God damn it, what is wrong with WordPress? This is the second time I’ve spent a half an hour writing a post, only to have it disappear when I try to publish it.
Here we go again…
Hokay.
I ran 95 miles this week for the first time since September. It didn’t feel that hard, although I realized while I was out on recovery run #2 today that in the past three days I’d run just over 47 miles. That was something of an eye opener.
I enjoyed all the workouts this week. It was a good week, meaning the pattern was one of success and heightened comfort levels. I got the shot of confidence I needed after a few spotty workouts in the past few weeks. Whatever this groin issue is has also dissipated, which has helped. I feel it mostly walking around first thing in the morning, but it fades as the day progresses.
I enjoyed Tuesday’s general aerobic run (perhaps because it featured no tempo miles?). I ran it on the quicker side at 8:15, although I was only at 75% MHR, so it wasn’t a difficult pace to sustain.
Wednesday was incredibly busy, with a long day in the city, so for the first time since following a prescribed plan I skipped a workout, but vowed to make up the miles. This may have helped me on Thursday, when I went to a relatively windless track and more or less nailed the 300m intervals session. I ran half too fast, half too slow. I’ll shoot for better consistency next time around.
Friday afternoon was the only day I felt completely fried, but by Saturday morning I was raring to go again. My planned 25K race/training run got pushed back a week due to the impending winter storm (which is, as of this moment, 14 hours behind schedule). So I did some rearranging (with Coach Kevin’s blessing), and moved next weekend’s fast finish long run to Saturday. I did the early miles very easy to preserve energy for the faster 2.5 at the end. Those went well, with a much higher level of comfort (and lower MHR) as compared to a similar effort two weeks ago. Hills and headwind slowed the last .5 mile, but I was pretty much dead on pace before losing 11 seconds at the end.
I tacked on 5 recovery miles today to compensate for Wednesday’s shortage. So I ended the week with the planned 95 miles. Don’t ask me where I got my work ethic, as I have no idea.
Week 7 is a 70 mile recovery week, with Tuesday tempo, Thursday speed and the rescheduled 25K race on Sunday. Then it’s right back up to triple digits again.
Filed under: training |
Races Like a Girl 
I type up blog posts using Notepad, then copy and paste, which overcomes the disappearing words problem.
Good week Julie. Did you try the spikes? 300s are one of my favourites – over quick, and fun running fast. I hope the weather eases soon. We’re getting the exact opposite down here – an extension of summer, with temps back around the 30C mark.
Thanks for the Notepad tip, Ewen. I’ll do that in the future.
I did not try the spikes. I’d planned to try them out on a little recovery run with strides (which I could do on the track, presumably without hurting or embarrassing myself). Although now that we’ve got a fresh seven inches of snow on the ground, I’ve no idea when that will happen.
Re: 300m repeats — as I was running them I was thinking about how awful it must be to race 400m. By 250m I was ready for it to be over with.
good run week and a big run miles!.
Why you not run early a marathon, 14 weeks is a long time.
Rinus.
Oooo, just seeing those 5:xx’s is simply delicious. Great workouts this week (and 47 miles in 3 days? Wow!). I’m so happy to hear your groin thing is just a shadow at this point and floored as usual at your mileage. Keep on trucking, speed queen!
Good idea re the spikes. Re the snow – I hope it re tires soon!
300s have a lot going for them. You can run them pretty much flat out and not have a huge lactic acid problem (only the last 50m as you discovered). You can’t run a heap of 400s with the same sort of duration of maximum speed as 300s. I now know that the fast acceleration of the HR to close to maximum improves the stroke volume of the heart (something that can be improved as opposed to maximum HR).
They also work well on a 400m track as you can use the ‘spare’ 100m for recovery, and also run in outside lanes (if the track is marked with relay staggers) by starting in the middle of the 20m zone. Some tracks have the 300m staggers marked too.
I’m lucky in that our track is fairly well marked, if not totally accurate. It runs a little short in the inner lanes, and a little long in the outer ones (I know; don’t ask). Lane 4 is closest at 402m.
Thanks for the tips on 400m — and of course I noticed that I have a 16 x 400m session in April. I’d better eat my Wheaties.
You’re amazing. I don’t know how you do it. I’d be a mental vegetable with all that.
As to Julie’s short track, it’s because it’s all that would fit so it has crazy marks all over the place, like the 1500 start about 30 meters after the finish. Another nearby track is worse; it’s 350 meters, again defined by the space. The key is knowing. I know someone who thought that the new track was really, really fast until someone told him that those “400”s he’d done were actually only 380s.
Of course, any way you look at it, 400s stink. But if you keep the rest short — say 45 secs. — you don’t have time to complain because the next one starts before you know it.
16! No, eat your Weet-Bix. Breakfast of Champions!
http://www.weetbix.com.au/
That’s strange about the track. I do know one grass track where they squeezed it inside a small cricket ground – lane 7 was the 400m one.
At least most high schools in north America have tracks.
Ewen, that’s true: Most of our high schools have tracks. Which makes it an even greater pity that they no longer have phys ed…