glycogen very very quickly. Frankly I’m not sure and grasping at straws a bit but really there isn’t much I can do at this point so I’ll do my last few workouts, try to eat better and hope that tapering and racing smart will help me avoid it when it matters. I don’t need to avoid it completely I can honestly run pretty well with it for 5 or 6 miles.

Quote of the week “Ask yourself “Can I give more?” The answer is usually “Yes’.” -Paul Tergat

The last hard week October 15 to 21

Monday AM ART and Chiropractic adjustment with Cracken (regular guy)
Noon woods 8 shakeout, 1:00:48, first 3 w/ Gary tot. 8
PM woods 10 solo(started at same time as uml guys but none wanted to go,
1:00:01 tot. 10

Tuesday AM on very hilly Dracut loop 2+ w/up (15:08) 9 at bit faster then 80%mp
(53:08) 3 miles alt. 1 min fast one at roughly 80% mp (16:15) 4 miles at
what was supposed to be mp, first mile I just screwed the pace but as soon
as I picked it up my legs went and I gutted it out for a while but stopped
after 4 in 21:10 (5:19, 10:35, 15:47, 21:10). This was an extremely
disappointing workout I felt great the whole way except the legs just stopped
working. Very frustrating! Tot.18

PM woods 5 shakeout with some uml guys(36:50) ran straight into 4 miles on
the track at mp (20:03) splits (5:00, 10:02, 15:01) now the track is perfectly
flat and those are only 1600’s hence why they are much faster then any
other mp work I’ve done. My legs went a little on this but only when I was
feeling tired which is much less unsettling tot. 9

Wednesday AM woods 9 solo/ easy, 1:00:39 tot. 9
PM woods 8 solo shakeout, 58:32 tot. 8

Thursday AM woods 10 solo/md, 59:53 tot. 10
PM woods 8 solo shakeout, 59:22 tot. 8

Friday 1PM on tough hilly Dracut loop, 19:56 w/up strides, 3x4 miles at mp w/ 1 mile
at roughly 80% mp for rest and a bonus. 20:49 rest 5:49(26:39)
20:26(47:09) rest 5:49(52:54), 20:37(1:13:31) rest 5:52(1:19:24 for 15
miles) 1 mile in 5:18(1:24:42 for 16 miles) 3 minute cool down. I’ll put
the exact splits below the summary tot. 19++
5PM 3 ½ w/up 10x9 second hills at mines falls jog down rest 18:45 cool
down, 57:14 total running time tot. 7-

Saturday 10:30AM ART and Chiropractic adjustment w/ Cracken
11:30AM 8 shakeout at Maudsley State Park in Newburyport, 1::01:53 tot. 8+
PM woods 9 solo/easy, 1:02:19 tot. 9

Sunday 8:30AM at Stonehill College on there xc course, 10 miles(59:22) first 5 easy,
33:35, second 5 at roughly mp (25:56) honestly I was a bit tired so I
really didn’t push. Splits 5:12.1, 5:11.1, 5:14.9, 5:07.3, 5:10.9) course
was very flat but had a lot of turns and the ground was uneven in short it
was nice tot. 10
10AM jogging and running around xc course getting splits for the uml men and
women. At the end of this week you better believe I’m counting it, plus
I had to hustle a couple of times tot. 2
Noon 8 shakeout on stonehill xc course, 54:44, a little quick for a shakeout but I
wanted it over with and I was trying to get back in time for the post race
banquet. I’m nothing if not a hound for free food. Tot. 8

Summary 143 miles for the week, 1 good workout, 1 shitty workout, 4 good medium
efforts. Overall I’m happy with this as a solid last week of prep. I’m not in the shape I had dreamed of but man have I come a long way from where I was on the uml spring break trip in march(my first week back from mono). I’ll post more often over the next couple of weeks about specific tune up workouts and the work I have done in general. But overall I’d give my prep for this race a B+. I did suffer one, sort of one and a half small injuries and think I should have done some more progression runs in the spring and summer. But at the end of march I raced 5 miles on a fast course and ran 25:07. So I’ve come a long way. I’m fit and ready to run. Now I need to not get sick or hurt the last couple of weeks, do enough to not feel flat, and back off enough to not be tired. Honestly the next two weeks are a bit of an experiment still. The race will be a double test, one of my fitness but then also one of my ability to honestly gauge my effort on the terrain. I’m looking forward to it.
And as promised the splits from Fridays workout first 4 20:49(5:16, 10:30(5:14), 15:39(5:09), 20:49(5:10), second 4 20:26 (4:58, 10:10(5:12), 15:18(5:08), 20:26(5:08), third 4 20:37 (5:08, 10:20(5:12), 15:28(5:08), 20:37(5:09).
Sorry no quote this week I’m being lazy.

Training October 22 to 28 2007 blog

Monday Noon 22 miles on roads starting and finishing at top of Mnt. Watchusett.
Medium pace(just under 6 mins per mile avg.) for first 19 miles then hard
on the climb (3 miles 1070 feet) for just over a 7min a mile avg. (21:38),
2:16:52 total time, heart rate a bit over 250bpm at finish. Tot. 22

Tuesday AM woods 5 easy w/ gary, 37:11 tot. 5
PM woods 5 easy w/ uml guys, 36:23 tot. 5
Between runs got ART/chiro adjustment from Dr. Pete

Wednesday AM woods 7 solo and easy, 46:34 tot. 7
PM 7+ solo easy at Maudsley state park, 49:48 tot. 7
Got ART/Chiro adjustment from Dr. Cracken between runs

Thursday 11:30AM at mines falls 19:56 w/up, couple strides, 7 1/8 mile progression run
in 34:57, (3 loops of factory loop) 12:03.8(5:04.8 pace),
11:39.3(4:54.5pace) 23:43.1 at 4.5 miles, 11:14.1(4:43.8pace)
34:57.2(4:54.4 pace) 12 minute flat cool down tot. 11-
3:15PM 18 min w/up w/ tim and ruben, solo 7k on track at about mp, 21:50,
felt easy as hell, splits (3:06.3, 6:15.0(3:08.7), 9:21.9(3:07.0),
12:30.3(3:08.4), 15:36.7(3:06.4), 18:42.6(3:06.0), 21:50.3(3:07.7))
17:56 cool down w/ ruben and tim. Tot. 10+

Friday AM woods 6 solo, easy, 44:09 tot. 6

Saturday 7AM woods 13++, 1:26:14, honestly felt a little flat after staying up too late the
night before tot. 13

Sunday Noon woods 5 solo, easy, 35:07 tot. 5
5PM woods 5 solo, easy 34:51 tot. 5

Summary 96 miles for the week, 1 workout, 1 real long run, 1 pretend long run. I had to slip out for the second run just before half time of the Pats game, and miss a field goal and a touchdown because I slept so late after staying up to watch to sox last night. I’m typing this after staying up to watch them win again tonight. I’m glad they won it tonight so I have all week to get on a better sleeping schedule for a 7:30am race. It’s a wonderful year to be a Boston sports fan.

Training October 29 to November 4

Monday AM woods 7 solo, easy, 46:57 tot. 7
4PM ART and Chiropractic adjustment
5PM 5+ easy, solo at Maudsley 37:27, tot. 5

Tuesday PM 2 w/up with Tim Guerin (uml guy), 16:28, couple of strides, 5k on the track
with tim at my mp goal pace, I led until 600m to go when he kicked in
nicely. I ran 15:42.4, Tim went 15:34.1. splits (3:09.2, 6:17.9(3:08.7),
9:26.0(3:08.1), 12:34.2(3:08.3) 15:42.4(3:08.2), this was super easy, 2
c/down with 15:52 tot. 7++

Wednesday AM woods 6 solo, easy 41:53 tot. 6
PM woods 6 w/ uml guys, easy, 43:52 tot. 6

Thursday AM travel to New York City
PM 31:53 out and back from hotel along bike pace on the east river tot. 5-

Friday AM 29:34 out and back from the hotel mostly in central park, also stopped for 4
easy strides with jog back rest in the park, not included in time, tot. 5-

Saturday AM 12 min w/up, few strides, Race Olympic trials marathon, 7th place 2:14:56,
the biggest 32 second pr of my life. Great race on a super flat fast course 4
years ago sell ran 2:17:10 for 7th, on this hilly course I was 2 mins ahead of
that on a tough course and 20 men cracked 2:18, 39 cracked 2:20. Frankly
a huge statement about the quality of American marathoning.

Sunday 9AM 24:34 out and back along the east river, I’m calling it 3 because it hurt so
damn much but in all honesty I’d be willing to be it was less then 2.5 tot. 2

Summary 65 miles for the week, well ok so that was the best race of my life so far. I’ll leave it at that. RIP Ryan Shay.

Race 5k splits
5k- 16:54
10k-32:27 15:33
15k-48:03 15:36
20k-1:03:33 15:30
25k-1:19:04 15:31
30k-1:34:55 15:51
35k-1:51:17 16:22
40k-2:07:44 16:27
Finish 2:14:56
Last 2.195k in 7:12

Runningtimes.com

2009-10-28T06:51:00.000-07:00

If you like what you see on this page you should come check out my regular weekly blog at www.runningtimes.com in the athletes blogs section. I post my training for the week every Sunday night and talk about how the training is going and where I'm trying to go with it. There is also a comments section for questions about running, or anything really.
I do still very occasionally post new stuff on this site but if you want the weekly updates on one guy's quest to make the 2012 Olympic Marathon Team then you need to head on over to runningtimes.com
nate

Treadmill Effort Conversion Charts

2008-12-18T16:53:00.000-08:00

A couple days ago some one posted the comment I have cut and pasted below asking about a treadmill effort chart. I was in a rush glanced at it, and basically answered that it was very similar to the jack daniels chart. First for my excuses, I didn’t have the daniels one in front of me, and I was looking a colum over from where I though I was, ie I was thinking I was looking at the 12% grade it was in fact only 10%. This chart below is totally out of control! I’m not sure about the slower paces but I was able to hold the 5minute effort for exactly 58 seconds. All out! I’m sorry!! So I figure I’ll do a blog on treadmill conversion charts and what I think of them. This blog isn't allowing that comment, cut and pasted so if you want to see it just look at trackshark, but the point is hillrunner blog's chart was way off, 5:00 effort according to his chart was my allout for 58 seconds, since I ran sub 4:20 solo last weekend for a mile I'm saying that is not so.

Ok now I’m going to try and recreate the daniels chart but I’m not sure I’ll be able to because posting these blogs sometimes moves things around which is a disaster for a chart. But there is a cut out of the daniels chart at http://karlstutelberg.blogspot.com/2008/08/human-race-10k-workout-5100.html ,

You need to scroll down a bit but it is easy enough to find.

