M - 7, lift
T - 10
W - AM 10 PM 3, lift
Th - 10 with 6 by 3 minutes on, 1 minute off and 10 times 30 seconds on, 30 seconds off in West Potomac Park. Would have liked to do 8 or 10, but body was rebelling. The workout called for a surface other than road - did the 30-second accelerations on grass.
F - 10 from store with team, 5 strides
S - 10
S - 16. Ran out to C&O towpath - out in 55, back in 52
Total - 76
Sunday, July 5, 2009
Sunday, June 28, 2009
Last Two Weeks
M - 10
T - 8
W - 8 by 3 minutes on, 1 minute off through Rock Creek Park with Reaves, Murphy and Dirk - 10
Th - 9
F - 8
S - 10
S - 15
Total - 70
M - 10
T - 7
W -
AM - 3
PM - Track, with team - 2k (6:36), 1k (3:11), 2k (6:36), 1k (3:10), 2k (6:40). This was my first track work since marathon, so I was pleased to feel in control at 5:20 pace for the 2ks and about 5:01 pace for the 1ks. Temps were in the 90s. -- 9 for day (arrived late, short warm up)
Th - 10
F - 10
S - 16 with team starting in Georgetown
S - 7
Total - 72
The marathon recovery phase over, I seem to be in a good place right now, as I build my mileage back up and mix in some hard workouts. The basic plan from here is to get back to the 90 range by July and prepare for huge months in August and September. Track workouts with the team will be my primary workout for the week. Long run, this week, should be back to 2 hours.
T - 8
W - 8 by 3 minutes on, 1 minute off through Rock Creek Park with Reaves, Murphy and Dirk - 10
Th - 9
F - 8
S - 10
S - 15
Total - 70
M - 10
T - 7
W -
AM - 3
PM - Track, with team - 2k (6:36), 1k (3:11), 2k (6:36), 1k (3:10), 2k (6:40). This was my first track work since marathon, so I was pleased to feel in control at 5:20 pace for the 2ks and about 5:01 pace for the 1ks. Temps were in the 90s. -- 9 for day (arrived late, short warm up)
Th - 10
F - 10
S - 16 with team starting in Georgetown
S - 7
Total - 72
The marathon recovery phase over, I seem to be in a good place right now, as I build my mileage back up and mix in some hard workouts. The basic plan from here is to get back to the 90 range by July and prepare for huge months in August and September. Track workouts with the team will be my primary workout for the week. Long run, this week, should be back to 2 hours.
Thursday, May 28, 2009
Frederick and Beyond
Many weeks have passed without a post. Why?
Well, here's a few lames excuses -- which is to say that sometimes I can't muster the energy to write after work.
Well, here's a few lames excuses -- which is to say that sometimes I can't muster the energy to write after work.
Hank Williams Jr. - http://www.somdnews.com/stories/05222009/weektop120705_32186.shtml
T-Pain - http://www.somdnews.com/stories/06052009/weektop113721_32187.shtml
T-Pain - http://www.somdnews.com/stories/06052009/weektop113721_32187.shtml
Martin O'Malley - http://www.somdnews.com/stories/06192009/weektop115248_32188.shtml
I lived in Frederick from 2004 to 2006. My first newspaper job (not counting the stringer gig with the York Dispatch) was at the Frederick News-Post, where I started as an editorial assistant but wound up picking up the arts and entertainment beat within the first few months.
Frederick is special to me. For one, it is the first place Emily and I lived together, and it is where me made our first mutual friends (who remain some of our best).
It is where, after living together for six months, Emily suddenly had this idea to join the Peace Corps. Then, a month shy of my 25th birthday (Emily was 23), we got married during a beautiful ceremony planned in two months. That fall, we left for West Africa.
Frederick is where I decided, a year out of college, to focus on the marathon. While assistant coaching Gettysburg College's track team in 2005 I had lowered my P.R. in the 5000 to 15:13. I did this around Easter; maybe I had it in me to break 15 later in the spring. Yeah, and maybe if I continued to train really, really hard -- and strapped rockets to my back -- I might have run 14:52.
