Monday, September 8, 2008

Monday 16 miles.

am) 8 miles in 50:28. 6:18 pace with an average HR of 153. This shows me that I still have some residual fatigue. I used my PE also and was able to compare HR to PE.. it was spot on as always.

pm) 8 miles- easier run tonight. I did do a little Uli-esque training.. as I don't completely disagree with Uli. Read the comments from the last couple of posts for context. Hudson talks about using both PE and HR.. which has been my point all along. Tonight I didn't wear my HR monitor but also never pushed faster than 6:00 mile pace. I surged for as long as I felt like up to what I think is Hudson's "moderate" effort? Moderate effort covers a range of about 1:00 in pace- so the idea is vague. I ended up getting in to a progression fartlek structure where I would ease way up at the start of each half mile then push to ~6:00 pace by the end, then ease up and repeat. Uli- part of what I do agree with you on is that eventually I would like to get to the point where I am able to train by feel and have it be effective. The HR monitor helps me to gauge my PE and to keep track of my progression in fitness. I also think that from a teaching/ learning standpoint in regards to this blog- it makes for more information that may be useful to runners.
I had Beth run a tough long run yesterday and she was able to send me the Garmin download from the workout. By seeing her run in the form of data points with HR vs. pace I will be able to better guide her to her goal. After 10 years of using a HR monitor I see patterns and useful information in terms of fitness and fatigue. Enough on that though! I enjoy your commentary.. we rarely learn anything from people that think the same as us.

Feeling great this morning! I took a 3 hour nap yesterday and then slept all night for the first time since I can recall. 11 total hours of sleep yesterday. I finished reading Brad Hudson's book last night and will be implementing some of his ideas in to my training program. The book focuses mostly on the self coached runner- and although he doesn't reinvent the running wheel, as he puts it- he does remind me of the more simpler concepts that I have surpassed in my own schedules. With coaching I am often reminded of how often the basics are over looked. Several years back an Ironman athlete of mine was racing his first Ironman and I had forgotten to tell him to put a warm shirt in his run special needs bag. He DNF'd at mile 20 of the run with hypothermia. Now a days I try to cover all of the bases and have athletes do the simplest of things in preparation for a race. Before Ironman Florida a couple of years ago I intentionally flatted one of my athletes tires in order to force her to change her tire- which she had never done. She finished 2nd over-all (professional) in the womens race, and although she didn't flat, I was confident that if she did flat- she would have still gotten 2nd. Changing a tire is the most basic of skills, and like recovery, hydration, listening to our bodies- sometimes we need to be reminded that they really are the most important aspects of our training. Hudson's book is my new 'bible' as it expands on the thoughts of my previous Yoda- Renato Canova (that rhymed).

10 comments:

GZ said...

Your flatting of the tire story reminded me of this ...

... a long time ago I used to work on really big aircraft for a really big government operation. These aircraft would actually refuel in the air via a stick that was about the width of a baseball bat. It still is the most amazing mechanical thing I have ever seen. Two gigantic aircraft passing gas between this stick at 450mph at 30K feet.

I was sitting in the aircraft getting refueled once. There was a pilot and an instructor pilot. They were practicing fueling, connecting disconnecting, etc. After several of these runs, the IP (instructor pilot) asks the pilot how he was feeling. "How'd that feel?" "Felt good. No problem." This was said with confidence.

The IP promptly reached over to the engine controls for the number 7/8 engines and TURNED THEM OFF. This effectively turned our 8 engine bird into a six engine bird. Bells, whistles, alarms, all kinds of shit starts to go haywire and the bird begins to pitch a bit. IP says ..."GOOD. REFUEL NOW." The pilot had to rebalance the bird with the six engines and get us back up to that little stick with the gas. All to emulate conditions on how to refuel when shit goes wrong.

Benji D was supposedly the master of this for races. He'd try to think of EVERYTHING that could go wrong in a marathon and then mentally scheme how to overcome it and then GO PRACTICE IT.

Good stuff.

Live it.

Dave said...

