My Week in Training
The Aim
Last weekend was a BIG one for training. I travelled to Colorado to run trails with the Tribal Training gang and boy did we ever hit them.
2 sunrise runs, 3500ft climbed over 17 miles, hill repeats up, bombing the descents, taking in the scenes, coaching our athletes, and living our best trail running lives as teammates.
My body held up great in the altitude and coming back early Monday morning, I wanted to leverage that big weekend into a solid week of stacking momentum.
My two big aims last week were to pile on some running miles and pushing speed and distance. Having tired legs from running up mountains is a gift, I get to train on tired legs with a fresh mind, as I’m aiming to take down 100+ miles in September.
Let’s see how it went!
The Execution
The week started off with a good bout of consistency, getting an easy 15lb steel mace workout in on Monday afternoon.
Then I hit two trail runs in a row, in muddy conditions, on a couple of local trails. These were great runs because of the difficult muddy terrain and my ability to move swiftly through them. I use the early and mid week runs to gauge how my body feels after a weekend of longer efforts. I felt great, meaning I would be able to push hard in the other two sessions coming up.
A quick jump rope workout on Thursday with my 1/2lb jump rope was a good sprint workout that crushed my hands and chest as well as stretching out my legs and improving my mobility.
Time to run FAST! Friday we were hosting friends for Shabbat dinner, a first for us here in Chicago, and I needed to go quickly in order to help clean the house and cook a traditional dinner worthy of house guests and of course Queen Shabbat!
This run was awesome, I pushed the fastest road pace yet while living here but also seeing my heart rate come down many bpm’s from the last (160 → 154 bpm avg / 7:28min/mile → 7:11min/mile). Runs like these help confirm my training in going in the right direction. The feel AND the numbers both lined up. AWESOME.
Saturday morning is always a quick lift and I focused on one movement, the reverse lunge step up, and hit that a bunch of times with my 15lb steel mace. Legs felt good, time to push distance.
Sunday long run goal was to re-establish the trail half marathon as the standard long effort. CHECK! Still not quite enough trails in this area to make a solid route that doesn’t require lots of doubling up, but I think I’ve got a good plan to turn this nature preserve into a good home base for training. I was happy to hit the half marathon in under 1hr 55mins all while keeping my heart rate in zone 2, still climbed almost 1000ft too!
Great week of training for consistency, feel, fun, and progress.
The Projection
Next up is keep stacking.
I’d like to hit a sprint session on the beach this week to keep speed gains top of mind while also pushing distance on my long run. Might try and bump up to 16 miles or so, might find a new park to give it a go in too, adventure will determine the long run.
I’ll fill the other days with stock trail runs and my 20-25 minute home workouts layered in between the two higher leverage sessions this week.
I’m excited to keep on process, because it looks like it’s working!
My legs are sore but in a good way, I can push them hard and bank the experience for my ultra marathon in September.
The Takeaway
It’s fun to exercise in a way that puts your imagination first but doesn’t let you imagine the progress.
I’ve got an aim: Run FAR is a backyard ultra marathon
I’ve got a style: Trail run for fun but push yourself hard
I’ve got a record: Hit ‘start’ on the watch and let the chips fall
I’ve got an experiment: Can my own way of doing it be a good way to do it?
This makes each week a fun exercise in its own right. I get to assess my own programming, it effectiveness in a few domains, and recalibrate the aim as I go.
I had a blast training this week. I made progress towards my goals. I got to run in nature, always my favorite. I got to hit all my responsibilities at home and work. I got stronger and faster.
I’d call that a giant win.
This is how you have fun and make serious improvement all at the same time in fitness.
Happy Training Team, let’s have a KILLER WEEK crushing it together