This week we look at the marathon paced tempo. This is one of the staples of so many programs and it is a great workout to increase your aerobic fitness not just for marathon racing but also for events all the way down to the mile. Though this is for many runners the focal point of their marathon specific work I don't like it as much for that purpose because though it is a great session for the aerobic demands of the marathon it falls short for most runners in terms of teaching the body to burn fat over glycogen and specific muscular endurance. Still it is a great workout that should be part of the marathoners program for sure and can be a secret weapon for athletes who focus on the shorter distances.
The marathon paced tempo run is exactly what it sounds like a tempo run at your goal marathon pace. Depending on what point in your program you are at this run can be 8 to 16 miles long. Some runners who are very good at getting big efforts out in workouts might even push it out to 18 or 20 miles.
As I mentioned in the build up this type of run is a staple of many marathoners. Particularly american marathoners. The Hansons group very famously does a 26.2, right around 16miles, kilometer marathon paced tempo run as part of their marathon prep. I would say the most zealous and successful practitioner of this workout is Meb who does one pretty much every week during his marathon prep. He starts them at about 8 miles long and builds the distance over the cycle and has run them as long as 18 miles. It should be noted though that he has had very successful marathons off build ups that only reached shorter distances. Most notably his longest marathon paced tempo before the 2012 Olympics where he finished 4th was only 12 miles.
Why this workout works. It is a great aerobic session that teaches the athlete to stay smooth for a long time. It builds great muscular as well as aerobic strength. By going slower than threshold pace it allows you to run at what is still a very quick pace for upwards of an hour, maybe even approaching two hours. This type of work also does great things for building mental endurance and strength. For any runner regardless of goal race this session is a great way to massively increase aerobic endurance, mental fortitude and practice staying relaxed at a quick pace.
How to progress this workout. Like all tempo runs I encourage you to increase the distance before dropping the pace. So set your goal marathon pace, be realistic. It is not your current 5k or 10k race pace! Remember if your training goes well you can always adjust the pace later. At the start you should try to run about 8 miles. Focus on being as even paced as you can, the exception to that being if you are preparing for a hilly marathon in which case you should do your tempos on a comparably hilly course and your effort should be even but your pace will obviously fluctuate. Also remember it is always better to start a bit slow and finish strong than to go out to fast and slow down.
The drawbacks on this session. To often this is the only marathon specific workout in a schedule and for most runners it simply will not fully prepare them for the demands of the marathon. Don't get me wrong there are athletes for whom this is exactly enough. Meb is probably the greatest marathon in American history. Athletes like Brian Sell and Desiree Linden are no slouches. BUT there are as many stories of athletes who have done a great marathon paced tempo in training or multiple marathon paced tempos in training and have not come close to that performance on race day. Ask the Hanson guys for every guy that ran 5:10 pace at their 26.2 dress rehearsal and ran that pace on race day as well there was another one who ran with them on the training run and crashed on race day. Prior to the 2008 Olympic Trials Josh Rohatinsky reportedly ran 5:02 pace for 20 miles on the trials course itself. I was limping next to him at 22 miles in the Olympic trials when he ran out of glycogen. There is no question in my mind he was in better aerobic fitness than I was. But he ended up behind me in the results because he had not trained his body to burn less glycogen and more fat at race pace.
So for sure get out there and start getting after these runs but I would advise that you do need to do some other types of more extensive workouts as part of your marathon specific prep.
Monday, February 9, 2015
Sunday, February 8, 2015
Training Blog February 2 to 8, 2015 Special Block
Monday
AM 35mins with Uta, the dog, and Melissa in the snow. total 4.3 miles
XT whartons, YTI
Tuesday
AM on treadmill 3.5 mile warm up with four 15 second blocks at 13mph(4:36pace) for strides, quick bathroom trip and a shirt change, 1/2 mile to get up to speed then 7 miles of alternations 1/2 mile at 12.4mph and 1/2 mile at 10.7mph- 36:27 for 7 miles, 5:12 per mile. lost coordination and stopped. I have a very hard time keeping my shoulders back on the 'mill. 3 mile cool down total of 14 miles
PM Bear hill 4.2 with Uta, 30:08 total 4.2 miles
XT whartons, YTI
Wednesday
PM regular 10, 65:56, felt pretty good but roads were sloppy, total 10 miles
XT whartons, YTI
Thursday
PM on treadmill, 3 warm up on treadmill with 4 "strides" of 15 seconds at 13.5mph (4:24pace), 1/2 mile getting up to speed then, 10 mile progression run starting at 10.7mph(5:36) down to 11.9mph (5:04mph) 54:17- big fight with coordination, again I really struggle on the treadmill- I keep looking down at the darn screen!! 1.5 cool down total 15 miles
XT whartons, rubber band, YTI
Friday
PM road 8, 54mins footing not so great total total 8 miles
XT wharton, YTI, rubberband
Saturday
9AM with Ruben, all outdoors 20 degrees, 3.2 warm up 23mins, big of light drills, couple of strides, 10k moderate tempo around lightly rolling merrimack college 5k loop- goal was 34:00 ran 33:09.
splits
1-5:19
2-5:20(10:39)
3-5:22(16:01)
4-5:19(21:20)
5-5:22(26:42)
6-5:22(32:04)
Footing ok but we had to be very careful(slow) on all the turns(12 on loop) and there was about 100m that was quite slushy/slippery. Still this felt very easy.
3mins rest
10k at marathon pace- honestly I thought given the footing, the rolling course and the temps if we could run 32:00 I'd be thrilled. Before we started the loop Ruben said he would be happy with anything with a 32 in front of it. We ran 31:29 and it felt very good and controlled.
Splits
1-5:08
2-5:03(10:11)
3-5:08(15:19)
4-4:55(20:14)
5-5:07(25:21)
6-5:10(30:31)
2.5 mile cool down back to house 17mins total 19 miles
4PM 2.5 mile warm up, light drills, strides, 10k moderate tempo, again goal was 34mins, again we exceeded the agreed upon speed limit like Rubes. 10k in 33:20
Splits
1-5:19
2-5:22(10:41)
3-5:26(16:07)
4-5:22(21:29)
5-5:20(26:48)
6-5:24(32:12)
It was amazing how easy this was. Don't forget we are starting this with more than 21miles in our legs including more than 20k of running at a good clip. Also footing, rolling hills and the very cold temps. Really felt very relaxed.
2mins recovery with light drills
7x1k on roads with 2min rests
1- 3:02
2- 3:03
3-3:07
4-3:03
5-3:13
6- 3:08
7-3:12- completely bankrupt. called it.
Ruben continued on for 3 more reps. I jogged in the last 3k while he did it. I would catch up to him and send him off on his next rep. To be honest not being able to do the last 3 was a rookie mistake on my part I had only eaten 6 pieces of toast and two things of tea all day. Just not enough fuel for a run like this with all the extra miles of warm up and cool down.
