Showing posts with label complex training. Show all posts
Showing posts with label complex training. Show all posts

Sunday, February 21, 2016

Training February 15 to 21, 2016

Monday AM valley spofford 6 mile solo, 0 degrees a bit cold for Uta,  41:45.
               3PM road 10, first 6 with Uta in 43 mins then solo for 4, 69mins total time.  Low back was tweaked a bit after AM run- weird it has been great for almost 2 years.
               5PM Bikram yoga, 90mins hot yoga, skipped sit ups and was careful on forward bends. Back felt much improved after.


Tuesday AM 6 miles, valley spofford loop, with Uta, in around 45mins- Uta just wanted to shuffle along- she is usually less bouncy when Melissa and I are around the house all day for a few days.
                PM 3.1 warm up, strides with jog back.  I actually timed these strides and was shocked that they were around 20 seconds.  I kinda assumed my strides off the track were always short.  Seems maybe they are always long.  By this point it was raining pretty hard and I was having a hard time staying warm.  That combined with how poorly my last two hard sessions had gone had me feeling very nervous.  Moneghetti Fartlek around glendale loop- covered 3.89 miles, 5:07 pace.  Huge improvement from last weeks abysmal 3.80.  Honestly I was hoping for 3.85 so this was real nice.3.1 cool down



Wednesday AM 18.2 miles, same loop as Sunday.  Worlds of improvement. 1:55:26.  Felt pretty good. Calves shredded.  Struggled to toe off well after 14 or 15 miles,  Feld coordination threatening in the last mile or so.  good run.
                    PM bikram yoga, 90mins hot yoga, put the back to rest.

Thursday AM valley spofford 6 mile with Uta, 41mins, calves really shredded.
                  PM 3.1 warm up, skipping warm up, light drills, strides, 3 mile tempo run in 15:22- 5:12, 5:10, 5:09, focused on taking it a little easier and feeling strong.  Still not without some trepidation as that was the plan last Saturday and I died after a 5:14 first so this was a good step in the right direction.  1min recovery then 8xhill sprint- estimating around 100m. with jog down recoveries.- all jog downs were 49 or 50 seconds all the reps were in 20 seconds except the 6th which slipped to 21.0 and the last which dipped down to 19.9. Focus on toeing off and keeping shoulders back with good power. tough to do calves very tired. 3.3 cool down, 23:45.

Friday AM valley spofford 6 mile with Uta in 44mins
             PM raliegh tavern 10, 67mins
             5PM bikram yoga, 90mins hot yoga



Saturday AM Raliegh tavern 12.2 miles in 1:19
                 PM valley spofford 6mile  solo, 41mins calves very tight still but on right side this has brought in the ITB as well.  Did a lot of foam rolling and exercises

Sunday AM 3+ warm up, skipping warm up, light drills, strides, Race USATF- NE 5k 3rd place in 14:55. 3.5 cool down in 26mins.  splits(220yard laps on this track not 200m) were very consistent- fastest was 35.4(twice), slowest was 36.8. mile- 4:48.7, 2mile- 9:34.99, 3 mile- 14:24.5

Summary 
 111 miles for the week, two decent workouts, one race. Made it to yoga 3 times thanks to being on vacation from school for the week.  
  The race;  On the positive side 14 straight years of at least one sub 15 5k race is checked off the goals for the year list, My 2016 goals . I was also happy that although the pace became hard to maintain it never felt fast.  I felt controlled and steady.  That is a much better place to work from than when you feel like you're flying and the splits tell you that you're crawling. I ran very consistently and was hurting but I didn't get a great effort out.  That is to be expected given the lack of racing and track work that I'm doing at this point in the year.  In terms of fitness I would say this is a slightly better performance for me than the Jax half and the super Sunday 5 mile.  On the downside 14:55 is pretty slow even without doing track work and I have a long way to go to get real fit.  So out the door again tomorrow and hopefully build on the consistent last couple of weeks and keep chipping away for a while.


Tuesday, January 19, 2016

My Current Spin on Complex Training

 I had been meaning to do a blog on this but Rich gave me a push and so here it is…

  I am a huge believer that the devil of racing fast is that you need a training system and not to just be running a lot and tossing in some random workouts.

