Tuesday 111108 10 miles with track work and more "Indulgence"

For whatever reason, as I was defining my schedule for this 5K block run up to Thanksgiving, I did not define workouts on the next two Tuesdays.  I can't recall if that was because I expected to cut back on workouts (unlikely) or if I wanted to reassess where I was at in terms of fitness at this point and then define the workouts (likely).

So I hemmed and hawed.  I knew that I really needed to get a speed workout going on outside and that I need to get to the track.  For the last two years I have been hiding in the comfort of mountain runs.  When not doing that I hide in the comfort of a tempo run.  I have been avoiding the precision of the track for some time.  It stings, I know it and I need to get over that.  It stings just because it does hurt physically, but it also does not lie.  It tells you straight up as to where you really are in terms of pace, distance, etc.

Warm up (27 minutes).  Felt like butt.  Partly because of the thrashing I knew I was going to face, but I really did feel like arse.  I definitely was fighting something over the weekend (based on other physical symptoms we don't need to review on here) and I think I am still recovering from it.  I considered bagging the workout, but decided against it.

2 x 200 with 200 rest.  I do these to get the HR up a bit and ready for the task at hand.  Additionally, these are faster than the subsequent repeats I will do so those then feel a bit easier.  34s.  Grr.  Really?  Was it just a few years ago that 31s were a walk?

800.  2:39.  A good wind was coming out of the NW now.  Not a killer wind, but one that was definitely breaking my form up a bit on the top curve of the track.  Whatever.  I had my excuse.  Ideas of doing 4 by a mile in 5:20 had been left at the start.  Grr.  1 minute rest. 

4 x 400 with 1 minute rest.  76, 76, 75, 75.  None of these were straining but they were not really fluid either.  Just trying to keep getting that turn over back.  No problems with the groin with any of these which was good news.  2 minutes rest after the last.

800.  2:40.  Definitely was beginning to feel it on the second lap.  The sun was setting now and the wind was picking up.  Tried just to shorten the stride up on the top of the curve and increase the turnover.  1 minute rest.

4 x 400.  77, 74, 76, 75.  Got a bit carried away on the second (I should get carried away more often) but was sucking wind on the last two.  Good.  I need to suck wind like this more often.  I realized coming down the home stretch of these that I had not felt this sort of numb "speed" pain feeling like this in a while.  It is different in the mountain runs.  They both hurt but one is a kick to the left nut and the other is a kick to the right.  Or something like that.

2 x 200.  35s.

20 minute warm down. 

Calling it 10 miles over 77 minutes.

... Continuing to plow through the Indulgence DVD, now onto the bonus features.  I checked out the "Where does Anton Run?" featurette.  That was pretty cool ... as there was a grading of runs based on difficulty and remoteness.

I am not sure I could recommend this thing as a movie for people to buy.  Don't get me wrong.  Cool movie ... fun to hear Anton talk his stuff (particularly in the bonus features).   Cool to catch it if you can, but ... I guess I'd recommend borrowing it (thanks JM!) and and ... making your own movie.  Yeah ... I'd love to see your movie.

It seems to me that when we train for 5ks, 10ks, we often train over that distance.  In other words, it is not uncommon for us to do training for those events that includes not only runs that are shorter than those distances (at faster paces) but also runs much longer than that (and slower).  This typically not true with the marathon or longer distances.  It is pretty rare that folks will train with miles over the marathon distance in any one run.  In other words, nearly all the training is done at distances less than the marathon rather than doing say 40 mile runs.  I know there are some that don't adhere to this rule but that is the general approach.  The obvious rationale is the miles at those distances, including the ultra distances, are just too debilitating.  And so that makes sense.

But Anton seems to be breaking that rule a bit, or at least dancing with its edge.  He certainly does not do 100 mile runs as training sessions, but when a guy does 200 miles a week ... he is getting closer to training at his race distance than most marathoners do.  There is, as you catch in the movie (or any article out there about Anton these days) a cost for his investment in this regard.