Indy Runners Partnership

Introducing Structured Speed Sessions!

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(From the www.indyrunners.org)

Through the years, people have asked us about organizing club speedwork sessions. Indy Runners has arranged for long-time local Coach Matt Ebersole of Personal Best Training to organize a weekly quality running session, and you are invited. The focus will be on challenging you, training smarter, getting faster, and having more fun. If any or all of these are appealing, then these sessions will be for you. 

Each workout is structured with a specific training purpose in mind and will be explained thoroughly and given at levels for the most competitive and accomplished runners to those just beginning to explore higher quality training. ALL SPEEDS ARE WELCOME. The workouts will include stamina building steady state runs, long intervals, and economy and speed building shorter anaerobic intervals, as well as mixes of these training types. We will meet where E. 67th St. meets the Monon Trail (near the Indianapolis Art Center), we have access to the trail, a track, a hill circuit, and a great road loop that are used for appropriate workouts. 

The first time out may be a little intimidating, but after doing this for more than 20 years, Matt knows that if you give it a few weeks you will enjoy it in a way only a runner could enjoy something so challenging. He has people who are very fast and others not so fast (yet!), but if you are concerned about not having a training partner at your speed, then bringing a friend is a great way to make sure. Plan to arrive early the first week to introduce yourself and ask questions.  

These training sessions will occur on Tuesdays beginning July 2nd. (You are under no obligation to be there every week, so if you can't be there the first week or two, don't worry about it!) We will meet at 5:40pm and start the warm-up by 5:45pm. This 9 week session will run on Tuesdays from July 2, 2013 through August 26, 2013. The cost will be $50 for the 9 week session. This offer is for Indy Runners members only. (Not a member? Join now!) However, the first 25 club members can sign up for the discounted price of only $30. That's only $3.33 per weekly session!

There is no charge for an initial “trial” visit.

For more information about Personal Best Training, see personalbesttraining.com. If you have any questions, you may contact Coach Ebersole atpbtau@hotmail.com.

Click here to sign-up. The discount code ($20 off for the first 25 club members to sign-up) is indyspeed25.

Note: These speed sessions are in addition to the regular Tuesday evening 6:00pm club runs which will continue to meet at Hinkle Fieldhouse. We look forward to seeing you at either run.

Some People do More in a Half Day...

Part of what attracts us to distance running is accomplishing something that even after we do it still amazes us.  The problem sets in when you have been at this for a few years and it takes more and more to get us to shake our heads in that same amazement.  That's how you get what we had this past Saturday at Hawthorne Park in Terre Haute, IN.  

The annual Hawthorne Half Day is a very long day compressed into 12 hours.  The deal is each person runs a 5K trail loop until the rest of the team has all done their legs and then you get to go again.  The winning team comprised of 3 Personal Best runners and their friends repeated as champions with a total of 118.2 miles in 12 hours.  Let me do the math, that is 6:05/M for a 12 hour relay.  To run that fast for that long is crazy.  5/6th of the winning team is pictured above from left Scott Fihma, Sean Clark, (we will get back to Jesse holding the big eagle), Brian Kremer, Andrew Fritz, and Whitney Lazzara (Ben Chastain did not make the photo op).

Now if that is not enough and you might feel cheated having to sit out while others get to play you can do the entire 12 hours solo.  A mostly rational human being, albeit a talented and speedy one, Jesse Davis inspired by our friend Scott Spitz's cancer fight decided to go this route.  Until a few weeks ago Jesse never ran longer than 2 and half hours.  Fresh off of a two week wedding break he worked in gentle 3 and 3 and half hour training runs the last few weekends.  Should make 12 hours a breeze, right?

Limits are rarely met face to face.  Jesse saw his on Saturday.  He saw them, stared them down, and spit in their face.  When someone runs as fast as Jesse it is easy to dismiss it as talent.  What I witnessed on Saturday was not only talent of legs and lungs but the talent or ability or curse or whatever we want to name it, to keep fighting beyond the point of reason.  I saw him transformed by will (and a little bit of pineapple) from a man close to the brink of curling up on the trail and sleeping for days to 7:00/M pace when told his lead had shrunk to less than a few minutes after 11 hours of running.  The legend may vary but he ran his last half mile in about 3:00 to hold off a very, very tough competitor to win.  The final result was 12 hours, 78.4 miles, 9:11 per mile average, $3,000 raised for Scott, and the amazement of all who witnessed it.  Amazed most of all, because he lived it and felt it, was probably Jesse Davis.

Heat & Humidity Finally Show

Tuesday night was our first post Mini, hot-humid workout of consequence.  With some adaptation the conditions were not too bad but with the very slow developing spring/summer weather it had quite an effect.  Because I received lots of questions after this workout ranging from what to do about HR drift in the heat to is it normal to feel so bad for the first runs in these conditions I thought it would make a good blog topic.  Because I got good HR and pace information from my monitor I have listed my splits with average HR and a link to all the details you could ever want to see.

My splits (average heart rate) 5 mile steady state run at 75-85%

6:45 (144), 6:42 (156), 6:41 (159), 6:29 (163), 6:26 (168) 33:03

Course note: This is an out and back course slightly uphill out and downhill back.

Polar Personal Trainer details link

The prescribed workout effort of 75-85% should be comfortably hard.  It should work into high end aerobic effort but never venture into the land of racing.  

We know that with hot & humid conditions and the resulting dehydration the heart has to beat faster to deliver oxygen to compensate for blood volume loss.  Going into the workout it was clear that HR was going to drift over the given zone, in my case 145-160.  

The key in this situation is to let it go but make sure once north of the upper limit to relax and not continue to push.  It is a good strategy for longer steady state runs, especially in warmer conditions, to try to stay in the bottom half of the zone for half of the run to be able to keep within the zone for the second half.  Under ideal conditions you should be able to dial in to a heart rate and keep it there for this duration.

At about 2.5 to 3 miles this started to feel like work so I relaxed and tried to keep the HR down in the zone.  Somewhere between 3 & 4 I exceeded the zone and just tried to maintain the perceived effort.  As Neill began to pull away around 4 it was time to decide to stick with the workout or race.  I chose to stick with the workout which was a brilliant idea because I might not have been able to keep up with Harrington had I chosen to race.

Overall, I was very pleased to see the progression of pace, even with the benefit of some downhill coming back and the HR, though over the zone, was controlled.

Yes, Mr. Kremer it is normal to feel that bad for the first few runs in these conditions.  It is just a matter of remembering the workout objective and sticking to it.  It does not always result in training log entries you are proud of but the work gets done and the running machine gets stronger.