Douchebags! The series

Posted on September 20, 2009 by threlkeld

This weekend I watched two recorded iron man triathlon events, one in China and the other in Idaho. People, televised triathlons offer some of the best television comedy you’ll see all season. Here’s what you get:

Announcers and competitors alike who can’t even properly pronounce the name of their own sport. They call it a “triathalon.” Like telethon. Or Toyotathon. Even the winners do this. Imagine if I went on and on about my maronathons?

And speaking of the winners, in triathlons, everyone’s a winner! It doesn’t matter if you cross the finish line first or 401st — they’ll hold up a little tape for you to…

…walk through! Yes, no one actually runs through the tape. After all, it’s only a marathon they’re finishing (which most of us consider a running event). Why run when you can meander through the tape after high-fiving both sides of the crowd for the last 30 meters?

Swimmers, slathered in what appears to be Hellman’s mayonnaise, rolling around in the grass, fighting to get their wetsuits off, sometimes with the aid of mysteriously enthusiastic volunteers. Bicyclists throwing up prodigiously while maintaining a steady 25mph speed.* Runners walking. And walking. And walking. Did you know that you can walk a lot in a triathlon and still win?

Textbook instruction on bad running form. Triathletes run like they’ve got giant staples in their backs. Bunched shoulders, arms held way out at 45 degrees from the body, no stride length. No wonder they’re too exhausted to run by the halfway point.

Even better, the coverage seems specifically designed to make the competitors look like douchebags. In the mini profiles, they’re shot from below, told to cross their arms and look like mean badasses. Then they’re forced to refer to themselves in the third person: “What does it take to beat Julie Threlkeld? The ability to swim.”

Best of all, I now understand how the average non-running viewer looks at televised marathons. The tedium. The suffering. The pointlessness of it all. We’re all douchebags in someone’s eyes.

*Unfortunately, there was no Technicolor spewing in either of these two particular events. You need to wait for the hot weather events for that.

Filed under: humor | Tagged: | 9 Comments »

Another day at the track

Posted on September 18, 2009 by threlkeld

I’m usually annoyed when I arrrive at the track and it’s full of people. But yesterday was an exception.

Yesterday morning I headed over to the Bronxville High School track to do some tempo running. I got a late start and needed to run about five miles as a warmup before doing the tempo miles. By the time I got there it was probably around 8:30 already.

It was a good session, not only because the running went very well, but also because of various things that happened during the run to keep me distracted and entertained.

My assignment was four miles at LT effort. All of my training is by heart rate this time around, so my goal was to hit 88% quickly and then ramp it up to 90% for most of the run. As it turns out, I did the last mile at 91% but I didn’t notice the upped effort until I got home and looked at the data. Splits: 7:08, 7:13, 7:06, 6:49. I’ve gotten into the habit of running the last quarter mile of most harder runs at a very high effort, which explains that faster last mile.

Anyhoo. When I got to the track, I saw two groups forming, with an assemblage of odd-looking accessories on the ground. As it would turn out, the first group was the return of what I always think of as The Ladies Exercise Group. This is a group of women who look to be in their 20s and 30s — yeah, a lot younger than me — who all gather and, under the direction of the group leader, engage in various forms of synchronized exercise. On this day that meant the use of resistance bands and lots of hopping around. No slow jogging this time, though (in the past they would alternate hopping around with a slow lap on the track).

For some reason, I often find myself wishing that one or two would “defect” from their group and come talk to me about running. Unless all these women are coming back from some sort of injury, nothing they’re doing is really helping them fitnesswise. Doesn’t at least one of them harbor some curiosity or secret desire to run fast rather than engage in dreary routines with a giant rubber band?

The other group was a class learning how to ride a harness along a rope. I have no idea what this is called, but I’m sure it has a name. This activity involved stretching a rope between two poles approx. 150m apart, and placing a folding stepladder toward the far end, just off the track. The instructor stood atop the higher “launch pole.” Each helmeted and harnessed kid would climb up the handholds to the top of the pole, attach him- or herself to the rope (and a “safety” held by classmates, presumably to stop the larger kids from slamming into the opposite pole), and wheee!! Kid would fly toward opposite pole, then naturally sink back a bit where the ladder was waiting to enable an exit from the rope.

