Just Running

Ed -

I've been feeling a little lost the last few weeks.  Since the track season ended (a little abruptly due to my ribs) and I've moved into a rest phase, I just don't seem to have a grip on what I'm supposed to be doing each morning during my runs.  I had been doing so many different interval workouts, distance runs to keep some endurance in me, that now that I'm only running four times a week and it's all long distance I just feel . . . I don't know.  Bored.

This is where having a goal and a plan pays off.

Before my little running tour I did for y'all last week I sat down with my spreadsheet and mapped out the next couple of months.  Fortunately, I have a 5K (The Colony Lost and Found 5K) I plan to race in there along with a 10K (Runner's World 10K) the week after which will I'll be running with Bob and some of his running club members up in PA.  That gave me the excuse to put a couple of interval workouts back on the calendar.  It also had me dig back into a book I've been reading called 10K & 5K Running, Training & Racing: The Running Pyramid.  The title is as about as long as the book.

It's by David Holt, who I believe is a Brit, and it's written with a high level of science and explanations.  Not boring, but being so ADD I have to be really focused to read a lot and retain any of it.

I also had my little training folder out with all sorts of workouts, and white papers I had printed off the web regarding training along with my spreadsheets of my training over the last 4 years.  Thanks to keeping that stuff and making notes I could really see where I would focus on one particular thing, or just did one particular thing because I didn't know any better, and it helped me plan what I should be doing now.

And for now what I'm supposed to be doing can be a little boring.  Distance three to four times a week.  Nothing shorter than five miles, alternating longer with shorter days, working up to nothing shorter than eight miles by November.  However, it's recommended that those runs are more than just steady state runs, and I should still work in an interval session at least every other week.

Thank God.  I'd only been at this for a couple of weeks and I was going stir crazy.

So Saturday was the 11 plus mile running tour I did at about 7:45 pace.  Sunday was rest, and Monday was a Tempo run.  Now this is something that you've probably heard me say I was missing this past summer.  Greg McMillan calls this training Stamina Training.  He divides conditioning up into three groups: Speed, Stamina, and Endurance.  It took me this racing season to really figure out what he meant, but Stamina and Endurance are really different.  Endurance is the ability to run for an hour or more at a good pace.  Stamina is being able to run at your lactate threshold for a mile up to a 5K.  For instance, that last 1500 I did my first 400 in 72 seconds and felt fantastic. But by 800 meters my arms were tired, I could barely breathe and my legs felt like lead.  Lactic acid had flooded my body and I wasn't trained to process it better.  I ran a 5:21.  Just a month before that I went out at a 78 first 400, felt great and held pace to finish in a 5:16.  Those six seconds in that first lap were beyond my Stamina training and I boinked.

I had not done any Tempo runs or long enough intervals as part of my workouts.  It was all Speed or Endurance.  And we need all three to be fast.

This past Monday was a Tempo run.  I did a four in seven.  One mile easy at about 8:30 pace, then I pushed up with a goal of doing the next four at 7:20.  Then I would run the last two miles easy as well, but no slower than nine minutes to force me to deal with the lactic build up.

The four mile section of my route that I ran starts out fairly flat, slopes downhill for a quarter mile, then up a steep hill for a quarter mile, then flat again to a long rolling but mostly downhill mile then finishes with a half mile back up hill.  I felt like I was pushing it pretty hard, but held on and ran those four in 29:04 or 7:16 pace.  Then I backed down for half a mile to about nine minute pace then pushed back up the last mile and half with an average of 8:30 for the last two.  Really good run.

One day of rest, a little upper body and core stuff at home, then on the track this morning for the first time in a month.  And it felt like it.

I ran 800's.  I only did four, but they were 3:04, 3:01, 3:01 and 2:59 with about 2:50 rest between each.  I didn't puke but made that nasty gagging noise after the last one.  I could have definitely made myself puke with a 5th one, but there was a guy on the track this morning with me running some 100 and 200 repeats, and I didn't want to freak him out.  Plus, this is supposed to be my rest phase so I'm not out killing myself.  "Less Intense" is my mantra at the moment.

I met him afterwards.  His name is Ben and he's going to be running the Philadelphia Marathon in November; his second one and first in over 20 years.  We talked a bit about Yasso's 800's and he is planning to be back out on the track in a couple of weeks to run his last workout of those before the race.  I'll be resting that day with an easy 3 to 5 mile run since it's the Wednesday before the 10K in PA, but I think I'll go down to the track and do one with him.

It's so cool to meet other runners and hear their stories and some of their training.

The rest of this week includes a seven mile run tomorrow at around 8:00 pace, kettle bells on Friday, five miles with at least six fartlek bursts on Saturday, then 12 miles on Sunday.  The following week has a short hill workout in it on Tuesday, but will be a very easy week since I have the 5K next Saturday.

From there I have a nice balance of mainly long runs made up of steady state, tempo and fartlek, with an interval workout of some kind built in every other week to keep my speed up.  Three months of this and I should have a nice base built up to begin the stamina and speed training in mid to late January.  The Endurance, Stamina, and Speed combination shifts from a focus on Endurance to being on Stamina for the next three months, then to Speed going into the summer.  The plan is to peak for the 1500 and 800 in July when I'm at the State Games of America in Hershey, PA.

Good to have a plan.  Helps keep the boredom away.