Barefoot running and weekly update

            As my one poll would indicate, I am interested on people’s perception regarding minimalist running. Growing up, I always thought that more cushion would protect your body and help fend off injury. Recently, barefoot running and the famous Vibram 5 Fingers have become very popular. The question is, how beneficial is barefoot running? The simple answer is, it’s great. It strengthens your arches, promotes forefoot striking, and really just overall helps your running mechanics. On the other hand, the lack of arch support can lead to shin/calf problems since muscles such as the soleus attach run from your calf muscle and attach at your arch. For me, I love the feeling of running in minimalist shoes, but there is a risk/reward issue where I’m not sure if the gains out weigh the injury risk. I am still somewhat undecided on my opinion on barefoot running, but for the time being, I’ll probably stick with arch support. For those interested, check out the link below, featured on Flotrack. If the link wouldn’t work, search Thirsty Thursdays and there should be a talk with Jack Daniels. It’s really a great piece that spurs thought. I really enjoy listening to Jack Daniels because he really does consider most possibilities and he encourages runners to think about what they’re doing vs pushing the latest fads.

  

http://www.flotrack.org/coverage/234673-Saucony-Thirsty-Thursdays-with-Jack-Daniels/video/335086-4-Barefoot-Running-Thirsty-Thursday

As for my training, this week was a little rough. My body is struggling to adapt to the heat and dehydration has been an issue which I believe has lead to some unwanted muscle spasming. I think I probably need to cut out some of my morning coffee since I seem to be drinking a ridiculous amount these days and really focus on taking in fluids. My workouts are not eye-popping, but I think they’ll continue to help me build toward my marathon goals. I still have approximately 4 months of training, so I’m trying to keep myself reserved. I am certainly in the base building stage and my workouts designed to break up the week and have a little fun without pushing my body to the edge. Additionally, I’m officially in my last week as a Michigan resident. While I’m extraordinarily excited to move closer to home and live in another great area for running, Minneapolis, I really will miss the people in Michigan. Deciding to pursue graduate school at MSU really was one of the best decisions that I’ve made in my life. I’ll definitely look forward to my future visits back to Michigan.

Workouts

Sun May 29^th – 20 easy.

Mon – 11 easy

Tues – 9 mile cut down. Goal: 6:30-5:10. Actual: 6:14, 6:14, 6:01, 5:57, 5:48, 5:36, 5:30, 5:24, 5:17. I didn’t do a very good job at controlling the pace early. The last 3 miles didn’t feel very good. My bum muscles were spasming which I think was due to dehydration. My body is struggling to get adjusted to running in the heat.

Wed – 10 easy with Strides at the end

Thurs – Goal: 3 x 2 mile at MGP (5:11), 2 mile warm up transition straight in, 1 mile brisk recovery. Actual 2 warm up (12:34), 2 miles 10:24 (5:15, 5:09), 1 mile 6:04, 2 mile 10:22 (5:10, 5:12), stopped workout due to booty muscles spasming. I could have run the 3^rd set, but I really didn’t feel great about my form and the point of the workout was really to work on stride efficiency vs pushing my body to its limit. Even after the 2^nd interval, I felt 100% recovered after a mile, but I really didn’t like how my muscles were responding on the 2^nd interval. I ended up just running a brisk pace in and doing strides at the end instead. Didn’t run the workout precisely how I wanted, but accomplished something without suffering setbacks.

Fri – 10 miles easy

Sat – 10 miles easy, strides

85 mile week. I’m planning on hitting 85 and maybe upwards of 90 for the up and coming week. However, given that I struggled a little bit this week, I’ll likely hold the miles down to 85.

Back to the Basics: Training to my Strengths

            I know that I just posted a blog, but as I’m sitting here not racing on the weekend that I typically dedicate to the Bayshore half marathon, I’m more excited than ever to run and race. For the first time in quite some time, I set out with a moderately difficult training week and was actually able to complete it. Since my last post, I ran two workouts.

May 26^th-Thurs- 9 mile cut-down (6:22, 6:20, 6:04, 5:54, 5:46, 5:38, 5:26, 5:21, 5:06) 3 mile cool down

May 27^th-Fri- 2 mile warm up straight into 6 mile Marathon Goal Pace 31:09 (5:10, 5:13, 5:03, 5:14, 5:15, 5:14). I was shooting for 31:06, but my form broke down a little the last mile and a half. I probably could’ve struggled through some more miles or run the last one a little faster, but that wasn’t the point of the workout.

