Another week another small step in the right direction. I tried a tiny bit of tempo work this week and that went very well and didn't leave me nearly as sore as my micro track workout last week so that was a nice surprise. My cross training continues to improve and I'm actually back to doing my normal lifts, squats, front squats, deadlifts and the some other basics mixed in with some wieght. I did 6x6 of dead lifts going from 135 up to 185lbs. I did 6x6 with the back squats going from 85 up to 135lbs. So light but not just the bar or no wieght anymore. Still walking a lot!
Monday PT- adding a lot of jumping stuff, broad jumps and even some side to side jumping.
Tuesday 1 mile jog warm up, just under 7mins, then 12x100m on the track with 100m walk recoveries. Locked in on the 17's for these. felt pretty good. Also saw Anna befor this and did some lifting and core work.
Wednesday 20 minute run on the rail trail with no walk breaks. Covered 3.1 miles. This was also my first time doing some running on back to back days. I could feel my hip was quite fatiqued after 15mins and it was a bit of a struggle to hold form and what not but it was good given that it was kinda a double whammy of increases.
Thursday heavy cross training day in terms of exercises from PT and Anna. Couple long walks.
Friday at the track. 1 mile warm up, just under 7mins, 1 mile tempo run 5:20- very even 80, 2:40, 4:00. 1 mile cool down just under 7:00. I cut the walk after this one short because a thunder and lighting storm started. So only about a half mile instead of a mile and a half like normal. The pace for this is just what I would like my threshold workouts to start out at when I start doing a bit of training at the start of October. I felt pretty confident it would be ok just because generally I am very efficent down to that pace. Even at times when a 5:00 feels very hard to run I am generally able to run a lot of 5:20's in a row. This felt controlled but a bit uncomfortable as I haven't done anything up tempo longer than 200m. My hr only got up to 145 but it didn't feel that easy. Not a time trial or anything but not walking either.
Saturday Another heavy cross training day. I'm recovering better and am able to mix in a lot more of my exercises without getting super sore or being too fatiqued the next day.
Sunday 24 minutes with no breaks on the rail trail. 3.8 miles. This actually felt great. Hip wasn't as fatigued as on the 20minute run on Wednesday and I think the tempo mile helped my body realize its fitness a bit and the effort felt greatly reduced. Just a nice little run. Yes I think I can actually call this a run!
Summary a nice step in the right direction. I have a long way to go and the hip is very weak but I actually feel like I'm doing some exercise now in both my running and cross training. I also finished up my first four week cycle of general strength and will start a new routine next week which will be an increase over the pedistal routine I have been doing which is on the light end. The two big tests for the coming week are that I'm moving to a two day on, one day off routine and that I'm going to retry the 6x200m. I'm hopeful that both will be ok. I hope you are running more than me!! Have a great week!
Showing posts with label comeback. Show all posts
Showing posts with label comeback. Show all posts
Sunday, August 19, 2018
Sunday, August 12, 2018
Training August 6 to 12, 2018
Another small step forward this week. The leg really feels the same to me which is to say, lightly sore and pretty weak. The thing is objectively I can see that I am doing a lot more. More PT, more core work, more running. So I know I'm getting stronger but I think I was expecting it to make a big jump in strength and that hasn't happened. Instead I seem to be inching along almost inperceptably. I had a complete nothing day on Tuesday per advise of the PT as I had been getting pretty sore/tired. It worked really nicely. I also didn't do a 2nd walk on Sunday. Other than that I kept to 8 to 10 miles of walking per day and doing about 3 miles of walking around each "run."
Monday 800m jog warm up, 12x100m strides with 100m walk recoveries. Pretty much in the 17's and 16's. I dropped one 15.5 and it felt a bit tough on the hip. I also had PT today.
Tuesday had a ton of fun hanging out at the New England Prep Cross Country Camp at Northfield Mount Hermon. I go out pretty much every year and I really enjoy it. I mean who doesn't love cross country camp!
Wednesday 2x12mins on the track with 1min walk recovery. Went a little over 4 miles which tells you I was moving pretty good. In fact I felt amazing after my day of doing nothing.
Thursday cross training day.
Friday 800m jog warm up, 6x200m on track with 1min standing rest. Felt strong and easy running but felt super winded in the first 20 seconds after each rep. Hip was more tired than I would have liked after this but I'm not scheduled to try this again for almost 2 weeks so that isn't too concerning. went 36, 35, 35, 34,34,34. More aiming for 36 so not much pace sense.
Saturday cross training day and dancing at a wedding.
Sunday on Chelmsford rail trail. 15:11 jogging 1min walk then 7mins jogging. I was very happy with the first 15mins as I was still a bit sore from the 200s. I was fatigued during the last 3mins of the 7 min stretch but that was too be expected.
Hope you had a great week and that the running gods are treating you well!
Monday 800m jog warm up, 12x100m strides with 100m walk recoveries. Pretty much in the 17's and 16's. I dropped one 15.5 and it felt a bit tough on the hip. I also had PT today.
Tuesday had a ton of fun hanging out at the New England Prep Cross Country Camp at Northfield Mount Hermon. I go out pretty much every year and I really enjoy it. I mean who doesn't love cross country camp!
Wednesday 2x12mins on the track with 1min walk recovery. Went a little over 4 miles which tells you I was moving pretty good. In fact I felt amazing after my day of doing nothing.
Thursday cross training day.
Friday 800m jog warm up, 6x200m on track with 1min standing rest. Felt strong and easy running but felt super winded in the first 20 seconds after each rep. Hip was more tired than I would have liked after this but I'm not scheduled to try this again for almost 2 weeks so that isn't too concerning. went 36, 35, 35, 34,34,34. More aiming for 36 so not much pace sense.
Saturday cross training day and dancing at a wedding.
Sunday on Chelmsford rail trail. 15:11 jogging 1min walk then 7mins jogging. I was very happy with the first 15mins as I was still a bit sore from the 200s. I was fatigued during the last 3mins of the 7 min stretch but that was too be expected.
Hope you had a great week and that the running gods are treating you well!
Monday, August 6, 2018
Training Blog July 30 to August 5, 2018
A few steps more in the right direction. Making a lot of progress with PT exercises but am pretty sore and certainly don't feel like I can increase any more quickly without having some trouble. Walking 8 to 10 miles a day. Before and after every run I do 1.5 miles walking, which mean those days I cover about 7 miles in addition to the 5 mile morning walk I do.
Monday Physical Therapy
Tuesday 600m jog 200m walk then 10x100m with 100m walks in 19, 18, 17, 17, 17, then all 16's.
Wednesday no run but did a ton of PT exercises.
Thursday 2x8mins then 1x9mins with 1min walk breaks. I was actually going for 8mins on all of them I just sort of spaced out on the last one so it must have been going ok. Did this on the rail trail which was nice to get off the track.
Friday no running
Saturday 2x10mins on the rail trail with 1min walk break. got a bit too quick on the 2nd rep but settled it down when I noticed on the watch that I was about to run a 5:40 mile.
Sunday no running.
Step by step inch by inch. It is slow but I'm making progress.
Monday Physical Therapy
Tuesday 600m jog 200m walk then 10x100m with 100m walks in 19, 18, 17, 17, 17, then all 16's.
Wednesday no run but did a ton of PT exercises.
Thursday 2x8mins then 1x9mins with 1min walk breaks. I was actually going for 8mins on all of them I just sort of spaced out on the last one so it must have been going ok. Did this on the rail trail which was nice to get off the track.
Friday no running
Saturday 2x10mins on the rail trail with 1min walk break. got a bit too quick on the 2nd rep but settled it down when I noticed on the watch that I was about to run a 5:40 mile.
Sunday no running.
Step by step inch by inch. It is slow but I'm making progress.
Sunday, July 29, 2018
Training Blog July 23 to 29, 2018
Still moving in the right direction. Mostly I'm very happy with how my cross training and rehab exercises are going. I'm getting stronger and addressing some of my weak spots. Ankles are doing much better and that makes running in a way that is easy on the hip much more natural and easy. I'm not sure where my weight is but I'm going to try to weigh in on Monday as I have an appointment with the surgeon and if they don't weigh me there I think my PT has a scale at her office and I'm seeing her Monday as well.
Also this week I upped the walking to 4 to 6 miles in the mornings and 3 to 4 miles in the evenings. On days that I run I don't do a second walk but I do walk about 1.5 miles before and after the running, so on a day like today where I ran/walked 4 and a quarter miles I actually covered over 7 miles in the evening after a 5 mile walk in the morning.
Monday 4x4mins on the track with 1min walk recoveries, covered 4600m, that is 200m shy of 3miles. Felt like this was very much the maximum of what my hip could do.
Tuesday PT- added some light hopping and got cleared to do some deadlifts.
Wednesday on the track, 400m light jog, 200m walking then 8x100m strides with walk back recoveries, first 2 in 18, next 5 in 17, last one in 16 high.
Thursday no running
Friday 4x5mins with 1min jogs on the track covered about 5650m which is around 3.5 miles. The last minute of the last 3 reps I could feel the hip was being worked. This was super hard on my calves as my ankles have made a break through and I was actually toeing off properly.
Saturday no running. calves ok, ankles didn't lock up which is awesome.
Sunday 4x6mins on track. Actually bit better than the 5mins a couple days ago. Hip felt challanged in the last minute of the last two reps but was pretty good other than that.
So onward and upward. This was week three of an 8 week build up. After 8 weeks I'm going to hold steady at a very moderate training level for 4 weeks. Then I'll do a fairly moderate but complete training build up with the target of trying to slip under 15mins for a 5k in December.
Hope you are running more than me! Have a great week!
Also this week I upped the walking to 4 to 6 miles in the mornings and 3 to 4 miles in the evenings. On days that I run I don't do a second walk but I do walk about 1.5 miles before and after the running, so on a day like today where I ran/walked 4 and a quarter miles I actually covered over 7 miles in the evening after a 5 mile walk in the morning.
Monday 4x4mins on the track with 1min walk recoveries, covered 4600m, that is 200m shy of 3miles. Felt like this was very much the maximum of what my hip could do.
Tuesday PT- added some light hopping and got cleared to do some deadlifts.
Wednesday on the track, 400m light jog, 200m walking then 8x100m strides with walk back recoveries, first 2 in 18, next 5 in 17, last one in 16 high.
Thursday no running
Friday 4x5mins with 1min jogs on the track covered about 5650m which is around 3.5 miles. The last minute of the last 3 reps I could feel the hip was being worked. This was super hard on my calves as my ankles have made a break through and I was actually toeing off properly.
Saturday no running. calves ok, ankles didn't lock up which is awesome.
Sunday 4x6mins on track. Actually bit better than the 5mins a couple days ago. Hip felt challanged in the last minute of the last two reps but was pretty good other than that.
So onward and upward. This was week three of an 8 week build up. After 8 weeks I'm going to hold steady at a very moderate training level for 4 weeks. Then I'll do a fairly moderate but complete training build up with the target of trying to slip under 15mins for a 5k in December.
Hope you are running more than me! Have a great week!
