3/18/10

Thursday’s Training – Am: 84 mins easy Pm: 39 mins easy

Mileage – 18 miles

I was taking today very easy to see if I could start feeling a little fresher than I have in the last few days. The morning run was a slow plod around the town and it was just a time to switch off. It went by fairly quickly and the weather was lovely so that made it enjoyable. I spent the most of the day doing an online driving school (4 hours straight) only to find out that I couldn’t take the test at the end because the school didn’t get my citation (I got a speeding ticket a month ago and taking the class will get it off your record). This was really annoying as all the information was fresh in my head and I just wanted to get it out of the way. After trying a few methods of trying to get the citation to them I realized that I was running a little late so had to quickly put my shoes on get a short 6 miles in. I felt pretty good for this run but it was pretty windy so I’m hoping its not going to be getting any worse up here (the wind gets really strong in the spring). I finished the run and had no time to do drills or stretches as I had to get to work in 25 mins so I showered changed and drove straight there. It turns out there was no rush as the restaurant was empty but this gave me a little time to work on my toe stretches to try and break up the scar tissue underneath it. It actually turned out to be a good night at work although it meant getting home at 10.45pm.

Work and Training

I have always worked and run ever since I was 16. I have never found it too hard as I am dedicated enough and good enough at time management that I can always fit in both. For me, work is mentally stimulating and it helps me to forget about running for a little while. I have always worked in restaurants and coffee shops as they tend to be the most flexible with working hours and taking time off. I have been fortunate enough to have had great employers who have understood my situation and always given me the leeway to get away at weekends for races and trips abroad. I currently work 2 or 3 shifts a week at a local sushi restaurant on Route 66 (Karma Sushi) and its always evening shifts so that means that I can get my training done during the day and get some rest also. It can be a little tight sometimes as I have to fit in both runs before 3.30pm but my body is used to it now. I didn’t have this luxury before as I had to work a lot more before I got my contract with Mizuno and had to work 30 to 40 hours a week and found it tough to get enough recovery. I think the hardest I’ve had it was during the summer months of 2005-2007 when I worked at the Old Course Hotel in St Andrews and my shift started at 6am. I had to wake up at 4am and get my first run done before work and then I would get a little rest in the afternoon before I did my 2^nd workout and then get to bed by 8pm. This may sound a bit rough but it just meant shifting my day forward a few hours and I was really just running and working so it was a good situation for me. Right now I feel a bit lazy when I am just staying at home and resting because I could be working but I know I need to do this to let my running career progress the way I want it to.

3/17/10

Wednesday’s Training – Am: ASU Track – 2 miles, 3 mins rec, 1 mile, 3 mins rec, 2*800m, 90 secs rec, 4*200m, 200m rec Pm: 57 mins easy

Mileage – 20 miles

Today was no fun at all. I woke up at 6am and headed downstairs to grab some coffee and a bagel. Julie’s dad was up as he heads to the gym early every morning so we chatted for a bit and then I headed upstairs to get my achilles ready for the session I had in front of me. I left the house at 7am and drove over to the ASU track where it was already getting warm and it was surprisingly windy. I had to sneak through a hole in the fence to get onto the track and jog 800m before I started stretching. I then headed out along the edge of Tempe town lake for a 20 min warm up. This was the point where my legs started to feel tired so I started to think about options if I needed to break down the workout (it was supposed to be a 4 mile tempo). I got on with my drills and strides and decided to just assess how I felt once I got going. As soon as I started I knew I would have to adapt the workout as I was just feeling groggy and almost sleepy. I stopped after the 2 miles and continued with a mile rep, 2 800s and some 200s to get my legs turning over. I warmed down slowly on the infield and stretched for a while before heading back to the house to rest up.

I didn’t manage to sleep at all but I lay in bed watching TV so at least I got some rest before we headed out for a St Patrick’s Day lunch. I actually had the corned beef and cabbage special and it was really good. Nothing like what corned beef is back home but it was still very tasty. After saying my goodbyes to Julie’s parents and brother I headed over to Tempe to grab another coffee and see Dr John Ball for another appointment. Roisen McGettigan (Top Irish steeplechaser) and Gary Reed (World 800m silver medallist) were also there getting some work done to them. John again mobilized my toe and made me really suffer by sticking his thumbs deep into my glutes to try and release the muscles that are trapping my sciatic nerves. After quite a few expletives and whinces, John said that he was really pleased with the way my injury has progressed and the improvement he is seeing is telling him that its not an achilles problem. That was great news because that can be a real problem and it takes a long time to heal.