Now today after my 55 seconds at hillrunners 5 minute pace I went in and quickly found the above web page and went back to the treadmill to do my workout at the Daniel prescribed pace/incline. But my brain apparently wasn’t working so hot and or I just can’t read a chart to save my life, but I thought I was supposed to do 7.5 mph at a 9.9% grade for 4:59 mile effort. But that was actually supposed to be 9.9 mph at a 7.5% grade. Finding that the treadmill I was on increased grade by .5% only I did 7.4 mph at 10% grade for 20 mins. My quads were screaming but aerobically I thought it felt about right, maybe a bit hard but not too bad. Here comes the problem. According to daniels 7.5mph at a 10% grade is 4:13 mile effort! Now I’m a person who believes he is capable of much more then he has done but there is no way on Gods green earth I threw down the equivalent of 20 mins(4.75 miles) at 4:13 mile pace. A workout that would indicate I was ready for something in the range of 26:12 for a 10k. K.B. watch your back!!

So where does this leave us? I’m not real sure. I am certain that hill runners chart is way off and I’m certain that Daniels is equally off in the other direction. I’m very surprised at the latter because he usually does very thorough research on his stuff, in this case I guess he did not.

So if anyone has any treadmill charts that fit some place in between please post your link, or chart here. I will start doing some searching and do the same. In the meantime I’m going to stick with trying to go as long as I can at 7.4mph/10% grade and figure it is close to 5:00 effort.

Why do Short Hills

2008-11-30T10:19:00.000-08:00

Why do I do short hill repeats if I'm training for a marathon and not a mile?
I do short hill repeats for 2 reasons the first goal, and most obvious, is to gain physical strength. Since strength is in our sport is often interchangeable with speed I see why it seems strange for a marathoner to be doing this type of a workout especially with such frequency. I mean why try to get a faster top end speed when even to run a world record I only need to run 4:45 or 4:46 a mile. The first reason is that every race is a race of speed, meaning that no matter how long the race is the fastest person over the distance wins. But that alone doesn't justify hill repeats one to three times a week. The real reason is strength and speed over the short distance equal efficiency. By doing these hills and getting stronger and faster in the maxim. I teach my body to consume less glycogen, and less oxygen when moving at sub maximal speeds. The less of these "fuels" the body consumes at a given pace the longer I can hold that pace.
the 2nd reason I do short hills is that they drive my heart rate way up in an extremely short period of time, to within 10 beats of max or higher in 10 seconds or less and then because my heart rate hasn't been up that long and no acid needs to be flushed out of my system (it takes 15 seconds of an exercise to begin to produce any lactic acid) my heart rate basically plummets back down to a relatively rested level, 120 to 130 beats per minute, in a short time 20seconds to a minute. This exercise on the heart teaches the heart efficiency as well meaning it takes less energy to pump more blood.
Now if I was training for the mile I would still do short hill repeats for the same reasons I have listed above but I would probably try to go a little longer (say 13 to 15 seconds rather then my usual 8 to 12) and I would try to do it on a slightly less steep hill and with better footing. Why? Because a miler would want to improve there efficiency, muscular as well as heart but he/she would also want to work more specifically on there top end speed and running uphill but with your form closer to that which you use to run over flat ground is a spectacular way of doing that.

Finally the greatest advantage of short hills is that you can reap huge long term benefits without having to sacrifice much of anything. They are very easy on the body and mind. Sure you run all out but only for a few seconds so they really are not hard and because little or no acid is accumulated in the system they take little recovery at all. This is why if I had one thing I would recommend to all runners to add to there program right now short hills would be it. They improve your basic speed, improve your efficiency and strengthen your heart and if you do them once or twice a week your body won't be any more tired or worse for the wear. It’s a win win situation. I am convinced that these, progression runs and the use of circuit training are the biggest reasons the Kenyans are so far beyond us here in the US. That said I believe we are starting to look to their training and we are closing the gap rapidly. So add progression runs and short hills to your routine and join the charge for world class running in the US, or at least a new pr.

Progression runs

2008-11-30T10:17:00.000-08:00

I have some time so I want to talk about progression runs. These are my favorite workout. I think that they have applications at every level for every event. They are for my money the best workout you can do to improve your overall fitness level. I only started using them a year and a half ago and I haven’t fully utilized them like I should but I’m working hard to correct that.

So first what is a progression run? Well they are really any run that starts slower and progresses to finish faster. More specifically they are any time you steadily increase the pace of your workout to finish at a hard fast pace. They can be any distance and should be varied in length in any program but the bigger variations should be depending on your event. As I am focused on marathons my progression runs generally range from 40 minutes to an hour and a half, though I do do some runs of more than 2 hours that could qualify as progression runs but they are more structured and varied in pace so for this forum I’ll keep them separate. Also for this forum I’m going to stick to progression runs as a workout for distance and mid distance runners so generally speaking from roughly 3 to 20 miles and 15 minutes to 2 hours plus.

Some people like to start them at a jog, 8 min pace or slower even at the elite level. Personally I like to warm up with a light jog for 2 or 3 miles then jump in a decent clip. I don’t generally do the strides and stretching I would do before a interval workout, tempo run or threshold run for two reasons, first because I’m only starting at 80% to 90% of marathon pace I really don’t need to be all that well warmed up, second and more to the point if I do all that I tend to be too keyed up and I go out too fast and screw up the workout.

Now what makes a progression run so great? They teach you to run your fastest when you are at your most tired. In a nutshell that is the main reason that they are important. But Nate I run the last interval of my workouts faster then all the rest isn’t that the same thing? NO it isn’t, it is a good thing and keep doing that but the fact is you have rested since finishing your previous effort, you are less tired then you were then, often you end up packing away time in the first part of the effort and finishing slower, we have all gone out 4 seconds faster for the first ¼ of a mile then the pace we finish it at.(stop doing that by the way all you are teaching your body is how to do the slower running) But even if you run that last mile repeat in 75, 73, 72, 65 it still not as good as the progression run because again you had a rest after the last interval. Why is this important, because there is no time out at the 2 mile mark of your 5k state cross country meet or the 4 mile mark of your 8k college cross country race. But Nate if I’m trying to simulate the finish of a race why don’t I just go out and run a race in practice. Two reasons again, first without race day adrenaline you can’t run race pace for a full distance, can’t do it. Second there is no guarantee of success. This is the beauty of a progression run, if you think your going to slow down, kick like hell and finish, you are done. But you were planning on going 9 miles and you have only done 5, doesn’t matter, except the workout for what it is. Now I’m not saying the progression run is the only way to simulate the problems you will face in the last part of a race, far from it. I’m just saying that it is the best.

The next reason to love the progression run is the simplicity combined with its natural adaptability. You don’t need a track or a measured loop, or even a loop really (though I really really recommend using a loop). Just go out and start at an ok effort and keep picking up the pace until your running as hard and fast as you can. You can go measure it after. That’s the simple part. The adaptability is that it is always the perfect effort, why? Well because you run as hard as you can and finish strong. (if you just run as hard as you can from the gun all you teach your body is that when the going gets tough it should rig up and die)

Now the downside. The first time I did a progression run I did it all right found a loop that was like the courses I was racing, it was on one of them actually, and I started slow and finished as hard and fast as I could. It was a total disappointment. It was cross country season when I was in college and I ran about 40 minutes and covered barely 7 miles. Worse yet when I measured the loop I found that at my fastest I was only running 5:15 mile pace, now I was trying to run 25:00 or so at the time so this seemed like a total waste of a workout, hell my pr was already under 25:20. So I went back to my next workout happy to return to mile repeats with long breaks at something around 4:40 pace and felt I had wasted a workout by doing that stupid progression run. I had missed the point, the progression run had shown me my weakness I couldn’t run a sustained hard effort and finish well. I never ran under 5:10 for my last mile that year except in races where I ran super slow for the 4^th mile (5:20 or worse). So if your first progression seems like a flop then understand two things, one they aren’t about averaging some super fast pace, no pr’s in these workouts, and if you really sucked then you should probably do some more because they are just what you need.

Ok so I hope that I have got my love for progression runs across to you but to sum up. Progression runs teach your body to run its fastest when its tired and to be able to finish races off of a sustained hard effort. They are best if left unstructured because this enables you to run by how you feel so that the effort automatically adapts itself to your exact condition that day. To illustrate what I’m talking about I’m going to put the last three progression runs I have done below in detail (these have been in my last couple of training logs the only difference is that I finally measured the loop so I can give you paces to go with the times) and I’ll talk about the positives and negatives of each workout.

Progression 1 September 13, 2007 (all done on Factory loop at Mines falls (2 3/8 miles pre loop)

Loop 1 13:24, loop pace 5:38.5

Loop 2 13:00, 5:28.4

Loop 3 12:36, 5:18.3

Loop 4 12:08, 5:06.5

Loop 4 11:48, 4:58.1

Total 1:02:59, average pace of 5:18.2, total distance 11 7/8 miles

Ok first great workout because each lap got faster. What I didn’t like is that my hamstring flared up and I didn’t get to do a real hard loop to finish up but I was looking to do about an hour and a quarter so if the hamstring hadn’t started to be a problem I think it would have been a great workout. But even with it I think it’s a real good go, I ran almost 12 miles at under 5:20 mile pace and the last 4.75 miles averaged marathon pace and I finished feeling easy, other then the hammy.

Progression 2 September 20, 2007

Loop 1 12:49, pace 5:23.8

Loop 2 12:30, 5:15.8

Loop 3 12:09, 5:06.9

Loop 4 11:47, 4:57.7

Straight away (.87 mile) 4:08, pace 4:45.0

Total 53:25 average pace 5:09.1

Total distance 10.37 miles

Ok once again first it’s a great workout simply because each lap got faster. Now what I didn’t like is that I went out too fast, I knew it by the end of the straight on the first lap by seeing the split but I make a policy of never slowing down in a progression run and I felt easy so I stuck with it. So what happened? I was aiming for an hour and a quarter or so again and I fell way short. I finished very fast but I didn’t have the volume of work under my legs to properly tire them that I would have liked, also I gave up on myself and only did the straight on the last one. I was right to tell myself I could stop at the end of the straight to get myself to pick it up but then I should have picked another marker and another until the lap was done, also although my last 3 and ½ laps averaged about marathon goal pace only my last lap and a half was actual at or under goal marathon pace. Pluses, well the average pace looks real good and for ten plus miles it is good but honestly I think the first workout was better simply because I exercised more control and had more miles under my legs before I started to run fast.

Progression 3 September 26

Loop 1 13:32, pace 5:41.9

Loop 2 13:15, 5:34

Loop 3 12:50, 5:24.2

Loop 4 12:32, 5:16.6

Loop 5 11:54, 5:00.6

Loop 6 11:35, 4:52.6

Total 1:15:40, average pace 5:18.6

Total distance 14.25 miles

I’m really happy with this run, I wanted to do an hour and a quarter or more, I did that, I wanted to finish at something close to half marathon pace for a full lap and I did that. So this is a great workout all around. Yes my average pace is slow but the distance is real long and I was under marathon goal pace for two full laps (4.75 miles) and averaged mp or better for the last 7.12 miles and averaged under 5:09 (the pace of the last progression for the last 9.5 miles, so almost the same distance as that whole workout). Most importantly each lap was faster then the one before it, even lap 4 when I had to stop and tie my shoe (the watch never stops during a progression run!). I had almost ten good miles of running under my belt before I started running fast and still I was able to run nearly five miles at 5 min pace or better.

