starting to have energy!
The last 8 days have been physically and emotionally draining. One night last week I tried to sit down and provide an update, but I was so tired that I almost fell asleep logging on. I decided my updates could wait! There are a lot of things to review. I'll hit the key points and maybe write some additional thoughts later if they warrant a post of their own.
Training Review : Last week was our biggest week of training volume. It is always good to see the week that has "100" under the "% of max" column come, but it is even better to see that week disappear. That column says 69% this week. The key workouts for last week were the Tuesday hill run from John's and the Saturday long run at Todd's road.
Tuesday's run was excellent. I felt great the entire time and really felt like my fitness was about where it needs to be. (I still need to learn the course though.) By Saturday, I was running on fumes due to the higher volume of running and the daily commute to Louisville for the NIRSA conference. The run Saturday still turned out to be a solid run, thanks to Tom and Irvey pulling me along. Tom's gps said that we averaged 7:36 pace for the 15 miles. I'll take that effort any day when the route includes Pit Bull and Jone's Nursery.
I had planned on running 2:30 during the Saturday run, but due to the bitter cold weather, I stopped at 15 miles (1:58:xx). The lower volume day lead me to create a weekend of back-to-back medium runs, instead of running one long run. This was possibly the better idea after coming off the difficult week. I ran 11.5 on Sunday at a little easier effort and felt great.
Recovery : After taking Monday completely off, I woke up Tuesday to do the run from John's. This workout is the key weekday workout for the next couple weeks of the taper. My knee thought different. I showed up for the run and warmed up, but the pain didn't go away. I turned in early and maybe ran 2 miles. All pain had went away by the end of the day, but I still scheduled a massage for today.
This week's main workout will be the Papa John's 10 mile race on Saturday.
Thank You's : I owe a few people some mention for helping me get through these last 8 days.
Jim Pierce - I have mentioned him before, but I owe him today. This week only has the two important workouts and I felt guilty trying to convince myself that I didn't have to do one of them. Jim talked to me about when it is important to be fast. Point taken. I jogged back to John's.
Tom Stone & John Grant - When I tried to write an update last week, my intention was to write an entire blog about John. Why does John deserve his own entry (not that getting an entry into my blog is noteworthy... by any standard)? The major reason is that I know he reads it on occassion. Which makes him one of the few. (About 160 to 180 a day lately, but until I get a google analytics account or take the time to learn some other software program I really don't know. If you subscribed through my feedburner RSS feed I guess I know that.)
Another reason that Tom and John deserve some mention is that they really help me to keep my Tuesday and Thursday runs a social experience. Training can become a continuous lab experiment for me at times and I enjoy the fact that people like Tom and John are around to give me things to talk about other than heart rates, thresholds and performance expectations. As long as John doesn't start talking politics (which makes me weak in the stomach I think :) ) I imagine I'll be running on Tuesday and Thursday even after the marathon.
Looking forward : The equation that I have on my coaching page is, health + fitness = performance. It probably needs adjusted to include elements such as race execution and mental readiness, but right now the focus is on improving my health. I have some soreness and fatigue that needs to be addressed.
The next few weeks will include a couple key workouts each week, massage (today), stretching/yoga, meditation and imagery sessions and probably more updates on the blog.
Training Review : Last week was our biggest week of training volume. It is always good to see the week that has "100" under the "% of max" column come, but it is even better to see that week disappear. That column says 69% this week. The key workouts for last week were the Tuesday hill run from John's and the Saturday long run at Todd's road.
Tuesday's run was excellent. I felt great the entire time and really felt like my fitness was about where it needs to be. (I still need to learn the course though.) By Saturday, I was running on fumes due to the higher volume of running and the daily commute to Louisville for the NIRSA conference. The run Saturday still turned out to be a solid run, thanks to Tom and Irvey pulling me along. Tom's gps said that we averaged 7:36 pace for the 15 miles. I'll take that effort any day when the route includes Pit Bull and Jone's Nursery.
I had planned on running 2:30 during the Saturday run, but due to the bitter cold weather, I stopped at 15 miles (1:58:xx). The lower volume day lead me to create a weekend of back-to-back medium runs, instead of running one long run. This was possibly the better idea after coming off the difficult week. I ran 11.5 on Sunday at a little easier effort and felt great.
Recovery : After taking Monday completely off, I woke up Tuesday to do the run from John's. This workout is the key weekday workout for the next couple weeks of the taper. My knee thought different. I showed up for the run and warmed up, but the pain didn't go away. I turned in early and maybe ran 2 miles. All pain had went away by the end of the day, but I still scheduled a massage for today.
This week's main workout will be the Papa John's 10 mile race on Saturday.
Thank You's : I owe a few people some mention for helping me get through these last 8 days.
Jim Pierce - I have mentioned him before, but I owe him today. This week only has the two important workouts and I felt guilty trying to convince myself that I didn't have to do one of them. Jim talked to me about when it is important to be fast. Point taken. I jogged back to John's.
Tom Stone & John Grant - When I tried to write an update last week, my intention was to write an entire blog about John. Why does John deserve his own entry (not that getting an entry into my blog is noteworthy... by any standard)? The major reason is that I know he reads it on occassion. Which makes him one of the few. (About 160 to 180 a day lately, but until I get a google analytics account or take the time to learn some other software program I really don't know. If you subscribed through my feedburner RSS feed I guess I know that.)
Another reason that Tom and John deserve some mention is that they really help me to keep my Tuesday and Thursday runs a social experience. Training can become a continuous lab experiment for me at times and I enjoy the fact that people like Tom and John are around to give me things to talk about other than heart rates, thresholds and performance expectations. As long as John doesn't start talking politics (which makes me weak in the stomach I think :) ) I imagine I'll be running on Tuesday and Thursday even after the marathon.
Looking forward : The equation that I have on my coaching page is, health + fitness = performance. It probably needs adjusted to include elements such as race execution and mental readiness, but right now the focus is on improving my health. I have some soreness and fatigue that needs to be addressed.
The next few weeks will include a couple key workouts each week, massage (today), stretching/yoga, meditation and imagery sessions and probably more updates on the blog.
posted by gary at 10:02 AM
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