The week flew away and I didn’t add a new session. Only trained today. Next week I’ll move up to 3 sessions for sure. A cold front, probably the last one this winter hit on the weekend, I just didn’t feel like braving the cold one last time this winter. Today was already 10ºC hotter then Monday. Today :
60 7.8
4
50 6.6
4
40 5.4
4
30 3.9 (my wife timed this one, it’s obviously wrong, it was more likely in the 4.2-4.4 range.
Obviously the 60 time is a major disappointment, but not unexpected. With that 60 time I can’t even run sub 12. And, not surprisingly, max speed and speed endurance is seriously lacking at this moment, if my 40 and 50 time are right. But then again, not that bad for being absolutely out of training and on 10 weeks of training, and only the last 3 weeks with 2 sessions a week, and zero weights yet. Also, in 2002, I was in 13.3 shape on around the same date on august and got to 11.7/23.5 in just two months of three sessions of track a week (with no weights, tempo or jumps). I’m optimistic that I’ll be able to replicate that progression getting serious with training right now.
Didn’t train this weekend, weather didn’t cooperate and it was too cold to tough out the rain. But this week I’m training three times for sure. Also starting with body weight circuits two days. Today :
6x40m. with 3 mins rest. Untimed. 95%+ effort.
Can’t adjust to using my new chronometer, I feel weird having to carry it in my hand. I guess I’ll have to buy a watch like I had before. I rather run comfortably then know my times.
OK, so I finally sat down to make some sort of template, and kinda found out I’m totally out of time for training for the upcoming comps. Plus the competition schedule is really screwy, competitions last basically from early October to early December. Too long for one comp period and little short for two peaks. Anyway. It’s ridiculous how fast time flies. So forget any GPPish type training. I’ve got no other option then to enter a crash SPP. Fortunately I’m at some sort of point after a scrappy GPPish phase, where at least I’m able to somewhat train and do speed without getting hurt or anything. Haha, this all sounds so unpromising for my comp results, doesn’t it? But who really cares, I’m happy with this. Just being back and the prospects of semiseriously or seriously training is a delight in itself after so many years of inactivity, so the result really doesn’t worry me (haha I want to see if I still think the same if I can’t run sub 12/24 before the end of the year).
Comps I HAVE to compete on are on October 1-2 and November 5-6.
Weights I don’t think I can classify into max strength or maintenance. I’ll be working low volume and low reps from now till the end of comps and moving up in weight as I regain strength, but not planning to really push it.
Focus on these 5 weeks will be max speed and acceleration almost equally, leaning towards more max speed from week 3 onwards. Speed endurance or special endurance I won’t do anything unless I go train on a Saturday with my training group any they’re doing SE or SpE.
For these 5 weeks :
Speed day 1 - Speed day 2 - Speed day 3
Week 1 : Short speed 40’s - Speed and accel. 60’s and 30’s - Speed 60-50-40-30’s
Week 2 : Short speed 40’s - Speed and accel. 60’s and 30’s - Speed 70-60-50-40’s
Week 3 : Speed 60’s - Flying 20’s - Speed 80-70-60-50’s
Week 4 : Speed 60’s - Flying 20’s - Speed 80’s and 120’s
Week 5 : Flying 20’s - Speed 60’s - COMPETITION! Saturday 100m. and 4x100m. Sunday 200m. (decrease volume/unload during week)
I still don’t know the full competition schedule during October, so I can’t plan that out yet.
Was planning to do 2 sets of 70-60-50-40, but I started feeling a slight adductor strain in the 2nd 70 and decided to cut things there. Moved day 3 speed to day 2, since I assume I’ll be doing longer work on Saturday with my training group. Obviously the times are quite disappointing, if not horrendous. I’m probably around 12.5 manual territory, 12.70-12.80 electronic. Yikes. I’m considering dropping timing altogether. Although it hasn’t gotten to me yet, if these times don’t improve in the next three weeks it’s going to be a tough battle against dismotivation.
Although we didn’t see Bolt blast the field away in the 100m., it’s been an enjoyable World Champs. Lemaitre and Pearson bringing some hope to white people in sprinting.
Today, strangely the session my old training group fit my training plan nicely, they did exactly the session I dropped this week :
Hills
3x30m. w 2 min rest
5
3x30m. w 2 min rest
6
3x60m. w 3 min rest
8
3x60m. w 3 min rest
Untimed. Actually felt a bit sloppy, in particular in the acceleration phase. It’s really weird but I’m having major inconsistency in my sessions, and even within individual sessions. I assume it’s just rust, lack of preparedness for the volumes, etc. and that these hicups will go ironing out after some weeks of regular training.
