Monday, March 21, 2011 – AM: I woke up pretty early again, before 7:00am, and headed out to do a morning shakeout run on the golf course. It was a pretty perfect temperature, around 60F with the sun not yet above the tree-line. The golf course was clear and so I took off my shoes and ran around this one hole for a while in my bare feet. It felt really nice to run barefoot through the grass! I took it really easy, but felt a good bit better by the end. Afterwards, I came back to the house and had breakfast before jogging over to the tennis courts with the VC.
The total run was ~5.5M in 43:52.
AM2: I spent about 45 minutes playing tennis with the VC. The effort was pretty easy for most of it. At the end, I spent 10 or 15 minutes just hitting with Mr. C, which was a bit more intense. It was fun, though, and it didn’t seem to take too much out of me. On the way back, I stopped for a nice soak in the cold pool. I stayed in for about 15 minutes, which felt nice since it was already in the 70s.
PM: After lunch, I headed out for my second run of the day accompanied by Mrs. V on the bike. I don’t like to do two runs this close together, but I had made an appointment to get a sports massage in the afternoon and I didn’t want to run after that. So, we left around 12:30pm and headed towards South Beach.
I took it really easy again to try to make this a true recovery day. It was a nice winding route along the bike path through the woods. We got there and Mrs. V went inside to pick up some bike helmets and I jogged around the parking lot. We then headed back the same way we’d come.
My left knee was bugging me a good amount on the way back. The connection on the outside and almost on the back of my left knee was pretty tender. I think it is the connection site of the ITB or the hamstring with the back of the knee and the top of the calve. It was pretty frustrating and pretty sore. I had to stop once to try to stretch it out, but it didn’t seem to help too much. I think that like 40 minutes of barefoot running might have been a bit over-ambitious this morning, especially after 2 pretty hard days in a row.
Anyways, we came back through harbor town and then I did drills on the grass behind the condo.
The total run was 60:28 for 8.5M.
PM2: I got a massage after the run and was hoping that this would help with the tightness in my left knee area. The woman working on me was very solid in terms of applying enough pressure and really working the muscles well. She was also a bit of a loon – really into herbology and reflexology and that kind of stuff. Still, I think she really helped loosen up the ITB and that whole area. It felt a lot better by the time she was through.
After the massage, the rents picked me up and we went over to the driving range to hit some golf balls before dinner. I spent maybe 10 or 15 minutes whacking away and once I was satisfied, I headed into the fitness center to do the lift.
The fitness center was pretty decent and had machines and free weights to do everything except the horizontal pull-ups (there didn’t seem to be any bench press or anything to do that with). I did the Phase IV Lift. 3 sets of [12,10,8x bent over row @10lb freeweights, 10x incline DB press @ 10lb freeweights, 10x lateral raise @ 5lb freeweights, 8,6,6x hamstring curls @ 80lb, 30x bicycle crunch, 12,10,8x dynamic lunge, 10x Shoulder press @10lb free weight, 25x crunches].
Tuesday, March 22, 2011 - AM: I got a really good night’s sleep last night and woke up naturally after 8am, giving me over 10 hours. Very nice. I got up and had a pre-run breakfast of a pear and a piece of toast with jam and dried berries and some water. I then headed out to get my run in for the day. I had planned to do my intervals tomorrow morning, so I decided to try to get all of my mileage for the day in this morning so that I could take the afternoon to rest.
I started out with a lap of the golf course, wearing shoes this time. My knee felt pretty good at the start of the run and I was feeling decently confident about it. I then headed out along the bike path towards the nature preserve. This was a nice route because there’s a lot of long sections of grass under the high tension wires where I was able to run undisturbed. My knee started to bug me a bit after about 35 or 40 minutes. I was able to run through it pretty easily, though, and it didn’t seem to be altering my form.
