Monday
Three-mile bike commute
Monday afternoon
Zone 1 ST: Chest, Biceps, and Forearm
Oh-oh, new order again. Feel free to skim or skip.
With six st workouts per week, my body is carved up into six zones, like a butcher shop chart:
Zone One: chest, biceps, and forearms, the centerpiece exercise is the bench press.
Zone Two: move up to the shoulders, neck and triceps, the centerpiece exercise is the military press.
Zone Three: move down to the upper back -- lats and traps -- this day I mostly work with cables.
Zone Four: a bit farther down to the middle back, a.k.a. 'the core' -- lats, obliques and whatever else is in that part of the body -- the centerpiece exercises are bent-over rows and landmines, but also hip thrusters, hyperextensions, pikes, woodchoppers, t-bar swings, and a few other things.
Zone Five: down to the lower back and hip/glutes but also some of the leg, the centerpiece exercise is the deadlift, but also power cleans, leg extensions and curls, etc.
Zone Six: finish with the glutes and legs, the centerpiece exercise is the squat, but also good mornings, calf raises, tipping bird, and bunch of plyo stuff and mobility exercises with ankle weights.
So, to give each area time to recover, I've shaped the schedule thusly, with little consideration for how the strength training might fit into running, since the running's done in the morning and the st is at the end of the afternoon:
Su: rest
M: Zone 1
Tu: Zone 3
W: Zone 5
Th: Zone 2
F: Zone 4
Sa: Zone 6
Yesterday it also occurred to me that my mini 'recovery' runs should really be the days I do my hills, intervals, and tempo runs, since 2-4 miles of those kinds of runs usually feels like enough. Then on my meso and macro runs, I can just run at a comfortable aerobic pace and get into that runner's zone. This is against the training orthodoxy of making the easy runs short, following the harder quality runs, but I think this might work for me. So a weekly schedule would look something like this:
Su: Mini run, 2-4 miles - intervals
M: Mezo run 5-7 miles
Tu: Mini run, 2-3 miles - hills
W: Mezo run 5-7 miles
Th: Mini run, 2-3 miles - tempo
F: Mezo or Macro run 5-10 miles
Sa: Mini run, 2-3 miles - recovery run
This week I'm giving this 'system' a go. I did intervals on Sunday, a mezo run yesterday, so if it's Tuesday, this must be Belgium, er, I mean my hills day, so:
Tuesday morning
2.3 mi / 3.7 km
hills
Slept in until 5:45am, didn't feel like running, and really didn't feel like running hills. Still, I got my butt out the door by 6am. I ran over to one of my neighborhood's larger hills, about 1/3 of mile away and ran up it. Eeh. Then I walked down some of it until I had caught my breath and ran down the rest. By the second ascent, my legs were warmed up and I was enjoying it. I was beginning to have my doubts about the runeverydayfirstthinginthemorning approach so that was a relief. Another few ascents and I was getting into it. I did four repeats and then went down the other side of the hill, which is a lot shorter and shallower. I could run a lot faster on that side. I did four of those. Then to finish things off, I ran back down the other side and did one more long ascent.
I think next time I'll do both sides together. It's a nice mix. One long, steep ascent, and one shorter, shallower ascent for a bone fide 'hill sprint'. Both sides together are about a fifth of a mile. Felt good. A couple of miles of this felt like plenty, but I could see doing a few more repeats and getting it up to 3-4 miles. Next time. Since this is only my second week of trying everyday running, I thought it best to stop to make sure I'd be in good shape for tomorrow's mezo run.
Went online and found Merrells site also to say the black ones are out of stock. Decided to try waiting awhile to see if they will become available again in the next month or two.
Thanks for the heads up Lee on the size differences with the Vapor gloves.
I also went for the black ones.
I just looked it up, and they were a half-size too big. Here's a thread where we discuss this a bit:
http://www.thebarefootrunners.org/threads/vivobarefoots-aqua-lites-neo-trails.13058/
Unless you have duck feet like Nick, I think you're going to like the VPs.
Amazon has the black ones for size 10 and up.
Seems after a 1 day break they are fine but 2 is just too much.
That's what I mean about underuse injuries. Two days off usually feels like too much for me too. My legs are stiff and more prone to tightening up on me if I go more than a day without a run. My left shoulder also gets a little gimpy if I take too many days off from st.
Even if my legs end up not being able to take the everyday running I'm experimenting with right now, I think I need at least four runs a week, rather than the three x per week I had always done before.
Was a nice evening for a run as temps were around 80F with a lite breeze. Feet seemed to handle the asphalt with no problems with soreness at all.
