Wow, I guess I'm not alone! My run felt extra hard this morning. But because of the crappy weather I did it on the small indoor track at the Y (14 laps = 1 mile). My mile repeats felt extra hard and I attributed it to being indoors, being hotter, etc. But I see others had the same issues. By the way, I prefer that tiny track to a treadmill, any day.
The run was okay, not as big a struggle as I was expecting considering I still have a cold and was running after work. Z4 is 8:55, 1/2 mi at 8:51 pace, 2 X 1 mi at 8:55, 9:10. Would have helped for that second mile not to have finished with 2/10 mi uphill and is otherwise rolling. I will nail the pace on it someday. Did 5.46 mi in 54:50 or a 10:01 overall pace. Yes I'm slow but I'm trying to get faster by my standards.
Rough night last night. My 3 yr old daughter has managed to catch a virus (again) and spread it to the rest of the household, me included. I felt incredibly weak finishing that second mile in my interval - not because it was hard, but because I just had no mojo. In retrospect I probably should have gone to bed early and rested up. Eeither way ... 1 x 1/2 and 2 x 1 @ z4 = 7:12 pace. Including a short CD I was able to get in 30 mins for just over 3.5 miles.
Got it done. Target pace (7:05) hit on the first 800, close on the next 2x1miles, but not quite, leg was hurting. But, despite coming up short with paces, my z4 was where I was living. Not a perfect workout, but dud get plenty of work done. I'd give it a 'B'.
Need to just use the track/time splits. I know my pacing is off on the watch, and it looks like the treadmill was wrong, too. Basically, I have no 'accuracy' on any of these runs. Ughhh
I hit the track by my house...had to jump a fence. It was very dark and I could not see my garmin without hitting a button to turn on the backlight.
I didn't come into the OS in my greatest running shape, so I knew I would start getting back into shape quickly...
Anyway, my vdot was a 47 during my test. My Z4 is about 7:05 - 7:15 or so.
I ran 1x3 - 6:48, 6:42, 6:47. Very little feedback on pace during the run. Simply set the lap timer to 1 mile and ran. I didn't feel like I was really pushing it that hard. In fact I only took 4 minutes rest between the sets and still was fine doing Z3 work at the end.
I'm a bit tired this morning...but nothing out of the ordinary. Perhaps I'll have to bump my vdot back up to 48 where it was during the season.
Dreadmill last night, ran my 3x1 mile last night at 7:45, 7:45 and 7:50 (the stats from the treadmill disagree with the non-calibrated Garmin footpod). Felt pretty easy actually. Time to find a 5k and bump up my vDot. Probably use next Thursday's 8 mile turkey trot as my next test.
Today was damn ugly....nice easy ten minute warm up, then 3x30 seconds on and off. 800 felt awesome...ripped that mutha up...Next came the 2x1miles at TP. I developed some low back pain with these and then my left shin started hurting. I really struggled. I then cooled down for 5 minutes came home, ate and relaxed a bit. Then I went down to the pain cave and mounted that dreadmill again...Noting hard but I did 25 more minutes at EP and TP....Played around a bit....felt okay but again that nagging low back pain came.
I have gained some weight over the past month but was trying. Now I guess it is time to loose it. My goal was to but on some muscle weight over the winter to assist with the bike. Biking is my weakest of the three disciplines and all my testing, quad graphs, etc show me it is a muscular problem. Well I went from 160 to 177 in 12 weeks. Lots of water weight but now it is time to get rid of this weight and get back to me. I guess the leg muscles will develop with all the training or I will just remain struggling on the bike cause my body is telling me the back can't take the extra weight. LOL
Do not gain weight on purpose. The reason why you are weaker at cycling has nothing to do with how much you weigh. As you suggested your leg muscles will develop fine with training, they are plenty strong.
Got in my Wednesday run today (Thursday). Couldn't do it yesterday due to the movers taking literally all day to get my house packed and loaded. Long drive and it was nice to stretch the legs with a run. Thought about going outside, but it was a 25 mph wind and about 30 deg F, so I just hit the treadmill at the hotel.
Hit my goals of 7:10/mi for the 2x1 mi and the 1x 1/2 mi intervals. All good, but the 2nd 1 mile interval was getting a little tougher toward the end.
I don't think my nutrition was good for the last 2 days, so we'll see how I do for the rest of the week.
