Friday, April 25, 2008

Training Week #20

I do not train really hard this season. But I do enjoy most of the wokouts, whether it an early morning run with a rising red sun breaking into a cold, cold darkness or a late evening "can't see anything" run.
Here's my training week #20.

Sun, 4/13
PM: 10 easy miles at avg. 8:40

Mon, 4/14
PM: 3 mi at avg. 8:36, nothing special

Tue, 4/15
PM: 5 mi Hard, avg. 7:42, HR 145/153
this is actually first time this year i put 5 hard consecutive miles in a row. Good. A year ago right this time I hit 1 hour at 7:15, some time later, 1 hour sub 7:00. I think it is doable again. Will try.

Wed, 4/16
AM (i'm really crazy, to think started 5:35am!): 10 easy miles

Thu, 4/17
PM: 4 easy miles after work, I think it was too dark to run;
do not remember details for ordinary runs...

Fri, 4/18
PM: again ordinary 5 miles ... Ha. Now I remember! After hitting 10 morning miles on Wed it suddenly happened. Whop! TONS of snow and Winter again is here!!! In the middle of the week on Wed/ Thu severe snow storm occupiued Central Kazakhstan with -15 Celcius temps, it was so serious that police had to block roads from Astana (capital here) to my city (roughly 250 km distance). Nobody could guarantee your safety on the roads...So those days made me think of taking my balaclava again. To tell the truth, the freeze ceased on Fri.

Sat, 4/19
I've been thinking a lot of some speedy workouts I hit a year ago. Here's my attempt:
warmed up a little bit and proceeded with a fast mile:
Let it be an introduction to Mile repeats I really want to do now.
1 mi, pace 6:19, avg.HR 152, max.HR 163.
Oh boy, my speed is back. It made me feel like I can renew my 1 mile PR. Gimme some time. I'll do it soon.
The place i did my mile is very close to the Big HILL. The hill is Huge, Steep and definitely higher than 10 storey building. I approach keeping in mind that Medeo Half I will experience soon. Yes, I am ambicious and want to hit something special: pls see this Garmin screenshot with diagrams of my heart jumping 7 times to low 160s and those 7 elevations.
Never did anything like that. Even 2days later my quads and calves did hurt like Motherf*@#er! I won't repeat it this week, cause I have 20 miler tomorrow, on Sat. But I do have plan to make several serious hill workouts before June.
Sat eve, nine pm, 10 slow relaxing miles just to hit Total 51.05 miles.
P.S. Screenshots of all my weeks available at Flickr tag.

Tuesday, April 22, 2008

Long Run ANNOUNCE !!!

On Sat, April 26, 2008 am I will do my first 20 miler. Anyone who would like to share this experience with me is welcome.
It will all start in Karaganda city, 9 am at the entrance to EthnoPark, right between Dostar-Alem and Sozvezdie Hotels.
startfinish
All my am runs I start here (upper picture) and run deep in the park. My finish is shown on the bottom picture next to Blue Gates (depends on the Tool) with a nice new building of Catholic church on the background.
Supposedly a gang is: me, Paul (running pal from Astana), could be another diplomat...

P.S. Paul calls this run "a race", I just call it "long run".
One more time:
ВСЕ НА ЗАБЕГ !!! (Тяжелый и Трудный)
Please join us for this long run (probably incl. 1 or 2 hills) about 32+km or 20+ miles. Rain or Shine, we gonna do it. Detailed report to be posted.
P.P.S. My last week with 51 miles (mileage is low, but the quality was superb) was fabulous, will try to describe it before our 20 miler.
Hope to read Great reports from that little hilly race started yesterday in Hopkinton.
Tima Bannikov had a Great race finishing Charlottesville Marathon in 3:38:08. Good time.
I visualize such a nice competition in Almaty Half very very soon. Tim, in case you read it, recover well and let's have this helluva tough run less than 7 weeks from now.

Monday, April 14, 2008

Sixty

Do not have much to say about my training here.
I had about 10 days without any work at all which gave me a sense of vacation I’ve missed for so long. I expected that my running volumes would increase significantly but … but it didn’t happen.
All I did were 50 mi or so weeks which I actually really enjoy. Last week Sun 4/6 – Sa 4/12 I finally HIT Sixty Miles with 5 hills and 10% of total volume made at Goal Marathon Pace and oh boy, it’s getting harder. My concept now is to peak and get better weeks in run approximately a month before Race. The Race is Almaty, Medeo Half or Full on Jun 7.
Still I can’t decide – what do I run there? Problem is that I keep in mind Full Race in Omsk, Russia on August 2. Running half way “uphill” in Almaty could ruin all my preparation for Russian Siberia.
7+ weeks – is it enough time to recover for me or not ???

Bad Thing about my training: Since my Shanghai marathon I did no one 20 miler. In the winter it is almost impossible here, but now the only excuse I can mention is that headwind...
Whatever excuse is - I have to make 3 or 4 decent twenty milers till the middle of May.