"There are no compromises." -Once a runner

Kicked out my training partner for the win.  I felt bad for him, but all is fair in love and war, and running is some kind of combination of the two.

I had no idea we could go this fast.  I thought 29:30 would be a good goal for me and 29:50 for Matt (my training patner, henceforth known as Dr. Bedoukian, thing is, he actually has a phd whereas I call myself doctor even though I'm just in my first year of med school now).  Anyway, the doc doesn't have my speed or confidence in maintaining pace throughout a race, so he wanted to go out around 5:50 giving him some wiggle room to still break 30.  I wanted to go out easy and pick it up, but you know how that always works out (especially when your slightly slower training partner goes out faster and you are the only two in the lead).  So we ended up with 5:47 for the first mile feeling great.  The second mile has a bit of a hill, and we went very near 6.  I can't remember the splits after that, but I remember at mile 3 thinking all we needed to do was hold 6 to break 29:30 and yet we still maintained pace.  In the last mile I thought I was gonna lose Dr. Bedoukian.  I had drafted off of him a bit in mile 4 because of oncoming traffic taking up the road.  Near the last 400 I pulled up almost next to him, but decided that wasn't a good idea and backed off a bit, but then felt really bad and wanted to let him go.  When we saw the finish, he had a 3 meter lead on me but my mind went from impossibility to a sure thing.  I turned on the anaerobic fires and, as Cassidy (from Once a Runner) would say, "whaaaail on" winning with a 3 second margin.

This makes 3 of 3 goals for this season (sub 30 5M, sub 18 5k, sub 5 mile).  It was a very good day.

Regular 8 mile loop mostly on dirt.  Had a good feeling coming off such a big PR day before.

Taper for big trail race on sunday.  I can hardly stand only running 5 in a day.

Didn't get the warmup I wanted. The race had 3,700ft vertical. Had to climb bits. Tore me up good. Shouldn't have done this. I didn't go all out, but it still took a lot out of me. Bad training for my mile on the 28th.

Sore quads.  Can't walk downstairs normally.  This is gonna hurt my training.  Stupid bedoukian and his trail races.

This was supposed to be a 200 workout, but we were too sore.  Fortunately we both didn't want to do the workout.  If one of us had wanted to do it, we both would have and would have only made things worse.  Running sore is surprisingly easier than walking sore.  We stopped to stretch and I almost fell over, lol.

Still sore, but getting better.  Morning runs are always hard.  Cardiovascularly I feel great, but this trail race just did my legs in.  I am now convinced I should do plyometrics after every speed workout (that is, repeat workout as daniels would call it, not after vo2max or LT).  If I do hills or plyometrics once a week my quads never get sore, but if I don't...

Did the red rooster ramble as a tempo run.  We actually managed to not race it.  There was one guy there going faster than us, but we just kept to our pace (6:12) and it felt pretty darn good.  It was humid and we kept pace beautifully.  I hope that the summer heat doesn't kill me (going to be in TN for the summer).

Another calendar day.  Felt good despite morning run.  Now its time to really focus on mile specific training for our race on the 28th.  I have met all of my goals for the season, but I will be disappointed if I don't at least PR this race.  In a mildly just world (which, with highschoolers going sub 4, it is decidedly not) I will go sub 4:54 but we will see.

10x400 @ 73s w/1min rest

This was the first time for this workout with only 1 min rest. And it was also the fastest I've done it. Its been a while since doing real speed work and Ive lost 3-5lb since then as well as gaining both fitness and confidence in my running. It felt petty good except for one rep in which I felt really dizzy and almost fell down. But instead of stopping, I just went faster, hitting a low 72 for that one.

Afterwards we did plyometrics and abs to top off a great workout. 

We have decided on doing a mile race on the 21st and if we don't hit our goals (sub 5 for dr. bedoukian and sub 4:56 for me) we will race again on the 28th. As soon as the mile is over with, we are going into base building for marathon training.

Ive been thinking about what my marathon goal pace should be. Its definitely somewhere between 6:25 and 6:50. My 5k and 5 mile times this season suggest a 6:25, but that just doesn't seem doable at this point. Anyway, Ive come to the conclusion that sub 3 should be a given, and sub 2:55 should be my primary goal. And I realized that 6.66min/mile =2:54:30 and, since 666 is the devils number, lol, 6.66 should be the devils pace which just sounds cool.

