Week Starting Monday. December 13 (Week 10)

Sunday, Dec 19
Tim: MIA - (Editor's note: Watch this week's Episode 6 video: Where is Tim?)

Matt: I move 14 hours south in part to get away from rain and I found myself working out in, you guessed it, rain today. But on the plus side it was still pretty warm and the rain was mostly a light drizzle. Tim is still feeling under the weather (pun intended) so he didn’t workout with Mark and me. Since it was raining and we wanted to get in spikes for some of the 200’s we drove to Birmingham High School and used their track. There is an awesome maintenance guy there that unlocks the gate for us. We should get him a little Christmas gift. Anyway, I did 3 sets of 4x200. The first I ran in 29-30 with 30 seconds recovery, the second set in 28’s with 60 seconds recovery, and the third set in spikes in 25-26 with 2 minutes recovery. Mark and I worked it out so we did our first and third sets together. I felt really strong through the whole workout and my heart rate stayed relatively low for the speed I was going. So overall a great workout for me. And hopefully an even better video, especially since Tim is not in it. Hmm, maybe that’s the magic recipe? Enjoy!

Mark: I’m going to write this blog without giving away anything of the video, so I will just talk about what we did in the workout. I did 3 sets of 5x200. The 2 sets I ran them with 30 seconds recovery between each one, and 4 minutes between the 2 sets. My times were 29-30-30-29-28, then 27.6-28.1-29.1-29.1-28.6. After I finished the 2nd set, I changed into my spikes, and took 8 minutes to recover for the last set, and also I bumped up the recovery to 2 minutes between each 200. The idea for me was to run the first 2 sets at or just under 1500m goal pace, and the the last set at 800m goal pace. The first effort on the 2nd set should have been 29-30 and I intended to work down to 28 low but we got out fast and I ended up working a bit on that set. So for the 3rd set I hit 26.4-26.7-26.7-25.8-25.2. I was really happy with the session today, I felt really smooth on the first 2 sets and I felt like I was pressing more than I would have to for the 26’s. Not as far as energy expenditure goes, I was pooped, but I felt like I had to really work to get my legs to move at that pace...not sure if thats good or bad, may not be either but just something I noticed. So anyway wish me luck in being able to walk tomorrow, its late afternoon and I am really feeling achy all over in my legs so hopefully I can recover within a few days. Time to finish up that vlog!

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Saturday, Dec 18
Matt: Today I ran some arbitrary distance as an easy run with Mark. Neither one of us wore watches but we estimate it was pretty close to 4 miles. Ever since not wearing a watch a couple weeks ago I seem to have become addicted to it. I love not having much of an idea of how long I’ve been running or how many miles a week I run. It makes me ponder about that phrase ‘Being a slave to the watch’.
Back in college when I was a speedy sprinter at Oregon, I never wore a watch. I can think of maybe a handful of times where I wore one and it always felt uncomfortable. Now, to my credit, my training partner, Travis Anderson, always wore one and so I always had an idea of my times on intervals. When I moved up to the 800 I had no idea about anything distance running related and had to learn on the fly. That included, at the most basic level, wearing a watch and logging my miles. I assume, with good reason, that most if not all successful distance runners operate this way. I went 4 years being a slave to the watch. Every day I would look at it at least 20 times analyzing my pace, how long I’d been running, and how much longer until I was done.
To be honest, training that way - the way that 99% of elite distance runners train (Gabe Jennings...always the odd one out haha) is proven and often results in an athlete reaching very close to their potential. I really don’t want to be in that group anymore. Don’t get me wrong. I want to be very successful and continue climbing towards my potential. And further, as I take on more pacing duties, what is on the watch at different points during a race will determine how much money I make. BUT as far as training goes in large part I don’t want to wear a watch or know how fast I’m going. I enjoy focusing my mind inward as I train; to feel my body and get to know it as intimately as I can (insert joke here). Because without knowing your body and what it is capable of, I don’t think there is any chance you’ll reach your true potential. There will be times to wear my watch and be a slave to it but 90% of the time I will be training ‘free’ and listening to my body instead of the ticks of the clock.

Mark: Nice 35 minutes or so with Matt, don’t know the exact time since we didn’t wear watches, kinda just wanted to go on feel today I suppose.....and I don’t know what he talked about because I havn’t had time to sit down and read a novel yet, but I will....but just saying cuz we might say the same things. Anyway it is a really rainy week here for us, but it was still warm so the rain wasn’t really a nuisance for us today...it may be tomorrow though especially if its raining hard. Yeah, I feel good and recovered though, so hopefully tomorrow will be a really good one. I’m gonna be putting spikes on for the first time this season to help get my calves ready for some 800m workouts soon. Also, I’m going to be working on getting a schedule together. I will include possible race days, and potential workout I would like to be doing to be where I want to be for the races. Aaaaaand we will finally be getting a workout video up for this week, its just been tough with Tim sick and we were hoping he would be feeling better by now.