After my appointment I headed straight up to Flagstaff and went straight out for my second run. I was feeling very stiff as I had just driven for 2 hours but after half an hour I felt fine. I got back to the house, shovelled some veggie burgers, broccoli and salad down my throat that Julie had prepared for me, and we then headed off to our marriage encounter sponsors, to talk with them about marriage issues. These meetings have been great for Julie and I as we have really opened up to each other and its forced us to talk about things that we would probably never would have. It has been tough at times but it has made us much closer and I think we both feel that can really take on anything that is thrown at us once we are married.

3/16/10

Tuesday’s Training – Am: 73 mins easy Pm: 43 mins easy

Mileage – 16 miles

I woke up today and my back was really stiff. After thinking about it I realized I had maybe over done it in the gym yesterday as I had taken a week off of doing weights so I didn’t put any extra stress on my achilles. I think the back extensions I was doing just sent my back into spasm but this is something I am quite used to so hopefully it won’t affect me too much. After massaging and heating my achilles I drove out to Cheshire where I used to live and met the guys for an easy 10 miles. We took it nice and slow which was fine by me because I worked hard yesterday and I wanted to run well in my workout tomorrow. A nice Tour De Flag in great weather was what we got this morning and although I didn’t feel good (its up hill the last 3 miles), it was enjoyable to just relax and trot along for 73 mins.

I headed back to the house with the hopes of a message from the car garage telling me my car was ready to pick but to no avail. I again, iced, had breakfast and past out while watching Cold Case. I was told the car would be ready around 3pm but was hoping for an earlier time so I could get on the road back down to Phoenix and hopefully miss rush hour as the journey takes an extra hour if I hit it. The phone call came and the car was going to be ready in half an hour so I drove over to Julie’s work and dropped off her car keys, said goodbye to her and headed off for an easy 6 mile run over to the car garage. I felt so much better this evening and I didn’t feel my achilles at all. I think really taking the time to do everything to help it as well as the eccentric calf stretches is helping a lot and hopefully I wont be able to feel it all soon. It was lovely and sunny outside but everywhere was wet as the snow is melting like crazy. I picked up my car, which looked great (it even had the ground effects that I have on the car which I didn’t think they replace for me. I was just expecting the standard issue bumpers back) and headed back to the house to shower and get on the road down to Phoenix. The problem with driving to Phoenix is rush hour. I didn’t want to hit this so I took my time changing and getting everything ready and headed out to the highway. I stopped by Quiznos to grab a big sandwich for dinner. By the time I got down there I was knackered so I watched TV with Julie’s parents until 9pm and then headed to bed as I needed to get up early to try and beat the Phoenix heat.

I was treated to a wonderful sunset on the drive down to Phoenix

My car looking brand new again

3/15/10

Monday's Training - Am: 90 mins Pm: 60 mins + Weights

Mileage - 24 miles

Fairly easy day today. I went over to Trina's loop where I thought everyone was meeting to run but only Middleton and I turned up (he was doing a fartlek as he runs the LA marathon on Sunday) so I warmed up with him and then headed of round the roads for the rest of my run. I actually did a little fartlek also just to get my legs going a bit. My legs were still a bit tender but my achilles felt ok after I spent 30 mins massaging my lower leg and loosening it off. I got back home and spent another 30 mins stretching, foam rolling and massaging it. After this I strapped an ice pack onto it and prepared my usual breakfast/lunch of granola with dried cranberries, prunes, almonds and strawberries. This is my usual morning routine and has been for a while - run, stretch, breakfast and then nap in front of the TV. This is the reason I gave up working the day shifts at work so that I could have all the time I need to do the little things that are involved in running.

After waking up and cleaning the apartment up a bit (I hadn't unpacked from the weekend yet) I started to get ready for my second run a 3pm. Another bout of massaging and a hot pack on my achilles helped loosen me up a bit as well as some toe mobilization. I drove over to the gym and ran my usual 10 mile loop at a good pace as I was feeling good. It was windy but it really didn't bother me too much. I finished off with some drills and stretching and headed into the gym to do some weights.

Once I was finished I headed over to the Summit Center and Julie treated me again with some Ionto and then headed home as she was making some Apricot Chicken fro dinner. It was served with broccoli and rice and was just what I needed.

Weights

My weights and circuits routine isn’t anything special. Greg likes to keep this section of our training quite easy so as not to risk any injury but still get the benefit of strengthening. Since the new year, I have been a member of the Summit Health and Fitness Center so have been able to dedicate more time to this area of training. I typically head to the gym on Tuesday mornings and Thursday evenings (we do our hard workouts on Monday, Wednesday and Saturday) so it doesn’t take away from the running workouts of the week. I have actually gone back to doing more of a routine that I did when I was at Florida State University as I always felt strong when following the routine we did there.

