How I Trained, Once Upon a Time

I'm doubting that these images will be readable, even when enlarged. They are 4 months of my training in my last decent year, a bit of a down year, but the best documented. I ran 85 miles per week most weeks, with two-a-days and long runs of 24 miles (while the times aren't given, in the previous year I marked that my long runs were usually 7 1/4 to 7 1/2 minutes per mile, though the distances were undoubtedly short, perhaps by as much a mile in 24). Though I had never heard of "threshold runs," "VO2max intervals" or "lactic acid tolerance training," all can be discerned in what I did.

The first race was a 15K that I was disappointed to run in 53 minutes. There were a string of 10K's, all between 33:22 and 33:58. I changed my training for two weeks to run a mile race, done in 4:32, which I consider my last good race.

My notes show I was always on the verge of falling apart, often depressed and fighting injuries - that, at least, hasn't changed!