In this weekly blog series, I plan to share a training recap as I prepare for Brew City Half Marathon in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. It will include an overview of my training plan with the good, the bad, & the ugly which every runner undoubtedly experiences along the way. Enjoy and let me know if you have any feedback or thoughts based on your experience.

Monday, February 20th:

This week will be a little compressed due to a weekend course in Chicago. So the goal is to complete runs on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, & Friday. With a little strategy thrown in to balance the intensity properly, things should flow nicely.

To kick off the week, I opted for 3-miles at easy pace with some strides. The goal was to facilitate the recovery process from Sunday’s long run and set myself up for more intensity in the days to come.

With the run being short, and the desire to get out of my neighborhood, I drove over to Estabrook Park in Shorewood to explore a little bit. Despite driving past this park most days of the week, this was a good opportunity to leisurely take in the sights and see where it takes me. Part of my desire was from a running standpoint but also locating good fishing spots alongside the Milwaukee River.

I parked at the parking lot closest to East Capitol Drive, knocked out a 5-minute dynamic warm-up with some basic mobility & locomotion drills, and was ready to roll. The path was a series of rolling hills that meandered through the park. Past play structures, dog parks, and athletic fields, before arriving at the Estabrook Park Biergarten. I might check out this at some point in the summer to enjoy a cold beer on a warm day.

As I approached the end of the park, I knew I could turn around and head back on the path or jump on the riverside trail and hope for the best. So I turned from East Hampton Road to North Port Washington Road and there was a staircase to reverse my direction on a trail alongside the river. At first this seemed like a good idea until I hit tons of mud on the sloped riverbank that required some walking and fancy footwork. Let’s just say things got dicey pretty fast.

After about 10-minutes on the trail I found a staircase back up so I could resume some form of activity that resembled running. With 1-2 inches of melting snow lining the path, I ran in this slush to clean the shoes off a little bit.

Overall, this run was easy breezy and messy. I guess that’s to be expected this time of year as the weather has been very intermittent from extreme cold, snow, and sunny, spring-like days.

Once back at the parking lot I completed 5 strides. The distance available probably allowed for 22-seconds of fast running before hitting the end of tha parking lot. In fact, my fastest stride required that I start slowing down a few seconds early or I would run out of real estate. Things felt good but the right anterior hip was bugging me just slightly… No pain but awareness. Once the faster paces opened the hips, I actually felt better overall with no pain and more range of motion.

Tuesday, February 21st:

When I woke up this morning to take the dog out, I already wasn’t looking forward to my morning run. It wasn’t 45-degrees and sunny anymore but 23-degrees (feels like 7) and 30mph winds. Since the plan called for hill repeats, I knew that meant heading down to the Lakefront to run on Lincoln Memorial Drive which obviously can get pretty breezy off the lake.

It all became worth it on my drive over to the lake… I drove east down Lake Street and, as I came upon the water tower, saw the sunrise in full effect. It was beautiful, the skies were blue, and my mood started to change in a positive manner.

The plan called for 4-miles with 6x2min hill repeats with an unspecified recovery. After reviewing my Garmin, I realize the numbers don’t add up and this was actually a 5-mile run. I’ll make the adjustment on my spreadsheet to ensure the plan is accurate from a volume and intensity standpoint moving forward.  

From the base of the hill on Lincoln Memorial Drive, I completed a 1-mile warm-up at easy pace down towards Bradford Beach and back. The body was feeling pretty good to get moving with no aches, pains, or soreness while being the 3rd running day in a row.

Once I reached the hill, I realized I set-up my Garmin incorrectly and would have to manualyl execute this workout as opposed to the utilizing the watch like I normally do. No biggie! 

The first hill repeat was a little aggressive. I remember from completing this workout in the past that my goal was to aim for a certain street sign approximately 1/4 mile up the hill. Since I went out too fast, I greatly exceeded this.

Each repeat things felt more in-tune. My pace started fast and then gradually slowed slightly. This was due to the variability of the incline. The hill begins very gentle and increases in difficulty about halfway to my turn around point. My intention is always to get the legs turning over enough to generate speed early on and then hold on for dear life as it’s an “uphill battle.”

After a few repetitions I thought to myself how my knees haven’t given one single sensation of pain in the last 4-6 weeks. They are known for getting achy, especially with downhill running. Whether it’s building up the body progressively over time or shear luck, I am happy the body feels relatively strong.

(6) 2-minute hill repeats with around a 2-minute & 50-second recovery went by quickly. Whether it was the beautiful day on the lakefront or falling into a good rhythm, I was pleased with how things went. Pacing ranged from 7:50 to 11:35 from the faster segment to the slowest recovery.

The one mile cool down was surprisingly very hard to take things slowly. I think the change in terrain up and down the hill caused me to have poor perception of pace at that point. I started in upper zone 3 and was able to get the heart rate down to finish the mile. I always aim for zone 2 when finishing with any type of cool down following speedwork. It’s easy, gentle on the body, and always allows me to feel better later that day.