I first head upstairs and do 20 mins of core and upper body and its continuous so it can get pretty tough as you really don’t get a break in this period. After this I head downstairs and start on my full body routine. I tend to do 3 sets of each exercise set (there is 3 different exercises per set) and there are 4 exercise sets (so in total there is 36 sets of reps). I don’t lift anything heavy but do include squats, dead lifts and lots of body weight stuff. I also change the workout depending on the day. For example, the Tuesday workout (in between hard running session days) will be a bit easier than the Thursday workout as I don’t want to be tired for the workout the next day.

Here is an example of what I do:

3 sets of

Bar Warm Up

20 Step Ups

25 Seated Crunches

3 sets of

10 Squats

50 Hanging Abs

10 Back Extentions

3 sets of

10 Box Jumps

10 Bench Press

10 Dead Lifts

3 sets of

10 Lunge Jumps

10 Wall Angels

20 Calf Raises

3/14/10

Sunday's Training - Am: 70 mins easy Pm: 50 mins easy

Mileage - 17 miles

Sunday again, was a recovery day. After yesterday's hard workout I really needed to just switch off and run easy. I got out the door just before 11am as we had gone to church at 9am and I think I needed this extra wake up time to get ready for the run. It let my legs and achilles warm up a little and apart from the dull pain still lingering in my legs, I felt fine. I found a nice 5 mile loop on hard sand so it was good to get off the road and do a couple of loops of this. There is one sharp hill (only about 10m long) and this was enough to send a hot pain through my achilles and nearly stopped me running but as soon as I got to the flat I couldn't feel a thing. After jumping in the pool again to help my legs, we had some lunch and got ready for my next appointment with Dr John Ball.

We got to his office and he dug in again to certain areas that sent lightening bolts through my body and forced my face to screw up into a tight little ball. He first of all try to mobilize my left toe which has a lot of scar tissue on the underside and is maybe the cause of my achilles problem. The toe doesn't bend well and he thought that it has been creating a greater force than it should do with my increased mileage which has flared the achilles up. He also dug around into my hips and glutes to release some tightness which again was very sore. Afterwards I was much looser and I was able to bend my knee a lot more than I was able to when I walked in that afternoon. He doesn't do a lot but what he does is incredibly affective. I have another appointment on Wednesday so I will drive down and back just for this short period of treatment (its a 4.5 hour round trip by car).

After I was finished with my treatment we started to head back up the road but visited with my aunt on the way out of town as she was back at home from having sinus cancer removed from behind her face. I couldn't believe how good she looked and how well she could speak. It is very invasive surgery where there was a possibility of her losing her eye but a lot of the swelling had gone down and her prosthesis fit her well. Talking to her about what she had gone through in the past few months made me realize how little and insignificant a flared up achilles is. As a runner is feels like a huge deal but it is nothing like the life threatening disease that she had just battled. I'm so glad she is ok and happy.

We got back up to Flagstaff at around 7.30pm so I jumped onto the treadmill for 50 mins and switched off while I watched Man Vs Food on the travel channel. Julie had a great dinner ready for me when I got back of a broccoli omelette and potato pancakes. This was a great ending to a nice weekend.

3/13/10

Saturday's Training - Am: 15 mile tempo Pm: 35 mins easy

Mileage - 25 miles

Today's training was horrible. I still don't know why but my legs were still killing me from the last few days (which consisted of doing very little!). They felt like I had run a hard hill race. It was that dead legged sore to touch feeling. It was bad enough that I was walking down stairs backwards so it wouldn't feel so bad. We drove down to Phoenix last night so the pace of the tempo was supposed be 5 min miles as I was down from altitude. Julie and I got ready (she was going to be on the bike handing me my fluids and gel) and headed out to where the start of the workout would be. Only a mile into the warm up I said to Julie that there is no way that I am going to do this workout because I felt so bad. I had to summon everything I had just to get some drills done and get into my flats. My achilles was feeling OK although there was a slight ache and when I changed into my flats there was no difference in the pain so I just said to myself that would start the workout and just see how I felt. I was doing the tempo around a 2.4 mile road loop called Lakewood so it was going to be a monotonous 6 laps but I have done a 10 mile tempo here before and it seemed to go by pretty quickly so I just hoped it wouldn't be too mind numbing.

