Good week for me. Foot feels back to normal. Volume back up to a reasonable amount. Was pleasantly surprised by Friday long run. Feel reasonably optimistic about the trajectory of this cycle given I am still 11 weeks out.
M - 10 @ 7:28
T - am) 8.2 w/ 12x400 on/ 200 off @ 78/44, pm) 6.5 @ 7:43
Male, 26, 5’9", 131lbs PRs: 5k 17:47 (2022), Half Marathon: 1:17:53 (2021), Marathon: 2:45:27 (2022) Next Races: XC Nationals, Boston Marathon, Fall Ultra Future Goals: Sub 2:40 Marathon, Sub 1:16 HM, Sub 17:30 5k, Sub 5:00 Mile Mileage: 95.5
Another week down and 99 days til Boston. My coach convinced me to sign up for a XC race since Richmond is a 2 hour drive away. I've never raced a 10k or XC so this will be a fun first time experience.
Monday - Lunch Run: 8 Miles - 7:43 Tuesday - PM Run: 12 Miles - 7:30 Wednesday - AM Run: 5 Miles - 7:59, PM Workout: 12 Miles = 3 Up (7:29) -> 20 x 1 On (5:56, 5:55, 5:59, 5:54, 6:04) (5:47, 5:54, 5:49, 5:48, 5:49) (5:43, 5:42, 5:39, 5:37, 5:38) (5:27, 5:34, 5:24, 5:27, 5:23) / 1 Min Jog -> 3 Down - 8:07 Thursday - Am Run: 6 Miles - 7:54, PM Run: 10 Miles - 7:24 Friday - AM Run: 8 Miles - 7:50 Saturday - AM Workout: 12.17 Miles = 3 Up - 7:27, 6.17 Miles = 3 x 8 Min / 2 Min Jog (1st 4 Reps 6:00 - 5:5x & 2nd 4 reps 5:4x - high 5:3x) , 3 Down - 7:27, PM Run: 4.2 Miles - 8:03 Sunday - Am Run: 18 Miles - 7:35
Male, 30, 6’0", 125bs PRs: 5M: 24:28 (2022), Half Marathon: 69:22 (2022), Marathon: 2:23:58 (2022) Next Races: Michigan Invitational, NYC Half Marathon, Boston Marathon Goals: Sub 4:20 Mile, Sub 8:35 Indoor 3K, Sub 15 5K, Sub 68 at NYC Half, Sub 2:22 at Boston
Monday: 10.17 Miles @ 7:23 avg Tuesday: Off, flight back home Wednesday: AM: 5.01 miles @ 7:28 avg, PM: 3 up, 20 minute tempo, 3 down Thursday: PM: 11.25 miles @ 7:05 avg Friday: PM: 10.59 miles @ 7:26 avg Saturday: AM: 12 miles, 3 up, Power 30 (5:24, 5:23, 5:12, 5:02, 4:59, 4:54 (last .83), cooldown to 12. Sunday: 15.50 miles @ 6:51 avg Total: 75.02 miles
General Thoughts: Interesting week with traveling home from vacation. Went with a run on Monday just in case I wouldn't be able to run on Tuesday. Thankfully I went with that as I ended up getting home 5 hours later than I expected. Coach called an audible and we went with a fairly light 20 minute tempo just to get the legs moving (5:42, 5:29, 5:28, 5:24 pace for the final .62) ahead of a tougher weekend.
I rarely have workouts during my blocks where coach lets me let loose a little so when I got the text for a "Power 30" for Saturday I was pretty pumped.
Power 30 is pretty simple. It's a 30 minute progression with just one rule, once you choose to hit the gas, there's no turning back. I've done a power hour and a hard 10 before but with it being shorter I figured this would get a bit saucy. Add in the fact that we were going to do this on the section of the bike path that's rolls a bit. A little on the chilly side? Oh well, that's the midwest for you.
I really enjoy this workout for three reasons. 1. It forces you to stay mindful of how you're feeling. 2. It teaches you how to change gears. 3. It's short enough where you can have some fun hammering over the last 5-10 minutes on a bit of tired legs and sometimes it's just enough to surprise you at how fit you are. It's also not long enough to go to the well if you run it right.
Today's was supposed to start a little slower than my MP at Chicago (5:26), and then move forward from there. Our group got out a little faster than we expected with a 5:24 first mile (was okay with just going 5:30-35) but we made that decision so it was time to live with it. We communicated well and got through the next mile just slightly faster so that we could just ease in to the final 20 minutes. We accomplished that with a 5:23. From there, well things got a little bit fun. We hit a turnaround spot earlier than expected so we hit an audible and hooked some side streets and an alleyway to loop us back on the path. Little did I realize we were now rollin' much faster. Watch buzzed for 3 miles, 5:12. I laughed and told my buddy, "this is gonna be interesting".
