2024 The Waltons: Racing & Training Thread (Read 153 times)

Mark - Good luck in the half.  I’m always surprised at how short a turnaround most on the board have between races.  For the last two years, I’ve done well having my fall racing schedule consist of a rustbuster 5K, a goal 5K four weeks later, and a goal half six or seven weeks after that.  Gives me time to recover from the 5Ks and get some good training in before the next races.  Because of travel this spring, I may have a 5K in early May two weeks before a half and am undecided whether to have a rustbuster 5K two weeks before the early May one.  

Enjoyed watching the US marathon Olympic Trials, even if the surprise women’s winner looked dangerously thin to me.  Darkwave, sorry your teammate couldn’t run because of injury; she seems to have really improved in the last couple of years..  

Sun - 8 miles very slow TM (96:25PM) + 0:40 walk breaks/6 mins

Mon - 8.6 miles in park PM @ 8:21

Tues - 80 minutes pool running

Weds - 10.1 miles in park midday @ ~8:35 

Thurs - 7.5 miles very slow TM (90:25PM) + 0:40 walk breaks/6 mins

Fri - 6.8 miles in park PM incl. strides, 0.25 @ 6:24

Sat - 90 minutes pool running

Total - 41 miles

YTD - 41.1 mpw

mmerkle - heh I drove through Matakana on the way to Omaha HM back in Dec. It is like an hour from my place.  The Maurten gels are an odd texture but you get used to them.  I've actually kind of reverted back to GU now, at least for summer races, since a lot of them have added sodium also.  Good luck for the 10k.

James - ideally I'd race maybe every 2-3 months, but I signed up for the HM series which has races in Oct and Dec (the spacing on those is fine), but then also Feb, Mar, Apr which is much closer than I'd like for HM races.  Most of the appeal of the series was also doing the kids races with my daughter.  It just means you have to be sensible about which races you target as you can't empty the tank at all of them.  I have about a minute to try and make up on the guy leading the series, so I'll need to figure out where the best place to try and do that is.

Piwi - I always find 2km repeats a fun distance, nice job.

James - I'm a big fan of Molly, was gutted she couldn't run.  It's a brutal selection process, I kind of think the bronze medal winner from the last Olympics should get some leeway to get herself ready for later in the year rather than have to peak twice in a year.  But the team looks very strong so it may just be the best athletes made it either way.

piwi - Definitely bite the bullet.  I'm also intrigued about which race you may be lining up.

me - A slow build into the week.  I didn't recover from the big run last Saturday in terms of soreness until Friday and energy until about Wednesday.  We removed the strides from Tuesday and changed Wednesday from a lactate threshold session to an easy day.  Saturday was the first cool day for a while and I really enjoyed it.  My progression run was great fun, with my HR staying mid range for the zone 3 block, and only started touching the top of the zone 4 range in the last couple of minutes of that block.  If the weather had been hot I would have had to really roll back the pace to manage that, and even then, my HR can go off piste in the hot conditions regardless.

Weekly for period: From: 29/01/2024 To 04/02/2024

<caption>Weekly Grid</caption>

Totals: Time: 10:13:42 - 🦅Imperial: 64.83 mi - Metric: 104.31 km

Hash I'm definitely a bit of a fan boy. Embarrassing for my wife 

Merkle awesome longrun you did there.

I'm doing easy day hard day all week where the easy is really slow and the hard days are not too fast.

I did over reach this weekend with the 2km intervals been too fast on Saturday followed by my first longrun for a while on Sunday. Back to crawling jog today 

I'm still managing my weeks with surfing and kayakfishing so it is tricky to have time for everything.

Eyeing up a 10k in May. I've only 5 weeks of ok training so far.

Steve that cooler weather made such a difference. Back to hot again now.

Looking at the We run the night event at the Mount in May. 10k at this stage. It's dead flat.

 

Enjoyed watching the US marathon Olympic Trials, even if the surprise women’s winner looked dangerously thin to me.  Darkwave, sorry your teammate couldn’t run because of injury; she seems to have really improved in the last couple of years..  