Friday, Dec 17
Matt: I am obviously lazy but I feel like I have good excuses. None of them are as good as what’s in Mark’s arsenal but hey, nobody’s are.

Tim: Still feeling gross and snotty. I am not even sure if I’ll be read for the planned workout video on Sunday. : /

Thursday, Dec 16
Mark: Easy 25 with Tim, we just ran around the 13 minute loop we use to add a little extra to runs...I just ran around it twice. The cool weather the last couple days actually felt nice but I’m ready for it to be hot again :) And if you are wondering why there arent any blog updates it’s because I’m looking down this google doc we are using and I’m the ONLY ONE WHO HAS DONE ANY BLOGS SO FAR THIS WEEK!! Lazy blokes!! haha

Tim: I decided to go for a jog and run the fluids outta me. It kinda didn’t work. Felt horrible, but the run didn’t make me feel any worse at least.

Wednesday, Dec 15
Mark: Tim is sick again :( so its just me and Matt today. We decided to do 800 repeats today, but we backed it off from 6 to 5 and added in some hills. We did the 800’s on the bike path where we did the last time we did this workout, and Matt just did the middle 600 with me. We warmed up 2 miles and then my times were 2:26-2:22-2:18-2:19-2:14 with 2:30 rest in between. The we walk-jogged over to Pierce College to our hill (ended up being about 12 minutes between 800’s and hills) and did 5x100m hills (we approximated 100m to be where the hill veers up to the right in the middle. We took 2:30 between hills with an easy walk back down and they were all right around 18 seconds. Then we just jogged 2 miles back to the apartment, solid volume for us on the day.

Matt: Today I had one of those feel-great workouts. I did 5x600 and 5x150m hills. The 600’s I did in the middle of Mark’s 800’s so I had plenty of recovery. Then the hills I did as hard as I could. I love hills and I love getting better at them. This is going to be a short blogging week for me I’m feeling.

Tim: Feeling absolutely horrible today. I woke up dead sick!!! I am definitely not going to run today and it looks like I am going to be taking at least another week off. Th really sucks considering I wasn’t in that great of shape to begin with. Well, I have made a promise to myself that I am going to start taking better care of myself. It all starts with some emergen-C. When I start running again... I seriously think I am going to start adding tempo-oriented runs into 2 workouts a week. : /

Tuesday, Dec 14
Mark: Easy run today, didnt wear a watch but it was about 4 miles. My calves are pretty sore, but in a good way. I like the feeling after Sunday’s workout...I’m really looking forward to tomorrow, hopefully it will work out to be a video day, but either way we are going to try and do a workout video for Sunday as well. I havn’t been tracking my mileage, but I think it is right around 40 mpw right now, which is probably where it will stay for a while.

Matt: Ok so this QWOP game is weirdly addictive. I’ve managed to get all the way to the end but it wasn’t exactly by using a running motion the whole way. But hey, go ahead and give me a sympathy clap if you want but I was the first to get past the hundred meter mark.

Tim: I awoke feeling pretty crappy and it was my friends Bday party right after I got off of work. So naturally... I didn’t run. By the end of the day I was actually feeling quite horrible so I went to bed early. Let me just tell you... I am sick again!

Monday, Dec 13
Mark: Easy 30 today with the fellas and whew the calvsies were sore. Split 1-1 on the Sorry games with Matt today...and in other news, this evening after the Texans-Ravens game, Matt and I were doing some YouTubing and we stumbled across the following video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0i2zaDSXhFM
You will have to watch it until the end, but there they start talking about the game Qwop...so naturally Matt and I started playin. Well, Matt was able to get it put into our blog so all of you are welcome to have a go, we are posting our best score each, along with any noteworthy scores anyone else posts. Just let us know what you get and if you beat us (or come close) we will put your name and score on there with ours...best of luck, it is very challenging..but mainly frustrating. And for the fantasy football results...with a quarter to go in the Texans-Ravens game I was tied up at 100.38 a piece! So I was going nuts as the game ended up going into over time, but the Schaub interception that ended the game also ended my season, as I fell short by 3.5 points.

Tim: QWOP = lame. I ran for 30 minutes today. I still haven’t fully recovered from that illness i acquired a couple weeks ago and I am scared I am coming down with it again. Uhoh.