Stefanie's journal

Members Area My Training Journal
421

Uhhhh…no comment! :rolleyes:

Yesterday was a recovery day:
25min easy run, good stretching
6*100m strides (unfortunately all this on the track but I’m all right)
5 sets of 15 push ups and various sit ups

Today:
Morning:
4 laps warm up, stretch, drill, 350m strides/accelerations
2200m, 2min rest between, done at: 28.8, 29.1sec (Greek mornings are darn hotttt - 11am)
1 lap cool down

Evening:
3 laps warm up, stretch, drill, 350m strides/accels
2200m, 2min rest between, done at: 28.6, 28.8sec

Next two days are recovery days, Friday is probably only a warm up.

422

Good luck, Stef!

423

Ok, this is what happened:
Thursday: 20min easy run, stretch, 6100m strides (on track), 5(15push ups, various sit ups)

Friday: after traveling to Larisa, 5 laps on the grass field, good stretch, 15 push ups, 50 sit ups

Side note: Larisa is considered one of the warmest and most humid cities in Greece due to its flat land and numerous wet lands. Let me tell you: Saturday was the WARMEST track meet I’ve ever ran in my life, and i was running at 12:15, aaahhh. We had to wait for 45 minutes under the sun due to delay (every single heat of the 100 hurdles, 110 hurdles and 100 dashes had at least on false start, it was comicotragical…). I had to take my shorts off and put them on my head and keep splashing my face with water…that’s how bad it was.

Well, I ran a 60.48, I did not PR, but honestly, I couldn’t have pr’ed under those conditions. Even doing a 60 was satisfactory for me, and my pr is a 60.38. If I had run in the evening I would definately have done something faster. I didn’t make the finals either, but I was alright with it. 60 second 400s shouldn’t be expected to make the finals.

By the way, every single coach I meet tells me that I should be doing the javelin and that I would be kicking some butt in that event. The only negative thing is that we dont have a throwing coach at our school in the States. BUt I’m guaranteed a jav coach in the summers and when I return to Greece for good (in a couple of years). I might strongly consider it. I think I’ll try throwing the jav this year (ALONG with running of course). A guy in our team used to be the Vermont champ in high school and now is struggling on his own in college. I might join his sessions for a start. :rolleyes:

I am GLAD this season is over. I need to think about nothing for a while. I’m going to an island from July 3 till July 10, that should be relaxing. Until then, I’ll still be doing light track stuff.

Today: 30min run on grass/ dirt, with some hills and stairs. Also a total of 15 minute of biking to get there, and then ack home.

Side note: After my race yesterday I was seeing stars and my legs seriously hurt for the rest of day and night. If I were to run the finals in the same day, I would have be carried with a wheel chair. I suppose everything is done for a reason :rolleyes:
Today my legs still hurt.

424

HAPPY SUMMER :slight_smile:

425

Since I will be going on vacation in about a week and a half to a Greek island (Paros) and then later in August I will be going camping for another week or so, I decided to keep training now with my friend who needs a training partner (yaaaay!!) and take my rests in between.
I’m following my friend’s program for 400meters now, she comes from a distance background and now is slowly switching to the 400.

Today was speed day :
15minute warm up, stretch
drills (everything about 20-30 meters): 2low knees, 2high knees, 2A’s, 2B’s, 2* hurdler’s drill, 2*alternate leg bounding
30,30,30,40,40,40,50,50,60 meters (about two minutes between each one)

Sessions like these go by so much faster when there’s someone to train with.
I felt better doing the sprints as the session progressed.
By the way, I’m not using spikes at all this summer, even for speed days, to help out my shin (which felt fine today). Is it unproductive to do speed days without spikes?

426

I actually forgot I did more than that today… :rolleyes:

When I got home I did 5 sets of 15 push ups and various sit ups (total over 250), then weights for arms (fairly light, many reps), then some hip strengthening.

Later I went on a 35minute bike ride, with down hills, up hills, some face wind, nice tail wind, a dog chasing at one point, a couple of cars honking and lots of people staring …for some reason it is an interesting sight here in Greece to watch a young woman riding her bike without holding the steering wheel… :cool:

427

I don’t think it’s a bad idea, Stef!
You keep in touch with some speed and protect your legs at the same time; I see no reason in pushing it now…

BTW, under the circumstances good race!!

