Road Racing and Training Thread - Week Ending 9/22/19

Random, but this is how I know I'm getting old...Played softball the other day. I was fully warmed up (literally did my 6 mile + run into it). Still yesterday I could definitely feel the aches from my "activity" in the game, which consisted of chasing down a few fly balls past me and running out the bases. God forbid I try to jump into a flag football game like I used to, who even knows how sore I would be after that.

runrincerepeat wrote:

Has Michigan ever won a NC in Cross Country?

Western Michigan has.

Stat - Love your take on that workout.

OR - It’s not a bad idea to take a down week at this point. Not that overtraining was my real problem, but in assessing this cycle that’s one thing I would’ve done differently.

Did a walk/jog this morning. (After a mile warmup walk, 6x400 jog/400 walk). If worst comes to worst, I think I can Gallowalk Chicago. Didn’t feel 100 percent, but any pain was negligible.

Finally got around to some janky graphing of MPW and VDOT while procrastinating at work -- let's see if I can post an imgur link correctly...

https://imgur.com/90IQqop

You guys are great. Thank you for all of the good advice and good wishes. Somehow I got through a day without running. Leg is actually feeling decent. Stretching it like crazy. In any case, I have to be careful as the hamstring is a tricky muscle.

JQ - looks like a strong correlation w mileage and increased vDot. Who woulda thought?! So when you take a down week from hugging up on 100mpw... by the end of the week is everything popping pretty good by the end of the week...compared to in the midst of 100ish miles?

One more for the injured list here.

Turned my ankle on the 16th. Took 5 days off during which it improved dramatically, filling me with hope for the HM on 10/13. However, following a 6-miler this week I have decided to shut it down. It is bad with a capital F.

The ankle itself is much better, but something down in the outside of my foot is not happy. Briefly considered dropping down to the 10km or moving to a race Novemer 3. But I need to let it heal, however long that takes. If I kept any race on the calendar, I would definitely rush the recovery and re-aggravate it.

Later I'll tally up all the ways in which this year has been a huge success. But first I'm going to drown my sorrow in french fries, cake and sloth for a few days.

The Stone Cutter wrote:

Solid week of base there for you before starting workouts again. As I explained to darkwave, I played cautious on the 400s since it was my first foray into faster running in some time. I will build up to the HMP/MP blend tempos with the marathon pace “recovery” segments in a few weeks. Right now, it’s about introducing 3 elements of training - speed (relative to MP), MP, and endurance. The speed workouts will get slower and start approaching MP; I will touch on MP weekly to get a good feel about what feels proper given the brevity of this buildup; and the endurance runs will start approaching MP specific training also. Kind of the classic Canova funnel with a Hanson’s strength/tempo component mixed in there this cycle.

That's fine if you are trying to reintroduce speed but 400s are on the long side if that is the purpose of the workout. You should be doing half that volume at mile effort/speed and then giving yourself full recovery. 400s with full recovery is a peaking workout for middle distance runners. The other thing you should be doing is long repeats (3 + minutes) at HM effort with jog recovery.

Just stated lurking the thread again and thought I would drop in for a quick drive by. Been really busy and not much notable going on as far as training for me.

AJ - Good luck in Berlin!

CJ - Good to see that the effort based workouts are coming together for you. You have been running long enough to have those efforts dialed in to a reasonable extent. Keep up the good work and hopefully we'll see a new PR for the Taipei Marathon.

Sub 6:00 - So how many consecutive Septembers have you had a knee issue? Well at least you didn't bash it on anything this year. Hope you have a speedy recovery so you can have good race in Chicago.

And speedy recovery to all you others that are also dealing with injuries like OR and Guy B.

Maybe later this fall I will get things rolling again and start posting regularly.

Still Improving wrote:

Sub 6:00 - So how many consecutive Septembers have you had a knee issue? Well at least you didn't bash it on anything this year. Hope you have a speedy recovery so you can have good race in Chicago.

Four! It’s definitely a curse and not just randomness.

The Stone Cutter wrote:

drcrusher - I am very familiar with 3:25:00 fitness based on Mrs. Stone’s goals/training. You are a clear notch faster than her, and I too would expect your lifetime PR to be under serious threat. I really don’t think it is a stretch for you to target 3:20:00, but you seem to know yourself well and can make that assessment as you get closer to race day. Volume and workouts have looked really good.

Thank you for your comments. It is kind of a relief to hear you say this out loud. In years past, I've done MP workouts where I hit between 7:35-7:40 for long blocks but it always felt a little rich -- I was likely trying to push more what I wanted MP to be than what I was really ready for, fitness-wise -- and come race day, it felt good at the start (as starts usually do) and after a few such miles, still feeling all right, I thought "ok, I'll keep going for it" and then it gradually turned into a grind like I overdid it and I struggled to stay under 8 by the end. Given how prior races have gone, I've been fretting about what might happen if I try to go out at 7:40. However, in those situations, I was not running the mileage I am now, so I've never quite been in this place before. I tell myself that if I do the work, my goal is realistic, but caution always kinds of creeps in at the edges and leaves me a little uncertain about how to judge where these kinds of workouts put me. When I did another 8 mi MP workout a couple days ago, ~7:40 over that block honestly felt almost too comfortable. I was a little disappointed it was time to be done. I read your comments later that day and they give me more confidence. I'm looking forward to workouts with longer/multiple blocks at MP to add to that confidence.

