A solid 5 pax and a Q set off into a rainy morning to do an uncharacteristic amount of running. The Thang went like this:
1.25 mile warm up jog
Hill 7’s with CDD’s and Squats
Jog a little more
Partner up
Partner 1 runs up the hill backwards
Partner 2 runs forwards
jog back down
flapjack/repeato
Then repeato the whole thing again
back to Semi-Gloss’ Palace for a few rounds of People’s Chair with Fireman Ed adding in arm raises (nice touch)
Then squats x 20 and merkins x 20 oyo
Parking lot to finish with Mary
Sid-The-Kid x 10 each way
Flutter x 25 IC
Rosalita x 15 IC
Fan favourite Russian Twist x 15 IC
Knee Ups x 10 IC
That’s it
NM:
Sorry to keep this short but a serious effort by The Fridge (double respect) who kept up the entire way and looked good doing it even though it was only his second post (did I mention double respect?). Great 2nd F with Abba and also Irish Creme, great to see you guys, although they were pretty much Larry Birding the entire time, nice to see. Had a great time on Q, thanks to Fireman Ed for allowing me the priviledge.
Announcements:
Sign up for the Christmas Party
Toy Drive
Joe Davis Run sign ups
21 Pax (probably a site record) showed up to crush their timed mile, except for one who made it his mission to help others crush their timed mile. The idea is to run the timed mile periodically to use as a baseline for other interval work and to assess progress along the way. I can tell you this with certainty, the MG regulars have indeed improved, no doubt many overestimated their time, in other words, they crushed it! Was exciting to see the guys give it all they had, or more accurately for YHC to see about half the guys give it all they had since I couldn’t see the other half who were crushing it in front of me.
Anyway, it went something like this:
Warm up mile
Dynamic stretching
Quick briefing by the un-official A51 Running Nantan (Bratwurst) on how to use the strangely curved starting line and off we go:
Take a cool down lap or two, cheer on the remainder of the pax and then organize a 4 x 400m relay, some saying this was harder than the mile, only because you already ran the mile. Fun seemed to be had by all. Team 2 appeared to be the winning team, you know who you were.
Cool down mile or close to it and then up to the cars for COT:
The results for tracking look like this:
| Name | 1-Mile Time |
| Fletch | 5:33 |
| Joker | 5:50 |
| Tiger Rag | 5:51 |
| Bratwurst* – not his actual capability, ran the 6:00 as a pace for others, that’s just the kind of guy he is. | 6:00 |
| Turkey Leg | 6:02 |
| The Mouth | 6:09 |
| Sensei | 6:25 |
| Slim Fast | 6:25 |
| Floor Slapper | 6:40 |
| Icicle | 6:46 |
| Strange Brew | 6:52 |
| Huggy Bear | 6:58 |
| Voodoo | 7:02 |
| Early Bird | 7:11 |
| Nomad | 7:18 |
| Booyah | 7:22 |
| Venus | 7:54 |
| Retread | 8:01 |
| Nuke | 8:10 |
| Freedom | 8:31 |
| Sony | 8:56 |
We will be using the timed mile baseline in conjunction with the Jack Daniels Run Smart Calculator:
https://runsmartproject.com/calculator/
You plug in your number at the top and then click the “Training” tab to see related R, I, T, M, E paces
Don’t read too much into the “Equivalent” longer distances unless you are a very experienced runner, for example YHC could NOT run a 3:42 marathon as the chart suggests, that is Slim Fast territory and YHC is NOT in Slim Fast territory. However for the shorter distances it is definitely closer.
NMM:
There were many notable efforts out there and I’d like to see guys sounding off below on them (yours or others) but those that I saw include: The Mouth going sub 6:10, what? Do you remember telling YHC when you ran a 10:00 mile, yeah, that is in the past now isn’t it? How about Freedom hitting 8:31 when the mile used to feel so much longer. Sony showing up to his first Mountain Goat since he signed up for the Joe Davis Run, yeah brother, that’s what you do, that’s how you get at it! Booyah wanting to do it again (not right away though) because he knows he can do a better job on pacing, yup that’s part of it, YHC remembers talking to Huggy Bear the other week and he was talking about a 7 min time, yup, beat that too! Anyway these are only some of the notables since YHC was trying to run himself and sucking wind and what not are not conducive to making all the mental notes. Also shout out to Slim Fast for pulling this workout together with YHC and running with Sensei for him to hit a great time of sub 6:30.
