Monte's Log, Featuring a Debate About Dotard Genetic Potential with an Ant

not long to go now....many nerves?

gl with the run Monte

my brother just did one in 3:11 which was well above what his last test calculated him at (3:30) and he was also mentally not convinced at all, so who knows you're in for a surprise too!

he followed the 3:15 pacer until 32km or so and then took off on his own

Yeah I don't understand that. I have nailed all my marathons to + or - two minutes from goal time.

Don't get it when someone is off by 10+ minutes, too fast or too slow.

But then again I am racing a 5k/10k or half three weeks out. And if the long runs are there , then the time will extrapolate to the marathon. Can also extrapolate from a recent long run in similar conditions to goal marathon. Some slight adjustments to weather and elevation profile and bam.

Another option is heart rate. But even even better, use all available info .

Using rpe alone is plain dumb.

Yeah, idk; I may be overcorrecting from my last one, where I went out and felt great until I didn't.

I'm not using RPE; I'm going to be going by heart rate since my two longest runs of this training block both went poorly due to illness/travel, so extrapolating from those isn't really going to work. If that means I'm too conservative for the first half of this one, then oh well.

The marathon ended up getting cancelled due to weather; probably a good thing because it was 65 degrees, 80% humidity, and quite windy. I did a long run by my house when the weather broke a bit; I ended up doing a shade over 20.5 miles in 2:45:00 before calling it, as I didn't want to kill myself for an unofficial result. Hard to say this isn't an appropriate end for my last two training blocks.

No ****ing way!!

Can you find another race nearby to jump into? Super frustrating

That’s some serious mileage. Kudos on that. How are ur knees holding up? If I remember correctly ur pretty tall?

Also what happened to the days of being on ur hour break from work and lifting??

There's a marathon in Champaign next week, but I'm not really interested in waiting a week and trying to modulate my taper and travel just to (probably) not perform. I'm just going to take my medicine and move on to the next thing.

I'm 6'4". No issues with my knees; up until the last six weeks, I've been reasonably consistent with 2x/wk lifting and 5x/wk running, though recent work travel has impacted my gym sessions.

The plan moving forward is some 5ks with the family this summer and a few half marathons in October/November with the ultimate goal of breaking 90 minutes. I've got a 50k May 31st with three friends where we're essentially just going to cruise through it (i.e. not race) after which I'll get into a bit more intensive speed work.

Re: my lunch lifting, good memory! That was at my last company; I'm almost six years into my current firm, and I've moved running and lifting to pre- and post-work due to the fact that the gym is no longer two blocks from the office. A bit less convenient, but still more than doable.

How are you not super excited to go out there and test yourself after months of training? Surely one week more of taking it easy isn't gonna ruin your performance right?

Run it imo, maybe it'll somehow work out in your favor

[emoji736][emoji106][emoji817][emoji817][emoji817]

Do it! Run the race

I definitely wouldn't run a shiet race like Urbana-champaign. And it's already close to summer all the races disappearing and getting hot as fack.

The 20 mile run is just part of the progress and can start a new block. Race a marathon and three weeks of recovery, possibly zero running for a week.

Disappointing progress that's fosho. At one time I was concerned this guy was coming after all my PBs. He went from zero to serious runner in less than a year. But then sickness derailed him. So I am still sitting on my couch, I haven't run in a month due to Chinese virus. Maybe I will go out today. Would have been more inspiring if this guy had ran 3:20. ��

Loco is probably right, but I'd still do what Syn suggests.

Yes to pretty much all of this; I'm not driving out to Illinois for a dinky race which will then derail my training for a month for no real benefit.

Re: progress, I've made essentially zero since the illness last September and it's pretty frustrating (you could argue that I'm slightly more fit than I was in September, but the proof is in the results, or lack thereof).

The plan for the rest of the year is to do the ultra at the end of May and then transition into a dedicated half marathon block to get ready for the fall season. The goal is a sub 90 half and a sub 20 5k by the end of year, both of which should be doable if I can stay healthy. Probably just some easy aerobic base building until the ultra with a mid-week workout and some long slow distance on the weekend to prep for the 50k. We move on.

Do you still ever squat or deadlift

No, just single leg stuff; I can't recover from it and still run the volume I need to.

Speaking of which, my first lifting session in quite a while:

4/21
AM
Z1/2 Run
5.0 mi- 46:03/9:12 pace/138 HR

Still a bit fatigued, for obvious reasons.

PM
A
NG Pullups: +15 x5x3
RFESS: +60 x6x3

B
Bench: wu, 155x6x3
Facepulls: 4x12
Seated Calf: x10x3

C
Incline Bench: 45s x8x3
DB Pullovers: 55 x8x3

E
Adductor Machine: 2x15
Abductor Machine: 2x15

F
Overhead Rope Tri Ext: x12, x10, x9
DB Hammer Curl: 20s x10x3

Nice to get back into the swing of things; I kept things quite light, so hopefully the session RPE is low enough that I'll be ok running tomorrow morning.

4/22
AM
Z2 Run
75:00 - 8.47 mi/8:51 pace/140 HR

Even though I was feeling a bit of light DOMS from last night's gym session (lol), this run was much better than yesterday's. Even though I can run my Z2 up to around a 154 HR, I think I need to be more cognizant of my recovery, both due to my age and the weather warming up, and keep most of my non-long runs to this lower-middle of the zone where I top out at 145 or so and just feel fresh afterwards. This will likely help me adjust to moving to six days a week, as will having two of those runs being at recovery pace/HR.

