Wheeler Farm Loops

AM - 10 miles, most of it looping around the grass at the horsepark... finished at the gym and did 30 minutes of pool running w/ Andrea.

I also attempted the elliptical (for the first time in my life) while Andrea was finishing up, but stopped after 5 minutes because I was nearly launching myself off the thing and she told me I looked like I was going to seriously hurt myself... I just want to push off my toes and that doesn't really work when you are on a stationary machine. I'll never match James' elliptical PRs, but I guess I can live with that :-)

PM - 4.5 miles. 

AM - 15 miles. 3 warmup, 10 mile AT progression in 53:45 (5:23/mi avg), 2 cooldown. Splits - 5:35, 5:33, 5:28, 5:24, 5:24, 5:20, 5:18, 5:21, 5:16, 5:06. Always feels good to knock out a solid workout to start off the week. 

In addition to the new OTQ standards, something of interest (to me) that came out of the USATF meeting is that Twin Cities will be the site of the USA Marathon Championships for 2013 and 2014. Its not my ideal timeframe/location, but definitely something I'll think about... in about 7 months :-)

PM - 30 minutes pool running.

Caught a beautiful sunrise as I was leaving for work...

AM - 8.5 miles up to work, easy. 

PM - 8.5 miles home, also easy. 

I was looking through the historical data for OT standards and # of qualifiers yesterday, and ended up making this chart: 1980-2012 Olympic Trials Marathon History. For the most part the men's standards have remained consistent, getting slightly harder over the years... while the women's standards have jumped around all over the place. I like to visualize how things have changed over the years. A lot of people though that tightening the standards and getting rid of downhill courses after 2008 would cause the # of qualifiers to drop, but the opposite actually happened... it was probably the strongest cycle since the early 1980s and 2012 was the fastest OT marathon ever. Now that the bar has been raised again, it will be interesting to see what happens. I suspect (and hope!) that athletes will rise to the new challenge and it will end up being a very good thing for the sport.

Also - Camille Herron just posted some more information about the USATF meeting, trials standards, and future sites of US Championships. She was keeping me in the loop via email during the meeting over the weekend. Good stuff here, worth checking out if you are interested in how this whole process works. It looks like there will be some new additions to the national circuit, including some team championships at 8K/10K. Very cool... I think FRB could field some teams that could compete very well against the top-notch programs/clubs.

AM - 10 miles up to work.

PM - 7 miles. Down to the track and right into 8 x 200m in ~34 seconds. Then Andrea had me do some drills.

Long Run - Saturday, 8:00am - 800E 1200N in Orem (Soccer Fields). We'll do the first half of the run in Provo Canyon, and the second half on the Murdock Canal trail. 

AM - 14 miles. Warmed up 4 miles. LT Reps: 6 x 1 Mile - 5:07, 5:04, 5:04, 5:02, 5:03, 5:02. Rest interval was ~0.3 mi jog back to the start. Cooled down 2.5 miles.

Good session this morning. Was shooting for HM "date pace" (~5:05-5:10) and went a little faster, but it was a very controlled workout. No hammering the last rep, tried to keep them as consistent as possible.

PM - 35 minutes pool running w/ Andrea. For now, I'm trying to give my legs 24 hours of rest after harder workouts. 

I've been thinking a lot about what I have planned for this training cycle. I feel like I have learned a lot about training for the marathon and there are a lot of things I want to incorporate. However, this is actually a somewhat shorter buildup, so I'm not going to be able to get everything I want in there. The key is finding the mixture of the most important elements, figuring out how they fit together (that's what coaches get paid the big bucks for!) and executing them properly. The other thing to consider is how this marathon builds into the rest of the year... in 2012, I was in fantastic shape in March/April and really never got to a higher fitness level. For this upcoming year, I want it to be more of a progression... I'll run the marathon in March, then probably two national championship races in the spring/summer (25K & HM), and then potentially go for the OTQ in the fall season. There has to be more cycling up and down in order to run better as the year goes on. So I'm not going to play all my cards in these next two months - some things will get saved to provide a different type of stimulus down the road a bit. Its exciting, because while its taken me a while to figure it out, I think I've fine-tuned my approach (or at least have a plan) and can make a big jump in 2013. The conversations that Andrea and I have (especially during these afternoons in the pool) - breaking down all of my ideas, simplifying, and letting the most important things rise to the top - are incredibly valuable. 

AM - 12 miles up to work, very easy. 

PM - 4.3 miles down to SHP. 

Ryan Hall announced this morning that he is going to be coached by Renato Canova. I think this is a very exciting move... I'm a huge fan of Canova's methodology. While I don't think it can be applied to recreational runners and even for someone like me its needs some tweaking... a guy with Hall's ability level has the potential to flourish under the system. And I have to make the obvious joke - if his current coach got dropped in favor of Canova, what does that say about Canova? :-)

If you want some information overload, read this thread (good summary document available for download linked in that one), this thread, this blog, and these training programs.

Got a kick out of this comment on the message boards... "Two of Letsrun's most controversial figures in one convenient package. It's like a comic book dream team!" 

AM - 22 miles. It doesn't get much better than this. If my counting was correct, I think we had 33 guys meet for the long run this morning in Orem. Actually, 32 guys plus Kassi. We started with an out & back on the new Murdock trail, then I did a mile around the soccer fields while everything was getting drinks/GU (today was a scheduled depletion long run for me), and then we did an out & back up Provo Canyon. Kept the pace honest up the canyon, then turned around and did a little tempo on the way back. Fritz, Matt and I ran the first 3/4 mile together at around marathon effort, and then I did the next 3 miles in 15:24. "Cooled down" 2 more miles which were still pretty quick. Average pace for the whole run was 6:13 / mile. Felt good and I'm happy with how these first couple weeks of the cycle have gone.

Great running by a lot of guys today. I'm already looking forward to doing this again next weekend. I gotta say, these big group long runs are just so much fun. They're energizing for me, and I think we're very lucky to have such a great group to get out and hammer some miles with. I'm stealing this photo taken before we started from Justin - but I'm sure he doesn't mind...

Andrea and I are headed up to Park City for the night and some skiing tomorrow.