Posts Tagged ‘training plans’

Big mileage milestone for me this month: 402 (because 400 would be “eh”).  I celebrated with a big fat tempo run and on the cooldown, when I realized I had just passed the mile marker that meant 400 had officially clicked over, I had to smile.  It might not ever happen again, but I do enjoy a new most-est.

Major Training Plan Revision
It’s hilarious, aside from this season’s base-building plan, whenever I post a training plan here, a week later it’s totally changed.  Why?  Because that troublemaker Coach Adam/A Muse always sticks his 2¢ in and of course, his cents always make sense.

First off, I have to say I adore that guy.  Months ago, when I announced I’d be doing things my own way, running lots of mileage and eschewing workouts, I knew he wouldn’t be into it.  And I totally understood why – it was partially what the famous coach/scholars might suggest (off-season base-building is standard fare) but no workouts, not even strides till I felt good and ready, was unconventional and for a normal runner would not be a great idea at all.

But I wasn’t quite normal at that point, burnt-out and sad about a lack of progress, so I went ahead, knowing it wasn’t “right” but that it was right for me.  After Adam’s initial and understandable “I don’t know about this” reaction, he’s been incredibly supportive since.

So anyway, it was funny that when I posted my plan the other day, he questioned my approach, said that instead of changing so drastically, I should “double down with the experiment” and stay closer to what I was already doing!  Instead of conventional intervals, continue with the on/offs, and instead of focusing on the speed side of the week, really make it all about the tempo runs, which makes sense, since speed endurance is what I need.

Here’s his ever-sensible reasoning:
When you train for a Half, you have two ways you can go, either as an extension of 10k training or more like a marathoner.  If you’re an Elite and it only takes you around an hour to complete a Half, or if you’re a mere mortal planning on racing between 75-90min and already in 10k shape, then it makes sense to think in terms of 10k training.  However, if you’re not in 10k shape (as I’m clearly not), it makes more sense to focus closer to Half pace with visits to MP and 10k pace.  But 5K pace doesn’t really have a place in it since a 20min race is so far removed from a 90 minute one.  Specificity of training = better quality of preparation.

So for the next 6 weeks:

1. Fartleks 10x3min on/1 off at 10k pace (purposely low-key and easy)
2. Faster running will only be in the form of strides and/or hill sprints 3 times/week.  As he put it “If you do 6x100m strides 3x weekly you have, suddenly, 1800m at mile pace. But you’ve spread it out so it’s digestible, doesn’t break you down, and you’re just reinforcing good mechanics.”  So smart.
3. One of the stride days will be a drill/stride session.
4. Tempo runs in different flavors: 40minutes, a couple hour-long MP runs, one fast finish and 2 preceded by an hour of running.

So what is my Half pace?  Damned if I know, but for training purposes and potential goal, until further notice, I’ve picked 7:00 since it’s a nice round number in the correct vicinity.  But my assignment is not to get hung up on pace and to run relaxed which is helpful since weather is an unarguable factor.

Shoe Update
My Adios’ are doing well, it’s been 2 weeks and aside from 2 Kinvara days, I’ve worn them every run.  They already have 198 miles on them, their initial brightness well tempered by a thick layer of dirt.  I thought I’d post a photo since they are not without the usual Flo Quirks.

Notice the lacing; I swear my big toe knuckles are not deformed or gross looking but they were rubbing at the point where the first lace hole is, so I don’t use it.  And the left one was bugging the tendon a tad, so I took some stitches out and snipped through the lace surround (oddly enough, I’ve been doing this snipping thing at that same point on the right foot since my Mizuno Inspire days).  Lastly, I occasionally feel my right arch near the end of a longish run which I think is related to one of the stripes, but it’s not enough of a bother for me to deal with it yet.

I never did tell the whole tale of why I wanted to try other shoes.  It turns out my Kinvaras, which fit just fine if not full of sloshing sweat, do a number on my feet once the socks are soaked through.  Doesn’t matter how much BodyGlide I use either.  Remember that little injury in May when I snipped the callus from the bottom of my pinky toe?  It kept callusing over, which is good, but would then get a blister under the callus, which was as painful as the initial injury, then peel off and the whole cycle would repeat itself.  I even cut out the rubber area there to where there wasn’t any reason for it to keep happening but it did.  I also lost a few toenails that had no business being lost.

