T-Slow's Training Journal: Indoor Race Season

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21

Tyrone,
I don’t know if they stay in as the key things are that it is a sample and the word maybe for day 5. The descriptor within the context of the sessions outlined in the GPP and transition programmes is the key

Day 1 (Rest Day);
Day 2 (Speed);
Day 3 (Specific 400m endurance):
Day 4 (Rest Day);
Day 5 (Special Speed Endurance);
Day 6 (Endurance);
Day 7 (Maybe temp or pool session);
then the cycle of rest-train continues, hence Day 8 would be a Rest day again.

Interesting to see how quickly things are dropping away for you.

Good luck with the races.

22

I had a good week of training early this wekk, with last weekend spent in Ottawa where I got three good workouts in on the hugeass indoor 400m track they have there at Louis Riel high school. The surface is Mondo and quite hard, but it’s nice to be able to run a 100m+ straightaway indoors instead of turning incessantly!

I got to train this past Monday with a pair of brothers who I run masters with, and I enjoyed getting out there and mixing it up with them, it seems to bring out some added intensity!

So today I had another meet. I signed up for the 60, 200 and 400, but the 400 signup was a total ruse because the 400 was running before the 200. No thanks!

First up was the 60m. Since this is a “championship” masters meet, there is only one heat of the 60m, which sucks. I always like running the two heats like we normally are able to. I got some new stiff shoes, the Nike Zoom Superfly, and I love them. They are incredibly tight and almost unwearable except to race, but that’s exactly what I like, it’s a similar feeling to what you get with a properly fitted pair of hockey skates.

Today in the 60m I ran 8.07, which I was satisfied with because I’m back in 8.0x territory with two weeks until my final meet. I came out well and was ahead of the guy beside me at 30m, but I feel like I perhaps shortened up a bit and was going for frequency instead of fully extending my arms down and back during my upright phase from 30m to 60m. The accel was good though and even though I felt a bit sloppy, things are heading in the right direction.

In the 200m race, I had two really quick guys in my heat. I was in lane 3 again, which isn’t great for my gangly legs, but I was MUCH more positive today about my races and about myself. I was getting way too caught up in what everyone else was doing at the last meet, and that was a mistake.

I came out pretty nicely, and even though the two other guys out-accelerated me easily, I ran a really solid first bend and was really good down the back stretch, I wasn’t pressing or “overpushing” as Pfaff likes to call it. I started reeling in my nemesis in lane 4 around the curve, and I may have got a bit excited and pressed slightly. The final straight was good until I hit about 180 and started to feel some lactic acid in my legs, and I definitely got sloppy here. I have got to learn to hold my form when tired like this. With better control this might have been an indoor PB, but I ended up running 25.80 out of lane 3, which is 0.13 faster than last meet. This is encouraging considering the clusterfuck in the last 20 metres- I really felt like I lost a tonnnn of time there.

Of course the most fun was the 4x200 relay at the end, which was a crazy jumble of bodies and terrible exchanges. I ran third, and I was shouting at the anchor all the way into the exchange zone, but he was stuck there like a deer in headlights until I ran into him and he finally took off. It was great fun, and Team Badass came second, later upgraded to first due to a lane violation, not surprising considering the crazed nature of the indoor 4x200!

I managed to find a masters meet next weekend in Michigan, and the ever-generous ESTI invited me to stop by on my way to the meet, which is always fun. The weekend after will be my final indoor meet, so it’s terrific that I will get another chance to run the 60 and 200 on a decent track before the final meet on March 11th.

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I did some speed work yesterday after taking Monday and Tuesday off on the advice of my coach. On Wednesday, I went to Variety Village, which is a pretty cool facility that integrates those with physical and intellectual disabilities. It has a 200m indoor flat track, so I did a Charlie Francis small circuit and a medball circuit. This facility is not as organized as the Metro Track and Field Centre at York, so there were a couple of times when I was trying to run a 200 and some jerk was jogging or doing side-skips in my lane.

