Well, my vacation is starting to take root. I actually started doing some stuff that reflects this. One, I got to dig into a training plan for Pikes and other races for next year. Two, I started to think about work in a big picture, positive change sort of way (versus the day to day tactical). You could say it took about two weeks of vacation to get to this mental state, but there was a good deal of activity in this time off due to the holidays. Or it could be that it was a bit more quiet here today since everyone is taking it slow – recovering from hours of retching. So far, I have somehow remained free of the bug … but I am expecting it to hit anytime.
So in regards to the planning for racing for next year … this has been a good activity for me and this plan far from complete. It is 33 weeks to Pikes. This requires me to take a pretty big picture view of how I want to get to that race. The planning activity forces me to consider my weaknesses, my strengths, the amount of time I can dedicate to this goal … I am asking questions as to what sort of workouts are going to be best in gearing me up for results … long runs versus hill workouts versus track workouts versus tempo runs. I have had this question in my mind: what would the ideal training month look like for me? What training could I accomplish and then say – yeah, I am ready. It seems that I have a workout or two that I feel good about, but I don’t have a string of weeks or months that I feel comprehensively put it all together. And hence, the plan.
It is easy to say, well – I am going to run 95 miles a week, do 6 x 800 in 2:30 with a minute rest on Tuesday, run Lindens on Thursday with an average under 4 minutes, and then do a long run of 25 miles over Flag, Green, Bear and SBP on Sunday. And then the next week I’d run to Mosquito Pass and back in 3 hours … blah, blah, blah. There is no lack of good workouts that I want to do, and can do alone. Reality of work, family, health, come into the mix and I need to have some flexibility in my training plan. And so there is this balance of driving to the plan, and realizing that I cannot be a total slave to this plan. But nonetheless, I need a plan. I have been running more on a day to day basis, or at best – a week to week basis. This is okay in a lot of regards – it is running and that is good. But it ain’t training. I need to train as a part of my running.
At current, the plan is focused on gearing me back into a (for me) a respectable 10K. There are a couple of thoughts behind this. One, guys like Salazar, Shorter, showed strong marathon prowess when in good 10K shape and have gone so far to say that the difference in the training between the two events is relatively minor (the difference being in the long run). They have added that when they trained for the marathon strictly, they actually performed more poorly then taking this speed / 10K mindset into the mix. There is, of course, a balance to this mindset. I hope to achieve this balance of mileage, the long run, the speed work and hill work in my plan and hence my training. For what is worth, McMillan wrote about this sort of approach (getting the speed first) in a Running Times article. This approach forces me back to faster workouts that I eschewed last year – as I hid in the comfort of slow runs in the mountains. The second thought behind this is that gives me a set of intermediate goals before Pikes. The focus after this 10K frame will shift to getting more to altitude, more long hill runs at altitude. I won’t outright drop speed work on the track after this block, but the sessions will become more focused on work like Mosquito Pass, Lindens, Green, etc.
In this whole thinking process, I have been giving a fair amount of thought to diet. I have thought for a while that details to the diet were a component missing to my training plan both in the day to day training and on race day (what I eat during the long race). More than anything, I think I need to change my thinking about how and what I eat – in other words, I am thinking I need to rewire my brain on the whole damn thing. I have long been a implicit subscriber to the “Once a Runner” mentality that if you “burn the engine hot enough, you can use anything for fuel.” If you asked me explicitly about diet, I say some crap about how it was better than most, that I was not too fussy about it, but it was balanced and it met my needs. But the more I think about it, I am not sure this is true in practice. I have found that over the past couple of years, my metabolism has significantly changed. As in slowed. In addition to needing to eat less, I will need to be more efficient in the fuel that I take in.
So – both of these are really lead ins, right? What is your training plan George? What is your diet plan George? I feel an obligation to post both of those here as they take better form to hold me accountable (even if only three folks read this!) in some form to that plan. The food part will take a longer arc as I mentally work through that. Here are the first 10 or so weeks of the training plan, but it needs some work (namely, I need to plug in some races). I put this out there, fairly raw. It could change as I think about it today, this afternoon, tomorrow, next week and get feedback.
Well, my vacation is starting to take root. I actually started doing some stuff that reflects this. One, I got to dig into a training plan for Pikes and other races for next year. Two, I started to think about work in a big picture, positive change sort of way (versus the day to day tactical). You could say it took about two weeks of vacation to get to this mental state, but there was a good deal of activity in this time off due to the holidays. Or it could be that it was a bit more quiet here today since everyone is taking it slow – recovering from hours of retching. So far, I have somehow remained free of the bug … but I am expecting it to hit anytime.