Yeah - it was a tough week.  I think we all know how it feels to train for a goal race and then not be able to start it.  It's pretty rough.  Now make that goal race the Olympic trials and add the fact that you have a realistic shot of making the team, and....it sucks.

I should clarify - Susanna is technically not my teammate anymore, because she swapped coaches about 2 years ago.  But we're still in regular touch and sometimes pool-run together.  So she's my pool-running teammate

I'm sad to say, I don't see the winner of that race making it to the Olympics.  I hope I'm wrong on that.  But if I was the fourth place finisher, I'd definitely get fit and ready to go to Paris if the opportunity arose.

[will try to catch up on more shout-outs later]

***

56 miles and 3 hours of pool-running

M: 90 minutes pool-running and streaming yoga
T: 10 miles, including a track workout of 2000, 1200, 2x800, 2x400 in 9:21, 5:20, 3:28, 3:27, 1:40, 1:42 (recoveries of 5:38 after the 2000, 3:0x-3:3x after the 1200 and 800s, and 91 between the 400s), followed with leg strengthwork.
W: Upperbody strength/core and 10 miles very easy home (9:26) followed by drills and 2 strides
Th: 90 minutes pool-running in morning, streaming pilates in evening.
F: 10.5 miles, including a track workout of 2x3200 in 14:26 (7:15/7:11) and 14:13 (7:11/7:02) with 4:40 recovery between, and then 2x400 in 1:41 and 1:40 (full recovery). Followed with leg strengthwork.
Sa: 10 miles very easy on towpath (9:23) and streaming yoga.
Su: 15.5 miles progressive, split as the first 5 miles averaging 9:27 pace, the next 6 miles averaging 8:48 pace, and then the next 4 miles averaging 7:49 pace, plus a half-mile cooldown. Followed with leg strengthwork. Foam rolling at night.

Trying to get back into it. I'm out of shape, which has an obvious solution. I'm also having to re-learn how to run faster than easy pace, which is not surprising. Basically one aspect of the Parkinsons that is really annoying is that you lose motor automaticity. Which is a fancy way of saying that my running is not something I can just do without thinking too much about it - I have to think through each phase of my running stride. Think of it as the difference between an automatic car with cruise control and an older car with stick shift.

This also means that when I don't do something for a bit, I have to re-teach myself how to do it. And faster running is a slightly different skill from slower running, so that's what I'm trying to relearn right now. (Doing strides helps some, but is not sufficient on its own, since I don't hold a stride for that long).

But....it shouldn't take as long to relearn skills as it does to initially learn them, so hopefully things will improve quickly. Judging from the difference between last week's tempo intervals and this week's, they are already.

 

 

Trying to get back into it. I'm out of shape, which has an obvious solution. I'm also having to re-learn how to run faster than easy pace, which is not surprising. Basically one aspect of the Parkinsons that is really annoying is that you lose motor automaticity. Which is a fancy way of saying that my running is not something I can just do without thinking too much about it - I have to think through each phase of my running stride. Think of it as the difference between an automatic car with cruise control and an older car with stick shift.

 

 

I had to smile a bit at this because after 40 years of driving a stick, where I rarely thing about it, I now have an automatic and still find myself reaching for the stick with my right hand and searching for the clutch with my left foot, especially when changing direction (for some reason).

On your point, though, thanks for shedding some light on the impact the Parkinsons has on your running.

My week:

Monday-Thursday-nada

Friday am 3 miles pm strength training (dropped weights by almost half)

Saturday 3.6 miles

Sunday 3.3 miles

Each run sucked a little less than the previous one. I was really sore after Friday's run, that's gone down a bit each day. Now dealing with replaconig the windows in the house. Over there weekened we moved everything away from the windows. Now the new windows are in & need time for the caulk to dry. We've been cleaning the areasa that had stuff on them that is too bulky to move on a regular basis (for example, the dumbbell rack with sets of 5-40 lb dumbbells). So much dust. Hoping we can figure out a way to cover the windows in the bedroom tonight or I'm going to be a really unhappy camper.