I got back to the condo and jogged over to the golf course and was pleased to find that there was still no one on the course. So, I ran back and grabbed my spikes so I could do some drills and strides on the nice manicured grass. I felt pretty good doing full foot drills barefoot, so I put on my Tumbes spikes to do a few strides. I did 4 longer strides (20-30 sec) which felt quite good once I got into them. I took a long jog rest and felt good and quick. Nice to open up the stride a bit. The last one, I did it like the start of a cross country race: a standing start and then about 20 seconds hard and then settling into pace for 5-10 sec after that. It was fun on the rolling golf course hills. Don’t tell anyone that I was wearing spikes on their perfect grass!
Finally, I jogged back over to the tennis courts to meet up with the VC. I played about a minute or so, but that was really aggravating my knee, so I stopped quickly. I’m guessing it was a combination of that and all the barefoot running that got it so angry. I jogged over to the pool after but it was really sore, so it was more like a walk jog. Some soaking in the cold pool made it feel a good bit better. I took some ibuprofen when I got home and tried to rest it for the rest of the day.
The total run was 73:45 for 10M.
PM: After lunch, we sat in the sun for a while and then the rents dropped me off at a marina while they went to play golf. I rented a kayak and paddled around broad creek for about 2 hours. The effort was pretty easy. I would paddle for 10 or 20 minutes and then rest for a minute and just admire the scenery. After an hour or so, I stopped and had a little snack and read some of my book and just floated for a while. Then, it was time to paddle back (into the wind) which was a bit more difficult. Still, it was a really nice afternoon.
PM2: After a big dinner, I came home and did core – 100s, 50s, 30x squiggle, 30x flutter kick, 30x leg lift.
Wednesday, March 24, 2011 - AM: I woke up early for my big workout of the week. I’d been thinking about this workout for a while and, especially after Saturday’s race, I was pretty excited. I woke up and was still pretty bloated from a big dinner last night at Roast Fish and Corn bread. For breakfast, I had an orange and a bit of Gatorade.
We made the drive over to Hilton Head High School and checked out the track. Nobody was using it, but there was a maintenance crew cutting grass and trimming hedges. I figured they weren’t going to give us too much trouble, so we started warming up together. After a few minutes of easy jogging, Mr. C went to get the bike and try out his pacing responsibilities and I continued to warm up normally.
I jogged for about 25 minutes and then stopped and changed shoes (into my tumbes spikes). I then did full foot drills and some strides. I ran a couple of timed 100s to try to get the pace down and then 1x200m in 36.x, which felt harder than I had hoped.
The goal of the workout was 5x1600m at 5k pace (72-73s). I was hoping Mr. C would be able lead on the bike and I’d be able to sit behind him and let him break the wind and set the pace. By the time we were getting started, the wind had picked up a good amount and was already blowing steadily at 10-15mph down the back stretch.
We started off and were never really on pace. My basic plan had been to hit 72.x for each lap and that would probably have us average out around 4:50s. The first lap was 73.6 and it didn’t feel particularly easy. After that, it only got slower, with the last lap in 74.7 and 4:56.0 for the first rep. I figured that I just had to bust out some rust and it’d get better.
The next rep didn’t go much better. I came through the first lap in 72.6 and was feeling solid, but the next lap was 74 and then a 75. Another 74 brought it to 4:56.2. Now, I was starting to feel a bit worried. I took the 3:00 jog rest pretty easily and really tried to bring my focus back and not let myself get too negative.
The third mile was even worse. As much as I tried, I couldn’t seem to get anywhere near that gear that I have had in the last few workouts. I just felt like I was really struggling and running really slowly. The last mile was 73, 75, 76, 76 for 5:00. Yuck.
At that point, I said there’s no point in me coming out here and feeling like shit trying to run 10k pace. All that’s going to do is make me lose confidence about running 10k pace. I almost called the workout right there, but decided to try one more thing. I figured I’d try to run a few 800s and see if I could hit the pace on those. At least that way I’d still get some VO2 stimulus.
I ran one and came through in 71. 3 and was thinking ‘okay, just keep doing that.’ Still, the back stretch with the strong headwind seemed to kill me and I had slowed down to a 74 again.
