Road Racing and Training Thread - Week Ending 11-4-18

M28

PRs: 18:53 5k (Oct 2018), 42:37 10k (Nov 2017), 3:16:24 (NYC Marathon 2018)

Goals:

Sub-3:15 NYC Marathon (missed ever so close)

39:30 10k Turkey Trot

Oct 29-Nov 4, 2018

M - 7 Easy

T - 3Easy + 3x(1T, 2 min jog) + 2E. T-miles: 6:45, 6:39, 6:40

W - 5.5 Easy

Th - Rest

F - 2.4 Easy

S - 2.6 Easy

S - New York City Marathon - 3:16:24

Avg pace between each 5k:

5k - 7:22

10k - 7:24

15k - 7:33

20k - 7:25

25k - 7:39

30k - 7:25

35k - 7:34

40k - 7:40

Finish - 7:32

I got in to the New York City Marathon via lottery on my first try this year, so couldn't pass up the opportunity. After running Boston this year for my company's charity in 3:25, I sort of arbitrarily picked 3:15 as a goal to work towards. This was the first marathon training where I closely followed a plan, Jack Daniel's 2Q. The marathon paced workouts were the toughest to hit, and I did go on a 12 day vacation to hike Kilimanjaro and go on a safari a bit over a month out from the marathon, but otherwise followed the plan closely and average mid-60's mileage for the past few months.

The course was hard, despite great weather. I set out to run my own pace, but found the 3:15 pace group around mile 9 and decided to hang on and reassess at mile 20 or so to see if I had more in me. The pacer was aiming for 3:14:30 and had paced 45+ marathons, so I figured if I at least finished in sight of him I'd break 3:15. By mile 24 I was in front of the group and giving it all I had. If I used my watch more strategically maybe I would've known I was behind pace, since I left it on mile autolap it slowly became less accurate mile by mile. Stopping my watch at the finish I saw 3:16 and was frustrated that the pacer didn't hit the goal time. Of course I realize they are not perfect (later I saw on his social media he said he bonked hard) and they are volunteers. For some reason I expected him to run exactly a 3:14:30, but in hindsight realize how tough it would be to do that. And to be fair, staying with the group was very helpful to keep me going in the 16-21 range.

Overall a very fun experience, and I took 9 minutes off my time in Boston. My endurance needs a lot of work - a 5k I ran in October indicates a 53 VDOT which is a 3:01 marathon.. no way (at least right now)!! In looking to 2019 I may focus on a spring and fall half with some 5k/10ks mixed in, and work on building consistent mileage for an aerobic base. Can't wait for this year's Turkey Trot!

Male, 28, 5'10", 140

PRs: 1:30:21 (2018), 3:33:25 (2017)

Goals:

Dec. 9 - Dallas Half Marathon (goal: 1:27-1:28)

Jan. 20 - Houston Marathon (goal: 3:00-3:04)

Monday: 10

6x1k @ CV (~10k pace), 4x200 @ 1600 pace, Weights

1k repeats: (4:03, 4:00, 4:01, 4:04, 4:04, 4:07)

Super fatigued from the beginning of the workout. Lots of extra work and lack of sleep over the weekend.

Tuesday: 0

Off (unplanned)

Wednesday: 11

AM: easy 8 @ 8:34 on TM

PM: easy 3 @ 8:34 on TM

Thursday: 15

AM: Tempo: 7 @ MP (6:54, :58, :45, :45, :49, :43, :39), 6 x 20sec hills @ 1600 effort, Weights

PM: easy 3 @ 9:00

Friday: 8

AM: very easy 6 @ 9:36

PM: very easy 2 @ 8:34 on TM

Saturday: 20

Long run: 20 @ 7:33 (last 3 miles progression to MP)

Sunday: 6

easy 6 @ 9:19

Week Total:

70.2 miles

Struggled through the first part of the week due to fatigue (probably caused by mileage PR previous week + poor sleep for a few nights). Got a few 9-hour nights and felt great by Thursday. Overall I feel strong coming off this week having done another mileage PR (.1 miles more than last week) and the first 20-miler in 2 years (Hansons training for the previous marathon topped out at 16). The LR felt slightly faster than a moderate effort and gave me confidence as I stare down the barrel of 3 22-milers with lots of pace work later in the cycle.

not much going on with me right now

Ran a half on Sunday 10/28- 1:23:high- pretty poor performance. felt aerobically fine but calf cramps again. So after this crap race I decided to abandon my marathon training until I figure out how to fix the calf cramps that have derailed every one of my races longer than half (4 races total). I don't want to get to the start line well trained only to have a piss poor performance.

