Hi, everyone- hope you all had a nice Christmas. It's always tricky training over break because I seem to have a severe allergic reaction whenever I come home resulting in wheezing, congestion, and sinus issues. Fortunately, they weren't too bad this time and I adjusted to being here relatively quickly. Christmas was good- I got a copy of Running to the Top!
Log-
Monday- AM- 29min easy with Ken, felt good. 12:15PM- Realized I was going to be late to my last final! Booked it, took the final (aced it) ran back for 3mi total. PM- 8mi easy, solo, slums to Mass Ave bridge and a few minutes indoors with Ellie. For my last run of the day I wore my new Nike Marathoners and one of the eyelets bruised the crap out of my right ankle because the shoe was so stiff.
Tuesday- Noon- 65 real easy minutes with Ken downtown and back, snowy out. 5PM- River Loop + a mile on Nickerson solo in the dark, felt really good- would have hammered if not for the really bad footing on the river paths. ~14 on the day.
Wednesday- Back in Derry! 25min up to pick up some of the long distance Pinkerton kids, then 27min of pretty hard tempo over really hilly roads, 18min down. Felt fairly good and ran at what I thought was a honest, hard tempo effort. It was tough to estimate pace on hills, but I would think I covered 5mi or so during the tempo. Chilly out! About 15deg with the wind factored in.
Thursday- 2PM- 10mi untimed over a really hilly loop. I didn't necessarily mean to not time this run, but I must have missed the start button on my watch with the thick gloves. 9PM- Snuck in another untimed 4mi after I felt guilty for sleeping in.
Friday- (Christmas!) 10AM 12mi easy, 85:47, hilly, hilly course. Dressed for the 20deg start to the run- did not expect the temperature to climb to 45deg by the finish. Got hot and felt awful.
Saturday- 4mi up, 8x90sec hills hard intensity, 4mi down. Snowy and slippery out- I decided to sacrifice a little speed for better footing- still got a great workout in.
Sunday- Noon- 12 easy with Geoff, same course as earlier, 84:45. It was 45deg and raining, shorts weather! Then watched my former Keene and Pinkerton teammate Peter Najem crush the field at the Millennium Mile (a downhill road race the next town over) in 4:01! 7PM- 4 easy with Geoff to cap off a solid week of hilly running.
Tot- 94mi. I'm feel like I'm rounding into very good shape and right now I'd like to just build on that momentum and keep training well but not at an unsustainable level.
Hope everyone's winter break is going great!
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What are your thoughts on doing tempo runs on grass? Say, warming up, 4 miles on grass, cooling down?
ReplyDeleteMy thought is that it's awesome! I did all of my tempos this summmer barefoot on grass. I'm also horribly jealous that you have grass available- I'm all snowed in, so it's treadmill or roads for me!
ReplyDeleteYour times on grass will be slower than a treadmill on the roads/treadmill, but the added neuromuscular benefit you get from having to run on the grass is worth the tradeoff, in my opinion.
How much slower?
ReplyDeleteI was recently reading Letsrun, and saw a thread discussing the benefits of a 40, 45 min tempo run. For a 1500/3k runner like myself, would this have any benefits? I would think it is still important to do 20-25 min tempos to run faster, but do the longer tempos still have a place?
ReplyDeleteOne thing is for sure, I do't know if I could do those longer tempos on grass... whew, how many loops would that be?!
how slower? I dunno, it's not important. The effort is the important thing.
ReplyDeletelonger tempos are good- I've done up to 10 miles hard at a time. They're draining, though- you'll need more recovery time than a short tempo. How much more? That depends on you. I found that I always felt great the day after a 10mi tempo, but that if I tried a workout sooner than 3-4 days after a tempo, it really did a number on me.
Figure out how you react to different stimuli and let that dictate what you do- I can't really tell you how much grass will slow you down or how JP will react to a 60min tempo. I've known guys who can do hard 10 milers three times a week and be totally fresh. Trial and error is the only principle I really embrace.