Episode 432: Hybrid Workouts & Hills - Training Recap
For this training recap, I unpack a four week block of training where my main focus was a continuation of speed work development with a bit more variety of inputs this time around. Hybrid workouts, fast finishes, and hills all included. I highlight the thought process behind the programming, execution, and add some tips to consider in training as I build up for a 100 mile track ultra in June!
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Timestamps:
00:00:00 Training Recap for 100 Mile Indoor Track Race
00:03:47 Shoe Efficiency Testing & Training Outlook
00:07:31 Week 1 of 4 Training Inputs & Description
00:10:00 Week 2 of 4 Training Inputs & Description
00:16:29 Week 3 of 4 Training Inputs & Description
00:22:00 Recognizing Signs for a Deload Week
00:24:57 Week 4 of 4 Training Inputs & Description
00:30:55 Sponsors: LMNT, deltaG Ketones, Muai Nui Venison
Episode Transcript:
Alright, everyone, welcome back to another episode. This podcast episode is going to be a training recap. So if you're listening to one of these training recaps for the first time, I am kind of breaking down each one of my training blocks on a series of episodes leading into a race I'm going to be doing in June. It's a flat indoor track, 100 mile attempt, so the Pettit Center, which is the Olympic training facility in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, has a nice indoor track that's 443m. And I'm sort of structuring my training around, hopefully peaking well for that race in mid-June. And I did two other episodes before this one where I sort of highlighted my return to training after a pretty long off season. I had about a six week off season where my main focus was strength work and just very light running, very unforced running. And that kind of ended at the very end of 2024 heading into the new year. And I did an episode where I kind of highlighted that return to running being the primary focus, and then did a second episode where it was more or less kind of the intro to kind of some speed work development, which was a focus that I was going to try to target earlier in this training cycle to just fine tune some of that stuff, because I felt like that was a piece of the puzzle that I was going to need to have a little more emphasis on for this round of things. So coming into this week, I'm sorry. This training block is a four week stretch from February 17th through March 16th, where I sort of continued that main focus on kind of quality work where I'm targeting, you know, higher intensity stuff along the aerobic intensity spectrum as my main focus, and then keeping kind of the long run a little more traditional in terms of its duration versus what you maybe see me doing when I'm getting closer to race and really stretching out what I would call like an ultra specific long run. Although there have been some specifics that I've started, including like I've been getting out on the track for my long runs a lot more frequently than I normally would at this point. Main reason for that is just that I'm sort of in a unique situation this year than I have been from prior hundred mile efforts, where I've got my pick of the lot from shoes. Essentially, I can wear whatever shoe I want for this attempt, so I'm really kind of trying to do my due diligence in terms of finding the one that's going to work well for me, and part of that is just kind of getting ones that feel well and narrowing that down to like a list of maybe 3 or 4, and then I'll be taking them into dust. And the former guest on here, who's got a lab in Austin that tests shoe efficiency and like, he's the guy not just in Austin but basically in the entire world for that sort of a setup. So I'm really fortunate here in Austin to have access to that facility, and I'll be able to bring in a few pairs and just really find out which ones I'm the most efficient in. But I'm not going to bring in like two dozen pairs of shoes. I want to kind of narrow that down and figure out which ones are actually practical considerations for a 100 mile track event, and then pick from those. So getting out onto a track to do those long runs is just helpful in me, kind of recognizing what shoe is maybe going to be something that's going to be worth considering on very specific terrain. And the other thing with this training block that sort of changed from the last one was I started moving a little bit more volume of quality work in some of those sessions, and I started blending some intensities a little bit more. not entirely, but I had a block of training where my primary focus was short intervals, where I'm targeting like my VO2 max intensity, and just trying to get that kind of solidified for a little bit and hopefully start seeing some adaptations before starting to phase in some more stuff that is still quality work, but more closely aligned with like lactate threshold type intensities. And sometimes when I kind of move from important but least specific to 100 mile intensity, I'll blend. as I'm kind of transitioning out of one and into another, and that allows me to kind of have