Enjoy your holidays! :cool:

428

Thanks!

Today I was sore from yesterday. I hadn’t done speed like that in months…

Morning: I found this route that consists of a dirt road, slightly uphill, for about 70 meters and a bunch of stairs, the whole thing takes about a minute and 15 minutes, I did 5 of those at 70-75% (after warming up for about 7 minutes)

Evening: (this time with my training partner) 20minute run on grass, stretch

429

Yo peeps!

Yesterday yesterday…lets see.

Oh yes: 15min warm up, starting slow and progressively reaching a good pace (with partner)
stretch
drills: 2high knees, 2A skips, 2* B skips, 2* hurdler’s drill (one each leg), 2*alternate leg bounds

Weights: 3 sets of bench press superset with with hang clean ( bench: 15 reps of 30 kilos, hang clean: 10 reps of 30 kilos)
Then 3 sets of squats superset with another exercise where you hold the bar at your chest and jump while extending the bar out front and up - 12 of those, 20 kilo bar and the squats were 16 reps of 20 kilos - bar only).

Abs and push ups.

TODAY:
10min warm up (on grass)
tempo: 7*300m at 75%, w/ walk 150m recovery (is this too much recovery?)
stretch

later on: 5 sets of 15 push ups and various abs

then later on: 40minutes tae bow

430

My shoulders are SORE from bench pressing two days ago…

Today:
15min WU, stretch
drills: 2low knees, 2high knees, 2A skips, 2 B skips, 2hurdler’s drill, 2 60m strides in spikes
1200meter at 95% (didn’t time it but my friend who was quite far back got a 30.16).
680meter strides for cool down

Then my sister and I went on a 2 hour power walk…that hurt :eek:

431

morning: 3 sets of 15push ups and various abs

afternoon:
25 minute bike ride (with head wind, tail wind, downhills and uphills)
32minute run at a good pace, stretch
4*100m strides
25minute bike ride (same conditions, more head wind than tail)

432

Sunday was a day off, but I went on a 40minute bike ride anyways and did some push ups and abs.

Today: 10minute warm up followed by stretching, drills and plyos (single leg bounds and alternate leg bounds - by the way my left leg is soooo much weaker than the right) and don’t worry anyone, I’m careful about my shin - if I feel any pain I just stop, which hasn’t happened so far.
Then 12*100m at moderate pace with walk recovery (cutting the curve).

Then some lights weights, many reps (12-16).

Then I ate cake… :rolleyes:

433

Actually maybe I could use some input about what I should be doing during my summer training.

So far I have been lifting (pretty lightly) twice a week. Should I go keep the reps high as I have been, or try to increase the weight and keep it at lower reps? I’ve been doing 10-12 reps in 3 or 4 sets, going more for strength endurance since that is what I did a couple of summers ago when I got myself in excellent shape for fall preseason. (Then I was injured in the winter and it all went to waste).

As far as track workouts, I like to do 1-2 speed days a week, and the rest tempo. I read somewhere that tempo volume for a 400m runner should be between 3000 and 4000 meters. Should I start off with that, or start with 2000 meters and work my way up? Of course doing 4000meter tempo workouts is not that big of a deal since it’s only done at 75%, but I was wondering if it is better to be able to achieve tempo intervals at faster times (which would be done progressively starting with 2000 meters for example and slowly moving my way up to 4000) or if I should just keep the volume high from the start (4000 meters) and then since I’ll be doing that a lot (3 times a week), it will consequently become easier and I will be able to accomplish faster tempo intervals at the same percentage of effort (75%).

ALSO: what about intensive tempo? Should that be done at all during the off season, or ever during the year? I understand that for elite athletes extensive tempo is almost the same as intensive tempo, but how about my case?

ALSO: is it too early to start doing plyos?(indoor starts in December for me)

434

Yo y’all. (that sounds funny)
Neglected writing on my journal lately, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t been running (God forbid). Good think I also have my hand written journal so I can keep track.

Let me note here that this week has been very very hot (heat wave) and temperature has risen to 36 degrees Celsius.

