Posts Tagged ‘training plans’

Thanks to Coach A muse/Adam, I now have the final installment of Flo’s Half Marathon Trilogy.  This one is a spin-off of the last cycle but with a couple interesting (and fun) changes.

Since I’m only doing one race before Carlsbad, three more workouts could be added.  Two of them are top-end speed workouts I was talking about a few posts ago.  I mentioned in a subsequent post that I’d put the fast stuff off till February when shorter races are the focus, but Adam said “why wait?”  and it’s true, it can only be helpful and I had room for them, so they’re on for this week and next.

Then on the 21st, there’s a killer workout to replace the 2x(5x1k) from the previous plan.  That’s what I get for complaining, lol.  His goal was to keep it around 10k worth of 10k pace, so that’s what it is, but in a more “entertaining” package.

I’ve also been instructed to add more hills to my GA runs from this point forward and to my tempos starting Dec. 31st.

Other than that, I’ve got the same cutback week I’ve had in the last 2 cyclettes and many of the same workouts from the previous one, but since there’s no repetition within the cycle, it remains fun and fresh.  I’m really happy with it.   Thanks again, Adam!

Last Week’s Running
Like a large part of the country, winter landed on Wednesday, so it’s been jacket, tights, hat and gloves time in Philly.  I don’t mind, though a little less wind would be nice.

The quality work was all good.  Besides Tuesday’s speed session, I had a strong tempo on Friday: 8 miles w/5@7:08.  Another first: my fastest pace for 5 continuous tempo miles.  I’ll stop doing that “first” crap now,  it’s my excitement over finally seeing progress again.  Hopefully, there’ll be many firsts from this point on.

My 12-miler on Thursday was interesting because after the first mile, I decided not to peek at my Garmin again till I got home.   I’m going to make G.I. (Garmin Ignoring) a once-a-week deal, the mid-long runs seem well-suited to that.

Lastly, yesterday’s LR, a 13-miler, came perilously close to being a terrible run.  The tendon on the top of my foot leading to the big toe has been tender for a couple days.  I think it’s because I need to toss my ancient and beloved black suede Vans in the garbage.  Anyway, for Saturday’s run, I fashioned some moleskin around the painful area but it still hurt and once home, I had to ice it a few times.

Tried again with moleskin yesterday.  Seemed ok for the first 3 miles but by mile 5 it was really hurting so I stopped to completely re-lace my shoe, skipping the holes over the tender area.  That didn’t help.  Then I stopped again to make another adjustment, but no relief.  So I turned around early, unhappy that it’d only be an 11-miler but mostly worried about the state of my foot.

Then, about 1/2 mile into the return portion, the moleskin shifted and the pain went away completely (and now I know where to place it).  Whew!  So when I got back to the museum, I felt good enough to add nearly 2 miles of hilliness by going up and down the little rampy paths there.  Short hills but steep.  Crisis averted and a better run in the end.

Total for the week: 57.5 miles

Hope For The Masters
This is a great article, not only because it features fellow blogger/recent Olympic Trials Qualifier, Jaymee Martee, but because it widens the axiom that “runners generally have 7-10 years to improve after taking up running”.  Several of the women featured have been running much longer than that and are still getting PRs!   Exciting and hopeful, for sure.

Talk about a fast recovery.  Monday I had 6@8:57 and that was all I needed.  Yesterday, my legs were back to normal – 8mi @ 8:10.  Surprised at how comfortable it felt, I was downright effervescent by the time I got home.

It’s a nice break, this week, not having any quality on the menu, just easy running, though mileage will be pretty good: mid to upper 50s.  Then next week I’m back to work for the Carlsbad Half Marathon in January, giving me another of these cute 8 week “cyclettes”.  They’ve worked out great -  long enough to make a dent but not so long that your focus gets hazy or you lose momentum.