Saturday 11/3- tried to do a workout, but really couldn't grit my teeth through the Achilles pain (seems like insertional) so stopped, and have been off since then. Will try jogging around maybe on Wed? May have to see a doc next week if not any better.

feeling pretty down right now with my running.

hant - Thanks very much and happy running to you!

Jeremy - Cheer up, my friend. You have had some good success this year and I KNOW that you are an excellent runner. Just ride this one out...

Comments so far:

RRR: Nice solid week, showing strength and speed with the on/off Wednesday.

Stone Cutter: Sorry to hear about the back – good to hear it’s working its way out. Doing hard stuff in the early AM can definitely be rough.

Theodore: Sorry to hear about the knee troubles – hope the new shoes prove to be helpful.

TDR: Sounds like things are rolling along. Nothing wrong with pushing the end of a long run now and then, as long as you give your legs a chance to bounce back afterward.

Smoove: Sorry to hear about the PF, but after the effort you put out at Chicago, more rest for everything may be a good thing.

Pappy: Happy to hear the knees have been doing better. Maybe that therapy you were doing has helped a bit?

Gordon: Good to hear the foot is feeling better, and nice work in that 5k. If you’ve never broken 18:00 before, 18:25 is pretty solid considering you had no competition and were coming off the marathon. Look forward to seeing where you go with the 5k goal. I think you’ve got sub-17 in you.

RGM: Laudable diligence in that week. It will pay off down the road.

Allen: You were rolling in that Tuesday run. Hope the knee is coming around. In answer to your question about minutes/miles: Like you, I don’t use GPS (nor do I really have any desire to do so), so most of the time “time at x effort” is what I’ve got. The main exception would be the park loop that I run on, which is pretty close to 2k.

AJ: Another nice week. That alternation run looks like a beast.

OR: Excited for you as well. I always felt like the taper made me more conscious of little aches and pains, but still, take care of those knees.

Sub 6: Enjoy the trip, and hope the knee settles down by the time you get back.

pewow: Nice work in the race. High place + slow time = real cross-country, right?

team 1: Wow that sounds like a crazy race! As somebody who has never been very good running downhills I am totally impressed by your performance.

HHH: Got a laugh from your “old Buddhist puzzle.” Reminded me of my HS cross-country course, which started and finished across a field that was heavily populated by Canada geese. After racing on a rainy day, I would end up having to wash semi-liquefied goose dung out of my ears. Look forward to following your CC exploits coming up.

cocoon: Very solid week. Congrats on the mileage PR!

Jewbacca: Good to see you working back into things. Hope the calf continues to improve.

stat: Good to hear the new shoes turned things around.

PutoMiudo: Congratulations to your dad! Sounds like a great experience.

Coyote: Busting out the spikes! Nice work in the race. What happened with the sheep?

slo: Nice workout on the Tuesday. Hope you’re feeling better – you were traveling, right? That can definitely take it out of you a bit.

Still Improving: Solid week. Hope the knee holds up for you! Seems like this was a pretty ouchy week for the thread in general…

LancRunner: Nice work with those mile repeats! If you’re shooting for sub-17, that workout suggests you’re getting into the neighborhood.

JamestheAmateur: Speaking from my own experience, I think the first year of grad school is kind of designed to make you question whether you want to be in grad school. As far as the running goes, it seems like you’ve made real and substantial progress from where you’ve started out, and you should feel good about that. Try to enjoy the process.

Working Harder: Hope you’re feeling better! I think Mr. Jenkins has a point in terms of keeping the mileage somewhat more modest – consistent with Canova’s philosophy for people who have run higher volume in the past (which I think you have, if I’m not mistaken?)

Bruin: Congratulations on the giant PR! Great race on a challenging course!

