Hey Stef, congrats on the squat PR! That really is too bad about yall having to train in the cold. Please, please keep that cold stuff up there away from me, we don’t take to the cold too well down here 
.What do you have as far as indoor facilities for running?
BTW, sorry about your instructor.
You think I do well with the cold Heatwave? 
I’m from Greece…haha…
Don’t worry, the cold is here to stay…it won’t move to your area…this is New England 
Our indoor facility is a 165 m track, only the material sucks…it’s rubber gym floor and I’ve been doing a lot of shin strengthening to avoid shin splints when the time comes to run on that thing…
My tempo will most likely be all on the bike or in the pool. I’ve become a master in training on bike and in pools due to past injuries, but this year I’m planning to do it by choice, and while being healthy
P.S. Is that you in the picture?
Today’s morning workout was an absolute waste…I don’t know what the coaches are trying to get out of this…the warm up led by a teammate was actually a lot more productive. I was actually getting WARMED UP (wow…! :eek: ) and I had to take one out of 5 layers off :o (600m warm up, dynamic stretching then high knees, 210m and 215m).
This was supposedly a “tempo” day, consisting of 2*600m at 70-75% with 5 min rest in between.
If I’m a 400m runner, I should be doing like 6 of those…
The first one came out at 2:15 and my teammate and I were holding a conversation throughout the first 400m…
The second was 2:13.
In the weight room: (this will be hard to remember in order…)
I’m blanking out… 
Well this won’t be in order, so here it goes…:
push ups, abs
12 pull ups, abs
BB curls for 30sec, abs
single leg squats, 30sec each for 2 sets, abs
MR tricep curls 2 sets of 12, abs
quick feet agility exercises (side to side, front back), abs
shin strengthening, abs
overhead claps (shoulder strengthening), abs
doneeee…
Since today’s running practice didn’t really count for anything, tomorrow I will try to put some speed in and Sunday will be tempo cool down for the week.
Stef, that’s really cool, you being from Greece. I would love to go visit sometime. You probably know of one of my favorite weight lifters–Pyrros Dimas. From what all I have read, he has a huge following in Greece. That guy is the MAN! He rules, and it was his technique and form that I always tried to copy for the big lifts.
With your workout scheme, when do you all take off days? It seems like your recovery time is short. Are your coaches high volume junkies? I know how coaches can be–many/most of them seem to love heavy volume. I had some huge arguments and “blow ups” with my coaches over this and it’s one of the main reasons I turned down being on Uni. of KY. track team back in the day. But, that’s another long story unto itself…
OF COURSE I know Pyrros Dimas 
, he IS the man…I saw him on his motorcycle once in Greece, hehe…
You know he retired from the competitive world after the Athens Olympics right? I hope he becomes a coach, he is a GREAT persolality…one of the best. 
For now, our coaches have us take Wednesdays and Sundays completely off, and Saturdays are long runs, which I don’t really agree upon…I try to put in a speed day on Wednesdays since we don’t really do any real speed, but sometimes it doesn’t work out because of classes and schedule and stuff… then I would do a long run or extensive tempo on Saturday and take Sunday off.
This week my off day was Wednesday, with stairs the day before (kinda like intensive tempo) and “all out” 200-400-200 the day after…Friday was suppoled to be speed, but our coaches thougth since it was too cold, we should do tempo…although we did a really good warm up, and we were all warmed up…
We practice outdoors for another week, and then we go inside… I hope that doesn’t mean that we do all tempo for a full week, because really, if our warm up is good, then I don’t see any danger in doing short stuff in the cold.
Generally, I think the workouts are all over the place the now…there seems to be no plan behind them, and they change spontaneously, on the spot, without too much thougth behind them…
I’m not sure if I can call my coaches “high volume junkies”. In the past years that’s how it has been, especially two years ago with another coach who’d have us do 12*200s for “speed day”…
This year the volume had gone down, but there is NO true speed in our workouts, so I’d have to take care of that own, which I haven’t really done for the past two weeks… Time to be getting more serious…
Stef, yeah, I knew he retired and I saw his final competition, where he didn’t quite make that last clean/jerk for gold, but still, it was a great performance. If he would have made that lift, the roof would have come off that place. He’ll go down as one of the best ever. I wonder what he’s doing now that his competition days are over. Anyway, sorry to get so far off topic; I hope you don’t mind me hijacking your training journal …
When it’s about Greek heroes, NOOOO problem!!
I don’t mind going off topic in my journal, it doesn’t have to be all business
Pyrros had said that he wanted to dedicate to his family after his career, he has three young children and he hasn’t seen too much of them with him practicing all the time. He also mentioned coaching.
YEP YEP, that’s my man in your avatar!!!
Today’s workout:
10min warm up jog (it was cold out…I had two layers of pants and three layers of tops),
dynamic stretching
plyomentrics: 3* 8 frog hops up a hill, 3* alternate leg bounds, 20-25 each leg, 3* skip step for about 30-40meters
sprints: 310m, 315m accelerations
cool down jog, stretch
Finally, some meaning to my practice… :rolleyes:
30min easy run on grass
4*80m strides on grass
10’s and 15’s…You know I love it!!!
You better have put 1min rest per 10m for each rep though!!! Either way seeing you doing REAL speed work makes me
You better believe it pal
We did “ins and outs” this morning…never had done those before.
