Difference between revisions of "Training Macrolog"

Revision as of 16:20, 4 September 2014

This is not the log of each workout I do, but rather a higher level summary of what's happening with my training overall. For a detailed log, I use SportTracks and publish to Dailymile at http://www.dailymile.com/people/JonathanS.

1 August 2014

My focus for August was recovering from Badwater and building my mileage backup. I experimented with doing my Treadmill Descent runs as short second runs through the week, rather than one long treadmill descent on Fridays. This seems to work quite well, though the Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness builds up quite rapidly. I had a vacation to Iceland which was wonderful, but I didn’t run as much of their as I would like.

2 July 2014

July was all about Badwater, and my mileage was much lower due to the taper and recovery. If you exclude the race itself, I actually only ran 252 miles in July, which is remarkably low for me. That said, both the taper and recovery went remarkably well, as did the race itself. I'm also around 3,000 miles so far for 2014, and to my surprise, my rolling 12 month total is over 5000 miles. I'm not sure at this point how I will structure my training; should I continue with running frequently, or revert back to running four times per week? Initially I felt the more frequent running was helping me control my body weight, but now I'm less convinced.

3 June 2014

June has been all about training for Badwater 135 in July. Not only have I been building the mileage up, I've been doing a lot of Heat Acclimation Training, Altitude Training (with my DIY System), and plenty of Downhill Running. It's been a remarkably tough month as these stresses have combined, but I hope they will put me in a good position for Badwater.

4 May 2014

I ran the Keys 100 only six weeks after Umstead 100, which was my third 100 mile race in 10 weeks. Given my focus on tapering and recovery, I'm pleased with the 356 miles this month.

5 April 2014

I ran Umstead 100 only four weeks after the Graveyard 100, and I'd not sufficiently recovered. Most of April has been recovering, so mileage is a little lower than it would otherwise be. I also have the Keys 100 six weeks after Umstead, so that will also be a challenge. I'm continuing my experiment with running more frequently, thought the more frequent races make it hard to evaluate the effects. The extra runs are a nice time to experiment, but not surprisingly the distance and effort in these extra runs has to be carefully managed. It seems like even a trivial increase in distance in the shorter runs causes a dramatic impact on fatigue. I've also used the shorter runs to include some more High Intensity Interval Training which is another confounding factor.

6 March 2014

At the start of March I had a good race at the Graveyard 100, finishing 4th. My recovery went reasonably well, but there is only a four week gap to the Umstead 100 at the beginning of April. I continued my experiment with running more frequently, which seems to be effective, though the issue of recovering from Graveyard and tapering for Umstead makes this an odd month.

7 February 2014

In February I changed my training routine dramatically, going from 4 runs/week to running twice each day. This is an experiment, based on the idea that exercise improves muscle insulin sensitivity for a relatively short period. I've also been wondering if my longer runs are long enough to cause Insulin Resistance. In addition, I've also been striving to slow down my easy paced runs, while keeping up my Medium Intensity High Volume Intervals and High Intensity Interval Training. It’s too early to draw any conclusions, but my weight has dropped 4 pounds and it seems like it's mostly fat. This is without dietary changes, and normally I struggle with my weight, even running 100+ miles/week and restricting my intake. Of course, this could be due to the extra miles I'm running, but typically an increase in my mileage just results in an increase in my appetite. I also feel like running slower is making me feel faster, though it's way too early to know if that is just wishful thinking/placebo effect.

8 January 2014

A good start to the year, other than injuring my back and ribs while karting. I'm starting to experiment with more interval training again, both Medium Intensity High Volume Intervals and High Intensity Interval Training.

9 2013 Analysis

Below are a few graphs of my running in 2013.

This is a simple record of each week's mileage.	This is how often I run a given weekly mileage. You can see I'm often around 100 miles/week, with a couple of outliers near 200 miles/week for the Overload section of my Three Phase Taper
This is a histogram of how frequently I've been running in 2013. As you can see, I normally run 4 days/week, though I sometimes run more frequently for things like the Overload section of my Three Phase Taper.	This is the distribution of my daily runs, with a strong peak around 26 miles.

10 Yearly Totals

11 December 2013

December was a good month of solid training. I've changed my running pattern to Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday, which gives me two sets of back to back days. This has proved harder than I expected, but I believe it is effective.

12 November 2013

My monthly mileage was down from October due to the taper and recovery for the 2013 Croatan 24 Hour.

