Onto the Next Phase

After a two day break to recover from the bug I went to the track this morning to get a better sense of how I was feeling.  I planned on starting out at whatever pace my body felt like going and slowly ramping down to something around 6:15-6:20 pace.  I didn't want to turn it into a workout, but I wanted to go quickly enough to make an assessment as to whether or not I was back at 100%.  

I started the run at a pace that felt comfortable and that wound up being 6:23.  The next mile was 6:14, then 6:06 and I decided that was enough - mission accomplished - physically I'm fine.  I'm probably going to run an easy 4-5 miler this evening just to get in some miles.

The 4-mile tempo effort that was supposed to happen last week was going to be the last threshold workout for a while; concluding a 10-week period where it was the primary focus.  Meaning that this week we were to start preliminary speed work.  (in addition to the 4 hill sessions I have left)  I talked it over w/ my coach and we were in complete agreement that we should stick to the plan and start the speed work this week as opposed to getting in that last T-workout and pushing the speed work out another week.  

My base training has gone in several stages and this period of increasing mileage and running a lot of T-sessions to build endurance has gone extremely well, but after 10-weeks it's time to proceed to the next phase.  The 3k-3k-2k session where I hit paces of 5:55, 5:51, and 5:48 respectively was a nice capper to that phase of the training as my T-pace was in the 6:08-6:12 neighborhood when we started.  

The long Sunday run will still be there, and the easy days are also unchanged.  I'll just be substituting a speed session where the T-session used to be.  After the hills are completed, that day will be replaced by another speed session that has a slightly different focus. 

FINALLY - I get to start some middle-distance training that will be fast and fun!  This will just be the preliminary stuff, and we're going to ramp up the intensity slowly.  The first workout will be in and out 200s, somewhere between 12-16 reps w/ a 200m jog in between.  The pace will probably be in the comfortable range of 33-38 seconds.  

I'm going to try posting a re-cap of my base training to this point in tabular format where you can see the number of total sessions/month, monthly mileage, # of threshold, rep, interval, and hill sessions etc.  

Training:  

Fri & Sat, 11/14-15:  No running - feeling sick.

Sun, 11/16:  AM  3-miles @ 6:15 pace HR-157 (at track)

                     PM 4-miles easy

A Little Under the Weather

It didn't take long after the last post to start feeling weak and achy all over.  Perhaps a bug was coming on.  Went to lay down around 3:00pm and next thing I knew it was almost 6:00.  My wife fixed me some chicken soup (even though it was my week to cook), and I went to bed early.

I'm feeling much better today, but still a bit tired - no run today.  Tough to say whether I'm actually sick or just run down.  A review of the log book would suggest that the latter is certainly a possibility.  Last Thursday was the tough threshold session, then 10-miles on Friday, killer hill repeats on Saturday, followed by the 14-miler on Sunday.  Throw in 2-sessions at the gym durning those 4 days and an additional tough leg lifting session on Monday and now I wonder how I lasted as long as I did w/o feeling lethargic and run down.  (especially when I throw in the lack of sleep, no vitamins, and poor nutrition overall . . . not to mention being under-hydrated)

Evidently I had decided it was an OK idea to go lax on taking care of myself while physically pushing myself to the limit at the same time.  I guess when things are going well w/ your training it's easy to forget you're not 25yo anymore.  

Time to rest up, get the sleep/nutrition/hydration back on track and have at it again in a couple of days.

Bad Day

Today I hit the track for the 4-mile Tempo run.  I pushed out from Wednesday to Thursday again, however the reason this week was due to residual adductor/hamstring soreness from Monday's weightlifting session.  I ran a couple of easy days on Tuesday and Wednesday, and I certainly felt ready to go this morning.

At 200m into the run I knew something was wrong - I was having a difficult time breathing and I felt as though I was already 2-3 miles into the run.  Very odd.  The first half mile came in right at 3:00 which was slow.  I picked it up a little and finished the first mile in 5:56 - right on pace (expectation was 5:57-5:55-5:54-5:52 for the 4-miles) but I didn't feel well at all.  I came through mile-2 in 6:00 exactly and just shut it down.  My breathing was awful, and my HR was slightly elevated even though the pace was slow.  Initial thought - "what the hell just happened!  How do I have trouble breathing 200m into a 4-mile run!?"  