It was clear that today was just not a good day to try and run fast. There are myriad factors, but mostly I was just listening to my body who was telling me that he was not ready for this today. It’s really frustrating to be in good shape and bomb a workout like this, especially when it’s 10 days out from my first collegiate track race. Still, I have faith in my fitness and one workout doesn’t mean anything in the grand scheme of things.
I hate to make excuses, but I do think that the pollen may have been a huge problem, especially with the guys doing yard work. I found myself breathing much more rapidly than usual and really straining. More importantly, I think I just wasn’t recovered from this past weekend. I ran a hard 8km race on Saturday night and then ran 20M at 6:20 pace less than 24 hours later. This may have been overly ambitious.
After the run, I did a longer cool down, first with Mr. C then solo. Total about 4M.
Splits
4:56.0 (73.6, 73.8, 73.9, 74.7)
4:56.2 (72.6,74.2, 75.3, 74.0)
5:00.7 (73.5, 75.1, 76.1, 76.1)
2:25.4 (71.3, 74.1)
AM2: Once back at the house, I biked over to the grocery store to pick up some lunch food. It was nice out, but the pollen was so thick in the air that you could see it blowing around like dust. I spent most of the ride with my hand holding my shirt over my nose and mouth. Overall, it was about 40 minutes round trip at a nice easy pace.
PM: After lunch, I was feeling really wiped out and took a nap. I woke up too early, since I had promised Mr. C I’d go play 9 holes of golf with him. I was feeling really groggy and like I could have slept for another hour or so – and I probably should have.
It ended up being okay. It was super slow moving and really hot out, so it was a bit frustrating at first. I think I was also just a bit overtired, so having to sit and wait for every shot gave me a lot of opportunities to put my feet up and rest. I ended up feeling much better by the end. All in all, it ended up being pretty fun.
Once we got back to the condo, I jogged down to the pool and did a 30 minute shakeout pool run. This actually felt really good. It was good to work the muscles in a slightly different way. The only problem was that the sun had already passed the deep part of the pool and so it was actually a bit chilly. Still it was a nice shakeout.
PM2: After a tasty dinner at Red Fish, I did Core 100s, 50s, 30x side dip, 30x squiggle, 2:00 plank, 30x toes to sky, 50x leg lift
Thursday, March 24, 2011 - AM: I forced myself to sleep in a bit and didn’t wake up until after 8:30am. I had a small pre-run breakfast (just a pear and a few sips of Gatorade) and then headed out for my easier/shorter long run. This was to be the last long run before Princeton next week. Since the race is on a Friday, I figured that doing a normal long run on Sunday was a bit close for comfort. So, instead, I did this longer run today and I may do something light but a little longer on Monday or tues (10-12M steady).
I was hoping to have some company on the bikes for this, but given that it was our last day here and we all wanted to get a lot done, it seemed to be most efficient for me to just go by myself while the rents were at tennis. I was a bit worried about the heat and not having fluids with me, but I seemed to manage okay.
I felt a bit sluggish at first and took the first 3M very easy at ~7:00 pace. From there, it picked up a good bit for the next 8-10M. I actually felt really good around 7-12M, nice and smooth and relaxed. Around 12M, though, my knee started to act up again. I stopped to stretch it , but it didn’t seem to do too much. I think it’s all of the running on sloped shoulders and narrow, twisty bike paths that’s been getting my ITB aggravated. Who knows though…
I slowed down the pace a bit at the end but managed to make it back. Once back, I did a bit of jogging on the grass before doing barefoot drills and 2x long strides (~30 seconds each). These felt pretty decent considering they were at the end of a long run. Finally, I jogged back to the condo for some stretching and fuel.
The total run was 16M+ in 1:50:15 (6:52 pace).
