Sunday, July 31, 2011

Marathon Training (week 4)

One month of solid training has proven to been very successful so far. A couple of milestones occurred this week, which I feel proud of. First off, I finished up my summer school classes for grad school and only have my thesis and student-teaching to finish up by December. This summer encompassed 2 huge classes that I never thought would end, but thank God it's over... for now. I guess it was slightly easy to focus these past few weeks, as Laura is in Europe on vacation, which gives me sometime to sit in front of a computer and get shit done, as well as nap, since this weeks mileage tied my highest week ever.

So, after starting the week off with some easy miles, I only had 2 major workouts for the week. 6x1 mile repeats on Wedesnday and a long run with 2x2 miles at tempo pace on Sunday. I've been playing around with caffeine before major workouts and instead of focusing all my research attention towards my thesis, I decided to find some articles that supported caffeine consumption before endurance activity. As everyone knows, caffeine is a psychoactive ergogenic stimulant that helps with endurance athletes. My question was how much is beneficial, and how much is too much for what can be considered a dependent stimulant? Since I don't consume much caffeine on a daily, or weekly bases, I figured I might as well start! As of a few weeks ago, I started double brewing black tea for my pre-workout caffeine consumption; and in long runs, I'd use GU with caffeine, as I have in the past. The black tea only produces about 40mg of caffeine per brew, so it totals about 80mg of caffeine. The GU has about 35mg of caffeine in it. So what the heck does this mean...? Well, the scholarly study that I found (2007 Sports Medicine Australia) basically made it clear that with "well trained" athletes in the 5km would have a 1% improvement with the use of 5mg of caffeine per kg of body weight 60 minutes prior to their time trial. Well, that doesn't quite help me if I want to do well in a workout that may last 4 times that time frame, or in a race. With my weight I may have to consume around 300mg of caffeine before any type of "hard" workout or race. But, regardless of the caffeine intake, there's staggering amounts of evidence that show with any amount of caffeine consumption provides benefits, as caffeine is a psychoactive drug that acts as a blockade to the central nervous system receptors and effects perceived levels of fatigue. So, basically, it's helping when I use it during and before workouts.

So, with all that, the mile repeats on the river where great. A bunch of us met at Nature Center at 6am, did a little warm-up and started the workout. I was able to hit them in (4:59, 4:53, 4:53, 4:53, 4:55, 4:51) with 4-5 minutes jog rest in between. The next workout was actually a sushi eating "contest" Saturday night before the long run... 5 of us: Mark, Chris P., Pat, Dana and myself went to this sweet all you can eat sushi place and just pigged out while tallying how many pieces we ate. The final tally over the 3 hours and to the best of my recollection: Chris P. - 50 pieces, Pat - 50, Mark - 45, Me - 38, Dana - 32. Then of course Sunday came around and we had a 20 miler with the 2x2 miles at tempo pace/effort. A nice and easy 5 mile warm-up was followed by the first segment in 10:30, then 2 minutes easy jogging and a 10:25 for the final 2 mile portion, followed by the remainder of a little more than 10 miles. All and all, it was a nice week of 130 miles.

Mon - am. 10 easy
Tue - am. 12 easy / pm. 8 easy
Wed - am. 6x1 miles (4:59, 4:53, 4:53, 4:53, 4:55, 4:51) total: 12 / pm. 8 easy
Thur - am. 10 easy / pm. 10 easy
Fri - am. 10 easy / pm. 10 easy
Sat - am. 11 med/easy / pm. 9 easy
Sun - am. 20 w/ 2x2 miles at tempo w/2min recovery (10:30, 10:25)

Total: 130

Tuesday, July 26, 2011

Marathon Training (Week 3)

Another week for the books. This was a down week and felt really nice to recovery all throughout the week. I got a good 60 hours of sleep this week, and still managed to get some work done towards my Master's Thesis. This week only had one real workout on the track, and an "easy" long run on sunday. All and all, it was a good week and now I'm already into full swing towards another "up" week.

Mon - off day
Tue - am. 10 easy / pm. 8 easy
Wed - am. 12 easy / pm. 4 easy
Thur - am. 10x1000m (3:09, 3:07, 3:06, 3:07, 3:03, 3:05, 3:02, 3:00, 2:59, 2:54) total 14 / pm. 4 easy
Fri - am. 12 easy / pm. 4 easy
Sat - am. 9 med / pm. 6 easy
Sun - am. 21 med/easy

Total: 104

Sunday, July 17, 2011

Marathon Training (Week 2)

Well... another good week under my belt. This week topped out at 122 miles for the week for the 2nd week of this 18 week cycle (that's a lot of "week" words in there). It seems to be going very well with my trusty Daniel's Running Formula at my side, along with the support of our Dukes Track Club runners! This week, aside from miles, were two major workouts: 10x800 meters with 400m jog recovery on Thursday, and a Long Run with 5x1 miles at Tempo pace/effort; since we're at altitude, on sunday.

The 800's went well as we averaged 2:23.8 starting at 2:30 and coming down to 2:15 for the last one. Then friday came, and a couple of us decided to head up to Taos for a nice midday run through the busy tourist ski town. It was hot, and none of the trials were open as Chris Peverada and I ran on some side roads. Unfortunately, this side road took us straight towards the Taos Pueblo. Once we got to the entrance of their Pueblo with a Native Taos Pueblo Indian directing traffic and collecting money for parking, we decided to turn around and head out. But, we were quickly stopped, as we are not allowed to: walk, run, or ride bikes on the Taos Pueblo land. We had to wait 40 minutes for public transportation to take us off their "land". Once that ordeal was over, we finished our run around town and called it a day with only 8 miles in. I was livid! So, sunday finally came along and a decent group of us did our long run tempo workout. 20 miles total with a 4 mile warm-up before the fun began. Four of us worked together for about 3 1/2 of the 5 miles. The first one was hit in 5:29, then 5:23, 5:17, 5:17 and 5:08 for the last one. This was all done on the Bosque Bike Path by the river, so it was flat and nice. Once we finished our tempo, we ran 1/4 mile to make the total distance of 10 miles from where we started. We had a nice 10 mile cool down back to end the week.

All in all, it's another great week, with a recovery week coming starting on monday.

Mon- easy 10
Tue- am. easy 10/ pm. easy 8 w/4xstrides
Wed- am. easy 12/ pm. easy 6
Thur- am. 10x800m total: 11 / pm. easy 8
Fri- am. easy 8 / pm. easy 10
Sat- am med/easy 11 / pm. easy 8
Sun- am 2o miles w/5x1 miles @ tempo w/1min rec.

Total: 122

Wednesday, July 13, 2011

Marathon Training 18 weeks till NYC (week 1)

So, last week was a great week of training with some good workouts in it. I had to reassess my mileage plan since our new roommate Chris Peverada moved in with an all time high mileage count of 229 miles for a week. So, I had originally planned my peak mileage to be 120 miles with my first week of marathon training at 95 miles... That changed in mid week. I had one track session of 16x400m on thursday and a long run with 4x2 miles at tempo pace/effort. I increased my easy runs and got to 118 miles last week for my first week of marathon specific training.

It felt pretty good as I was only going to hit that mileage 3 times during my previous marathon plan. This plan is going to be great with a few half marathons leading up to NYC marathon! I'm hoping to hit the OT marathon qualifier in either a half or in the full this coming fall. We shall see how it pans out as I'll try to post weekly reflections on my training. As of now, its going well, and I already feel strong. Looking to run very fast this coming fall, thanks to Jack Daniels the PhD. guy, not the drink. His training has influenced me, and my 18 week build up for New York City is based on his running formula.