How I Roll (Lately)

It has come to my attention (in that it's been nagging in the back of my mind for a while now) that to some, my training methods may appear inscrutable, and my blog posts an impenetrable, irrelevant word fog. To kill two proverbial birds with one stone, this post will clear up why this is what it is.

First, my training methods: Going into 2011, I was suffering from a stress fracture in my left foot (second metatarsal, a pretty common injury). Being determined to come back strong from this injury, and to seek redemption for a number of my efforts that fell short in 2010, I started with a commitment of running at least 1 mile every day for 2011. As it turned out, this was just the commitment that I needed to gradually rebuild my strength. Now, three months later, I've methodicallyl built up to running 90-100 miles per week, with no sign of burnout or serious injury (knock on wood). I don't come into each week with a specific plan for each day, but I do have a general outline of what I want to accomplish, built primarily in anticipation of, and in response to, my longer/harder weekend efforts. I shoot for one fast speed/tempo session, one slower, more grueling speed/tempo/hill session, and one long run, and fill in the rest with "garbage miles." Except not really, because, especially lately, I've been running each "garbage mile" session with purpose. I focus on improving an aspect of my form, or my breathing, or I take my run through interesting/challenging sections of terrain. In that way, not only do I get the slow-and-steady accumulation of aerobic benefits, but also the more rapid, satisfying improvements that come from increased technical capability.

Which leads me into my next thought, which is why my blog is what it is, and is written the way it is. As part of my 2011 resolution to run at least a mile every day, I also resolved (less specifically) to write more about my running. In the past, I kept wide-ruled marble notebooks, with 3 or 4 lines dutifully devoted each day to a brief description of my running (or lack thereof) for the day. I covered the traditional time/distance/weather/mood stuff that they tell you to cover, and all in all, this method wasn't bad. It gave me a benchmark for my next training cycle, and reminded me of particularly fun or amusing things that happened during my runs. However, I eventually grew apart from this practice, and, looking back, I believe that it was subconsciously because although the logs were fully satisfying the latter intent, they had hit a wall with respect to the former. That is, I could see how well (or poorly) I did on a recent workout by comparing to results from similar workouts in the past, but I couldn't see WHY I was doing well or poorly.

With that in mind, this blog contains significantly more detail about WHY (at least, in my estimation) my performances turned out the way they did, because, along the lines of high mileage, for me, explicit, extensive repetition is the way that I learn best. Some people are much better at absorbing and internalizing through thoughts and feelings, which need not be stated. Not me. I need specific, detailed analysis of what works and what doesn't. In other words, some people need only to feel the wall to push through it; I need to know what color the bricks are, what kind of mortar was used, how long the mortar has been allowed to set . . .

I suspect that there may be others like me out there, and if so, I hope that things I've written here are instructive to you. If you're not one of those people, I hope all of this doesn't bore you terribly . . . but then again, nobody's forcing you to read it . . .

Regulating

Today seems like a good day to finally get this blog back on track with weekly running time/mileage. If you recall, the last seven documented days were:

24 January: 6 miles (40 minutes)
25 January: 8 miles (65 minutes, hill program on the treadmill)
26 January: 3 miles in the morning (20 minutes), 4 miles in the evening (30 minutes)
27 January: 5 miles (55 minutes, treadmill hill session at 10-15% grade)
28 January: 4 miles in the morning (30 minutes), 3 miles in the evening (23 minutes)
29 January: 9 miles (63 minutes)
30 January: 6 miles in the morning (40 minutes), 6 miles in the evening (40 minutes)

For a total of:

Time: 406 minutes
Distance: 54 miles

And the last seven days (31 January - 6 February):

31 January: 3 miles in the morning (20 minutes), 5 miles in the evening (36 minutes)
1 February: 5 miles, hill repeats at Patterson Park (35 minutes), 7 miles in the evening, over snow in Patterson Park (51 minutes)
2 February: 6 miles (41 minutes)
3 Feburary: 5 miles treadmill hills, 1 mile total warm-up/warmdown (57 minutes)
4 February: 15 miles (105 minutes)
5 February: 9 miles in the morning (66 minutes), 4 miles in the evening (31 minutes)
6 February: 5 miles in the morning (36 minutes), 6 miles in the evening (44 minutes)

For a total of:

Time: 522 minutes
Distance: 71 miles

So, a couple of things. First, that's a big mileage jump, especially over the past few days, but so far, no ill effects, aside from the pain in my hip as a result of slipping and falling in the parking lot walking in to work this morning. At the same time, this might be a good week (or at least a good next few days) to dial back a bit, to prevent possible burnout. I'd like to be getting more sleep than I'm getting now, so maybe that's a good focus this week (since all the extra mileage has definitely made sleeping easier).

And, for the sake of brevity, I won't carry on about tangential topics here, but I will put this sentence here as a reminder for me to post, sometime this week, at least one of the discussions of topics of more general interest that I've been planning.

Building

In an effort to get both my running and my blog posting into a semblance of regularity, here's the training recap from January 20th (the last "un-blogged" day) onward:

20 January: 5 miles (40 minutes of "treadmill hill" - 10%, at 10:00/mile, 1 mile total warm-up/warm-down)
21 January: 8 miles (56 minutes)
22 January: 8 miles (56 minutes)
23 January: 4 miles in the morning (30 minutes), 6 miles in the evening (45 minutes)
24 January: 6 miles (40 minutes)
25 January: 8 miles (65 minutes, hill program on the treadmill)
26 January: 3 miles in the morning (20 minutes), 4 miles in the evening (30 minutes)

7-day total time: 389 minutes
7-day total distance: 52 miles

So far, over the past few days:

27 January: 5 miles (55 minutes, treadmill hill session at 10-15% grade)
28 January: 4 miles in the morning (30 minutes), 3 miles in the evening (23 minutes)
29 January: 9 miles (63 minutes)
30 January: 6 miles in the morning (40 minutes), 6 miles in the evening (40 minutes)

Unless otherwise specified, all of this was around Canton/Highlandtown, so it would probably be a good idea to mix up the routes now and then to keep things fresh. In general, that seems to be a good goal going forward, since "building up" in and of itself isn't terribly exciting.

Speaking of terribly exciting, this wasn't, so I'll end here, and maybe after I think about this some more, I'll have something more interesting to say about it.