Wednesday, October 1, 2008

Geeked on Sports!

It seems like this past week everyone I know (or sorta know) was just geeked out on sports. Jameson is killing it getting ready for Nationals and pumped on the 'Bolts, Beth is lighting it up in 'The Hills' and obviously isn't playing, Gunner put in his biggest mileage week by almost DOUBLE!!!!! his previous highest total, Lucho is turning into some sort of Zen master under the watchful eye of 'Bob' and Uli, Geb set a new marathon world record in Berlin (Beijing pollution my ass!), and things have been pretty sweet for me as well.
Last week was my biggest week ever at 65 miles. During the week I covered more ground on my feet than I did in my car. 4 of the 6 sessions were quality efforts, including short max effort hill repeats, a tempo run, a 3x2 miler, and a 20 mile long run with 3x1 mile at 7:00/mile on 1 minute rest at miles 7, 8, and 9 and then again at miles 18 and 19. Today was more of the same with 8x800 meter repeats in 3:40 on 400 meters in 1:55. Today I just ran how fast I thought 6:30 pace should feel and was pleasantly surprised. I was pace checking against my Garmin and almost always felt worse after seeing the pace than when I just rolled along and pushed through the interval. This whole 'external limiters' concept that Lucho has been wrestling with has some validity I think. I have the sweetest deal going: Lucho buys the books, sift through for the good stuff, and I can spend my evenings watching Entourage and Mad Men!
I posted the workout from this morning and last week's tempo run below. Today's workout really got me pumped. 11 miles including warm up, average pace 7:36 at 156 average BPM. I'll take it.











Anyways, with 10 1/2 weeks left until the race day, I am starting to get excited for Vegas!
Musically, I haven't been listening to much lately. Now that Gunner is done triathlon for the season, he has joined me on a couple of workouts and in an effort to get better handle on my internal dialogue I'm trying to get away from needing to listen to music during the heavy efforts. Today I was mindful of the cadence of my footfall and tried to keep the rhythm consistent which was kinda hypnotic and worked out out pretty well. I did download a PodRunner podcast and listened to it during last week's tempo run. PodRunner is pretty much just a hour of techno music at a certain BPM mixed by some dude specifically for running, spin class, whatever. I'm not really into techno, house music etc. but the consistent BPM was actually pretty helpful and after a while I wasn't really listening to the music anyways. It was more to try and drown out the little voice trying to tell me to stop! I counted my footfalls at 6:22 pace at 146 per minute so I dl'd a PodRunner podcast at 148. It's called Paradiddle-Drums from the Deep. Check it out. TV on the Radio has a new album out now so I'm sure that next week there'll be something here from those cats.

6 comments:

Matt said...

Have you been training MAF? If so, how long, and how strict have you been and have you seen a real improvement? Cool blog. Your head-to-head with Beth is good stuff. Good luck!

kerrie said...

that is some serious mileage...i may have to change my pick now for who takes the win in vegas!

Ward said...

Hey Ward, Ward here.. I didn't know there were any more us us besides Ward Burton and Ward Cleaver..(yes, I've heard all the jokes...) Looks like your training is going great.. you'll love Vegas.. Was wondering what Garmin you use?

runninggunner said...

Keep it up homey. You're going to rock it at Vegas!

jameson said...

I am stoked to hear things are going so well. A 65 mile week... I think my legs fall off. Keep it up.

FatDad said...

Matt,
It's been fun to stoke the fire with Beth. She's got a lot of fight in her for someone so little! Vegas is going to unreal.
I trained using Hadd's approach (available to read on Chuckie V's blog in the sidebar) beginning in April. It was 25-35 mile weeks at about 140BPM average for about 15 weeks. I was pretty careful about keeping the HR down but I'll be honest: I was not very fit so it was tough to do. I thought that I could run faster than I could. The program allows for a range of HR depending on max HR. For me it ranged between 135 and 150 BPM. About 5 weeks ago, I signed on with Lucho and after some data collecting he added some intensity to the schedule. I'm not sure exactly what the MAF approach is, but from what I understand the methods are similar. I have seen great improvements over the last 20 or so weeks. I think the direct cause of the improvements is the ability to pile on the mileage to the point where 65 mile weeks are totally doable. However, using HR guidelines I was able to add volume in a way that allowed my body to adapt to the stresses and stay injury free. I'm not the smartest guy when it comes to the latest research etc. All I know is I'm injury free and I'm running farther and faster than I ever have before.
Ward,
Hey man! We read a few of the same blogs and it always weirds me out to see your name in the comments section! I'm like "I didn't comment here?!?!?!" Yeah, I know the jokes you're talking about...
To answer your question, I have a Forerunner 305.