Monte's Log, Featuring a Debate About Dotard Genetic Potential with an Ant

Bro. Are you going to make a comeback?

8/6
AM
W7D3
Z1/2 Recovery
5.0 mi - 46:40/9:20 pace/135 HR

Unbelievably disgusting weather; it was a miracle I lasted this long.

8/7
AM
W7D4
Z4/5 1 km Intervals
10:00 - 1.15 mi/8:42 pace/128 HR
1 km_1 - 4:30.4/7:15 pace/155 HR/Max HR 163
1 km_2 - 4:22.7/7:03 pace/159 HR/Max HR 169
1 km_3 - 4:22.2/7:02 pace/163 HR/Max HR 174
1 km_4 - 4:19.4/6:57 pace/166 HR/Max HR 176
1 km_5 - 4:17.4/6:54 pace/169 HR/Max HR 177
1 km_6 - 4:22.6/7:03 pace/170 HR/Max HR 178
1 km_7 - 4:20.4/6:59 pace/171 HR/Max HR 179
1 km_8 - 4:22.6/7:03 pace/173 HR/Max HR 179
10:00 - 1.10 mi/9:04 pace/160 HR

I was mentally planning to dial the pace way back on these given how much the last two days sucked, but the weather cooperated a bit (about 8 degrees cooler - 72 F) when I went out so I played it by ear. My legs didn't feel great, but my heart rate during the warmup and first rep looked good, so I ramped it up a bit. Ended up averaging a 7:02/mi pace today vs 7:07/mi last week, so a nice improvement. With that said, most of the improvement was from pushing a bit more to get my heart rate into the proper zone in the later intervals (i.e. above my threshold heart rate into Z5), so it's probably more learning how to properly pace something like this than added fitness. I'll still take it.

8/8
AM
W7D5
Z2 Run
60:00 - 6.47 mi/9:16 pace/136 HR

8/9
AM
W7D6
Z2 Run
10.00 mi - 1:30:55/9:05 pace/144 HR

The weather got super humid again the last few days, so I just got what I could in. I ended up doing 43 miles this week, which is less than I'd have hoped, but given the conditions I'll take it. I also got 12 very slow miles in biking around; I'm heading back home today for 5 weeks, which will be pretty great.

8/11
AM
W8D1
Z2 Run
75:00 - 8.39 mi/8:56 pace/140 HR

Planned on lifting in the afternoon, but I had to work from home and went to the gym at 5 - it was so crowded I just walked out. The work gym is starting to get more appealing.

8/12
AM
W8D2
Z1/2 Run
60:00 - 6.33 mi/9:29 pace/130 HR

8/13
AM
W8D3
5x6' Z3/4 Tempo
12:00 - 1.37 mi/8:45 pace/123 HR
6:00_1 - 0.80 mi/7:28 pace/151 HR/Max HR 159
6:00_2 - 0.80 mi/7:29 pace/159 HR/Max HR 165
6:00_3 - 0.81 mi/7:26 pace/165 HR/Max HR 170
6:00_4 - 0.81 mi/7:25 pace/166 HR/Max HR 171
6:00_5 - 0.81 mi/7:27 pace/171 HR/Max HR 175
8:00 - 0.90 mi/8:54 pace/158 HR

I kept this pretty controlled and was able to jog all of the 3:00 recoveries between intervals; I probably did this right at the intended pace/effort, which is unusual for me. Exactly 8 miles over 65 minutes in total.

8/14
AM
W8D4
Z2 Run
75:00 - 8.14 mi/9:13 pace/136 HR

PM
A
Single Leg Press: x8x3
Seated Calf: 3x12

B
Incline Bench: wu, 125 x6x3
Lat Pulldown: 3x12
Facepulls: 4x12

C
Goblet Cossack Squats: 3x6

D
Seated DB OHP: 40s x8x3
DB Incline Row: 55s x8x3

E
Step Ups: +15 x6x3
Paused Dips: bw x5x3

F
Bayesian Curls: 3x8
Cable Lateral Raise: 3x10

8/15
AM
W8D5
Z2 Run
60:00 - 6.56 mi/9:09 pace/137 HR

It's cooled off a bit over the last few days; right about 70 with lower humidity. Also nice to get a lift in yesterday afternoon; hopefully I can keep the habit.

8/16
AM
W8D6
Z2 Run
75:00 - 8.46 mi/8:52 pace/145 HR

It was getting up to 80 degrees towards the end of the run, so I cut it a bit short given this is a recovery week. 46 miles this week, so a fairly decent week regardless.

8/18
AM
W9D1
Z2 Run
75:00 - 8.60 mi/8:43 pace/140 HR

This was my best easy run in quite a while, even though it wasn't that much cooler - coming off a quasi-recovery week must have helped.