13 October 2013

October was another high mileage month, partly due to some good consistent training and partly because I did another Three Phase Taper. This time my Overload week hit 200 miles, including 5 runs of 32 miles. It was tough, but I'm managing to keep things together with some deep Massage. I'm also trying a different pattern of Altitude Training, using my DIY Altitude Training system 3-4 days/week, with the remainder off. Unlike my running, I do my altitude training in one block of 3-4 days on, then 3-4 days continuously off. I've also added a histogram of how frequently I run, as people have been asking for more details.

14 September 2013

My mileage was a little higher in September, mostly because I did 190 miles in a week for my Three Phase Taper. Overall, the month went extremely well, though my failure at Hinson Lake was rather disappointing

15 August 2013

My training in August was reduced by a trip back to England, followed by the combination of a nasty cold and a migraine. These factors significantly reduced my mileage for the middle two weeks of August, but other than that things went reasonably well.

16 July 2013

My training in July went well, and the heat and humidity of North Carolina has not been too bad this year. My average pace this month is quite slow because of the pacing I did at Badwater.

17 June 2013

As I've adapted to the ketogenic diet my training has bounced back and I'm now doing 26 mile runs on a regular basis. I'm just starting to experiment with different approaches to fueling my runs with the hope that the combination of a ketogenic diet and correct fueling will improve my race performance. So far my running seems a little slower than on a high carb diet, but my endurance is better. I've started to use a treadmill to do Downhill Running, and so far I've run 84 miles for 22,000 feet of descent. These training runs have given me some significant Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness, but I've also found my legs are building up their resistance to downhill running, which I believe will also translate to better muscular endurance overall.

18 May 2013

At the beginning of May I was in Europe on vacation, and not running much. On my return I focused on my experiment with a ketogenic diet, which impaired my training for a few weeks. At the end of May I started doing treadmill descent runs, which I believe will make a big difference to my performance.

19 April 2013

April started off with some solid training, but I backed off before and after Umstead. I also started experimenting with a ketogenic diet.

20 March 2013

I started March with the Graveyard 100 and I'll start April with the Umstead 100, so most of March was taken up with either recovery or tapering.

21 February 2013

February's training went well, and I started to add in some High Intensity Interval Training. I continued with running four long runs per week, aiming for 26.2+ miles each time. I only had one run where the weather prevented me hitting my mileage target, so I had 15 marathon+ length runs. Looking at my all time totals, I realize I've done 249 marathon or longer runs since I started keeping electronic records in 2002. Overall I've run 33,936 miles, which is 1.36 times the circumference of the earth and burned an estimated 3 million calories which equates to about 900 pounds of body fat.

22 January 2013

At the start of this year I did some evaluation of the various training approaches I've used, and decided to return to running four marathon+ training runs per week. This has worked well, and I've changed my weekly routine from Mon/Wed/Fri/Sat to Mon/Tue/Thur/Sat so that if I have a minor race on the Saturday, I can still get the four runs in.

23 December 2012

December had two races (Table Rock and Freedom Park) so the rest of the month was recovery and/or tapering.

24 November 2012

I continued my low mileage approach into November, doing quite a bit of speed work, including Medium Intensity High Volume Intervals, Downhill Intervals and experimenting with running the Tabatas.

25 October 2012

Though my October mileage looks low, it includes nearly 300 intervals, of which 128 where on the hill.

26 September 2012

I did little training in September as I raced twice, so the rest of the time I was either tapering or recovering. Of the 344 miles I ran in September, 230 were racing and only 114 were training.

27 August 2012

This month I've focused even more on Downhill Running, including Downhill Intervals. These workouts are hard enough that if I continue them after the world championships, I may move to running three days a week rather than four. August included the overload week for my Three Phase Taper which went well with 150 miles, some of which was hard hill intervals. I've also dropped my body fat down to a lower level than before the national championships this time last year, but I've managed to increase lean body mass at the same time. I now have less fat, but weigh about five pounds more. I've continued to combineIntermittent Hypoxic Exposure with Electrical Muscle Stimulation and I think it's working well. .

28 July 2012

The summer eventually arrived in force here in North Carolina and the heat became a limiting factor. I had some downtime visiting Washington DC for a long weekend, and I had some minor issues with the muscles in my right foot. However, I've also started to do far more Downhill Running, so I feel like my training is proving effective for the upcoming 24 hour world championships in Poland. Even though this will be a totally flat race, I believe that the Downhill Running will cause adaptations in the muscle structure that will improve my endurance at long distances. I'm doing a little more cycling again, and I'm combining Intermittent Hypoxic Exposure with Electrical Muscle Stimulation which seems to be quite effective. I'm planning on using a Three Phase Taper for the world championships, but I haven't decided if I'll increase the distance on my usual frequency, or keep the distance and increase the frequency.

