RE: Describe Your Running Today

It feels lke speedwork though you wouldn't think so if I compared my speed now what I was running those block segments with what was my tempo training pace 10 or more years ago :)

Oh yeah it always is enjoyable to be running hard....think I'm building a base through my doing my 3 paper routes every AM., plus my 2x a week noon hr. route. Some riding, lots of fast walking, little bit of jogging up & down steps, some steep ones.

Good that your cold is going away.

i ran a 13:54 5k... 43 seconds slower than Mt. Sac... some predicted a sub 13:00 for me... how was your run today???

runner93 wrote:

JZ,

It obviously works for you, just seems difficult but argue with your success. In reading your posts, you seem to do 2 or 3 quality workouts per week, I know you are preparing for your main race season so the quality makes sense now but what does your base phase look like in regards to quality per week. I think I remember you mentioning in a previous post you goal race is sometime in July, what will your quality days look like for the next month, i.e. shorter faster, 5k pace or tempo. Is the sharpening session you refer to the 15 secs strides or the 1200-600-300 and what pace will you do that workout in. Good luck with your races.

runner93,

Yes, I do 2 hard workouts/week. However, I also do a couple short speed and/or power sessions if I'm feeling healthy enough. For example, that 8 x :15 at 4:00 pace with :45 recovery acted as one of these sessions and I ran it the morning of my 2 x 1600 + 2 x 1200 + 2 x 800 (sometimes I'll run it the night before). They're never the type of session that will add fatigue. Instead they increase my efficiency and power while simultaneously activating my neurological system for the hard session to come. If I wasn't still easing back into things after my glut injury I would've done 6-8 x :10 hill flat out instead.

I still do 2 workouts/week during my base training but I focus on threshold and marathon pace work more. I still do some harder training but I don't try to progress my pace in these sessions while building my mileage. Instead, I just attempt to maintain the pace that I improved to during the last intensity phase. The same concept holds true for the intensity phase: I try to maintain the qualities that I improved during the base phase by keeping some threshold and marathon pace sessions in the mix while attempting to increase the specific qualities I need to race well (meaning, obviously, that I need to do more work at race pace). So, leading up to my Nationals in mid-July I will be doing a lot more work at 3k - 10k goal pace. There will be one session a week that focuses on this and one other session that maintains my threshold but also adds a little extra race pace quality (I.e., a mix session). If I reach my goal times for certain workouts before July 15th I'll start to run some pace change session instead of working on an even steady effort. So, instead of just running 1200m repeats I'll alternate 300 at slightly faster than race pace with 300 at slightly slower than race pace.

The sharpening session I referred to was the 1200 - 600 - 300 session. I call it this because it's not designed to increase my fitness three days before a race. It just keeps my legs feeling efficient at a range of paces. The 1200 will be run at 5k pace (3:18-3:21), the 600 at 1500 pace (1:30-1:31.5), and the 300 at 800 pace (:42-:43).

Yesterday and today I've just been running easy for 45 minutes at a stretch. Yesterday I only got one in because I was at the B.C. High School Championships all day, but today I was able to get out for one while there was a break in the action and I'm about to go for another right now. Can't wait to get into those shady trails! Legs are feeling lighter every day now. Looking forward to racing!

Skuj, Cam ran really well to place 3rd in the 3000m in 8:45. :16 PR! Not too shabby coming off injury. I'm taking some inspiration away with me after seeing that :).

Jerry

Hey JZ!

Yeah, great for Cam! Training was perfect in Jan-Feb-Mar then in Apr-May, all kinds of ailments / twisted ankles during basketball / Grad etc. I know he really wanted to win, but I think he'll be very pleased with 8:45.

All the best next week, JZ!

I'm going to Elk Lake with a bunch of TriGeeks tomorrow. They will bike and run and swim. I'll run and swim.

4 miles with 8x30-second pickups.

hey asswipe, if you are going to quote someone, dont change the handle. i bet you ARE in fact that skujins troll. every day at 4-4:30am. predictable.

Ran 2miles, then did a 800 at 2:25, 12 x 300( no watch on these) then 800m, followed by 4 x 100m stides, and 2 mi cooldown... Only my second hard track workout so far, so i still am feeling the tightness and soreness of the spikes on the track!.

Skuj wrote:

hey asswipe, if you are going to quote someone, dont change the handle. i bet you ARE in fact that skujins troll. every day at 4-4:30am. predictable.

why not change the handle when everyone knows it's Skuj doing those posts? talk about trolls.

1 hour, 35 minutes. late start after ball game, beers and bbq keilbasa at phillies game last night. felt surprisingly good for final 30 minutes. surged a few hills. longest run of the year. 13+ miles

Easy 45:42 run with a 1 min. pick up for finish.

