Monday: 6.5 miles (6:54); 8.1 miles (6:56)
Tuesday: 8 miles (6:27); 8.2 miles wih 4xhill blasts (7:11)
Wednesday: 10.1 miles with 12x1:00 on/off. Wanted to run around 3k-5k effort and figured I'd average around 4:30. But most of them were into the wind and I averaged a little over 4:35 on the fast portions...slower than I would have liked but I recovered well in between and didn't feel like I was redlining or anything; 6.8 miles (7:15)
Thursday: 9.7 miles (6:26); 5.3 miles (7:09)
Friday: No running. Slammed today and spent my running window driving home to look for my wallet, which turned out to be in my car.
Saturday: 26.8 miles with Country Music Marathon in 2:23:33. Goal was to cruise a 2:26 or 2:24, depending on effort. Was going to open around 71:30-72:00 but a Kenyan showed up, so we got rolling over the hills. He died after 15 miles and I was able to relax a little bit the rest of the way. I'll do a more extensive recap on this later, but this is a really hilly course and went through halfway just under 1:11.
Sunday: 2.5 miles. Ran 1/2 mile, and two miles with my kids at the Kids Rock run. This crap counts the day after a marathon. Left calf tender and right quad is super tight.
Week Total: 92 miles. Not too bad considering I ran about 90 miles in five days. I'm pretty pleased that I came out with the win and felt pretty smooth. After using my completely unscientific homemade running conversion calculator, I feel like I'm in 2:17 shape on a good course, with good weather. Since I'm really rusty right now and have done very little marathon work, I'll take it for now.
Tuesday, April 28, 2015
Tuesday, April 21, 2015
April 13th-19th Training
Monday: Day Off. Woke up to pouring rain and had a long day ahead on the road, of which my daughter puked several times in the first hour of the trip.
Tuesday: 6.6 miles (6:27); 10.1 miles with 4xhill blasts (7:10)
Wednesday: 6.3 miles (6:57); 10.7 miles with four mile tempo in 20:00. I was debating skipping this for a nap since I was really worn out and sleepy. I couldn't tell if it was allergies or a virus creeping in, so I took some Excedrin and a Claritin I found in my medicine drawer that expired over two years ago. I was feeling a little bit better an hour later, so something worked. Goal was to start at 5:00-5:05ish and work down. Balanced splits ended up being: 4:56, 4:59, 5:04, 5:01. First mile was super easy and afterwards, I thought I was going to average around 4:55. Second mile was also pretty smooth. I saw I was slowing down after the turnaround and debated keeping it sub 5:00 but I knew the effort level would be too high, so I ran by feel. On the last mile, I was starting to hurt and debated kicking it in to break 5:00 but since I went from feeling fresh to worn out so quickly, I just hung on. I'm surprised the effort level increased so much, while the pace also got slower. It shows that my 10k/HM fitness is still really rusty/raw and I need to ease into the extensive stuff through some intervals with rest breaks before working to longer, continuous efforts.
Thursday: 9 miles (6:59); 7 miles (7:06)
Friday: 9.7 miles (6:46); 6.1 miles with 4xstrides (7:25)
Saturday: 8.5 miles with 5k in 15:59 (a little short). My original plan was to run around 10k pace and shoot for a sub 15:00. But a couple minutes into it, I was on 5:20 pace, so I debated working from 5:00 to 4:40. After the first mile, I decided to just finish up since I wasn't feeling smooth at all. The course was also hard to run quickly on since there were a lot of turns and dips, with a lot of it being on a sidewalk; 6 miles (7:17)
Sunday: 20 miles (6:16). Started a few hours later than normal because of a continuous downpour but with temps in the low/mid 70s, that also meant things got pretty muggy when the sun came out. First sloppy from the start and after a pit-stop halfway, it turned into my first shirtless run of the year. Felt a little better the second half and kept an easier effort. I was getting pretty dehydrated, so with two miles to go, I took a drink from the hose that comes straight from the quarry water, so hopefully I don't die. Felt decent by the end and even broke 6:00 the last mile (my only one) on the last mile, which contains a gradual 1k hill.
