Training Log Archive: Tundra/Desert

I warmed up before a 5 km race in downtown Stockton, checking out the first mile. Cleared an empty pizza box from the way.

4×(0:20 jog + 0:40 stride). May have been too much.

Some more stretching on the starting line.

The race, itself. I sucked. Splits: 5:39 6:02 6:00 0:33. Started exactly as planned but then, gradually collapsed. I'm not as much upset about Mile 2 as I am about Mile 3—felt like I had a lot left but all my attempts to up the pace led nowhere. I don't really have any conditions to blame—the course was flat, I had people to hang onto and work with, and it was cool. But my Thursday's mile intervals turned out exactly predictive of this race time. There was a little too much cobblestone, and some redneck hurled offensive crap at people by Mile 2 mark.
Vdot = 56: a decrease after 2 months at 57. My last hope is that the interval-heavy mesocycle is going to pay off. Maybe.
It was not a good day: besides the sucky time, someone stole my shirt from the starting line (while another dozen were left untouched). "Event hosted by Ed Chavez, Stockton Police Chief"—yeah. At least I made the Amtrak bus home, walking through the ghetto.

Went home and slept. At least the heart issues seem to have finally gone away—nothing interesting this week, before, during, or after exercise.

Woke up and ran to a Denny's, after midnight. Sore. Not feeling like the planned O-session with Boris later Sunday.

The bus.

Light rail. Took ACE to Stockton.

Ran part way to light rail from the office.

I had my economy profile and lactate profile taken at SMI. I got some info, some of it entirely as expected, and some was kind of what I expected, but with a quite different interpretation, and as a result, with quite new and exciting insight on how I personally should train. See comment. I'll write more on this after I get my 5-km time this Saturday; abstract: "Must do many VO_2max intervals, often".
This entry is for the warmup.

Stretching before the test.

The economy-profile + lactate-profile portion of the test—4-min intervals, analyzer ON for the last 2 min of each interval, lactate taken at the end of each interval (was the handheld thing simply a pH meter? looked too simple to be lactic acid-specific). v_T = 263 m/min (6:07/mi pace).

The VO_2max portion of the test: at v_T at 0%, 1%, 2%, 3% incline, incrementing every minute. VO_2max = 65.2 ml/(kg*min).

As I looked at the economy plot, the first thing that struck me was that vVO_2max was 306 m/min, or an unbelievable 5:15/mile! One is supposed to be able to maintain vVO_2max for between 3 km to 5 km. But I've never run that fast recently for that long, clocking 5:15 for one mile! I can see one of two explanations:

(1) I am full of *t and so wimpy that I psychologically am unable to maintain higher speeds in a race.

(2) and I think most likely: vVO_2max is obtained by extrapolating the economy profile (the speed-VO₂ plot) out to the measured value of VO_2max. But the speed-oxygen relation may not really be a straight line. In fact, mine curves up. I need more oxygen above v_T. I bet if I were to do a cubic fit, instead of a straight line, then for the observed 65.2 VO_2max, I'd get sometling like 5:30–5:33/mile, which is my feeling of what my current VO_2max pace is (why don't I just do a fit? wait 'till Saturday, and I'll also have a 5-km time and a Vdot value then).

If (2) is true, then it appears that the optimum way to achieve faster running times is to improve the economy in that area where the plot curves up, i.e. above v_T. This can only be achieved by VO_2max intervals and R repeats.

One thing that I thought was true was that my v_T was at 90%+ of vVO_2max, i.e. the threshold was quite high for my "max" speed. This does not appear to be true if I buy the straight-line hypothesis and the vVO_2max that comes with it—I should be able to achieve a much higher "max" speed even in the present state of my VO_2max, with some economy-specific training.

But if I do buy the straight-line assumption, i.e. if it is true now, or somehow can be achieved, that my speed-oxygen relation is linear, then I'm fairly close to the hypothetical 100%-economical runner of Daniels. Based on the vVO_2max, I expect a Vdot of 62.6—cf. VO_2max of 65.2.I would also expect a T pace of 5:43/mi (cf. measured 6:07—this may be yet another confirmation that the best way to improve T pace is to improve the I pace, via the economy at the I pace). And, the 5-km time for this Vdot is 16:26.

But if the curving-up is true, it appears that this Vdot cannot be reached without improving the economy in that tight spot between v_T and vVO_2max.

This would have totally sucked... except it was all walking, home after barely missing the last #23.

The bus.

So, I'm just getting over the crushing defeat at West Point. Should I be content that I made two 1-min "booms" over 2:48 of running, or should I instead be concerned that I was 28 minutes behind someone who trains at less than half of what I do?
Orienteering is a running sport. Some people would undoubtedly be happy with not making mistakes—"I navigated well, I'm just slower than the best". But what does 28 minutes behind and clean buy you? The results still sucks just as bad. I'd rather been lost for 28 minutes.
Sure, I got the worst of the map on my "inventive" routes on Day 2. But then, thinking about it, I got a similar, if not larger, unfair advantage going my way on Day 1 of the Pig. Orienteering is just such a pathetic activity because unless you have a decent map, the results aren't going to be quite fair. Maybe fairness can only be achieved in park-O.

Home to De Anza; pouring rain.

Steve Gregg and Tapio were in this time. Tapio, however, chickened out.
I warmed up under the stands, and did some skips.

3×((jog from the finish to the 3000 starting line = 219 m) + 3000 at T). 11:15 11:22 11:26 (last one, a shoe got untied—lame, I know). Steve averaged 11:41. The rain was on and off.
I passed on the 4×strides.

A very early-morning trip to De Anza (before 6 am).

Stretched while trying not to freeze.

3×mile with lap rest: 5:44 5:47 5:55 (plan was 4× at 5:35). Is it that early mornings are that bad or does this, along with the very sluggish results last weekend, mean I'm in some kind of trouble? Hard to say "overtraining" on well under 80 km/week.

Some running in Mtn View in the evening.

Some running in Mtn View.

Ran with Greg up to the start of Day 2.

Stretching.

One stride near the start area; down and up.

West Point Day 2. I felt much better than yesterday; however, the intensity fell as I moved along. Plan was to catch Jon Torrance, 2 minutes in front, and work with him. But the work did not come to fruition, as Jon headed on the correct route to #4 (around) and I just went straight, thinking my California hill training was sure to pay off. Going straight on 3–4 would have been great, except for two very slow downhills involved: one right out of #3 and one, coming down the monster hill. The downhills were not runnable, and were barely walkable, covered with dead and dying mountain laurel—nothing like what the blotches of light green would indicate. As I was alone on the next leg, I also heeded J-J's advice that most trail routes were not the best (asked him before the start). Going off-trail on #4–#5 was a large error as well, though, as I again was enveloped in the undermapped mt laurel E of the elongated lake. Finally, the downhill on #6 would have been so much faster if I had stayed higher like Sergei. But how would I know about the undermapped boulder fields?
The "route choices" were bogus (very sorry J-J). Certainly having the routes that look best on the map play out as advertised is a necessary condition for fairness; it appeared to have been met. But having the "second-best" options really be near-dead ends subtracts from the fairness significantly.