Training February 6 to 12, 2017

Monday AM 4 on roads with Uta and Melissa, 31:47
               PM road 10.1 solo, 1:08:03

Tuesday AM 4 on roads solo, 29:22
               PM massage- back has been not so hot last few days

Wednesday PM road 16 solo, 1:45:29

Thursday off we had a large snowstorm and I didn't feel like getting hit and the gym was closed.

Friday AM road 5.1 with Uta, 35:56
            PM on treadmill, 3 warm up 21:20, with 3 strides mixed in, 2x2 miles with 2mins rest, 10:21, 10:15.  I was planning on a 4 to 5 mile tempo but I was out too fast.  5:04 pace at 1.5% and after a mile I was hurting.  3 mile cool down in 20mins

Saturday AM road 10 solo, very snowy, 1:11:37 tot. 10
                Late AM acupuncture and massage.
                PM Bikram yoga 90mins hot yoga.

Sunday Noon  road 10 with Uta, very snowy, 1:12:49 tot. 10

Summary not a very good week between weather and my back feeling a bit off early in the week.  I think it is pretty obvious I have been playing it very cautious.  The last few years I have tried to train like I did when I was running full time and it seems every time I start to get fit I get a set back.  So I have made up my mind to focus on just being steady and letting more slide.  This doesn't work too well with my personality but so far the results are pretty good.  I'm actually back to decent shape and hopefully I can move forward from here.  I could see myself running pretty well by May/June if I don't have any major set backs.  Only time will tell.

I think this is a 5k from faster days.  Anyway it is a good image of what the 5k feels like when you get a good effort out.  I'm racing one this weekend so good to remind myself what I need to to do.

January 30 to February 5, 2017

Monday AM road 4 with Uta, 30:42 tot. 4
               PM drills and massage with Anna

Tuesday AM road 4 with Uta, 30:51 tot. 4

Wednesday PM road 14.3, medium long run, 1:32:56

Thursday AM road 4 with Uta, 30:23
                 PM Moneghetti Fartlek, did 3 mile warm up with Uta in 21:11. dropped her off at the house, jogged another quarter mile or so, did drills- a skip, b skip, a+c skip, fast exchange, side shuffle, side shuffle with cross, karaoke, 3 hop fast exchange and sensory hops, 4 strides.  Did a Mona fartlek on my normal glendale loop.  Covered 3.75 miles, .05 more than 2 weeks ago and this got me back up to the area I was finishing in last year, albeit barely, but still nice to be back in the normal range.  Basically I have a 2/10th of a mile window that I finished all but one of my Mona's in prior to last years stress fracture. I was into that zone by about 30 or 40 yards.  I mean on gmaps this is 3.9 which is right in the zone I was very happy with last winter.  So I'm very happy now to be back in that range. 3.6 mile cool down.  I did 6x6 dead lifts after starting at 135 lbs up to 185lbs.

Steve Moneghetti rates this Mona a "good job" showing steady improvement and working back to competitive fitness.

Friday AM road 4 miles with Uta, 30:08

            PM road 10 miles solo, 1:05:03, felt pretty good for a Friday night normally I feel like death warmed over.  I did 6x6 squats after starting at 95lbs up to 145lbs.

Saturday AM boxford road 10, 1:03:29, felt a little heavy.
                2PM 6.4 miles road, 42:24
                4PM bikram yoga, 90mins hot yoga

Sunday AM Race Super Sunday 5 mile, Cambridge, MA.  3+ warm up, 22:15, full drill set, Strides, 30 second hard effort, Race, did most of the leading which I didn't mind.  I really just wanted a sub 25min time and didn't care much about place today.  Not my normal attitude but for today that is where my goals were at.  At 4 miles the pack just rolled by me and I didn't have a gear to shift to.  I ended up at 24:50 in 4th.  I'm really happy with this for a bunch of reasons.  first 14 straight years with at least one sub 25. Second this is one second faster than I ran last year which is a huge return to running in my normal range.  The low end of normal but normal all the same.  Third I split 15:25 which is about what I raced a month ago in very similar conditions. Fourth John Schilkowsky, I raced him in early December or late November and he beat me and today he was 1:34 behind me.  Now maybe he has been hurt or he doesn't run in the winter.  That's ok it is just very nice to be the one moving in the right direction for a change.  Splits 4:55, 9:54, 14:50, 19:49.  Then did a 3.5 mile cool down in 25:31. Total 12.5ish

Summary 81 miles for the week.  One good workout, one good race.  Good week with a rough start, not feeling very well, not sick just run down and feeling like I was going to get sick and played it safe. Feeling very optimistic about being back into regular shape and having a chance to build up to some good racing in the coming months.  Hope you are running well. 

