3/23/10

Tuesday’s Training – Am: 90 mins easy Pm: 51 mins slow

Mileage – 21 Miles

For some reason couldn’t get to sleep last night. We went to bed at the normal time but I think my mind was just too active thinking about a plethora of things rather than just switching off and relaxing. This meant that when Julie woke up 6.40am, I lay there for another 40 mins so I could get some extra rest. This was fine as I wasn’t meeting the guys until 8.30am this morning.

Andrew Carlson, Martin Fagan and I all ran out at mailboxes again. The run went by pretty quickly and it was good to talk to people on the run again! The guys stopped at 10 miles so I just headed back out on the trail and turned around after a mile as the headwind was picking up. I got back to the car and ran on the road and noticed a dirt road on the left side of the road that I had never seen before. I investigated it a little and it looks like it will be a good trail to run on soon but it was still a little wet and muddy so I turned around and headed back to the car. I spent the next 20 mins doing my drills, strides and stretches before I headed back to the house. I made same pancakes but instead of the usual chocolate chips (No deserts during lent!) I fried up some apples in butter and topped the pancakes with those. They were really tasty so that set me up perfectly for a good little nap. I don’t what it is about pancakes but they always put me to sleep so maybe I should be eating them before bed now!

My second run of the day was a very slow affair as I felt pretty tired (from not doing anything all day) and it being very windy. It was just a case of putting one foot in front of the other and getting through it. I went over by Buffalo Park and that is starting to dry up now so maybe by next week I can start using that more often for runs as it is so nice for running (very scenic with great views of the peaks) and it is only a 10 minute jog away. Its going to feel good to be getting on the trails more now as I have been on the road so much over the last few months. The good thing about that though is that it has prepared my legs for some pounding on the road.

I just cooked up some leftovers from last night when I got back, Making a salad, heating up the polenta, chopping up the turkey, adding some red pepper and mixing in some soy sauce and barbeque sauce for a bit of a glaze. Num num num!

Questions

Can I ask you if you remember what kind of training you were doing when you were 18, how many miles and how many hard sessions etc? John (EKAC Tartan army)

When I was 18 I was probably running 50 to 70 miles a week with 3 hard training sessions and a long run. The most important part of training is running so that means staying injury free so if that means cutting down the mileage, thats what you need to do. When you're building your mileage you have to do it slowly and get used to what you can handle before starting to do more.

I just developed a bout of achilles soreness and stiffness and wondered what you did to treat your achilles problems? Henry

I was very lucky that Julie was able to help me right away with my injuries. I'm not afraid of taking a few days off when I have a little problem and cross train instead of running to stay off of the problem (aqua jogging). I also saw a very good doctor who is trained in Active Release Therapy (ART) and could diagnose what the problem was before it got too bad (scar tissue under my big toe). I did lots of icing, eccentric calf stretches and relative rest to help also.

3/22/10

Monday's Training - Am: 90 mins with 12*1 min hard/2 mins easy Pm: 64 mins easy

Mileage - 24 Miles

The view from the balcony this evening

I was unsure what to do this morning as I thought I would be training on my own. I had a fartlek to do but I thought Brett was still going to be down in Phoenix so I was going to drive down to Sedona and do the workout there on the track and then get into the creek afterwards. I decided to stay in town and just drive over to Trina’s loop to see who would be about. As I was driving there I saw Brett jogging down the road so I beeped the horn, pulled into Late For The Train, tied my shoes and joined him on his warm up. He was doing the same workout so I was glad of that. He had jogged down from his house so he was just finishing up his warm up so I only really got 13 mins of running in before I jumped back into the car and drove it to the start of the loop and put my flats on. I felt fine although my achilles was a little creaky to start with but it soon warmed up and I didn’t feel it again after the first 2 reps. The workout wasn’t supposed to be a difficult one and it felt pretty good just to be striding out. We covered about 6.5 miles during the fartlek so once we were finished I changed back into my trainers and ran with Brett back up to his house. I continued on for another 30 mins as I was to run for 90 mins total. I got back, did some drill and enjoyed doing my stretching on the dry grass outside of Trina’s house.

