Getting to know The Lumberjacks: Lauren Hill & WOW

About a week ago I did another interview at “Thankful Thursdays.” This one was at a fairly new Greek restaurant, Taverna (the gyro dinner is delicious and a steal at $12). Once again I took advantage of the large congregation of Lumberjacks and interviewed junior Lauren Hill. I threw a couple new questions in there to keep things fresh.

If any of you have suggestions on any questions you would like to hear, or some requests for specific Lumberjacks to be interviewed, leave a comment below.

Flotrack Workout Wednesday

The Tuesday following Pre Nationals, Flotrack’s Ryan Fenton came out to watch and record one of our workouts. We did 6xmile out at Ft. Tuthill on 7:00 go’s, which is among our hardest workouts of the season. Fortunately I was able to have a great workout in front of the camera and under the hot lights. I even got a great shout out from Coach Heins, “Jason Pedersen he’s just a grinder. . . He just wants to be on a team that has a shot to do something special in November.” Thanks for the compliment Coach, and I couldn’t have said it better myself.

Track and Field Videos on Flotrack

Getting to know Eric Lynch & Big Sky

So I have been a little lacking on updates a bit. Since my last post, the team has started our newest of many traditions, “Thankful Thursdays.” Every Thursday, we go out as a team to a different restaurant. We started with sushi, Mexican last week, and Greek last night. These make for great opportunities to do more interviews.

Last week, at Café Olé, I interviewed Eric Lynch. Lynch, as he is commonly known as, is one of the few people remaining at NAU that started with me in the Fall of 2006. He has always been a great friend and I’m glad he is still around to laugh, run and share “old” times with.

Big Sky Championships

The other piece of news is that the mens NAU Cross Country won its 4th straight Big Sky title over the weekend. As a whole, the team ran very well. David McNeill and Diego Estrada continue to impress every time they toe the line. Tim Freriks and Eric Lynch had exceptional days, both earning their first All Conference awards. Congratulations to them.

I did not have my best day, in fact it was definitely my worst performance of the season. I was our 7th man, finishing in 12th place. I didn’t feel all that bad in the race, which is good. I just didn’t seem to have that extra motivation that is needed to really make you hurt on a cross country course. When I realized this, it was rather alarming. “This was your last Big Sky Cross Country Championship, and you couldn’t get ‘up’ for it?” As I mentioned in my Stanford race report, I have been unusually calm about racing this year. This is my fifth year competing collegiately, could it be catching up with me?

Sunday, after finishing my long run with Tim and Andrew Belus, I thought about this and I just came to the conclusion that I need to put myself in the right frame of mind just before and during the race. Being relaxed is a good thing, but a little nervousness goes a long way. So during our workouts this week, which were some of our two hardest, signature workouts — mile repeats and “The Lumberjack” — I practiced putting myself in the right mindset. I don’t want every workout to feel like a race, because that will quickly lead to burnout, but when it got tough I told myself, “You want it; you just have to believe.” This will be my mantra over the last 16 days.

Yellow Aspens and Green Pines

Competitive running can be a tough pursuit. As I often highlight on this blog, racing and training can be brutal both physically and mentally. It is necessary to push yourself nearly everyday to reach your potential. However, there is a time and place for easy runs. It is on these days that you often have thoughts like, “wow, I am so lucky I get to do this everyday.” You remember the pure joy you can get from lacing up the shoes, heading out the door, and getting lost with your thoughts (or with great conversation with friends) as you meander through the trails — gently logging your trials of miles, miles of trials. Today was one of those days.

Andrew Belus, Eric Lynch, John Yatsko, Myles Kloer and I met up near the Nordic Center off Hwy 180 outside Flagstaff to enjoy the last of the fall colors near the mountain. I knew it would be a beautiful run, and here is a video I made of our adventure.

My one piece of advice

If I could give one piece of advice to any runner, it would be to always keep a training log.

(. . . although “always wear sunscreen” isn’t bad either)

For the last two years or so I have been diligent about writing in my own training log. I always include time, distance, heart rate if I have it (which I usually do) and how I felt. I often add more: something about the route, who I ran with. Sometimes I get really detailed and include conversations or thoughts that ran through my head (no pun intended).

Looking back on my training logs offers several practical benefits — it gives you the ability to compare your fitness to the past and to try to pinpoint what training sessions may have caused an injury or possibly led to a break-out race, to name a few. But it is the intangibles that keeps me perusing old workouts and training runs for hours. It’s those entries where I elaborate and go beyond the numbers that are golden.