Since this run got completed early on Tuesday, and despite having only Wednesday off before two more running days, I technically bought myself 48+ hours of rest. That will be helpful as the upcoming runs are the hardest in intensity and distance. With the snow rolling in tonight, I respected the unpredictable mother nature.

Thursday, February 23rd:

With 4-inches of snow last night and the temperatures dropping, I drove over to Planet Fitness on East Capitol Drive to get in some treadmill speedwork. The plan called for 5-miles with 4x4min at interval pace with a 3min recovery. True push yourself to the limit kind of running! The goal is to hit maximum heart rate which 4-minutes at interval pace is sure to do.

I’ve been anxiously awaiting but also dreading this workout for the past 3-4 weeks. I knew it would be a serious challenge where my mental & physical capacity would be tested. And as much as I was eager to see how I held up, I also just didn’t want to do it. You know… those runs when you know beforehand it’s going to kick your butt.

The one mile warm-up at easy pace went smoothly and I even added 3 strides to bridge the gap and better prepare the body for what was to come. I shuffled through a few podcasts while getting warm and finally settled on Dr. Andreo Spina and John Quint with the Control Yourself podcast. I was wondering if a podcast vs. music was the right choice but it actually worked out well.

The first 4-minute interval was completed and, honestly, at a pace that was too slow for me to deem productive. I wanted to ease the right hip into gear without overstepping my bounds and think this was accomplished. Since the body felt exceptionally strong, and the hip was pain-free after 48-hours of rest, I began to crank up the intensity on each effort. By the 3rd and 4th interval the heart rate elevated well and I achieved 95% of my maximum. Good, but I know I can push harder. That’s atleast what I learned last time I did Fartlek’s outdoors as opposed to on the treadmill. It gave me a sensation of ‘hold on’ as opposed to ‘hold on for dear life.’

To wrap up, I cruised through one more mile at easy pace and slowly dropped the speed to allow my heart rate to calm down. It was a good workout overall and I’ll work on ramping up with a little more intensity in the future. Come to think of it… total mileage was a little under 5-miles so I may even add one more 4-minute interval for good measure. Yay! (Joking...)

Friday, February 24th:

As the afternoon rolled around, I knew I had to disconnect from work to get the run done. The long run this week is 8-miles which will start a ramp up to some higher miles in order to prepare for race day. With a 2-day course on Saturday and Sunday in Chicago, today is my last day to knock it out before sitting around for a few days absorbing new information.

Originally I had planned to drive over to Big Bay Park in Whitefish Bay to then head south through Shorewood and Milwaukee on Lake Drive before doubling back. However, as I was about drive past Atwater Park in Shorewood, there was plenty of parking so I decided to pull over and get going.

I started with a quick dynamic warm-up before heading north up Lake Drive from Shorewood into Whitefish Bay. Truthfully, I had no clue where I was going or how far I could run in these direction since it’s an unfamiliar area to me. In the past I have only run a portion of Lake Drive in Whitefish Bay but I decided to continue exploring to see where I ended up. 

After 3-miles and making it past downtown Whitefish Bay, things instantly got busy as the kids were getting out of school and there was a lot of foot traffic on the sidewalks. With partially shoveled sidewalks, kids heading home from school, and owners walking dogs, I turned back to find a more quiet route. Although it was a nice area to run, I usually look for peace & quiet over anything else.

The run was going well at this point with a nice, low zone 3 heart rate. My legs were cold but my body otherwise felt fine despite the 20-degree temperatures. With minimal winter running gear, I usually wear the same clothing whether I’m running in zero degrees all the way to 40-degrees. This includes running pants, two long sleeve t-shirts, a light athletic jacket, hat and gloves. Colder temperatures beyond 20-degrees becomes a little iffy with this gear and it was definitely on the borderline today.

After hitting mile 4, I had a UCANN orange gel. Due to my gloves, I had to stop for a few seconds and take the gloves off in order to regain dexterity in my fingers.

The last 4-miles went well. I was certainly starting to feel some leg fatigue, particularly in the quads, which I correlated to the hard speedwork the day before. Moving forward I’ll probably try to space things out better but for this week it did the trick under the circumstances.

Running south down Lake Drive took me past Atwater Park where I started from, towards Lincoln Memorial Drive and the start of Lake Park. I turned around at the intersection to finish one last quick mile. My pace continued to pick up throughout this run but I monitored the heart rate every 7-10 minutes to make sure I wasn’t pushing too hard.

The goal was to maintain my heart rate in zone 2 and zone 3 so this run would be deemed “easy." With 27% in zone 2 and 71% in zone 3, I executed well and was able to assess how my heart rate responded to progressing the pace each mile. Despite picking up the pace 1-minute and 12-seconds from the first mile to the last, the heart rate remained steady without getting close to zone 4. I’ll probably play around with pacing more to watch the heart rate response which should provide more actionable information for race day.

After 8-miles, I walked around Atwater Park for a few minutes to cool down before heading home. This weekend will bring with it two restful days and onto next week.

Thanks for following along this week! If you have any questions or want to talk about creating an individualized running and injury prevention plan for you, click the ‘Healthy Running Program’ tab above and fill out the form.

Onward to week 9!