Thursday, November 16, 2006

STILL NOT SURE

I’m still not sure about the whole "slow and easy" approach or the "medium-hard" approach to base building. I figure I tried "slow and easy" last year, so I’ll mix it up a little this year. Maybe once the snow flies and the paths get slippery I’ll change my approach. If nothing else, yesterday’s medium-hard led to some new mind games. When I got a little tired, instead of having negative thoughts I focused on the positive, “Hey, I’m recruiting new muscle fibers.”

Eric had some good comments about the schedule I posted yesterday. This may be more appropriate;

Sunday – ass-dragging slow
Monday – ass-dragging slow
Tuesday – MP + 20ish (7:10)
Wednesday – MP + 40ish (7:30)
Thursday – ass-dragging slow
Friday – MP + 20ish (7:10)
Saturday – 2+ hours

I found out during today’s 8 mile run that “ass-dragging slow” means about 8:45 pace for me right now. There’s definitely a whole different “flavor” between 7:10 paced runs and 8:45 paced runs. At 7:10s there’s not a whole lot of “sitting back and enjoying the run” going on. I’m guessing that blog entries will be a lot different on those days too.

I think today’s quote of the day applies to cross-country Nationals too, which are right around the corner;

“The start of a World Cross Country event is like riding a horse in the middle of a buffalo stampede. It’s a thrill if you keep up but one slip and you’re nothing but hoof prints.” – Ed Eyestone
at

5 comments:

  1. massoman11/16/2006 6:56 PM

    that's a good quote.

    8:45 is a tempo run pace for me...

    i guess its relative, eh?

    its really about the effort, not the pace.

    ReplyDelete
  2. getwell11/17/2006 12:48 AM

    Your last year's "slow and easy" approach, if you followed it strictly, does sound like a blueprint for developing endurance; but then causes you to underdevelop the 'stamina base' that you'd need to achieve higher levels of speed and hill workouts later in your training season. Incorporating med/hard (albeit carefully & sparingly) does appear to be the way to go in base building. I'm looking forward to seeing how it works for you.

    Also, these med/hard sessions seem to approach or resemble MLSS (maximal lactate steady state) training, or is that at a higher pace?

    Happy running.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Chad11/17/2006 12:58 PM

    Massoman, yeah it's all relative. I'm sure there are guys running easy at 6:00 pace.

    Getwell, I'm not sure what MLSS is. Is that like a tempo run?

    ReplyDelete
  4. getwell11/17/2006 3:42 PM

    I believe MLSS may be synonymous with anaerobic threshold or lactate threshold. The training associated with it would be to do your workouts just below it at a steady state and never cross above it to increase lactate, like running just under 10-k pace. I can't personally validate its effectiveness incorporating it early in base training because it's just something I read about in a case study. Seems more like something to be done closer to race season.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Chad11/17/2006 7:07 PM

    Getwell, 10K pace would be closer to 6:00 for me, so these runs are much slower.

    ReplyDelete