Hey friends. I hope everyone has enjoyed the unreal track action that's been going on. It was so good that I even felt the need to watch my second ever 10k from start to finish thanks to Mr. Mo Farah.
Last you heard from me I was coming off a brand spankin' new PB in the 800m and feeling good so we'll pick it up right from there. After my PB race in London I trucked it on back to my hometown of Kingston and stayed/trained there for the week. The way the track situation is in Toronto right now with the Pan Am games coming up and places getting rented out constantly it was nice having a place to train in Kingston without fear of getting kicked off the track.. Except the one day I had to hop the fence to get in, but moving right along... At this point in the season I have essentially eliminated the long run. I have been getting hit with a lot of heavy speed sessions and working out on Saturday most weeks so all of my easy days have pretty much been between 9.5 and 10km and I also take one day per week completely off. My week of workouts started on the Tuesday after my race. It started with 400+200+200 - 300+200+200 - 200+200+200. I stayed in flats for the first set hitting a comfortable 58 and a pair of 28s then spiked up and picked up the pace. The second set was a 42 followed by a pair of 27s and the last set was 27 then 26 then 25. It was pretty windy so the 200s were a bit wind aided but minor details right? The rest was fairly short so I felt pretty good about the workout. Next on the list was 150+250+150 - 200+200 - 400. I wasn't given specific target times for this one but with 3 minutes rest in between each set I knew it was supposed to be quite fast. Coincidentally my girlfriend also started her workout with a 150 so for the first rep since indoor season I had a training partner and we came through in 18 seconds. After my 18 seconds of happiness with a training partner I was back to the solo life hitting a 34 and another 18 on the following 250 and 150. I hit a pair of 26s on the 200s then it was time to rest up for 3 minutes and empty the tank on the 400. It was one of the more painful experiences of my life but I was happy with the result. I crossed the line in a high 55.. Maybe a 56. My watch clicked over to 56 about half a step past the finish line so I wouldn't feel good about myself just telling you guys it was a 55. All in all, another good, fast workout. My final workout of the week was some 800m specific stuff where I was to run right around race pace. The workout was 400 - 300+300 - 200+200+200. It was pretty basic, started out with a 57, then a pair of 43s, then cutting down from 28 to 26. As you can probably see this week I was absolutely kicked in the butt with speed work but it was a necessary evil. If I can make a 56 second opening lap feel extremely comfortable I think we may be in business. The following Tuesday it was time for 800m #2 of the season in Toronto. The legs were a bit heavy from the hard work leading up to it but I think every track and field athlete has to compete with heavy legs at one point or another. I got put in the fast heat against a lot of guys that are a little bit out of my reach right now but I stuck with them as long as I could anyway. I went through 400 in 56 again, 600 was a high 1:25 or low 1:26 and by this point I was kind of in no man's land with a few people quite a ways ahead of me and a few people quite a ways behind me. I don't know if I just rigged up or fell asleep or what but either way, I finished very slowly. The final time was 1:57.51. It was just off my PB so I wasn't completely disappointed but it was frustrating setting myself up for a good time and then blowing it in the final 200m. The following Thursday we toned it down a little in terms of speed and stayed in flats for the whole workout for the first time in a while. Workout: 500 - 3x200 - 2x300 - 3x200 Times: 1:15 - 28, 28, 28 - 44, 43 - 28, 27, 27 After this feel good workout I hopped on a plane and was off to British Columbia where I will be staying for most of June with my girlfriend. We haven't done too much exploring yet but I can't get enough of looking at the mountains so that's pretty much all I need for right now. There was a meet I could have entered in yesterday (Saturday) but my coach and I decided that I would probably be too tired after travelling that far and dealing with my first ever significant time zone change. He was right, I was asleep by 10PM on Friday night and woke up at 5AM so as of right now the time change is really messing with me. Instead of racing, I did some race simulation type stuff on Saturday. The workout was simply 500m, 90 seconds rest, 300m. The goal was to run a combined 1:52 or faster and I did it bang on running 1:10 then 42. My next race isn't until June 13 but it'll be nice getting a big training block in and it'll be pretty cool racing in BC I think. That's all for now, until next time everybody. Filthy Fouz, Out.