All in all, after today’s 10 mile run, I will hit 85 miles with my best workout week in quite some time. That being said, the workouts that I ran this week were all strength based which just so happens to be my strength. 2:16 for the marathon is a pretty lofty goal, but I have over 4 more months to train and I certainly didn’t go into my last marathon prepared or healthy to say the least (which was entirely my fault). My coach, Jim Robinson (the coach of Playmakers Racing), is there reminding me that I need to keep up on my ancillary work as well as incorporating strides. Speed is really my weakness, but I’m planning on primarily training to my strengths for this training cycle. I think this will allow for faster recovery which should also allow for me to get my mileage up down the road. I’ve never really consistently trained above 90-95 mpw so I’m hoping to train somewhere in the 95-105 mpw this summer. Over the years, I’ve found that my body responds better to quality over quantity, but continued slow progression in higher training volumes is needed to reach my goals. That being said, I do have 4 months to work toward my marathon goal, so I do need to not get carried away so that I can get to the start line healthy this year. While I’m highly anticipating my next race, I don’t know when my next focal race will actually be. I’ve really over raced my body the last couple years so I’m really resisting the temptation to race and backing off a little bit for now. While this is completely up in the air at this point, my speculative race schedule may be Bix 7, Hood to Coast, Twin Cities Marathon, but that being said, I may add a race or two into in the mix and I haven’t committed to a marathon yet. While the workouts that I’ve run to this point are not eye-popping, 2 weeks before Indy, I ran 2 x 3 mile in 15:31 and 15:56 which was a near all out if not all out effort for me at the time. Needless to say, I was pretty scared going into Indy, but couldn’t be more happy with the progression that I’ve made in the past month. In this past week’s workouts, I really have felt like I have more to give at the end of each workout if needed, and that’s a good sign that I’m not over doing it and that I should be able to continue to progress.

May 25th Update

            My blog updates have been a bit less frequent these days. To summarize, I’m in the process of finishing up my Ph.D. in chemistry at MSU, getting ready to start a job at 3M, and recently bought a house in the Longfellow neighborhood in Minneapolis. Did I mention that the house is 4 houses away from my sister Dawn!? Needless to say, there are a lot of big changes going on in my life right now, but I’m taking the time to enjoy them. At the risk of sounding cheesy, I have been lucky to have good people involved in my life which has made and will make the up and coming transitions much easier than they could be. So thank you to everyone that has helped me along the way.

            As far as running is going, running is actually going great. My knee has been a little bit bothersome, but I’m finally able to run normally without taking an anti-inflammatory. My workouts and races really were horrendous leading up to the Indy Mini Marathon, but I believe that I raced to the best of my fitness level at Indy and really did execute a near perfect race for the fitness that I was in. I just took 2 weeks where I ran workouts, but I wasn’t concerned about the mileage that I was hitting (I believe I hit 80 and 62 miles the last 2 weeks). I’ve been true to my goal of running workouts to get in shape rather than to show I’m in shape. I plan to do a lot of training at or near marathon goal pace (5:11’s) and incorporate more cut down runs into my training where the workouts will be on the roads. Here’s a quick summary of the workouts I’ve run post-Indy

Tues May 10^th - 4 miles in 20:42.

Sun May 15^th – Was fortunate enough to meet up with a former college teammate John Heitzman. We ran 20 miles where we took 10 minutes of recovery running (at or little under 6:00 pace) between each interval 2 x 1 min at 5:08ish pace, 1 x 15 min (5:06, 5:09, 5:08), 2 x 1 min at 5:08ish pace, 1 x 5 min (5:05). It was a great run on a great day. I believe John is ready to set a nice PR at Grandmas Marathon this spring.

Thurs May 20^th – 12 miles with a 9 mile cut-down segment (6:29, 6:17, 6:09, 5:57, 5:46, 5:38, 5:27, 5:25, 5:10).

Sun May 22^nd – 20 miles slow in the heat.

Tues May 24^th – 3 miles 15:23 (5:11, 5:07, 5:05), 0.5 mile rest (6:30 pace), 2 miles 10:16 (5:06, 5:10), 0.5 mile rest (6:40 pace), 1 mile 4:58.

My last workout was really the best workout that I’ve run in quite some time and I’m beginning to actually feel good on workouts where I feel that I could’ve run more intervals. It’s great to have that feeling back again. I plan to continue to run workouts that challenge my body, but workouts that allow my body to recover on a week to week basis. I’m planning to race significantly less than I have over the past 2 years, but I’m sure I’ll still hop in an occasional race here or there. The end goal is to run 2:16 (give or take a minute) this fall. That obviously can not happen if I have setbacks this summer, but I’ve really gained a lot of experience over the last couple years and think that I have the perfect training plan for me to run fast in the fall. I’ll continue to update my workouts in future blogs, but I plan to keep my mileage between 85-90 miles for the next couple weeks. Good luck to everyone racing this weekend.