29 June 2012

June was much cooler than you'd expect this year in North Carolina, which made my running better-than-expected. I did have a small taper for the midnight boogie, and unfortunately I'm minor stomach bug. Other than that, the training regime went well.

30 May 2012

I started to get back into my routine during May, with my weekday runs at marathon distance on longer. I ended up with 11 my runs as marathon+ distance, which is nice. However, I'm not back to the point where my Saturday run, which is my back-to-back run, is a decent distance. Towards the end of the month the heat stress built up here in North Carolina and I really slowing down. My right kneecap acted up a little during the month, but managed to resolve that.I started page on Knee Pain but it will take some time before it's ready for publication. I also stopped cycling in May to try and keep my Training Monotony lower. I'd like to get back to the bike but I don't think I'm quite ready.

31 April 2012

April started off a little slow after Umstead, but has settled into a reasonable routine. I'm much happier with running four days/week and the training seems to be more effective.

32 March 2012

In March I was looking to find the sweet spot of optimal training. I suspect I tend to train more than is optimal, so I'm trying to back off to the point where things are improving more. It's tricky to work out when the impact of training stress lasts for well over a month. I've had a few nagging Achilles/calf issues, but nothing major.

33 February 2012

February has seen me building back after my brief bout of Overtraining Syndrome. I've returned to running four days per week, which is helped enormously. My mood state has improved dramatically, and a number of friends have commented on the change. My experiment with running more frequently has given me some useful insight into the effects of Training Monotony and Overtraining Syndrome, as well as understanding how my body reacts to different training loads and regimes.

34 January 2012

At the beginning of January I started to suffer from Overtraining Syndrome. This has built up over time and as a result I had to reduce my training dramatically. I also caught a serious cold for the first time in a while, which further reduced my training load. I'm going to return to my previous pattern of running four days/week, bringing to an end my experiment with more frequent running. Overall I've found the more frequent running had some advantages, but overall it is less effective and more time consuming.

35 December 2011

December was a quiet month, with some steady training and a slight taper in the last week of the year for Freedom Park 24 Hour race. My body weight has risen over the holidays and that is impacting my running significantly, so I need to shed some body fat.

36 November 2011

November was a pleasantly uneventful month other than a practice Three Phase Taper for pacing the 3 hour group at Thunder Road Marathon. My training is going well, and I'm enjoying the cooler weather. I may experiment with a return to four days/week again as part of my evaluation of different training patterns.

37 October 2011

At the beginning of the month I was still recovering from the North Coast 24 hour race, and it was not until the middle of November that I felt like I was back in the rhythm. I'm continuing my experiment of running most days and I feel like I'm getting a sense of the relative strengths and weaknesses of this approach when compared with running 4 days/week. I plan on writing this up in the near future, but I'd like to do some reading around any research that supports or disproves my embryonic ideas.

38 September 2011

September included a successful taper, 2nd place at the 2011 North Coast 24 Hour National Championships, and a speedy recovery, so I'd consider it one of my finer months.

39 August 2011

August continued my experiment with running every day rather than four days per week, which pushed my mileage to a new high. My peak week was 186 miles, running 27 miles for 6 consecutive days. I found that nutrition and recovery becomes critical with this amount of exercise. I'm in the process of writing a page for GOMAD Grazing, the technique I've found helped me with the higher mileage and I believe would be effective for other runners. I'm not sure if this high mileage approach to training is more effective than training four days per week or not. I'm a lot fitter and faster now than I was when I started, but I've also lost 13 pounds and been doing quite a bit of altitude training with the AltoLab. I'd like to think that this type of high mileage would change fast twitch muscle fibers into slow twitch, but there seems to be little evidence for that. Running 180+ miles per week and holding down a full time job puts huge logistical and psychological pressures in addition to the obvious physical strain. In many ways, my body handled the high mileage far better than my mind did.

40 July 2011

July was an interesting month for me.

• After my return from England I decided I needed to lose some weight, though when I started, I had no idea how much I had to lose. By the end of July I was down 10 pounds and feeling much better.
• I restarted my altitude training, which has gone far better this time. It may be because the heat has slowed down my training anyway, maybe because I'm eating more beetroot (vasodialator) or that I'm being more careful to avoid the lower O2 saturations.
• The heat in Charlotte has been the worst I've known, and it's really slowed me down.
• Without intending to, I found myself in the middle of the month starting to run every day. This was triggered by being unable to run on my usual days, so I started off with some extra 'back to back days'. I found that running every day helped keep my appetite more stable, and thus my weight loss was easier. This has contributed to the higher than normal mileage this month.

