Road Racing and Training Thread - Week Ending 2/21

Hoping that Tokyo went well for backIntoIt! as well as anyone else racing.

Matthias - Nice tempo and fartlek this week. I like the mix of paces.

M - 5/7

T - 15 with middle 8 @ 6:30->5:50 / 3

W - 8/4

R - 6/6

F - AM: 4. PM: 2mi 10:32 (5:15,5:17) 30s jog, 2mi 10:29 (5:12,5:17) 45s jog, 1mi 5:19, 45s jog, 1mi 5:08.

S - 8/4

S - 12/3

Total: 100

Had a decent week. Got about 7 inches of snow yesterday so I had to do my run outside at 5:45am before work before it got too bad! Long run on Tuesday felt easy and the progression was unintentional. Goal for Friday was 6mi total volume at 5:20-5:25 pace. It was 12F with 9-10mph wind so I wasn't sure how likely it would be to hit the paces. 1st 2mi was with the wind at my back, 2nd and 3rd rep was into the wind, 4th rep was with it at my back again. Didn't look at the splits during and effort was the same throughout as well so I was pleased to be a bit faster than I was hoping. Hit 100 again this week as well. I hope everyone has a great week!

Sick this week, but finally feeling better

M - 8

T - 5mi @ 5:50, 7.5 total w/ wu and cd, see below

W - 4/8

Tr - 5-4-3-2-1 fartlek with equal rest, averaged 5:50 pace, 11 total

F - 10 Hilly

Sa - 16.6 @ 6:19

total - 64 miles

The beginning of this week was terrible, still sick from last week and it seemed to have gotten worse. Tuesday I was planning on going 10 at an easy tempo pace, but 5 miles in I was on the side of the road heaving and ready to puke so I called it. Thursday was nice, started at 5min pace and worked my way down, very relaxed. Saturday surprised me as I expected to be going about 6:45, but was really much faster, anyway I'll take it. Feeling much better on Saturday and ready to go after it again.

Matthias - Nice workout on saturday, pretty interesting. Glad to see you're back at it w/o hamstring trouble.

Forcerunner - solid week, and nice 2mi repeats. way to battle the elements

Hope backintoit did well!

This might be hard to believe, but all was going well until Wednesday at which point I got injured AGAIN! This time probably a minor groin strain. Not sure what's up with my body this season. Getting some bloodwork this week because it's really abnormal for me to feel this beaten up and get hurt this easily. Suspect thyroid, but who knows.

I did four days of cross-training and now it feels a lot better, so I'm really, really hoping I can run again tomorrow and get back on track. My fitness was starting to come back, and I don't think I lost anything from four days of cross-training, so I'm not giving up on Eugene yet. But it's going to be a cycle that takes a lot of creativity and cross-training.

The week went reasonably good actually i have been having stomach issues for weeks but bothering me less during the evenings now. And i can eat a little better. A bit of knee aches though. But i had some solid mileage the best in years. Sub 3:50 for 1500 is still the goal but the first stop will be sub 15 5000 in June.

M 19.2 km long run in 1 h 32'

T 08 km good paced run in 31' (3'55 per kilometer)

05 km easy run in 24'00"

W 10 km easy run in 46'00"

T 08 km easy run in 34'50"

F 05 km easy run in 24'00"

05 km (2 x 1600 in 5:40 and 5:16)

S track workout (6 x 850 going from 2:50 to 2:29) the last one i was working hard (1' jog walk break 150 m)

S 07 km jog 34'00"

76 kilometer

Hey everyone, thanks for the well wishes. Unfortunately the race didn't go well, but I made sure I finished this freaking thing, and finished in the mid 2:20's (trying to stay semi-anonymous, although looking at the results it should be relatively easy to find out who I am...).

The race experience was interesting. The start was a bit of a mess. Being in the A block didn't help that much, as I had to stand out in the cold for ~70 mins before the start, and was still about 1000 runners behind the leaders (there is the A heat and the A-sub-elites, which I wasn't a part of). You can't take any baggage with you to the start, so I was sitting around with singlet and shorts shaking from the cold. Once the race started though, I found a large group that was running ~2:16-17 pace, so I thought things might be OK (lots of runners at that pace, about 15-20 people for the first ~15-20K). About 10-12K though I knew it wasn't my day, I was struggling and things didn't feel smooth at all, whenever you feel bad 10K in during a marathon that is a bad day...anyway, I just kept moving along at 5:30-40 pace to get to the finish. I'll write up a more detailed race report when I have some more time. Anyway, thanks again for the support, hope that anyone else that ran had a good time.