2.5 mile cool down- by now I was in a pretty bad way but we headed home- NEVER do a marathon block with a cool down. I should have had Melissa waiting for us. I didn't. It was stupid. I have been bankrupt of fuel like this a couple times. You struggle to think straight and feel very hopeless and just want to stop. Also we were soaking wet and it was very cold, 20 degrees. With about a mile to go Ruben ran out of fuel to. He wanted to stop, I couldn't get him going again. He walked a bit but it was obvious he was done. I told him to wait and I ran the last mile to the house. I was so gone I couldn't drive. Melissa went out and found Ruben. I was supposed to go out to eat with Melissa's extended family instead they got us takeout and helped us get our whits back about us. We kinda ruined their night. total 18 miles
XT a good bit of light drills(a skip mostly), whartons, rubber bands.
Sunday
PM 36mins of snowy road jogging with Melissa- she took it easy on me. total around 4.5 miles.
XT whartons and rubberband.
Summary
97 miles for the week. Two good normal workouts and one GREAT special block. Even not being able to run the last few K's at the end this was an awesome session. To be able to run that fast that easily in the PM is really great. The way it went confirmed our monster aerobic strength down to about 5:05 pace but the lack of speed on the 1k's, really should have been about 3:00 shows we do need more half marathon paced work to round out the special phase. I really think though as strong as we are a few good alternation sessions should do the job.
A single session like this is a double edged sword and the key to super compensation is to recover from it. My father in Law was all worried that training like this would get us sick or hurt. He was exactly right to be concerned. If you try to jump back into your regular runs after something like this and it is like setting a time bomb in your system. You will break down. If you are really strong a couple easy days will do if not you may need much more. After my first I needed a light week. I felt pretty good today but I won't workout again until the middle of this week and I'm quite strong.
Friday, February 6, 2015
Eating for Fuel; My Current Diet
In a separate post I'll go into the full details of how I got to this point but here I'll just discuss what I currently eat and why.
My current diet is plant based. Which is to say that I eat very little that isn't plants but I don't completely ban myself from eating meat or other animal products. To give that context. In the last two weeks I haven't actually eaten any meat but I have made some dinners that had chicken broth, I have had some cheese, I have had some things made with eggs and I regularly put a splash of milk in my tea.
Why am I eating like this? The short answer is my wife made me to try it and how I feel makes me to keep doing it.
My personal journey with food over the last 15 years or so has been in the general direction of eating less and less processed foods and more and more "real" foods. I grew up eating very healthy but during college sort of jumped off that path and since than have slowly found my way back. I have fully plant based for the last 3 months or a bit more. In that time I have made a solid jump in fitness and increased the quantity and quality of my workouts. I have also lost around 15 pounds without trying. I have done so without feeling weak or that I'm on the verge of getting sick which was common for me in the past when I dipped much under 160lbs in the past.
We went plant based because my wife was reading the China Study which is a fairly well known study that spawned a bunch of books and a movie or two. Summing up something that has been described in multiple books in one sentence, basically these researchers found that if you eat less than 5% animal protein in your diet cancer can't grow. People who then followed this diet found they had more energy and better health all around.
We were already eating pretty healthy, basically no processed foods. I haven't had something you would call fast food in literally years. In short we ate real food. The stuff from the outside of the grocery store instead of the aisles. This was working ok. Though I did notice if I was eating yogurt instead of salad for lunch I would be much more likely to get sick. I was running a lot but I would not describe myself as having much energy.
Since going plant based I have not had some amazing awakening of feeling like a million dollars all the time experience. I have made big jumps in fitness and you may have noticed I'm posting 5 or 6 blogs a week and still training and working like I was before so I certainly have more energy and I have returned to going hard or moderately hard every other day so 7 times every two weeks. For the last few years I have only been going hard twice or sometimes 3 times a week so about 4 to 5 times every two weeks. All of this adds up to a pretty darn good step in the right direction.
The number one question I have been getting is what about protein for recovery. I totally understand this question. It was my number one concern heading into eating like this. I have long taken either protein powder, kefir, or chocolate milk after all hard workouts and the vast majority of runs. I have not replaced this with anything. I generally eat something right after a run but nothing specific. Often it is just some fruit or toast. I have tried energy bits which are spirulina for post run recovery and like them so that may become my regular routine but currently I'm not doing anything. I do eat a decent amount of protein but not nearly as much as I was eating before switching to plant based.
Here is the funny thing. I'm recovering better. I'm not sore. I'm bouncing back for another hard run or workout quicker. I feel pretty darn good.
I have told you what I'm not eating. Which leaves what I am eating.
For breakfast I have either steel cut oats that I cook in the slow cooker over night with cinnamon, nutmeg, and vanilla. I eat it with some fruit, whatever is around, and almond milk. If I don't have the oatmeal I have ezekiel toast with cashew butter or peanut butter, the kind that is just ground nuts, no oil, no salt. I also have a large cup of water and a large cup of tea, 24 ozs each.
For lunch I have make a peanut butter jelly smoothie. Which tastes totally like a peanut butter and jelly sandwich but with a smoothie texture, which is a bit of mind screw at first but you get over that. I think melissa found the recipe on 100 days of real food or kris karr's website. Basically it is peanut butter, almond milk, apple juice, two bananas, some baby spinach, and a bunch of frozen berries. I make it in the morning and stick it in the fridge at work.
Dinner is different every night. I make a lot of soups, I always use low sodium organic broth. I generally use veggie broth but sometimes chicken broth. A real quick meal is a BIG salad and veggie burgers. Other than that we have been just trying out a ton of things. We had a CSA in the fall and I would just google recipes based on what we got in that each week. Now in the dead of winter no CSA so we google recipes and then buy the stuff for them. We eat pasta dishes pretty regularly with a lot of veggies mixed in.
For snacks I eat mostly fruit, toast, and whole wheat cookies when Melissa makes them, I don't do much baking.
The biggest positives have been the loss of weight and being less hungry. I have heard the term 'toxic hunger' used to describe the cravings for fatty, sugary, salty foods we eat. The first few weeks you don't eat this food you crave them like mad. Basically more like an addiction than a real hunger response. Now as I said I gave up most of that stuff years ago but I did have that reaction for sure.
The other type of hunger when you don't need calories is hunger from a need for nutrients. The concept is simple enough your body needs some vitamin and even though you have eaten enough or more than enough calories to satisfy your needs your body tells you to keep eating until you get enough of whatever else you need. If you read the nutrition labels on most of the processed foods we eat or the nutrition info on meat you will notice that there are calories but very little else. What this means is that you can eat and eat and as soon as your stomach empties out you will be hungry again because you are desperately short of nutrients. Even when I was eating very well by american standards before going plant based I was hungry quite often. After a few weeks of the veggie based diet I noticed I was not nearly as hungry. A quick glance the nutrition info on my meals told the story why. Instead of a small amount of a handful of nutrients you have dozens of nutrients represented and many in very high quantities.
