Weekly Summary – 101 Miles in 13 runs. Two GREAT workouts. Feeling incredible. Less than two weeks to CIM!!
Lunes, 17 Noviembre, 2014 – 9am: Horribly ugly day – 36F and rainy. Ran to the gym and then ran on the treadmill. Felt good once I got moving. Jogged back after. Total run 8M in 60’.
5pm: Still awful outside so on the treadmill again. Ran there and back and mostly on the machine. Total run 7M in 50’.
XT: Core, 12’.
Martes, 18 Noviembre, 2014 – 10am: Ran late after getting caught up with work this morning. Ran LL to bike path. Felt very good, running quick out the door which might have been partly due to it being cold (33F), but at least it was sunny. Running under 4’00 pace early and 3’4x by the end. Total run was 10M in 64’.
3:30pm: Ran with Dave easy on fields and then to track for some strides to get the legs moving. Felt very good. Cold though. Saw both the men and women’s Tufts teams doing their last tuneups before Nationals – good luck! Finished with 400m which was supposed to be at MP but ran the first 100m in 16-low. Oops. Ran 72, so not too far off pace after that first 100. Jogged home. Total run 5M.
XT: Off.
Miercoles, 19 Noviembre, 2014 – 9am: Easy run on LL. Felt good, taking it easier today with a big effort tomorrow. Total run 8.5M in 56’.
4pm: Ran with Mariana very easy 2M and then solo 2M quicker. Felt very good, holding back again. Total run 4M+, NT.
XT: Hips.
Jueves, 20 Noviembre, 2014 – 10am: Woke up early ~6:30am. Breakfast of plain bagel, black coffee, some galletas maria. Left around 9:30am for very short warm up before my last long workout today.
Goal was a 35km (total) run with the first 10km moderate and then 25km of 1km “on”/1km “off”, with the “on” at HM pace to 10k pace and the “off” at a quicker moderate pace (~90% of MP). I did this same workout 2.5 weeks before Boston (at altitude) and then a slightly shortened version 2.5 weeks before VCM (at sea level and on this exact same course).
I started off with drills and no strides and exactly at 10am (just as CIM will start in 2 weeks).
I was running quite slow at first (~3’45/km, 6’00/M) and actually felt kind of lousy. Maybe it was just getting started or maybe it was that I was running faster than my normal easy pace but not as fast as I’ve been doing my workouts – kind of in “no-man’s land”.
Anyway, I stopped for a quick pee-break in the 10th kilometer right before starting the “real” running (kept the watch going for that) and then started running faster. I took a powergel right before starting as well.
I wanted to start out a bit slower for the first couple reps and then think of the last 10x or so as the “meat” of the workout. This worked out well. The first 3 reps were 3’03, 3’01, 3’01, with the “rest” km at 3’26-28. I felt very good and this recovery pace felt very easy.
On rep #4, I started thinking of THAT as starting the workout – as in, 10 to go.
I took a second powergel at about 70 minutes.
These 5-6 reps between 10 to go and 4 to go all felt great. I was running relatively fast (2’58-59, 4’47-50/M pace) and felt comfortable and recovered by the end of each “off” km, which were all about 3’27-28 (~5’35/M pace).
With 4 to go, I remember thinking – that one felt a bit tougher – and the recovery started to feel a little less recovery-y. Each one felt harder.
I had told myself that I’d only try to pick up the pace on the last two, and on the penultimate rep, I tried to run faster and did (a tiny bit) running 2’57 (the fastest of the day). The last one, I tried to really kick in the last 500m or so, but when I made the gear-shift, I felt like I was going to throw up, so I held back a bit and ran about the same (2’58).
Overall, this was a HUGE workout. Much faster than I ran before Boston and VCM in all regards – faster “on” pace, faster “off” pace, faster overall average. In fact, I ran the 25km fartlek almost as fast as my 25km MP run last week.
This is my last full volume workout before the race which is 2 weeks from this Sunday (17 days out). I am extremely excited to see how this “new territory” fitness translates on race day!
From here on, mostly just some light workouts and cutting the mileage to freshen up the legs.
Total workout was 35km (21.75M) in 1’58’16 (5’26/M o 3’22.7/km)
Total run 22M+.
Splits
10km: 37’41
25km (13 x 1km on, 12x 1km off): 1’20’35 (avg 3’13.4/km, 5’11.2/M)
Avg on: 2’59.5. Slowest, rep #1: 3’03.1; Fastest: rep #12 (penultimate) 2’57.9. Reps 3-13 all under 3’00.
Avg off: 3’28.4
Total 35km in 1’58’16 (5’26/M o 3’22.7/km)
Full km splits
1 (3’44.2)
2 (3’42.3) 7’26.5
3 (3’41.2) 11’7.7
4 (3’41.5) 14’49.2
5 (3’41.6) 18’30.8 (18’30.8)
6 (3’43.5) 22’14.3
7 (3’42.1) 25’56.4
8 (3’37.9) 29’34.3
9 (3’41.9) 33’16.2
10 (4’25.3) 37’41.5 (19’10.7)
11 (3’03.1) 40’44.6
12 (3’27.9) 44’12.5
13 (3’01.3) 47’13.8
14 (3’28.8) 50’42.6
15 (3’01.7) 53’44.3 (16’02.8)
16 (3’28.1) 57’12.4
17 (3’00.2) 1’00’12.6
18 (3’27.3) 1’03’39.9
19 (2’59.5) 1’06’39.4
20 (3’28.7) 1’10’08.1 (16’23.8)
21 (2’58.2) 1’13’06.3
22 (3’28.7) 1’16’35.0
23 (2’58.4) 1’19’33.4
24 (3’28.9) 1’23’02.3
25 (2’58.7) 1’26’01.0 (15’52.9)
26 (3’28.1) 1’29’29.1
27 (2’59.7) 1’32’28.8
28 (3’28.4) 1’35’57.2
29 (2’58.7) 1’38’55.9
30 (3’28.7) 1’42’24.6 (16’23.6)
31 (2’58.5) 1’45’23.1
32 (3’29.5) 1’48’52.6
33 (2’57.9) 1’51’50.5
34 (3’27.5) 1’55’18
35 (2’58.2) 1’58’16.2 (15’51.6)
5pm: Ran very easy with Mariana on fields. Pretty pooped. Total run 3M.