I didn’t have this problem last year, btw, but I was also only running 60mpw.  I suppose I could buy a larger size for the rest of the summer but I’m glad to have found something else entirely.  It’s fun to change it up and the Adios are lighter anyway with no toe trauma, whatsoever.

Speaking of happy toes, Ininji sent me some of their socks to review (toe socks), so I think that’ll be my next post.

Week in Review and a Chunky Tempo Run
Most of the runs were done in high 70s with dewpoints in the upper 60s or low 70s. Monday and Friday were recovery runs, Tuesday was just plain hot and difficult and I already wrote about Wednesday and Thursday in my last post.  Yesterday started with a laggardly 9:00mi but improved as it went, the last 5 miles @8:00.

But my major workout this week was today’s tempo run.  It was a big one for me, this season I’ve only done short tempos or tempo intervals and in the past, always worked up to longer ones.  But today was 5.5 miles right off the bat.  The warmup was sluggish @8:50s and when I got to my start point at 2.75 miles (due to water fountain placement) I did something new: stopped the watch and did a set of drills and strides (buttkick, stride, high knee, stride, skipping, stride), then began the tempo.

I didn’t get my goal pace, ended up with 7:11′s as opposed to Daniels’ 7:05s for a 40-min tempo, but I’m fine with it because it was 78 degrees out (Daniel’s conversion = 7:00 at 60 degrees), it took me up over the bridge twice (w/only one downhill), it was my first long tempo this year and hell’s bells, I just did 402 miles this month. Personally, I think I did a fabulous job (ok, yes, I’m annoyed that I didn’t get my goal, but I do believe I get a pass for that list of stuff).  Heart rate was good, and the 5 miles of cooldown felt surprisingly light.

Monday: 9@8:37
Tuesday: 15@8:34
Wednesday: 11.25@8:09 (4x½mi, 4x¼mi)
Thursday: 17@8:21 (drills and strides)
Friday: 13@8:42
Saturday: 12@8:15
Sunday: 13.25@7:55 (5.5mi @ 7:11)
Total: 90.5 mi (avg pace 8:22)

Very happy to have a cutback week ahead.  Only 72 miles!  Like a day at the beach.

I’ve been on the fence about what to do in prep for September’s Half but the clock is ticking down – with 7 weeks before raceweek, it’s time to get my ass moving.  I’m getting excited about it, too; the timeframe is just enough to do some damage without getting sick of it.

First off was a mileage question.  Should I plan to cut back while I get into the workouts or do I keep it status quo?  A lot of the high-mileage threads on Letsrun involved kids running high base mileage during summer but then cutting back for Fall but I wasn’t sure if that was due to school responsibilities or a purposeful decision for better training.  I posed the question to some higher-mileage runners on MRT and those who responded don’t cut back on volume.  In fact, they hardly even taper – it seems the more mileage you do, the less you need to cut back before a race…what an interesting factoid!  So anyway, I won’t be messing with my volume, there’s no need.

As for intervals, I’m in old-lady-nothing-fancy runner mode, I don’t want to do ladders or mixed pace sessions and I’m not thirsting for variety, I just want something super simple to fulfill 3-5 miles of speedwork.  So here’s my totally old skool idea:

Weeks 1 & 2: 6 x 800 – the first week 2min recoveries, the 2nd week 90 sec recoveries
Weeks 3 & 4: 5 x1000 – same recovery pattern
Weeks 5 & 6: 5 x 1200 – same recovery pattern
Week 7: 5 x mile – recovery tbd

Weather allowing, the 800s and 1000s will be 5K-ish pace, the 1200s and miles around 10k pace, though considering it’s July and August, I’m expecting some adjustments.

Tempo runs will be the standard single-paced straight-through variety on cooler days (if we have such a thing) or split into sections with short recoveries when it’s hot.  Lastly, there’ll be some extra credit in the form of strides and hill reps.

Nothing fancy but should do the job admirably.