Love the workouts and was right with you all, walking now to stay fit (arthritis/ligament pain). Anyways I took up writing to fill the void and voila. Here is some motivation in between the miles and races (the training/racing/historical figures are real-accurate but a work of fiction). Enjoy.

https://indiereader.com/book_review/racing-shadows/

https://www.amazon.com/Racing-Shadows-James-K-Dill/dp/1627202420/ref=sr_1_1?crid=FQPGEW7N7OAZ&keywords=racing+shadows&qid=1569596873&s=books&sprefix=racing+shadows%2Cstripbooks%2C141&sr=1-1

SI - Great to hear from you.

I’ve got boots on the MF ground here in Berlin and am pleased to report that the mini-fridge situation is acceptable. Lack of air conditioning may be an issue though...

angryjohnny wrote:

SI - Great to hear from you.

I’ve got boots on the MF ground here in Berlin and am pleased to report that the mini-fridge situation is acceptable. Lack of air conditioning may be an issue though...

WHOA! I love it! The mini-fridge situation is key, of course. :) Rooting for you BIG TIME. Give ‘em hell.

I am currently on the couch watching WCs and nursing my hammy. Emma looked great in her heat, and so did Courtney. Channel those fine ladies, my friend, and you will rock.

And this is for you...

runrincerepeat wrote:

JQ - looks like a strong correlation w mileage and increased vDot. Who woulda thought?! So when you take a down week from hugging up on 100mpw... by the end of the week is everything popping pretty good by the end of the week...compared to in the midst of 100ish miles?

Yeah definitely, I feel like while running high mileage and especially so on doubles, even just 1-2 down days can make me feel really nice comparatively.

I still think (and hope) I have lots to reap from actually keeping a real consistent mileage schedule. Looking back I definitely pushed too far during the Boston cycle, and a lot of those big down weeks were signs of that (sickness, niggles, etc.) I'm feeling a lot more consistent this time around ramping slower into just a few weeks of 100s and hoping it will pay off! I'm also thinking about dropping down more next year and hover more in the 70-90 to just be more consistent year round.

I remember darkwave mentioning early on in my journey that it may be in the better interest long term to not shake the tree dry of apples (mileage) too early and I'm really starting to internalize that wisdom now I think. I definitely won't be interested in ever touching something like a 120 mile week again for at least a few years!

Very Nice JQ thanks for the insight. I am going to keep trucking with the higher mileage next week (after a pretty sizable week this week) and then take a downer the week after and see whats what. Luckily dont have any niggles to speak of just tired legs some afternoons.

JQ I know it can't really be done but I want to see how your VDOTs correlate compared to deployment of nice long tempo efforts.

AJ just open the mini fridge door and that hotel room should cool down nicely. I'm pretty sure that's how thermodynamics work, right?

OR, S6, GB - Sorry to hear about the hiccups. (I will refuse to call them setbacks yet...optimist!) Hope you're all flyering again soon.

GT - Thank you. Today is day 2 of no running. Lots of stretching. Keeping my fingers crossed...

Gordon Tremeshko wrote:

JQ I know it can't really be done but I want to see how your VDOTs correlate compared to deployment of nice long tempo efforts.

No DOTS yet but I have been collecting a list of the progression of those tempo efforts this cycle!

9/25/19 - 2x3mi, 3’ jog rec

5:37 avg

16:58 (5:42, 5:41, 5:35), 16:45 (5:37, 5:36, 5:32)

9/11/19 - 4x(10’ on, 2’30 jog)

5:43 avg

5:48, 5:45, 5:44, 5:37

9/3/19 - 6x1mi, 2’ jog rec

5:38 avg

5:42, 5:41, 5:42, 5:39, 5:36, 5:28

8/29/19 - 4mi tempo

5:42 avg

5:48, 5:45, 5:41, 5:33

8/14/19 - 4x(8’ on, 3’ jog)

5:43 avg

5:50, 5:39, 5:48, 5:37

8/7/19 - 16’-12’-8’-4’, 3’ jog rec

5:50 avg

6:02, 5:49, 5:40, 5:34

7/17/19 - 4mi tempo

5:54 avg

5:59, 5:51, 5:52, 5:54

7/2/19 - 5mi tempo

6:00 avg

6:16, 6:07, 5:55, 5:54, 5:48

6/29/19 - 6x(7’ on, 3’ jog)

6:01 avg

6:15, 6:09, 6:05, 5:58, 5:56, 5:44

outsiderunner wrote:

GT - Thank you. Today is day 2 of no running. Lots of stretching. Keeping my fingers crossed...

You foam rolling ? Vastly superior to stretching