Training Recap: Jan. 22-28

Alter G Treadmill

This week was a solid building week. I was able to run 143.5 miles, which included two solid workouts. It was also exciting because I was able to visit my friends at Aurora Bay Care Sports Medicine (don't miss their Twitter or Facebook pages) to take a look at team uniforms, get a Dartfish analysis, and try out their latest addition, the Alter G Treadmill! It was amazing to run on the Alter G. If you are not familiar with them, they reduce your bodyweight down to 20 percent while running! It is a product of NASA that got spun into a rehab tool for impact/stress reduction. I was amazed at the difference felt by simply moving from 90 percent to 80 percent bodyweight.

Adding to the week's excitement was finalizing some race scheduling. I get asked a lot what races I plan to do this year, and feel bad because I am a bit on the spontaneous side when it comes to my race scheduling. I like to focus on a couple major races, but I also like to plan based on race performance, and how I felt. Therefore, I often add races throughout the year in a somewhat last-minute fashion. Hey, it adds to the excitement, right?

First of all, I will be running in the John Dick Memorial 50k on Saturday, February 4th. It is a relatively small gathering, but a 50k trail run nonetheless. I plan to basically train right through this race, using it as a workout of sorts. Secondly, I have registered for this year's Ice Age 50 on May 12. I am really pumped for this race, because it has drawn some great athletes this year. It looks to be setting up to be quite competitive for the top few spots. I will definitely be adding some more races between these two in the coming weeks.

Anyway...back to the training. The two most notable workouts I did this week were a speed session and a hybrid tempo/pickup workout. The speed session was built inside a 12-mile run. I incorporated 10 x 65-75 second intervals, with 1 to 3 minutes of recovery between. I would start the intervals at about just under 5 minute/mile pace and end each of them with an all-out sprint. It really felt good to let my legs feel some speed again. I try to include these types of sessions into my training a couple of times a month. It helps keep my legs from getting too sluggish from the high volume of mileage. My second workout, the hybrid tempo/pickup, felt really good as well. I did a 30-minute tempo run at about 5:45 minutes/mile. I followed it with a 3-minute recovery jog and 4 x 75-second pickups. I ran the pickups similar to the intervals mentioned in the earlier workout. Please see below for the day-by-day specifics of this week.

Sunday	22.5 mile long run
Monday	AM: 16 mile easy run (freezing rain) PM: 10 mile easy run
Tuesday	AM: 13 mile easy run PM: 7 miles (treadmills at Aurora Sports Complex)
Wednesday	12 mile interval workout - 10x65-75sec pickups (all out at end) with 1-3min recovery jog between
Thursday	AM: 10 mile easy run PM: 11 mile easy run
Friday	AM: 10 mile hybrid tempo/pickup workout - 30min tempo at 5:45/mi with 3min recovery - 4x75sec pickups PM: 12 mile easy run
Saturday	20 mile long run
Total	143.5 miles