What this meant was that sometimes I’d be rounding the track with a child flying over my head. This certainly kept me alert.

Finally, in the center field was a group of little kids learning to play some sort of kickball game with a pockmarked, round Nerf-like ball (bright yellow). This would sometimes fly across the track (and I could sense some minor annoyance that I didn’t go out of my way to return it to them). The guy coaching the kids was enthusiastic as was the guy at the top of the pole. I was again reminded that I would make a lousy teacher because I would forget to say things like, “We have to stop now. But don’t worry, everyone will have an opportunity to do this!”

So the center and periphery were truly a three ring circus. The track itself wasn’t crowded; I shared it with maybe six people. One of them was a guy who’d come on when I was well into my tempo miles and was running in the inside lane at maybe an 8:30 pace.

With about seven laps to go I rounded the track and came up alongside him a few lanes out. He suddenly started running faster, determined not to let me pass him. This instinctively made me speed up too, but after a few seconds I realized what was happening. So I slowed back down to my 7:0X pace. In the meantime, he’d taken off like a bat out of hell. He lasted at that pace for about a lap and then stopped dead, doubled over. I continued on and finished my run, wondering if it was a guy vs. girl thing or if he was just competitive regardless of gender. Silly twat.

Filed under: everyday life, training, westchester | 6 Comments »

Mixes: 33 for 150

Posted on September 15, 2009 by threlkeld

I’ve got a training plan for the next few months. Now all I need is music to make the longer runs a little less tedious. Here’s the first new playlist, which I’ll probably use for my midlength (12-15 miles) runs. It’s fairly uptempo but not the crazy, aggressive crap I listen to for the faster aerobic and tempo runs.

1. Paper Birds – The Slip

2. Airplane/Primitive – The Slip

3. Children Of December – The Slip

4. Clear Water – Anniemac

5. The Sun Smells Too Loud – Mogwai

6. Glasgow Mega-Snake – Mogwai

7. Special – Mew

8. Hawaii – Mew

9. Her Voice Is Beyond Her Years – Mew

10. Snow Brigade – Mew

11. Am I Wry? No – Mew

12. Black Hearts (On Fire) – Jet

13. (Drawing) Rings Around The World – Super Furry Animals

14. The Undefeated – Super Furry Animals

15. Slow Life – Super Furry Animals

16. Cath… – Death Cab For Cutie

17. New Killer Star – David Bowie

18. House Of Orion – Lukestar

19. Rebellion (Lies) – Arcade Fire

20. Wrapped Up In Books – Belle and Sebastian

21. Everybody Come Down – The Delgados

22. Senses – La Rocca

23. Eyes While Open – La Rocca

24. Non Believer – La Rocca

25. My Lucky Day – Jason Falkner

26. I Live – Jason Falkner

27. Under the Milkyway – The Church

28. There, There – Radiohead

29. Jigsaw Falling Into Place – Radiohead

30. Pretty In Pink – The Psychedelic Furs

31. Beautiful People – Pet Shop Boys

32. Keys To Your Heart – The 101ers

33. Lola Stars and Stripes – The Stills

Listen on Rhapsody

Fun facts about a few of these:

#4 is by Annie McIntyre, who I grew up with and saw for the first time in a few decades when we went to Oregon in the summer.

#17 is just so Bowie. It’s newer, but evidence that, unlike a lot of his contemporaries, he hasn’t lost his talent.

#27 and #30 are there purely for nostalgia. I love both these tunes, primarily for the vocal.

#32 is Joe Strummer’s pre-Clash band. Their only hit.

Filed under: music, tracks | 2 Comments »

Fall Training: Week 1

Posted on September 14, 2009 by threlkeld

09fall-training-01Back in the saddle again.