Winter to Spring
I realized yesterday that I hadn’t even begun to think of plans beyond Carlsbad.  While I could do another Half, that’d be 4 in a row with the same type of training and I’m a lover of variety, so that wasn’t thrilling me.  Then it hit me that one thing I’ve never done and that would fit beautifully with my recent post on Top End Speed, is to spend a full cycle working on even shorter races than Halfs.

So this is the plan: starting in February I’m going to specifically train for a couple of my favorite 5Ks, which’ll include racing a 5-miler and 10k.  The cycle will culminate with Philly’s famous 10-mile race, the Broad St. Run on May 2nd.   So I’ll start by focusing on the faster end, then stretch it out for Broad St.

This works out really well since

1. I get a change of pace (yuck yuck).  I’ll keep up the mileage since I really love the amount I do (around 60mpw) but this’ll mean shorter/faster interval distances and tempos.
2. I get to zero in on that untapped top end which is good because I wasn’t sure how I was going to fit those zippier workouts in this next Half cyclette – now I’ll just wait to focus it after January.
3. A real concentration on shorter/faster is bound to give my running a dramatic boost for the rest of the year (if only I could make summer go away…sigh).

And that’s the plan, man!   It’s exciting to have something new ahead and one where endurance isn’t the main focus for a change.

Before I get into it, a huge congratulations for the Chicago marathoners who suffered through an atrociously hot race, as is becoming Chicago’s hallmark.  Even though I was in PJs, sipping hazelnut coffee while everyone was out there battling, it was insanely exciting because I was tracking 14 dear friends from the 3:20 thread plus a couple Facebook pals as well as fellow blogger Jaymee Marty, who grabbed her Olympic Trials Qualifier with clock-like precision.

Great job, everyone!!  Also, a Hey to my tracking buddies Jackie and Jim, that was too fun yesterday, like going to the horse races or something.

My Newest Training Plan
Same method as the last one: I framed out a training schedule for the next 7 weeks (now 6), then Coach Adam/A Muse got his hands on it, worked his brilliant runnerly magic and made it fabulous.  I truly love the final result.  Thanks again, Adam!

Mileage is a tad less than last time, only because there are a couple races, making the days before and after something to consider.  I also have a cutback week included again, I love those for the mental break as well as the physical.

One of the fun new workouts comes the week before the race, a 15.75-mile tempo sandwich: warmup, then 3 Half pace miles, run easy for an hour (around 7 miles), then 3 more HP miles and a cooldown mile.  I’ve never done that before and I like the point, you’re fatigued by the time you do that last HP section.

Something else I really like are the workouts he gave me for the race weeks themselves.  They’re peppier than what I originally had, better for getting the legs moving.  And the best part of the whole plan is that nothing here intimidates me in the least. All the workouts that seemed (and were) impossible in summer’s heat – like tomorrow’s 2x (5x1k, 1min rec’s) – I’m confident I can carry.

Speaking of, I started policing myself on pace yesterday.  Coach Adam’s a proponent of Pfitzinger’s LR formula (start at MP+20% then whittle down to MP+10% by the end) which for me means 9:03s down to 8:18s.   I’m in this mode of feeling great at faster paces, which is such a welcome change it’s hard not let fly, but I’ll try to stay close to the formula in order to give the long runs the time they require.

A Clue About My Dropping Body
Something I’ve noticed regarding weather and my problematic races.  I’ve come to the conclusion that temperatures are not my true enemy but that humidity is the evil wrongdoer.  We’ve had such low humidity lately that even though I’m running in some of the same summer temps (yesterday was 73), it actually feels cooler and is way easier to run.

So I’m refining “no racing when it’s low 70s” to “if temp+dewpoint equals around 100 or less, low 70s is fine for racing”.  For instance, I just checked my logs and the collapsing Half added up to 130, hospital-visit 5K was 153, May’s 5K (where I ran a very disappointing time) was 131.   This is key.

Now I have to wait an entire year to test my theory.  Thank god.