0 Comments
Alright so we're going to back this up to Saturday, May 9. I was just a couple days removed from my first ever 1500m, took Thursday off because holy does that race ever feel long for me right now and my coach understands that I think, ran about 10km on Friday then dove into a workout on Saturday. The workout was as follows: 300+200+200+300 - 300+200+300 - 300+300 - 300. 2 minutes between reps and 3:30 between sets. This was actually the most strength based workout I had done in a while as I have really been getting hammered with workouts that are faster than 800m race pace lately. I began the workout at just under 30 seconds per 200m and worked my way down to a 41 on the last 300m and left the track feeling good. After another day of mileage on Sunday I was off to work at some elementary school track meets from Monday to Wednesday and earn a little bit of income. I actually miss the days of elementary school track. The kids in the stands were going absolutely nuts from start until finish and you just really don't see that at university level meets. It's also a lot of fun watching kids learn what lactic acid is. The way some of these younger athletes take out races like an 800m or 1500m with complete disregard for their body is just inspiring, and there were a few kids that certainly had better form than me so that was cool to watch. Anyways, I spent my days measuring shotput, trying to direct students to where they needed to go with little success, and getting wicked tan lines... On Tuesday after a full day of work and being on my feet I was off to another workout. It was really cold and windy and I was scheduled to go pretty fast so I was quite nervous for this one especially since I was already chilled from being outside all day. The workout was 250+150 - 150+350 - 400 - 4x150. I actually warmed up quite well and quicker than I thought I would so I was feeling a bit better going into it. I'm the kind of guy that can pretty much tell how the workout is going to go right from the first rep, and on the opening 250m I hit 33 seconds pretty smoothly so I knew I was going to be on track. The hardest part was easily the 350m followed by the 400m but I hit 49 and 57 respectively so I was satisfied and happy with my final hard workout before my first 800m of the season. On Thursday I did a light workout to tune up for my race on Sunday in my home town of Kingston. It was pretty windy once again so it was a bit harder than I wanted it to be but I didn't feel as though it was much to worry about. Here's the link to the workout video if you'd like to know the specifics of it- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qDYWZBRb1ik. My girlfriend and I left Kingston on Friday night, stayed the night in Toronto, then we were off to London Saturday morning for her to compete at the Bob Vigars Classic. She ended up winning the B final and placing 7th overall. We then headed back to Toronto only to head back to London the following day for my race. Not really ideal to be driving around that much but what can ya do right? I woke up Sunday feeling spectacular considering how much I had been in a car lately. That afternoon I saddled up in the ol' Grand Prix with the Ecuadorian stallion Esteban Clavijo, his girlfriend Sarah, our most loyal fan Muad Issa, and my girlfriend Shania, got Delilah (my GPS) up and running, and we were off. It was incredibly humid when we first got to London so I got pretty moist during my warm up, but by the time race time rolled around it was near perfect conditions. Race time: We got out pretty hot which is exactly how I need to race since closing the last 400m in under 60 seconds is incredibly unlikely for me at this current stage of my career. At the break I settled into the middle of the pack going through 200m in 27 seconds and 400m in a low 56. From 400m to 500m I kind of fell asleep and got distracted because I had never split that fast before so that was new and exciting. With 300m to go I started to "kick". I put it in quotations because I always pretty much empty the tank from that point in the race so it sure feels like a kick but it doesn't really look like one. Went through 600m in just under 1:27 and started absolutely thrashing my arms begging the finish line to come to me. I crossed the line and knew it was certainly a PB, and after a long wait for the results I saw it, 1:57.44. Considering my season opener last year was 2:05, saying I was happy with the result would be an understatement. Here's the full race video, I start in lane 3. When it was all said and done it was a great week of training and racing. My next race will be on the 26th so I'm pretty excited to hopefully run another PB. That'll be all for now.
Filthy Fouz, Out I'm going to start this blog off with an introduction to my track life and career from the very beginning, all the way up until now.