I drove back to the house, had breakfast and then had a really good nap. I hadn’t got a nap in during the day since Thursday so this felt really refreshing. I woke up with a dead arm and had trouble pouring my coffee into the mug! I had a really good navel orange and set about replying to my emails and emptying my inbox. I noticed that the sun was still out but the wind was blowing so I was trying to figure out where I could run that wouldn’t be too windy. As I had to go to the gym anyway, I decided that I would run from there and see if Woody Mountain Rd was clear yet (this is a great dirt road but it is shaded so it usually stays snowy and muddy for a while). I parked at the gym and ran over to WMRd and was pleasantly greeted by a dry(ish) dirt road and saw Carlson’s car parked there. It felt so good to be running on a softer surface for once although I did have to jump from side to side on occasion to dodge the mud and puddles. As I got ready to turn around at the 5 mile mark I saw Carlson coming towards me so we ran back together which made the time fly by. The last 10 mins was on the road but as soon as I got to it, my friend Rob approached me on his bike and he kept me company for the rest of the run. Rob’s wife is going through chemotherapy and has one last bout left before she is completely finished with it all and she is celebrating this by running the Big Sur Marathon on the same day as the London marathon. She is inspirational on how she is taking the cancer head on just getting on with it and not letting it get in the way of her life. She has been positive about the whole thing and running the marathon is her way of saying goodbye to it all. We’re all planning on getting together the weekend after and celebrating it all. I got back to the gym and did some drills and strides in the car park before I headed inside to get on with my weights routine. I felt pretty good in the gym and the exercises were coming easy to me so I took that as a good thing and stopped before I did too much and wake up sore the next day.

I got back home and Julie cooked up a great meal of marinated turkey, polenta (with fontina cheese added) and some asparagus. It was delicious and just what I needed after a long day’s training.

On another note, I got invited to a 10km road race in Richmond on Saturday and after talking to Greg about it we decided to go for it so I now leave for Richmond on Thursday and race on Saturday morning. This means that we will move the planned 30km tempo run to the next weekend. I’m looking forward to racing again and get my juices flowing again. I always like to race when I’m getting ready for big races and this 10km will serve that purpose. Now we have to decide what kind of training to do on Wednesday but I am going to look over my training diary and Greg and I will discuss what kind of session will be the best for me.

And another thing

I forgot to mention that if anyone has any questions for me about training or anything really, feel free to email me at adlemoncello@hotmail.com or post a comment on the blog and I will do my best to answer them

3/21/10

Sunday’s Training – Am: 61 mins easy Pm: 79 mins easy

Mileage – 21 Miles

Week's Mileage - 145 Miles

I had another easy day on the cards today and the weather was fantastic so it was very enjoyable running around the town. The trails haven’t cleared yet and the ones that have are still pretty wet and muddy so I’m still doing everything on the road. I headed out to the east side of town for the morning, which I don’t often do but it was good to get a little change of scenery. As long as you stay north of Linda Vista Rd there really isn’t much traffic so it was nice to have the run of the road and look at all the really nice houses. I ended up doing my shorter run in the morning as I woke up thinking it was 7.15 and it was actually 7.45 so I was running a little late getting out the door. This meant I could only get an hour in otherwise Julie and I would be late for church (which we still were!).

We went straight from church over to the realtors to meet Julie’s parents who had driven up from Phoenix to check out some houses. We spent a few hours looking at some places and they liked one very close to where we will be living so I think they were going to go ahead and put an offer in on it. We headed over to Pita Jungle for some lunch and after filling up and saying our goodbyes, Julie and I headed over to Home Depot to pick out our fans and lights that we will have in the house.

The weather was still great at 6.15pm when I headed out for the second run so again I was looking forward to the run. I actually headed straight down the hill and into town just so I could get my legs moving quickly right away and it seemed to work. After about 30 minutes, the sun started to drop down and it suddenly got dark and cold (Flagstaff is a low light city because of the observatory). Luckily I was close to Trina Painter’s house (our assistant coach) so I stopped by and borrowed a pair of gloves from her so I wouldn’t totally freeze on the remainder of the run. The cold actually made me speed up as I just wanted to get back to the house and be warm. It was great to get back and feast into the leftovers we had from lunch – Mediterranean chicken salad and Fatoosh. Before I headed to bed I checked what the weather would be tomorrow and I was very pleased that it was going to be nice again with minimal wind in the morning.

3/20/10

Saturday's Training - Am: 74 mins Pm: 68 mins

Mileage - 20 miles

As much as today was supposed to be a nice recovery day, it ended up being pretty jam packed. I got to bed late last night because I was at work so I slept in till 8am and got some coffee and toast down me before heading out for a nice and slow 10 miles. My legs felt absolutely fine from yesterday so that was great news. For some reason it was really really cold this morning, I mean chilled to the bone cold. Yesterday was really nice and warm but it was the complete opposite today. I actually had to go back into the house and put on 2 more layers. It was also really windy so that was good for keeping me really slow and at recovery pace.

