February 13, 2011

Time to raise the bar ....... Feb 7th - 13th

  Last week my total training hours were 4.5 so I wanted to pick that up a bit but going to 6.5 hrs may have been a little too much this early because my end of the week run was pretty tough. I labored from the start but it felt as though I may break out and finish strong but it didn't happen. At mile 2.2 I finally succumbed and had to walk it out for a 20 count and that really seemed to be the beginning of the end of that run. Even though it was a recovery run I still had nearly a max effort to just finish. I still haven't really pinpointed the cause as it may be over training,bad nutrition for the weekend, or maybe it was cause I haven't run outside in over 3 weeks.

Well for at least the next 2 weeks all my runs will be outside and if that is impossible the treadmill will be set to 4% incline as it's at 2% right now. I am defiantly going to monitor my diet the next two weeks and probably bring my hours down to 5.5 to see how it goes. Here is last weeks schedule

  • Mon the 7th - 6.51 miles on the Dreadmill = 61 minutes
  • Wed - Brick - 60 minutes on the Trainer @17.7mph avg and then 60min on the TreadMill for 6.62 miles (Running after riding seems so much easier then the other way around)
  • Fri  - Hot run on the treadmill 3.55 mi in :30
  • Sat - 60 minutes at spin class followed by 60 min high intensity Plyo and core workout aka Boot Camp by Mr. Greg Clausen at the Body Logic in Lake Geneva
  • Sun - Outside recovery run for 5.30 mi in :49 minutes
Now, being I am pretty new to this running thing and I have been gauging my progress by the 5K. My early attempts at a fast 5K was just over :30 and this week on Friday I hit my best of 26:40 (but it was on the Treadmill) and on Sunday even with me laboring pretty bad I still hit a 28:20. So I feel good about the strides I am making but sometimes impatience gets the best of me and I tend to get discouraged if I don't improve every time out. But losing almost 90 lbs over a 18 month period I did learn one important thing. Improvements are made over the long haul, and not over night. I really look forward to this weeks work load and see what happens....

Weight is still at 195 and I hope it moves one way or the other soon so I can gauge my daily diet a little better. I did increase my proteins last week and will continue this week. Now, I didn't take away any fats or carbs, I just added a 135 calories to my daily intake and 30 grams of Protein

3 comments:

  1. Curious, when is your first half marathon race? Are you training (working up & getting in the miles) for it? Because once your running miles increase, your pace will start dropping. And you will probably be much faster on pavement vs. dreadmill. A a race (not just a training run) will determine what kind of shape you are in. I suspect you could easily kick out a 24 min in a 5k race. Also, are you integrating speed work, or at least one tempo run per week? To get faster, you have to practice being fast. :)

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  2. My First HM is May 7th and I have been following (loosely) a 13 week HM plan but this past week I got away from it a little My mid-week runs were only supposed to be 3.5 mile and 4 mile but instead I went 6+ each time. Although I did do my "Tempo run" on Friday, my Long slow run, which was supposed to be on Sunday only lasted 5.3 miles.

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  3. Hey man-- a 5 mile recovery run? After a slammer on sat a 5 mile run isn't recovery. I used to ram myself into the wall every other week from over training. Just remember the golden rule(s) When you go slow go slow (aerobic) when you go fast go fast (threshold) and REST. You build and adapt when you rest.

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