Training Blog July 31 to August 6, 2017

Monday AM 3+ warm up, drills, strides, 200m in 31, jogging, Aussie Quarters averaged 68/45 fastest rep was 67.0 on the last one, slowest was 69.2 on the penultimate one.  15:18 for the 3 miles.  Huge improvement, not a great session in the scope of things but massive improvement from where I have been. 3.5 cool down
PM road 5 with Uta in 35:49, dead lifts after the run

Tuesday AM road 10 solo, 1:06:16
PM 5 miles around Phillips fields with Uta and Melissa in 44:19

Wednesday AM paced Melissa's 8 mile progression run on Chelmsford rail trail, 54:16
PM 3+ warm up, drills, 400m in 74, 500m jogging, then 30x100m in 15 with 100m slow jog full recovery, 3.5 cool down

Thursday AM road 12 solo, 1:19:11, squats after the run
PM road 5 solo, 34:57

Friday AM some lifting, drills and massage with Anna
Noon road 10, 1:10:08
took rest of day off, coming down with sore throat, very tired

Saturday AM 3+ warm up, drills, strides, quarter mile in 69, Race John Leclerc windmill 5k in Templeton, 1st place CR, 15:10, splits 5:00, 9:57, 14:42.  Still a bit sick, not the best effort.  Not sharp enough to run real hard from the front.  All in all I was pretty happy with this, for where I am at right now. 3 mile cool down largely with the next two finishers.
PM road 5, 35:51

A quarter mile or so into the race.

Sunday AM road 8.2 with Uta, 57:15

PM road 8.2 solo, 55:42.  I would have done a longer run today but I was feeling pretty shitty still and decided to do a bit less in hopes of aiding my return to being not sick...

Summary 108 miles for the week, nice Aussie quarters session, nice rust buster race, good speed/muscular session. I feel like I'm moving forward real well overall.  The coordination hasn't been good.  I doubt I would have held it for much longer had I gone past 12 on Tuesday.  I'm not fit but I really feel like I'm improving very steadily and I could see myself running pretty well in another month or two at this rate.   I hope you are training well.  

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Training Blog February 13 to 19, 2017

Monday AM snow removal, about 3 hours of it, after a large storm.  School was canceled so I also slept in.
               PM road 10 with very snowy, 1:09:41

Tuesday AM 5 miles with Melissa and Uta in 40:30
               PM 5k warm up, drills, strides, Moneghetti Fartlek,roads much improved but definitely not great, almost fell twice and had to be very careful on the turns.  Covered 3.75 according to the garmin, exact same as two weeks ago but in tougher conditions so another improvement. 3.6 mile cool down

Mona rates this fartlek an "atta boy.  Keep moving forward"

Wednesday PM medium long run of 16 miles- felt like shit on a stick at the start but started feeling ok around 7 or 8 miles.  The coordination leg also felt off very early on and I was sure I would have to stop and do drills, not all that uncommon last week on the same loop I stopped at around 11.5 miles, but as I approached 11.5 I was ok but not great so decided to work to 12 or 13 but as I continued on it felt better and better so by the last couple miles it felt perfectly normal and I never did drills. 1:47:38 running time, roads still improving but certainly still stretches that are not so hot- I purposely run a lot of side streets and culdesacs to avoid traffic but sometimes they don't get as cleaned up as the main streets. 

Thursday AM snow removal.  I had school so I didn't have much choice had to do this rather than the morning run. 

                 PM 5.8 miles with Uta.  Now if you haven't caught on I hate winter.  I would move to Hawaii in a second if Melissa would let me but she likes the seasons.  That said this was an absolutely beautiful run.  The sun was setting and shining through the branches of the trees and every single branch was still covered in a couple inches of fresh pure white snow and every other surface was covered in that perfect white blanket as well.  The soft setting sunlight setting off it just gave me a feeling of being happy to be alive. 

  Dropped Uta off and did 15 short hill sprints.  I didn't time them though I would guess they were about 10 to 12 seconds based on doing hills in the same spot in the past. 

Friday AM road 4 with Uta, 29:34

            PM road 10 solo, 1:08:32, very tired, 6x6 squats starting at 95lbs up to 145lbs.

