Animal fights, FKTs, and anything but studying!

My name is Joshua Pauley.  And I should really be studying.

As a college student finals are just about unavoidable. Just like taxes and death – it is just something that you have to go through.  I was going to start studying and then I found videos of wild animal attacks in the wilderness. That was pretty interesting.  Then I stumbled upon talk of Fastest Known Times (FKTs) for trails.  And now I am not sure when I will start studying.

Cheese and I at the bottom of the canyon. Isaiah 66:9.

I have mixed feelings about FKTs. I think they are cool, but I’m not sure how legitimate they really are. But I have been given an idea and now I am finding it hard to get it out of my head.  Usually a close friend of mine Jacob A. Phillips (not Jacob H. Phillips who is the coach and mentor) is the root of these foolish ideas.  Jacob a.k.a. Cheese once gave me the idea of running Rim to Rim and sure enough later that year I found myself running across the canyon with him. Of course since then he has convinced me to go back with him and we are planning a trip for 2014. But this time I am concocting the plans.  A FKT would be a good way to start the spring season off.

This will take some more thought, but don’t be surprised if something comes out of this.  Ideas like this have a strange way of materializing. But for now I should really start studying so that is all for today!

Training for this past week: the week started off snowy and cold but ended with me shirtless with sixty degree temperatures.  I hit 85 miles this week in my build-up.  Started re-introducing strides and hill repeats back into my running this week. It is great to practice these things and feel fluid.

Monday- Recovery day mileage and strides.

Tuesday- Hill repeats and weights. Real cold this morning. Got faster as I went along. Happy with the effort that was given this day.

 Wednesday-Twelve miles on the trails today. Snowy and icy run. But it was adventurous.

Thursday- Progressive pace day and strides.

Friday- Easy day with weights.

Saturday- Long run with tempo. 8 miles warm up + 4 miles tempo + 4 miles easy. Good run. Progressed through the first eight miles, and then hit the tempo. My watch died half way through (poor planning on my part). I know I ran the first two miles at 5:33 and 5:35. After that it was true effort which was good to get. I feel like I maintained the rest of the workout. Solid run for the day. Very windy though.

The trails at Big Cedar Wilderness

Sunday- Long run on the trail with fartlek. Good little run. The mud had begun drying up quite a bit so that was a positive. After an hour I began thirty minutes of 3’ up w/ 2’ recovery and finished with fifteen minutes cool down. The reps began to feel more natural as the workout went on.  It is a very interesting sensation running fast on single-trek. A very solid week of running and work put in.  I am hoping to duplicate this over this coming week.

-One thing I did well this week was gauge my effort and not run based on pace.

**Do better for next week eat better when preparing for a run. I paid the price for this on Sunday and felt sick most of the run.

As always thanks for reading and showing an interest in what I have been up too. Training has been a blessing and has been a lot of fun thus far. 

~Bump the Lamp,

  JP

No Freebies

My name is Joshua Pauley. And I am not willing to let someone get a day up on me.

Dallas got hit with a “bad” storm this past week. I put “bad” in quotation marks because I understand that in other states and training environments this would not have been considered much out of the ordinary. But here when there is an ice storm of this magnitude – things go a little bit crazy.  Schools are cancelled.  Supervisors do not come to work.  Athletes sleep in. And runners hit the treadmill.

Mary and I escaped the storm right in time by going to my hometown of Tyler (about two hours east of Dallas) Thursday night.  We did not get in though until roughly 2 a.m. Friday morning. I felt that this warranted sleeping in a little bit. If you know me then you understand why this is a big deal. I don’t typically sleep in.  I’m one of those “The early bird gets the worm” and all that jazz type of guys. My roommates and past teammates can also testify to this as well. I love running in the morning.

The storm that was pounding DFW had missed Tyler, and we were just left with rain.  So I slept in and hit up the trails at Faulkner Park. It’s a nice little trail, not to technical, but not necessarily simple either. The trail’s loop is roughly 6.5 miles and I recommend paying it a visit if you are ever in the Tyler/East Texas area.  I ended up having a pretty solid recovery run.

Saturday morning rolls around and I have a long run workout scheduled (14 miles continuous: after 5 miles 2x (2miles w/1 mile recovery) + 4 miles easy). Unfortunately I did not pack very well and left my warmest running clothes back at my apartment.  I stepped outside at 6 am, preparing to kill this run, only to be slapped in the face with wind and twenty-five degree temperatures.  Like a wimp I tucked tail and went back inside thinking “Oh I’m going back to Dallas later today, I’ll just do it then since I’ll have better clothes.” MISTAKE!