Announcements:
Pretty much everyone at this workout is going to the Joe Davis Run I’m sure:
https://joedavisrun.racesonline.com/register
Freedom took the pax out with a solid focus on the day and the One that matters most.
So it is time to run a timed mile, yup, I’ve heard that some people have done this in such austere places as High School so for those of you that can remember that this shouldn’t be that bad. For the others of us this is what we have been working our way up to in terms of effort, pacing and breathing.
The plan is to do a proper warm up, done at a WARM UP PACE FOR YOU, the idea is to warm up the muscles but not tire them out and then do some dynamic stretching and run a timed mile, or technically in case Bratwurst is reading this a timed 1600m, which of course would be from lane 2 as I recall. We will not get that technical of course although for those technical type pax feel free to use lane 2.
The idea behind the timed mile is not to beat your high school time but to set a new baseline for future progress. Jack Daniel’s (the running coach, not the drink) would suggest that the timed mile can be used to set different types of training paces, the calculator that YHC uses is:
https://runsmartproject.com/calculator/
This mile should be an all out effort, as in if you had to run 1.1 miles you couldn’t do it, merlot is ok (just wait until you cross the line and try to avoid fellow pax’s shoes)
Once we have the timed mile under our belt we can plug the number into the calculator and then use the different paces (under the training tab) for future interval work.
Should there be a large number of pax we will run two heats to make sure that it isn’t too crowded on the track itself (don’t want lane 2 to get too crowded with engineers).
Following the timed mile we’ll do a few cool down laps, or perhaps they could be looked at as warm up laps for the next part of the workout to which I’ll leave some suspense but to give a small hint it does involve running.
The kids showed up at 0515 (well most of them anyway), wanting to grow up to be healthy mountain goats we set off for the thang:
1 mile warm up (to the gravel road and back) to the parking lot
Dynamic stretching (toes/heal walks, A skip, high knees, butt kickers) with increasing speed jog outs after each one.
To the track for an overly lengthy Q explanation of:
400M at your I pace (should 1 mile time plus 20-30 sec or so) followed by a 100M recovery (at whatever pace is needed) x as many as you can do in 25 min
YHC got the sense this was pushing people when 20 min in many pax asked how many more times we were going to go around, also means the pax were pushing hard.
A half mile cooldown run followed by elbow planks with a few (10 total) merkins mixed in to do active recovery from the plank
Up to the newly named (but NOT newly christened) “Semi-Gloss Palace” for a 2.5 min wall sit with a 10 sec recovery for a final 45 sec wall sit (yeah, that felt good after running, not).
NMM:
Turkey Leg was burning it up out there as usual, although YHC does have a simple physics question for those more engineering oriented pax, how can someone who doesn’t even weigh 130 lbs have such a loud foot strike? Anyway, always great to have TL out as he is always pushing guys!
A couple of pax commented on how did TR get so fast, good question we can let him answer below.
Freedom was hard at work out there with the after comment of this seems to be working, yes it does, like the rest of F3, it’s what you put into it and you’ve been killing it out there.
Nice to have Icicle and Horsehead out at site FNG’s, this workout starts at 0515.
Buttermaker was keeping pretty close to the front (far enough in front of YHC that I couldn’t keep track anyway).
Booyah was consistent and claimed to be having fun until the calf acted up, stretch and roll, stretch and roll my friend.
Stump Hugger was pushing the F3 Gear in a good way but not as hard as he was pushing it on the track, way to get at it.
The Mouth rolled up and caught the pax after the turn at the gravel lot but that was about all that was heard out of him today (unusually quiet).
Huggy Bear on two days running in a row and still going strong.
Announcements:
Pax leaving from Stonehenge at 0700 on Sat to help with clean up in Columbia.
Joe Davis Run Jan 9, watch for the pre-blast.
Follow Slim Fast (and Prohibition) on their marathon on Sunday at:
chicagomarathon.com and apparently there is also an app for that, Slim Fast’s bib number is 631, if someone finds out the bib number for Prohibition please post in the comments
16 Pax (setting a site record only days after BRR) set out to work on running better, faster, stronger, yeah stronger, that’s where we’re going with this one…The formula at Mountain Goat is generally not too difficult, do some structured running and get better at it. Same thing today except add kettle bells, no you did not read that incorrectly, add kettle bells. Adapting a US National Tomato Triathlon team workout to scale it down the thang went something like this:
Warm up mile towards Starbucks, don’t get close enough to smell the coffee though
Some dynamic warm up with:
20 Heel walks straight, out, in and jog to street light
20 Toe walks straight, out, in and jog to street light
20 butt kickers and jog to street light
Pax are now at the bottom of the Coburn hill where curiously a row of kettle bells sit in the grass and the rest of the workout is explained as:
10 kettle bell swings (or 20 squats, remember, modify as needed)
Hard run (ideally about 80% of sprint) 100 yards (or so, we timed it at first to scale for all pax)
light jog back and repeato – 5 times and regroup, then 5 more times and regroup and then 3 more times and regroup
Cool down run back to the school, the 12 picks up the 6 when they hit the parking lot and then some plank work to finish off the time, well maybe YHC called it a minute early, this one smoked me.
