Our first top elite female runner to contribute to the series with her first summer training blog entry is Lucy Biles, a rising senior at Herriman High School in Utah. Biles is a returning Foot Locker All-American (7th in 2013 national race) and returns to racing this fall after posting strong track times from this past spring of 2:11 in the 800, 4:50 in the mile, and 10:32 in the 3200. Biles shares with us her first four weeks of summer training. Next week, she will be blogging about her week of training and experience at the Nike Elite Camp at Nike HQ in Oregon.
LUCY BILES (UT) TRAINING BLOG
Week 1 (6/23-6/29) - Week 2 (6/30-7/6) - Week 3 (7/7-7/13) - Week 4 (7/14-7/20) - Week 5 (7/21-7/27) - Week 6 (7/28-8/3) - Week 7 (8/4-8/10) - Week 8 (8/11-8/17)
After a successful track season I took a week off so that I could physically and mentally recover from the track season. That was really nice, but after getting to see the new team and feeling recovered I was ready to get back into things!
Along with runs, on Monday and Wednesday after practice I go and do a weight workout with my team. We mostly do yore body and core.
Week 1 (6/23-6/29)
6/23 - My first day back I did an easy 4.5 miles (around 8 min pace), really just getting back into things. It was fun running with the team after training by myself for a good month or so.
6/24 - I live in Utah, so there are a ton of mountains. Today we did about 9.5 miles up yellow fork canyon, after we reach about 2 miles it's really hard to keep a steady pace. On the way down you can really cruise though. This is by far one of my favorite runs.
6/25 - An easy 4 mile recovery run after yesterday's hard run. Nothing too exciting.
6/26 - Another easy run about 3 miles, still getting back into things and recovering from track and Tuesdays run.
6/27 - There is this relay from one end of the state to the next that's about 200 miles, everyone has a team of 12 and a van that drives along side the runners. So I did that today, my first leg was 4.1 miles and I did it at 6:10 pace, then I got about 6 hours of rest, and maybe 2 hours of sleep before my next leg of 3.6 miles, this one was harder cause it was a pretty gradual uphill. My pace was about 7:10.
6/28 - Today was my last leg of Ragnar, and after about 3 hours of sleep and 8 miles before that I was pretty exhausted. But knowing it was my last leg made me want to push, this one was about 4.3 miles at 6:30 pace.
6/29 - Rest/recovery day, no run.
Week 1 Total Mileage: 33 miles
Summer Total: 33 miles
Coming into week two I was a little more prepared to run faster and harder runs, really ready to prepare to meet my full potential during the season.
6/30 - Easy 6 mile run, just around town. After Ragnar my legs were super tired and I was exhausted because I had hardly gotten any sleep.
7/1 - The team ran some really hard trails, I decided that I had jumped into things a little to fast so I took this day off. I'm glad I did, it got me refreshed and ready again.
7/2 - Moderate run, about 6 miles. The team was recovering so I ran with the boys at a little faster pace, but not too fast. Felt good.
7/3 - Easy 4 miles around the lake. Took it out at around a 8:30 pace and ended out at like 7:50.
7/4 - HAPPY FOURTH OF JULY! Ran a 5k that actually only ended up being about 2.9 miles. So converted to a 5k my time was around 18:00. Total of 5 miles with warm up and cool down.
7/5 - 3 mile easy recovery run. 8:30 pace.
7/6 - Rest/recovery day, no run.
Week 2 Total Mileage: 28 miles
Summer Total: 61 Miles
Week 3 (7/7-7/13)
7/7 - 5 moderate miles, ran through H-town with the boys. Fast last miles cause they were all downhill. Good run.
7/8 - 6 miles on our XC course, some of the hardest runs we will ever do are on that course. Had a hardest time getting through it than I had hoped, but what doesn't kill you makes you stronger.. Right?
7/9 - 5 moderate miles for recovery. Except there was a crazy turn of events today! Once we got done with about 3 miles there was a goat that popped out of nowhere. It followed the team back to the park running two miles with us
7/10 - 7 hard miles up yellow fork canyon. The way up was hard, but the snake trails on the way down were fast.
7/11 - 4.5 easy recovery run
7/12 - Rest/recovery day, no run.
7/13 - Rest/recovery day.
Week 3 Total Mileage: 27.5 Miles
Summer Total: 88.5 Miles
Week 4 (7/14-7/20)
This week my team had our XC camp. We went up to lava hot springs in Idaho, the elevation is about 7200 ft, and we do around 30 miles in three days.
7/14 - Morning run: 4 very hard miles up to camp. The elevation gain is about 1000 ft in this run.
- Afternoon run: 5 miles through the woods, easy first half, then we pushed the second half.
7/15 - Morning run: raced a morning mile, introducing ourselves back into speed workouts. My time was 5:09. (3 miles with warm up and cool down)
- Afternoon run: downhill 9 miles into town, the first 6 are all down a really downhill road that you can just cruise on. Then the next three are mostly flat, but they feel like uphill and it feels like a lot more than 3 more miles.
7/16 - Morning run: team relay on a 1.5 mile course. Each person does it twice. It was really hard to finish it out because my legs were super dead from pushing it the past two days. ( 5 miles total)
7/17 - 4 easy recovery miles.
