Weekly Summary – 140 miles in 13 runs. Great first full week of training. Very solid fartlek with 20km at 3’09/km and another good long. Feeling much better in the heat!

Lunes, 22 de Agosto, 2016 – 9:45am: Easy run on Matt’s loop with add-on out/back on towpath. Felt surprisingly decent but quite warm because I started late. Total run 13M in 1h31.

XT: Back/hips

4:30pm: Easy run out/back on MVN and then strides barefoot on the turf field. Good to open the legs up. Total run 12km, 7.5M in 56’.

Martes, 23 de Agosto, 2016 – 9:15am: Easy run on Matt’s loop. Hot again and legs still a bit tired. Felt okay though. Total run 11M in 80’.

XT: Back/hips

5pm: Easy run with Mar down to Arlington ridge hill and stopped and did drills with her and then jogged around a bunch while she was doing some hills. After, jogged over to Costco field and did 6x strides on grass. Felt very good on these. Couples ethio. Total run 6M+.

Miercoles, 24 de Agosto, 2016 – Sparknotes: 20km fartlek in 63’04 (3’09/km) w 1km @ 2’54.8 avg (2’59->2’48), 1km @ 3’25.3 + 2x500m @ 1’19

9am: Easy warm up around CC loop and then did drills, changed into Claytons for workout. A few strides and 200m in about 35 to start.

Goal was 15-20km fartlek with 1km on, 1km off. Wanted to keep the 1km recovery in the 3’30 range and the faster km sub 3’00.

Ended up going very well. Worked into it with 2’59, 2’57, 2’55 first 3 reps and all the off reps around 3’25. Reps 4-7 were all in the 2’54-55 range and then last two were quicker 2’52, 2’48. Finished with 2x500m fast in 1’19 with 1km between. Quite tough to recover – much slower for first minute and then making up time after that.

The total was 63’04 for 20km (3’09km avg). This is again much quicker than the first fartleks I was doing at this time last year. The average is in line with the 2k/1k fartlek which I did right before Hartford last year. A very good sign!

Cooled down 2M with a stop at Costco to get frozen blueberries and cool off in the AC. Was going to do legs circuit but butt was totally fried so cut it.

Total run 18M.

1 km 2’59.7 (2’59.7) 166
2 km 6’24.9 (3’25.2) 165
3 km 9’22.0 (2’57.1) 176
4 km 12’46.6 (3’24.6) 171
5 km 15’42.4 (2’55.8) 177
6 km 19’08.2 (3’25.8) 172
7 km 22’02.7 (2’54.5) 177
8 km 25’27.5 (3’24.8) 173
9 km 28’23.1 (2’55.6) 179
10 km 31’47.6 (3’24.5) 172
11 km 34’41.2 (2’53.6) 181
12 km 38’06.0 (3’24.8) 174
13 km 41’00.8 (2’54.8) 181
14 km 44’25.4 (3’24.6) 175
15 km 47’18.2 (2’52.8) 182
16 km 50’43.8 (3’25.6) 176
17 km 53’32.7 (2’48.9) 182
18 km 56’59.8 (3’27.1) 168
18.5 km 58’18.6 (1’18.8) 185
19.5 km 1’01’44.4 (3’25.8) 172
20 km 1’03’03.7 (1’19.3) 188

5:15pm: Very easy shakeout around fields loop. Legs tired but not too bad. Total run 4km++ in 21’.

Jueves, 25 de Agosto, 2016 – 8am: Ran with Mariana to pace her workout this morning. Easy over to 1km loop and a few laps to warm up, stopped for drills, ran about 300m to get her pace. Her workout was 500m, 3x1600m and I rabbited perfectly running 6’12, 6’09, 6’08. She did very well especially since it was quite warm already (the heat has returned). Faster than she was running 1000s on the track last week! After, jogged back to the house and then out/back on MVN solo. Quite warm and very sweaty by the end in trackies and long sleeve. Total run 11M++ in 1h25.