Given the events of the spring and summer, the most important word during this training cycle is “recovery.” I whaled away last week and came into this one feeling fatigued. Still tired Wednesday, I decided to cut back the mileage from a planned 89 to 70. As it turns out, I ended up with even less than that as I decided to take Saturday off completely. I hadn’t had a day off since July and felt I needed it.

So my training has started with more of a whimper than a bang, and that’s fine. I’m going into this with a completely new philosophy and approach.

As far as the philosophy goes, I’m not going to be picking an arbitrary marathon time goal (such as “sub-3:00”) and then bludgeoning my way through workouts at specific paces in hot pursuit of that time. No, this time I’m going to train and see where I am 12 weeks from now, then base my time goal on a pace that I am confident that I can sustain. How fucking revolutionary a concept is that? Pretty revolutionary for me, but probably elementary for runners less dense.

From a practical standpoint, chasing after paces will be replaced with workouts that are completely effort based. This will allow me avoid two issues that marred my last go-round: a constant feeling of failure at not being able to hit desired paces; the compulsion to read tea leaves in the form of scrutinizing headwinds, elevations, the effects of running on snow et al. Now I’ll just go run and hit certain efforts and see what paces I end up with.

Also, as stated at the start of this post, recovery is priority one. As Kevin put it, “Rule of thumb from now on — two or more days described at week’s end as drag-ass on RLAG will result in a schedule tweak.”

There are a few other practical differences. For one, the training cycle is only about 12 weeks. The last one was closer to 19 and I felt I was running at my best right around the 12 week mark. So we’ve lopped off a month and a half.

Also, I’m determined to run at least the first two-thirds of my December marathon in the 86%-87% MHR range. My most successful race (the 2008 More race) had a lot of early miles at that effort, after which I picked up effort and pace for the last six miles and ran them at my more typical marathon effort of 88-89%. It was the best I have felt in a marathon.

What this means is that I will be doing a lot of training at my desired marathon effort. You see a glimpse of this in Thursday’s workout, in which the goal was just to run some mile repeats at 85% effort, with a longish low-end aerobic recovery. Unfortunately, I’m beginning to suspect that I have another lemon heart rate monitor, as it was giving wacky readings during that workout and during yesterday’s 10 mile race.

For the Thursday workout, I ended up guessing at effort and decided not to worry about the HRM issue. It was a good workout and it’s early days yet, so I’m not going to obsess. As for yesterday’s 10 miler, I also knew the HRM was going to be unreliable when it shot up to 80% during an easy jog warmup. The watch recorded an average of 96% effort for the whole race, which is impossible for me to sustain for 1 mile, let alone 10. I know myself well enough that I’m fairly sure my effort ranged between 89-91% average and probably peaked at around 93% in the last mile.

The race was, as most of my races are, a disappointment. I suppose it was a good thing that I went in with no expectations, since I ended up running a few seconds slower than last year. One mistake I made was running the first mile way too fast at 6:32. I knew it was too fast but I couldn’t stop myself from trying to keep the lead women in sight. I slowed to 7:00 in mile two but the damage was done. I was feeling the effects by mile four and reminded myself that I needed to treat this as a lesson. Then I had a strong impulse to drop out and spent a good five minutes fighting that off. I dug in for the second half of the race and focused on maintaining effort for the uphill and headwind-filled last few miles.

My unofficial time was 1:14:55. Good for 1st in my AG (I think — the awards were really confusing this year). I think I came in 10th, but again I’m not sure. I’ve begun to take AG awards for granted, which I need to stop doing. For those first few years those awards were always painfully out of reach. Now they’re a regular thing. Even if I’m unhappy with a race, I need to remind myself of how far I’ve come and the fact that I haven’t given up the quest for improvement.

Filed under: training | 9 Comments »

Summer Basebuilding: Week 10

Posted on September 6, 2009 by threlkeld

sum09-base-10I guess this is the last of the summer basebuilding. In 10 weeks I’ve gone from anemic shuffler to something resembling the runner I was in April. Where I truly am fitnesswise is still something of a mystery, since so much of my running over the past few weeks was on the treadmill.