Did my 3 X 1 repeats on Wednesday on a hillier route than usual and the wind was blowing. Tried not to let the conditions affect my prescribed paces, so I did suffer a fair amount with this run, especially after yesterdays brick. Intervals were 6:13, 6:18 and 6:23.
tomorrow is looking like more of an inside day so I switched up and did the running today. 3x1 was pretty hard but more fun than usual as I did them with my friend Kevin. Repeats were 6:00, 5:58 and 5:57. Ended up with exactly 10 total. Dropped Kevin at his house and then had about a mile and a half to get home. Was pretty gassed and not paying attention and ended up tripping over a root hidden by leaves and crashing on the bike path. Hands slightly and ego majorly bruised. Those that have been here a while know that I have a long history of crashing while running, usually at the end of a long run when the intervals are done. Seems to happen at least a couple times a year but usually have an ice and snow excuse. At least no blood this time.
Ran today in the rain at a local 5K at my Vdot pace. Warmed up with 10 minutes of rowing and 20 minutes of Z1. Did the race and then jogged 10 more minutes to get home. Local races are nice. I hope it dries up for tomorrow's bike ride.
Ran today because of scheduling issues and saw almost 10'' per mile improvement since just last weekend. Was able to run basically at same Z4 HR and hit the upper end of my Z4 pace.
2X.5 (at 6:34 and 6:26 pace) and 2X 1mi (at 6:40 and 6:35). I'm expecting a plateau soon. But, until then I'm enjoying the quick return on these wkos and re-found speed.
Got it done this morning. 3x1 @ 6:21, 6:33, 6:12. I was really hurting on the second one and almost bagged #3. Pushed hard on the last one knowing I was going to rest tomorrow.
Went off the reservation today and ran with friends. Ended up 10 miles @ z2 (7:44). Felt pretty good for the first cold run of the year (30deg this morning).
Well damn gang today almost put me 8 feet under....well it felt that way. After a get butt workout yesterday today was HORRIBLE ....... Even the warm up at EP was terrible. I nailed the 2x800 but with some dry heaving and HR in the 190's and then the 2x1 mile repeats...well I couldn't hold the pace..had to slow down but still got them in. I then cooled down for ten min at EP. Trust me there was no HMP left in me. I seem to really struggle on my Sunday runs.....all go all out on the Saturday workout/brick and then come Suday there is nothing. I guess and hope I will get stronger here and there is a meaning for this. Have a great Sunday.....
Target paces Z4 6:51, Z3 6:59. I was suffering on the intervals, but now I see why - I was actually running Z5 NGP instead of Z4. But when I dropped to Z3 HMP, I felt like a machine, HR down, breathing easy, had to keep pushing my legs but my cardiovascular system wasn't straining at all. First time I've ever felt that way while running that fast. Sweet. 10' warmup .5m @ 6:22, NGP 6:10 (1.03), cadence 92, HR 162 .6m (oops) @ 6:38, NGP 5:56 (1.07), cadence 90, HR 160 1m @ 6:33, NGP 6:28 (0.98), cadence 90, HR 164 1m @ 6:32, NGP 6:21 (1.00), cadence 90, HR 161 17' @ 7:06, NGP 7:03 (0.90), cadence 89, HR 155 Total 1:02, TSS 87.3 (new record, previous highest rTSS was 74.3)
Yuck. Today felt horrible, worst run of OS so far. Probably a combination of pushing it yesterday and only 18 hours between workouts. Got it done but other than the first 1/2 mi at Z4 pace exactly the other 1/2 and the 2 X 1 mi were closer to Z3. Only bright side was the mile repeats were no slower than 1/2 mile. Finished up with total 8.5 mi but it was work.
So I switched up my weekend this time, so this will cover Saturday and Sunday.
Saturday: I ran in a 7 mile cross country run/race. The first mile is a nightmare since there are 7500 people and it's on a farm. The next mile and a half are pretty normal, and then after that it's up and down, running over marshy cornfields, in and out of woods, crossing some stream about 8 times, going up and down gullies. In Iowa. In late November. Needless to say, it's a ton of fun.
This year, I felt in better shape for it than I have the last few, but my strategy was to just go have fun and run it "smart" but like a hard workout, rather than like really racing. I would line up near the front in order to not get crushed by the crowd, run mile 2 somewhere in the range of my threshold pace to HMP, and then just try to be smart about the whole rest of it until the last mile, which is largely uphill, but otherwise pretty "normal".
