AM: got up at 3am after 3hrs sleep, drove 2.5hrs to redding, CT and ran 8.1 with bedoukian. Was very fun. Just like old times. Like we'd been running together every day and this was just another run. I did realize that his 70 miles per week is really equivalent to my 80-85 because he is on trails. Same effort is 1-1.5 min slower per mile so that makes 70-100min more running per week than it appears by miles which is like getting 10-15 more miles in to your CV system and leg muscles. Definitely not training the pounding quite like I am which I do think starts to be important for the half marathon. Its on roads and you have to be able to be loose and fast after 10+ miles of asphault pounding. But he will do fine with that. He is and always will be the long distance beast among us. And he has decent speed. I saw it when he was careening downhill on trails. Even with my "lack of caring for life or limb" mentality I thought he was going pretty fast. He just needs to find that again on the roads and track. Among the 3 in our little challenge, he has been the most consistent over the past 3 years and I will not yet count him out. PM: drove another 9 hours after the am run down to salem, VA where I found a cat friendly hotel, put the cats in the room, and googled for the nearest track to get in my missed workout. First I went to this middle school with an asphault track, warmed up around the school, stretched, striders, then did the first 200 in 29sec easy and decided the track was not 400m or 200m but some weird distance that was not posted. So I then went across town to the high school and at first I didnt think they had a track, but it was big and they had tons of practice fields. So I ran around and finally found a massive 10 lane track that i didnt see before because it was raised on this plataue thingy. It was a super soft track, and the 10 lanes along with the curves being longer than the straightaways made it seem long and slow. Okay, so this workout was very strange times wise. Remember I had 3hrs sleep, 8miles on trails, and 11.5 hours in a car. So here we go 4x200 in 40, 40 (felt like i correctly sped up but apparently not), 37(thought I went way faster, but only just now hit my time), 36 (expected a 34 lol) 2x400 in 72, 74 (okay seem to have my legs back now for the most part) 1x800 2:25 (yay, this was worrying me, went out in 71 and back in 74, some lactic acid I will admit my arms got pretty stiff with it) 2x400 in 73, 75, 4x200 in 34, 32, 35, 29.16! (full on sprint, my 200m PR is 28.high). Okay weird workout but got it in and the 800 was well within my goal of 2:30. I do question whether these speed workouts would be better shorter with longer recoveries. The next one is 4x(200m[400], 800m[600]) or something like that. I ask, what is the point of doing 4 repeats of 1/2 of a race distance at race pace. That is very intense. As an integrating workout (integrating speed, lactic acid resistance, and endurance) in the final phase before a mile race I can understand it. But in the first phase of training for a much longer race I dont understand the reason. He seems to say he is training the CNS to run fast efficiently but in fact he is training the muscles and the lactic acid system. Basically I am thinking about changing these workouts to something more like 5-6x200m all out with full recovery and 4x4x200m with 200m between reps and 400m between sets doing cutdowns like 37, 35, 33, and nearly all out. The first workout actually builds speed. The second one teaches you to relax at speed. Opinions?
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