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 :)

Week 4 of Injury

So, it's been about 4 weeks since I injured my achilles tendon on January 3.

I injured it running through a single track trail and stepping over a stone. It was supposed to be my first 40 miler, but that goal ended at mile 21. I then had to hobble 5 miles to get to a campsite that I hoped would allow me to use my cell phone. Those 5 miles were torturous, to say the least.

Anyways, it's been 4 weeks and I still do not have full range of motion on the ankle. I can move it, slowly, but my fast twitch muscles there starts shooting pain through my foot and leg.

I've got 2 weeks to recover for my first 50 miler. Not sure if I'm going to even do it now.

Oh, well. At least I can work on upper body.

Today (and not yet done)

Chin ups: 15 (max)

Pull ups: 2 sets of 10x

Will continue doing 10x pull ups and chin ups.

Injury sucks.

And 3 years later......

WOAH.. just found out that I had a blog! haha.. after a 3 year absence hopefully I'll start posting again.

Right now, I'm in the middle of training for a 50 miler coming up in February. Well, to clarify, I *should* be in step back mode since it's coming up in a couple weeks. Big problem, I've got an achilles tendon issue and it's been going on for the past few weeks. I'll expand later on that..

But, hopefully, it'll be OK. I'm seriously considering a DNF to prevent further injury. Maybe a DNS should be what I'm looking at!

Toughing it out

So it's been pretty tough staying true to my schedule.. This past week:

Sat: 1 mile + 13lbs pack
Upper body workout

Sun: 3 miles + 13lbs pack
Upper body workout

Mon: 1 mile + 15lbs pack
Upper body workout

Tues: 1 mile + 15lbs pack
15mins bike

Wed: Rest

Thu: Rest

Answer: SMASHED!

Question: How would your doctor describe a toe that goes beyond being fractured?

So, I saw the podiatrist today, and, just my luck.. He's a RUNNER! So, he totally understands when I tell him I really can't stop running :)

He took another X-ray.. count them, that's 3 different x-rays from the same Kaiser hospital, but that's another post... anyways, he looks at my toe and says, "I use the term 'fractured' loosely..."

Oh, well, but his advice, just like all the other doctors, you can't hurt it any more. You can run as long as you can withstand the pain. OUCH.

He did say, if the pain is too much, they can do surgery and take the smashed pieces out..

We'll see.. He's run 10+ marathons and 50Ks and a 50miler! WOW. He totally understands me and says that I can call his office anytime and make an appointment to see him.

AWSOME!

Sugar, YIKES!

So, my favorite snack of all time is Craisins.. It's pretty much dried cranberries that are full of antioxydants and taste oh, so, gooooood...

In the back of my head I knew.. But, after seeing a news report today confirmed it.. It's full of lovely sugar...

Oh well...

10/17/2007 Breakfast

* 8 Ounces Pomegranate juice
* 3 Saltine crackers with SALSA!!
* Glass of soy milk
* small cup of cheerios and soy milk

3MILE!

This is incredible.. though there's still toe pain, I was able to RUN 3 MILES!!!

9:30pace on the treadmill
1.5 incline
water pack
10# weights

With my gear and pack and weights, I cleared 150# to the tune of 152#

I think I should train with a weight pack from now on.  It feels really, really good.

Breakfast: 32 ounces pomegranate juice
Lunch: Carrots + some snacks
Dinner: Rice + 3 pieces of small FRIED tempura shrimp (yes, i know i'm cheating here)

lunch

1/2 bowl of pho and beef (menu item #2 baby!)

cranberries

5 crackers

wow, the simplicity of posting I hope keeps me motivated!

AM HIIT

So I'm trying posting through e-mail just to see how this goes.  Hopefully it works...

This morning, I had my first HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training) in a really long time.  About 5 weeks since I was on taper the week prior to the injury...

Man, it was not fun, but hell worth it!

BIKE HIIT

12 min total with 30 second intervals.

On: 154bps
Off: 132bps

That's right on target!

But, I admit, it was TOUGH

I have to get it back at 80 - 85% HRmax when its On.

Lazy Azz today!

So, because I was stupid to jump a 3 foot wall thinking my toe was head, I decided not to do anything today to rest it again. Man, it's really tough to buckle down and let your body heal when you know you could be doing so much. The weather is nice, everything is prime.

Oh, well.

So, I'll write down what I ate today as well:

*Breakfast*

Craisins

*Lunch*

Egg drop soup
Chow mein

*Dinner*

Pork Bola Bola soup
Fried Rice


I'm going to try and do this as a motivational tool.

Maybe when I get my site back up and running, I'll add Google maps tools to document my runs and workouts and races.

Injured again?

Damn.. Toe was feeling really good. I "tested" it out by jumping down about 3ft. Now, the toe is painful again..

Damn..

Online Training Programs from multisports.com

Multi Sport Training program link:

So, I need to figure out a training program for Oceanside. It's going to take a lot of trial and error. I do want to finish, but I do want a decent time. More on that later.

Online Training Programs from multisports.com

Southern CA Races

Some Ultra links for California:

Southern CA Races

http://www.run100s.com/socal/calendar.html

Pacific Crest Trail - San Diego area

Avalon 50M