But the outside running I did this week did yield some clues. Recovery runs have continued to be on the speedier side, mostly owing to the decent weather we’ve suddenly experienced. As a side note, for all my complaining, this summer wasn’t bad. The Hades-like weather didn’t start until the second week of July and (if Accuweather’s 15 day forecast can be trusted), we may have seen the last of it.

Or, rather, I may have seen the last of it. I’m off to South Africa for a couple of weeks later this month (where it is now late winter, headed into spring). So freakish October heat waves of the sort we saw in 2007 are of no concern to me.

Now let’s get down to bidness.

I came into the week feeling reasonably recovered, the previous week having been a recovery week. Recovered enough run a 13 mile recovery run that was, as I discovered later in the week, just a smidgen too fast for several miles. I felt good, though, so I couldn’t help myself. But I need to remind myself: recovery runs are for recovery.

I started paying the price on Wednesday. My legs felt awful, cramped and heavy — although that was mostly owing to cycle/hormonal stuff. But the extravagance of the day before didn’t help. I stopped more than I’d liked to have done during the faster miles.

Thursday was worse. The AM run was a slog. On the PM run I felt like I was running on two logs and one lung.

On Friday I was still in recovery deficit (or perhaps merely still suffering from “women’s troubles”), with my legs feeling tired and unhappy. But I did the workout nonetheless. I’m fairly happy with the splits for the fast bits, although I’d hoped for 6:45s each. I cut myself some slack, though, as there were low bridges, 90 degree angle turns and idiots with 30′ dog leads to negotiate along the way.

Saturday was meh. Actually okay, but I was feeling the miles on my legs, especially in the last two.

Today’s run was a grand experiment. It’s been ages since I’ve done a real “progression run” and I’ve been itching to do one for its mental benefits as much as for its physical ones. I was originally scheduled to run 18 miles, but I bumped it up to 20 to further test my mettle.

Upon waking at 6AM this morning, my first conscious realization was that my thighs ached. Oh, crap. Not the most auspicious start to an ambitious workout. But that’s been the running theme all week, so why start acting reasonably now?

My goals for this run for today were, in no particular order of importance:

  • Complete it in 2:45 or better
  • Run a big negative split
  • Start at 72% effort, turn up the heat throughout and run as hard as possible for the last few
  • Take in as little nutrients as possible

Missions accomplished! I finished a few seconds shy of 2:45. I ran the first half at an average of 76%. Then I bumped it up to 80% pretty quickly and ended with the last few at 88-90% effort. The second 10 mile set was a good 8 minutes faster than the first. The paces weren’t great, my last mile a pedestrian 7:30. But I knew as soon as I woke up that I wasn’t going to be running 7:00 miles today. I managed this on half a bottle of Gatorade G2 and one gel.

In all, I’m happy with the workout, especially considering that it was a less than stellar week in turns of how I was feeling after Tuesday. Now I get to see how fucked up I am next week as a result!

Filed under: basebuilding | Tagged: | 8 Comments »

The sub-13:00 love train

Posted on September 5, 2009 by threlkeld

Last last month in Switzerland, Dathan Ritzenhein became only the second third fourth non-African-born man to run under 13:00 for the 5000m, clocking a new American record of 12:56. It took 13 years for someone to break the previous 12:58 American record held by Bob Kennedy. Then, just a few days later, Matt Tegenkamp went well under 13:00 too in Belgium, missing also beating Kennedy’s record by about half a second.

Watching those two races was nothing short of mind-blowing. What shift had occurred to allow for this dramatic twofer? These were huge PRs, not just the usual incremental ones. I know it made me think about what’s possible for myself.

I was also reminded of an article from Matt Fitzgerald in Running Times late last year, How Records Are Broken, which examined the forces that push records downward and what everyday runners can learn from them. The gist being: While we hobby runners may not break any world, national or age group records, breaking our own personal records in a regular and dramatic fashion is a worthy goal — and an achievable one.

