Training log - Week ending 5/25/2025

This week was 45 miles of running and 24 "miles" of pool-running.

I got some good volume in this week.  It was a bit biased towards pool-running, which I don't have a problem with as that's a safe way to increase volume.  And I averaged over 11 miles in distance on each day I did run.  Doing 4-5 days a week of higher mileage days combined with pool-running days worked really well for me a few years ago.  The only reason I strayed was that more days of land running means more opportunity to work on dynamic balance and gait.  But I think that the benefits of pool-running every 2nd or 3rd day (and thus being able to tolerate more volume on land) outweigh that consideration. With a caveat that my first mile or two of a run the day after a pool run is always very stiff and tough.

Tuesday's track workout went fairly well, after a stiff start.  Friday's workout was not so great. I had picked up a pair of Nike Vaporfly 4s the week before after jogging around in them in the store.  They had felt good in the store - they lacked the excessive bounce and "throw you forward" of other shoes, which I viewed as a plus.

However, once I tried to run fast in them, it was a different story - I felt completely unstable in them and very off balance.  I gave the tempo a full 12 laps to see if things improved - they did, but only marginally.   So...back to the drawing board in the shoe quest.

Dailies:

Monday: 8 "miles" of pool-running in the morning.  Foam rolling in the evening.

Tuesday: 10 miles with a track workout of 6x800, 400 in 3:56, 3:55, 3:51, 3:44, 3:42, 3:35, and 1:46 (recoveries of 2:1x to 2:4x after each, except for 3:26 recovery after the 5th 800, due to track traffic), followed by leg strengthwork.  Foam rolling at night.

Wednesday: 10 miles very easy on a muddy towpath (10:25) and streaming yoga.

Thursday:  8 "miles" of pool-running in the morning.  Streaming pilates and foam rolling in afternoon.

Friday: 10.5 miles, including a 4800 tempo in 24:30 (8:25, 8:09, 7:56), followed by some upperbody strengthwork and core. Foam rolling in the evening.

Saturday: 14.5 miles very easy (9:51) plus leg strenghwork. Sadly, skipped foam rolling due to lack of time..

Sunday: 8 "miles" of pool-running in the morning.  Foam rolling in the evening.

Training log - Week ending 5/18/2025

This week was 54 miles of running and 8 "miles" of pool-running.

I ran my first team interval workout in about a month on Tuesday. It went OK.  I was very stiff and my paces were significantly slower than before my post-marathon break (not terribly surprising). I'm sure some of it was a lack of fitness, and some was the rainy and windy weather. 

I wore the New Balance Pvlse for Tuesday's workout, and it felt awkward. I had planned to race Sunday's 3000 and the 1500 in the Pvlse, but Tuesday left me doubting that strategy.

I happened to have an old (from 2018-19-ish) pair of Reebok Floatride Runfast Pros (yes that is the full name) that never found a new home on eBay, and they were/are also legal on the track.  So I gave them a try on Friday and was pleasantly surprised by how much better they felt after a quick adjustment period. (The Reeboks are very thin soled - they feel like slightly stiff socks in comparison to current racing shoes. It's literally a bit jarring until you acclimate.) 

So, figuring that I had nothing to lose except the health of my plantar fascia, I used them for Sunday's races (race report coming).  And was pleasantly surprised with my performances.  This has me thinking that I should consider running more in minimalist shoes, to the extent I can find any. When I'm in thin-soled flexible shoes, I can feel the ground. That sensation makes me much more confident of where my body is in space, and so I'm able to push off more forcefully from the ground.

[It's worth noting here that I spent many years pre-supershoe doing all of my easy runs in Nike Frees - and could go up to 16 miles in the Free with no discomfort.  I probably could have gone longer, but never tried.  So I think I can handle plenty of miles in minimal shoes again, as long as I transition carefully.]

The other change I made for Sunday's race was running more miles than I normally do the day before a race of any distance.  I didn't feel like the extra miles took anything from me at all; if anything, my gait felt smoother for it.  So that's another thing to consider for future pre-race prep.

Dailies:

Monday: 8 miles very easy (9:50) and streaming yoga. Foam rolling in the evening.

Tuesday: 8 miles with a track workout of 1600, 4x800 in 8:12, 4:00, 3:54, 3:51, 3:51 (recoveries of about 2 minutes after each), followed by leg strengthwork.  Foam rolling at night.

Wednesday: 9 miles very easy on trails (10:58) and streaming yoga.

Thursday:  8 "miles" of pool-running in the morning.  Streaming pilates and foam rolling in afternoon.

Friday: 8 miles, including a 1600 uptempo in 7:34, followed by some upperbody strengthwork and core. Foam rolling in the evening.

Saturday: 7 miles very easy (10:03). Foam rolling in afternoon.

Sunday: 6 miles, including a 3000 in 13:39 and a 1500 in 7:04.

Training log - Week ending 5/11/2025

This week was 48 miles of running and 15 "miles" of pool-running.

Yet another belated entry (if I don't get it done by Sunday night/Monday morning, it's very hard to get it done during the week).

I did two workouts this week - Iwo Jima hills on Tuesday to work on my running gait and power (the traditional workout is 500m up a 2-3% incline, 90 second jog, 200m downhill strides, and 60 second jog to the bottom), and a tempo intervals workout on Friday to get used to running on the track again.

