6:12 PM 07 November 2008 @ The ULTRA Oval Track
Together with one of the runners of Team Bald Runner who is personally supervising my daily workouts at the Oval Track, I had an easy and even-paced 10K run with a time of 50:25 minutes and an average pace of 5:03 minutes/km. I registered an average HR of 149 bpm and maximum HR of 159 bpm. What I learned during this run was to maintain an even pace from start to finish of the run and I was reminded by my partner/coach for the run to develop a “cadence”. He reminded me also to be light on my feet once they touch the ground and must be able to lift my knees a little higher during my legs’ “turnover”.
After 25 laps around the oval track, we had two laps of slow jog and had our “water break”. After about 2-minute rest, I asked my running-partner/coach to walk towards the concrete bleacher on the west side of the oval track and told him that I need to do at least 10 reps of hill sprints along the stairs of the bleacher from the lower row to the top most area. We did, at least, 12 reps at a moderate speed which made my leg muscles “burned & fatigued” after each repetition. We had to walk at the top level and walk our way down to the start. I did not record the time on how fast we were doing those hill sprint repetitions but I could estimate to be at 12 seconds per sprint. This workout is an example of Brad Hudson’s “Run Faster” principle of adaptive running where a runner should take an extra “mile” or workout after an scheduled workout. He calls this term as “progression runs”. These runs could be hill sprints or hill repetitions; additional 20-minute run at moderate pace after an easy run; or fast-paced 2K run after an interval or tempo run workout.
After the hill sprints reps, we walked for two laps around the oval track in order to cool-down our leg muscles before we had our stretching. My running-partner/coach gave me a massage after the usual “personnel-assisted” stretching routine.
5:47 PM 08 November 2008 @ The ULTRA Oval Track
It was Saturday early evening, at least 12 hours before the VSO 15K Road Race, and I went to the ULTRA Oval Track for a short and slow run to loosen my leg muscles and to “sweat it out” for the day. I did 3 sets of 6-lap run and was able to finish 18 laps. I finished the 1st set in 16:46 minutes with an average pace of 6:46 mins/km; the 2nd set was timed in 12:50 minutes with an average pace of 5:16 mins/km; the last set (cool-down) was timed in 15:33 minutes with an average pace of 6:15 mins/km. There were no recovery runs in between sets. However, “water breaks” were observed after sets.
A walk around the oval and post-stretching exercises terminated my workout. I was able to run a distance of 7.49 kilometers.
(Note: Posting of this story was delayed because of some technical problems with WordPress)
Bald Runner 