Problems. The biggest problem is fiber. Too damn much fiber. Ok really it is probably the right amount of fiber but it is more than I am used to. This has lead to a lot of unplanned bathroom stops on runs. For a few weeks this was pretty out of control. However I started drinking a lot more water and that pretty much got me back to normal.
Weak points. Ok don't tell Melissa, she pretty much just glances at the blog so I'm not too worried, but I sneak at least on soda a week. Usually a virgil's root beer. I swear that stuff really tastes like it was made in heaven. It also has two days worth of sugar and zero nutritional value.
Yup that covers it. After the first couple of weeks I really stopped wanting any other junk food or meat. I don't want it. When I'm hungry I want fruit. I want a salad. I want a nice colorful dinner. To be clear this took a few weeks. The first couple weeks all I wanted was a damn hamburger covered in cheese and bacon. Now that kinda grosses me out.
Now I do eat some meat. If I get a salad from a restaurant it generally has some chicken or cheese or whatever on it. I eat that. I did get a 'super salad' recently that was a little too super for me and I ended up leaving a lot of cheese and meat behind but generally speaking I will eat a bit of meat once every week or two.
If you want greater detail or real info on the hows and whys of all this post a comment asking Melissa to do a guest blog because she is the brains behind this part of the operation.
My current diet is plant based. Which is to say that I eat very little that isn't plants but I don't completely ban myself from eating meat or other animal products. To give that context. In the last two weeks I haven't actually eaten any meat but I have made some dinners that had chicken broth, I have had some cheese, I have had some things made with eggs and I regularly put a splash of milk in my tea.
Why am I eating like this? The short answer is my wife made me to try it and how I feel makes me to keep doing it.
My personal journey with food over the last 15 years or so has been in the general direction of eating less and less processed foods and more and more "real" foods. I grew up eating very healthy but during college sort of jumped off that path and since than have slowly found my way back. I have fully plant based for the last 3 months or a bit more. In that time I have made a solid jump in fitness and increased the quantity and quality of my workouts. I have also lost around 15 pounds without trying. I have done so without feeling weak or that I'm on the verge of getting sick which was common for me in the past when I dipped much under 160lbs in the past.
We went plant based because my wife was reading the China Study which is a fairly well known study that spawned a bunch of books and a movie or two. Summing up something that has been described in multiple books in one sentence, basically these researchers found that if you eat less than 5% animal protein in your diet cancer can't grow. People who then followed this diet found they had more energy and better health all around.
We were already eating pretty healthy, basically no processed foods. I haven't had something you would call fast food in literally years. In short we ate real food. The stuff from the outside of the grocery store instead of the aisles. This was working ok. Though I did notice if I was eating yogurt instead of salad for lunch I would be much more likely to get sick. I was running a lot but I would not describe myself as having much energy.
Since going plant based I have not had some amazing awakening of feeling like a million dollars all the time experience. I have made big jumps in fitness and you may have noticed I'm posting 5 or 6 blogs a week and still training and working like I was before so I certainly have more energy and I have returned to going hard or moderately hard every other day so 7 times every two weeks. For the last few years I have only been going hard twice or sometimes 3 times a week so about 4 to 5 times every two weeks. All of this adds up to a pretty darn good step in the right direction.
The number one question I have been getting is what about protein for recovery. I totally understand this question. It was my number one concern heading into eating like this. I have long taken either protein powder, kefir, or chocolate milk after all hard workouts and the vast majority of runs. I have not replaced this with anything. I generally eat something right after a run but nothing specific. Often it is just some fruit or toast. I have tried energy bits which are spirulina for post run recovery and like them so that may become my regular routine but currently I'm not doing anything. I do eat a decent amount of protein but not nearly as much as I was eating before switching to plant based.
Here is the funny thing. I'm recovering better. I'm not sore. I'm bouncing back for another hard run or workout quicker. I feel pretty darn good.
I have told you what I'm not eating. Which leaves what I am eating.
For breakfast I have either steel cut oats that I cook in the slow cooker over night with cinnamon, nutmeg, and vanilla. I eat it with some fruit, whatever is around, and almond milk. If I don't have the oatmeal I have ezekiel toast with cashew butter or peanut butter, the kind that is just ground nuts, no oil, no salt. I also have a large cup of water and a large cup of tea, 24 ozs each.
For lunch I have make a peanut butter jelly smoothie. Which tastes totally like a peanut butter and jelly sandwich but with a smoothie texture, which is a bit of mind screw at first but you get over that. I think melissa found the recipe on 100 days of real food or kris karr's website. Basically it is peanut butter, almond milk, apple juice, two bananas, some baby spinach, and a bunch of frozen berries. I make it in the morning and stick it in the fridge at work.
Dinner is different every night. I make a lot of soups, I always use low sodium organic broth. I generally use veggie broth but sometimes chicken broth. A real quick meal is a BIG salad and veggie burgers. Other than that we have been just trying out a ton of things. We had a CSA in the fall and I would just google recipes based on what we got in that each week. Now in the dead of winter no CSA so we google recipes and then buy the stuff for them. We eat pasta dishes pretty regularly with a lot of veggies mixed in.
For snacks I eat mostly fruit, toast, and whole wheat cookies when Melissa makes them, I don't do much baking.
The biggest positives have been the loss of weight and being less hungry. I have heard the term 'toxic hunger' used to describe the cravings for fatty, sugary, salty foods we eat. The first few weeks you don't eat this food you crave them like mad. Basically more like an addiction than a real hunger response. Now as I said I gave up most of that stuff years ago but I did have that reaction for sure.
The other type of hunger when you don't need calories is hunger from a need for nutrients. The concept is simple enough your body needs some vitamin and even though you have eaten enough or more than enough calories to satisfy your needs your body tells you to keep eating until you get enough of whatever else you need. If you read the nutrition labels on most of the processed foods we eat or the nutrition info on meat you will notice that there are calories but very little else. What this means is that you can eat and eat and as soon as your stomach empties out you will be hungry again because you are desperately short of nutrients. Even when I was eating very well by american standards before going plant based I was hungry quite often. After a few weeks of the veggie based diet I noticed I was not nearly as hungry. A quick glance the nutrition info on my meals told the story why. Instead of a small amount of a handful of nutrients you have dozens of nutrients represented and many in very high quantities.
Problems. The biggest problem is fiber. Too damn much fiber. Ok really it is probably the right amount of fiber but it is more than I am used to. This has lead to a lot of unplanned bathroom stops on runs. For a few weeks this was pretty out of control. However I started drinking a lot more water and that pretty much got me back to normal.
Weak points. Ok don't tell Melissa, she pretty much just glances at the blog so I'm not too worried, but I sneak at least on soda a week. Usually a virgil's root beer. I swear that stuff really tastes like it was made in heaven. It also has two days worth of sugar and zero nutritional value.
Yup that covers it. After the first couple of weeks I really stopped wanting any other junk food or meat. I don't want it. When I'm hungry I want fruit. I want a salad. I want a nice colorful dinner. To be clear this took a few weeks. The first couple weeks all I wanted was a damn hamburger covered in cheese and bacon. Now that kinda grosses me out.
