This morning I met up with a group of runners from the Run N Fun/Twin Cities Track Club and this allowed to do two things: (1) Hit 80 miles for the week; and (2) Hit my longest streak of consecutive days running since my last sacral stress fracture that I suffered this past summer. ……..18 days in a row (Previous best streak was 17 days). While I’m not afraid to take a day off if I need to, I generally take a day off of running every 1-3 months so this past stint of training has not been characteristic of my training habits. While I could go off in a tangent about how the last year of running has not been “ideal” for me, it has been a learning experience that should set up well for the next 4 years of training.
Operation find my lower abs is currently in affect. While I was 153 lbs after the holiday season, I’ve cut my weight back down to 148 lbs which is a long ways off of my ideal running weight, but I’m heading in the right direction. While I’ve cut a lot of weight in a short time span, I imagine the rate at which I lose weight will slow down over the up and coming months. All of my PR’s have come at times where my weight was in the 137-142 lb range so my goal is to get back down where I should be. While I wasn’t given a naturally sleek runner’s body, I was given a large set of lungs so hopefully I can put the work in so I can take advantage of the talents that I have.
My last week of training was somewhat uneventful which was great news. My week started out with a long run of ~15.4 miles with Paul Limpf and Dan Allen. It really was a relaxed effort which was exactly what I set out to do. For the time being, the goal of my long runs is to get time on my feat to train my body to burn fat stores early in runs rather than glycogen. As many people know, this is a key component for racing longer distances. On Tuesday I met up with the Run N Fun group and had a little quicker effort. Wednesday was my treadmill cut-down “workout”.
Mile 1 - 6:18 (9.5 mph)
Mile 2 – 6:00 (10 mph)
Mile 3 – 5:49 (10.3 mph)
Mile 4 – 5:40 (10.6 mph)
Mile 5 – 5:27 (11 mph)
Mile 6 – 5:18 (11.3 mph)
Mile 7 – 5:10 (11.6 mph)
7 to 7.25 at 9.5 mph
7.25 – 7.5 at 10 mph
7.5 – 8 at 10.3 mph
8-8.5 at 10.6 mph
8.5-9 at 11 mph
9-9.25 at 11.3 mph
9.25-9.5 at 11.6 mph
9.5-9.75 at 12.1 mph (Just wanted to see if the treadmill went over 12 mph)
9.75-10 at 9.5 mph
As you may guess, I didn’t necessarily plan this out ahead of time. Instead, I knew that I wanted to run a cut-down workout and the type of effort that I wanted to give so I adjusted the workout accordingly. The purpose of the workout is to get a sustained effort, work on stride efficiency at various speeds, work on taking in fluids while running, and not tax my body in the process. While this workout does not “show you’re in shape”, it’s definitely a workout that gets you in shape. For the up and coming season, I’m really going to focus on recognizing the purpose of each work out and stick to the purpose. On Thursday I ran a 13 mile easy mid-long run and filled in the rest of the week to hit 80 miles. All in all, the last 2 weeks of running have been very successful and I hope to continue to have consistent training. I’m planning on running 80-85 mpw in February to continue to build a foundation for the spring season. Getting healthy and consistent is my number one priority for the up and coming month.
The last update is that I’m officially going to gear my training to peak for the Gary Bjorklund Half Marathon (i.e. the half marathon at Grandma’s marathon). For the next 2 years, this race is the USAtf Half Marathon National Championships. I’ve heard great things from people that have competed in the past years. Additionally, the race is providing athlete compensation with a nice purse as well as time standard incentives. The Event Organizers are making a premiere national event which should create some buzz and attract a fast field (http://grandmasmarathon.com/site/). To anyone looking for a great late spring event, there’s about 5.5 months to get ready. If anyone from Michigan
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