Hot Weather Bitchfest: The Lows & A High
It’s extremely rare that I have a miserable run but this week, there was one.  Friday brought record-breaking weather to a number of cities and Philly had a double, one for the highest low (82) and highest high (103, heat index 114) so when I left the house at 5:50am it was already “feels like” 98 with the dewpoint at 76.  The park was eerily quiet with only a fraction of the usual runners (the whole weekend was like that, actually).  My first 3 miles were super slow, all I could muster were 9:20s.  My pace did its usual drop as the miles ticked by but even so, when all was said and done, I averaged a blistering 9:00/mi.

Saturday was way better, 88 degrees when I started but the heat index was only 91 thanks to a dewpoint of 64.  Still gross, but in comparison to Friday, quite lovely.  OK, that’s a stretch, but at least I didn’t want to die. 13@8:35.

Today was Saturday’s twin as far as conditions, but I had a surprisingly great run.  It wasn’t that it was fast or easy, it was that I found a new hill for doing reps that I’m in love with.  The deal was, I left the house determined to do something with hills but there was no way I was going to do hard reps up Lemon Hill – it’s really steep and turny and last week’s paltry 4 reps were super hard though it was 15 degrees cooler.  So I got it in my head to do 6 reps but just normal running, not pushing the pace at all, make it like a regular hilly run.

As I was nearing my turnaround on the quiet side of the park, a vision loomed before me…the perfect hill.  It’s not nearly as steep as Lemon Hill, but it’s a straight shot with nary a curve and practically screamed “run up me! run up me!”.  Seeing that hill, I wanted to run reps at effort!  So I did. The reps were 1:15 to the top and at first I thought, “I’ll do 4, that’s enough” but I didn’t want to stop (I swear, this was like Twilight Zone to my lazy ass).  So I did 6, or so I thought – when I got home, it turns out I did 7.

This was an important lesson for me.  When I decided that running a few times normally up Lemon Hill would be my answer to hillwork on a friggin’ hot day, I had a total guilt feeling, like I was wimping out.  Then I had another moment of guilt when I saw the other hill and weighed it against Lemon Hill, thinking I was somehow cheating because it wasn’t as steep.  But that is such bullshit! I hate Lemon Hill and don’t find it fun in any way, shape or form.  And here I find this other hill that I want to run up, so much so that I end up doing more reps with more effort than I would have done on Lemon Hill.

Goes to show, it’s not all about textbook numbers and the perfect hill grade and the best possible thing you can do to improve.  It’s about finding ways to love training and being drawn towards it instead of being repelled yet forcing yourself anyway.  Not that that’s never supposed to happen, pushing yourself and fighting through difficulty is of course necessary at times, especially in a race, but there shouldn’t be anything wrong or guilt-inducing about finding more pleasant ways to get the work in.  In fact, you might just end up accomplishing more in the end.

Lemon Hill (evil hill)

Strawberry Mansion Hill (good hill)

Heat Wave Week in Review
Monday: 9@8:24
Tuesday: 15@8:16 (8x2min on, 1min off)
Wednesday: 12@8:30
Thursday: 17@8:36
Friday: 12@9:00
Saturday: 13@8:35
Sunday: 12@8:33 (seven 75-sec hill reps)
Total: 91.5 mi (avg pace 8:33)

Between Thurs, Sat and Sun (which were all similar, weather-wise), I can say that Daniels’ temperature comparison calculations are off for me.  For 90 degrees, he says I’d slow by 19 seconds but I think it’s closer to 30 seconds in my case.  Not that any of it is exact science (and maybe it’s because humidity is not taken into account), but I thought it worth noting.

A solid week, for sure:  76 miles in singles over 7 days.  Between the weather, new tunes on the iPod and some deep thinking about life and love, it was easy to wrack ‘em up.

My body is adapting to the new level without any drama.   There was a one-day quad tweak that went away with some tennis ball mashing (too lazy to get on the floor with the foam roller) and a “how did that happen?”  purple toenail, but the load seems normal.  And when I’m out there I feel, I dunno…capable.  Confident.  It’s a deeply satisfying period.