In all honesty, I still don't know what went wrong.  My body was simply in no mood to run today.  Physically the adductors are still a little sore, perhaps my stride length could suffer a bit, but that wasn't the issue.  My quad was no different than last week, so that wasn't the issue.  No, from a muscle/joint perspective I was certainly OK.  Maybe I'm coming down w/ a bug?  I don't know, but if I am I've run under the weather before and it hasn't bothered me too much - I don't think that's it either.

After a few hours to reflect I came up w/ the only explanation that would seem to make sense:  a general slacking in the taking care of myself department over the past 2-3 weeks.  Sleep has been down, nutrition has been lax, and I essentially stopped taking vitamins after I ran out a week ago.  I doubt any one of those things would matter all that much, but perhaps combined along w/ some slight soreness in the legs adds up to a bad day.  Has to be something, right?  I didn't just lose a whole bunch of fitness in 72-hours.  

So I'm not going to worry about it.  Here's the plan.  #1 - Take the rest of the day off.  #2 - Make sure my nutrition is back to where it should be and take the vitamins every day.  #3 - Get some sleep!  #4 - Throttle back the efforts for a few days.  

I'm going to take a very easy day tomorrow, then run a few up-tempo miles on Sat in the 6:10 range and see how that feels - unless I have a legit physical issue this should be pretty easy.  If I struggle, then something is physically wrong.  If I'm OK, I'll take a couple more easy days and then look to get back into the workouts.  

Training:

Tue, 11/11:  AM  4-miles @ 7:25 pace

                    PM 6-miles @ 7:28 pace, HR-144

Wed, 11/12:  lifting (upper-B, abs)  stretching, rolling

                       6-miles @ 7:05 pace, HR-148

Thurs, 11/13:  3-miles, including 2-miles @ 5:58 pace.  (should have been 4-mile Tempo.  trouble breathing from outset, stopped after 2-miles)

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.

Hill Repeats #4 (show of progress)

It was back to the Hill on Saturday afternoon.  I spent a good deal of time stretching, then heating, then stretching the quad beforehand and made sure I got in a good 3-mile warm-up.  Same deal as the two previous sessions:  10 x 1-minute, jog back down, no rest between reps.

I'll spare you the blow-by-blow.  Let's just say it was another tremendously difficult session to get through.  At the end of the last rep I was light headed and dizzy to the point where I honestly needed to get off my feet for a good 30-seconds.  

Good news is that the quad made it through OK.  No issues during the session, no issues later that evening.  The next morning I can feel that it's a little tight, but not as bad as last week.  I scheduled another CMT session for tomorrow, so hopefully she'll be able to make more progress there.

At this point, I'm halfway through my eight scheduled hill sessions.  After the first session (the one on the 20% grade hill of death) sessions 2 through 4 have been identical.  (10 x 1-minute all on the same hill)  Here's a look at my progress:  (times shown in mile pace)

Rep #	17-Oct	24-Oct	8-Nov
1	7:04	6:10	5:57
2	7:09	6:22	6:47
3	7:05	6:23	6:27
4	6:59	6:27	6:04
5	6:53	6:28	6:13
6	7:01	6:54	6:12
7	7:03	7:00	6:10
8	6:42	7:06	6:39
9	6:43	7:11	6:37
10	6:13	6:49	6:21
Average:	6:53	6:41	6:20

When I look at it in terms of mile pace, obviously all of it looks really slow.  I can tell you it definitely doesn't feel slow when I'm about 50-seconds into rep #6 with the near 10% grade I'm working with.

When I look at in terms of progress from one session to the next it's definitely encouraging.  Clearly I'm getting better every time out.  Not sure how this translates into me getting better at an 800m or a 5k, but I'm certainly getting better at running up this hill!  

We may change it up the next couple of sessions - either 8 x 90-seconds or maybe 12 x 45-seconds focusing on greater speed.  I imagine that after another few sessions I'll begin to plateau and we'll move on to a different area of focus for "quality day #2" each week.  As it stands now, Q-day #1 is Threshold running, and has been since early September, but that will be changing after next week.  Next Wednesday is my 4-mile Tempo run and that's going to be the last threshold effort before transitioning Q-day #1 to preliminary speed work.