two things that I like. One is it gives me like a little bit less of an abrupt, abrupt shift. It gives me a little more extra exposure to some of the shorter, faster stuff at a reduced volume. And it also allows me to kind of build out some workouts in a way where I feel like they're difficult, but they also contain enough total workload that it takes quite a bit of focus. Extra focus that I think you get that is required for some of these longer, higher volume quality sessions to me, I think feeds in well to being able to tolerate some of the focus that you need to do for, you know, in the hundred mile case, 11 plus hours. So, it's one of those things where I find there to be sort of a, a maybe individual reason for it, but it's sort of how I found things work well for me. And at the end of the day, what I like to look at when I zoom out is, are things heading in the right direction, like is my pace at my base intensity or like high end zone two? Heading in the right direction is my pace at an intensity close to my lactate threshold, heading in the right direction. And then is my pace at intensity targeting my VO2 max heading in the right direction. And when those things are doing that, and I'm hitting some of my historical spots that I look for before making a transition to the next phase of training, then I know those inputs are doing what I want them to do, and sometimes it's just about also putting some excitement and variety into the training stuff so you can be really, one dimensional, I think, and do it well that way, but that is a lot of rinse and repeat, a lot of monotony. So sometimes I think once you kind of have that stuff dialed in and have done it a few times in the past, you afford yourself a little bit more creativity in terms of how you program some of these workouts. So I'll go over all those quality sessions that I did over those four weeks, as well as the long runs, the total volume and distance and, and duration for, for those weeks as well. So that first week, February 17th through the 23rd, I ended up hitting 92.54 miles. And that took me 11 hours and 37 minutes for that week. I hit one quality session on the track, and then I did a long run as well on the track. So the quality session I was doing was like, what? I was just talking about, kind of one of those blended sessions where I went out there and I did four reps of 75 seconds, kind of targeting the intensity I'd like to find for my VO2 max and just see what kind of velocity or pace I was hitting for that. And then I jumped 12 minutes. a 12 minute stretch that was just underneath what my intensity would be tolerable for, like, say, my lactate threshold. So that one was an interesting workout. I actually felt like I maybe had a little less legs than I thought I would coming off of a D load week the prior week. Usually that first workout, I feel like I have quite a bit of pop, but it felt like maybe I still wasn't quite ready. And sometimes that can happen if it's something where it's like, okay, you just kind of had a reduced, volume intensity week and you almost need like one session to really kind of push things back into, the, the way you want them or kind of shock the system, so to speak. but they weren't terrible, and they were actually faster than I had been doing in that prior block. So I wasn't gonna complain about that. And then the 12 minute stretch just under lactate threshold, I was hitting maybe just a pinch under five, 40 per mile. So it was kind of a good just kind of system check at that intensity where I'd like to get that down closer to maybe like a 520 pace by the end of the quality development, speed, work development type stuff in training. But not a bad spot to be right now for that. And as I have more inputs for that, I'm sure I'll see that start to kind of drift back down a little bit faster. The longest for that week was a 20.24 mile run on the track and hit 638 per mile. That one felt like it was just sort of like a blah run. But the data was fine, like 638 pace for that type of a run at this stage in training isn't isn't a bad pace for me. It's kind of right in that ballpark of what I would consider 100 mile intensity to eventually want to be. And, it was just kind of put in the work for that one, though nothing really stood out as feeling, like really bad. Nothing stood out as feeling great either. So I just sort of locked in and those like kind of six 30s after a while and just sat there and didn't try to force it and push down pace at the end, like sometimes I do when I'm feeling a little bit better than normal on those long runs on the track. week two was a really good training week. This was probably the week where I got the first real sign of like, okay, things are really heading in the right direction, and the dad is really suggesting it. So this week it was February 24th through March 2nd, and I hit 91.45 miles for 11 hours and 23 minutes. the first workout I did. First quality session I did. I actually came off the track off the flats and moved to some hill repeats. So I like to do this when I'm sort of targeting a little bit more volume at quality, because