Now I do eat some meat. If I get a salad from a restaurant it generally has some chicken or cheese or whatever on it. I eat that. I did get a 'super salad' recently that was a little too super for me and I ended up leaving a lot of cheese and meat behind but generally speaking I will eat a bit of meat once every week or two.
If you want greater detail or real info on the hows and whys of all this post a comment asking Melissa to do a guest blog because she is the brains behind this part of the operation.
Wednesday, February 4, 2015
Throwback Thursday Meeting Canova
I ran my debut marathon in February of 2006 (full story here http://nateruns.blogspot.com/2015/01/throw-back-thursday-marathon-debut.html ) I ran 2:15 and for the first time was running on a national class level. The whole story to my conversion to Canova styled training didn't quite end there. Instead some of the most important part of my journey would wait about 10 months.
The NYRR invited me to come to the 2006 NYC marathon as a guest. They had been working hard to bring in all sorts of top Americans to see the Olympic Trials course and my debut had been good enough to get on their radar. I felt like a bit of an odd man out of the ten guys they brought in as part of our American VIP crew. It included Abdi Abdirahman, who was the top dog in the USA at the time having just run a 2:08:56 at Chicago a few weeks before, Ryan Hall who had not yet run sub 60 for the half or his marathon debut but he was coming off a USA title for 20k and an American Record in that event at the World championships. I was happy that my roommate was the only other guy in the group who wasn't a household name in running circles, Josh Ordway who had run 2:15 with me in Austin.
The entire weekend was an amazing experience for me but it was on the bus ride home from the post race after party that this story begins. The NYRR had a bus to bring all the athletes and their families coaches etc.. to and from the event. For a crazy running fan like myself it was an unimaginable experience for me. I saw every running star I had ever heard of it seemed and got to talk to so many of them it was really quite a night. Still the man I really wanted to talk to seemed to be the most popular there, Renato Canova. As we were getting off the bus at the Hotel I decided it was my last chance and I caught Renato as he got off the bus.
Now full discloser, I was not stone cold sober. It seemed to me that Renato was not either. I'm not saying we were blasted just that neither of us should have been driving a car.
So here we are on a sidewalk around the corner from times square stand two men. I quickly approached Canova and said something to the effect that I wanted to thank him for posting so much stuff online and getting the information out there. He was trying to follow a group to the after after-party and seemed very uninterested. I hastened, I didn't want anything from him you see I just wanted to thank him and let him know that his actions had greatly impacted me a person he didn't even know. I added what was my planned last line. I told him that I had used his training to go from a 1:07 half marathon best to a 2:15:28 marathon debut and that I knew that would never have happened without his training being posted online. The moment I said 2:15 his whole demeanor changed. It seemed to me this man had no interest in being told again how great he was or talking in abstracts but the chance to influence a young athlete who had some potential, not that interested him.
Immediately in his heavy but almost lyrical accent he began questioning me. What were my other PR's? Where did I get the info from? Where had I run the marathon? Had I raced today?
I answered as quickly as I could that I had not run today, I was slightly hurt, I had run my debut in Austin on a super fast course rated as fast as Berlin by ARRS. My other PR's were not nearly as good but I had run 1:04 and not long after the marathon a 23:26 8k, all my other bests were much slower.
I must admit I was almost sick to tell him my other PR's they seemed so inadequate. I didn't want him to dig deeper to where I would have to tell him how slow most of my regular times were. His response floored me.
"You didn't do my base phase! Did you?!!" before I could answer he added. "You did a Lydiard base! Did you not?!
To say this is not the response I expected is an understatement I was wheeling and confused. I stammered back "uh.. umm.. yes. I, I mean that is exactly true. I did a Lydiard base and then used a Rodgers Rop schedule of yours for the specific training."
His response was quick and more mind blowing to me "Yes, yes! You were not able to finish many of the marathon workouts! You took too long to recover. You should have run much faster in the marathon, 2:13 for sure. You came apart badly in the last few miles of the marathon did you not?"
I in a state of shock I responded in the affirmative and asked how he could possibly know.
Canova laughed "But it is all to clear! You think your marathon is your best performance but your other bests are superior. You needed more specific workouts to not run out of the glycogen but you could not do them because you didn't prepare properly for them. Now for your next marathon you do my base and you will run at least 2:13."
I said something bland to the effect that he made it sound very easy and I wasn't very talented.
He smiled knowingly. "You americans are lost on the marathon. It is not such a big deal running 2:10 in the marathon you need a little talent, you have shown enough, and little hard work and you are there. I coached an Italian not running under 30 flat for 10k to 2:11 for the marathon so for you 2:10 is certainly a good goal and in present state of running you will likely make Olympic team with that, No?"
I said something about how that would certainly give me a shot at the Olympic team. He said something to the effect that he needed to join his party and wished me luck.
This conversation turned my running world on it's head. I was thinking I had vastly exceeded my potential in the marathon and that I had approached it just about perfectly. Now my hero had told me I had everything ass backwards. In the coming months I would get healthy and put his simply advice to work and the results would show me quickly that he was right and I was under achieving.
The NYRR invited me to come to the 2006 NYC marathon as a guest. They had been working hard to bring in all sorts of top Americans to see the Olympic Trials course and my debut had been good enough to get on their radar. I felt like a bit of an odd man out of the ten guys they brought in as part of our American VIP crew. It included Abdi Abdirahman, who was the top dog in the USA at the time having just run a 2:08:56 at Chicago a few weeks before, Ryan Hall who had not yet run sub 60 for the half or his marathon debut but he was coming off a USA title for 20k and an American Record in that event at the World championships. I was happy that my roommate was the only other guy in the group who wasn't a household name in running circles, Josh Ordway who had run 2:15 with me in Austin.
The entire weekend was an amazing experience for me but it was on the bus ride home from the post race after party that this story begins. The NYRR had a bus to bring all the athletes and their families coaches etc.. to and from the event. For a crazy running fan like myself it was an unimaginable experience for me. I saw every running star I had ever heard of it seemed and got to talk to so many of them it was really quite a night. Still the man I really wanted to talk to seemed to be the most popular there, Renato Canova. As we were getting off the bus at the Hotel I decided it was my last chance and I caught Renato as he got off the bus.
Now full discloser, I was not stone cold sober. It seemed to me that Renato was not either. I'm not saying we were blasted just that neither of us should have been driving a car.
So here we are on a sidewalk around the corner from times square stand two men. I quickly approached Canova and said something to the effect that I wanted to thank him for posting so much stuff online and getting the information out there. He was trying to follow a group to the after after-party and seemed very uninterested. I hastened, I didn't want anything from him you see I just wanted to thank him and let him know that his actions had greatly impacted me a person he didn't even know. I added what was my planned last line. I told him that I had used his training to go from a 1:07 half marathon best to a 2:15:28 marathon debut and that I knew that would never have happened without his training being posted online. The moment I said 2:15 his whole demeanor changed. It seemed to me this man had no interest in being told again how great he was or talking in abstracts but the chance to influence a young athlete who had some potential, not that interested him.
