winter is here, indoor bike ride and nancy dietz.

quick morning post- ran 8 yesterday and got 45 miles in last week after running the marathon on sunday. always a matter of individual taste and i know everything you read says to take one day of recovery for each mile of race and many others say to take 4 weeks to recover and yes, i am not recovered. But, my personal preference is to be very careful and pay attention t any possible damage and just go out and do something easy. i take longer to recover this way and i don't coach my runners to train this was, but none of my runners have done 185 marathons either. in the old days of a younger larry when i was running a marathon a month, it didn't take that long to recover. these days everyone wants to run marathons with as little training as possible, mostly due to time constraints and the big push for marathon participation has been great for the population as a whole, and the economics of marathons as well. racing itself has suffered somewhat maybe, but the more people the better. it may be true that the more you train the faster you will run and the easier you will recover. i also like, as i did this time, to walk 45 minutes after the marathon, but not everyone will do this. it is easy to walk and drink and have a yogurt and banana or a mustard pretzel or grapes and the walk does wonders for the legs. and you get to bask in your accomplishment. but what do i know? there are a zillion theories on how to train and how to recover.

my coaching philosophy has been to do no harm to my runners. i think long term. not for everyone. generally only the people who don't listen get hurt. 5 x 800 in 4 minutes means that, not 3:45; 4:14; 3:56; 4:28; 4:12. but most people would do just fine listening to hal higdon, like i did and his speedwork training was the basis of my earlier training.

so today in an attempt to rest the legs a bit from some of the pounding, and after a morning heart rate of 46, i got on my indoor training bike and rode a 26.26 mile ride of hill intervals at 65% heart rate. does this sound like rest? usually would do a 31 mile workout at 85% so at least it was less and still felt like i did a decent little workout listening to old bob dylan and jackson browne stuff.

i am old so i still believe in that old school way of training- "run more". i don't give a thought to converting the bike miles to running miles. why bother? it is not running. there is some exercise and fitness n]benefit, but still, it is not running.
you don't become a better putter by lifting weights or doing pilates for golf. you putt everyday for an hour and you start to get better. you putt straight and left to right and right to left and uphill and downhill. you make sure you can make 4 footers and 12 footers and you get better with your chipping because you know you can make the putts you leave. same with running.

once long ago when i was much newer to this i used to run where i had a very tough hill about 5 miles into my 8 mile run and i just could not get up that hill. one night at a running dinner i had the great fortune to meet nancy dietz, a terrific marathoner and nice as can be person. i asked her how she dealt with tough parts of her training and explained my hill problem. she told me the next time i got near the hill to just tell myself i owned that hill and nothing could stop me from going right up that hill.

and right up it i went the next time and every time thereafter. i just said to myself that i owned the hill and i was going right up it and i did. still do actually, and this past week at harrisburg when i got to the "hill" i did the same thing and just went up it. some barriers are mental. when i finally broke 3:10 i never had a problem doing it again- not every time of course, as some days are just not great days.

oh well, onto the day. warm enough to go play golf. spent two frustrating hours working on furniture yesterday and not today thank you. lots of free time as gail has an overnight at school. later....

thanks again nancy. hope you are still running well.