In the meantime...

I did get to run my second overall 22 km in my life. This time it wasn't under race conditions though but a simple, weekend long run.
I felt tired going into the once alrady postponed event. For this distance I need to finish 3 laps around the lake where I usually run my long runs. I had to push through the better half of the first lap to even get under 5:30 km pace. But something surprising happened getting close to end of the lap which I though would be the last. I felt stronger by each step after the 5th km. So strong that the second lap felt very easy. Pace got better, up to 5:25 km pace. I wasn't hesitating for a bit to start the 3rd round.
As this was an increase in distance it was unavoidable to hit a wall. 18 km was the moment where all mental power had to get in to keep running. Of course it got better around 19 km and was able to maintain pace and attitude until the end.
It felt very good to see 20 km on my Polar as the digits turned. And I almost did it in two hours as well. It would have been nice to get under two but it felt very satisfying to finish at all.

Recovery was good as well. Muscles were sore for two days. Ran a recovery 4 km very easy, then ran my usual 800 m repeat two days later. It made me reborn! I was very concerned before as my legs still felt the affects of the long run. But to my biggest pleasure all went well. I was able run even the last repeat as I should not as expected. The next day, Friday went for the hill repeats just to see how it quickly I can recover. Great run again, with even better recovery.

So good that I even decided to push harder on Sunday when the next 22 km was scheduled. Kept an easy (at least felt like it) 5:15 pace all the way the first two laps. Of course this meant more struggle for the 3rd but it was totally worth it. I slowed down to 5:20 even to 5:30 from time to time by after few minutes of refreshing, pace got back to normal.

When I pressed stop at the end I could hardly belive that it "only" toom 1 hour 58 minutes to get it done. 5 minute improvement over last week's result both at the half marathon distance and over all as well.

Now I have a new target after the under hour 12 km: get my half marathon down to 1:45.

To achieve this: some speed work this week after a recovery run tomorrow. Long run over the weekend, 1.5 km speed repeats next week foloowed by two minute hill runs.

The future looks promising...

Old habits die hard

I was adjusting my training plan this morning due to the gap occured last week after my cold. I tried to make a guess about my 800 m repeat pace and the hill workout pace. I made an estimate as I always do: this is my pace, I usually run around 5 min/km as a top speed, recovery around 5:40.

Then I checked in the Daniels table to see how I progressed based on my last 15 km. I was very surprised to see that I silently crossed a very big red line withouth niticibg. Based on what I am capable on a long run I should be running my speed workouts even faster. What is the saying? Runners usually do their fast runs too slow and their slow runs too fast. How true is that?

Now I am re-visiting my paces in all events planned to reflect the actual target I should be focusing on if I want do develop.

As it is a big shock that now my target is:
- 4:30 pace on 5 km
- 4:45 pace on 10 km
And I can actually target a slighly outside 5 minute pace for next week's 22 km long run.

Me, a very happy runner.

Over the top

It supposed to be the peak of the past few month. Run the most in a week, run the most in a day. Also, following my fastest ever 15 km, that came very very close to the dream pace with an average of 5.02 km.

Instead my body decided to peak in a different, less interesting, more painfull endevour. After last Tuesday's training I started to feel weeker. Recovery during the speed repears was not as it should and could have. By Thursday I had multiple source of pain, slught fever. This climaxed by Saturday with me spending the whole day in bed with 38-38.5 fever, caugh, running nose and headache.

To mt luck I did take it seriously and skipped even the Thursday morning workout. I started to feel better yet still weak by Sunday. The original plan was for me to stay home from work for a few days but I felt so good that I decided against this and went anyway.

Today I could even resume training with an easy, flat 4 km run. I had to redraw the plan I just layed out so I will spend this week recoveribg with two more easy runs of 6 and 15 km.

I'll start the real work on Monday with some pace run, than onto the 800 m repeats on Wed. Ome hill work on Fri and distance on Sun.

Hopefully this nasty cold will stay away and I actally will be able to attack 21 k in two weeks.

progress

As far as I can tell there's some progress. Speed is better, endurance is better. Recovery might not be as good as it should but it's simply due to lack of time to sleep. Usually I get up 4:45, let the dogs out than go on with the day. In the evening I tend to close activities around 21:00 so resting starts and lasts for barely 6 hours a day. Given the number of weekly trainings and the stress (the good kind:) it puts on the muscles I think there should be more of this. We'll see.

