I'LL JUST WAIT

First off, be sure to check out my latest interview.

I heard about this solar storm affecting GPS units and other electronics. I thought that’s what was happening on my run this morning. My first mile was 8:06, which is pretty quick for me for an opening mile. Then I saw 7:48 and started to wonder what was going on. I eased back, but still ran 7:39. Not sure if it was the solar storm or the day off yesterday, but I seemed to be moving pretty well. I guess I’ll take it without complaints.

My only other notable run of the week was Tuesday’s 8 x 400 workout that I ended up running on the treadmill. Of course, I’d rather run these on a track, but I made the best of what I had.

I came across what I considered to be an odd statement in this article;

However, the ugly truth remains: aside from the few genetically blessed individuals, most people who run in access (sic) of 50 miles per week, must spend as much or more time focusing on injury prevention than they do running or they will end up sidelined!

Seriously, I’m supposed to spend 7-8 hours a week focusing on injury prevention? I guess I’ll just wait until I end up sidelined and get it all out of the way at once. Where do people come up with this stuff?

Quote of the Day;

“I always try to put myself in a position to do something special if I can.” - Jon Grey.

THERE'S ONLY ONE WAY

It occurred to me the other day that maybe my training as been all wrong lately. I’ve been trying to follow the Endless Season approach, which is fine. However, in one blog post I mention not being able to squeeze in all the workouts during the week and in another post I mention running 70-mile weeks with thoughts of going higher.


A closer look at the Endless Season schedule shows that the weekly mileage is typically between 55 and 60 miles. Now I’m wondering if I could squeeze in all those workouts during the week if I cut my mileage back a little – keeping in mind that all of the workouts are at a controlled pace, rather than all-out all the time. I guess there’s only one way to find out.

With the unofficial kick-off to the 2012 racing season (Human Race 8K) less than 2 weeks away, I have to remind myself that short, fast racing is the goal through July, mileage is secondary.

So that’s my “new” plan – focus on getting in an interval and tempo run each week. Mid-week runs will stay in the 10 mile range and “long” runs will be around 11-13 miles.

Finally, here's a recap of February. I ended the month with 244 miles, including a couple of tempo runs and intervals, as well as a 5K and a hill workout. I think between December, January, and February, I should have a decent base heading into the new racing season.

Quote of the Day;

“We’re all an experiment of one.” - unknown

TO RUN OR NOT TO RUN

I spent the last 5 minutes staring out the window, trying to decide whether I should go for a run or not. Typically, if it takes that much effort to get out the door, then the answer is no. So here I am eating my lunch and blogging instead.


Last week I managed my second week in a row at 70 miles. Honestly, I wasn’t sure I was going to make it, given the way Saturday’s run started. Heading into the run I needed 16 miles to reach my goal. The first mile went by and I was barely under 9 minutes. But it wasn’t an easy 9:00 pace, it was a heavy-legged mile and I wondered how I’d ever make it 15 more miles. Luckily things started to come around and I managed to finish the run averaging 8:05 pace.

It’s really no surprise that I was tired. When I stopped to think about it, I remember that I did a 5K on Sunday (with a 6 mile cooldown), 13 miles on Wednesday, and a 5 mile tempo run on Thursday (8 miles total).

Ideally, I’d like to have one more big week before cutting back, but realistically, I don’t see that happening. Physically, I’m feeling fine. Mentally, I’m looking forward to a little break. So I’ll take one.

One thing I’ve been thinking about lately is how high should I go with my mileage this training cycle. I know I run well off of a large base – something like 3 months of 300+ miles (i.e. 70 MPW). So do I stick where I’m at and try to put together three weeks of 70 miles or do I bump my mileage a little and try to keep building?

I will say that it felt like my metabolism really kicked in around last Wednesday. I was so hungry that afternoon that I spent most of it walking around the office in search of food. That’s not a good thing when it’s Girl Scout Cookie season. I probably could have lost another 2 pounds if it weren’t for that.

Finally, congrats to Amanda Smock on winning the US Indoor triple jump championship over the weekend. I just happened to be looking at the running results at the time the triple jump was taking place. Amanda was in third after the 4th round. Her 5th round jump gave her the lead and she hung on through the 6th round.

Quote of the Day;

“Thanks to all for the support, feeling pretty loved. Looking forward to putting in some work this week and then headed to the World Indoor Competition in Turkey!!” – Amanda Smock, commenting to all her supporters on facebook

MR. BIG

Quick – I need your help in naming my new dog. Here’s a photo of him.