I left Mary with my parents and I headed back to DBU for work and to run. I get to DBU and the entire place is iced over.  It was so bad in fact that it took me fifteen minutes to walk to work (usually it only takes me five). There was no way I could run outside.  I could barely step outside of my car.  Some people suggested I just take my loss and head back to Tyler after work to avoid more bad weather. Others suggested that I do it on a treadmill. I decided I would attempt it on the treadmill. 

Icy Stairs at DBU.
Photo credit: Jacob Setser

This is a big move for me as well. I hate treadmills. And although fourteen miles is not really all that far – that’s a ways to go on a treadmill. So after getting off work I begin the walk back to my apartment.  While attempting to walk down stairs that are covered in ice; I slipped.  Not only did I slip but I fell all the way down an entire flight of stairs (16 to be exact).  I eventually stood up and the only thought I had was “WOW I’m alive!!!!!” That is probably one of the most dangerous accidents I have ever had.  I am very blessed that I was not seriously injured.  But now my leg and hip was all bruised up right before my run. Sweet way to start my evening off. 

I hopped on the treadmill and began to dabble away at my chore.  I covered up the monitor so I would not have to be so interested in pace the entire time (my goal is to run tempos at an effort – not a pace). Things come and go. And I survive. I got better that day. 

Dallas Baptist University.
Photo credit: Mariel Flores

It would have been easier just to say “Oh, I didn’t get it in this morning. I guess I will just take today off.” But as I pounded away on the treadmill I thought to myself, “Timothy Olson is getting better today. Sage Canaday is getting better today. Rob Krar is getting better today. I don’t want to give these guys this day.” Because had I done what was convenient and easier, and not ran, guys I want to beat would’ve gotten a day up on me.  And I’m not good enough to give these guys freebies like that. I need every day I can get. They’re working their butts off – everyone is. And I’ve got to do the same. 

The winter is a hard time to train. And by the looks of it – things are not going to be easy these next couple of months (weather wise). That cannot be an excuse though - because someone is always working.  Someone is always getting better.  But at the end of the day I am going to have to ask myself, “Did I get better today?” 

Training notes from these past two weeks:

Week of 11/25-12/1:  Just eased back into things. Thirty to forty-five minutes daily. Pretty simple stuff.

Week of 12/2-12/8:

Pretty “chill” week (pun intended) at 70 miles total.  Did not integrate Tuesday hill repeats in on this week, still was easing back into it. Saturday’s LR workout went well. I went 11:14 and 11:07 with the recovery mile somewhere between 6:30-6:40 (total time was somewhere around 1:33-1:35. I am not too sure because the treadmill was giving me a hard time). Had I done this workout on the roads like I was originally intending my goal was between 5:35-5:45. I got in a good effort and finished strong. Sunday’s LR was on the trails. An hour easy followed by thirty minutes of two minutes up and one minute down and then finishing with fifteen minutes cool down. That was a pretty sweet workout. I look forward to doing more workouts on the trails as the training progresses.  I believe learning to run fast and hard on technical trails will come in handy later down the road.

-One thing I did well this week was I got in all the little things ie: core and weight routine.

**Do better for next week: Do a better job of staying hydrated. I am kind of lazy with this.  

Thanks for reading and showing an interest in what I have been up too. Hang in there folks!

~Bump the Lamp,

  JP

First Steps

My name is Joshua Pauley.  And I am taking a small first step.   

This spring I will be racing Grasslands 50 miler as a tune up for my focus for my goal race - Possum Kingdom 52 miler. I have had a lot of thoughts about training. There are so many ways to go about things.  This post is about what I have decided for my running throughout the winter and spring training blocks.   

To understand what I believe in regards to my training you must understand where I have been with my training in the past.  It is on the success I have had thus far that my foundation is formed on.  It is on the success I have had thus far that my confidence is found in. 

My dad is a coach and teacher; and these are roles that he has always played directly for me as well.  Because of this I grew up doing all sports.  Through high school I played football, basketball, cross country, and track.  My training was never very focused in high school.  I came from a small East Texas school, with an enrollment of 200 kids, at these schools distance running is not something that is focused on. With my dad as my coach through much of my high school career I made it through.  I made the run through district, and regionals, and state. I did all that jazz. I was not particularly fast coming out of high school (1600m: 4:36, 3200m: 10:00, & 5k: 16:45). With minimal training and experience in high school – I accomplished my goal of being recruiting and running at the collegiate level. 

My freshman year I did ok.  I made the travel squad for our cross country team (top seven) and I survived through indoor and outdoor track.  But I was not great…and to be completely honest I would not even say that I was good. Sophomore year rolls around and I had put in a solid summer and as a result I had a decent cross season.  But I had come up short and found myself dissatisfied.  At the end of the fall semester I went to my head coach, Jacob H. Phillips, for a talk. 

