Run log 10/1-10/8

Oct. 1st

5 mi EZ lunch break at work. Getting less and less of these oppurtunities lately, at least for a full 5 so always take the chance to get out in the middle of the day. Actually makes me way more alert in the afternoon.

Upper body medley- decided to quit the gym membership this week, I don't use 95% of the stuff at the gym, go to no classes, and have the weights I need in my aprtment. Only thing left I would lack is heavy deadlifts and back extensions- no big loss. Even if I went and spent a fortune on more equipment for my "home gym" it would save me already 9 months from now.

6.2 around Mine Hill

Oct. 2nd

AM- lunges, deads, squats, some pullups, calves. Upped the weight on everything- more than usual. Prob did it too hard this week as I was running late and pushing to get all the exercises in. Taking off lifting lower body next week to be overly fresh for the Oil Creek 100.

PM- off. No running today to kick off the taper, lifting was enough.

Oct. 3rd

Upper body stuff at gym, mainly shoulder presses dips and pushup variations. Abs and core using this stability ball pull towards your stomach with hands on the ground exercise I saw online. Felt it good in the lower abs.

10 miles easy around the area. Got some decent hills in but no intensely.

Oct 4th

11 miles Tourne trails doing my usual route plus some added hill repeats I haven't done before. My pace was overall slower than the last couple weeks, partly b/c of the hills but I think I am in need of a good recovery. The next week luckily is the 100 so just a few jogs will do to freshen back up and have some speed again.

5 miles with Highland hashers. Firs trun with this group, a few speedsters mostly guys training for marathons and ran with Andrew who is very good- it was a push and got me a good 16 for the day.

2X52 BW squats. Core, Abs.

Oct 5th

Abs-core, 5 miles TM EZ

Oct 6th

14 mi Highlands Trail mostly. Last longish run before 100. Went to the highland trail from yellow and pumped out some serious hill work, felt like I was working hard but only got 14:30 pace for the whole 14 ~3650ft g/l. I definitely need some rest. Many sections were almost unrunnable rocky on the first .75 miles from the start on the yellow trail.

Oct 7th

4 miles in Allentown.

Total (running) mileage: 60 miles. Glad I decided on this semi-taper week to allow rest to give me fitness instead of chasing another 100 mile week. I look forward to having a very well rested race next Saturday- I've tended to over do the few weeks before so this will be inviting. Probably will gain a few pounds because I'm not that good at calorie restriction but will keep it to mainly fruit and V8.

TOTAL RUNNING MILEAGE: 60 MI

Run log 9/24-9/30

Sep 24th

7  mi EZ around gym. Felt fast after a hard weekend's runs. Ate like crap on Sunday night, just was jonesen' for some ice cream all day long and had to scratch the itch. It certainly manifested itself after work as it dissapated into the atmosphere as entropy and other forms.

Upper body medley

Sep 25th

AM- lunges, deads, squats, some pullups, calves. Upped the weight on everything. Have to do this every week a little bit as my lifting has platued for a while now.

PM- Picatinny 12 miler hill interval course.. nailed this one I've been doing for years and possibly my PR for it, even with now running almost all grass the entire time and combining short hill sections on the way down. Basically always start flat for a mile, a steep hard grade, slight grade section, flat for a mile, a longer hill mile, back down and part of it back up, a 1.75 less steep but longer hill, a wraparound section, followed by down the large hill but springing back up at .25 mile intervals 8x. All this is done at my tempo effort striving for 8/10 the whole time. 7:34 pace for 1,129 ft gain total.

Sep 26^th 

Speedwork sandwich. 4 hill sprints as last week, performed generally the same but on tireder legs from a hard hard effort yesterday, added a flat sprint for the 5th interval. 

3 mi WU

Four 1/4 mile sprints up a @8-10% grade, recovery down.

Splits up: 7:48, 7:25, 7:30, 7:35 min/mi

Flat interval. Forgot the time probably around 80-85 sec.

2 mile CD

Hindu's & dips and shoulder presses. Need to add weight to dips to build up strength. Not for running but I really am going to look at improving upper body functional strength without making it too time consuming, running volume and intensity always takes front stage.

Sep 27^th

10 miles around Tourne near Denville, modearet pace to save legs for Saturday's 50k. Pushed on the hill sections, did mostly trail but added 4-5 miles of Mountain Lakes nieghborhood hills which ends up being my winter route when it gets too dark to do tempos on the technical trails.

