Meant to do 8 but ran with a friend who didn't want to do that much and I was a little sick and still sore from sunday. This week I think I will only hit 55-60 because I will have 2 races and one speed workout.
10.5 mile fartlek with 14 100m sprints. I just wanted to make other fast paces feel slow. I spread this evenly throughout the run so I had tons of rest.
I found a sweet dirt road that parallels a rail road track. I couldnt follow it too much because it was dark with some tree cover and my friend who I was running with only wanted 5 miles. It will feel good to crush him in the 5k in a few weeks.
Missed the 5 mile race because of activities fair for running club. It ran over and I went out for a run (too sore for a workout) and a friend called me only 1/2 mile out wanting to go to a bar which I promised him I would do that night. So I just went back then. Lesson learned.
Wrentham Forest Challenge 20k (12.5 Miles) 01:46:10, Place overall: 3, Place in age division: 1
Easy Miles
Marathon Pace Miles
Threshold Miles
VO2 Max Miles
Crosstraining miles
Total Miles
1.00
12.50
0.00
0.00
0.00
13.50
I felt horrible the whole race. I was still sore from the race last week. But my place and time weren't too bad. The terrain was much easier than last weeks race but still had plenty of hills, rocks, and roots. I also got lost several time despite the course being well marked. There were so many flags in places that seemed obvious to me that twice I got to a tricky place and didn't know which way to go and thought I might have missed a turn earlier because most of it was so well marked. So I ran back to the last flag, realized I was going in the right direction, had to guess at a fork and guessed right. Another time I bushwacked a bit and ended back on the trail in the wrong direction which I realized pretty quickly. Luckily nobody caught up to me in doing this and I passed someone while he was lost and didn't realize it until I finished and they said I got third!
It is a little bit sad, but I am pretty much gonna be road racing for the rest of the season.
Went on a 40 mile bike ride. I wanted to run later in the day but by 3pm I had a fever and by 8pm I was in bed shaking uncontrollably because of that fever only leaving to have large amounts of watery diarrhea. So I'm gonna count my 40 miles on the bike as 13 miles easy running because it took longer and it was harder for me because I am not used to it. The fever and diarrhea were not due to the ride, but a GI bug btw. I am not that weak.
Although over most of the fever by 7am I was in no shape to run on monday. I barely managed to walk the 5 minutes to get to my required class. Still terrible diarrhea and badly dehydrated despite constantly forcing myself to drink electrolyte drinks.
Finally feeling better except slight diarrhea still. Controllable though. And I was able to rehydrate (I even felt thirsty which wasn't happening until this morning). Was able to do the scheduled workout of 5x1km with 400m recovery. Felt pretty good throughout and didn't push myself anaerobic except on the second one a little bit. Times were 3:20, 3:18, 3:21, 3:21, 3:25 (I could have hit pace for the last one but didn't want to go anaerobic so I just chilled a bit).
On the plus side, 3 guys and 3 girls came out for the workout (I run a little running club at my school which just started its workouts for the season). It was a decent turnout considering that it was raining. And 2 of the guys were a bit slower than me but solid and one guy ran a 2:01 800 in HS. He just stuck with me until the last one in which he took off with a 3:09. He isn't in 2:01 shape now, but if he trained seriously he should be able to crack that 2 barrier or at least run some great mile times.
Did the haynes classic with some pretty speedy guys from the running club. The pace started around 8 and slowly dropped until probably about 6:40. Then going up lloyd hill we chilled a bit but not as much as I wanted. My left leg for some reason was feeling yesterday's workout more than I would have liked it to. I was planning on a tempo workout of 4x2km right at 6min pace tomorrow but I might just coach the workout and run easy distance afterwards.
Did a lactate threshold workout today. 4x2km with 400m recovery. Times were 7:26 7:25 7:21 7:18 So starting at 5:56 pace and ending at 5:50 pace. Felt good even easy. The last 400m of the last one we kicked in a bit at 84 nothing crazy. Had tons left but was happy to be done. Now I have two easy days and then the 30k road race. This race will be a real indicator for my marathon. But I am not going to go 100% because I mean who cares about 30k race times? I am doing this for a quality long workout. I wish the marathon was in november though. I am feeling like I am on the cusp of getting 'it' back but could ride that improvement wave for almost 2 months before really peaking. Oh well, I will work with what I've got.
Attempted to find a good 2 bridge run but the dirt road ended sooner than I thought and we ended up running on massive gravel next to the railroad tracks which wasn't fun.
The pre-marathon diet began last friday but I didn't weigh in because my scale was still packed in the trunk of my car. Today I unpacked it and after lunch today I dialed in at 161! That means that I am already probably sub 160 in the morning when I would usually weigh myself. My goal is to be about 155 for the marathon. That should make 3-5 minutes difference from my summer weight of 165.
