What hectic day of training! I did my usual routine of driving to the expressway, 2 miles from the high school track where I do my training, parked my car, and jogged to the school as a warmup. It is more time efficient this way than driving all the way to the school. Plus I save gas and eliminate some air pollution.

During the jog I was thinking that it is great that I do this track workout on Thursday, instead of the usual Wednesday, so I'll probably avoid the fat people I wrote about last week. Well, I did. But instead of a nice empty track, I found the high school track team training there. I asked the coach politely if I could train there, but he asked me politely to use the outer lanes. That would be OK, except I can't run 2000 meters in the outer lanes. I contemplated it for a while, but I just saw no way of doing my workout. Also, the younguns were running pretty fast, so the coach was quite right that I would be problematic in the inner lane.

But my car was two miles away. I knew no open tracks nearby at all. I essentially gave up track training for the day, and I jogged back to the car. During which I thought I would just give myself the chance that the university track is open. I had given up on that track a long time ago, because it was almost always closed (locked) when I tried to use it. I even emailed somebody in the athletic department but I got no response. Anyway, I drove back to campus, parked the car in my usual lot, and jogged another half mile to the track.

And it was open. It is a very nice track. I took a sip of water and in 20 seconds, I was off to fast running. I was afraid that any second somebody shows up and sends me off, so I wasted no time. It was worrisome though that I already had almost 5 miles in my legs. I wasn't sure if I can run well after that crazy and long warmup.

Well, I could. 3 x 2000 meters with 800 m recoveries, and the fast splits were 7:22, 7:26, 7:24. It was never really painful (just discomfort). That is quite awesome. I seem to continue the tradition that the last track workout before a big race goes very well. I also recalled that in my sub-20 5K chasing days about 2 years ago, I ran 2 x 2000 meters in something like 7:50 or 7:55, and it was hard. So this is not bad at all. All intervals were at sub-6-minute mile pace.

The race is close. I'm optimistic about 1:25.

I'm not very good at regularly updating this blog. But I did keep up the running quite well.

On Sunday I ran 10 miles of trail up that mountain in Boulder. A great trail run, but with some walking and of course slow pace. 12:34/mile on average, but it went from 5600 ft elevation to 8000 ft and back, all on trails. It wasn't a very easy run.

On Monday I still ran in Boulder (in snowfall!). I got back to the hotel on time to watch the end the Boston marathon, but of course I turned off the TV (internet) well before the bombing.

No running on Tuesday, long run of 14 miles on Wednesday (hilly -- Cherokee Park -- and fast -- 7:28/m), easy Thursday. I didn't actually do a steady second longest run this week (I was supposed to do 10 miles of that).

On Saturday, I ran a tempo. I wussed out and I ran only 4 miles, though the pace was decent: 6:18 average. On one hand, this is probably my fastest tempo to date. On the other hand, how come I couldn't/didn't do 5 miles at least? I was supposed to run a 8-10K tune-up race. OK, no race (kids were my responsibility in the morning), but I could have done a 5 mile tempo. I felt so bad about this, that I ran the last 0.89 mile fast again, at 6:11 pace. So this was a sort of a silly workout. I should be smarter with my training.

I finished last week with 60 miles then. This week, I'm at 30 so far, not counting the slow 2.5 I ran with my daughter at the Girls on the run meeting. I plan to do 3 x 2000 meters in 7:30/interval today. I could do a second longest run of 9 miles on Friday (travel) or Saturday (conference). I must do a long run of 9 miles on Sunday, 7 at good pace on Monday, 6 easy on Tuesday, 5 easy on Wednesday, 4 easy on Thursday, rest on Friday, and race on Saturday.

Wednesday run was in Iroquois High School, the track. This is the second time that some morbidly obese parents watch some sweet little kids, who are running extremely slowly (it actually looks like a parody of running - and this is no joke). Last time I saw them there were only a few adults (one fat woman walking in the inner lane) and the kids seemed to have a structured workout, and they were even somewhat considerate of me. This time, the workout seemed to be over, and the adults just hung around for an hour or so, while the kids were playing around. Everyone was standing, walking, talking in the inner lane with almost zero consideration of me trying to run fast. Amazingly poor track etiquette.

