Training Log Archive: jfredrickson

I got back to school and ran up to the fitness center about 30 minutes before it closed, so I got to spin the standing bike for 30 minutes. My quad felt absolutely fine, but that was mostly because the biking didn't put any pressure on that specific part of my quad.

I set the bike at level 11 intensity and my legs still felt a bit tired despite taking a day off yesterday, but as I eased into it I pushed the speed and ended up doing the fastest workout I have ever done on the bike. I have never spun the bike for speed, but it would certainly be interesting to see how far I could go in 30 minutes. However, I don't know how the intensity setting plays into it, if it is more like going uphill, or if it works like gears on a bike where you need to be on a higher intensity to get more distance out of your rotations.

Anyway, there probably won't be any time to do a speed workout on the bike like that this spring as I really need to start focusing on my running. I will go for a longer bike ride tomorrow and try running for a bit too. I think that my leg should be ready for a long run on Tuesday and maybe even some speed work on Wednesday.

Event: US Ski-O Champs and Team Ranking Event
 

Took the day off today to rest my bruised right quad. I spent most of the day outdoors walking around, and I think it has really helped to keep my leg active even though it feels really weird to walk on it. The muscle just gives way if I try to put any weight on my leg while it is bent, so walking looks a bit funny. It is much better than when I woke up this morning though. Hopefully I'll be able to get on the bike tomorrow to see how that feels.

Went up to Harriman today to run on the old Blue course from day one of the 2004 HVO A-Meet on Sebago. The Sebago parking lot was closed, so I parked up at Kaunawake Circle and jogged down to the start from there.

Legs felt pretty tired on the hills, but otherwise not too bad.

Ran the first 4 controls of the Blue Course on the Sebago Beach map from the 2004 HVO A-Meet. I was feeling pretty tired from yesterday's long run, and so I was having trouble staying focused and keeping up with the map reading. That definitely slowed me down quite a bit on top of my slow pace, so I was moving doubly slowly.

I still managed to take a nasty dive coming out of the third control and smashed the right side of my right thigh on a rock on the way down. It hurt pretty bad right when I did it, but the adrenaline kicked in so I just kept running. Then I realized how high on adrenaline I was, so I decided to take a peak at my leg to see why my body was feeling so crazy. I was a bit shocked to see a nasty abrasion with some blue swelling already showing around the outside of it. I could start to feel my leg freezing up, so I decided to cut the course short and just run the trail back from that point.

Unfortunately I was a pretty long way out on the map, so it was a 5k trail run back to Kaunawake Circle. My thigh started to stiffen up to the point where it was hard to bend my leg much. My left leg ended up taking most of the work, and it started to get pretty exhausted.

Anyway, after getting the abrasion cleaned up and taking some internal arnica, the bruise doesn't look too bad. My thigh is still pretty tight and it hurts to flex my quad muscle, but I don't think that the bruise is bad enough to put me out for too long. I will definitely be doing some extra biking in the next week to strengthen my quad up again, but hopefully I won't miss more than one day of training. I'll take tomorrow off and see how it feels on the bike on Sunday if I can get back up to campus before the gym closes.

I went for a nice long road run from my house. I was planning on taking it fairly easy after running intervals yesterday, but I was feeling so good that I couldn't help starting out a bit fast. Then I found myself at sub 7-minute-mile pace at the 4 mile mark and was still feeling great. So I decided to try to hold the pace and see how I did over the 12.25 mile course.

I ended up running every mile under 7 minutes except for the 11th mile which had a lot of climb. Overall I am pretty happy to see how strong I felt over such a long course at a decent pace.

I wanted to log this as a level 3 workout since that's what it felt like, but my average HR was only 156 which is barely a level 2. Maybe I need to consider different HR ranges for intensity levels on longer distances.

I took splits at most of the mile markers, so here is the breakdown. They are not all perfectly accurate, but they are at least within 100 meters. The first number is the mile marker, then the total time with the split in parenthesis. The last two numbers are average and max HR for the split.

