Today's uptempo was great. I was worried about having to go by myself since every time I've had to add on by myself have been particularly painful. I was also worried I was going to feel bad since yesterday I had some...intestinal issues... if you know what i mean. I did actuallyfeel bad during my warm up but luckily there was a bathroom right where I planned my start. But once I got started rolling I felt pretty good. Soo here are my splits:
1 5:49
2 5:45
3 5:45
4-5 11:52
6 5:48
7-8 10:49
tot: 45:52
Runs like this get me really excited for XC season and even for my upcoming marathon career. I feel like XC is so much more about strength than speed, seeing as you can be running up to 30-40 seconds slower per mile than you would be on a track. Every week I get happier with my up tempos. i can't wait to get up to 9 and 10 miles and hopefully still be holding this pace almost effortlessly. I think that these, combined with hill sprints and strides, should make it so nothing surprises my body during the season, and I'll be getting a lot out of every workout.
Also, running 5:44 pace for 8 miles makes me feel like such a badass on the road.
Just throwing that out there.
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
8min pace
Well, training has been going really well for me. This summer I've run the first 78 mile week of my life (discounting a rolling-total 80 something when I ran the 20 miler), the first 84, and now the first 91, and I feel pretty damn good and fresh and whatnot. A few things have spontaneously changed this past training block: I've run considerably slower on my easy runs and morning jaunts, and I've run considerably more impressive workouts. Last week I ran two neat-o workouts, both 11 milers. One simply had 8 miles around uptempo pace at the end (avg just under 6:10), and the other was a fartlek 40min in the middle (alternating 2:30 on at ~5:30/mi and 2:30 off at ~6:50) with the last few miles progressing to a decent tempo (6:30?). On the other side of things, my morning runs now generally starting slower than 8min pace and averaging out to slower than 7:45 pace and two or three runs a week are probably averaging to 7:15 or slower pace. I didn't decide, really, to drop my recovery paces. I did decide to start getting serious about my workouts, and after a semi-crash in philly, I stopped forcing any sort of pace on my recovery stuff and simply let my body dictate what it wanted in terms of pace.
Earlier in the summer I kept the pace of every run below 7:00 and ventured below 6:30 at the end of many of my runs. I think both styles have there place, but I wish I had started gradually switching from one to the other back when I was gradually starting to add uptempos and fartleks. Something to remember for the future.
Also, hill sprints are seriously awesomely stupendous. I do them tuesday mornings and they never fail to bring the pop back into my legs, make me feel better and faster, and eradicate the dreaded flatness I'd associated with mileage.
I'm also experimenting with a circuit of strides and strength work with no rest. So far it made me sore but did have some of the hill-sprint-flatness-eradication-effect. (I did them after my medium-effort thursday run.)
Aaand I'm excited for camp.
Earlier in the summer I kept the pace of every run below 7:00 and ventured below 6:30 at the end of many of my runs. I think both styles have there place, but I wish I had started gradually switching from one to the other back when I was gradually starting to add uptempos and fartleks. Something to remember for the future.
Also, hill sprints are seriously awesomely stupendous. I do them tuesday mornings and they never fail to bring the pop back into my legs, make me feel better and faster, and eradicate the dreaded flatness I'd associated with mileage.
I'm also experimenting with a circuit of strides and strength work with no rest. So far it made me sore but did have some of the hill-sprint-flatness-eradication-effect. (I did them after my medium-effort thursday run.)
Aaand I'm excited for camp.
Who? Mike Jones.
So this blog is really starting to look like Jaig Rac on the Track or some such nonsense, and I'm bored and awake so I felt like working on my typing.
Its weird that we like to talk and conjecture about what's best and about how much we need to run every day when sometimes we seem to do our best training when we stop thinking for a bit. Early in the summer I planned out my week before it started. Knowing exactly how much I was running every day made it really hard to actually go out and do what I wrote down. On my 107 week I decided not to think about how much I was doing. I did a four mile morning run every morning without even considering not doing it or cutting it short. After that week, EB brought the hammer down and told me to stay under 100 if I could. I've since decided to focus more on my afternoon runs and make sure that I get up to 80 in singles. Even that kind of sucks because I'm building my week around making my Saturday really easy. Maybe I'd be better off running more on Saturday so as to just stay consistent. Everything seems to come back to just running on feel... only faster.
I'm enjoying our uptempos a lot, though I'm a little worried about doing it by myself. Ima shoot for eight tomorrow at maybe 5:50. I'm definitely going to miss Nick's watch. I definitely believe that the longer we can go at a strong pace this summer and early fall, the easier an 8k will feel. Them fartleks are fun too... and hill sprints. The NYC half is this sunday so maybe I can sneak in again if my dad'll drive. Anyway I'm just rambling now.