I have also been thinking that maybe I should take at least 1 mile in every easy run and do it at marathon pace. So I started today with a stretch of dirt trail that I know is 1.65 miles. I went a bit too fast because I didn't have any splits along the way. I ended up going just under 6:30 pace. Oh well, it felt pretty good and was a good way to split up the run.

I am also thinking about starting to detail my eating habits here in support of my effort to lose weight and run faster.

Breakfast: bowl of yogurt + granola ~ 500 calories

Lunch: bowl of mixed peppers + spagetti sauce = 300 cal + milk=100 cal + bowl of cereal = 300-400 cal total: 800 cal. Eating healthy stuff like the peppers and sauce can make you full but leave you hungry (for carbs most likely). So after I ate the cereal I was satisfied, but almost over full and felt bad about it. But given my run today as long as my dinner is reasonable I should still have a healthy calorie deficit.

 Dinner: 2 bowls peppers + spagetti sauce = 500 cal + milk 150 cal + some yogurt 200 cal = 850

 Total calories for the day: 500+800+850=2150 not bad considering 8 miles and core work

Another workout missed. My training parter and I both were sore from plyometrics after sunday's workout. It was my fault this time as the plyometrics were my idea. We are gonna do the workout tomorrow--4x5x400 @ vo2max with 100m recovery between 400s and 400m recovery between sets. Its best to do the workout pretty fresh to get the best benefit. Otherwise we would have to race to hit the times.

So instead I did 8 miles easy with a 1.65 mile pickup to marathon pace (6:35) which was the only part of the run that felt good. The rest was blah because I was alone, it was dreary, I had missed my workout, and taken a test this morning. I almost always feel bad after an exam in med school because I have parred down my life to just studying and running. Losing half of your life every 2-3 weeks for a day or two is not fun. And since running can easily (for me) be overdone, I can't just spend all of my time running when studying isn't an option. Its not that I like studying, but it gives me a sense of accomplishment and because I need to do so much of it, I have structured my life such that it is my only option a lot of the time. At least this exam was very straight forward. The questions I knew I knew for sure, and the ones I didn't I had no clue so I just guessed.

Gonna go for another run with the hash hound harriers tonight and have a few beers as well. I will add those miles after they happen (presuming mileage is like presuming race times, its bad luck).

Edit: Its always difficult to tell, but I ran at least 4 miles with the HHH, probably more.  Unfortunately I drank too much and overate yesterday.

4x5x400m @ 80s with 100m recovery between 400s and 400m recovery between sets.

It felt great. This is my favorite workout. I always feel like a total beast afterwards. I paced it perfectly. First set avged 80.5 second and third set were right at 80 or slightly under and the last set avged 79.5 with a 76 last 400 because it always feels good when its over.

I am glad I waited till I was ready for this workout. The confidence it gives is necessary.

food: breakfast 500 cal, lunch 800 cal, dinner 900 total = 2300 not too bad

I think that I am gonna cut out cereal and instead eat canned fruit with milk.  Its just as tasty and has fewer calories.  Not stopping yogurt either, but might do it with fruit instead of granola as much as I can for the same reason.

8 easy in the morn. Why is it that every morning run is slower than every afternoon run? You would think that after 45 min of running you would wake up and run the last 2 miles faster? But no, steady 7:50-8min pace. Its not that I want to run fast for my easy runs, but I just like it when 7:30 pace is so easy I wouldn't think of going slower. In the morning 8 min pace can feel bad (but so does 10 min pace, or anything more than walking, so 8 min pace is a compromise where any faster would just feel worse).

Short day of classes so about to go out for 20 miles of rollerblading. I don't really know the conversion between rollerblading and running in terms of crosstraining miles, but I probably just wont count it. It takes at least 1.5 hours to do 20 on rollerblades for me, but the intensity is even lower than easy running. I am into specificity of training. So this isn't training except for the fat burned. And I'm coaching some people through a speed workout later and will probably run easy on the grass inside the track while they are going at it. Hopefully I'll get another 6 miles and catch up with Dr. bedoukian (training partner) on mileage for the week.