This is a long standing big race, not some manufactured "Muddy Buddy" thing. The course was wetter than it's ever been than I ran it though, and as cold as I can ever remember. The first creek crossing was just about waist deep on me (yikes!). I did a full somersault and pop back up that garnered cheers and admiration from teh people behind me when I didn't see a dip in the path.... And I did a full not-very-graceful faceplant when accidentally pushed from behind at one point. Some of the running was "single track" and I tried to be safe and smart there. I think my OS training made the climbs (some normal...some short 50-75% grades, too) a lot more manageable than in the past, and I was able to run the "normal" parts in much better control.
The result of it was that I met my goal of doing the race in under an hour (just about 59 gun time, a bit less than that in "real" time), and make it to the top 10%. The last mile was an exercise in counting the bodies until the last quarter mile where everyone figures out it's almost over. :-)
My time didn't change a whole lot from previous years, but given the worse conditions and the fact that I felt like it was just a very hard workout and not some blow-out race that took days to recover from, I felt very good about the effort.
Sunday: I did have some residual leg fatigue from the race yesterday, and an obvious 1.5 hour spot in my day (kid sports practice), so I made a rational decision to ditch the run that would have come from the Saturday brick and bike a little longer. If I feel like it, I'll do a short run on Monday. If not, I won't. :-) But anyway, the fatigue from the race meant I wasn't going to go for any heroics on the bike today, but I managed to get it done:
Comments
Need to just use the track/time splits. I know my pacing is off on the watch, and it looks like the treadmill was wrong, too. Basically, I have no 'accuracy' on any of these runs. Ughhh
@Dan - Now that's dedication!!
I was a bit surprised by my results.
I hit the track by my house...had to jump a fence. It was very dark and I could not see my garmin without hitting a button to turn on the backlight.
I didn't come into the OS in my greatest running shape, so I knew I would start getting back into shape quickly...
Anyway, my vdot was a 47 during my test. My Z4 is about 7:05 - 7:15 or so.
I ran 1x3 - 6:48, 6:42, 6:47. Very little feedback on pace during the run. Simply set the lap timer to 1 mile and ran. I didn't feel like I was really pushing it that hard. In fact I only took 4 minutes rest between the sets and still was fine doing Z3 work at the end.
I'm a bit tired this morning...but nothing out of the ordinary. Perhaps I'll have to bump my vdot back up to 48 where it was during the season.
Seemed like hard work tonight. 3 x 1.6km with ave pace 3:54, 3:45 and 3:56. Overall rTSS of 70.
Do not gain weight on purpose. The reason why you are weaker at cycling has nothing to do with how much you weigh. As you suggested your leg muscles will develop fine with training, they are plenty strong.
Got in my Wednesday run today (Thursday). Couldn't do it yesterday due to the movers taking literally all day to get my house packed and loaded. Long drive and it was nice to stretch the legs with a run. Thought about going outside, but it was a 25 mph wind and about 30 deg F, so I just hit the treadmill at the hotel.
Hit my goals of 7:10/mi for the 2x1 mi and the 1x 1/2 mi intervals. All good, but the 2nd 1 mile interval was getting a little tougher toward the end.
I don't think my nutrition was good for the last 2 days, so we'll see how I do for the rest of the week.
Did my 3 X 1 repeats on Wednesday on a hillier route than usual and the wind was blowing. Tried not to let the conditions affect my prescribed paces, so I did suffer a fair amount with this run, especially after yesterdays brick. Intervals were 6:13, 6:18 and 6:23.
Legs aren't liking me very much right now.
tomorrow is looking like more of an inside day so I switched up and did the running today. 3x1 was pretty hard but more fun than usual as I did them with my friend Kevin. Repeats were 6:00, 5:58 and 5:57. Ended up with exactly 10 total. Dropped Kevin at his house and then had about a mile and a half to get home. Was pretty gassed and not paying attention and ended up tripping over a root hidden by leaves and crashing on the bike path. Hands slightly and ego majorly bruised. Those that have been here a while know that I have a long history of crashing while running, usually at the end of a long run when the intervals are done. Seems to happen at least a couple times a year but usually have an ice and snow excuse. At least no blood this time.
Ran today in the rain at a local 5K at my Vdot pace. Warmed up with 10 minutes of rowing and 20 minutes of Z1. Did the race and then jogged 10 more minutes to get home. Local races are nice. I hope it dries up for tomorrow's bike ride.