2X50 BW squats. Core, Abs.

Sep 28th

OFF! Nadas working out. Felt antsy all day it was the first sedentary day in over a month. Had sushi with friends in West Orange. Damn that was good stuff, gotta find the name- Kim's Sushi. Tiny joint. Awesome.

Sep 29^nd

Mountain Madness 50k in 5:04. They did it in reverse this year supposedly it was harder. Blew way past my goal pace of 10/mile. Ran the whole thing, and the mistake was getting complacent in the end thinking I had 3rd place and $75 bucks in the bag. All of a sudden 1.5 miles from the end 4th place sprinted past me! Turns out he knew he was 6 min behind and ran his ass off to catch and overcome me. What an effort to blast out that far from the finish, kudos!

Sep 30th 15.4 mi at my folks place near Allentown, PA to help them move stuff. Love doing this mostly flat with some long climbs route that starts from my parents, goes into and through the Little Lehigh Parkway, some neighborhoods, and back. Makes a relatively moderate 20 miler no prob. Got some cold hail passing over which felt fantastico,

2x50 BW squats. Pullups, leg raises abs and such.

Total (running) mileage: 84 miles. Light for the week but this was my planned lighter week in liue of 90-100/week lately which back to back is a sudden ramp-up from the Leadville DNF. Haven't missed a long run since then and I am not crashing so keeping it going. Hope to pull off another 100+ this coming week even though I signed up last minute for Oill Creek 100 on the 13th. It will only confirm for me that I might not benefit from long tapers after all, I am suspecting since my past 2 week's races went great with high volume the past month.

September mileage: 420 miles

 

Run log 9/17-9/23

Sep 17th - Sep 23th
Sep 17th
4.3 mi moderate @work

6 mi EZ around gym

Upper body medley

Sep 18th
AM- lunges, deads, squats, some pullups, abs, core

Skipped calves in lieu of race week (Virgil Crest 50M)

PM- Torrential downpour, tornado warnings, wussed out and skipped the outdoor run for some treadmill action- haven’t tested my treadmill climb running fitness in a while. Felt strong on these- not completely tapped by the end like a few months back.

1% at 8 min/mile
3% at 8 min/mile
4% at 8 min/mile
5% at 8 min/mile
2% at 8 min/mile
4% at 8 min/mile
5% at 8 min/mile

40 sec break to reset treadmill (only allowed 60 min of time on it at the gym)

6% at 8 min/mile
2% at 7:30 for .50 mile, 7:00 min/mile for .50 mile
2% at 8 min/mile

Sep 19^th

AM- 3 mi moderate at work

PM-

2 mi WU

Four 1/4 mile sprints up a @8-10% grade, recovery down.

Splits up: 7:48, 7:25, 7:30, 7:35 min/mi

2 mile CD

Sep 20^th

8.1 miles around my apartment, moderate to push pace (7:50).

2X47 BW squats.

Sep 21st
4 mi EZ at work to stay loose for Saturday. Upper body at gym.

Sep 22^nd

Virgil Crest 50M in 9:35. Around 51 miles, about 11,000 gain. Only 10-15 minutes of non moving time. Strived to spend no more than a minute at all the aid stations just to grab a gel and refill my handheld or hip bottle, only needed to hit the woods twice, and added a mile of climbing due to taking a wrong turn a couple of times. The leader ran 8:57- I think I could have caught him if I had no stops. Ran 90%, including most of the Green peak except the very steep portions. Felt very strong throughout. I attribute this to high volume lately (90-100 miles/week), losing a little tubby, and possibly the recent addition of speedwork. Hardly tapered or rested at all this week. If I chose to do the 100M would have had over 14 hours on the 2^nd 50 miles to get sub-24. Not gonna lie I wished I had brought my checkbook. This race was so much fun and I didn’t feel like I was overly struggling at all the whole time. Didn’t really carb load the day before- woke up 13 minutes before the race unregistered, and at a breakfast gel miles in. So much for the whole carb loading thing. I guess failing at Leadville put a fire under my buttocks. Look ahead to taking my fitness as far as it can go in the next year.

Sep 23rd
10 mi patriots path. Achilles a little tight in the beginning but felt good and ready for a new week. 6 days till Mountain Madness 50k!