I’m thinking “Mr. Big”. Any other ideas?

He definitely gives new meaning to the term “wiener dog”.

I haven’t written since my 5K on Sunday, but it’s been a good week. I focused on recovery on Monday and Tuesday. Wednesday I bumped my mid-week medium-long run from 12 to 13. I’ve run the last three of these on a very flat trail. I was hoping to hit the rolling hills of Hyland this week, but we got some snow Monday night and I wasn’t sure what kind of shape the trails would be in.

It figures that we’d finally receive some snow the week of the Birkie. That’s some kind of cruel joke by Mother Nature. Good luck to all the skiers heading to the race this weekend.

Today I had a great tempo run on the treadmill. My last attempt at a tempo run was two weeks ago and I only managed 3 miles at 6:48 pace. Afterwards I wrote about how I wasn’t in control of the workout. I was fighting the whole time. Well, today was the opposite. I let the workout come to me as I started out at 7:03 pace and gradually kept speeding up. The last half mile was at 6:35 pace and even that felt controlled. I ended up with 8 miles total, including 5 miles at 6:49 pace.

Looking back on my last tempo, it may have been too close to the half marathon I ran. It was 11 days later, which is right on the bubble for recovery time recommended by Pete Magill who I mentioned recently. Had I waited another day or two, I probably would have felt “normal”. In any case, it was nice to have bounced back today.

Finally, I forgot to mention my WAVA % after last weekend’s 5k. It calculated to 68.8%, which is up from 68.2% for the meet of miles. So that’s another indicator that I’m going in the right direction.

Quote of the Day;

“Instead of stuffing workouts into our training logs like Takeru Kobayashi inhales hot dogs, we should focus on two factors; 1) The correct training volume and intensity required to trigger a desired adaptation and 2) the recovery period needed to allow the adaptation to occur.” – Pete Magill

MILESTONES

Yesterday I was planning on 12-14 miles for my "long" run.  I ended up getting in 16, which gave me 70 for the week.  Even though I had a 5K schedule for this morning, I wasn't too worried because it the pace for my long run was nice and relaxed.

Even though I'm trying to shed some weight, I really only get on the scale once a week - typically after my Saturday run.  I was up as high as 158 and then I got "stuck" at 155-156 for the longest time.  I'm happy to report that I was down to 153 yesterday.  I still have a good 5-6 pounds to go, but it's nice to finally get below 155.

Leading up to today's 5K, I figured I'd be right around 20-flat, based on Daniels' VDOT charts.  The nice thing about 20-flat is that it makes for easy math; 20/5 = 4:00/km or 48 seconds per lap.  I was hoping to run that pace for as long as possible and then hopefully pick it up a little at the end.  As you can imagine with an indoor track meet, there weren't a lot of people in the race - maybe 20.  It's not like a local 5K where there are always people around you.  So when Michael was just ahead of me after 2 laps, I decided to try and stick with him, even though we were running a little faster than expected.  After about a mile, Mike pulled away I was left to run solo the rest of the way.  Looking at my kilometer splits below, you can see a pretty sharp drop off after 2K.  By 4K I was right at 16:00 or 16:01 and I knew breaking 20 was going to be close.  I did manage to pick it up and finish in 19:57.

3:56.5
3:56.5
4:04.3
4:03.5
3:56.6
19:57.4

I'm not sure I'd call breaking 20 a "milestone".  Not breaking 20 would probably have been a milestone, but one indicating that I was going in the wrong direction, since I probably have run over 20 minutes for 5K in 20 years.

Based on my Meet of Miles time, my VDOT was squarly between 49 and 50.  19:57 puts me at 50, so it appears I'm making baby steps.

Finally, thanks to Gary Westlund and his crew at Charities Challenge for putting on a great event.  These guys run a number of meets throughout the winter, so if you're interested in working on your speed over the winter, be sure and check them out.

Quote of the day;

"This is the longest November I can ever remember." - John Naslund, commenting on our mild winter

F!#*^*@$ SERVICE CHARGES

Last night I pulled the trigger and signed up for TCM. I love this event, but haven’t run it since 2008. (Where does the time go?) As much as I love it, it still pains me to have to register nearly 8 months ahead of time. Sure I could wait, but then the price keeps increasing. Figuring that my thoughts about doing this race in 2012 wouldn’t change, I decided to register. I’ve probably bitched about this before, but man, that service charge really drives me crazy. At work, we are constantly trying to drive customers to the web because the order entry costs are cheaper. Yet when I sign up for a race online I have to pay $8.60 in service charges. Dang! I guess the $105 entry fee isn’t enough. I almost wish they’d charge me $115 without the service charge.