Maybe it was the low iron?
@Chris you have sort of had a rough go this fall (no pun intended)
3x1 at the fire station again 5:50 treadmill
2X.5 (at 6:34 and 6:26 pace) and 2X 1mi (at 6:40 and 6:35). I'm expecting a plateau soon. But, until then I'm enjoying the quick return on these wkos and re-found speed.
Chris, those are some kick-ass intervals. Way to push and get them done. Hey, if tripping is a result of totally gazzing those legs, so be it !!!
Nice work.
Guess you didn't go hard enough then.
Unseasonably warm here in the Austin area this morning - 65+ degrees and 15 mph winds......
connect.garmin.com/activity/57427290
Good run for me but the last mile hurt!
Great job Matt S. and Trent! You guys are like swiss clocks - consistent and always on time!
SS
Got it done this morning. 3x1 @ 6:21, 6:33, 6:12. I was really hurting on the second one and almost bagged #3. Pushed hard on the last one knowing I was going to rest tomorrow.
Went off the reservation today and ran with friends. Ended up 10 miles @ z2 (7:44). Felt pretty good for the first cold run of the year (30deg this morning).
2 x 0.5M @ Z4
2 x 1.0M @ Z4
Total time: 1:00:00
2 x 0.5M @ Z4
2 x 1.0M @ Z4
Total time: 1:00:00
Some fast times out there today. Matt, way to nail the third one. Rest day tommorrow, then week 4.
Week 3 is in the books. Best news is tomorrow is rest day!
2x.5 @Z4 1.107,1.0191
2x1 @Z4 1.007, 1.009
1x1.5@Z3 0.940
58:54 7.51 mi 0.903
10' warmup
.5m @ 6:22, NGP 6:10 (1.03), cadence 92, HR 162
.6m (oops) @ 6:38, NGP 5:56 (1.07), cadence 90, HR 160
1m @ 6:33, NGP 6:28 (0.98), cadence 90, HR 164
1m @ 6:32, NGP 6:21 (1.00), cadence 90, HR 161
17' @ 7:06, NGP 7:03 (0.90), cadence 89, HR 155
Total 1:02, TSS 87.3 (new record, previous highest rTSS was 74.3)
Lynne
So I switched up my weekend this time, so this will cover Saturday and Sunday.
Saturday: I ran in a 7 mile cross country run/race. The first mile is a nightmare since there are 7500 people and it's on a farm. The next mile and a half are pretty normal, and then after that it's up and down, running over marshy cornfields, in and out of woods, crossing some stream about 8 times, going up and down gullies. In Iowa. In late November. Needless to say, it's a ton of fun.
This year, I felt in better shape for it than I have the last few, but my strategy was to just go have fun and run it "smart" but like a hard workout, rather than like really racing. I would line up near the front in order to not get crushed by the crowd, run mile 2 somewhere in the range of my threshold pace to HMP, and then just try to be smart about the whole rest of it until the last mile, which is largely uphill, but otherwise pretty "normal".
This is a long standing big race, not some manufactured "Muddy Buddy" thing. The course was wetter than it's ever been than I ran it though, and as cold as I can ever remember. The first creek crossing was just about waist deep on me (yikes!). I did a full somersault and pop back up that garnered cheers and admiration from teh people behind me when I didn't see a dip in the path.... And I did a full not-very-graceful faceplant when accidentally pushed from behind at one point. Some of the running was "single track" and I tried to be safe and smart there. I think my OS training made the climbs (some normal...some short 50-75% grades, too) a lot more manageable than in the past, and I was able to run the "normal" parts in much better control.
The result of it was that I met my goal of doing the race in under an hour (just about 59 gun time, a bit less than that in "real" time), and make it to the top 10%. The last mile was an exercise in counting the bodies until the last quarter mile where everyone figures out it's almost over. :-)
My time didn't change a whole lot from previous years, but given the worse conditions and the fact that I felt like it was just a very hard workout and not some blow-out race that took days to recover from, I felt very good about the effort.
Sunday: I did have some residual leg fatigue from the race yesterday, and an obvious 1.5 hour spot in my day (kid sports practice), so I made a rational decision to ditch the run that would have come from the Saturday brick and bike a little longer. If I feel like it, I'll do a short run on Monday. If not, I won't. :-) But anyway, the fatigue from the race meant I wasn't going to go for any heroics on the bike today, but I managed to get it done: