Thursday Workout

Should I do hills or distance today? Tough decision, maybe both?

Project GetYerFatAssInGear: Week #3

WARNING: This is a looong ass post since I've got so much of that uselessness stored up in me. Want a TL;DR? RUN.

So, I'm almost at my pre-injury numbers. WooHOO! I admit, (can you hear the world's smallest violin playing?) the 5 months of rest/torture/stuff got me into a funk and lost motivation. The past 3 weeks of getting back into it have not been easy. If anything, I can pour out and dissipate my crazies to the interwebs.

On to the silly stuff. I'm in the process of training to train. Meaning, I'm training now to get into shape for the winter marathon season. Sound stupid crazy? Blame my friends (I actually thank them all the time for getting me into this fine mess.).

I do feel lucky. Along with the running group I try to keep up with, the awesome person helping me out is Flaco Mendoza. He's pretty much the "coach" for that circle. His plan: Long heavy miles (26+ in the mountains) on Saturday. Quick 1/2 marathon on Sunday. 1 speed workout during the week. The rest, maintenance.

My additions:

(1) Road is for races. Every workout is either on compact dirt, trail, track, or treadmill.

(2) If you're on the treadmill and you can still walk immediately after the workout, you can go faster or longer on the next workout.

(3) No matter how tired or how busy you are, you WILL find the time and the energy if you want it bad enough.

So what's my pre-training plan? Easy (or hard, depending on how you look at it):

Start Times:

Weekdays: AM: 5 - 6AM, PM: 5:30PM, PM2: 10:30PM

Weekends: 4:30AM - 5AM

(Just want to show, it CAN be done!)

Monday:

• AM: 1 to 2 Mile Treadmill Hill Work
• PM: 5 Mile trail run at work - easy pace
• PM2: 2 to 4 Miles Treadmill Hill Work

Tuesday:

• AM: 2 to 3 Mile Treadmill Hill Work
• PM: n x800m Intervals on trail (n = start at 5, +1 when you're strong until 10 to 12 - Yasso 800's)

Wednesday:

• AM: 2 to 3 Mile Treadmill Hill Work
• PM: 5 Mile trail naked (uhh, no stopwatch! The other meaning HURTS!)
• PM2: 2 to 4 Mile Treadmill Hill Work

Thursday

• AM: 2 to 3 Mile Treadmill Hill Work
• PM: n x1600m tempo - 800m jog then 800m 10k Pace

Friday

• Rest

NOEXCUSESATURDAY

• AM: 26+ mile trail run in the mountains

Sunday

• AM: 13 mile tempo - mix the tempo types

Add in there upperbody and core workouts every other day.

Hills:

Can you tell I love hills? At the tail end of a 50miler, I absolutely do not. So I'm forcing myself to embrace them.. so I can kill them.

Because of time issues (long distance runs are just that, loooong) I don't have the time to really workout on a proper hill, so I came up with a simple treadmill program:

Incline setting: 10 (or whatever MAX your treadmill can handle)

Warmup: 800m or 1/4mi at talking pace

Workout: 400m or 1/8mi at fast walking pace: 400m at marathon pace

Repeat for 4 laps (1mile) and you've burned 300 calories.

Cooldown: Collapse in a heap, or walk for 5 mins.

That's it! Simple. Notice how I don't mention anything about diet? My mantra there is also easy, eat what you want when you're hungry. STOP when you're full. Yes, the eat only when you're hungry and the STOP part is the fucking hardest thing to do.

This is the third week since the start of Project GYFAIG and I'm pretty happy with the current stats:

July 24 - Infamous Pacing at AC, or the rebirth of the end:
Weight: 143
Prior week running miles: 4
800m interval time: 4:00
1/2 marathon time: 2:15

August 14
Weight: 128
Prior week running miles: 59
5 x800m average interval time: 3:25
1/2 marathon time: 1:50

GOAL Pre-Injury stats:

Weight: 124

Prior week running miles: 60

10 x800m average interval time: 3:20

1/2 marathon time: 1:41

Victory for Victims 10k

Event home:

http://www.abuse-assaultservices.org/victory.html

Looks like Shu and I will be doing a "fun" run 10k, then run with Sara in the kid's 1k.

We're going to try to do a modified fartlek:

Mile	Pace
1	9:00
2	8:30
3	7:30
4	9:00
5	7:30
6	9:00

Days after the first...

Whew! Who know running 54 miles would be tough! But, just like riding a horse, gotta back at it as soon as possible. No time to rest, resumed HIIT training on the bike this AM and ran a "welcome back" 4miler at 10min/mile pace. But, to be fair, that included the stops to let the trucks at JPL go by and the stops at the stop light. Still, it was slow.

Legs felt good. There are issues though, the top of my foot is painful. I believe the culprit was the lacing I did on the 2140's I ran with during the first half of the 54. I tied them too tight at the top. Putting on the K15's there's more cushion that having a little tight makes no difference. I had to make sure the tongue was on straight, though.

So, lesson learned, added to those already learned from previous races about shoes:

* Always use your race shoes and not a pair of cheapies purchased the night before from Big5

* The middle of my shoe should be a little tight. This prevents blisters at the middle of the foot, but not too tight to prevent swelling of the foot.

* The top of the shoe must be tied a little loose to prevent chaffing or bruising

* Make sure the tongue of the shoe is on straight.

* Use your race shoes!

* Kayano's seem to be the best for me because of the cushioning. Will need to research more since my natural gaite produces supplination and not pronation.

More upper body

Max incline on my treadmill is only 10% but at 4mph, it's quite a workout. Tried it last night, and I have mixed feelings. I think it's a great workout for 30 to 40 mins at 4mph, walking and running some. But, with the injury, I'm not sure if it's a good idea. Will try the bike tonight and see.

This morning did:

Chin-ups

Max: 15

Reps: 2x 10

Might be ready for max 16, but on 15 the last 2 were with body contortion (cheating?) . 1 - 12 were still, straight body with slow down movement.

Need to keep doing leg lifts for core workout.

Pull-up day

Well, not really.

3x 10 pull-up

3x 10 chin-up

15 max chin-up

Maybe get some cardio in?

Tomorrow, have to start incline workout. 30mins at max incline on treadmill, walking.

First run in a couple weeks!

WooHoo! I got my first run in since doing a very painful 10 miler in Griffith Park 2 weeks ago. This time we decided on doing a quick 14 mile loop at Lake -> Echo Mountain -> Backside road -> Inspiration Point -> back down.

Uphill was great with minimum pain. Felt really good! Downhill, however, was a different story. I was pretty timid going downhill, and I really could not go fast on the rocky parts of the single track. Even the switchbacks were a little difficult. Any lateral movements were an exercise in pain management. I also had to remember to keep my step up high because being even a little lazy has caused me shooting pain in my ankle.

The best analogy I can make is that it felt like it was an annoying little chijuajua constantly biting my heel. At time he'd get a lucky shot in and pain would shoot up my leg.

After much discussion, it seems I'm going to back down on the Twin Peaks 50 miler and concentrate on 50/40 + 26.2.. And now it seems we're going to add Old Goat's 50 to that list! Boy, March is going to be one heck of a month.. but you only turn 40 once :)