Immediately in his heavy but almost lyrical accent he began questioning me. What were my other PR's? Where did I get the info from? Where had I run the marathon? Had I raced today?
I answered as quickly as I could that I had not run today, I was slightly hurt, I had run my debut in Austin on a super fast course rated as fast as Berlin by ARRS. My other PR's were not nearly as good but I had run 1:04 and not long after the marathon a 23:26 8k, all my other bests were much slower.
I must admit I was almost sick to tell him my other PR's they seemed so inadequate. I didn't want him to dig deeper to where I would have to tell him how slow most of my regular times were. His response floored me.
"You didn't do my base phase! Did you?!!" before I could answer he added. "You did a Lydiard base! Did you not?!
To say this is not the response I expected is an understatement I was wheeling and confused. I stammered back "uh.. umm.. yes. I, I mean that is exactly true. I did a Lydiard base and then used a Rodgers Rop schedule of yours for the specific training."
His response was quick and more mind blowing to me "Yes, yes! You were not able to finish many of the marathon workouts! You took too long to recover. You should have run much faster in the marathon, 2:13 for sure. You came apart badly in the last few miles of the marathon did you not?"
I in a state of shock I responded in the affirmative and asked how he could possibly know.
Canova laughed "But it is all to clear! You think your marathon is your best performance but your other bests are superior. You needed more specific workouts to not run out of the glycogen but you could not do them because you didn't prepare properly for them. Now for your next marathon you do my base and you will run at least 2:13."
I said something bland to the effect that he made it sound very easy and I wasn't very talented.
He smiled knowingly. "You americans are lost on the marathon. It is not such a big deal running 2:10 in the marathon you need a little talent, you have shown enough, and little hard work and you are there. I coached an Italian not running under 30 flat for 10k to 2:11 for the marathon so for you 2:10 is certainly a good goal and in present state of running you will likely make Olympic team with that, No?"
I said something about how that would certainly give me a shot at the Olympic team. He said something to the effect that he needed to join his party and wished me luck.
This conversation turned my running world on it's head. I was thinking I had vastly exceeded my potential in the marathon and that I had approached it just about perfectly. Now my hero had told me I had everything ass backwards. In the coming months I would get healthy and put his simply advice to work and the results would show me quickly that he was right and I was under achieving.
Tuesday, February 3, 2015
Workout Wednesday Alternations for the 5k Runner
It is no secret I'm a huge fan of alternations and similar workouts. Basically an alteration workout is a play on intervals where the rests are run at a quick enough pace to force the overall average pace into the range of a tempo workout. These sessions are the best of both worlds option that incorporate the positives of both interval running. Even more importantly they are more than the sum of their parts. Learning to recover at a quick pace leads to huge gains in aerobic fitness much more quickly than you can get from tempos or threshold intervals.
In this blog I'm going to focus on 5k specific alternations. Now in past blogs I have talked about Australian quarters, http://nateruns.blogspot.com/2014/12/workout-wednesday-australian-quarters.html and 400/400 alternations http://nateruns.blogspot.com/2015/01/workout-wednesday-400400-alternations.html both of these sessions are great for the 5k runner. Those workouts both work for the 5k runner and can be part of your prep. The 5k specific workout we are talking about here is just more directly focused on improving your 5k performance specifically.
For 5k specific alternations you want to run a total of 4 miles. You will run the fast portion of the alternation at your goal 5k pace and the recovery sections at 75% to 85% of 5k pace.
To find your recovery pace take your goal 5k pace per mile or kilometer write it in seconds and multiply by 1.15 for 85% and 1.25 for 75%. Finally convert back from seconds to minutes and seconds. For example if your goal 5k is 15:00 that is 3:00 per kilometer which is 180 seconds per kilometer. That gives you a slow end of 3:45 per k and a fast end of 3:27 per k.
Giving some perspective to those paces for a 5k runner capable of aiming for 15:00 running at 3:45 per k, which is a shade over 6:00 per mile, is a pretty easy thing. It is the fast end of what they would be expected to be running on a training run but it is not a tempo effort at all. 3:27 per K is about 5:30 per mile which is certainly faster than a training run but would be much slower than tempo work they do and with practice they will be able to recover at this pace.
Doing the workout- At the start you will run 400m at 5k pace and take 1200m at the slower pace. So the session would be 4x400m at 5k with 1200m recoveries after EVERY rep including the last one at 75% to 85% of 5k pace. This will be 4 total miles. For our example 15:00 runner if he runs his reps at 72 and his recoveries at 85%(3:27 per K/83 per 400m) he will cover the 4 miles in 21:24.
If you can not run the fast end of the recovery zone then your first job is to get faster on the 1200 recovery. So each time you repeat the workout you will still do the 400m at 5k goal pace but each time you will run that recovery faster until you get down to the 85% of race pace range.
Once you reach the point where you can run the 1200 recovery at 85% of goal pace, and for the aerobically well developed among you this will be your first time out, you start increasing your distance at 5k pace and reducing your recovery distance. Each time you repeat the workout you increase the distance at 5k pace by 100 to 200 meters and reducing the recovery by an equal amount.
So you would progress through 4x500/1100, 4x600/1200 up to a goal of 4x800/800 or for someone who is a real workout monster 4x1k/600- this would be 20:16. Which would be a very challenging aerobic test which forces you to relax during your 5k reps as well as your recovery. This is the great advantage of alternations. I can't tell you how often someone tells me they want to run a set time in the 5k and they regularly do 5x1k or even 8 or 10 x 1k at that pace. Heck even 3 or 4 x mile at that pace but they can not seem to hit the time in the race. Why???? The recovery! They are taking too much recovery and they are learning to run repeated races more than learning to run their goal pace at an effort level that makes maintaining it without any recovery for the full 5k possible. The genius of the alternations is that it is focus entirely on teaching you to run your reps at the right effort AND building the aerobic power needed to maintain it for the whole race.
In this blog I'm going to focus on 5k specific alternations. Now in past blogs I have talked about Australian quarters, http://nateruns.blogspot.com/2014/12/workout-wednesday-australian-quarters.html and 400/400 alternations http://nateruns.blogspot.com/2015/01/workout-wednesday-400400-alternations.html both of these sessions are great for the 5k runner. Those workouts both work for the 5k runner and can be part of your prep. The 5k specific workout we are talking about here is just more directly focused on improving your 5k performance specifically.
For 5k specific alternations you want to run a total of 4 miles. You will run the fast portion of the alternation at your goal 5k pace and the recovery sections at 75% to 85% of 5k pace.
To find your recovery pace take your goal 5k pace per mile or kilometer write it in seconds and multiply by 1.15 for 85% and 1.25 for 75%. Finally convert back from seconds to minutes and seconds. For example if your goal 5k is 15:00 that is 3:00 per kilometer which is 180 seconds per kilometer. That gives you a slow end of 3:45 per k and a fast end of 3:27 per k.
