Workout, 03.09.10
9:00 – Renee et. al. do LM, LL and MWD; out the gate by 9:15; warm as needed for the work (i.e. competition WU)

3×1,600m with 5 min recovery. Keep the first one very controlled. In all of them push the pace at 600m and 200m, but don’t use your turbo the last 60m – practice a longer kick rather then a short, ballistic kick.

3×10xHT on a 6/4 with 60 sec recovery; 2 x Vern Gambetta; HM 124, finish with MT 60 or Kettlebell short, up to you. Lionel Hampton.

Note: Lots of things changed from the assignment above (I simply cut and pasted from yesterday’s workout document). She just did a 600m push at the end of each one due to the hamstring. She just did the Helsinki routine (from Volume 1 of the DVD series) and Lionel Hampton (and maybe HM, but I forget). Also, we were running late as I wanted Brent to run with her and that, coupled with the hamstring, had us starting the workout much later than intended.

2010 is just two months old, yet she’s already had a nice year. She ran well in her half marathon debut and two weeks ago she made fourth US Cross Country team by finishing fifth and all of the top finishers plan to race in Poland at the end of march. She’s racing a lot and while I doubt she will race this much in years 2011 and 2012, the reason we’re doing it is simple. She’s fit and her workouts are going well, yet she’s lacking a bit of that killer instinct that comes when an athlete has been successful and is confident. So that’s why she’s racing again tonight and will race the world cross meet at the end of March (and maybe the USATF 15k Champs in mid March) – she simply needs to be in the crucible of competition, the exposure to the fact that racing hurts and yet every race has a point where you have to commit. So that’s the first part of the post – to wish her luck and to explain why she’s racing a bunch in the first three months of the year.

But the second reason for post is simple. If 2010 goes well it will be because of 2009. She and I worked together via phone and internet from Jan 1st through September, then she and Austin moved to Boulder. Her training hasn’t been anything impressive in terms of volume or intensity, yet she’s been consistent. She had several poor races on the the track last year, but had a couple great races too, running 15:20 in Europe, her second fastest 5k and five seconds of her per of 15:15. Consistency is, in my humble opinion, the single most important concept for long term running success (feel free to debate that below). It’s the consistency in Renee’s training in the past 12-14 months which makes me confident that 2010 will be a solid year for her, a year where she can get back her confidence and swagger in the midst of an exciting resurgence of US Women’s distance running.

With that in mind, below is a workout from last March, a long run on Magnolia Road. Later this week I will add another video* below that one of the General Strength she did post run. It was a solid day and in my view, the fitness gained a year ago is contributing to the consistency in training and racing this year.

*Note: Everything that follows was added Sunday, February 28th, after Renee won. Yippie!

Okay, I can’t find that darn video from Magnolia Road, but she did 20 minutes of General Strength (GS) on her mat, immediately following the run, as it was snowing. I’m bummed I can’t find it because it’s neat. Oh well.

However, at this time last year she did Core H often, so I’ll share that (click here to download a pdf of her training). Tons of GS at that time because she was fit enough to get hurt; she was just 5 months post surgery, yet getting fairly fit aerobically; she was dying to run more but I felt it would have been inappropriate to run more, so she had lots of difficult GS work. So you can see how Core H fits in – done after hard days or medium days and we try to do it right after the workout.

Finally, I want to thank Mike Smith for his friendship and mentorship. I stole Core H from him and to me it’s part of Renee’s fitness…and no doubt Core H is part of the reason Beverly Ramos scored 16 points this weekend at the Big 12 Indoor meet (2nd in the 5k on Friday and 2nd in the 3k on Saturday).

…oh, and I guess I should also say both of the videos below are from our DVD, Building a Better Runner – Vol.2, but honestly, if you’re taking the time to read the blog please know I feel I owe it to you to share valuable content for free as the comments and energy underlying this site is a gift and I truly appreciate it. Also, if you go to this link you can download the entire Core H routine to your iTunes/iPod, though the file is huge (180mb). Just go to the bottom right of the screen and download the .m4v file.

…and it also made me think, “yikes – I’m assigning the wrong training when we do some of our work on the ground.” With that in mind I give you the following two videos. The first video shows the Athena Routine (exercises listed at the end of the post) though you have to fast forward to the 4:40 mark. I like this routine and I think it’s a great thing for me to plug in after hard GS and before the flexibility stuff we’ll end the session with. But you’re on your butt for some of it and since you don’t run on your butt it begs the question, “Is it a waste of time?”

