Tracking...

Well, things are going really well with running progress. I've had some fantastic runs and I am starting to feel a little more confident about CrossFit Endurance being adequate for the marathon.

Last weekend I ran a crazy interval workout that I made up but am really happy with:
RUN 3 miles (8 min pace) ...this was very easy and I couldn't help but exceed the Rx pace.
8 min REST
RUN 2 miles (7 min pace)....this was actually pretty tough. Just able to hit 14 min at finish.
6 min REST
RUN 1 mile (As fast as possible)...legs were spent at this point: 7:00 min
RUN 4 x 400m (all out w/ 90 sec rest)...these were killer. Avg around 1:32

On Wednesday I did a hill workout of 8 x ~120m hill sprint (2:20 rest between efforts). It is a sprint up a section of the #5 fairway at Hyland Golf Course. It is pretty steep (steepest thing around anyway) and maybe climbs 30 to 40 ft. Avg of 31 sec per effort. Next time I am going to increase to 10 efforts with a 2:30 rest.

Yesterday I ran a 10k to help assess where I should be for the marathon. Ran a 49:50- that translates to about a 3:50 marathon. I could have gone faster as my back half was almost twon and a half minutes faster than the front half.

I am running a 10 miler this weekend and will shoot for a 1:21:30. This would put me at around a 3:47 marathon. We'll see soon enough.

HELEN!! A measure of power increase

One of my favorite workouts! Came home yesterday and busted it out at lunch. In February I did it in 10:30. On July 15th I did it in 13:45...I want to throw up just thinking of that performance. Well, after only two and a half months of training I just completed my fastest Helen yet...

HELEN
3 rounds for time of:
400 m Run
21 Kettle Bell Swings, 55 lbs
12 Pull-Ups

Time: 9:08

Some quick physics and math and we can determine power increase... Power=Work/time. The Work (completing Helen) hasn't changed but the time to complete that Work, and therefore Power, have changed. For the sake of simplicity I am not going to use units but just derive a percentage of power change.

For the July performance I completed W (Work of Helen) in a t (time) of 825 seconds. For the sake of simplicity I am going to say the value of W is 825. I could use any value here but this just makes calculations easy as it conveniently gives me a baseline P (power) of 1, P=W/t = 825/825.
Using the same value for W and plugging in the new value for t we get P=825/548, P= 1.505. That would indicate a power increase of 50.5%

Now, from a physics stand point this is not accurate because W did actually change between July and yesterday. The fact is that I lost 6 lbs since the July performance. That means I need less F (force) to move my m (mass) across a fixed d (distance), W = F x d; therefore the amount of W performed yesterday was less than in July. Ultimately that means all of the difference in performance cannot be attributed to simply an increase of P but also a decrease in W.

From a practicle standpoint no one cares about the physics; they just see the 50.5% as a measure of performance increase (this can be said to be the true percentage increase of average velocity over a given distance as velocity = distance/time. Notice that unlike Work, distance did not change between the July and September performances). When runners compete they are all completing different W as their masses are different while they run across the same distance. People do not care about the amount of Work the runner completed as they cross the finish line; they care about who completed the task first and by how much. Regardless, we can probably find a way to reasonably account for the mass and Work differences and therefore Power difference.

The 6 lbs decrease in weight is equal to a 3.125% reduction in mass. Considering Work = mass x acceleration x distance, where any acceleration difference between July and September is negligable, we can reasonably assume for any task where I am moving my mass across a fixed distance, that the Work is decreased by 3.125%. This is a very safe assumption considering that a 55 lbs weight is added to one of the tasks of Helen, Kettle Bell Swings. This mass does not change, accounts for considerable movement distance and therefore it can be reasonably assumed that the percentage of Work decrease for the entire task of Helen is actually less than 3.125%.

Using the 3.125% reduction figure the work performed yesterday would be approximately 825 - (825 x 0.03125) = 799.218. Using this new work figure we can find a lower end Power percentage improvement: P = 799.218 / 548 = 1.458.

These two calculations show a 45.8% to 50.5% increase in Power in less than 3 months!

Finally, a last measurement is how much faster I completed the task in September compared to July: (825 sec - 548 sec) / 825 sec = 33.57% reduction in time.

Either way, this is a huge performance improvement that I am very happy with.

Progress, progress, progress...

This weekend I ran a one mile time trial. According to Jeff Galloway you can use this test to predict your marathon time. You multiply your one mile time by 1.3 to establish your base pace for the marathon. For every 5 degrees above 60 F you expect on race day you add 30 secs to the pace. I ran the mile time trial in 6:02 (362 sec). 362 sec x 1.3 = 471 sec. I assume that on race day the average temp will be around 70 F so I will add a minute to my pace... 471 sec + 60 sec = 531 sec. Pace x distance = expected time: 531 sec/mile x 26.2 miles = 13902 sec. That translates to 3 hours and 52 minutes.

I also did a CrossFit Total on Friday. I matched my dead lift from this past winter and my squat and shoulder press were only 5 lbs short. Needless to say I have made huge progress in the past two and a half months.