PM: We had a nice tasty lunch at the Quarter deck and then I came back and had an excellent nap. Once I woke up, we decided to bike down to the beach and go for a walk since it was so nice out. Round-trip, the biking took about 30 minutes. The pace was VERY easy, since Mrs. V’s biking pace is similar to my moderate running pace.
Once we got there, we walked for about an hour, out and back. It was a beautiful day; the only problem was crazy strong winds which nearly blew me over a few times and whipped sand against your skin. Still, overall it was very pleasant and nice to hang with the rents.
PM2: Once we got back from the beach, Mr. C and I headed down to hit some golf balls and use the gym. I did a 6min warm up on the elliptical machine there and then did the Lift Phase III (3 sets of [dips (30-37), 10x bent over row @10lb free weight, 10x push up, 10x bicep curl @ 10lb free weight, 8x RDL each foot, 8x quad extension @80-90lb, 20x side crunches, 15x shooters, 15x suitcases, 20x lunge walk]. I felt a little less stable on the RDLs than I have. Tried to focus on balance. Lunge walk felt good though.
After the lift, I spent about 30 minutes at driving range thwacking away. I think I did all right given that I’ve only played golf a couple of times in the last year.
Friday, March 25, 2011 – AM: I woke up naturally around 7:30am and felt a bit stuffy. I’m hoping it’s just my allergies flaring up with all the pollen down here and not that I’m coming down with a cold or something. I got myself out of bed and dressed and then waited for Mr. C to get ready before heading out for a very easy shakeout with him.
We left the condo around 8am and ran mostly around the 18th hole of the golf course. It was a good bit cooler – about 60F – which felt nice. We ran on the grass for 15 minutes or so and then ran down a couple of other holes and then came back the same way. He stopped after about 30 minutes and then I jogged out towards the main road and back to tack on another 2+ miles. I felt okay – still a bit just generally tired. I’m hoping that a real easy day today with less time on my feet will let me feel good tomorrow. Ideally, I’d like to do the 4x16 workout tomorrow, but If I’m still not feeling great, I may push it back to Sunday.
The total run this morning was 47:18 for 6M.
PM: Our first flight was uneventful and we had a pretty long lay-over in Charlotte, so I decided to get my second run in around the airport instead of waiting until I got home and running in the cold, Concord night. It was pretty fun actually. I got to weave in and out of tourists and business men and explore the whole airport – which is a lot smaller once you’re moving at a decent clip. It was a lot nicer than my run in the Quito airport last summer because my parents watched my stuff, so I didn’t have to stay in constant view of my bags.
I had some food after this and then we headed down to our gate to get on the plane for (chilly!) Boston. I’m really not too excited to be headed back to New England. This vacation felt a bit too rushed.
It will be nice to get back into the routine though. Variety may be the spice of life, but consistency is the base of success!
The total run was 33:00 for 4M+.
PM: Finally made it home safely! I got home and did some unpacking and then got in a quick shakeout with core. I did a 6 minute warm up on the elliptical machine and then did core – 100s, 50s, 30x toes to sky, 30x back bridge, 30x Kenyan, 50x leg lift. After, did 10 minute cool-down on elliptical. Feeling good. I think I’ll try the workout tomorrow afternoon.
Saturday, March 26, 2011 – AM: I slept like a baby last night for close to 11 hours. I woke up at 9:30am – the latest I have slept in a VERY long time – probably thanks to leaving my shades down. I felt pretty good and decided to go get in a little shake out before my workout this afternoon.
I left around 9:45am and it was pretty cool – only about 30F. I did a bit of very easy running and then did full foot drills on the grass in front of my house. Yes; you can finally see the grass in our yard! Though, today it was mostly frozen… Anyways, I felt pretty good doing that. I did one quick stride on HPC and then came back in and rolled out before having breakfast.
PM: I had a big breakfast after my shakeout this morning and then sat down and did a bunch of work on my thermo studying. I’m a little anxious about that since we have a mid-term on Tuesday and unfortunately, I left all my notes and materials at school… Oops!
