169 days until the 2012 Leadville Trail 100 Mile Run...
YES! Another one of those GREAT workouts. I seem to have many of those when I"m around others - maybe there is a lot of wisdom in that. I took yesterday off - had a wondeful opportunity to speak to a local Rotary International Group about Leadville at 7 a.m. so I didn't want to risk being late from a workout. I had plans to take either Thursday or Friday off so on Wednesday I decided that day would be Thursday.
So I planned on this morning being a treadmill day - just wasn't sure what to do. We have been doing a couple different types of workouts.
The first type of workout is to run for 60 consecutive minutes at as fast a pace as we think we can sustain without any rest. The last time we did this workout was at level 8.3 (approximately a 7:20 minute mile).
The second type of workout is running at level 10 (6:00 minute mile pace) for 60 minutes with rest interspersed throughout. The last time we did this workout we did 2 minute/1 minute run/rest intervals for 20 sets (equal to 1 hr), except ran the last 1 minute rest period to end up with 41 minutes of running and 19 minutes of resting at the 6:00 minute mile pace.
The ultimate goal is to get to where my friend Christian Robbins from Denver, CO has been - running 60 consecutive minutes at level 10. It seems so far away sometimes yet we keep ratcheting it up, getting closer than where we were before.
I always feel good afterwards but it is intimidating to think about beforehand because both workouts are very hard and I know I"m going to be tired early into the workout. So, as I've done in the past, I avoid responsibility and pawn off the tough decisions on Rick. I was leaning toward trying to do an 8.5 level run for 60 minutes and was rueing the fatigue I thought I'd be going through but I didn't say anything. Instead, when I asked him what he thought we should do, he responded, "Let's try a combination workout where we do a little of each." Hmm - that sounded interesting. On the one hand, 30 minutes of each sounded less intimidating that 60 minutes of either. On the other hand, we would have the blessing of getting kicked in the tail two different ways - how fun! But since I asked him what he thought I also felt like I should try what he recommended. Staying true to my 'no whining' policy, I said, "Sure, let's do it."
So for the first 30 minutes, I set the treadmill to level 8.5 and took off. Psychologically it felt good because we only had to run 30 minutes without resting instead of 60 minutes without resting. It wasn't easy but it went fairly well. The good news is that this was an increase from last time's level of 8.3 to today's level of 8.5. I was happy to complete it and felt proud to realize the improvement. A far cry from the 6 minute mile pace we are striving for but we're making progress :o)
It was my call to take a 5 minute break in between this segment and the next segment. I suppose we could have gone right into phase two but I convinced myself that the reward for an improved run was deserving of a 5 minute rest. Maybe it was a poor decision but did it ever feel good!
So on to phase two... the plan here was to do 10 segments at level 10 of 2:10 run / :50 rest. Each segment totaled 3 minutes and the total time was 30 minutes. I did it! Run time totaled 21:40 and rest time totaled 8:20. The most recent performance on this workout was doing a 2:00 run / 1:00 rest for 60 minutes. A few weeks prior I had done 2:10 run / :50 rest for 10 sets, backed off to 2:00 run / 1:00 rest for 4 sets, and 1:50 run / 1:10 rest for 6 sets. The part I'm pleased with is that I was able to achieve the 2:10 / :50 split following 30 minutes of running at 7:00 mile pace albeit I did have the 5 minute rest.
So, yes, I'm pretty excited that while both of these were 1/2 workouts so to speak, there was a noticeable improvement on each half. As we keep working hard, good things will continue to happen!
Following this challenging treadmill workout, we headed over to the benchpress, an area where Rick shines, as well as my buddies Erol Melik and Doug Himmelman. I'm a bench press wannabee and will keep working at it. Rick placates me by doing whatever I want on the bench but I strongly suspect he can usually do more than what I propose.
Today we were working toward 3 sets of 10 at 175 lbs. Rick knocked them out - 10, 10, 10 - no surprise.
John did 10, 10, 9 and almost 10 :o( - I just could not push out that last one - DARN! Oh well, it's good to be humbled and I'll keep working at it. Locking out that 10th rep would have made it a perfect workout :o)
Tomorrow we start at 4:30 am for a quick 3 hr run - looping back at the house at 6:00 am for a quick refuel - join us if you like. Text me if you need directions....563-343-3909.
Until my next post, have a great day! DIG DEEP!