My position during these runs pretty much confirms my times from training, I was running slightly faster then women who are running in the mid 12’s and slightly behind men that have been running high 11’s. Surely with some regularity in my training I’ll be trimming these times down quickly.
Ergometric test. ECG. I guess that counts as some sort of aerobic workout, 15 minutes running on that treadmill.
Today :
6x40m. w 3 min rest
Poor quality workout I was destroyed, I guess from the treadmill test yesterday. I was going to do 8 reps, but got a slight quads strain on the 6th rep and cut the workout there. I’m still trying to figure out how to introduce weights into my workouts. I end so mowed down after every session I can’t even consider doing weights. I think I’ll start with very light workouts on non sprinting days … although that might affect recovery.
Wednesday September 07
Weights :
3x12 bench press with bar only
3x6 pullups without weight
3x12 dips without weight
3x12 squats without weight
3x15 abs
Wow, really all the signs of a REAL comeback are there. I haven’t felt this type of motivation in at least 7 years, you know that bug one feels all the time, wishing it’s the next training session to improve more, to push it a little farther. I’m OFFICIALLY back.
Dropped today’s session. Major soreness in my hamstrings and abs … seemed like a perfect recipe for injury, in particular considering I have been getting quads and groins pulls almost once a week. I’ll go rested to Saturday’s hills, which I think are the last hills this year.
Other great news, the National Cup of Clubs, was moved two weeks back to October 15 and 16. This is excellent news for me. My SPP can now be 2 weeks longer, which will be a major help, I’ll have to reformulate my plan.
Speed day 1 - Speed day 2 - Speed day 3
Week 1 (Aug 29-Sept 4): Short speed 40’s - Speed and accel. 60’s and 30’s - Speed 80’s and 120’s
Week 2 : Short speed 40’s - Speed and accel. 60’s and 30’s - Speed 80’s and 120’s
Week 3 : Speed 60’s 30’s - Flying 20’s - Speed 80’s and 120’s
Week 4 : Speed 60’s 30’s - Flying 20’s - Speed 80’s and 120’s (unloading week, lower volume)
Week 5 : Speed 60’s - Flying 20’s - Speed 80’s and 120’s
Week 6 : Speed 60’s - Flying 20’s - Speed 80’s and 120’s
Week 7 : Speed 60’s - Flying 20’s - COMPETITION! Saturday 100m. and 4x100m. Sunday 200m. (decrease volume/unload during week)
Week 8 : Speed 60’s 80’s - 120’s 150’s - Maybe competition (don’t know if there is one this weekend yet)
Week 9 : Speed 60’s 80’s - 120’s 150’s - COMPETITION! Saturday 100m. and 4x100m. Sunday 200m. (decrease volume/unload during week)
This is my new tentative plan. Gonna keep short work (30’s) in for two more weeks now, and week 4 is the unloading week, so this new time frame is perfect for fitting in a 7 week SPP. On day 3 I just put in 80’s and 120’s, but in reality don’t know what I’ll be doing. I’ll be training with my old training group most Saturdays, so I assume that will mean SEish or SpEish type of work (120’s or 150’s or 200’s). If I end up training alone I’ll lean towards 80-120 till week 4 or 5 and then 120-150 weeks 5-7. On one of the flying 20’s workouts I might do ins and outs.
Full out. The 80m. rep killed me (the rest of the group then did a 60 and then a 100 and then 40’s, where I rejoined). I got a ton of lactic acid from one 80m. rep! Although I expect to have poor speed endurance, I wasn’t really expecting to get acid lactic doing 80m. … I’ll definitely work some special endurance after week 10, my goal is to run a decent 200m. before the end of the year … and that in turn will drop my 100m. time more towards the end of the year I expect.
I felt great during the warmup, but then not that fast during the workout.
Weights :
2x12 bench press with bar only
2x6 pullups without weight
2x12 dips without weight
2x8 squats without weight
1x4 snatch without weight
Really had a conservative weights session. In the last snatch set, when I reached down for the bar, my adductor almost cramped, so I cut the workout there, and cut down all exercises to just two sets.
On the track, a very consistent series of 60’s, finally with a considerable improvement in times! I can live with 7.5, running 7.8 the previous weeks was just horrible. Respectable times, like 7.3 or better seem to be just a couple of weeks or sessions away. In the 30’s excellent first rep, but then I was burned out, I went submax the other three reps, focusing on being super explosive on the first 5 steps. I’d guess I’m in 12.0 (manual) shape right now, I’ll have no problem getting to sub 12.00 (electronic) shape by the first comp, would be kinda nice not to have any 12.xx associated to my name this year!
