Train Me

Just run as many miles as you can during the week, all you need is a weekly tempo and a weekly run that is longer than usual.

Do this to build conditioning. The longer you run the better but do it at a level where you can build up comfortably, don’t push push push every day. Take things easy and build steadily. If you are going to push the pace it is definitely best to do this at the end of the run.

After 12-15 weeks of doing this you should notice your tempos and easy pace get faster. You can add in speed workouts (100, 200 and 300 repeats). You may start off doing these at 7-7:30 pace and work your way down to 6 minute pace. You are going to have to find doing 10 reps of 200m within 45 seconds fairly comfortable before you can reach your goal, you may want to start off doing these at 55 second pace and when that gets comfortable, shorten the recovery or drop the seconds.

You need to build up to getting comfortable at your mile pace, whether that be 8:30, 7:30 or your final goal of 6:30 pace.

So, I've been informed by our new head track coach that my kids are not to run any extra with me at all. Not after school, not weekends, not races. As if he has some say in what we do as a family on our time. Track season doesn't even start until March. AND he doesn't coach my girls as he only does the short races. The xc coach works exclusively with the distance kids.

Ignore him and do it anyway, how's he going to know?

He'll know because it's a small town and he will see us out running.

OK, but if he doesn't train your kids, couldn't you basically tell him to fvck off? Or even just skip the "basically"...

I imagine if you just ignore him, he wouldn't kick your children off the team, and if he does, you should kick up a massive fuss until he can't be bothered holding his ground. Seriously, what a stupid coach.

What a tosser. Definitely ignore him and do what you want regardless.

How is your running going by the way?

I had lost pretty much all motivation after the bad xc race. I always tend to get winter doldrums though. I've managed to convince myself to get going again as of the 1st.

No speedwork.

2 miles

1

4

4

1.5

2

1

4

5.5

5 and today I made it to go work out with the girlfriends at 5 am. It wasn't a hard day which was good for me.

10 squats

40 box jumps

90 jump rope

40 box jump

10 squat

I've tried some hill work on the new treadmill but it mostly turned into those 1 and 2 mile days. I can't believe how slow I am on that machine. We have a road race on Saturday so I guess I'll find out where I stand now.

The 17 yo and 13 yo won't be there because they have academic competitions.

That’s ok, sometimes we do lose motivation from time to time; it’s all part of the human experience. At least you’re getting some running in and I would say building explosive strength with the plyometrics that you’re doing is nothing but a good thing as more muscle power in your legs will help your speed and will make speedwork in te future easier for you to handle! It would be a good idea to do that twice a week. However if you want to hit that 6:30 mile goal it would be a good idea to gradually build up to running 15-20 miles each week over the next couple of months! Good luck to you all on saturday!

You need to drag one of those girlfriends out to run with you. Misery loves company.

They won't come!

In recent events, (as you may also have seen in my other thread) I thought I had so many of the symptoms from google of anemia that I decided to start taking the iron supplements as well. Then, on second thought, I decided to have myself tested.

More for my own record than for anyone else:

Had blood drawn at 3 pm after having both eaten and taken 4 days worth of supplements. Last being 3 hrs before test.

Results:

Iron: 12

Ferritin: 17

TIBC: 475

Doctor said I was not anemic and did not need to take supplements but I am going to ignore him at least temporarily.

Near chronic headache that I've had for years seems to have abated after a week. This is the 2nd day of almost no headache.

I seemed to have also woken up less fatigued the last 2 days although I am still getting very tired mid-day. Maybe this is just normal old-age tiredness.... Will try and keep a note of these things for at least a few weeks to see if this is just some sort of placebo effect.

The teenager reports that she is feeling better but cannot be bothered to elaborate.

Saturday race report: 2M/5M

Weather: 39 degrees with 20-25 mph sustained winds

Me: 18:59 (previous 19:15) I guess I had the winter doldrums last year as well.

17 yo- at science academic contest. Placed 3rd Junior-- Beaten by her ex. It's driving her nuts he beats her at everything academic.

