10-21-05
800m warm-up around the neighborhood, including one trip up that dreaded 350m hill.
Power cleans–4 sets 3 reps. Weight ranged from 73kg up to 82kg.
One arm snatch with my 24kg kettlebell–4 sets of 4 reps.
10-24-05
I’m back from Mississippi after a restful weekend and I’m ready to workout again.
Today, I couldn’t get out to the track so I just went out into my neighborhood and ran some intervals for about 25 minutes, including three runs up that monster 350m hill.
What I mean by “intervals” is that I jogged/walked then went into 50m sprints periodically throughout the 25 minutes. Some of these sprints were up slight hills. Overall, it felt great. Tomorrow will be weights.
10-25-05
Today, I felt pretty good and decided to go hard on the weights.
I did a half-mile run for warm up then did this:
–Power Cleans–4 sets of 3 reps. Weight ranged from 73-82 kg.
–One arm snatches with my 24kg kettlebell. 4 sets of 4 reps.
–Plenty of stretching and ab work.
–bodyweight is steady around 175 lbs.
Progress is going pretty well. I’m not trying to surpass my weightlifting numbers from my competition days, but I am gaining strength as it relates to running speed. Occasionally, I feel some pain in my right shin. One cool thing about my progress is that I’m getting my six-pack abs again. Actually, it’s an 8-pack if you count that low ab area below the belt 
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10-26-05
Just a general fitness day with nothing special.
Weights:
Kettlebell swings (24kg)–four sets of 20 reps
Clean Pulls–90kg–four sets of 3
20 minute run mixed with some hills and interval sprints.
Introducing plyos with some box jumps.
You might want to use the search function on planning and preperation of a full season program, or look into buying charlies gpp and spp dvds they would be well worth it and set u on a effecient course.
???..what is inefficient about what I have been doing? I’m just doing general type stuff to improve overall fitness and I can feel it working already. I’m getting stronger, faster, and in better overall condition. Also, I have searched, read, and studied and have found there are many approaches to this whole thing.
I think what he’s trying to say is that you don’t have structure to your program.
If your goal is to run just for kicks and improve your general fitness level, then by all means continue what your doing and have fun at it.
If your goal however is to compete and try to attain your personal goals (i.e. sub 50 400m), then you definetly need more structure in your program. Every workout you do should have a purpose towards your goals … otherwise you won’t be moving forward the way you’d like.
Last year I didn’t understanding what I needed to do and why. Consequently, I spent most of the year all over the map with my training not making. This year, I had a specific purpose to my training, and it paid off.
Hope that helps…
I have no doubt that you are fitter, stronger, and perhaps a bit faster than when you started, but I can tell you from experience though … “feeling stronger and faster” doesn’t make you faster.
I agree that there are different approaches to acheiving one’s goals. Whichever approach you take, you need to understand why you’re doing what you’re doing, and how it takes you closer to your goal. As an example, running 5x100 in 13-14s may feel good, but what is your purpose behind it?
I don’t mean to be critical … I was in your shoes one year ago and am just passing on my experiences so far.
It’s totally Ok with me if your critical. That’s what I need right now. My point was that the things I have been doing up to this point are not necessarily inefficient for me, even though it may be unstructured. I operate well that way. My purpose with the general training stuff is to get to the point where I’ve built enough conditioning to support the more specific workouts. I do plan on stream lining the program. I have read through the famous “lactate threshold” thread and have learned a lot.
That’s cool! There’s nothing wrong with being unstructured now … anything you do will improve your fitness in the short term. As long as you realize that at some point you will need structure in order to move forward towards your goals.
I know how good it feels to get back into running after not having done it for a long time. As your fitness improves, you feel like you can take on the world 
Good luck in your quest … who knows, we may even run into each other at some Masters meets.
Yeah, it does feel great to really get back into it. I’m already down to 176 lbs. from the 185 of my olympic weightlifting days and I have my visible abs again. I can’t say enought about the benefits of the kettlebell conditioning drills. Those really rough me up and are a great compliment to everything I’ve been doing. I’m thinking about getting my feet wet in a few comps next spring or summer. I’m sure there will be some down here.
I’m in about my 6th week of the general fitness stuff and soon it will be time to narrow the focus.
10-27-05
Nothing major today. I just did some ab work with my 24 kg kettlebell and worked on re-hab for my right rotator cuff. I highly recommend kettlebell exercises for non-running conditioning and overall core work. I also did some grip work and some “wall jumps”–which are like box jumps–on my 41" ledge.
Keep it up
I’m already a fan.
10-28-05
Ha, yeah, I’ve got a fan club starting up!?!?
I’m pre-writing this, so this is what I think I’ll do later after work; I should take advantage of this great weather we are having–around 70 degrees and crystal clear, but then again, being very tired today, I may say screw it and just go chill for the rest of the day and then go rock the town tonight. I need some sleep! (Look at me, encouraging other people to get quality rest, then me not doing it myself :rolleyes: ). I think I have mentioned before that my body is a “less is more” type meaning that I can make gains/progress on lighter training volumes. I have found that my body appreciates the off days and the chance to repair itself. It’s a fine line, though.