XT: Off.
Viernes, 21 Noviembre, 2014 – 9am: Ran with David on fields, nice and easy shakeout after yesterday. Cold and windy – ugh. Legs didn’t feel too bad though. Total run 5M in 40’.
4pm: Ran solo on Sam’s loop. Felt much better, no problems. Total run 5M+ in 36’.
XT: Core, 12’.
Sabado, 22 Noviembre, 2014 – 9am: Ran first 4km very easy with Mariana and then solo quicker. Ran on the Gobble Gobble course and then home. Nice course, will be fun to race it again after a couple years off.
Total run 8M in 56’.
XT: Hips
Domingo, 23 Noviembre, 2014 – 10am: Drove out to Woburn to run an UP/DOWN 10km today. Jon had found me a stretch of road that provided 5km of continuous uphill running (remarkably hard to do in MA – it was a lot easier in Ecuador!). The plan was to run 10km with the first half up the hill – to fatigue the legs and aerobic system – and then turn around and run 5km downhill very fast – to work on turning over at high cadence on fatigued legs and specifically prepare the legs for the eccentric loading needed for sustained downhill running.
I warmed up 3M EZ in 20’ and then did drills and 2 strides. I ended up doing 6M (3M up and 3M down) since the hill wasn’t quite long enough to make it to 5km.
The workout felt extremely uncomfortable basically within the first minute. I had a strong headwind the first 2.5km or so and it also started out with one of the steepest climbs (3’22 first km), so I felt like I was just about red-lining right from the start. I was able to catch my breath a bit as the grade settled out, but never really felt good as the continuous uphill grade was unrelenting. There was one brief section of relative flat at the first turn and I was out of the headwind and I was able to really catch my breath a bit for a few seconds around 3km (9’58). Then the grade was very tough again from the turn onto Winchester Dr until the last turn onto Berkshire drive. At least I was out of the wind, though, so it felt a bit better even though I was still extremely out of breath. The turnaround was just about 16’00 for 3M. The total elevation gain for this section was about 300 ft (or about a 2% avg grade).
Once I got onto the long, fairly steep descent on Winchester drive, I started feeling very good. I had caught my breath and was just letting my turnover increase and my legs fly under me. I ran that km in 2’55 which was almost all steep downhill but with the headwind. The next one was mostly the flat and was slower (3’02), but I knew I had the long downhill tailwind for the remainder which would fly. And it proved to do just that. I still felt very uncomfortable – like I was very close to going over the edge, but I just forced my legs to turnover faster and faster. I knew the last mile was very fast with the steepest downhill, so I just tried to focus on getting to that point and then using gravity in the last mile. I was able to close very hard in this last section, running 2’56, 2’56, and then 1’41 for the last 600m (2’49/km pace). Last 3M was 14’05 (4’42/M, 2’55/km). I almost certainly bested my track 5k PR, but that’s not saying much since there were 300 ft of descent!
The most surprising thing was that despite feeling so uncomfortable the entire time, once I stopped, I felt almost totally fine within a few minutes. My legs didn’t feel too tired and my breathing was fine. I ran a 3M cooldown in 19′ and it felt very easy – I mostly felt really well warmed up!
All in all, very good. I’d have to map it out, but I think this was MUCH more elevation gain than when I did this workout before Boston (though that was at altitude). The other good news was that my legs felt fine both during and after. We’ll have to wait until tomorrow to see if there’s any longer term soreness, but overall, I feel very good about my ability to run hard downhill without too much musculo-skeletal distress.
I feel super fit – I almost wish I had run Philly today (A big shout out to Dan Vasallo who ran 2’17’28 and WON the race – gives me great confidence moving forward because I know he’s close to my ability). Still, I seemed to be able to hold my peak for like 6 weeks in the spring, so I’m not concerned.
Finished and then drove to the gym for (shortened) legs. A very solid morning.
Total run 12M+.
Splits
Up: 16’00 (5’20/M, 3’18.8/km)
Down: 14’05 (4’41/M, 2’55/km)
Total: 30’05 (5’01/, 3’07/km)
1 (3’21.7)
2 (3’16.1) 6’37.8
3 (3’19.8) 9’57.6
4 (3’18.9) 13’16.5
5 (3’17.5) 16’34 (3M: 16’00)
6 (2’55.2) 19’29.2
7 (3’02.6) 22’31.8
8 (2’56.2) 25’28
9 (2’56.3) 28’24.3
9.6km (1’41.5) 30’05.8 (second 3M, 14’05)
Up: 16’00 (5’20/M, 3’18.8/km)
Down: 14’05 (4’41/M, 2’55/km)
Total: 30’05 (5’01/, 3’07/km)
5pm: Ran very easy shakeout with David and Ari at STRIVE event and then solo. Felt fine. Total run 4M, NT.
XT: Legs at the gym. Felt good. Only 2 SETS of [step ups (15x each leg, 20 lb bar), walking overhead lunge (20x, 5lb plate), dynamic lunge (12x each leg, 20lb bar), deep squat (12x, 30 lb bar).
Leave A Comment