WK Feb 16 BASE 5/6

M 60min 7.4

T 70min 8.1 8 x (3min 8mph/8%incline – 3min easy)

W 70min 8.8

T 70min 8.8

F 72min 9.2 6 x (5m up / 5m down) 6:41, 34, 18, 20, 09, 21, 18

S 25min treadmill jog + 45 stationary bike (35 of it pretty hard)

S 70min 8.3

Total 8:02 53.1 miles + 45:00 Bike

Tough treadmill hill workout on Tuesday, last rep was pretty painful. Also a good tempo interval workout on Friday, I did it on the street and all the reps were small progressions, starting really easy and finishing under 6m pace. Today I did another easy run because I don't feel recovered to do my standard 2h, also way too much melting ice on the street.

Hope everyone had a good week!

Goal Race: Bristol 10k

Daniels 5k-10k Plan (3rd Edition)

Week 12 of 26

Mon - 10 miles - steady club run + warm/cool (7:25)

Tue - 8 miles - easy (8:01)

Wed - 11 miles - 4x (200R + 200jg) + 3T + 3min jg + 2x (1T + 1min jg) + 4x (200R + 200jg) + warm/cool (R-pace 5:32) (T-pace 6:40)

Thu - 6 miles - easy (8:12)

Fri - 6 mile - easy + strides (7:45)

Sat - 8 miles - easy (7:38)

Sun - 7 miles - inc. 10k race - 40:33 PB

Total: 56 miles

I did indeed have a race this week Matthias, which I'm pleased to report, resulting in a PB, but it could/should have been better if not for one of the worse head colds I've had for years.

I started the week with the intention of getting in a lot of the miles towards the beginning of the week, in order to allow myself a few lighter days before race day; this started off pretty well tbh, the club run on Monday felt very strong, and it was good to really attack the hills with some of the faster runners in the group. Tuesday was just an easy day, but again quite a hilly route. Wednesday's workout was hard, but I was glad to complete it in full, as I'd considered dropping the two cruise intervals in the middle. I finished more tired than I should have been though, which I suppose was a sign that I was coming down with something. Thursday was just an easy run, although it again felt harder than it should have. Cold was in full swing by Friday, so I had to drop the planned rep's session, but I still dragged myself out for an easy run. In fact, the runs on Friday and Saturday actually made me feel quite a bit better (temporarily), but the cold came back to hit my each evening.

Went to bed Saturday night hoping it would be gone by the morning; but no such luck... so I went down to the race today not really knowing how things would turn out.

The aim had been the 40 minute mark, so I decided to go out at 6:26 pace anyway and just see what happened. Being honest with myself, for the last couple of days I'd been pretty sure that (in my current ill state) I wouldn't, be able to hold the pace; but it seemed a bit pointless going out any slower, just on the off chance that I surprised myself.

Mile splits were as follows:

1: 6:32

2: 6:26

3: 6:23

4: 6:28

5: 6:35

6: 6:30

7: 1:39 (0.26 miles on the Garmin)

40:33

I was only some 5 seconds off goal pace through 4 miles, but dropped off in miles 5/6; nevertheless, I was pretty pleased with the result; previous PB had been 42:19 (I think), which was set in the middle of a half marathon, and my outright 10k PB had been a 44:50 from May 2014 - so it's certainly a nice increased on both of those marks!

Another plus was a 5k PB of 19:56 set somewhere around miles 2, 3 & 4. Should be a pretty legit PB as well, as the course today was pretty much 2 equal laps of a circular route (so it wasn't set on a downhill section or anything).

Of course I would have liked it to have been 39:XX rather then 40:33, but taking in to account how bad I felt (incidentally, I feel worse right now); I've got to count it as a good day! I still feel that in a cold-free state, I'm in sub-40 shape; which (if accurate) sets me well on course for a sub-1:30 half marathon next month. Training is going well overall, and hopefully it's setting me up well for the major 10k goal race in 3 months time.