41 June 2011

I spent the first three weeks of June in the UK on the lead up to the West Highland Way Race. Being on vacation, and leading up to a race, I did little running, so my June numbers are quite low.

42 May 2011

Towards the end of the month I felt like I was getting back to training right. For the last two weeks I reverted to running four days per week rather than three, which seems to suit me better. I've added more hills towards the end of the month, and this has been tough but effective. The weather in Charlotte has also warmed up in the last week or so, and this has started to limit my pace.

43 April 2011

I feel like I'm beginning to get back on track with my training, but it's not there yet. The blister on my heel has continued to be an issue, and I've had some nagging problems with my left hip, but hopefully May will be a better month. I'm focusing again on moving to running three days per week rather than four, with two of the runs being generally shorter, higher quality. Doing a single longer run rather than two back to back long runs may be easier than I first envisioned. I'm finding that a small amount of speedwork in the middle or at the end of a long run seems to dramatically increase the effective distance.

44 March 2011

March was another poor month for my running, rounding out a rather sad first quarter. At the end of February I blistered my heel badly at the Mount Mitchell Challenge, and this restricted my running throughout the month. At the end of March, I've started to try running three times a week again rather than four. This is a significant challenge, as doing one long run rather than two back to back long runs requires a lot more time and effort in the single run.

45 February 2011

February has been a gradual return to fitness after my downtime in January from my Mortons Neuroma. After I accepted that I'd lost more fitness than I expected, and backed off a little, things returned reasonably quickly. The Mortons Neuroma has not been much of an issue, though it is still there and is improving slowly. I have not done as much downhill training as I need to, which will be a focus for March as I prepare for the Umstead 100 at the beginning of April. My body weight is up to around 140, and my fat levels are a little higher than I'd like, so I'll need to keep on top of that in the coming weeks. My weekly mileage is a around 80, which is working well for me as I am able to run at a higher intensity.

46 January 2011

The statistics for January 2010 are rather sad, with only 189 miles covered, compared with 470 for January of last year. This is primarily due to the time off for my Mortons Neuroma. With hindsight, the time off did not help the healing process at all, but hindsight is always 20:20. At the new year I’d also decided to experiment with running 3 days per week and some dietary changes. It’s hard to know if these have hindered my recovery, but I’ve not bounced back as quickly as I would have expected. Therefore I’m “reverting to last known good configuration” until I’ve regained my previous fitness level and then restart some of the experimentation.

47 December 2010

My training is going well and my performance seems to be improving. I lost muscle mass and gained body fat after Hinson Lake in September, a change I've finally reversed. I've noticed a strong correlation between my running and my body composition. I'm now at about the best muscle to non-muscle ratios I've had since I've been a runner, with low body fat (guessing around 5-7%). Here are some things that I believe are working well for me.

• I've added biking as cross training 2-3 days per week. I think this has helped to control my body fat, as my calorie expenditure is a little more even. Without the biking, I was burning 2,000+ calories on non-running days and ~5,000+ on running days, which is a huge difference. I'm generally biking for about an hour.
• My protein intake is now much higher than it has been. After my long runs I'm typically taking 50-100 grams of Protein within the first hour, and probably 200-300 grams protein daily. While this is high by normal standards, to get 25% of calories from protein on a 5,000 Calorie day would require 300+grams! Since I raised my protein intake, I'm recovering better, have lower body fat and more muscle mass. I'm also less hungry than I have been, as the protein is remarkably satisfying. I'm following Nutrient Timing as a key part of my diet.
• Doing a Tabata workout on the Bike may help with my aerobic capacity.
• I've started to do some of my runs without any fuel to help train my body to burn more fat.
• My mileage has dropped from a high of 100-110+ miles/week over the summer to around 90 this fall. This is partly because I've stopped doing any heat adaptation runs in the afternoon, and partly because I'm trying to focus more on quality, even at the expense of distance.
• After MMTR trashed my legs so badly, I've been focusing more on doing hard downhill running. This often results in a much shorter workout, as Downhill Intervals take a lot out of the quads.
• I still have no idea how to taper for a race. Balancing the need for rest and recover with the need to keep fitness up and control my body fat is tough. I'm experimenting with less time off before races, down to just a couple of days. I may experiment with doing the bike up until the race itself.