Training January 23 to 29, 2017

Monday AM road 4.25, 34:03, first 3 miles with Uta and Melissa.
               PM Raleigh tavern 10 mile, 1:06:58, felt good. 6x6 dead lifts after starting at 125 up to 175lbs.

Tuesday PM road 4 with Uta and Melissa, 32:03.  Felt really run down today and it was a cold rain.  I should have gone to the gym but it seemed like it was down raining.  I decided to scrap the workout and take a hot shower.

Run this one from last weekend again because I'm too lazy to take up to date photos.

Wednesday PM 13.3 on roads solo, 1:26:27.

Thursday AM road 4 with Uta, 30:36
                 PM 3.1 warm up, drills and strides 6x mile point to point on dale st. with 3mins recovery during which I would do 3 or 4 drills, odds were wind at my back, evens were into a pretty solid wind, I didn't check pace on the watch much, or at all on some reps, just ran what felt like 10k to half marathon pace range.  the point to point is not track flat at all but no serious hills either. Basically lightly rolling the whole way.  4:59, 5:06, 5:00, 5:06, 4:57, 5:09.   10 seconds recovery then 2.7 cool down, interestingly total distance was actually a tenth longer then the medium long run last night, with the drills included.  I was not really feeling doing a workout tonight so I was happy to get this done.

Friday AM road 4 with Uta, 29:37
            PM Raleigh tavern 10 mile, 1:07:17, 6x6 squats after starting at 95lbs up to 145lbs.

Saturday AM road 4 with Uta, 27:06 tot. 4

Puppy sitting round two

               PM at North Andover track, 3 mile warm up, extensive drill set, 30x100 with jog back recovery.  Averaged 15.7 with a fast rep of 15.4 and a slow rep of 16.1, it was windy but it was from the side. 3 mile cool down. 

Sunday AM 2.1 warm up with Uta, drop her off at house, jog 3/10ths to my start area.  Some drills- a skip, b skip, c skip, fast exchange, both side drills both ways, karaoke, 3 hop fast exchange, hopping, 1 stride,  15 mile fundamental tempo on figure 8 loop.  stopped for 3 hop fast exchange just after 8 mile split- a mile earlier then 2 weeks ago, to avoid losing coordination. Felt very tired the last mile, 5:49 average pace.  Fastest mile 5:40 (1st, 7th, and 13th), slowest mile 6:12- 9th with drills mixed in, for an all running mile my 2nd mile was 5:59, 45 feet elevation gain from start to finish.   3/10ths cool down back to house. total a bit over 18 miles.

Summary 96 miles for the week, three good sessions, though the 100's certainly are not a hard session more of a moderate, like a quality training run in terms of what they take out of you but mentally your not on auto pilot nearly as much.  The fundamental tempo is also a fairly moderate effort, my HR never exceeded 155 and generally stays in the 140's, came up as I struggled at the end today.  I think my max is around 200 to 205.
  Missing the workout Tuesday was stupid.  I planned on going to the gym but the rain seemed to have stopped so I changed up and did my exercises and headed out the door.  Perhaps a half hour had passed and it was back to a soaking cold rain.  I was chilled to the bone after a 4 mile warm up so I called it.  Very avoidable.  Ended up with a good week overall so not a huge deal but a bit frustrating.  I'm not a kid anymore so I don't like making dumb mistakes.
  A bit on the fundamental tempo.  As you may have noticed I'm measuring my runs with a garmin since Christmas. Thank you Melissa!!  I really love it. For the most part it turns out I have been running a bit more than I thought.  That said it seems when I run faster the garmin says I'm not going as far.  I mentioned the Mona loop last week.  With the fundamental tempo loop it is similar.  So according to the garmin I ran 15 miles at 5:49 pace. According to gmap pedometer it was 15.55 miles at 5:36 pace.  Honestly it doesn't matter much to me which is right or if it was somewhere in between.  That said it is important for me to recognize that when gauging fitness I have measured loops using gmaps for years so it is an apple and orange comparison to say "oh today I could only run 5:49 pace and back in the day I did 5:22 pace I suck."   So regardless of which measure is correct what is important in comparison is realizing I'm 14 seconds per mile behind my better efforts not 27 seconds per mile.
  Next this week I stopped a mile earlier for the drills then when I did this session two weeks ago.  I actually think this might be good news.  I have for a while believed that my shoulder mobility and weakness issues.  This week I added new shoulder exercises.  Basically reverse pull ups.  That said I'm sore as hell in my lats and shoulders and that I struggled to hold coordination in that state makes me think I'll do a much better job of holding coordination when I make progress in improving this area.   In the mean time I was very excited that doing the 3 hop fast exchange again seems like a complete reset. I think I would have made it to at least 16 miles in control which is awesome.
  Hope you had a good week of training.

