Weekly Summary – 156 Miles in 14 runs. A really great week with two terrific workouts (28 miles at 5’44 pace and 10x Mile at 4’50). The last week in a huge 3-week block. Time to rest a bit and begin to transition into specific marathon work.
Lunes, 1 Septiembre, 2014 – 9am: Very easy run solo on mid res/pond. Felt a bit stiff at first but much better by the end. Pace well over 8’00 at the start and close to 7’00 by the end. Total run was 17km (10.5M+) in 84’.
4pm: Easy run on rev long lakes. Super hot – 90F – felt really sluggish. Finished at the gym for upper body, jogged home. Total run 9.5M+ in 70’.
XT: Upper at the gym. Pushups, curls, shrugs, shoulder press, dips, rows, lat pull downs, pull ups, flutters. 3 sets of each.
Martes, 2 Septiembre, 2014 – 10am: Easy solo run on mid res, double pond. Felt much better today. Good long sleep. Quicker by the end. Very hot again, 85F. Total run 12M+ in 1’31.
4pm: Ran from home, big thunderstorm so went inside and ran on treadmill a bit til storm passed. Finished outside. Ran 5x surges of ~200m at the end at HMP to fast. Felt good. Total run 9M+ in 60’.
XT: Hips.
Miercoles, 3 Septiembre, 2014 – 8am: Easy shakeout on fields pre workout. Bad sleep. Total run 3M+.
11:30am: Workout wednesday! Another very hot day (when will this heat-wave end??), so I ran on the indoor track. Goal was to run 10x1600m at 105-110% of MP (4’55->4’35 or between HM and 10km pace). I wanted to purposefully run the first rep too fast to simulate the start of the 10k (or what I imagine it will be like).
So, I ran the first rep in 4’36, which actually didn’t feel that bad. Rest was 400m jog which started out around 2’05-2’10. The next few reps I relaxed to closer to HMP (4’53-4’55). These felt good and easy after the fast first rep.
I took a long rest after the first 5 (800m in 4’40), and it wasn’t until I got to #5-6ish that I think I started to feel that fast early interval. I had hoped to bring the pace down to 10k pace ~4’45 for the second half, but I found it very hard to run under 4’50, even with slower, longer rest (~2’30/400m). I was able to hit 4’48/4’49 on #s 8 and 10, but running another sub-4’40 was not in the cards.
Overall, the average was 4’50.0. I’ll put all the splits at the bottom.
The big takeaway for me was how easy that first 4’36 felt and how easy it would be to go out way too fast (either in the half or 10km) and ruin the second half of my race in the first 3-5 minutes. I’ve seen guys like Amos Sang race (at the Bedford 12km this spring) and he went out in ~2’50 but then averaged 3’08 pace. Similarly, he went out in like 4’31 at the Level Renner 10k last month and ran like 30’30.
So, I don’t think it’s wise for me to try to do something like that. I always race best in a situation where I’m running controlled in the start and can accelerate and catch people. I just don’t have enough time or experience working out at sub 4’40 pace to risk going out at that pace and trying to hang on.
Overall, this was a great workout, much better than last weeks 1200s. The best news was that 4’52-55s (goal HM pace) felt really comfortable, especially at the beginning, which was very reassuring.
Did legs afterwards, really tired, but felt okay. Short cool-down back. Total run 17M+.
1600m (4’36.2)
400m (2’08.2)
1600m (4’53)
400m (2’07.4)
1600m (4’54.2)
400m (2’05.2)
1600m (4’52.9)
400m (2’09.4)
1600m (4’53.3)
800m (4’40.1) (LONG REST)
1600m (4’47.8)
400m (2’11.6)
1600m (4’51.6)
400m (2’28.5)
1600m (4’48.6)
400m (2’32.2)
1600m (4’53.5)
400m (2’34.5)
1600m (4’49.2)
AVG: 4’50.0
6pm: Easy shakeout on grass. Very slow. Total run 3M+.
XT: Legs.
Jueves, 4 Septiembre, 2014 – 10am: Very hot again, 88F. Easy run on mid-res/double pond. Total run 12M+ in 1h32.
4pm: Easy run (super hot again, ugh!) on long lakes/sam’s loop. Felt okay, just too damn hot. Total run 11M in 1h25.
XT: Core, 15’.
Viernes, 5 Septiembre, 2014 – 10am: Pretty tired this morning, just easy run, pushed hills et al to afternoon. Ran midres, double pond. Total run 12M+ in 1h30.
4pm: Ran on fields 10km, felt better but still super hot ~90F. Ran to track and finished with 1km at MP in 3’12. Felt sluggish, probably heat. Jogged to pizza days hill and did 10x short hills, max effort. Felt really good on these. Jogged another 1km after to track and finished with 1600m progressive 600m in 1’55 (MP), next 600m at 1’49 (HMP) (3’44 @ 1200m), last 400m quick at about 67 for 4’51 total.
Finished with leg circuits at gym and then jogged home. Long workout, but felt really good by the end despite sluggish and hot beginning.
Total run 11M+.
XT: Legs at the gym.