Week Total: 100 miles. I always make fun of people who shoot for a 100 mile week because they look at it like some magical number. But I uploaded my stuff later than normal, so I didn't have a firm idea on my volume. Your weekly mileage total, rather than an exact goal, should just be the number your see after all your daily runs are added up. A result or consequence, rather than a concrete goal.
My wife was sick in bed all weekend with strep throat, so hopefully I don't catch it. The second half of the week, I was insanely sleepy and would go to bed a couple of hours earlier than normal and even had a tender throat for a couple of days, so hopefully that was my body trying to fight it off and coming away with a victory.
I have the Country Music Marathon this weekend and my #1 goal is to win. My #2 goal is to win and run 2:23:59 to get the second time bonus and goal #3 is to win and run 2:25:59 to get the third time bonus. While I'm hoping to use this as a steady long run and then start more aggressive training at the start of May, I will go to war in this race if I have to.
Tuesday: 6.6 miles (6:27); 10.1 miles with 4xhill blasts (7:10)
Wednesday: 6.3 miles (6:57); 10.7 miles with four mile tempo in 20:00. I was debating skipping this for a nap since I was really worn out and sleepy. I couldn't tell if it was allergies or a virus creeping in, so I took some Excedrin and a Claritin I found in my medicine drawer that expired over two years ago. I was feeling a little bit better an hour later, so something worked. Goal was to start at 5:00-5:05ish and work down. Balanced splits ended up being: 4:56, 4:59, 5:04, 5:01. First mile was super easy and afterwards, I thought I was going to average around 4:55. Second mile was also pretty smooth. I saw I was slowing down after the turnaround and debated keeping it sub 5:00 but I knew the effort level would be too high, so I ran by feel. On the last mile, I was starting to hurt and debated kicking it in to break 5:00 but since I went from feeling fresh to worn out so quickly, I just hung on. I'm surprised the effort level increased so much, while the pace also got slower. It shows that my 10k/HM fitness is still really rusty/raw and I need to ease into the extensive stuff through some intervals with rest breaks before working to longer, continuous efforts.
Thursday: 9 miles (6:59); 7 miles (7:06)
Friday: 9.7 miles (6:46); 6.1 miles with 4xstrides (7:25)
Saturday: 8.5 miles with 5k in 15:59 (a little short). My original plan was to run around 10k pace and shoot for a sub 15:00. But a couple minutes into it, I was on 5:20 pace, so I debated working from 5:00 to 4:40. After the first mile, I decided to just finish up since I wasn't feeling smooth at all. The course was also hard to run quickly on since there were a lot of turns and dips, with a lot of it being on a sidewalk; 6 miles (7:17)
Sunday: 20 miles (6:16). Started a few hours later than normal because of a continuous downpour but with temps in the low/mid 70s, that also meant things got pretty muggy when the sun came out. First sloppy from the start and after a pit-stop halfway, it turned into my first shirtless run of the year. Felt a little better the second half and kept an easier effort. I was getting pretty dehydrated, so with two miles to go, I took a drink from the hose that comes straight from the quarry water, so hopefully I don't die. Felt decent by the end and even broke 6:00 the last mile (my only one) on the last mile, which contains a gradual 1k hill.
Week Total: 100 miles. I always make fun of people who shoot for a 100 mile week because they look at it like some magical number. But I uploaded my stuff later than normal, so I didn't have a firm idea on my volume. Your weekly mileage total, rather than an exact goal, should just be the number your see after all your daily runs are added up. A result or consequence, rather than a concrete goal.
My wife was sick in bed all weekend with strep throat, so hopefully I don't catch it. The second half of the week, I was insanely sleepy and would go to bed a couple of hours earlier than normal and even had a tender throat for a couple of days, so hopefully that was my body trying to fight it off and coming away with a victory.
I have the Country Music Marathon this weekend and my #1 goal is to win. My #2 goal is to win and run 2:23:59 to get the second time bonus and goal #3 is to win and run 2:25:59 to get the third time bonus. While I'm hoping to use this as a steady long run and then start more aggressive training at the start of May, I will go to war in this race if I have to.