The next few days should be even better, with mid-60s in the AM, so hopefully more good training.

PM
A
NG Pullups: +15 x5x3
RFESS: +40 x6x3

B
Bench: wu, 145 x8, x7, x6
Facepulls: 4x12
Leg Press Calf: x12x3

C
RDLs: 3x6

D
Incline Bench: 50s x8x3
DB Pullovers: 55 x8x3

F
Goblet Cossack Squat: 3x6

E
Overhead Rope Tri Ext: x14, x12, x9
DB Hammer Curl: 20s x10x3

All fine; I did another half hour of mobility work afterwards to try to help get my hips unstuck, as I've gotten a bit limited there over the last few years. Hopefully this helps remediate the GCT issue I've been having while running, too.

8/19
AM
W9D2
Short Fartleks
Twenty minute warmup, then ten sets of one minute at 6:30/mi pace with the minute recovery followed by ten sets of 30 seconds at 6:15/mi pace followed by 30 seconds recovery. Ideally I'd be jogging the recoveries, but I ended up walking about half of them because it was still really humid. About 8 miles in 65 minutes in total.

8/20
AM
W9D3
Z2 Run
60:00 - 6.45 mi/9:18 pace/139 HR

Supposed to be more of a recovery pace, but it was too hot and my legs were dead.

8/21
AM
W6D1
Z2/3 Run
10.00 - 1:30:23 /9:02 pace/146 HR

Ticked up into low Z3 for the last fifteen minutes; the temperature is getting better, but the humidity still stinks.

PM
A
NG Pullups: x9, x7, x6
Walking Lunges: 30s x8x3

B
OHP: wu, 95 x6x3
Pallofs: x8x3
Seated Calf: 3x12
Facepulls: 4x12

C
Leg Ext: x12x2
Leg Curl: x12x2

D
Low Incline DB Bench: wu, 60s x8x3
GHR: bw x6x3

E
DB LTEs: 25s x12, x11, x9
Incline Curl: 3x10

Added twenty five minutes of run specific mobility and loaded mobility at the end. Pretty k day.

8/22
AM
W9D5
Z1/2 Run
60:00 - 6.38 mi/9:24 pace/136 HR

8/23
AM
W9D6
HM Over/Under
Programmed as a 15-20 minute warmup followed by six rounds of five minutes at "marathon" pace followed by five minutes of "half marathon" pace; I made it through four rounds at what last spring would have been a relatively conservative pace (7:40/mi and 7:20/mi, respectively) before I called it, as the RPE was too high. I ended up doing about 9.5 miles in 75 minutes, so a decent amount of work overall.

The intensity on this program has been pretty low the last eight weeks of base building, and in combination with the heat, I haven't had much threshold work at or near where my threshold should be/used to be. I've been trying to concentrate on keeping my easy runs quite easy, but I've done better in the past when I've pushed the Z2 runs a bit harder, so I think I may do that on a second easy run this week and see how it goes. I'm still sub-50 miles with a reasonable intensity split (77% Z1/Z2), so hopefully the times will come down as the temperature does.

The weather's cooling off a bit, so hopefully I can push things a bit harder. Almost 49 miles this week; I should end up with over 200 miles this month pretty comfortably.

No, no, no.

During the summer it's not intervals at marathon pace/half marathon pace. It's intervals at mphr and hmhr.

And anything that basically hits 170+ hr is threshold work for you. Threshold work is super overrated.

Also intervals less than 5min are going to have heart rate lag. So something like 6x5min mphr is going to look like 160 hr, 163 hr, 164 hr, 164 hr, 164 hr. And they will be positive split intervals, the last one slower do to rising skin temperature in heat.

You are doing fine, my guess is slightly too hard. You will see the gains on the first cool day.

I am doing the houston half marathon in January just in case you want to race. The odds would be something crazy like

Loco -500
Montecore +400

I got more talent and experience.

I think you're probably right; I should have paid a bit more attention to HR zones over pace, but it's hard given I'm raring to go after an even more boring base building block than normal due to the heat. It's looking to cool down even more this week (morning temps in the 50s) so I guess we'll see.

The ant-sized guy with years more running experience that has already run sub-3 and has two more months to train is a favorite over someone that outweighs him by 40 pounds? What a revelation! With that said, I'm not opposed to some friendly action, so as you like.

What are the races you have coming up? I have 5k turkey trot in Houston in Nov, January is the houston half, and maybe a 50k trail in 2026.

For fulls I need to knock out london, tokyo, and sydney. It looks like Sidney Sep2026 high high probability.