This week the 2nd complete cycle of 2+1 week training method started. Monday, with a nice good 8 km pace run and continued today with 8x400 m speed workout. Also, I started to pay much more attention to my stride as it was very much all over the place.
Now I try to keep my legs spinning as much as I can but I tend to run faster than my recovery pace on the treadmill. Also the "new" stride brings out some muscles and joints that were not pushed to their limits like this before. I do feel my calves much more and my achilles tends to firm up as well. I try to stretch as mush as I can to compensate and the rest days usually help getting over rid of the soreness.

The first hilly (still in the gym) workout is coming up. Today I tested how much is too much on the incline setting scale so I will not overdo the uphills. I like running up :)

Cycles

The current training plan is built around 2 week hard work (basically every second day) and a week of easy exercise. I just finished the hard part and started the easy runs today. This was the first, knowingly two week period. January started with basic what-can-i-still-do type of orientation that formed into the current actions.

The conclusion is: hard. Even though I felt very strong by the end of second week, with very surprising result in my bag, by Sunday I did feel the result of the seven workouts (none of them anywhere easy) in my legs. OK, the snow and the ice on the last 15 km long run did not help either. It was very difficult to avoid falling and breaking my arm or worse. But enormous strain on my back and on my brain as I was concentrating hard.

But due to all the effort I did get to know my boundaries better. I know now, that running 8x400 fast is not going to kill me. I know, that running 15 km can be very relaxing if done right. I know, that I can run faster and longer than I imagined.

So I am trying to figure out the next two hard weeks' plan. I do know, that I will run a half marathon distance (if weather permits) on the last run. I also start doing hill repeats as the first race in April will have quite some in it. And I would definitely improve my top speed as well.

It will be a fun two weeks. But first, off to recover and overcompensate...

Power of imagination

I forgot this: there are those moments when you just see what was going to happen. You're cutting bread and it just goes through your mind that "I could easily cut myself like this" and bam, there it is: bleeding finger.

On the path I run there are several steel ropes to stop the cars from entering the park area. There's one right at where I start so I made it an event to jump through it. It went well but then the second lap came, where I was (as it seems) too used to the jumping over so my body decided not to. This gave me a nice shin pain (and a wound to be discovered later) and some snow to swallow.

Weekly dose of trance*

Last week was just as good as it was planned to be. Had the perfect pace, attitude and recovery during the week. But then came the weekend.

By Friday morning my nose was running and my head wasn't as good as it should've been. But during the morning run everything cleared up. During the day it went back to worse again.
On Saturday unbelievable amount of snow fell down. This made me question the state of the running path for the Sunday long run. One good thing came out of this though: the clear air and the shoveling of the incredible piles of snow got rid of my cold once again. It was "only" bad when I was inside doing nothing.

So came Sunday. I decided to go and see what the conditions are. Temp: -4, no additional snow since Saturday. So far so good. Getting there was no fun as the roads were only partially cleared so had some trouble getting out of our village. The rest was easy.

Got there, change from warm coat to running coat, attached the gadgets and went down to the running path. It was clear! Excellent news. It took 3-5 mins for my nose to clear out. I did not feel the cold luckily, I was happy about my selection of layers.
Usually under these conditions only runners are on this path. Otherwise it would have been filled with families, dog walkers and bikers. This time of year is only for us. Met single runners, waved at each other. Then these two dudes came towards me. They looked out of context with their not-runner-like dresses and body movements. yet, to my biggest surprise they ran 3 laps while I was doing my two! The second time we met, I thought that these are other people. They must be unless they ran across the lake. But they weren't joking. We met four times in total! I was totally amazed.
I went on the my final 3 km of the total 15 after my last sighting of the two wonders.

Overall it went well. Slower than two weeks ago but there was no snow before and I wasn't weakened by the cold I have now either. Not excuses though, I did good to my standards.

Sum: 15 km in 1 hour 26 mins, easy pace.

*after Armin Van Buuren

It's good to push hard

I think the biggest revelation of this year is that I just need to push through the pain to get results. I know, it sounds kind of obvious, but it wasn't to me.
There are zillion training methods and theories out there. The people I tend to read all base their trainings on heart rate zones, repetitions, hard workouts and rest days.
Most of their hard workouts are harder and more ambitious in development over a training period for let's says a half marathon then I'd ever try to achieve on my own.
The the opposite side: their easy workouts are much easier then my easier workouts. At least as far as HR goes.

