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 July 17 to 23, 2017

Monday AM road 5 with Uta, 35:41
               PM road 10, solo, 1:03:32

Tuesday AM road 5 with Melissa and Uta, 39:26
PM 3.8 warm up, drills, 30x100m all but one in the 15s, slipped up on 5th or 6th one and ran a 16.1, 3.8 cool down

Wednesday AM 13.3 miles, 1:33:59, first 2 miles and last two miles with Melissa and Anna on Chelmsford rail trail.
PM 4 miles on road, first 2 with Uta, 30:15

Thursday AM 5 mile 37:19, with Uta
PM road 10, 1:05:05

Friday AM on Phillips Academy fields, 2 warm up, 20k fundamental pace tempo, 1:12:55
noon drills, some lifting and massage with Anna

Saturday AM rail trail 5.2 with Melissa
PM road 10, 1:06:27

Sunday AM 3 mile warm up, drills, strides, 200m in 31, jogging, Aussie Quarters goal was to run 50 for the recovery 200's and 68 for the on four hundreds.  I went 46/68/51/67/51/68/50/68/50/68/50/68/50/68/49/67  for 15:49 for the full 3 miles.  A long way off sub 15 and where I want to be but a small step in the right direction. 3.5 cool down
PM road 10 with Melissa, 1:18:14

Summary 115 miles, three good workouts.  All and all a decent week.  Some nice training.  Getting back to some lifting.  I need to get into yoga again in the next couple weeks. Other than that really just trying to string some more weeks together and keep making the baby steps towards some good fitness.

  Hope you are well.
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Training Blog July 10 to 16, 2017

Monday AM 3.8 warm up, drills, strides. Attempted Aussie Quarters.  It was a bit windy, a good bit hot and I got kicked off the track, though I don't think the last two would have been pretty had I been able to stay. Goal was 50 for the rest 68 for the rep.  Went 49/67/53/67/50/68/50/69/51/68/51/69- total time 11:58 for 3600 meters, 5:20 mile pace. 3.8 mile cool down

Tuesday AM 5.2 miles solo, 38:53, was planning to go further but heard there was a bad traffic day going so I cut it short as we need to get to the airport.

PM travel to Bemidji, MN

Wednesday Off day Fishing all day with Dick Beardsley and Melissa.  Once in a lifetime experience gonna write a blog about it soon.

Thursday AM 9.7 miles, first 5 with Melissa, in 1:10:07
PM 6.1 miles solo, 39:08

Friday AM 3 mile warm up, first 1.5 with Melissa, then some drills and strides.  Mona Fartlek on awesome rail trail along the lake. covered 3.75 miles, 5:20 pace.  Which is about right for where I am fitness wise at the moment.  3 mile cool down.

Saturday AM 10.1 miles, 1:15, first 6 miles with Melissa.
PM travel back home, got back about 1am.

Sunday Noon 3 mile warm up, with Melissa, drills and a couple light strides.  3x2 miles with bit over 2 mins of drills recovery, very warm and humid. 10:26(5:15/5:11), 10:30(5:21/5:09), 10:24(5:13/5:11) 1 mile cool down, mostly with Melissa.

Summary not much in the way of miles this week but that was planned given that we were traveling and vacationing.  I was real happy to get in three good workouts.   We had an amazing trip. Really something every runner, or fisherman has to do.

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!  

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Workout Wednesday Australian Quarters

Welcome to the first installment of workout wednesday.  I will focus mostly on interval workouts in these posts.  Today I want to talk about one of my favorite sessions.  I call them Australian quarters.  Some call them Deek's quarters session after their most famous practitioner. Robert DeCastella, aka Deek.

  They are an invention of Deek's coach Pat Clohessy, himself a world class runner in his day, and were a staple for most of Pat's runners traditionally done every thursday.  Done throughout the training cycle and across events with subtle adjustments to meet the time of the season and the event being focused on.

   First a few facts about Deek, a four time Olympian who was overall the finest marathoner of the 1980's.  He had a lifetime marathon best of 2:07:51 set winning the Boston Marathon, but he produced a half dozen sub 2:09's and a bunch of 2:10 and 2:11 efforts over the years.  He won the world championships marathon in 1983 and finished in the top 10 in three Olympics.  Additionally he ran world class performances in cross country, on the roads and was a sub 28 sub 13:30 man on the track.  All of this despite being a rather stocky man with very limited speed.