Tuesday, April 14, 2015
April 6th-12th Training
Monday: 8 miles (6:54); 6.3 miles (7:05)
Tuesday: 5.3 miles (6:54); 10.1 miles (6:29)
Wednesday: 3.9 miles (6:50); 8.2 miles with track workout. This was an adventurous run. My plan was to warm-up a little over four miles on the greenway and then drive 20 minutes to a track I've never run on before. When I got to where I thought it was, I figured out it wasn't there. So after a frantic phone call and Googling, I was able to find it an hour later. Workout plan was 16x400m at sub 70 with 1:00 jog rest and 3:00 jog rest after four. Ran the first 4 in 68s with a 70, then two more 68s. On my 7th, I accidentally only ran 300m because I wasn't paying attention. But after "seven" (I really thought it was eight), I was done. The weather was cool on Sunday but for this one, it was 85 degrees with a dew point of 66. I was spitting foam after the first one and was dying in the heat, even though the pace wasn't that bad. I managed a very short cool-down and was drained the rest of the day (and even went to bed before 9pm, which I never do). The kick in the gut was that I started after the high school team was training on it and I was done while they were still doing work.
Thursday: 9.7 miles (7:01); 6.8 miles (7:16)
Friday: 10.1 mile with four miles of 30s fast, 2:30 moderate. I through this in because of the early exit on Wednesday. A lot of times, I like to run a fartlek of .15 on/.35 off. It's great for a tune-up, an off-season workout or when you're starting to introduce higher intensity work. But I noticed that Brad Hudson's athletes do the 30s fast/2:30 moderate workout a lot, so I decided to give it a try. I ended up averaging 5:25 pace for the whole thing with a fast pace of 4:11 and a moderate pace of 5:48. On the fast portion, I felt pretty sloppy and a little wreckless...almost like when you were younger and going down a really steep hill on your bike, where your bike wobbles side-to-side some and you feel like you're going to crash. The moderate part was tough for the first half of most of them but then I was able to recover by the time the next fast portion started. I pushed what I thought was the last fast portion in sub 4:00 pace, but I did the math wrong and figured out I had one more left, so I ran under 4:00 pace again (which really hurt).
Fun workout but the intense pace was tougher than I thought it would be. You definitely need to be in touch with fast work before doing this if you want to feel smooth.
Saturday: 9.2 miles (6:56); Skipped second run because I was on the road to Florida and relaxed some when I got there.
Sunday: 17.8 miles with Gulf Coast Half-Marathon in 1:11:57 (with a shoe-tie pit stop). My plan was to run just under 1:12 with a small progression in pace (5:40s to a little faster than MP at the end). Weather was low 70s, windy and rainy for the first half. Course was primarily out-and-back and I felt really sluggish running in the 5:40 range. I was hoping the tailwind would give me more time on the way back, but I was running 5:30s with the same effort. At the ten mile mark, I picked it up some and ran sub 5:15 pace the last 5k. Would have liked to felt more smooth but it's been a busy weekend.
Week Total: 95.4 miles. Not a bad week. I tried to cut it down a little bit since I jumped back into things relatively quickly after my injury. I also had a lot of old main pains going on, so I figured a couple of skipped runs would be good. Next week will hopefully be a solid week of training and then I'll relax a little bit for the marathon.
Tuesday: 5.3 miles (6:54); 10.1 miles (6:29)
Wednesday: 3.9 miles (6:50); 8.2 miles with track workout. This was an adventurous run. My plan was to warm-up a little over four miles on the greenway and then drive 20 minutes to a track I've never run on before. When I got to where I thought it was, I figured out it wasn't there. So after a frantic phone call and Googling, I was able to find it an hour later. Workout plan was 16x400m at sub 70 with 1:00 jog rest and 3:00 jog rest after four. Ran the first 4 in 68s with a 70, then two more 68s. On my 7th, I accidentally only ran 300m because I wasn't paying attention. But after "seven" (I really thought it was eight), I was done. The weather was cool on Sunday but for this one, it was 85 degrees with a dew point of 66. I was spitting foam after the first one and was dying in the heat, even though the pace wasn't that bad. I managed a very short cool-down and was drained the rest of the day (and even went to bed before 9pm, which I never do). The kick in the gut was that I started after the high school team was training on it and I was done while they were still doing work.