You should do lottery for Chicago and knock that out Oct 2026. That's the major marathon near you, stop doing these random Joe Blow marathons.

I think chicago tightened up on qualifying, maybe need 3:10 now.

This definitely needs to happen.

This is an impressive amount of running that you seem to be doing. Does your programming call for much more than 50 miles/wk or is that about where it caps out.

My brother is flying in to run Sydney this weekend. Different course to the one I ran but a lot more popular - 35k runners I think?

8/26
AM
W10D2
Short Fartleks
20:00 - 2.31 mi/8:39 pace/134 HR
10x1:00 @6:10-7:10/mi + 1:00 recovery
10x0:30 @6:10-7:10/mi + 0:30 recovery
15:00 - 1.63 mi/9:12 pace/153 HR

Another great weather day, so I was able to do this as programmed - eased into the first two reps at 6:50/mi and 6:40/mi, then kept the last eight between 6:15/mi and 6:35/mi. I didn't pace the 0:30 reps as well; I did the first four between 6:06/mi and 6:12/mi, after which I boarded the struggle bus and averaged around 6:25/mi (including a 7:00/mi while running a rep straight uphill). Still, given I ran slower intervals last week and had to walk more than half of the recoveries, I was pretty happy with how this one went. Hard to overstate how important the weather is, though my belief was waning.

The low 50s is about where it caps out, yeah. I'm at 175 miles so far this month, so I should comfortably clear 200 miles.

I've gotten to 55 or so mile weeks in the past, but for marathon training, so the intensity for this one is going to be a bit higher. We'll see if my summer base build did the trick, but I feel pretty good so far.

8/27
AM
W10D3
Z2 Run
60:00 - 6.45 mi/9:18 pace/136 HR

8/28
AM
W10D4
Z2 Run
90:00 - 10.19 mi/8:50 pace/143 HR

PM
A
NG Pullups: +15 x7, x6, x5
RFESS: +40 x8, x7, x6

B
Bench: wu, 145 x8, x7, x6
Facepulls: 4x12
Leg Press Calf: x12x3

C
RDLs: 3x8

D
Incline Bench: 50s x10, x9, x8
DB Pullovers: 55 x10, x9, x8

E
Overhead Rope Tri Ext: x12 x10, x8
DB Hammer Curl: 20s x11x2, x10

Chugging along, albeit much more pleasantly now that it's not insanely hot. Did another 25 minutes of mobility after lifting; my hip is definitely feeling better.

8/29
AM
W10D5
Z1/2 Run
60:00 - 6.34 mi/9:28 pace/129 HR

8/30
AM
W10D6
HM Over/Under
20:00 - 2.41 mi/8:19 pace/135 HR
5:00_1_m - 0.65 mi/7:39 pace/150 HR/154 Max
5:00_1_h - 0.68 mi/7:22 pace/162 HR/167 Max
5:00_2_m - 0.66 mi/7:37 pace/162 HR/168 Max
5:00_2_h - 0.68 mi/7:19 pace/166 HR/170 Max
5:00_3_m - 0.66 mi/7:34 pace/166 HR/170Max
5:00_3_h - 0.69 mi/7:14 pace/173 HR/180 Max
5:00_4_m - 0.66 mi/7:35 pace/169 HR/172 Max
5:00_4_h - 0.69 mi/7:14 pace/172 HR/176 Max
5:00_5_m - 0.66 mi/7:35 pace/170 HR/173 Max
5:00_5_h - 0.70 mi/7:08 pace/174 HR/177 Max
5:00_6_m - 0.66 mi/7:33 pace/173 HR/176 Max
5:00_6_h - 0.70 mi/7:08 pace/174 HR/178 Max
10:00 - 1.13 mi/8:51 pace/160 HR

Very happy with this; much better weather obviously, but I kept the marathon pace work consistent while negative splitting the faster stuff towards the top end of the target pace range (7:05 -7:30/mi). I also only went above my threshold HR (175 bpm) for a shade over five minutes, with a decent amount of that being a pretty big spike going up a steep hill on my third rep. All in all, a much better session than last week. 209 miles for August.

9/1
AM
W11D1
Z2 Run
9.00 mi - 1:17:44/8:38 pace/141 HR

Pushed the workout until Tuesday because of the holiday; the run was quite enjoyable though.

9/2
AM
W11D2
Short Fartleks
Averaged 6:26/mi for the ten 1:00 reps and 6:17/mi for the ten 0:30 reps and totaled just about 8 miles in 65 minutes, so job done.

