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

I could prob out run my buddy with a modicum of effort (1yr). He's older than me. Never run faster than my prior times over short distances and is a much larger man. He's driven himself into hospitalization from training. (Pulmonary edema)

Is what it is. I could challenge someone built like a Winklevi in rowing and never win if they gave half a ****. Ask yourself if you were going to challenge a dude with a frame like G4S (I know a few dudes nearly that size, if not bigger) who don't train seriously to take on a challenge to do a sport their body type is suited for... what do you think would happen?

You can get things out of the shelf over the fridge without a stool. And we need to understand these things and what they entail. It's like asking lolco to do a dunk off,

9/15
AM
W13D1
Z2 Run
75:00 - 8.37 mi/8:57 pace/146 HR

9/16
AM
W13D2
HM + Speed Intervals
10:00 - 1.17 mi/8:31 pace/136 HR
10:00_1 - 1.43 mi/7:05 pace/164 HR/Max 173
1:00_1 - 0.16 mi/6:14 pace/173 HR/Max 176
1:00_2 - 0.16 mi/6:28 pace/175 HR/Max 179
10:00_2 - 1.41 mi/7:07 pace/173 HR/Max 180
1:00_3 - 0.16 mi/6:28 pace/174 HR/Max 176
1:00_4 - 0.16mi/6:19 pace/173 HR/Max 174
10:00_3 - 1.39 mi/7:13 pace/175 HR/Max 180
1:00_5 - 0.15 mi/6:32 pace/162 HR/Max 171
1:00_6 - 0.15 mi/6:53 pace/171 HR/Max 176
11:00 - 1.18 mi/9:18 pace/156 HR

Heart rates are all over the place due to the ~1 mile loop I run in my parents' neighborhood with two pretty significant uphill sections, but the general goal here was three sets of a ten minute threshold/HM interval followed by a short recovery followed by two one minute VO2 max intervals with a minute recovery in between each. I got burned on the third interval in that I had to do the biggest hill twice, but the grade adjusted pace for all was between 7:03 and 7:05, so I'll take it.

Any distance over 600m

Loco -10000
Thremp +6000

In before Thremp wants to bet 10,000,000 usd in crypto held in escrow

This isn't really shocking. You ignore the core of the subject and offer a banal bet.

9/17
AM
W13D3
Z2 Run
60:00 - 6.49 mi/9:15 pace/137 HR

9/18
AM
W13D4
Z2/3 Run
90:00 - 10.13 mi/8:53 pace/148 HR

Mid-60s and 90+ RH this morning, so I took this run as easy as I could; even so, HR still spiked on the hills.

9/19
AM
W13D5
Z1/2 Run
60:00 - 6.40 mi/9:23 pace/134 HR

9/20
AM
W13D6
HM Over/Under
16:00 - 1.89 mi/8:19 pace/138 HR
5:00_1_m - 0.65 mi/7:44 pace/153 HR/162 Max
5:00_1_h - 0.69 mi/7:18 pace/162 HR/173 Max
5:00_2_m - 0.65 mi/7:42 pace/164 HR/173 Max
5:00_2_h - 0.69 mi/7:15 pace/171 HR/178 Max
5:00_3_m - 0.65 mi/7:42 pace/169 HR/175 Max
5:00_3_h - 0.69 mi/7:15 pace/172 HR/180 Max
5:00_4_m - 0.64 mi/7:48 pace/172 HR/180 Max
5:00_4_h - 0.68 mi/7:19 pace/173 HR/177 Max
5:00_5_m - 0.64 mi/7:49 pace/170 HR/175 Max
5:00_5_h - 0.68 mi/7:20 pace/175 HR/179 Max
5:00_6_m - 0.63 mi/7:56 pace/169 HR/175 Max
5:00_6_h - 0.68 mi/7:18 pace/173 HR/178 Max
10:00 - 1.11 mi/9:01 pace/160 HR

My last workout in Pennsylvania; doing this over/under workout definitely sucks when it seems like I get the major uphill on a HM pace section every time, but I'd imagine it will be beneficial long term. I fatigued a bit towards the end, but the GAP for the HM pace work was between 7:07/mi and 7:12/mi for all six legs, so I think I did ok considering this session had over 800 ft of gain overall.