 Got that 6 miles I wanted.  Just ran in the grass inside the track while coaching a friend through a speed workout.

Almost got beaten up in my PM run today.  I was only 4 blocks from my apt when a car stopped next to me and asked me for directions.  I started giving them the directions and one of them jumped out of the car-AT me.  I took off running and he jumped back in the car and the chased me.  I made the first turn possible and they also did, then I turned down an alley (sounds stupid, eh?) but luckily right at the moment they caught up to me and one tried jumping out again but they were still moving so he only got as far as opening the door and yelling at me.  At that point they were past the turn and could not follow me.  I then booked it home the last 2 blocks.  I don't really know why they chased me.  If they wanted to mug me they would have been disappointed as all i had were my keys.  What I actually think is that they saw this little 'rich' white guy running by himself and wanted to have some fun--aka beat me up and teach me a lesson for being a 'rich white boy'.  This might sound racist, but not only have I seen it happen before, it happened to me fairly regularly in middle school.

Why isnt there a repeat or speed section to this blog? Oh well. 14x200 @ 32 w/200 recovery. Pretty fast for me. This is my least favorite workout. But it comes from lydiard believe it or not. He thought that in order to fully peak for a middle distance event you should do a boatload of anaerobic work in the last 3-4 weeks before the race. This differs from daniels in that daniels says you should do your speed work with as much rest as you need to feel fresh for the next one. If anyone has experience with which one is better please comment.

Who knows if it helps, but it will strengthen my legs if nothing else. It would make sense that it would help with the kick in the last lap of the mile.

Gonna get another 3-4 mile shake out tonight even though I don't need the mileage. It just feels right after that workout. Edit: went out for 3 but did 5 cause i felt so good.

Stress, recover, repeat has become the basic method to my training. I have seen a lot of return from that this semester and hopefully the improvement continues. I guess the devil lies in the details thought. The key is what kind of stresses and how much recovery.

I thought that bedoukian had more miles than me this week, but really he just counts his week from saturday to friday. Take that Matt! Damn, now he is gonna go run 5 and overtake me...

recovery, and I need it

On the trails.  Trail race tomorrow.  Have to get up at 5:45.  Not really sure why I do this.  Its not that I am thinking of not doing it, I just don't know why I do it.

I finally did well in a trail race. I probably could have done better but I was worried about staying on trail so I stayed behind this one guy for most of the race and only passed him when I was fed up with how much he was dieing. Fell twice, once into watery mud, second rolled in dirt, neither were bad falls. The trail was very runnable compared to the last 2 trail races we did. There was one hill on the way out that was extremely steep and long. Not even the winner ran that one. Then it was rolling but pretty technical the whole way. Ran through a stream for 1/2 mile and the leader, who had gotten lost, repassed me going ridiculously fast given the terrain. I really enjoyed the course. On the way back there was a hill that probably gained the same elevation that the big one on the way out did, but it was longer and so not as steep and I only walked a small portion of that. At this rate of improvement, I'll be beating bedoukian in trail races in no time (I know he is gonna read this, and either fake confidence or admit that he is scared). He also got much more beat up by this race, which was all part of my plan so that he won't gain fitness on me. The competition was great at this race. I had people around me the whole time pushing me and I caught one guy in the last mile who had been way ahead. But then a different guy passed me in the last half mile. This is my favorite trail race so far.

Did a 3.3 mile recovery jog. Felt surprisingly good except for carrying the large dinner I ate prior to the run.

Recovery.  Felt better than I expected.  Back is a little sore, calves tight, and right shin/knee not perfect, but nothing is really sore.  Also ankles hurt a bit from rolling them so many times on the trails, but they are like iron and will get over it.  Hopefully I will be ready to race the mile on wednesday.

running in the rain is great when it isn't too cold.  Mile tomorrow unless the weather doesn't cooperate.  Im a bit nervous.  I like that matt doesn't have any dreams of beating me.  He probably should though.  I think we have very close fitness--close enough that if one has a bad day it could make the difference.