The speed work at York went very well. I got in the blocks and did 3x20m, then 3x30m flying runs with a 30m run-in. The starts were really clean and felt good. This is the first season where I haven’t thought about my start at all, which is great. The first flying run felt really good, I kept the tension in my upper body to a minimum. The second one was not so good, I probably needed ten minutes rest rather than the five or six minutes I took. The third and final run was better, then we shut it down. Afterward, my brother and I traded massages, which is easy on the wallet, and better than some of the wimpy pro massages I’ve had in the past!

I’m looking forward to running in Michigan on Sunday. I’m feeling pretty good, so I’m just going to get a good warm up in and enjoy competing in a new environment.

24

I headed out to Michigan early on Saturday morning, and rolled into town at about 1 pm, just in time for a late breakfast at the Pancake Factory. ESTI has been riding me to try this place for a while now, and I finally did as he was at home on child care duty for a few hours. I have to say, this was one of the most solid breakfasts I’ve had in quite a while. I stayed away from their exotic pancakes because I was racing the next day, but had the regular buttermilk pancakes instead of toast and they were superb. This is the kind of place you want to sneak your own quality maple syrup into rather than use their standard Aunt Jemima.

A couple of hours later, ESTI and I met up, and he took me over to his training centre and gave me a terrific massage and stretching. I started out feeling a bit tight and achy, but when leaving I felt looser and everything was just easier to move. He has excellent touch in the muscle and makes you feel fresh.

I pretty much nerded it up in my hotel for the night, and didn’t get a chance to head over to Ann Arbor, where there is lots to do. On Sunday, I headed to the meet ridiculously early, as I had never run a Michigan masters meet before, and didn’t want some scheduling snafu to make me miss my race (which happened with the idiots at University of Toronto a few weeks back, who blamed me for not “seeing the revised meet schedule online.” So much for being athlete-centred!).

ESTI had told me that the track was slightly soft, but fast. The surface wasn’t quite as hard as York’s, but was in excellent condition. I’m told that Eastern Michigan University is a Division 1 track program, and they’ve had some good success despite their smallish size. I noticed that Hasely Crawford still has the outdoor 100m record with a 10.18 in 1975. Nice!

The meet was well organized, and I was put in a heat with three other athletes in the 60m. I got an OK warmup, and probably should have got a few more block starts in before my race.

I think I got out decently, because I only remember one thing about the race, and that was when I got to around 40m I started leaning a bit forward because I was trailing the person to my right by about a tenth. My only spot check in this race was to get the most out of each stride and drive down past the hip fully and remain patient. I finished with an 8.03, which I was happy with, though I was hoping to go under 8.00 but alas it was not to be. Still, the 60 is slowly moving in the right direction and that is encouraging.

Next up was the 200m. The track at EMU is flat, and I’ve never run a flat 200m indoors before amazingly enough. I had two other athletes in my heat. Initially, I was scheduled to run in lane 1, but thankfully lane 4 scratched, and I bullied / charmed the check-in person to give me lane 4, which she did very kindly.

I was feeling good. I felt very comfortable in this facility for some reason. The gun went and I got a good start, and accelerated nicely and came off the turn well. I had a good match in lane 5, and I ran the back stretch even more relaxed than last week, and going into the turn I could see I had the guy in lane 5. I stayed much more patient in the turn this week, and coming around the corner I hugged the inside line and kept a smooth acceleration off the turn. There was no lactic at 180m like there was last week, I just ran through the line. Insert sprinter cliche #1:

“Everything felt so easy!”

I thought to myself that I remember feeling like that last year when I ran my second 200 of the indoor season. It felt easy, and it was fast compared to my first one…

I suspected I might have ran fast in this race, but had to wait to check the sheet.

Well, I did run fast- 25.36! BOOYAH!

