Weekly Training Blog July 3 to 9, 2017

Monday AM 6 miles on roads and trails in Saratoga, NY, 46:10, first couple of miles with Melissa and Uta.

PM 4.3 miles on roads and trails in Saratoga, 29:54, solo.

Tuesday AM about 3 miles warm up, some with Melissa, some drills, some strides.  Race Firecracker 4 mile, 6th place 20:08, basically just turned myself inside out trying to stay with Scott Mindel.  Both of us were hoping to slip under 20:00 but just couldn't quite hold it up the last hill before the finish.  Splits 4:52(got sucked out by all the fast starting youngsters.  At 400m I was in about 40th place with 2 or 3 high school girls in front of me), 9:53(5:01), starting to hurt pretty good, 14:55(5:02), I was basically all out at this point.  last mile was 5:12.  I was really struggling.   Good run for where I'm at but I would have been thrilled to slide under 20 at this point. 2 mile cool down some with Melissa and Uta

PM 4 miles on roads back home solo, 28:46

Wednesday AM ~9 miles, I don't have an exact time.  Running with melissa, about 5 or 6 miles in Melissa tripped and really bashed her knee. I ran home to get the car and go pick her up but had shut my watch off for part of that return trip and it wasn't my normal route, I took the most direct way back, so I don't know the exact distance or time.  Melissa got X-rays and nothing broken but the knee was the size of a softball for a couple days.

PM 5.1 miles on road with Uta, in 36:03

Thursday AM 3.8 warm up to track, some drills, 16x200 meters for speed with full 400m jog breaks in about 2mins.  The idea is to be fresh for each 200 as to run with good form and work on the muscular side of things.  averaged just over 31 for the 200's. 3.8 cool down.

Friday AM road and trail 10 solo, 1:09:01
PM road 5 with Uta, 33:07

Saturday Noon 1.5 warm up, very slow with Melissa and Uta as Melissa tested out the knee. Then 10 mile fundamental tempo around Phillips fields, very humid!, 58:00.  Really dehydrated by the end.

Sunday AM road and trail 12, 1:25:20

Summary about 90 miles for the week, three quality sessions, one of which was the race which was a very nice step in the right direction.  Looking back at this week I would say that I'm actually training now which is nice to see.  I should start to progress fairly quickly now.
  This week Melissa and I are going to Bemidji, Mn to stay at Dick Beardsley's bed and breakfast, see the headwaters of the Mississippi and do some exploring.  I'm really excited about the trip.  I love travel, I love got places I've never been.  Melissa has agreed to go fishing with Dick and I which is awesome and the place looks really good for running.  As with any travel week however it means my training plans are quite flexible and we'll just see how things turn out.
  Last fun thing for the week is resting HR.  I don't use heart rate much for training but I have long used my resting HR when I wake up as a gauge of how my body was doing.  I have a pretty low HR after all these years though it does go up when I have a lay off.  Anyway one of the things I love about the garmin watch I have is that it tracks hr and gives you an average resting HR as well as your low for the last 4 hours.  It is just more accurate than checking your pulse as you are getting up.  Generally speaking my average resting is just about 40 bpm.  Give or take 3 or 4 beats.  When I haven't run in a month or more that comes up to the high 40s or even low 50s.  However for whatever reason on Thursday this week it was much lower,

 It isn't the best pic but if you look to you can see my HR at the moment on the left was 47 bpm but my average resting HR to the right was 30.  This is very low for me.  I know when I had surgery on my back the nurse said I stayed pretty steady around 26 bpm, but I sorta figured that was artificially low because of the anesthesia.  Over the years I have often had it down around 30 when I checked it in the morning but this is  the first time since I got the watch that I have had an average this low.  Occasionally it has dipped into the 20's for a minute or two but not had that as a resting average.  Anyway I just find it neat.  Hope you are well.

Training Log June 26 to July 3, 2017

Me in my rabbit kit on the carriage roads in Bar Harbor.

Monday PM road 8.1 solo 51:24

Tuesday AM 3.8 warm up to the track, drills, strides, 8x400m with slow 200 jogs (avg. 65 seconds) averaged 68.4 for the 400's with a few 69's and a 65.9 for the last one. I did a 200 jog at the finish just so I could cover the 3 miles for comparison as I move to Aussie Quarters in the coming weeks, 17:54, ie not fast.  Felt pretty smooth and though it was a shock to the system I felt strong in spite of some real deal humidity. 3.8 cool down. 

