Posts Tagged ‘hill training’

Getting the Groove Back

24, Jul 2009

I’ve had some pretty positive workouts over the last week, starting with Sunday’s long run and moving along to Wednesday’s tempo run and yesterday’s speedwork. I’ve also been doing a fair share of cycling and strength training in between which I’m sure has helped. And I’m back on a regular eating schedule: breakfast, lunch and dinner based on the groceries at home.

Is it possible I’m working my way out of a rut? Just in time for the nyc half!

Wednesday’s treadmill tempo run was pretty solid. After warming up a little, I cranked out 3.5 miles at about a 7:05 pace… then finished off with 2 miles at 6:33! It’s been a while since I’ve banged out back to back 6 and a half minute miles, especially after already running 4+ miles. I probably would have gone a little further but I walked away from the treadmill for a few minutes, then came back and all the machines were full.

Then last night, I was running short on time, so I decided to try to fit in as much quality work as possible in a short amount of time. After warming up (I ALWAYS warm up now) I cranked the mph up to 10.8, which is a 5:33 pace. I wanted to see if I could hold it for a full mile and ended up being pretty impressed with myself. I did some treadmill hill work, then a half mile at 5:50 pace, then biked for 15 min.

One of the things I’ve read (I think it’s from Jack Daniels) is that once you break certain barriers in running (ie, marathon completion, 5:30 mile, etc) its always way easier to get yourself back to that level than it was to originally train to that point. Thank god. I would hate to have to repeat all the crazy training I did in the first half of this year just to get back to my new baseline!

J

Hill Strategy

3, May 2009

I almost did Thursday’s lunchtime run on the treadmill out of habit, but on the way to the gym I realized how nice the weather was and opted for the Central Park loop instead. I work about 6 blocks from the southeast entrance to the park, which gave me just enough time to do a warm-up walk/jog on the way there.

It was mostly sunny, but kind of on the cool side, allowing me to run 6 miles at a 6:33 pace and barely break a sweat. Aside from the occasional gusts of wind, it was an awesome day for running outdoors, plus getting outside for a tempo run in the middle of a workday rocks.

And with the Healthy Kidney 10k coming up in a few weeks, it was also the perfect time to train for the hills of Central Park. I actually ran in the opposite direction of the race but probably hit the biggest hill at around the same point in time. The hill in question is the one positioned in the north west corner of the loop and it’s no joke. Here’s a great video courtesy of Active.com explaining how to attack hills…

My overall strategy on the uphills lately has been…

Friday Hill Work

24, Apr 2009

Did some quick hill work at lunch time today, starting off with a slow first mile at a 2% incline and progressing to a 6:30 pace at a 4% grade by the 3rd mile. Finished off with 1000M at 6:00 pace and then the treadmill mysteriously shut down. Not sure why it did, but I think it was the ghost of Prefontaine telling me not to over do it.

I’m feeling the early onset of some shin splints so I’ll do my best to avoid running on both Saturday and Sunday. Wouldn’t mind getting in a few hours of outdoor biking on one of those days.

Then on Monday there’s my fitness assessment, where I finally get my VO2 reading. After the assessment I’d like to head over to the East 6th track for 12 x 400M speed work.

J

WSJ Article on Boston Marathon

21, Apr 2009

Here’s a Boston Marathon article appearing in yesterday’s Wall Street Journal that’s causing controversy in the marathon community. As a marathoner training to run Boston, I have to say I’m a little insulted. I did a quick search on www.Athlinks.com and uncovered that the author Matthew Futterman has run the NY Marathon twice, once in 1996 and 1997. He posted a respectable 3:34:59 in the ‘96 race and slowed to a 4:05:18 in ‘97. Maybe he’s just jealous that he never BQ’d…

Boston Marathon Is a Downhill Battle

By MATTHEW FUTTERMAN

It may be the world’s most famous and historic endurance race, but there’s a little-known secret about the Boston Marathon that everyone who has braved Heartbreak Hill might not want to hear: It’s downhill. Not only that, since the 26.2 mile race scheduled for Monday travels largely in one direction, runners occasionally enjoy the sort of tailwind that can make the course feel like one of those moving walkways at the airport.