The 2006 Frederick Marathon was my second marathon, and I ran 2:32.20, 11 minutes faster than my introduction to the event at 2005's Baltimore Marathon. Michael Wardian won the race in 2:26-something.
The decision to run a marathon this spring, though, came shortly after the 2008 New York City Marathon. It was my first marathon in the U.S. in two years, and I went there with hopes of running 2:30. Instead, I hobbled home in 2:41 and cried a bit on Emily's shoulder. (Nice.)
Had that race gone well, perhaps I would have organized the spring around a half. But, in New York, I felt rusty -- I knew then I needed to make it a year of marathons.
And so I chose Frederick. I chose it because it is a place with meaning, and because I thought I might win a race and crack 2:30 and prove to myself that, yes, I was back. And ready to run faster.
There were signs, too. There were in signs in my training that I was at or ahead of the fitness level I brought to Chicago to run 2:29 (Am I dwelling on this much? Yes) in 2006. This spring I ran a P.R. for the half marathon in March (1:11.52 at 2009 National Half Marathon) during a 100-mile week. I was handling the volume and tough workouts quite well.
Race morning was cool, overcast. At 6:30 a.m. I stood at the starting line with a thin ski hat, gloves and arm-warmers. I bumped into a Georgetown Running Company teammate, Patrick Hughes. He was entered in the half, and we decided to run the early miles together.
About a dozen people shot out in front of us; after a few minutes, though, there was just a pack of four about 100 meters ahead. Heading into the first mile, we passed Brewer's Alley, my old Wednesday night hangout, and I commented to Patrick that they indeed make an excellent oatmeal stout brew. In other words, the effort was smooth.
Heading into mile two, I was already getting warm. I tossed off my gloves and, shortly after that, when I saw Emily, the arm warmers. Emily, by the way, had made a sign with the words "furthur" on it, and I was both profoundly touched and pysched by the gesture.
Patrick and I, clicking off miles between 5:36 and 5:45, were slowly pulling in the leaders in the half marathon. While there was one hill in the early miles, the first eight miles were relatively flat, and there wasn't much wind to deal with.
While I was taking water about every 3- to 5k, I was having trouble getting it down: Volunteers were handing out Dixie cups, and the water was splashing out upon hand-off, leaving a small sip at best.
Heading into 8 miles, we caught a guy who had fallen off the lead pack and went by him. There was a water station ahead, and I took a gel -- my first of three, stored in my hat. Using a trick I learned from my coach, I bent my neck down slightly, pulled off the hat and grabbed the gel rather smoothly. I thought, as well, that I was ready to lose the hat, and so I tossed it aside ... And that was when the weather really seemed to change: I was surprised to feel cold air in my hair as we ran down a long road into a stiff breeze with rain beginning to fall as well as a darkening sky.
When Patrick and I caught the lead guys in the half, I figured we would breeze by. Instead, they picked up the pace, so I tucked behind them -- and felt fortunate. After all, I was not racing these two.
After running behind them for perhaps half-a-mile, though, I was surprised when the runner in front of me (who would go on to win the half) moved to side of the road and looked back as if to say, stop slacking.
Well, WTF, I thought. He has four miles to go; I have 17.
So, then, I was leading the race, part of a drama separate from my own.
The eventual half winner surged in front and fell back; he did this through 10.5 miles. Finally, I just asked if I could tuck in behind him -- Because. I. Am. In. The. Marathon.
He said he had not realized -- despite different color bibs? -- and politely obliged. Until he surged ahead, and I was left winding through a farm road getting blasted by wind.
Frankly, it was a relief to reach the Frederick Fairgrounds, see the others turn into the finish and continue on solo. I hit the half in 1:14 flat and tried to relax, as the wind eased and I hit a portion of the race with spectators, including my friends Scott and Kate, and later, Emily, whose support throughout the race provided some major adrenaline.
The next couple miles were good, though the course was kind of herky-jerky winding through the Carroll Creek development area -- and it was really starting to rain. Around 15, as I headed back out of town to the truly tough part of the course, I saw I had a big lead.
