Monday, September 15, 2008

Monday 17 miles.

am) 8 miles with Bob fairly easy. Not slow though. My legs felt great and my energy was high. By midday my calves felt a little tight.

pm) 9 miles with Bob. Legs still feel great. My calves loosened up nicely in the first few miles.
I'm amazed at how much easier it is to run with someone and have that commitment out there. Only occasionally do I get to run with people. Having Bob just down the road running more than I am (although he doesn't keep a log or count miles) is a huge help to me in the one area that I am the weakest- my head.

7 comments:

beth said...

i NEED a Bob!!! except one with a job who wants to run at 4:45am or 5pm....
too bad fatdad doesn't live down the street :)

looks like you had a good day

GZ said...

Bob ... WHO?!

Anonymous said...

Tim,

can you drop me an email on wim@3coach.be ? I have some questions for you.

Thanks
Wim

Anonymous said...

Hey Lucho,

Can you explain to me why there are no physiological improvements within 4 weeks of a key race? Often I hear "I won't get any fitter before Kona..." I would have thought every workout counts, and adds up.

Lucho said...

Matt- The work load for Ironman athletes is huge and so is the fatigue after a long season of trying to qualify for Kona and then train for Kona. In order to truly peak you can't be fatigued or recovering from a big block of training. In the past, the process of simply unloading my fatigue and getting myself feeling okay often took 2 weeks. Then you need ~2 weeks to sharpen and try to peak. Physiologically speaking- the rule of thumb for making a gain from a hard session is 10 days. But this is misleading because there are 9 other days of workouts that can potentially delay recovery. It's less that you CAN'T get fitter in the last 4 weeks and more that you shouldn't attempt to. Going in to a race as brutally difficult as Kona takes full recovery and even an error on the 'less fit' side is better than having even a small amount of fatigue.
Every athlete is different too. Some top guys rest 1 week before they start their 4 week taper. Taper implies peaking.. rest and tapering are completely different.

FatDad said...

Dude,
I'm starting to draw connections between 'Bob' and your love of 'Fight Club'....

Lucho said...

fatdad- that's hilarious! If BJ and Lis (two of my athletes)hadn't met him I would be nervous! Have you seen "The Machinist" with Christian Bale? It's a sort of twisted Fight Club-esque movie. One of my favorites too.