  It is like cooking. Making a meal we can all pretty much figure out the ingredients and you can do pretty well as long as you put in good quality ingredients.  But the key to really making a great dish is to balance the ingredients properly and to mix them in at the right times.

  There are a number of great training programs out there and it is no secret that I had my greatest success using Renato Canova's program.  Although I actually set my 10k best off Joe Vigil's system and honestly if I had the time on weeknights I would love to use that again.   However time is a serious issue for me particularly on weekdays.

  My next issue is that I like simple repetitive training.  I am a creature of habit and I like to keep to a routine.  With all that in mind I settled on the idea of using Australian complex training.  This system was started by Pat Clohessy who coached 2:07:50 man Rob de Castella as well as 2:11 and sub 28' 10k man Chris Wardlaw.  Wardlaw in turn would use the system to coach Steve Moneghetti who would run 1:00:07 and 2:08:10.   A number of other of great runners came out of this system.

  The basic system is workouts on Tuesday and Thursday tempo or race on Saturday a medium long run on Wednesday and a long run on Sunday.  The key is in the details of this system.  The track and fartlek work is almost all alternation or 'bounce' threshold style- which means the recoveries are fast enough that you get a huge improvement in your threshold when using them.  The long run involves either hard climbs or a fast finish and should be run at the quicker end of your training pace.  Also some form of sprinting and hills would be mixed in.

  The way you adjust this program from season to season or event to event is to make twists in the sessions themselves.  So when getting ready for a marathon you would do a set of Aussie quarters with slower reps but faster rest then you would when getting ready for a 5k.

  Anyway I used this as my jumping off point.  I love that the standard weekday workouts tend to work multiple systems and don't take too long so I can get them done and still get to bed in time to be ok to get up for the morning run the next day.

  My two week cycle

Week 1
Monday- AM 6 PM 10 to 12 miles

Tuesday AM 6 PM Mona Fartlek http://nateruns.blogspot.com/2015/01/monaghetti-fartlek.html

Wednesday PM medium long run 15 to 18 miles

Thursday AM 6 PM 3 miles of sprint float sprint

Friday AM 6 PM 10 to 12 miles

Saturday - Fundamental paced tempo(5:50 down to 5:20 pace depending on conditions and fitness) run of 15 to 25 miles

Sunday 6 and 6 double

Week 2
Monday AM 6 PM 10 to 12 miles

Tuesday AM 6 PM Mona Fartlek

Wednesday PM medium long run 15 to 18 miles

Thursday AM 6 PM 3 mile tempo 4x400 hills- After the winter is over I'll do Aussie Quarters http://nateruns.blogspot.com/2014/12/workout-wednesday-australian-quarters.html

Friday AM 6 PM 10 to 12 miles

Saturday AM Tempo run or race PM 6

Sunday AM 22 miles with last two miles fast- goal 5:00 pace.


So obviously the fundamental paced run is a Canova session. It is a session I love to do and I have finally got my coordination to the point where I can do them again.  Also it is a session I get huge fitness from.

  Also if I start to do marathon training I'll do marathon workouts for the long runs.  I have always felt that the Aussie system was good for the marathon but not perfect.  For example if you look at Steve Moneghetti's PR's he slows at just about 5 seconds per K as the distance doubles from 3k to the half marathon.  If he continued this to the marathon he would have a best of 2:04:11.  I think with specific work he could have run the marathon in that range off his fitness.  To be clear I don't think he could have actually run that time in the early to mid 90's when he was racing at his best.  He would have needed pace setters and competitors willing to chase that sort of time and that didn't exist at that time but he certainly could have been closer to it.   I could and should write a whole blog on the basic idea but the short story is look at the top times in the 5k, 10k, half marathon from the 1990's and early 2000's and the times in the marathon.  Look at the times today.   The change in the marathon is stunning. The other events are close to the same, actually on the track a they are weaker with the drop in epo use and decrease of money in those events.  Road race times are roughly the same.  What happened?  The kenyans and Ethiopians embraced the Italian style marathon program and began to run within 3 to 5% of their half marathon performance in the marathon.

  That is my basic cycle. I can do it cover all my bases and stay healthy and almost get enough sleep to keep myself together.