Step 2: keep running

So far the plan is working. After taking a couple days off to get ready for France, I ran nearly every day of the 15 days I was gone. I did 41miles the first week and 44 the next, including 4k of tempo in 15min. I'm basing the tempo off Endurance 5k, so 3:27+20sec per k was about right. My first week back in Montreal, despite classes and coaching, I managed 50miles. I got in some good runs at the cottage on the weekend, including a very solid 90min run that ended with 5k fast over some pretty hilly terrain. Fast being 20min (as opposed to the 23:30 for that stretch on the way out). My first tempo back in Montreal was 2 laps of summit, which I managed in 18min, split evenly. I was hoping to go further (2 laps+1k) but it was hot and I was not feeling as good as I'd hoped. This week, after the solid long run on Saturday, I did 3 laps in 26:50, the first one in 8:52, the second in 9min and the last in 8:58, and I felt much stronger. So already the increase in aerobic work is kicking in. I did a long run today as well. I have found that I feel good 2-3 days after a long run (90min, not 2h30), so since I will be racing 5k on Sunday this week, I thought I'd move the long run up. I have a massage with Eliza on Friday to work on my calves that have been tight (as usual).

With respect to the more philosophical plan, retirement, etc, I think that what happened was this: after the Boston marathon, there is no question that I needed a break. I had some fun with track races that summer, but my back was hurt, and I really should have just laid low. Once September and 1L rolled around, I was able to run a bit, but not really train. In the winter, because of some health problems, I didn't run at all for a period of 6 weeks. That was a big mistake. By the end of February, once I started up again, I started feeling much better. I decided that I would run for fitness rather than competition. I knew I needed to keep running in some respect, and I thought this would do it. I also wanted to dabble a bit in races, and I thought that I would be able to do ok with low volume and more quality than I was used to. I tried it for a good 3.5 months, but as we've seen, it did not work out, at least not on the competitive front. Certainly health-wise I was doing very well. I guess that what I DO want is to be able to run fast, and there is no question that for me, the best recipe for that is volume and aerobic capacity- and threshold-type workouts (as opposed to anaerobic workouts).

So am I un-retired? I guess I discovered what many people (especially Leslie) were saying was true: I was not ready for retirement. I don't know if my current plan and progression will get me to where I want to be competitively. I do feel much better about the training I am doing, and I think that I have room to add a bit more volume and another workout, later this fall. School is much more under control, and if things go as planned this fall, I will be able to enjoy it a little more, knowing that I've got some employment lined up.

I am racing 5k this weekend and I hope that I can bring the time under 17min. I'll base next week's tempo on my race performance, and hopefully that means I can do it a little faster. I hope that Adam, Adrian, Eoin and Stephen and I can start to get together soon as well, as it would really help to have a group. The fact that my day is already packed does not help, but I think we can swing a couple times a week. They are not up to doing workouts yet, but that's fine, as even when they start, they'll still be much faster than me, so I'll use this time to try to catch up as much as I can.

17:14

I had been planning to run 5k Endurance since May, with the goal of running 16:40 of about 30-40mpw and faster workouts than I had been used to in the past. After the mile did not go well, I actually changed things up right away, but I certainly did not expect there to be any impact whatsoever on the 5k. I was hoping for closer to 17:00, but given the mile, 17:14 is good, and I think the best part is the splits: 3:26, 30,30,33,15. So I averaged 3:27, but that last K in 3:15 says to me I could have gone faster. Maybe I could give the lower-volume method a bit more of a try, but I honestly think that for me, I just need to run more.

With respect to what Davison said about my last post, I am not planning on just jogging. I wil make two adjustments to my training. One is that I'll try to have a higher total volume: 60mpw instead of 40. The other is that instead of doing all-out, lactic workouts every week (François Pap training), I'll build up with more tempos, and run more at 5k and 10k race pace. I will still add-in some of that short fast stuff, but maybe only once every 3 weeks (and certainly not until I've had several weeks of consistent volume).

I think that when I was training for the marathon and mountain running, I probably relied too much on volume and tempos, and not enough on anaerobic training. I ran some good 10k times then because the 10k is a mostly aerobic event, and you don't lose out too much by not having the fast stuff. In the last couple of months, I think that I did too much of it, and for me, I have to be careful because my body just does not react to that kind of training. Someone like Debardi seems to eat it up, and just get faster. I'll probably never run a 3:47 1500, but I think I can still run a low 15min 5k by training mostly aerobically. What will get me over the edge from high 15 to low 15 is most likely a safer, smarter integration of lactic training. But that is not going to come until next summer. I don't think my body can sustain it for long periods of time.

So, next up, I'm going to France for two weeks. Dave Sandomierski and Gary Story speak highly of the running there, so it should be good. I'm going to try to just get in 60-75min per day while I'm there.