By 16, I was climbing a huge hill and soaked and starting to get cold when I heard the day's best news. The man on the bike keeping me on course had picked up my hat when I tossed it aside. He handed it back to me, and I thanked him profusely.
Heading towards 18, my pace was slowing to 6-flat -- mostly, though, because of the course. I tried to be patient, took my second gel. Then, at the water stop, I took a cup of water and tried to drink it. But my body rejected it, and suddenly hydrating was no longer an option, as water fell in heaps from the sky and nausea set in and a formidable series of hills in the Spring Ridge neighborhood came into view.
Every marathon is a new experience. In this marathon, I learned about a brand of all-consuming, full-body pain. I tried to look ahead, keep it together: Flat miles were around six-flat, but hilly miles were markedly slower. I ran in total fear that I would blow the race.
It is where, after living together for six months, Emily suddenly had this idea to join the Peace Corps. Then, a month shy of my 25th birthday (Emily was 23), we got married during a beautiful ceremony planned in two months. That fall, we left for West Africa.
Frederick is where I decided, a year out of college, to focus on the marathon. While assistant coaching Gettysburg College's track team in 2005 I had lowered my P.R. in the 5000 to 15:13. I did this around Easter; maybe I had it in me to break 15 later in the spring. Yeah, and maybe if I continued to train really, really hard -- and strapped rockets to my back -- I might have run 14:52.
The 2006 Frederick Marathon was my second marathon, and I ran 2:32.20, 11 minutes faster than my introduction to the event at 2005's Baltimore Marathon. Michael Wardian won the race in 2:26-something.
The decision to run a marathon this spring, though, came shortly after the 2008 New York City Marathon. It was my first marathon in the U.S. in two years, and I went there with hopes of running 2:30. Instead, I hobbled home in 2:41 and cried a bit on Emily's shoulder. (Nice.)
Had that race gone well, perhaps I would have organized the spring around a half. But, in New York, I felt rusty -- I knew then I needed to make it a year of marathons.
And so I chose Frederick. I chose it because it is a place with meaning, and because I thought I might win a race and crack 2:30 and prove to myself that, yes, I was back. And ready to run faster.
There were signs, too. There were in signs in my training that I was at or ahead of the fitness level I brought to Chicago to run 2:29 (Am I dwelling on this much? Yes) in 2006. This spring I ran a P.R. for the half marathon in March (1:11.52 at 2009 National Half Marathon) during a 100-mile week. I was handling the volume and tough workouts quite well.
Race morning was cool, overcast. At 6:30 a.m. I stood at the starting line with a thin ski hat, gloves and arm-warmers. I bumped into a Georgetown Running Company teammate, Patrick Hughes. He was entered in the half, and we decided to run the early miles together.
About a dozen people shot out in front of us; after a few minutes, though, there was just a pack of four about 100 meters ahead. Heading into the first mile, we passed Brewer's Alley, my old Wednesday night hangout, and I commented to Patrick that they indeed make an excellent oatmeal stout brew. In other words, the effort was smooth.
Heading into mile two, I was already getting warm. I tossed off my gloves and, shortly after that, when I saw Emily, the arm warmers. Emily, by the way, had made a sign with the words "furthur" on it, and I was both profoundly touched and pysched by the gesture.
Patrick and I, clicking off miles between 5:36 and 5:45, were slowly pulling in the leaders in the half marathon. While there was one hill in the early miles, the first eight miles were relatively flat, and there wasn't much wind to deal with.
While I was taking water about every 3- to 5k, I was having trouble getting it down: Volunteers were handing out Dixie cups, and the water was splashing out upon hand-off, leaving a small sip at best.
Heading into 8 miles, we caught a guy who had fallen off the lead pack and went by him. There was a water station ahead, and I took a gel -- my first of three, stored in my hat. Using a trick I learned from my coach, I bent my neck down slightly, pulled off the hat and grabbed the gel rather smoothly. I thought, as well, that I was ready to lose the hat, and so I tossed it aside ... And that was when the weather really seemed to change: I was surprised to feel cold air in my hair as we ran down a long road into a stiff breeze with rain beginning to fall as well as a darkening sky.