since I'm doing 100 mile race and leg turnover isn't as big of a need as it would be if I were, say, trying to PR in the five K or run a fast five K. I find I can tolerate a little more volume of quality work when I'm doing things on an uphill, just because I'm driving less impact into my legs. So as I was kind of heading into these next two weeks knowing that I'd probably target four quality sessions, I wanted to make sure I wasn't putting myself in a position where I'd be stealing from a future workout. And the way I set this one up is I've got a hill here in Austin that I like to kind of go to for these type of sessions, so I can compare myself to what I've done in the last three plus years since being here, and use that to my advantage to kind of see, like, where am I at and how are things going. So that particular workout was six by two minutes on that uphill segment. And I was really excited to see that. I actually ran my two fastest splits up that hill segment that I have since moving here, and I've probably had. Of like target attempts up the hill where I'm not just kind of happening to go up that hill on like an easy run or something like that. I've probably done quality reps on that hill almost 100 times now, so it's not a small data pool. And I've had workouts where I've done more of those reps. I think the most I've done is ten, but I've also had some where I was just kind of feeling good on a run and decided to just run up really hard for one, just to kind of see and just get like one kind of jolt of, of intensity in there. and, and it's still even been kind of on the shorter end of volume for this particular workout, was able to produce two of my two fast as time's up that. So that was kind of promising in terms of just the work I've been doing, kind of at those short intervals, starting to kind of pay off and then maybe just a combination too. I came into this training cycle quite a bit stronger than I normally have been from sort of that six week off season that I took where I was focusing on really getting dialed in strength work, which I've really kind of continued with some adjustments just to accommodate running being the primary focus now. but I think that's probably another reason why maybe I was able to do that, because I took some of the adaptations I've likely had at this point from doing the short intervals in the last block. And combine that with the strength that I built. Kind of coming into it and then doing like a short, fast uphill is probably a good recipe for me right now. So maybe I shouldn't have been too surprised that things played out the way they did. But I'll take the heading in the right direction signs when you zoom out any day of the week. Later that week, I did a little bit of a higher volume training session like two days later, so I didn't really require too much. Too much recovery. Just one easy day after that, this one, I went back down to the track and it was more of a blended session, kind of similar to that first week where I did ten by 30s at my VO2 max intensity. Then I took about a minute jog and then rolled right into six minutes just under lactate threshold intensity, and then finished up after a couple minute jogs with five more 32nd reps at kind of VO2 max intensity. So this one felt great for two reasons. One is it was the second quality session of the week. Two, I was hitting my fastest split so far for short intervals, I was dipping down closer to kind of 440, maybe 445 pace for those 32nd reps. And I didn't feel like I was forcing them any harder than I did for any of these other shorter intervals that I had done in the past. And then that lactate threshold, or I should say just under lactate threshold, target intensity, six minutes in the middle. I think I hit like a 538 somewhere, somewhere around there pace for that. so that I'd like to get down to maybe a little closer to, say, 520 or so once I start kind of making that little more of an emphasis, but not a bad spot to be. Being that it was kind of sandwiched in between some shorter intervals and not being an input that I've really been focusing on yet this training cycle until now. So that week capped off with another long run, pretty similar to the one in the prior week. From a distance standpoint, I hit 20.23 miles. This one was a bit faster though. 621 per mile just felt a little better. Felt like a little more pop in my legs. Felt a little more positive about it and. I actually kind of held myself back a little bit at the end. I was trying to be I'm trying to be a little more mindful during this block to not dip into too much quality on kind of the higher intensities of the aerobic intensity spectrum at the end of the long run, like I had at some of the long runs I did in the last block, just to make sure I'm not treading on the next week's quality sessions and setting myself back for that. But I did feel good, so I let myself kind of drift down to some low sixes there. And that's that's why that one kind of came out a little bit faster was those last few miles were just kind of dipping down into the six O's a minute per mile pace, which