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Week 170
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Salutations, 50+ers. Glad to see some discussion on issues facing knockknock; wish I had some illuminating insights. Old Guy II, that is absolutely incredible that your max HR has not dropped that much. Mine is significantly lower than my younger days. At 19, my max HR was over 210….I think it was about 215-220, now it’s down to about 182…..and I’ve just turned 55, who knows what the next decade will bring. But I don’t train by HR, so I can’t really add much to the discussion, other than I know that 140-150 is a typical range @ 7:45/mile (based on the few times I have worn an HRM on a long run). I just found my Garmin (w/HRM) that I misplaced a couple months back, so maybe I’ll take it out for a spin on our easy club run tonight and report back.
On to my week. Still trying to adjust my schedule with the fall teaching assignments. It’s been so dang humid this past week, that I haven’t felt the urge to get out in the morning and go, I prefer to run in the evening when it’s hotter, but less humid…and that’s caused complications, but even so I managed to get in about 40 miles on six days of running. Log reads as such:
Sun: 7.6 easy
Mon: 4.1 easy-to-moderate (7:30 pace avg)
Tue: 6.1 w/3x(1200m, 30s rest, 400m, full recovery between reps)
Wed: 4.0 easy
Thur: off
Fri: 5.5 w/1.0@6:14 (in middle) the rest was easy pace
Sat: 12.5 2/1.2@6:15 pace (around mile 8) most of the rest was in the 7:30-7:45 range
Times for Tuesday’s workout were: 4:41,80,4:43,82,4:41,81, so the 1200’s were just above current 5k pace, and I think the 400’s were at about current 2k pace. The recoveries were easy jogs for just over 4 minutes. The faster miles during the Friday and Saturday runs were mostly because I realized I was not going to get a decent tempo run in this week (too humid to want to go long and hard), and I felt the urge to inject at least a little pace for the week. Saturday’s run (the only morning run for the week) had a more progressive nature, starting at around 8:00/mile and getting down to 7:00/mile before we pushed hard for the 1.2 (to be honest, though, it had more downhill than up, so the 6:15 pace is a little misleading). We eased off quite a bit for the final 4.
Take away for the week. I’m at about 75% where I was pre-injury; 40 miles/week is something that I can handle, and I think I can push that to 45-50 over the coming months. At which point, aerobically, I’ll be in pretty good shape, and I can go back to putting more focus on the strength that I’ve lost through this whole ordeal…..at least, that’s the plan for the coming fall and winter. To that end, this month we’ll be having a strength-training specialist coming to our club meeting to answer questions about strength training for distance runners. If I get any good insights, I’ll report those. Hopefully, by spring I’ll be in good shape in this new age group.
From April’s Running Times Magazine:
http://www.runnersworld.com/race-training/strength-training-misconceptions
Quote for the week: "The five S's of sports training are: stamina, speed, strength, skill, and spirit; but the greatest of these is spirit." -Ken Doherty (1905-1995) decathlete champion and U of Mich. T&F coach.
OK, Long-winded post as usual. Hope you all had good weeks; looking forward to reading how it’s going in your corner of the globe. Stay hydrated out there!