Taking a Down Week

I followed up Saturday's wo w/ a 9.5-mile run on Sunday.  My quads and hamstrings were sore from lifting, and the calves were sore from the workout, so the pace was slow - I averaged 7:22/mile which as it turns out is my slowest run of 2009.  

On the "injury front" my hip/quad seem to be back to 100%, but my right calf/achilles that has been a slight nag for a few weeks has upped the ante and become more of an issue.  Monday was my usual off day, and I had my appointment w/ the CMT.  She dug into the calf pretty good, and the good news is that the achilles itself seems OK (i.e. no tendonitis at this point), but the lower calf muscle is very tight.  She worked out a lot of the stiffness and I've been icing it since Sunday, so hopefully it won't become a problem.

However, due to the heavy workload of the past few weeks and the calf not being 100%, coach and I decided to take a down week here.  What that means is that the Wednesday workout will be skipped  (was supposed to be 3 x split 800s similar to the split 1000s I did last week - first 600m @ 75/400m pace and then kick in the last 200m in 32-seconds for a total time of 2:24 per)  The much tougher Saturday wo is still on the schedule, but between now and then the running will be light.  In fact, today (Tuesday) I'll be x-training on the bike instead of my usual easy 5-miler to give the calf an extra day to rest.  I might be doing a 4 x 200m session on Thursday just to stay sharp ahead of the Saturday workout (that one's a killer)

So, a little R&R for a few days and then back at it on Saturday.

Training:

Sun, 5/10:  9.5-miles @ 7:22

Mon, 5/11:  Off Day  (Appt w/ CMT - focus on right calf)

Wrapping Up the Week

Sunday saw an easy 9-miler in the trails.  I haven't done a run over 8-miles since the 5k, so it was good to get this one in.  (the first Sunday was a recovery day from the race, one was a tempo run instead, and I missed the other couple of weeks due to the hip acting up)

I hope to keep a 9-11 mile run on the schedule for another month or so before reigning it in as the season approaches.  

A good week of work for me:  aside from the longish run, I had the high intensity w/o on Saturday and another good session on Wednesday.  Most importantly, the hip/quad are feeling much better now, and hopefully those issues are behind me.  

Today's the typical off day from running, and I've got an appointment w/ the massage therapist later this afternoon.  I'm still not sure what the workouts are going to look like this week, but it's looking like those sessions will be on Wed/Sat again.

Hope you guys are having a great week!

Training:

Sun, 5/3:  9-miles @ 7:06 pace

Mon, 5/4:  Off Day  (appt w/ CMT)

Rotating Discomfort

The plan for the Sunday run was for 8-miles starting at a relaxed pace and ramping down to threshold effort for the last 2 miles.  A couple of things altered this plan:

#1 - I started later than I wanted due to the 90+ degree temps (even at 6:30 pm!).  This late start caused a time constraint so I wound up going faster than planned early in the run.

#2 - With the quad feeling close to 100%, I was hoping to be out of the woods on the potential injury front, however about 2-miles into the run, my left hip began to bother me.  It never got to the point that it became a legitimate problem, but it did keep me from really hitting it towards the end of the run.

The first mile was 6:47 (much faster than planned) and although I did settle into a high 6:50s pace running through the trails - this pace in that heat probably sapped some of my energy.  Towards the end the pace dropped to 6:20, then 6-flat, and eventually about 5:54 before easing up the last half mile.  

Overall the run was OK, but I'm now concerned about the hip.  I've had left quad stiffness plenty of times so I'm familiar w/ what that means for me, how to treat it, and that it really isn't a serious issue.  This hip thing though, I don't know.  It's never happened before, and although it doesn't seem serious, the fact that it's an unknown has me concerned.  Today is my off day, so I'm doing all the standard stuff - ice, ibuprofen, rolling, stretching, etc.  I'm not sure what the schedule is going to hold for this week as I need to see how this thing progresses.

Training:

Sun, 4/19:  7.5 miles @ 6:40

Making the Adjustments

Last post (which garnered several great comments) covered a few different topics that caused me to re-think some aspects of my training that would hopefully lead to me hitting my workouts better.

#1.  Cutting back the pace of my daily runs.  (days between workouts)

#2.  Keeping an eye on the pace of my warm up 200s to ensure they don't take anything away from the subsequent session.

3.  Getting more rest overall, and making sure I take my recovery drink post workout.

In short - doing several little things that would add up to me being fully rested and ready to give my best effort during the hard sessions.