Sunday, July 22, 2018
Training Blog July 16 to 22
Another moderate step forward this week. Seeing big gains in what I am able and allowed to do in the PT exercises. Still very mild bits of running but it feels smoother and more natural. I can still tell I'm not ready for real "runs" and that sort of thing but it is really nice to be getting in a bit of it and seeing some progress. I'm still walking 5 to 7 miles a day and trying to be as generally active as I can be. Which translates into my garmin telling me I'm getting 16k to 22K steps and burning 4000 to 5500 calories most days. I didn't get on a scale this week so I don't know how the wieght is coming but I'm going to try and get on one towards the end of next week and I'd like to be south of 175 but at this point I'm not putting much into the wieght loss other than trying to be active. If I can be under 170 when I start real running in October that is more than fine anything lower than that is frosting.
Monday No running
Tuesday 4x2mins with 1min walk breaks on the track, did a 1.5 mile walk before and after this. Covered 1.5 miles during the run walk portion as well.
Wednesday No running- did have PT and was able to add some speed latter exercises.
Thursday again did 1.5 mile walk warm up, then some light exercises, then did a 200m light jog, and a 200m walk. then 6x100m strides with 100m walk recoveries. 100m strides were in 19, 18, 18, 18, 17, 17. Walk recoveries were pretty much all 59 seconds. and as usual 1.5 mile walk after.
Friday No running
Saturday per the usual a 1.5 mile walk warm up but I was tight on time so after I only walked about a quarter mile back to the car. On the track I did 4x3mins with 1min walk recoveries and I covered just over 2 miles. The rest of the day was set up for and then participation in a Baby shower/cookout which was a ton of fun.
Sunday No running today. I've done one walk so far and will sneak out for a 2nd this along with the other no running days is also the day I do a lot of PT exercises. Say about 30mins which leaves the glute med quite tired.
Hope you had a great week and your running more than me!
Monday No running
Tuesday 4x2mins with 1min walk breaks on the track, did a 1.5 mile walk before and after this. Covered 1.5 miles during the run walk portion as well.
Wednesday No running- did have PT and was able to add some speed latter exercises.
Thursday again did 1.5 mile walk warm up, then some light exercises, then did a 200m light jog, and a 200m walk. then 6x100m strides with 100m walk recoveries. 100m strides were in 19, 18, 18, 18, 17, 17. Walk recoveries were pretty much all 59 seconds. and as usual 1.5 mile walk after.
Friday No running
Saturday per the usual a 1.5 mile walk warm up but I was tight on time so after I only walked about a quarter mile back to the car. On the track I did 4x3mins with 1min walk recoveries and I covered just over 2 miles. The rest of the day was set up for and then participation in a Baby shower/cookout which was a ton of fun.
Sunday No running today. I've done one walk so far and will sneak out for a 2nd this along with the other no running days is also the day I do a lot of PT exercises. Say about 30mins which leaves the glute med quite tired.
Hope you had a great week and your running more than me!
Monday, July 16, 2018
Training Blog July 9 to 15, 2018
Finally doing a little bit of running. It feels ok but I'm very weak. I certainly don't feel like I could be pushing the hip all that much more than I am. Still I am getting stronger everday and week over week the difference is quite shocking. I mowed the lawn for the second time this week and it felt normal. When I did it ten days ago it was super challenging and super NOT normal.
I'm still walking 4 to 6 miles a day in one or two walks. I am getting on the eliptigo most days and being generally active. The wieght it starting to come down, I am at 178 at last check.
Monday, 4x1min with 1min jogs on the track. I did about a 15 minute walk before this and after it. The jogs were at high 7min pace. I did a feldenkrais movement lesson before it.
Tuesday Physical Therapy day
Wednesday 6x1min on flat road with 1min breaks, 10 mins eliptigo warm up, no cool down
Thursday XT day.
Friday 4x ~100m strides on flat road after a 2 mile walk. run at around 5:00 pace. The first one did not feel good, a walk is not enough warm up. After that they were fine and each one was a bit faster than the one before.
Saturday Great day in Bar Harbor.
Sunday 4x90 seconds on the carriage roads, first two downhill second two uphill with 1min walk breaks. Did this at the end of about a 3.5 mile hike. The downhill didn't feel great. The uphill was fine but, sadly, a bit tough aerobically.
Hope your training is going well.
Sunday, July 8, 2018
First Bit of Running!
On Saturday I was able to go out and try to jog for the first time. I did 4x30 seconds with 1min walk recoveries. I have to keep it very flat and avoid any poor footing so I went to the track. The first rep felt a little rough particularly in the glute max, I had surgery on the glute med. so that was ok. On the following reps I settled into a more natural stride and did a better job of having a bit of a natural lean forward and the glute felt totally fine. I did have some very noticable tightness in the I.T. band but overall I was very happy.
I expected to end up sore from the little bit of running but I actually am more sore the days after I do my hip hikes so that was a very nice surprise. My only concern is that I'm not getting great pronation on that foot but it was just the first little bit of jogging and I have a LOT of rehab to do before I'll be doing any real running so I'm a long way from being freaked out about that it is just a heads up that I need to put some time into my ankle range of motion and get that I.T. band loosened up. On the plus side the list of what I'm allowed to do for rehab greatly expands this week so I have a lot more options for attacking those two things.
I'm a long way from regular running which I hope to start in 12 weeks but I've taken the next real big step in that direction. I fully expect some set backs in the next few weeks but I'm pumped about how the first little bit went.
The other check in I got this week was on wieght. I don't own a scale so I very rarely wiegh myself. About 6 weeks ago I did wiegh myself and I was 187lbs. That is equal to about the heaviest I have ever been. Now I have been in the 185lb range a number of times over the years. Mostly during college when I was having injury trouble. I consider race wieght to be 162lbs though I'm rarely that light. Generally my "normal wieght" range is 167lbs to 177lbs and I'm fine starting real running anywhere in that range. I have been able to get active enough the last two weeks to feel like I was hopefully starting to cut into the extra wieght. At the end of a cookout, not ideal wiegh in time, I was able to use a scale at my in-laws house and came in at 182. Five pounds in the right direction. Still very heavy but also moving in the right direction.
Now full discloser I'm not doing much to lose wieght other than exercising more. Melissa was laughing at me the other night because I was complaining about being fat while eating a hersey bar. Generally I eat a lot of good for you food but I do sneak some junk here or there. I certainly am not dieting. However if I'm still heavy when it comes time to start running for real I would consider it as it would be very tough on the muscles to run any volume at over 180lbs.
Hope you are well!
I expected to end up sore from the little bit of running but I actually am more sore the days after I do my hip hikes so that was a very nice surprise. My only concern is that I'm not getting great pronation on that foot but it was just the first little bit of jogging and I have a LOT of rehab to do before I'll be doing any real running so I'm a long way from being freaked out about that it is just a heads up that I need to put some time into my ankle range of motion and get that I.T. band loosened up. On the plus side the list of what I'm allowed to do for rehab greatly expands this week so I have a lot more options for attacking those two things.
I'm a long way from regular running which I hope to start in 12 weeks but I've taken the next real big step in that direction. I fully expect some set backs in the next few weeks but I'm pumped about how the first little bit went.
The other check in I got this week was on wieght. I don't own a scale so I very rarely wiegh myself. About 6 weeks ago I did wiegh myself and I was 187lbs. That is equal to about the heaviest I have ever been. Now I have been in the 185lb range a number of times over the years. Mostly during college when I was having injury trouble. I consider race wieght to be 162lbs though I'm rarely that light. Generally my "normal wieght" range is 167lbs to 177lbs and I'm fine starting real running anywhere in that range. I have been able to get active enough the last two weeks to feel like I was hopefully starting to cut into the extra wieght. At the end of a cookout, not ideal wiegh in time, I was able to use a scale at my in-laws house and came in at 182. Five pounds in the right direction. Still very heavy but also moving in the right direction.
Now full discloser I'm not doing much to lose wieght other than exercising more. Melissa was laughing at me the other night because I was complaining about being fat while eating a hersey bar. Generally I eat a lot of good for you food but I do sneak some junk here or there. I certainly am not dieting. However if I'm still heavy when it comes time to start running for real I would consider it as it would be very tough on the muscles to run any volume at over 180lbs.
Hope you are well!
Saturday, June 9, 2018
No More Crutches!
This week was dedicated mostly to weening off the crutches. I was doing a bit of very short walking early in the week and puting a lot of wieght on the leg when using the crutches as well as doing some exercises to help me stop limping. By mid week I could walk without a limp and the surgeon gave the OK to ditch the crutches as long as I could walk without limping. I'm slow as cold molasses but I'm getting around. I was also able to start doing some light work on the eliptigo.
Unfortunetly I had a bunch of very long days at school which with the extra walking and wieght baring was about all my leg could handle so I only did a bit of bike and eliptigo. Walking up this morning, saturday, I feel profoundly stronger so I think it was the right call to do the extra walking at work and sacrifice the bike work a bit but it still makes me feel pretty lazy.
The most exciting thing in my week was watching the NCAA's. Just crazy how good kids across events are. I think the wide spread availability of great coaching info is the key to the boom in performance over the last 20 years but it is just awesome to see and I am willing to bet that particularly in the high school and college ranks it is only going to get better. The meet was crazy! Two guys sub 44 in the 400m, a 47.02 in the 400m hurdles, there are multiple sub 10 100m men this year. Like 6 women were under the old meet record for the 10k which had stood for 30 years or so. Really it was so much fun just to geek out as a fan on this. That said the announcing was cringeworthy. How they can't get someone who has done just a little research and can call a race I don't know. Dwight Stones knows his stuff but isn't any good for calling a race and the rest of them well, lets say I was not impressed.
Hope you had a great week. I have a crazy one coming up with LONG field trip days and some after school activities but then things settle down and I should be really rolling.
Unfortunetly I had a bunch of very long days at school which with the extra walking and wieght baring was about all my leg could handle so I only did a bit of bike and eliptigo. Walking up this morning, saturday, I feel profoundly stronger so I think it was the right call to do the extra walking at work and sacrifice the bike work a bit but it still makes me feel pretty lazy.
The most exciting thing in my week was watching the NCAA's. Just crazy how good kids across events are. I think the wide spread availability of great coaching info is the key to the boom in performance over the last 20 years but it is just awesome to see and I am willing to bet that particularly in the high school and college ranks it is only going to get better. The meet was crazy! Two guys sub 44 in the 400m, a 47.02 in the 400m hurdles, there are multiple sub 10 100m men this year. Like 6 women were under the old meet record for the 10k which had stood for 30 years or so. Really it was so much fun just to geek out as a fan on this. That said the announcing was cringeworthy. How they can't get someone who has done just a little research and can call a race I don't know. Dwight Stones knows his stuff but isn't any good for calling a race and the rest of them well, lets say I was not impressed.
Hope you had a great week. I have a crazy one coming up with LONG field trip days and some after school activities but then things settle down and I should be really rolling.
Saturday, May 26, 2018
First Steps and Thoughts on Form
Yesterday was the first day I was allowed to start weaning off the crutches. I was supposed to start putting more weight on the leg while using the crutches and to spread about 20 minutes of unassisted walking over the course of the day. I have been religiously following the guidelines for my return and as such I have definitely been chomping on the bit the last few weeks to take some steps.
