Training log - Week ending 9/3/17

This week was 50 miles of running, 38 "miles" of pool-running and 2000 yards of swimming -- training log is here.

And that's week 5 of the hard 6.  Only two hard workouts this week: the 25x400m on the track, and the 4-3-2-1 on Saturday.  I was very happy with how both went.

The 25x400 was a dig-deep type morning, but it's supposed to be - that workout is intended to be a mental test.  The 4-3-2-1 felt good - controlled and not terribly challenging.   Well...the last mile at 10K-pace-instead-of-a-bit-faster-than-marathon-pace was arguably not quite as "controlled" but it didn't feel like a massive effort.  More of an "oops."  And my coach was fine with us hitting that pace for the last mile, so no harm no foul, I guess.

As my hard runs got faster, my easy runs got even slower.  I rode the brakes hard on those days to balance out the workouts and ensure I didn't dig into a hole.

***

I do a lot of thinking on my easy runs, and two of the things I was thinking about this week were a) how my workouts felt, both during and after, and b) why I like running my easy runs relatively slow compared to my workouts and races.

If you want to get analytical (and that's the fun of this blog), you can assign three metrics to any run or workout:

-how challenging it was to execute at the time,
-how much it took out of you in the days after, and
-how much of a stimulus it gave to your fitness.

There's a real tendency among runners to view the three as perfectly correlated.  I.e. if a workout felt really hard while you were doing it, or if you were trashed for days after, then it must have done great things for your fitness.

[incidentally, I think that assumption is what underlies the success of stuff like SolidCore and some of the worse Cross-Fit studios.  Due to how the workouts are structured, people leave the studios or boxes feeling really sore, and assume that because they are sore, their workout was effective.]

In my experience, the three qualities (how challenging it felt at the time, how tired/sore you were after, and how much you gained from it) are only loosely correlated.

For example, the 25x400 workout is a fairly tough workout to execute at the time - there's always a point where it's tempting to drop out.  Not so with a 21 mile progressive long run - unless I'm struggling with my training generally, the long runs usually seem easy at the time.  But I feel the 21 mile run much more in the days after - I bounce back fairly quickly from the 25x400.

Thus, how hard the workout felt while you did it may not match how much it takes out of you after.   And similarly, the workout that leaves you curled on a ball on the track may not have benefited you any more than one run a few seconds slower per lap. Sometimes (like the 25x400), you need to go to the well.  Other times (like the 4-3-2-1), if you dig deep you're just accruing more fatigue without a corresponding benefit.  Wasteful and inefficient.

Likewise, for easy runs, there's an assumption that the more tired one is from a run, the more one benefited from it.  I disagree.  At least for myself, I feel that I get a nearly identical training stimulus from 10 miles at 8:00 pace versus 9:30 pace.  But the 9:30 pace run requires much less recovery.   Thus the slower easy run is a better value - same training stress (or maybe greater, since I'm out there longer), at a lower physical cost.

[note here: I don't believe all people are equal.  There may be some who get a significant enough benefit from a faster easy run to outweigh the physical cost.  My hunch is that this depends on physiology and age.]

And that's one of the tricks of training - realizing that those three metrics can all differ, and that we need to be striving to maximize our fitness, rather than simply chasing exhaustion.


Dailies 

Monday: In the morning, foam-rolling, yoga, and 8.5 "miles" pool-running; 3 "miles" pool-running  at night.

Tuesday: 10.5 miles very easy (9:13) plus drills and strides, and then upper body weights and core.  2 "miles" pool-running and foam rolling at night.

Wednesday: 13.5 miles, including a workout of 25x400m - first 24 repeats averaged 1:32, with 100m recoveries averaging 32 seconds; last repeat in 85.  Ran the "10K" (less the recoveries) in 38:21.  Followed with injury prevention work and 1250 yards of recovery swimming.  Foam rolling at night.
(since people geek about the 25x400, here's the Garmin report and the Stryd report.)

Thursday: In the morning, foam-rolling, yoga, and 8 "miles" pool-running.  4 "miles" pool-running and foam rolling at night

Friday: 10 miles very easy (9:21), followed by upper body weights and core.  2 "miles" pool-running and foam rolling at night.

Saturday: 17 miles, including a workout of 4, 3, 2, and 1 miles at marathon pace, with ~1 mile easy in between (we took a bit longer after the 4 mile segment for a quick restroom break). Splits were:
4 Mile: 27:27 (6:53/6:49/6:52/6:53 - average pace 6:52)
3 Mile: 20:28 (6:48/6:51/6:49 - average pace 6:49)
2 Mile: 13:35 (6:50/6:45 - average pace 6:48)
Mile: 6:19
Followed with injury prevention work and 750 yards of recovery swimming. Foam rolling in afternoon.

Sunday:  8 "miles" pool-running and foam rolling mid-day.