When I got back from the run, Julie and I got quickly changed (she had also just been for a run) and jumped into the car to take a quick trip down to Sedona. I had been telling Julie about some amazing waterfalls I saw the week before so we were hoping to get some pictures of them. Unfortunately, the snow had melted a lot and there were no more waterfalls but Sedona being Sedona, we could get some nice photos anyway. We stopped and had a coffee in a cafe that faced out to the red rock cliffs which was really nice. We had to head back up the road pretty quickly though because I had to get my second run in before heading to work at 3.30pm. I jumped out of the car, got changed and headed right out for another 10 miles. I felt fine on the run but I was pretty sleepy (missing my nap) so still kept it slow.

Work wasn't actually too busy tonight so I got away right at 10pm and headed home for a really nice sleep!

Julie

My fiancé, Julie Fisher has been invaluable to my marathon build up. She used to be a good runner on the Northern Arizona University track and cross-country team so she knows what it is like to punish your body in the ways I do. There was actually a book (Inner Strength Inner Peace) recently written by her old coach in high school, Tim McClellan, that devotes a whole chapter on what a hard worker she was and how she would collapse over the line every time she raced because she literally gave everything she had. This is something she never told me about so it was quite inspiring to read these things about her. Julie has been my physical therapist, water carrier, pacer and general sounding board for me and she has really helped me so much in the last few weeks when my training has become progressively harder and longer. She is always so positive about everything and it has been great to have someone like that around me all the time. I have felt bad for her as something always seems to happen when she is out there on the bike beside me. On my first 24 mile run, she followed on the bike with fluids but it was freezing cold and the snow was coming down and being whipped into our face by a nasty wind. She got to 10 miles and as we tried to grab our drinks she was in tears with how painful her hands were with the cold (She gets very bad Reynauds). She then had to ride 10 miles back while I continued the run and get in the car to try and warm up a little. She was still cold 70 mins later when I got back to the car. Then there was the bike crash she suffered just over a week ago when I was doing my 26 mile run. I’m not sure if it will be safe for her to come out when I do my 28 mile run in a few weeks.

Ever since I met Julie I have been amazed by how happy she always is and this was such an attractive quality for me. She always just wants to please others and its something I really admire in her. I feel so lucky that she said yes when I asked her to marry me and my challenge now is just not to mess anything up before she says “I do” on the big day!

3/19/10

Friday's Training - Am: 3 hours

Mileage - 26 miles

Long Slow Run (LSR) was the name of the game today. I was supposed to be doing this tomorrow but today actually fit in better with wanting to relax down in Sedona tomorrow and also giving me an extra day of recovery if I decided to run the Stanford 10km next week.

I arrived out a a trail we call Mailboxes and was gladly met by Phil Wharton, Stephan Shay (brother of the late Ryan Shay and who also recently ran 62.26 recently in the Houston half marathon) and David McNeill of Australia and NAU, fresh off a NCAA indoor 5km title and runner up in the 3km. I was glad there were people for at least the first part of my run as that would take some of the monotony out of the run. I ran with the guys for 10 miles and it was lucky they were there because I was always find it very hard to stay at a slow pace but we were running 7 to 7.30s for most of the 10 miles. We got back to the car and I loaded up on some fluids and turned and headed back out on the dirt trail. It was a gorgeous day but there was a little wind so that helped me to stay slow. The point of the run was just as the name suggests...to run slow and just get time on my feet. These runs help you develop the energy systems that you will be relying on during the marathon and I have always struggled to keep them slow enough. The next 8 miles went by without much concern and no pain from my achilles so once I got back to the car I again took on some more fluids and also gulped a gel down...and then again, headed back out on the dirt trail. The trail is basically an out and back 8 mile U shaped dirt road. It actually made it very easy for the run because I could just break it down into 3 parts with a 2 mile add on. The time actually flew by and the run really didn't feel hard or take too much out of my legs. It felt just like any other 2 hour run I have done, just an hour longer. I was using the Mizuno Nirvana 6 that I was recently sent and they work out great . Usually after the long runs there has always been some sort of chaffing or blisters but my feet were just how I had tucked them into the shoe 3 hours before. The cushioning was perfect and my feet didn't overheat which can be a bit of a problem. I would definitely recommend these shoes as a great mileage shoe. After I got to the finish and did some stretching, I headed back into town and headed straight to the Himalayan Grill for some refueling during their lunch buffet hours. I actually controlled myself well and just had one big plate of chicken curry, rice, noodles, naan bread and finished off with a bowl of mango chunks. This was just what I needed after such a long run. I managed to get my shift swapped from 3.30pm to 5pm also so that I would have enough time to get some good rest before heading into Karma for a busy night's work.