2x50 BW squats (Finally hit that 50!). Pullups, front and side crunches

Doing pushups daily now, at least 110-120 every other day.

Total (running) mileage: 103 miles

Workouts Sep 10th-16th

Sep 10th - Sep 16th

Sep 10th
6.2mi @ easy pace. Feeling great despite 55 miles of running the past 2 days at a good effort. Regular route around gym and surrounding area after upper body workout. Mostly flat with on hill going up Mine Hill.

Sep 11th
AM- lunges, deads, squats, weighted calf standing raises, some pullups, abs, core

PM- 12mi Pica hill intervals. Same route as last week b/c I fotgot my Garmin, and wanted to see how much faster my speedwork was getting me for the 12mi route I memorized long ago.. Estimated a 7:50 pace, which I could hardly believe. I guess the recent 10 or so pounds of weight loss also helped!

45x2 BW squats

Sep 12th
3 mi flat and easy, 2.5 miles of ~.25 5% uphill sprints with down recovery, 2 more miles easy. Second week of “speed” work. Last week struggled to get 8 mi/mi on the repeats, this time they were well under 8. Did 5 instead of 4 also, 2 mile cooldown. 8 total.

Sep 13^th  

11 miles Tourne Park. Twice up the Top of the Tourne instead of once, 25 seconds/mile faster. I feel the small amount of speedwork may be paying off drastically already. All I think about lately is Leadville for next year. At this rate hopefully it will be an amazing buildup.

Dive bomber/hindu pushups, dips, abwork, core

Sep 14th
10 mi easy patriots path near Morristown. Upper body stuff at gym.

Sep 15th

Main clockwise 2011 MOMA loop at Ringwood without, plus 5 miles of the white trail mostly on the other side of Skyline Drive. 30 miles with some 4500 ft gain. Faster generally everywhere, accounting for a 5 stop running into some friends and a 5 minute woods break b/c of eating a lot the day before.

Sep 16th
Went to PA to visit paretns and did 14 in the morning on a comfortable route from their house to the Little Lehigh Parkway and back. Love this route, although it ussually is at the end of a hard week when I am fatiqued as hell it is awesome to see a ton of other folks up that early on a Sunday.

2x47 BW squats (aiming for 2x50 soon), pullups and bent over rows, abs (leg raises, side leg raises, crunches)

Total (running) mileage: 91 miles

Workouts Sep 3- Sep 9th

Sep 3 - Sep 9th

Sep 3^rd

6.2mi @ easy pace. Three hidden valley powerline loops on Randolph trails. Has just gorged on five guys hours earlier and felt like I was running with 3x earth gravity. Finished with some shoulder, pushups, triceps, calisthenics and weights and leg raises, various crunches, core.

Sep 3^rd

AM- lunges, deads, squats, weighted calf standing raises, some pullups
PM- 12mi Pica hill intervals. Felt a little easier, will add more hills next week. More pullups at home.

Sep 3^rd

3 mi flat and easy, 2 miles of ~.25 5% uphill sprints with down recovery, 2 more miles easy. First “speed” work (about 8min/mi) I have done in a year. I was less sore from going a little easier on the weights Tuesday, and am looking forward to what benefits this harder workout will bring. This will make 3 hard workouts in a row during mid-week, but hoping the body will adjust to this by becoming more fit.

Sep 3^rd -  

11 miles Tourne Park. Twice up the Top of the Tourne instead of once.

2x40 BW squats. Pullups/bent over raises. Abs, core.

Sep 3^rd

6 mi super easy. After work. Upper body stuff at gym.

Sep 3^rd
Main backwards 2011 MOMA loop at Ringwood without AS 3/5 segment. 23-24 miles.

Sep 3^rd
September 11^th 50k, a loop around Manhattan. Did the first 16 casual chatting with people, got a little lost with someone in Harlem, and bucked up for the final 15 heading down the west highway. 33.15 in 5:25, letting me know I need to get some speed back as in 2010 I did 7’s steady all though the Philly Marathon. Great fatass at a historical site I had always wondered what it looked like. Unbelievable to see the new towers in construction too.