9/22
AM
W14D1
Z1/2 Run
60:00 - 6.59 mi/9:06 pace/133 HR

9/23
AM
W14D2
Threshold + Interval
13:00 - 1.51 mi/8:38 pace/131 HR
10:00_1 - 1.44 mi/6:57 pace/162 HR/170 Max
1:00_1 - 0.16 mi/6:10 pace/164 HR/173 Max
1:00_2 - 0.16 mi/6:16 pace/168 HR/172 Max
10:00_2 - 1.44 mi/6:57 pace/172 HR/179 Max
1:00_3 - 0.16 mi/6:10 pace/170 HR/179 Max
1:00_4 - 0.16 mi/6:13 pace/174 HR/178 Max
10:00_3 - 1.45 mi/6:56 pace/175 HR/180 Max
9:00 - 1.01 mi/8:58 pace/153 HR

Cut off the last two VO2 max reps because nature was calling, but this was solid, even given humidity was 100%. Ended up cutting about a mile off in total due to that, but got in 9 miles, so not terrible.

9/24
AM
W14D3
Z1/2 Run
60:00 - 6.49 mi/9:15 pace/136 HR

9/25
AM
W14D4
Z1/2 Run
60:00 - 6.92 mi/8:40 pace/145 HR

Both k.

Moved up my big session for the week to tomorrow so I can move my interval session to Monday so I'll be a bit fresher for my tune-up race next Saturday; I'll probably run that threshold session in my carbons just to make sure they're ok, and then plan for the tune up to be my last race in that pair. I picked up some Puma DNE3s for Monumental in November.

Wow got the Pumas. Sickening. This guy bringing it.

Oh I thought you got the Fast Pumas.

Zzzzz

Fast Pumas showed up as faster than nike supershoes in a couple of studies. Pretty impressive.

I'm aware! They look quite intriguing but also seem impossible to get.

9/28
AM
W14D7
Z2 Run
10.50 mi - 1:32:34/8:49 pace/136 HR

Ran this with a buddy so kept the pace light until he dropped off with about twenty minutes to go.

9/29
AM
W15D1
Threshold + Speed Intervals
18:00 - 2.16 mi/8:21 pace/133 HR
10:00_1 - 1.43 mi/7:00 pace/164 HR/172 Max
1:00_1 - 0.16 mi/6:10 pace/159 HR/168 Max
1:00_2 - 0.16 mi/6:23 pace/164 HR/170 Max
10:00_2 - 1.45 mi/6:55 pace/170 HR/175 Max
1:00_3 - 0.15 mi/6:32 pace/171 HR/175 Max
1:00_4 - 0.16 mi/6:07 pace/169 HR/175 Max
10:00_3 - 1.44 mi/6:58 pace/174 HR/178 Max
1:00_5 - 0.16 mi/6:21 pace/169 HR/175 Max
1:00_6 - 0.16 mi/6:18 pace/172 HR/176 Max
10:00 - 1.07 mi/9:19 pace/152 HR

Pretty good session, even if I was feeling a bit of residual fatigue in my legs from Friday and Sunday (though I think a 6.5 mile hike Saturday helped get some blood moving). My tune up race is this Sunday, and I'm hoping to run something controlled (in the 7-8 RPE range) and hopefully end up with 1:33-1:34, which would be a small PR.

9/30
AM
W15D2
Z1/2 Run
60:00 - 6.54 mi/9:10 pace/134 HR

A
NG Pullups: x11, x9, x7
Walking Lunges: 35s x7x2, x6

B
OHP: wu, 95 x8x2, x7
Seated Calf: 3x12
Facepulls: 4x12
Pallofs: x10, x9, x8

C
Leg Ext: x12x2
Leg Curl: x12x2

D
Low Incline DB Bench: wu, 65s x7x2, x6
GHR: bw x8, x7x2

E
DB LTEs: 30s x9, x8, x7
Incline Curl: x12, x11x2

10/1
AM
W15D3
Z2 Run
8.60 mi - 1:16:41/8:55 pace/137 HR

Good few days of training; I did the normal 8.6 mile out and back on the running trail with a buddy and didn't really concern myself too much with pace, and it felt pretty good. Per how I feel and what my watch is telling me, I'll feel fresh enough for the race this weekend without really doing much of a real taper.