So it looks like it will be prelim speed and hills for about a month before we change it up again.  I'll post up a review of my base training since July-August in the next few days - I really like the way it's flowed and I certainly can't complain about my progress.  As usual, just need to stay healthy!!

Training:  

Fri, 11/7:  AM  4-miles @ 7:09

                PM  6-miles @ 7:33  (need to rest up - hills tomorrow)

Sat, 11/8:  6- miles, including 10 x 1-minute Hills.

Tough Threshold Day

Being that it's Thursday, it means I did in fact push my Threshold workout back a day.  The CMT really hammered on my quad for a good 35-minutes on Monday and the soreness from that lasted well into Wednesday and there was no point in pushing it.  I ran my easy morning 4-miler on Tuesday, but the soreness made that uncomfortable so I bagged the evening 6-miler.  I skipped Wednesday all together.  Good news is that the quad isn't as tight, but it will still need some work.

In regards to the workout, it was NOT 2-mile repeats - it was 3k, 3k, 2k (essentially 5-miles instead of six).  So although it was a bit of a reprieve, it was still going to be a really tough day.  

Making things tougher, I ran the workout at noon as opposed to my usual 9:30 - 10:00 am in order to get the temps up to help the quad.  Not usually a good idea to make sure the temps are UP when running a workout like this, but the quad was top priority today.  (the delta wound up being about +12-degrees compared to the typical workout temp)  I warmed up the quad really good - and the good news was that it gave me ZERO problems today.  Didn't feel any stiffness and not even a single "tug" anywhere during the day.

Coach set target paces as follows:  (3-min break between each)

First 3k:  slightly under 6:00 pace

Second 3k:  5:50-5:55 pace

2k:  5:45-5:50 pace

This was certainly a good deal of volume for me at these paces, but I've been crushing the previous T-workouts and it was simply time to step it up.

First 3k was run in 11:03 (5:55 pace) and felt nice and smooth.  Unfortunately the HR peaked at 171 which is 2 clicks higher than I was expecting.  I assumed the higher temps had something to do w/ it, and I was concerned that this foreshadowed some nasty "discomfort" heading my way a little later.

I picked it up during the 2nd 3k according to plan.  At the mile split I clocked in at 5:47, but shortly thereafter I started to feel it.  HR peaked out at 174 (again 2-beats higher than I was hoping for) but unlike the previous 3k, this time it felt like the HR was up.  I pushed through OK finishing in 10:55 (5:51 pace)  At least the last rep was only going to be 2000m, a 3rd 3k would have been really tough from here.

For the 2k I headed out at a great pace, but the total volume plus the effort required to get the previous rep finished was clearly catching up w/ me now.  After 1200m it crossed the line from "comfortably hard" to just plain "hard".  However, I knew that these final 800m was essentially THE workout.  Everything I had run previously was just to get me to this point.  I didn't let up on the throttle one bit.  The HR was only 171-172 so really this was just "mental anguish", not physical  (at least that's what I told myself).  I came through in 7:12 (5:48 pace).  Not quite what I wanted (I was looking for 5:40-5:45) but under the circumstances I thought I did pretty well.  I knew I gave all of the effort that I should during a T-workout, anything more would have crossed the line into time-trial territory.  Max HR was 172, not too bad considering the total volume on the day.

Overall - 8km (about 5-miles) at an average pace of 5:52.  I hoped to average 5:50 on the day, but I'll take it.

Several hours later and the quad actually feels BETTER than it did this morning. . . . and that's good because I've got a godawful hill repeat workout scheduled just 2-days from now. . .

Training:

Mon, 11/3:  No Running.  Lifting (upper-B, abs) stretching, rolling.  Appointment w/ CMT - focus on left quad.

Tue, 11/4:  AM  4-miles easy @ 7:16 pace

                    PM - canceled.  (quad still sore from massage)

Wed, 11/5:  Off Day (unscheduled)  Still sore, probably would have been fine for an easy run but decided to rest up instead.

Thurs,  11/6:  6.5-miles including 8k @ 5:52 pace.  (3k-3k-2k) in 11:03 (5:55 pace), 10:55 (5:51 pace), 7:12 (5:48 pace)  3-minute breaks between each rep.

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