15 yo- 43:31 (previous 5M pr on different course was 41:24) She was told by distance coach to use it as a recovery jog as she's had hard workouts all week and has her first indoor race next Saturday.

13 yo- at robotics competition. Came in 2nd and is headed to state competition again!

9 yo- 16:27 (15:59) 1st female 7-9. This was her last chance in this age group to set the course record (previous 15:55) and was heartbroken she didn't get it.

Other Mom: 18:05

12 yo-14:46

9 yo-16:30 (my daughter barely caught her at the finish)

I talked to Other Mom after the race and as it turns out we have the exact same initials and birthdays. Weirdness.

More for me than you:

Tristan: 13:01

Francis: 15:40

These are other kids on the xc team for school that came to this race.

Fri: 4

Sat: 2.5

So far I haven't taken a day off in 2019 and I'm 10.9 miles behind on my 120 mile goal for January. If you are on my Strava then my miles are way off because for some reason Strava will not let me correct my treadmill runs. So it looks like I've done WAY more miles than I really have. Legs are still sore from lifting Thursday. That probably didn't help Saturday's run either.

Anyway, I'm feeling a lot more motivated now even though I doubt I'll make that 7:50 TT on January 29th. Oh well, I'll give it my all either way.

Current Weight still 150. Meh. Will probably miss the weight goal as well but if I'm being honest with myself I wasn't really trying that hard and I knew it was unlikely with the kids at home for 3 weeks. At least I didn't gain weight.

16 days left in this TT cycle. Going to try and be as consistent as possible until then. It's hard to believe 6 weeks blew by already.

Current weight 151.4 - I think I'm retaining water.

Sunday-4 miles@10 min pace

Monday-6.87 @ 11 min pace

Tuesday-lifting w/ friends

.5 mile warmup,

6x400-1:53,1:51,1:51,1:53,1:52,1:55

.5 mile cooldown

Wednesday- 4 mi @ 10 min pace

Thursday- lift

4 mi @ 10 min pace

Friday - 4.5 miles @ 10.5 pace

Saturday- 1 mile - 8:45 pace

Total miles for January 65.1.....8.5 behind for the month rn.

SlowAFRunnrMom wrote:

Had blood drawn at 3 pm after having both eaten and taken 4 days worth of supplements. Last being 3 hrs before test.

Results:

Iron: 12

Ferritin: 17

TIBC: 475

Doctor said I was not anemic and did not need to take supplements but I am going to ignore him at least temporarily.

You're in the very low end of the normal range for iron and ferritin, but "normal" is for the average person. You're training for athletic performance. There are lots of anecdotal reports from coaches here on LetsRun about women whose running performance suffered when their iron levels drop to the lower half of the normal range. And then their performance improved when they supplemented to back to the middle or top half of the normal range.

That said, you don't want to over-supplement. Iron supplements can be toxic at high levels.

Weekly report:

Sunday: 3.4 miles @ 9:45 pace

Monday: 8 miles @ 10:30 pace

Tuesday: lifting: we did 4 rounds of 10 dumbell cleans/10 burpees ( my left arm cannot do dumbell cleans. lol)

3 miles @ 10:00 pace

Wednesday: 5 miles @ 12:00 pace (at this point my shoulders are super sore and the left one is covered in bruises)

Thursday: lift: AMRAP (which was 5 for me)- 20 minutes of 50 air squats, 40 mountain climbers, 30 pushups, 20 lunges, 10

hollow rocks

Friday: 5 miles @ 12:00 pace

Saturday: 5 miles @ 10:30 pace-- I ate carbs this day and this run was EASY compared to the entire week. I've had zero energy to make it through all those other runs. This run makes me think maybe I need to reconsider how I am losing my weight. I'm going to give it a few more weeks and try to be aware of how I feel each day with/without carbs.

You'll note I'm doing mostly miles but I joined this stupid 120 mile challenge for January and I was behind so I did the math and needed to run about 5 a day and so that's sorta what's happening right now. Total Miles for January: 99.7

I'm wondering if I should attempt my TT on Monday instead of Tuesday so that I'm not trying it on tired legs after lifting. I can BARELY run on Tues. and Thurs. after that stuff. It makes my whole body feel extremely weak.