Over the next mile he pulled back while another buddy began to gap me fairly slowly. I took a slight glance at my watch half mile in and saw 5:02 and despite my best efforts to ease off I still managed to come through the fourth mile in 5:02. My buddy pulled off at mile 4, happy with the 4:58 he ran. These next 9 minutes were gonna be fun or very very tough.
Having run this section countless times I knew this was gonna involve some rollers and possibly finishing on an uphill. The next mile I tried to keep myself in check just to try and make sure I had the legs over the toughest section. Went through in 4:59 and it was 4 minutes from me and a successful workout.
And maaannnnn were those last 2 minutes tough. I looked down at my watch and knew I was going to finish on a hill so I needed to have somewhat of a cushion so I could stay under pace. I held hard over that last minute and finally came to a stop as I crested the little hill, 4:54 pace. 30 minutes, 5.83 miles.
An easy 3.4 mile cooldown brought me to 12.2 for the day.
Super excited for this year can bring. Going to start racing pretty soon and it's a good sign if I can comfortably run my third fastest ever 5K during a workout.
I really bruised up my foot on Friday after I twisted my ankle walking through my apartment. Today's run felt really off. Overcompensated on a lot of it and have a slight bruise on the bottom on my forefoot because of it. 48 hours should be enough to heal it up. Down week next week regardless.
1st week of the 5k training block. felt good! trying to do all my easy mileage "by feel" and am not looking at watch for pace/hr data. I run with a chest strap and find myself maybe running these a little too fast. I am at a pace where I can talk and my stride feels mechanically smooth but I just think my aerobic motor is a little behind my legs.
M: jog + 10 strides, 5 mi @ 10:20 avg pace
T: 2 mi jog, 2 x (8 x 200 @ 44 sec, 200 jog) with 800 jog btwn sets, 2 mi jog - 8.56 mil
W: easy + 6 strides, 7.71 mi @ 9:07 avg pace
Th: off
F: 2 mi jog, 4 x (200 @ 44 sec , 200 jog), 2 x 1 mi T @ 6:46, 6:47, 4 x (200 @ 44 sec , 200 jog), 2 mi jog - 8.28 mi
M - 7.7 @ 7:55 T - 1.3 up, 1200, 1000, 800, 600, 400, 200 (4:24, 3:39, 2:42, 2:02, 72, 30) with 200 jog, 1.2 down W - 5.4 @ 8:03 with 8 strides Th - Off F - 5.3 @ 8:01 with 8 strides Sa - 2.2 up, 5k race/tempo in 18:15 (5:40/5:56/5:59), 2.1 down Su - 9.6 @ 7:34
Weekly Total: 41 miles YTD Total: 51 miles
I did a low-key club race on Saturday as a workout. My legs felt tired after the (too fast) first mile so I had to slow down. I finished in 2nd.
Female, 48, 5'4", 106 PRs 5:25/18:51/38:56/1:02:28/1:24:08/2:57:42 Recent best times: 5K in 21:08, 10 Miles in 1:11:40, half-marathon in 1:34:05, Marathon in 3:24:40 Next race: Houston Marathon
54 miles running, 3 hours pool-running, and 1000 yards swimming. M: upper body weights/core and 90 minutes pool-running T: 11.5 miles, with a track workout of 2000, 5x800, 2x200 in 9:00, 3:24, 3:21, 3:18, 3:15, 3:12, 48, and 48. 5:20 recovery after the 2K; recoveries of 2:4x-3:0x between the 800s; full recovery for the 200s. Followed with leg strengthwork and 500 yards recovery swimming. W: Streaming yoga and 9.5 miles very easy (9:19) plus drills/strides. Th: 90 minutes pool-running and upper body weights/core. F: 9 miles, including a 6400m track tempo in 27:44 (7:05/6:59/6:54/6:46). Followed with leg strengthwork and 500 yards recovery swimming. Sa: 9.5 miles very easy (9:20) plus drills/strides. Streaming yoga in afternoon. Su: 14 miles progressive, split as first 5 miles averaging 9:18 pace, next 5 miles averaging 8:09 pace, next 4 miles averaging 7:34 pace, and then a half mile cooldown. Followed with injury prevention work.
Second to last week before Houston. I usually taper with a 5K tempo on Friday and 12 miles aerobic on Sunday, but I am intentionally doing a bit more this time because it seems like my neuro issues get worse when I cut back too much.