Let me ask you two things. How much did you run this week? How much GS did you do this week.

The answer for the second question is important. I just spent 5 minutes looking at the amount of GS Renee and Brent did from Jan 1st to Jan 7th, the last big week prior to the Houston Half Marathon. I didn’t count any of the work before the runs/workouts, i.e. the LM, LL, Myrtl Wall Drills (MWD) and the Aerobic Work Warm-Up; in the evening I didn’t count restorative things like Sleepytime. It’s a TON of time…and I was shocked by the number…and now that I’ve calculated it I think I’ll not share it here because if we run well in 4 months or 12 months or 60 months maybe Jan 2010 had something to do with it.  And the first question, “How much did you run this week?” is important because the more you move in the sagittal plane the more you need to work in the transverse and frontal planes…or at least that’s my view of sound running training.

But the point, even without the number, is simply this: Renee and Brent need to be on their butts so they can get off their butts; the trained hard for 5 years and 7 years respectively running hard and training well before working with me (not counting their HS training). That running training built their engine and while they didn’t lose all of their athleticism, they lost some, yet they can’t go back and get it 6 months. But now that I’ve worked with Brent for 5 months and Renee for 14 months they are ready to get off their butts and they’re ready for more single support (i.e. single leg) work. And that’s the point I’m making in the second video – Brent is now ready to get off his butt, but in my view of training he had to be on his butt for a while before he could get off his butt.

Athena Medicine Ball Routine (go to 4:40 mark)

Medicine Ball Work on Magnolia Road

Athena (MB rotational routine). Much if this is similar to Mike Smith’s Atlas Routine from Building a Better Runner Vol.2

1 Big Turns x 20
2 Long Snappers x 10 (aka Around the World)
3 Straight Arm Rotations x 10 (nice and gentle…no need to go fast)
4 Haybales x 10
5 Bent Arm Rotations x 10 (get into a rhythm, engage the core and be quick)
6 180º to 90º Toe touch x 20
7 Seated Swinging x 5 each way
8 Single Leg Scale, LMR x 6 on each leg
9 MB Clock – 9:00 to 3:00, 3:00 to 9:00 on each leg
10 Haybales x 10

Thanks again to everyone in Milwaukee.

Practice 01_29_10 from CoachJayJohnson on Vimeo.

Circuit Workout. Ideally you’d watch all of the videos in the Anatomy of a Workout series, yet the two videos below give a feel for what a circuit of running and general strength looks like.

Must Read

Matt Fitzgerld article “The Lactic Acid Myths.”

Running Times article written by Lorraine Moller, “Essential Lydiard.”

Greg Brock interview from LetsRun.com is a must read. The connector workout he discusses highlights the importance of lactate and training runners to deal with lactate.

Click here to download the notes for this presentation.

Click here to download the notes for this presentation.

Videos

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The video above is simply to show all of the things that can be done before and after the workout. I’ll answer comments for this video here.

Hill Strides (4 min)

Sara Vaughn on being mentally tired at the end of the season (2 min)

Robert Chapman explains why runners should do things besides running (watch the first 2 minutes)

I will post all slides and pertinent links in the coming days, but I wanted to share this video for anyone with 10 free minutes.

While I like all of these exercises in the video above, yet unlike most videos I share on this site, these exercises DO NOT fit together as a routine, but rather as individual exercises to show runners what can be done with a medicine ball.

I love using the medicine ball and two years ago every camper who attended the Boulder Running Camps went home with one because I wanted them to have a tool to use to become a better runner. But in the comments below I’ll share some links to other videos/articles that show several exercises the go together. If you read the print article you’ll see that the author simply wanted to show how a medicine ball can be used in a variety for exercises rather than in a routine, such as the Athena. Hopefully the description of each exercise is clear, but again, think of them a single ingredients and in the comments below I will discuss how they look in a “recipe” of a routine or in the context of a training session.

Finally, towards the end of the video above there are some freeze frames of Renee, Brent and James running half marathon, mile and 800m pace respectively. The video below shows each of those frames a bit clearer and cleaner than the video above.