Nevertheless, I had a somewhat decent workout. I got hot and dehydrated at the end, but I managed to run 4 x 1600 meters with acceptable splits: 5:58, 5:56, 6:01, 6:05. The last one was less than satisfactory, and I spent a good portion in the pain cave... I seriously thought about just giving up. But apparently this is still good enough to satisfy some kind of decent Pfitzinger paces.

Then I ran Thursday morning 4 miles only, because I was teaching and I had a plane to catch to Denver. I thought maybe I would finish the workout on the hotel treadmill in Boulder at 10 or 11 o'clock, when I was scheduled to arrive. Well, weather was bad in Atlanta, so we got delayed at the transfer, and only made it to Boulder at 2:00am. So no more running on Thursday.

We hiked with a group in the Rocky Mountain National Park on Friday almost all day. We climbed a 3000 meter mountain. It was fantastic. I thought that would be the exercise of the day, but then, in the afternoon, reading around about Boulder, I couldn't resist, and I went for a run. My first run over 1600 meters of elevation. It is definitely harder than sea level, but I think I already felt partially acclimated, because it wasn't all that hard.

Today (Saturday), we have had a long lunch break at the conference, so I went out to do my planned tempo and to finish the 64-mile week with an 8-miler. I decided to run 2 easy, 4 hard, 2 easy. Because of the elevation and the hilliness, times are essentially meaningless, so I just jumped into my 2-1 breathing pattern, and pushed my pace as far as I could with this pattern. I decided to stay out of the pain cave this time. If I really honestly just want the training effect, it is not necessary to enter there. I finished, and my splits for the fast portion are: 6:57, 7:39 (steep climb), 6:27, 6:07. The average was 6:47.8, which is meaningless, but it still feels good that I did this pace a mile high and with the hills (and no pain cave). I hope it did help my lactate threshold.

Tomorrow I'm not going to RMNP, as I originally intended. I will probably just climb/run one of the beautiful mountains around Boulder.

Tuesday:

Run 1: 6.6 miles, 52:07, old Mizuno.
Run 2: 4 miles, 32:19, old Mizuno.

Monday runs were done in old Asics.

Today I ran 16 miles at 7:28/mile. It looks bad on the statistics to have a zero mile week, then 37.5, then 35.5, but there is little evidence of any loss of fitness or endurance. I'll see how I'm with LT this weekend. To get back on schedule I'll try to squeeze in two quality workouts this week.

Week -3: total of 64 miles.

Sunday: 16 miles (done).

Monday, Tuesday: 2 x 5 miles or 10 miles recovery pace (Seriously!! I'll need it!)

Wednesday: 4 x 1600 meters at 1 sec/lap slower than 8K-10K goal pace. Let's discuss this. Last week I entered 1:25 HM into McMillan to compute my 8K goal pace, and the paces were too easy. If I had entered 1:23, it would have given me 3:41/km pace, or 88.4/lap. If I add 2 seconds, I get the 90 sec/lap that I was trying to get inside of. So it looks like a good method to try again. So this time I'll try to aim for 89.4/lap, or 5:58/ interval. Essentially run all 4 in less than 6 minutes. Probably 800 meter recoveries.

Thursday: Travel, but try to get 9 miles anyway.

Friday: Hike or 5-mile tempo (total of 9-10 miles)

Saturday: if Friday is hike, or Thursday is bust, do 9-10 easy to get to 64.

Sunday: Hike, but try to run 9-10 or more miles in the Rockies. Pace is irrelevant. This should be part of the following week though.

Nice intervals today. Warmup, cooldown 2.2 miles, and 5 x 1200 meters with 600 recoveries. Fast splits were 4:27, 4:25, 4:25, 4:27, 4:27. It seems like I still have it. I was in the pain cave for the last 400 meters of the last split only. That's quite normal.

Pfitzinger only wants me to run these in 4:38, but that seems super slow. Or if I really run them in 4:27, that means 89 second laps, so my 8-10K pace should be 87 seconds, which is 36:15 for 10K. I'm almost positive that I couldn't do that.

As you'all may have expected, I didn't jump back to 70 miles. I did fine for the first half of the week (37 miles in 3 days), but then more work, more URDs, and that was it for the week. 6 days of no running, and started again this Tuesday with only 4 miles (that was all I had time for, but I had to go out, because I started to have withdrawal symptoms - I'm not kidding). Wednesday I finally had an 11 miler. I left my Garmin at home, so I didn't know my pace until the end. It turned out to be 7:10/mile. I didn't mean to run so fast, but I guess I was hungry for exercise. Then 11 easy yesterday, and I'm about to have some intervals today.