I think as runners, and as people, we eventually have to choose – do I want to be the runner that I currently am or do I want to be the runner that I dream of being? We have got to ask ourselves this and then take action. So that is what I did.

I told Jake that I wanted to do something bold and to be someone else.  A different runner.  I told him I wanted to run 100 miles a week.  His response was “How about 110 miles per week?” I set off that winter to go hide out and become someone else. I returned for the spring semester a different runner…and I set fire to the track.  I toed the line at every race, and I would look to my left and look to my right. And I knew I was going to beat most of these people. I knew I had done more work.  I knew I had bled for that opportunity.  I PR’d in every race I ran that indoor and outdoor season (thanks coach).

The mileage is not what made me great.  It was the work I was able to do as a result of the mileage.  Mileage is just a means to an end.  A way to train harder.  A way to callus over.  A way to go numb to the world around you. 

The following summer I began putting in the most intensive base and summer I ever had all in hopes to win a conference title.  Weeks upon weeks of high volume. After that I had the best season of my college career.  I won the individual conference title and my team won its third consecutive team title. Things were great.  I was running a lot.  I was strong. I was having fun.

Indoor season did not go great. I did not have a lot of “pop” in my legs – which would make sense because you’re not supposed to have a lot of “pop” in your legs. But it just did not feel the same. I struggled that season – running slower than I had in my entire career. I decided to redshirt my outdoor season.  And I hit the reset button.

I ran and I ran a lot. If I love doing something why not do it as much as I can? So that spring I just played. It was a spring of mileage, fartleks, and tempos.  If I remember correctly I did six weeks at 120 mpw. It was good to run free, unstructured, and get back to my roots. It was fun. After the spring the entire process started over. Long steady runs and high mileage. Hills and tempos. And then repeats in the last four to six weeks of my senior cross country season (DBU won its sixth straight conference title on the girl’s side and fourth straight on the guy’s side).

Jake has always preached that “strength is speed.” DBU is a Lydiard based training program.  They believe in high aerobic capacity sprinkled with some speed at the end.  I have had success with this and I support it completely.

So how does this carry over to training for my winter and spring training block?

Strength…obviously.  For this first training block I will only max out at 120 miles a week – which I have done consistently before and I’m comfortable with it.  I will be doing weekly tempo runs within my long run (to help develop depth in my running and to adapt to race situations).  I will also do fartleks to develop speed and leg transition.  Hill repeats and hill circuits, which are my disguised speed work.  I will do back to back long runs on the weekends. As you’re reading this you might be wondering where my intervals are.  But they are there.

In “Intervals” Dakota Jones writes about some of the training he has done and talks about some of the interval reps he has done. He writes: “…depending on the race for which I am training, those have fluctuated up to 4 x 12 minutes, 4 x 20 minutes, and even a few 2 x 30-minute intervals.”  All this is is 4x2 miles, 4x3 miles, and 2x4 miles of hard effort in the middle of a regular run. This is very similar to what I am doing. I am just titling this work different. You can read the sited article here: http://www.irunfar.com/2013/10/intervals.html.

Dallas Skyline from Trinity Trails

Tempos are great but I hope long runs will be my key to success.  Running them easy, running them as part tempo, and running fast finishes.  It’s going to be a bit nasty. But the long run will be my bread and butter this spring. 

Over the last three weeks I have been able to talk to Paul Terranova and learn from his career and his training.  I think one thing that really impresses me about Terranova is his durability.  He just had his 40^th birthday and he is not showing any signs of slowing down. After talking with him I have decided that this is a big testament to cross training and recovery days.  So I want to make sure that I personally do a good job of recovering and doing the strength training – because he is proof that it does pay off.  I want to enjoy this process and have a long life in the sport. 

After building up to 120 miles a week I will be on a three week cycle.  Two high weeks and then one down week.  I will go through 2-3 of these cycles.  It will be interesting to see how things go.  I’m not ready to do any crazy mileage (140+).  I train in Dallas, so I do not have any mountains to run up.  But I will make use of what I have.  Week to week I will post a write up of my training from the past week – and that will be more specific about what I am doing. 

We can always be who we are now. Or we can decide to go for it. To risk everything. I for one want to risk it, and go for it – and training is just the first step.

Thanks for following me and showing an interest in what I have to say. Also thanks to Paul Terranova, Joseph Hale, Jacob H. Phillips and all the other people in my tribe for all of your contributions.  It is going to be a long road, but I know great things can happen. 

~Bump the Lamp,

Joshua

“A journey of a thousand miles begins with one small step.”