Over the past several days, I started to  implement these ideas and the early returns are showing some positive results.

For starters, I cut back the pace of my Sunday 10-miler to 7:15.  Typically these runs are done between 6:45 and 6:55 and this 20+ second/mile difference made for a very easy run.  Second, I paid more attention to getting my rest over the past several days, and I also added some little things like getting back on the multi-vitamins, making sure I'm properly hydrated, and taking the recovery drink post workout.  

This led up to the Tuesday long interval session where the plan was 1200m-1200m-800m.  After my mile warm up, I made the decision to not time the 200s and just get in a good solid stride effort getting me ready for the intervals.  Target pace for the 1200s was about 3:55, and about 2:35 for the 800m.  

The workout went off without a hitch:  first 1200m - 3:55, 2nd 1200m - 3:52, and the 800m came in on target at 2:35.  I was pretty gassed afterwards and I believe some of that is due to the fact that I haven't done any short fast intervals yet (they're starting up next week, although they'll be in high volume at first and thus slightly slower than usual)  I find when I'm hitting the fast intervals once a week I do better on these longer ones, but right now we're trying to build upon the distance and threshold work to add some strength before getting into the speed.

Overall a good solid workout.  Unlike some of the previous ones, I didn't cut it short, didn't adjust any of the reps, etc.  I hit the workout exactly the way we drew it up.  That doesn't sound like much, but the way it's been going lately I needed to hit one of these before the confidence started fading.  Doing two 1200s at that pace was a big deal for me - there's a huge difference between 800m and 1200m on these intervals, and usually if there's only one that's longer than 800 I can kind of gear up mentally for that one rep - but when you've got two of them it forces you to be more disciplined on the first one, and concentrate more on the 2nd one, making for a challenging day.  I was very pleased to not only come through it w/ the struggles I've been having, but rep #2 was actually faster than rep #1.  Something to build on mentally.

The base period is now almost over.  I'll be transitioning into true "training mode" starting next week, so the importance of sticking w/ the 3-points above is going to be critical if I'm to have success this season.

Training:

Sun, 3/29:  10-miles @ 7:15

Mon, 3/30:  lifting (upper-A, abs) stretching, rolling

Tues, 3/31:  4-miles including 2 x 1200m, 800m intervals (3:55, 3:52, 2:35)

Getting by on Little Sleep

I got a whopping 4-hours of sleep last night, and not much more than that the previous 4-5 nights.  I figure eventually it catches up with me - and perhaps that day was today.  Twelve miles on the schedule the day after a workout.  I was a bit concerned that I might be out of gas as I was definitely tired and sluggish during the day, so when the time for the run approached I felt I needed a little "boost".  

I found a few mini candy bars in the pantry (Heath, Hershey's, and Nestle Crunch to be exact).  They were just the bite sized little buggers, but I figured they'd do the trick.  (Hey, until Guinness comes up w/ a recovery drink, you gotta do something!)  I also made sure I took a packet of Roctane (the magic beanstalk beans equivalent of energy gels) that I'd take at about the 5-mile mark.

The candy/Roctane combo worked to perfection.  Twelve miles at 6:51 pace in the hills capping off a 43+ mile week.

Tomorrow's an off day for running - if I can't get a good night's sleep tonight at least I can rest up some.  Hills are Tuesday so I need to get a few Z's before then.  I don't think Nestle's Crunch works on hills . . . . . . 

Training:

Sun, 3/15:  12-miles @ 6:51 pace

Nice Finish to a Haphazard Week

For the most part, this was a week I'd like to forget.  However, yesterday's threshold session was fairly solid, and today's long run went well.  Twelve miles on the schedule today, and after laboring through the first few miles (mostly because they're uphill) I started to feel better and the pace began to pick up.  

Overall the run in the trails averaged 6:44 pace w/ an ave-HR of 158.  This winds up being about 3-beats/min lower than the 10-mile run at the same pace I did back in November, and the HR data compares favorably to the period where I was hitting my long runs between 6:40 and 6:55 every week.  I'm hoping this means I'm finally making progress again compared to where I was before the injuries.  

Because of the two missed days, the weekly mileage came in at a meager 29-miles.  After 3-weeks of building up my mileage after the injuries, I guess I can claim I was due for a down week, but unfortunately I'm not dumb enough to believe my own BS!  : )

The weather should be good this week, so I'm looking to get it going again.  10 x 1-minute hills early in the week, and a tougher threshold session late in the week.  The Sunday long run should be about 12-miles again before moving it up the following week.