When Patrick and I caught the lead guys in the half, I figured we would breeze by. Instead, they picked up the pace, so I tucked behind them -- and felt fortunate. After all, I was not racing these two.
After running behind them for perhaps half-a-mile, though, I was surprised when the runner in front of me (who would go on to win the half) moved to side of the road and looked back as if to say, stop slacking.
Well, WTF, I thought. He has four miles to go; I have 17.
So, then, I was leading the race, part of a drama separate from my own.
The eventual half winner surged in front and fell back; he did this through 10.5 miles. Finally, I just asked if I could tuck in behind him -- Because. I. Am. In. The. Marathon.
He said he had not realized -- despite different color bibs? -- and politely obliged. Until he surged ahead, and I was left winding through a farm road getting blasted by wind.
Frankly, it was a relief to reach the Frederick Fairgrounds, see the others turn into the finish and continue on solo. I hit the half in 1:14 flat and tried to relax, as the wind eased and I hit a portion of the race with spectators, including my friends Scott and Kate, and later, Emily, whose support throughout the race provided some major adrenaline.
The next couple miles were good, though the course was kind of herky-jerky winding through the Carroll Creek development area -- and it was really starting to rain. Around 15, as I headed back out of town to the truly tough part of the course, I saw I had a big lead.
By 16, I was climbing a huge hill and soaked and starting to get cold when I heard the day's best news. The man on the bike keeping me on course had picked up my hat when I tossed it aside. He handed it back to me, and I thanked him profusely.
Heading towards 18, my pace was slowing to 6-flat -- mostly, though, because of the course. I tried to be patient, took my second gel. Then, at the water stop, I took a cup of water and tried to drink it. But my body rejected it, and suddenly hydrating was no longer an option, as water fell in heaps from the sky and nausea set in and a formidable series of hills in the Spring Ridge neighborhood came into view.
Every marathon is a new experience. In this marathon, I learned about a brand of all-consuming, full-body pain. I tried to look ahead, keep it together: Flat miles were around six-flat, but hilly miles were markedly slower. I ran in total fear that I would blow the race.
By 23 I was back on the road that would take me back to town and the finish line. Runners were on the opposite side of the road. They were racing, working very, very hard -- and yet they took the time to cheer me on. The best I could do in return was flash a thumbs-up, but it was important to me to acknowledge their efforts.
By then, I knew my time would be slow. Still, there was a thrill of leading a race -- of having the bike beside me and the cops on motorcycles ahead.
We passed a 24-hour Waffle House at 24.5 -- yes, I once had a few late-night meals here -- and the waitresses leaned into the glass to see me. At 25.5, the finish line was palpable, and I got a burst of energy. I was running by a dairy farm -- the smell of manure rather pungent -- and a farmer leaned out of a barn window, yelled to get my attention and pumped his fist. I pumped mine back -- incredible.
On the cinder Fairgrounds track, a huge roar rose from the crowd. I broke the tape for the first time in my life.
Video by Frederick News-Post: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ctbjLVtElps
Article by FNP sports editor Stan Goldberg: http://www.fredericknewspost.com/sections/archives/fnp_display.htm?StoryID=96513
Part of a journalist's job is to assimilate information and get to the heart of a story in a short amount of time. Because of that, I have to give Stan some credit for really getting it.
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Dress Rehearsal
Three miles at marathon pace. 17:00. 5:42, 5:40, 5:37. Very chill -- thankfully -- as designed. Legs are not totally fresh but feel OK -- yup. Was just starting to get warmed up.
Last week:
M - 6
T - 10
W - 6
T - 3 by 1 mile at 5k pace with 400 jog - 5:07, 5:07, 5:08 - 8
F - 7
S - 9
S - 13
Total - 60
After Sunday I went into glycogen depletion mode and continued as such until after my dress rehearsal this morning. Back on the carbs, and it feels nice. It's the traditional carbo-load, kind of old-school, but I'm an old-school runner at heart.
