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Week 194
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Greetings 50+ers! We may have nothing on Boston, but we sure don’t handle it very well. The city has been pretty much shut down all week because of weather. First a foot of snow fell Monday, then more snow overnight on to Tuesday, then we plunged into bitter cold starting Wednesday (reaching -18F by Friday morning!), and finally Saturday was every kind of precipitation imaginable….snow, sleet, freezing rain, back to snow, and on and on it has cycled! Did a lot of cross-training (ie-shoveling) Monday and Tuesday. Took a decent walk Tuesday by going down to UK campus where sidewalks were reasonably clear; and on Wednesday and Saturday the wife and I walked loops around the Mall. I did what I could to squeeze in some miles (even treadmill was limited, because the gym was closed Mon-Wed.) So here’s how I made it over 20 miles this week:
Sun: 5.2 Easy (last 1.2 @~7 pace) before the bottom fell out.
Mon: off
Tues: off (did walk 2+ miles)
Wed: 3.8 w/4x11 stories of stairs (and 2+ miles of mall-walking)
Thur: 4 (treadmill, 1.5%, first 3 miles accelerated)
Fri: 7.2 on two runs: 3.2 am (7:30 pace. -11F), 4 pm (treadmill, 1.5%, w/4x0.25-mile@6:00 pace)
Sat: off (~3 miles of mall-walking)
I was surprised with how much the shoveling had taken out of me; the intense parts of all the runs felt particularly labored. I wasn’t certain I’d make it up the stairs four times, but somehow managed to maintain 95 seconds throughout. I was pretty happy with Thursday’s treadmill run. This treadmill was set up to do everything in MPH, so I started at 7MPH and ramped it up by 0.5MPH every two laps (1/2-mile). I easily progress through 8.5 MPH; the 9MPH was a bit of a push, and the 9.5 MPH (6:20 pace) was a struggle, but I managed with no thoughts of trying to push it harder (up in the right rear hip was pretty fatigued by then, piriformis? sciatic nerve?); I then backed off to 8MPH (7:30 pace) for the last mile. For Friday, I’d invited some friends to run in what would be historic low temps here in Lexington….nobody took me up on my offer. So I went out solo Friday morning for a 3.2-mile jaunt at -11F. I probably had on one too many layers, so I never felt even the slightest bit cold during the run. Despite all the layers, I held a pretty steady 7:30 pace….which kind of surprised me. Since Saturday was looking awful, I chose to do a second run (treadmill) late Friday afternoon. Threw in 4x1-lap@6:00 pace. Was able to do 1 lap recovery (@8:00 pace) for the first three, but had to skip a lap before doing a fourth fast lap. The rest of the run was done at 8:00 pace.
All things considered, I’m happy with the week. Still thinking that I’ve got to get some longer runs in (along with shedding some pounds, of course). I guess I didn’t mention that I agreed to join my old HS coach again for the River-to-River Relay again this year, so I’ll need some more endurance to conquer that come mid-April!
Nice Q&A with John Trautman:
http://masterstrack.com/2015/02/34653/
and a linked article in the comments section:
http://www.recordonline.com/article/20150216/SPORTS/150219449/101213/SPORTS
. Also in the comments is mentioned that he took a spill in an indoor 800m this week, at least he reports that he is OK.
Hope you all are getting out and about, and that training is proceeding well! I've fallen into the habit of not engaging in dialogue on the thread. I'll try to be better about that. You all have been doing great stuff, and I really do appreciate you sharing!
Best Regards!