I really like to see that when that happens, like when I've been really fit in the past and run some of my strongest hundred mile milers. A lot of times when I'm going out for just kind of like a high zone two base run, then I'll start seeing my pace start when when conditions are optimal and the route is flat, you know, low sixes and maybe like at my absolute best, maybe just dipping under six for some of those type of runs. So when I can kind of just gravitate down to that without feeling like it's forced. And then when it's at the end of a training week, like this one where there's some cumulative fatigue and then the end of the long run, too. Pretty good sign, especially when I don't have to force it. So that week was, to date, probably the most promising one in terms of like, okay, things are heading in the right direction. I'm starting to see some of the progress from the work that I put in in the prior two blocks of training, and now it's just about managing how much I can tolerate and recover from before I need to start kind of pulling back just a little bit and recover. And that didn't happen to be the case after this week. Week three, rolled right into it for the most part. That was March 3rd through the ninth. I hit 93.02 miles in 11 hours and 19 minutes. This week I had a return to the hill. So I did that same workout, but with two extra reps. So this time it was eight by two minutes on that hill, and I felt a little less kind of like I had that real urge to just. Just blast up the hill. Like sometimes when I do these short intervals, you can kind of tell like you've got another gear and you're just kind of like position yourself. And other times I just feel like there's another gear there, but I just really don't want to access it. So I was definitely on the latter side of that where I was hitting the places I wanted to on that segment, but it just wasn't going to be one where I had that urge to do any of my fastest splits up there like I did that prior week, but it was right in range. So I just took it. Took it for what it was eight by two for that intensity is not a bad volume at VO2 max intensity essentially on an uphill for me. And it was something where I felt like I could still execute despite not feeling great. So it's also kind of a reminder to me where when you start kind of unpacking, like a grouping of workouts over the course of a month, you're probably going to have some that are great and some that are just good and some that are maybe a little more bad. And you got to be kind of comfortable with those and just like, tune in when you see those things and just account for like, are they piling up or is it just kind of like, well, maybe just a little less on point that day versus a normal one? So you can't expect to feel great every day, and one bad workout isn't necessarily going to be something where you need to change anything for. It's usually when you start seeing multiple signs of fatigue and lower quality dip that you want to start thinking, okay, maybe I need to put a D load week in here though, or take a couple easier days and give yourself a little bit of rest. But this wasn't anywhere near that. This was still just a I would just put it in kind of like a good category versus great or bad. Later that week, though. Two days later, actually, I felt amazing. And this is actually maybe one of my better workouts in this block if I had to pick one, and this one had a fair bit of variety in it. And this is the workout I usually think of when I think of like, okay, I've got to stay focused for this one. So the way I structured it is it was four by six minutes at just under lactate threshold intensity. But rather than having a true recovery jog, I tried to target a float where I was hanging around the aerobic threshold. And what that usually does is it doesn't really make me feel like I'm really, really 100% recovered from one to the next. So although my legs are pretty much recovered, the mental focus side of things doesn't feel like you get that real clear, like on off switch, like you get when you're doing hard, short intervals followed by like a real easy jog where you really notice the distinct shift of like, okay, I'm like really taking it easy on this. So it just requires a little more focus on those in-betweens and these types of workouts. I like to start to get into around this time in training because, like I was saying in the beginning of the episode, they sort of teach me to just kind of remember what it's like, okay, stay focused. When you start kind of losing that focus, you can recalibrate and just dial back in and just get those reps of like learning how to do that a little more intuitively, because on race day, it the more times you can just intuitively kind of regain focus versus having to like, really burn a bunch of cognitive energy, forcing yourself to do it. The more bandwidth you have to finish strong, for my experience. So. The way that ended up playing out was the six minute raps that I was targeting just under a lactate threshold. Intensity came out as a 539, 534, 526, 527 pace for those six minute stretches and