week in recap

This week was kind of a recovery for me from Bartlett Park 50k...I took off Sunday and Monday completely, Tuesday I rode 12 miles to my store meeting which really felt like it helped me loosen up quite a bit....Wednesday I ran the mile from the house to the Wolf River Trails and met up with Lauren for a 4 mile loop..

I felt pretty good by Wednesday evening so I planned on getting in some decent distance on Thursday...plan was to run from home to the visitor center via G'town parkway and enter Shelby Farms by the abandoned farmhouse...right at 5 miles then meet up with Lauren for a loop of the Tour....I started out feeling really good and running was going well...got the the VC a few minutes before Lauren and I started feeling really queezy..I ate a few gels and sat down but the feeling didn't pass....Lauren rolled up and I had convinced myself that I was still going to run with her but when she got out of the car the first thing she said is "you look like hell"....so we sat around for a while before I decided that I wasn't going to run the loop because I knew if I ran it I would probably end up feeling bad for the rest of the day....

Friday I didn't run and then Saturday I got out for 10 at Shelby Farms...bringing the weeks total to right at 20 miles....ok by me for a recovery week....

Started this week off with an 8 miler on the Wolf River Trails around 10 am this morning...by that time it was really hot and all that rain we got yesterday made it extremely humid...I was soaked within a few minutes of the run and easily drained both bottles before the end of it.....

Last nite I was catching up on reading some blogs when I came across the news about Scott Jurek's post Hardrock interview on enduranceplanet.com where he knocks on Dean Karnazes.....basically, he (and a number of other ultrarunners I'm sure) is mad that the media is focused on Dean (a mediocre racer by elite ultra standards) because Dean has the financial and media ties because of his mega sponsorship by The North Face...he believes the attention should go to other athletes in the sports who are actually out winning races on a consistent basis (like himself and Karl Meltzer).....

I gotta say I agree with him....I believe Dean is a phenomenal runner, way better than I will ever be, but it is kind of ashamed that people who are actually far more deserving of media attention and big name sponsorship get passed up.....

other than the Dean comments, I found Jurek's interview extremely interesting....it contained alot about his diet (completely vegan) and his thoughts about diet in general which really interests me....I was also very surprised that his training mileage was as light as it is...I always figured that he would just be pumping out 100+ miles weeks all the time but turns out he says he usually averages about 50-60 per week and peaks out around 100-120 per week only occasionally when preparing for big races....

His training revolves around hard workouts followed by easier recovery runs...He said he typically does a hard speed workout once a week and a long run (25-35 miles) once a week that often incorporates some Lactate Threshold pickups in it....in between those runs he throws in some easier recovery runs and says he always takes at least 1 day a week completely off....he is also really into strength and flexibility training....

I have been reading a lot about incorporating Lactate Threshold training into the regimen and I think I'm going to go for it this week...I have messed aroudn with it before but I really think it will only really make a difference if I can be consistent with it....

so the plan this week is to do one speed workout day...either a straight up interval session or a 30 min LT session....I'm off work on Saturday and I'm looking to go long but we will see how that works out...

oh yeah, one final note, congrats to Les Jones, one of my Saturday morning running buddies who just finished his 6th Leadville 100 in 29:06!

happy running and share the road!