I slept in on Friday and skipped the team workout so that I could do a tempo on the track after the sun rose. And (unsurprisingly) it was substantially faster. To this point, some tests at the neuro PT this week confirmed that my proprioception is absolutely awful - I'm just not getting any feedback from my feet about where my body is relative to the ground or in space. So I've got a slew of new neuro PT exercises to do - none of which involve closing my eyes, interestingly enough.
[the big exercise is that I am supposed to build up to is balancing on one foot for 2 minutes at a time, while a) staring at a point on a wall several feet away and b) rotating my head from side to side (but keeping my eyes focused on the central point.]
I also have figured out that caffeine seems to make my neuro issues worse - I took a caffeinated gel in the middle of today's long run, and things went a little south after. And looking back at my training log, the same has happened before. So I think I'm going to change up my race nutrition plan and just use regular Maurtens and see how that goes.
F - 8+ with 5x1200 off 3 minutes. Had a buddy doing hard 1ks off 3:30 and didn't want to take quite that much rest. Added 200 to every rep and then just linked up with him again to start the next one.
3:46, 3:44, 3:42, 3:35, 3:31.
S - 5 easy
S - 14 with 3 mile tempo, half mile jog, 2 mile tempo from 7.5-13. Splits were 16:51 and 10:48
Goal: Continue sub5 mile streak in 2023 (currently 12, 2022 was 4:51) Next Race: 10km skate XC skiing Tuesday (hopefully)
Did first structured workout 6 months and got to double digit miles. Been doing lots of small loops but actually have good vibes about it. All skiing was on a ~600m loop of artificial snow and Friday's run was super icy so I ran around a park that has ~350m of grass around the edge.
M: 1 hour skate skiing 5x5min @ threshold effort w 1min rest + strength* T: 45min bike ride + strength W: 30min run + Ext. drills** + strength Th: 60min skate ski + strength F: 15min run 5x20sec/40sec stride/jog + Ext. drills + strength S: off S: 30 min run + ext. drill Run Total - 75 minutes (10 Badger miles***)
*Easy strength style - 2x(15 KB swings, 5x1 arm KB press, 10x TRX pike), 2x(spectrum lateral lunge, DB row) **Extensive drills - 1x40m Fwd skip, Bk skip, L/R Shuffle, skip-skip-lunge, Bk reaching walk, L/R carioca, 2x30m Skip distance, bent leg bound, 2x20m A march, A skip, A double skip, A triple stick, A run, ankle dribble, calf dribble, knee dribble, dribble rise, dribble fall, 2-4 ~80m strides. Takes me ~20 minutes. Idea is to supplement my low volume running with lots of "thoughtful" foot contacts to prepare for future running. *** Using 7:30 pace for easy math
I rarely have workouts during my blocks where coach lets me let loose a little so when I got the text for a "Power 30" for Saturday I was pretty pumped.
Power 30 is pretty simple. It's a 30 minute progression with just one rule, once you choose to hit the gas, there's no turning back. I've done a power hour and a hard 10 before but with it being shorter I figured this would get a bit saucy. Add in the fact that we were going to do this on the section of the bike path that's rolls a bit. A little on the chilly side? Oh well, that's the midwest for you.
I really enjoy this workout for three reasons. 1. It forces you to stay mindful of how you're feeling. 2. It teaches you how to change gears. 3. It's short enough where you can have some fun hammering over the last 5-10 minutes on a bit of tired legs and sometimes it's just enough to surprise you at how fit you are. It's also not long enough to go to the well if you run it right.
Today's was supposed to start a little slower than my MP at Chicago (5:26), and then move forward from there. Our group got out a little faster than we expected with a 5:24 first mile (was okay with just going 5:30-35) but we made that decision so it was time to live with it. We communicated well and got through the next mile just slightly faster so that we could just ease in to the final 20 minutes. We accomplished that with a 5:23. From there, well things got a little bit fun. We hit a turnaround spot earlier than expected so we hit an audible and hooked some side streets and an alleyway to loop us back on the path. Little did I realize we were now rollin' much faster. Watch buzzed for 3 miles, 5:12. I laughed and told my buddy, "this is gonna be interesting".
Over the next mile he pulled back while another buddy began to gap me fairly slowly. I took a slight glance at my watch half mile in and saw 5:02 and despite my best efforts to ease off I still managed to come through the fourth mile in 5:02. My buddy pulled off at mile 4, happy with the 4:58 he ran. These next 9 minutes were gonna be fun or very very tough.
Having run this section countless times I knew this was gonna involve some rollers and possibly finishing on an uphill. The next mile I tried to keep myself in check just to try and make sure I had the legs over the toughest section. Went through in 4:59 and it was 4 minutes from me and a successful workout.