Here’s how the week went:
Mon: 9@8:19
Tues: 12@8:28
Wed: 8@8:03
Thur: 14@8:02
Fri:  8@8:21
Sat:  14@8:03
Sun: 11@8:08
Total: 76 miles (avg pace 8:11)

This is my sweet spot for the next few months, 70-75mpw.  I’ll wait one more week to make sure my legs, ankles and feet are settled and then I’ll start adding strides to a couple runs.  Baby steps, baby steps.

Meanwhile, Broad St (10-mile race) is in 3 weeks and I’ve been thinking about it in the abstract.  I kind of swish it around the way you decide what you want for dinner, trying on different tastes in your mind and belly, but in this case it’s “should I do it or not?”  I feel the best when I stop thinking about it entirely, so that’s a pretty good indication right there.

Also, I haven’t done a quality workout in 3 months, so even if I shove some fast stuff between now and the race, it won’t be pretty.  I mean, I’m guaranteed a fat PR by dint of not having raced a 10-miler since 2008, but this isn’t about a PR.  It’s about having a new number that quantifies whether I’m Good, Bad, Fast or Slow.  Do I really need that information right now?  I don’t think so.

To keep this high going, this joyful, unfettered running…that’s my current assignment, handed to me by Instinct.  It’s an important lesson and I don’t want to mess it up.

Hmmm.  I guess I just made a decision.  No racing until the Fall.  Cool.

Already veering from the schedule, my last 3 days were higher than planned.  Expecting bad weather for Thursday, I went 13 on Wednesday and as it turned out, Thursday was fine, just some chilly mist so I did 10. This landed me 263.3 miles for March, my highest mileage month since last May.

Now, back to this plan talk…

More about why
There’s something I left out in the last post that I need to explain, an additional motive for the plan that goes beyond the fun factor.  It’s called Summer.

Last summer was awful.  It started with a race collapse/hospital stay that screwed with my head royally.  My paces dropped a lot more than in previous summers and I felt fragile and insecure physically, allowing myself to plod on non-workout days which became a bad habit.

I’m not saying it was purely a bust, in July I started working with Coach Adam/A muse, which was invaluable as it gave me needed direction and put me back into the game with some kick-ass workouts.  But coming off that weird race scare, I was starting from a negative space to begin with.

This year I am bound and determined to go into Summer strong and remain so till the end.  I refuse to see my paces drop off a cliff and whatever dropping does occur (inevitable with the heat) will be minor compared to last year.  How will I manage it?

1. Building mileage now so when summer hits, I’ll be comfortably stable at the new level
2. Going into it with these fresh, energized paces
3. Making hard running an afterthought, not the main thought.  This means less heat-related worries about rearranging days, dumbing down workouts or fear of ending up on the pavement.

Yes, I know that without the proper stresses (hard/easy, short/long) this doesn’t even qualify as training anymore, but that’s ok!  My instincts tell me that I am going to come out of this a better runner thanks to a happy headspace, consistency and the most important practical aspect…higher mileage.

More about mileage
I once averaged 70mpw but only for 9 weeks in marathon training – that’s what I’d call an aerobic tease.  And though I’ve had long periods in the 60s and high 50s, I find my weekly averages are less than what I imagine: 58mpw in 2009 and 54mpw in 2010.  While the difference between 54 to 70mpw isn’t huge, it’s an untapped reservoir and I’m willing to bet that changing this alone will be a valuable addition.

Back to the plan…
When I wrote it out, I was pretty conservative about the build with 65, 70, 54, 72 then repeating the next month.  but since the past 7 days were pretty much what I can expect from a 6-day week in the 70s (14, 12, 11, off, 12, 13, 10) and I’m feeling good still, I’m going to go for straight 70s now and lose that recovery week completely (Jim, you called it), taking extra rest if I need it.

I’m not even going to write out a revised plan here since my parameters are simple: 6 or 7 day weeks with 70+ miles…however that works out is how it’ll work out.

A Last Word
Prompted by some Facebook idiocy and expanded for anyone else who can’t seem to figure out that we are individuals, each with our own likes and dislikes, here goes:

I am not you, you are not me.  If I decide to do something because it sounds fun to me but it doesn’t sound fun to you, I don’t care.  I don’t run for you.

You can tell me to race more! race for fun! add more variety! or whatever brilliant idea you somehow imagine I’ve never heard or thought of, but if I don’t want to, you aren’t going to make it happen.