Just got to shift this cold now!!

Hope everyone had good weeks.

Kendo

Nice weeks everyone

Last Week of Indoor Track

Next Race: 1500 April 12 (maybe TT 800-5k sometime in march)

M: 7.5, felt like 30. 3 mi warmup, 2x4 min, 2x3 min w/ 1 min rec, (planned 2x2, 2x1). Pace high 5:45ish,

T: 10 nice and easy

W: 6 w/ 2 mi warmup, 4x200 w/ 200 jog (31.8, 32.6, 30.9, 29.0), 3 mi cooldown

Th: 5

F: 7.5 mi, 2 mi warmup, 1 mi 4:38.57 5/12 in heat, 16/23 overall ( 209-34, 409-70, 809 - 2:21), 4.5 mi cooldown

S: 10, 7:50 pace

Total - 46

Two weeks before this were ~ 30 miles, sick and traveling and sick and traveling...

Really happy with this race. Ran 2 sec faster than 1 month ago after a rough last couple weeks.

Hopefully I can put in a good 6-7 weeks of training before cutting down for outdoor, but I'll try not to force anything.

Coming back after 3 weeks nursing an injury so this was the first week approaching 50 miles, which I want to make my base.

S- 6 miles on a treadmill

M - 0

T - 10 miles (2E, 5x1,200 uphill w/1,200 rec, 2E)

W- 6 miles treadmill

T - 10 miles (1E, 3x2T, 2 min rec, 1T, 1E)

F - 0

Sat - 16E @ 8:30

Total - 48

It's freezing and windy here so tempos and speed work is tough, it'll make springtime workouts feel like a dream!

Nice weeks people! :)

Goal: Have some fun w/ racing. Get stronger, then work on speed when snow melts. (May not have to wait, as my new high school has an indoor track. It's rectangular, but does have a rubber surface. Should be good for short sprints.)

Next Race: 5 Mile Race

Goal for Race: Dunno. Have fun. ~29min if I feel good.

M - Legs not really working. 10 minutes WU on the elliptical. Hobbled around for ~7 minutes on the roads. Legs feel like lead, can't lift them up at all. 53:45 on the elliptical afterwards, moderate effort. Hate the elliptical as it feels so unnatural, but an episode of Criminal Minds made it not so bad.

T - Hobbled through the woods in snow for 29:20. Then followed that up with 30 minutes on the elliptical, and some lifting.

W - 5.3 miles at a very easy pace.

T - 1.34m in the AM to test out my legs. Still sore, but getting better. 5.73m in the afternoon, 2 miles in the middle around 7 min pace. Feel very flat.

F - 5.09 miles at 7:45 avg pace. Feeling better. Did a few long strides in spikes, and that felt fine.

S - 3.28m easy. Still feel off, but not bad.

S - 1.5m WU. Strides. 3k race in 10:17. Wanted to run sub 9:50. Just felt like absolute crap. Stomach felt like death, which never happens to me... Legs probably weren't ready for this. I haven't been on a track in a few weeks... but enough with the excuses, onto whatever is next! :) 1.66m CD.

Total: ~ 30 + 90+ minutes of cross training. Haha lowest volume week in a long time.

Rough week trying to recover from the mountain race. Looks like the brojos are right. What goes up must come down. Hope to bounce back well.

Back Into It - sorry to hear that your race didn't go as planned. Great job toughing it out despite feeling bad. For whatever it's worth, I'm awed by anyone that can break 2:30. That's some serious running. Hope you recover well and can build from here toward something even greater.

Goal - Boston 4/20 @2:50-55

45 yo, 6'0", 148 lbs

I was initially aimed at sub-2:50, but training this cycle has been very inconsistent. If I had to race right now, I'd barely get in under 3hrs on a good day. The past month has been some of my worst training in the past year. Hopefully things start clicking soon.