This week:
M - 6
T - AM 7 PM 3
W - Dress rehearsal - 9
Last week:
M - 6
T - 10
W - 6
T - 3 by 1 mile at 5k pace with 400 jog - 5:07, 5:07, 5:08 - 8
F - 7
S - 9
S - 13
Total - 60
After Sunday I went into glycogen depletion mode and continued as such until after my dress rehearsal this morning. Back on the carbs, and it feels nice. It's the traditional carbo-load, kind of old-school, but I'm an old-school runner at heart.
This week:
M - 6
T - AM 7 PM 3
W - Dress rehearsal - 9
Thursday, April 23, 2009
Getting close
Each buildup I do is significantly different than the last. This buildup really emphasized long workouts.
18 miles with two twenty-minute sessions of tempo. 18 miles with 12 miles at marathon effort.
While I've run up to 110 MPW in the past, I decided to stick with high-quality, consistent weeks of 95 to 100 MPW in 7 to 8 runs.
After New York, my Dad made one observation that really stuck with me: He noted that the guys running up front (meaning more the sub-elites than professionals) tended to be either crazy thin or crazy jacked. As for me, I fall somewhere in the middle; despite being told often how skinny I am, indeed, as I have seen with African runners and elite American/European runners, there is in fact another level of skinniness one might aspire to.
I am 6'3, 158 pounds. Legendary Kenyan runner Paul Tergat is the same height and 15 pounds lighter. The thing is, I really don't think it is possible for me to get much smaller (and I like to eat ... a lot). So, instead, I joined a gym near my office and hit the weights a couple times a week, doing both strength and core work. After a few months of this, my weight has not increased and I am physically much stronger; it seems to help me in workouts when I start to get tired.
Another change I made to my training was incorporating regular strides and uphill sprints (which I can accomplish rather easily on my street), doing these at least three times weekly.
You see, it has dawned on me that years of higher mileage can begin to have negative effects. The immediate gains from phases of 80-100 MPW is huge. I recall how amazing it was after college (2004) to run consistent 75-80 mile weeks (something I had never done) and to see my times for 5k drop down at a time when I was doing less speedwork than I ever had.
Part of the reason this happened was that I was giving myself fresh stimuli (pumping up my aerobic edge after years of over-pumping the anaerobic system), but as the years go by and you adapt to the workload, the gains from such training decrease, and, if you want to improve, you have to find new ways to spark adaptations.
Well, I like to think some of the things I have been doing outside of running have helped to counteract some of the negatives -- the wear and tear -- which have come with years of steady marathon training (reduced speed, stumbling out of bed like an old man).
Recent races and workouts would suggest I am ready to run well in 10 days ...
What I was getting to when I first started writing this, before I got way off track, was that while the buildup for each marathon I have prepared for has varied quite a bit, the three-week Pete Pfitzinger taper I do has not (http://pfitzinger.com/labreports/marathontaper.shtml). In this week before race week, the workout is 3 by 1 mile at 5k pace.
The weather was cool, windy. I started at about 7:30 a.m.
5:07, 5:07, 5:08.
I have done this workout faster in the past (closer to 5-flat) but I think I ran too hard to do it, or perhaps harder than I had to. Judging off my 10k last weekend, I'd say my 5k time at this very moment (stealthy marathoner that I am) is about 15:50, and so I ran at that pace, not feeling like I was "flying," as I had in the past, but that I was under control. And ready for 26.2.
18 miles with two twenty-minute sessions of tempo. 18 miles with 12 miles at marathon effort.
While I've run up to 110 MPW in the past, I decided to stick with high-quality, consistent weeks of 95 to 100 MPW in 7 to 8 runs.
After New York, my Dad made one observation that really stuck with me: He noted that the guys running up front (meaning more the sub-elites than professionals) tended to be either crazy thin or crazy jacked. As for me, I fall somewhere in the middle; despite being told often how skinny I am, indeed, as I have seen with African runners and elite American/European runners, there is in fact another level of skinniness one might aspire to.
I am 6'3, 158 pounds. Legendary Kenyan runner Paul Tergat is the same height and 15 pounds lighter. The thing is, I really don't think it is possible for me to get much smaller (and I like to eat ... a lot). So, instead, I joined a gym near my office and hit the weights a couple times a week, doing both strength and core work. After a few months of this, my weight has not increased and I am physically much stronger; it seems to help me in workouts when I start to get tired.