PM
A
NG Pullups: x10, x8, x7
Walking Lunges: 35s x6x3

B
OHP: wu, 95 x7x3
Seated Calf: 3x12
Facepulls: 4x12

C
Leg Ext: x12x2
Leg Curl: x12x2
Pallofs: x10, x8x2

D
Low Incline DB Bench: wu, 65s x6x3
GHR: bw x7x2 x6

E
DB LTEs: 25s x14, x12, x10
Incline Curl: 2x11, x10

Solid workout, if still light-ish weight.

9/3
AM
W11D3
Z2/3 Run
60:00 - 6.37 mi/9:25 pace/139 HR

My legs were definitely feeling it this morning; kept it pretty slow, as the highish heart rate showed some fatigue - not surprising since I stayed up late (for me) to finish up a fantasy draft.

9/3
AM
W11D3
Z1/2 Run
60:00 - 6.37 mi/9:25 pace/139 HR

My legs were still fried from the day before, so just kind of shuffled through this.

9/4
AM
W11D4
Z2 Run
90:00 - 10.31 mi/8:44 pace/142 HR

PM
A
Single Leg Press: x6x3
Seated Calf: 3x12

B
Incline Bench: wu, 135 x6x3
Lat Pulldown: 3x12
Facepulls: 4x12

D
Step Ups: +15 x8x3

D
Seated DB OHP: 40s x10x3
Pronated Machine Row: 3x12

E
Paused Dips: bw x7, 6x2
Bayesian Curls: 2x9, x8
Cable Lateral Raise: 2x11, x10

Plus 15 minutes of mobility work afterwards; still keeping session RPE around 6-7 (at least on the revised old man no barbell lifting scale my RPEs are now normalized upon).

9/5
AM
W11D5
Z1/2 Run
60:00 - 6.55 mi/9:09 pace/135 HR

I have a big session tomorrow, then a recovery week. I'm ready for it.

9/6
AM
W11D6
Fishtail Progressive
20:00 - 2.41 mi/8:17 pace/133 HR
30:00_MP - 4.02 mi/7:28 pace/163 HR/Max HR 177
20:00_HM - 2.80 mi/7:08 pace/174 HR/Max HR 179
5:00_10k - 0.73 mi/6:50 pace/177 HR/Max HR 181
10:00 - 1.12 mi/8:54 pace/161 HR

I had this one circled on the calendar for a few weeks; I think this went about as well as I could have hoped, with the caveat that the RPE may have been very slightly too high on the last two intervals. The marathon pace session felt very controlled (outside of my heart rate spiking on a hill in the last two minutes), and I did this faster than the pace recommendation (7:32-8:10/mi). As I said, the HM section felt a bit harder than I would have hoped and the HR reflected that; the 10K was more of a mental barrier than anything else, but was aided by a decent downhill portion about halfway through. With that said, I was at the top end of the programmed paces for both (7:09-7:45/mi and 6:50-7:25/mi respectively), so not really a surprise it felt hard.

Overall, though, I'll take it; with the two minute jogging recoveries in between intervals, this was 11.75 miles in 91 minutes, so a pretty good session.

Had to go out and deal with an unexpected severe health issue with my dad; still ongoing, so I'm running mile loops in the hills of Pennsylvania for the foreseeable future. About 100 feet of total gain per loop, so good training.

Luckily for me this is a recovery week, so I'm not wiping myself out with workouts before parental duties.

9/8
AM
W12D1
Z2 Run
60:00 - 6.77 mi/8:52 pace/140 HR

9/9
AM
W12D2
5x6' Tempo Run
6:00_1 - 0.80 mi/7:28 pace/152 HR/Max 162
6:00_2 - 0.82 mi/7:18 pace/157 HR/Max 169
6:00_3 - 0.83 mi/7:15 pace/163 HR/Max 176
6:00_4 - 0.83 mi/7:12 pace/169 HR/Max 177
6:00_5 - 0.83 mi/7:14 pace/172 HR/Max 177

Ten minute warmup and cooldown; three minutes between reps, so about 7.75 miles in 62 minutes of work. My HR spiked a bit on the hills, but stayed pretty controlled otherwise.

9/10
AM
W12D3
Z2 Run
75:00 - 8.61 mi/8:43 pace/142 HR

Should be easy running the rest of the week, so relatively light lifting outside of the hills.

9/11
AM
W12D4
Z2 Run
75:00 - 8.74 mi/8:35 pace/146 HR

9/12
AM
W12D5
Z1/2 Run
60:00 - 6.43 mi/9:20 pace/134 HR

9/13
AM
W12D6
Z2 Run
90:00 - 10.29 mi/8:44 pace/147 HR

After four days running here, I already have logged more ascent than in any month in the last year; it looks like I'll be getting a bit more hill work in, because I'll probably be here another week or so.