My training is out whack, and I'll have two travel weekends ahead before my race, so I'm not sure how the rest will go.

I know this is frequently returning theme of this blog, but seriously: fuck the fucking weather. When on March 25 the peak temperature of the day is 35 F and there is drizzling snow all day with cutting wind (feels like 25 F), I say enough is enough. And I ran twice today.

On March 16 I finished my largest week in my running history with 68 miles. Then the week after that I went to conference, worked really hard, weather sucked, and I got in 0 miles. That is correct. Zero. I'll try to jump back to training this week like nothing happened. This is according Pfitzinger's marathon training guideline: if you skip less than 10 days, you can try to get back where you were.

Week -5: Total of 70 miles.

Long runs: 15 and 12 miles. Take these easier, keeping them just under 8 minutes pace, unless I feel great.

VO2 max: 5 x 1200 meters at 2 sec/lap slower than 8K-10K goal pace. If I assume I only want to run 1:25 HM, then 8K goal pace would be 90.75 sec/lap. That is 4:32/interval, and I haven't even added the 2 sec/lap. Unless I really lost a lot of fitness this week, I should be able to do much better than that.

Non-long-run days should average 10.75 miles/day.

I'm tired of the cold, but chugging along. Today I had a great track workout at Iroquois High School. It was just over 40 degrees, which is very nice considering the freezing yesterday, but we got a few flurries again.

Anyway, I ran 1000s and 1200s with 600 meters recovery. Splits were the following:

1000 - 3:39.94
1200 - 4:23.93
1000 - 3:38.45
1200 - 4:26.52
1000 - 3:38.82

Very nice progress: these are all sub-6 minute paces. I used to run 1000s in 3:55-4:00. I think these times would predict sub-18:30 on 5K. I really have to go out and run one.

Week -7: 68 miles (oh my!)

Long runs: 15 and 11 miles.

VO2 max: Pfitzinger says 5 x 4:00 moderately steep uphill. But I've grown to like track training for VO2 max, especially because my goal race will be pancake flat. So this translates to something like 1000-1200-1000-1200-1000. McMillan lists 1000s at 3:32-3:42, 1200s at 4:18-4:30. I would probably be closer to the slower end. 600 recoveries would work well. Roughly 9 miles with a sizable cooldown.

Easy days: 11 miles each. Try two runs each, may be easier in spring break and warmer temperatures.

Finished the week with a tempo today of 5 miles. It was tough. I tried to run 6:20s, but at mile 2 or so, I had to realize it wasn't going to happen. So I settled to do 6:25s. Splits were 6:23, 6:21, 6:30, 6:30, 6:24, the whole last mile deep in the paincave. Average was 6:25.48, which barely qualifies as tempo according to McMillan, but at least it was 5 miles, and at least it wasn't like 6:30. I do have trouble with my stamina. The good news is that these very training runs are supposed to make it better. The other good news is that almost surely the 60-some mile weeks don't let me fully recover, so I will hopefully get better after some taper.

Addition: After I wrote this post I checked back to see what 5-mile tempo I've run in the past. So the good news is that the fastest before this was at 6:30 pace last fall, and I was very satisfied with it. This was probably a less hilly course though, but at least I didn't get slower.

I have finished my last week with the planned 66 miles. It was hard. It's a lot of running. I had one URD, so I just finished the week on Saturday, and today I'm about to run 16 miles for this week's long run. Tempo was far from perfect, but with this many miles, I'm fairly happy about the week. I'm in a constant state of physical exhaustion. I sleep 10 hours a day and I really need it.


Week -8:

Total: 62 miles.
Long runs: 16 and 11 miles.
LT: 5 mile tempo
Easy runs and tempo average 8.75 miles a day.

I finished last week with 62 miles, which I think is probably a record, though it did take 7 days instead of 6, and I had larger 7 weeks periods before (but with two long runs at the two ends). But the bad news is that I had a bad tempo run on Friday. 4 fast miles with splits 6:16.40, 6:31.69, 6:29.59, 6:26.90. Works out as 6:26.15 average. Yeah, I lost some seconds because bad timing of cars at intersections, but it should not account for the total inability to run another really fast mile after the first one. I mean for God's sake, this should be my half marathon pace by now. And I was done after 4 miles.