2x45 BW squats

Total (running) mileage: 98 miles

Weekly workout entries Aug 27- Sep 2

Aug 27 - Sep 2nd

Aug 27th-
Upper body medley, 6 miles easy around gym area

Aug 28th-
AM- Leg raises, lower body gym, pullups
PM- 12 miles Picatinny hill interval "course": ~1000 ft gain in 1:38 of short and longer     hills on mostly grass and roadside dirt

Aug 29th-
AM- Relaxed 5 lunch hour.
PM- NJ Trail series 5k, 20:18- 15 seconds above my '11 PR so feeling good about that. 1 mile cooldown to sweep. Everyone started at handicapped times so all would finish more or less at the same time. It worked perfectly, cool concept!

Aug 30- 11 miles Tourne Park. Going for my usual determined loop, when I saw a large bear 100 yeards away on the flat section. Diverted for some extra hillage, got 1,083ft in 1:34.

Gradually introducing BW squats etc. now. 2x30 immediately after run.

Aug 31- off

Sept 1-
Watchung sierra CCW plus pink hill. Easy pace, 12mi in 1:56.

Sept 2-
Ringwood, 30 miles in 6:25. Ended with a few sprints up a hill to approach 31 mi. attempting the reverse course loop which ended up going down some of the trails NOT on the course but added a lot of extra mileage. Went through almost 150 oz of water, a record. Had to stop at some bathroom at the 202 trailhead to fill up form their sink 12 miles in. I went up some scree-like hill clearings adding some extra elevation. Ended up sort of doing the reverse big loop except all of green and none of yellow. Encountered a large Timber rattlesnake, right on the trail. I was a few steps from stepping on it, obviously the rattle was enough to warn me. No biggie, until I go back home and research the species. Luckily they are unagressive unless severely provoked, at which time they might not even release venom as you're not a food source, but if they do, it's one of the most potent venoms. I'm not sure stepping on it would have gotten me a bite but the closest house would have been right at the end of blue, at the Bear road, 1.5 miles from 202 and then who knows maybe 10 to the hospital? May not have been deadly but surely painful. A beautiful snake, and a new respect on my end, like Indiana Jones' kind of phobia.

Total (running) mileage: 80 miles

Weekly workout entries Aug 18-26

Aug 18-Aug 26th
Aug 18th - Leadville 100 trail 2012 DNF 19 hours or so mile 60

Aug 19- Stroll around some reservior 10 minutes down rt. 24. Thought some backpacker dropped his sandal and ran back, out of breathe in 20 seconds.

Aug 20- Ran 8mi through Red Rocks. Fatigued still from Hope Pass but it felt good. Badass park! Missed Crosby Still and Nash playing the next day. Drove to Boulder and ran "blueberry something or other/Mesa" up to the Flatirons where there was this huge Flat Rock face. Ran back down (~3 mi total). Went a little nuts on the downhill there was some onlookers waiting for my fall. Back to Denver for a few winks.

Aug 21- 10 miles Hidden Valley Randolph/Patriots Path. Felt lighter than usual, got to the gym the next morning and was down to 135 from 144 a month prior. I guess did not eat enough after the run and burned a lot of mass off. But feeling less stress on the joints.

Aug 22- AM --> Gym squats/deadlifts/lunges/calf raises/back extensions. First time in three weeks. I think I screwed up my left calf doing the calves too heavy, the rest of the week had a weird calf strain making it hard to walk at work. Took some Tylenol which I don't usually do. Felt good to get back to this routine. Felt weaker on the lifts, thinking of switching to more plyometrics and attempting to do lots of one-legged squats throughout the year as it would be more condusive to trail running/hills and leave me less sore.
PM --> Calf made running impractical. 60 min. stepclimber level 7 with double steps and level 8 last 3 minutes of every 10. Upper body workout, abs (leg raises and weighted ball crunches).

Aug 23- 1 hour stat bike hill intervals. Upper body workout, planks.

Aug 24- 1 hour moderate stepclimber level 7. Calf almost good.

Aug 25- Help sister move into their new place in PA. Got a loop of Mt. Tammany DWG in on the way. 4.5 mi.. Felt good but calf still very tight.

Aug 26- 26.2mi Ringwood main loop and capoff on the yellow trail at the end for a marathon distance. 5:08. Never felt better on this trail. My diet had been cleaned up over the past 3 weeks and I am lighter and more energetic. The hills were easier, I wasn’t as wiped, although it was a noticeably cooler day. Started with 100oz camelbak and used almost the whole thing by the end.

Total (running) mileage: 50-52