Okay, I got that off my chest.

One thing that’s been on my mind lately is making sure I’m getting enough recovery time in each week with this Endless Season program. I’m partially concerned because TCM is 8 months away and I know that I have a tendency to dig myself into a hole during the summer if I’m not careful.

Anyway, Pete Magill is another writer for Running Times and he usually writes about training for Masters runners. Last October he wrote an article about recovery time needed after races and between hard workouts. One of his charts recommends 4.5 days between hard workouts for someone in their 40s who’s in medium shape. Well, if I workout hard on Monday, that means my next hard workout would be Friday or Saturday. So am I supposed to run a hard tempo on Friday? But I like to do my long runs on Saturday. Do I push those to Sunday? What about the mid-week progression run? If I throw that in the mix, does it delay my recovery time? These are the types of questions I have rolling around in my head.

If I followed the Endless Season program exactly, I’d be doing an interval session, tempo and long run every week – along with the mid-week progression. I can already see the hole being dug. So right now I’m going to focus on getting in 3 workouts (i.e. intervals or tempos) every 2 weeks. With that in mind, I postponed my tempo run this week – moving it to next week.

I was thinking about Jessie Diggins some more and I really think some company should sign her to a long-term sponsorship deal ASAP. Think about it, she’s have a tremendous rookie season on the world cup, she’s attractive, speaks very well on camera and writes an entertaining blog. Oh yeah, and she’s only 19. That means she’ll be 21 at the next winter Olympics, then 25, and then 29. She will be around for awhile and could easily replace Lindsey Vonn as the face of the Olympic Games. I’m just saying – you heard it here first.

Quote of the Day;

“I’m psyched out of my mind on getting a photo finish with an Olympic Gold Medalist! I think I must have been in a lot of pain because I couldn’t stay standing at the finish but I was so excited I couldn’t feel a thing, which was just fine with me! I found out later than I had the fastest anchor leg over Kalla and Bjoergen, which I’m going to solidly blame on the fast skis. Thank you Salomon for Hooking. Me. Up. This. Year!” - Jessie Diggins

AS USUAL

Of course, it makes sense when following a program named the Endless Season that you would race a lot. The whole idea is that you want to be race-ready all the time. The tradeoff being that you don’t race all-out and you never really peak for any specific event during the season – or at least not until the end. The author, Joe Rubio, argues that most runners don’t get the peaking phase right anyway. So why not take it out of the equation?

Longtime readers may not believe this, but here’s the race schedule I put together for 2012. NOTE: (gp) = MDRA grand prix event;

JANUARY
1/9 – Meet of Miles (gp)
1/23 – Winter Carnival Half (gp)

FEBRUARY
2/19 – Indoor track 5,000m

MARCH
3/11 – Indoor track 5,000m
3/18 – Human Race 8K (gp)
3/24 – MDRA 4-mile

APRIL
4/7 or 4/14 - ?
4/21 – Fitger’s 5K
4/28 – Get in Gear 10K (gp)

MAY
5/12 – New Prague Half (gp)
5/17 – TC-1 mile
5/28 – Brian Kraft 5K (gp)

JUNE
6/10 – Outdoor track 5,000m
6/15 or 6/23 - ?

JULY
7/4 – Firecracker 10K
7/15 – Raspberry 5M
7/26 – Rice Street Mile (gp)
7/28 – Run for Blood 5K (gp)

AUGUST
8/12 – MDRA 15K
8/25 – Rochester Half (gp) – might be on vacation

SEPTEMBER
9/3 – Victory 10K (gp)
9/9 – City of Lakes 25K (gp)

OCTOBER
10/7 – TCM (gp)

NOVEMBER
11/4 – Rocky’s Run (gp)

As of now my plan is to follow this plan through the end of July and then transition to a 8-week marathon build-up with a two week taper.

As usual, everything sounds good on paper. Let’s see if I can make it work.

Quote of the Day;

“Many elites have prospered on this "endless season" approach. In the 1970s and early '80s, many runners would get themselves into pretty good shape, race fairly often and remain in this mode for months on end… Do you need to race every week? Probably not, but a race every two to three weeks helps immensely. Additionally, racing is a skill, and to become proficient at any skill, you need to practice it repeatedly to show improvement.” – Joe Rubio