7: 30 a.m. 8 miles recovery run. Nice plod along the river and the canal. Legs felt ok after yesterday's workout, which is good with me.
Missed last night's run due to a fiasco regarding the shopping and eating and bad planning. Never mind. A 6/8 for this evening - depends how tired I am after power-hosing the patio and the yard. I suspect I'll be very tired; I don't like doing work about the house and garden. I love ironing and cooking and moping. Gardening sucks and all stuff related to gardening is pure pain. Suppose the sooner I get started, the sooner I'll be finished...
Second thoughts - why is that women are so pernickety? The yard's fine as it is. I'll go out there and power-hose it so it looks a bit cleaner but who's interested and what extra quality is it adding to my life? It'll rain tomorrow and then it'll just look the same as it does now and her-in-doors will prattle on and say I didn't clean it properly and at some point - before winter kicks in - she'll have me out there again blasting the life out of every poor little pebble and speck of dirt. Women! Don't get me started.
"Yes, sweet-pea. I'm just going out there now."
Laters.
The yard is spick and span (spankers , i.e. brand new - clean). And while I was out there suffering I decided to post a follow on from yesterday's stuff on Canova. This is more of an explanation. Shortly, I'll be putting everything together in a way that is concise...
...The fundamental phase of Canova’s training attacks all the systems. (I'll explain the fundamental phase at another time, but basically it's 12+ weeks of training before you do your 10-12 weeks of special and specific marathon training. The Fundamental stage is more like most runners marathon training and yet for Canova, it merely prepares you for the real training.) Intervals don’t exceed 110% of M pace in general but they take on a variety of interesting forms.
One of the workouts that exceeds this pace is the all out uphill sprints (8x8 sec's with 2 min rec - as done by the Bamster). As well as stimulating cardiac output they have the effect of utilizing 100% of muscle fibres.
The short progression runs (30-45min) in this phase - from marathon pace to 108% of marathon pace - are also designed to utilize new fibres as the pace increases. This is important because even in a steady long run, only 20% (give or take a few percent) of fibres may be utilized. During a marathon, the slower twitch fibres are depleted first. As the second half progresses, more fast twitch fibres are recruited.
Training that regularly recruits these fibres facilitates recruitment during specific training later and therefore will also adapt to using less glycogen at race pace - an essential adaptation for an even or negative split marathon for a runner running to race day potential.
If these fast fibres only burn glycogen and cannot access lipid stores, the runner will slow when these fibres take over the running and burn the stores out around 30k. (Sound familiar?)
(These are an edited version of notes posted on another site - my full notes will make more sense than this snippet. Hopefully the above provokes thought and prepares you for 'The Bam Method' .
More to follow as we amble through these hazy summer days...
6:00 p.m. 6 miles easy. Legs felt tired. Probably from yesterday's workout rather than yard duties. Another good week. | 