And maaannnnn were those last 2 minutes tough. I looked down at my watch and knew I was going to finish on a hill so I needed to have somewhat of a cushion so I could stay under pace. I held hard over that last minute and finally came to a stop as I crested the little hill, 4:54 pace. 30 minutes, 5.83 miles.
An easy 3.4 mile cooldown brought me to 12.2 for the day.
This is fascinating... Mind if I ask some questions and plagiarize this a bit? It just sounds fun to me and also might be just what I need to improve. But mostly because it sounds fun.
First off, how often do you think it's safe to do a Power 10, Power 30 or Power Hour?
I noticed with the hills that you still had to split faster times despite increasing course difficulty (unless I miss read this?) For people with the ability to read grade adjusted pace real time with a "power meter" do you think it would be better to account for the hills rather than just hitting raw mile splits? Or is part of the intent of the workout to overcome the course and get a late "super effort"? In other words, once you hit the initial 5:24 did that mean you couldn't split a single mile slower than that the rest of the way?
If you were to do the Power Hour, would it be more steady early with super strong efforts late? For your fitness, perhaps try and keep everything slower than 5:30 until at least halfway for example?
Finally, if you were someone like me who has a reasonably large base (over 3600 miles last year) with very limited speedwork, how would you introduce something like this? My first impression is to do this no more than once a week and start with 20 minutes with maybe a 10 minute warmup and 30 minute cooldown (to get my hour in). Also to buffer that day with easy runs at a low heart rate on either side? Maybe alternate weeks with a longer/slower Power Hour with a Power 20 or 30 or 10 or something? Your thoughts?
Nothing serious, still have a lot of progress to make before I'm ready to really rip something. I'll run a few low key winter series events because they are more fun than tempoing solo, though.
HHW - Solid volume and long run. Definitely looks like you're in a good spot for 11 weeks out.
JC - Not bad volume overall. Couple of those weeks should have you feeling good aerobically.
AFF - Solid week. That's an intimidating choice for your first ever XC race.
BaM - Good week, that's a very nice workout Friday. I think you would've been right on your 10k PR if you kept going, right?
DW - Good luck in Houston
BHV - That is way too many treadmill miles. Whoof.
Pewow & Statfanatic - I'd be lying if I said I wasn't a bit scared. But at the same time I don't know what I don't know, so I'm going into it with nothing but a hard fun effort.
Caught a nasty bug from my nieces/nephew over New Years, pretty sure they get me sick over 50% of the time I visit. Aiming for 45+ this week then need to ramp up quickly for Boston.
I rarely have workouts during my blocks where coach lets me let loose a little so when I got the text for a "Power 30" for Saturday I was pretty pumped.
Power 30 is pretty simple. It's a 30 minute progression with just one rule, once you choose to hit the gas, there's no turning back. I've done a power hour and a hard 10 before but with it being shorter I figured this would get a bit saucy. Add in the fact that we were going to do this on the section of the bike path that's rolls a bit. A little on the chilly side? Oh well, that's the midwest for you.
I really enjoy this workout for three reasons. 1. It forces you to stay mindful of how you're feeling. 2. It teaches you how to change gears. 3. It's short enough where you can have some fun hammering over the last 5-10 minutes on a bit of tired legs and sometimes it's just enough to surprise you at how fit you are. It's also not long enough to go to the well if you run it right.
Today's was supposed to start a little slower than my MP at Chicago (5:26), and then move forward from there. Our group got out a little faster than we expected with a 5:24 first mile (was okay with just going 5:30-35) but we made that decision so it was time to live with it. We communicated well and got through the next mile just slightly faster so that we could just ease in to the final 20 minutes. We accomplished that with a 5:23. From there, well things got a little bit fun. We hit a turnaround spot earlier than expected so we hit an audible and hooked some side streets and an alleyway to loop us back on the path. Little did I realize we were now rollin' much faster. Watch buzzed for 3 miles, 5:12. I laughed and told my buddy, "this is gonna be interesting".
Over the next mile he pulled back while another buddy began to gap me fairly slowly. I took a slight glance at my watch half mile in and saw 5:02 and despite my best efforts to ease off I still managed to come through the fourth mile in 5:02. My buddy pulled off at mile 4, happy with the 4:58 he ran. These next 9 minutes were gonna be fun or very very tough.
Having run this section countless times I knew this was gonna involve some rollers and possibly finishing on an uphill. The next mile I tried to keep myself in check just to try and make sure I had the legs over the toughest section. Went through in 4:59 and it was 4 minutes from me and a successful workout.
