Road Racing and Training Thread, Week Ending 3/11/2018

Smoove, what made you move in the direction of a larger taper? Just general fatigue in the legs more so than usual?

Pfitz has the 2 miles at HMP in his plan as the only intensity race week. Cutting intensity and keeping easy volume seems to work best for me.

This week and next is Intervals and a Threshold workout per week, previous to these two weeks it was one "workout" Per week.

This Tuesday I did 2x800 (2:45/46) 3x mile (5:41/420/42) 2x800 (2:46/47)- 2mins rest on 800s- 3 on Milers..I could def feel that mountain race in the legs a bit.

Friday is a threshold.. dthe plan is 4-5x Mile Cruise intervals 1.5mile jog and then 3mile uphill tempo (on last 3 miles of race course) by feel

Sunday 16-18 miles

Next week another harder interval effort and a threshold run Also long run of 14

60 week One threshold run and then general aerobic runs longest being 12

Pappy - He also has some hard strides race week as well.

Actually the 60 week its v02 type intervals and not threshold.. got that one wrong. Sorry for the triple post!

Jewbacca- it seems like Ryan Vail runs this 4-3-2-1 workout all the time in his marathon training. You could check out his past logs on his site for paces. I guess the calculus changes a bit the faster one gets as it becomes more and more demanding to get down to mp and hmp. But still could be interesting to check out.

I like 4-3-2-1-3 with .5 mile brisk recoveries (maybe 88-90% mp). The first 4 at 95%mp, both 3 mile segments at mp, the 2 miles around hmp, and the 1 mile hard.

That was part of it, but it really was a little bit more than that.

First off, this was uncharted territory in terms of volume. I had not even topped 55 miles in a week in the period from maybe 1995 until 2014, and even back in the early 90s (when I started running), I was usually a 40-55 mpw guy and can only recall 3 weeks in college over 70 miles (which ended with an injury). In my only marathon prior to that Chicago cycle, my three peak weeks were 76, 79 and 80 (over my original planned cap of 70).

Secondly, and more importantly, I was starting to struggle in workouts. The workout for the week in which I hit that 100 mark was aborted early because I wasn't feeling it. The following week, I had a workout that called for 8 miles easy followed by 6 x 1 mile with a minute rest. I had averaged about 5:19 on those for the same workout in my prior cycle, but this time around, I was up just over 5:31 for the 4th mile and then took 3:00 rest and struggled to run 5:25 and then took 2:00 rest and struggled to run 5:28. The effort was well above tempo effort. I then raced a 5k that weekend, running 16:09 four weeks after having run a 15:28.

At this point, I am now 4 weeks from race day and wondering if I completely overdid it and blew my training cycle. I decide to back off the intensity for the next workout, and not look at my watch (this is the 1000s at an in between pace referenced above). Then my subsequent workout was 13 at marathon pace, to be run in a half marathon setting. As mentioned above, I was trying to run 1:14:20 (goal marathon pace) and had a friend enter the race and run with me. This is a guy I had beaten as often as not when we raced. By the 10k mark it started to feel like a race effort, and then I faded to a 1:15:35 despite that race effort and got dropped pretty hard by my training partner.

At that point, it was pretty clear that I was not right and had to do something. I had to make a choice, and the best choice seemed to be to take my foot off of the gas, back down the mileage a bit and reduce the intensity a lot. Fortunately, it was the right choice and I ran a nice 2:30:52 for the male masters win at Chicago despite bad calf cramping issues the last 5-6 miles which required me to stop and stretch repeatedly (Deena Kastor, who I was with until 20-21 went on to run 2:27 high for a American masters record and the other guy we were running with (a guy I had beaten in NYC in 2014) went on tor un 2:28 low).

Sorry for the novel, but that should flesh out what lead to that bigger taper pretty well

runrincerepeat wrote:

Actually the 60 week its v02 type intervals and not threshold.. got that one wrong. Sorry for the triple post!

Well, since its a Pfitz plan I'm sure it is good. It seems much different than what I thought is right. I'd say it works too since so many have success with Pfitz.

Pappy - I am using it as a rough guideline. He doesn’t have two workouts these two weeks but I felt I needed to touch on some faster than race pace stuff. And since I am feeling very strong thought it would be a good addition to try and peak up before this race. Also have been more on the high side of volume for this 62-84 mpw plan.

Jeremy - Best of luck to you. Life has kept me very busy in the last few days, and so I have only glanced over recent posts just now. So, you are in a marathon? I hope you get good weather. Regarding the week before a marathon, I get lots of rest, taking at least two days off.

Jeremy R wrote:

Thanks everyone!

I'm following the Pfitz plan, so like RRR said, I did my 2 miles at GoalMP two days ago. Getting ready for short and easy with strides today and easy--and very short tomorrow morning.

Pappy's idea of feeling springy, sharp and fresh... I like all of those descriptions and I'm feeling all of those things. The word that came to my head after that 2 miles was "weaponized."

Anything can happen on race day and I'm but a lowly mid-pack hobby jogger, but energy levels , sharpness and "ready-to-RACEness" are all significantly in our control via the taper.

Snow storm threw off my planned Tuesday workout. I ended up doing some HM pace Wednesday, making it my only quality for the week.

I felt good Sunday for 13 (maybe too good) but since then my legs and body have been flat all week. Last week was a slightly down week 56 miles compared to 60, 66, 65, and 75 the four weeks prior. I thinking I will do very little (4 miles) tomorrow and the next day to allow for as much recovery as possible. Is there such thing as over tapering at this point? Should I even bother with strides? Any thoughts?

Jewbacca - I saw someone ask in another thread. What version of Daniels are you using as your “base model”?

Bobbytreddick wrote:

Jewbacca - I saw someone ask in another thread. What version of Daniels are you using as your “base model”?

I'm loosely based on Plan A in the 2nd edition, although I only had 14 weeks of buildup after Houston. And I've made a couple other tweaks that I thought made sense for my background.

stat - what's his username on running2win? I like seeing how others structure their training.

stone cutter/aj/slo - I like those variations on the 4-3-2-1. So many ways to tweak the same format for different stimuli.

BobbyTea wrote:

Is there such thing as over tapering at this point? Should I even bother with strides? Any thoughts?

I'm no expert, but maybe some strides might "wake up" those flat legs.

This is race week, right? I'm not misreading your posts, am I? If so, tease yourself...flirt with your speed...but don't consummate till race day.

Signed,

Fellow Taperer

User name is Ndedinge I believe. He's part of the indoor marathon world record attempt at the Armory this weekend so it should be interesting to see how that goes.

Coach Jeff ROC wrote:

BobbyTea wrote:

Is there such thing as over tapering at this point? Should I even bother with strides? Any thoughts?

I'm no expert, but maybe some strides might "wake up" those flat legs.

This is race week, right? I'm not misreading your posts, am I? If so, tease yourself...flirt with your speed...but don't consummate till race day.

Signed,

Fellow Taperer

Yup this is the week. I like your advice. I’ll mix some strides into my next two low mileage days.

Strides always go on my training plan. Sometimes I even actually do them!

Who do we have racing this weekend? We need a total roll call

OR - That Marathon is sponsored by Yuengling?! Dang I would be living on the fat side of the hog afterwards.