Anyways, I had a small lunch around noon (a pear and a bowl of apple sauce with berries and cereal) and then did some more work. Around 2:00pm, I had a chewy bar and drove into town to do my mile repeats (take two). I was feeling pretty decent by now; I had been a bit groggy in the morning, but that was probably just from sleeping late.
I parked by the track and I noticed the flag was already blowing pretty steadily. The weather said it was a steady 15mph wind with gusts at 30mph. I had 2 chocolate espresso beans and then headed out for my warm up. It was cool, but not too cold, ~35F, but I didn’t feel the wind too badly on my warm up. I ran out the trail behind Concord Lumber towards Great Meadows and so it was pretty sheltered. By the time I got back to Emerson, I definitely started to notice the wind on the big exposed field.
I grabbed my Tumbes spikes from the car and then jogged over to the track to change. The warm-up was about 28 minutes, before I put my spikes on and did full foot drills. I followed these with a few regular strides and then a 200m at goal pace, which was fast (~34). 36 pace felt a good bit slower – this is what I had expected to feel on Wednesday when 36s felt more like 33s. I did a couple more fast strides after this and then got ready to go.
I wasn’t really sure how to dress and since most of my warm clothes were at school, I ended up just wearing half-tights, calve socks, a cotton long sleeve shirt, and a hat and gloves.
The first rep went out well. The wind was a bit weird because the steady wind was across the track, so I never really felt like I was fully into the wind or had a full tail-wind. The steady wind wasn’t too bad, though, it was the very strong gusts that would flare up that were the real problem. This made my splits kind of go wild as sometimes I would turn past the finish and head onto the back straight and I’d be blasted by a 20-30mph wind. This is why my second lap on this first rep was a significantly slower (74.1).
Anyways, I came through in 2:26.7 and then closed in 2:24.7 for 4:51.4. The effort felt about the same on every lap, though, the wind just made that second one about 2 seconds slow.
The 3:00 jog felt good and long and I covered about 500m. The second rep was similar, with all of the laps around 72.x except for one slower lap where the wind was gusting. Still, negative split again 2:25.9, 2:24.5 for a 4:50.4.
Again, the 3:00 jog felt plenty long – probably could have gone with 2:30. On this rest, the wind was really whipping and didn’t seem to subside. As I started the third rep, I tried to just keep the effort consistent. This ended up being 73.x and I was even as slow as 75.x on the third lap. The wind was bad enough, though, that this honestly felt like the same effort as the 72.x from the first two reps. If anything, I felt like I was working a bit harder (which may have just been because it was later in the workout).
Finally, I took the last 3:00 jog and hoped for the whipping winds to calm down. They didn’t, so I just set off. I tried to run pretty hard on the last rep and went out in 72.2 which felt more like 69.2 given the wind. I slowed down a ton on the second lap but managed to pull it together a bit to run the last two laps in 73.5, 71.9 (pretty hard effort). This was the slowest rep in 4:52.7.
After this last mile, I jogged across the infield and took about 2:00 easy jog before doing 2x200m. I ran the first in 29.6, took another easy 2:00 jog and then ran the second around 28.mid (I missed hitting my watch).
Finally, I changed back into my trainers and did a nice cool-down around Concord Center. I had had some stomach cramps during the last interval or two and they were pretty bad on the cool-down. I stopped in Starbuck’s and had some nasty diarrhea; felt a lot better afterwards. The cool-down was about 25 minutes easy.
Overall, I felt pretty solid about this workout. I was running by myself and in very nasty wind and I didn’t let myself get psyched out by a couple of random slow laps. I just felt a whole lot better this afternoon than I did on Wednesday. I’m not sure if it was the pollen or the heat or simply not being recovered from a tough weekend (probably the most likely), but I was clearly just not ready for this workout on Wednesday. It’s a bummer that I had to bomb the workout the first time around and only did 4x16 this time, but I’m feeling a lot more confident now. It’s said that the pace you can average for this workout (4x16 w/ 3:00 jog) is the pace you can run for a 5000m. So, 4:51.6 average would be about 15:11 for 5000m. Especially given that I was alone and it was really windy, I think that this is pretty feasible. I’m hoping that this means that given another month or so and a bit more focus on speed I should have a shot at a 15:0x or even 14:5x.