My Marathon Training Guidlines

2008-11-30T10:15:00.000-08:00

the idea of this blog is to just lay out some of my basic beliefs about marathon training. I hope to do some more stuff like this but we’ll have to wait and see if I ever get around to it. Let me preface this by saying that the most important aspect of training is you the individual. Bill Bowerman said “The magic is in the man not the miles” I think that may be the truest statement in coaching history. So this is what I believe is a good outline for marathon training. It is based heavily on what has worked for me, I hope it is helpful.

I will base all the times off of a 2:11 marathon, just because I have memorized them. But to figure your own times out the easiest way to do it is to figure your marathon pace out in kilometers (there are plenty of online calculators to do this, I like the coolrunning one) then put the time in seconds 3 minutes equals 180 seconds then divide by 5 or multiply by .5 you get the same answer. That is 5% so then add that number to get what is 95%, 90%, 85%, 80% marathon pace and subtract it to get 105% and 110%. In our 2:11:00 we’ll go with 2:10:48 because that is exactly 3:06 kilometer pace. So 186 seconds, so 95% is 3:15.3, 90% 3:24.6, 85% 3:33.9, 80% 3:43.2. 105% is 2:57.4 roughly goal half marathon pace (hmp)though if you are an endurance guy like me 104 or 103% is really more like half marathon pace. 110% is 2:47.7 roughly goal 10k pace but again for me and other pure endurance runners it ends up being more like goal 5k pace.

Ok I break marathon training into two phases basically a base phase and a specific phase. But you need to be very fit to start training so if you are not very fit you need to add a third phase, a build-up phase. This starts by building up your mileage to the range you want to be running in. Next you hold that mileage and add some light workouts until you are fit enough to be comfortable at it.

General guidelines

Mileage: I really feel that for most marathoners (male or female) that want to be elite they really should be running in the 130 mile a week plus range. That said there is a lot of variety in the mileage of successful marathoners some succeeding exceedingly well with as low as 90 miles a week or just below, Benji Durden comes to mind. So lets say for a general guideline range for the runner who truly wants to find their full potential in the marathon 90 to 210 miles a week. The bread and butter range where most should find themselves eventually is the 130 to 160 range.

Paces: we already covered most of these but I want to add easy and regeneration to the list easy is anything slower then 80% mp that isn’t a stupid slow jog. Regeneration is a stupid slow jog, for me right now its anything from 7:30 to 10 mins plus a mile.

Phase length: each phase should at the absolute shortest be 6 weeks and 8 to 10 is ideal. The specific phase includes a 2 week taper prior to the race.

The fundamental phase:

Here we try to build our overall fitness as much as possible and prepare ourselves to handle marathon training. I believe that in this phase our mileage should be at least as high as during our specific phase and can average as much as 10 or 15 miles a week more then during our specific phase. During this time I feel you should run as many different types of workouts and paces as possible to condition as many different systems as you can. I like the easy hard method. One day hard one day easy. Now you may need two easy days or three or you may be able to do just a medium day and recover(paris marathon champion and world champs runner up mbrack shami does this). How easy is easy. I like a nice 10 easy 10 regeneration double or a 9 easy 8 regeneration double. After extremely hard workouts I will do a 6 and 6 both regeneration pace double . But Kenny Moore who finished 4^th at the Olympics in 72 and ran 2:11 liked to do only one run of 4 to 6 miles on most of his easy days. The point is find what works for you. But be honest with yourself. You are much better off getting good quality on your hard days and logging pathetic mileage on your easy days then working too hard on your easy days and having your quality suffer.

Now during the fundamental phase what is important is internal effort not the specific paces you run. So if the workout is 10k at half marathon goal pace(hmp) and for our 2:11 guy that its about 2:58pace or 29:40 and he runs all out and only manages a 30:20 that’s fine as long as he was running half marathon effort. During the specific phase the pace becomes important and if you can’t run the pace you are supposed to then you need to take another easy day and do the workout as intended at a later date.

What to work on: Again variety is the key. In a given week hopefully you can get 3 or 4 solid efforts but if your recovery rate only allows one or two then that’s what you have to work with, although if this continues for a few years I would definitely try making your easy days easier. Hard efforts include 8 to 12k at half marathon goal pace, 20 to 30k runs at 95% marathon pace, 30 to 40k runs at 90% marathon pace 20 mile(32K) to 26 mile runs(42K) runs at 80% marathon pace, 12k progression runs in 4k at mp, 102%mp, 4k at hmp(105%mp), 20k alternating 1k or 2k at hmp and 1k slower (start at 40 seconds slower and try to work down to 20 to 25 seconds slower by the end of the fundamental phase). Another great workout that is more involved is 6k at the pace of your marathon pr, 5k at goal marthon pace, 4k 2 seconds per k faster, 3k 2seconds per k faster, 2k 2 seconds per k faster still, 1k all out(roughly 10k pace, do this with a k at roughly 30 seconds slower then mp for rest after each, so very quick jog. If you repeat the workout the paces stay the same but the jog rest gets faster. Finally you can do a super compensation day also called a special block during the base phase the second session should have intervals at hmp as the main focus. An example AM 10k at 80% mp rest 1 minute 10k at mp PM 10k at 80% mp rest 1 min. 10 to 12 x 1k at hmp w/ 2:30 rest. These should only be done a couple of times during the phase at the most and you should take an extra easy day before them and two extra easy days after at least.

Medium hard efforts include 45 minute to 1½ hour progression runs, 10 to 12 x 1k at half marathon pace, 5 to 6x 2k at half marathon pace, 4x3k at half marathon pace. 4x3k cutdowns start at marathon pace cut down to half marathon pace, 3x4k cutdown, start at mp work down to hmp, rest on all of these workouts should be two or 3 minutes jogging. If you can run quicker and do something like at 3 flat 800m for the rest. Finally you can do long easy running 2 and ½ to 3 and ½ hours. Now when you are really fit that may work as an easy day but only after years of high mileage.

Finally if you tend to under perform at the short races or have had a muscle biopsy done that shows you have the slower of the two slow twitch fibers then you should do some aerobic work. So 300 to 500 meter repeats at 3k to 5k goal pace w/ short rest, minute or less. Or hill repeats of 100 to 200meters with jog down rest either way do a lot 10 to 30 in a session. This will teach your legs to burn lactic acid as fuel. Now if you are a good 5k/10k guy your body does this well enough naturally that you need not waste energy on in marathon prep because your base level of doing this is enough for a marathon.

Finally in the second session after doing an am workout once or twice a week you should do short hills as steep as you can find for 8 to 10 seconds, if you are one of the slow people like me you can just do your 100 or 200meter hills here and kill two birds with one stone. These hills serve two (three if you are going anaerobic) purposes first they greatly improve your hearts stroke volume increase the amount of blood pumped out of your heart with each beat. Second they are great for the muscular development of quads, calves and ankles. Jog down and make sure your heart rate is below 140 for rest. It is the great and violent increase in heart rate that leads to increased stroke volume.

As a general guideline I like to cycle things on a two week cycle doing 2 real hard efforts and 1 or 2 medium hard efforts the first week and then 1 hard effort and 2 or 3 medium hard efforts the next week and then repeat. This helps keep an even keal. But you need to find what works for you. First let me recommend caution and control. You need to train hard for a long time to get good. Training as hard as you can for a week will only ruin you because there will be nothing left for the next week. I like to suggest 90%. Each week during heavy training should be at 90% of what you could do if you were to go as hard as you could for the week. Now maybe once or twice during your season you may want a special week to go beyond this but do so only with great caution and extremely rarely. The most incredible training means nothing if you are not healthy on race day.

The Specific Phase

Like the title suggest specificity is the name of the game. Two major things to think about here, pace specific and time specific. Most of your workouts should meet one of those two requirements. Either you run hard, less then race pace but at least 80% mp for roughly the time you want to run your marathon in. One extremely hard session 4 or 5 weeks prior to the goal race of running race goal time at 95% mp or 90% over very hilly terrain is a favorite of mine. I recommend more easy days during this phase, leaning towards two after most hard days.

Try a special block, if you did them during the base phase and like it then do two. But this time both sessions should be mp based for example AM 10k at 80% 1 min rest 10k at mp PM repeat. If you do a second one try to do 10k at 80% 12k at mp Pm repeat.

Race pace Race pace Race pace. More then any other distance race pace is of the utmost importance in marathon prep and yet it seems so few in the US use it and I think that is why so many under achieve at this distance. If you take only one thing from my growing manifesto here let it be this. Do a ton of marathon pace work for the marathon. These workouts can be very straight forward run 12 to 16 miles at mp. But I and others find that impossible to do alone in with the tiredness of mileage in our legs so I recommend doing intervals during which you cover 12 to 16 miles at mp. 4 to 5x5k, 4x6k, 3x7 or 8k. For rest take 800m to a mile but at a quick pace only 20 to 40 seconds a mile slower then mp. Another great mp workout is that 1k at half marathon pace 1k slower workout only now the rest has to be fast enough that you avg. marathon pace for the whole 20k so for our 2:11 guy he needs to run 2:58 on the on k’s and 3:14 on the rest k’s so he is recovering at 5:15 mile pace or better.

Finally there is running marathon pace tired. These workouts specifically target the last 10k of the marathon. The special block is one. But others of note are 1 ½ hr progression runs with the last half hour at mp. Or run at an easy pace for 22 to 30 miles then do 10k at mp to finish up. This was a Kenny Moore classic. Canova likes varied pace runs of 30k to 40k. for example 10k at 80%, 5k at mp, 5k alternating 1min hard 1 min at 80%, 5k at 80%, 5k at mp. Then two or 3 weeks later 15k at 80%, 5k at mp, 5k alternating 1min hard 1 min at 80%, 5k at 80%, 10k at mp (or 5k at mp, 5k all out). These are great because they also serve as race simulations. If you are going to be running for the win or in a group of people where pace shifts or variations are possible then these type of runs, an the 20k alternating pace workouts are an absolute must.

Peaking ok I don’t feel I’m an expert on this and I am still experimenting. I like the 80 60 peak so two weeks out you to 80% of your normal volume and the week of you do 60%. Also during these weeks you cut back on the intensity of your average running days and you only do 1 or two workouts. These should be real light. I really like Pete Pfitzinger’s peaking from his book so if you can get it check it out. But I also like more canova styled workouts. Anyway some stuff they agree on is one workout the week before. One the week of, 7 days before a medium long run say 1:20 or so. Run it solid, not hard but solid, if you want you can go a bit easier and run the last two mile at mp.

The last workout should be 2 miles to 6k at marathon pace. I like 4 days before the race, just how my body works but you may want to go 3 days before. But if you have been working on a hard easy hard easy schedule I really recommend going 4 days before. You can go harder on the workout the week before. I did a double workout before the trials (8 or 9 days out) I ran a 7 mile progression run in the morning and 7k at mp in the afternoon. I also like a long run 12 to 14 days before the race at a solid but not killer effort. I ran 22 miles with the first 19 at roughly 85% mp and the last 3 miles all out climbing 1000 feet 11 or 12 days prior to the trials. I ran 20 miles at 80% mp 13 days prior to my debut marathon.