And maaannnnn were those last 2 minutes tough. I looked down at my watch and knew I was going to finish on a hill so I needed to have somewhat of a cushion so I could stay under pace. I held hard over that last minute and finally came to a stop as I crested the little hill, 4:54 pace. 30 minutes, 5.83 miles.
An easy 3.4 mile cooldown brought me to 12.2 for the day.
This is fascinating... Mind if I ask some questions and plagiarize this a bit? It just sounds fun to me and also might be just what I need to improve. But mostly because it sounds fun.
First off, how often do you think it's safe to do a Power 10, Power 30 or Power Hour?
I noticed with the hills that you still had to split faster times despite increasing course difficulty (unless I miss read this?) For people with the ability to read grade adjusted pace real time with a "power meter" do you think it would be better to account for the hills rather than just hitting raw mile splits? Or is part of the intent of the workout to overcome the course and get a late "super effort"? In other words, once you hit the initial 5:24 did that mean you couldn't split a single mile slower than that the rest of the way?
If you were to do the Power Hour, would it be more steady early with super strong efforts late? For your fitness, perhaps try and keep everything slower than 5:30 until at least halfway for example?
Finally, if you were someone like me who has a reasonably large base (over 3600 miles last year) with very limited speedwork, how would you introduce something like this? My first impression is to do this no more than once a week and start with 20 minutes with maybe a 10 minute warmup and 30 minute cooldown (to get my hour in). Also to buffer that day with easy runs at a low heart rate on either side? Maybe alternate weeks with a longer/slower Power Hour with a Power 20 or 30 or 10 or something? Your thoughts?
I usually just prescribe one of these for my athletes personally. 2020 was a bit weird because I was just getting back to it following an injury and after a couple of months we progressed to the full hour. I was racing in late April for this one. So typically, I'd get this about 2 months prior to a big race. As for strategy on paces, it really all depends on the fitness of the athlete and confidence of them accomplishing the workout as prescribed. I'm fairly conservative on my opens when it comes to the longer ones as it's fairly easy to get carried away here. Goal is to really get down to HMP or faster over those last 10 min. This version of the power 30 was more on the extreme side with a faster opener and more aggressive on the pushes since we only had 30 minutes to play with here.
I would recommend that this workout is done on a course layout that is fairly familiar to the athlete. We could've done it on a flat layout or even on a track but with boston definitely not being that, I wanted to have a bit of variance on my route. I remember on my hard 10 that there would be a hard uphill section for mile 9 so I purposely eased off the progression for the mile prior to give me a shot to get under will still running faster than the previous mile.
In the case of this past weekend the faster opening mile forced me to pivot a bit for mile 2 and just hit that minimum so that I didn't potentially pay for it later. Once that 5:24 hit we were locked there. As we made the turn at 2 I had a rough idea of where we would end at 30 so I made a conscious effort to slow for mile 4 so I didn't have to run too much faster than sub 5:00. I preferably would have crossed that in 5:05 and then had a much nicer time over the final 10 minutes or so but I landed where I landed.
If I were to do a power hour in my current fitness I'd probably start it right around 5:45 and start moving down from there, staying conservative through those first 20-30 minutes before moving.
These workouts, outside of the 10, were done with 3 mile warmup/3 mile cooldown. I personally would not consider this speed work; i'd argue that the goal for this is more on learning how to change gears and keeping yourself engaged and looking ahead. I've taken the feelings from this workout into races when I've negative split, keeping mindful of my body and moving as I felt comfortable.
There's a lot of variances to this one depending on where you are at with your training block or your fitness. I personally like giving these to my athletes that need a little help learning to gauge their effort level. Marathoning can be a bit of a gamble sometimes, especially if you're trying to even split or negative split, so this is that opportunity to play around with it a bit.
Personally, I wouldn't do these too many times in a session. I think there's a lot of other things you can add to introduce speedwork without redlining too much. Some middle of the week workouts at like 10K-HMP for example.
Hope I somewhat answered this! Got a little workout brain from this afternoons 8-6-4-2.
Beersandmiles -- Thanks for the clarification. Looks like this is a fairly RARE workout due to the intensity.
From one of the strava reports, it looks like you went back and forth a whole bunch of times, meaning you had to come to a stop and turn around multiple time? Yikes!!!
Your comment about learning to gauge effort level is interesting. I rarely do progression runs. When I do, I never do them this hard. However, I do finish them this hard. It's just that I'm nowhere near the top gear until the last 10 minutes. On these, you're relatively close fairly early by the looks of it. But I know what you mean about gauging the effort. For example, I realized in my last one just how easy paces well above my daily pace feels. Also, how damn hard the really fast paces feel, hahaha.