My running career as I know it is dated. The end of my 2011 track season will mark the end of 9 years of competing for my school’s cross country and track teams (Royal HS and NAU) and 18 years of competition with some sort of team (Running Rebels youth track club). Almost sounds depressing, but it’s not. I have so many fond memories of training and racing with coaches and teammates, whom are now lifelong friends, that I will hold onto. Some of these memories I will be able to relive through my log entries whenever I want, and, unfortunately, some will likely be forgotten.

As I write this, I realize this is at the core of why I started writing a blog about training in the first place. For the most part, it is just a public way of remembering my races and workouts, and sometimes what lies in between.

So if you are a runner (which I would think is fairly likely if you are a reader of “runpd.com”) grab a pen and paper after your next run (or log onto your online training log of choice) and write down something about it; don’t let it be another forgotten run.

You can thank me later.

Summer 2010 Training Part 4: Run

Before cross country really gets going in full swing, and the school year for that matter, I want to finish off this series of posts about my summer training. This is the last post of a four-part series.

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While much of this summer was focused on triathlons, at this point in my athletic career I am still a runner first, triathlete second. With each training session I did, the underlying question was always, “How will this prepare me for cross country?” In the beginning, since I was forced by my recovering knee to slowly increase my running volume, I figured any amount aerobic activity would help. I slowly increased my running volume to 60 miles in 6 days/week and held that throughout the summer.

As I explained in Part 1, each week was laid out about the same. I wanted to get it one workout, one long run, strides 2-3x, and the rest easy-moderate running (often over hilly terrain). My workout generally consisted of a fartlek or a lactate threshold (LT).

My favorite fartlek comes from Coach Heins that we do several times each season: 5-4-3-2-1-1-2-3-4-5 with half rest. So it starts with 5 minutes “on,” followed by 2.5 minutes recovery. Next we do 4 minutes with 2 minutes recovery, and so on. The workout gets tough on the way back up. On the 2nd 3 minute pick up you will only have 1 minute rest before it, while the 1st 3 minute pick up had 2 minutes rest before. See how that could get difficult?

My LT’s were generally about 5-6 miles and I often went off of heart rate. Before the workout I might set an alarm on the Garmin to alert me if I go over, say, 175bpm. If I do, I must slow down. There’s no magic to these kind of workouts. Just a long sustained effort that will obviously make you strong physically as well as mentally.

I did most of my long runs with Chris Baird out at Sycamore Canyon. It is a great trail with a steady incline for the first 6.5 miles or so before reaching a pretty tough climb. I am a big believer in the power of the long run and the many benefits that come along with doing them weekly. As long as I’m training to be running, as a single sport athlete or triathlete, I will always find a place for long runs in my training.

Before each race I also did a little tune up session on the track. Some mixture of 800s, 400s and 200s. The purpose of these was just to get in some race pace or slightly faster than race pace running so I could feel what running fast feels like.

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So with this post I conclude my summer. I start graduate school tomorrow, which I am a little anxious for. I am also beginning my final cross country season which I know will provide many great memories and blog posts!

Summer 2010 Triathlong Training Part 3: Bike

In terms of time, the bike leg of almost any triathlon dominates the others. In an Olympic distance event, the bike will likely take almost twice as long as the run and three times as long as the swim. Consequently, many triathletes’ training regimen reflects this with very high biking volume relative to the swim and run. A glance at the user training logs at Slowtwitch confirms this.

However, I do not subscribe to this — not yet anyway. My training this summer had nearly equal parts swim and run, with biking getting whatever was left over. I did this for two reasons.

1. Swimming is my weakest leg compared to the best triathletes. My future success in draft-legal triathlons hinges on how much I can improve in the swim, not the bike.
2. I still have a year left of collegiate running and that is still my #1 focus. It is imperative that I kept my mileage high with my last cross country season on the horizon.

Now that I have downplayed my bike training, here is what I did do. With the little bike background I have, I figured anytime on the bike will lead to improvements. With this in mind, I made sure to get in a long bike ride every weekend, working my way up to ~60 miles. After I got my post-work swim in on Mondays, I would get on the trainer for about an hour to do some “tempo” intervals — generally with 8′ hard/4′ rest as the main focus of the session. Thursdays and Fridays I would ride 20-30 miles by feel in the late afternoon after running and swimming earlier in the day.