Incidentally, that article link also includes an interview with none other than the now-former American record holder for the 5000m, Bob Kennedy.

Filed under: elites, inspiration, reading | Tagged: , , , , , | 5 Comments »

Mixes: Roche Infestation

Posted on September 1, 2009 by threlkeld

A few years ago I was working with a couple of women about my age and I was surprised to find that they’d never heard of The Roches, a three-sister folk group to whom I’ve been listening since someone played their debut album to me, to my delight and wonder, sometime in the early 80s. Noting my colleagues’ blank expressions as I insisted, “The Roches? Robert Fripp? C’mon…” I realized just how obscure The Roches actually are.

Their music is hard to describe, but its hallmark is soaring harmonies and a distinctly off-kilter sensibility. They are talented songwriters, exceptional singers and wholly original. Who else could write an eight-and-a-half-minute song extolling the virtues of a winter coat and somehow make it work?

I put together a Roches mix for my run this morning consisting entirely of my favorite recordings from their extensive ouvre. Over the years they’ve put out a wildly inconsistent set of albums, which has been frustrating. Some albums are just plain terrible. Others are okay, but marred by unwise production choices. I still think their eponymously titled debut (which Fripp produced and plays otherworldly guitar on) is their best, but I’d credit Can We Go Home Now and Speak as two other high points.

I’ve seen them perform at various points — once in Manhattan in the mid-1980s (I think it was The Bottom Line, but it may have been somewhere else) and then again later that decade on Staten Island at Snug Harbour Cultural Center. Both shows were great. Then, about 10 years ago, I went to see one of them, Suzzy, do a solo show at the church at the bottom of my street to promote her solo album, Holy Smokes. It was, frankly, depressing to see such a talented woman performing for $15 to a room of about 50 people. But perform she did and managed to singlehandedly bring to life songs that on record had required the vocal work of three. My favorite song of that set was “Home Away From Home,” which she managed masterfully with just one guitar and voice. I still think of that song as one of their masterpieces.

Anyway, here’s the playlist. If you’ve never heard of The Roches, start with the bold titles. They represent a pretty good cross-section of their sound. If you don’t like those, you won’t like any of them.

  1. This Feminine Position
  2. Keep on Doing What You Do / Jerks On The Loose
  3. Scorpion Lament
  4. Losing True
  5. Feeling is Mutual
  6. Nocturne
  7. Easy
  8. Person With a Past
  9. Cloud Dancing
  10. Big Nuthin’
  11. Speak
  12. Weeded Out
  13. Face Down At Folk City
  14. Love Radiates Around
  15. My Winter Coat
  16. Holidays
  17. Move
  18. Home Away From Home
  19. Hammond Song
  20. Mr. Sellack
  21. The Train
  22. Quitting Time

Filed under: music, tracks | Tagged: , , , , | 2 Comments »

Summer Basebuilding: Week 9

Posted on August 30, 2009 by threlkeld

sum09-base-09The heat and humidity eased a bit in the middle of the week, allowing me to comfortably do a few of my runs outside (something for which I was very happy). Then the outer edges of Hurricane Danny skirted the east coast and wrecked the prospects of having two decent outside weekend runs.

I’m sitting legs up in my fancy recliner, having resumed Semi-Stupor Sundays once again, thanks to the advent of the English Premier League Football season. Between the long runs on Sunday morning and hours of entertaining football, nothing gets done in my house on Sundays.

One of us lies half-conscious on the couch; the other semi-upright, but no less heavily lidded, in the recliner. The only motion observed is the periodic re-feedings every 2-4 hours. Sometimes in this soporific tableau I see a foreshadowing of our retirement years together. Then I remember that we’ll probably never be able to retire.

Anyway. Back to the week’s adventures. Monday, Tuesday, treadmill, treadmill. Wednesday, more treadmill, with some tempo effort miles. And, lo, they were faster than the last couple of weeks’ tempo miles.

