It's hard to believe my last post was almost a year ago! Running has been going well: no major setbacks, lots of decent training, and a few personal bests along the way.The first 4 months of each year are always busy with the Island Race Series and the TC10K. This year I decided to add a race that I've never done before: the Sun Run. The Sun Run is a huge race that attracts thousands of runners. The race organizers cap it at 50,000 runners making it Canada's largest road race. This year it is my goal race!
Last fall I read a book called Running With The Buffaloes, which chronicles a 3 month training block of the Colorado University men's cross country team (the Buffaloes) as they gear up for the NCAA 10K Championship. It was an interesting and easy to read book which includes lots of different workouts and helps explain why we do certain workouts. And to see the benefits and downsides of pushing yourself to the limit.
After finishing the book I thought it would be fun and beneficial to replicate the workouts in the order they were done in the book as closely as possible leading up to the Sun Run. The only differences were that I wasn't going to be running 100 miles per week like the guys in the book do, and I would be running a lot slower.
I've entered all the specific workouts into a spreadsheet and shared it in case anyone else wants to follow them: Workouts from the book.
Each week follows a basic format of 4 hard workouts (Tues, Wed, Fri, Sun) and 3 easy or rest days. The hard workouts each week include one long run, one medium long run, and one or two intervals, fartleks or tempo runs.
The training is divided up into 5 stages (modified from Lydiard's teachings) which start after the usual base building phase:
| Period A | 6 weeks | Ascend to full volume: no intervals, tempos, races, etc |
| Period B | 5 weeks | Aerobic short specificity: work done at goal race pace, with full recoveries on intervals (non-anaerobic) |
| Period C | 6 weeks | Aerobic long specificity: longer intervals, still no anaerobic. Longer fartleks, mile repeats, long tempos (10 milers). |
| Period D | 3 weeks | Anaerobic specificity: short fast intervals with very little recovery. Wed/Sun long runs decrease by 10-25% in distance, same speed. |
| Period E | 2 weeks | Anaerobic speed: sprinting and intervals at faster than race pace. |
As part of my training I included 3 Island Races: the Pioneer 8K in January, and Bazan Bay 5K and Comox Half Marathon in March. Partly because they are my favorites, and partly because they are in the Timex Road Race Series. By doing the Sun Run and TC10K in April gives me the minimum required 5 races.
All 3 island races went very well. In each race I ran a negative split and achieved a personal best. At Pioneer I finally broke my old record of 29:03 from 2008 with a time of 28:39. At Bazan Bay 5K I improved by 20 seconds from last year, finishing in 17:01 (my highest race points ever - 764!). Comox was 1:20:29 (70 seconds faster than 2011 RVHM) which wasn't quite the sub 80 minute time I was hoping for but a back injury and lack of long runs were probably to blame!
Last weekend I did one final tune-up race before the Sun Run (which is this Sunday, April 21st) - the inaugural Bob Reid Magical Mile. It was an out-and-back course on the Galloping Goose which had a slight uphill on the way out and a downhill on the way back. It was a fun event which featured some very fast runners and lots of prize money, for them! I placed 4th out of 6 in my 30-39 age group with a decent time of 5:07.
The Sun Run should be an interesting race with it's downhill start, the steep climb over the Burrard Street Bridge (at 5K), and of course the other 40,000 runners!
Here's a look at the route and elevation (click for a larger version):
After the Sun Run there is not much time to recover - exactly one week after it is the TC10K on April 28th!
