Posts Tagged ‘half marathon’

First, I’ll talk about yesterday’s tempo, a pretty swell workout from the get-go: 12 miles w/3x (2.5mi@HP, 3min rec’s.) Environment was 68-70 degrees with a gusty 17mph wind.

My first couple miles were alien to the entire summer, 8:24 and 8:29.  Wow, just like old times!  Where’ve you been, my sweeties?  The 2.5mi intervals averaged 7:11, last 2 miles home averaged 8:11.  Final tally: 12.1 miles @ 7:42/mi.  Yu-huh.

Jim asked me if I was sandbagging, planning a PR after all, but I’m still so mistrustful of my fitness and with such a long hiatus from racing (plus my first one without carrying a handheld) this legitimately has Rustbuster written all over it.  They’re coming though, those pretty little PRs, I can smell ‘em.

Summer Paces
I’ve been wanting to talk about my summer paces, but only now that they’re behind me.   Yes, we had a record hot summer but still, my easy and warmup paces were so insanely slow, I was too embarrassed to post my averages.  This is kind of shitty because I know that when I give you the real dirt, it lets you know that it isn’t just you struggling, but my paces were so much slower than even the heat-adjusted calculators gave, that I wimped out.

I had one angel on my shoulder saying, “You know you don’t fare well in the heat – it’s ok, honey” but then that bitch on the other side would pipe up, “That’s just an excuse, ya big whiner.”  By the end of June, when 90 degree highs became the norm, I just gave into it.  My easy paces were very often 9:10s to 9:30s, even 9:50s sometimes…slower than recovery runs! Crazy.

The one saving grace is that my 3:20 forum buddies, who are more like Sub 3ers at this point, are very comfortable running slower paces.  Having them as examples gave me “permission” to trudge when I had to trudge.  I looked on the bright side and considered it “time on my feet” (always a handy fall-back) though did wonder if, beyond heat, habit plays a role, too.  That you get used to a certain effort-level and start settling in to that naturally.  Didn’t really matter though, I ran what felt right at the time.  As long as the quality runs were at the right paces (albeit adjusted for heat), I was ok with it.

The funny thing is that we’ve had a few cool days in the past couple weeks but it’s not like I wanted to run 8:40s right out the gate, I was still in 9 mode to start (which is what got me thinking about habit and pace).  Then this past week, still with warm days, the pace started to lower, culminating in yesterday, better than pre-summer.  Of course, I’m also lighter in weight, which makes a difference, but it’s interesting that it’s not an instant return – seemed to take some acclimating back down.

My Exciting Fun News
I’m going to be a-traveling in January!  Going to Californ-i-ay (San Diego to be exact) for the Carlsbad Half Marathon on Jan. 23rd.  This’ll be a blast on many levels.  I’m going to stay with my pals Jackie and Louis (a.k.a. HikerGirl and RiP), longtime forum friends with whom I finally got to hang with in Boston.  Jackie and I always have tons to giggle and snicker about while Louis is hilarious, so forget the race, this is a highlight unto itself.

Then, I get to meet the Coach Man/Composer Extraordinaire who made this cycle such a strong one, Adam (a.k.a. A muse).  This is seriously cool since I’ve admired the guy’s running chops for forever.  He doesn’t know it yet, but I’d love him to give me a lesson in Track 101 while I’m out there.  Maybe I can coerce him.

Then there’s the race, which boasts a beautiful course and also handily falls about 2 months after the Philly Half.  So I have 3 Halfs in succession with 9 weeks between.  Enough to get in a good training hit before each.  As I mentioned on the 3:20 thread, I’m no longer thinking in terms of “goal” races but hope to continually get better at this distance as I collect more under my belt.  Basically, they’re all goal races and none of them are.

Then there’s California!  Hard to believe that with all the traveling I’ve done, I’ve never been as an adult.  I’m peeing in my pants excited to finally get there.

And on that drippy note, as I head out for an easy 10-miler on this lusciously gorgeous day, I wish you all a great weekend.  Savor this beautiful weather if you’re lucky enough to be a recipient.    Ciao, babies!

That was weird.  I get to the park this morning and find myself in the tail end of a 5K.  Who schedules a 5K at 7am Wednesday morning?  Stinkin’ hot, too.  But on to the good stuff…

My Training Plan
It’s here, it’s here!!  My Half plan for the philadelphiadistancerockandrunhalfmararoll, formerly known as the Philadelphia Distance Run on Sept. 19th.

During my week off, I  Half-fashioned a Half training plan under the guidance of mentor (coach?) Adam/A Muse who patiently refined and shaped it into a really swell, kick-ass plan.  I can’t thank him enough for working on it and hope to do him proud come September.  Thank you, Adam!

The plan is based on an article about periodization (for marathons actually, but applicable to the Half, as well) where Base is followed by a Speed phase, then a Strength phase.

Now, I haven’t followed a periodized plan since I did Pfitzinger’s 18/55 two years ago.  Since then, I’ve used either Hudson’s canned plans, which don’t have real defined phases, or I rolled my own without any thought about that stuff.  I mean, I always knew I should be thinking in those terms, but wasn’t really understanding how to go about it till now.

Base: a no-brainer.  This one is abbreviated because I have a strong base already, just need to build back easily after the heat drama, so nothing hard this week except for a progression run.  The following two weeks include rudimentary quality to get me prepped for the Speed phase.

Speed: this phase features 5K pace interval sessions and tempos mostly at 10k pace.  There are also a couple miler workouts from this great article Adam sent my way.  The tempo intervals on Aug. 6th will be my first taste of Half pace and establishes a baseline.

Strength: this portion focuses on 10k strength workouts. As Salazar says about Half training, “…it’s 75 percent the same as 10K training.”  Also, in addition to the 10k fun, starting in the Speed phase and ramping up through Strength are a good number of race pace runs, very important.

Long Runs: most of these will be on my local trail which gives me a hillier route than usual.

Recovery: this may be listed here after all the fun stuff, but it was the first thing I penciled in.  Recovery (or lack of) has been on my mind a lot these days; my cavalier attitude about it, how I rarely took cutback weeks and when I did, the mileage cut was meager.  No more.

This plan has two major cutback weeks on each end of the Speed phase with a 30% reduction in mileage.  That means taking two days off in each of those weeks.  Seems excessive, but my instinct tells me it’s the right thing to do.

To bolster my point: my friend Jeff is an accomplished, hardcore cyclist, podiums all the time.  A few weeks ago at a bike race, he and the entire 40-45 AG were beat out by a 63-year old, and by a sizable margin!  He spoke to Jeff after the race and told him his success is all about recovery, especially before races.  And he never puts in miles “just to put in miles”, everything has a purpose.  This is nothing I haven’t heard before but this time…I’m listening.

Enough jabber, here’s the plan, full size.
Joking. Click for hugeness.

Two more items worth mentioning, nutrition and sleep:

Nutrition: I already eat cleanly, so no problems with this.  The cookie gorging finished a few weeks ago, then dessert became cereal before morphing this week into fruit salad, which is really weird because I’ve never been a big fruit eater – suddenly I love it.  Yay me.

Sleep: I’ve been as stupid about this as recovery.   I have to stop going to sleep after midnight  if I’m going to get out early to run.  I end up tired all summer.  Will amend this starting tonight.  11pm or bust.