In fact, the slope (how much the race drops in elevation from start to finish) and the separation (the distance, as the crow flies, between the start line and the finish line) are so severe that runners can’t set official world or U.S. records during it. The Road Running Technical Council has determined that Boston drops 3.2 meters for every kilometer and has a 91% separation between its start and finish. This means the course goes nearly in one direction as it makes its way from Hopkinton, elevation 125 meters, to sea level in downtown Boston…

[Count chart]

Read More Here: http://tinyurl.com/NYCin310

Here are the rebuttals in the comments section. I would speak my piece on wsj.com as well, but you have to registser to leave a comment and I’m lazy…

5K vs 10K Race Strategy – Healthy Kidney 10K

8, Apr 2009

I registered for the Healthy Kidney 10k online last night. A 10k in central park isn’t the ideal place for me to PR, but Lauren is already signed up and the timing is right. The race is on Saturday, May 16th and you can register here: http://www.nyrr.org/races/2009/kidney/raceinfo.asp

A mid-May 10k gives me about one full month to train, plus a week to taper. It took a few weeks to get back to training after the Bay to Bay 5k, but now I’m finally in a good place to pull off my 10k goal time of under 39 minutes. My biggest concern with central park racing is hills. I currently do 2/3rds of my training on a treadmill, so I need to start introducing elevation into all of my runs immediately.

I’m also trying to understand the difference in racing strategy between 5k’s and 10k’s…

Lactate Threshold Workouts

3, Apr 2009

Today I set out to do some interval training. Normally, for me that means doing 3 or 4 mile splits on the treadmill at about a 5:40 pace, with 3 or 4 minutes walking in between. One of the things I’ve come to realize about my interval routine is that mile splits are probably too far of a distance to be training at the lactate threshold. According to Wikipedia, “muscles trained under anaerobic conditions (ie, lactate threshold) develop differently, leading to greater performance in short duration, high intensity activities, which last up to about 2 minutes.” So from now on, I think I’m going to switch over to half mile splits, which are closer to the 2 minute mark, in order to more properly train my anaerobic system.

But back to today, where I ran my first mile in about 5:40. It felt good, steady breathing and no muscle soreness. Except I had a nagging popping sensation on the back side of my right knee. I knew better than to keep pushing it, lest I wind up with a new injury to gripe about. So I switched over to some hill training, at a slightly slower pace. In his book The Daniels Formula, Jack outlines a chart that demonstrates the impact of hills on a speed workout. Basically, as you raise the incline on a treadmill, the pace equivalent that you are running at gets progressively faster, compared to what it would be on a flat surface. Here’s the chart…

Treadmill Grades to Produce Specific Mile-Pace Efforts
Mile Effort 6.0 6.5 7.0 7.5 8.0 8.5 9.0 9.5 10.0 10.5 11.0 11.5 12.0
9:19 2.9 1.9 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
9:15 4.8 3.5 2.5 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
7:24 6.6 5.2 4.0 3.0 2.2 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
6:44 8.4 6.8 5.5 4.4 3.5 2.6 - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
6:11 10.2 8.5 7.0 5.8 4.7 3.8 3.0 2.3 - - - - - - - - - -
5:43 12.1 10.1 8.5 7.2 6.0 5.0 4.1 3.3 2.6 2.0 - - - - - -
5:19 13.9 11.8 10.0 8.5 7.3 6.2 5.2 4.3 3.6 2.9 2.3 - - - -
4:59 15.7 13.4 11.5 9.9 8.5 7.3 6.3 5.4 4.6 3.8 3.2 2.6 2.0
4:42 17.5 15.1 13.0 11.3 9.8 8.5 7.4 6.4 5.5 4.7 4.0 3.4 2.8
4:27 19.4 16.8 14.5 12.7 11.1 9.7 8.5 7.4 6.5 5.6 4.9 4.2 3.6
4:13 21.2 18.4 16.0 14.1 12.4 10.9 9.6 8.5 7.5 6.6 5.7 5.0 4.3
4:01 23.0 20.0 17.5 15.4 13.6 12.1 10.7 9.5 8.5 7.5 6.6 5.8 5.1
3:51 24.8 21.7 19.0 16.8 14.9 13.2 11.8 10.5 9.4 8.4 7.5 6.6 5.9

Chase Corporate Challenge

25, Mar 2009

I signed up today for the Chase Corporate Challenge. Pretty exciting stuff since my employer didn’t participate last year.

The Corporate Challenge is a 3.5 mile race in Central Park and our team is running on June 10th. Given that I recently ran an 18:04 5k (w/ 5:49 splits), I assumed that I would be at the head of the pack when confronted with a bunch of corporate joggers. Boy was I wrong.

I forgot that the New York business community skews very Type A, and therefore highly competitive. Here are the Top 5 Male finishing times from 2008…

MENS RESULTS
Place Name Time Company
1 Matthew Forys 17:25 BLACKROCK
2 Karl Dusen 17:28 AIG INVESTMENTS
3 Francis Corrigan 17:30 THOMSON REUTERS
4 Ryan Hays 17:36 LEVY & HALPERIN
5 Ben Reynolds 17:42 MERRILL LYNCH & CO.

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