Strides every day are ridiculous,
Chrisquell
Its weird that we like to talk and conjecture about what's best and about how much we need to run every day when sometimes we seem to do our best training when we stop thinking for a bit. Early in the summer I planned out my week before it started. Knowing exactly how much I was running every day made it really hard to actually go out and do what I wrote down. On my 107 week I decided not to think about how much I was doing. I did a four mile morning run every morning without even considering not doing it or cutting it short. After that week, EB brought the hammer down and told me to stay under 100 if I could. I've since decided to focus more on my afternoon runs and make sure that I get up to 80 in singles. Even that kind of sucks because I'm building my week around making my Saturday really easy. Maybe I'd be better off running more on Saturday so as to just stay consistent. Everything seems to come back to just running on feel... only faster.
I'm enjoying our uptempos a lot, though I'm a little worried about doing it by myself. Ima shoot for eight tomorrow at maybe 5:50. I'm definitely going to miss Nick's watch. I definitely believe that the longer we can go at a strong pace this summer and early fall, the easier an 8k will feel. Them fartleks are fun too... and hill sprints. The NYC half is this sunday so maybe I can sneak in again if my dad'll drive. Anyway I'm just rambling now.
Strides every day are ridiculous,
Chrisquell
Sunday, August 2, 2009
JRags - Week 11 - Re-charged, Re-vamped, and Re-ady...
C'est le Log:
Monday:
PM - bike lakes with corey and lena. shins felt a little banged up, but felt alright otherwise. felt a little sick waking up, but alright by work. mile of speedmakers. stretch
Tuesday:
PM - mid res with lena and bills. uptempoed from short/mid split along midres to the hill on the one way road ~1.8 miles from baronian. felt decent, stomach bothering me the whole way. did a good job of adjusting to how i felt on the terrain. total 19:xx so probably ~5k of uptempo. not as long as i wanted to go. HR 165 at the end. billy looks to be in really good shape. mile of speedmakers, didn't feel great, then 2 strides in matumbos for fun, didnt feel great. stretch and pedemyrtle.
Wednesday:
AM - to work pretty easy. felt very good after the uptempo. barefoot tonight.
PM - barefoot on the grass for 4, then 4 hard hill strides up hodgdon hill, mile of speedmakers, drills, stretch, and pedemyrtle. felt decent.
Thursday:
AM - to work. felt pretty good, esp early. rained out, much better than 80 and humid.
PM - short res with the recruit from arlington, andrew. felt alright, a little tired. 4 strides and pedemyrtle.
Friday:
PM - effortless uptempo with brunkstopher. felt pretty bad the first mile or so, but started feeling good once we got to the sidewalk at the start of long lakes. uptempoed from 2 to 5 in (6:34) 5:52 5:50 5:53 5:43
really easy until the last mile when the side slope of the road was throwing me off. brunk and i both felt it, overworking the hamstring of the lower side. effortless otherwise. good sign. left post tib causing some pain, so no strides, just drills and a good stretch.
Saturday (a little hung over):
AM - belmont in the morning heat. felt alright, a little tired from not enough sleep. left PT hurting again, but goes away for a mile or so with some ART.
Sunday:
AM - pretty good long run with brunkstopher and nick. worried early that L post tib wouldnt hold up, but it was alright. a little achey the whole way. no hill to horny pond, back second half of long lakes. mile on the track with 4 strides. pretty slow the whole way with a 6:10 surge on long lakes. 6:55 avg with a very slow first 2 miles. weather was very accommodating. stretch and pedemyrtle warm up.
A pretty good down week with a solid uptempo on (sch)long lakes friday. 68.5 on the week. I'm definitely recharged in preparation for what should be the biggest and hardest 3 weeks of the summer: Phase 2.1. This should be similar to these last 3 or 4 weeks, with a few changes.
1) Going ballistic. No, that doesn't mean getting angry. I think it's about time to take our strength to more power development from the stability we were doing. Pedemyrtle is good for stationary hip and upper leg strength, but we're not competitively wall-sitting, we're running. Now that we have that raw strength, we can start putting it to running-work by incorporating dynamic strength like bounding, hill strides, and plyometrics. In the next few days, I'll come up with a whole post-run routine that touches on everything: a dynamic stretching warm up, drills, bounds, plyos, and strides in some easy simple progressive package.