Thursday I ran outside for the first time in 12 days and I was like a coked up greyhound. These were supposed to be recovery runs, and I did run them at recovery effort, but just barely. Zip zip zoom. Fall can’t come fast enough for me.

Friday I did more crazy fast running, this time on the track. A 1.75 warmup, then about three miles on the track with some one minute repeats. I was all over the place pacewise, anywhere from about 6:20-7:00. But I settled in at around 6:40 pace for most of them. A sprinkle turned into a steady rain, leaving the track all to myself for most of that work. Then things dried out and I finished up with six miles on the running path, again alone for the most part.

It was raining buckets on Saturday, so I did my recovery run inside. Slow, easy, boring. What it was supposed to be.

This morning was the third week in my long run experiment: how fast can I run at around 75% average HR? This week, it turned out to be faster than last. I ran the first two miles dead slow in 19:00. Then picked it up and ran 14 at an average 8:04 pace. HR was average 76%, although it crept up to 78% for the last four. Nevertheless, I was happy that it didn’t drift up farther than that. The next experiment is to see if these times/effort carry over to the roads. I hope next weekend brings good weather so I can see.

The South Nyack 10 Miler is in two weeks. I originally thought I’d like to break 1:09 this year, but I’m now approaching the race with no real goal. I’ll be running it after two fairly hefty weeks of miles and training, so that alone is making me reconsider setting lofty goals. And mid-September is always a crapshoot in terms of weather.

To put things in perspective, here are my previous times for that race:

2006 — 1:27:05
2007 — 1:23:35
2008 — 1:14:34

Whatever. I intend to race as well as I can and have fun. I’m pretty sure I can pick up at least another AG award this year. But even that isn’t a “goal” — more like a nice surprise if it happens.

Filed under: basebuilding, racing | 4 Comments »

95 miles on the treadmill? But how?

Posted on August 24, 2009 by threlkeld

I’ve noticed a common thread in the reactions to my recent blog postings and tweets about how much running I’m doing on the treadmill, including all of last week’s 95 miles: “WTF?! I could never do that!”

Well, guess what? You could. And many of you should.

I experience an equal measure of horror and amazement when I see the training logs of people who are out there running what are supposed to be easy long runs, but because of heat indices in the 90s and above are slogging away at tempo effort instead.

Sure, the treadmill is tedious. But I emerge from my treadmill runs unscathed by the weather outside and having expended the appropriate amount of effort for the workout at hand. Good training means training smart as much as it does training hard. If you’re training too hard, you’re not training smart.

So there’s my little lecture.

I realize that not everyone has access to a treadmill. In those cases, you do what I had to do in the summer, before I acquired one: run everything by HR and forget about paces. Forget about a social life, too, because most runs will now take forever to complete.

Have I managed to convince you of the benefits of running on a treadmill during the worst of the weather outside? If so, here are some strategies for making it easier, mentally and otherwise:

Make sure you’re distracted. I make sure I have multiple forms of entertainment available. I have a television three feet away from the treadmill and I sprung for a mini home theatre system so I can hear it. If I have movies, I watch those. If I don’t, I watch television. If there’s nothing on television, I listen to music. If I’m sick of music, I listen to the radio.

Bonus tip: For faster runs (like tempo or interval efforts), the din of the treadmill can drown out even the most powerful sub-woofer. For those runs, I get subtitled movies (or turn on closed captioning). I’ve discovered a lot of really good foreign flicks this way.

Make sure you’re comfortable. I’ve got an AC running. I’ve also got three fans: a ceiling fan, and one trained on my front and another on my back. This is essential for keeping cool and keeping effort in the appropriate range.

Introduce some variation. The treadmill is unrelenting. I think that’s what bugs a lot of people about it. Just as we naturally slow down or speed up thousands of times during a run over ground, we should have the same variation when running on the treadmill. So I frequently change pace by 10 seconds or so to give my legs and brain some variation and rest.

