Background: I work at OSU as a graduate teaching associate and lift at Ludus Magnus. I am a raw lifter who competes in the 105lb weight classes, and am currently prepping for my next meet (when grad school finally gives me a weekend off) . Currently, I am in the process of trying to accomplish my lofty lifting goals,survive graduate school, and teach undergraduates about what I really love, TRAINING..
GPP Week3: ME Lower_Saturday_May 2nd
Warm up-general
1. Wake up and have a panic attack realizing I agreed to run the half marathon.
Training
Run a half marathon as my max effort lower on the last week of a general preparation training block (without having run more than 30 seconds since August 2014).
WAIT, what? Maybe I should back up....
The half marathon-experiment/test of my "fortitude"
So in this training block, I was focused on improving my GPP (general physical preparedness). GPP is essentially non specific work you do to increase your work capacity. By doing general work you increase your conditioning and things more specific to the work you plan to do later (like power, strength, hypertrophy, etc-depends on how you design it).
In my GPP block (4 weeks) I wanted to start to accomplish the following*:
- Improve and increase my work capacity by hitting lots of high repartition sets (15-20+) with short rest intervals (<30 sec)
- Reduce my imbalances by doing lots of single joint work.
- Have a mental "restoration" from the heavier weights (and stress in general) through use of lower intensities (%1RM).
- Lean out by taking advantage of potentially increased EPOC, high reps, short rest and inefficiency at this type of stuff (I'm terrible at high reps). Inefficient = burn more calories.
*Goals adapted and inspired by Buddy Morris preparation phase I (GPP manual)
To do this, I set of training like this:
1) warm up
2) main movement (either straight weight speed work on dynamic days or 5RM max effort work)/
3) assistance work in high rep circuit form with short rest.
The hope there was to maintain my strength and power while increasing my work capacity in my assistance. The short rest allows of aerobic recovery of my anaerobic metabolism (the thing that predominantly fuels most explosive and strength based exercises) and thus actually is training the aerobic system (don't believe me, keep reading).
Anyways, the block was coming to an end and I had made a joke that I thought my GPP had really improved, so much so, that I thought I could run the half marathon (despite having not run for over 30 seconds since August of 2014).
Of course a couple of the guys I work with told me that was not going to happen (run the whole thing), and I sure enough signed up to run it the next day.
But why would I do such a crazy thing?
1. My training was specific to increasing aerobic capacity though my aerobic recovery of my anaerobic metabolism from all that high set-dynamic work with short rest (10+) and high rep-short rest-assistance work. I really believed I was adapted enough to handle it. I was really hoping my programing had been specific enough to elicit those adaptations. Hell, I was banking on it. (Training Specificity- Concept that "training responses/adaptations are tightly coupled to the mode, frequency and duration of exercise performed (Hawley, 2002)."
2. I hate being told I can't do something.
3. Sometimes I like to do things, that I know will challenge me mentally and physically, just to see if I still have "a pair."
4. If I am 100 percent honest, my self efficacy was totally crumbled in the dirt. I was currently not believing in myself and really needed to just do something hard.
The race
Well it was awful. I mean from mile 1-13.1, absolutely terrible. These are some thoughts that went through my head.
"Will I ever reach steady state and will this ever get easy?"
"I'm dehydrated, I just got cold and it is 80 out-mile 5."
"Why do people do this for fun."
"Man, my heart kinda hurts-mile 5."
"Just kidding, my legs feel like they are no longer responding to my mental commands to move forward."
"I wonder if my EPOC is greater than someone who runs all the time."
"Left, right, left, right-Mile 11."
At mile 11 I swear I hit the wall and was crawling for the next two miles across the finish line. However, minus 4 x 30 sec stops to potentially throw up, I ran the damn thing. I used to think the "hitting the wall thing is mental," but it is real. My legs just ran out of energy or something.
Once I finished I sat on the grass in a haze for a good 30 minutes. Of course the car was parked a half mile away with all that was left I hauled my behind to the car. Immediately Pete Bommarito's words jumped into my head and I went into massive recovery mode. I drained my legs, did soft tissue work, and then took a hot bath. And then I puked for 2 hours straight. However, I was still in a good mood because I honestly couldn't believe I finished that thing.
Side note: I refused all Gatorade and ran on a stomach of 6 cups of coffee and nothing else, because if I was going to do something stupid, I wanted to be all in.
Overall
I guess manipulating rest, sets, and reps to elicit an aerobic adaptation actually does work. I also think that when you have a high relative strength, moving your body becomes easier than it would be if you did not (so by default that helped the running). So in summary, strength + GPP helps running ability OR I am the most stubborn person of all time*
*Stubborn in that I don't give up on something I say I am going to do easily.
School Update
So, in 3 days I will officially have my M.S. in exercise science if all goes well. On the downside though, Nature Methods rejected my paper this week. I believe how I feel is best summarized by the below FB status. Oh well, like I said I'm stubborn. Now, time to keep trying to get the paper published! 
**Excuse any typos, I'm in a bit of a rush at the airport!