300 Meter Whaaa

Just a nice workout that I finished up today.

1X800m 2:09
500M Jog rest (3:00min)
12x300m 51 low average (100M Jog rest about 35 seconds)
400m Jog rest
1x800m 2:10 (2:40min)

This was one of those workouts that you finish and you can tell yourself everything is going in the right direction. The hardest part of this workout is that I was doing it solo.

As I was doing this work out I was thinking how under utilized the 300m distance is in training. I feel that when we do speed we do 200m and when we do distance it’s 400m…the 300 is such a great in between distance to keep up the speed and yet add some endurance. If you don’t believe me go run 12 of those bastards at your goal 5K pace with only a 100m jog for the rest. If you can finish up the 300m then try the full work out with the 800m in it. This work out with jogging rest is 4 miles plus your warm up and cool down. I did 2 mile warm up and cool down giving me a nice 8 for the afternoon plus an easy 4 in the morning.

Building Confidence

A quick run down…work has been awesomely busy but training has paid the price. True to my word I will be running the marathon in a little over a week. I will be going after Captain….I mean Major Borg’s course record of 2:36.

The past few days have had some nice runs.

Sunday was 10x1k with only 45 seconds rest. Averaging 3:06

Tuesday was a nice run with Mark and Mike with some easy pick ups 4×2.5 min and 4 x 1.5 min

Today ,Wednesday march 6th, I did another strength session of 10x800m 45 seconds rest averaging 2:25. This was pretty easy. So I’ll be eager to see how I feel come race day. Look for my next post come March 19 th.

Wrightsville Beach Marathon

Time to go public…a group of us will be going down to the Wrightsville Beach Marathon this March. Finishing is always a good goal…but I would like to come close to my marathon time of 2:28.30 from Detroit back in 2010. I have a very long way to go and only a short time to get there. Last week I hit my highest week of running since the surgery at 55 Miles with a long run of 16 miles at 6:20 pace.

This week I’m on pace to be a little closer to 60 miles. I did a nice workout on the indoor track by myself today of 16 X 400M averaging 74.41 with 100m jog recovery (about 35 seconds.) I felt nice and smooth and probably could have easily gone to 20…woulda, shoulda, coulda.

Winter F-Un

For those of you that might get discouraged on these snowy, icy, windy winter runs, I would just like to say “Don’t” I know it’s frustrating feeling like you are never running fast in this shtuff. I just wanted to say it happens to all of us. You can see on the laps of this run the pace was going well until I hit the ice sheet known as Chambers Rd. (Mile 3) I lost 30 seconds on my mile pace and felt like my pace went to a standstill. As soon as I got back on the dry stuff I took off again…I guess we will call it a recovery mile…kinda sorta? Keep on Keeping on winter warriors.

Did you die!?!

No I didn’t die…I just didn’t think posting unexciting things would be worth either of our time. So for a quick update…I have been running around 30 miles a week with nothing super fantastic until recently.

The biggest issues I’ve had is if I go off and have a great run then the next day my surgery foot was in peril. I also discovered 14 miles seemed to be my painful cap. I feel like in the past 2 weeks I have turned that corner.

My runs are easily dropping under 7:00 min. pace and this week I’m falling under 6:00 min. pace pretty easily. I also had my first workout on the indoor track and in spikes!! I thought it went really well. My old body moved around the track with 8x400M in about 64.8 seconds on average. Now I just keep telling my self “I don’t have to get any faster, just stronger :-]”

You might not believe it but after doing this workout my foot seems to be feeling a lot better. Spikes really make you use more muscles in your legs and feet than you normally do hence the incredible soreness 😉 and I’m sure some of you are saying “No $hit Sherlock.”

Thanks for tuning in and I’ll try to keep you a little more updated and entertained…There’s only about 150 of you that read this damn thing 😛

Kensington Hill Challenge

It was an amazing turn out today for the Kensington Hill Challenge! We had competitors hailing from at least three different zip codes.

Mike Anderson pulled away early on then held a steady lead from the group finishing as this week’s champion. To everyone’s surprise, New Comer Chase Desilets, rallied and made a very strong push for seconds place. Rumors about Chase saying he could do this course in his sleep, spread quickly as photographers actually snapped a picture of Chase sleeping while climbing the hill. Mike Anderson better lookout if Chase decides to stay awake for these nine grueling miles.