Have a goal for the important workouts. I’ve found that I can deal with the prospect of a long, difficult workout on the treadmill much better if I go in with clear goals. Examples might be: Run 20 miles under 2:45. Or, run the last three miles of this 10 mile general aerobic run 10-20 seconds faster.

Induce temporary blindness. Do you think I want to run 20 miles on a treadmill? Of course I don’t. So I do my best to forget about the distance I have to cover. One good way to do this is to cover up the display on the treadmill. I hang an old pillowcase over the mileage indicator. Based on the pace(s) I plan to run, I know when I’ll be done. Five minutes or so before that time, I look at the display to confirm where I am mileagewise (and celebrate).

Remember that it’s for the greater good. And it’s not forever. Winters and summers in NY State suck. That’s just how it is. I’ve accepted it. But the spring and fall provide fabulous running weather. I keep those wonderful, crisp morning runs (and races) in mind as I climb on the treadmill. I also keep my training and racing goals in mind too. I’ll be in much better shape when the good weather arrives than I would have been had I done all my runs in the heat outside (or skipped them during the winter).

Filed under: training, Uncategorized | 22 Comments »

Summer Basebuilding: Week 8

Posted on August 23, 2009 by threlkeld

sum09-base-08Every single run this week was inside on the treadmill. But I’ve gotten used to it. Just as I sometimes have stretches of many weeks during the winter when the ice on the ground necessitates running inside, so I’ve accepted the same fate during the steambath summer months.

I just remind myself that runs inside in reasonable temperatures and humidity will be much more productive (and faster to recover from) than runs where I struggle outside in heat indices approaching 100F.

This week concluded week six of taking iron and vitamin supplements. I feel like a new person lately, especially in the past three weeks. I’ve also been sleeping remarkably well (but not too much) and my resting HR has been in the 45 or below range most days.

On the training front, this was another very good week. I ran most of the recovery runs at a very low HR% (around 59-63% in most cases). I wanted to have plenty of energy for the harder runs and I did. The Wednesday run was tough, but it’s certainly easier doing those faster miles when they’re stuck in the middle of a run rather than tacked onto the end.

Friday’s run was gratifying primarily because I was able to run a lot faster that I’ve ever been able to on the treadmill. I managed 6:20 or better for the repeats and even managed to run 6:00 for two minutes during the first repeat before having to drop down to 6:10.

Today’s long run was the most satisfying run of the week. I’ve been working up to a faster pace on the last three weekend long runs, just to see what I can manage at a reasonable heart rate. Today I did an easy two mile warmup of 9:00 average pace, then dropped the pace down to 8:20 for a couple of miles, then 8:10 for the majority, finishing up with the final three at 8:00. My heart rate for the entire run averaged 74% (and that’s about where it was for the bulk of the miles), although it topped out at 80% for the last two.

Comparing this week to the previous two, my paces have gotten faster across the board for the faster workouts, with about the same amount of effort applied. This is giving me tremendous confidence. But it also makes me a bit wary. I was running spectacularly well in April and then everything fell apart in the following weeks. It’s hard not to worry about that happening again. But at least I know I’ll be more attentive to signs of a problem.

As with last week, I had no issues with the mileage either. Hitting 95 wasn’t difficult and I don’t feel particularly tired today. Next week is a recovery week with just 80 miles on the schedule. I’ll treat it as such, although I am keen to do another fast long run on Sunday, this time with a goal of averaging 8:00-8:05 for the run, to see if that yields a HR% in the mid-70s again.

I dropped the weight work this week, primarily because I didn’t have time for it. But I was also tired in the evenings. I may take it up again during the coming recovery week.

Now I go into mourning, since the IAAF World Championships have concluded. There were some wonderful races, not the least of which was today’s women’s marathon. I’m glad I’m not a betting woman, because none of my picks (which did not include Kara Goucher, for the record) podiumed. But at least I got two of the countries right (China and Japan), even if I picked the wrong runners.

Filed under: basebuilding, elites | 15 Comments »

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