As this is week 3 of this month long training period, it is the "hard" week and I allocated 29% of the month hours to it (week 1: 23%, Week 2: 26%, week 4: 22%). After crunching the numbers, this meant that my OD allocation was 139 minutes for the week. I have noticed that I get more benefit from long OD runs than breaking up the allocation over several running sessions. As it is a good idea to do one really long run each month, I decided that yesterday was the day to run for the full 139 minutes.
I knew it was going to be cold, and, indeed, when I checked, the temp was 15 degrees when I left the house. I bundled myself up in all my new Patagonia gear (sidenote: I am very grateful for 6TM's Pro Player discount. Awesome gear. Somewhat affordable with the discount. Yesterday I wore the Axuwool top, the cool weather top, mid-weight socks, and the R1 tights). As soon as I stepped outside it was COLD. I spent the first 5-6 minutes of the run well above my heart rate target (132-143bpm) in an effort to warm up. I was pretty concerned about being able to keep warm for 2 hours while running so slow.
By about 11 minutes, I was warm and my heart was at 141 bpm. Pretty nice. I cruised along like this for a while, and then at about an hour, my iPod battery ran out( I set the thing on shuffle songs. Weird little section at one point: "By the Time I get to Arizona" followed by "The Sound Of Music" followed by "You're Cheating Heart"). I reached the Charles River at the Needham/Dover line at 1 hour 7 minutes, and I turned around. I spent the next 15 minutes battling the cold. My hands got quite cold, but in order to keep my heart rate down, I had to pretty much shuffle along. I started to get concerned about frostbite, and wondered if I had picked the wrong day to challenge my endurance limits and battle the weather.
I decided to do some OD sprints to warm up. This is basically about a 30 second sprint every 15 to 20 minutes. Just a chance to move your legs fast, but in my case, very helpful to get my temp back up.
Pretty soon I passed some landmarks close to home and I felt confident I would make it. By 2 hours, my joints were very tired and I was barely running. I made it home in 2 hours 21 minutes. I burned 1700 calories and I believe I ran about 11 miles.
Thursday, December 15, 2005
2 Hour Tour
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4 comments:
I have pretty much lost my mind with the Patagonia gear. I stocked up for the next 5 years.
I felt like things were falling apart when the iPod went out. I imagined hitchhiking home. I tried to change it into a mental toughness exercise.
GC,
I met you last January at Coaching Certs in MA. You seem to have a pretty good knowledge of training systems so I was wondering what you would suggest for a 21 yr old going into his final season of college ulti and 2nd season of Top 50 Open club. Specifically, I remember your thoughts on plyos and balance excercises, but rather, how do you maximize the use of your heart rate monitor? I just got one and obviously understand the premise but I figured you might insight into ultimate specific workout stuff.
Handy,
The monitor is a great tool.
First, I would break up your training year into two phases. The first phase is the college season. I would plan on a peak around Regionals. You might want to recover in June, and then plan on peaking around the 1st of Oct for the club season.
For the spring, I would suggest focusing your cardio time on Intervals until approximately mid-March. I would suggest trail/track intervals as well as hill-type intervals. Plan on 2 sessions INT/week plus 1 easy long run.
I suggest you begin with Interval sessions that last 45-60 minutes, and your long run shouild be 60-90 minutes. You can probably stop your long runs by the beginning of March.
For your interval sessions, I would start with 4'30" intervals with a 2'30" rest. Try over the course of the next several months, to increase the length of the work component and decrease the rest times.
For your INT heart range, it is:
Lower limit=Heart Rate Reserve((Est Max Heart rate(EMHR)-220-your age=199)-(MRHR-I guess as 60bpm)=139bpm)x.81+(Measured resting heart rate(MRHR)-I guess 60bpm)= 173bpm
Upper limit=HRRx.9+MRHR= 185bpm
So, your INT work should be between 173-185bpm. 185 is an approximation of your Anerobic Threshold.
As you get into mid to late March, you sghould start adding speed work (440's, 220's, 100's, etc).
Make sure you give yourself at least one day off per week.
-G
Thanks!
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