Why so critical honeybunch?
Why so critical honeybunch?
Just been looking at your training diary for late October 2004. To say I've never read anything so bizarre would be an understatement.
Fri 22 Oct (day before a race )- Recovery run at 0230 (i.e. middle of the night!) 8 miles in Saucony racing flats at 8:43 pace followed at 0600 by a similar 8.5 miles at 8:24. Do you have trouble sleeping??? Why so many miles so slow day before a race?
Race day 23 Oct - race was 1100 but this was preceeded by runs at 0600, 0900, 1015, 1045 in Nike Zoom Elite at over 3 min/mile slower than you raced at. Why???
Race itself seemed pretty decent 8K although not surprisingly he say your mind wasn't on the job.
However seems not enough for the day so you finished with 10x200s at the track.
Next day, still in the flats, did 16 miles and totalled a very impressive 123 miles for week. However total ahead...
Next day 2 AM and PM 8 miles rather slow but legs apparently felt good. I note 2 more different brands of shoe used including some apparent new Asics ones.
Next day, despite feeling good the previous day, you felt so bad that these were by and large your last runs until this video - yet another different model and brand.
Switching to today I note you managed just one 9:12 mile in the celebrated H Streets. Hardly an advert for their use???
A cursory observation would then be that you just over did it big time and why run in so many types of shoe. I can't see how the body could adapt to all these switches in models.
Okay, okay. Let me answer a few questions. First, yes my 5k PR is faster than my marathon PR. That's because my marathon PR was set at a race that I used as a training run for Boston last year. I never got to run Boston because I was injured (tibial stress fracture), however I was hoping to run in the 2:31-2:33 range. I simply never had the opportunity to race any of the other distances, so my old PRs still stand.
Next, I admit my training was out of the ordinary this past Fall. Please don't look at Aug-Oct and think that is how I normally train. It's a long story. Basically, I have never had the opportunity to run on a team (high school or college), so I decided to run this year even though I am in grad school. When I decided to start running in August I knew that I could either train conservatively and run a 27 minute 8k in October/November or I could take a chance and train aggressively (and risk getting injured) and hope to run a 25 minute 8k. I decided to take the chance and I accept the consequences. To be honest, I'm surprised I didn't get injured sooner. And no, the coach of Potsdam had nothing to do with my training...he knew how I felt about the season and he supported me even though he thought it was quite a risk. It didn't work out, but I am glad I had the opportunity to race on a team and meet some other competitive guys who I would not normally have had the opportunity to meet.
The days where I ran 5 or 6 times were simply race days with several different short warm-ups (I have to log them separately because I use the coolrunning training log). Yes, the one week where I did the 200's after my race (because I didn't run as expected) was when I believe I became injured again...foolish.
I tried so many different types of shoes because I was originally wearing the Saucony Grid Swerve Ti's when I ran on the Fort Bragg 10-miler team. However, I was deployed to Afghanistan for almost a year and Saucony discontinued the shoe by the time I returned. I was unable to find a shoe that worked for me the way that shoe did.
Yes, my runs in the Puma H-streets were at 9 min/mile pace...like I said, I am really going to focus on easing back into training and build a good base. Without any big races coming up (next marathon is in May) I can really concentrate on training conservatively.
Sorry this was so long, but I wanted to clear up a few issues. I do appreciate all of the constructive criticism.