Tuesday’s workout was:
25min swimming in the afternoon
then in the evening: 25min run (last 10minutes were hard), stretch, drill
6*100m strides on grass

Wednesday: 2laps WU, stretch, drills,
plyos (alternate leg bounds and jumps over hurdles)
230m, 150m sprints (no spikes)
weights

Thursday: 45min biking in the afternoon
in the evening: 20min easy run, quick stretch
1100m on grass
8grass diagonals
4*grass diagonals
all done at moderate pace
sit ups, push ups

Friday: 20min easy run, stretch, drill
plyos (alternate bounds, single bounds)
30m-60m-60m-80m-80m sprints (no spikes)
weights

Today: 1 HOUR easy run with partner at 10:30am in the heat wave. Surprizingly, it felt good and I haven’t ran for 1 hours in yeeeears… (I don’t think there’s a reason to - I was supposed to do 30min today but decided to keep my friend some company…wow I’m son nice :smiley: )

I think tomorrow is OFF.

I’m going on vacation on Tuesday , for a week. Yayy!!

435

I’m back from my island vacation to Paros. Needless to say how wonderful it was!!! All I did was walk around, explore, lay on the beach and swim in crystal clear Aegean waters. :rolleyes:

I got back yesterday morning and went running the same evening with a couple Greek trackies. I did:
10 laps on grass
2100m high knees on grass
1600m at a very moderate pace, to pace my friend’s 800m. It was about 2:20 and I realized I could have paced her for the whole 800 because I was running very comfortably.
plyos: 33hurdle hops, 34 hurdle hops
3*10 alternate leg bounds
abs, push ups, hypers, 15 mountain climbers

1 hour of bowling (bowling is a sport, right? :o ) - I won!

Today:
4 laps warm up, active stretching, drills
8200m at 80% (walk 200m recovery)
2 laps cool down, static stretching
Weights:
3bench press (12 reps), 3single leg squats 10 each leg
3incline press (12), 3* straight leg dead lifts (10)
3* 13 leg extensions, 313 leg curls, 3 50 crunches
static stretching

30min fast walk with sis

sis wants to do tae bo with me when she comes back… :frowning: I’d rather sit on my couch and read the Life of Pi

436

I loved yesterday’s session, only I wished I hadn’t consumed ice cream for breakfast and nutella with biscuits for lunch…I only had an appetite for sweets, and I overdid it because we got a call that my aunt died from cancer back in the States and I got upset and just kept eating the ice cream out of the carton…
I had no normal food yesterday and didn’t eat for the rest of the day, except drink water and a cup of green tea.
During the workout I almost puked 6 times (cause it was hot too), but I still enjoyed it. I did this for the first time:
100+100+100++
100+200+100+100++
100+200+200+100++
100+200+100+100++
100+100+100
This is one great workout I must say…I don’t understand how people do abs and push ups in between… :confused: I’ll get there…
Oh: and a 23min warm up jog before that.

Today:
4 laps warm up
dynamic stratching
drills
plyos: 310 alternate leg bounds
280m
160m
240m
Weights: arms (about 6 different exercises for three sets, 10-13 reps each)

Today’s session felt hard, probably because I hadn’t eaten since yesterday at 3pm, and I trained from 9:30 to 11:30 this morning.

I need to cut the sweets and start eating normal food again.

437

I love that tempo workout, it was so fun that I was taking the runs toooo fast the last time I did it, but I felt great when it was over.

Don’t worry about the sweets, it happens to the best of us :smiley: and one binge day will have ZERO effect on body composition or whatever else. what WILL have an effect will be when you starve your body to compensate! starvation mode = MORE fat storage when you do eat. personally I can cut out chips and soda and cake and everything but I can’t live without chocolate… a fact of life which i just have to accept!

438

Oh goodness…I love chocolate too… :smiley:
Hence the nutella binge…

439

Why would you bother training on an “empty tank”??? Don’t you think it is counter-productive in the long run?

TNT

440

Yeah I agree.
I gues it’s a “girl thing”, being obsessed about eating right and not gaining weight while following “methods” of fasting which are pleasing to the mind but harmful to the body. It’s all psychological.

But currently working on it!!