Giving some perspective to those paces for a 5k runner capable of aiming for 15:00 running at 3:45 per k, which is a shade over 6:00 per mile, is a pretty easy thing. It is the fast end of what they would be expected to be running on a training run but it is not a tempo effort at all. 3:27 per K is about 5:30 per mile which is certainly faster than a training run but would be much slower than tempo work they do and with practice they will be able to recover at this pace.
Doing the workout- At the start you will run 400m at 5k pace and take 1200m at the slower pace. So the session would be 4x400m at 5k with 1200m recoveries after EVERY rep including the last one at 75% to 85% of 5k pace. This will be 4 total miles. For our example 15:00 runner if he runs his reps at 72 and his recoveries at 85%(3:27 per K/83 per 400m) he will cover the 4 miles in 21:24.
If you can not run the fast end of the recovery zone then your first job is to get faster on the 1200 recovery. So each time you repeat the workout you will still do the 400m at 5k goal pace but each time you will run that recovery faster until you get down to the 85% of race pace range.
Once you reach the point where you can run the 1200 recovery at 85% of goal pace, and for the aerobically well developed among you this will be your first time out, you start increasing your distance at 5k pace and reducing your recovery distance. Each time you repeat the workout you increase the distance at 5k pace by 100 to 200 meters and reducing the recovery by an equal amount.
So you would progress through 4x500/1100, 4x600/1200 up to a goal of 4x800/800 or for someone who is a real workout monster 4x1k/600- this would be 20:16. Which would be a very challenging aerobic test which forces you to relax during your 5k reps as well as your recovery. This is the great advantage of alternations. I can't tell you how often someone tells me they want to run a set time in the 5k and they regularly do 5x1k or even 8 or 10 x 1k at that pace. Heck even 3 or 4 x mile at that pace but they can not seem to hit the time in the race. Why???? The recovery! They are taking too much recovery and they are learning to run repeated races more than learning to run their goal pace at an effort level that makes maintaining it without any recovery for the full 5k possible. The genius of the alternations is that it is focus entirely on teaching you to run your reps at the right effort AND building the aerobic power needed to maintain it for the whole race.
Monday, February 2, 2015
Tempo Tuesday: Tempo Runs for the Young or Developing Runner.
Many of my posts about training certainly lean towards the more experienced athlete. This post instead is focused on the beginning athlete. It is most directly targeting the middle school or high school athlete but certainly could be extended to work for any runner who is fairly new to the sport.
Unfortunately partially because of ease of organization and partially because I don't think most youth coaches know any better beginning runners are often subjected to large amounts of anaerobic intervals of many kinds. This type of training is very easy to structure and very convenient when trying to monitor and manage large numbers of young athletes. Also it appeals to young competitive children who can turn each short effort into a little mini race. Finally athletes who do this type of work tend to make some very quick improvements, at least in the beginning. Sadly for real development this is probably the worst type of training a young runner can be doing.
Why is it so bad? Well three issues really. First when you run hard your form breaks down and in young developing runners you are building their form habits and if they are constantly straining you are bringing out all their worst form habits. For the short term this will only make them less efficient which means a bit slower but not noticeably. The long term damage however is that as this runner begins at some point in their running life to start and try to build their mileage they will have all sorts of underlying form issues that will cause injuries and be very hard to fix.
Second though you see short term gains you do not develop the aerobic engine which is where long term development comes from. By focusing training on short term gains we rob ourselves of real development. Aerobic improvement can be a little slower but it is much more limitless and you can always sharpen that fitness up with anaerobic work later, where if you get anaerobic fitness first and then move to aerobic you actually will get slower for a time because you are losing that anaerobic sharpness while slowly increasing the more real and lasting aerobic fitness.
Third the interval trained athlete is going to have a real hard time transitioning to the individual runner lifestyle. For the athlete who develops into a competitor this is not a real issue. When they finish running for their middle school or high school team they simply go onto join a team at the next level but for the mid packer who will not compete at the next level the most often only run for a short while after their competitive days are over. The reality of hard intervals as a main training method is that when you start doing them without a team around you they get old very quickly. Simply put you aren't teaching the young runners a running lifestyle that is going to be naturally maintained for a lifetime.
So my solution is that the three main training sessions for the young runner should be easy steady running, strides (EVERY DAY) http://nateruns.blogspot.com/2015/01/strides.html , and Tempo Runs.
Tempo runs for the young runner should be short. They need not be structure very much. At this age the athlete is improving very fast and picking a pace based on goal or current fitness can leave you shooting at a moving target. The best option is to teach the correct effort. It is easier said than done but it is worth while both as a running life skill as well as because of the competitive results you will see from it.
The effort. As fast as the athlete can run well still feeling relaxed. I describe it as an effort at which you could talk if you had to but you certainly wouldn't want to. You should feel like you are on the edge of your legs and lungs starting to burn but not go over that edge. You will gain more by going a bit too slow than you will by going too fast so it is ok to err on the side of going a bit slow. It isn't whimping out, it is training smart!
The distance. The key to running tempos for the beginning athlete is that they should be quite short. 15 to 20 minutes is ideal. Any longer and the runners inherent lack of endurance is going to greatly harm the quality of the work. You are obviously doing regular running with some form of long run to build that endurance over time but that can take a few years so in the mean time the tempo should be right in the athletes wheel house. I have purposely put down a time not a distance on these. I realize that for some beginning athletes a 15minute tempo run may be barely more than a mile. That is fine! What matters 100% on this session is internal effort.
For teams of athletes I would suggest doing loops around a flat area. This way a coach can monitor to make sure athletes are not going too hard. Also this way there is not a pressure to set up a loop of 2 or 3 miles that now everyone covers the same DISTANCE. You want them covering the same TIME.
The way to progress these runs is to increase the time. So you work through them in cycles. Start with a tempo of just 12 to 15 minutes and then repeat this effort every 5 days to one week increasing the time by 2 to 4 minutes. The key is to try to maintain the same effort. You will find that though you were quite tired at the end of the last tempo you are able to hold it together for a couple more minutes and within a few weeks you are running 20 to 25 minutes at the same pace you held for your first tempo and that you feel quite fresh and relaxed as you pass that original 12 to 15minute point.
Once you have reached the 20 to 25 minute range you go back to the beginning of 12 to 15 minutes but you will find the same effort you used the first time out will allow you to cover greater distance in the time. In short you will go faster for the same effort.
The young athlete should be doing this pretty much every week of the year that they train. I was not the most talented athlete and as a young runner I struggled. I needed aerobic development and so I struggled as an athlete until I got it. Some would say I was a late bloomer and that is possible. However I would say I had comparable talent to a guy like Charlie Spedding but in HS he ran the equivalent of about a 4:12 mile and did well in English national cross country races. The difference? As I stagnated from my freshman through junior years, 10:20 down to only 10:06 for 2 miles in those three years, Charlie improved greatly in the same time period. Our training volumes where similarly low. Our racing schedules were similarly over stocked. Our interval workouts were similar in similarity, if mine were much more often done. However Charlie's bread and butter was a very fast 15minute run. I doubt he would have called it a tempo but that is exactly what it was and he learned very quickly to run fast with control and his aerobic system grew greatly in that time period.
