Training Log Archive: runninghils

Hanson HIlls - 1 full lap on the "main loop" and then I took the short cuts on the second lap to get back in 2 hours. This is my favorite trail in the state - fun and flowy. Sometimes, held back and slowed down on a few hills to keep HR in Z2-3. Kept the watch running the whole time except for when I got my call from work.

Great ride. Watch distance was definitely shorter than the bike computer distance.

Lap at Hanson Hills- running portion of my brick. Planned to do 2 hours, but right knee started bothering me. Stretched tight quad a few times, but toward the end realized that opening the hips and running with a longer stride seemed to help it. I think that the problem was more my hip flexors being tight than anything since I have had issues with that historically. I guess it's time to get back to stretching those on a regular basis.

Pine Haven ride. Plan was to warm up and then do a 45-60 minute Tempo ride on non-technical rolling hills and then ride to get a total of 1:45.
I picked Pine Haven because I thought that the trails were less technical than they were - I hadn't ridden there in a while. I knew the 2-tracks were there as a back-up. I warmed up on the single track and realized it was way too tight and twisty for a tempo ride.

So, at 16 minutes (AHR 122), I hopped onto the 2-tracks and started the "tempo" portion of the workout. It didn't go as well as I had hoped. One plus was that there were some soggy, soft sections of the trail that slowed me down as if I were going up a hill - sort of. I thought the 2-tracks were more straightforward than they were and I was slowing down a lot to check the map, decide where to go, etc. A lot of the downhills were too steep to actually pedal down. I had to choose between hills and non-technical. I struggled to keep the HR up in the tempo zone. I ended up going 1:11 on the "trying to tempo" section with an average HR of 138 because I was going too slow on so many parts. For cool down, rode single track, AHR was 124.

Note - Pine Haven is in ROUGH shape - trees down on single track, significant erosion on the 2-tracks, plants grown too close in to the trail. The 2-tracks are not set up well - they go straight up and down the hills. The "big hills" are so steep that you can't even ride up them. A bit unsure about the distance since it was based on my watch in the woods and I didn't notice that my transmitter/magnet weren't lined up properly for the first half of the ride.

Warm up activities

Strength: EMOTM 5 rounds
8 Overhead squats
Last time, 65 pounds bothered my shoulder a bit on the 5x5 every 2 minutes, so I decided to drop it down to 50 lb. This was perfect - challenging on 4th and 5th rounds to do 8 unbroken in about 30 seconds, but no pain.

Workout 1:
Run 800m
Then,
21*15*9
American KB Swings - 35 lb
Jumping Chest to bar pull-ups
Ring dips (red band)
13:08
Ring Dips always are challenging for me, but overall, I felt good for this

Workout 2:
20" box jumps - 4 every 15 seconds for 16 rounds
started out getting them in 8 seconds... 11 by the last few rounds.

Nice Ashtanga practice. Was feeling sore from yesterday and this morning's run, and it went away partway through, but it came back after shavasana. I had a pretty good headstand day today. I'm getting closer to not needing the wall for insurance.

Cruise Intervals
Warm-up 15 minutes. Then, 5x3 minutes hard followed by 2 minutes recovery. Heart rate got up to 171 and increased until last interval I was hitting 178 by the end of it. Just ran it home after 5th interval. Felt MUCH better than last week on this. I had a touch of soreness from yesterday, but nothing like last week where I was limping around.

400m run warmup
7 minutes of 10 shoulder pass-throughs, 5 high box jumps, and 10 burpees

Strength:
Every minute on the minute - 8 front squats
Did these at 95 pounds

Workout:
Every 0:45 do 1 squat snatch for 30 rounds
This is not my strongest lift and I had some shoulder issues with the OHS last week, so I decided to go moderately light and really focus on form.
Used first 10 to work up to 53 pounds, which I used the rest of the time.

Workout 2:
Every minute on the minute for 10 minutes
10 wall balls (14 pounds)
3 pull-ups (mixed grips) - did jumping pull-ups to try to get away from using the bands

We did the Sanford Lake Loop tonight. As usual, we alternated between pushing hard and a steady pace. The "second group" did a good job of staying together, though we broke into two at the overpass at US-10 when one group broke away. It was a bit unfair of a breakaway since those of us in the back had to wait for cars to pass. I tried to go with Tom to catch the breakaway, but couldn't quite hang on. The "chase" group of 10 riders kept a great pace, though, so all was not lost. Overall, a great ride.

"Hills and Thrills" course - out and back on first part

I went out 1:03 thinking that the ride back would be a little shorter. I wasn't expecting it to be as fast as it was - 48 minutes. I guess I underestimated the wind. There were also more uphills on the way out. People said that this was a really hilly course, but I wasn't that impressed. There were a couple good hills, but I expected the whole thing to be up and down with no flats. Also, it was on pretty busy roads. I need to find my own route that will be on less travelled roads with more hills. It was really nice scenery and there was one exciting moment when I surprised a couple deer and they ran right into each other, both falling down.

Major limiting factor today seemed to be more my legs than my lungs, which isn't too surprising since I raced hard yesterday.