Thursday: 9.7 miles (7:01); 6.8 miles (7:16)
Friday: 10.1 mile with four miles of 30s fast, 2:30 moderate. I through this in because of the early exit on Wednesday. A lot of times, I like to run a fartlek of .15 on/.35 off. It's great for a tune-up, an off-season workout or when you're starting to introduce higher intensity work. But I noticed that Brad Hudson's athletes do the 30s fast/2:30 moderate workout a lot, so I decided to give it a try. I ended up averaging 5:25 pace for the whole thing with a fast pace of 4:11 and a moderate pace of 5:48. On the fast portion, I felt pretty sloppy and a little wreckless...almost like when you were younger and going down a really steep hill on your bike, where your bike wobbles side-to-side some and you feel like you're going to crash. The moderate part was tough for the first half of most of them but then I was able to recover by the time the next fast portion started. I pushed what I thought was the last fast portion in sub 4:00 pace, but I did the math wrong and figured out I had one more left, so I ran under 4:00 pace again (which really hurt).
Fun workout but the intense pace was tougher than I thought it would be. You definitely need to be in touch with fast work before doing this if you want to feel smooth.
Saturday: 9.2 miles (6:56); Skipped second run because I was on the road to Florida and relaxed some when I got there.
Sunday: 17.8 miles with Gulf Coast Half-Marathon in 1:11:57 (with a shoe-tie pit stop). My plan was to run just under 1:12 with a small progression in pace (5:40s to a little faster than MP at the end). Weather was low 70s, windy and rainy for the first half. Course was primarily out-and-back and I felt really sluggish running in the 5:40 range. I was hoping the tailwind would give me more time on the way back, but I was running 5:30s with the same effort. At the ten mile mark, I picked it up some and ran sub 5:15 pace the last 5k. Would have liked to felt more smooth but it's been a busy weekend.
Week Total: 95.4 miles. Not a bad week. I tried to cut it down a little bit since I jumped back into things relatively quickly after my injury. I also had a lot of old main pains going on, so I figured a couple of skipped runs would be good. Next week will hopefully be a solid week of training and then I'll relax a little bit for the marathon.
Tuesday, April 7, 2015
March 30th-April 5th Training
Monday: 8 miles (7:17); 6.3 miles (7:04)
Tuesday: 5.6 miles (7:22); 10.7 miles with 4x1 mile with 1/4 mile jog rest (2:45ish) in 4:50, 4:42, 4:37, 4:25. Ran this workout with the Nashville Harriers. I haven't done a workout like this in over a year and ideally, I wanted to do shorter intervals to ease into things but would rather have the camaraderie, so I opted for the longer workout. With the layout of the workout, I felt it made the most sense to start around 10k pace and work down to 5k pace or a little faster. So my plan was to work from 5:00, into the 4:40s. The course was around a park, which consisted of three, 1/4 mile straightaways with two turns. On the first, I eased my way into it and ran a pretty big negative split. The second was also negative split and felt really smooth. On the third, I tried to stay a little more conscious of my effort the last 1/2 mile and felt good. On the last, I wanted to break 4:30 and since I was on 4:30 pace with a 1/4 mile to go, I did a controlled pick-up to finish strongly. I was really pleased with this workout because the effort felt so smooth and my legs haven't run a 4:25 mile in a long, freaking time. If I had to hammer the last one all-out, I felt like it wouldn't have been a major issue to run 4:17-4:18. Hopefully this is the start of good things to come.
Wednesday: 9.7 miles (6:53); 3.4 miles (7:44)
Thursday: 9 miles with 4x10s hill sprints (7:11); 3.4 miles (7:45)
Friday: 9.3 miles (6:56). I was planning on doing an eight mile progression (5:45ish-5:10ish) but heavy storms were in the forecast and I didn't know if I would have enough time for the complete workout; 6.1 miles (7:10)
Saturday: 14.1 miles with 5 mile tempo in 25:18. Since I was rained out, I decided to do the Richland Creek 5 Miler as a tempo run. The course had a good bit of turns and some little rollers. I felt really good and with a mile to go, I debated pushing the last mile to break 25 (needed a 4:47) but that mile had some headwinds with some climbing, so I kept the same effort. Splits were: 5:00, 4:55, 5:07,5:10, 5:06. I was planning on doing two runs but I got hustled into doing nearly a six mile cool-down. At least I got a 2.5 hour nap that afternoon.