Has-been, Jordan Desilets, had a very unimpressive 3rd place finish. The medical staff was actually on standby as it looked like Jordan might collapse at any moment.

Ken Larscheid, a favorite for the number two spot today, just didn’t have it. It looks like his cardio is getting better, which he proved on the flats, but he just needs to add some more to his strength to help him power up those hills.

Mark Savedes aka “The Ghost” he’s so old he might actually be a real ghost. Although he finished 5th again for the third week in a row, don’t let that fool you. His overall times on the flats and the hills were much improved week over week. At one point fans were saying Savedes was clocked around 6:10/mile pace. It just seems that everyone kicked it up a notch today. It could be due to the new blood in the group just getting in there and shaking things up a bit.

Thanks for tuning in!

A Week of Running

I had my first week of “Real” running. Two weeks ago I hit 18 miles and on Sunday I finished a week of 7 days straight of running and hitting 28 miles.

I know some of you might have run 28 miles just on Sunday …but I’m getting there. I even tossed in a little long run of 6 miles on Saturday.

Happy Training!

What’s New?

So it’s been a very long time since my last post and a lot has happened…some good some bad but a lot.

Last summer my foot started to bother me and I ended up dragging myself through the season. I took a little time off and spent a lot of time doing PT. I thought the problem was getting better and began training for the Olympic Year.

Turns out the problem never got better…only grew bigger. I began seeing Dr. Larry Nassar (USA Olympic Gymnastics Dr.) and he did wonders for me. I have also never had a Dr. Spend more time with me and take a case so personally than he did. With Dr. Nassars help I was able to get spikes and have some good workouts. As time went on I was able to train harder, longer, and faster…then I hit the plateau.

I was able to run 53 min. Ten mile runs but not 51. I was able to run low 15 min 5k but not mid 14 min. Anytime I would really start to push myself the pain would get overwhelming. Hurdles…FaGetAboutit. From 8 months of favoring one leg, my good leg began to hurt. This went on for a few more weeks then during a work out 6×1,000m I made it through about two of them before stepping off of the track. I limped over to my coach and said “I’m done”. There was an odd pause then I think he saw the tears in my eyes and knew I didn’t mean just for the day.

I had been pushing so hard on the pain I began to hate what I once loved. I never talked much on my runs anymore, I couldn’t wait till it was over, and I knew getting out of bed in the morning was really going to hurt. My coach told me to keep my head up and reminded me that I had had a pretty nice career and I did make it to the Olympic Trials finals twice. As true as his words were they didn’t make it any easier…I would not see a third Olympic Trials. For those of you who have never ran in front of a packed stadium screaming the top of their lungs, the only way I can describe it I you feel like a gladiator in the coliseum.

I called up Dr. Nassar and said it’s time to meet with the surgeon. Fast forward a few more weeks and here I am laying in bed with my foot elevated and in a cast. Dr. Swords (how cool of a name is that) cut open the side of my foot and shaved down the bone and scraped the scar tissue off of my Achillies tendon. There was no amount of PT that was going to fix bone and this was inevitable. I also found out my cat had cancer this morning and we put her down and my wife’s aunt had a heart attack this week 🙁

I did however mention some good things also happening. In 2011 RunSignUp grew around 330% over 2010 and we are tracking +70% for 2012.

My beautiful wife and I had a beautiful baby boy Chase Jordan Desilets (steeplechase :-). He did however get hospitalized for 6 days with RSV.

I set up a fundraiser to send USA’s number one track fan to the trials, Derek Rubis. The track community raised $1,500 to help him get there. He is also going to be able to interview some of the athletes, which he is pumped about.

I also helped my man Brian Thomas set his fundraiser up for his colon cancer run from Florida to Michigan which they are starting pretty soon. If you would like to donate shoes, money, or gift cards (Meier/Walmart for food and drinks for the road) contact me on Facebook and I can point you in the right direction.

Time to sign off for now…hopefully there will be a post of some cross training soon…no matter how many times we Desilets get knocked down we will always rise up and become stronger than we were before…or was that Rocky 😛

Easy 5K

In regards to me being sick and not racing at GVSU this weekend…I would like to post that I at least had a nice workout at the start of the week. I ran a smooth cut down 5k. 4:57, 4:54, 4:50, 34 = 15:16.31 followed up with a few 300M strides at 45, 44, 42.

This workout felt comfortable and relaxed and got me all excited to race this weekend…O well time to get ready for January.