Basics are the foundation of training and racing skyskrapers! It's amazing how much we "forget" in training as we move along. I haven't been in the game nearly as long as you or many of your other readers, but I see so often in triathlon, running, and athletics in general, that everyone wants that magic bullet...the one or two workouts that will put them over the top. They search for them, find some they like, and then wind up strining them together like Christmas lights. In all my athletic experience I've found that because we're all such competitors we look for the things that will give us the best advantages (in most cases legal, but unfortunately in others, illegal). I think that sometimes we just need to smack ourselves on the forehead and remember that the basics are what make us competitors...otherwise they wouldn't be called BASICS!!!

jameson said...

sleep is good... I think I got 10 hours yesterday/last night!

Beth and I are reading Hudson's book too... I am really liking it. do you think the "adaptive" approach to training can be applied to triathlon and not just single sport training?

Lucho said...

J- Absolutely. The foundation of the adaptive methodology would fit any sport. It's nothing new at all! There is an old saying that says, "if you can lift a calf every day, when you become an adult you can lift a cow. But don’t ever stop." This saying can be traced back to the legendary wrestler Milo of Croton, who introduced the “calf” workout in the 6th century B.C.!
The adaptive system is based on this same concept. With the bike- a simple plan of workout progression would be this: If your goal is to ride 1 hour at 300 watts then over the course of 5-6 weeks you would do these workouts:
4 X 5:00 at 350 watts.
4 X 10:00 at 330 watts.
3 X 20:00 at 315 watts.
2 X 30:00 at 310 watts.
1 hour at 300 watts..
Or something along those lines. The idea is nothing new! Hudson's principles simply move the athlete towards more specific endurance as the race nears. This is the main argument against doing high intensity intervals that are not specific to the race in the weeks before the race. Hudson's progression runs are the most interesting ideas in the whole book. Fairly unique in the world of marathon racing. I think Wanjiru was doing a similar plan before the Olympics.

J.P. Patrick said...

I pulled a great Lance ad off your blog a while ago.... AP report an hour ago...Lance is back, Tour de France '09!

Lucho said...

JP- Ward sent me that article.. I wonder if it's true?

dude said...

"Uli-esque" *chuckle*

As long as you take your HRM reading "as is" and do not let it dictate your running, I would even agree with you. ;)

I do not see where readers would be able to relate with your HR though. Readers however will profit from your blog when you talk about the structure of your workouts, how you deal with fatigue, racing, doubles, weather, low days, how you bounce back etc.
Glad you write about all that. This is what keeps me coming back.

Btw, as German I count my "milage" in kilometers. So much easier to reach that dreadful "100". ;)

Good to hear you are back to normal so quickly.

cheers
uli

Brett said...

Re: Lance, I bet (guessing) that he's going to ride stuff not to win the GC, but pick off stages and help someone else win it all...just my guess at this point.

Lucho said...

Uli- By using a percentage of LT HR I can get an idea as to how hard an athlete is working. I don't believe it is that different than using a percentage of race pace. Yes- the HR monitor does show numbers that do not reflect effort, but that is the hearts response to an outside stimulus ie: HR is depressed and the effort is high but the pace is slow it is likely glycogen depletion. HR isn't as unreliable once you get a long term profile of how an athlete responds to training.
Interesting point on the "hydration is over rated" once you put it in to context. Although I am a huge stickler for hydration- I do know that the Kenyans practice intentional water restriction. Alan Culpepper has trained a lot with a lot of Kenyans and he says they have a weird ability to not need water. They drink black tea all day- sometimes that's ALL they drink. I am guessing that by restricting water intake your body may have a small adaptation and will limit water loss? That's a pure guess. The body is quite brilliant at surviving and will adapt to almost any stress. Part of the reason that I sit in a dry sauna so much is that research indicates that it may force your body to limit electrolyte loss. I see your point, and although I think that proper hydration is incredibly important to performance and recovery, I can see where you're going with that.
The metric system does make much more sense. Some people say that the "100 mile week" is arbitrary... and I agree! For an elite athlete- 200 kilometers makes much more sense.
Thanks!
T

dude said...

"By using a percentage of LT HR I can get an idea as to how hard an athlete is working."

The LT is the problem as I do not believe there is a threshold. This is clearly shown if you put athletes from sea level to altitude. They will collapse long before reaching the lactate levels from sea level. Have I mentionned Matt Fitzgerald's book before? ;)


"The metric system does make much more sense. Some people say that the "100 mile week" is arbitrary... and I agree! For an elite athlete- 200 kilometers makes much more sense."

I liiiike. :)
(Luckily I am too soft and slow to be elite.)