Most everyday I since school ended I have been walking a few miles with Uta to keep her exercise up, she doesn't run as much when it is hot, and to get some more volume on my legs.  This week we had my father in laws dog to join us for a few of those walks.

Wednesday Noon 8.2 miles around Eagle lake area in Bar Harbor with Melissa and Uta.  Melissa was doing a workout and I was pacing.  Very nice little run despite the fact that we literally just hopped out of the car after a 4.5 hour drive and did this before going to the hotel.  I was mostly impressed with Melissa being able to do a great workout like that but I was also happy my back seemed un-bothered which isn't always the case after a long car ride.

Thursday AM 10.2 miles around carriage roads, first 3 miles easy with Melissa and Uta, then would do 20 second sprints, jog back to join them and do another 2 mins later when they finished their run I did 20 second sprints and then just jogged back to where I had started and repeated this until I had done 30 sprints.   I did a mile cool down.

a bit later in the AM  we had some car issues and this lead to a lot of walking and I got board with it so I ran about 2k on the roads.

Friday PM road and trail 10, 1:10:46,  felt pretty darn flat.

Saturday AM  on chelmsford rail trail, 1.8 warm up with Melissa and Anna, did some drills and strides and a 30 second effort, then 3 miles in 15:52, drills, .2 miles before realizing I had stopped the watch, so I took 45 seconds did another drill, then did 2 miles in 10:23, drills, and 1 mile in 4:58, drills, then met back up with Melissa and Anna for a cool down of 1.8 miles. After the run we went to the gym where I mostly did some easy mobility stuff but Anna and Melissa suckered me into a circuit which has left me with some sore shoulders.

Uta did not want to get out of bed this morning.  Neither did I.

Sunday AM road 10.5 in 1:11:36, first 3.3 with Uta, but it was too hot for her to do much so I dropped her off and finished solo.  

Summary about 70 miles for the week, very happy with all three workouts.  Resting HR is coming back down to normal which is a good sign for a slow return of aerobic fitness. All in all another step in the right direction.  

  For all of you who ordered the rabbit gear with the link, which I'll provide again below, thanks!  I hope you like it.  If you want to tell me about your experience with it I'd be really interested and you can email me directly, nateruns at hotmail , or leave a comment. I may do a blog on it later or send some feedback to the company or just use it to help me chose what stuff to get myself!  

Link to get 10% off rabbit gear http://rabbit.refr.cc/nathanielj

Training Blog June 19 to 25, 2017 Sorta Training

Me finishing at last weekends USATF-NE 5 mile Championship

After the race last weekend, which was pretty humid, my legs were just junk for a few days.  I wan't sore and I felt find walking around but when I would run my legs felt crushed and I felt very heavy and with no power.  I was also feeling really dehydrated overall.  I had my last two days of school on Monday and Tuesday and then my summer vacation started.  I didn't get hired for summer school so I'll at least be getting some quality recovery in.

Monday PM road 6 in 42:55

Tuesday PM road 8, 56:44, surprised to still feel this flat.

Wednesday Noon road and trail 10, pretty hot and humid, 1:09:06.  Felt pretty shitty but a shade better then the last two days so I decided on an easy day for tomorrow and to try 100's on Friday.

Thursday 5PM 8 miles in 52:53, I didn't feel good but I didn't feel like complete crap so a good step in the right direction

Friday Noon stupid humid.  I had been out in the AM and it was humid but didn't feel too bad.  As I was getting ready to run I checked the temp and it was like 82 or so and I thought nice it hasn't really warmed up this will be great.  I knew I was wrong the moment I opened the door.  It was intense.  4 mile warm up to the track in 29:13 then drills, 20x100m at an average of 16.0 with very slow 100 jog recoveries, covered 4k, then 4 mile cool down in 27:38.  It was so hot that I actually drank out of a discarded water bottle at the track because I wasn't sure I would make it the 4 miles back to the house without some water. 

Saturday AM 8 miles around Phillips fields and track mostly with Melissa.  I did her warm up, jogged around while she did drills and strides, then paced her 4 mile tempo run in 26:00 then jogged during her 4 minute recovery and paced her on a 2:49 800 going 93/76.  Then an easy cool down with her. It rained pretty hard at times but the cooler water felt very nice.

