I can feel it coming along!

...I hope...

It's been some nice proegression in training since my 1/2 marathon mess. It could have been the rest, the not not beating myself up in the race or simply progression. Honestly, I don't care why....I just care what.

I am finally feeling at the point where training is no longer a grind (well it`s always a grind), but rather I am taking it in as opposed to fighting it. I think a lot has had to do with simply time, but I also think a lot has too do with a few changes I made to my training.

One, is finally being able to get in some consistent 2 hr runs and the other was yesterday`s post on hills. Rather than crank out some reps on the track I ended up doing 40mins of hills. even yesterday I did a 13min tempo run uphill & then did another 20 mins of hills. This was a variation of an old Rob Decastella workout where his thursday session was a 2-3 mile tmepo run followed by a series of hills (typically 8 x 60 sec, but this was also due to where he was at the time. For egs when he was in Melbourne he would run around the ``Tan` - http://www.coolrunning.com.au/runningguide/arg.php?pagename=Main.TheTanTrack - and then jog over to this park where he simply ran around trees and the hills were anywhere from 10-60 secs).

I`ve always been a big fan of Chris Wardlaw (Steve Moneghetti`s coach and now Craig Mottram`s coach who used a system of training based upon his old coach Pat Clohessy called the `complex system``, but in fact it should have been called the `simple system` as the training seldom changed from week to week and involved shorter workouts in between longer runs. The concept is very Lydiard focussed and Clohessy had learned it while he training with Snell and Halberg one summer in Europe.

When in doubt I like to back to basics and Wardlaw`s ideas are as basic as they come. the system has produced a ton of very good times from various distances, from many an athlete. In other words it`s not a hit and miss program, but one that develops athletes over the long haul.

Check out Wardlaw`s ideas here at the Glenhuntly page 9also the club of the legendary Ron Clarke). When I was in Melbourne I ran with a bunch of the `pack`guys and it was a blast.

http://glenhuntly-athletics.com/assets/wardlawtraining.pdf

and

http://z12.invisionfree.com/Hunter_Reports/index.php?showtopic=259