I think about running.  A lot.  I’m not a 14 year-old with my first issue of Runners World Magazine.  The choices I make are weighed, considered and colored by my experiences thus far.  Respect that and I’ll respect you.  Don’t, and I’ll tell you to go fuck yourself.

And with that, have a great weekend people.  Have fun, run well.

Last night I started messing around with how I want the next couple months to look and came up with something fun that makes a bit of sense, too.

Here’s the thought behind it:
1. I’ve been thinking about getting up to 70mpw again but my most important consideration is keeping it fun.
2. I don’t do doubles, I’m a singles gal all the way, which means hitting 70 in a 6-day week requires a string of longer runs.  Doing this weekly would not be fun, it would most definitely become a grind and at this point in time, I’m vehemently anti-grind.  This schedule gives me variety, mileage and works the legs in a couple different combinations (longer runs in 6 days vs a 13-day stretch of shorter).  Good for brain and body.

So starting yesterday:
Week 1: Off,12,9,12,9,13,10 (65mi – basic week)
Week 2: Off,12,10,12,10,14,12 (70mi – longer runs)
Week 3: Off,8,10,7,8,12,9 (54mi – recovery week, shorter runs)
Week 4: 8,10,9,12,9,14,10 (72mi – no rest day but shorter runs achieve the mileage)

This is actually a sublimely easy schedule with room to grow – if  I get the urge in May, I’ll raise the mileage on the lower days.

Now in the past, my highest mileage weeks were a few 82s I hit while marathon training which included 3 workouts/week, so this is a walk in the park.  However, that was 7 days of running with an actual Long Run (20-23) which means the bulk of the other runs were shorter.  This makes Week 2 a slight challenge in its own way, though without quality runs in the mix I can go as slow as I need, so no biggie.

Speaking of, I’m remaining on a hiatus from quality work indefinitely.  I’ll continue with a mix of pacing, but “moderate pace” will continue to be my mainstay.  When I do re-introduce quality workouts, I have my eye on Steady State runs (between Marathon and Half pace…a common training pace before tempos became de rigueur).  Sure, it’s not as effective or efficient as tempos, but it sounds fun and that’s my buzzword for the season.

Oh, one you’ll notice is a seemingly big gap between the recovery week of 54 and the next week of 72, but you have to look at that section as day-to-day, not as weekly amount.  Day-to-day it’s actually a very even 2-week stretch.  Had to clarify since I could see that getting some raised eyebrows.

No Long Runs
The past couple months I was disinterested in reading about running but I’m happily back to my quasi-researching antics.  My mainstay is LetsRun.com where I search through old forum posts to investigate whatever assorted subjects are floating in my head – the latest being mileage and Long Runs.

If you’re marathon training, Long Runs are important – they’re the closest you’ll come to the race time/distance without ever actually getting to 26.2.  But for those of us targeting shorter and who have some mileage already in the pocket, you really don’t win points going overdistance.  That’s not to say 14 will be my absolute longest run from this point forward, I’m sure I’ll go longer for one of 3 reasons: 1. variety, 2. because I’m feeling kick-ass and it’s a beautiful day and 3. to grow the mileage.  But even then, 15-17 is as far as I’d go; what Pfitzinger calls a Mid Long Run, it doesn’t even qualify as a Long Run…eh, semantics.

So anyway, this is the framework that’ll take me through May.  And even though it’s kind of nothing, just an order to some mileage, seeing it laid out gives me a little thrill…like I’m beginning again.

My runs.  They’re improving.  Why?  I think it’s a mixture of
1. Taking that 2-week break
2. Removing quality runs, thus taking all the pressure off and
3. Getting laid on a regular basis

OK, well maybe not that last one, but it sure has lifted my general mood.  As for the break, soon after I was back on the roads, I thought “That was very nice, but didn’t really do anything for my running”  but now I’m thinking it might be the catalyst for what’s going on.

Perhaps it’s like running higher mileage, that you see the fruits of it appear a couple cycles down the road.  Who’s to say the effects of a break wouldn’t be slightly delayed as well?  Might be totally bogus and have nothing directly to do with my current progress, but if nothing else, it gave me permission to do #2 on that list without fear of regressing.