Sunday AM humidity had blown out and ran pretty early on the very shaded Chelmsford rail trail. 3 mile warm up with Melissa and Uta, 23:10, drills and strides, 2x2 miles with 3mins of drills for the recovery and a few drills right after.  10:26 (5:20/5:06), 10:26 (5:18/5:08).  Felt pretty good but my legs were suprisingly heavy on the second rep.  I have the engine but the body is very unfit. 3 mile cool down with Melissa, Uta and we quickly picked up Kara Haas, in 23:40

Summary 61 miles and a couple of light workouts a nice step in the right direction.   

If you are thinking of getting some rabbit gear and want a 10% discount click the link below

http://rabbit.refr.cc/nathanielj

Training Blog June 12 to 18, 2017

Monday off- kids had a cruise after school as a field trip and knowing I had a long couple days I decided to sleep in to 5:50 and skip the AM run as well.  Got home about midnight.  There was a time but I'm not fit enough for that sort of crazy shit at the moment.

Tuesday  Kids had another field trip so I spent 8 hours outside in the 90 degree sun, lot of fun but I was pretty zonked
              PM 5 miles with Melissa in 44:47 we were crawling and I wasn't complaining!

Wednesday PM 10.1 around Phillips, first 1.5 with Melissa then solo, 1:10:36

Thursday PM 6 miles on road with Uta in 39:27

Friday PM 3 miles with Melissa and Uta in the rain, just exhausted at the end of a long week and decided to take it easy, 22:12

Saturday PM 6 miles on road with Uta, 38:40

Sunday AM 2 plus warm up with Melissa, some strides, race Ribfest 5 mile, USATF-NE championship, 12th place, 25:55, humid.  was 15:41 at 5k which is about equal to the race I ran a travs trail a few weeks back so a decent step in the right direction.  The last 3k sucked, 10:05, but it had a long gradual uphill that caused everyone to slow, leaders ran around 9:25, and I was pretty done with the humidity.   Not what I had hoped for looking at things as I started running a couple months ago but given how little I have done, really just some jogging around, I'll take it. 3 mile cool down with Melissa in 25mins tot. 11

Summary 42 miles, one race.  My last day of school is Tuesday so I'm really hoping to get back in the game over the next couple of weeks. I feel pretty good and if I come out of the race ok I should be good for a jump up in miles.  I'd love to be around 60 this week but even more I would love to start doing a little training and not just jogging.

This is the sweet Millennium Running grilling spatula I one for my age graded performance. I didn't own one and I do want one so that made this a pretty awesome prize.  I have to hand it to John Mortimer it was a heck of nice event and there were a lot of really neat details.  

Training Blog June 5 to 11, 2017

Monday Off had some calf soreness and it had been 16 days since my last day off so I decided this was a good spot for an off day.  In terms of the calf it was a perfect choice in terms of how the week went overall I would have liked to have taken a day later in the week.

Tuesday developed a wicked sore thoat over the course of the day.
                PM 9.1 at Phillips with Uta in a cold rain- actually wore a hat and gloves.  1:00:14

Wednesday sore throat has expanded to a running nose and some head congestion.
                  PM 6miles on road solo, in a reverse from yesterday it was a bit hot to bring Uta, 37:32

Thursday sore throat better but congestion much worse, head feels like it is in a cloud, tons of crap coming out of nose and chest.
                 PM road 5 with Uta, 31:47

Friday about the same as Yesterday
               PM road 8.2, 51:25, this was not the best run, I felt like crap, I had some coordination issues and just generally didn't enjoy myself.

Saturday AM road 7, first 3 with Uta, dropped her off then ran solo, 46:36, feeling improved to day, not great but I slept around 12 hours and the chest congestion is largely gone and my nose isn't producing nearly as much shit.

Sunday Noon 11 miles around Phillips, very hot, struggled, 1:11:51.