My first unassisted steps came when I was carrying my morning tea and oatmeal to the table. I am at best uncomfortable being waited on and not being able to carry liquid unless it was in a container has been very annoying. As I have been doing exercises and getting around and feeling very little if any pain it was shocking to put my weight on the leg and feel how stupendously weak it was. I could only walk with a shaky slow limp and my upper body tilting heavily on the bad leg stride. The best thing I can relate the feeling to is when you are lifting weights and you get to the last few reps of a max set and suddenly you can't seem to make the muscles do the task. I was right on the the edge of that. After only a few steps when I sat I could feel noticeable fatigue. It cleared quickly though and I was able to keep mixing in bits of walking through the day. I had no real pain just the occasional burning feeling around the scar. As an aside I really should take a picture of that thing and post it, not really safe for work, given that it would basically be a pic of my ass, but it is about 8 inches long and not too pretty. Melissa gagged the first time she saw it, which was a great reaction to get from a beautiful woman!
The limp had me really thinking about my muscular cross training plan for re-balancing my muscles, and myself neurologically. Imbalance and running are not good. Honestly I'm of the believe you can generally get away with doing a lot of stuff wrong with your form if you can do it in a balanced way but if you are out of balance it is very hard to stay healthy. To say I'm out of balance now is an understatement and a half. I am entirely unaware on a conscious level that I am standing with all or nearly all my weight on my left leg and I can barely step on the right without some pretty funky upper body movements to get through the process. This is all expected but experiencing it really has been hyper aware of the job ahead.
My plan for neuromuscular work is two fold. First more for the neuro side is feldenkrais. I have been doing this for a year or so and am a huge fan. These strange "exercise" sets are basically a rewiring of the connection from your brain to your muscles and cause you to run very differently, and much more naturally, without really thinking about it. Teaching yourself to make even a small change in form is generally a long hard nearly impossible process and often the outcome is unnatural and not at all what the goal was. This is the complete opposite, it is fast, it immediately feels natural and it looks natural and un-strained. The one draw back is that it teaches you to move a certain way but then basically expects you to just do it and be better. My experience, and in all fairness this could be largely caused by the volume and speed of the running I generally do, is that this doesn't work too well. My muscles fatigue out and I end up falling back into bad habits and this really slows the change. So part two is muscular work. I will be slowly adding back in my functional muscular exercises. These range from Olympic lifts to drills and jumping exercises. These along with a ton of massage to undo the knots in my back and hips from crutch-ing around for two months will be key to avoiding setbacks once I can get running again.
In terms of timing I will start the feldenkrais long before I can run as that is movement stuff, not even body weight lifting. However I do need to be able to do a resistance-less clam before I can start and that is still a while coming. I follow an 8 exercise series of feldenkrais exercises from https://www.balancedrunner.com/ . I'll do the main longer lessons, 50 to 80 minutes each, only once or twice each. I'll do the follow up lessons, 15 to 40 minutes, 1 to 10 times each depending on where I'm needing to make improvements. Then I'll do the very short 3 to 4 minute lessons pretty much daily. These shorter ones are more about maintaining good form and slowly touching up your form but they are super easy to mix in and they do a great job of preventing me from slipping back into old habits while ever so slowly actually helping my form improve.
The muscular side will be largely under the control of the PT and then Anna. This is not my area of expertise and I am a believer in finding good people and doing what they tell you when you don't know too much about something. I have some basic things I'd like to do. I would like to be back to dead lifting around 300lbs. I want to be doing around 60 front squats, broken into sets, with around 100lbs and I want to be squatting my body weight for sets of 6 to 10. Additionally I would like to get to doing sets of 10 to 20 pull ups, as I feel these really help my weakest point, my lats. Which I think impacts my form and may be putting undue stress on some of my trouble areas.
I have started back at the pull ups already but the rest of the stuff is a while off. Currently I'm just doing some super easy weightless motions or exercises with 1 to 2 lb wights or light rubber bands. I am improving but I would rate my current fitness/ability with these as active grandma. I'm hoping to get them to exceptional grandma but the middle of next week but we'll just have to see.
The two things I see as most critical in this comeback are first the start. I need to get out in front on some of this before I take a running stride to build the proper environment in my body for running. Second will be the early stretch when I'm building up from zero running to about 4 miles. If I can do good work in that stretch so that the running I'm doing is an extension of the good body work I'm doing I think I'll really be able to hit the ground running come October and I think I'll improve much quicker as I'll be firing on all cylinders and not be in a situation where my body is fighting itself.
So that is where I am and where I'm going in terms of mechanical motion and standing on my own two feet. I hope your ahead of me in both categories at the moment.
My first unassisted steps came when I was carrying my morning tea and oatmeal to the table. I am at best uncomfortable being waited on and not being able to carry liquid unless it was in a container has been very annoying. As I have been doing exercises and getting around and feeling very little if any pain it was shocking to put my weight on the leg and feel how stupendously weak it was. I could only walk with a shaky slow limp and my upper body tilting heavily on the bad leg stride. The best thing I can relate the feeling to is when you are lifting weights and you get to the last few reps of a max set and suddenly you can't seem to make the muscles do the task. I was right on the the edge of that. After only a few steps when I sat I could feel noticeable fatigue. It cleared quickly though and I was able to keep mixing in bits of walking through the day. I had no real pain just the occasional burning feeling around the scar. As an aside I really should take a picture of that thing and post it, not really safe for work, given that it would basically be a pic of my ass, but it is about 8 inches long and not too pretty. Melissa gagged the first time she saw it, which was a great reaction to get from a beautiful woman!
The limp had me really thinking about my muscular cross training plan for re-balancing my muscles, and myself neurologically. Imbalance and running are not good. Honestly I'm of the believe you can generally get away with doing a lot of stuff wrong with your form if you can do it in a balanced way but if you are out of balance it is very hard to stay healthy. To say I'm out of balance now is an understatement and a half. I am entirely unaware on a conscious level that I am standing with all or nearly all my weight on my left leg and I can barely step on the right without some pretty funky upper body movements to get through the process. This is all expected but experiencing it really has been hyper aware of the job ahead.
My plan for neuromuscular work is two fold. First more for the neuro side is feldenkrais. I have been doing this for a year or so and am a huge fan. These strange "exercise" sets are basically a rewiring of the connection from your brain to your muscles and cause you to run very differently, and much more naturally, without really thinking about it. Teaching yourself to make even a small change in form is generally a long hard nearly impossible process and often the outcome is unnatural and not at all what the goal was. This is the complete opposite, it is fast, it immediately feels natural and it looks natural and un-strained. The one draw back is that it teaches you to move a certain way but then basically expects you to just do it and be better. My experience, and in all fairness this could be largely caused by the volume and speed of the running I generally do, is that this doesn't work too well. My muscles fatigue out and I end up falling back into bad habits and this really slows the change. So part two is muscular work. I will be slowly adding back in my functional muscular exercises. These range from Olympic lifts to drills and jumping exercises. These along with a ton of massage to undo the knots in my back and hips from crutch-ing around for two months will be key to avoiding setbacks once I can get running again.
In terms of timing I will start the feldenkrais long before I can run as that is movement stuff, not even body weight lifting. However I do need to be able to do a resistance-less clam before I can start and that is still a while coming. I follow an 8 exercise series of feldenkrais exercises from https://www.balancedrunner.com/ . I'll do the main longer lessons, 50 to 80 minutes each, only once or twice each. I'll do the follow up lessons, 15 to 40 minutes, 1 to 10 times each depending on where I'm needing to make improvements. Then I'll do the very short 3 to 4 minute lessons pretty much daily. These shorter ones are more about maintaining good form and slowly touching up your form but they are super easy to mix in and they do a great job of preventing me from slipping back into old habits while ever so slowly actually helping my form improve.
The muscular side will be largely under the control of the PT and then Anna. This is not my area of expertise and I am a believer in finding good people and doing what they tell you when you don't know too much about something. I have some basic things I'd like to do. I would like to be back to dead lifting around 300lbs. I want to be doing around 60 front squats, broken into sets, with around 100lbs and I want to be squatting my body weight for sets of 6 to 10. Additionally I would like to get to doing sets of 10 to 20 pull ups, as I feel these really help my weakest point, my lats. Which I think impacts my form and may be putting undue stress on some of my trouble areas.
I have started back at the pull ups already but the rest of the stuff is a while off. Currently I'm just doing some super easy weightless motions or exercises with 1 to 2 lb wights or light rubber bands. I am improving but I would rate my current fitness/ability with these as active grandma. I'm hoping to get them to exceptional grandma but the middle of next week but we'll just have to see.
The two things I see as most critical in this comeback are first the start. I need to get out in front on some of this before I take a running stride to build the proper environment in my body for running. Second will be the early stretch when I'm building up from zero running to about 4 miles. If I can do good work in that stretch so that the running I'm doing is an extension of the good body work I'm doing I think I'll really be able to hit the ground running come October and I think I'll improve much quicker as I'll be firing on all cylinders and not be in a situation where my body is fighting itself.
So that is where I am and where I'm going in terms of mechanical motion and standing on my own two feet. I hope your ahead of me in both categories at the moment.
Tuesday, October 3, 2017
Training Blog September 25 to October 1, 2017
Monday AM road 4 with Uta, 30:38
PM road 10 solo, very tight hip, made holding coordination very hard, 1:09:12
Tuesday AM road 4 with Uta, 30:33
PM 3 warm up, drills and a tempo 400 in 76, 30x100m avg. 15.6 with 100 jog recovery, stupid hot made this unpleasant hip better but not great, 3 cool down
Wednesday AM 15.2, 1:46:22, very hot even though I was running in the dark from after 7pm until about 9. Hip sore coordination not great.
Thursday AM road 4 with Uta, 30:21
PM 10 miles around Phillips fields, first 6 with Melissa and Uta, 1:12:00
Friday AM road 4 with Uta, 29:12
4PM 3 warm up, drills, strides, 200 in 32, 600 jog, 6x800 with 2min recoveries. Ran the 800's at about 5k pace but I pushed the first 200 in 31 then settled into 5k/10k pace, 2:23, 2:21, 2:20, 2:21, 2:21, 2:20, 3 mile cool down
7PM 6 miles with Uta and Melissa in 47:47
Saturday Off, spent the day from 7am to 9pm helping my Mom move.
Sunday AM 6k warm up with DJ, drills, strides, 30 second hard effort, extra jogging, 6k xc race, 5th place 19:09. Not a great race but I am starting to feel stronger. Ran a bit better last weekend but this wasn't that far off. 6k cool down
PM road 10k with Uta, 42:30, hip very sore, really fighting to hold coordination.
Summary 97 miles, 2 decent workouts and a decent race. Hip started with fighting the coordination last Sunday on the long cool down. I did a lot of mobility work for it over the week and it helped but Sunday made it worse. So just do more work and see Anna this week.
PM road 10 solo, very tight hip, made holding coordination very hard, 1:09:12
Tuesday AM road 4 with Uta, 30:33
PM 3 warm up, drills and a tempo 400 in 76, 30x100m avg. 15.6 with 100 jog recovery, stupid hot made this unpleasant hip better but not great, 3 cool down
Wednesday AM 15.2, 1:46:22, very hot even though I was running in the dark from after 7pm until about 9. Hip sore coordination not great.
Thursday AM road 4 with Uta, 30:21
PM 10 miles around Phillips fields, first 6 with Melissa and Uta, 1:12:00
Friday AM road 4 with Uta, 29:12
4PM 3 warm up, drills, strides, 200 in 32, 600 jog, 6x800 with 2min recoveries. Ran the 800's at about 5k pace but I pushed the first 200 in 31 then settled into 5k/10k pace, 2:23, 2:21, 2:20, 2:21, 2:21, 2:20, 3 mile cool down
7PM 6 miles with Uta and Melissa in 47:47
Saturday Off, spent the day from 7am to 9pm helping my Mom move.
Mom and me after the race.
Sunday AM 6k warm up with DJ, drills, strides, 30 second hard effort, extra jogging, 6k xc race, 5th place 19:09. Not a great race but I am starting to feel stronger. Ran a bit better last weekend but this wasn't that far off. 6k cool down
PM road 10k with Uta, 42:30, hip very sore, really fighting to hold coordination.
Summary 97 miles, 2 decent workouts and a decent race. Hip started with fighting the coordination last Sunday on the long cool down. I did a lot of mobility work for it over the week and it helped but Sunday made it worse. So just do more work and see Anna this week.
Sunday, September 24, 2017
Training Blog September 18 to 24, 2017
Monday AM 4 miles with Uta, 30:57
PM road 5, 33:52, this was all I had time for before seeing Anna for some circuits and massage
Tuesday AM 4 miles with Uta, 30:37
PM 3 warm up, drills and strides, Mona Fartlek, http://nateruns.blogspot.com/2015/01/monaghetti-fartlek.html, on my normal loop. Covered 3.76 miles which isn't good but isn't awful 2.6 cool down, forgot that I needed to do a loop of side neighborhood to make the cool down 3 and wasn't going to add on once I got home.
Wednesday PM 15.3 miles in 1:47. I have class after school on Wendnesdays so this run goes pretty late. Nothing like finishing a run around 9pm knowing you'll be up before 5am for the next one...
Thursday AM 4 miles with Uta in 29:50
PM 3 mile warm up, drills, strides, 15x200 avg. 31.0 with 200 jogs, in around 65 for recovery. 3 mile cool down. I have rarely felt as shitty for a workout. Not very fun. I also had a flat tire waiting for me at my car so that added to my enjoyment of this session.
Friday AM 4 with Uta, 30:08, crazy tired.
PM 10.6 at Phillips, first 6 with Melissa and Uta, took it very easy, 1:23.
Saturday AM road 8.1 with Uta, 55mins
PM 8 miles, first 5 with Melissa, 59:06.
Sunday AM 3 plus warm up, drills, strides, 30 second hard effort. Race Lone Gull 10k, USATF-NE championship, very strong field including at least 5 guys other than myself who have sub 65 half marathon pb's. It was also hot, around 80. finished 11th in 31:13, very nice step in the right direction. Pack went out slow so I hung onto the back of the lead group of around 25 in 4:56, stayed on the back of the pack as it steadily got smaller and ran 5:01 for the second mile, the third mile was much the same but I was a bit worried because I was starting to feel ragged at the end of it but we had actually picked it up and I ran a 4:48 so that got me pretty pumped up. I fell off the pack as they drove on and I ran a 5:08. I passed two more guys though. I tried to go after three more guys who had come off the lead pack and managed a 5:00 but I wasn't able to run them down. I ran another 5:08 for the 6th mile which finishes at the crest of a decent sized hill and I was finished. The last quarter was a struggle!
8 mile cool down with Ruben after.
Summary 103 miles for the week, two moderate workouts, one decent race. For those not reading between the lines. I had been a bit anemic at the end of summer. I don't take feosol any more because my stomach can't handle it. I take a food based supplement Melissa found that works and doesn't bother my stomach called ferrofood by standard process. I starting taking the iron and it helped right away but I thought I had two bottles. Well at the start of last week I ran out of bottle one only to realize I was mistaken. Standard process sends out all orders on Monday so basically we ordered it but it didn't come in until Friday of this week. In the intervening time I have been getting a bit more run down each day. My resting hr was up about 10 bpm and my heart rate on runs has been through the roof. I took as much of the ferrofood as I dared on Saturday and just hoped that it would help a bit. I was honestly afraid after how I ran on Friday and Saturday and I was going to struggle to run 33 at Lone Gull. The heat in the morning did nothing to assuage those fears. However the difference in how easy the first mile in 4:56 felt compared with the much more downhill 4:51 last weekend told me right off the iron had kicked in at least a little. I was very surprised I didn't blow up in the second half but obviously in a good way.
Hope you are running well. Oh and for those who want to order some rabbit gear 10% off link below.
http://rabbit.refr.cc/nathanielj
PM road 5, 33:52, this was all I had time for before seeing Anna for some circuits and massage
Tuesday AM 4 miles with Uta, 30:37
PM 3 warm up, drills and strides, Mona Fartlek, http://nateruns.blogspot.com/2015/01/monaghetti-fartlek.html, on my normal loop. Covered 3.76 miles which isn't good but isn't awful 2.6 cool down, forgot that I needed to do a loop of side neighborhood to make the cool down 3 and wasn't going to add on once I got home.
Wednesday PM 15.3 miles in 1:47. I have class after school on Wendnesdays so this run goes pretty late. Nothing like finishing a run around 9pm knowing you'll be up before 5am for the next one...
Thursday AM 4 miles with Uta in 29:50
PM 3 mile warm up, drills, strides, 15x200 avg. 31.0 with 200 jogs, in around 65 for recovery. 3 mile cool down. I have rarely felt as shitty for a workout. Not very fun. I also had a flat tire waiting for me at my car so that added to my enjoyment of this session.
Friday AM 4 with Uta, 30:08, crazy tired.
PM 10.6 at Phillips, first 6 with Melissa and Uta, took it very easy, 1:23.
Saturday AM road 8.1 with Uta, 55mins
PM 8 miles, first 5 with Melissa, 59:06.
Sunday AM 3 plus warm up, drills, strides, 30 second hard effort. Race Lone Gull 10k, USATF-NE championship, very strong field including at least 5 guys other than myself who have sub 65 half marathon pb's. It was also hot, around 80. finished 11th in 31:13, very nice step in the right direction. Pack went out slow so I hung onto the back of the lead group of around 25 in 4:56, stayed on the back of the pack as it steadily got smaller and ran 5:01 for the second mile, the third mile was much the same but I was a bit worried because I was starting to feel ragged at the end of it but we had actually picked it up and I ran a 4:48 so that got me pretty pumped up. I fell off the pack as they drove on and I ran a 5:08. I passed two more guys though. I tried to go after three more guys who had come off the lead pack and managed a 5:00 but I wasn't able to run them down. I ran another 5:08 for the 6th mile which finishes at the crest of a decent sized hill and I was finished. The last quarter was a struggle!
8 mile cool down with Ruben after.
Summary 103 miles for the week, two moderate workouts, one decent race. For those not reading between the lines. I had been a bit anemic at the end of summer. I don't take feosol any more because my stomach can't handle it. I take a food based supplement Melissa found that works and doesn't bother my stomach called ferrofood by standard process. I starting taking the iron and it helped right away but I thought I had two bottles. Well at the start of last week I ran out of bottle one only to realize I was mistaken. Standard process sends out all orders on Monday so basically we ordered it but it didn't come in until Friday of this week. In the intervening time I have been getting a bit more run down each day. My resting hr was up about 10 bpm and my heart rate on runs has been through the roof. I took as much of the ferrofood as I dared on Saturday and just hoped that it would help a bit. I was honestly afraid after how I ran on Friday and Saturday and I was going to struggle to run 33 at Lone Gull. The heat in the morning did nothing to assuage those fears. However the difference in how easy the first mile in 4:56 felt compared with the much more downhill 4:51 last weekend told me right off the iron had kicked in at least a little. I was very surprised I didn't blow up in the second half but obviously in a good way.
Hope you are running well. Oh and for those who want to order some rabbit gear 10% off link below.
http://rabbit.refr.cc/nathanielj
Sunday, September 17, 2017
Training blog September 11 to 17, 2017
Monday AM 4 miles with Uta in 31:31
PM road 10, 1:06:32
Tuesday AM road 5 with Melissa and Uta, 40:53
PM 3+ warm up, drills and a tempo 400 in 78, 30x100m on track in around 16.0 with 100 jog recoveries, then 3 plus cool down.
Wednesday didn't run in the AM because I needed some sleep.
7PM easy medium long run of 14.5 in 1:38:34. I have a class immediately after schools on Wednesdays this fall for 2 and 1/2 hours. It is going to suck.
Thursday AM 4 miles with Uta in 30:39
PM 3+ warm up, drills, strides, 200m in 30.7. Felt good on the strides but it was hot and it had been very hot all day in my classroom so I was tired overall. I did a very easy tempo on the track covering 5k in 16:29. I was going to do 10k but I lost coordination. It was that kind of a day, 3+ cool down
Friday planned day off. I wanted the good night sleep and I left from school to drive to northport and pretty much went straight to be after arriving around 9pm
Saturday AM 3 plus warm up, drills, strides 30 second hard effort. Race Cow Harbor 10k, 18th place 32:03, split 16:01 at 5k. I actually ran pretty perfectly. I'm just not fit. I'm incredibly frustrated to be running 32's but there isn't much to do but keep plugging away and trying to rebuild. This was a nice step forward from the last 10k as it was a few seconds faster and on a much tougher course and I found the conditions tougher as the humidity, 97%, was very rough. 3 mile cool down
Sunday AM drive home
PM easy long run, did first two miles at a shuffle pace with Melissa who was being careful to recover after running a half marathon yesterday and Uta who hates the heat, It was 85 and humid. just about 20 and a half miles in 2:24:39
Summary 92 miles, 1 race, two medium effort workouts. Hot week and with the AC not working at school I was pretty dehydrated all week. Just can't keep up with the amount of sweating I do in a shirt and tie when it is solidly in the mid to high 80's in my classroom all day. Also still struggling to get back in the swing of getting up before 5 in the morning for the morning runs.
I race the smart sit back and work my way through the field race I wanted to but I was about 10 seconds per mile slower than I wanted. Still the base has just ended so now I have a starting point. It isn't the one I wanted but I'll work from it.
Hope you are well.
PM road 10, 1:06:32
Tuesday AM road 5 with Melissa and Uta, 40:53
PM 3+ warm up, drills and a tempo 400 in 78, 30x100m on track in around 16.0 with 100 jog recoveries, then 3 plus cool down.
Wednesday didn't run in the AM because I needed some sleep.
7PM easy medium long run of 14.5 in 1:38:34. I have a class immediately after schools on Wednesdays this fall for 2 and 1/2 hours. It is going to suck.
Thursday AM 4 miles with Uta in 30:39
PM 3+ warm up, drills, strides, 200m in 30.7. Felt good on the strides but it was hot and it had been very hot all day in my classroom so I was tired overall. I did a very easy tempo on the track covering 5k in 16:29. I was going to do 10k but I lost coordination. It was that kind of a day, 3+ cool down
Friday planned day off. I wanted the good night sleep and I left from school to drive to northport and pretty much went straight to be after arriving around 9pm
Saturday AM 3 plus warm up, drills, strides 30 second hard effort. Race Cow Harbor 10k, 18th place 32:03, split 16:01 at 5k. I actually ran pretty perfectly. I'm just not fit. I'm incredibly frustrated to be running 32's but there isn't much to do but keep plugging away and trying to rebuild. This was a nice step forward from the last 10k as it was a few seconds faster and on a much tougher course and I found the conditions tougher as the humidity, 97%, was very rough. 3 mile cool down
Sunday AM drive home
PM easy long run, did first two miles at a shuffle pace with Melissa who was being careful to recover after running a half marathon yesterday and Uta who hates the heat, It was 85 and humid. just about 20 and a half miles in 2:24:39
Summary 92 miles, 1 race, two medium effort workouts. Hot week and with the AC not working at school I was pretty dehydrated all week. Just can't keep up with the amount of sweating I do in a shirt and tie when it is solidly in the mid to high 80's in my classroom all day. Also still struggling to get back in the swing of getting up before 5 in the morning for the morning runs.
I race the smart sit back and work my way through the field race I wanted to but I was about 10 seconds per mile slower than I wanted. Still the base has just ended so now I have a starting point. It isn't the one I wanted but I'll work from it.
Hope you are well.
Sunday, September 10, 2017
Training Blog September 4 to 10, 2017
Monday AM 2.1 mile warm up then some strides and drills. 14 mile fundamental tempo run around the Phillips fields 1:19:36, 5:41 mile pace. Legs were wiped out the last couple of miles even though breathing was still comfortable. It was humid but not really that bad. Basically I think I just need some long runs. I have done very few long runs over the last few years because of the coordination issues but I'll just have to make them work one way or another.
PM 5 miles in 35:02
Tuesday AM road 4 miles with Melissa and Uta, 33:42
PM road 10, 1:05:28
Wednesday PM road 10k with Uta in 43:13, then half mile jogging with strides mixed then 6x quarter mile hill repeats with jog down recovery. 1:31, 1:34, 1:34, 1:35, 1:34, 1:33. mile cool down
Thursday AM road 4 miles with Uta in 31:05
PM road 10, 1:05:37
Friday AM road 4 miles with Melissa and Uta, 32:19
PM road 10, 1:05:26
Saturday AM 5k warm up on GBTC XC course with DJ Raboin, 23:22, drills, strides, 30 second hard effort, more strides. Race GBTC XC festival 5k, 1st place, 15:40. took the lead between 400 and 600 meters in and ran alone pretty much from that point on. A couple years ago I ran 15:39 here but in a very competitive losing effort so this probably shows better fitness. Not a great effort for the race but about what can be expected based on how little racing I have done and running from the front. 5k on the course for a cool down with DJ, 23:22.
PM 8.2 miles on road solo, 57:55
Sunday AM road 20.6, 2:31:22, first 10 miles in 81mins with Melissa and Uta, pleasantly surprised that with the slow start the coordination held the whole way.
PM road 10k, 42:45
Summary ~119 miles, two middle of the road workouts and a middle of the road race. All in all a solid week. I have cow harbor this weekend and I really would love to get back in the top 10. The last time I ran there I was 12th in 31:12 and I tuned up for that with a 15:39 in the same race I ran this week but as I mentioned with much more competition so I'm very hopeful that I'm coming around and I can produce a sub 31 at Cow Harbor which is usually enough to slip into the top 10. The race effort this week left something to be desired but I have a feeling having some competition will take care of that. I would love to have a few more weeks and a few more races to tune up for Cow Harbor but at least I'm in a place where if I run well I won't embarrass myself too badly.
Hope your week went well.
PM 5 miles in 35:02
Tuesday AM road 4 miles with Melissa and Uta, 33:42
PM road 10, 1:05:28
Wednesday PM road 10k with Uta in 43:13, then half mile jogging with strides mixed then 6x quarter mile hill repeats with jog down recovery. 1:31, 1:34, 1:34, 1:35, 1:34, 1:33. mile cool down
Thursday AM road 4 miles with Uta in 31:05
PM road 10, 1:05:37
Friday AM road 4 miles with Melissa and Uta, 32:19
PM road 10, 1:05:26
Saturday AM 5k warm up on GBTC XC course with DJ Raboin, 23:22, drills, strides, 30 second hard effort, more strides. Race GBTC XC festival 5k, 1st place, 15:40. took the lead between 400 and 600 meters in and ran alone pretty much from that point on. A couple years ago I ran 15:39 here but in a very competitive losing effort so this probably shows better fitness. Not a great effort for the race but about what can be expected based on how little racing I have done and running from the front. 5k on the course for a cool down with DJ, 23:22.
PM 8.2 miles on road solo, 57:55
Sunday AM road 20.6, 2:31:22, first 10 miles in 81mins with Melissa and Uta, pleasantly surprised that with the slow start the coordination held the whole way.
PM road 10k, 42:45
Summary ~119 miles, two middle of the road workouts and a middle of the road race. All in all a solid week. I have cow harbor this weekend and I really would love to get back in the top 10. The last time I ran there I was 12th in 31:12 and I tuned up for that with a 15:39 in the same race I ran this week but as I mentioned with much more competition so I'm very hopeful that I'm coming around and I can produce a sub 31 at Cow Harbor which is usually enough to slip into the top 10. The race effort this week left something to be desired but I have a feeling having some competition will take care of that. I would love to have a few more weeks and a few more races to tune up for Cow Harbor but at least I'm in a place where if I run well I won't embarrass myself too badly.
Hope your week went well.
Sunday, September 3, 2017
Weekly Training Blog August 28 to September 3, 2017
Monday AM road 5 with Uta, 37:22, back to work this week so this was at 5am.
PM road 10, 1:08:43
Tuesday PM it was the first day with the kids and we had an Open house so I tried to sneak in a workout after school before that. It was a screw up from jump street. First I should have known I would be hurting after the first day with the kids, then I didn't drink any water all day as I was running around and that got missed. Anyway 3 mile warm up, drills, strides and a 200 in 32.8 which didn't feel good, then attempted Aussie quarters, aiming for 45 recoveries and 68 efforts ran two 43/68.0/46/68.8 and I was already hurting and called it rather than put myself in a hole. Ran back to school and went out to dinner with the other teachers... Not my proudest day
Wednesday PM road 10, 1:07:25, felt perhaps even shittier than yesterday. Felt like I wanted to stop and take a nap from the gun
Thursday AM road 4 with Uta, 29:10
PM road 10, 1:04:06
Friday -No school- AM at Phillips, 3+ warm up, drills, strides, 200m in 31 and a 600 jog. felt good, a couple of the strides were in the 14.1 range, now there was a strong tailwind but my fastest 100 ever is a 13.9 or so and that was during an actual hurricane so you can imagine that tailwind. 5x2k running each rep as alternations running the just under 70 and then about 80 for the laps. 4mins recovery with a 400 meter jog. 6:08, 6:07, 6:08, 6:08, 6:07 for the 2ks. Very windy. Honestly I'm happy with the workout as run but given the wind it was actually much better than it looks. 3.5 cool down.
late AM Anna for massage
PM 3.5 miles with Uta and Melissa, her first run back as she recovers from Lyme.
Saturday AM road 8.2, 54:21, not as sore as I expected after yesterday.
PM road 8.1 with Uta, 54:41
Sunday AM road 6, 40:35
PM road 10, 1:03:12
Summary around 97 miles for the week. only one decent workout but the first week of school is always a shit show so I'll take it. I have another short week next week with only 4 days and then it will be full weeks for a while. Starting to race back into shape this coming week with the GBTC xc meet. Then Cow harbor the following week.
PM road 10, 1:08:43
Tuesday PM it was the first day with the kids and we had an Open house so I tried to sneak in a workout after school before that. It was a screw up from jump street. First I should have known I would be hurting after the first day with the kids, then I didn't drink any water all day as I was running around and that got missed. Anyway 3 mile warm up, drills, strides and a 200 in 32.8 which didn't feel good, then attempted Aussie quarters, aiming for 45 recoveries and 68 efforts ran two 43/68.0/46/68.8 and I was already hurting and called it rather than put myself in a hole. Ran back to school and went out to dinner with the other teachers... Not my proudest day
Wednesday PM road 10, 1:07:25, felt perhaps even shittier than yesterday. Felt like I wanted to stop and take a nap from the gun
Thursday AM road 4 with Uta, 29:10
PM road 10, 1:04:06
Friday -No school- AM at Phillips, 3+ warm up, drills, strides, 200m in 31 and a 600 jog. felt good, a couple of the strides were in the 14.1 range, now there was a strong tailwind but my fastest 100 ever is a 13.9 or so and that was during an actual hurricane so you can imagine that tailwind. 5x2k running each rep as alternations running the just under 70 and then about 80 for the laps. 4mins recovery with a 400 meter jog. 6:08, 6:07, 6:08, 6:08, 6:07 for the 2ks. Very windy. Honestly I'm happy with the workout as run but given the wind it was actually much better than it looks. 3.5 cool down.
late AM Anna for massage
PM 3.5 miles with Uta and Melissa, her first run back as she recovers from Lyme.
Saturday AM road 8.2, 54:21, not as sore as I expected after yesterday.
PM road 8.1 with Uta, 54:41
Sunday AM road 6, 40:35
PM road 10, 1:03:12
Summary around 97 miles for the week. only one decent workout but the first week of school is always a shit show so I'll take it. I have another short week next week with only 4 days and then it will be full weeks for a while. Starting to race back into shape this coming week with the GBTC xc meet. Then Cow harbor the following week.
Sunday, August 27, 2017
Training blog August 21 to 27, 2017 moving forward
Monday Off- drove back from Cincinnati. Left about 4am actually made great time and could have snuck in a run on the home end in the late evening but I had made the decision to take an off day already and just went for a 2 mile walk to try and uncurl the body.
Tuesday AM road 10+ with Pat Rich around Topsfield, nice loop, hot day,1:07:28, did some light strides after.
Wednesday AM At Phillips, 3 mile warm up, drills, strides, 200m in 31, 600 jog. Then 4x800 meters run HARD and stupid, ie out very fast and rig up and die. This is to drive the latic acid as high as possible with each rep rather than run them as fast as you can. Basically I ran each of them like I would have in high school. Out in 30/31 for 200, there was a decent wind in the 2nd 200 so I'd be 64/65 at the 400 and then just a war from there to the finish. After each 800 I would take 2 minutes recovery and then do 4x10 hill sprints. My hill was at best 30m so I added on a bit of flat at the bottom and top, jog down recoveries after each hill repeat. After the last rep I would take 2 minutes before the next 800. This obviously included the jog back down the hill and over to the start on the track. I ran the 800's in 2:13.6, 2:14.0, 2:14.7, 2:15.0. After the last 2minute recovery I did 4x500m where I would run the first 200m in 33 then go straight into bounding the next 100m then I would TRY to run the last 200 meters in 33- I think the closest I came was low 34 on the last one. The bounding 100 took me about 25 seconds each time. I would take 4 minutes recovery with about 200 meters of walking after each. I did them in 1:34, 1:31, 1:29, 1:28. I was then completely running late so I did a 1k cool down. This is a base phase mas lass workout from Canova's stuff for 3k to 10k running. This is the first time I have done it and it was VERY intense. I was almost afraid to start the last 800 because it was getting so painful...
PM road 5 with Uta, too hot for her so we were slow, 36:47
Thursday AM road 10, 1:08:16, very sore and tired
PM road 5 with Uta, very sore still, 36:15
Friday AM road 10, 1:06:40, tired but not sore.
PM road 5 with Uta, 34:46, tired.
Saturday AM road 5 with Uta, 34:39
PM At Chelmsford rail trail, 3 warm up, drills, strides, 5x2miles- with 3 minutes of drills for recovery. The rail trail is very flat but it is sort of false flat uphill one way and false flat down hill on the other. Not enough so most people would notice but if you put a tennis ball down it would roll. Reps 1,3,5 were 'down'. Reps 2 and 4 were 'up'. I ran 10:11, 10:19, 10:04, 10:18, 10:00. This actually felt really good. 4.5 mile cool down- was doing 2 miles but toward the end I ran into Kara Haas and really wanted to see how she was progressing on a recent injury and so I ran with her. Now I had breakfast after the first run but because this was an early PM workout I hadn't had lunch. By the end of the extended cool down I was pretty well tuckered out as the whole thing was over 18 miles and drills burn a lot more energy than their mileage indicates. Plus that was 10 miles of work in 50:52.
Sunday AM road 10.1, 1:07:57.
PM road 5 with Uta, 35:13
Summary 95 or so miles for the week. Two very good workouts. After Rye harbor I couldn't help but be worried. I didn't have very high expectations but I thought my training had been moving in the right direction and I was very disappointed to run that poorly. As I have pointed out a number of times base work should improve your workouts much more than your racing but to be over 32 minutes was still pretty crushing. That starts to look like a poor tempo run rather than a race. If I had gone out hard and died I would have paid little or no mind to that as when you go out too hard it is impossible to gauge what you could have accomplished with smarter running other than to know you are not fit enough to go out at the pace you went out in. However I had run quite sensibly and still really struggled. I mentioned in last weeks blog that it sort of hit me on my tired warm up for the hill repeats that I felt anemic and that anemia could be a real good explanation for why a 32 minute 10k hurt that bad. I don't want to disparage a 32 minute 10k too much it is just that after college I have only run that slow a handful of times. Once in 2008 on super tough course with Anemia. Maybe once in '05 or '06 on the same very tough course with very tough heat as well. After that I ran like 40 minutes for a trail/mountain race in Vermont during mud season and I ran 32 mid at Lone Gull last fall off of some light jogging and yoga coming back from that stress fracture. All this is to say that since about 2004 even when I have run bad over 10k I have generally been able to salvage a 31. Anyway warming up for Saturday's workout I felt quite tired and it seemed like either I hadn't eaten enough or I was feeling anemic. I have been taking iron since Monday and been eating a good bit of red meat as well. As soon as I hit the first split on the rail trail at 1/5 of a mile in 5:00 pace and feeling good I knew I had been right about the iron being low. I felt great. In fact in the last quarter mile of the first 2 mile rep I was feeling so good I couldn't resist checking my heart rate, 118. Now I'm assuming it was up higher than that for much of the rep but even to settle down like that late in a rep I must have been pretty relaxed. I was still worried about the full workout. Often with longer aerobic workouts when my iron has been low and is just starting to come back I'll start the session feeling normal again and then somewhere midway the wheels just come off but today was great all the way through. I never really pushed, though I will admit my legs were tired on the last rep. This is really good news as I really want to slip under 31 at Cow Harbor in a 3 or 4 weeks and 32, even though it was solo, did not make that look to likely. This weeks workouts and the 15:10 solo a couple weeks ago line up with being ready to do that by the middle of next month so I'm happy that the poor time at Rye seems to have been a blip.
This week school starts up again so I have a weird schedule. I think I have an open house Tuesday night and I'm not going to be ready to workout again until Tuesday so I'm going to have to try and sneak in workout from school and try and track down a shower there before parents start arriving. I have also become quite inefficient with my time as summer went on and with the start of the school year I won't have anytime to waste if I'm going to get everything done so the first week is always a rough transition.
Tuesday AM road 10+ with Pat Rich around Topsfield, nice loop, hot day,1:07:28, did some light strides after.
Wednesday AM At Phillips, 3 mile warm up, drills, strides, 200m in 31, 600 jog. Then 4x800 meters run HARD and stupid, ie out very fast and rig up and die. This is to drive the latic acid as high as possible with each rep rather than run them as fast as you can. Basically I ran each of them like I would have in high school. Out in 30/31 for 200, there was a decent wind in the 2nd 200 so I'd be 64/65 at the 400 and then just a war from there to the finish. After each 800 I would take 2 minutes recovery and then do 4x10 hill sprints. My hill was at best 30m so I added on a bit of flat at the bottom and top, jog down recoveries after each hill repeat. After the last rep I would take 2 minutes before the next 800. This obviously included the jog back down the hill and over to the start on the track. I ran the 800's in 2:13.6, 2:14.0, 2:14.7, 2:15.0. After the last 2minute recovery I did 4x500m where I would run the first 200m in 33 then go straight into bounding the next 100m then I would TRY to run the last 200 meters in 33- I think the closest I came was low 34 on the last one. The bounding 100 took me about 25 seconds each time. I would take 4 minutes recovery with about 200 meters of walking after each. I did them in 1:34, 1:31, 1:29, 1:28. I was then completely running late so I did a 1k cool down. This is a base phase mas lass workout from Canova's stuff for 3k to 10k running. This is the first time I have done it and it was VERY intense. I was almost afraid to start the last 800 because it was getting so painful...
PM road 5 with Uta, too hot for her so we were slow, 36:47
Thursday AM road 10, 1:08:16, very sore and tired
PM road 5 with Uta, very sore still, 36:15
Friday AM road 10, 1:06:40, tired but not sore.
PM road 5 with Uta, 34:46, tired.
Saturday AM road 5 with Uta, 34:39
PM At Chelmsford rail trail, 3 warm up, drills, strides, 5x2miles- with 3 minutes of drills for recovery. The rail trail is very flat but it is sort of false flat uphill one way and false flat down hill on the other. Not enough so most people would notice but if you put a tennis ball down it would roll. Reps 1,3,5 were 'down'. Reps 2 and 4 were 'up'. I ran 10:11, 10:19, 10:04, 10:18, 10:00. This actually felt really good. 4.5 mile cool down- was doing 2 miles but toward the end I ran into Kara Haas and really wanted to see how she was progressing on a recent injury and so I ran with her. Now I had breakfast after the first run but because this was an early PM workout I hadn't had lunch. By the end of the extended cool down I was pretty well tuckered out as the whole thing was over 18 miles and drills burn a lot more energy than their mileage indicates. Plus that was 10 miles of work in 50:52.
Sunday AM road 10.1, 1:07:57.
PM road 5 with Uta, 35:13
Summary 95 or so miles for the week. Two very good workouts. After Rye harbor I couldn't help but be worried. I didn't have very high expectations but I thought my training had been moving in the right direction and I was very disappointed to run that poorly. As I have pointed out a number of times base work should improve your workouts much more than your racing but to be over 32 minutes was still pretty crushing. That starts to look like a poor tempo run rather than a race. If I had gone out hard and died I would have paid little or no mind to that as when you go out too hard it is impossible to gauge what you could have accomplished with smarter running other than to know you are not fit enough to go out at the pace you went out in. However I had run quite sensibly and still really struggled. I mentioned in last weeks blog that it sort of hit me on my tired warm up for the hill repeats that I felt anemic and that anemia could be a real good explanation for why a 32 minute 10k hurt that bad. I don't want to disparage a 32 minute 10k too much it is just that after college I have only run that slow a handful of times. Once in 2008 on super tough course with Anemia. Maybe once in '05 or '06 on the same very tough course with very tough heat as well. After that I ran like 40 minutes for a trail/mountain race in Vermont during mud season and I ran 32 mid at Lone Gull last fall off of some light jogging and yoga coming back from that stress fracture. All this is to say that since about 2004 even when I have run bad over 10k I have generally been able to salvage a 31. Anyway warming up for Saturday's workout I felt quite tired and it seemed like either I hadn't eaten enough or I was feeling anemic. I have been taking iron since Monday and been eating a good bit of red meat as well. As soon as I hit the first split on the rail trail at 1/5 of a mile in 5:00 pace and feeling good I knew I had been right about the iron being low. I felt great. In fact in the last quarter mile of the first 2 mile rep I was feeling so good I couldn't resist checking my heart rate, 118. Now I'm assuming it was up higher than that for much of the rep but even to settle down like that late in a rep I must have been pretty relaxed. I was still worried about the full workout. Often with longer aerobic workouts when my iron has been low and is just starting to come back I'll start the session feeling normal again and then somewhere midway the wheels just come off but today was great all the way through. I never really pushed, though I will admit my legs were tired on the last rep. This is really good news as I really want to slip under 31 at Cow Harbor in a 3 or 4 weeks and 32, even though it was solo, did not make that look to likely. This weeks workouts and the 15:10 solo a couple weeks ago line up with being ready to do that by the middle of next month so I'm happy that the poor time at Rye seems to have been a blip.
This week school starts up again so I have a weird schedule. I think I have an open house Tuesday night and I'm not going to be ready to workout again until Tuesday so I'm going to have to try and sneak in workout from school and try and track down a shower there before parents start arriving. I have also become quite inefficient with my time as summer went on and with the start of the school year I won't have anytime to waste if I'm going to get everything done so the first week is always a rough transition.
Tuesday, August 22, 2017
Weekly Training Blog August 14 to 20, 2017
I had a lot going on this week with the end of summer and the start of the school year approaching. This included driving to Cincinnati, OH on Friday to help my Father in Law who works down there and splits his time between Mass and Ohio, move into a house he bought. I drove back on Monday, yesterday, which is why this blog is late.
Monday AM 2.5 mile warm up with some drills and light strides, 14 mile fundamental tempo run around Phillips fields drifting from around 5:50 pace at the start down to 5:24 for the last mile, felt real good. It helped that temps were down around 80 and the humidity was under 50%. Ran 1:19:17 for the 14 miles, about 5:40 pace.
Early PM drills, lifting and a circuit with Anna, then a bit of massage. The massage hurt a lot more than the circuit.
PM 4 miles with Uta and Melissa around Phillips fields in 32:31.
Tuesday early PM road 10 solo in 1:06:31
later in PM 4.5 miles around Phillips fields with Melissa and Uta in 36:25
Wednesday AM road 5 with Uta in 35:07, bit hot for her
PM road 10 in 1:07:31, trying to take it easy
Thursday no run in the AM but I did a few miles of walking with Uta, then loaded a Uhaul with furniture for the Father in Law, then cut down a dying tree in my yard that was dangerously close to the power lines. This got a bit squirrely but a neighbor had a wedge with saved my butt- I owe him an edible arrangement or something!
PM 3.5 easy warm up with fellow UML alum Jason Dedonato, aka Dedo, we missed a turn. Then some strides and a 30 second hard effort, few drills mixed in. Race Saunders at Rye harbor 10k, goal was to run the first half at 5:10 pace and then open up. Course is pretty flat, sorta false flat uphill for two miles after a flat opener, then false flat down hill for two miles before a flat last 2k. I was in second until a water stop at about 2k then steadily pulled away. Hit 3 miles in 15:29 but didn't feel nearly as good as I had hoped. I ran 5:07 then 5:03 and then had to fight like hell for a 5:15 and a long slow finish in 32:07, meaning that 6 mark may have been a bit short. Not very happy with this but tried to remind myself that during the base you need to judge yourself based on your workouts not your races but I felt like I should be able to almost tempo a 32 at this point and really expected to be more in the 31:20 to 31:40 range at this point based on the 5k a couple weeks ago. 3+ cool down with Dedo.