As for retirement/non-retirement, I'll have to think about it more, and maybe I'll actually have time this year (2L) to share some of those thoughts here.

running my age

It's been almost a year since the last post. I've done 1L, gotten completely out of shape, rounded into some kind of shape again, then stagnated. Last night I raced a mile on a dirt track, which I organized after having read The Perfect Mile, the story of Bannister and Landy and the four minute mile. I ran 5:10. Which may sound pretty fast, and it is if you don't run much, but of course next to Landy and Bannister (and don't forget Rich Ferguson, the Canadian who finished third in that famous Empire Games race), it is quite slow. It's also quite slow compared to what I could do, even at the peak of a mediocre career. I've run around 4:30 before, and 4:09 for 1500 (I was even 4:14 for 1500 last summer) so for whatever reason, what I'm doing now is just not working. Despite the fact that an analysis of my training seems to indicate the need for more fast workouts, having done some decent workouts this summer and having only a 5:10 to show for it is disappointing.

All of this is of course under the guise of "retirement" which basically means I can do what I want and not really have to answer to myself (or anyone) because, hey, I'm retired! Well, I think that I need to go back to what was working and making me very fit in the past, that is, a focus on volume, not on quality. If anything, I need a focus on volume before the quality can really do me any good anyway, so that is what I'll try.

My goal is to run my age for 10k by the end of 2009. That essentially means get back to almost PB shape. I turn 31 on Friday, which means I'll be 32 by the fall of 2009. So I should be able to run my age by then. I'll spend the fall trying to get in just about 60miles a week, with a tempo and a fartlek thrown in each week. In the winter, I'll do the bubble training (if that works out) with Concordia, and in the spring I'll start into a steady rotation of workouts. The spring plan is to rotate through mile, 5k, and 10k paced intervals, every two days, with a long run of 90min including 15-30min of tempo each weekend. That should provide enough quality. But before I do that, I'll want to be consistent at about 60miles over the fall and early winter (mostly to make sure I can get school done, and focus on coaching in the fall). Next summer I'll be working, hopefully, so I'll have a pretty strict schedule. That should be good, since clearly having my days to myself has not yielded any fruit!

Today I ran 65min easy with 10min of core. The goal is to do this well: keep the core going, and stretch, etc. Hopefully that will make up for the extra 10-20 miles a week I'm not running, and the fact that I'm old now...

New York City (Day 1)

We pulled into Penn station on time, around noon. It was a short walk to our hotel from there: the Madison Hotel, at the corner of 27th. It was a good, clean place, no cockroaches or rats, and not as expensive as you would think for being nearly right at the heart of the centre of the universe ($120 a night!).

We checked in smoothly, and then headed out with the plan to sort of follow Holden Caulfield's day in NYC. It was a pretty rough guess, as we didn't really stay in any bad hotels, or end up in any snobby jazz bars, but we traced an outline. We walked along 34th street, through Macy's (just because it was there) to the New Yorker hotel, which is the closest thing there is to an "Edmont Hotel." It has a 50's-style diner on the first floor, so we had lunch there. I had meatloaf; Miriam had a burger.

After that, we walked up 5th avenue to Rockefeller Centre, but we didn't go up. It wasn't going to be a trip for acending tall buildings. We also had walked past the Empire State building, but we didn't feel like waiting in line to go up. We also couldn't go skating at Rockefeller Centre because, well, it was the middle of August! It would be cool to go back at Christmastime, and see the sidewalk chairity collectors and that stuff, too.

We walked (we almost always walked) up to Central Park, and saw the Carousel up close. I think that the thing everyone says about it is how fast it actually goes! I was impressed! We didn't ride it though. Then we went to the American Museum of Natural History, saw the dinosaurs, and the dioramas. Didn't see any "fuck yous" anywhere. On the way back we did see some ducks in Central Park, as well as a busker/folkie guitarist who had a quite a loyal following it seemed. Over by the fountain there were some guys doing flips and stuff. They built up one really big flip over four audience members. It was cool, but not worth however much money they probably made from it, collecting bills from people in pillowcases.

On the way out of the park, we checked out the Upper East Side appartments that Holden would have lived in (had he been a real person! Ha!). Pretty swank. Nice neighbourhood. Then we took the subway down to Ground Zero, just to see.

There wasn't actually much to see, except that there had been a fire burning all day in an adjascent building, so there were several fire trucks and police lines blocking off several blocks. Unfortunately, because the building was abandoned (as a result of 9/11), there was no water in the building, and two firefighters died.

After wandering through a mostly deserted Wall Street, we went through Battery Park, and waited for the Staten Island Ferry. The idea was to get a view of the skyline, and of the Statue of Liberty. The Ferry is free, so we just took it one way, got off, walked around and took it the other way. Lady Liberty was shorter than I figured, but the skyline was cool. It was just after sunset, so the view was nice.

We walked back up to Soho, and had a late dinner at Lombardi's Pizza, the oldest pizza place in North America. It was pretty good. Then we walked back up Broadway, through Union Square. We had a look at the Flatiron building on the way. We rolled back into the hotel around 1am. Batman Begins was on tv, which I thought was appropriate, since we were in "Gotham." So I watched that, while Miriam fell asleep.

All in all, a good day.