Weekly Training Blog November 21 to 27, 2016

Monday AM road 4 with Uta in 30:05 tot. 4
               3:30PM dead lifts, handstands and massage with Anna
              6 PM 5.8 with Uta extended Bear hill loop, 37:17 tot. 5.8

Tuesday AM road 4 with Melissa and Uta in 30:55 tot. 4
               PM 10k version of bear hill loop with last 3 miles progressively faster, 5:28, 5:27, 5:21
                      actually more progressive than it looks as each of those miles was a bit tougher terrain
                      than the one before it. squats after tot. 6.25

Wednesday AM road 4 mile in cold rain with Uta, no time I forgot the watch. tot. 4
                     PM coventry 10k loop solo, 41:07, first run of the week in the daylight, thank you half
                           day!! tot. 6.25

Thursday AM road and trail 10+ with Uta, 66:11, box jumps after tot. 10
                   Spent the rest of the day cooking and eating.

Friday AM coventry 10k solo, 40:25, cold rain, dead lifts after tot. 6.25
            PM road 4 with Uta, 28:29, I felt good, Uta did not want to go any faster than that. tot. 4

Saturday AM raced European style( there were hay bails, and it was multiple loops of the same
                        course) xc race in Woburn, listed as 4k, Chris Mahoney's garmin had it at 2.83, I won in 14:37,
                        ok effort but not great. I'll take it, total of 10 miles with drills if you include warm up and
                        cool down etc.. tot. 10
                 PM road 4 with Uta, she needed her run and I wanted to flush the legs a bit, 29:36, tot. 4

Sunday AM road 12.1, first 5.2 with Melissa in 37:40, then solo, 1:22:55, did squats after tot. 12.1
              PM 90 mins bikram yoga

This is my form looking decent at the start of the race.

Summary ~76 miles for the week, two good efforts.  Downside was I didn't get in the extensive muscular session, though I got in more intensive muscular work than usual so not all bad.  A good step towards regular running, which I generally view as 90 to 110 miles a week around work but more honestly anything over 80 is fine.  So hopefully this week I step up to that.

  I need to come up with a winter workout plan.  I know the types of workouts my body needs but I need to figure out workouts and locations for those workouts that will work with the weather and footing that is soon to be arriving.  I don't have an indoor track at my disposal unless I want to spend some very late nights going into Boston and with 4:40am wake up calls that is a fools errand.  I have been loving the flat rail trail for tempo stuff and I will continue to use it until snow and ice forces me off it.  Anyway that will be my focus mentally this week.  I'm pretty sure I'm going to do two week micro cycles. I know some of the workouts I want to do.  I know all of the types of workouts I need to do.  I want to find a flat, low traffic mile stretch of road, if it could be within 3 miles of my house I would die of joy but so far that isn't presenting itself.  I'd also like to find a flat loop or longer straight stretch for tempo work but so far I'm struggling there as well but I may find something by driving to it on that one.  I need to figure out how I'm going to attack the muscular side of things.  In the past I have done hills but my core isn't strong enough yet to hold form consistently on hills so that would be counter productive, but sprinting in 12 degree weather on icy roads isn't exactly ideal either.   Anyway at least I'm confident I'll be doing some real training, now I just have to sort the details.   Hope your running is going well.

Tempo Tuesdays: The Hard Progression Run

 I basically do two types of general fitness progression runs moderate and hard.  Lately I have been doing a lot more moderate progressions but over the course of my running career my single favorite workout is the hard progression run. Like the names suggest the difference is in the effort level.  To be honest the effort throughout most of the run is the same it is just that at the end of the hard progression run you keep accelerating until it gets very hard and you can't keep increasing the pace anymore.

  The length of this workout is entirely at your discretion.  I would suggest that for 5k runners you want a run of at least 20 to 30 minutes for the 10k you want 30mins to 1 hour.  For the half marathon 45 to 90mins.  For the marathon, if you are using these as a general fitness workout you should stick to the 1 hour to 90 minute range but if you do want to make it more specific you can extend them out over 2 hours.

  The idea is simply enough start out running a bit faster then regular training pace and steadily increase the pace a little bit at a time until you are running just about as fast and as hard as you can.  If you do these workouts enough you will find that your body reacts to getting tired by picking up the pace.  You will find yourself coming apart in a tempo run and hitting faster and faster splits, which only quicken your demise but it is neat all the same.

