Mon: AM – 4.5 miles; PM – 8.5 miles
Tue: AM – 4.5 miles; PM – 7.5 miles plus hill bursts
Wed: 10 miles, including Specific Endurance workouts
Thu: AM – 4.5 miles; PM – 7 miles
Fri: 12 miles, including fartlek workout
Sat: 6.5 miles
Sun: 15 miles
Total: 80 miles
This was an excellent week of training, one of the best I’ve had in quite a while as a matter of fact. It was just about a perfect mix of quality and quantity, and while there were a few times where I was tired in general and my legs were a little on the dead side, overall I hit everything exactly according to plan and felt pretty good doing so. If I can string together a block of weeks like this one, good things are bound to happen. In fact, I’ll go so far as to say that I can’t keep training like this and not get faster. I just have to stay patient, stay healthy, and stay on it!
The first workout of the week was on Wednesday and consisted of 7X300 followed by 3X100. This workout really exploited my lack of speed, and the fact that it was 45 degrees, windy, and spitting rain didn’t make it any more fun. I didn’t quite hit my goal paces, but I was close, and in doing so I ran about as fast as I have in a while for shorter intervals. The first half of the work was done at 73 sec quarter pace and the second half was faster, ending with a 52 sec 300, which would be 69 sec quarter pace. While this is nothing to get excited about, like I said, I haven’t done much work at all at this pace, so it was good for me.
After an easy day on Thursday, the next challenge was a long fartlek workout Friday evening. After a 3 mile warm-up, I did 9/7/5/3/2/1 min on with 90 second recoveries. Pace wise the efforts went 5:50, 5:49, 5:40, 5:38, 5:24, and 5:10. I then did 4X30 sec, all under 5 min pace. This was another encouraging workout, especially at the end of the week and once again in cool, windy conditions. Altogether I covered 12 miles in 80 minutes.
The final effort of the week was Sunday’s long run. This one was a bit of a struggle, as the effort I was putting out seemed harder than the pace it was generating. Of course the terrain might have had something to do with it, since the 15 miles total had almost 1,900’ of total elevation change (gotta love running in Fincastle!). Regardless, I still managed to cut down each 5 mile segment as follows: 36:36 (7:19 avg), 34:53 (6:59 avg), and 33:58 (6:48 avg) with a final mile of 6:24. It was a good way to close out a solid week.
I feel like I’m starting to make some progress. I still don’t have the ability to run fast for extended periods of time, as my legs “go” pretty quickly into fast efforts like the 300’s I did this past Wednesday, but I do feel like I’m developing some lift in my stride and I’m definitely getting fitter as well. The new training scheme, as well as the ancillary stuff I’m doing along with it, is definitely paying off. However, considering how long I neglected certain things plus the fact I’m by no means a youngster, it’s going to take while to get where I want to go. Like I said at the beginning of this post, I just need to stay healthy and stay on it. It’s a long way to track season, which is when I’ll attack my goals, so there’s plenty of time to get fitter and faster between now and then. On I roam!
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