11 Weeks to go - Hansons Intermediate Week 7/18
823/21 - M - OFF
8/24/21 - T - Ladder @ 5k pace
8/25/21 - W - 1 mile @ run/walk with G + 3.3 miles @ Easy
8/26/21 - R - 10 miles @ No pace goal
8/27/21 - F - 1 mile @ run/walk with G + 5 miles @ Easy
8/28/21 - Sa - 6 min @ Easy
8/29/21 - Su - 14 miles @ LR
Total Run Miles - 48.5 miles
Total Run Time - 7:11 hours
Total Run TSS - x TSS
Total Biking Time - 0:00 hours
Total Biking TSS - 0 TSS
Total Strength Time - 0:00 hours
Total Strength TSS - x TSS
Total Training Time - 7:11 hours
Total TSS - x TSS
Tuesday
Ladder workout! A 400, 800, 1200, 1600, 1200, 800, 400m rep intervals at 5k pace. This one is always a nice challenge and a good introduction to the 1600m rep. It also means instead of doing about 3 miles of speed work, I'll do about 4 miles of work at 3.1 mile pace.
Conditions -
Humid and Overcast, Wind 8mph to 9mph
Start: Temp+Dew = 83°F + 75°F; FL - 90°F
End: Temp+Dew = 81°F + 74°F; FL - 90°F
Got no breaks from the T+D. A 158 is pretty intense for a workout, but a speed interval workout is more doable than a sustained one. So the goal pace went from 6:14 to 6:38. However, I'm not entirely sure I trust that 158. We had a storm blow through only a few minutes prior to this run. So I get the feeling it was more likely in the 140s than the 150s, but I don't have anything to confirm that since that's what the weather says it is/was. So in reality, I aimed for 6:29 pace (assumed T+D of 145ish).
That first rep I just couldn't settle into the right pace. So it ended up being too slow. But given I had another 3.75 miles of 5k pace left, I wasn't too upset with the slower than goal pace rep. I knew I needed something in the tank for the 1 mile reps. Things got back on track during the 800/1200m reps. The legs were feeling decent, but the breathing was a challenge. So I tried to relax my body and mind as much as possible. Focus on the breathing and control it instead of it controlling me. I then entered the 1600m rep. I came out like a rocket to start (sub-6 pace) and really had to control myself. I knew I was getting into trouble about 400m into the rep as the difficulty of the rep really started to settle in. It became challenging early on to maintain goal pace, but by the end of the rep I managed. The 1200m rep on the way down slipped a little on the pace goal. The 800m was back on target. And then for the 400m rep I decided to see what a controlled hard pace looked like. Not 5k pace, but not an all out sprint either. Just comfortably fast for 1.5 minutes. Ended up at 6:01 pace. The legs were definitely buzzing after this one. The body was responding really well. I could have easily continued the workout for another round if I had to, but alas the workout was over and I headed home. Which is good because a second major storm was on its way. I was thankful to get in the full workout between the two storms. The cumulative goal speed workout was 25:53 based on 6:29 pace, and I ran it in 25:50. So darn near exact onto goal. The workout as a whole was 8.1 miles, 65 min, 8:05 pace, and HR of 144. Felt like a strong workout overall.
The left ankle was sore when I did my laying down with legs in the air wall stretches for my hamstring.
Wednesday
Conditions -
Humid and Partly Cloudy, Wind 5mph to 6mph
Start: Temp+Dew = 83°F + 76°F; FL - 91°F
End: Temp+Dew = 83°F + 76°F; FL - 91°F
Nice and easy 1 miler with G. She admits that our runs together are her favorite part of the day. It's the stuff that makes your heart melt. I continue to cherish these times together. Can't remember what the topic of discussion was for this day. If I remember right, she had an issue with a playmate being really negative towards her. So we talked about self confidence (which she generally does not lack) and talked through the situation. I think we both came out better for it.
Afterwards, I did a 3.3 mile loop. I don't remember anything significant about the run. I just tried to take it nice and easy since it was so hot and I had a hot M Tempo coming the next day. I ended up with 3.3 miles, 31 min, 9:25 pace, and HR of 134.
Thursday
M Tempo day! Or at least it was suppose to be.
Conditions -
Humid and Mostly Cloudy, Wind 7mph to 9mph
Start: Temp+Dew = 83°F + 77°F; FL - 92°F
End: Temp+Dew = 81°F + 76°F; FL - 92°F
It was unrelentingly hot. I walked out the door, started my dynamic stretching, and could already tell the temp was going to be an issue. It was like the Mario Bros game when the sun is staring you down.
But I had my M Tempo T+D adjusted goal pace of a 7:47 min/mile and was ready to see what I could do.
I did the 1.5 mile WU, and then started M Tempo effort which ended up being around a 7:55 min/mile pace. But after the first mile, I was like this is a whole lot of nope, and I shut it down. I didn't have the motivation to try and power through the brutal conditions. So instead I just lowered the effort level and coasted through. The downside is my left and right ankles were both protesting quite a bit during this run. Not really sure why, but possibly because my form got sloppy during the run. I ended up at 10 miles, 87 min, 8:44 pace, and HR of 138. I had considered dropping some mileage off since I was going to be exceeding the duration goal by quite a bit. But since I'm following the Hansons plan which is mileage based I just stuck with it.
Friday
I iced the left ankle in the morning because it was still sore. Thankfully it felt better as the day wore on.