A half marathon race 10 minutes slower as the one two weeks ago 1:25 and 1:15, dont know what happened, after 3k the power was gone and the heart rate was sky high, never found back my pace. First off day ever in my running life.

Bleah!

Thanks JZ,

Have you ever reached a plateau with you race times and if so how did you break out of it. If you haven't experience this, what do you suggest someone do in regards to training to break through to faster race times and get through the plateau.

Did 10.5 easy miles with local guy, and then did 8 miles with a girl who's recovering from recent marathon. It was ahot and humid eighteen miles.

runner93 wrote:

Thanks JZ,

Have you ever reached a plateau with you race times and if so how did you break out of it. If you haven't experience this, what do you suggest someone do in regards to training to break through to faster race times and get through the plateau.

runner93,

I'm turning 31 years old this month, of course I've had plateaus! To break out of a plateau it obviously comes down to figuring out what is causing the stagnation in the first place. I've had plateaus that were caused by doing too much, too little, and I've had plateaus that were caused by health problems (such as allergies) that took years to figure out. I've now reached a point where I feel like I know how much my body can handle without having major setbacks. Once you find the optimal amount of general stress that your body can handle on a weekly basis it's a matter of slowly and continuously pushing your training forward while not going beyond this optimal stress. I'll use myself as an example:

Right now on a heavy week of training I am able to run 800 minutes+ total volume which includes a 2 short alactic power sessions (short sprints on flat or uphill), 2 hard workouts, and 8 medium-long recovery runs which average between 7 and 7:30/mile.

If I stay at the exact same mileage and at the exact same pace (for all the easy runs and workouts) for more than the next 6 to 8 weeks I will probably cease to have improvement in competition. My body will have adapted to the training load and I will have reaped as much benefit as possible from this schedule. However, because my body will have been doing this schedule for a couple months I will no longer be stressing it to the optimal degree that I mentioned above. If I then increased one or more variables (for example, if I increased the pace of my hard workouts) in order to reach this optimal stress again I would hope to start improving once again.

However, in reality I don't actually approach it this way (I.e., I don't wait for my body to stop improving at a given level of volume and pace). Instead, I simply run by effort each day and try to be in touch with my optimal stress level each and every run. If I'm in a phase (such as now) where I'm interested in increasing the pace of my hard sessions then my recovery runs will end up staying at the same pace or may even decrease in pace as a result. But the key is that I always feel like I'm slowly progressing my schedule forward. Between September and March I did this through increasing the amount of time I spent running. Now I'm maintaining my volume and and trying to progress the pace that I can run my workouts.

What I don't suggest is trying to train HARDER unless you really are below your optimum stress level. It may be that you are trying to push the pace of too many of your runs and you need to prioritize. If you don't know what your optimal stress level is I define it for myself as the volume and intensity of training that you can manage while feeling invigoratingly challenged. If you're feeling run down and you're dragging your feet on any of your training days you are probably doing too much. If I feel this way in the middle of a hard week and I've already been doing my present volume for a number of weeks then I will still complete the time I set out to do but I'll keep slowing down (on this run and subsequent runs) until I feel the way I know I should feel. Hope some of this helps.

Jerry

JZ,

I have been stuck at the 17 min 5k / 36 min 10k for 3+ years. I have only been running seriously for 6 years. I have been fortunate enough to have not been injured and steadily increased my training over the last 3 years with very marginal improvement. My peak mileage is around 75/week, probably 550 min / week. My goal's were to be 16 min 5k / 34 min 10k this year but really haven't improved much in 3 years. I think my mileage more than enough to achieve my goal times, workout's have improved but obviously not where I need to be to run my goal times. I am quite weak in my opinion in tempo threshold pace work in relation to my race times. Any advice you have would be great.

tried to wait out the heat and so i ran in the rain (infinitely better). lonely 13+ around central park, probably about 7:15 pace or so....didn't wear my watch because i'm trying to run by feel.

Well, I hope this thread doesn't turn into nothing but a bunch of arguing. I like the idea of having another place to post up current personal running junk.

A few weeks ago I posted that I'm old and slow, and yesterday got confirmation. I'm just five weeks back to running after 10 weeks off. I ran an 8K yesterday and good God. Only about 3 minutes off what I should be able to do if in shape and four minutes off what I've done when really ready to rock. I know I'm not in real shape, but I really ought to be able to do better than this off five weeks of easy running. The only positive is that I ran steady, no more than 3 seconds +/- every mile despite some hills and I passed people steadily throughout. I just couldn't go faster and had no wheels at all at the end. I'm normally quite fast when challenged at the finish but a guy blew by me and I had no next gear.

No run today.

30min jog + 4x100m-ish strides + 10min jog. Prepping for some aerobic capacity tomorrow.