It was colddd once again and we didn’t do a good warm up. Which is annoying, because practice was at 7am and cold, and now the weather is surprizingly gorgeous for fall standards…
4*350m (accelerate through the first 50m, stride the next 50, run hard the 200m - that was the part that was timed - and then “stride” the remaining 50, but everyone was jogging really) 6-8min rest/ reps, we went one at a time.
29, 31, 31, 31
1 lap cool down
I suppose that was a good lactic acid workout.
My butt and hamstrings feel SO tight and “crampy” after running hard in the cold
I feel good about the workout.
Tomorrow hills.
A good lactic workout followed by hills the next day, plus the cold–you better be headin to the nearest hot tub or massage therapist .
Pfeeew
I didn’t need a hot tub or a massage therapist, although I wouldn’t have said no to either one
Hills were good. We ran there for about a mile, then did 2 sets of 4 reps: sprint up (about 70m), rest 30seconds, sprint down, rest 1 min (which I’m sure was less cause my coach doesn’t know how to count minutes)
5minutes between the two sets.
Jog back cool down about a mile.
Half an hour later weights:
bench press: 570, 8105lbs + 2 push ups, 6105lbs + 2 push ups, 4105lbs + 2 lbs
MR seated row, 12, 10
clap push ups:2max: (not close to my PR): 16, 12
Explosive back, 1310lbs medicine ball
MR military press (10) paired with MR floor flies (10)
shrugs: 1245lbs, 1245lbs
We took out the 6min leg circuit.
Active recovery day:
15min biking
20min elliptical
a few abs
Weights prior to running today:
My squats are getting crazy…
I did 5165, 8115, 8230, 8230!!! :eek:
RDL: 12155, 12165
2 sets max push ups +max floor chin ups: 40+19, 24+13
larimore lunges w/ 20lbs plates, 15 reps each leg
toe taps (50reps)
MR leg curls, 15 reps
MR hip adductors (15 reps)
Track: warm up, drills
at 75-80%: 400, 300, 200, 100 (i wasn’t really paying attention to times and such, but I believe I ran an effortless 27 second 200 which was kinda nice).
For some reason I’m “craving abs” before I go to bed… :rolleyes:
On the track:
4 sets of 25m-50m-75m, walk back/ reps, 3-4min/ set.
THose didn’t feel all that great, it was still a little cold for my muscles and my form didnt’ feel as good as last time we did these workout (last time was later on the day and not at 7am, which might also be the case)
Half hour later: super ab friday
push ups, abs,
14 pull ups, abs,
knee ups on a bench (alternating legs) for two sets, abs,
quick feet, abs,
more quick feet, abs,
single leg squats 2 sets, abs,
16 pull ups, abs,
more push ups, abs,
more push ups, abs…
MR military press 12 reps, abs,
shoulder strengthening overhead claps, abs
ummm…i think that was it… :eek:
I feel very tired now.
I want to get a pure speed day in, but I think i’ll do that on Sunday, after I get some proper rest tomorrow.
Stefanie, you’re really bustin the abs. You’ll be able to wash clothes on your stomach before long. How do you feel about your progress up to this point? Are you where you want to be in your overall preparation?
"…don’t call my name out your window when I’m a leavin’, I won’t even turn my head. Don’t send your kinfolk to give me no talkin’, I’ll be gone like I said…
Weight training-wise, I’m better than I was hoping for at this point…
Running-wise, things are not quite ideal…the coaches don’t seem to have a set program for us, now we’re losing our “sprint coach”, and we’re waiting to hire a new one… The program has always been lacking true speed sessions and plyometrics, but I try to do those on my own once a week.
I think my 5 week winter vacation in Greece will put me on perfect track for the start of indoor. Coming back after that period and adjusting to new coaching might be a problem… But until then I have other things to worry about
Oh about abs…I set a new goal this week…to be able to wash clothes on them by the time I get to Greece This will help me stay away from sweets and stuff…I don’t eat junk food, or fried food at all, but I DO love chocolate, and deserts
You know, this convicts me a little, because I need to refine my diet just a bit. I’m one of the fortunate ones who can eat whatever, still have a hard body and not gain weight. My family genes are in my favor also, we all look a lot younger than we really are and we live long and strong. It’s tough to be strict on WHAT I eat, so I just try to control the portions, you know what I’m sayin? Maybe I should go to the diet section of this forum and get some ideas.
I love the good ole southern cooking. I’ll eat sardines, chicken gizzards, gator tail, mullet roe and swamp cabbage. I was raised on BBQ ribs and grits and would take that meal in a heart beat. Put some gravy on it son. Don’t even get me started on my favorite chili recipe. I love it with a dash of Tabasco. Of course, I put Tabasco on everything, including ice cream.
My motto is, if it don’t taste good, keep pouring Tabasco sauce on it until it does. There is that magic amount that makes it good or your mouth is so numb it don’t matter, no how
I’ve never tasted Tabasco sauce…
I’m sure you’re thinking “she hasn’t lived…” haha…
If so, then have YOU tasted some good Greek food? Mmmm…
Today I went to Boston and I was walking ALLLLLL dayyyy longg…my hamstrings and quads were sore from yesterday, and my hammies really felt it…
I think tomorrow I will take the day completely off instead of doing speed, cause I DO feel tired from the week, and speed is not supposed to be executed sluggishly…