Progress not Perfection

To have striven, to have made the effort, to have been true to certain ideals - this alone is worth the struggle. ~ William Penn

Well, I seem to have failed in my 3rd resolution. I could say work had got in the way. While partly true. I chose to sleep in & it cost me. At the end of the day I didn’t want to workout. Soon have finished this week with one XT workout. While it was a doozy, it was 2 short of my target.

If you thought you were reading the blog of a guy that’s always successful now you know different. As I say, I am just an average guy trying to get better. This isn’t one of those fake, life is always perfect blogs. This is my journey. A real training journey.

The important thing is this. I will not beat myself up. I’ll take it in stride & keep doing my best. I will get better. I will run more, run farther, & have fun. 

TUESDAY

After our extra long run on Saturday, I took off Sunday & Monday. After the rest I had a fleeting run on Tuesday, a reverse lap on my neighborhood route. It was rather uneventful. Between conference calls I ventured out for a lunch run. Around mile 2 I ran past a guy repairing his fence I gave a friendly wave & journeyed on. I passed by the neighborhood school. On lunch runs the kids are usually out at recess I always imagine that they’re wondering why I’m running so slow. Luckily I have my 90s rock blasting in my headphones & can’t hear if they are actually heckling me. I’m sure they’re not. To add to my being out of sync, I forget to take a post run picture...

WEDNESDAY

I woke up at 3:45. A full 15mins before my alarm. Might as well get up & start my long run routine. We are scheduled for another, as we call it, a 2 by 2 by 2 by run. You’ll recall it’s 2 (2E, 2E), 2E. 10 miles with thresholds.

Another trip around a familiar route. It starts up Legacy swinging by the Track Tuesday track. We make the three sides of the block, down through a neighborhood & onto the trail. I’m always lost at this point. I’m pleasantly surprised when we’re closer to the end than expected. Into the 2nd set of threshold miles & I’m sucking wind as usual. At this point I’m alone. Leo & Don have turned on the afterburners & are out of sight. I can just barely see Raph. The last couple of easy miles we gather back up and finish together. I am happy to learn that I have ran my fastest paced 10-miler in years, averaging 9:32 per mile.

THURSDAY

XT day doesn’t disappoint. The club has initiated a 4-week XT challenge. A prescribed workout to be performed once between Thursday & Sunday. Participants have the chance to win prizes.

Race entry to Big Star Half, Race entry to Bluebonnet Half, plus shirts & hats from Big Star & the FRC store. So naturally I’m in.

This first workout is tough. 3 rounds for time. It starts out with an 800m run (1/2 mile). Then you start an 8 min AMRAP (as many rounds as possible).

The rounds are as follows: 8 burpees, 12 alternating lunges, & 18 sit-ups.

You repeat the 3 exercise routine for 8 mins. Once you complete the 8 mins you take a 1 min rest & start over with the 800m run. You repeat this process 3 times.

This was extremely difficult for me. Round two brought on the dry heaves. I’m not in nearly as good of shape as I thought. Nonetheless I kept going & finished the workout. To put it lightly, I’m completely trashed when it’s over. Total time 41 mins 17 secs.

FRIDAY

REST DAY!

In the past I’ve felt like I’ve been running out of gas on the long runs. I use Huma energy gels throughout the run, but still get gassed. Leo uses Karbolyn, a carbohydrate complex that fuels you in endurance workouts. He always seems to be strong at the end so I thought but was worth a shot. It came in today! I’m excited to give it a try on Saturday. I’ll put a scoop in my water bottles & hope that it fuels me at the end of the long run. Stay tuned.






SATURDAY 

Today we’re looking at 2E, 2(2T, 3min rest), 3E. It’s 31 degrees, but it feels colder. We set out on one of our old routes in reverse. We head up Main passing the FC Dallas soccer stadium. After 2 miles we we start the first threshold section. We make a left just before the Dude Perfect building. We’re pushing the pace pretty good. I look down & we’re right at an 8:30 pace. I’m thinking that I feel pretty good. So I keep pushing forward. 4 miles down & we’ve made it to the 3 min rest. Thank the Lord! I was breathing pretty hard. After walking for the shortest 3 mins in history we start the second threshold section. I’m really not looking forward to it, Back up to 8:30 we go. About a half mile in we run by the speed work track. Now starts a slightly downhill & this is the part where Leo takes off. I’m still holding an 8:30 & he’s walking away from us. Finally we finish the thresholds & start the rest minutes. We walk 2 mins & start the last leg of easy miles back to the store. We cut through Cottonwood trail & snap a pic by the pond. With about a mile to go we realize we’re running a pretty quick, 9:10 pace! In typical Leo fashion, he says let’s finish it out! Engage the afterburners! I don’t know how fast we were going I didn’t want to know. Nonetheless we ended up averaging about 8:45 for the last mile. After Wednesday’s run I mentioned running my fastest pace 10-miler. Well, we bested that today by 12 secs per mile with a 9:20 average pace!

I feel like the Karbolyn helped. It could have been the placebo effect. We'll see. I'll keep testing and report back soon.