Summary 46 miles for the week.  I got a head cold, which wasn't that great.  I have a standing rule that I don't do speed when I have a head cold because it pretty much always causes it to turn into bronchitis which seems to never die.   I'm starting to feel better this afternoon so hopefully back to moving forward this week.
  I was able to improve the calf a lot which feels great now and I did increase the short day and the long run so not a lost week but obviously not what I had hoped for.
  This week I have tomorrow planned as an off day.  I don't feel I need it physically but my kids have a field trip that means my day will be out the door a bit before 7am and home around midnight.  I  could do an AM run but I don't think that would be a great set up for the rest of the week given that I obviously won't be getting that much sleep Monday night and I don't hold up that well over the week after a couple of nights of short sleep.
  I'm also racing again this week to help round out the CMS team for the USATF-NE 5 mile champs.  It is also a chance to take a dip stick on the fitness.  We'll see what the weather looks like but the course is New England flat so if it isn't super hot I'd like to try and slip under 25:00 but given how little I have done that is probably a very tall order.

Training Blog May 29 to June 4

Monday AM 9.1 miles with Uta around Phillips in 54:19, sort of an unplanned fundamental tempo

Tuesday PM 5 miles at Phillips with Uta and Melissa, 41:37

Wednesday PM 3+ warm up 15 strides with jog back recoveries, 3+ cool down. Calf a bit tired/sore after this

Thursday PM 4 miles with Uta, 27:28

Friday PM 9 miles around Phillips, 1:06:34, first 5 with Melissa and Uta

Saturday AM 6 miles road with Uta, 40:33

Sunday PM road 10 solo, 1:04:50

This is a pic of me eating pickles, you know because they are delicious and we needed to go grocery shopping.  That is why I'm eating the pickles I'm posting the pic because I feel like the blog needs more photos. 

Summary 52 miles for the week.  Two moderate efforts.  I did a bunch of feldenkrais stuff but didn't make any breakthroughs or anything.  Some of it is very neat/weird.  Tough to describe but you really have this moments when you feel like you are reprogramming your mind/body connection.
  My calf is a bit tired but I haven't had a day off in 16 days so I'll take one tomorrow.   Next couple of weeks are pretty busy but then summer comes and the living is easy.

Oh and least I forget if you want to try some Rabbit gear use this link and you get 10% off

http://rabbit.refr.cc/nathanielj

Training Blog May 22 to 28, 2017

Monday AM road 4 with Uta, 28:04

Tuesday PM 7.2 miles around Phillips Academy, first 5 miles with Uta and Melissa, this felt pretty good.

Wednesday PM 5.2 miles on roads with Uta in 34:29.  Uta was more into this one than I was...

Thursday PM 8.2 on the roads in the rain with Uta, nice run, 52:03, planned strides for tonight but was getting pretty cold/tight by the time I finished up so I decided to skip them.

Friday PM road 5 mile solo, gave Uta the evening off, 32:41

Saturday AM at Chelmsford rail trail, 3.1 mile warm up, strides- this felt really excellent, all between 4:20 and 4:35 pace but felt easy and smooth, 2 mile tempo- this felt less excellent, aerobically ok but my quads were a bit burny by the end and my HR looks to have been through the roof, for what the watch hr is worth, 10:22 (5:13, 5:09), 3.4 miles cool down

Sunday PM I was in VT for a memorial for my Brother and slipped in a jog on the AT, I planned on 5 but this was pretty hilly single track and so after 25 mins, and according to the Garmin 1.88 miles, I turned around, I would guess it was longer than that given the dense tree cover and very windy nature of the trail but probably not all that much longer...

Summary 43 miles for the week, give or take.  One light workout.  I'm finally to the point where I was willing to write myself a bit of a schedule.  In general I am addicted to having a plan and following a schedule.  I'm pretty good about listening to my body and making adjustments to that schedule as needed.  I would guess I only follow it to the letter in somewhere between 1 week out of 5 to 1 week out of 10 but I do feel that having a plan, knowing how the workouts need to progress and what workouts are going into the overall mix keeps me from training out of balance or from getting caught up in training for training sake.   That said early in a comeback things are so touch and go I find that plans cause nothing but complications, disappointments and artificial barriers.  Far better to just have a general sense of what you are trying to do, is today a recovery day or an increase day or a day I'm going to try to run a 'new' pace.  Then listen to the body.  Many runs I start in the early part of a comeback even as I start the run I don't know how far it is going to be.  I will head out with the intention of trying to run farther then my last 'push day' but that might mean doing 1 minute more or 2 miles more depending on how the body reacts and feels on the day.  I also always end up taking a day off that I don't want to take because I can feel the pressures building in the body and that I'm not as recovered on a given day as I should be before adding new stimulus.
  Beyond that I have continued with one to two Feldenkrais sessions per day for cross training.