Training:

Sun, 3/8:  12-miles @ 6:44 pace.  Average HR-158

Solid Week

In what seems to be the case every time I go for my Sunday run - the wind, rain, and slick (very) muddy trails were all present.  Today's "long" run was increased to 11-miles (up from 10 last week)  Started off conservatively - if my legs were a little tired before yesterday's workout, they'd certainly be tired today, and this was indeed the case.  

Of course tomorrow's my off day so I didn't want to just mail this one in.  I can rest up tomorrow.  First half averaged about 7:08, second half averaged about 6:48.

This closed the week out at 42-miles, which is my first 40+ week since November.  Average pace for the week came in at 6:42 (of course the workouts certainly help w/ that)  Not counting the workouts, the average was 6:55 and that seems to be a good steady pace for me these days.  

Plans for next week aren't finalized yet as the weather is going to play a big factor, but I'm hoping to log 40-44 miles again w/ two workouts and a 12-mile long run.

Training:

Sun, 3/1:  11-miles @ 6:58 pace

Decent Week

Wrapped up the week on Sunday w/ a 10-miler.  Weather conditions were terrible - rain, lots of mud, and very high winds.  But there's no way I'm missing a run after all the time off regardless of the weather.  Legs were a little tired early on due to the threshold work the previous day, but they felt better as the run progressed.  

Off day today and an appointment w/ the CMT.  If there's no soreness tomorrow, I'll be heading to the track to get in a few threshold mile repeats.

37 miles for the week - I was originally planning on being in the 40s here, but after seeing how meager the mileage was for about a month, I decided not to push it up too quickly.  

Average pace for the week of 6:44 is probably a record for me, not that it's very significant.  I wanted to get in some steady runs leading up to the track workouts (even though they'll just be threshold workouts this week)  so that was the reason for picking up the tempo on a few of these runs.

Training:  

Sun, 2/22:  10-miles @ 7:02 pace

Mon, 2/23:  Off (appointment w/ CMT - general maintenance, hamstrings continue to improve)

Almost Back

Friday I managed to get in some upper body lifting in spite of the hand.  Not the easiest thing in the world for sure.  Wide grip pull ups, incline bench presses, shoulder presses, and lat pull downs are tough when you can't make a fist to grip things solidly.  But hey, the doctor says I need to work hard to rehab the hand so I considered it a rehab assignment.  

Each set sort of went like this:  do my best to grab the bar - start exercise w/ some pain in the hand - after about rep #3 the pain would subside - finish set - almost pry hand off the bar - wave of pain feeling like someone lit the hand on fire - after about 90-seconds, the pain would fade away.  Then repeat.  Ah the joys of being stubborn and insane.  

In the afternoon I got in a nice 6-mile run.

Saturday I got in my "long run" for the week - only 9.5 miles, but it's the only run over 8-miles I've done since December 28th.  (this was due to me cutting the weekly long run down to 8-miles 3-weeks out from the winter track season)

One thing I noticed going over the log book however, was that not only have I been out due to the hand injury, but I also took several days off right after I strained the hamstring which happened on January 20th.  Meaning that since 1/20 - I haven't done a helluva lot of running.  This 9.5 miler (I gave myself the option of doing 9 or 10 and I split the difference) was a decent test to see how far behind my fitness was.  And really it wasn't too bad:  9.5 miles at an average pace of 6:49 (starting at about 7:10 and ramping down to 6:22)  

Not exactly where I was in early January where I could do 11-12 miles at that pace w/ slightly less effort, but the good news here is that 9.5 miles at about 6:50 pace is where this build is starting.  Hopefully, in about 2-weeks I'm back to where I was at the peak, at least as far as general fitness is concerned.

Our weather has been pretty awful lately - slick muddy trails w/ driving rain and high winds is certainly making life difficult, but I'd much rather run in that than resort to the treadmill!

Training:

Fri, 2/13:  AM  General upper body lifting + a few sets of leg presses.  stretching, rolling

PM  6-miles @ 6:57 pace

Sat, 2/14:  9.5 miles @ 6:49  pace (weather was awful)

Sun, 2/15:  4.5 miles @ 6:52 pace (weather was worse)

No Race this Weekend

Well, I had made it a long long way w/o any legitimate injury, but today (the last workout before the race) I broke the streak.  Right hamstring.  I don't think it's that serious, but serious enough to keep me out of action on Saturday.