Another interesting and positive thing is that I weigh 119, as I have for the last couple months.  The whole appetite-quashing experiment started because I wanted to get back to 115 (my weight over the winter) to eek out as much speed as I could but I was getting hungry at night while not wanting to count calories or be strict about dieting.

But if I’m getting faster at this heavier weight and it doesn’t give me the evening munchies, then screw it!  I’ll save 115 for its original and proper purpose: racing.  All I ever cared about with the weight thing was making progress and since it appears I now am (and can still fit in my tight jeans) it’s all good.

Now For The Runs…
As mentioned in last week’s post, my average pace that week was 8:10, something I hadn’t previously clocked without quality runs in the mix.  Also if you remember, I wore my HR monitor once to make sure I wasn’t racing my runs, which showed 77% HRR on an 8:03 run, perfectly respectable aerobic pacing.  Well…it was even better this week.

First off, here are the last 7 days:
Mon: Off
Tues: 9@8:14
Wed: 8@8:05
Thur: 9@8:20
Fri:  9@8:00
Sat:  14@8:09
Sun: 11@8:00
Total: 60 miles (avg pace 8:08)

Btw, when you don’t have any quality workouts, you don’t need recovery runs so if you look at these last couple weeks and wonder “where are the slow runs?” I just didn’t need any.  Trust me, if I need one I’ll do it but I won’t add one in unwarranted – the rest day has been providing adequate recovery.

Now lets talk about my last 3 runs, all of them notable:

Friday
What’s weird about Friday is that it was the warmest day of the year so far (72 degrees) and that’s usually a performance hit for me right off the bat.  I pared down to a sports bra and shorts, but because I’m a little shy about the first shirtless run of the year (because there are only a few other chicks out there who wear sports bras)  I ran faster from the get-go.  It’s a silly thought pattern that goes “If I’m gonna run nekkid, I better look the part”  So miles 2-4 averaged 7:41.  That was great until…

I got dehydrated during mile 4.  The fountains haven’t been installed yet so I knew I was somewhat screwed.  I made myself slow down and turned around early to make it a 9 instead of the planned 10.  As I was coming back, I felt like I was seriously trudging, like 8:30s, plus I was running into a headwind, so when I glanced at my Garmin and saw I was going 8:00 to 8:05s, it was genuinely freaky.  I stopped at the bathrooms (one mile from my house), drank from the sink and resumed, the last mile my slowest.

Saturday
Since Saturday is date night which always continues through the following afternoon (happy sigh) I’ve started doing my LRs on Saturday so I have less miles to fit in on Sunday.  I had planned to do 13 but it was so beautiful (mid-50s again) that I added an extra mile making it the longest run I’ve done since January.  I began at a conservative pace (first 3 miles averaged 8:40s) thinking this would indeed be the week’s slow run, but as I warmed up, it became an unexpected progression run, getting down to a couple miles at 7:30.  I really didn’t know where that came from.

Sunday – Another Effort Check
After Friday’s weird fast run and Saturday’s progression surprise, I needed to again check that I wasn’t perceiving myself as running easy but in actuality working too hard, so I wore the Heart Rate monitor.  Um…wow.  11 miles averaging 8:00/mi, HR was 159 (74% HRR), even better than the previous week’s test.  This means that whatever’s happening under my skin isn’t a fakeout and I’m not racing my runs at all – it’s the real deal.  Exciting!

The Racing Situation
With all this happy running going on, I had a really weird thought the other day. What if I don’t race again till next Fall?

My plans were to do a 5K in April and the Broad St. 10-miler in May.  The latter would be a huge PR no matter what since I haven’t run a 10-mile race in a couple years.  BUT, I’m also thinking why ruin this time of delight and peaceful running by getting myself worked up with performance angst?  I want to be hungry to race, not do it because I think I should or to get a PR by default.

So I haven’t made a decision yet but it’s a real possibility.  I’m considering continuing this no-training way through the summer, keeping the mileage between 60-70mpw, sharpening in the Fall and then have a coming-out party with the (previously named) Philadelphia Distance Run in September.

Whatever happens, I’m having one of my most satisfying running periods right now.  No day is a bad day. Can’t beat that with a stick.