I am amazed at how resilient my body has been lately. I can basically race a hard 50K and turn the next week into a normal training week. Previous years it has usually taken me a good week to feel normal. I have been building a huge base since the beginning of the year and now it's time to enter a new phase of the training program. The next 8 weeks will involve, well... to tell you the truth, I don't know what it will involve. Lucho just said to buckle up and get ready. That's the excitement of having a coach, the mystery of the workouts and see if I am capable of doing them. I have a feeling I'll be in for some hills, heat, leg turnover stuff, and more volume. Perfect. American River is in two weeks and I hope to be hitting my stride by that time. My PR for 50 myles came at AR a few years ago (6:24) so my goal would be to establish a new PR in the 6:10ish range, we will see.
Here is a recap of the week:
Monday - 6 myles San Diego TM
Tuesday - AM 8 myles San Diego TM
PM 5 myles San Diego bay
Wednesday - 8 myles San Diego TM
Thursday - 10 myles HR home trails
Friday - 6 myles Tulsa TM
Saturday - 20 myles Chatfield
Sunday - 25 myles HR home trails
Total - 88 myles, 11 hrs 43 mins, 3206 ft of climbing
Last week 3/14 - 3/20 - 64 myles, 8 hrs 50 mins, 11,040 ft of climbing
5 comments:
Great week, great recovery! I think the next 8 weeks are going to be alot of fun for you, getting the HR up a bit. Speaking of "Buckle Up", back in the late 80's I was driving home from college and I picked up a hitch-hiker. He seemed pretty cool at first, then started to get a little creepy, so I said to him "You might want to put on your seatbelt, I want to try something a little crazy." I wish I had a camera to share the look on this guy's face! I was driving a 1984 Chevette, WTF could I have done?
Anyway, buckle up, I'm sure it will be fun.
Tim is the best. Quantity without quality is not quality. Not sure if that sentence is a qualitative statement.
Fast Ed: Here's the $60,000 question: What do you think is allowing you to recover so fast? I may want in on that action!
Wyatt
Wyatt - loaded question but a good one. I believe there are 2 reasons I'm recovering better. But I think "recover so fast" is a relative term. I saw what Nick Clark did last year at WS and have adopted his strategy of training through races, obviously with the help of Lucho. Here is what I think the differences are right now:
1. Fitness. Plain and simple. My base is huge with basically running everyday since Christmas with an average volume of 80 myles/week. My body has adapted to handle the stress while coming off a 50K race. But if you look at my post week workouts you'll notice it's loaded heavy on the back end to maintain volume. The front end is 5-8 myles runs, very easy, to shake things out. Lucho could probably add more context around the structure of the workouts but my feeling he is a genius at getting someone to peak at the right time. Last year I wanted to peak for every race, this year I have learned patience with build up races.
2. Taking care of my body. That includes timely consumption of Ultragen after the races and long runs. This also means my nutrition and hydration has been spot on and attended to not only in races but in daily training as well. I have also added Optygen, which is an adaptogen from First Endurance. It allows my body to handle high levels of stress during heavy training.
But truth be told Wyatt, even though I maintain the volume during recovery weeks I have paid the price. The runs (even an easy 5 miler) is a rough go but I believe this is all part of the plan to be more physically and mentally tough. I have been fortunate enough to avoid injury at this point but the build up (14 weeks) has been slow and gradual
So if you want some of this then call Lucho and he will get you to this point. And it won't cost $60k!
Please chime in Lucho and let people know what the strategy is, if I've missed something. Although you probably could write a book or a series of blog posts with the info you have.
The approach, as you will see in your training progression, is to simply increase intensity gradually giving your body time to adapt. You started off with 5 X 20" strides which have evolved in to where you are now... which will continue to evolve.
As the duration of intervals increases, the speed and intensity decrease until they meet at a level that is specific to your goal.
In terms of Western (or any ultra) the term specific is not about speed but more about metabolism, durability, and fatigue resistance. You are holding up well because I haven't slammed you with sudden intensity or too much intensity all at once. It's been a very slow and almost imperceptible evolution that has allowed your body to adapt.
I often see athletes switching from an easy base phase immediately in to an intense interval phase and this is where you see injury and breakdown. Also sudden jumps in volume while doing high intensity tends to melt athletes. High, easy to moderate volume has little risk but when you add intensity there is risk so it's important to listen to your body. Scott also gives me feedback and I can see how he feels and see how he handles the workload, then I make the adjustment the next week accordingly. This is probably the key, having a second opinion that helps to avoid mistakes. And what we do really is about avoiding mistakes! The training protocol is readily available to learn and there are no real 'secrets'. Most training plans become derailed because of a mistake.
And as far as peaking is concerned, an athlete can only peak 2-3 times per year and the span between each peak must be fairly long. After the first peak you must lose fitness in order to peak again. And you can only hold a true peak for ~3 weeks and then performance begins to decline.
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