With this training load I was able to split the 15th fastest bike split at the Breath of Life triathlon on my 2003 Trek 1500 road bike (23.7 mph average) and the 5th fastest bike split at the Strawberry Fields tri on a friend’s Quintana Roo TiPhoon (~25.7 mph average).

Moving forward

Trying to break into professional draft legal triathlons presents a bit of a paradox. In order to earn a USAT elite license to race in ITU draft legal races, you need to qualify at nondrafting events by placing in a certain position overall or within a percentage of the winner’s time. To be competitive with the top athletes in these races, you will likely need a time trial or triathlon specific bike and maybe even an aero helmet. However, once you get into draft legal racing, you won’t be able to use any of this aero equipment.

Because earning an elite license is next up on my triathlon goals, I am now in the market for a tri bike. I have time on my side, as my next tri won’t be until Summer 2011, so right now I am scanning the classifieds for a potential buy. What I am looking for is a quality bike that is a few years old and lightly used so that I can save a few bucks. If you know of a bike for sale that fits the bill, let me know!

Summer 2010 Triathlon Training Part 2: Swim

If I can ever swim a 1500m under 20 minutes (I know, big “IF”) than I think I may have a shot at being a semi-Pro.

That is what I wrote in my “About” page when I created this website in the Spring of 2009. Later that summer, while preparing for my first Olympic distance triathlon, I swam a 1650 yard (1509 meters) time trial in the pool in 25:55, setting a beginning benchmark. I really had no idea what I was doing: I had never competed as a swimmer before triathlons and I had no idea how to structure a swim workout. With my running background, I started throwing in some intervals — 100s, 200s and 300s — but with way too much rest. I successfully completed the triathlon with just the 56th best swim.

After the triathlon I quickly transitioned to run-focus and dropped the swimming and biking. A self-proclaimed “breakout” cross country season kept me out of the pool — thanks to 100-mile weeks. Then in December, my battle with Plica in my left knee began, leaving a void in my training. I took to the pool and conveniently, around that time, my coach received an email from Barb Lindquist with the USAT Collegiate Recruitment Program, whose goal is to recruit collegiate swimmers and runners into considering triathlons as their next athletic endeavor after graduation. Knowing that I was interested in triathlons, Coach Heins forwarded me her contact. Since then I have been receiving weekly swim workouts from Barb. I began swimming workouts that were 2500 yards and worked my way up until this summer when I began swimming three 5000 yard workouts three times each week (plus another easy 3000 once a week). With this increased commitment to swimming I have seen my swim times improve nearly week to week.

One way Barb uses to judge swim ability is a 200/800 test. An athlete swims an all-out 200, takes 1 minute recovery, and then swims an 800 all out. Barb told me that the general range she is looking for from runners is 2:15/10:00. In January I swam the test in 2:27/11:15. The road ahead seemed daunting, but I was able to chip away while my knee was recovering. In June I swam the test again, this time in 2:19/10:26. The hard work was paying off. This last Thursday I took to the pool for my last swim test of the summer and was stunned with a 2:13/10:10 performance.

These swim tests, along with a 4+ minute PR in the 1650 yard of  21:44, have confirmed that I can swim faster with focus. Still, I have a long road ahead and will need to further increase my commitment to the sport. As I look beyond my final cross country and track seasons, I think there are several very high intensity, high volume weeks of swimming await.

Summer 2010 Triathlon Training Part 1

Two hours/day

That’s what I told my friend and NAU teammate, Tim “Rube” Freriks, that my training plan would look like while recovering from knee surgery in March. It’s kind of like one of those clichés — “An apple a day keep the doctor away.” Since I already love apples and eat my fair share of fruit each day, my mantra to getting healthy and back to what I consider normal was, to be specific, “two hours of aerobic activity each day”. . . or about 14 hours/week.

After reading about my recent successes in triathlons, and sharing that I had been been pushing well beyond that 14-hour level, Tim asked that I elaborate on what my training has looked like this summer. Because I like to get specific, I have decided to make a 4-part series on what my summer triathlon training has consisted of. This post, Part 1, will serve as an overview of my recovery from surgery, beginning full time training and what a typical week looks like. Parts 2-4 will focus on swim/bike/run specifically.