Course: hilly miles 1-14 then 4.74 miles flat along the coast
Splits were 6:45 (mostly slight uphill), 6:12 (downhill was steep), 6:34 rolling, 6:24 rolling, 6:29 rolling, 6:33 rolling,6:51 hill, 6:28 rolling, 6:27 rolling, 6:35 rolling, 6:51 hill, 6:42 rolling (started to feel my legs here), 6:39 (rolling), 6:51 (bit of a hill),6:41 flat, 6:46 flat, 6:49 flat, 6:58 flat but with headwind, 4:31(6:04 pace) kicked it in a bit
Miles 1-5 were pretty uneventful. Felt like 6:30 pace was a jog. Mile 3 I picked up the effort a little to catch and run with a group for a while. This ended when my shoe came untied at mile 5. Then I latched on to this guy who passed me while I retied my shoe. We stayed together till mile 13. A group caught us and passed us but we kept a fairly even effort in the rolling hills. The group that passed us around mile 9 included the winning female. That bugged me, but she was really good. I consoled myself with the fact that I could beat her at the mile and 5k most likely. I dropped the guy I was running with in the final hill of the course and he never made up the gap. At this point my legs were feeling pretty stiff. They weren't that tired, but the pounding (especially the downhills) took its toll. I was already pretty happy with my performance so I just rolled in without undue strain until the last half mile or so in which I decided to kick it into another gear. I probably could have done 6:15 pace for the last 3-4 miles because aerobically I wasn't working and I had glycogen because I had been eating honey. Its just that the motivation wasn't there. Oh well, this wasn't a goal race for me, just good training. And the course was a bit long, like 200m. Afterwards I took a dip in the ocean to ice my legs for 15 min. It wasn't super cold, but its what I had.
So what does this mean for my marathon. Well, I still have time to train, and what I learned from this is that the cumulative pounding on asphault makes a given pace more difficult later in the race. So I am going to make sure I get several 20+ milers on the road before the marathon to get used to the pounding. I also plugged my time into mcmillan's running calculator and it said I could expect a 2:57:32, so although not much room for error, at least I am not already behind the ball and this course was pretty hilly which my marathon is not. I also need to get in the proper vo2max and threshold work such that I actually peak for the marathon as opposed to just running it off base training. I am not afraid of the glycogen wall anymore, now I am afraid of the asphault wall (or hill perhaps, as it doesn't destroy you all at once like the glyco wall, but gradually makes you stiff such that a given pace is more difficult to maintain). We will see what I can put together for the half marathon in two weeks. I think I can manage about 6:20 pace which would put me just under 1:23. I think my goal will be breaking 1:23.
Did the haynes classic training run with dan (2:01 800m runner) and will. Dan wanted to push but luckily I had my garmin and told him I wasn't going under 8 and really wanted to keep it above 8:15 because of my race yesterday. I am only really sore around my groin muscles (hip adductors). So that is good, but I would rather not be sore at all. This is the kind of sore that might keep going for several days. I just hope it doesn't hurt my workouts on wednesday and friday.
Haynes classic training route. I am really glad that I didn't have a workout scheduled for today. I really needed the recovery. I started out slow and when it felt uncomfortable I slowed down. I didn't have my gps with me but I bet I was going like 9 to 9:30. I wasn't sore I just felt sluggish. Tomorrow I have a vo2max workout. I am not sore so my legs should be fine. But I don't know if I will be fully recovered aerobically to hit the times I want. We will see. Its not a workout you can really force.
3x5x400 with 100m recovery between 400's and 400m recovery between sets. Times were something like 75, 80, 79, 80, 80, 79, 78, 80, 80, 75, 76, 78, 80, 81, 81. Nobody wanted to do a 4th set and I had hit several of them too fast so I decided to call it a day. Did some abs and then 4 miles warmdown because I saw a friend who was just heading out for 4 easy. Lost my keys beside the track though. Hopefully I will find them tomorrow in the light.
Ran the downtown 5k course and a bit around campus. I lost my keys at the hope high track yesterday so I went back there in the daylight to see if I could find them. Someone definitely took them because I know where I put them. How lame is that? What are they gonna do with my stupid keys? Was gonna go further but I got frustrated looking for my keys and just ran back after that. I don't need the mileage right now anyway. I have a workout tomorrow and will use the downtown 5k this weekend in place of a vo2max workout as well. I will probably hit 70 despite only 6 today. Next week I will hit only 50 probably because I will want to taper properly for the half. Workouts will be tenuous. I want to do a 20+ miler sometime next week but all I can imagine doing is the 5k on sunday, and a long run on tuesday or wednesday because the half is on saturday. Maybe I should do one of those crazy long runs that incorporated some threshold and marathon pace work. I also have friends in town on tuesday and one of them will want to run with me. So the workout will have to be wednesday. Ok, to the planning. 2 miles warmup sounds good. Then 2 miles at marathon pace followed by 1 mile at threshold and 1 mile easy x 5 = 22 miles. If I have to cut the last set of fast running and just jog it in that is fine, but I will go 11 miles out so I have no choice but to get back somehow.
