Aerobic Base Building
Phase 1, Week 1
As I am going to recount every day, I want to keep the word limit per day to less than 50. Because I want a writing challenge. So here we go.
Some basic terminology which might help. I usually do a mix of:
1. Recovery runs (< 70% of max heart rate). When I say <70%, I rarely come close to that 70% on recovery runs. I try to dip below 60 if I can.
2. General Aerobic runs(70–81% of max heart rate).
3. Endurance Runs(75–85% of max heart rate).
4. Tempo runs(85–90% of max heart rate).
5. Vo2 Max efforts(90–100% of max heart rate).
Some rules of training I live by:
1. No recovery run is too slow. Run as slow as your body feels like.
People on Strava can go to hell. I am often overtaken by hobby joggers on the street.
2. When the workout says 5k pace, the reps should be at 5k pace. Same for 10k pace. Same for tempo runs. My 5k pace is not 2:50/km. Yes, 1k reps in 2:50 will look great on Strava but I don’t gain anything from them.
3. Always color coordinate your clothes. No benefit in training, you just look good. Emily in Paris in not the only show with good fashion, you too can be a good show people who see you run.
4. Don’t take any of this or yourself seriously. You’re there to have fun.
I see people jump stop-lights because they are in the middle of their rep. Risks are for race day, not for live traffic.
5. Have a short memory. Good workout yesterday? Forget about it today and run well today. Bad race last week? Who care? Run well today.
6. There is no greater joy than doing a workout, being fully in control, knowing you could’ve given more.
7. Kenenisa Bekele does strides after his long run and you should do it too because this:
8. Wash your heart rate monitor after 7 runs, because nobody wants to smell that.
9. (this specifically applies to me): Cut your nails and scrub your feet for blisters. Your sock budget and sock turnover is too high.
10. Did I mention the short memory one?
Week of 02/01/2023 to 08/01/2023
Monday(02/01/2023): Woke up and saw this incredible sunrise.
Ran 5ish miles, aerobic. Except while on the way back, I was running late and so just maintained the pace on the uphill. Then went for a nice hike in Gruyère. 6ish miles there. Legs are a bit tired, so foam rolled in the evening.
Tuesday (03/01/2023):
Ran 10ish miles today. Been a while since I ran 10 miles on a weekday. With the taper plus off season, I was barely running 40 miles per week total for the last 2 months. Aerobic effort, for the same HR last week I was 7 seconds/km slower. So, sleep and rest are helping and I would like to believe the low Zone 1 runs I did for the off-season helped.
Did strength + core in the evening.
Wednesday(04/01/2023):
10k at aerobic effort today. Which is nice because I was finished with my run by 0745 and could arrive to work before 0900. The run was good, albeit starting and ending in the dark (January ftw). Maybe a tad low on cadence (178 as opposed to usually 180+).
What is tricky is keeping the effort aerobic on the uphill. I give myself a 8 bpm leeway for uphills and it often leaves me feeling kind of slow. As I live in the center of the city, my runs usually starting with around 2k down and they finish with 2k up. It’s almost a pace drop-off of 45 secs/1 min per kilometer. Which I wouldn’t mind, except I am usually trying to rush back home to get to work. Eventually, I will become Kilian and will not need to worry about work. (because I will be retired by the time I am Kilian).
Core in the evening + some foam roll.
Thursday(05/01/2023):
12ish miles at Endurance pace aka the fun zone. The zone where the legs move smooth, the heart is purring, the cadence looks good but you are still coherent. (as opposed to running Vo2 max effort, where your form is nearly perfect but your thoughts are mostly about finishing this rep). Found a flatter way to go back up, 6% instead of 12%.
Foam roll in the evening.
Friday(06/01/2023):
For me, a measure of a recovery run is how slow I can run. Slower the better. And today, I was impressively slow. Not Kenyan impressive but still. My relative effort on Strava was 12. I was at 65% of my max heart rate because I still climbed nearly 150 meters. Nice and slow. Did some mobility post run, felt good.
Core in the evening.
Saturday(07/01/2023):
The 1st tempo run of the season. And I got to see the sun after a whole week. But even better than that was that I had Jake doing the session with me.
I had a total of 9 miles(14.5 kilometers). So, we did a 2 mile warm-up jog, 4*20" strides w/40" rest, 1 kilometer build and then 25 minutes at Threshold (for me, Jake is FAR better than me and he did the session in non-Carbon shoes). The workout was just beautiful, we hovered just around the target pace and then towards the end Jake just effortlessly moved to the front. It was beautiful to watch, plus it taught me a lesson to run in full control. Great company always begets great sessions. There’s so much to learn but I am very satisfied from today’s effort.
Sunday(08/01/2023):
For whom the bells toll. Ran into Morges, muddied from the trail/road full of puddles from the rain, halfway done while listening to the bells toll at the Church at Morges. If it wasn’t for Jake and Alistair today, it would’ve been quite gruesome. I mean, it was still gruesome. My longest run in almost 2 months. (unlike the 2020 Arunaabh, this Arunaabh takes rest seriously). Really happy to just having got through it. Would’ve been great to finish at 14 miles, but my pants were way too muddy and shoes too wet to wait for a bus, so just ran back up home. Extra elevation, porquoi pas?
Summary for the week: Pretty good, happy to see the fitness hasn’t disappeared and will be great to build on. Lungs are better after COVID though I needed almost 2 hours to get a decent deep breath after the tempo run. But like Alan Watts said: “Man only suffers when he takes things seriously which God made for fun”. Happy with the work that was done this week.
PS: Sorry, some days weren’t limited to 50 words. Wait for the latter part of the build, there will not even be 5 words. Usually “That sucks, I hate running.” or “I need food.”
