Thursday, August 21, 2008

Thursday 4 miles (2:50)

This morning I rode support for Jeff on his long run and ended up with 2:20 on my single speed. My legs were a little tired afterward. My gearing on the Inbred is 44X18 so hills can be stingy... and Jeff ran a very hilly route averaging 6:45 pace for 20 miles at a HR of 142. Solid! I was kind of glad I was on my bike instead of running with him.
After the ride I took a 3:30 nap and woke up feeling like complete crap. Totally drained of energy. I had planned on getting ~14 miles of running today and was dreading the time.. For half of Jeff's run I lectured about getting proper rest when you're doing key hard sessions- otherwise the key hard sessions can actually set you back. As I'm sitting staring at my log book and trying to figure out just how little I can run and still get solid mileage for the week.. I had to laugh at myself. I'm admittedly my own worst coach and my wife is always asking me, in my frequent moments of doubt, "What would you tell your athlete?" And even though Jeff isn't my athlete.. my words to him rang true today. But just today. I rarely get run down like this and I think it's my new schedule structure*. The next 3 years I consider to be 'base' for my goals in 2012 of qualifying as a masters runner for the Olympic trials and running 2:15 for the marathon.. so everything up till then will be focused on getting my body hardened to the training that I will have to do to reach my goal.
*My new schedule structure looks like this:


Hopefully clicking on the picture will enlarge it. This will be the 'basic week' for me. The main point of the structure is the back to back hard days on Tuesday and Wednesday. I have a definitive lag in fatigue of ~48 hours. Meaning that after Tuesday's hard run I won't feel fatigued until Thursday and should feel good on Wednesday. The long run on Saturday is placed with this in mind for the following Tuesday. The hill reps on Sunday are optional as is the Friday AeT test. I am at a point in my fitness where my volume is not really fatiguing my legs (the intensity is), so I will push the volume on all the days in between. I still have a lot of faith in high mileage, but only if I can absorb it. I'm starting to see the shift gradually and am confident that 140 mile weeks will be doable next year. I am itching to throw in a couple in the next month or two and will probably do so.
I am planning on running the Boulder Backroads Marathon in September as a hard training day and also to experiment with my taper a bit, ie: not reducing my mileage. I really think that Brad Hudson's taper ideas may be relevant to me. My goal at BB will be to start relaxed and easy for the first 6 miles (7:00 pace), then race pace (5:30) for 17 miles, then shut it down.

5 comments:

Brett said...

Lucho, I cannot wait to follow you along. Thanks for letting us mortal athletes in on it.

GZ said...

Wow. That is a monster program and I can't wait to watch and hopefully tag along for some of the (easy) miles.

Obviously, some of this will switch up a tad as you approach races (like LV) but I am curious if you will drop out doing the AeT work or harder sessions for a period of time in the year (over the next 3) to just MAF base build or if the structure will remain this way (nearly) year round.

Thanks again. And way to live it man.

Lucho said...

Brett- I'm just a regular Joe with determination..

GZ- Only ~30 weeks per year will be focused on AeT work. The rest will be 20 beats below LT. I think the MAF has benefit in a transition phase after a marathon and at the very beginning of training. My MAF HR is low enough to be recovery when my LT is trained (LT -178). It's all confusing.. I think the 20 beats below LT is proper for a pure runner with good base fitness.

Matt said...

Jeff is a monster.

Your program is going to be must see blobbing!

Dave said...

Lucho, I'm really excited for you man. You're really an inspiration and I thank you for letting us in. It's cool to see that you're considering this as "base" training for 2012. It's amazing how the body adapts to the cumlative training over years...I've got a long way to go! Good Luck man!