Completed 6 weeks of training

I finished 6 weeks of base training today. I ran 18 10-20-30 intervals, 2 mi tempo, 4 mi long run and 3 days of 2 mi recovery every week. I ran the last 4 mi 2 minutes faster than the previous 5. My next race is the Thanksgiving Day 5K at Pott's Field in Boulder, CO. I will continue with the same training schedule and not increase the number of intervals or the mileage of the tempo. I plan on increasing the long run to 5 mi and the easy recovery runs to 2.5 mi.

October Running Plan

I finished three straight weeks of training for the Turkey Trot 5K at Potts Field. I know I said I would add distance to the Long and Tempo runs now but I am going to lower their paces instead. I cannot continue running my Long run at 10:40 min/mi. I cannot run that slowly, it is just not natural. For October I will run Long at 10:00 min/mi and Tempo at my anaerobic threshold of 9:00 min/mi. I am going to run 18 10-20-30 intervals on Tuesday. This is down from the 20 per day I ran in September because I am changing from resting after 5 min into jogging at the 55th St underpass and Wellman Ditch bridge. That knocks out one interval for the outbound one mile but I will take a good rest when I turn around. Taking the Easy runs as a recovery run after each of the hard days (Intervals, Tempo and Long) has worked very well. I'll do three more weeks of this and then find a Halloween 5K to see where I am at. Then I will have three more weeks of training for the Thanksgiving 5K. I hope not increasing my mileage keeps me injury free until then.

Coal Creek Crossing 5K

I had a time of 26:24 in the Coal Creek Crossing 5K this morning. I am very happy with this time as I last raced in April 2010. The uncertainty of knowing if 10-20-30 training was working is over, it works. I intend to run several more 5K's in the next few months trying to improve my time.

Finished 12 10-20-30 interval sessions

It took me all of July and August to do this because of illness, a bad back and cold, and backpacking trips. This was my base training and Saturday Sept 1 I will race in the Coal Creek Crossing 5K in Louisville to establish my fitness level. My weekly schedule for July and August has been Tue-2 mi easy, Wed-3x5 10-20-30 intervals, Thur-2 mi easy, Fri-3x5 intervals, Sat-2 mi easy, Sun-4 mi easy. I found this schedule was comfortable after a couple of weeks. I have not raced any distance for 2 1/2 years so I am really excited about this coming 5K.

Four Weeks of 10-20-30 Training

I finished four weeks of 10-20-30 training today. I have completed eight sessions of three 5 interval sets or 120 10-20-30 intervals. I am not exactly sure why I decided to try running the 120th interval without letting my heels touch the ground because previous attempts to do this only resulted in failure. Previous attempts were uncomfortable and I could only take 2-3 steps before my heels hit. Interval number 120 was totally different as I cruised effortlessly through the 10 second sprint and then continued on my toes through the 20 second moderate run. Afterwards I was very impressed at how easy and smooth interval 120 had been but regretted I was done for the day. I have to wait until next week to see if I can do it again. Four weeks of 10-20-30 training has allowed me to go from running 5 seconds on my toes to 30 seconds. My goal for next week is to run all 30 10-20-30 intervals on my toes.

Three Weeks of 10-20-30 Training

I have completed three weeks of 10-20-30 training with six days of three sets of five intervals. I am halfway to my goal of 12 days of 10-20-30 training when I will run some sort of predictor of my 5K race time. My body has adapted to 10-20-30 after 6 days of it and I no longer have aches and pains in my damaged knee and I can run my 5 mile long run completely on my forefeet. I am finding out 10-20-30 training is excellent for rehabilitation of my damaged knee. I attribute this to only running fast for 10 seconds during each interval. I am very pleased with 10-20-30 training so far and it has exceeded my expectations.

June Training Plan

My next race is the CTC 5K on Aug 1. My training plan for June and July are geared for a 5K. For June I will 1) increase my weekly mileage from 45 to 50 2) increase my Tue and Thu hard workouts by .5 mi 3) Tue - run 14x400 @ Potts Field, 4) Thu - 3.5 mi Tempo and 5) increase the Long run to 12 mi. For July 16x400, 4 mi Tempo and 14 and 16 mi Long runs for three 10 day blocks between backpacking expeditions.

Peter Snell: Intervals vs Tempo

This study shows twice weekly interval sessions lower 10K and 800 times much better than twice weekly tempo runs. So I am switching to intervals on both Tue and Thur. The study said the participants ran "about 3 mi" and that is perfect for me. After the Frederick 5K I will start 5.5 mi base runs M-W-F-Su, Tue 6x800 intervals at Potts Field for 6.5 mi, Thu 3 mi cruise intervals for 5.5 mi, Sat 12.4 mi. Total 46.4 mi/wk. This is very doable because it's greater than 45 mi/wk, the 5.5 mi runs will be on Bobolink, and the long run is 2 hours. I plan on doing this schedule for 10 weeks. I may increase the base run after 2-3 weeks to 6 mi by running up Meridian rather than 55th with all it's traffic.

45 Mile Week

I reached 45 miles last week. I had a 5 mi base with a + Nike 14.35 mi, 2:21:08, 11.7 mi trail, 1:52:39, hr 120, long run on Sat. I've also determined my S Boulder Ck/Boulder Ck trail to Eben Fine park warm up is 1.58 mi and cool down is .78 mi for a total of 2.36 I record as 2.5. I want to cut the long run to 2 hours so I'll need to increase the base to 5.5 to maintain this weekly mileage. Dots and Nots Equalons have 560 mi, about 55/45 on Dots. My new blue Equalons start Tue 3/13.