I was waiting to post in hopes I’d have results for Monday’s medical test, but not yet.  The test is called Spirometry and it measures lung capacity/breathing.  You breathe into a tube thingy a few times normally, then take in a huge breath and exhale as fast as you can, then you take 12 fast breaths.  You do each of these things two times in a row.

I didn’t (and don’t) expect anything to be found from this or the Echo Stress Test, just because it seems like you’d have to duplicate the conditions to get the same response, though there was a little hiccup worth noting.  On the last one with the 12 breaths, the second time I did it, about 4 breaths in, I lost power which changed the way I felt, sounded and also affected the level of the sine waves on the monitor.  Who knows though, that may be a typical response or within normal standards.  Anyway, I should have the results today or tomorrow.

Oh, and Zipcars rock!  I had my virgin experience and it was all good, the car was a pure pleasure to drive.  I’ll miss my stick shift a bit, but not having to hunker down in embarrassment while my car pollutes holes into the ozone is a fair tradeoff.

7 Weeks To The Philly Half
Been figuring out the next few weeks – I have 6 weeks to train, then one for taper.  I’ll be doing a lot of the original workouts from last cycle, before heat necessitated dumbing down a few.  I’ll also be doing less long Long Runs this time: only one 17 plus a couple 15s and a couple 14s.

This, after a chat with Coach Adam where he thought I should apply Daniels’ max length of 2-hour Long Runs.  I’m game!  This gives me a couple more medium long runs (just 11s and 12s since I’m Half training) which I happen to enjoy a lot.  There are also a couple races scheduled, though the effort level I attach to them remains to be seen.

This Week In Workouts
Monday was a rest day.  Yesterday was an 8miler with my “hillette” workout at the end (12 x 30sec up the museum ramp, jog down).  The weather was so energizing, 55 and raining, that it really was fun.  It’s startling how much easier it is to run in Fall temps.

Today I have an easy 12-miler, tomorrow 8, then a tempo combination on Friday (Half, 15k and 10k paces).  I’ll post after that one to share how those paces felt.  It’ll be interesting to see what the heartrate monitor shows without heat impeding the way.

This’ll be a short one because I’ve gotta rush off to a narration job which, ironically enough if you read the last post, is about rhinoplasty.  I now know way more about that procedure than I ever wanted.

Speaking of  “if you read the last post”, I was impressed by how many actually did.  Around 700 unique readers, which is a lot for a post where I don’t go to the hospital or have some other kooky crappy escapade.  I got so many cool comments, both on here and on Facebook that I wanted to thank you folks for taking the time to read the thing and also, that I love how alike so many of our experiences are.  Makes the world a smaller place, for sure.

Training
I thought it’d be a good time to compare my original training plan with what I’ve done so far.  Because the weather has been an unyielding bitch since June, some of the workouts were adjusted, made shorter or slower, or run on different days to chase a cooler temp.  I also had the hamstring incident that added an extra rest day and forfeited some hard running.

Today’s workout was changed, btw, twice.  Adam noted that 6×1000@5k was going to be too tough, so make it 5×1000, but then when I cried Help! because the heat index at 6am was going to be low 80s, he took pity on me and made it 12×400 with generously long recoveries (2min).  I loved it!

Click on it for full-size.  The original plan is on the left, starting with July 12th and goes through this week.  I know it’s a bit confusing, just note that the workouts are written above the days and each week’s total mileage is to the right, outside of the calendar days.

For Ilana
Sweet Ilana lives in the cool recesses of Colorado and enjoys gloating over her 50 degree weather on Facebook.  She contemplates wearing a jacket and will be in snowshoes the next time she checks in.  So today, when I returned from my 8.5 miles, I wrung out my sports bra and shorts just for her – a nice, thick, white sweat so she could share some summer love with the rest of us whiners.  Goes great in coffee, too.

A little over an hour's running and this is what my clothes had to show for it.

And that’s it for now.  Gotta dash off and talk about Alsarraf septorhinoplasty and mucoperichondrium now, because I’m cool like that.  Have a nice Wednesday, all.

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.