Another change I made to my training was incorporating regular strides and uphill sprints (which I can accomplish rather easily on my street), doing these at least three times weekly.
You see, it has dawned on me that years of higher mileage can begin to have negative effects. The immediate gains from phases of 80-100 MPW is huge. I recall how amazing it was after college (2004) to run consistent 75-80 mile weeks (something I had never done) and to see my times for 5k drop down at a time when I was doing less speedwork than I ever had.
Part of the reason this happened was that I was giving myself fresh stimuli (pumping up my aerobic edge after years of over-pumping the anaerobic system), but as the years go by and you adapt to the workload, the gains from such training decrease, and, if you want to improve, you have to find new ways to spark adaptations.
Well, I like to think some of the things I have been doing outside of running have helped to counteract some of the negatives -- the wear and tear -- which have come with years of steady marathon training (reduced speed, stumbling out of bed like an old man).
Recent races and workouts would suggest I am ready to run well in 10 days ...
What I was getting to when I first started writing this, before I got way off track, was that while the buildup for each marathon I have prepared for has varied quite a bit, the three-week Pete Pfitzinger taper I do has not (http://pfitzinger.com/labreports/marathontaper.shtml). In this week before race week, the workout is 3 by 1 mile at 5k pace.
The weather was cool, windy. I started at about 7:30 a.m.
5:07, 5:07, 5:08.
I have done this workout faster in the past (closer to 5-flat) but I think I ran too hard to do it, or perhaps harder than I had to. Judging off my 10k last weekend, I'd say my 5k time at this very moment (stealthy marathoner that I am) is about 15:50, and so I ran at that pace, not feeling like I was "flying," as I had in the past, but that I was under control. And ready for 26.2.
Sunday, April 19, 2009
New Jersey, Gettysburg
PHOTO: By Joan Mercer. Crossing the finish line of my first 10,000 on the track since 2003 at the Mason-Dixon Invitational at Gettysburg College.
April 13-19
M - AM 10 PM 4
T - 10
W - AM On the track - 3 WU, 4 by 2 miles with one lap for rest, 3 CD - 15
10:46, 10:48, 10:41, 10:50
Th - AM 11 PM 4
F - AM 12 PM travel to NJ
S - 23
S - 10
Total - 98
Four by two miles on the track with one lap recovery has become a staple marathon workout for me. I generally do it once every buildup.
The best I have done this workout was during my buildup for Chicago in 2006, when I did perhaps two weeks earlier in the cycle and ran 10:40s across the board. I did that in the afternoon after a light day of work (no commuting back then) and in pristine weather.
For this latest workout, however, I started at 6:30 a.m. with 30 degree temps. One of my training partners was nice enough to meet me and help me for the first and third reps. My legs were tight and I was pretty bundled up, so I was pretty pleased to get through it with times at 10:50 or faster. This is MUCH better than I did this before New York. I got through the first with two 5:23s. The second, in turn, was 5:24s. Something clicked on the third, with 5:20s, and then the fourth, running solo, was pretty tough, though I managed to hang on. Right now, when I am tired, my reserves are pretty deep.
On Friday I traveled by train to see my family in New Jersey and decided to go long on Saturday since we had Easter plans for Sunday. The week prior, I had run 20 miles on the Frederick Marathon course, including miles 15-24, which are totally different than when I ran the race in 2006 (2nd, 2:32.20). These miles are quite a ways out of town; I never ran out there when I lived in the area. There are some hills to deal with, for sure, but all are followed by downhills, and I left the workout feeling confident I could handle them. I have been incorporating lots of hills into my training the last few months: For one, I live in a hilly area, but after learning about the course changes in Frederick I made an effort not to avoid them, as I am wont to do. I do most of my training in Takoma Park and Silver Spring along the Sligo Creek trail, and to get back to my house every day I can choose either a series of rolling hills, a long gradual climb, or a long, steep punch to the kidneys up New Hampshire Avenue to University Boulevard. All of my midweek 15-milers recently have finished with the latter.