A HUGE indoor PB of 0.31 seconds, and it was my fastest time in the 200m indoors or out in over two and a half years! I had said to my coach earlier this season after coming off the KitKat GPP, “I know I’m going to run under 25.5 indoors, it’s just a matter of by how much and when.” Well it was a reasonable goal, and it has been achieved! Obviously, I am mega-thrilled!

I am very thankful to my coach in Toronto for going along with trying the KitKat plan. A lot of coaches would have told me to eff off for not doing it his way. There is no doubt that the fitness gained from the KK GPP helped hugely. Of course, I am even more thankful to ESTI who goaded me into trying something new for indoors and has been outrageously helpful throughout the indoor season. Of course, the patented ESTI “Personal Best” massage yesterday also helped big-time!

Upon thinking back to my previous three indoor 200’s this season, I was definitely pushing way too hard. Today I didn’t try to make anything happen, and instead did everything under control. Coming off the last turn, I knew something good was happening because I was running so smoothly and with so much energy left over. I was holding way too much tension in my body in previous races this season because I didn’t have the confidence to just let my body do the job.

Next week is my final indoor meet. It’s a two day meet but I’ll be away on Saturday for the 200m, but am signing up for the 60m and 400m on Sunday. The 400 will be a clustermess, but I’m gonna go out fast and hold on for dear life!

Overall, an extremely exciting day!

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Good work and nice post :slight_smile:

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Well done on your PB!

27

Thanks guys!

Yesterday I went to the track at York and did a CF bike tempo circuit. I did it along with a big talented oaf who barely trains and ran 21.62 FAT last year.

He has asked me to train him for the outdoor season, but he has a spotty history when it comes to training, is constantly injured, and it would be a huge time commitment. On the other hand, I’m an unproven coaching commodity and it’s not like it’s easy to find big talented oafs to experiment on. I’ll have to think more about it this week.

About the CF bike tempo, he said “it was the hardest workout of my life” which should indicate his lack of basic fitness despite the fact that he’s got no body fat and looks totally ripped.

Of course, I’ve been doing the bike tempo workout once a week pretty much all season long, so it’s easy for me now. I noticed that I am in a pretty highly recovered state, I could easily have gone at a much higher RPM on the bike, but kept it at a reasonable pace. It’s the last week of the indoor season, so I’m not trying to get fit here, just flush after my race.

I’m going to take today off, and do some speed work tomorrow. I’m going to do a five day taper heading into this Sunday’s race. The most exciting part of this week’s taper is that I’ll be getting a massage from Waldemar on Friday, then another on Saturday. Now ideally, it would be nice to get that work done earlier in the taper so he could go deeper if he needed to I guess, but still…better late than never!

The man makes you feel otherworldly good, there is no easy way to describe the effects of his regeneration work- he is just on another planet when it comes to loosening you up and getting your ready to go fast.

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Exciting times ahead, good luck.
And conrates on 200m p.b.

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Damn, I love reading success stories. Great work.

30

There is one more race entry for the indoor season that I hadn’t talked about in my journal.

The highlight of the indoor season was the terrific weekend I had in Michigan from March 2nd to March 4th, culminating in a solid 8.03 in the 60m and a huge new indoor PB of 25.36 in the 200m. That was my final crack at the 200m distance indoors this year, and I made it count! There are actually some photos of the 60m and 200m races up on the RunMichigan site, as well as the all-important results sheet to prove it actually happened.

http://photos.runmichigan.com/2012/March/20120304-USATF-Michigan-2/21985831_j54F86/3/1753785608_dgP3mPG/Medium
http://photos.runmichigan.com/2012/March/20120304-USATF-Michigan-2/21985831_j54F86/4/1753834498_sCqdGzt/Medium
http://photos.runmichigan.com/2012/March/20120304-USATF-Michigan-2/21985831_j54F86/4/1753836541_BZdLX68/Medium

The following week also held some excitement. ESTI was heading down from Michigan on March 8th in the afternoon, and we were hoping to get in a brief meetup with Angela. We would follow it by two days in Ottawa for the Waldemar massage experience!