Given that YHC is not a professional I basically stole it from someone who is:
http://running.competitor.com/2014/06/training/kettlebells-hill-killer-workout_22120
but the idea is to mix it up to work the muscles hard at the end of the hill sprint, sure seemed to work for me. Also given the number of meatheads (purported meatheads but pretty sure they’ll do BRR next year, heard one nameless meathead propose a 36 man team) in attendance it was good to help those pax that needed some help, thanks guys.
NM:
Serious T Claps to Slim Fast, thanks to some poor Q’ing on YHC’s part, he not only had to lead Sensei but ran with a kettle bell the warm up mile, serious apologies there, poor communication, no excuses offered as none are sufficient. Great effort by the pax out there, Kilowatt continues to get stronger and faster, Geraldo kept passing YHC and Freedom found a rhythm and just kept it up the entire time. VooDoo and some of the other meatheads eyes lit up when they saw the bells, something for everyone today. Saw a lot of serious effort out there really hard to call them all out and frankly that workout smoked YHC to the point where I don’t think I remember everything. Really appreciate feedback either directly or in comments below on the format, I know it’s different than what we normally do but to work on prep for the mile time this one was focused on finishing strength.
Annoucements:
Mud Run sign up obviously
Volition half marathon near Lake Norman, Stump Hugger has the details
The entrepreneur event at White Water Centre, it’s on Twitter and the website I believe
Great send off by Freedom today, keeping us strong where it counts!
13 Pax posted at Hydra today thankful for the beautiful weather and police escort, alas the police carried on and did not join. The idea was to do some pull ups and something a little different which went sort of like this:
Warm up run around the school:
COP:
25 SSH
10 BOYO
20 IW
5 BOYO
15 Mtn Climbers
Partner up for partner AMRAP pull ups +2 and repeato
Mosey to the small track
Someone left a bunch of stuff out at the track so the pax decided to pick it up and put it down a bunch of times:
Partner 1 Do exercise at the litter station while partner 2 runs a lap and flapjack then move on to the next station
Battle Rope
KB Push Press
KB Row
KB Swing
Calf Raises
Medicine Ball Toss
Jump Rops
Sand Bag Squat
LBC’s until everyone complete the round
Repeato
More LBC’s and that wraps up the workout
NM:
Great effort by the pax, those that needed to get the legs moving after BRR had the chance to do it in doses to stretch it out and also strengthen in prep for next year. Not a lot of mumblechatter but seemed to be more due to pax needing more sleep than anything else. Burpees would have been skipped but since RS was in attendance the burpees were had. Write up corrected to add One Eye, was easy to miss out there since he was so crazy fast (unfair).
Announcements:
Mud Run sign up
BRR for next year (I think they were kidding but just in case)
It is much easier to write a backblast when you write up a detailed pre-blast #cutandpaste
9 pax showed up to become Mountain Goats and a small part of the journey has now been completed and is roughly outlined as such:
Basic warm up, about a 1/2 mile out (pronounced oot) Woodfox and back to the track for dynamic stretching. Q definitely getting the comments when it comes to skipping and bounding, mumblechatter always welcome, you’re at my workout anyway so participation is always optional and I’m not a professional anyway, however I do it because I was taught well and it seems to work.
Running intervals at I pace which also uncomfortably hard which is also about 30 seconds slower than our mile time which is just find some like speed guys and run with them if needed, etc.
200M – 200M jog/regroup recovery
400M – 400M jog/regroup recovery
600M – 600M jog/regroup recovery
800M – 400M jog/regroup recovery
Attempted to run a proper cut down run, taking 5 seconds a lap (which equals 20 seconds per mile) off the pace. Despite the fact that this is described in a single sentence it takes a surprisingly long time to describe in person. Two groups formed, Slim Fast of course leading the faster group starting at a 9 min/mile pace with YHC leading a group starting at 10:30 pace. Groups pretty much stayed together and mostly executed the cut down run. TR of course being the engineer was a bit dismayed at missing the start by a few seconds which threw off his per lap timing but he seemed to pull it off regardless.