What is better is that work like this sets the athlete up for success in the future. You are building with tempos, and strides, the ability to do more training and to build improvement on top of your current fitness. So often I hear coaches proudly touting that there young athletes are under trained. Meaning generally that they have done low mileage. The problem is this usually means they have done a ton of workouts and hard races without building the underlying structures needed to train harder later on. As well meaning as the coaching has been the athlete has been done a disservice. They have been built up in such a way that they are more likely to get hurt and they are underperforming in anything longer than a mile because they simply have no real aerobic development.
Far better to focus early training on three things.
(1)Steady year over year increases in volume. If an athlete can run 30 miles in his/her 3rd week of training for a team they damn well should be doing a lot more than that 4 years later. I view the idea of weekly volume averages being 25 to 35 per week as a frosh and then increase around 10 miles per week each year, 35 to 45 as a soph, 45 to 55 as a jr and 55 to 65 as a senior. Obviously some athletes will progress faster an others slower but the idea is simple. Each year you will be stronger then the year prior so the training should progress with this.
(2) These tempo runs done with incredible regularity year round- if you can add in progression runs of similar durations nearly as often all the better!
(3) strides, form drills and short hill sprints to build great smooth powerful form and great running specific muscular strength.
So there you have my tempos for new runners and a bit of extra as well.
Unfortunately partially because of ease of organization and partially because I don't think most youth coaches know any better beginning runners are often subjected to large amounts of anaerobic intervals of many kinds. This type of training is very easy to structure and very convenient when trying to monitor and manage large numbers of young athletes. Also it appeals to young competitive children who can turn each short effort into a little mini race. Finally athletes who do this type of work tend to make some very quick improvements, at least in the beginning. Sadly for real development this is probably the worst type of training a young runner can be doing.
Why is it so bad? Well three issues really. First when you run hard your form breaks down and in young developing runners you are building their form habits and if they are constantly straining you are bringing out all their worst form habits. For the short term this will only make them less efficient which means a bit slower but not noticeably. The long term damage however is that as this runner begins at some point in their running life to start and try to build their mileage they will have all sorts of underlying form issues that will cause injuries and be very hard to fix.
Second though you see short term gains you do not develop the aerobic engine which is where long term development comes from. By focusing training on short term gains we rob ourselves of real development. Aerobic improvement can be a little slower but it is much more limitless and you can always sharpen that fitness up with anaerobic work later, where if you get anaerobic fitness first and then move to aerobic you actually will get slower for a time because you are losing that anaerobic sharpness while slowly increasing the more real and lasting aerobic fitness.
Third the interval trained athlete is going to have a real hard time transitioning to the individual runner lifestyle. For the athlete who develops into a competitor this is not a real issue. When they finish running for their middle school or high school team they simply go onto join a team at the next level but for the mid packer who will not compete at the next level the most often only run for a short while after their competitive days are over. The reality of hard intervals as a main training method is that when you start doing them without a team around you they get old very quickly. Simply put you aren't teaching the young runners a running lifestyle that is going to be naturally maintained for a lifetime.
So my solution is that the three main training sessions for the young runner should be easy steady running, strides (EVERY DAY) http://nateruns.blogspot.com/2015/01/strides.html , and Tempo Runs.
Tempo runs for the young runner should be short. They need not be structure very much. At this age the athlete is improving very fast and picking a pace based on goal or current fitness can leave you shooting at a moving target. The best option is to teach the correct effort. It is easier said than done but it is worth while both as a running life skill as well as because of the competitive results you will see from it.
The effort. As fast as the athlete can run well still feeling relaxed. I describe it as an effort at which you could talk if you had to but you certainly wouldn't want to. You should feel like you are on the edge of your legs and lungs starting to burn but not go over that edge. You will gain more by going a bit too slow than you will by going too fast so it is ok to err on the side of going a bit slow. It isn't whimping out, it is training smart!
The distance. The key to running tempos for the beginning athlete is that they should be quite short. 15 to 20 minutes is ideal. Any longer and the runners inherent lack of endurance is going to greatly harm the quality of the work. You are obviously doing regular running with some form of long run to build that endurance over time but that can take a few years so in the mean time the tempo should be right in the athletes wheel house. I have purposely put down a time not a distance on these. I realize that for some beginning athletes a 15minute tempo run may be barely more than a mile. That is fine! What matters 100% on this session is internal effort.
For teams of athletes I would suggest doing loops around a flat area. This way a coach can monitor to make sure athletes are not going too hard. Also this way there is not a pressure to set up a loop of 2 or 3 miles that now everyone covers the same DISTANCE. You want them covering the same TIME.
The way to progress these runs is to increase the time. So you work through them in cycles. Start with a tempo of just 12 to 15 minutes and then repeat this effort every 5 days to one week increasing the time by 2 to 4 minutes. The key is to try to maintain the same effort. You will find that though you were quite tired at the end of the last tempo you are able to hold it together for a couple more minutes and within a few weeks you are running 20 to 25 minutes at the same pace you held for your first tempo and that you feel quite fresh and relaxed as you pass that original 12 to 15minute point.
Once you have reached the 20 to 25 minute range you go back to the beginning of 12 to 15 minutes but you will find the same effort you used the first time out will allow you to cover greater distance in the time. In short you will go faster for the same effort.
The young athlete should be doing this pretty much every week of the year that they train. I was not the most talented athlete and as a young runner I struggled. I needed aerobic development and so I struggled as an athlete until I got it. Some would say I was a late bloomer and that is possible. However I would say I had comparable talent to a guy like Charlie Spedding but in HS he ran the equivalent of about a 4:12 mile and did well in English national cross country races. The difference? As I stagnated from my freshman through junior years, 10:20 down to only 10:06 for 2 miles in those three years, Charlie improved greatly in the same time period. Our training volumes where similarly low. Our racing schedules were similarly over stocked. Our interval workouts were similar in similarity, if mine were much more often done. However Charlie's bread and butter was a very fast 15minute run. I doubt he would have called it a tempo but that is exactly what it was and he learned very quickly to run fast with control and his aerobic system grew greatly in that time period.
What is better is that work like this sets the athlete up for success in the future. You are building with tempos, and strides, the ability to do more training and to build improvement on top of your current fitness. So often I hear coaches proudly touting that there young athletes are under trained. Meaning generally that they have done low mileage. The problem is this usually means they have done a ton of workouts and hard races without building the underlying structures needed to train harder later on. As well meaning as the coaching has been the athlete has been done a disservice. They have been built up in such a way that they are more likely to get hurt and they are underperforming in anything longer than a mile because they simply have no real aerobic development.
Far better to focus early training on three things.