Training January 16 to 22, 2017

Monday AM boxford 10 mile with Uta, 1:07:55
               late AM few drills and massage with Anna
               PM road 4 solo, 28:31

Tuesday AM road 4.1 with Uta, 30:19
               PM 3 warm up, drills- a skip, b skip, a+c skip, fast exchange, side 1, side 2 and karaoka, fast exchange 3 with 3 hops, hopping, strides, Moneghetti Fartlek covered 3.7 miles- 0.05 more than last time so an improvement.   I dodged a bullet on this one it was supposed to be sleet and freezing rain but it arrived late so it just started to drizzle as I started the fartlek and it was just getting going good over my last few efforts.  It was a cold 3.6 mile cool down to the house but two weeks ago the whole thing was in a driving cold rain so this was a nice improvement.

I should also note that I'm using a garmin now to measure in the past I used online mapping.  For the most part this hasn't changed anything pretty much everything is within a 1/10th a mile up or down from what the other measure said.  That said on the loop I use for the Moneghetti the garmin is consistently .15 shorter.  So on the computer this was 3.85.  This is unimportant except for comparison to when I have done Mona's on this loop in the past.  For perspective I was quite fit at this point last winter and was covering 3.9 to 4.1 miles pretty consistently on this loop per computer measurement.  So seeing 3.7 could be pretty frustrating as 3/10ths of a mile is a LOT of distance over only 20mins.  It is the difference between 5:24 per mile and 5:00 per mile.  Realizing that really I'm only running 1/10th to 0.15 less than last year is important in that I don't panic and think I'm in abysmal shape and not making progress.

 I must stress it doesn't matter what matters is the effort for the workout and for tracking training what matters is the comparison to past results.  IE you don't need to measure the loop at all you could just keep track of landmarks telling you how far you get.  For me I know if I finish past Mt. Vernon street I'm killing it.
  For the type A folks among you who need to know which is more accurate I would guess the garmin.  This loop is pretty hilly and based on my race times last winter while I was doing this loop regularly the performances lined up with being able to do a 4 mile Mona on the perfect flat but not over rolling hills.  To be honest in measurements I only trust a USATF cert. over the top steel tape and the full nine yards type thing I few everything else as ballpark.  That said the technology today has made the ballpark much much smaller.

Mona rates this fartlek a "would you please just shut up and run."

Wednesday Off day- semi planned.  Been right on the edge with training and work and this week has been a bit over the top at work, pretty much 10 hours every day in the building not counting 'homework'. So figured I'd take a day, either today or Friday

Thursday AM road 4 with Uta, 31:17, felt very flat after a day off 

                 PM  off, got home very late and it was Melissa's Birthday so no time to run.

Friday PM 3.5 with Uta then 12x12 second hills with jog down recoveries. Not a good day for volume but very happy to squeeze this session in.

Saturday AM road 7.2 with Uta, 47:21, 40 degrees sunny felt spring like.
                PM boxford 10 mile loop, 1:06:04, very warm 50 or so ran in shorts!

Sunday AM warm up with Ruben, drills, bunch of strides, one 27 second effort, race GBTC invite 2 mile, 7th place 9:15.91.  I was very pleasantly surprised by this one.  I though 9:20 was the absolute best I could hope for.  I planned to try and run 35 laps as long as I could.  Instead I was consistently a shade under and it felt very easy/smooth.  I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop but it didn't I ran hard the last 800 but I really feel like I could have run a second a lap faster just by being more aggressive. I really haven't done much work so this was really nice. 5.2 cool down with a group.

pic from Sunday by Mike Giberti showing me looking about as good form wise as I ever have.

Summary 66 or so miles for the week, 1 good workout, 1 moderate session, 1 race.  Not a great week volume wise but I hit the stuff that mattered so I'm happy with it.  Hope your training is going well.

Training Week January 9 to 15, 2017

Monday AM road 4 with Uta, 5 degrees, 30:23 tot. 4
               PM raliegh tavern 10, roads snowy/icy, 1:11:07, dead lifts after 7x6 starting a 115lbs up to 175lbs

Tuesday PM 3 warm up with Uta, drop her off, jog to start of loop, drills, strides, 3 mile tempo on winter street dumbell, 15:33, felt good, 10x 30 second hills focus on form, putting weight in ass/driving knees about 90% effort, 3 mile cool down.