  I think most often people pick a normal training run route and pick up the pace each mile or kilometer.  This is fine but I suggest a different plan.  I would strongly advice you pick a loop, the length of which is not important it can range from 1/10th to 1/3rd the length of the progression you plan on doing.  Personally I like to pick a loop that will have me taking about 5 to 8 loops for my whole workout.  This loop does not need to be measured.  The terrain should reflect your goal race terrain.  Next make sure the loop is one that you will not have to stop.  IE no intersection crossings- at least not ones with traffic- no train tracks etc… Ideally a trail loop with good footing is available but right now there is ninety something inches of snow on the ground here so if you experience similar situations then you to will have to find a road area.

  The reasoning for this is simple. The idea of a progression run is to be constantly increasing the pace.  It is hard to know if you are really doing this if the terrain is different.  On a 10 mile loop comparing mile 1 to mile 5 is often apples to oranges.  However if you do 7 loops of 1.35 miles or whatever each loop is they are each exactly the same so you know if you run each loop faster than the one before it you are correctly increasing the effort.

  So you have your loop.  You run the first loop at about or just a little quicker than your normal training pace.  (I would do a warm up before this but I can't run much under 8 or 9 minute mile pace without a warm up but I have been running over a 100miles a week with some pretty darn good consistency since Bill Clinton was President and that doesn't come without a price).  On each loop you increase the pace from the lap before.  How much?  As long as it is faster than the loop before you have done your job.  Don't over complicate.  Just don't increase too much or your workout will end up being a lot shorter than you planned.

  Each lap you get faster until you reach the final lap where you should steadily accelerate over the whole lap trying to finish at a full kick sprint and around a maximum effort.  If you find yourself at a point where you know you can't run the next lap faster then the lap you are currently running then the workout is over.  You need to just hammer to the end of the loop you are running.  DON'T slow down and try to salvage. The lesson of constant increase of pace is more important.  So your planned 90minute progression run ends up only being 45mins.  That is ok.  It is still a good workout.  It still taught your body what it needs and it has steadily increased the pressure on your heart and the amount of acid your body had to process out of the blood.  Also you did your fastest running when your legs were at their most tired.  Next time you will pace yourself better and do the volume you want for the workout and that too will be the successful learning of an important lesson on understanding and controlling your own body.

  A few words of caution and guidance.  Don't pick a loop that is too short.  If you want to do a 1 hour profession run and you run around a loop that takes about 3 minutes to run you are setting yourself up for failure. It takes some crazy pace sense to only go 1 or 2 seconds a lap faster each lap. So what invariable happens is you drop 10 seconds or more on one lap and after you do that a couple times you are running crazy fast and you are done.  Frankly if you are running the first loop at 3 minutes at a nice steady pace it is unlikely you are capable of running that loop all out under 2 minutes.  Better to do a loop that is a little longer and give yourself a bit more time and distance to play with.  I also pick a couple spots on the loop to use as pace checks, not too many though as you mostly want to be focused on feeling smooth and covering the ground quickly.

  Next make sure the footing is good.  This is not the time and place for technical trails or tight turns.  You want a nice steady effort and fancy footing and breaking hard and re-acclerating are not conducive to that.

  When to do this workout?  This is a great base phase workout for all distances.  It is a great anytime workout for half marathoner and marathoners.  This is also a great workout for maintaining aerobic fitness in the specific phases for 5k and 10k runners.  Also it can be used as an aerobic focused specific workout for the 10k and cross country.  Anything 5k or shorter and something this aerobic is not going to be very specific.  You would be better in that case doing a portuguese surge, http://nateruns.blogspot.com/2015/01/tempo-tuesday-portuguese-surge.html

  This session will build the physical and mental ability to run relaxed at a quick pace and to make a long hard killing drive to the finish of a hard race.  Doing it once is nice but done regularly this workout will reinvent you as a runner.

Progression Runs for the Beginning Runner

 This is an extension on my blog about tempo runs for the beginning runner.  In that blog I suggest that the beginning runner should be doing a 15 to 20 minute tempo pretty much once a week throughout all their training seasons.  I also mention that a progression run of similar length can be added in once a week as well to vary the stimulus a bit and to increase the aerobic training stimuli in the micro cycle.

  In the tempo blog, http://nateruns.blogspot.com/2015/02/tempo-tuesday-tempo-runs-for-young-or.html , I go off topic a bit and talk about the overall focus of a training plan for the beginning runner so I won't rehash that here.

  The progression run will take a bit of work to teach to new athletes who have a natural predilection to going out too fast and fading.  However the work you put into teaching this workout will pay off two fold.  First the fitness gains can be huge.  Second it teaches the athlete not to go out too fast in races and other sessions and how fast and strong they can be if they run with control in the early stages.

  I suggest using a flat loop less than a mile in length.  It can be a bit longer.  You can have the kids run in groups or entirely by their own effort.  Set up RULES.  This seems odd but if you don't some kids just will not go out slow enough.  The rules are simply.  You have a goal distance.  IE the goal is 4 laps.  Rule 2 if an athlete does not run faster on a lap their workout is over. This will cause an athlete to not complete a workout or two but the lesson is well worth it.