(1)Steady year over year increases in volume. If an athlete can run 30 miles in his/her 3rd week of training for a team they damn well should be doing a lot more than that 4 years later. I view the idea of weekly volume averages being 25 to 35 per week as a frosh and then increase around 10 miles per week each year, 35 to 45 as a soph, 45 to 55 as a jr and 55 to 65 as a senior. Obviously some athletes will progress faster an others slower but the idea is simple. Each year you will be stronger then the year prior so the training should progress with this.
(2) These tempo runs done with incredible regularity year round- if you can add in progression runs of similar durations nearly as often all the better!
(3) strides, form drills and short hill sprints to build great smooth powerful form and great running specific muscular strength.
So there you have my tempos for new runners and a bit of extra as well.
Weekly Training Blog January 26 to February 1, 2015
Monday
PM Blizzard starting so forced on regular Treadmill at my gym. set at 1% grade, 1/2 mile warm up in 3:30 then 15 miles in 1:24:49 (5:47, 5:46, 5:43, 5:39, 5:39, 5:40, 5:38, 5:40, 5:40, 5:38, 5:40, 5:39, 5:39, 5:36, 5:20) fighting coordination a bit the last mile or so. whole thing felt super easy. total 15.5 miles
XT whartons
Tuesday
Crazy Blizzard all day, 34inches of snow, travel ban, gym closed. I did 35minute run with first 10mins in deep snow on the pond that our house is on. After 10mins it was clear that was more of a workout than I wanted on a recovery day. Call it 5 miles even though it was no where close to that. total 5 miles
XT whartons, YTI, ankle drills
Wednesday
AM On regular treadmill at my gym, 1% grade, 3 mile warm up, with 2 small stretches at 5:00 mile pace. went to bathroom and changed shirts, started workout with 0.25 miles at 8mph up to 10mph then just over .5 miles at 5:05 pace but then the treadmill short circuited, which was not cool. I switched to another treadmill and did the same .025 build up and then 6x2 miles with 1/2 mile recoveries
splits 10:10 (2:53), 10:10 (2:52), 10:10 (2:51), 10:10 (2:50), 10:10 (2:45) 10:00. total of 14.5 miles in 1:15:00 (5:10.3 pace) total 18++
PM deep snow walk with Uta and Melissa about 3 miles good hard work
XT whartons
Thursday
AM Road 9.2 miles, 62:42, first 4.2 with Uta (the dog) in 29:46, she was tired! total 9+ miles
PM Road 8+ miles solo, 56:21 total 8 miles
XT whartons, YTI
Friday
Another small snow storm left roads in the sort of shape that running was doable but working out not so much.
AM on curve treadmill, 20mins warm up then four 15 second strides with 1min jogs between each, then did Moneghetti Fartlek, covered 3.46 miles- this is .21 further than I went on the curve the only other time I have done a Mona on it. The curve is harder than running on regular ground where my mona's tend to be just a shade under 4 miles, sometimes a shade over. Very happy with this improvement. 15 minute cool down total of 60mins on curve for a bit under 10 miles.
XT whartons, YTI, 10 assisted pull ups.
Saturday
AM road 8, 53:24, footing a bit sloppy total 8 miles
PM 35mins on curve with 4 strides in the last 5 minutes total bit under 6 miles
XT mid day between the two runs I did a 90minute Bikram yoga class. I have been going to yoga pretty religiously 1 to 4 times a week since the end of 2013. My body was a wreck and I was carrying a half dozen chronic injuries. The Yoga, after 3 or 4 months sort of worked through those. My regular attendance now seems to wipe away all the niggles and really keep my chronic stuff at bay. I haven't been for a month or so because I was sick and since then my schedule has been CRAZY. I love the yoga and believe 100% I would not be running like I am without it but it has a few major drawbacks. It ain't cheap! It is like a 2nd gym membership. It is HOT which means it dehydrates you pretty good and that makes it rough on recovery. It can be done after a race, long run or workout but it can be like going through hell to do it on those days so I avoid it. Also it is NOT a good idea to go when you are sick or on antibiotics or any medication that dehydrates you. Also if you haven't been in a while or are going for the first time it will make you sore. There are no real hard exercises but it is 90minutes of stretching and basic exercises that is a good bit of work. The heat makes it very intense the first few times you go after that you get used to it and you just sweat a lot.
Sunday
AM 21minute warm up, skipping warm up, light drills, 10 or so strides, all pretty short (60 or 70m) Race Super Sunday 5 mile, 2nd place (Louis Sarafini) 24:41 splits (4:55, 10:00, 14:51, 19:50) I got gapped early and struggled the first 2 and 1/4 miles into the wind, I was able to move a bit after that and went from being about 80 to 100m back at 2.5 miles to getting up to Louis with about 600m to go but I was finished and had zero kick, I mean ZERO. 2 mile cool down total 10 miles
PM road 5+ with Uta and Melissa easy, 39:42 total 5+
Summary
95 miles for the week with 3 good workouts and one shit race. I knew that running an a shade under 25 and feeling like crap doing it was a possibility for the race. I have been getting in great shape but other than the Moneghetti fartleks every other friday the other 6 hard sessions are at marathon pace or slower. So I'm very strong but I have little ability to use that strength in anything quicker. I have been pretty good about strides, very good considering the weather and footing, but obviously it has not been enough. Also it was very cold and I was dressed quit heavily. Still all that considered it wasn't what I had hoped for.
As I said I knew this type of performance was a possibility but I had hoped that with the huge amount of improvements I had made that I would be able to sort of feel the same way but lock in at around 4:50 pace instead of around 5:00 pace and that I would run around 24 flat. I know I'm not in the sort of shape to roll off 4:40 pace. I've never been that fit without a decent amount of specific work.
I have mixed feelings about how to react to this race. Part of me says screw it. I'm not training to race fast right now I'm trying to get good at running 5:05 to 5:10 pace. Part of me says I should mix in a 2nd faster workout, 5k to half marathon pace, in my two week cycles. This is not easy to do this time of year- track is not clear, my gym has a 160m flat indoor track but I'm not keen on doing too much volume on that and I'm not sure they are too keen on me running 70second 400m pace zig zagging through the walking 60 something ladies. There are not a lot of flat areas on the roads around me but I have found a culd-a-sac that is pretty flat and close to 800m so I may be able to use that.
The reasoning for wanting to do more speed is simple. I have made huge improvements in strength and I have gone from thinking that a best case scenario would be getting into shape to hope and run around 5:05 to 5:10 per mile in perfect conditions. Now with the huge jumps in aerobic endurance which I thought would take much longer I have the idea that a bigger jump is possible. However if I haven't done any work on the faster end it will be very hard to get efficient at the faster pace.
So I have a bit to think about and a couple more snow storms to fight this week. I am super pumped about my aerobic development, my endurance improvements and my specific work. I am not happy with my race. I'm not happy with my speed endurance and I am not happy with my efficiency at faster speeds.
Hope you had a good week!
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