Now as long as that is there is more stuff that you can add in and a million different ways to personalize what you are doing but that’s my philosophy in a big nutshell. It takes very heavily from the Italian/Kenyan marathon school. But if you cut back on the quicker stuff, eliminate the short hills and increase the volume to 1000 kilometers a month you have the Japanese school of marathoning. Also from what I know it is similar to what the Ethiopians are doing but they often do a bit less mileage and more quick stuff. The Moroccans are similar to that.

Injured? Cross training Ideas Solutions and Guidelines

2008-11-30T10:10:00.000-08:00

Often I have come down against cross training on this blog. First I feel that all lifting with ones upper body is a waist of energy that could better be used to recover from running. Second I think that the thinner and more ectomorphic a man is the better looking he is, oh how I wish I weighed a 120lbs! For the most part I basically feel that if you want to be a better runner then you should run. I make exceptions for core work, but it should be running specific, for running specific ballistic and plyometric drills and for lifting with your legs, the last one only if you have a program from someone who really knows what they are doing because it is real easy to build up some serious muscle imbalances. But riding a bike will not make you as good a runner as running will, same can be said for swimming, aqua jogging, elliptical machines and well every other aerobic activity you can imagine. Now some of them may be or are better exercise then running, like cross country skiing for example, but they still won’t make you a better runner then running will. But one day you may get hurt, and when you do you need to do something to maintain your hard earned fitness and running isn’t an option.

The rules of injury cross training

Never do any type of cross training that bothers your injury. If it hurts when you bike then you don’t bike. It is completely counter productive to do any cross training that will slow your recovery.
Next up rule number two be as specific to running as you can. So if your rich or have great contacts then get your ass on an anti g treadmill or a underwater one. If your not then aqua jogging and elliptical and versa climber are better then biking which is better then swimming.
If you are going to only miss a few days then don’t do something that is going to make you sore. For example the stationary bikes I have to use don’t have a low resistance setting so if I ride them long enough to get a workout I get very tight quads, now if you have a stress fracture and are going to be out for 6 weeks then this is no big deal you will be long past this soreness by the time you must start to come back to running. But if you may be back in a day or three then don’t be an idiot stay off the bike
aerobic training is the only training that really matters. Why because anaerobic training is to get you sharp to race and you should not be racing within 4 or six weeks of return from injury.
Never lift weights, your not running and your liable to come out looking like a beef cake if you lift with your upper body and lower body lifting will aggravate your injury. No I don’t know what your injury is but I do know that lifting will aggravate it.
Mix it up, don’t just do one kind of cross training do at least two, the more the merrier. Cross training is the most boring thing in the world so changing it up will help you do more of it.
Bike at 120 revolutions per minute. If your bike won’t let you do this(it has to much resistance, ok, but if you have to do less then 90 rpms don’t use the bike)
If you are in the pool you are doing an aqua jogging workout, no ifs, ands or buts about it.
As a general guideline you should do twice the time cross training as you did running. So if you were running an hour and a half a day then you should do 3 hours of cross training. Yes this totally sucks.

Now that we got those guidelines out of the way lets start to set up a program. Personally I think that ideally you should do a mix of aqua jogging and elliptical. The pool is a boring hell and it doesn’t give your leg muscles a great workout so it alone can as my dad always said “suck the ultimate wango.” Not totally sure what a wango is but knowing my dad it is exactly what you would think it is. Now me personally I haven’t the balance for the elliptical so I go with biking instead, or cross country skiing in season. I recommend even if you are a low mileage person to do 1 session of each of your chosen exercises a day. If you are real motivated or have a partner to help get you through doing say 1 bike/elliptical session and 2 pool sessions is ideal. In college one winter I did an hour on the bike and an hour in the pool and then either a versa climber workout or another hour on the bike and of course an hour in the pool each afternoon. On the weekends I did just one hour each on Saturday and a “long run” of two plus hours in the pool on Sunday. I did 3 hours once and was socially awkward for at least a week after. Don’t spend 3 hours alone aqua jogging in a pool. Its bad for you mentally, it can’t be good for your health and it has little or no training benefit.

Now the sessions I have listed above sound great but one it was very mentally draining and two much of the work and time I was putting in was doing me no good.

Why??? Aqua jogging, just hoping in there and going does you little or no good. I have no scientific evidence of this but I’ve been hurt for literally a total of years when you add it up and I’m 100% certain of this. Why, well I got fat doing it, but more importantly your heart rate will almost always be below 120 and often well below that mark and frankly how much training can be taking place at that level. So if you are in the pool you are doing a workout, no ifs, ands, or buts about it. See rule #4.

So what should you be doing for pool workouts?

I like 30 minuters, not that you get done in 30 minutes but you do 30 minutes of efforts. Basically you break 30 minutes up any which way you want and take ¼ to 1/3 the time your effort was for rest. For example 30x1 min with 15 second rest. Now each of these should be preceded by 10 mins warm up and followed by 5 or 10 minutes cool down. As time goes by you can really get inventive, with ladders and what not. Efforts longer then 5 or 6 minutes tend not to work because you lose focus. Now how hard should these be. Well all out that’s how hard. It is pretty much impossible to go anaerobic well aqua jogging, at least to a serious degree so all out is the way to go.

So what should I do on the bike or the elliptical?

Now this is your volume builder just ride for time every day. It should be at more like a tempo run effort and remember the more rpms the better, lower resistance and more rpms always. If this is your only form of cross training or main form then you can do a workout on it once or twice a week. Just do a workout you would do on the track. Say you often do 5x mile then do 5x5 minutes on the bike with the same amount of time rest as you would take during your track workout.

Next up the Versa Climber, aka the hill workout of the injured world. You simply put this in for a soul crushing lung burning little taste of heaven once or twice a week. It is really a great replacement for hill workouts. One caveat you bring a trash bin over to this puppy when you workout there. If you are not at least dry heaving on this workout then you simply are not going hard enough.

There you have it my slightly rambling guide to staying fit while you are injured. Now for some people cross training is as good as the real thing, Dave Cremin was a guy who ran for Umass Lowell in the late 80’s and early 90’s. Dave got hurt after the first meet of the 1990 xc season and missed the whole season but was able to start running a bit the week before the regional meet. They had a good team so Dave ran, finished 3^rd? I believe and qualified for the NCAA’s. There he finished 5^th after running for less then three weeks. Now this is all D2 but the point is the guy stayed real fit. Now I never had those kind of results I tended to really struggle coming back but long term my cross training would really pay off. I would struggle for a few months getting back into running shape but then I would make a huge jump as my running came around and acclimated my overall fitness to running. Point is if you miss four months and train your ass off in the pool and come out and run like **** don’t sweat it, you may just have to wait a few months to get your big pay off.

10k training Blog

2008-11-30T10:06:00.000-08:00

I’m doing a bit of a 10k training block and someone suggested in a comment that I put up a post about training for the 5k and 10k so I thought now would be a good time to do that. To be honest because I spent my winter focused on getting ready for a marathon my schedule over the next couple of months is not an ideal example of 10k training but it can give you something to compare this idealized schedule and ideas I’ll put in here. You can see sort of both ends of a spectrum in the same type of program.

First you should start with a fundamental/base phase. Like if you were getting ready for any distance races this is focused on getting into great all around shape and getting ready to do the specific training that will sharpen and focus your fitness on its target distance (5k/10k). So it is pretty similar to what you would do for any distance but just with slightly different stresses. For example training for the 5 and 10k you are going to do more work to develop your muscular power and in turn your speed then you would getting ready for a marathon where you are much more worried about endurance both muscular and aerobic. The general focus of this phase is strength endurance basically referring to muscular strength and aerobic endurance. Now lastly a bit of disclaimer, I have been very focused on the marathon and I have only put together two small 10k seasons for myself, this one coming up off of a marathon phase with no race and certain limitations placed on it because I don’t want to do any workouts that bother the hamstring and one last spring that was much more focused on racing back into shape to get ready to train seriously for the trials after losing massive fitness to a 10 week layoff do to mono. So this is mostly theory and based on what I have scene others do. I have used aspects of this myself but never the full cycle and if I did I’m sure I would find things that worked differently then I expected and would make changes. At some point in the next couple of years I will have to do a full 10k season and I’ll have to redo this blog at that point. But it’s a start anyway.

Introductory phase; real quickly if you have taken more then 2 weeks off since your last season or just are not real fit for whatever reason you should do a intro phase to get fit enough to train. It should basically just be a build up of mileage with strides and some easy drills and bounding ect.. Just basically preparing your body to handle the stresses of the fundamental phase. Depending on your fitness level it could be anywhere from 2 to 12 weeks. Longer then that would become redundant and counter productive.

Fundamental phase; this should be 6 to 10 weeks long. Depending on the time available and how well you handle blocks of training for different periods of time. Dave Bedford, who set the world 10k record in the 70’s thrived off of a program of 12 hard weeks but wanted to make sure he won at the 72 olympics so he followed the same program for 16 weeks and ran awfully at the Olympics, he was simple flat. There is such a thing as too much of a good thing.

Mileage is very much a personal thing, the magic is in the man not the miles as Bowerman said, but there are some guidelines if you can’t run 70 or 80 a week you probably shouldn’t be focus on the 5k/10k, probably the 3k/5k at the longest. Also running much over 120 a week serves no purpose unless you are training for a marathon or see one in your relatively near future and want to prepare your body for that training. The real focus of this program is the quality. Now very quickly far too often in this country people here quality and think instantly of anaerobic intervals. We need to stop this. I simply mean this the workouts, the vast majority of which are aerobic quality or muscular development focused should be the focus of your program. Miles are nice but if too many miles are causing your workouts to suffer then they are counter productive, but more importantly if the pace of your easy runs is too fast and is causeing you to have to drop your mileage or affecting the quality of your hard days then you need to slow it down. Too many guys run 6 min pace and say oh its easy. But they are run down and underperforming in races particularly and workouts often. I was one of these guys in college and in slowed my progress, and that of many of my teammates. If you are running at 70% of your 10k pace or faster then you are not running easy enough period and often you should really be running more along the lines of 50 or 60% If that means you run with the freshman girls on your team then so be it. You will be amazed how much this will help your running. Plus no matter how slow you go you won’t be able to go as slow as most of the Kenyans go on there easy runs. 10 to 12 minute miles are quite normal.

Types of workouts

Aerobic Quality- these are your bread and butter of the fundamental phase and you should do one or two a week. They can be hard or medium. The goal is to improve your blood oxygen levels(there is a real term for that but I’m not thinking of it right now) improve the capillary beds in your muscle, both in size and scope but also in number. To increase the number of mitochondria (the energy producers) in your cells and the power and efficiency of those mitochondria.