Friday 5AM 8 miles easy in 58 minutes then about 15 hours in a Uhaul. Importantly I learned that Arby's makes a mean chocolate shake...
Saturday AM road 12 pretty hilly, 1:21:14, felt ok at best spent rest of day mostly moving furniture and eating junk food.
Sunday AM 3 mile warm up, light drills, 4x very steep .27 mile hill repeats with slow jog down- so steep I didn't have much choice about this. ran 2:10, 2:11, 2:11, 2:07. According to strava the grade on this bad larry was 19% and I believe it. Very much like Mount Washington in terms of steapness. I was very happy that my calves and glutes were burning and hurting on this as well as my quads. That is not normal for me, in fact it is the first time my glutes have really burned on hills in my life and I'm hoping that is sign of better form. 2.5 mile cool down
Summary low 90's for mileage, three good efforts. I was really feeling like shit most of the week and it could be the heat and the travel but as I was warming up on Sunday I sort of recognized that I felt like my iron was getting a bit low. After it got too high a long while back I stopped taking iron supplements and recently I have not been eating nearly as much red meat. Also in the summer is when I generally had trouble with this. I am taking some dietary steps to address this and may get blood work, though it is unlikely I'll have time this week, if I do I'll post it. However if this is the case I expect that an increased intake of iron and some cooler weather will make a world of difference. I was super anemic in the summer of 2008 and after running a couple of 32 minute plus 10k type efforts in late June/early August and some abysmal workouts I got after the red meat and a few other things and the weather cooled off and I ran two of my best 10k's ever at The Classic 10k in Atlanta, 30:33 for a savagely hilly course getting some great scalps I finished one place ahead of a 2:08 guy and once place behind a guy who had run mid 28's at Peachtree that year. Then a 29:44 at Cow Harbor which is still my best time on that course and the only time I beat Jason Lehmkuhle. It would be really nice if this is the case again this year as I really want to be sub 31 at cow harbor this year and just a little sharpening work alone isn't likely to pull me from 32:07 to that in 5 weeks.
Hope you are running well and looking forward to cross country!
Monday AM 2.5 mile warm up with some drills and light strides, 14 mile fundamental tempo run around Phillips fields drifting from around 5:50 pace at the start down to 5:24 for the last mile, felt real good. It helped that temps were down around 80 and the humidity was under 50%. Ran 1:19:17 for the 14 miles, about 5:40 pace.
Early PM drills, lifting and a circuit with Anna, then a bit of massage. The massage hurt a lot more than the circuit.
PM 4 miles with Uta and Melissa around Phillips fields in 32:31.
Tuesday early PM road 10 solo in 1:06:31
later in PM 4.5 miles around Phillips fields with Melissa and Uta in 36:25
Wednesday AM road 5 with Uta in 35:07, bit hot for her
PM road 10 in 1:07:31, trying to take it easy
Thursday no run in the AM but I did a few miles of walking with Uta, then loaded a Uhaul with furniture for the Father in Law, then cut down a dying tree in my yard that was dangerously close to the power lines. This got a bit squirrely but a neighbor had a wedge with saved my butt- I owe him an edible arrangement or something!
PM 3.5 easy warm up with fellow UML alum Jason Dedonato, aka Dedo, we missed a turn. Then some strides and a 30 second hard effort, few drills mixed in. Race Saunders at Rye harbor 10k, goal was to run the first half at 5:10 pace and then open up. Course is pretty flat, sorta false flat uphill for two miles after a flat opener, then false flat down hill for two miles before a flat last 2k. I was in second until a water stop at about 2k then steadily pulled away. Hit 3 miles in 15:29 but didn't feel nearly as good as I had hoped. I ran 5:07 then 5:03 and then had to fight like hell for a 5:15 and a long slow finish in 32:07, meaning that 6 mark may have been a bit short. Not very happy with this but tried to remind myself that during the base you need to judge yourself based on your workouts not your races but I felt like I should be able to almost tempo a 32 at this point and really expected to be more in the 31:20 to 31:40 range at this point based on the 5k a couple weeks ago. 3+ cool down with Dedo.
Friday 5AM 8 miles easy in 58 minutes then about 15 hours in a Uhaul. Importantly I learned that Arby's makes a mean chocolate shake...
Saturday AM road 12 pretty hilly, 1:21:14, felt ok at best spent rest of day mostly moving furniture and eating junk food.
Sunday AM 3 mile warm up, light drills, 4x very steep .27 mile hill repeats with slow jog down- so steep I didn't have much choice about this. ran 2:10, 2:11, 2:11, 2:07. According to strava the grade on this bad larry was 19% and I believe it. Very much like Mount Washington in terms of steapness. I was very happy that my calves and glutes were burning and hurting on this as well as my quads. That is not normal for me, in fact it is the first time my glutes have really burned on hills in my life and I'm hoping that is sign of better form. 2.5 mile cool down
Summary low 90's for mileage, three good efforts. I was really feeling like shit most of the week and it could be the heat and the travel but as I was warming up on Sunday I sort of recognized that I felt like my iron was getting a bit low. After it got too high a long while back I stopped taking iron supplements and recently I have not been eating nearly as much red meat. Also in the summer is when I generally had trouble with this. I am taking some dietary steps to address this and may get blood work, though it is unlikely I'll have time this week, if I do I'll post it. However if this is the case I expect that an increased intake of iron and some cooler weather will make a world of difference. I was super anemic in the summer of 2008 and after running a couple of 32 minute plus 10k type efforts in late June/early August and some abysmal workouts I got after the red meat and a few other things and the weather cooled off and I ran two of my best 10k's ever at The Classic 10k in Atlanta, 30:33 for a savagely hilly course getting some great scalps I finished one place ahead of a 2:08 guy and once place behind a guy who had run mid 28's at Peachtree that year. Then a 29:44 at Cow Harbor which is still my best time on that course and the only time I beat Jason Lehmkuhle. It would be really nice if this is the case again this year as I really want to be sub 31 at cow harbor this year and just a little sharpening work alone isn't likely to pull me from 32:07 to that in 5 weeks.
Hope you are running well and looking forward to cross country!
Monday, August 14, 2017
Weekly Training Blog August 7 to 13, 2017
Monday AM 10k, started with Uta and Melissa, 45:03, starting to cough more after feeling kinda shitty last 2 or 3 days.
PM 10.2 miles around Northfield Mount Hermon, first 7 miles or so with camp counselors, 1:21:47
Tuesday PM road 4 with Uta, 29:04, basically only ran to get Uta some exercise. Felt pretty shitty, coughing a lot.
Wednesday PM road 5, 34:44, still sick.
Thursday AM at granite state camp as a speaker. I was pretty sick and didn't hang out long but had a good time all the same. should have stuck around to run but I had decided to take the day off
PM Found out Melissa had Lyme and felt like a wuss for wanting to take a the day off for a small cold so I did a road 5 in 34:31
Friday Noon road 10, 1:05:45, feeling better, but coughing a lot.
Saturday PM road 10, 1:05:14, coughing less, feel normal other than that and some left of sinus stuff I'm about ready to go
Sunday AM 10.4 on roads, first 2k with Melissa and Uta, coughing only after runs now.
PM road 5, 34:27
Summary 66 miles or so for the week, no quality, but I'm healthy again and nothing much was lost but time.
PM 10.2 miles around Northfield Mount Hermon, first 7 miles or so with camp counselors, 1:21:47
Tuesday PM road 4 with Uta, 29:04, basically only ran to get Uta some exercise. Felt pretty shitty, coughing a lot.
Wednesday PM road 5, 34:44, still sick.
Thursday AM at granite state camp as a speaker. I was pretty sick and didn't hang out long but had a good time all the same. should have stuck around to run but I had decided to take the day off
PM Found out Melissa had Lyme and felt like a wuss for wanting to take a the day off for a small cold so I did a road 5 in 34:31
Friday Noon road 10, 1:05:45, feeling better, but coughing a lot.
Saturday PM road 10, 1:05:14, coughing less, feel normal other than that and some left of sinus stuff I'm about ready to go
Sunday AM 10.4 on roads, first 2k with Melissa and Uta, coughing only after runs now.
PM road 5, 34:27
Summary 66 miles or so for the week, no quality, but I'm healthy again and nothing much was lost but time.
Monday, August 7, 2017
Training Blog July 31 to August 6, 2017
Monday AM 3+ warm up, drills, strides, 200m in 31, jogging, Aussie Quarters averaged 68/45 fastest rep was 67.0 on the last one, slowest was 69.2 on the penultimate one. 15:18 for the 3 miles. Huge improvement, not a great session in the scope of things but massive improvement from where I have been. 3.5 cool down
PM road 5 with Uta in 35:49, dead lifts after the run
Tuesday AM road 10 solo, 1:06:16
PM 5 miles around Phillips fields with Uta and Melissa in 44:19
Wednesday AM paced Melissa's 8 mile progression run on Chelmsford rail trail, 54:16
PM 3+ warm up, drills, 400m in 74, 500m jogging, then 30x100m in 15 with 100m slow jog full recovery, 3.5 cool down
Thursday AM road 12 solo, 1:19:11, squats after the run
PM road 5 solo, 34:57
Friday AM some lifting, drills and massage with Anna
Noon road 10, 1:10:08
took rest of day off, coming down with sore throat, very tired
Saturday AM 3+ warm up, drills, strides, quarter mile in 69, Race John Leclerc windmill 5k in Templeton, 1st place CR, 15:10, splits 5:00, 9:57, 14:42. Still a bit sick, not the best effort. Not sharp enough to run real hard from the front. All in all I was pretty happy with this, for where I am at right now. 3 mile cool down largely with the next two finishers.
PM road 5, 35:51
PM road 5 with Uta in 35:49, dead lifts after the run
Tuesday AM road 10 solo, 1:06:16
PM 5 miles around Phillips fields with Uta and Melissa in 44:19
Wednesday AM paced Melissa's 8 mile progression run on Chelmsford rail trail, 54:16
PM 3+ warm up, drills, 400m in 74, 500m jogging, then 30x100m in 15 with 100m slow jog full recovery, 3.5 cool down
Thursday AM road 12 solo, 1:19:11, squats after the run
PM road 5 solo, 34:57
Friday AM some lifting, drills and massage with Anna
Noon road 10, 1:10:08
took rest of day off, coming down with sore throat, very tired
Saturday AM 3+ warm up, drills, strides, quarter mile in 69, Race John Leclerc windmill 5k in Templeton, 1st place CR, 15:10, splits 5:00, 9:57, 14:42. Still a bit sick, not the best effort. Not sharp enough to run real hard from the front. All in all I was pretty happy with this, for where I am at right now. 3 mile cool down largely with the next two finishers.
PM road 5, 35:51
A quarter mile or so into the race.
Sunday AM road 8.2 with Uta, 57:15
PM road 8.2 solo, 55:42. I would have done a longer run today but I was feeling pretty shitty still and decided to do a bit less in hopes of aiding my return to being not sick...
Summary 108 miles for the week, nice Aussie quarters session, nice rust buster race, good speed/muscular session. I feel like I'm moving forward real well overall. The coordination hasn't been good. I doubt I would have held it for much longer had I gone past 12 on Tuesday. I'm not fit but I really feel like I'm improving very steadily and I could see myself running pretty well in another month or two at this rate. I hope you are training well.