1.) 6:44 (6:44) - 147 - 154
4.) 26:55 (20:11) - 151 - 166
5.) 33:33 (6:38) - 153 - 162
6.) 40:10 (6:36) - 158 - 163
7.) 47:02 (6:52) - 159 - 168
8.) 53:59 (6:57) - 163 - 168
9.) 60:29 (6:29) - 160 - 166
10.) 66:49 (6:20) - 160 - 166
11.) 74:38 (7:48) - 158 - 165
12.) 81:31 (6:53) - 153 - 166
12.25.) 83:25 (1:54) - 159 - 162

Went to bed early last night thinking I would just wake up early, but I ended up sleeping 14 hours. I guess I needed it, although I probably won't be able to sleep tonight.

Today was my first day back in Chestnut Ridge for Spring Break. I ran a windy loop over to Spring Valley High School to run intervals on the track there. Spring seems to be on its way as this was the first day over 40 degrees in a long time. It certainly felt nice.

Did some stretching on the track before starting the intervals. My groin continues to be a bit tight, but it doesn't seem to bother me when I am running. There is only a certain motion where I put my weight on the inside of my leg (such as jumping up onto my bunkbed with one knee and then pulling the rest of my body up) that seems to bother it, so I am not too worried about it. Whenever I start stretching and realize how tight it feels I always get a bit worried, but since it never bothers me when I am running I guess I'll just let it work itself out...

I ran 6 800m intervals on the track at Spring Valley HS. I aimed for the odd ones to be just above 2:40 and the even ones to be just below it, and I think I was pretty successful. It felt a little slow at first, but the last couple hurt pretty bad. I decided on 2:30 for rest, which may have been a little long. I think 2 minutes would have been better. Anyway, here are my splits with average and max HR.

1.) 2:45 - 149 - 166
r.) 2:30 - 133 - 166
2.) 2:35 - 160 - 172
r.) 2:30 - 141 - 173
3.) 2:42 - 160 - 173
r.) 2:30 - 139 - 173
4.) 2:36 - 162 - 174
r.) 2:33 - 141 - 173
5.) 2:45 - 158 - 171
r.) 2:30 - 140 - 172
6.) 2:38 - 161 - 173

I ran a slight windy route home from the track. Legs felt a little tired, but not too bad. I should be ready for an extra long day in Harriman tomorrow.

Spun one of those sitting bikes (the ones where your feet are out in front of you) for 5 minutes while waiting for a treadmill to open up.

Long run on the treadmill. I finally got smart and restarted the treadmill at 30 minutes so that if a line built up at any time I wouldn't get kicked off. This allowed me to avoid a couple buildups while I was running, and even when I approached the end of my second 30 minute session, there was no line so I continued for another 10 minutes.

My legs felt really good.

Spun the nice standing bike for 40 minutes while reading Turing's original article "Computing Machinery and Intelligence". It wasn't quite as interesting as I had hoped it would be since most of his argument was focused on machines of the '50s, but he definitely created some solid argument for what is theoretically possible for machines in the future. It's interesting that he predicted that machines should have been able to pass his now famous "Turing Test" by the end of last century, but it still seems a ways off. There is definitely tons of research being done in AI, but I am not sure how much of it is really on the track to making machines literally intelligent.

Anyway, it kept me busy and my legs felt really good.

Ran hill intervals on the treadmill for 32 minutes before getting kicked off. The gym is only open for 3 hours a day during the break and everybody seemed to be there even though the campus appears deserted. Maybe if I go right at the beginning I can get more time on the treadmill.

Spun the standing bike for a half-hour.

Managed to squeeze in 20 more minutes of easy running on the treadmill before the gym closed. I ran at 7.5 mph on a 3.0 incline. My legs felt a little heavy after the biking, but otherwise pretty good.