In Reply To:
Just for the sake of argument, list your last 3 run workouts, what their purpose was, and why the effort was appropriate for the purpose.
That's a fair enough request :
Thursday, Mar 19, 2009
#1 run 31 min 40 sec, 4.25 mi Treadmill. My wife leaves for work at 7AM. I get up at 4:45 AM, walk (not on sheet) about 1.5 miles to the local club, swam 1650 yards, then walked home. I got home in time to get breakfast for my son, make sure his clothes were picked out and his school backpack all packed up. Once he was situated, I had no choice to run on the treadmill, my wife had already left to work. Did a 4.25 mile run at 7:25 Pace. With my Vdot depending on distance between 50 - 55, I stuck with the lower side since I had already swam in the morning and had rode pretty hard the night before on the bike on a hilly course. 7:25 is a split between my Easy/long pace per JD. My goal was to get a run in for the mileage without taxing myself too much.
#2 run 54 min 14 sec, 7.48 mi Long double After swimming, running, I commute to work on my bike about 5 miles each way with a decent amount of hills. No I don't log this although I could to "chase numbers". Much as with the walk to the pool, I don't do it as part of a schedule, it is a reality of my life. After working about 10 hours, I rode home, and geared up for my second run. Ran it at 7:15 Pace. Since I ramping up my bike intensity starting last week, my legs have been a little fatigued. I figure playing it safe in the lower range. 7:15 is my Long Pace per JD. I started cramping a little bit in my quads coming up the last hill before my house. I felt it was a sign of the higher intensity biking, being on my feet all day, and good sign that the next days run should be light and easy.
Friday, Mar 20, 2009
#3 run 1 hr 23 sec, 7.48 mi Recovery So far this week has been a tough one with the high intensity bike and as mentioned above, the legs have felt weary. I woke up early (4:45 AM) and stretched. Legs had a weary feeling but not really sore or anything close to a "lactic acid'ish" feel. Just weary. Because of this, I decided that I would not mentally push myself at all. After getting home from work, I just ran the miles at a pace that a could sing the whole time through and never pushed myself mentally or physically. 8:05 Pace, which is what I ran, is pretty close to the mid-range of my estimated vdot values per JD for my easy runs.
I understand what your saying about runs having a purpose and can guess that you will jump on my "range of vdot values" logic that I use. I personally feel it is more important to account for my life and how I feel in order to avoid injury than to have a strict regime based upon values and theories that are more in alignment with someone who is run training almost exclusively (like yourself) and risk injury.
When I train to qualify for Boston, I will follow a more traditional and in line logic with Noakes/JD recommendations. But in both of their respective books, they say training schedules should be guidelines and that each athlete is different. Noakes goes on more specifically to say that much of his logic gets thrown out of the window when actively training for multisports. You aren't, I am. We are going to train differently.
I appreciate your feedback and read yours, Devs, and Bones posts and think about them every time I see that one of you have posted something. That doesn't mean I always agree, but the collective knowledge of everyone combined makes more a much more robust and vast library of training ideas to choose from. I appreciate your involvement and hope that a small difference in opinion is not any reason for you to feel like you should stop contributing.
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