XT: Back/hips

3:45pm: Easy run into DC to meet up with Mar at work to go to E St. Cinema. VERY hot, upper 90s and humid and sunny. Brutal in trackies, long sleeve. Finished with 6x strides around Mac. Sq. which felt very good despite feeling pretty miserable on the run. Cooled off in the gym at her building and did hips, quick ethio. Total run 6M+.

XT: Hips.

Viernes, 26 de Agosto, 2016 – Sparknotes: Short Hills (10x) + 3km prog in 9’10 (3’10, 3’03, 2’55)

8:30am: Easy warmup around 1km loop ~ 4’20-30/km and then jogged over to big hill on Ft. Scott. Stopped and did drills in the park at the top in tracer flats and then jogged down. Wanted to do 8-10x short hills and felt very good so made it through 10x. Glad I’d brought water bottle with nuun as it was very hot again in the 90s and sunny at this point and I needed that a few times.

Hills felt very good and I used HR for recovery (waited until it went below 120). This was generally jogging down and then a bit of walking/jogging around at the bottom.

NB this hill is much steeper than the one I’ve used in the past and is way better for this sort of exercise.

Hills were all in the 13-15 second range except the last one which I ran all the way to the top which was about 34 seconds. VERY tough!

Jogged back to loop after and did 3km blowout in 9’09 (3’10, 3’03, 2’55). Was thinking I’d try to go 4km, but I think the start and accelerations were a bit too aggressive on very muscularly tired legs.

Finished with jog back to the gym for leg circuits, cool down, ethio, stretching. Long morning!

Total run 10M.

XT: Legs at the gym. 3 sets of [15x each leg step up, 20x overhead lunge, 24x dynamic lunge, 12x squat (10 lb plate)]. No weight on everything except squats to build into these.

4:45pm: Brutal run. Felt okay going out but got really bad stomach cramping near turn around ~4km. Brought water and was sipping but maybe electrolyte problems? Really uncomfortable and had to stop and walk a bunch. Super hot again today in the 90s, humid, sunny, in trackies and long sleeve as always. Barely made it back! Total run 7M.

Sabado, 27 de Agosto, 2016 – 9am: Slept late – oops. Easy run on Matt’s loop. Felt surpriingly good. Kept pace relaxed but running 4’00ish the last 4M or so. Warm, in the mid 80s, trackies/long sleeve. Finished with run to HT where I drank half a cold gatorade and got a couple things I needed. Jogged home. Total run 13M++ in 1h35.

XT: Back/hips.

4:30pm: Easy shakeout around CC. Down to the turf but they were all occupied, so ran to costco fields and ran there. Stopped and did 6x diagonals which felt quite good. Jogged home after. Total run 5M+ in 37’.

XT: P90x

Domingo, 28 de Agosto, 2016 – Sparknotes: 49km (30+ miles) with 6km jog (28’), 20k @ 3’32.5/km (1’10’50) (avg HR 164.2), 5km @ 3’15/km (16’14) (avg HR 172), 5km @ 3’41/km (18’23) (avg HR 162), 13km @ 3’16/km (43’22) (avg HR 174)

6am: Early start for another long-run Sunday! Pre-dawn today as the sunrise is getting later.

Started differently this week with just a half hour of very easy jogging. The idea is to just bring the total length of the long run up to about 3h00 so that we can both get in some faster running and also keep the overall time-on-feet quite high to keep the body used to running for a very long time. Ran down to the fields and just on the turf easy about 6km total in 28’.

Came back and had some fluids and took gel #0 and then headed to the 1km loop. Felt quite good and was running pretty quick right away, ran way too fast first km (3’14) and then settled into a rhythm in the 3’30s for the remainder of the 20km moderate stretch. A bit quicker than last week (71’50, 3’32.5/km) and this loop is probably a bit harder, so maybe a bit aggressive.