I have 3 more weeks of hard training followed by a two week taper. Hopefully that will ensure a sub-four hour marathon and get me close to the 3h 45min goal. If it does I think it is pretty safe to say that CrossFit plus CrossFit Endurance yielded significantly better results than a traditional LSD (long, slow, distance)/"cardio" training.

Yeah, so it's almost been 6 weeks...so what?!!! I've been busy!! At least I am keeping up with the training!

It's actually going really well. I have made good progress all around and I still have just under 6 weeks until race day. My strength is still behind where I was in February but my endurance is way better. I really feel that the intervals have had a big hand in the rapid progress but I am still uncertain as to how it will play out over 26.2 miles.

I think I am going to be a bit shy of my dead lifting goal but I should be able to hit the 35 pull ups. Weight is dropping consistently (after a little plateau) and I am down 13 lbs to 187... only 7 lbs to go; should be easy.

About 3 or 4 weeks ago I did a one mile time trial and, with a 6:32, knocked over 30 seconds off my first attempt. While that is great I think I need to knock off another 42 seconds to get a time that the Jeff Galloway "Magic Mile" would predict for me to run a 3 hour, 45 min marathon. My next 1 mile time trial is this Saturday. We'll see.

Workout Journal Entry #25

Wow! It's been a full week since I posted...don't worry I haven't given up. I was on the road for business last week and just got out of the habit.

Had some amazing workouts and I hope to soon put in another one mile time trial to re-assess my "Miracle Mile" marathon prediction.

Some items of note:

-Deadlifted 315 lbs- Did two workouts right on top of each other without the normal 3+ hours of rest inbetween. Went from heavy deadlifting to a 4 mile fartlek. Wow! the deadlifting really takes it out of the legs.

- Did the "Filthy Fifty" workout...brutal. It's a total of 500 reps of ten various exercises including 24" box jump, burpees, 20lbs wall-balls, pull ups...brutal...every station I walked away from had a puddle of sweat- 49 minutes of brutalness. I took two days off after this workout. Did I mention that it was brutal?

- Yesterday was a great complete body workout. Started with "Lynne" which is 5 sets of max reps body weight bench press followed by max reps pull-ups. 10 sets of MAX reps to the upper body is great! I followed that up with 6 x 400m run. 2 minutes rest between each run. Was able to keep close to the same pace for every run (3 sec delta) but the last two were close to an all out effort to keep that pace. Totally zapped the legs.

- I am trying to transition to The Zone diet/nutrition program. Seems like a great program. Will write more later.

I hope to be more consistent with the blogging as the weeks were on. Thanks for the support and don't forget to support St. Jude Children's Research Hospital.

Workout Journal Entry #17

Great day today! Some hard workouts including the first day of intervals. I can tell my legs are going to be blasted tomorrow but that's what recovery days are for.

Morning stats-
Blood pressure: 98/53, Heart rate: 51, Weight:193 lbs

Morning Workout:
Clean
1-1-1-1-1-1-1 (7 sets of 1 rep for max effort)

135 lbs, 155 lbs, 155 lbs, 165 lbs (fail), 165 lbs, 165 lbs, 165 lbs

Afternoon Workout:
RUN- Intervals
Warm up and 10 minutes of POSE drills followed by
3 sets for max effort of:
200m, Rest 100m walk
400m, Rest 200m walk
600m, Rest 200m walk

Total intervals: 3600m

Time: forgot watch

Notes: Happy w/ Clean. Have never really tried max weight before. I felt my form, range of motion and control were good. I can really feel it in my legs. This afternoons interval were brutal but i got through them. My legs will be singing tomorrow. We are getting into the deep end of the training pool. Got to make sure I am well warmed up for this stuff to prevent injuries.

Workout Journal Entry #16 and Heroes

Yesterday was an off day and it was great- I was tired! Celebrated Graham's One-Month Birthday and the party wore me out! For as tired as this training is making me I hope I am making significant progress. In the past two weeks I have lost seven pounds and raised, with your help, $275 for St. Jude Children's Research Hospital but it is still a little early to start measuring physical improvement. Maybe next weekend.

Moring Stats-
Blood Pressure: 102/55, Heart Rate: 51, Weight: 193 lbs.

Afternoon Workout

"Nancy"
5 rounds for time of:
400 meter run
95 pound Overhead squat, 15 reps (scaled to 75 lbs)

Time: 25 min, 55 sec

Notes: Didn't sleep very well because Graham was being fusy. Will probably move him out of our bedroom soon. As for the workout, this is the first one that I have had to scale. Overhead squats are extremely difficult and require a lot of core strength and hip and shoulder flexibility. Next time I should be able to do it as perscribed.

Tomorrow is the first day of intervals. Should be brutal!

These are the two fire fighters that pulled a woman and her two kids out of a burning SUV; an event that was all caught on tape (see Thursday's blog entry). Their name are John and Joel Rechlitz. They are BAMFs!

“It was horrific,” Joel Rechlitz told Holt. “The car was engulfed in flames and the child was in there screaming. All I could see was that child’s face, [which] seemed just perfectly fine, but you could see the car seat around the child was burning. The child was literally burning in front of me.

“It was horrific,” he reiterated. “It compelled you to act.”

Read more about their heroics here: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32006584/ns/today-today_people/