then those six minute floats in between. Those were right around 640 paces. So I would definitely say it was probably on like the middle to lower end of zone two. versus what I would do if I were just really trying to target the high end of zone two and really tease that crossover point on aerobic threshold. But given the structure of this workout, they were plenty difficult. So it felt like I got what I was looking for out of it. It was really promising, actually. On that last rep, I actually when I went into the fourth one, I was thinking like, okay, this one will probably be my slowest , might be a little bit slower than the other three. So I didn't pay attention to the pace. I didn't look at my watch. I just dialed in what I thought the right effort was, and then waited for the first time for my watch to click over and give me a mile split. And I looked at it when it came through and I was like, oh, cool. It ended up being on par with my third one, which was the fastest one of the four and only by a second slower. So basically the same for the most part. So that was a good sign where I didn't feel like I had to really, like, dig deeper than I wanted to from an intensity standpoint, to kind of produce a time that I was trying to hit. so my tolerance to some of the volume is starting to improve, it seems. And this workout was kind of a good one to show it. And the cooldown too. With this one, I sort of maintained that zone two target, where I believe there was like a couple miles on the cooldown, and I was kind of right in that sort of six. 40 ish pace for that one. That was week three. So after three weeks of a build like this for a training block is a lot of times where I'll start considering a d load week if I'm getting some signs of maybe a little bit more fatigue than I'd like to see accumulate. I'll usually scaffold out my training ahead of time and just look at kind of like the whole picture before I start. And when I do that, I'm usually looking at a kind of a cycle of three up, one down from a weak standpoint, but I don't necessarily force that. So what I mean by that is once I kind of start getting into things, I listen to what my body's giving me. So if my body is saying, hey, you just did three quality weeks, building another one seems fine. Nothing's really screaming at you as to suggest that you need to back off. I'm not going to force the d load week there. I'll kind of keep pushing and then wait for my body to kind of give me that sign. And some of the signs I'm looking for in those scenarios are like, am I? Am I getting maybe a couple sessions in a row where quality is not hitting where I would like them to be? Or am I feeling just like I'm forcing things a little bit more? Is my sleep starting to kind of get a little more disruptive? Am I just feeling a little less motivated when I get up in the morning, go for a run versus being excited to kind of go and explore whatever workout I'm doing and things like that. So there's usually a variety of things that start to kind of present themselves before. Like, I know, like, okay, this is a no question asked. Take a d load week. coming off of this week, I guess I do need to touch on the long run. Still the long run. I again went back to the track. 20 miles, 0.26. Or 20.26 miles at a 631 per mile pace. So kind of right in the middle of those first two. But it felt really good. Just felt like I could just go in cruise control in those mid six 30s and just get the work done and have a pretty good day out there. It did get a little bit warmer for that run. I do remember that being something that I noticed where the humidity came in that morning, and I think it was like maybe in the 90% humidity range. So that always kind of gives you a little bit of an extra variable here in Austin when you get those humid days versus some of the cooler, less humid days that I've been fortunate to have in a lot of my long run so far this, this training cycle. But, you know, that week ended when coming off of that long run that I did on Saturday, I didn't feel like, you know what, I need to get a load week. I felt more like, all right, with a couple easy runs to start the next week, I can probably roll up a pretty good quality training session midweek and then hit something in the long run category by the end of the week. That has a little bit of quality in it because I hadn't done like a lot of quality in my long, really any quality in my long runs. Yet this, this training block. So I was going to look at it through the lens of this fourth week, maybe instead of two quality sessions midweek one, and then see what I can do in that long run from just dropping in a little bit of some faster running in there at the end of the week. So that takes us into the fourth week and final week with this one, which is March 10th through the 16th. And this week was actually the first 100 mile week I hit on this training cycle. So we're 11 weeks in, hit my first hundred miles, and it was 100.21 miles, 11 hours and 56 minutes. And it felt great. Actually, I wasn't necessarily just trying to hit 100 miles, but I had a feeling like I was probably