Workout:  3 x 200 @ about 31 pace, followed by 2 x 300m @ 46 pace - then 2 x 200m hard.

It started out well enough, the initial 200s came in on pace as I was imagining them as the opening 200m of the race.

The 300s provided a great confidence boost:  the first 300m was used as a simulation of the last 300 of the opening 400m of the race - just trying to maintain an even and relaxed rhythm.  (time was 45.8) 

The second 300m (now w/ the fatigue from the first as I just had a 1-minute break between them) was used to simulate the last 100m of the opening 400m, and then the first 200m of the second lap.  (i.e. keeping that nice even pace, and then upon hitting 100m (the 400m mark during the race) picking up the effort level to maintain pace through the next 200)  This went very well - first 100m of 15-flat, then I increased my effort, but still very much in control for a 30.8 last 200m giving me another 45.8.

Last up - 2 x 200m hard.  This is where I had the issue.  Up until now, the 200s were always run quickly, but not actually cranking up the turnover to get into a "sprint mode".  The idea was to hit these 200s hard, but I really hammered the first turn.  I felt some sudden tightness on the outside of my right hamstring about halfway through the turn - then it disappeared.  About 2-seconds later it zapped me again.  At this point I decided to pull the plug about 100m in.  The 100m was 12.x seconds even w/ the flare ups, so this was a drastic departure from what I had been doing on other 200s.  Perhaps I just went a little too hard, but the temps here were over 65-degrees today so certainly it wasn't like I was doing this in the cold.  

I stretched out some and tried to test out the damage before heading home.  I don't think it's pulled and it's certainly not torn.  It's just tight, almost like a cramp deep within the muscle.  I can feel it when walking, but even at light pace it doesn't hurt.  There's no bruising which would clearly be the case if it were torn or pulled.  

I ran yesterday (usually my off day) as I had planned to push the off day out until tomorrow.  I'll obviously stick w/ that plan now, and I guess I'll just ice and ibuprofen for a couple days and see how it feels Thursday morning.  I also scheduled an appointment w/ my CMT for Thursday to have her go over it to see if she can figure out how bad it is.  My guess at this point is that it's just tight and sore and hopefully within a few days I'll be able to get in some light running.  

Kind of a drag to have this happen right before the first race.  But on the bright side, today's workout leads me to believe that 62-63 pace per 400m is something that's sustainable for me for a good portion of an 800m race.  I figured I was going to face some adversity at some point and I'm not going to let it get me down.  It certainly could be a lot worse - now I just need to do what I can to heal up and get back out there.

Training:

Sun, 1/18:  8-miles @ 7:19 pace (148-HR)

Finally - I forced myself to slow down.

Mon, 1/19:  5-miles @ 7:03 pace

Tues, 1/20:  Reps:  3 x 200m (31.4, 31.2, 31.4), 2 x 300m (45.8, 45.8)  2 x 200m (tweaked right hamstring on first rep)

Change Up

After Wednesday's speed session the hamstrings got pretty sore.  (My quads got very sore after the first couple of hill sessions, my achilles got very sore after the first couple of 200m sessions, and now it seems it's the hamstrings turn)  In all previous cases, after an initial adjustment period, the soreness subsided and I was able to run these workouts w/o experiencing any soreness thereafter.  I'm hoping the same happens here w/ the hamstrings.

With the soreness in the legs, and the big bad long interval session on the horizon, we thought it would be best to have three easy days in between workouts as opposed to the usual two - which puts the interval session on Sunday.  This is typically the day for the long run, so we decided to change things up a bit to accommodate the extra rest while still getting in a longish run.

New schedule for the week became:  Thursday - easy, Friday - long, Saturday - easy, ahead of the interval session.

As long as I'm running at sub-maximal efforts, the hamstrings don't bother me during a run, but I wanted to see how they responded to something up-tempo, so I ran Friday's 8-miler a little harder than usual.  It helped that aside from the soreness, the legs felt very strong.  (I realize that this might not make any sense, but the legs really felt great when I couldn't feel the soreness).  Thankfully, no hamstring issues and I felt great throughout

A lot of stretching and rolling going on these past few days to help speed up the recovery, and a very easy run on the schedule today.

Hope you guys are having a great weekend!