I tried the New Balance Pvlse on Friday's workout.  It felt better than track spikes, but that's a very low bar.  The shoe is very stiff and doesn't really have any bounce to it - it feels like running with a bit of Styrofoam on my foot - functional, but not terribly comfortable. The plus to it is that it does feel like it encourages me to run with better form (overstriding feels awful in it).  So, it's potentially useful as a training tool.

I was slower than I had expected on Friday, but I couldn't be sure how much was the shoe feeling off versus lack of fitness versus rainy/windy weather. (I also wore socks that were too thin, so that my feet were slipping around in the shoe - that certainly didn't help). But, as with many early season workouts, I benefitted just from getting out there regardless of how fast my splits were.

I followed up Friday's workout with an easy long run on Saturday. Doing the back to back runs was less about targeting a specific training benefit and more about the fact that I was carless for the weekend, and so would not be able to make the team Sunday long run. So I used Saturday's run to finish up in DC, where I could run some errands and then Metro home.

Dailies:

Monday: 6 miles very easy (9:49) and upperbody weights/core. Foam rolling in the evening.

Tuesday: 10 miles with 6 Iwo Jima Hills, followed by leg strengthwork.  Foam rolling at night.

Wednesday: 9 miles very easy on trails (11:03) and leg strengthwork.

Thursday:  6 "miles" of pool-running in the morning.  Streaming pilates and foam rolling in afternoon.

Friday: 9 miles, including a track workout of 3200, 1600 in 16:04 (8:07/7:57) and 7:55. Foam rolling in the evening.

Saturday: 14 miles very easy (9:35) with two hill sprints, followed by leg strengthwork. Foam rolling in afternoon.

Sunday: 9 "miles" pool-running plus upperbody weights/core and foam rolling.

Training log - week ending 5/4/2025

This week was 28 miles of running and 24 "miles" of pool-running.

It looks like my mileage dropped from last week, but that's only because the marathon was on Monday, which added to last week's total. 

This week was about ramping up my mileage and re-introducing some faster running with hills and short track intervals on Sunday.  When I don't run for a few days, I have to relearn the mechanics of how to run.  And when I don't run fast for a few days, I have to relearn how to run fast.

It's a lot easier for me to run fast on an incline than on flat ground - it's a combination of hill running requiring less hip extension/stride length and my balance feeling more stable going uphill. So mixing hills and track running was a good way to practice running faster where it's easier for me before trying to carry that over to the track.

I also spent this week adjusting to different shoes.  This is because I hope to run in at least two para-athlete track races this summer (the Hartford Nationals in July plus a track meet in May to get the required qualifying times.) For those meets I'm required to wear shoes with a stack height of 20 mm or less (this is changed from last year's limit of 24 mm). 

It's hard for me to shift between high stack supershoes and low stack shoes - I suspect this is because I'm always estimating where the ground is under my feet, and the stack of the shoe I'm running in affects the distance between my feet and the ground. When I run in high stack shoes, I make an educated guess that has to be recalculated for low stack shoes (and vice versa).

For this reason I've started working on that shift now - doing all my runs in older low stack shoes like the Adios 5 and the original Adidas SL to get used to no bounce and more ground feel. Unfortunately though those shoes are _lower_ in stack height, they're still not low enough to be legal - 20mm or less is a very thin-soled shoe

I've been looking for a track racing shoe that is legal, but does not have spikes. There are very few non-spike shoes that satisfy the 20mm requirement, but I've managed to locate a pair of the New Balance Pvlse, which is track legal. Hopefully I'll get a chance to test them this upcoming week.

One other thing I've been playing with is PNF stretching.  One of my issues is muscles that want to contract and stay tight even when I try to relax them.  Botox injections are a traditional treatment for this, but I don't want to get them for a few reasons - a) they're unpredictable and not a long term fix; b) I don't have one or two muscles that need relaxing, but all of them; and c) I'm concerned that deliberately weakening muscles will set me up for injury during very hard workouts or races.

PNF stretching (also known as contract and relax stretching) supposedly can temporarily pause the excessive neurological signals that make muscles tight for no good reasons. So I've been experimenting with it before some runs, to see which muscles I need to focus on most and also when to time the stretch before the run.  

So far, it seems like the best muscles to stretch are my quads, all the muscles of the lower legs, and the intrinsic muscles on the underside of my feet.  Those are the muscles that like to contract and make it hard to bend my knees or ankles. I'm going to spend some more effort here in coming weeks to see if I can refine my pre-run stretching routine down to something that works but is efficient (and ideally can also be done in a starting corral pre-race).

Dailies:

Monday: 7.5 "miles" of pool-running + foam rolling.

Tuesday: 8 miles very easy (10:44) plus drills and two strides and upperbody weights/core.  Foam rolling at night.

Wednesday: 6 miles very easy on trails (11:03) and leg strengthwork.

Thursday:  7.5 "miles" of pool-running and upperbody weights/core + foam rolling.

Friday: 5 miles very easy (10:02) + streaming yoga and foam rolling.

Saturday: 9 miles, including 6 x 30 second hills (cycling twice through easy/moderate/hard), 4x400 in 2:02, 2:00, 1:59, and 1:56 with 90 second recovery, another 6x30 second hills, and 4x100 in 25-26 seconds. Followed with streaming pilates and foam rolling in afternoon.

Sunday: 9 "miles" pool-running plus core and foam rolling.