Saturday AM road 10 solo, 1:05:03, footing mostly ok but a couple miles were a good bit icy and slushy.
                PM 6 and change solo, 43:03

Sunday AM 3.5 or so warm up, some on track 2.75 on 1200m loop around Harvard facilities with a group. Drills, strides and a bit under 200m hard effort.  Race 5000m at USATF-NE Indoor Championships. 1st place 14:41.78.  So that makes 15 straight years of at least one sub 15 5k race which makes me happy.  This was much faster then the same race last year, 14:55, and again I felt really strong for most of it so I'm very happy.  Obviously I have run much faster but a more apples to apples comparison is that my fastest 5k without specific track work is only a 14:20 so being only 20 seconds off of that makes me very happy and I feel I could certainly go 20 seconds faster with 6 to 8 weeks of specific work.  Now the weather and my schedule doesn't have me doing that just yet but it really does have me getting excited for the racing to come later in the year.  Post race I went for a long cool down with a large group, 10.25 miles in 1:11:40.  Mostly around the Charles.  Mixed in some of Dan V's 5/55 sprints that he loves for cool downs.

Summary 97 miles for the week.  One good hard workout, one nice moderate session and one nice race.  Another solid but not spectacular week.  I though for sure I was finally going to get a hundred mile week in but the snowy morning on Thursday killed that. To be honest I'm not sure I have ever run a 5k much under 15 before without at least some 100 mile weeks in the months before.  Now that is a bit of a misleading stat because there are very few times in the last 20 years when I haven't run a number of 100 mile weeks in any two month stretch.   Anyway very nice to be back racing in a normal range at last.  It is even nicer to be feeling good and running feeling free and loose.   I ran basically 3 seconds per K faster then at the same race last year.  If I can do the same at New Bedford I would be looking at being a minute faster.  I'm not sure I'll see the same improvement and I'm still have a lot of coordination stuff but it is really nice to be going in with an honest reason to have some bigger better goals.  Hope your week went well.

  

Training December 26, 2016 to January 1, 2017

Monday AM raliegh tavern 10 mile, 1:03:36, first two miles with Melissa and Uta, it was 19 degrees but felt warm because there was no wind.
               PM road 4 solo, 28:13

Tuesday AM tempo run with hill repeats. 5k warm up, drills and strides, 3 mile tempo on roads, 15:20, (5:00, 5:14, 5:06) couple drills, 10x30 second hills focus on power and form,only about 90 second efforts, jog down recoveries. 5k cool down
                PM wieght and medball circuits with Anna. Mostly cleans, squats and the like some handstand stuff

Wednesday AM Medium long run, 12.3 miles, 1:22:03, felt heavy took it easy
                    PM 4 miles on road with brother in laws dog who is not quite as good a running partner as Uta, 29:29

Thursday AM at North Andover HS, 3+ warm up, drills, strides, 6xmile on track, no wind at start bit more by end, 3min recoveries with 3 to 4 drills during each recovery, 4:58.8, 4:58.7, 4:58.7, 4:57.8, 4:58.8, 4:57.8, 3+ cool down
                PM no running just snow removal

Friday AM raliegh tavern 10, 1:06:48, first 2.9 miles with Melissa and Uta. squats after 7x6 starting at 75lbs up to 135lbs
            PM road 4 solo, 28:46

Saturday AM boxford 10 mile solo, 1:04:45 bit tired
                PM road 4 with Melissa and Uta, 30:36

Sunday AM 5k warm up, drills, strides, 30 second hard effort, some jogging and more strides, Race Hangover Classic 5k, 1st place 15:25, 4:56, 4:59, 4:56.  From the front. great weather but it was windy.  Wind may have cost me 10 seconds or a bit more but I wasn't strong enough to crack 15 today.  Got a good effort out though. 4 miles cool down with Whirlaway crew.

Summary ~95 miles, two good workouts, one ok race.  Would like to be faster.  I guess that is always true.  I shouldn't really expect more for where I'm at but I still do.  I'll take it however as a starting point.
  I'll do a track 5k in 6 or 7 weeks and hopefully be able to crack 15 by then. I expect if I did some specific work I could get there pretty quick but frankly I'm not in a place to be getting specific.  Time to work general fitness and try to get actual fit not sharp.   I think six to 10 weeks like this and I'll be getting there.