The plan was to start a five day taper on Tuesday March 6th for my final 60m race on Sunday, March 11th, and Waldemar’s massages would be designed to get me optimal muscle tone for racing on the Sunday. This would be an opportunity for myself and ESTI to ask the master, “What does optimal muscle tone look like and feel like?”

“Ahhhh!”, responded Waldemar, “That is the million dollar question!”

The most interesting thing that Waldemar stated was that I was in “fantastic condition”, and my muscles felt excellent. In the past when I was on a short to long program, I would come to him with extreme tightness especially in the calves, and major Achilles soreness as well. Looking back, it was not a program that would work for me without very regular access to massage. This was a very positive indicator (as is the 200m indoor PB) that the program I’m currently doing is right for my body. I got two full body massages. Waldemar started with EMS to warm up the muscles, then finished with manual massage. As usual, recovery from his massages is virtually instantaneous. I went out and did an acceleration workout a couple of hours later and felt very, very good.

The next day I got another massage, and he stated he would have to cut it slightly short. “Your body has no tension, if I do any more you will be too loose.” This is the first time Waldemar has ever told me my tone was perfect for racing, so I was very confident going into the meet the next day, as when the King of Tone tells you your tone is spot on, you tend to feel pretty confident.

We returned to Toronto late Saturday evening, with ESTI still having a four hour drive back to Michigan. I had time to rest up for my meet the next day. Now two long drives in two days surely isn’t ideal, but the opportunity to get massages during a taper phase from Waldemar was an experience not to be passed up. He wasn’t as chatty the first day, but by Saturday he had opened up and was expounding on a variety of topics. I was happy to see this, as ESTI is a tremendous coach and is constantly trying new things, so I was hoping he would get a fair bit from our visit with Waldemar.

Finally, it was race day. I was only going to be able to compete in the 60m, because I was flying out later in the day and would not be able to run the 400m that was scheduled.

I arrived at the track, and saw that instead of the usual Gill starting blocks, that they had put out the new Gill blocks that are much taller and allow the entire foot to be placed along their surface. These would loom large later on…

I started to warm up, and even in my first couple of easy strides, I felt incredibly loose and free. I remember on the taper DVD when Charlie talked about athletes feeling “ready to go” really early in the warmup, even though they actually weren’t. I remembered this, and kept the warmup intentionally very deliberate. I did a couple of 50m accels, and felt very fast and loose. I had never felt this free and easy before a race. I felt extremely confident.

Then it was race time. Usually in meets, I don’t like to get in the blocks too much before race time. I know my settings in Gill blocks, and don’t want to screw myself around mentally before the race, so I normally don’t get in there. This would prove to be a HUGE mistake today. The newer blocks have totally different settings, and I didn’t fool around with them before my race- not very wise.

Once my race was called, I was feeling great. Then it was time to get in the blocks. Oh shit! I can’t get comfortable! I put my hand up, and the starter stood us up. I said I couldn’t get comfortable, and he warned me that I should have been ready before and could have been charged with a false start.

We got back in the blocks, got to set, and I ended up false starting, and the race got called back. Since this was a masters meet, the first false start was charged to the field, so I didn’t get kicked out.

Now- what I SHOULD have done was pick up the stupid fancy blocks, moved them out of my lane and gone from a standing start. Unfortunately I didn’t think of it. We got up to set, and I had to be conservative. I got a poor start, and ended up running a totally pedestrian 8.13 even though I had felt so damn good prior to the race!

This was a very good lesson for me. You have to plan for variables. The first thing I should have done was to go and get a pair of blocks I was familiar with as soon as I arrived. That was foolish.

The other was to just ditch the blocks and go from a standing start. I will never get burned like this again! Overall, this was an excellent learning experience. You must plan ahead for all potential events, because there is NO room for added anxiety on the start line!

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“I love it when a plan comes together.” - Colonel John “Hannibal” Smith, The A Team

Best,
Christopher

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I told you…you are gonna start burning up the track…keep on keeping on! See ya on the circuit!