I'm not sure what it is, maybe just the miles, maybe the bourbon I've been sipping more than one evening, including the one before this tempo run. But I didn't drink all that much and I felt no hangover. In any case, after this run, I made a new decision: no bourbon until race day. I still had like 3 glasses of wine last night, but I still had a good 15 miler today.

Speaking of which I'm planning another record volume week. I'm not sure how it will go, because last week I had trouble putting in all those miles. In particular I had to squeeze in another 3.1 mile run on Saturday, which was supposed to be my rest day. But I think that actually worked nicely. It wasn't long enough to tire me out, but it shook out my muscles to have a better recovery. I felt no effect of my Friday tempo by my Sunday long run.

Week -9: Total of 66 miles
.
Long runs: 15 miles and 10 miles.

VO2 max: 5 x 3:00 moderately steep uphill. I'm almost positive I'll replace these with 800s, maybe a 1000 thrown in, because the 800s will be slightly less than 3 minutes. I just trust the track more than those hills, and my race will be totally flat.

Average distance for days other than long runs: 10.25 miles. It doesn't matter how get those in, but it would be nice to run two 6-milers on some less busy days.

Week -10:

Total: 62 miles. That is pretty much all time high. I did run 66 miles withing 7 days last year, but it included two long runs, which shouldn't count for the same week, and the second one was a 17-mile run that ended in a death march jogging the last few miles over 9-minute pace.

Long runs: 14 and 10 miles.

LT workout: 10-mile run with long hills or 4-mile tempo run (but 10 miles regardless).

Easy runs: 9.33 miles on average.

I like whiskey. And in particular, I like a good Bourbon. You probably figured that I don't drink a whole lot, so it takes a lot of time to try many different Bourbons, and this hobby of mine only started when we moved to Kentucky. Bourbon is very cheap here, so I bought a bottle. The first one was Jim Beam - a whiskey I knew before, and didn't particularly like, but it was like $12 for 0.75 liters. And it was fine. But I saw all those much higher priced bottles on the shelf in the store and they made me wonder how they taste...

My favorites are the whiskeys produced by the Buffalo Trace distillery in Frankfort. I ran their 5K, too. The flagship BT is fantastic, George T. Stagg is even better.

Today I bought a bottle of Old Forester Signature. This one is produced by Brown-Foreman. The first sip was not very good, but now I'm at the 3rd glass (and it's 50% alcohol), and I have to say I really do like it. Now the only question is, how will work and my 9-mile run go tomorrow.

Bad thing in good thing is that my mileage sucks. Only 30 miles this week so far, in four days, including my long run. Since I'm working toward 58 miles, it should be like one 10-miler and two 9-mile days. Doable. I'll see if I can run tomorrow morning. If yes, I might do 4+6 or 5+5 or 5+6. So I can run less on Saturday. Because I'll have to jump into next week with no rest. I took the rest yesterday.

Yesterday I had a bad day. Working all day like a dog, and I didn't even have any time to run. I was dog tired in the evening, even though it turned out to be an unscheduled rest day (bad thing). I'll have to run on Sunday to make up for that.

Then turn around today, I had a killer workout. I went to the high school track to run 5 x 800 meters. After 2.2 miles of warmup, here are my splits: 2:56.69, 2:53.94, 2:54.03, 2:53.08, 2:51.82. Except for the first one, all are in the McMillan range finally for an 1:25 HM. I could also put the first one there, if I really wanted to, but I wanted to play it safe. It wasn't even all that hard. I could have done at least one more.

Several weeks from now, I'll have a track workout that is supposed to be 5 x 1200 m at 2 sec/lap slower than 8K-10K goal pace. If my HM goal is 1:25, the corresponding 8K goal pace is 3:47/km. That is 3:01.6 split at 800 m. Of course it would be one extra lap after that, but it doesn't seem all that hard. For an 1:23 HM, 8K goal pace is 3:41.5, and the 800 splits are 2:57.2. Even that seems possible now.

Log: Monday, 8 miles, 1:03:11. 47 F, sunny. Mizuno.