I started the run and ran the first 3 miles in 5.06, 5.00 and 5.04. This was a decent start but I felt bad and wasn't sure if I should just call it quits or push on and see how I felt as I went on. I was taking on fluids every 3 miles and doing fine with that I was really happy about that as this is the factor I was most worried about during the marathon but now I am very confident with this aspect so no more worries there. The next 4 mile went by without too much incidence (5.02, 5.03, 5.05, and 5.03) although I was finding the loop very tough because it was getting very windy and I really had to concentrate to maintain the pace I was running. I was close to breaking point on the next mile as I again headed into the wind and my legs were screaming for me to stop. This is where I really had to use my head to get through the rest of the run. I used a few different things to keep me going. There was Greg telling me about how this period of training was just about getting tough and strong for the race, there were images of the other Brits training for the marathon and there was the last few miles of the London course and getting through them, feeling good and sprinting down The Mall to the finish line. It also helped that I was getting to the halfway point and I always find it easier once I get to this point as I am just counting down miles from there on out. Tough , tough, tough is all that was going through my mind with a background beat by the Black Eyed Peas to keep my legs going. I took on some gel with some caffiene in it which turned out to be disastrous. I got the first gulp down with my electrolyte drink but as I tried for a second mouthful a bunch of air just squirted out of my bottle instead of the drink and I ended up coughing everything up all over my shoulder and sputtering for the next half mile. I did feel like I was running faster for some reason though although my splits were getting slower. I told myself that if I ran slower than a 5.10 mile that I would stop as I was getting really far off pace then. Mile 13 was a 5.11 but I willed myself to finish the workout as it was only a couple of mile left at that point. The last mile seemed to take for ever. I must have checked my Garmin about 8 times and I literally fell to the ground as I stepped across the 15.00 mile point!

I took me a little while to get up and finish off my drinks. I ran the 15 mile is 76.30 which is an average of 5.06s. I was really disappointed as I was supposed to run 5 flats. My achilles had tightened up at this point so I knew the warm down would be a tough one. I jogged a very slow 2 mile (20 mins) warm down but as I was running this, the better I felt about the workout. I almost didn't start the workout because I was so sore and feeling so bad so I felt good that even on my worst of day I could still run a half decent pace. I decided at that point that today was going to be my worst day in my marathon training and everything would only get better from here on out.

I got back and took a nap before heading over to Tempe to see Dr John Ball about my achilles. He found a whole range of problems with my legs and hips but he reassured me that this was quite normal for any runner. After some hard probing and jabbing in some uncomfortable areas Julie and I headed out to the mall and then back to the house so I could do a 5 mile shake out run. I quickly jumped in the pool afterwards to give myself an ice bath. It wasn't that cold (58F) but it was enough to give my legs some respite.

After a great dinner with Julie's family and the priest who is marrying Julie and I, we all relaxed in front of the TV and watched Couples Retreat before heading to bed for a good nights sleep.

3/12/10

Friday's Training - Am: 89 mins on Alter G Pm: 60 mins on Alter G

Mileage - 23 miles

This is going to be the view from the front of our house

Today was a good day! I woke up with no pain in my achilles and it was bright sunshine out side so all the snow is melting away. Our cable has been acting up for the past few days so I scheduled an appointment with a maintenance guy to come out between 8 and 10am. This meant that I would have plenty of time to stretch and roll out my calves before doing my first run on the Alter G but it meant that I didn't have that much time between runs as Julie and I are heading down to Phoenix again this weekend. The cable guy never showed up so I drove out to Greg's house and got onto the Alter G for 14 miles. I started at 90% body weight at 6.15 pace and slowly increased the weight through out the run so the last few miles were 100% body weight. I was doing this run by heart rate as I wanted to keep it nice and easy as I have a hard tempo tomorrow. I kept the HR between 110 and 120 but for some reason my quads felt very heavy. I don't know if they were just tired from the aqua jogging yesterday but I didn't think they would be as I only did an hours work. For some reason running on the Alter G is not as mind numbing as it is on a normal treadmill for me. Its maybe because I can have the music blasting beside but it seems to go by quicker than it does in the gym. I put on an audiobook, Scott Sigler's Infected, that I had just downloaded and got through the first 9 chapters of that while I ran. I headed home after this and after a failed attempt at an nap I headed down town to get the new plans of our house as they had just been redrafted.

My 2nd run was at 3.30pm on the Alter G and it passed by without much concern. I did feel my achilles a little more this evening and again my quads felt very heavy. I quickly got back home so I could stretch and shower before picking up Julie from work and head down the mountain to Phoenix. I managed to get an appointment with Dr John Ball, a miracle worker from what I can gather from all the testimonies that everyone on the team has given about him. I'm looking forward to that so we can maybe figure out the root of the problem and fix it.

I hope everyone has a great weekend and good luck if your racing somewhere!