Training:

Thurs, 1/8:  5-miles @ 7:02 pace

Fri, 1/9:  8-miles in 53:12, (6:39 pace)

Reigning it in

As the winter season approaches, the intensity of the repeat sessions has elevated.  The 300m session last Wednesday was brutal, and this week I've got a tough 400m/200m session on Tues or Wed along w/ a very challenging long interval session coming on Saturday.  

Over the past five weeks, I've essentially been running three workouts per week - the short rep session, the long interval session, and the aggressive long run on Sundays.  However, with the higher intensity of the interval sessions something needs to give, at least a little.

So today's "long" run was cut back to just 8-miles (as opposed to 11), however the pace was about the same as the others.  (6:57 vs the 6:54 average of the previous four)  It doesn't seem like much, but omitting those last 3-miles will keep me much fresher for the tough work that's coming during the week.  

The meets in my area start on Jan 10th but I won't be running my first race until the 24th.  I'll probably get one more long run in before then (about 12-miles at a similar 6:5x pace).  

The last race I'll have on the schedule is likely to be Feb 28th.  There are other races after that one that run into mid-March, but as I've stated before, the focus is really on the spring/summer season.  I'll probably run four 800m races during this season and as of March 1st, I'll likely be starting up another build for spring/summer.

Training:

Sun, 1/4:  8-miles @ 6:57 pace

Consistency (for a change)

Looking back through my log book I had a rough go of it trying to hit my Sunday long run every week during late November, early December.  Something always seemed to pop up during the week to make me cut the Sunday run short - either some soreness from a tough hill session, feeling sick, something not feeling quite right in my right knee, etc.  It was never anything all that serious, it just always seemed to be something on Sunday, and as a result my long runs were every other week for a while.  

Well I got in another long one yesterday (of course this is long for me, not really what most guys would consider LONG) and this makes three weeks in a row, and four out of the last five. After last week's 12-miler at 6:55 pace I thought I'd back off on the pace a bit yesterday, but it didn't happen.

I managed to keep it in check for the first few miles, but I felt really good at about mile-5 and the pace started to pick up w/o me having to think about it.  By mile-9 the pace had dropped to about 6:20 and checking the Garmin after the run I discovered that I logged the last 3-miles in about 19-flat.  

All totaled - it was 11-miles in 1:14:57 for an average pace of 6:49, and the average HR was only 156 which for me isn't too bad on a run like that.  I've got to make sure I keep my long run streak going here for a few more weeks - I'm sure we'll cut it back for a brief period when I start my winter races (for maybe 3-4 weeks) but it will be the staple of my March mini-build when I start to get ready for the spring/summer season.

Training:

Sun, 12/28:  11-miles in 1:14:57, 6:49 pace.  HR - 156

Another Good Slosher

I guess I'm getting used to these Rep/Interval sessions as there was no soreness on Sunday morning after Saturday's repeats.  This meant the long run was on.  

Unfortunately it was raining, and has been for most of the week, making the trails quite messy.  At times it felt like you were running w/ suction cups on the bottom of your shoes as you could hear that "suction sound" when picking up your feet from time to time.  (I imagine Grellan would have had a field day bare footing through this slop!)

Nonetheless, it was a good run.  I'm running these longer ones much more aggressively lately, especially towards the end.  Sunday's effort was a 12-miler w/ the first seven at about 7:10 pace, and the last five at 6:34 with the middle 3-miles of those five at 6:23.  The total time was 1:22:58, netting me a 6:55 average pace.  

I feel like the training is going pretty well right now.   This weekly combination of the short fast reps, the longer intervals (which are the toughest), and the aggressive long run seem to be feeding off each other in a way where each workout type helps the others.  I imagine this will plateau after a few more weeks, but I know JT's got something in the works (where she'll likely ratchet up the intensity further as we approach the short winter track season)

I've got rough schedule for my upcoming seasons, and when I get a few more details I'll post it up here.  I think the idea is going to be to just run a few races in the winter to see where I'm at.  I'll be training right through so there will be no attempt to run a "peak" race during the winter - it's the spring/summer season where we'll go for the best times.  Also, there will be no fast speed work before the winter season, JT doesn't want me trying to go too quickly in the cold weather - we'll save that work building up to the subsequent season in the spring.  I still have a lot of work to do before I'm ready to run a decent 800m - I'm sure a lot of heavy lactate training is coming soon - but there's only about 6-weeks until the season starts, so I've gotta get ready!