Elementary School It's hard to say when exactly I could call myself a track and field athlete, but it was at around age 11 or 12 when I definitely became competitive and cared about winning races. Throughout my last few years of elementary school I was much more physically developed than most other kids my age. By the time I reached grade 8 I was already about 6 feet tall and towering over my friends and competitors. I had early success in various sports and one thing was always clear, I could run. During these later years of elementary school I was a self proclaimed sprint specialist. I ran cross country in the fall simply because there was nothing else to do, but when track season came around I was a sprinter or bust. It was easy, didn't get too tired, and the girls seemed to enjoy watching sprint races much more. This was at a time when the extent of my speed and conditioning training was playing tag at recess and heading to little league football practice. This sent me into high school with the idea that I was destined to be a sprinter. High School When I went into high school I remained a multi-sport athlete playing football and basketball in addition to track and field. This resulted in my track training starting very late in the year in comparison to when I start now through grades 9 to 11 so I was very much relying on natural ability and still clinging onto the fact that I was more physically developed than most of my competitors. I began grade 9 running 100s and 200s and losing.. Badly. There were no easy victories that I had become so accustomed to in elementary school as my competitors were slowly catching up to me in terms of size. I quickly picked up the 300m hurdles and experienced success there and finally, one week before our first qualifying meet my coach talked me into running my first ever 400m. I ran a modest 54.31 but that was good enough for me to decide that I was going to stick with it. I qualified for OFSAA that year in the 400m and 300m hurdles and finished 7th and 8th respectively. I thought the sky was the limit for me as a track athlete. The following year in grade 10 I followed the same routine: football season, basketball season, then start training for track and field. This time I thought of myself as a long sprinter and hurdler, no more 100m fame. That season I saw minimal improvements in all of my races while many others had huge breakthroughs, my physical advantage was no more. I still qualified for OFSAA in the 300m hurdles and finished a modest 7th but the season was frustrating to say the least. Grade 11 was more of the same except this time I was competing against people older than me for the first time in my life. Once again I had minimal improvements in terms of time and I was essentially carried to OFSAA by the rest of my 4x400m team. In grade 12 I knew something had to finally change. I hung up the basketball shoes and started training immediately after football season. I finally experienced some breakthroughs lowering my 400m PB from 53.62 to 52.33 before we were even done with indoor season. I thought I was ready to experience some success at just the right time until a sunny day at the Sydenham High School gravel track. Everyone that wanted to be on the 4x100m team had to do a 100m run off for the 4 spots. About 50-60m into the race my hamstring essentially turned into string cheese and I promptly hobbled over to the grass. I had suffered a grade 2 hamstring tear. A few weeks later I was able to get healthy enough to compete at our first qualifying meet but I hobbled through my individual events and promptly became a relay specialist for the remainder of the season. Our 4x400m team finished 7th at OFSAA and I considered myself very fortunate to even have that much success. I returned for the coveted 5th year or "victory lap" the following year. By the time football season concluded I had decided that I definitely wanted to continue my track career in university. The goal was stay healthy, run fast. I ran personal best times of 51.37 in the 400m and 56.07 in the 400m hurdles and qualified for OFSAA in the 400m hurdles and 4x400m relay. 400m hurdles was a disappointment as I went in ranked 6th and finished 12th. However, our 4x400m team with a season's best at the time of 3:23 came in and claimed the silver medal with a time of 3:19 and that stood as my one and only OFSAA medal in my high school career. After this success I decided that I was definitely a 400m runner and would continue as such in university the following year. University and Present Time I began my university career at the University of Ottawa. I was quickly thrown into a few 600m races which was scary because I was still partially clinging onto my dreams of being a sprinter. I ended up running times that my coaches were satisfied with, 1:24.91 in the 600m. I won't go into great detail about this, Ottawa has a great organization and many successful athletes, but in the end I decided it wasn't working for me so I transferred to York University. I reverted back to my sprinter ways in my first year at York and ran the 300m for the most part posting a personal best time of 37.40. I quickly decided I wasn't happy being a sub-par sprinter so I was finally ready to take the plunge into middle distance training the following fall. I began doing dreaded mileage which started with 20 minute runs that weren't very enjoyable for me and began doing workouts that involved less than 5 minutes between reps. I slowly began to adapt until December rolled around and I developed crippling plantar fasciitis. It got out of control very quickly because I didn't know what it was at first. I made several comeback attempts but eventually my coach and I just decided it would be best to shut down my indoor season and get healthy. Eventually I started doing consistent mileage and started getting ready for outdoor season. At the end of May I was finally ready to open my season with my first ever 800m... 2:05, dead last place. My first thought was that I had made a terrible decision becoming a middle distance runner, but I stuck with it and the rest of my races were as follows: 2:04, 2:00, 1:59, 1:59, and finally my PB of 1:58.41 in early July. I thought I had developed enough to fully commit to the middle distance life and I was ready to dive into a full year of this type of training. I began this indoor season with a complete cycle of actual base training, built up some mileage.. sort of (60-70km per week), and gained some much needed confidence. I ran a PB very early in the season in the 600m with a time of 1:24.71 and even experimented with the 1000m twice posting a best time of 2:34. At season's end I had greatly improved my 600m with a time of 1:23.13, split 1:57.9 in the 4x800m and even competed in my first 4 digit distance. Even though I improved a great deal, I was unable to qualify for the CIS championships so the season left me hungry for more but it did reassure me that I was doing the right training for me. That brings us all the way up to now. Outdoor training is going well and I'm definitely getting stronger and faster. Still hating mileage and it's still quite low compared to many other 800m runners but at 175 pounds and while doing a lot of speed work and racing, 50-60km per week is really all I can handle without getting hurt/beat up. I opened up my season on Wednesday with my first ever 1500m. Nothing fast, 4:14, but it was a good rust buster and I understand a little better now how I should run races that long. My next race will be an 800m in London and the goal is to PB right away. I'm pretty much going to use this blog as a training log for whoever is interested, sharing my thoughts and just telling everyone what I've been up to in my track life. That's all for now. Filthy Fouz, out. |
Archives
August 2016
Categories |