Sunday: 20 miles (6:06). Really good run. Ran the first half feeling like a million bucks at 6:17 pace. I even ran decently quick over my mostly uphill 2.5 mile stretch. I started dropping some sub 6:00s without any extra effort and with 2.5 miles to go, I picked it up into the 5:30s because I was seeing if I could catch a guy running ahead of me. Long runs get lonely, so I needed a distraction (and I ended up catching the guy shortly afterward). Sadly, with an average temperature of around 40 degrees, this was probably my last really good weather long run until October or something
Week Total: 105.6 miles. Weird week in that I felt really good on my three quality days but felt like complete dog crap on my three other days. Once I get a few weeks of training, I should be able to recover pretty quickly and stack up fast workouts with some decent mileage. But because I jumped into things a little too quickly and have been dragging some, I'll slow things down a little bit this week with just some 400s and a quality long day. It was nice getting six naps this week but next week, it's back to working for the man.
Tuesday: 5.6 miles (7:22); 10.7 miles with 4x1 mile with 1/4 mile jog rest (2:45ish) in 4:50, 4:42, 4:37, 4:25. Ran this workout with the Nashville Harriers. I haven't done a workout like this in over a year and ideally, I wanted to do shorter intervals to ease into things but would rather have the camaraderie, so I opted for the longer workout. With the layout of the workout, I felt it made the most sense to start around 10k pace and work down to 5k pace or a little faster. So my plan was to work from 5:00, into the 4:40s. The course was around a park, which consisted of three, 1/4 mile straightaways with two turns. On the first, I eased my way into it and ran a pretty big negative split. The second was also negative split and felt really smooth. On the third, I tried to stay a little more conscious of my effort the last 1/2 mile and felt good. On the last, I wanted to break 4:30 and since I was on 4:30 pace with a 1/4 mile to go, I did a controlled pick-up to finish strongly. I was really pleased with this workout because the effort felt so smooth and my legs haven't run a 4:25 mile in a long, freaking time. If I had to hammer the last one all-out, I felt like it wouldn't have been a major issue to run 4:17-4:18. Hopefully this is the start of good things to come.
Wednesday: 9.7 miles (6:53); 3.4 miles (7:44)
Thursday: 9 miles with 4x10s hill sprints (7:11); 3.4 miles (7:45)
Friday: 9.3 miles (6:56). I was planning on doing an eight mile progression (5:45ish-5:10ish) but heavy storms were in the forecast and I didn't know if I would have enough time for the complete workout; 6.1 miles (7:10)
Saturday: 14.1 miles with 5 mile tempo in 25:18. Since I was rained out, I decided to do the Richland Creek 5 Miler as a tempo run. The course had a good bit of turns and some little rollers. I felt really good and with a mile to go, I debated pushing the last mile to break 25 (needed a 4:47) but that mile had some headwinds with some climbing, so I kept the same effort. Splits were: 5:00, 4:55, 5:07,5:10, 5:06. I was planning on doing two runs but I got hustled into doing nearly a six mile cool-down. At least I got a 2.5 hour nap that afternoon.
Sunday: 20 miles (6:06). Really good run. Ran the first half feeling like a million bucks at 6:17 pace. I even ran decently quick over my mostly uphill 2.5 mile stretch. I started dropping some sub 6:00s without any extra effort and with 2.5 miles to go, I picked it up into the 5:30s because I was seeing if I could catch a guy running ahead of me. Long runs get lonely, so I needed a distraction (and I ended up catching the guy shortly afterward). Sadly, with an average temperature of around 40 degrees, this was probably my last really good weather long run until October or something
Week Total: 105.6 miles. Weird week in that I felt really good on my three quality days but felt like complete dog crap on my three other days. Once I get a few weeks of training, I should be able to recover pretty quickly and stack up fast workouts with some decent mileage. But because I jumped into things a little too quickly and have been dragging some, I'll slow things down a little bit this week with just some 400s and a quality long day. It was nice getting six naps this week but next week, it's back to working for the man.