Training:

Sun, 12/21:  12-miles in 1:22:58, (6:55 pace) HR-158

Another Week in the Books

I was hoping to get the 800m repeats in on Friday giving me one easy day before today's long run but that didn't work out.  So today turned into a bit of a back-to-back.  Making it interesting, we got our rainstorm rendering the trails muddy and slick, which was especially fun on the steeper downhills.  And of course today's rain started just as I walked out the door to start the run.

Tough to complain about weather though when the guys in Ireland have to deal w/ all that "stuff" out there.  The sloshing was actually quite enjoyable and I trucked on through for 11 soggy miles.

Training:

Sun, 12/14:  11-miles @ 7:10 pace

Good Long One

I got a whopping 10+ hours of sleep last night - haven't had one of those in a long long time.  With a 10-mile run on the schedule today I decided to take advantage of the great rest, throw a Roctane packet in the back pocket, and pick up the pace.

First mile (downhill) in 6:32 before heading up the 3.5% grade for the next 2.3 miles.  I averaged about 6:58 up that portion and then came back down at about 6:20 pace.  The average was something like 6:43 for the first 5-6 miles and I just held it there for the remainder of the run.

Overall it was 10-miles in 1:07:15 - a nice run to end the week.  I'll be talking to JT (the coach) tomorrow where I'll pick up the workout instructions for this week's speed session.

Training:

Sun, 11/30:  10-miles in 1:07:15, about 6:43 pace

Roctane is Cheating!

Hey - any of you guys try that new GU called Roctane?  It's supposed to be much much better than the standard GU.  It's got 2x the sodium and potassium of the standard and 35 mg of caffeine.  It's still 100 calories but according to the info it's this amino acid "cocktail" they've got in there now that's supposed to take it to a whole new level.

I picked up a couple of samples at a store a few weeks back and tried one out on a long run.  I clearly felt a boost and better still, any minor stiffness/soreness I had seemed to vanish.  I chalked it up as coincidence.  The next week I did the same thing w/ my last sample and got the same effect.  So last week I picked up several of them to give it a more thorough test.

Fast forward to this week.  Because the quad forced me to push out the T-work to Thursday which subsequently pushed out the Hill work to Saturday, the scheduled "Sunday long run" was probably shot.  Typically when I have to push the quality days out, the Sunday run gets cut down to about 8-miles as I don't feel comfortable going long the day after an excruciating hill workout.

Well - yesterday, to my surprise, the quad didn't feel bad at all after the hills.  So I grabbed a couple of GU packs (only one Roctane) and told my wife I was headed out for the Sunday run.  She asked, "how long you gonna be?" and my response was, "if the quad stiffens up I'll be back soon - and if not, I might be gone a LONG time".  

At about the 5 mile mark of the run the quad was fine, maybe a little tightness in one small area.  The outside of my left calf was bugging me a little, but this has been an ongoing issue for about a month.  Nothing out of the ordinary, and nothing that would force me to cut the run short.  OK, time for the Roctane.  I sucked it down right as I hit 6-miles.  Five to seven minutes later, all of the minor aches, soreness and stiffness were gone.  Amazing.  Sort of like hitting the RESET button.  I kept going at the same 7:28 pace I was running.  When I hit 8-miles I had a choice of running the last mile home or looping back to run some more.  I looped back.  I remember saying to myself, "24-hours ago I thought I was going to die as I finished that 10th hill.  My legs were on fire and I could barely breathe.  I still had some residual soreness from that workout, and yet here I felt I could bang out 7:28 miles until the sun came up."

By the time I hit 10-miles it was getting dark.  At 11-miles I looped back again, but I knew I had to cut it short for two reasons.  One, in about 30-minutes I was going to be in total darkness, and #2 no matter how good I felt, banging out 16-17 miles the day after I almost died on the hill would not be smart especially considering I had never gone more than 14 before.  Staying healthy is priority #1.  I took the standard GU at 10.5-miles, but it didn't have the same effect - not even close.  

I wound up finishing up at 14-miles exactly - 7:28 average pace.  When I stopped I maybe took two deep breaths and that was that - like I had barely gotten off the couch.  I could have done another 6-8 miles standing on my head.  Hell, with 3-4 Roctane packs I think I could run 30-miles tomorrow.  This is like cheating!!  They let you use this shit in races?  Really?  I think my grandmother could run a half marathon using these things!  