7/18 - 4 miles moderate, kinda recovered.. Mostly wanted to be done with the run so I pushed it the last mile.
7/19 - no run, recovery day
7/20 - no run, recovery/rest day
Week 4 Total Mileage: 34 miles
Summer Total: 122 Miles
7/21 - 6 miles of fartleks. 1 min off 1 min on. The last bit was down hill so we were able to fly!
7/22 - 6 miles on hard trails. We may or may not have gotten lost... :)
7/23 - 3 moderate miles, last mile was tempo.
7/24 - Raced a 5k, the course didn't seem too hard, but it was actually pretty difficult.. And slow. I ran a 19:23.. And took 8th overall and 1st for the women. 6 total miles
7/25 - Nice and easy 3 mile recovery run. A cow tried to run with me, so that's cool.
7/26 - Moderate 6 miles just to get a longish run in. Felt good and ran a fairly decent pace!
7/27 - Rest/recovery day. No run
Week 5 Total Mileage: 30 miles
Summer Total: 152.5 miles
This past week I had the opportunity to go out to Portland, Oregon and be part of the Nike Elite camp. It was by far the most amazing experience I have ever had. We had the opportunity to be coached by some of the most amazing coaches, we learned from some of the best pro athletes, and trained on the best facilities. I could tell you all the details, but that would be a novel!
7/28: -Morning: Easy 2 miles
-Afternoon: 6 miles, at 6:50 pace.
7/29: -Morning: Raced a a mile, it was a pretty downhill course, however the conditions were not ideal. I ran a 5:05 (3.5 miles total)
-Afternoon: 12 x 2:00 min fartleks, with 2 min in-between and 2 miles warm up and cool down. (9.5 miles total)
7/30: - Today was the first day of Nike Elite camp, so i traveled in the morning, and then got to the hie campus, then when I got there I went on an easy 4.5 mile run with Allie Ostrander, Lauren Gregory and Fiona O'Keeffe. We ran around on the trails surrounding Nike Head Quarters. It was a great introduction to camp.
7/31: - Today we did a workout out on the track with Alberto Salazar. Before we did out workout we watched Galen Rupp and Matt Centrowitz do their workout, that was amazing to watch as well. The workout we did was 2x 600,400,300,200. We ran them all pretty fast, it felt good though. (5 total miles)
- After we did our workout we did some core work with Simon Bairu, and some hip strengthening drills with Elliot Heath.
8/1: Today we went up to MT. Hood and ran anywhere from 2-8 miles, I only did an easy 4. We ran around an amazing lake, and after that we got in the water for an ice bath. It was another amazing run, with amazing athletes.
8/2: 5K race today, some of us raced it, and some of us tempo'd it. I tempo'd it along with a group of other girls. We ran around 18:20, so not too bad for having a pretty busy week! About an hour after we raced, we went and did a pool workout. This was the first time I had ever done pool running, to say the least it was definitely interesting.
8/3: No run, rest/recovery day.
Week 6 Total Mileage: 36 miles
Summer Total: 188.5 miles
Monday (8/4): Today we started speed workouts, we have a hill that is about half a mile long, and we do repeats on it. Today we raced it once.. My time was 3:28.. So it was decent for coming back off of a hard week but nothing near where I should have been. After that we just ran 6 more miles. (7.5 total miles)
Tuesday (8/5): 5x400m repeats on our course. We have a hill called "the mutha cussa" and we had to run up that. We did those and then ran about 2 more mile. (6.5 total miles)
Wednesday (8/6): easy 5.5 mile recovery run with strides at the end.
Thursday (8/7): 4 mile tempo: 25:45, legs were super tired but it was still pretty decent I would say haha! (6.5 total miles)
Friday (8/8): 3 mile recovery run
Saturday (8/9): Same as our Thursday tempo run, except we raced it this time, I ran a 24:16 (6:04) pace.. Would have liked to run faster, but it's alright. (6 total miles)
Sunday (8/10): No run rest/recovery day
Week 7 Total Mileage: 35.5 miles
Summer Total: 224 miles
Week 8: LAST WEEK OF SUMMER TRAINING!
This week we also started doing afternoon runs so that we could get ready to be training in the heat.
Monday (8/11): same run as last Monday, racing 'lil grinder (800 m hill) came in at 3:20 this time. Then just did the same 6 mile run afterwards too. (7.5 total miles)
Afternoon: 4 easy miles recovering doe the morning workout (11.5 easy miles)
Tuesday (8/12): Today 5 of the boys on my team and I went to run the second highest peak in Utah. It was by far the hardest run I have ever done. It started out at 5,500ft and we climbed up to 11,000ft. It took us 1hour and 52min to get up (7.5) miles and going down we just cruised. It was amazing! The view was totally worth it. (15 total miles)
Wednesday (8/13): easy 4 miles recovering from MT. Timp yesterday
Thursday (8/14): morning: 7 hard miles up a canyon, tempo on the way down.
Afternoon: 3 easy miles, recovery (10 total miles)
Friday (8/15): 3 easy miles, tempo last mile
Saturday (8/16): 2 miles, just putting in the last bit of our mileage.
Sunday (8/17): no run, rest/recovery day
Week 8 mileage: 45 miles
Summer Total: 269 miles