Side note:
I have to note it here that I just not a regular guy in terms of HR definition. 220-age never worked for me. I could easily push over the 100% limit determined this way any time. I had to learn from experience (since the monitored treadmill was giving the same, low max HR results) what my actual max could be around.

So end of last year, in order to keep my body happy (so I thought) I watched my HR very closely. It just wouldn't go down. I was running very-very (and I _mean_ very) slow and yet: I still bit into the 80% zone whatever I tried. This resulted in my running slowing down so much that I hated every minute of it.

Than this January I just started that machine and ran. While trying not to overdo it I pushed as hard as I could. Both pace and HR. By the end of the first week I was happy again with my running. By the end of the second week I ran the longest distance in a long time with reserves in my body and way under the time I set as "it would be nice to beat that".

To avoid over-training I took last week "off", only running 3 times and low mileage. This week it's back to business once again, and I'll see where the revelation leads to...

Long time no see

It's been a while. 2009 was the first complete year as far as running is concerned. I did not quit. Had some breaks but returned over and over again.

Yet it was a strange end to the year. I managed to log in the final few kilometers at the same pace as I started the year with. Just could not get my head around the reasons. More, I simply could not get my muscles to move any faster without pushing my heartrate through the roof.

Luckily, 2010 started and it all came around. If all goes well I'll log top mileage this month with two longer runs in the books.

My first target: april 25th, half marathon.

where i run these days

made with my sh.ty camera phone while on the job

friday's session

went out tonight as well even though it was very hot. it felt much worse than the heat spike two days ago but it was only 31 vs the 35 celcius before.
it was a different route as i left the dog home in this heat. knew that it will be longer than this weeks's previous 4k runs and will some climbs as well after the relatively flat runs.
also i bought my first pair of real trail shoes today. they are the adidas response trail, gray and orange edition. they were chosen from the big collection of futaneet.hu. very comfy, loads of traction. less dumping and ankle hold then my saucony pro grid 5 pair.
all around it was a good run. i managed to keep the hr in the planned zone (in the 70% range) as well which is quite unusual for me as i tend to push too much.
5.7k total in aerob mode.

back in the saddle

it's been quite a ride these past months. everything went very well until end of april. then the usual kicked in again. had to do a lot of stuff around the house, at work so running became the thing to dump. but in my mind i was already set that this year quitting is not an option.
june started with two, great paced run. short, 5k each but caused a knee pain that i've never experienced before. of course i pushed too hard after a month break but this is just how i am. so i had to rest to get my legs back.
june passed. got emotional that if faith does not let me run than i shouldn't push too hard.

but this year i wont quit!

so this week is about coming back. slowly and running short (<5k)>30 celsius) we (me and the dog) go out. we'll go again tonight...

Starting

Let's start this baby.

I decided to start an online diary apart from my twits that would document my running efforts.
These are not easy exercises for now. As the title suggest I became a runner but was dormant from time to time. In my early days I was a very active Kyokushin warrior up to the age of 18. Then usual teen stuff kicked in and I abandoned sports completely. I gained a lot of weight. To a point where lacing my shoes became a burden. I was 31 and living in Switzerland.
Then I switched hard. Daily workouts for about 4 months. I lost 20kgs (from 105 to 85). Started running as well as using my MTB more often. Already had a heart rate monitor, a Polar 520s as it had biking features built in. But as it's normal at the start the pace my HR would've allowed me felt too low. I was too proud to go that slow. So I pushed harder. Not that I did not develop, I did. But the road was painful and injury full (leg, knee, back pains).
After about 6 months of hard training I moved back to Hungary, got a new girlfriend and was intoxicated with power. I started eating unhealthy again, left workouts behind so basically destroyed all what I've built up so hard.
Two years later motivated by boredom and fatness I started exercising again. This time spinning and some running on the menu. Luckily I learned about a colleague who was a long time runner and he started to motivate me. So much that I actually participated in a race. I ran a hill half marathon with the time of 2:13 which is not that back looking back at the trianing methonds (still pushing too hard, very little rest and recovery).
Of course because of that gaps in preparation this lead to an injury, I could hardly walk after an easy run just over a week after the race. So much pain that I had to stop running completely.
Picked up roller blades instead and starting to ride horses. This was two years ago. Last year we bought a house, was busy with that.
Than came 2009, the Year Of The Great Plans. I restarted after a long-long wait. So far it seems that my legs and all other organs can handle the stress. Of course I am going easy now, building milage and aerob basics for spring.