Coach Jeff: Congratulations on becoming a professional athlete! Sounds like you earned it. Unfortunate that the time was disappointing – though still a PR! – but some days it’s just not your best day. (The thing with the high HR reminds of Smoove’s run a little while ago.)

A few comments.

Bruin - WOW. 10 minute PR. Soak that in.

Team1 – Loved the recap. From a 3:07 to 2:40? Downhill or not, that’s incredible.

Punto - What a cool story. Thanks for sharing.

OR - Looking forward to the Richmond result. The hay is in the barn.

Coach Jeff – Congrats on getting paid while setting a PR, despite 73 degrees, humidity, and increasing warmth. From the outside looking in, that's my best guess as to the culprit of missing sub-90. You have it in you, just had the wrong day. Great effort given the HR data. Oh, and running alone! Your race sounds eerily similar (except warmer) to my tune-up HM that resulted in a 1:30:30. As far as my week, the exercises weren’t necessarily repetitive day-to-day, with squats and planks the exception. Introduced weights with 3 sets of kettle bell swings this morning. Feel great right now, but tomorrow morning will tell me just how ready I was, while the location of any soreness will let me know if my form needs some work. Last cycle my quads immediately informed me of 2 things: I’m weak in the backside and my form was awful. Hoping it’s improved.

RunnerSam – Hope the down week was what your body needed. You’ve put in the work over the course of the cycle. The fitness is there. Best of luck this weekend - we'll be cheering for the sub-245!

Pewow – time to regroup and prepare for 2019. Enjoy the Big Easy!

JTA – noticed you’re at sub-160. Congrats! I’ve been consistently there the past few months after hovering 158-165 for two years. Would like to creep into the 140’s in early 2019.

Allen – it’s all about strength and resilience the next few months! I’m putting a late March 8k on my calendar and may do a late January half, but that will be more a test of fitness than anything. As has been discussed, it's good to have those short-term check-ins so we don't crazy with our longer term goals.

Few comments from the thread. Everyone is doing great overall, these are the ones that jump out for me. :)

RRR - I might have missed this info earlier, but is the 55 mile bike ride on a trainer? or on the fixie?

StoneCutter - Sorry to hear about your back. Hope you get healed quickly.

OutsideRunner - Taper well and then race well!!

WorkingHarder - Way to gut out the race even though you were sick

team1 - My quads are hurting just reading your race report. Way to go!!

PutoMiudo - Congratulations to your dad. A fast, first marathon at age 53 is something to celebrate.

StillImproving - The race is coming soon. Take care of your knee..I have to continue to babysit my calf. :)

Bruin - Congratulations!!! Excellent 10 minute PR

Coach - Solid running. Congratulations on your PR. I can't imagine running at 95% of HRMax.

RunnerSam - Hope you feel better soon with your stomach. As you said, the fitness has not gone anywhere.

Allen - Interesting that you mention that my workouts look like sub3 training. Yesterday's LR workout was an aberration honestly - I don't know how my easy paces landed at 7:30pace for most of the run. I was definitely racing in the second 2 mile tempo as the effort there was really high. I am beginning to think that if I had a marathon in 20/24 weeks time, I could swing for a sub-3 with some (maybe lot of) guidance from knowledgeable folks like you all.

Single Speed bike, that was not a singular ride but 2 medium rides and then a couple commutes. In October I had 345 mile run 350 Bike on the single speed..I do believe it helps with a little extra aerobic work and esp with recovering the legs. Be a tad less in the winter as my mileage goes up and I run commute most days instead of biking to work and then running.

Puto - Meant to add that that is an awesome story! Congrats to you old man.. very cool.

Smoove -

As somebody who has also been dealing with PF issues, I have found the calf stretching/massage helpful, though I have not been as diligent as I probably should be about it. I've mentioned this before, but taping has also been super helpful for me. Couldn't tell you why it works, but it seems to.

GT: I'm sure with the way you handled Chicago sub-17 will happen soon.

RunGuy Midwest: what are you going to do for plyos? A good friend is a chiro and PT he always tells me "If you work on your core 95% of the problems will go away" Then he seems to always manage to ask "How did you get so weak" lol

Allen1959: 19:32 not bad at all!!! Do you have any idea how you are going to target that half goal? Don't let Smoove know I said this but a VO2 block or a block targeting 5k pace but keeping it aerobic at the start might work wonders.