  The workout is very basic. You run 8x400m with a 200m QUICK jog before EVERY repetition including the first one.  This means that you will cover 3 miles during the workout when the rest is included.  The trick is that the 200's must be run at a solid pace.  Somewhere around what you run on your fastest regular training runs or even a bit faster.  This session is sneaky tough but by forcing the pace of the recoveries it leads to enormous gains in latic threshold and race specific speed.

  I have an friend who early in indoor track his senior year in high school had a PB in the mid 4:30's for the mile.  On a recruiting visit he joined some red shirt athletes in a workout, behind the coaches back obviously, and they happened to be doing Aussie Quarters. The plan was to do the 400s in 70 and the rests in 45. My friend was surprised it was so slow he often did 400 repeats faster than 70 and 200 rest seem like quite.  Still he knew these red shirts had all run miles under 4:20, much much faster than he had ever approached.  He said the first rep felt easy as expected and the second seem pretty much the same. He said as they started the third he had this feeling like he hadn't recovered at all and he barely survived the rep.  The fourth rep was his last by 200m he was off the back and as he crawled in to a mid 70's finish he knew his day was over.

  He went home very humbled.  But this young man was not one to take a defeat as a negative.  He examined the workout and decided that he should be able to do it. 45second rests were 6min mile pace which he routinely ran on training runs and 70's were pretty relaxed for 400 reps.  He talked to his coach and they decided to attempt this session once a week until he could master it.  The results?
Over the first month or more he struggled but finally he found a way to approach the workout that lead to him finishing the workout and getting closer and closer to his goal.  During the outdoor season he master the workout and as the weeks went by his times plummeted and by the end of the season he ran 4:15 mile.

  The part that my friend missed when he first heard about this session was just how fast that rest makes it. 70 plus 45 is 600m in 1:55.  That means running this workout involves running 3 miles in 15:20!  Which was about as fast as he had ever run in cross country.  This workout forces you to learn to truly relax at both your rep speed and your recovery speed. There is no faking it or lying to yourself.  Believe me I have tried and it has without exception lead to me not finishing the workout.

  How fast?  Well in his training book Deek says if you run under 14:30 for the whole workout it is time to find a race as you are super fit, under 15:00 is bread and butter you are doing well. Over 15:30 and it was time for him to get blood work done as something must be wrong.  However Deek was a 2:07 marathoner!  Personally my goal is to break 15:00 and my fastest ever session was around 14:30 and I have qualified for the world championships.

  So what should you do?  Well generally speaking your reps should be at 3k to 5k race pace, as slow as 10k pace if you are getting ready for a marathon. Your rest pace should be as slow as a quick training run.  This is a great place to start or to even keep the pace if you are training for 3k to 5k racing.  If you are looking to a longer race than you should drop your rest pace down towards 95% of marathon pace or even in the final weeks before a marathon very close to marathon pace.

 When should you do this workout?  This is one of those rare workouts that can with a little adjustment be done pretty much year round, as long as you have access to a track.  It can be adjusted to be a fairly easy session in the base and early season and you can really crank it down to be a monster late in the season.  The biggest advantage of this over traditional intervals is the faster reps make it a very very aerobic battle.  In HS I routinely ran 8x400m in 65 seconds or faster, often with very short standing rests but I never came close to averaging 70 seconds per 400m for a 2 mile, 9:20.  Why?  I was teaching my body to get very good at fast reps but that isn't the test it was taking.  It was trying to run very fast for 2 to 3 miles continuously. This workout teaches your body to do that. I have no doubt that if I had replaced my faster 400 reps with aussie quarters at 70 and worked on getting the rest 200 down towards 45 I would have easily run 9:20 or better.

  What system does it work?  Really it would be easier to answer what system it doesn't work.  This type of session is obviously anaerobic. It is most directly tied to latic threshold.  But the recoveries make you super efficient at marathon pace and a bit slower which is aerobic training to a t.  Athletes who do a lot of workouts like this traditionally move to the marathon with far greater ease than normal.