Friday, August 29, 2008

Friday recovery day. 6 miles.

am) Very light jogging for 6 miles total. Max HR today was 132.
Lis and BJ met at the track- Lis ran short and at a recovery effort and BJ rocked for 5 X 1 mile at sub- threshold (-2-8 beats) HR. His first mile was 5:45.. interesting to note that BJ's PR in the mile before today was 6:00! He said the 5:45 felt comfortable! He then went on to finish the workout with his slowest mile at 6:20. Rest between each mile was just 1:00- short to insure that lactate levels stayed elevated. BJ ran by HR today so we saw deflection (slowing) in pace. If he had run by pace only then his HR would have climbed (cardiac drift). This is not what I wanted- the goal today was to have him accumulate lactate and improve his ability to buffer it so he needed to only run within 2-8 beats of LT. This also will insure that he doesn't waste himself for his other workouts. As an Ironman athlete he has a high workload so 'racing' a workout would only limit his consistency in over-all training. Nice work BJ!

2 comments:

Brett said...

Hi Tim, from a person who may be a customer some day if you ever get enough bandwidth, and if I ever can get focused to follow directions. :)

I have a totally random way out in left field question.

I have tentative approval from my wife to participate in a 24 hour ultra the end of September.

I have done a few 5 hour training runs early last spring, a 5 hour 50k race, and just did the Pikes Peak Marathon in a little over 6 hours...but thats the extent to my endurance length (I did a 225 mile 20 hour charity bike ride a year ago).

I'm thinking I can't go out and run/walk a test 8-10 hour session this close to the event (Sep 27th)...so should I do some 2 or 3 a day short workouts just to get the body used to constant movement? Should I try to do a 6-8 hour session but walk?

For strategy in the race, I'm thinking about running for about an hour (its a totally flat 1.5 mile packed clay trail around a lake) and then alternating jogging and walking laps for as long as I can. Fueling like a horse while I walk to try and let it digest and recover at the same time.

Do you have any thoughts, ideas, suggestions for what to do in the next month and how to approach it race day?

Lucho said...

Brett- Wow... not a whole lot of time. I coach an ultra guy training for a 100 mile race so I do have a little experience with one of you 'crazy' guys. ;) Crazy is a compliment in the world of endurance sports.
You have to really look at what will be the most beneficial way to spend your training time in order to reach your goal. If you are not prone to injuries- then doing an 8 hour workout is not inappropriate 4 weeks out. In fact- I think you really need to do one in order to get a sense of what is going to work for you on race day in regards to nutrition, shoes, paces, etc.. A typical week would be very light in over-all volume with the exception of the big day. Then you need to rest as much as possible after wards with active recovery- do not just stop training. Active recovery is far better then couch recovery. Walking would be fine for this.
I would say to do a very long 8+ hour session asap... then do a shorter one next week of ~5:00. It's all about the long run- so focus on that.
The other approach would be to do 2-3 days in a row of very long sessions of 4-5 hours each day. Either approach would be sufficient. You should walk/ run as much as you plan to in the race. Mimic race nutrition protocol as much as you can.
Ice bath after each one.
These would be good starting points in getting a feel for how the 24 hour event will go.
Sort of a generic response.. sorry.
T