2) More miles. This is a given in terms of my running. I held up fine in my up phase and felt like shit in the down week. My doubles have definitely taken away from my afternoon runs so far this summer, with the exception of the uptempos. I'm going to take those extra few miles and make most or all of my afternoon runs 8-10 miles on easy days. No doubles on uptempo/tempo days. This should put me between 95 and 105 a week for the next 21 days.
3) More stretching. I just feel like a dead tree branch when I wake up in the morning.
4) More (good) foods. I'd rather be 10 pounds overweight by mid september than be 1 pound underweight and know that it negatively affected my recovery. Work and recovery is all that matters right now, not being "the lean wolf" yet.
5) Seeing Harry Potter 6, painting my mural, more parties at Jen's house, more beer, more paychecks, buying textbooks, doing laundry, and getting my fucking shoes from RoadRunner already.
Monday:
PM - bike lakes with corey and lena. shins felt a little banged up, but felt alright otherwise. felt a little sick waking up, but alright by work. mile of speedmakers. stretch
Tuesday:
PM - mid res with lena and bills. uptempoed from short/mid split along midres to the hill on the one way road ~1.8 miles from baronian. felt decent, stomach bothering me the whole way. did a good job of adjusting to how i felt on the terrain. total 19:xx so probably ~5k of uptempo. not as long as i wanted to go. HR 165 at the end. billy looks to be in really good shape. mile of speedmakers, didn't feel great, then 2 strides in matumbos for fun, didnt feel great. stretch and pedemyrtle.
Wednesday:
AM - to work pretty easy. felt very good after the uptempo. barefoot tonight.
PM - barefoot on the grass for 4, then 4 hard hill strides up hodgdon hill, mile of speedmakers, drills, stretch, and pedemyrtle. felt decent.
Thursday:
AM - to work. felt pretty good, esp early. rained out, much better than 80 and humid.
PM - short res with the recruit from arlington, andrew. felt alright, a little tired. 4 strides and pedemyrtle.
Friday:
PM - effortless uptempo with brunkstopher. felt pretty bad the first mile or so, but started feeling good once we got to the sidewalk at the start of long lakes. uptempoed from 2 to 5 in (6:34) 5:52 5:50 5:53 5:43
really easy until the last mile when the side slope of the road was throwing me off. brunk and i both felt it, overworking the hamstring of the lower side. effortless otherwise. good sign. left post tib causing some pain, so no strides, just drills and a good stretch.
Saturday (a little hung over):
AM - belmont in the morning heat. felt alright, a little tired from not enough sleep. left PT hurting again, but goes away for a mile or so with some ART.
Sunday:
AM - pretty good long run with brunkstopher and nick. worried early that L post tib wouldnt hold up, but it was alright. a little achey the whole way. no hill to horny pond, back second half of long lakes. mile on the track with 4 strides. pretty slow the whole way with a 6:10 surge on long lakes. 6:55 avg with a very slow first 2 miles. weather was very accommodating. stretch and pedemyrtle warm up.
A pretty good down week with a solid uptempo on (sch)long lakes friday. 68.5 on the week. I'm definitely recharged in preparation for what should be the biggest and hardest 3 weeks of the summer: Phase 2.1. This should be similar to these last 3 or 4 weeks, with a few changes.
1) Going ballistic. No, that doesn't mean getting angry. I think it's about time to take our strength to more power development from the stability we were doing. Pedemyrtle is good for stationary hip and upper leg strength, but we're not competitively wall-sitting, we're running. Now that we have that raw strength, we can start putting it to running-work by incorporating dynamic strength like bounding, hill strides, and plyometrics. In the next few days, I'll come up with a whole post-run routine that touches on everything: a dynamic stretching warm up, drills, bounds, plyos, and strides in some easy simple progressive package.
2) More miles. This is a given in terms of my running. I held up fine in my up phase and felt like shit in the down week. My doubles have definitely taken away from my afternoon runs so far this summer, with the exception of the uptempos. I'm going to take those extra few miles and make most or all of my afternoon runs 8-10 miles on easy days. No doubles on uptempo/tempo days. This should put me between 95 and 105 a week for the next 21 days.
3) More stretching. I just feel like a dead tree branch when I wake up in the morning.
4) More (good) foods. I'd rather be 10 pounds overweight by mid september than be 1 pound underweight and know that it negatively affected my recovery. Work and recovery is all that matters right now, not being "the lean wolf" yet.
5) Seeing Harry Potter 6, painting my mural, more parties at Jen's house, more beer, more paychecks, buying textbooks, doing laundry, and getting my fucking shoes from RoadRunner already.
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