Running Shorts

2/26-3/04 Monday: 16 miles in 1:51:01 Tuesday: 9 mile fartlek in 56:03 Wednesday: 6 miles easy Thursday: OFF Friday: 6 miles easy + strides Saturday: 11 miles total - 5k race, 1st in 16:06 Sunday: OFF TOTAL :  48 miles in 5 days This week started well enough, I got in the long run I missed on Sunday and then a true fartlek workout on Tuesday. My plan had been to alternate longer easier days with shorter faster days in classic Lydiard fashion, and that's how this week started. I ran slow for my long run, but that's the only gear I had. For the fartlek I just ran hard for 30 seconds to 2 minutes whenever I felt like it. I felt more fatigued as the run went on, so this one was a mistake -- especially the day after the long run. I should have taken an easy day instead. I needed all easy days the rest of the week, especially since I had a low-key race that I was nervous about. I was planning on a longer marathon-effort tempo on Thursday, but I just didn'

Monday:  2 miles -- slow Tuesday: 3 miles -- slow Wednesday: Off Thursday: 8 miles Friday: 12 miles in 1:20:28 Saturday: 7 mile marathon effort tempo in 41:17 Sunday: Off TOTAL : 32 miles in 5 days Well this week was slightly less sucky. I had made up my mind to start off this week running, and I did on Monday and Tuesday...but all I had energy for was 2 and 3 miles, respectively. I was spent after each one. But hey, when you can run in a t-shirt in February, you take advantage of it. By Wednesday I knew I needed to be responsive and take the day off, and on Thursday I felt exponentially better. Not back to normal energy levels, but at least enough to run something of substance. Same deal with Friday. One of the keys to establishing aerobic endurance is to alternate longer, slower days with shorter, faster days (see Lydiard explained here ). That's going to be my general plan going forward, and since I had felt a kind of normalcy back in my running I wanted to p

Monday:  Sick - no run Tuesday:  Sick - no run Wednesday:  Sick - no run Thursday:  Sick - no run Friday: 4 miles in 27:22 - Felt totally depleted Saturday:  Sick - no run Sunday:  Sick - no run TOTAL : 4 miles on 1 day of running Well this week sucked. What started last weekend just got worse all week. I had (still have) a cough I can't shake and I've been just totally drained of energy. It's just the kind of thing that there's no point in trying to train through. So now there's basically two months to race day, and my cram training is already off the rails. That's okay, because I've been re-evaluating my plan and I'll be making adjustments. I'm still working out the nuts and bolts, but here are the general focuses, in order of importance: Aerobic endurance , mostly at lower intensities (up to but generally not beyond Aerobic Threshold, or marathon effort). I'm a very slow twitch runner and I know I respond well to the consist

Monday:  3 w/u; 2 x 6 x diagonals (4 min jog between sets), 1k in 3:02, 2 c/d Tuesday: Easy hour of running Wednesday: Planned off day Thursday: One hour of running with 5 surges by feeling in the second half Friday: 10 min up, 57 min marathon effort tempo, 1 mile c/d Saturday:  Very easy 8 recovery Sunday: Planned long run, but sick in the chest so no run today TOTAL : 48 miles on 5 days Well, for my first week back in a while this was...passable. I was almost really happy with it until I got sick over the weekend, but there's nothing you can do about that. Better to miss a day or two than to have a cold just drag on. Usually a head cold is fine to run through, but a nasty cough is something not to mess with. Monday's workout was exactly what I needed, both mentally and physically. Diagonals are a popular mid-distance workout in Kenya, and it consists of running diagonally from flag to flag across a soccer field, with a jog across the baseline for recovery. The

Welp, it's 10 weeks 'til marathon race day and I haven't run for the past two. As per usual (I feel like I've been saying this a lot) my Achilles was flaring up and small breaks weren't helping it, so I just decided to shut down for a couple weeks and hope that'll calm it down. January started with promise, but ended up being a pretty crappy month of training. So now I'm going to see what I can put together for this final stretch. In a weird sort of way, I'm actually kind of optimistic for the rest of training. Here's why: 1. Over the past two years of fighting my Achilles, I've learned that I can sustain decent training for about 8-12 weeks. Any more than that and things start to break down, but any less and I can't get into a decent rhythm. So 10 weeks to Boston? Perfect. 2. I've also overdone marathon training in the past (even just one too-hard workout or race without proper recovery can leave you crashing at the finish). But wi

There's an old saying that the marathon consists of two halves: the first 20 miles and the last 6.2. In this edition of LET'S TALK TACTICS, I'm going to argue that that's exactly how you should run your next marathon. Bearing in mind that this is a series dedicated to learning from elite competitors, I want to take a look at two breakthrough races illustrating this tactic: First, Galen Rupp became the first American male to win the Chicago marathon since 2002 (and first American- born  male since 1982), coming through in a time of 2:09:20 -- off of a 1:06:10 first half. That's an incredible negative split, especially when you consider that most of that momentum came during the final 10k -- the second half of the second half. Rupp demolished the field by shifting gears and scorching five straight sub-4:40 miles after mile 21: 4:39, 4:35, 4:30, 4:34, and 4:33. That's a textbook application of this tactic. Just a few weeks later, Shalane Flanagan followed

Despite the lack of activity on the blog, I have in fact been running. I did have brief Achilles flare-up in August and into September which derailed my original plans for a fall marathon (and even backup plans for a half marathon). I stayed active, but I had lost enough fitness that it wouldn't come back quickly enough for that season. However, I had a slight epiphany while I was injured: as I was cycling a lot, I saw how popular cyclocross was, and for the first time since college I missed racing cross country. As luck would have it, USATF Club XC was being hosted in December in Lexington, KY -- an easy drive only an hour and a half away and enough time to round into some semblance of racing shape. To sum up training, I did a six-week block of fundamental base-type workouts, which I then blended into about six more weeks of race-specific ones. I was definitely overly cautious with my training, because I didn't want to aggravate any injuries (I'm still managing my

(You can find all this information under the "COACHING SERVICES" tab above, or on the Featured Posts link to the right of the page.) Coach Tommy Kauffmann Do you need some guidance in your training? Are you targeting a specific race for a peak performance? Looking to build the foundation for a successful track or cross country season? Above all, do you want to get faster? Then let me help you! Starting this year (2018) I will be offering coaching services to individual athletes. Sure, you could use a canned plan from a book or some other resource, but if you're really trying to maximize your performance then you need to adopt a more individualized approach. Pre-written training plans are often too general and too rigid to truly create your best race; they lack the individuality that all athletes need and they aren't adaptable to the vicissitudes of daily life. As a coach, I'll adapt training to your specific situation: we'll fine-tune and