Posts Tagged ‘mileage’

For 3 runs this week, I had some quad pain in my right leg so I’ve been taking it easy, pacewise.  The weather helped with that, a big mush of snow came down one day and then it was just plain friggin’ cold for the others, so I’ve had no problem keeping it calm.   I also foam rollered the crap out of it which worked wonderfully, drawing out that exquisite pain that no amount of Stick or hand manipulation can replicate.

Yesterday I was back to my resilient self, not a twinge to be had, so today I’ve got 9 with some strides on tap, then tomorrow, along with a blessedly warmer day they’re promising,  I’ll do a tempo run, which I haven’t done since December!

I’d been so good doing both a tempo and interval session weekly during my 5K cycle but in this “between” period it morphed into one interval/fartlek/steady state or progression a week.  I have no regrets about this, I firmly believe that there is a time and place to put the pedal to the metal and between cycles isn’t it.  In fact, considering I started on this 7-day/week running at the top of January, I guess we can officially call this period basebuilding.

Funny to think that back in November, I declared I’d be aiming for 45-50 mi/week, though in my heart of hearts, I figured I’d be closer to 45 than 50.  Now I’m looking at 60 for my average and it doesn’t feel like I’ve even increased the load.

I’m embracing the idea of keeping mileage at a level where, when I go into marathon training again, there’s nothing to have to build beforehand, just make the long runs longer and add specificity to the quality work.  I suppose it does take out one of the potential growth elements, but at the same token, removes one of the potential injury elements, so I think it’s a valid plan.

Quasi-basebuilding aside, next week marks 12 weeks to my goal Half, so it’s time to get back into serious work mode.   I still have no idea what pace I’ll be shooting for, so it’s all a big fat question mark.

Speaking of fat, my weightloss slowed down for a while there, which I believe was a result of not eating enough.  I’m now targeting 2000 calories/day which seems to have kicked the weight-loss back into gear.   I’m loving the results so far, I’ve lost 7.5 pounds so far and my body looks better than it ever has.  No lie.

I’ve settled on 114 lbs. as my final goal – Glover’s magic number for my height and one I think will suit my small frame quite well.   That means I’ve got 5 lbs. left to go, which seems like no biggie but it’s weird, because I never planned on losing 12.5 lbs. and if I thought of it that way, would have been freaked out at the prospect. Now, it’s like having a huge unopened Xmas present waiting for my hot little hands to unwrap.  What will the final speed gains be?

The anticipation is heavenly.

I had a fantastic run today and even broke some personal records.

Besides my first 14 days in a row, I ran my fastest 13-miler ever (8:26 avg. pace).  It was a progression run, last 4 miles averaged 8:04 (coupla 7:59s in there).

Lastly, you know how in the previous entry I said I was going to do 12, which would bring me a new mileage record of 59.25?  Well, I brazenly wrote that, thinking “I refuse to buckle under the pressure of making that 59.25 a 60, just to make it that beautiful, even, divisible by 10 number”.  Yeah, right.  New mileage record today: 60.25 (still uneven, but at least in the 6-0′s).

So today it’s Eagles vs. Cardinals (so exciting!) and we’re getting a big fat, greasy pizza (even more exciting!).  Then tomorrow I’m going to do a bona fide slow recovery run so that I can get some good intervals in on Tuesday.  Yeah, I’m continuing the “streak” though I’ll no longer be thinking of it as one, just me running until I feel like I need a break.

Beyond that?  Who knows.  At this moment, life is good and that’s all that matters.

My new-found zoominess was back on the shelf yesterday for a slowish 8-miler.  I could feel my legs were kinda tired so I kept to a normal (9:03) easy pace.  Funny how our bodies know exactly when to wrangle in our wild ways.

Even though I’m not involved in any Mileage Challenge going on at the forums, I’m still aware that I have a few days to get those last yearly miles in, so after I write this, I’m out into the world for a 9-miler, then tomorrow probably 8.  I’m already at 2027 miles for the year and that’s with getting sick for a couple weeks and taking off for my ankle after Broad St.

Nevertheless, I’ll still refrain from making a total mileage goal for 2009 and just stick to my weekly goal of high 40s-50s/week.  Whatever it adds up to in the end is whatever it is -  after all, it’s the journey, not the destination.

Meanwhile, I’m getting more serious about losing those few pounds, so four days ago I finally signed up at The Daily Plate to track my food intake.  I really like it, it’s much better than Fitday, which I used a few years ago.  The database is much larger so it’s easier to find food items.  I even made a meatloaf the other day from Allrecipes.com and the exact recipe was in there.

The whole weight issue is very low-pressure though, since there’s no time-frame involved.  Like last night we went to a friend’s for dinner and I had no problem scarfing down 4 shots of sambuca during some card-playing, along with a couple cookies (and wine with dinner).  I would have done it anyway, now I’m just more cognizant of it.  Today’s back to being good, of course.

And this ends my Looking For Something To Write About post.  Have a good day friends, and a fine run if you haven’t been out already.

This weekend, I had an epiphany, an eye-opener of the widest kind.  But before we get into it, I’ve got some ‘splaining to do.

As you all know, I loved marathon training, found it challenging but not difficult using the plan I’d chosen, Pfitzinger’s 18/55.