I took my recovery drink (Endurox-R4) when I finished and today (Monday) I can't even tell that I ran yesterday - I feel great.  Oh and BTW - did I mention I was at the gym for 1 1/2 hours BEFORE the Sunday run?  I'm telling you, this Roctane stuff is ridiculous.  I'm not a GU person, I've never used any of that stuff, but I will never go out on a run over 11-miles w/o a pack of Roctane again.  Honestly, if I wasn't concerned about getting injured I'd grab a handful of those things, head out the door in the morning and see how many hours (or days) I could stay out there.  And as anyone who's ever read this blog knows - I am NOT a long distance runner.  I just don't have what it takes to run tons and tons of mileage.  But w/ this stuff, I'm very confident I could do a 20+ mile run at 7:2x pace w/ absolutely no problem, especially if I don't run a hill repeat workout the day before!

What's next, magic beanstalk beans!??

Training:

Sun, 11/9:    Lifting (Upper-A, abs) stretching, rolling

                    14-miles in 1:44 (7:28 pace)  HR-148

Mon, 11/10  No running.  Lifting on legs, appointment w/ CMT.

Finishing the Week

I had my long run on the schedule today.  Unlike the run two weeks ago where I covered 11-miles with an average pace of 6:58, this time I was intent on not going out too hard.  I've got a tough couple of weeks ahead of me and it makes no sense to take too much out of the tank on a run like this.  

The run was only 10-miles this week (it is the down week after all) and I appropriately kept it in check finishing w/ an average pace of 7:11.  

A bit of a negative - we had a cool breeze for most of the day, and about 6-miles into the run my left quad started to feel stiff.  The quad had been a little tight off and on for the past 2-weeks, but today it felt worse than usual.  Ice and ibuprofen afterwards and thankfully I have an appointment w/ the massage therapist tomorrow.  She'll probably dig into it to see what's going on there.  I've had problems w/ this quad before, but usually it just outright pulls if I'm not careful during aggressive speed work.  This stiffness is not the typical M.O., however I have to believe being in a weakened state, I'm probably more prone to the pull/strain than usual.  Tomorrow's my weekly off day so I'm hoping the massage plus the rest plus ibuprofen and ice will do the trick.  

On the bright side, the knee and achilles appear to be back to 100%.  Apparently I've got rotating minor flare ups - one goes away, another takes its place.  If I'm overly sore due to the massage being on the "aggressive" side, I may push the Threshold work out a day to Thursday, which in turn will push the hills out from Friday to Saturday thus forcing me to cut back on the long Sunday run - but I'll cross that bridge if/when I get there.  

Training:

Sun, 11/2:  10-miles @ 7:11 pace  HR-153

Good End to a Great Week

On Saturday I hit the gym for my 3rd session of the week and ran an easy 5.5-miler after Friday's hill session.  That set me up for the long Sunday run.  Last Sunday was the race, and the Sunday before was just an 8-miler due to residual soreness from that week's hill session, so I haven't done a longer run in a few weeks.  

The target was 11-miles at about 7:15 - 7:20 pace, but things felt smooth from the start - when I finished the first 3.3 miles (with the last 2.3 at a 3.5% grade) at about 7:15 pace I knew it was going to be a good one.  By the halfway point the overall pace was down to 7:08, and after another uphill portion the pace started to pick up.  The last 3-miles came in at about 19:40 and I finished the 11-miler in the trails w/ an average pace of 6:58.  Nice run to finish out the week.

But this week (my first after the down week) was a milestone week for several reasons:

1.  Total mileage was 47-miles which is a new record for me.

2.  EVERY run this week averaged under 7:30 pace - even the very easy ones.  That's a first for sure.

3.  Average pace for the week was 7:04, certainly a record.

4. Three quality sessions this week w/ the 800m reps, hills, and the good long run.

5.  Three sessions at the gym this week.  (this should always be the case, but it's only been 2 per for the last couple of weeks)

So this was my longest week ever and also my fastest.  On top of that I managed to get to the gym 3 times - a really good week of work for me.  Fourty-seven miles @ 7:04 average pace is certainly something I wouldn't have predicted a few weeks ago, but I seem to be feeling much better after that down week.

I've got Monday off from running as usual, but I'll be at the gym.  Tuesday's an easy day ahead of the Threshold day Wednesday, and coach has a good one lined up there!

Training:

9/18:  5.5 easy miles @ 7:11 pace,  HR-149:  lifting (upper-A, abs)  stretching, rolling

9/19:  11-miles in 1:16:41 (6:58 pace)  HR-153