SUNDAY

It’s an off day, but I feel like going outside. So I take a walk around the neighborhood. I take some time to think about the coming work week & the race on Saturday. In the process I make up another 5k route to run on another day.

That’s a wrap!

Nothing like a little Jack Daniels

MONDAY

It was a beautiful day in Texas today!  Sunny & 44 degrees at noon!  Perfect running weather! I'm liking the new loop that has opened up.  

TUESDAY

The weather was little different today.  It was 40 and overcast.  The wind chill was 33 at noon. I had a real solid run.  I wasn't planning to push the pace.  It just happened.  

About a half mile in I looked at my watch and I was running an 8:20/mile pace.  My stride felt smooth so I went for it.  At this point I decided not to look at my watch anymore.  I didn't want my mind to tell me I was going too fast.  As I finished mile 2 I felt like I was slowing down, but I kept pushing trying to maintain as best as I could.  2.5, I was really sucking wind now, but I was telling myself not to quit. As I made the last turn on the block I told my self if I was under 27mins I was going the extra 0.1 for a 5k. (my fastest this year 26:35)  I hadn't ran a VDOT since September. I was curious where I was being as the speedwork had been over for a few months.  Beep! 3 miles.  I looked down secretly hoping I was over 27mins... 25 and some change!  Go! Go! Go! The 0.1 from hell! Done!  Final time 26:33!

So what's a VDOT?  That's a logical question.  

The real short version: Running coach Jack Daniels used V̇O₂max to calculate running performance.  His calculation took a recent race time and could convert that data into equivalent times at different race distances. VDOT Calculator  I’m using the handy app. There's is a whole training philosophy built around the premise. Which is what the FRC Training Plan is based on.

Using my time from today’s 5k let’s see what data we get back. 

The equivalent tab shows you what the estimated race time will be at different distances. All things being equal of course. 

As for the training part this is what FRC uses for us. So when the program calls for easy pace. I should be running between 10:29 - 11:31 pace and so on & so forth. The pace/effort increases as the distance shortens. 

Anyway. Go check some of that out & see what kind of results you have!

If you’re thinking it sounds like hocus pocus, have a look at how my 5k VDOT times over the 24-week training cycle changed. 

In case your counting I shaved 10mins off of my 5k time. *individual results may vary*  This is also evidence of how important speed work is.  We cut the speed work & added miles.  Alright, enough geeking out...

WEDNESDAY

I woke up this morning at 4am to get ready for the Wednesday long run. Today's plan called for 2E, 2T, 2E, 2T, 2E = 10 miles.  Oh, and it was 33 degrees with a 20-something wind chill.  We started off with the 2 miles around a 9:50 pace, followed by an 8:58 in mile 3 & 9:27 at mile for.  I felt completely gassed.

I guess since it was fresh on my mind from yesterday's journal entry, but I was realizing that our Easy paces were usually 30 - 45 secs per mile too fast according to my VDOT.  We slowed a bit & had a few miles of discussion around to topic.  That led us on a trip down memory lane.  We remembered that just a few months ago we were struggling to run 11-12 min miles.  Look at us now!  Don't forget your progress!  Nonetheless, that didn't help that I was just tired.  Maybe from the hard 5k yesterday?  Maybe from the hard training & long miles.  We were in the 2nd extension of the training program. At this point we have ran 13+ miles at least a dozen times since August.  Not to mention the other double digit mile runs; another dozen of them as well. Or was it from 2 hard Half Marathons in back to back months?  Who knows.

Anyway, 5, 6, & 7 I hung with guys as best as I could.  Mile 8 I decide to just let them go.  After that threshold ended the guys looped back to finish the 2 remaining easy miles by my side.  What can you say about that?  These guys are just top notch!

With all the whining about being tired I still averaged a 9:45 pace for 10 miles. 

SATURDAY

I took a couple of days off & here we are. Long Run Saturday!  Leonardo plotted us a 14 mile route all around Frisco. The first 7 miles had some hills. The back half was pretty flat. The plan was to run easy miles as some of the guys were thinking about adding some extra miles afterward. 

From FRC store we ran through the Rail District. We ran through areas with big houses, old houses, modern houses. We ran through a couple parks and around a couple ponds. Up Fisher hill past the castle, back to the Rail District (photo 1) & the Frisco Square. We looped around the FC Dallas stadium & finally back to the FRC store. 

Once we finished we circled up, traded fist bumps, & took our finishing photo. 

SUNDAY

Finished up the week with an Easy 5-miler. Not a ton to say about the run. It’s was a beautiful mid-60 degree day. I did get another new pair of shoes prior yesterday’s run.  My 3rd pair of Nike Zoom Air Pegasus. I really love these shoes!

I did have a little foot pain after yesterday’s long run. I think I had my left shoe a little too tight. I used the massage gun on it a few times yesterday & today. All seemed well today so I went out for my scheduled run. 

I ran the new neighborhood loop & added a little to get my 5 miles in. I planned to run 10:30/mile, but these days I’m finding it more difficult to run that pace on shorter mile runs.  

There were a lot of people out enjoying the weather. It was nice to just enjoy the run today. 

See you again next week!