Sometimes, things just fall into place. This training block went incredibly well despite a week-long vacation in California and a missed day in the first week. It’s important to roll with the punches and adapt your training to everything life throws at you.
I went to the Adidas Grand Prix track meet in New York on June 12th and saw some amazing performances. Watching elites run incredible times is inspirational and will motivate you to get in better shape. If you have the opportunity to go to a pro track meet, don’t hesitate. Do it. It’s also incredibly affordable – for a 4 hour event, my ticket was $20. That’s about what you would pay for two movies.
I went to a wedding in San Jose on June 26th and then I traveled to San Francisco and Napa. Of course, I was planning to run every day but I skipped my run the day after the wedding. I’m not about to make the same mistake twice!
I’ve been going to a lot of weddings recently; they take a lot out of you – the dress shoes, dancing, and booze (I could be more responsible, but your friends only get married once). After all, there’s more to life than running (gasp!).
Here we go…
6.7 – 6.13: 63 miles in 7 runs with a short 42′ bike ride. This Saturday I went to the Adidas Grand Prix meet in New York. My bus ride home the next day took over 8 hours and I wasn’t able to run when I got back. The overall volume is low because of that but that’s ok – my other runs were high-quality.
The one workout I did consisted of a 22:49 tempo along 3 loops of a trail in Rock Creek Park. I felt good, but not great.
6.14 – 6.20: 74 miles in 8 runs with ~80′ slow bike ride. Finally, consistency! I did the same workout as last week in 22:25 – over 20 seconds faster. The heat was bad for the workout, but somehow I ran well. I love it when that happens.
6.21 – 6.27: 71 miles in 7 runs. I was in CA for half of the week and took a day off on Sunday, but I still got in my 2 hour long run. I did a short workout of 2 x 5min. @ tempo pace on trails before leaving for vacation. It was too hot to do a longer tempo.
6.28 – 7.4: 73 miles in 8 runs. Despite taking two easy days of 5 and 6 miles, I still got in the miles and increased my long run to 18 miles. The long run went incredibly well and somehow I was running incredibly fast. I ran on the track for a few miles during the run, splitting a 13:01 two-mile and a 6:37 mile for the 8th and 9th miles and the 15th mile.
I also did a short tempo workout, running 4x800m @ threshold in 2:38, 2:38, 2:37, 2:36. I’ve never run a tempo workout at this pace before on the track so this is incredibly promising. I once did workouts at 2:40 – 2:42 800m pace in mid-2006 and this was before some big PR’s. So I’m excited.
I’m running an 8k road race on July 17th so I’m excited to see what I can do. My PR at this distance is 26:19 from 2005 from a cross-country course. If the next two weeks go well, my goal is to break 26 minutes.
Lessons learned from this training block include:
- Adaptability – there are other things in life that sometimes make running impossible. Adapt, change up your plan, and live to run another day.
- Don’t underestimate heat. If you’re not ready to handle the heat, don’t push it. I cut a key workout because of the high heat here in Washington, DC because it’s better than pushing your body to the limit.
- Consistency is king. Even though my overall volume isn’t spectacular for me, nor have I run any great workouts, I’m still in great shape. I credit my consistent weekly volume of 65+ miles.
I’m looking forward to another few weeks of great, consistent training. I plan on doing some faster workouts after the 8k to prepare for a 10 mile race on August 14th. I’m just going to run the 8k on the fitness I already have. It’s been too hard (and hot) for cycling in addition to what I’m running. I don’t think I’m ready for that yet.
How’s your training going? Who’s gearing up for a big race soon? Can I help?