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Monday, July 31, 2017
Training Blog July 24 to 30, 2017 Getting Stronger...
Monday noon road 10 miles 1:08:34, tired, spent most of the day catching up on yard work and errands...
Tuesday AM 5.3 miles with Melissa and Uta, 39:25
PM at rail trail 3 mile warm up, drills and strides, 4x2 miles with 2mins of drills recovery, 10:22, 10:27, 10:15, 10:09. Actually started to feel good by the last one which was nice. Getting a bit of endurance back. 2.2 mile cool down
Wednesday AM 7.1 miles in 54:24, pacing Melissa through her 2x2 mile, in 12:40 and 1xhalf mile in 2:55 workout. We also did some drills and strides during this.
PM 8.1 miles on roads solo, 55:27
Thursday AM at Phillips Academy, 3 warm up, drills, strides, 10x300m with 300m jog, ie full recovery and then some. This is muscular work so the first one basically felt the same as the last one except I had bit of fatigue in the quads and calves, no acid burn etc... Averaged 46.9 with fastest at 46.5 and slowest at 47.3, jogs were very slow, mostly over 2mins. 3 mile cool down
Full disclosure I went fishing instead of doing a second run, pretty lazy choice but it was a really nice afternoon and I'm trying not to go too crazy with the mileage...
Friday AM road 10 mile solo, 1:05:37
PM 5.1 miles around Phillips fields with Melissa and Uta, 42:11
Saturday PM 3 warm up, drills and strides, 5x mile on rail trail, 5:21, 5:08, 4:59, 4:52, 4:50. Goal was to be in the 5:20's then 10's then 0's then 50's then 40's. Given my current 5k fitness, ~15:00 that was a fairly big ask and by being on the low end of the first 4 reps I pretty much screwed myself. The first 3 actually felt pretty good I was even having delusions of grandeur that I would bust out a 6th rep in the 4:30's but by the half mile in the 4th rep the reality that running much under 5min pace is pretty hard for me right now settled in. Rests were 2mins with drills. Actually the rests were exactly 1:59 for every one which I find a little funny, I'm not usually that consistent. 3 mile cool down.
Sunday AM with Melissa on rail trail. This was here long run/workout. So we ran 11.6 miles with no stopping 3 miles easy as warm up, then 5 miles of 3/4 in the 4:30's, 6:0's pace, with 1/4 slow jog recovery then 3.6 miles easy at the end, 1:30:16 for the whole thing.
PM road 8.2 solo, 55:19, saw a deer very close up, about 15 feet. Finished off a good week for wildlife.
Summary 102 miles for the week, three nice workouts. I'm starting to get to a point where I can see my body wanting to get back to 'normal' paces and abilities. I'm not there yet but hopefully over the next few weeks it will happen.
The weather this week was crazy nice, probably the nicest whole week I have ever trained through in a Massachusetts summer. Generally we have very high humidity and very high dew points so that even 80 degrees tends to feel like a death march. This week not only was the temp in the high seventies and low 80's but it felt cool. It really was a nice break. It looks like the humidity is going to be back this week so we'll see how I handle it. Generally it doesn't bother me too much for a single session but it grinds me down and I have to start putting in more rest days. We are however coming into August and often the mornings and evenings are cooler in August giving a chance to work around the heat more effectively.
This week I'm going to do a couple of workouts and a 5k race. I'm planning on trying to start racing into shape over the course of this month. Just hopping into some local races and running hard. I'm ready for that. I still don't know for sure what I'll be focused on for the fall, that is going to depend on how the next 6 to 8 weeks go but it is time to start trying to hurt a little for real.
This weekends race will be the John Leclerc Memorial Wind Turbine 5k in my hometown of Templeton, MA. It raises money for cross country program which was a power house for many years but fell on hard times right after I graduated with the addition of a lot of other sports, Narragansett is a tiny school. From the programs inception in 1963 through to 1998 they never had a losing season and won state titles in 1966, 1979, 1983, 1995, 1996. The titles in '79 and '83 were when Massachusetts didn't have divisions so that was beating schools that were 10 to 20 times larger. Since then they have struggled.
My expectations are pretty low. I'm going to aim for 15:00 but I'm not feeling confident that I'll be able to run that.
Tuesday AM 5.3 miles with Melissa and Uta, 39:25
PM at rail trail 3 mile warm up, drills and strides, 4x2 miles with 2mins of drills recovery, 10:22, 10:27, 10:15, 10:09. Actually started to feel good by the last one which was nice. Getting a bit of endurance back. 2.2 mile cool down
Wednesday AM 7.1 miles in 54:24, pacing Melissa through her 2x2 mile, in 12:40 and 1xhalf mile in 2:55 workout. We also did some drills and strides during this.
PM 8.1 miles on roads solo, 55:27
Thursday AM at Phillips Academy, 3 warm up, drills, strides, 10x300m with 300m jog, ie full recovery and then some. This is muscular work so the first one basically felt the same as the last one except I had bit of fatigue in the quads and calves, no acid burn etc... Averaged 46.9 with fastest at 46.5 and slowest at 47.3, jogs were very slow, mostly over 2mins. 3 mile cool down
Full disclosure I went fishing instead of doing a second run, pretty lazy choice but it was a really nice afternoon and I'm trying not to go too crazy with the mileage...
Friday AM road 10 mile solo, 1:05:37
PM 5.1 miles around Phillips fields with Melissa and Uta, 42:11
Saturday PM 3 warm up, drills and strides, 5x mile on rail trail, 5:21, 5:08, 4:59, 4:52, 4:50. Goal was to be in the 5:20's then 10's then 0's then 50's then 40's. Given my current 5k fitness, ~15:00 that was a fairly big ask and by being on the low end of the first 4 reps I pretty much screwed myself. The first 3 actually felt pretty good I was even having delusions of grandeur that I would bust out a 6th rep in the 4:30's but by the half mile in the 4th rep the reality that running much under 5min pace is pretty hard for me right now settled in. Rests were 2mins with drills. Actually the rests were exactly 1:59 for every one which I find a little funny, I'm not usually that consistent. 3 mile cool down.
Sunday AM with Melissa on rail trail. This was here long run/workout. So we ran 11.6 miles with no stopping 3 miles easy as warm up, then 5 miles of 3/4 in the 4:30's, 6:0's pace, with 1/4 slow jog recovery then 3.6 miles easy at the end, 1:30:16 for the whole thing.
PM road 8.2 solo, 55:19, saw a deer very close up, about 15 feet. Finished off a good week for wildlife.
Summary 102 miles for the week, three nice workouts. I'm starting to get to a point where I can see my body wanting to get back to 'normal' paces and abilities. I'm not there yet but hopefully over the next few weeks it will happen.
The weather this week was crazy nice, probably the nicest whole week I have ever trained through in a Massachusetts summer. Generally we have very high humidity and very high dew points so that even 80 degrees tends to feel like a death march. This week not only was the temp in the high seventies and low 80's but it felt cool. It really was a nice break. It looks like the humidity is going to be back this week so we'll see how I handle it. Generally it doesn't bother me too much for a single session but it grinds me down and I have to start putting in more rest days. We are however coming into August and often the mornings and evenings are cooler in August giving a chance to work around the heat more effectively.
This week I'm going to do a couple of workouts and a 5k race. I'm planning on trying to start racing into shape over the course of this month. Just hopping into some local races and running hard. I'm ready for that. I still don't know for sure what I'll be focused on for the fall, that is going to depend on how the next 6 to 8 weeks go but it is time to start trying to hurt a little for real.
This weekends race will be the John Leclerc Memorial Wind Turbine 5k in my hometown of Templeton, MA. It raises money for cross country program which was a power house for many years but fell on hard times right after I graduated with the addition of a lot of other sports, Narragansett is a tiny school. From the programs inception in 1963 through to 1998 they never had a losing season and won state titles in 1966, 1979, 1983, 1995, 1996. The titles in '79 and '83 were when Massachusetts didn't have divisions so that was beating schools that were 10 to 20 times larger. Since then they have struggled.
My expectations are pretty low. I'm going to aim for 15:00 but I'm not feeling confident that I'll be able to run that.
'back in the day' front page of the local paper from the first state champion team I was on at Narragansett
Monday, July 24, 2017
Training Blog July 17 to 23, 2017
Monday AM road 5 with Uta, 35:41
PM road 10, solo, 1:03:32
Tuesday AM road 5 with Melissa and Uta, 39:26
PM 3.8 warm up, drills, 30x100m all but one in the 15s, slipped up on 5th or 6th one and ran a 16.1, 3.8 cool down
Wednesday AM 13.3 miles, 1:33:59, first 2 miles and last two miles with Melissa and Anna on Chelmsford rail trail.
PM 4 miles on road, first 2 with Uta, 30:15
Thursday AM 5 mile 37:19, with Uta
PM road 10, 1:05:05
Friday AM on Phillips Academy fields, 2 warm up, 20k fundamental pace tempo, 1:12:55
noon drills, some lifting and massage with Anna
Saturday AM rail trail 5.2 with Melissa
PM road 10, 1:06:27
Sunday AM 3 mile warm up, drills, strides, 200m in 31, jogging, Aussie Quarters goal was to run 50 for the recovery 200's and 68 for the on four hundreds. I went 46/68/51/67/51/68/50/68/50/68/50/68/50/68/49/67 for 15:49 for the full 3 miles. A long way off sub 15 and where I want to be but a small step in the right direction. 3.5 cool down
PM road 10 with Melissa, 1:18:14
Summary 115 miles, three good workouts. All and all a decent week. Some nice training. Getting back to some lifting. I need to get into yoga again in the next couple weeks. Other than that really just trying to string some more weeks together and keep making the baby steps towards some good fitness.
Hope you are well.
If you want 10% off some rabbit gear click the link below..
http://rabbit.refr.cc/nathanielj
PM road 10, solo, 1:03:32
Tuesday AM road 5 with Melissa and Uta, 39:26
PM 3.8 warm up, drills, 30x100m all but one in the 15s, slipped up on 5th or 6th one and ran a 16.1, 3.8 cool down
Wednesday AM 13.3 miles, 1:33:59, first 2 miles and last two miles with Melissa and Anna on Chelmsford rail trail.
PM 4 miles on road, first 2 with Uta, 30:15
Thursday AM 5 mile 37:19, with Uta
PM road 10, 1:05:05
Friday AM on Phillips Academy fields, 2 warm up, 20k fundamental pace tempo, 1:12:55
noon drills, some lifting and massage with Anna
Saturday AM rail trail 5.2 with Melissa
PM road 10, 1:06:27
Sunday AM 3 mile warm up, drills, strides, 200m in 31, jogging, Aussie Quarters goal was to run 50 for the recovery 200's and 68 for the on four hundreds. I went 46/68/51/67/51/68/50/68/50/68/50/68/50/68/49/67 for 15:49 for the full 3 miles. A long way off sub 15 and where I want to be but a small step in the right direction. 3.5 cool down
PM road 10 with Melissa, 1:18:14
Summary 115 miles, three good workouts. All and all a decent week. Some nice training. Getting back to some lifting. I need to get into yoga again in the next couple weeks. Other than that really just trying to string some more weeks together and keep making the baby steps towards some good fitness.
Hope you are well.
If you want 10% off some rabbit gear click the link below..
http://rabbit.refr.cc/nathanielj
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