Sweet. It started raining and gusting wind to 40mph about 30 minutes before the race, but luckily it let up just before the start and although we were wet, it didn't slow us down much. I was not properly tapered though, so I think I am currently capable of 4:49. With a 14.4 mile trail race 3 days ago I can't be fully cardiovascularly recovered and I can still feel some soreness in my calves and my left quad. And I might have been a bit faster if I had someone pushing me in the last lap. My splits were pretty much straight 73's with the first 73 counting the extra 9 meters. The first lap I was boxed in and bedoukian was leading. But that was good because the first lap is always easy and if it isn't then you are in serious trouble. Then in the second lap the guy in lane 2 boxing me in fell off and as the pace was steady 73 I kept my position behind bedoukian. Then in the first half of the 3rd lap the pace started lagging and because bedoukian always accuses me of kicking him out in races, I made my move in the front straight with over 600 meters to go. I had to really sprint a bit to pass him because he tried to edge me out for lane one a bit. That might have helped my time, but it also might have hurt it as I started to really feel the lactic acid at that point which is a bit too early. Then in the back straight I really started to feel the lactic acid all over but I managed a 73 as my 'kick' lol. But I guess if pace is even and effort goes up throughout its just about perfect.

The turnout was a little pathetic. I was the only one wearing spikes although many people were at least wearing racing flats or track racing flats. This was the first race I have worn track spikes, and they felt good. Im not sure if they helped, but perhaps 1 second difference. They made the turns and changing speeds slightly easier. And I think that in the rain they gave me more of an advantage than they ever will again. I think they would help more in a more tactical race. But will I ever do a tactical mile race? I am not good enough to run on a school team. But I am starting to think. If I could get good enough to train with the brown cross country team next fall (so unlikely) it would be a dream come true. The thing is, if I could get my weight under control. I bet I could. If I got down to 140 or 135 (160+ now) then I would be fast enough at least to train with them.

Bedoukian came in second in 4:57, breaking 5 for the first time. He claims that he will never run the mile again, but I think he will. If he continues to gain fitness how can he resist racing when a PR is assured.

Trails easy.  Practiced holding in the poop a bit from mile 7-10, lol.  I shouldn't run directly after lunch.  Tomorrow the plan is the same so I should probably have a large brunch.

Trails are deceiving.  I spent 1:50 doing 10.8 miles at what would be definitely sub 8 minute pace on the road.  It would have been more like 14.5 on the road.  Oh well.  Better to save my legs the punishment of the asphalt and not feel quite as good about my mileage.  Despite my 2.5 mile day for the mile race my mileage is still gonna be fine for the week.

9.1 "easy" miles averaged around 22 min/mile only because of running down ski slopes for the last 2 miles.  We summited 5 4000ft+ mountains starting around 1500ft elevation.  It actually would have been much faster except for the 2-3ft of snow after 3000ft which made it nearly impossible to run even on the relatively flat parts.  But it was a good time.  Basically a 3hr hill workout w/full recovery between hills.

 

This 'run' lasted 7 hours and 15 minutes. We ran the runnable parts at somewhere around 8.5min/mile average. Here is how it went down. We ran out at 9min/mile on trails until we came upon some great waterfalls. We stopped to eat and take pictures for 30+ minutes which was a great time. There were apparently 13 waterfalls there (from the name on the map of "13 falls") but we saw 4 or 5 really good ones. Then we set out again and it was good for a while and then the trail crossed the stream and started climbing up an old creek/mountain runoff bed. It became less and less apparent that we were on the trail until we started seeing snow with footprints. We followed the footprints until it became extremely apparent that whoever made these footprints were also lost. Luckily we had a gps, map, and knew that the "trail" was supposed to follow a stream. So we ended up bushwacking for about 2 hours before we found the trail again. Then we started running again until we got to the turnoff for the summiting trial for owl's head (another 4000+fter) took that up and back down at which point we were both out of water, 7 miles from the trailhead, and had been out for 6 hours already. Thankfully, it was all slightly downhill from there and we probably never saw an 8min mile again (pretty fast for trails). We continued to pick up the pace till the last mile which was probably under 7min. Then we got water at the car and iced our legs in the creek and washed off which felt great. We both felt pretty strong when running, but mentally and physically brutalized by getting lost. This morning my legs feel great but my whole back aches from the bushwacking and climbing we did.

