Raising the Bar

Ed -

Actually it's more like putting the bar back up because I knocked it down.

Back on the first week of May I had what now looks like a beast of a week.  I logged just over 29 miles which included a 10 mile run sub 8 pace, my short hills workout where I ran 10 of them at 1:20 or below, a 5 mile recovery run and a 4 x 1000 workout where I kept them at 3:45.  Nice week.

The week after that I was in a real life "Jackass" moment, although it was accidental, and broke a couple of ribs.  Truth be told my golf partner and I were lucky we weren't torn up as bad as the cart.  After that, running was on hold for a couple of weeks, then I went out and overdid it . . .twice.  Extending my injury time to about 10 weeks.  I did manage to race in there a couple of times, but was definitely hampered by the reduction in work.

But all that's behind me now and I'm trying to do what I was just about to do back then.  Run more like the "pros."

The more I read, and I could tell by the way I felt during workouts and racing it was true, the more I knew that to get really fast I was going to have to put more miles under me.  But how to do that and get enough rest?  I didn't necessarily need to run further on my long days.  12 miles is plenty when my focus is the mile.  But I still needed more work to keep improving my endurance, stamina and speed.  An article written by Greg McMillan {check out his site and calculator here} described those three pieces and how to train for them really well.  That information, combined with other sources including comments from a long time runner friend of mine named Jon, showed me that I could and should rest while running.

Hard days should be followed by easy days.  Two day combos of hard and medium work should be followed by a really easy day or total rest for the legs.  Scheduling out runs in advance helps me lay out a plan that allows for days like this morning.  3 miles easy.  Just however I felt as long as it was easy feeling.  The purpose to this run is just to get the blood flowing for a few minutes, help wash out any toxins, keep the flexibility in the legs, and add some mileage.  The distance, time and effort, however, are short enough that I'm not really taxing my leg muscles so they're still getting rested for the day.  Sweet.

In the past I would have done nothing today or gone to the gym for my day of upper body stuff, because I did my long run (10 miles) yesterday.  Instead, I did 3 miles at about 8:10 pace and stretched some.  Tomorrow will be 6 x 800's on the track.  Thursday will be the upper body gym day with The Flamboyant Workout (which I'll describe then), followed by my 4 x 50's little lactate workout in the evening.  Since Thursday will be a pretty easy day on the legs, Friday's run will be 5 miles at sub-8 pace and then another long slow run on Saturday of 10 to 12 around 9:00 minute pace.  Sunday is rest.

Well that's the plan anyways.  And it gives me a speed workout (the 800's), a lactate turner (the 4 x 50's), stamina (5 miles fast) and plenty of distance which will put me at about 35 miles for the week.  While also giving me ample rest for recovery.  Pretty slick.

I've found that planning ahead makes a lot of difference for me.  I can still blow stuff off for whatever reasons, but I'm always better about doing better when I think it through in advance.