Wednesday PM raliegh tavern 12.1 solo, legs tired after yesterday, 1:21:54

Thursday AM road 4 solo, 30:24
                 PM so warm I got to wear shorts, raliegh tavern 10 solo, first 3 easy, middle 4 I mixed in 20 short sprints, last 3 easy, 1:07:33, 6x6 squats after start at 95lbs up to 135lbs

Friday PM boxford 10 mile, we did a potluck lunch at school and I ate way too much and it made this run pretty unpleasant, 1:11:16

Friday night we puppy sat Anna's new puppy Luca.  As you can see this was very rough on Uta.

Saturday AM road 4 mile with Uta, 25:58 

                PM 3 plus warm up, full drills, couple light strides, 16x200m average 32.0 with slow 200 jog recovery, average 1:15. 3+ cool down, legs bit flat but kept it pretty easy.  Would have liked to be a bit quicker but more important to keep this relaxed and muscular only. 

Sunday AM 3 warm up with Uta, drop her off, jog bit under a half mile out to start, a skip, b skip, a+c skip, fast exchange, side skips (2 types), fast exchange with 3 hops, hopping. 13 mile fundamental tempo, 1:15:31 on rolling course, felt pretty easy.  Coordination started to act up at about 9 miles so I did 3 hop fast exchange for 40 meters or so and felt great from then on.  I actually felt like I could just keep going. 

Summary 95 miles for week, 1 fairly hard workout and 3 nice moderate sessions.  I'm very happy with this week.  I really enjoyed the fundamental tempo and was very happy with how the leg felt after the 3 hop fast exchange.  Time will tell if this helps to get me to stop losing coordination all together so I can race long but in terms of doing a workout like this I'm fine with doing 40 meters of drills every 8 to 10 miles.  Anything to do this quicker long runs.  I absolutely love running easy at a good clip for longer distances. 

  Only downside this week was missing a few morning runs.  I was feeling like I was on the edge of a cold all week and slept in to 5:50am a couple of days to try and stay not sick. 

Training January 2 to 8, 2017

Monday AM boxford 10 mile, 1:03:00
               PM road 4, 30:00

Tuesday AM 4.2 with Melissa and Uta, 32:23
               PM in hard cold rain, poor footing, 3 mile warm up, drills, strides, Mona Fartlek- 3.65 miles- about as short as I have ever done.  I was pretty tired and I'm pretty out of shape and it was not nice out there so I wasn't too bothered by that. 1.4 mile cool down, really 1.4 miles of getting freezing trying to get back to the house as I was soaked to the bone and it was about 35 degrees.

Mona rates this fartlek a very un-impressed but at least you got it done. 

Wednesday PM raliegh tavern 10 mile with Uta, 1:09:32, crazy tired even though I skipped the AM run

Thursday PM 3.5 mile warm up with Uta, felt like death warmed over, so I decided to scrap the workout

Friday Off stomach bug

Saturday AM 2 warm up with Melissa and Anna in Boston, drills 6x mile(full miles on 220yd track), at Harvard with 3mins recoveries including drills, started with 4x200, first 3 with Melissa in 39 then one solo in 34.  Miles were 4:59, 5:00.0, 4:58, 4:58, 4:58, 4:58, about a half mile jogging with Melissa and Anna, bit of stretching then 3 miles solo.  

  Working out today was not ideal but I had already missed my Thursday session and I knew I was too weak after yesterday for the 4x2 mile I had scheduled.  Also with our forecast, snow, I knew that this would be my only shot at a workout over the weekend.  I'll obviously switch out the mile repeats on Thursday this week. 

Sunday AM snow removal

             Noon 13 miles, slowly.  First 8 with Melissa and Uta, very slow.  Footing was not great, 1:39:41

             PM bikram yoga, 90mins hot yoga.  It was really nice to be too hot after 2 hours of very cold snow removal and an 1:40 minutes of running in temps that had only come up to about 18 degrees. 

Summary only about 67 miles this week but given how poorly I felt and getting sick I'm not bothered by that at all.  I was very happy to get in two workouts and I was suprised that I was able to do the 6x mile without leaving sort of a tempo/controlled effort.  So given everything I'm pretty happy.  I'm not happy I got sick and I feel run down.  I may just not be fit enough to train like this yet.  I'll get a better sense this week and I'll adjust from there. 

  Hope your training is going 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.