Recovery.  Its finally hot here which is both a blessing and a curse.  For easy runs it is nice, but for anything longer than 12 or faster than 7min pace the heat hurts me a lot.  In two weeks I'll be in nashville tennessee for the summer which will be blistering.  Any advice on how to get quality workouts in in the heat?  Liquid is an obvious one, but I just don't think I could ever run as long as hard in 80+ let alone 95+ weather.  I may take my tempo runs to the treadmill which will be very sad and boring.

5 at lunch

7 at night

Bought a garmin 405! Tried it out on both of my runs today.  Pretty sweet.  Have yet to try out the heart rate monitor, but I think I will during my tempo run on thursday.  I don't know my max heart rate and am not planning on a VO2max workout for over a month (till after I build my base for marathon training).  It would have been smart to buy it a few weeks ago when I was training for the mile Im sure I topped out my HR in tons of workouts. 

Felt nausiated for most of the run.  I had cereal for lunch and the milk was probably the culprit.  I usually can run 3-4 hours after I have milk, but apparently not always.  This is just one more reason to run early in the day.  I love milk and other dairy products, but I should really have a full night between them and running to make sure.  Running with stomach problems can really drain you physically too.  But I got it done, and I'm looking forward to tomorrow's tempo run.  I haven't run fast since the mile race.  Admittedly that was only one week ago, but it seems like a lifetime.  And I usually do 3 speed workouts or 2 workouts and a race every week.  But don't worry, this is a planned break from most speed while building miles.

2 miles up, 5 mile race (at tempo pace - 6:08 avg), 1 down

Felt pretty good except that Bedoukian was feeling better.  I know he is gonna say this is the turn of the tide or whatever, but its plain and simple to me--he was more fresh.  He correctly took time off to recovery from a slight achilles tendon issue.  I felt fine so I stuck to my 70mpw plan.  I felt fine and stayed with him until 3.5 at which point he started dropping sub-6's and I wasn't game.  I could have stuck with it but I don't think it would have been smart.  As it was it was 77 degrees out and I was running faster than I had planned (6:10-6:15 pace).  He also is thinking about coming out and trying to break 29 in the 5 mile, but I don't want to all out race anything over a mile in 70+ weather.  I am not very concerned that the next time I race 5 miles all out I will break 29. 

 Now its recovery and then the trail marathon.  I am running through this one.  No real taper, but probably a good carb load.  I am going to run it harder than a training run, but easier than a race for sure.  My plan is to stay with sharkey (a 57 year old trail runner who is darn good for his age, but about 5-6 minutes behind me for a trail half marathon) through the half and then re-evaluate.  If I am feeling good, I may drop him.  If it feels hard then I will just try to hold.  I am really only doing this because it sounded like fun.  The idea was to not race it.  But I hate giving bedoukian something like a 20 min lead on me (which is what it would be if I went fairly easy) because he is planning on racing it.  And on top of that, he is better tapered.  But there is a time for racing, and that has passed for this season.  We took full advantage of it and now it is time to get back to consistent training.  I don't think that this will help bedoukian in the long run, but I didn't think we would be getting better so quickly as we have while racing very often.  What do you all think?  Is it beneficial to race often (say, every week, varying distances everything from the mile to the marathon)?

Easy run w/ bedoukian.  At a certain point we saw a girl who looked darn good from behind and was going pretty fast.  But we were already past our planned turnoff.  So we decided to pick it up to tempo pace to catch her to see if she also had the face.  It was stupid because neither of us would have done anything even if she was drop dead gorgeous.  And she wasn't at all, so it just added mileage, which is fine.  We are so stupid and desperate.  All we want is a girlfriend on a college cross country team, lol.  Anyway, other than that the run was uneventful.  Trail marathon coming up.  Im running through, or at least I am just treating it like any other long run and not dropping my weekly mileage for it.  I have to keep saying it to convince myself, but I am gonna go slow.  Stay with sharkey at least through the half.  And I think im just gonna take my camelbak full of nuun with some protein powder because im used to it and I wont have to stop at the aid stations which will most likely be just unopened gallon jugs of water.  And on top of that I will have honey and some power bars.  I agree with bedoukian that plenty of food is key.