I’m back. It’s been a hell of a week in work, yes, a hell of a week, not hell in a week! Our company is finalizing financing for a major expansion, it’s a very exciting time. I couldn’t train at all last week. Actually, I could have trained Monday, but took the day off since I had trained 4 days straight and I thought “I’ll take a day off now instead of train every day till my scheduled Friday rest day”. Turns out I couldn’t train any day since. On Thursday and Friday it rained and it was cold as hell, and those were the only days I was remotely close to training. I ended up doing some bodyweight circuits on three days.
Today was a weird day, I was FLYING, I was so rested and light, I hadn’t felt like that in a long long time. It was the first time the coach at the club saw me in over a month and he was absolutely impressed at my 40’s. I guess doing a session on the track for the first time after doing all hills I was bound to feel so fast. I couldn’t keep my balance when getting into my three point start because the angle wasn’t there anymore, it was so weird. I couldn’t get used to the new angle till the end of the session. I did :
3x4x40m.
Total meters 480m.
This is the most meters I’ve done for a track session in over an year. I’ll have to watch carefully how my body reacts to this volume. I felt a little tight in my shoulders till the last set. I dropped the plyos at the end to make sure I didn’t do too much in this first session in a week.
Weights :
6x3 hang clean 50kg
6x3 push press 50kg
6x3 deep squat 90kg
All 45 secs now (all 8x4 in weeks 1-3 were with 30 secs)
I thought I would have lost all the strength I had gained in the first few weeks, but I felt awesome. The bar was gliding up effortlessly in hang clean. Dropped deadlift at the end to not overload myself.
This weekend is the National Cup of Clubs, I’m not very excited about running the relays. Our 4x100 will suck because our sub-16 sprinters can’t participate in this meet, and two of our “A” 44.06 relay are sub-16. I think we’ll be lucky if we break 45.5 this time around.
Yes, I’ve taken careful note of this. Now I understand I was never feeling this sort of unloading because I’ve been doing so little volume of speedwork this whole year. So when I tried to taper I had nothing to taper and wouldn’t feel that fast and light feeling from unloading after REAL hard training. Problem is I don’t know if my I can complete a whole macrocycle with these volumes and not getting ostitis pubis again. Let’s see what happens. I don’t feel like being conservative anymore. I’ll stay in the 500m. a session range on the track and in my max strength phase I’ll go full out with weights this time. If I get injured again I guess I should hang up the spikes and play something more suitable for my pussy frail body, like checkers or bridge. :rolleyes:
You don’t want to get Osteitis Pubis again, but, hopefully, it has healed. You still need to take care a be gradual about workload increases. Also there is the vol vs intensity coorelation. If you train at a very slightly sub-max intensity, you can maintain a good state of relaxation during the sessions, which will help resolve the problem as it will keep you in the correct sprint posture more of the time.
Filmed one of the 40’s, 81 frames from first movement at 15 fps = 5.41e, wasn’t full out though, probably 98%. First video of this new phase. I’m opening up my armswing too much on the back swing and going up too little at the front. Apart from that I look quite good I think. I’m actually surprised, it looks like my hip height is good, but maybe it’s the angle from which I filmed it. Download video from http://www.michelonglass.com/videos
Med ball situps 3x10
Med ball alt. side situps 1x10
Weights :
Hang clean 6x3 50kg
Push press 6x3 50kg
Deep squat 6x3 90kg
Deadlift 3x3 40kg
Speed was slightly submax, probably around 98%. I’m noticing interesting things being forced to do so few sessions a week. First of all I’m coming to the conclusion that perhaps, I should be doing sprint sessions once every 72 hours instead of every 48 hours, not because I can’t do a quality session ever 48 hours but because my body starts to accumulate a lot of overuse. In particular my groin/adductor area starts to tighten with a lot of volume, and there is nothing I can do about tried everything by now, not a flexbility problem, and can’t be a strength problem if I can squat 130kg. Maybe my body is simply not suited for so much volume. Instead in these past two weeks, that I’ve worked out once every 4 days or so, the overuse tightness hasn’t been there and I haven’t had problem with 500m. speed sessions, when before doing 3x speed sessions a week, even with 300-350m. a session I’d end up in pain. Obviously one workout every 4 days probably won’t work either, but right in the middle might work perfect for me. Something like day 1 : speed, day 2 : tempo, day 3 : rest and repeat the cycle might work well for me. Less is more. The thing that has scared me up to now is that doing too little will stagnate progress. Also note that I’d be doing more or the same volume (1000+m. every 6 days) then I’d be doing at 350m. 3x per week. Only thing that worries me is that it will be hard to increase strength levels much doing just 2 sessions a week … but then again, I’m already reasonably strong so giving up gains in the gym for an increase in the quality of track work is an interesting gamble with reasonable prospects of a good result I think. Still haven’t decided 100%, but I’m really leaning towards doing the 3 day scheme in what remains of this GPP/SPP. When I’m tapering then a switch to 3x a week might be favorable, spreading out the lower volume onto more days and concentrating absolutely on the quality of the runs. If anyone reads all this junk, any comments?