My Next2%s are at around 110 miles and didn't feel too poppy on Monday, so I think I may retire them from racing and use them for another 50 or so miles of speed work. I'll take the Pumas out tomorrow for 45-60 minutes and do a few pickups in them and see how they feel.

Did a mini-taper towards the end of the week, with 45 minutes steady with a few pickups in the new racing shoes on Thursday and a half an hour shakeout on Friday. Onto the race!

10/4: Fort Ben Half Marathon 2025

Brief Intro[/U]
This is my first half marathon of the season, and intended to be a B race; the hope was to run it at around RPE 8. The race runs through Fort Benjamin Harrison State Park, which is pretty picturesque at this time of year. It's a reasonably hilly course (for Indiana, anyway), with about 400 total feet of gain; the most significant hill is towards the end of mile 11, and has been christened the "Kill the Hill" segment. It's only significant for Indiana - a reasonably steep grade for 320 meters or so - but it's the last truly hard segment of the race.

The Race[/U]
I managed to secure a spot in the front corral, and was one row from the front at the start. I knew that the first quarter mile or so would have a fair number of people streaming by me, but I wanted to stick to my plan of trying to feel out my heart rate and run the first few miles quite controlled. I'd forgotten to turn on autolap, as I've stopped running with it, but just figured I'd manually lap at the mile markers (this ended up working out well). Prior to the "Kill the Hill" segment towards the end of the race, the only significant hill is just before mile 3.

All in all, it was a pretty uneventful race; per the race tracking, I passed about 25 people after the first 2.2 mile checkpoint, but I was in kind of a deserted part of the field and it was fairly usual for me to have only a few people in view in front of me for significant lengths of time. It was definitely hard, but a few hours post-finish I feel essentially fine, so mission accomplished regarding my intended effort, it seems. My two slowest miles were those segments with the significant hills, but other than that, I think I kept things pretty even and kept my heart rate under control. I ended up finishing at 1:33:23, which is exactly two minutes faster than my PR (from last May) and around six minutes faster than I ran this race last year (albeit in the midst of a reasonably severe viral illness). I ended up 59th overall (out of ~1100) and first in my age group (45-49). The top 41 finishers went sub-90, with the winner breaking 1:10.

This seems relatively close to what I'd have needed to run to keep sub-90 in five weeks at least theoretically possible; conditions weren't perfect today (62 F/93% RH), so with a taper and better weather, maybe? Hard to say. Onward.

Great job monte!

Good work Monte. Well done

Nice!!

Thanks breauxs.

10/6
AM
W16D1
Z1 Run
80:00 - 8.61 mi/9:18 pace/126 HR

Ran this with the same buddy as last week who's still trying to get back into shape; the pace ended up being quite slow, so this was straight Z1. Probably not the worst given my effort on Saturday.

10/7
AM
W16D2
Aerobic Speed Intervals
Twenty minute warmup followed by two sets of 40 seconds in Z6 (5:55/mi - 6:25/mi) with 20 seconds in between and five minute recovery in between sets. Kept everything in range but definitely faded a bit at the end - hard to pace with that little recovery. 5.7 miles total in 45 minutes of work, so pretty quick.

I'm at the same conference where I caught a virus that gave me three months of post-viral syndrome; I am now (likely) getting sick again. I may have to reconsider coming next year.

10/8
AM
W16D3
Z2 Run
75:00 - 9.21 mi/8:09 pace/143 HR

10/9
AM
W16D4
Z3/4 Tempo
10:00 - 1.22 mi/8:14 pace/128 HR
6:00_1 - 0.86 mi/6:58 pace/152 HR/161 Max
6:00_2 - 0.88 mi/6:50 pace/160 HR/166 Max
6:00_3 - 0.87 mi/6:52 pace/166 HR/173 Max
6:00_4 - 0.88 mi/6:50 pace/168 HR/172 Max
6:00_5 - 0.88 mi/6:51 pace/167 HR/175 Max
7:00 - 0.84 mi/8:21 pace/150 HR

Paces are coming down quite a bit as the temperature drops (42 this morning in Pittsburgh); it seems like this summer's training, painful as it was, produced some results.