ready after those first three weeks just to kind of inch the volume up a little bit. And since I had been hitting low 90s for the most part, those three prior weeks, you know, with just a little extra volume, I was just going to probably surpass that. So I ended up playing out that way. the other difference I had with this week versus the other ones is I rather than doing the long run the way I've had pretty much this entire build, I actually did two long runs this weekend, and some of that's just kind of like testing the waters for some future training where when I get into my ultra specific long run phase, I'll start stacking longer sessions back to back just to get really good at dialing in race specific pace with a little bit more specific fatigue in my legs. And since I only did one quality session mid week, I felt like I had the room for it as long as one of them. I took it pretty chill and focused on just getting like a little bit faster running in on the second of the two. So this week ended up being a midweek quality session where I did a little bit less structure in terms of hitting actual like a duration splits. I did more of a Fart Lake style run where this run the first four miles, I got right into base intensity right around zone two and. And just rolled that for four miles, and then I rolled into four miles that I did in just a fart like manner where I would just when I felt good, I'd speed up, get into kind of like lactate threshold pace and then maybe, some shorter bursts of like a little closer to VO2 and just kind of sprinkle those in over the course of four miles. And those four miles came out as 547, 551, 550 and 549. And the other thing I did with that one is I added a little bit of extra quality at the end of this run and didn't give myself a real big break in between. So after those four miles with the fart-like structure in it, I sort of rolled right into a kind of high end of base, zone two type target and hit some pretty promising miles on those. It was, I think, 617 for both of those miles and then rolled right into a fast finish where I dropped down to like, I think it was a 638 last mile or I'm sorry, 538 last mile. So I was right around that 615 pace for my kind of base aerobic threshold type targets on the miles that weren't quality, structured stuff between the fast look and the fast finish. So it ended up being a pretty high volume session. And there was just over 14 miles with each one of those miles having, a little bit, a little bit more in it than what I would maybe do for a typical 14 mile or mid week when I was doing some intensity embedded into it. So that was the one quality session midweek. And then the long run for this one I did Saturday, Sunday split with 18.2 miles on Saturday at a 721. So like I was saying before, I took that one pretty easy. Just trying to kind of get some volume in my legs at a lower intensity and then go out for a similar distance run that next day, but target a little bit of a faster pace. So that second run on Sunday ended up being 18 miles right on the dot. That one I ever had. 616 pace, and I actually pushed down into kind of the high fives, low sixes for a good chunk of that race. I'm sorry, a good chunk of that long run and had a couple of miles in there near the end where I hit 547 and 556. So I got a little bit of a fast finish workout to kind of end that one. So that was the final session of that four week training block. And yeah, I'm really excited to kind of see what I get out of that because usually I don't see a ton of movement within a four week block. A lot of times it's more like, all right, I put in a four week block now reset, and then you do that next block of training and you start kind of seeing kind of the fruits of your labors a little bit in that next round of things. So the fact that I was able to get quite a bit of quality in didn't really miss anything of, of substance, that I had to really feel bad about myself for her or anything like that. So things are really heading in the right direction. And I'm really looking forward to this next training block. And then eventually too, because we're getting well into March now. So around late March, early April, I'll start kind of stretching out some longer stuff and start kind of pushing beyond that kind of more traditional long run distance and duration like I have been doing, and start kind of testing out some stuff, maybe a little closer to some of those ultra long runs where sometimes I'm out there for three plus hours, or maybe even hitting 30 plus miles on a long run and things like that. And, if I'm excited to do that stuff, which, you know, you hope is the case because you're going to want to be excited about the thing you're actually gonna be doing on race day. That's usually a good sign. So I'm looking forward to getting into that kind of side of the training things. Eventually when I get through some of this more speed work, focus stuff. So that was that training block. If you've got any questions or comments about it, let me know. Otherwise, I'll be back here in about another month. Sharing the next four weeks.