I’ll end my GPP next week, so this week I hope to do one hills sessions and next week another. I’ll also lift the intensity of the lifts before starting my SPP. Will increase everything around 5kg per session till next week, so I’ll do 6x3 - clean 65 or 70kg, push press 65kg, deep squat 110kg and deadlift 10kg a session to reach 80 or 90. Then based on how I feel I’ll estimate what 80% is for week 1 of my max strength phase.
there is definitly no problem with doing 2sprint sessions a week at ur current level, but the qs is, are u fit enough to go to SPP in a week?the things is athletes at our level need hell loads of gpp and the numbers will come down in chunks, so i reckon doing more fitness work and tempo sessions is likely to be more beneficial than sprint sessions. so dont worry about ur sprinting.
If you are worried about doing too little (and staying healthy but stagnating) or doing too much (and progressing, but getting injured) - how about doing both?
Cycle intensity and volume over a 4-week macrocycle. E.g Medium-hard-hard-easy. Or a simple on-off cycle: easy-hard-easy-hard. Make the hard weeks hard and the easy weeks easy.
I’ll fill these last few weeks as I remember what the hell I did.
November 20?
National Decathlon Cup day 1
100m. 11.6
LJ 5.44 :o
Shotput 7.66
HJ 1.73
400m. ?
The 100 was great considering the stage of training or untraining I’m at. LJ couldn’t hit close to the board on any attempt. HJ was damn good considering I had never jumped in my life. Jumped my own height. 400 couldn’t get the results.
December 7
3x4x60m.
Timed one myself in 7.2 then had the last one timed at 7.2 too
Hurdle hops 4x3 hurdles
Weights
Hang clean 3x3 55kg
Push press 3x3 50kg
Deep squat 3x3 90kg
December 11
Split 300 (100-100-100) no timing but I think it was probably sub 36
Ended track work there as I was literally burning under the noon sun.
Hurdle hops 4x4 hurdles
Weights
Hang clean 3x3 60kg
Push press 3x3 50kg
Deep squat 3x3x100kg
Feeling in awesome shape
Not much to comment about in terms of track. I’ve trained at most once a week in the last two months. Business has been great. No time to do anything else. I’ll try to get 2 or 3 sessions in a week for these next few weeks and then compete in the early seasons 60’s in February and maybe some 100’s and 200’s into March and April. After that it seems my track “career” is over. We’ll be moving our factory into an industrial area and I won’t be close to a track. I think I’ll buy a bar and some weight to at least do weights at home. I hope we buy a van mid-year, with some wheels I might be able to get back into some type of track work one or two times a week towards the second half of the year. I have no expectations for this comp period, just to have fun, I love running. I would love to run fast though! The encouraging thing is how well the GPP I had done in October had worked, I was feeling GREAT, I was accelerating faster and longer then I’ve ever had. So if I ever have the opportunity to resume track seriously I at least know I figured out a program that was working well for me.
Hopefully I’ll be able to do two speed sessions and one SE session a week till the end of February. I think we’ll be moving in March.
First workout in a month. I’m down to 63.5kg, I’ve lost 3 and a half kilos. Damnit I know how hard it was to get to 72 kilos given that I always was so thin. But I’ve lost mostly from my uppedy body, I’ve lost mass in my legs but I still look and am strong. Who knows, maybe my weight to power ratio has even gotten better since I’ve lost more mass then strength. Anyway :
Stadiums 2x5x20m.
Accels on grass without spikes 5x20m.
Surprise, surprise, I felt, looked, and was flying. The coach couldn’t believe how fast I was on the 20’s after not training for so long. Who knows, I’m now optimistic that if I can pull together a few weeks of proper training I’ll run a very good 60 in late February/early March. But then my 100 will suck. My goal is 7.1 60 from blocks … this will probably transfer to 11.4 or 11.5 due to poor top speed and endurance. The track in the National HPC has been lifted in the past week and the new track will be finished in a week or two, but apparently there won’t be competitions on it till April. There will be a 60 on the cinder track in my club in early March and in La Plata on a date to be confirmed, they’ll also have 80 on a meet in La Plata, but that will probably be too far for me LOL! :eek: :o I’m “trained” for a world class 20m. only right now!
It’s great to just run again. I think I’m motivated enough to get myself to train 3 times a week now despite being dead from working 12-13 hours a day.
Trained with my old training group … will do short hills twice by myself next week. Next Saturday I’ll touch a synthetic track for the first time in 4 months as I go to La Plata with my old training group.