I’m heavily leaning towards adding a session of tempo a week at this point, I’m pretty sure it will be Sunday. That would make 4 training days a week.
I keep dealing with a lot of minor twinges and pulls, it seems that when I reach the 300m. mark of speed work, everything kinda falls apart. That is my fitness limit at this moment. I’ll have to stay vigilant and keep being extra careful about not getting injured as I keep adapting to speed work. I think next weeks’ unloading week, plus adding some tempo will give me that little conditioning and rest I’m missing to put some higher quality and quantity speed work in the last 3 weeks of my SPP.
Missed an entire week of training. No weights this week. Too much work, I’m really low on energy for training. Planned to do 5 60’s, but felt some tightness in my left achilles on the 4th rep and cut the workout there.
Below is the same post I posted on the video section for analysis. Reposting it here in my journal for easy reference and in case anyone that reads my journal sees it here. Overall I’m actually pleased with my form, I thought I’d have major disadjustments after a long layoff. I think I’m seeing nowhere near everything I used to see when analysis track videos, but 4 things caught my attention : 1) rounded back on the start 2) I’m achieving good triple extension from step 9 onwards, but maybe pushing too much “out of the back” 3) arm angles open up to much in the first 8 steps of my accelaration? 4) arm swing in front is always insufficient (doesn’t even reach my jaw). Anyone see these flaws? Are they flaws? Do there need to be corrected? What should I correct?
Anyway, below my post from the videos section :
First video I have taken in 7 years. I think I’ve lost a bit of my analytical eye after this long layoff. Any analysis on running form, etc. will be appreciated.
Also is there any point in “looking down” as I’m doing during initial acceleration. It seems my strength level is currently so low I’m not creating much of an acceleration angle, thus my head is hanging down maybe too much?
Yeah, that was all my workout. I went to the synthetic track and got kicked out after my first rep. Needless to say I’m pretty pissed. What a piece of shit country … the only real track in a city of 16 million people and one can’t even use it.
I added stuff to my warmup, some A’s. And I did some hurdles mobility, only 5x6 hurdles step overs though. I felt ridiculously fast, wow the track I’m training on is incredibly shitty, but when one trains somewhere all the time one doesn’t notice. I was going to do a 60 at the end to time myself. I have no doubt I can run 7.3 on the tartan if I’m running 7.5 on that shit track. I wasn’t factoring the track up to now. I might actually be able to run close to 12 flat electronic in my first comp.
3x flying 20 w 5 min rest
60 untimed
5
60 7.2
5
60 7.4
Huge wind in favor, so the times are pretty useless. Was planning to do all flying 20’s, but I didn’t feel I was executing them well, so the last 3 I switched to 60’s. Light weights session again. My training has been very scrappy the past 2 or 3 weeks, because of work. But this week I’ll surely do 3 session. There is a comp next Saturday, but there is only 200m. I don’t think I’ll run there, I’m not ready for 200m. Unfortunately after that there isn’t a comp for 2 weeks. So I guess my first comp will be October 22.
Finally started to nail down a bit the flying runs. The 2nd rep was a beauty I hit the mark with the right speed and was able to do a flying run in the fly zone, so now I know what I’m looking for. Hopefully in another 2 or 3 sessions most of my flying runs will be done correctly. I’m tinkering a bit with my runs technically. I think I’m fixing the arm position and today I tried correcting the “pushing out the back issue” in the middle of the run, I immediately rose 5 cm. at least off the ground, it was like if I had stepped onto a step, no kidding. I was amazed at how much I was pushing out the back instead of “running tall”. This was during the 60’s. Training frecuency has been suffering a little, I’m sure I’ll be back to training 3x a week next week. Training on Saturday again. First comp. will finally be on the last week of October it seems.
Trained on the tartan track, finally. The runs were timed by my old coach. I suppose the times are accurate. Perfect sprinting weather, the best day so far this spring, plus the tartan track, plus excellent spikes, probably contributed to shaving off some tenths of a second off my runs. Anyway, the real test is in two weeks, first comp will almost surely be October 29. Hoping I can get back to training 3 times a week. I need to get some 120’s in at least one day. Speed endurance is seriously lacking. With some speed end. training I think I’ll be running sub 12 electronic.
Pretty tough workout. The lack of training is noticeable. I was DESTROYED by the last one. The only workouts I ever remember ending worse were like 4x300m. in 38 secs. w 12 mins. I guess nothing surprising about this. I’ve got zero tempo on me and zippo special endurance work. I think the first rep was pretty good. Too bad I couldn’t time it. Can’t get used to this stupid new stopwatch. But I guess if the last one was 14.9, the first one was probably like 14.4-14.5 the second around 14.7.
