Monday, April 7, 2014

Quality

I just wrapped up my first week of training for Leadville under the tutelage of my new coach. This is my eleventh year of running, so it’s a little humbling to basically follow a (personalized) plan set by someone else. Fortunately for me, that someone else happens to be a runner I really respect and admire and a coach who’s gotten some impressive results, making it easier to do what I’m asked to do.

I can already see that my coach is going to ask a lot of me in the way of quality, which is a good thing. On Saturday, I joined AJ, Chuck and Jon for a little over 20 miles with 2,000 feet of vertical in the Castle Pines/Castle Rock area. Then the next day I did a 10-mile tempo run with a thousand feet of vertical (12 miles total if you count warm-up and cool-down) that had me working as hard as I’ve worked in a long time. My coach has emphasized the importance of these Sunday tempo runs, also mentioning that I’ll have a break from them every now and then in order to help keep me fresh, healthy and responsive to the work.

The average weeks looks to include hill repeats, tempo running, intervals and long stuff, with easy days in between the “hard” workouts with the exception of Saturdays and Sundays. I’ll have more rest weeks than I ever would have allowed myself—again, I see that as a good thing since rest weeks are when our bodies repair and get stronger. It’s easy to say you’re going to rest more; it’s hard to truly back that up with actual R&R.

One thing I’ve quickly come to see: I love the structure of this training regimen. It’s nice to know what the plan is every day, even if the plan is just 8 miles at super easy pace. And oh yeah: It used to be that my easy pace was around 7:50-8-minute miles. This morning I did 9-minute miles and it felt great! My new guiding principle is to go hard on my hard days and really easy on my easy days. I’m trying not to get too bogged down on numbers, but I will admit that I was eye-balling 72 miles this past week and I got it. When I’m running 70+ a week, it’s because I’m starting to get serious.

The regimen I’m on now is so different from what I did last summer. Last summer, I had a blast running every day in the mountains. The average week would consist of about 90-100 miles and 15,000-17,000 feet of vertical. But almost all of it was at easy pace. It’s no wonder I got so slow. I feel like the cobwebs are starting to get knocked off as I implement more and more quality. I know that this quality will help me run strong especially on the Hope Pass section and in those final 30-40 miles at Leadville. The key is to recover as best as I can between quality workouts, listen to my body, and take advantage of my rest weeks. The good news is that I’m going to be pushed hard enough on my big weeks/training blocks that I’ll actually want to rest on my rest weeks—they’ll be rewards for working hard.

Last night, I was thumbing through some of my old training logs. It hit me that back in 2008 and 2009 I did a lot of quality—intervals, tempos, hill repeats and long stuff every week. On Saturdays, I'd go long (20+) and then on Sundays a bunch of us in the club I ran with at the time would race to the water stop and beyond (if you're in SERC and reading this, you know what I'm talking about!), making for a great tempo effort within a long run. I didn’t rest nearly enough but I did tons of quality, got results and seemed to recover fast. Yeah, the fact that I was 35 or 36 had something to do with it, but I also think all the quality paid off.

It’s good that I spent the first three months of this year doing mostly MAF running. That solid base I laid is now ready to be built on.

10 comments:

  1. Good stuff Wyatt! I think you were just a few paragraphs shy of going into a similar riff similar to Lucho's famous one about Hudson and "never sacrifice quality for quantity and visa versa". I have personally seen better results out of a pattern of base before lots of quality than I did out of doing as much volume as I could take. There is a balance. It is somewhat unique to each of us, but it is there. I hope you find it and have a great summer. Thanks for joining us Saturday.

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    1. Well said, AJ. I had a great time with you guys. Look forward to doing it again.

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  2. Sound philosophy. What pace are your tempo runs and how long do you build them up to?

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    1. Mike: Tempo pace is usually around 6:35-6:45 depending on terrain but on Sunday, with a 20.5-mile in my legs from the previous day, it was all about effort. So, my tempo pace ended up around 6:50-7:00/mile, but I did 1,000 feet of vertical.

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  3. Curious, where do you run 20 miles with 2k vert in the Castle Rock area? Castlewood Canyon? I'm just up the road from you (corner of Parker and Arapahoe Rds) and I frequent Castlewood, but I have to do laps to get in more than 8 miles.

    Good stuff on the structure. I know when I had a coach I was a lot more dialed into what I was doing and it helped immensely. Maybe one day I will again....if/when I get a looming goal. More running for fun this year, at least the first part of this year. Stay strong and pumped up!

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    1. Hi Jill: We ran a bunch of roads in the area (trails were ice covered or muddy), including the Daniels Park area. We didn't do Castlewood Canyon, but that's a great place for runs under 10 miles.

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    2. Jill: The majority of the elevation in that run comes from two big hills. One that we ran twice which connects Monarch Blvd from two sides into Daniel's Park. On one side is Castle Pines Parkway. On the other side it is called Buffalo Trail. We also ran down into Highlands Ranch, near Rock Canyon High School, and then back up into Castle Pines. That climb up Monarch from Rock Canyon is a series of three hills that totals nearly 750 feet of vertical.

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    3. That's some great vertical! I'll have to get out a map and run some of that soon. Thanks for the info, guys!

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  4. That sounds like a great plan to have a coach oversee your training going forward. I actually enlisted the help of a coach yesterday to help me train for a marathon this December with the hopes of qualifying for Boston for 2016. Though the distance I'm pursuing is much shorter than Leadville, I have the sense that enlisting a coach to setup workouts will be most helpful.

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  5. I think one of the best decisions I've made with my running was to hire a coach. Having structure, accountability-and someone else making the schedule!!-has improved me as a runner.

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