M - 8m easy plus 10x100m strides

T - 10m hilly, incl 5m tempo starting 6:20 and ending 5:40

W - 8m easy, strength/core

T - Off

F - 10m easy

S - 20m hilly, MP+60sec/mi

S - 10m easy, 10x100m strides, strength/core

66 total (goal was 80). The coming 2-3 weeks will set the tone.

goal race: boston

week 10/18 (half marathon week)

M - 8.5 miles (35 min tempo (5.54 miles), treadmill, 1% incline). very tough after a long run and a 10 mile marathon pace run on sat and sun.

T - 12.5 miles easy (treadmill, 1% incline, 8:57 pace)

W - 7 miles easy (treadmill, 1% incline, 9:30 pace)

T - 5 miles easy (treadmill, 1% incline, 9:25 pace)

F - off

S - 3 miles easy and strides

S - 1 mile warmup. half in 1:24:00. not terrible for a 2:55 goal at boston, but i was disappointed. thought i would feel much better. felt sore from mile 3. stayed on pace till about 10 miles. last 3 were rough. didn't cool down. hoping some heel pain improves before i go back to bigger volume tomorrow.

Total: 50 miles

really enjoy following all of your weeks. keep it up!

forcerunner - nice 'unintentional' progression on tuesday + miles workout friday.

oedipus rexing - shame that you had to cut short your tempo run, but you made a good call. you managed to put in a solid fartlek workout on friday though!

xenonscreams - really sorry to hear about another setback to your training... hopefully you get a proper understanding of whats wrong and good luck resuming your running

krikek - nice week with some good speed included there. the 850m reps are an unusual distance haha... you closed well though!

back into it - sorry to hear it didn't go to plan at Tokyo but at least you got to finish. mid 2:20s is still a respectable time! hopefully after a few weeks of recovery, you'll be back resuming that solid training you've been putting together.

slartzio - another solid base week. really good progression on the 5 minute tempo segments.

kendo - nice one! either way, that was a massive chunk off your PB! which 10K was it?

pewow - nice quality and great mile race!

niceguy - welcome to the thread. what sort of paces are you hitting for your T runs? do you have any goals/races in mind or coming up? :)

nop200 - sorry to hear about the race. but you have the right frame of mind... leave it to one side and move on!

hereford - looks like a solid week of training to me. all the best these next few weeks.

tortoise - good effort in the half. hopefully the heel pain will subside very soon.

just an anecdote: i've been on and off this thread for about 3 and a half years now (my old alias was dcrunner0910) and have come across a lot of great posters and new faces in recent times. but anyways, i was having a look through some of the old threads from 2012-13 and i would love to hear from the old faces + regulars who contributed a lot making these threads some of the best on letsrun! some of you may remember a few of these and they include:

Stone Cutter, Pablo, NJ Truth, NP1112, Bonham, Marmite (there are many more i could name, some still post today but not much)

wherever you guys are, i hope you're still plugging out the hard work :)

Goal Race - Boston (sub 2:50)

Some good weeks and some frustrating weeks it looks like. Not much time to comment this morning.

0 miles for me this week as I have a 5th metatarsal stress fracture. Well, still waiting for the MRI for confirmation but I'm 99.9% sure that's what it is. Officially pulled the plug on Boston, changed my flight to head to NC instead for some vacation. Hopping back into the pool for swimming 5 days a week to keep some cardio up as well as more strength training until I can run again. Next race is Silver Rush 50 mile in July so hopefully I can regroup and ramp up for that.

I'm late to the party :) Just fast as I'm a bit pressed for time...

Some good weeks here - will comment throughout the week. Back into it: Props for fighting through that - heart of a lion! You can't do more than give it your best shot.

My last week was ok. Had a very good intervall session (10xk at 2:55) and short tempo session (2x5k at 4:55 pace) but after that my knee was really painful. I guess ITBS. Came out of the blue. So I took it super easy on the weekend, foam rolled, iced and stretched the hell out of my leg (and crazy tight glutes^^) - and today I was able to do my long run (22+ miles at 6:00 pace - wasn't pushing it bc I didn't wanted to overdo it). This week is a down week, so that was a "good" time for some problems (if there is a good time for pain^^). I feel like I might be over it - but will be definitely cautious as I'm rounding into very good shape and one or two missed runs or days aren't big drama.