Conditions -
Humid, Wind 12mph to 19mph
Start: Temp+Dew = 86°F + 78°F; FL - 98°F
End: Temp+Dew = 86°F + 78°F; FL - 98°F
Whoof! T+D of 164 makes this the hottest run of the year so far. G and I did 1 mile again. The topic involved something I saw Thursday night after I wrapped up my fantasy football draft at 10pm. Admittedly I had been playing a zombie video game for the last week and a half. And a hallmark of the game is seeing red eyes in the distance at night to indicate the presence of zombies in the area. However, I did not hallucinate or dream what I saw. I 100% believe it was real. I was filling up my water pitcher and standing at the kitchen sink/window. When I looked up I saw two red laser like objects walking in the living room of the house behind us. It appeared to be about human height and where eyes would be. It walked from the living room to the kitchen. The distance of the two lasers from each other stayed constant as if they were eyes. And then it moved back into the living room. It then looked at me, and then the red lasers disappeared. My rational explanation is that they were some sort of night vision goggles. The back neighbors are pharmacists and work crazy hours. So possibly night vision goggles so that they don't disturb each other when moving about the house. My irrational explanation is a zombie. Although I've since seen the neighbors and they're not zombies, so I think we're safe for now. I don't know them well enough to ask them about it though, so it'll remain a mystery. G said she was willing to befriend their kids in order to gain knowledge about the situation, but they don't have kids. She said she'll consider befriending their dog or something. She's curious.
I ran 5 miles afterwards. Don't remember anything. I do remember being happy that neither ankle was much of an issue. The run was 47 min, 9:30 pace, and HR of 135.
Saturday
It was going to be a hot one even in the morning. So I didn't even attempt to get out there early to beat the heat because there was no beating it. So I stayed up late and then got out running by 10am.
I weighed in at 178 pounds. The last two weeks were trouble on the scale, but personal eating decisions were easily to blame. We didn't get our Marley Spoon delivery (trying out them alongside Hello Fresh) and so we didn't have many options for food. So we made the best of the situation, but it also means I've got less control. And the week prior I'm pretty sure we had pizza twice and had take out. So that never makes things easy when trying to stick hard to intake goals. But this week I was back on track and still plenty of time to get back down to where I was for the Madison HM in Nov 2019. Overall down 11.4 pounds in 12 weeks which still puts me on track for that 1 lb per week trajectory.
Conditions -
Partly Cloudy, Wind 10mph to 15mph
Start: Temp+Dew = 78°F + 71°F; FL - 80°F
End: Temp+Dew = 81°F + 72°F; FL - 80°F
No pace goal and just took it nice and easy. Legs felt ok, some spring in the step, but not as good as last week. Ended up at 6 miles, 56 min, 9:21 pace, and HR of 131.
Sunday
Longest run thus far at 14 miles. No relief on the temps though.
Conditions -
Partly Cloudy, Wind 13mph to 26mph
Start: Temp+Dew = 74°F + 69°F; FL - 75°F
End: Temp+Dew = 79°F + 71°F; FL - 75°F
It was windier than I was expecting.
I had the SIS Beta before the run, concentrated Tailwind at 45 min, caff Maurten at 60 min, and Maurten at 75 min (need to stop at the store for Egels). The first mile was sluggish, but things normalized not too long after that. I had a goal of an 8:22 pace given the T+D expected by the end of the run. Overall, I did quite well with that. The pace was never really troublesome and the run overall felt fairly easy. I did start to get a little fatigued at mile 10, but then once I turned the corner for mile 13/14, I felt better and snappier. The ankles each had issues here and there, but nothing as bad as post-speed run or during the cancelled M Tempo run. I ended up at 14.1 miles, 1:57 hrs, 8:17 pace, and HR of 138. All pretty much were I expected to be. I looked back on my 12 miler which had a T+D adjusted GAP of 7:50 with HR of 139, and then this run which was a T+D adjusted GAP of 7:53 with HR of 138. So I think I handled the difference in T+D well between these two long runs (one at 119 and the other at 150). The Garmin VO2max was 54 at this run, but was 55 after the speed run. So I left the week as 55.
Still in a really good place all things considered. Hoping for the temps to start dropping as we enter September. The speed run on Tuesday is the 3x1600m at 5k pace and the T+D is projected at 130 right now. Been a while since I've seen a mid-week afternoon training run below 140. So this is a welcome relief. M Tempo is also projected at 130. So that's nice too. Of course, this all comes as the next two weeks are brutal at work. I've got a big project that's really involved, time sensitive, and tons of moving pieces. I've got over 13 hours of work on tap tomorrow to start things off. So I'll take some relief in running as the stress of work is likely to ramp up during these two weeks.
Overall, the week was good. I did 48.5 miles and 7:11 hrs of running this week. The last time I did this much running was August 2018. So three years ago, during the time I was doing Daniels Marathon training and was last doing 6 days per week. That was the last training plan I did fully running before shutting things down and moving to run+cycle+strength instead. So I'm happy with how my body is feeling currently given the increase in training volume I'm currently doing relative to the past three years. From a month's perspective, it looks like I'll end up around 188 miles for August. Which puts me at the most since July 2018 (also the last full month of real sole focus run training).
I'm already pretty close to where I plan to peak with this training plan (55 miles) with 11 weeks to go. There are only four peak weeks remaining in training. Hopefully we start to enter winter training so I can really fly.
If this weather continues, we'll be waiting until the Pumpkin Run 10K. 
@mateojr and I could swap notes anytime. But I can see how the treadmill could be a drag on motivation.
. Immediately she was trying to figure out why we hadn't walked yet. I told her it must have been a hiccup in the GPS. She remained suspicious most of the run. She was dragging a bit more than normal though. It wasn't until we were almost finished that she told me PE was "track" today and they already run this morning. So she was doing a double. She made it through though. And I let her know we did 45/30 at the end and she was like I KNEW IT!
Clear, Wind 7mph to 13mph