On a Saturday morning, Dad and I (with my sister doing everything because we could not figure it out) worked out a route on Mapmyrun.com. We incorporated a somewhat legendary area route with a less than legendary name ... "Around the River." I believe, and I am not entirely certain, that it began when Tim McLoone's The Running Store was located in Red Bank and fielded a team. Good area runners like Dad met there and hammered a 10-miler out through Red Bank and across a bridge to a hilly, narrow, dangerous Navesink River Road which takes you around to another bridge to Rumson. You then run up River Road and return to Red Bank. Get it: you go ... Around the River.
Dad, who coaches track and XC at my old high school, Rumson Fair-Haven, had his team's top runner, Max Sparshatt, come over at 10 a.m. (the kid rode his bike!) on the most miserable running day of the year and join me for the first 13 which included an extended version of the above route and a sideroute to include a huge hill up the dirt Cooper Road. Temps were in the 30s. The rain was coming down hard and the wind was sweeping across the bridges, numbing out our legs. So we did the only thing one can do on such a day, and that is run fast. Honestly, the weather was so annoying it was laughable. Dad was nice enough to meet us with water and gave me a couple gels. That made it feel like a practice, and, well, if there is anything I miss from college, it is just that. I really got into it; the worse the weather got, the more we cursed it, the faster we ran.
By 13 we were back near my parents house so Dad could drive Max home (no, we didn't make him ride his bike) and I basically just took off for an Around the River loop, finishing with a long climb up Browns Dock Road. I was sub-6 for the last 10. A great way to end a training cycle.
April 20-26 First taper week
M - 6
T - 8, strides
W - 15
Th - 8
F - AM 6 PM 4 in Gettysburg
S - AM 10,000 at Mason-Dixon Invitational - 12
S - 17 in Gettysburg - Brilliant
Total - 75
I usually do a 10k tempo during my first week of taper, and rather than run around an asphalt track by myself, I decided to return to my alma mater for a 10,000 at the Mason-Dixon Invitational. In college I wrote a poem about this race to pump up/loosen up my teammates before the Centennial Conference Championships. 25 laps ... 25 laps! Back then, the 10,000 was the marathon.
32-anything would have given me a PR, and I went in with a strategy to run 5:15s. The odd thing about being a pure marathoner without the talent to truly excel simultaneously at a variety of distances, is that, well, it makes running shorter distances very difficult. Why? Because 98 percent of my training is geared towards the marathon, meaning I am developing my aerobic system much more than my anaerobic system, meaning I can run at an aerobic pace for a very long time but at an anaerobic pace for a relatively short period of time. Right now, for me, my anaerobic zone is clearly somewhere between 5:10 and 5:20, and so it gets very tricky: I could probably do 10k at 5:20 pace, in a race environment, quite comfortably, almost like a tempo. But in trying to run 5:15s, or mid 32s, I could wind up suffering to a 5:20 average. And that's basically what happened: 33:12. I ran a bit faster than 5:15 pace through 3.5 miles, but then it got a bit tough (first hot day of the year) and I ran some slow laps before picking it up some and closing (Go Speedracer!) in 76. I won by three minutes, and it would have taken someone to race with the last two miles to get under 33.
All that aside, I got the workout I needed, and it was great to be back in Gettysburg and catch up with teammates and, of course, Coach Shenk. My parents came down for the weekend as well. Two meals at Lincoln Diner!
Monday, April 6, 2009
One Week From Taper
M - AM 6 PM 6
T - 10
W - 15 with 10 times 3 minutes on, 30 seconds off
Th - AM 10 PM 5
F - 10 minutes easy, 20 minutes tempo, 60 minutes steady, 20 minutes tempo, 10 minutes easy - 18
S - 10
S - 20 on Frederick Marathon course. (More on this later.)
Total - 100
T - 10
W - 15 with 10 times 3 minutes on, 30 seconds off
Th - AM 10 PM 5
F - 10 minutes easy, 20 minutes tempo, 60 minutes steady, 20 minutes tempo, 10 minutes easy - 18
S - 10
S - 20 on Frederick Marathon course. (More on this later.)
Total - 100
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