Recovery

First and foremost, I have no doubts that surgery was the right answer. I suffered with knee pain from December until March, and was often limited to five or ten minutes of running at a time. Rehab began just one day after surgery with quad strengthening exercises. In the coming days rehab included range of motion exercises, massage, and eventually squats and lunges.

As I was promised by the doctor, I was able to resume running within a couple weeks of surgery, but at a much lower volume than I had anticipated. Still today I am running quite a bit less than my normal volume from before the knee pain began.

Full Time Training

Since my surgery, my training volume has slowly increased. It began with 20 minutes on the elliptical and peaked a couple of weeks ago at 19 hours, well above my 14-hour target. Below is a chart of my progression this summer.

Typical Week

When reading about professional athletes, one of my favorite insights into their lives is how they structure their days and weeks. Now that I am getting involved in triathlons, I have learned that balancing all three sports with appropriate recovery is no small feat. I, of course, am no professional and don’t have a coach, so I have done my best to create a schedule that I think meets my needs. This is an ideal week, and consists of about 18,000 yards swimming, 110-130 miles biking, and 60 miles running for a total of 17-19 hours:

• Monday – For the second consecutive summer I am working as an Intern at ITT Aerospace Controls in Valencia. I get up around 6:30, eat breakfast and make my lunch, and arrive at work around 7:30. I get off about 4 and head straight to the gym to get in a swim workout — usually 5000 yards. Then it is home, dinner, and on the bike trainer for about an hour.
• Tuesday – Go to work until 4. After work I do a 10-11 mile running workout.
• Wednesday – TGIF; last day of work for the week. Regular run of about 9-10 miles and an unstructured swim of about 3000 yards after dinner.
• Thursday – 8am: 8-10 mile run in the morning followed by a large breakfast. noonish: 5000 yard swim. 4pm: 20-25 mile bike ride.
• Friday – similar schedule to Thursday.
• Saturday – Long run in the morning, 14-15 miles.
• Sunday – Long bike, 50-60+ miles. After the ride I refuel and rest for a little while and then run 6-7 miles.

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I am glad Tim gave me the idea to do this as I know I will be delighted to read these posts in the future months, as I finish my collegiate running career, and years, as I continue as an aspiring triathlete. Expect the next three parts in the next week.

The Graduate

My Farfar ("father's father" in Danish) and me after my graduation

Since I last updated this blog quite a lot has happened. Perhaps most notably is that I am a college graduate now. I earned a BS in Mechanical Engineering with a Minor in Mathematics with a final GPA of 3.48. I think I’m going to round up to 3.5. That’s legit, right?

I have taken my semiannual pilgrimage back home to Simi Valley where I will spend the summer training, eating my Mom’s delicious food, sleeping on my super comfortable bed, seeing best friends and working an internship three days a week. Sounds like the life, doesn’t it?

Today I had my first race since the Lasse Viren 20k I did back in December and will have a race report on that tomorrow!

First Ride to Snowbowl

Humphreys Peak (12,637 feet)

Today was a brilliantly sunny, warm Spring day in Flagstaff. Conveniently, this was the first weekend of the year that Arizona Snowbowl was closed for skiing. There is still quite a bit of snow on the trails, however, so this means that car traffic is light and bicycle traffic is heavy.

Shortly after waking up and enjoying a banana and bowl of cereal (I love that you can eat before/during a bike ride, as opposed to swimming and running where you have to really watch what/when you eat), I headed out to meet up with Jared Threw, a member of NAU’s TriJack team that placed 29th at last week’s Collegiate National Championships (he was 58th and 1st for the team).

The view from 9,300 feet

We headed north on Highway 180 until we reached the road to Snowbowl, where the ascent began. This was probably the longest climb I have ever done (about 6 miles and ~2,000 feet of elevation gain) and I loved it! I will definitely be seeking out more climbs in the future. I need to work on my descending though, as Jared dropped me within the first few minutes.

I brought along my new JVC HD Memory camera that I got from my cousins Hanna and Dina as an early graduation gift. I took a few shots while riding and put it in a video (with some Weezer in the background, of course).

Weekly totals

This week I wasn’t able to put in quite as many hours as last week because of the heavy school load. I still managed 13 hours and 20 minutes with 5:27 running (45 miles), 5:02 swimming (14.15 km) and 2:50 biking (50.6 miles). With reading week ahead, I am hoping to get back over the 2 hours/day mark and continue to improve my fitness. I want to hit 50 miles of running, 20 km of swimming, and a couple of bike rides.