completed the last run of baseline week Friday early morning, an 11.4
mile run at 8:34 min/mile average. Great distance, great pace. All
in all I’d say I performed real well but also my body was definitely
stressed by the four days of consecutive running at the mileage level.
Add to the mix the Zombie run Saturday. I’d expected it’d be an easy
proposition but it was very brutal. I signed up with SGF and her mom
to be volunteer zombies. She was a stumbler and I was a runner. We
spent the night in Olympia then drove there early for professional
make-up. We were routed to a small wooded area, a stretch of not even
quarter mile trail. That was good since the temperatures reach 100
degrees that day, we stayed cool in the trees’ shadows. The obstacle
we were stationed at was that hill. Si I ended up doing short sprint
bursts up that hill all morning long. It was a lot of fun, but I got
wiped out three times by overzealous runners, one of which hit my left
knee real hard. I also hit my head against the knee of another fellow
zombie and have bruises on my left fore arm the size of my hand …
Definitely a rough day in the neighborhood.
With the beat from the day before I rested Sunday, did Yoga. I hit
the pavement bright and early Monday. I ran doubles Monday, then a
single road run Tuesday. Wednesday I hit the elliptical for a low
impact high intensity leg workout. I was up in the 160’s BPM. Did
the Cross training program SGF showed me, half hour at 70% max
resistance (that’s the highest I had used so far) then increased to
75% resistance. It was pretty intense!
Finally Thursday I did hill repeats. I wanted to run the St Andrews
route but didn’t get to it in the morning so at lunch I headed out to
a hill near work. It was 2 miles warm up run, 4 repeats then 2 miles
back to the gym. The repeats got hard at 3 and 4, then the run back
to the gym I was tired. Total mileage was 9.1, elevation gain 653 ft
so very similar to St Andrews route except the slope wasn’t as bad. I
don’t know that St Andrews would had felt as tough though. I think
the repeats stressed my legs differently. That was my first hill
repeat workout … Although the run like St Andrews train you good for
long strenuous hills; I can feel the repeats develop a different kind
of area, powerful strides and such.
Physically, the last couple of weeks have taken a toll. My calves
were real tight yesterday, stretching helped little. My right glute
is bothering me to the point I was limping yesterday. It felt odd,
like my right leg is longer than my left. I did more Yoga yesterday
night and with some rolling from SGF it feels all much better today.
There is a trail race in the Gulch tomorrow morning, I would love
doing it, but I think some rest is in order. Weight training will
likely do me more good than running the Gulch tomorrow I don’t know
if it’s the high intensity elliptical, the hill repeats, the mileage
or combination that has caused the tightness and soreness. Even if on
single runs or consecutive runs I can muster easily 10-12 miles, when
it comes to back to back to back to back runs I may have overestimated
my safe limit. Not by much. But as evidenced with my leg troubles I
might had been served better starting with 6 miles back to back
instead of 8-11 miles. So …
Quadzilla rule of thumb: For consecutive training days: start train at
60% comfortable distance under race pace. That bench marks my
training at 6 miles per day not including my long run. The elliptical
can be used to reduce impact on at least one of the days, but I guess
the question becomes at what intensity? I still believe my approach
(mixing different terrain and keeping hills in the mix) is good.
Adding the elliptical (or other low impact machine) will lessens the
impact on my body. This approach I hope will train the body to be
responsive to a variety of stresses while dealing with the consecutive
runs. Double runs in a day are fun but since I already four days in a
row one could question the usefulness of it in this context, but what
can I say … it’s fun!
I started putting a specific training plan together. I would consider
the last 2 weeks hard training. Next week is easy week, so I will
apply the 6 miles per day rule for the first easy week then go up in
mileage from there. I am incorporating the last 15-20 weeks of a
50/100 miler training schedule for Quadzilla. 50 miles has the right
long run mileage while 100 miles is probably a better comparison for
weekly mileage. Last in the mist of that is the Air Force marathon on
9/15 which becomes “just another” training run.
Pace wise, the second marathon is a trail run so I will make that one
extra slow, while the first marathon I do not know where it will yet
however I think I will target a finish time of over 4:30. Ideally I
would hit 4:30 or less for Seattle marathon. It’s hard to predict a
good pace. When I do my 13.1 gate and my 20 gate I will get a much
better idea. What’s a “gate” you ask? Well, I figure I would have
milestones in my training where I run the 13.1 miles distance 4 days
in a row, then later the 20 miles distance 4 days in a row. Same idea
as training a marathon but expended to four days. On gate week there
will be no low impact crosstraining … Just hardcore running!
In my next article I will flesh together the schedule. Stay tuned and
happy running everyone!
Looks like you are doing well, and still having a lot of fun running!
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