Ok so in summary, from 01/14/2018 to 02/10/2018:
Been working hard on my aerobic base (long/intense sessions), and still getting in some hard speed. This year i’m stepping up my race distances to half marathon & maybe even marathon (come December). So, I need to improve my aerobic base considerably. Plus, this is going to help with my shorter races, especially 5k. My mile has gotten slower but that’s more of a mental thing. It’s hard really going nuts on a mile. I’ve backed off a bit from that PR mentality I had in December, which I think is fine → just need a break from pushing the limits speed wise. Also, all of these intense longer miles are going to set me up for some major mile efforts & such eventually, as long as i’m still getting in some speed at least once a week. I love my Thursday hammer-time sessions.
Ran a solo marathon out of nowhere.
Had one of the best training sessions of my life.
Teamwork: \o/
Basically have a new training partner, which is somewhat incredible considering this person is a girl … But she’s more driven, dedicated, intense, enthusiastic, and has more guts than any guy i’ve trained with. As far as women go, she’s up there with the top women in the area and given her goals/work ethic, she could do some incredible things eventually - she’s legit. She also beat everyone (men included) at a 5k a few weeks ago. It’s rare to see women running with men around here, extremely rare. Only a few others are known to have done it and they are local legends (one women being a 16:50 5k’r).
I advertised some “hard speed sessions” in some local running group that has 100+ people in it, she’s the only one that showed up to both sessions. In her very first hard speed session ever, she hit a 5:39 mile, while chasing me as I hit 5:20. Then she hit some solid 800 (2:39), 400m (1:16), and 200m (36s) times.
Honestly, I think she’s capable of a sub5 mile, sub 18 5k, sub 1:20 half, and sub 2:50 full, without a doubt. Incredible numbers for a female runner.
To give you an idea of how much guts she has… We advertised to the group, that following the scheduled workout, we were going to try 3 mile tempo @ 6:20, then cooldown for 4 miles. So, this workout was basically: 6 mile warmup, 5 mile bridges, 1 mile transition, 3 mile hard tempo with dead legs @ 6:20, and 5 mile cooldown … 20 miles total. We trained with ~8 men that day, most of which were preparing for half & full marathons several weeks away. We asked again if anyone wanted to join for the work following the first 11 miles)… No takers. Anyway, going into the 3 mile tempo, our legs were toast and we had a huge head wind: it would be easy to quit & wimp out. I didn’t back down, she didn’t back down, so we just went for it & crushed it. Her last mile was 6:04 and mine was 6:13.
And then last Tuesday, I advertised an intense half marathon specific endurance workout to the group who was training at the track that day: 4-5 x (3k @ HM, 1k float @ HM+40), again no takers other than her. She tried it and almost nailed it - though she had a “bad day”. This is actually an elite workout that Allie Kieffer just did on Thursday @ 7000 ft:
https://www.strava.com/activities/1398627005
Finally, we had 7 miles @ 6:20 planned, but instead we joined up with some serious local runners for a (~5 mi warmup, 3 x 3 mi @ 6:20, c/d) session. Her splits were:
6:17, 6:15, 6:16
6:19, 6:17, 6:17
6:19, 6:13
One of our workouts 2 weeks from now is: 10 miles @ ~7:05 min/mi pace, then 6-8 miles @ ~6:50 min/mi pace, as a “marathon test”, just to see if we can do it.
Also fwiw, as far as “no takers” goes, it’s fine that no one tags along. We simply offered in case anyone wanted to do some more work or try a crazy workout etc. Just clarifying, it’s not like i’m disrespecting them etc. It does highlight the guts of this athlete though, IMHO. “Hey, you want to try an elite workout and see if we can do it? → Yeah lets get it!!” \o/ Or, “(her) I think we need to add more miles to our long sessions, with some harder work”.
So anyway, we actually form a solid training team, which is very interesting. All I know is, if I train distance with her, I will get extremely fast over half & full. If she trains shorter/mid distance with me, she’s going to get really fast over those as well. So it’s an interesting combo where both sides of the spectrum are being challenged and improved.
When we first talked, she didn’t think she had “speed”, lmao. I think she realizes now that she has alot of speed potential, and by nurturing that speed, what it can do to improve half & marathon performances. Her and I are both huge Allie Kieffer fans, and now that we found out Allie is on Strava, if you look at some of Allie’s workouts, she does all of the typical/hard distance work, but she also hits the track and in one session is dropping 4:49 mile, 2:56 1km, 2:1x 800m, low 60 400’s etc. Allie is an elite half & full marathoner. So it was good for her to see Allie dropping those kind of numbers in a session, it opened up a whole new world of potential because she basically hasn’t focused on that stuff and is still crazy fast over half & full distance.
#runlikeagirl
That’s the coolest news I have… IMHO it’s pretty cool. lol.
Oh also, I signed up for this half marathon coming up on 02/18, so we’ve both been preparing for it. I figure I need at least one half before my GOAL half which is March 24th. Just need the experience of running one. So we’ve both been preparing for that. Once that’s over, i’ll be preparing for the March 24th half and i’m sure she’ll want to help me prepare for it. We’ll also be slowly adding in some more specific marathon workouts and such to start building up towards her huge marathon she has planned in September (with several races mixed in to stay race ready). Cool stuff.
watch failure + slight cold:
