Mid Week 2/23-24/10 - Pacer Time

Just a quickie here today. Will be updating the web site some, adding training plans for next fall, which seems a long way out but September will be upon us before you know it.

Two new groups were added one for the Mt. SI relay and ultra as well as one for the White River 50.  If you're training for those join on in. Certainly if you're training for other events and you want to join those groups or add your own please feel free.

I'm also going to add a group for Pacers. We'll be handling the pacing again for Rock n Roll this year and I want to get a head start on that. I also figure that having the group will give others outside of the group a way to contact all you rock stars. Below are the paces that we will cover. Those that paced for the Seattle Marathon/Half will have dibs on this and I will send out an e-mail to you shortly.

As we did last year we will have to have people manning a booth at the expo for two days leading up to the event. On a bad note they won't be providing any gear for pacers this year. Brooks is their new sponsor and I guess they won't being supporting that. On a good note Brooks is our groups sponsor and I bet I'll be able to weasel something out of them.

Here are the paces we'll be covering:

Half Marathon

• 1:30
• 1:35
• 1:45
• 1:52
• 2:00
• 2:07
• 2:15
• 2:22
• 2:30

Full Marathon

• 3:00
• 3:10
• 3:15
• 3:20
• 3:30
• 3:40
• 3:45
• 4:00
• 4:15
• 4:30
• 5:00

Mid Week 2/16-17

This week I'm going to go over tempo runs  and yes I'm pulling it from my web site.  All of the info I've used the last couple of weeks is there and I want to make sure that people are seeing it even if it's through my blog. I think if you read it and then listen to me explain it, it might make more sense.

Tempo Time

A tempo run is nothing more than 20 minute steady run. This is hands-down the least complicated variety of speed work. There are no distances to keep track of, no split times to remember, and no hassles. All you have to do is run faster than your usual training pace or 80-85% of your maximum heart rate or for those of you who are not good at math like me, 20-30 seconds slower per mile than your current 5k race pace. (To make it even easier for you I have put a chart up on the web site in the members section to help you out with this.)

Unlike most speed work which consists of relatively short bursts of high effort, tempo runs call for a single sustained effort. The result is that your body learns race economy: running at a fast pace for relatively long periods of time. Tempo runs will give your top speed a boost, too. By running nearly at race pace, your body becomes accustomed to running close to its upper limit (though not exceeding it). In doing so, you actually increase that upper limit, and you become gradually faster. It is important to stay as close as possible to the prescribed pace. Going faster is not as good as running the right pace. This is a good workout for practicing pacing and learning how your body feels while running comfortably hard.

You should begin a tempo workout with a good warm up of 10-15 min jog and follow it with same for a cool down.

MId week 2/9/10/10

With many people starting up on hills over the next few weeks I though this would  be a great time to go over that workout with you. I think it's the best workout that we do over the course of you training plan I want you to be able to maximize for it's full potential.

Probably one of the comments I hear the most form the group is “I hate hills” and my come back is that hills are our friends. Personally I don’t think there is any workout that we do that is better for you. The rather obvious benefit of hill workouts is that they make you better at running hills. Even better, you will see benefits on the flats, too. The muscle groups you use to overcome hills are virtually the same as those you use for sprinting, so hill work enhances your speed. This strengthening effect is supplemented by the fact that hill workouts help increase both the frequency and length of your stride -- you get even faster. As a final added bonus, hill training also strengthens the muscles around your knees, helping to reduce knee injuries. You should, however, be cautious about hill work if you have an injury in your calf or Achilles tendon. Even if you do not, you should still be sure to stretch these areas of your legs especially well before starting making sure to run a 1-2 mile warm-up run before the workout.

•HOW OFTEN SHOULD I HILL TRAIN AND FOR HOW LONG?

As a general rule, hill training is done once per week - done properly, these sessions are very demanding. 6 weeks should be long enough to acquire the benefits of hill work.

•HOW LONG AND STEEP DOES THE HILL NEED TO BE?

The ideal hill for a strength and stamina hill workout should take you about 90 seconds to climb. The grade should be steep enough that you "feel the burn" in your legs over the last half or quarter of the hill repeat, yet not so steep that your normal running form is significantly compromised. A grass or soft dirt surface is preferable for running up (and especially for the recovery jog back down the hill).

•HOW MANY REPEATS SHOULD I DO?

Well let’s start with your fitness level and running experience. If you are new to running then I would start with 3 repeats adding 3 per week until you reach 9 repeats, if you are more advanced you can start with 6-9 building up to 9-12 repeats.

•CHUCK’ S FAVORITE METHOD FOR RUNNING THIS WORKOUT:

Way back, when I was training for competition, as you can tell this one of my favorite workouts. I would always lose track of how many repeats I had done so I came up with a way to keep track. I split the workout into sets of three. Not wanting to deprive myself of the pleasure of the workout I decided to each repeat in each set a little different but each equally beneficial. So I came up with easy, medium and hard repeats. Don’t fool yourself though; the easy one is probably the hardest. So here is a description.

•EASY:

Concentrate on lifting your knees and pushing off hard with every step, attention to your "vertical" motion is at least as important as your forward motion up the hill. The strong push-off and high knee lifts will increase both your stride length and the range of motion in your hips: voila, you've increased your speed.

•MEDIUM:

Basically the same but more focus on turnover, so run a little faster. To help with this think about using your upper body to help you up the hill. Imagine that you have ski poles in your hands and they are pushing you up the hills.

•HARD:

This one is easy to describe. You run up the hill as hard as you can. Enough said. It’s needless to mention that you are ready to go easy again after this one.

Many people will say to me that they have this hilly course that they run and they wonder if they were to run that hard would that have same effect as running the hill repeats that we do. I don’t really think so and many of you can attest to the fact the one of our hill workouts is probably a bit tougher. Speaking of tougher I forgot to mention that 6 weeks of this workout will make you mentally tougher which will help you in the latter stages of your races. Which you can imagine will make each race that much more rewarding in many ways. So remember hills our friends.

MId Week 2 mile Time trial/ Pace Run

A few years ago I was looking for a way to get a better grip on how people were progressing with their training and fitness. So decided the best way to find out was to test everyone, since a written test wouldn’t tell me anything I thought hey lets just have everyone run hard once a month. Since Tuesday night is a hard workout night I thought we could just do it then. Now you ask yourself why two miles? Well two miles is short enough that it test your speed and long enough to test your strength while also allowing for a quick recovery after the workout.

Here’s what I like about it. It gives me a good indication of your fitness and if you are improving through your training. I can use your time and help you determine how fast you might run other races which help us determine what pace to run those races. Speaking of pace, these runs are a good way to learn pace. As you do them monthly you will learn what a reasonable pace for you to run is and what is not, hopefully. So plan your pace based on the previous month, you’ll find that if you pick a pace that you can handle that it is not that hard of a workout.

Ok now for all of you who wig out every month when we run them. Their really is no reason for you to fear them. They are just another track workout. Just remember why we are doing them and run a hard effort. Will you improve every month hopefully but not always? Sometimes you just have a bad day; I think though that if you are consistently training that you should at least be close to the one you ran the previous month. What if you get out to the track and just feel like crap, then just run comfortably hard or hey just bag it. It’s not the end of the world. It’s just workout.

Like I said though there is nothing that we do that’s helps me see how your training is going or not going like this time trial.

Oh one more thing you can post your times on the web site for me to look over and see how you're doing