So in regards to the planning for racing for next year … this has been a good activity for me and this plan far from complete. It is 33 weeks to Pikes. This requires me to take a pretty big picture view of how I want to get to that race. The planning activity forces me to consider my weaknesses, my strengths, the amount of time I can dedicate to this goal … I am asking questions as to what sort of workouts are going to be best in gearing me up for results … long runs versus hill workouts versus track workouts versus tempo runs. I have had this question in my mind: what would the ideal training month look like for me? What training could I accomplish and then say – yeah, I am ready. It seems that I have a workout or two that I feel good about, but I don’t have a string of weeks or months that I feel comprehensively put it all together. And hence, the plan.
It is easy to say, well – I am going to run 95 miles a week, do 6 x 800 in 2:30 with a minute rest on Tuesday, run Lindens on Thursday with an average under 4 minutes, and then do a long run of 25 miles over Flag, Green, Bear and SBP on Sunday. And then the next week I’d run to Mosquito Pass and back in 3 hours … blah, blah, blah. There is no lack of good workouts that I want to do, and can do alone. Reality of work, family, health, come into the mix and I need to have some flexibility in my training plan. And so there is this balance of driving to the plan, and realizing that I cannot be a total slave to this plan. But nonetheless, I need a plan. I have been running more on a day to day basis, or at best – a week to week basis. This is okay in a lot of regards – it is running and that is good. But it ain’t training. I need to train as a part of my running.
At current, the plan is focused on gearing me back into a (for me) a respectable 10K. There are a couple of thoughts behind this. One, guys like Salazar, Shorter, showed strong marathon prowess when in good 10K shape and have gone so far to say that the difference in the training between the two events is relatively minor (the difference being in the long run). They have added that when they trained for the marathon strictly, they actually performed more poorly then taking this speed / 10K mindset into the mix. There is, of course, a balance to this mindset. I hope to achieve this balance of mileage, the long run, the speed work and hill work in my plan and hence my training. For what is worth, McMillan wrote about this sort of approach (getting the speed first) in a Running Times article. This approach forces me back to faster workouts that I eschewed last year – as I hid in the comfort of slow runs in the mountains. The second thought behind this is that gives me a set of intermediate goals before Pikes. The focus after this 10K frame will shift to getting more to altitude, more long hill runs at altitude. I won’t outright drop speed work on the track after this block, but the sessions will become more focused on work like Mosquito Pass, Lindens, Green, etc.
In this whole thinking process, I have been giving a fair amount of thought to diet. I have thought for a while that details to the diet were a component missing to my training plan both in the day to day training and on race day (what I eat during the long race). More than anything, I think I need to change my thinking about how and what I eat – in other words, I am thinking I need to rewire my brain on the whole damn thing. I have long been a implicit subscriber to the “Once a Runner” mentality that if you “burn the engine hot enough, you can use anything for fuel.” If you asked me explicitly about diet, I say some crap about how it was better than most, that I was not too fussy about it, but it was balanced and it met my needs. But the more I think about it, I am not sure this is true in practice. I have found that over the past couple of years, my metabolism has significantly changed. As in slowed. In addition to needing to eat less, I will need to be more efficient in the fuel that I take in.
So – both of these are really lead ins, right? What is your training plan George? What is your diet plan George? I feel an obligation to post both of those here as they take better form to hold me accountable (even if only three folks read this!) in some form to that plan. The food part will take a longer arc as I mentally work through that. Here are the first 10 or so weeks of the training plan, but it needs some work (namely, I need to plug in some races). I put this out there, fairly raw. It could change as I think about it today, this afternoon, tomorrow, next week and get feedback.
Training Plan
Week Date Ending Long Run Mileage Workout 1 Workout 2 Strides Notes
1 1/6/2008 14 70 eights Tempo 8x
2 1/13/2008 14 70 Oatmeal 5K quarters 8x look to break 17:30 in 5K to show improvement
3 1/20/2008 16* 80 Tempo twos and fours 8x
4 1/27/2008 16 75 Miles Green 8x attempt to make long run building
5 2/3/2008 18 80 Tempo twos and fours 8x
6 2/10/2008 16* 65 Kilos Green 8x
7 2/17/2008 18* 70 Race? quarters 8x look for race in this period?
8 2/24/2008 16 75 Secret Hills Tempo 8x attempt to make long run building
9 3/2/2008 20 85 Tempo twos and fours 10x
10 3/9/2008 18* 70 Miles Green 10x
And oh yeah … I will get some pix up from our getaway to the mountains here once I get back to the land of broadband connectivity.
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