Examples

hard

Progression runs of 30 mins to 1 hr

8 to 12k steady runs at 95% 10k pace

4k to 7k steady runs at 10k pace

Tempo intervals with short rest at 95% 10k pace 1k to 3k 10k to 12k total volume rest of 45 seconds to 3 minutes

Long runs of greater then 2 hours at 70to 75% 10k pace (traditional Sunday long run)

8k to 16k runs (5 to 10miles) at 90% 10k pace (long tempo)

15k to 30k runs at 80 to 85% 10k pace (very hard medium long run or very long tempo)

6k to 12k uphill running at 95% 10k effort (pace obviously slower)

Medium

4k to 6k at 95% 10k pace

3k/2 miles at 10k pace

10k to 20k runs at 80 to 85% 10k

20 to 30k runs at 70 to 75% 10k pace (traditional medium long run)

Muscular development- hard effort should be done at least once every other week but can be done as often as weekly. Easy efforts should be done close to every other day and certainly at least a couple of times a week. Goal is to build muscular skeletal strength to run fast in relaxed manner and efficiently in terms of fuel(oxygen mostly in this case) used at fast paces. Also to develop the ability to run very close to top speed for the last 200 to 400 meters of a hard race.

Examples

Hard

Circuits start with an aerobic interval 800m to 1 mile at 10k pace then without stopping go into a series of sprints and exercises, best if done on a hill. For example 1k at 10k pace into 100m all out uphill sprint into 50m uphill bounding, into 50m uphill springing, into 100m uphill sprint into 10 jump squats. (there are tons of examples better then this online, just search through Canova schedules on lets run and you’ll find a bunch.

Hill bounding and Springing (Lydiard style) Mix these two exercises done for 600 to 800m with jog down rest for 1 hr to 90 minutes, ie 600m bounding into 600m springing jog down and repeat or 600m bounding jog down 600m springing jog down and repeat

Easy

Short hill sprints 60 to 100m 8 to 14 seconds, alatic work with jog down full recovery (heart rate down to close to 120 for most people) this is great muscular exercise but also because it drives the heart rate up very fast and down very fast again it increases the hearts stroke volume which is very important and so these should be done at least once a week. You can do anywhere from 10 to 30 plus of these in a set, start low build up.

Butt kicks 8 to 14x30m

Continues warm up drills

High knees

Skipping

Bounding on the flat

Straight leg bounds

Short hill bounding and springing

Strides

Jump squats

Laying out a fundamental schedule- This is where your fitness level will dictate the specifics of your training the most. I love to work on a hard easy hard easy type cycle. To do that I may have to make my easy day very easy, in my present schedule its at 6 and 6 double and I take it very easy on both easy days. But you may not be able to go hard again after 1 easy day no matter how easy you make it. I know I couldn’t when I first started training like this. Now there are a few different ways to approach this you may just want to go hard easy easy hard or you could go hard easy medium, easy hard. Or you may find you can go hard easy hard but then need to go two easy days. One nice way is to have a hard week and a medium week. So maybe in week one you have two hard efforts and a medium effort then in week two you have three medium efforts. Something like that. Also you may find that some of the hard efforts are particularly hard for you and some are easier. Now first if that is so you want to get in some of those really hard ones because they obviously address a weakness in your fitness. That is not to say you should ignore completely the workouts you tend to do with more ease just that they should be less of a focus in your training and can be done much less. But also they are something you can squeeze into a medium week so you get two mediums and a hard but the hard isn’t that hard. I’m sure if that was totally clear but I hope it was.

Racing in the fundamental phase- Races are good workouts and as such are fine in this phase but with a couple of caveats. First you need to be prepared that you going to be tired and that backing off for a race is a bad idea so you must train though. (in a long 10 to 12 week phase you could back off for one race midway) as such you will most likely race poorly and often race very poorly. Think your in 30 min 10k shape you may well struggle to crack 31. Second races are harder then workouts, they just are, so they take more time to recover from so in the interest of staying healthy and not getting your self into a pit of exhaustion where you don’t recover you need to give yourself extra time to recover after these efforts. Also because of this you simply don’t want to race a whole lot but a couple of races are not a bad idea at all.

The Specific phase- Now is when you want to start to really focus your training on getting ready for the rigors of your event. So now you need to start doing your aneorbic intervals and your more race specific intervals. Also you want to do a number of what I call shift intervals or shift time trials. These are efforts of 1 to 6k where you run the first part pretty easy generally at about 90% 10k pace and then shift gears and run all out. You will be surprised how fast you can go in these often much faster then you are able to run in a single time trial or all out interval. The focus of these is to prepare your body for tactical races that may finish in a long drive to the finish and to practice running fast paces when you are tired. Also during this phase you should not completely abandon your aerobic quality and muscular development work. This things should just take a back seat to some of this more race specific work.

Anaerobic work

800m to 2 mile intervals at 10k pace with short rest (over the course of phase you should shorten the rest not increase the pace

600m to 2k intervals at 105% 10k pace with short rest (same as 10k short rest not increase pace)

4 to 6k time trials at 10k pace

2k to 2 mile time trials at 105% 10k pace

Traditional all out hill repeats 200m to 1k run all out with jog down rest

Combination aerobic anaerobic work

Short progression runs 15 to 30 mins

10k runs 6k to 8k at 85 to 90% 10k pace rest at 10k pace

5k to 6k runs with 2k to 5k at 90% 10k pace rest at 105% of 10k pace

Shift intervals/time trials 3x2k 1k 95% 10k 1k all out, 2x3k 1500/1500 split, long rest on these 5 mins or so, time trials of 4k to 4 miles again split down the middle same paces

2 mile w/up 10 to 14 miles at 70% 10k pace into 4k to 6k at 90% 10k into sets of short intervals 300m to 500m at 105% of 10k pace w/ short rest ie a minute between intervals 3 mins between sets, only do 2 to 4 reps in each set only do 2 or 3 sets. For example 3x3x400m

Muscular and aerobic work options stay about the same but avoid the short aerobic options instead use some of the combo work above and the circuits change slightly instead of starting with an aerobic interval you should start with an all out what I call high school style interval. Which is to say you go out too hard and get yourself in as much anaerobic pain as you can as quickly as you can. So you do an interval of 800m to 1k and just hammer out sub 30 for the first 200 and go as hard as you can. Sure you will run slower then you could have if you ran smart and you’ll be more tired too but that’s the point. You want to start the exercises with your body in an absolute state of crises. Just like the last 400m of a hard race. These Kenyans and Ethiopians you see dropping 50 to 53 second last laps on the track in Europe aren’t 45 second 400m men they are just able to run within a fraction of there top speed for 400m when their body is very near collapse. You want to be able to do the same.

Laying out your specific phase- You are more worried during this time with the specific out put of your workouts versus really only worrying about the effort during the fundamental phase so recovery is even more important. So drop your miles a bit 5 or 10 a week and put in an extra easy day here or there and go a bit easier even on your easy days.

You want to do one or two anaerobic or combo workouts a week and at least one circuit, one aerobic workout in each two week cycle. I really think one effort/run should be at least 15 miles in length, but there are some very successful runners who don’t do this so its not a absolute.

You should also race at least a couple of times, under distance is best. I wouldn’t want you racing every week but once for every 3 weeks or so is good. Again races are harder then workouts and you need to respect that and recover more from them.

You still want to be doing short hill repeats and the other easy muscular workout but cut the volume back to where you started the fundamental phase at. At this point it is just maintenance work.

Ok now your into your goal racing season so you need to back off and focus simply on racing mileage should be cut back to 50 to 60% you can last about 4 to 6 weeks without getting back to a little work and without loosing fitness, you should race every week you should do strides a couple of times a week and one or two real easy workouts like 6 laps of the track of sprint float sprint, or some light intervals at race pace or a hard mile or two mile time trial ect… I purposely don’t go into a ton of detail of how to do this part because it is so personal and so much based on the specifics of your racing season. Also there are so many example available out there.

Moving to trackshark.com

2007-07-29T19:24:00.000-07:00

ok so i'm moving my blog again this time to trackshark.com. I'm going to do a full post for it tomorrow for that site but i'm not sure how long it will take to get up so i'll put this past week up below(no quotes or extra's though) and a full post on trackshark. thanks for checking in and I hope that this trackshark thing will workout, if not I'll be back here at a later date I guess.

training July 23 to 29

Monday AM got ART and chiro adjustment
PM rd. 20 at roughly 80% marathon pace, first 10, w/ garcia on methuen road loop and second 10 on lake loop 10 solo, 1:56:28, hamstring was bad need to see someone better about this tot. 20

Tuesday AM 9 solo at mines falls, easy, 59:11 tot. 9
PM 8 shakeout w/ shannon at mines falls, started w/ uml crew tot. 8
XT 2x50m springing, 2x50m bounding, 5x50m str. leg bounding after shakeout

Wednesday AM 3 w/up 20k on tewks track at bit faster then 90% mp, 1:07:38 (34:00 at 10k),
it was pretty warm out, 1 and a half miles w/down tot. 17
2PM 19min w/up 12x15 second hills at christian hill in lowell, 19 min w/down tot. 8
6pm 5+ shakeout w/ shannon on tewks trails tot. 5

Thursday AM rd. and trail 9 solo in tewks, 1:01:02 tot. 9
PM duff 5 w/ gary, 36:22, bunch of bounding stuff, duff 5 solo, 34:45 tot. 10
XT 2x70 m springing, 2x70m bounding, 5x70m str. leg bounding, 2x hill springing,
2x hill bounding

Friday AM rd. and trail 9 in tewks solo, 1:01:24, tot. 9
PM trail 10 shake in tewks, first 5 w/ shannon, 1:20:54 tot. 10

Saturday AM workout in Keene, nh w/ Mark Miller, josh ferenc, w/up w/ Mary Proulx, shannon and Mary's coach who I thought was named chris anderson?? but shannon says was named eric something so did not do a good job on that. w/up little less then 3 miles did strides and a 200 in 35 to loosen up then did threshold on the track alt leads between me josh and mark every 800m josh stayed up just past 2 miles, mark stayed up till he kicked by me w/ 1 lap to 8k which is how far he wanted to go, he ran a bit under 24:00, I went 10k in 30:05.8 josh and mark jumped back in w/ 800 to go, mark stayed in 400, josh the full 800 splits(3:00.3, 6:00.3(3:00.0), 8:59.4(2:59.4), 12:01.8(3:02.4), 15:01.9(3:00.2), 18:03.4(3:01.5), 21:02.8(2:59.4), 24:03.2(3:00.4), 27:06.2(3:03.0), 30:05.8(2:59.6)) rained pretty good the whole time, we ran on the monadnock hs track, very new very nice, honestly felt pretty good through 8k but like shit after that. i'm happy with the workout but not thrilled. 27:28 c/down tot. 12+
PM in keene still, little less then 3 w/up, 15x13 second hills, little less then 3 c/down(w/up and c/down w/ mark miller) 1:00:24 total running time tot.8-

Sunday AM rd. and trail 27 easy in tewks, 3:03:05, took water because it was warm (84) and a bit humid, tot. 27
PM rd. 5+ shakeout, first 3 w/ shannon (43:47) tot. 5

Summary 157 miles for the week, good week, got lucky on the weather for the most part, got 3 good efforts and a lot of real good muscular work for the legs. I'm worried about that during the 20k tempo I never breathed heavy at all felt great from the waist up but man after 12 or 13k my legs were heavy as hell and just exhausted. ok see you at trackshark.com

Training July 16 to 22

2007-07-24T11:45:00.000-07:00

Monday noon, rd. 9+ in lowell solo easy, 1:03:27 tot. 9
PM rd. and trail 10 shakeout in tewks, 1:19:42 tot. 10

Tuesday AM 3 w/up strides w/o on tewks track, 12k alternating 1k faster 1k slower really went
pretty bad still tired from last workout( 3:05.7,3:29.4,3:02.8, 3:31.5, 3:02.6,
3:33.0,3:05.7, 3:40.8, 3:04.3, 3:39.4, 3:03.8, 3:39.5) 39:58.6 for 12k, 3 mile
c/down tot. 13
PM at mines falls, 27:45 w/up with shannon, 23x9 second hills, very steep, walk/jog
down rest, for the first half, second half I need 10 extra seconds or so to get heart
rate to 120 bpm. overall good go, 16:34 c/down w/shannon tot. 8

Wednesday AM rd.9+ in lowell easy solo, 1;05:25 tot. 9+
PM trail 10 shakeout in tewks, first 5 w/ shannon rest solo, 1:21:45, tot. 10+

Thursday AM 3 w/up strides, 15x300m at dracut track, rest 53 to 58 seconds jogging, (49.2,
48.3, 48.8, 48.8, 48.9, 49.0, 48.8, 48.0, 48.2, 49.2, 48.8, 48.4, 48.4, 48.6, 48.4) 3+
c/down tot. 10+
PM 9 easy shakeout in tewks solo, 1:12:28 tot. 9

Friday AM rd. and trail 9 in tewks easy, 1:00:52 tot. 9
PM 10 shakeout in tewks, 1:19:04, half drills and 4xstraight leg bounds after tot. 10
XT half drills and 4x straight leg bounds

Saturday AM 3+ w/up strides, 4x3k on tewks track, breezy,solo, (9:20.3) 2:58 rest (9:09.5)
2:59 rest (9;00.7) 2:59 rest (8:58.6) 3 c/down tot. 14++
PM at mines falls, 28:31 w/up w/ shannon, 25 x9 second hills, went real well, actually
dipped under 9 a couple of times and the recovery's were real quick, 17:40 c/down
w/ shannon tot. 8

Sunday AM 1:00:22 on trails in tewks, easy 9, solo, sprining bounding ect.. after tot. 9
PM rd. and trail solo shakeout in tewks, 1:20;17, tot. 10
XT 2 sets springing on the flat, 2 sets bounding on the flat and 4 sets of straight leg
bounds

Summary 138 miles for week, good week not great workouts but good enough.

Quote of the week "Don't do what you want. Do what you don't want. Do what you're trained not to want. Do the things that scare you the most." Chuck Palahniuk, Invisible Monsters, 1999 US writer (1962 - )

Training July 9 to 15

2007-07-17T09:04:00.000-07:00

Monday AM 45:05 solo at Maudsley state park in the rain, great run, tot. 6+
PM 46:10 in tewks tot. 6
Got ART and chiro treatment done in am

Tuesday AM rd. 9+ solo, 1:02:57, tot. 9
PM rd. 8 shakeout solo, 59:57, still real sore from race tot. 8

Wednesday AM rd. 9+ solo, 1:03:08, full drills and straight leg bounds after tot.9
PM trail 10 shakeout in tewks, tot. 10

Thursday AM 26 solo and easy at mines falls, very hungry and thirsty, 2:58:16 tot. 26

Friday AM rd. 9+, 1:01:16, easy tot. 9
PM rd. 10 solo shakeout, full drills and straight leg bounds after tot. 10

Saturday AM at mines falls, 23:45 w/up, progression run, 8 loops (maybe 1500m each) 5:20,
5:10(10:30), 5:05(15:36), 4:52(20:28), 4:47(25:16), 4:43(29:59), 4:39(34:38),
4:34(39:13), 15:16 c/down great workout very happy with it and the loop i used, i
had two sharp turns and two light uphills and down hills exactly what I was lookin
for tot. 12
PM 10 shakeout in boston, mostly on boston common, 1:17:27, very repetitive tot. 10

Sunday AM rd. and trail 25 easy, 2:53:30, in tewks, very hot and I did get dehydrated I need to
find a way to take water even on some of these easy runs tot. 25

Summary 140 miles for the week 1 good workout, it took a lot to recover from the hills of utica but I was feeling better finally by friday I was happy with the workout on saturday it wasn't that fast but it was a great effort and I paced it right so that I was able to go a bit quicker on every one. I think that I'm pretty fit but not as fit as I had hoped if I had to guess i'm in about 1:04 half marathon shape on a perfectly flat course right now and I would struggle to run within 5% of that pace for the marathon so what this summer has to be about is getting into shape to run sub 60 at the new haven 20k(equal to a 1:03:20 half) which is a fair but not perfectly flat course. From there I can focus on being marathon ready and ready for the tough central park course for the trials.

Quote of the week "Make up your mind to act decidedly and take the consequences. No good is ever done in this world by hesitation." Thomas H. Huxley English biologist (1825 - 1895)

training July 2 to 9

2007-07-09T10:51:00.000-07:00

Monday PM rd. 9 easy w/ Gary, Ruben, Garcia, 1:01:26, strides after tot. 10
XT hamstring exercises

Tuesday AM 33:45 in Acton w/ Kara Haas tot. 4.5
PM 40:10 in tewksbury w/ shannon, drills after tot. 5 plus
XT full drills

Wednesday AM 3+ w/up strides ect.. race john carson 2 mile in chelmsford, 2nd place 9:05(Pat
Tarpy 1st, 8:50 cr) Dylan Wylkes 3rd, splits (2:12, 4:34, 6:46(2:12), 9:05(4:3
(2:19) happy with race over all its a tough little course I had hoped to run
under the cr of 8:57 but I think that was a bridge to far. 40 minute cool down
tot. 11

Thursday Noon 7 at mines falls easy 45:34 tot. 7

Friday AM 6+ easy miles in tewks solo, 45:12 tot. 6+
PM 32:50 easy in Utica Ny strides after tot. 5+

Saturday AM 39:47 easy in Utica, drills after tot. 5+
XT full drills

Sunday 4am 2 mile shakeout, 15:49 tot. 2
7am 20 min w/up strides ect.. race Utica Boilermaker 15k 13th place, 1st american
46:22, splits (5k15:36) (10k30:31) miles (5:01, 9:55(4:54), 15:00(5:05), 20:1
(5:14), 24:37(4:22), 29:25(4:47), 34:42(5:17), 39:31(4:49), 44:46(5:15), way
tougher course then I thought it would be, 19:39 c/down tot. 15
6pm 3+ shakeout w/shannon, 26:59 tot. 3

Summary 73 miles for the week, two good races. I really wanted to be top 10 at Boilermaker and I think I could have been if I had done more progression runs and been strong enough to really roll into the finish I didn't get passed over the last few miles but I didn't pass anyone either. The big thing is the boilermaker itself I've done a few races and I'm telling you this is what road running should be. I have never seen crowds like this ever. It is just awesome and the after party makes any other post race party look like something in a nursing home. This race is what I imagine the 80's road race scene to have been like.

Quote of the week "free beer two miles" sign held by a fat guy at at little after the 7 mile mark of the boilermaker.

Training June 25 to July 1

2007-07-02T08:33:00.000-07:00

Monday AM Trail 5 shakeout w/shannon, 43:06, tot. 5
PM rd. and trail 9 easy, solo, 1:01:46 tot. 9
XT hike up mnt. Watchusett

Tuesday AM trail and rd. 9 in Tewksbury, 1:03:46, strides after tot. 10
PM Trail 5 solo shakeout, 40:50 tot. 5

Wednesday AM 3 w/up couple of strides 2x5k(15:38, 15:54) 3 mins rest, it was very hot I was
hoping to do 3 5k's and that they would be faster but with the heat well this is
what I got. 3 c/down tot. 12
PM 2.5 w/up with gary then 12x15 second hills 2.5 c/down, these went better then
last time but it is still taking more then the jog down to get my heart rate under
120 tot. 7

Thursday Noon rd. 9, 1:03:52, w/ last mile on the track in 4:54, first 34 minutes were with gary
tot. 9
PM duff five mile loop shakeout solo, 37:30 tot. 5

Friday AM rd and track 10 mile, 1:06:11, 9 on roads easy w/ Tim, 1:01:16, last mile on track
solo in 4:54 tot. 10
PM Trail 5 solo shakeout in tewks, 37:47 tot. 5

Saturday AM4.5 w/up, 36:01, some strides and a 200 in 35s., then 4 miles on track in 19:29,
breeze and warm but neither was bad enough to be a factor. very disappointing
wanted to go 10k, splits (3:01.7, 6:02.3, 9:04.3, 12:07.o, 15:11.5, 18:15.9) 4.5
c/down with last mile in 5:03 (rolling terrain) tot. 13
PM trail 6+ shakeout w/ shannon in Wendell state forest, horse flys were awful, 49:18
tot. 6+

Sunday PM rd and trail easy 23, 2:39:17, in tewks tot. 23

Summary 119 miles for the week, two shitty workouts, not real happy with this week. I'm going to back off the volume and drop the hard last miles this week and run two races the john carson 2 mile in chelmsford on the 4th(Wednesday), i'm hoping to run close to the cr and win. Then the Boilermaker 15k in Utica on the 8th(Sunday) I'd really like to run 45 flat or better and be the top American there. So high hopes for the week we'll see how it turns out.

Quotes of the week "In reading the lives of great men, I found that the first victory they won was over themselves... self-discipline with all of them came first."
Harry S. Truman

"I've said many a time that I think the Un-American Activities Committee in the House of Representatives was the most un-American thing in America!"
Harry S. Truman

Training log June 18 to 24

2007-06-26T11:49:00.000-07:00

Monday Early PM woods 9, 59:05, easy tot. 9
PM woods 5 shakeout w/ Gary, 35:09 tot. 9

Tuesday AM 4.5 w/up 36 mins, couple of strides, 17k on tewksbury track at 95% goal mp,
54:38(major splits 16:10 5k, 32:12 10k, 48:13 15k, 51:26 10m, 4.5 cool down
34:22 tot. 20
PM 45:47 w/ shannon at mines falls tot. 5

Wednesday PM woods 20 easy, 2:15:25 tot. 20

Thursday AM woods 9, 1:00:03, solo, full drills after tot. 9
PM duff five plus shakeout, 38:39, tot. 5+

Friday AM Duff five plus shakeout, 5+, 39:38 tot. 5
PM 5k plus w/up, strides ect... race andover days 5k, rolling loop course, 1st place cr,
14:31 (splits 4:48.9, 9:39.8(4:50.9), 14:09.5(4:29.7)) 3+ cool down tot. 10

Saturday PM trail 1:00:53 at Quabin res. solo easy tot. 9

Sunday AM rd. and trail 22 in tewks, 2:30:52, ran easy then did last mile at mp or so, 5:03
tot.22

Summary 119 miles for the week. One good but not great workout and one good race. I really wanted to go 20k for the tempo run but muscularly it got real tough. Aerobically it felt real good. I was happy with the race.

Quote of the week "It would be absurd if we did not understand both angels and devils, since we invented them. "
John Steinbeck, East of Eden, Chapter 13, Part II

training June 11 to 17

2007-06-19T13:33:00.000-07:00

Monday AM woods 9 easy, 1:00:56, started w/ Gary and Mark Garcia, strides after tot. 10

Tuesday AM 3 w/up strides, 2x3k w/ a 3:00 800m for rest windy and hot, 9:19, 9:13. Had
planned on going faster and continueing to cut down and doing more but the heat
really got me, 3 cool down tot. 11
PM 3 w/up 11x 15sec. hills jog down plus rest, went better then last time but still not
recovering great from these things, 3 cool down tot. 7

Wednesday AM trail 9 at mines falls, no time tot. 9

Thursday PM rd. and tar path 6 in Peoria, IL. hot hot, 40:50, a few strides after tot. 6++

Friday AM Jogged steamboat course and added on a bit w/ hansons and former hansons guys,
full drills after tot. 5

Saturday AM 20 min w/up with Mario Macias, strides jogging drills ect. race Steamboat 4 mile,
11th place, 18:50 splits (4:35, 9:13(4:37), 14:00(4:46), 4:50 last mile, 20 min
w/down tot. 11
PM 45:04 on trails in east Peoria w/ Jon Brown and Kathy Butler tot.6

Sunday AM 1:07:26 on trails in east Peoria w/ Jon Brown and Kathy Butler tot. 9
PM travel home

Summary 69 miles, one shitty workout, one decent race. It was real hot and the pace just kept picking up, I got dropped just before 2 miles from the lead pack and fought my way in. I had really hoped to run about 18:30, but with the heat and the day I had I'm ok with it. I got a couple of real good scalps but not ending up in the top 10 was real disappointing. It was real hot in Peoria, the humidity wasn't too bad but it was 92 plus every day and it didn't cool off too much at any point in the day.

Quote of the week "Have no fear of robbers or murderers. They are external dangers, petty
dangers. We should fear ourselves. Prejudices are the real robbers; vices the
real murderers." Victor Hugo Les Miserables (p. 27)

Training June 4 to 10

2007-06-11T08:30:00.000-07:00

Monday AM 1:03:53 solo at Maudsly state park in the rain, tot. 9+
PM woods 5 w/ gary in rain, shakeout, 36:35 tot. 5

Tuesday AM 3 1/4 w/up few strides, 10k easy tempo on the track 32:27, (3:15.5, 6:31.2, 9:45.4,
12:59.8, 16:14.3, 19:28.1, 22:42.2, 25:56.9, 29:12.3, 32:27.0) very hot would have
liked to do 15k but i was getting dehydrated and it wouldn't have stayed easy if i had
gone on, 3 1/2 c/down tot. 13
PM trail 5 shakeout in tewksbury w/ shannon, 42:03 tot. 5

Wednesday AM woods 9, easy solo, 58:45, full drills after tot. 9
PM woods 5 solo shakeout, 38:58 tot. 5
XT drills

Thursday AM 4 solo shakeout, 27:59 tot. 4
PM 3 1/2 w/up a ton of strides, jogging ect.. (race started late), race hollis fast 5k 1st
place, 13:46 cr, led from gun, but did get passed by a run away horse, splits
(4:26.9, 8:48.7(4:21.8), 13:19.9(4:31.2). down hill course all together 3 1/2
c/down tot. 11+

Friday AM woods 10, 1:12:16 w/ mark garcia easy tot. 12
PM trail 5 shakeout w/ shannon 41:54 in tewksbury tot. 5
XT some hamstring exercises

Saturday PM 3- w/up strides ect... race high performance meet 5k, 1st place, 14:20.60 led from
gun(Nelson laux led 4th lap). Splits kilo's(2:51.8, 5:45.5(2:53.7), 8:38.4(2:52.9),
11:30.3(2:51.9), 14:20.4(2:50.1) miles(4:35, 9:13, 13:47) 3+ c/down w/ shannon
tot. 10

Sunday AM road and trail 18 easy, 2:05:07 tot. 18

Summary 104 miles for the week, 1 easy w/o, two decent races. This week i have the steamboat 4 mile in peoria. I would feel a lot better if I had popped a 14:0's 5k going in but i'm fit so I'm excited. I'd like to run under 18:30, its a tough course and it will be hot but it will also be very competitive. I really blew it in the last competitive race I ran (moonlight) but i think I can run sub 14 through 3 miles just hanging on and feel pretty good, then i'll just have to finish this time. I'll keep things pretty low key this week but I am going to do a pretty good w/o on tuesday.

Quote of the week " I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand. It's when you know you're licked before you begin but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what. You rarely win, but sometimes you do." ~Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird, Chapter 11, spoken by the character Atticus

training May 28 to June 3

2007-06-05T09:09:00.000-07:00

Monday AM trail 9 at mine falls solo, no time easy tot. 9
PM rd. and trail 5 solo shakeout in tewksbury, 41:01 tot. 5

Tuesday AM woods 9 solo, easy, 58:44 tot. 9
PM trail 5 solo shakeout in tewksbury, 40:09 tot. 5

Wednesday off bad stomach bug, up all night, up all day

Thursday AM woods 9, easy no time, full drills after tot. 9
XT full drills

Friday AM woods 4 shakeout, 30:42, stomach bad tot. 4
PM 5k w/up strides ect... race Moonlight 5k in New Milford Ct. 8th place, 1st American,
14:21 (rolling course) splits (4:30, 9:07) let it go a bit the last mile I was separated
from the lead pack and frustrated. 3 cool down w/ shannon tot. 10+

Saturday AM rd. and trail, 9 in Tewksbury, 1:01:53 tot. 9
PM trail 5 shakeout w/ shannon, 40:00, some light springing after, my right Achilles
was a bit tight. tot. 5

Sunday AM 3 w/up with Gary, strides ect... race Rhody 5k in Lincoln RI, 4th place, 2nd
American, 14:33, splits 4:40.9, 9:23.3(4:42.4), 14:00.5(4:37.2) 28 minute cool down
with Martin Fagan, Pat Tarpy, John Mortimer, Marc Carroll and a whirlaway guy
who's name I don't remember tot. 11

Summery, 76 miles for the week, thanks to the stomach bug. No workouts, thanks to the stomach bug, two races both under my old 5k road pr. Honestly I was happy with sundays race I was tired but they were too but those guys simply are better then me over 5k and I'm ok with that but I ran competitively and got a good effort out of my self. the finish seems slow but there were two sharp awkward turns a funky steep 10 foot uphill and the soft dog track to deal with after the 3 mile mark so on a normal course it would have been 3 or 4 seconds faster, also that course, though it changes a bit every year, down at rhody is always slow, it looks fast and flat but it is always deceiving in that way. The race on friday was faster on a course that was probably about the same speed give or take as rhody but I was real frustrated with it because I didn't stay tough. I got right into the lead pack of 15 or so off the gun and ran a 4:30 on the uphill first mile then handled the turn around and a tough little uphill in the second mile and was dropped off the disintegrating pack but only a second or so from the next guy up and 6 or so off Nyariki in the lead. But I just gave up and didn't push in. If I had I think I would have caught 6th and 7th. That would have given me a 14:0's time and got me Pat Cheriuyot's scalp, he ran 45:00 for 10 miles this may at broad st. thats the fastest time ever run on american soil. So though it was the faster race I got less out of myself and so found it disappointing. Still both races were better then last week.

Training May 21 to 27

2007-05-29T12:43:00.000-07:00

Monday AM woods 9 easy,1:05:45, first 3 w/ gary, first 5 w/ nikki, strides after tot. 10
PM woods 5 solo shakeout, 37:26 tot. 5

Tuesday AM woods 9 solo easy, 1:00:07, full drills after tot. 10
XT full drills and hamstring exercises

Wednesday AM 4.5 miles w/up strides, 8k on tewksbury hs track, 23:56, splits (2:59.8,
6:00.2(3:00.4), 9:00.9(3:00.8), 12:00.4(2:59.5), 15:00.2(2:59.8), 17:59.5(2:59.3),
20:59.2(2:59.6), 23:56.7(2:57.5) 4.5 cool/down tot. 14

Thursday AM Trail 18 on tewksbury fields easy, 2:02:42 tot. 18

Friday Noon 3 w/up 10x 15 second hills jog down rest, 3 cool/down tot. 7
PM 4.5+ in tewks shakeout w/ shannon tot. 4

Saturday PM woods 6 shakeout, full drills after, tot. 6
XT full drills

Sunday AM 3 w/up strides, race 5 miles at Boston Run to Remember, 24:07, 4th place, splits
mile 4:51, 3miles 14:11(9:20), 19:08 (4:56), 24:07(4:59), 3 mile cool down tot. 11

Summery 85 miles for the week. A great workout followed by an awful race. Exactly the
opposite of what it should be. I'm not sure what happened. I think it was just that the
pace shifted so quickly after the mile. The hill repeats on friday may have taken a bit
out of me too but all in all it was a total crap run. I really expected to run at least
under 23:20. So it was a super frustrating finish to the week.

RRCA Road Scholar Award

2007-05-21T11:53:00.000-07:00

I was awarded the Road Runners Club of America's (RRCA) Road Scholar award this past week. I had applied for it back in march and had pretty much given up on it. This is huge for me, both in terms of financial support, 5k, and in terms of getting my name out there. It just makes it that much easier to get race directors to let me in there races and what not. This also really nice because I quit my job at the shoe store a month ago to focus full time on training for the trials this fall. So thank you RRCA!!!!

Training May 14 to 20

2007-05-20T17:30:00.000-07:00

Monday AM woods 9, 1:03:22, w/ Nikki, strides after tot. 10
PM woods 7 shakeout, 53:23 w/ gary and uml frosh tot. 7
XT hamstring exercises

Tuesday AM 4.5 miles w/up, and 1 stride, then 8k on tewksbury hs track, first 5k in 16:08(95%
marathon goal pace) then last 3k at half marathon goal pace(8:53) so total time was
25:02 for 8k with k's of 3:13, 3:14(6:27), 3:13(9:41), 3:13(12:55),3:13(16:08),
2;59(19:08),2:57(22:05), 2:56(25:02), 4.5 c/down tot. 14

Wednesday AM 12 real easy, 1:21 tot. 12
PM woods 5 shakeout in cold rain solo, 37:03 tot. 5

Thursday AM 4.5 w/up, 3 strides and a 200 in 34, then 3200m in 9:11, splits 2:52, 2:52(5:45),
2:52(8:38), 4.5 c/down tot. 11+
PM rd. and trail 5 shakeout w/ shannon, 40:28 tot. 5

friday AM woods 9 solo, easy, 1:01:46 tot. 9

Saturday AM race usatf-ne 12k road champs at bedford rotary 12k, w/up 3 miles, then jog to
start, strides, led from gun felt good and decided to really go for it, won in course
record 36:21, splits (4:43, 9:36(4:53), 14:32(4:56), 19:26(4:53), 24:15 (4:49),
29:15(4:59), 33:54(4:38). very rolling course no real flats except in the first and
7th miles. real happy with this as a solo effort on a tough course, 3 c/down w/
shannon and ben tot. 14
PM 3 shakeout w/ shannon 24 minutes just to get the crap out of my legs tot. 3

Sunday AM 18 easy! in tewks solo, 2:04:41 got soaked!!!!, poured like hell a couple of times
tot.18

Summery 108 miles for the week, two good workouts?, and one good race, miles will be about the same this week but only one workout and a lot of easy running in prep to hopefully run real well at the boston run to remember against some strong competition, I'd like to run under 23:30 for a full 5 miles and maybe even sneak a little prize money.

Training May 7 to 13

2007-05-13T15:13:00.000-07:00

training log May 7 to 13

Monday AM woods 9 easy, 1:05:23, first 3.5 w/ gary. rolled left ankle pretty good. tot. 9
PM woods 7 easy w/ nikki, 52:48 tot. 7
XT 2 sets hamstring stuff
Other saw Active Release Therapist(ART)

Tuesday AM, Methuen rd. 12, 1:13:38, last mile at goal mp, tot. 12
PM 5 shakeout, 36:12, tot. 5
XT 2 sets hamstring stuff

Wednesday AM 3 w/up strides ect... threshold run 6k in 18:56, hot and bit windy, but basically
a shit workout, goal was to run 5 min mile pace for 5k then finish with 3k in
9:00, instead i just ran out of gas running the 5k tried to shift gears and basically
just got back on 5min pace, splits (3:08,3:09,3:09,3:11,3:10,3:07) 3 cool down
tot. 11
PM woods 5 shakeout w/ uml guys, 39:21 tot. 5

Thursday AM woods 9 easy, 58:23, drills after tot. 9
PM woods 5 shakeout w/ uml guys tot. 5
XT 2 sets hamstring stuff, continuous warm up drills

Friday AM woods 10, 1:08:08, then finish with 2 miles on track at goal mp, 4:57,4:56(9:54),
1:18:02, tot. 12
PM 20 mins w/up and 16x12 second hills jog down rest, actually a bit more on some, wai
for heart rate to dip below 120, been a long time since I've done these and recovery
wasn't great. on super steep hill off of dartmouth college's golf course, 10 mins plus
cool down tot. 7

Saturday AM easy rd. and trail 9? back in hanover, nh, 1:01:57 tot. 9

Sunday AM rd. and trail 18 easy in tewksbury, 1:59:16 tot. 18

Summery, 109 miles for the week. Good week but an extremely frustrating workout, weather had something to do with it, the early pace being a bit too agressive had something to do with it and just being a bit tired had something to do with it. 12 with the last mile at mp just isn't as easy as it was when I was fit. Particularly that close to 6 minute pace over the methuen rd. loop, which is pretty hilly.

since coming back from mono

2007-05-10T19:14:00.000-07:00

April 30 to May 6

Monday AM woods 9 easy, 56:30, strides after tot. 10
PM 5+ shakeout w/ shannon tot. 5
xt 2 sets hamstring stuff
Tuesday AM woods 10, 1:08:33 then finish with a mile on the track around goal marathon
pace, 4:56, tot. 11
PM woods 6 shakeout w/ uml guys 42:53 tot. 6
Wednesday AM w/up strides 5k on track 15:08, (splits 3:01, 5:59, 9:01, 12:06), 3 mins rest
3x1k w/ 400 rest, 3:00, 3;01, 3;01 cool down tot. 12
Thursday AM woods 9 easy, 1;05:38, drills after tot. 9
PM 6 on tewks trails solo shakeout, 45:18 tot. 6
xt drills and 2 sets full hamstring stuff
Friday noon 5+ w/ gary into 10k on track at roughly 95% marathon goal pace, 32:44, paces
varied a little largely because it was a little windy and I was trying to keep it easy so I
started slow, splits(3:17,3:17,3:17,3:16,3:14,3;14,3:12,3:14,(26:06 at 8k),3:14,3:13. tota
time 1:11:01 tot. 11+
Saturday woods 9 solo, 59:36, easy tot. 9
spent the whole day at uml conference meet on my feet so decided to drop the pm run
Sunday PM w/up strides race USATF-NE 5k road champs in westford. moderatly hilly course
1st place 14:50, (John Mortimer 2nd), splits 4:46 down hill, 9:26(rolling hills), uphill
last mile cool down tot. 11

Summery, 96 miles for the week. super happy with the overall quality of the week and with the race I felt very controlled throughout and had a good time. the workout wasn't great but not bad either, sneaking in the second tempo was nice too.

April 23 to 29

Monday AM woods 10 easy, 1:09:54 tot. 10
PM trail/rd. 5 w/ shannon 41:24 tot. 5
xt 1 set hamstring stuff
Tuesday PM woods 10 solo, 1;06:52 tot. 10
Wednesday AM woods 5 solo, 34:37 tot. 5
drive to philly
PM river walk 5 w/uml guys and nikki, 35;04 tot. 5
Thursday AM river walk 5, 34:37 tot. 5
PM w/up, race penn 5k, 14:37, finished well back in the teens, happy with this, ran safe and steady, 4:42,9:23,14:03, cool down tot. 10
Friday AM river walk 10, solo, in absolutly pouring rain, tot. 10
PM drive back from philly
Saturday 12 in tewks on trails, 1;20 tot. 12
Sunday AM 21 on rd. and trails in tewks, 2:01:11, felt great really ripped this one, tot. 21

Summery 93 miles this week, happy with the race considering and thrilled with the long run.

April 16 to 22

Monday easy 7 w/ shannon in tewks, still have cold, 52:25 tot. 7
Tuesday trail 12, 1:13:49, good pace in tewks, tot. 13
Wednesday woods 12, 1:25:09, solo, easy tot. 12
Thursday 3 w/up strides stretching, 5k on dracut track in 15:10, splits(3:01,6:01,9;03,12;06,15;10) 4 cool down tot. 11
Friday 3PM woods 10 solo, easy, 1:09;26 tot. 10
6PM 5 w/ shannon in tewks, 40:19 tot. 5
Saturday off cough cold still/back
Sunday 12, 1;15:31, in tewks, tot. 12

summery 69 miles, cold is a pain in the ass and keeps me nervous

April 9 to 15

Monday AM 10, 5 w/ gary, 38:05, solo duffy 5, 31:31 tot. 10
PM woods 5, 37:22 tot. 5
tuesday aM w/up 3k, 9:01, 3mins rest, 2k, 6:04, 3 mins rest, 1k, 3;01, 400 rest(1:50), 1k, 3:01 400rest, 1:50, 2k, 6:04 cool down tot. 14
Wednesday woods 8, solo easy, 54:45, tot. 8
pm fly to mnt. sac relays
Thursday PM 1:34:46, mostly trail, tot. 14
Friday AM rd. and trail , 1:16:20, tot. 11
PM 20 mins w/ nikki(on her warm down) and shannon tot. 2.5
Saturday AM 12+ solo, hilly, 1:21:40 tot. 12
PM fly back to mass.
Sunday off a bit of a cough and very nervous about it bringing back mono.

summery 77 miles for the week, good week but the small cold I picked up flying has me worried.
April 2 to 8

Monday woods 10 solo easy, 1;07:24, woods sloppy tot. 10
got ART
Tuesday AM woods 5 solo, 38;07 tot. 5
PM woods 10 w/uml guys, 1:11:51 tot. 10
Wednesday w/up, 8x1k w/ 2mins rest, avg. 3:01, fastest 3:00, slowest 3:02, cool down this was very very hard tot. 11
Thursday methuen rd. 10 solo, very easy, 1:08:46 tot. 10
Friday AM 10++ over light snow in tewksbury, 1:15:07 tot. 10++
PM 5+ w/ shannon, 46;03, hurt foot a bit right at end tot. 5
Saturday AM woods and rd. 5 w/ shannon, foot tender but ok, tot. 5
Sunday AM 15 in tewksbury, mostly trail, 1;35:25, felt much much better, like a runner tot. 15

summery 82 miles for the week. The foot is ok, was a bit worrying at first.

March 26 to April 1

Monday lake rd. 10, w/ uml kids and Nikki, 1:13:17, legs shitty, no surprise there tot. 10
Tuesday AM 12, woods 5 w/ gary, 39:21, then rd. 7 solo, 46:49, (1:26:11 total time) tot. 12
PM 5 shakeout w/ shannon in tewksbury, 46:34 tot. 5
XT full group of hamstring exercises, 15mins
Wednesday Methuen rd. 10, 1:05:24, solo, tot. 10
Thursday 12, woods 7 w/gary, 50:28, duffy morning 5 solo, 33:00, (total 1:23:28) tot. 12
XT full group of hamstring exercises 2 sets, 30 mins
Friday 10, woods 5, w/gary 37:26, duffy 5 solo, 32:15 tot. 10
XT full group of hamstring stuff 2 sets
Saturday 20k on tewksbury xc course, 1:24:47,tot. 12+
Sunday 13 in tilton nh, very hill, 1:26:32 tot. 13

summery 84 miles for the week.

March 19 to 25

Monday methuen rd. 10, no time forgot watch tot. 10
Tuesday Methuen rd. 13, 1:23:36 tot. 13
Wednesday lake rd. 10 w/ uml guys 1:11:36, legs crumby tot. 10
Thursday Methuen rd. 13, no time again, drills after tot. 13
Friday Methuen rd. 10, w/ uml guys, 1:07:27 tot. 10
Saturday Lake rd. 10 easy w/uml guys, 1:09:52 tot. 10
Sunday w/up 20 mins did some strides raced, sorta, Irish feet are running 5 mile (Lowell), finished 3rd in 25:11, (John Mortimer 1st, Justin Lutz 2nd) 20 min cool down tot. 11

Summery 76 miles for the week. Raced a whole lot better than I thought I would but there is still one hell of a long way to go.

March 12 to 18
monday 10, 67minutes w/uml guys, 4 strides after tot. 10
tuesday Trail 9+, 1:01:53 w/uml guys tot. 9
Wednesday trail 9-, 58:54, w/ uml guys tot. 9
Thursday trail 12 easy w/uml guys, 1:22:34 tot. 12
Friday rd./greenway/trail 9, 1:04:06 tot. 9
Saturday trail 12 easy w/ rex and jack 1:18:40 tot. 12
Sunday off drive home from n.c.

summery 61 miles for the week

March 5 to 11
Monday duffy morning 5(32:43) with a little add on, 35:41 tot. 5.5
Tuesday treadmill 5, (33:40) tot. 5
Wednesday treadmill 5, (33:19) tot. 5
thursday off rest
Friday off worked all day didn't want to push it
Saturday off same as friday
Sunday off drove to North Corolina with umass lowell track teams

off with mono January 29 to March 4