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| pretty cool picture, don't you think? keep persevering! |
YES! Another one of those GREAT workouts. I seem to have many of those when I"m around others - maybe there is a lot of wisdom in that. I took yesterday off - had a wondeful opportunity to speak to a local Rotary International Group about Leadville at 7 a.m. so I didn't want to risk being late from a workout. I had plans to take either Thursday or Friday off so on Wednesday I decided that day would be Thursday.
So I planned on this morning being a treadmill day - just wasn't sure what to do. We have been doing a couple different types of workouts.
The first type of workout is to run for 60 consecutive minutes at as fast a pace as we think we can sustain without any rest. The last time we did this workout was at level 8.3 (approximately a 7:20 minute mile).
The second type of workout is running at level 10 (6:00 minute mile pace) for 60 minutes with rest interspersed throughout. The last time we did this workout we did 2 minute/1 minute run/rest intervals for 20 sets (equal to 1 hr), except ran the last 1 minute rest period to end up with 41 minutes of running and 19 minutes of resting at the 6:00 minute mile pace.
The ultimate goal is to get to where my friend Christian Robbins from Denver, CO has been - running 60 consecutive minutes at level 10. It seems so far away sometimes yet we keep ratcheting it up, getting closer than where we were before.
I always feel good afterwards but it is intimidating to think about beforehand because both workouts are very hard and I know I"m going to be tired early into the workout. So, as I've done in the past, I avoid responsibility and pawn off the tough decisions on Rick. I was leaning toward trying to do an 8.5 level run for 60 minutes and was rueing the fatigue I thought I'd be going through but I didn't say anything. Instead, when I asked him what he thought we should do, he responded, "Let's try a combination workout where we do a little of each." Hmm - that sounded interesting. On the one hand, 30 minutes of each sounded less intimidating that 60 minutes of either. On the other hand, we would have the blessing of getting kicked in the tail two different ways - how fun! But since I asked him what he thought I also felt like I should try what he recommended. Staying true to my 'no whining' policy, I said, "Sure, let's do it."
So for the first 30 minutes, I set the treadmill to level 8.5 and took off. Psychologically it felt good because we only had to run 30 minutes without resting instead of 60 minutes without resting. It wasn't easy but it went fairly well. The good news is that this was an increase from last time's level of 8.3 to today's level of 8.5. I was happy to complete it and felt proud to realize the improvement. A far cry from the 6 minute mile pace we are striving for but we're making progress :o)
It was my call to take a 5 minute break in between this segment and the next segment. I suppose we could have gone right into phase two but I convinced myself that the reward for an improved run was deserving of a 5 minute rest. Maybe it was a poor decision but did it ever feel good!
So on to phase two... the plan here was to do 10 segments at level 10 of 2:10 run / :50 rest. Each segment totaled 3 minutes and the total time was 30 minutes. I did it! Run time totaled 21:40 and rest time totaled 8:20. The most recent performance on this workout was doing a 2:00 run / 1:00 rest for 60 minutes. A few weeks prior I had done 2:10 run / :50 rest for 10 sets, backed off to 2:00 run / 1:00 rest for 4 sets, and 1:50 run / 1:10 rest for 6 sets. The part I'm pleased with is that I was able to achieve the 2:10 / :50 split following 30 minutes of running at 7:00 mile pace albeit I did have the 5 minute rest.
So, yes, I'm pretty excited that while both of these were 1/2 workouts so to speak, there was a noticeable improvement on each half. As we keep working hard, good things will continue to happen!
Following this challenging treadmill workout, we headed over to the benchpress, an area where Rick shines, as well as my buddies Erol Melik and Doug Himmelman. I'm a bench press wannabee and will keep working at it. Rick placates me by doing whatever I want on the bench but I strongly suspect he can usually do more than what I propose.
Today we were working toward 3 sets of 10 at 175 lbs. Rick knocked them out - 10, 10, 10 - no surprise.
John did 10, 10, 9 and almost 10 :o( - I just could not push out that last one - DARN! Oh well, it's good to be humbled and I'll keep working at it. Locking out that 10th rep would have made it a perfect workout :o)
Tomorrow we start at 4:30 am for a quick 3 hr run - looping back at the house at 6:00 am for a quick refuel - join us if you like. Text me if you need directions....563-343-3909.
Until my next post, have a great day! DIG DEEP!
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