Don't be a Tightwad
I recently read an article online somewhere, published by Flex Magazine that had a lot of good insight. It was written by the man himself, Arnold Schwarzenegger. In the article, he talked about finding the joy in things, rather than being too rigid and inflexible with every little training details.
One of the best things about running is that it's so simple. Don't over-complicate things and take the joy out of it. That's a quick way to physical and mental burnout.
Even though this was posted in a magazine read by people who can barely scratch their butts due to the massive swole they have going on, I feel there's a lot of great advice that relates to running and even life in general.
There's too many Pharisaical runners out there who never find the joy in what they do. They feel they have to act like full-time pro runners with every choice they make. They have to always skip by the candy jar at work, do a bunch of silly looking stretches before and after every single run and miss having a little bit of fun on the weekend so they can run an exact pace on their long run.They do it in hopes they don't miss "something" but that up tightness is the reason why they frequently crack. They are fine if every tiny detail is going well, but once something is thrown off, it's game over.
One of the best things about running is that it's so simple. Don't over-complicate things and take the joy out of it. That's a quick way to physical and mental burnout.
"Do you want to know what genuine “in the trenches” training is? Hear me out. When I started training as a teenager in 1962, the last bus from Graz, where my gym was, to my home in Thal was 7 PM. My workouts finished after seven, so I would ride my bike home after every training session. Because my arms would be so numb from the training, I often couldn't control the bike, and I’d fall into a wayside ditch. Now that’s “in the trenches” training.
It was a fantastic feeling sitting in the ditch with my arms aching. My arms were so numb that I couldn't comb my hair the next day, but the muscle soreness meant my muscles were growing. A whole new world, in which I was the boss and in charge of my destiny, had opened up. I realized that I could make myself into the person I wanted to be, as long as I stayed focused and dedicated to reaching my goals. If I had to choose one word to describe bodybuilding, it would be “joy.”
As I became older, I retained that enthusiasm, not just for bodybuilding, but for life itself. The positive attitude I apply to all aspects of my life has its foundations in bodybuilding.
A great thing was the pace of my progress, and the time I allotted to it was of my own making. That’s what I urge each FLEX reader to do. Set your own goals, apportion the correct time to work for those goals and then enjoy! I can think of no better way to embrace life than to body-build. The act of building and strengthening one’s muscles through training and sound eating habits is an affirmation of the miracle of the human body itself.
Above all, enjoy your bodybuilding. Don’t be like some people who lose sight of the joy of bodybuilding and have managed to sap it of its life. I see bodybuilders today, and not just professionals, who have turned themselves into slaves to their sport. Men and women in the gym and even at the Arnold Fitness Weekend expo walk around with somber expressions.
They carry gallon-size plastic jugs of water, as if their bodies will need that amount during the next few minutes. They have to eat every two hours, no matter what, and they eat nothing but chicken and rice, even though the next contest is months away.
When I was competing, sure, we were serious about training, but we enjoyed our gym time and always had a spare moment for a joke or a friendly smile. The only water we ever needed was supplied by the gym’s water fountain.
When it came to eating, we also followed a practical philosophy. We made sure to eat three substantial bodybuilding-friendly meals a day and then add protein or nutritious snacks between those meals to stoke the muscle-building furnace.
Often, after workouts, a group of us would have a feast at the Rose Cafe in Venice, California, or at Zucky’s Deli on Wilshire Boulevard in Santa Monica. In the weeks leading up to a contest, our diets would be clean — chicken or fish, rice and vegetables — otherwise, we’d order hamburgers or steaks, put ketchup on top and enjoy our meals immensely.
My point is that there’s no good reason why you can’t enjoy your life and body-build at the same time. Bodybuilding should never be a burden, something that impedes the rest of your life. When that becomes the case, you may need to reevaluate your approach to bodybuilding and to your life in general.
So, put down that gallon jug, stop yourself from trying to work out the calorific value and macronutrient breakdown of a Korean yam, get out there and enjoy your bodybuilding experience."
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