So, after basically taking yesterday “off” and getting barely any sleep, I’m not as recovered as I would like to be. I’m still sore from the weights the other day. Inner thighs, mid-back, traps are burning–all from the increased weight on my clean pulls I suppose. Not to mention my right shin is starting to flare up again. I really gotta start working the front calf muscles more with the requisite stretching.
–800m warm up (I need at least two laps to get warmed up sufficiently) followed by some stretching.
–5 reps of 100m
–3 reps of 200m, probably around 75% or less.
–Maybe a few light hills thrown in for good measure later on.
I’m now starting to consider a timeline for training and meets that I would like to compete in. I’m thinking that the Georgia State Games in July would be a good target for me as well as a few spring meets leading up to that. I have participated in Georgia games before, but only in olympic style weight lifting, where I came in 3rd place. I guess I’ll need to set a date for when I would like to peak, then work backwards from there.
As always, I want all yall to feel free to correct me, critique me, or offer other suggestions if I am just totally off base with my workouts. I’m continually learning how to do this. In the near future I’ll want to refine my goals and train accordingly.
Later, have a good one everybody…
Well, I was a good boy last night and actually got some rest. I decided to go on and do the workout yesterday afternoon, which, in retrospect, may have been a mistake, because I wasn’t recovered enough. It showed, too, because I really was hurting out there. The 800m warm up felt great. After the first two 100’s and first 200m, my legs were like lead.
Since my shins were hurting a little, I decided to try running the whole workout barefoot. The 100’s were done on grass (football field) with the 200’s done on the rubberized track. Afterwards and even today, I have zero pain in my right shin. I don’t know if this is, totally, like a fluke or something, but it sure got my attention. So, those of you with shin pain and who have weather that will allow it, going shoe-less may be worth a try. I do have some good flats that I might break out soon.
I’ll halla back at’ch’ all later, in the meantime, I’ll be checking out the SEC football, especially the Georgia vs. Florida game today!!
I’ve been getting shin splints evey year, but this year I did a fair amount of shin strengthening right when I start training for my pre season. What I do, is after every track workout, I’ll walk 200m on my heels, and it REALLY helps… Also do some heel walking during the warm up.
Also our strength trainer is including a couple of shin strengthening exercises which is nice.
If I run barefoot on grass here I’d catch pneumonia :o …if I ran barefoot on the track I’d probably break my metatorsals…(I have a history of stress fractures…I run too much on my toes)
Peace
I’ll try that walking on the heels move. I really don’t know the root cause of the pain. It could be muscle imbalance, poor technique, or whatever.
Today I did some weights:
–Power cleans–four sets of three --82kg
–One arm snatch–four sets of four with the 24kg kettlebell
–Clean pulls–four sets of three with 95 kg.
–Abs, abs, and more abs. Gotta have them rock hard abs for show AND functionality .
–Plenty of stetching. How much stretching is enough? I’m already very flexible.
I thought about starting on squats again but my right shoulder hurts when I get the bar on my traps. Reaching up and back aggravates my still-recovering rotator cuff. Overall, though, I feel like I’m returning to my previous strength levels again .
Box jumps onto my 36" and 41" inch ledges.
Now, it’s almost Georgia vs. Florida time!!
Tonight’s workout:
–Kettlebell swings–four sets of 20 reps
–25 minute continuous run through my neighborhood. This included four trips up that awful 350m steep hill. Running that hill several times really works me over, even with a medium-hard effort.
–Stretching afterwards
–The long run felt very good. After about 5 minutes, it felt effortless, unlike my tempo workouts. I probably could have run a decent 400m or 800 today.
–I’m getting to the point in my gpp where I need to begin narrowing down my focus in terms of which distances to prepare for. In my past, I was competant in everything from long jump (22’5"), 200m (22.74), 400m (51.xx), 800m (1:57) and a 4:23 mile. I would love to compete in and train for all of the above, but with my time constraints, tha taint gonna happen. Right now, six weeks in, I have found that re-gaining (or re-learning) speed is my toughest challenge, which I need in any event focus 800m and under. The thing I’ve got to keep reminding myself is that this is a long-term process. In the grand scheme of things though, this is fun and now I’m in more “well-rounded” condition with strength, aerobic, and anaerobic improvements than I was several years ago. My bodyweight is steady around 173-175 (at 5’11") and I can very clearly see my bodyfat % going down; my lowest ever was 6% measured but I know it’s not quite that low at this time.
–Monday’ll be an off day.
Interesting … I would have thought your 400m time would have been closer to 49-50 given your 200m speed and 800m endurance. How many 400s did you run in the past?
mcrepsac, way back when, I didn’t run too many open 400m races, but I was on the mile relay. Again, I think it goes back to lack of coaching and me hardly ever practicing due to injury. I ran all those times, except for the mile, on a stress fracture in my right leg. I know, very dumb on my part. The 800m and mile times resulted from whatever endurance I had left over from cross country. And, as for the long jump, I could always jump well since I was kid and I still have a 32" vertical. I know that’s very strange with me being able to long jump over 22’ and run the mile in 4:23–a very strange combination.
In my undergrad college days, the coach and I had a big argument and disagreement on the focus of my training and what events I should do and I ended up telling him to forget it, that I wasn’t gonna be part of it, thus ending my collegiate competition before it even started. He was convinced that I was a distance runner and I was convinced that I was not 
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