Pretty much a breakthrough workout for me. I didn't struggle at all. I can feel my left achilles and my right hamstring a bit now but during the workout they were fine. A 14:50 guy came out to do the workout with us and after walking through the first one in 11:15 he decided to make it his business to string me along. In the second one he let me pull us through 5:58 in mile one and then took the lead and pulled me to a 5:48. And then in the third rep he took the lead after the second lap which was already 5:45 pace and kept us about there. I kept thinking despite feeling relaxed that I might blow up. But it didn't happen and I felt like I could have done another 3 at 5:54 pace. One thing was that is was the first legitamately cold workouts of the season at 55 degrees. I hope that the half marathon is like that or even colder. If 5:54 is really my threshold then I should be able to do 6:10 pace for the half which would be high 1:20. And while I am dreaming big, 6:06 pace is sub 1:20. If I extend my speed fairly well and continue to see training benefits I just might be able to do that. But for now I need to focus on the 5k this weekend. While it is not a goal race of mine, it looks like I can PR, so I will shoot for about 17:15.
This was pretty stupid. I meant to go for an 'easy' 13 with a guy from the running club. But this guy is the same guy who pushed the pace below 7 on a run 2 weeks ago. I needed to recover from the workout yesterday, but instead we averaged 6:52 pace for 13.1 miles. And it wasn't a very even pace either. We started out at 7:15 and then slowly dropped it over 10 miles to 6:40 and then slowed a bit to 6:50, 7:05, and 7:15 for the last mile which is mostly a hill. I am glad that I can keep this sort of pace the day after a workout, but it isn't good training. I guess daniels says that marathon pace can be substituted for easy pace occaisionally. So hopefully it wont hurt me in the long run, just for tomorrow's 5k which I was already running through in a serious way.
CVS Downtown 5k (3.1 Miles) 00:17:25, Place overall: 97
Easy Miles
Marathon Pace Miles
Threshold Miles
VO2 Max Miles
Crosstraining miles
Total Miles
2.00
0.00
0.00
3.10
0.00
5.10
4 second PR. Bad time considering the quality of workouts I have been doing, but good time considering no taper and 74 degree weather. First mile got stuck in the crowd and still went 5:24, second mile went through at 11:03 so that mile was 5:39 and went through mile 3 at 16:58 so that mile was 5:55 lol. Those splits are horrible. I felt bad right off the gun. I thought about dropping out of the race in the first 200m (I usually think about it at some point, but not in the first 200 usually). I only thought I could do fairly well when I saw my first mile split. On a cold course had I been tapered I could have held that pace, but I had do play the cards that were dealt and that I dealt myself (through not tapering). The first mile is slightly downhill and the second and third miles have some slight uphills but nothing on that scope. I think seeing my splits I allowed myself to slack off a bit in miles 2 and 3 because I knew I was gonna PR. The heat affected me a lot as well. I know I am just making excuses but I think they are legit. I trained through this race and payed for it, but I PR'ed despite that because thats where my fitness is. I would give myself 15 seconds for the heat and another 15 for no taper. So I plan to go 16:55 by the end of the season. There were 3000 people in this race along with 55 elites so I was pretty happy to finish top 100. It was the 5k road national championship and I stretched right next to shalane flanagan and some of the other elites. I even accidentally got in her way when she was leaving for her warmup. Maybe I will post a 'missed connection'... I think we had a moment. j/k
5 on blackstone and then 2 with some med school friends. The 5 were at a good pace with some striders thrown in but the 2 were like 10 min miles and then we walked another mile because one guy got a stomach ache. Some people are just not very hard core. And this guy is like 5'7" 135lb. If I had his BMI I would run 15:30 for the 5k. But I guess you can't control stomach problems all the time either. Might go out for another run later. Haven't decided yet. I don't think I need the miles, but after my exam this morning I don't have anything to do (because all I do is study and run).
PM: 7.3 including 3.2 at 6:40 pace (was running with some girls who were doing a tempo run). Didn't mean to go quite so far or so fast but I felt good the whole time.
effort was less than previous workouts and times were better so I was happy about that. I was planning on doing a long run today but all of my undergrad friends were in town for 1 day yesterday AND I was done with my cardio exam so I had to party. Of course I overdid it and was hungover most of the day. By the time I felt good enough to run it was too late to run and be back in time to coach the workout (I am the president of the running club so I needed to be there) so I decided to just run the workout instead. It was a solid workout. I think previous workouts I was pushing too hard. This one felt just right. I didn't have to go anaerobic to hit my times. Usually I really have to push the last 200m but this time I just cruised it.