Current weight: 146.8! Weight just started falling off this week. I'm guessing it was water retention after all. Pretty sure I won't reach 142 but at least I'm headed in the right direction again.

HM guy wrote:

OK, but if he doesn't train your kids, couldn't you basically tell him to fvck off? Or even just skip the "basically"...

I imagine if you just ignore him, he wouldn't kick your children off the team, and if he does, you should kick up a massive fuss until he can't be bothered holding his ground. Seriously, what a stupid coach.

Yeah, he's not going to boot the only girl in the entire school that made it to state in track last year. Let alone in multiple events. IDK why but he has it in his head that my kids are running "too much." I would like to say that they run about 20-25 mpw counting what they do in athletics. During this off season for them they do 2 or 3 miles a day (4 days a week in class). So 8-12 miles. IF they have time they'll run a few extra after school but this hardly ever happens. Then they'll do a long run 6-10 miles on Sunday. And they'll do fun runs or road races on Saturdays if there is a local one. You can see through my log here that that isn't happening very much right now.

I just asked my daughter and she said they did:

M: 3.5

T: 30 minutes (she said hers was about 3.5 again because he said to run it at an easy pace.)

W: 3.5 (for time)

Th: 2

So 12.5ish. I'm pretty sure there's room for more miles there. Especially for children who consistently run 35-40 mpw in the summer. They didn't run a single day this week after school. So the only extra they did was the meet and a long run on Sunday (they ran for 90 minutes so not really keeping track of that distance-wise).

On the upside. She's been running great again. She had an indoor meet yesterday (thus why I ate carbs-- they wouldn't allow outside food and I was there for 9 hrs and caved to concession stand food).

17 yo-- 800m 2:31, mile 5:49

definitely not her PRs but we're in the dead of winter here on nothing but foundation miles. And I haven't seen her

run so STRONG since last track season. She finished and hardly looked winded.

15 yo: 2:42, 6:06

The other 2 weren't old enough to run.

In other news the 17 yo joined debate and placed 3rd in her first "competition"... is that the correct word? Anyway, lots of fun and this guy didn't stop us one bit. I probably wouldn't have even paid for this indoor meet (because it was pricey) if not for him telling me what not to do. Ya know?

Definitely will not be doing a time trial in 40 mph winds today. So now I have to decide if I have any chance of being able to do it tomorrow after working out. Will it be a true attempt if I do it on the treadmill? Crap. I could just move it to the weekend and then all time trials will land on the weekend which is probably easier anyway. I could get my kids to stand at the 100m marks and give me times.

Weekly report:

Sunday: 8.4 miles @ 5mph

Monday: 4.1 miles @ 5.5 mph

Tuesday: crosstrain then 3.1 miles @ 5.5 mph

Wednesday: .5 warmup then 1 mile @ 8 mph on treadmill (not sure if this counts as reaching my 7:50 goal or not... I'll wait to hear from you guys what you think) -- Also, I knocked the key out of the treadmill halfway through and I had to run and get it and run back LOL. The treadmill said my time was 7:39, my watch said 7:41 INCLUDING the time to pick up the key and get going again.

Thursday: crosstrain then 2.9 miles @ 5.5 mph

Friday: 5 miles @ 5 mph

Saturday: .5 warmup then 2 miles @ 6.7 mph

Clearly I'm doing all my running right now on the treadmill.

I got exactly 120 miles for January. And I ran every single day and crosstrained 2x a week. I have added core workouts daily for February.

Current running plan for February:

Sundays: 8 mile easy

Monday: .5 warmup, 10x400, .5 cooldown

Tuesday: lift + 3.75 med. pace

Wednesday: .5 warmup, 5x800, .5 cooldown

Thursdays: lift + 3.75 med. pace

Fridays: 5 miles easy

Saturdays: .5 warmup + 2 miles for time (or a race)

CW: 145.6-- Definitely didn't reach 142 and also didn't lose much this week at all but still going in the right direction I guess.

We have a road race next Saturday.

Awesome work! Keep after it!