NYC Half 2014 Training - Week 4 Recap

This weekend can best be summed up with this:

(source)

I'd apologize to non-Seahawks fans for the boring game, but... I'm not sorry. Sorry?


And with that, let's talk about training.


NYC Half 2014 Training - Week 4 Recap

Monday: 4.78 easy miles, including 5x20 second strides (45:35), with Abby.

Legs felt pretty tight, quads in particular, after quite a bit of hills over the past three days. Should have foam rolled Sunday night but was too lazy. Probably took this a bit fast but was running with Abby and chatting away, and my legs felt ok after the first mile, so I think it was fine considering tomorrow is a rest day. 4.5 miles without the strides.

Stride splits: (1) 6:50, (2) 6:04, (3) 6:46, (4) 6:11, (5) 6:04


Tuesday: Rest day.


Wednesday: Lackluster 40 minute strength workout.

1.5x Blogilates Hips, Butt & Thighs workout (repeated half the exercises twice) and 2/3 of the Lesko Dozen core workout.


Thursday: Unplanned rest day.


Friday: 45 minutes easy spin + 5 minutes strength.

Easy spin at the gym after dinner (15 miles covered, I think?). Finished with 2:00 plank and 12x: bicep curls, shoulder presses, tricep dips.


Saturday: 4x Harlem Hill repeats (4.5 miles).

Ran across 103rd St Transverse and up the east side then over to Harlem Hill (1.4 mi w/u). 

Harlem Hill repeat splits: (1) 7:58, (2) 8:19, (3) 8:20, (4) 8:18

Definitely went out too fast on the first one and felt it on the rest of them. I'm not sure I was hitting the right effort level (aiming for an 8 on a scale of 1-10), but .8 mi c/d


Sunday: 10.01 mile long run (1:34:08) with Sourabh in Central Park.

Apparently was too excited for the Super Bowl to take a picture. Ran a full loop of the park then the four mile middle loop. Ran 8.5 miles with Sourabh (a new personal distance record for him!) then put in my music and jammed out for the last 1.5 miles. Really good to get outside in some non-frigid weather.

Ate a Picky Bar and banana for breakfast then fueled with nuun in my water bottle. Refueled post-run with a chocolate milk then ate lunch of 3 eggs and a Starbucks multigrain bagel. Protein and carbs FTW.

Splits: (1) 9:41, (2) 9:22, (3) 9:29, (4) 9:45, (5) 9:35, (6) 10:03, (7) 9:30, (8) 9:28, (9) 8:28, (10) 8:41

Can you guess which mile was Harlem Hill? After hill repeats taking the hill at an 8:15ish effort, an easy pace up the hill felt pretty good in comparison.

Why the fast two miles? Sourabh ran with me for 8 miles and we stopped a couple times, so I wanted to push it more in the last two. I didn't feel like the stops really affected the run and made me faster; if anything, the stops took away from my rhythm a bit. But I still wanted to push it a bit more just to make up for the stops.


On Deck for the Week of 2/3:

Lots of speed work this week, which I'm looking forward to.

• 1 yoga class
• 2 strength workouts
• 4 x 800 meter repeats
• 1 easy run + strides
• 1 cutback long run (6 miles) used as time trial

How was your Super Bowl weekend? Have you ever tried a Blogilates workout?