As a comparison, I ran a similar workout to this (5x1600 with 3:00 jog) back in November and averaged 4:52.5.
I’m pretty excited for the coming race. I’m feeling confident now and am just beginning to feel well rested. This will be my last full effort until Friday. I’ll do a very easy shorter long run tomorrow with the CSU guys and then maybe something with a bit of turn-over on Monday or Tuesday. Mostly, just easy and moderate running with some strides here and there. Hopefully, that’ll have me feeling good and fresh come Friday. I’ve just got to make sure I continue to get the sleep and nutrition right and everything should be in place for a good one.
Splits:
28min warm-up
4:51.4 (72.6, 74.1, 72.3, 72.4)
4:50.4 (72.3, 73.6, 72.6, 71.8)
4:51.9 (73.6, 73.6, 74.3, 71.9)
4:52.7 (72.2, 75.1, 73.5, 71.9)
Average: 4:51.6
2x200m: 29.6, 28.m
24:50 cool-down
Sunday, March 27, 2011 – Last night, I went into the city to see Jeff Beck play at the Wang Center. It was pretty great and we had awesome seats, but I was pretty tired, so I was barely awake by the end of it. Luckily, it was an older crowd, so everyone was sitting down and it was over pretty early. I slept in the car on the way home and fell right asleep when we got back.
I woke up at 8am to head into Newton to do a very easy medium distance run with the CSU gang. I was excited to see Jon and talk to him since I haven’t had too much contact with him since his health scare a month or so ago. I got a bit lost on the way there, but managed to get there right around 9am and luckily my group hadn’t left yet.
I ran with Jon, Terry, Jonathan Wyner, and Kevin. I don’t really know the area, so I can describe the route too well. We started out kind of cutting through Newton, I think, for about 30 minutes, at which point Jon turned around and headed back by himself. The four of us continued up a very steep hill and then through a park down the other side.
We then ran through some more suburban areas until finally getting back to an area I recognized along the long aqueduct trail which we would take from Cold Springs over the summer. We took that almost all the way back to cold springs but turned down Quinnabaquinn Rd and then looped around back towards Henry’s house where we had started. We dropped Jonathan off there after about 80 minutes and headed back out to finish up.
We then ran out to Comm ave to join all the Sunday morning marathon runners. It was amazing how many people were running along Comm Ave – quite inspiring actually. It was the first spark that always starts a fire under my ass come springtime when I get the serious marathon fever. Having Boston, London, Rotterdam and others all right in a row just gets me so amped up to get out there and tackle the roads. It takes a lot of restraint not to just bandit Boston every year.
Anyways, we finally got back to Henry’s house after 1hr 47 minutes of running. We were going very slowly the whole time (7:00-30 I’d guess) and so I doubt it was much more than 14-14.5. We came inside and had some tasty snacks and did a bit of stretching. I had a nice chat with Jon about a whole host of things – he was infinitely helpful as always. I headed home around 11:45 and then had a nice lunch with the rents before heading back to school. Spring break is far too short… I’m ready for summer.
The total run was 14M++ in 1:47:12.
PM: I had a remarkably unproductive afternoon. I continuously tried to sit down and study my thermo but just couldn’t bring myself to focus. I think I’m just a little tired.
I had planned to do an easy shake out on the elliptical or bike and so I jogged over to Gantcher around 4pm. Much to my dismay, the gym was closed. So, I jogged back to Lewis and just did a slightly longer session of core which took about 20 minutes. It was… Core – 100s, 50s, 30x squiggle, 30x side dip, 2:30 plank, 30x Kenyan, 1:00 side plank, 50x reach up, 50x leg lift.
Total for the week: 86 miles in 9 runs