I admit that during this period, I fully expected to end up faster in other distances simply by dint of “the marathon training process”.  I’d read enough accounts of easy PRs gained, both during and soon after such training periods, that of course I expected it to happen for me.  How unhappy-making then, that my one race in the midst of the plan (a measly 4-miler) ended up with such disappointing results.

To understand just how disappointing is to look back at my Spring PRs: a 5K in April (23:06) and a 10-miler in May (1:19).  Both of these races are in the same ballpark of McMillan’s calculator.  Yet here was this 4-miler in September at 30:48!  I attributed it to the marathon training process, tired legs and the fact that it was a short race when I’d been training to go long.  I played it down.  But in my critically thinking head, I was a bit dismayed.

Fast forward to this last weekend, my 10K race.  Yes, it was a sizeable PR and I’m genuinely satisfied with my performance, but if I compare it to last Spring’s PRs, it was not good.  In fact, as far as McMillan goes, it’s right on par with my shitty 4-miler!  When I realized this (and that my Marathon time also fits in the same McMillan range as well) I had to recognize it as a trend, not a few unrelated blips.

So I began investigating the Big Picture and it quickly became apparent to me what was going on.

#1 Revelation:
My mileage build for the marathon was no great shakes.
Note: These monthly graphs include all training runs, but exclude races.

Or rather, since I was no stranger to 45-50+ mile weeks, it was stupid for me to expect that doing the same thing would give me some kind of bonus.  Sure, I had a peak month, but the surrounding ones don’t look any different than assorted previous months.  The fact that my marathon training mileage was apportioned differently (spread out across 5 days instead of 6) certainly helped my endurance, but the mileage itself wasn’t a stress factor, and stress (or increases) are how envelopes get pushed.

#2 Revelation:
My average pace got slower…much slower.

See anything notable starting in June?  That’s where marathon training began and with it, recovery and much slower long runs.  Quite an obvious difference, huh?  Back in the Spring, I not only ran all my easy and long runs faster, I was also doing both a speed and a tempo workout each week.  For marathon training, I had weekly speed or tempo, never both.  So no dramatic mileage growth and less fast stuff, too.

How silly, then, to think marathon training should have given me a speed boost, why would it?  I didn’t stress either speed or mileage – just longer long runs.  That said, I gained beautiful endurance which was completely the whole point anyway – I never could have run a marathon back in the Spring.  With this in mind, I consider my marathon training 100% successful, I have no regrets or complaints.

The important and freeing thing though is that I now feel totally OK with where I’m at speedwise, even if it seems I’ve regressed a tad, because I understand why.  It’s not because I’m all washed up, that I started too late or used myself up too soon (yeah, I actually was thinking this crap).  No, it’s an obvious reaction to a lack of stimuli.  Duh!

Does this mean I’m abandoning everything I learned during marathon training?  Well, you can see from the last month on graph #2 that I’m still doing some slower stuff, though honestly, it won’t be doing those 10+min recovery runs unless I really need them.  And expect this month’s avg. pace bar to become a lot shorter starting with next week’s dual quality sessions.

But this doesn’t necessarily mean I’ll approach the next marathon much differently, either.  I’ll try to increase the mileage, but a main priority for me is keeping training fun and I’m not sure how many miles it’ll take before fun turns into drudgery.  And I love that I was able to avoid injury the whole cycle, so keeping the fast stuff to once a week sounds wise, too.

The main thing is realizing that everything requires it’s own proper attention, that no one training cycle is going to cover all race bases and to keep expectations in line with that training.  I’m only beginning to understand how all this works, how I work.  As they say, “we’re all an experiment of one.”  It sure is fun figuring it out.

I like those little milestones you get when you’re a runner; first this, first that, most this and that, though some of them are totally arbitrary and useless (like my “first 9 consecutive days” the other day). Some of them, I wouldn’t even consider except that the Beginners Forum at RW has all these great ways to commemorate stuff.

First, there are the Dailies (also found in other running forums across the net) where you post your mileage each day. It’s big fun to read what everyone’s up to, plus it’s great to have a public accounting of the miles you put in along with any other fun thing you want to mention.

Then there’s the Miles Game, where you’re part of a team and each week, you post your team name and mileage for the week. These get tallied up and again, are impressively motivational, even more so than the Dailies, because you don’t want to let your team down, which puts a whole ‘nuther element in there.

There are other Games, too, one having to do with yearly mileage, but I don’t really care about my yearly totals, since I think in terms of “weekly mileage” more than anything. Maybe in a couple more years I’ll care about yearly mileage because I’ll have something to judge a new year against, but right now, I just look at the number with amusement, as more of a “hmmm…interesting.”

On that note, today is the last day of January, and there’s yet another regular thread for January Monthly Totals where you cough up this month’s mileage accumulation. Like the yearly totals, I don’t care so much for Monthlies, not that I think anything negative about them, I just don’t pay attention until those threads come up. So with my uncaring attitude, I’m uncaringly proud to say that this is my first month over 200 miles – 201.13, to be exact. Cute.

And now I’m looking at tomorrow’s weather, wondering what I’ll end up doing since I bagged yesterday for high winds, tomorrow looks like high winds plus 90% chance of heavy rains. Pooh. I might try to do hills – after all, I did buy that Asics Storm Jacket so I wouldn’t have an excuse to skip for weather. On the other hand, I may just sit on my fat ass and eat bonbons since it’s all up to me anyway.

I’ll let you know tomorrow…same bat channel, same bat time (give or take a few hours ).