Managed to slip in a rare week day training session today as I had an hour and a half to burn and was close to my club.
(In indoor track)
4x20m.
3x30m.
1x40m.
Gawd I was feeling fast. I’m feeling very fast every time I train now. Evidently it’s because I’m completely rested, but the interesting thing is how training incorrectly leads to the opposite result of what one wants. It’s better not to train then to train incorrectly! Now I see he difference clearly. You can bust your ass doing an incorrect training program and then it appears you never peak or get fast … and it’s just because of incorrect training.
I don’t know… I’ve experienced this phenomenon too (feeling faster after a bit of a layoff), but when I put a watch on my runs they’re not any faster. I think they just feel faster because the nervous system isn’t used to the velocity. Remember, the fastest runs often feel the slowest.
Actually had planned to do 2x80m. and just a set of two 300’s at int. tempo pace, but I strained both my quads as soon as I did warmup progressions on the synthetic track, so I cut speed after one 80. I guess I’m rusted plus the track was making me go too fast.
Ran 200m. Saturday. I liked the race, but the time was horrible : 24.8, don’t know the wind reading. I got 4th in the first heat. It was run on the cinder track in my club. They did some “maintenance” work on the straight since the last time I went to the club a few weeks ago and it’s wrecked. Not surprisingly times sucked across the board, 1st place was 23.8 :eek: , I estimate times were off at least a second from what they will be on synthetic. The track was shit for sprinting. Mostly it was a relaxing day in the sun, the temperature was great. In the race itself I trawled out of the blocks, although in my warmup strides and accels I felt great. I guess I need a few more races under my belt before getting things down. The positive was the final straight, I was totally relaxed and making up ground on the first places, though that might have had more to do with me running the bend slow and having greater reserves then relaxation.
Looking forward to spring break and having two great training sessions Thursday and Saturday. I should be in form to race decently in April. Looking for sub 12 100 and sub 24 200m.
60’s were all in 7.1-7.3 range. Actually I didn’t time then, I did the workout with a group, and then asked them what they were timing themselves. I think I’ll run in the 11.6-11.8 range in 100 from this. Training again on Sunday.
Unburying my training journal so I can find it easily. A comeback is brewing in my head. I think I can’t live without track & field.
I’ve tried playing baseball the past year or so, I’ve gone through three different local teams and each one led to total disappointment. Baseball really doesn’t exist here in Argentina, but mainly because there aren’t any coaches. I was surprised at how good many of the guys I’ve played with on these different teams were considering they practice at most 1-3 times a week, (most just going directly to weekly games with only a sporadic training session). But I couldn’t stand this informal coachless system. The practices were all a waste of time, standing around boring my ass off while some inept coach or player-coach tried to do some useless poorly executed drills with no general program or objective. That just isn’t me at all and even less could I stand seeing potentially good players wasting their talent in a system that leads them to nowhere but to neverending mediocrity. :mad: :mad: :mad: Argghhhhhhh. Gawd, can you notice I hate wasting my little free time?
So to complete the story, the past year of so I’ve been immersed in 12-16 hour work days day in and day out and basically sleeping the whole weekend to barely shake off the beating of the past week and get ready for a new pounding of work … or wasting my time in useless baseball practices, to two of the teams I just went to one practice, and with one I went to five practices before I got tired of the shit. But fortunately, slowly, things appear to be paying off. Things are better now, I’m even building up some savings. I think it was logical sooner or later if things got better the idea of doing what I really like would slip back into my head.
So here I am, pondering where to head next, and most of all debating whether it’s even realistic yet to think of a comeback. And if I make a comeback what route to take.
My inclination of course is to train lightly a bit and get right back into competition (with the competition season here starting in two weeks). But I guess I know that the right path back is to make an extended GPP style training phase and at the earliest compete in early 2007. But that just seems too far and uncertain for me to plan out. My thinking is that if I’m able to get back to training at all, I’ll definitely need to “reward” myself by entering some competitions.
So considering all this, I’ll set upon soaking up all the training knowledge I once had (or thought I had) which I think I pretty much laid down in this journal, and plan something out. Realistically I know I won’t be training more then 2 or 3 times a week. I’ll plan something out accordingly, and plan some type of early morning general/core exercise routine for every day (I know at night I’m too tired to do shit). I’ve found a very decent hill that’s about 15 minutes from my home, so I could go there like at 6-7AM a couple of mornings a week and start with hills, which is where my GPP should start anyway. And I’ll have a couple of weeks to figure out the old probem, how the hell to get to a track when I need to start track sessions. The closest tartan track I have is like an hour and a half away. Hmmm. Well I’ll figure something out. Or try to.
It’s amazing what a little rest can do for you. You did an unloading week unintentionally (due to work constraints) it looks like 
plus the track was making me go too fast.