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that fartlek is not easy ... great work dude. i've never completed one of those properly - I get too greedy and fall apart. also awesome how PR's can sneak in there.

that's a serious session!#!@$

Jake & the Kenyans I follow do variations and that specific one, ALOT.

Yeah, I'm happy I got through it! Was pretty tough from reps 4-10 or so, but then I settled into a rhythm and it became a lot of fun. The blog I read about it on said that the really top guys can get down to ~5k pace or a bit faster for the hard sections, and I'm obviously far from that level of fitness, so I'm pretty happy that I managed to average roughly my estimated 10k pace during the hard parts of the reps(that Jack Daniels' calculator says a 19:13 5k = 39:51 10k, i.e. 6:25 pace). I only had one lap where I apparently really pushed it and averaged 5:45 pace, and that was right near the start. Finding that right pace/effort relatively early on was good.

If I were doing this session in prep for a 5k I think I'd keep the "off" sections a bit slower and then hit the "on" portions harder, but since I'm doing this in the run-up for a half keeping that "on" pace in this range seems fine, as long as it's a fair bit faster than target half pace, and trying to progress the "off" portion to being more like 7:40-8:00 pace seems like it would be the most appropriate way to progress. That requires learning to relax at a decent clip and also the focus to just float down into that pace instead of hitting the breaks too hard -- good mental training for racing I reckon.

08-04-18

Notes

Back from travel, was good. Exhausted, gonna sleep great tonight.

Plan this week is "Kenyan standard fartlek" tomorrow, so ~25 x (1 min hard / 1 min medium) and either a longer tempo or another alternation workout later in the week. Probably also a 10+ miler at the weekend, likely easy since I'm planning these two harder workouts. Aiming for 35+ miles this week.

06-04-18

Workout

Run -- 5.27mi in 44:59 [~8:30 pace]

Notes

Calves wrecked. Quick run in the morning here. Tomorrow rest again.

04-04-18

Workout

Run -- 10.73mi in 1:19:58 [7:27 pace]

Notes

There's that moderate effort long run. Still felt tired and sore and under-recovered going into this. Not that much of a surprise given that this was my fifth consecutive day of running. Had never done more than three before this streak.

Certain that I could hold this pace for a half-marathon in my current condition -- my level of effort wasn't climbing that much towards the end. Very encouraging that I, while super fatigued, could probably hit a sub 1:40 half. 6-7 more weeks of training + a good taper and I think that <1:30 may well be in reach.

Taking some good rest for a couple of days, now.

03-04-18

Workout

Run -- 5.84mi in 49:45 [8:31 pace]

Notes

Felt decent, still not 100%. Calves in particular are wrecked. In a reverse of usual fortunes I think it's because they're adapting to the runs done with shoes that are not 0 drop, haha.

Little painless twinge behind right knee from like mile 4.5 to 5. Just felt a bit tight, but it went away.

Looked at wear pattern on bottom of shoes since I've got ~200mi in the Altras as of today. Left shoe has a very small amount of wear at the outside of the heel and some wear at the toe off point on the three smallest toes. Right shoe has quite a lot of wear on the outside heel and less wear at the toe off points.

ya that sounds like it might be better. easy/dead, easy, long.

Ja, feeling better today so hopefully feeling pretty solid tomorrow. Beginning to feel the urge to give another solid effort.

01-04-18

Workout

Run -- 4.78mi in 39:34 [8:17 pace]

Avg HR - 149

Notes

A few strides + ~6 second sprints up steep hill thrown in, but otherwise kept it easy. Legs as sore as they have been from running today, so I'm very happy to have been able to knock out this pace with ease today. Fitness is coming along in leaps and bounds.

May need to frontload my miles this week since I've got a very unpredictable schedule including travel from Thur->Sun and I'm not sure how much running I'll be able to do, though should be able to squeeze some stuff in.

Plan is easy tomorrow and Wednesday with a long run on Tuesday. Gonna try to keep pace on the long run to ~7:35-45 range. Working a wider variety of paces seems like it can only be a good thing, and especially working a little harder on long runs seems like something that would be especially good for the half.

31-03-18

Workout

Run --

Warmup - 1.2mi @ 8:30 + 5 strides of 50m

Workout - 8 x (400 @ ~1:37 + 400 @ ~1:47) [so this was 4mi in 27:03, because I didn't get the paces quite right every time, for an average pace of 6:45/mile]

Cooldown - 2.15mi @ 9:30

Notes

So I did a half marathon specific workout I found on that blog I posted about recently: http://nateruns.blogspot.com/2015/01/workout-wednesday-400400-alternations.html

The blog post said to aim for 6-8 miles for half marathon, but I guess I will build to that over the coming weeks. I am still pretty new to running these sorts of paces, before this I'd only done 8 miles total a <7:00 pace, and not that many more at <7:20.

The idea is to alternative 400s such that the average pace is your target half marathon pace (so here it was 6:45, for a 1:28:30 half marathon). The fast 400s should be 20s/mile faster than target pace, and the slow "rest" 400s at 20s/mile slower. The "rest" pace isn't exactly slow for me, since that works out to like ~7:00-7:05 pace.

I really liked this workout! That's 4 miles of hard running, half of which was at ~6:20ish pace. I got better at finding the rhythm/pace without having to check my watch at 200m with time, though if you look at Strava you can see I blitzed the first 400 in 1:24, lol. But yeah, hitting 16 laps in basically 27 flat without going totally balls to the wall is pretty great.

Also, I picked up a cheap pair of Kinvara 8s since they're a pretty old shoe by now. Quite liked them! Feel super light, though I guess they're not really that much lighter than my Escalantes. They're a much firmer/more responsive ride, which is nice to have as a contrast. Bit better lateral stability, which makes them better suited for track work. Anyway, glad to have a second pair of shoes in the rotation (excl. my racers).

Actually went into this workout still feeling a little sore. It was also raining and the track was soaking wet, so all things considered I feel good about the result of this workout.

Big thing to improve at with this session pacing wise: I would slow down too hard when transitioning from the fast 400 to the rest 400, and then not pick it up until like 200m into the rep. More even "rest" reps would probably help me actually recover a bit more during then and help me extend the workout.

Easy run tomorrow to get over 30mi!

30-03-18

Notes

Feel trashed today, oof, despite 9 hours of decent sleep. Hip musculature in particular is sore, given the JJ stuff + sprints for first time in ages, though it's kinda nice, haha. Not surprised but golly it has hit me. Will see how i feel tomorrow -- may pysh the workout to Sunday. Pretty hyped to do it  though, so may just go for it tomorrow.

Think I would be smart to take today as a full rest day (though I'll be on my feet in the kitchen most of the day) so nixing the calisthenics.

Chag sameach/have a good Good Friday y'all.