Pikachu

Another so-so 40 mile week. 3 easy days on the treadmill (7.1 - 7.4 @ 8:10-8:20), 6.4 tempo on the treadmill (15 min @ 6:44, 8 min @ 6:31 - no break). The a broken long run (9.4 @ ~7:40 on an indoor track - 200 m, then ~2.6 on the treadmill 30 minutes later at ~ 8:00) - had to get home to be on baby duty.

All the running was good, but the plantar fasciitis is killing me today. It'll be good tomorrow I expect.

10 miler is Saturday. Seriously considering taking a full week off after to see if I can get over this pf.

Nice running Kendo. You're about where I am. I hope to get to that 40 minute barrier this year too.

Goal Boston.

M: 3 x 3 miles at MP with 3 minutes jog. Snowed through out the day and did this with yak trax (17:11, 17:06, 17:06): 14 miles

T: 10 miles (-10 wind chill)

W: 6 miles (6:45) / 5 miles (7:18): 11 miles

T: 4 miles (6:30) / 6 miles (6:50): 10 miles

F: 10 mile MP{ on a hilly course. Snow again so a little slippery, but regular trainers this time (57:03): 16 miles

S: 10.5 miles (6:45)

S: 10.25 miles (6:52)

Goal Race- Grandmas Half

Mon- 10 miles at 6:52 avg. Weights.

Tue- 10 miles at 6:51 avg. Strides.

Wed- 10 miles. 6 x 2 min on / 2 min off. (5:20 avg on the 'on' sections)

Thur- 10 miles at 7:05 pace.

Fri- 6 miles at 7:07 pace. Strides.

Sat-11 miles. 15k in 47:49 (5:08 avg)

Sun- 15 miles. Half marathon in 1:11:33 (5:27 avg)

Total- 72 miles

Pretty crazy week overall. Did more racing than the average runner lol. I was just trying to win as much prize money as possible and I believe I got the job done. For the 15k I was planning on taking it as easy as possible but some guy took the first 6 miles out around 5:00-5:03 pace then he started slowing down pretty badly but since I was trying to keep it as easy as possible I stayed with him until about the 8th mile. When I looked down at my watch and realized we were going 5:30 pace I dropped the pace and closed in 5:05 for the win. It was faster than I thought I would have to run but still not bad, at least I thought. Then for the half on Sunday my legs were already shot from the 15k and the fact that I just did a marathon 4 weeks prior. Warming up felt so awful but I decided to just do the race since I was already there. I just took it out easy and kept that pace for the whole race. All that I was trying to do was be the top local which offered the prize money and I accomlished that. As of now my legs are completely toast. I'll be taking it super easy these next 1-2 weeks. I'm happy with the weekend overall though.

Back into it- Sorry to hear about the marathon. The whole starting issue would've thrown me off really badly. But you finished with a decent time so I give you all the credit for that. Good job.

Congrats RunnerFix - winning that prize money for sure should be good :)

My week:

M- 9.3 / 5.6 with 4 x 150s

T- 5 / 10 x 1k (3' jog rest) avg. 2:55. (16.2)

W- 15.8

T- 9.3 / 6+ with short hill sprints

F- 5 / 2 x 5k tempo (15:31, 15:18 - outside of my knee started to get REALLY sore, so I didn't do a third one). Last half mile to my house was "walk of shame". Couldn't even properly cool down for 20'. It came out of the blue, so that's a bit of a bummer. Guess I did some damage on my hill sprints as my right glute is insanely tight and I felt little discomfort already in the morning. (13)

S- 3.8 / 4.1. Lots of icing and stuff like foam rolling (quad, especially outside, hurts like crazy when doing this). Knee getting better. Still sore.

S- 8.3. Knee is so-so. Much better than yesterday. Didn't do a LR.

total: 102 miles. Lost about 20 miles because of my knee.

Update: Knee is now pretty much ok again. Managed to do 22.1 miles at 5:59 on Monday. I hate shifting workouts back and forth - but I see no reason to risk anything because a couple miles (averaged over 100 miles with many 120ish weeks since November, that should be more than enough). Now I have a down week that was planned anyway.

Comments will come... :)

Pikachu