Major props to Kilowatt out there, our only respect pax today, he has and continues to be a regular out there and wow is it showing, he powered through all the intervals and the cutdown run pulling in about 5.5 miles today, he commented during the cutdown run that he couldn’t run half a mile before and here he is pulling off 5+ and in the respect category too.
Floor Slapper was quiet but consistent out there which is exactly how you are supposed to run those intervals, nice. High Tide spent almost the entire 800M interval running with YHC and complaining the entire time, which means he was talking, which means he is stronger than he thinks and is definitely BRR ready. Ickey Shuffle, for someone that likes the kettlebells has been getting quicker after only a few times out at Mountain Goat, keep it up and High Tide will take away the 0.0, oh no wait, he’s already lost his anyway, nevermind, keep coming back brother, love to have you out there and the improvement is already noticeable.
Announcements:
Mountain Goat is ON next week, thanks to Honey Bee for taking the lead, yes it will still be a moderate, push yourself workout.
Mud Run signups
So short and sweet since YHC has competing priorities.
Basic warm up.
Running intervals at I pace which also uncomfortably hard which is also about 30 seconds slower than our mile time which is just find some like speed guys and run with them if needed, etc.
200M – 200M jog/regroup recovery
400M – 400M jog/regroup recovery
600M – 600M jog/regroup recovery
800M – 800M jog/regroup recovery
Then we’ll attempt to run a proper cut down run, taking 5 seconds a lap (which equals 20 seconds per mile) off the pace. We will start slow. This is a moderate running workout so we will start slow. The idea is that we will stay together if at all possible. If we need to break it up to sections we will.
The longer recoveries and the cut down run are intended to help with pacing consistency and exposure to a new technique in running improvement. Full disclosure, YHC has actually effectively executed a cut down run twice, I am neither a professional nor particularly experienced but I have learned from my other (failed) attempts that starting too fast is very easy so we will start slow.
TWSS
7 pax showed up fulfilling YHC’s prediction, for the first time an FNG posted at Mountain Goat and actually seemed to like it, crazy. Noticeably no one joined YHC in wearing the metro uniform but tht didn’t deter me from carrying on regardless. Speaking of carrying on…
The Thang:
1 mile warm up to the end of Strawberry Lane and back to the parking lot for some dynamic stretching in professional runner style but without the duly noted and disclaimed professional.
Mosey back to the speed bump in front of the school on Strawberry Lane as the starting point for 6 rounds of 3 min hard (1.5 min out, 1.5 min back) to recover as a group for 2 min. The wrinkle is that the route out is primarily downhill which unfortunately turns into an uphill on the way back which makes the second 1.5 minutes more difficult. It seemed as if the watch started to malfunction as the rounds progressed as the recovery felt shorter and the runs felt longer.
A 10 or so min cool down jog was then adhered to with the accompaniment of the Carpenters Superstar courtesy of TR’s phone, this was actually the most sensible tune to come out of the phone all workout, you would have had to have been there to hear some of the others as I’m not sure I could even tell you what most of them were.
NMM:
It was interesting that on the first interval significantly more distance was covered in the 1.5 min out than the subsequent intervals, no names shall be named as I think this happened to almost everyone. Note that Benny Hill (see TR’s tweet) was also apparently a believer in intervals of a similar and yet different kind. Great to see so much effort out there, Honey Bee remarked (and YHC wholeheartedly agreed) that after Swift and Devil’s Turn this just hurt. In full disclosure this workout was essentially completely re-purposed (stolen) from Bratwurst and slightly modified so Cobains to Bratwurst for that. It was pointed out that EACH interval should have a second by second count down from 5 before starting (thanks TR), YHC will work on that for next go round. Welcome to our FNG Bobsled who was opportunistically EH’d by Honey Bee after a previous Devil’s Turn, really great to have you out!
Great takeout by TR to make up for his earlier mumblechatter
So, have you found the intervals at Mountain Goat to be too hard? Me too, that’s why tomorrow we will be recovering almost as long as we are running. Is there a catch? Why yes there is, thanks for asking, the catch is that we will try and run a bit faster on the interval. Ideally looking to target our “I” pace from the https://runsmartproject.com/calculator/ otherwise known as your 2 mile race pace, or in the vernacular, an uncomfortably hard pace. Ideally we’ll do this for 6 rounds of 3 min on, 2 min off for you watch setters out there, this is of course following a normal warmup and preceding a normal cool down. We will work to keep the course mostly flat without being on the track.