  I suggest the athletes run the first loop at about their normal training pace.  Just knowing it is a workout will suck them into going a bit quicker than that which is actually ideal.  The next lap only needs to be faster.  A second or two is fine.  This is not a workout that needs to be overly structured.  Each lap needs to be a bit faster than the last and the final lap should be run as fast as the athlete can manage.

  Some athletes will increase in fairly even increments and only go a bit faster on the last lap.  Some athletes will increase only a bit each lap and then finish with an incredibly fast last lap.  Both of these are fine.  In fact if you have a group of similar level athletes training together you will likely get a mix of these type of efforts depending on who is 'leading' the pack and that mix is awesome.

  For the beginning athlete these runs should not be very long 15 to 25 minutes.  You need not adjust them to progress them.  They will adjust themselves by finishing faster and faster and with time and regular tempos and strides in their training programs as well you will see their starting "baseline" pace increasing significantly as well.

  You will see big gains in general fitness with sessions like this but the most noticeable effect you will see is that as your athletes tire in races their bodies will respond by actually increasing the pace.  They will mentally and physically learn how to make a long killing drive to the finish that particularly in high school racing can be absolutely devastating to their competition.

Tempo Tuesday Portuguese Surge

  Portugal is a very small nation but in spite of that they have a pretty amazing history of great distance runners.  Their greatest legend has to be Carlos Lopes, Olympic champ and world record holder, but his 2:07:12 marathon best is no longer even the national record also it should be remembered that for much of his career many would have argued he was not the best of his contemporaries in Portugal.  I don't know that this particular workout was ever part of Lopes training but I do know I got it from some training schedules of Portuguese marathoners.  I also know I have since seen it in some schedules of top Spanish and Brazilian athletes.

  This workout can be done with a huge amount of variety but it is very simple at its heart all the same.  The workout is broken into two distinct halves.  The first half is run very quickly from marathon pace to right around 95% marathon pace, if you are a 5k runner you can go for 85% to 80% 5k pace.  Then at half way you make a huge surge and push the second half as fast as you can.

  Basically you are making one big killing drive to the finish. This workout works great from 2k to 10k in total distance.  The amazing thing is that you will often run the second half faster than you can manage for a time trial for that distance with nothing before it.  Don't ask me why.  I don't understand it but I know I have run the 2nd half of a 2 mile like this in 4:18 and my fastest mile time trial in a workout is 4:17.  The fastest 1k I have ever done in a workout was the 2nd half of a Portuguese surge and I have read about other runners having the same experience.

  I think this workout is best from 3k to 6k.  It is long enough that you really do get a great aerobic session but short enough that you are able to really let yourself go in the second half.

  The only trick to this session is that it is a SURGE at half way.  You want to accelerate quickly and then try to keep that surging/accelerating feeling going all the way to the end.  It is key to maintain that feel.  It will keep you loose and FAST.  If you do that you got it right.  You may not always run great in the second half but when you are hitting it don't limit yourself the idea of this session is to just go as fast as you can.

  This isn't a session I do a lot but it serves two great purposes.  One it is a great tempo workout during your specific phase.  You touch on relaxed tempo running and then get to hammer at race pace or faster  for a long way.  A great way to simulate the closing mile of a 5k or last 3k of a 10k.

The other thing it is great for is to break your tempos out of a rut or get past a seeming plateau. When I was coming back from mono in early 2007 I wanted to get my fitness back to where it had been prior to sickness, the goal I set out for the first half of the year was to run a tempo 8k to 10k on the track at 3:00 per k.  I started with some slower stuff and repeats but pretty soon I did a 3k in 9mins and started building up.  Then I got stuck at 5k to 6k for a month or more.  I just couldn't seem to extend past that.  So I did a run where I ran 5k in 16:00 and shifted for 3k.  I ran 8:54 for the last 3k and felt STRONG.  Sure enough two weeks later when I again attempted my regular tempo at 3:00 per k I rolled by 5k and 6k easily and was able to run 8k in 23:56.  There is a huge difference between the fitness it takes to run a tempo 5k in 15:00 and that it takes to run 8k in 24:00.  I was floored.  It is still one of the best tempos I have ever done.

  Now I'm not promising breakthroughs like that every time you use this session.  In that case it was the perfect session at the perfect time.  There are other times I have done and and not seen much more impact than any other session gives.  It is a tool for the tool box but if you are trying to learn to be a powerful finisher over the closing miles 5k to half marathons or if your tempos have been stuck in a rut this workout may just be the key to unlock your next breakthrough.