10/11
AM
W16D6
Z2 Run
85:00 - 10.52 mi/8:04 pace/147 HR

10/12
AM
W16D7
Z1 Run
45:00 - 5.04 mi/8:56 pace/127 HR

10/13
AM
W17D1
[U]Fishtail[ Progression/U]
20:00 - 2.50 mi/7:59 pace/139 HR
15:00 - 2.07 mi/7:14 pace/161 HR/170 Max
10:00 - 1.46 mi/6:51 pace/171 HR/178 Max
5:00 - 0.76 mi/6:33 pace/175 HR/179 Max
10:00 - 1.14 mi/8:45 pace/156 HR

Had to do ten hours of driving Friday, so just turned it into my rest day. I'll be in New York next weekend, so I pushed up my interval day to today so I can run my hard session Friday before the flight. Kept everything to the faster part of the pace range, so progress is being made.

1:33 Half not bad, the heart rate data is not great. The easy times the last week are fantastic though, so 1:30 in the cards.

Chicago qualifying is 3:10 for your age. Sub3:10 or Bust.

Given my threshold HR is 175 and I was doing the race essentially untapered, I think it's fine? Regardless, I agree the easy times are relatively heartening, so we'll see how it goes. I'll play it by ear as to whether I'll attempt a quasi-aggressive negative split or just try to latch on to the 90 minute pacer.

Sub-3:10 is the goal for spring, yes. I think it's a pretty reasonable target, assuming I can get something in the vicinity of 90 minutes in November. The plan is to do a mini-10k block (maybe 6-7 weeks) and then do 14ish weeks (or whatever it turns out to be) to build to whatever spring marathon I end up doing.

10/14
AM
W16D6
Z1/Low Z2 Run
60:00 - 6.69 mi/8:58 pace/132 HR

10/15
AM
W17D3
Z2 Run
90:00 - 11.19 mi/8:03 pace/149 HR

Overcooked this one slightly; first four miles were all a bit faster than an 8:00 pace, so I pulled it back to stay in Z2 and averaged about 8:07/mi for the last seven miles. Still encouraging, but I prefer to pace things a bit better.

Friday's run is going to be pretty telling - two 5k blocks at half marathon pace and three 5:00 intervals at 10k pace, so we'll see. I'm planning to run them in my old racing carbons that I've retired to speed day status, so we'll see how it goes.

10/16
AM
W17D4
Z2 Run
75:00 - 8.54 mi/8:47 pace/14?35 HR

10/17
AM
W17D5
HM Prep
15:00 - 1.90 mi/7:54 pace/140 HR
3.11 mi - 21:10.3/6:49 pace/171 HR/183 Max
3.11 mi - 21.28.9/6:55 pace/175 HR/182 Max
5:00 - 0.74 mi/6:43 pace/174 HR/178 Max
5:00 - 0.74 mi/6:44 pace/171 HR/179 Max
2:36 - 0.39 mi/6:44 pace/169 HR/177 Max
10:00 - 1.14 mi/8:45 pace/156 HR

Meh. My HRV has been in the toilet the last three weeks; I'm fairly certain it's allergies, but I've been straddling the line between "actually sick" for quite a while, and I think I pushed too hard here as a result. Cut the last 5:00 interval short because I'd be finishing straight uphill and just didn't have it. About 12.5 miles total with the recoveries (5:00 jog between the 5ks, 1:00 walk between 5:00 intervals). Hopefully I do better next weekend.

10/19
AM
W17D7
Z1/2 Run
60:00 - 6.77 mi/8:52 pace/136 HR

10/20
AM
W18D1
Z1/2 Run
60:00 - 6.81 mi/8:49 pace/134 HR

10/21
AM
W18D2
30' Fishtail
20:00 - 2.51 mi/7:59 pace
15:00 - 2.10 mi/7:10 pace
10:00 - 1.47 mi/6:48 pace
5:00 - 0.76 mi/6:34 pace
10:00 - 1.18 mi/8:28 pace

Ran once along a running path on the East River and once in the hotel while in NYC.

My HRM finally gave out today, as my HR "topped out" at 153 for today's session (not surprising given the amount of use it's gotten and the amount I've sweat into it). RPE felt like last week, so the session was probably fine; roughly 8.7 miles including the recoveries. I bought the Coros arm strap, so we'll see how that works.

10/22
AM
W18D3
Z1/2 Run
7.00 mi - 1:01:19/8:45 pace/132 HR

10/23
AM
W18D4
Z1/2 Run
93:26 - 11.66 mi/8:01 pace/144 HR

Both pretty k.