In Search of the Red Line

A kilometrestone....

2012-02-06T16:50:00.000-08:00

Last week I ran 100km exactlyish! And the week before, 53--100% is the new 10%. The gory details:
Monday: 3 mile tempo (which felt awful) plus warmup and warmdown in the am / 10km easy in the pm.
Tuesday: 13 km with some fartlek intervals
Wednesday: 7.5km easy
Thursday: 16km with this pyramid track workout 600, 1000, 1600, 1000, 600 and 4x200. The 4x200 trashed my legs.
Friday: off
Saturday: 10km easy
Sunday: 35km. A boring long run to Coney Island. Running along Kings Highway is not exciting. Lots of crazy diagonal intersections with long waits, all in boring/sketchy outer Brooklyn. But what a gorgeous day!

Sometimes the most hardcore thing you can do...

2012-01-16T21:10:00.000-08:00

...is to take a day off.
I didn't run today. I'm finally listening to my body, which gave me a bit of a cold a few days ago. But I just had to run those 30k this weekend to hit my weekly kilometrage--at least I didn't do the long run on trails at an ungodly hour of the morning with wind chills probably below -15C.
Coincidentally, there was a blog post on the NYTimes Well, which doesn't say anything you shouldn't already know, but it was nice to get a reminder to take things easy:

Experienced athletes know that the only way to improve is to push yourself. Lift weights that are heavier than those you’ve tried before. Run or cycle at a fast pace on some days, but focus on increasing your distance on others. Work out enough that you may not fully recover between sessions.
You should feel tired, said John Raglin, a sports psychologist at Indiana University. But if you do too much with too little rest, your performance gets worse, not better.
http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/16/personal-best-workouts-have-their-limits-recognized-or-not/

I used to think that I was a two, at best three day a week runner--that anything more would just lead to injuries. That was because I went way too hard on my runs--pushing myself to the max every time. The most important run for me to learn was the recovery run--learning to go easy and short. Once I discovered that the trick of training is to go slower so you can go longer and more frequently, I was able to six days a week. I guess last week was too many tough days. Way too many! A 10k race, a 26km fasted long run (slow, but still...), a hard tempo workout, striders on an easy day (which I'm not used to), and a decent speed workout too. No wonder I got the sniffles.

Tempo Intervals

2012-01-11T08:38:00.000-08:00

I'm proud of my workout last night with NBR. The goal was 3 x 2 mile repeats, with each 2 mile repeat broken down to 1600 @ 10k pace, 800 @ 5k pace, 800 recovery. Tough workout, both in terms of stamina and pacing. I was aiming for 7:20-7:30/mi on the 10k intervals and 6:40-7:00/mi on the 5k bits. I think I'll come back to this workout again, so here are my splits for future comparison:
1:44.75 (6:59/mi, 164bpm)
1:52.50 (7:30/mi, 159bpm)
1:49.25 (7:17/mi, 166bpm)
1:52.00 (7:28/mi, 163bpm)
1:40.50 (6:42/mi, 167bpm)
1:38.00 (6:32/mi, 175bpm)
2:22.00 (9:28/mi, 154bpm)
2:23.50 (9:34/mi, 148bpm)
--
1:45.25 (7:01/mi, 167bpm)
1:48.50 (7:14/mi, 169bpm)
1:52.50 (7:30/mi, 166bpm)
1:50.75 (7:23/mi, 168bpm)
1:40.75 (6:43/mi, 171bpm)
1:38.00 (6:32/mi, 169bpm)
2:24.00 (9:36/mi, 154bpm)
2:21.75 (9:27/mi, 152bpm)
--
1:50.25 (7:21/mi, 164bpm)
1:52.00 (7:28/mi, 165bpm)
1:50.25 (7:21/mi, 168bpm)
1:51.00 (7:24/mi, 168bpm)
1:42.75 (6:51/mi, 172bpm)
1:41.75 (6:47/mi, 172bpm)
2:43.00 (9:52/mi, 148bpm)
(I didn't record the last recovery lap)
Half a year ago I did a mile time trial in about 7:20. Let's see where I am half a year from now!

First 80km/50mi Week

2012-01-10T13:02:00.000-08:00

I was planning for this week to be my first 80k week, but as I added up the numbers in my running journal for the week, it turns out I did 80 last week. Given that it's just over two weeks that I slightly injured my right Achilles, that might have been overdoing it a bit. Especially the weekend--10km race on Saturday, fasted 26km long run on Sunday. And yes, that ankle was bugging me on Sunday. Everything felt fine--great, in fact--on Monday when I did an easy 7k, though. I should probably try to focus on healing that damn thing this week.