Sabado, 6 Septiembre, 2014 – 9:30am: Ran with Mariana very easy on fields about 5km, then met up with TUXC gang on the way back for alumni run. Ran with them back to the track and then did some random drills and stuff before the 5k. I really didn’t want to run this hard, but couldn’t control myself and got stuck in the back of the front pack because it went out really slow. Kept it to 3’30/km at fastest because I didn’t want to kill myself before tomorrow. Ran very even and controlled after the first 2km or so. Finished with Kyle in about 16’30 for ~4.7km. Ran a long cooldown afterwards with a big group on short-res which was beautiful. Total run 13M+.
5pm: Ran from Concord short and easy before tomorrow’s big effort. Total run 5M+.
XT: HIps.
Domingo, 7 Septiembre, 2014 – 9am: Woke up at 6:30am for the last big workout of this block. Had a cup of black coffee and about ¾ of a bagel. Relaxed until just before 9am. Weather was much better today, only about 60F when I left.
Goal was to run 45km (~28 miles) at 85-90% of MP (3’32-41/km). This is the same workout that I did in Banos in the spring in the leadup to Boston. That workout was pretty brutal as I had a lot of stomach issues. I ended up running 2h48 there on a big net-downhill course (passing marathon around 2h38).
I actually didn’t feel very good at the beginning of this run. I was running the first 13M or so on a big loop in Concord where I’d stashed gatorade bottles every 5km. The remainder I would run on a single 5km loop so that I could bail if I felt too awful.
This first long loop was quite hilly (on the road that I used to do my long-runs in Concord during college) and I felt it. Some splits were quite fast ~3’25 and some as slow as 3’48. I tried to keep the effort consistent with the terrain and just let the splits dictate themselves, though, and it seemed to be about right because each 5k segment was relatively consistent (18’00, 18’01, 17’47, 18’03 for the first 4x, coming to 20km in 1’11’52.
I tried to stay relaxed on the first few loops until hitting 30km, at which point I figured I’d increase intensity if I still felt ok. This was my quickest 5km so far (17’36) and I actually still felt quite good. My legs were tiring, but aerobically I still felt great. 35-40km was quicker (17’26), and then I tried to push a bit the next 2km to get to the marathon split. I had a pipe dream of running sub 2h30, but it wasn’t going to happen and I passed in 2h30’2x.
The last 3km from marathon to the end were very muscularly tough, but I still never felt like I was red-lining aerobically. I didn’t want to try to “kick” in the last mile or anything because I didn’t want to change my form and hurt something, but I think I probably could have actually run a bit faster had I needed to. The last 5km was still the fastest (mostly trying to beat the 2h30 split) at 17’18.
I finished in 2’40’17 for 45km, an average of 3’33.6/km (5’44.0/mile). This was a super strong workout. I felt way better than last time I tried to run this and ran much faster. This was the end of a very big and very strong block of mileage and I’m very happy to be feeling fit but more importantly healthy through it. I’ll take 3 days of recovery now and then start another big 20-24 day block. I’ve got the USATF-New England 10k Grand Prix championship next weekend at the Lone Gull 10k and then Hartford Half Marathon in 5 weeks. Can’t wait to get to both!
Total run 28M in 2’40’17.
SPLITS
1 (3’39.0) ‘
2 (3’46.7) 7’25.7
3 (3’40.0) 11’05.7
4 (3’26.6) 14’32.3
5 (3’28.0) 18’00.3
6 (3’33.4) 21’33.7
7 (3’40.0) 25’13.7
8 (3’37.7) 28’51.4
9 (3’31.2) 32’22.6
10 (3’39.5) 36’02.1 (18’01.8)
11 (3’33.1) 39’35.2
12 (3’35.4) 43’10.6
13 (3’29.0) 46’39.6
14 (3’29.5) 50’09.1
15 (3’40.0) 53’49.1 (17’47)
16 (3’36.1) 57’25.2
17 (3’41.4) 1’01’06.6
18 (3’34.8) 1’04’41.4
19 (3’29.9) 1’08’11.3
20 (3’41.1) 1’11’52.4 (18’03.3)
21 (3’35.7) 1’15’28.1
22 (3’38.3) 1’19’06.0
23 (3’46.9) 1’22’53.3
24 (3’41.3) 1’26’34.6
25 (3’31.3) 1’30’05.9 (18’13.5)
26 (3’29.9) 1’33’35.8
27 (3’36.5) 1’37’12.3
28 (3’32.8) 1’40’45.1
29 (3’35.5) 1’44’20.6
30 (3’34.4) 1’47’55.0 (17’49.1)
31 (3’34.1) 1’51’29.1
32 (3’29.4) 1’54’58.5
33 (3’32.1) 1’58’30.6
34 (3’28.4) 2’01’59.0
35 (3’32.1) 2’05’31.1 (17’36.1)
36 (3’30.3) 2’09’01.4
37 (3’30.9) 2’12’32.3
38 (3’30.7) 2’16’03.0
39 (3’28.3) 2’19’31.3
40 (3’26.6) 2’22’57.9 (17’26.8)
41 (3’29.0) 2’26’26.9
42 (3’22.8) 2’29’49.7
43 (3’30.5) 2’33’20.2
44 (3’27.5) 2’36’47.7
45 (3’28.7) 240’16.4 (17’18.5)
PM: OFFFFFFFFF.
XT: OFF.
Thanks, Dan! Nothing better than a big group of friends to get you out the door and running (though, it’s always a danger of getting roped into running way too fast, as I did!)