8.6 easy on the haynes classic (I do this route differently every time now, if I don't bring my gps I only know it is somewhere between 7.8 and 9 miles, this time I brought the gps)
Probably shouldn't have doubled, but didn't have much to do today and felt good. Tomorrow I will do an easy 5 and a lot of stretching. Everything feels good except the past two days I have had a sore throat. It seems to be gone this afternoon but sore throats often are worst in the morning. Hopefully I am dodging a bullet but who knows. On the other hand if I got sick and lost 5lb I might lose the half marathon but win the marathon (winning and losing is only vs. bedoukian... I need to get a new rival but Ive never met anyone with so similar fitness to me).
Hogsback Half marathon (13.1 Miles) 01:23:43, Place overall: 3
Easy Miles
Marathon Pace Miles
Threshold Miles
VO2 Max Miles
Crosstraining miles
Total Miles
1.00
6.00
7.10
0.00
0.00
14.10
Not the best start to the day. Got ridiculously lost on the way to the race and despite planning on getting there 1 hr ahead of time we got there 7 min before the race started. I did not get a chance to use the restroom or do much warmup. Once the race started I felt great. The first 2 miles were downhill and we did something like 6:06 and 6:15. There were about 5 of us in a pack behind the 2 leaders who went out in probably something like 5:20. We were trying to hold back and did to a great extent, there was some major altitude loss in those miles. In fact the whole first half was slightly downhill and the entire second half was slightly uphill (until the last mile which was significantly uphill). Nothing of note happened until mile 6. Those miles went like 6:21, 6:18, 6:24. Then at mile 6 there was an aid station that had gu's. I wanted one but bedoukian grabbed the one I was going for so I grabbed another one but didnt quite get a hold of it so after a few seconds of juggling it without quite getting it I dropped it and decided to stop and get it. It took me only 20 seconds to catch the pack but it winded me a bit. I concentrated on relaxing and once I felt good I took the gel. That mile still went 6:24. Then we hit the turnaround. Without talking about it we picked up the effort a bit because it was now slightly uphill and we all wanted to average around 6:20. We did 6:16, 6:21, 6:18, 6:24. The pack stayed together until mile 8 when we lost 2 guys. At mile 10 I decided to show my cards because I knew that the last mile was significantly uphill and I am a bad climber. I moved ahead of bedoukian and the other guy with a 6:15 mile 10. I knew that it was uphill because I was feeling good and pushing but the times weren't that good. It felt like a training run until mile 10. I felt like I could kick the last 5k in at 19 flat on a flat course. Then mile 12 was more uphill and I was starting to feel my legs a bit-6:20. Then mile 13 despite pushing as hard as I could with the other guy only 10 seconds behind me I only managed a 6:53. Luckily he was hurting as much as I was. When I saw the top I almost hoped that he would catch me just as we crested the hill because he was 50 something and I am 23 and I knew I had tons more speed than him. But he didn't. It leveled out for the last 300m and I kicked it in. I am pretty happy with the time. It was 65 with 97% humidity which was not even a little bit cold. And the course was not "fast" as advertised though not very slow either. In 50 degree dry weather on a flat course I know I could have kicked it in under 1:23. And I am happy with 3rd place for sure. Number 1 went 1:19 and 2nd went 1:21 so I had no chance of catching them although both blew up pretty bad. They just had that much time to spare. And I beat bedoukian which is always a plus. Of course he always beats me in trail races (by more than I beat him in road races) but at least I am successfully defending my nitch.
Oh yeah, and I have a cold with a stuffy nose. Not that bad but when making an all out effort it can't help... Man I am the king of excuses.
5 on blackstone. I feel really good. Not sore at all. Right hip was a little stiff but that was it. It loosened up after the first little bit. All I can think about is the marathon. But I am not nervous. I finally feel like I know what to expect and how to deal with it.
Yup, thats right, 4 miles. I hate the taper. Tomorrow I am doing 9 with some friends w/a bit at MP so I decided today needed to be super easy. But in the 30+ minutes that I am not running
Did the haynes classic training run with 4-6 striders on slight downhills. Run felt good. I feel rested and im only 3 days into my taper. Tomorrow I will do some mile repeats on the track but im not gonna go crazy with them. Just 5:36 pace. I do most of my vo2max work at 5:20 pace but its sometimes difficult to keep up for 1k's so its probably too fast. We will see how this change in workout methodology goes. Its probably gonna be too easy. My 5k pace is 5:38 but I am sure that I could go 16:55 tapered now (5:27 pace). If the first 2 feel too slow I will finish it up in 5:28-30.