I've decided this is going to be a down week, after which I'll do a mini-5k block and see if I can't get a bit faster in anticipation of the upcoming half marathon block. Weekly structure will be pretty simple: two 45-60 minute recovery runs, with HR in the low to mid 130s; two easy runs in the 60 to 90 minute range with a hard cap on HR at 150; one 5k specific workout with repeats at goal 5k pace for ~20 minutes of total volume; and one long run of 1.5 to 3 hours, rotating between long slow distance (before the ultra) and a mix of long slow distance or a moderate progression run after that. I'll try to fit in two 2.5 to 3 hour long runs between now and the ultra at quite a slow pace (between 9:15 and 10:00) to be specific to what we're going to be doing.

Two lifting sessions a week, non-negotiable unless I'm traveling internationally.

4/23
AM
5k Goal Repeats
51:00 - 6.82 mi/7:28 pace

Warmed up for 16 minutes, then did 20 1:00 intervals at or faster than 5k goal race pace (6:25/mi, or a sub 20:00 5k) with one minute walking recoveries, then cooled down for 15 minutes. Total work is listed above; the total moving time was 1:11:00, but I don't count the recoveries as active obviously.

My heart rate stayed pretty controlled; it recovered back down into the 130s after every interval and didn't get up above high 160s/low 170s, so decent enough I think. We'll see how things go once I start lengthening these out.

4/25
AM
Recovery Run
5.01 mi - 45:58/9:10 pace/136 HR

PM
A
NG Pullups: x8, x6, x6
Walking Lunges: 40s x6x3

B
OHP: wu, 95 x6x3
Pallofs: x8x3
Seated Calf: 3x10
Facepulls: 4x12

C
Leg Ext: x12, x11
Leg Curl: x11, x10

D
Low Incline DB Bench: wu, 60s x8, x7, x6
HLRs: x6x3
Adductor Machine: x15x2
Abductor Machine: x15x2

E
LTEs: 30s x9, x7, x6
Single Arm Preachers: x10, x9, x8

A nice, easy day, which, given the hard session yesterday and working until 9 pm, was necessary.

4/25
AM
Z2 Run
75:00 - 8.42 mi/8:55 pace/139 HR

86% humidity this morning, so this was pretty solid given that.

4/26
AM
10 km HM + 10k Intervals
15:00 - 1.86 mi/8:05 pace/137 HR
44:26.2 - 6.22 mi/7:09 pace/168 HR
5:00_1 - 0.73 mi/6:51 pace/174 HR
5:00_2 - 0.73 mi/6:51 pace/171 HR
5:00_3 - 0.73 mi/6:50 pace/171 HR
10:34 - 1.27 mi/8:20 pace/160 HR

I signed up for the Mini Marathon next weekend (the half marathon that runs partially through Indianapolis Motor Speedway). This is a workout that I pulled from the last few weeks of the half marathon program I'm going to run in the summer/fall, so I figured it would be a good way to ballpark how I should pace this one.

There was quite a bit of a headwind going north, but other than that no complaints; I set PRs (such as they are) in the 10k and half marathon, as including the recovery jogs (5:00 after the 10k and 3:00 each after the 10k intervals), I was under a tenth of a mile short of a full half, so I just extended the cooldown out until the total elapsed time was 1:39:00 flat. I guess I'll take it.

4/28
AM
Recovery Run
5.0 mi - 46:30/9:18 pace/138 HR

AM
A
Single Leg Press: 190 x6x3

B
Incline Bench: wu, 135 x6x3
Seated Calf: 3x10
Back Extensions: +5 x6x3
Facepulls: 4x12

C
Abductor Machine: 2x15
Adductor Machine: 2x15

D
Seated DB OHP : 40s x8x3
DB Incline Row: 55s x8x3

E
BB Hip Thrust: +90 x8x3
Dips (paused): +0 x6x3

F
Bayesian Curl: x8x3
Lateral Cable Raise: x10x3

Nice and light.

4/29
AM
Z2 Run
40:00 - 4.46 mi/8:58 pace/146 HR

Planned 60-75 minutes, but I was feeling run down and the weather was horrific (almost 90% humidity and in the mid 70s at 7:30 in the morning) so I called it.

4/30
AM
5k Goal Pace Repeats
15:00 - 1.85 mi/8:08 pace/142 HR
19:30 - 3.13 mi/6:14 pace/170 HR
15:00 - 1.74 mi/8:38 pace/158 HR

Increased the duration of the repeat from 1:00 last week to 1:30 this week while keeping the duration of the walking recovery the same; I stayed pretty controlled, and all the paces were clustered between 6:10 and 6:20/mi.

I probably need to think about moving my gym days around a bit, because I can't really afford to be DOMSy on my easy days. I may just lift this evening and get it out of the way.

4/30
PM
A
NG Pullups: +15 x6, x5x2
RFESS: +40 x6x3

B
Bench: wu, 155x7x2, x6
Facepulls: 4x12
Seated Calf: x9x3

C
Incline Bench: 45s x9x2, x8
DB Pullovers: 55 x9x2, x8

E
Adductor Machine: 2x10
Abductor Machine: 2x10

F
Overhead Rope Tri Ext: x11, x9, x8
DB Hammer Curl: 20s x11x2, x10

Snuck this in quickly while the boys were at practice; lowered the intensity and volume for the lower body stuff so I can recover in time for the half on Saturday morning.