First pickup was quite hard at 16’14. Definitely felt harder than last week. After that, though, was where things really started to get tough. Next 5km rec was MUCH slower (almost a minute slower than last week at 18’23) as I was really struggling to maintain form and catch my breath.

Had to stop in the middle of that section and just drink, cool off, catch my breath, get HR down, whatever. Very tough. Last 13km was extremely challenging and was also slower than last time (also on treadmill at 1.5%). Had to decrease pace from like 8-11km and was then able to finish a tiny bit quicker last 2km. Very, very tough.

Overall, 43km in 2’27’43 (49km in about 2h55 with the 6km jogging to start).

This was a supremely high effort and I think a combination of several things made it that way. First, a lot more miles in my legs in the week leading up to it. Second, two quite good workouts in the 4 days beforehand. Third, poorer hydration and cooling which led to both some stomach discomfort and some overheating issues. Forth, the extra 6km to start. Fifth, potentially a slightly over-aggressive start to the run in the first 20km. No one of those things is super killer, but the combination of all of them made this much more challenging than I expected.

Total run 30M+.

Splits
20k @ 3’32.5/km (1’10’50) (avg HR 164.2)
5km @ 3’15/km (16’14) (avg HR 172)
5km @ 3’41/km (18’23) (avg HR 162)
13km @ 3’16/km (43’22) (avg HR 174)

Unit Pace HR
1 km 3’14.0 (3’14.0) 146
2 km 6’49.0 (3’35.0) 158
3 km 10’24.0 (3’35.0) 161
4 km 13’58.0 (3’34.0) 162
5 km 17’30.0 (3’32.0) 165 (17’30.0)
6 km 21’04.0 (3’34.0) 164
7 km 24’38.0 (3’34.0) 166
8 km 28’13.0 (3’35.0) 166
9 km 31’47.0 (3’34.0) 166
10 km 35’20.0 (3’33.0) 167 (17’50.0)
11 km 38’52.0 (3’32.0) 167
12 km 42’26.0 (3’34.0) 166
13 km 46’00.0 (3’34.0) 166
14 km 49’33.0 (3’33.0) 167
15 km 53’09.0 (3’36.0) 168 (17’49.0)
16 km 56’45.0 (3’36.0) 166
17 km 1’00’18.0 (3’33.0) 166
18 km 1’03’52.0 (3’34.0) 165
19 km 1’07’18.0 (3’26.0) 167
20 km 1’10’50.0 (3’32.0) 165 (17’41.0)
21 km 1’14’07.0 (3’17.0) 171
22 km 1’17’25.0 (3’18.0) 172
23 km 1’20’38.0 (3’13.0) 171
24 km 1’23’52.0 (3’14.0) 173
25 km 1’27’04.0 (3’12.0) 174 (16’14.0)
26 km 1’30’42.0 (3’38.0) 168
27 km 1’34’21.0 (3’39.0) 166
28 km 1’38’08.0 (3’47.0) 151
29 km 1’41’49.0 (3’41.0) 160
30 km 1’45’27.0 (3’38.0) 163 (18’23.0)
31 km 1’48’46.0 (3’19.0) 169
32 km 1’52’03.0 (3’17.0) 171
33 km 1’55’17.0 (3’14.0) 172
34 km 1’58’33.0 (3’16.0) 173
35 km 2’01’46.0 (3’13.0) 175 (16’19.0)
36 km 2’05’00.0 (3’14.0) 175
37 km 2’08’14.0 (3’14.0) 173
38 km 2’11’30.0 (3’16.0) 175
39 km 2’14’46.0 (3’16.0) 175
40 km 2’18’04.0 (3’18.0) 175 (16’18.0)
41 km 2’21’20.0 (3’16.0) 176
42 km 2’24’34.0 (3’14.0) 177
43 km 2’27’43.0 (3’09.0) 180 (16’13.0)

PM: OFF – I was actually planning to do a shakeout, but got caught up with a few phone calls and a 30 mile morning is probably plenty.