Matt Tegenkamp, Chris Solinsky and Tim Nelson are back from their altitude-training stint in Flagstaff, Arizona. How did it go? Read on to find out, and keep the questions for our heroes coming in the comment section below.
How is your training different than what you would have normally done at this time of the year in Madison?
As you would guess, we are in base phase right now, and the last 7-8 weeks have been a steady climb in mileage. A few things are different this year than in the past; one was that my break after the season was shorter because of the impending altitude stint. It was a good thing, though, because in the past taking a lot of time off—which is a nice feeling after such a long season—I would get lazy and it would be hard for me to get going. This year I got back on the horse 10 days after the 5K road championships.
Second, the biggest change was altitude. It was our first time up and something that we wanted to experience during our off-season to figure training out. We are very excited to see the benefits!
Third, we are doing real workouts now, actually using spikes, doing repeats on the track, and getting turn over work. Not to say that we are stoking and getting too fit too early, but in the past we would get the mileage up and only add one progression run in a week. The lack of workouts in the winter was mostly due to our Northern location in Wisconsin. We could not get outside to do track muscle memory work and the body can only take so much of the indoor track! We know this is still base phase so we are still logging the miles and putting in the big volume repeat sessions, long tempo/progression runs and combining it with 5K muscle memory work all year round.
How long is this stint at altitude? And why did you decide to add that to your training schedule now?
We were in Flagstaff for 5 weeks. I think it was a little bit of our ego coming out because our group had a lot of success without going to altitude. We figured we had a good thing going, so why try to fix something that wasn’t broken. Over the past couple of years we have been focused on developing our finish and training has been geared toward that. Now we need to get to that last kilometer as comfortable as possible so we can use our kick.
I will say that the aerobic system lost a little ground in that type of training, and that is what we are focused on now. Altitude is a proven method of increasing the aerobic system, so we wanted to take full advantage of that. It may be late in game, but we are looking at the big picture of training different energy systems and think we are on the right track. Hopefully this year we will prove that once again.
Matt, I hear you had a few injuries during college. I am just recovering from a stress reaction and so would like to know how you built your training back up to normal levels sensibly and what sort of crosstraining you did.
Hopefully by now you are back training, you found what worked for you training wise, and everything is good. I probably bucked the trend with injuries because I would not crosstrain! I took the mindset that my body was hurt and it wanted rest. I could have crosstrained, but who is to say that it would not have taken longer to heal. Plus, you can kill yourself crosstraining and still feel horrible once you are running again, so I said the hell with it.
Once I started running again I was a bit crazy. The first few week would be very low mileage, running every other day. During these weeks, since the runs were short I would run pretty hard (sub-6:00 pace) if I could manage it. I wanted to feel like I was getting something out of the short runs. After a couple week the mileage would go up steadily and I would have to start throwing in some easy days to recover. After about six weeks I felt like I had worked the rust out of my system and was ready to start training again. I think it is really important to push yourself pretty hard when coming back from time off.
Where in Portland did you guys move to? Have you done any training there yet? Do you like the area?
I’ve been to Portland many times and love the area. We are still in a transition period with some of the group already moved and some still in Madison. I am still in Madison, mostly due to the altitude stint, so I have not been around to take care of logistical issues that will be involved in the move. I hope to be out in Portland permanently after the start of the new year.
During your altitude training, is your diet and fluid intake the same as it would be at sea level?
I would say that I ate about the same (a lot) but the fluid intake was much higher. It is very easy to get dehydrated at altitude so we were taking in a lot of water.
What will your highest week be during altitude training, mileage wise?
Nelly 120, Solinsky 112, me 100. All of that was done using the famous Badger miles system.
Any altitude sickness?
We think our wimpy coach might have, but the athletes were just fine!
Matt, 10K?
In the future. What do you think I could run?
Are you planning on racing more indoors this year? Will you head back to altitude at other points throughout next year?
Don’t really know our plans yet. We are just focused right now on getting the most out of our training and getting ready for a big year!!
Are you guys concerned about iron levels at all? Teammates of mine have struggled with altitude and iron/ferritin. Any precautions? Is it even on your radar?
We are keeping a close eye on our iron stores and we were taking liquid iron while we were up at altitude. We would not get the benefit without it.
Matt, you seemed a bit shell-shocked after Beijing. What’s your opinion now, several months removed? You were talking about adjustments, but what can you do to compete with someone whose last 3K of a 5K is equal or better than your 3K PR?
As of right now I am not worried with beating the best runner in history; I just want to get myself back to medal contention. Things did not go all that well last year, but it happened and we are making the necessary adjustments. It is going to be a good year for the new Oregon Project group.
Lineth cruised to a convincing win at Saturday’s Athletics Kenya cross country meet in Nyahururu. Running at more than 7,000 feet of altitude, Lineth showed she’s well on the road to recovery from injury with a 25:48 win on the 8K course. Her closest competitor, Joice Wanjiku, was 44 seconds back.