GFMAH: Great week. Ah, the falafel will get you every time.

angryjohnny: Great week! RRR has some work to do. As for the alternations, you should really just consider just doing alterations until you get used to them. The specifics are a killer until you get use to them. So many things you can do and accomplish with on/offs.

outsiderunner: Looking good!!! Can't wait to see what you do.

Sub 6:00: Nice week! Eat a few golumpkies for me. Oh and some paczkis and some makowiec. The makowiec might just stop the knee pain.

Pewow: Good racing. Have you run Living History Farm XC in Iowa before? That race is huge. How about footlocker in Kenosha. That's a nice course.

Working Harder: Sorry to hear about the race issues.

Team1: Wow! Great race!!! those hops may have cost more than 12 seconds but it sure looked like fun.

HHH Runner: Great week! Way to put in the miles.

cocoon: Getting after it. 3:10 for sure.

jewbacca: Dang impressive week. The elliptical is very underrated especially doing 9 SAU's.

statfanatic: Great week!

I'll get the rest later going to the Y.

Bruin - congrats on the PR. NYC is a tough course that sends the best runners home disappointed. 2:42 is a great run.

Team 1 - good stuff and great report. Love the picture. Thanks for sharing.

Stone - sorry about the back. Hope it gets better soon. I’ve had good luck taking mobic for back issues.

TDR - love the group runs. If you can do some workouts together that will yield big dividends.

Smoove - keep up the good work. I need you nice a fat for houston.

Pappy - good to see you back on the board.

GT - sub 17 is going to be a lot of work but you can do it.

Allen - strong MLR on Tuesday. Sub 7 avg for 12 miles is good at any age in my book.

Pewow - tough race. Would have never guessed 18:11.

RGM - what do you do for strength and “mobility”?

GoFMH - falafel + hills repeats? What were you thinking?

OR - hay meet barn. How’s weather looking?

Sub6 - solid run Saturday. What college?

WH - ouch. That sounds rough. It happens. Shake it off.

hhH - great week. Solid park run.

Cocoon - based on that Sunday run 3:10 should be cake at CIM. I hear good things about that race.

JB - sorry you missed bham. It was a good field as always. Fernando Cabada was like 5th or 6th. Roll tide.

Stat - beastly week as always

Puto - congrats to your old man. Awesome y’all got to run together.

Slo - dominating the alternations. Wish I could do that.

SI - hang on. Those last few weeks before the taper are always a matter of injury management for me. The taper will make it all feel better.

Lanc - very nice mile repeats.

CJ - a Pr is a PR. Well done.

RunnerSam - I have a very sensitive stomach but it seems to have toughened over time. You might try nexium. I believe it is sold OTC now. Stuff works.

SoBO - good report. congrats on the PR.

Jeremy - hang in there buddy. We all go thru rough patches.

Rrr - looks like I may be doing you a huge favor at houston...

http://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?thread=9092900

RunnerSam wrote:

stat - has O's estimate for philly changed at all? his LRs have been good but im not convinced his volume is there. Looks like you got in about 75 miles for the week with two decent quality sessions, both longer workouts for you! I was thinking the other day, I'm guessing you neither have a coach or follow a main training theory/style (Daniels, Pfitz, etc) so how do you go about week by week planning?

So I actually did have my former college coach writing my training for much of the past year. That said I do have a pretty decent idea of how I like to approach a training cycle.

As far as a main training theory/style goes, my limited knowledge makes me think I'm fairly close to a Lydiard-esque program although there are certainly things some Lydiard disciples would disagree with. I say some since there doesn't seem to be a general consensus on what Lydiard's approach was. However I think I follow his basic phases (although really, who doesn't?) pretty closely. I typically try to put 2-3 months of really solid base endurance work in ahead of a race followed by 4-6 weeks of race specific work, but a relatively short and minor taper leading into the race. Ideally, throughout this period I will be including strides, short fartlek-style pickups, and short track repeats such as 200s on/off, pre-800s, and 300/500s on my 'normal' days to stay in touch with my top gears. I haven't been great about that recently though. So, as a concrete example, here's what an extended block could look like:

2-4 weeks of building mileage with no workouts. Ideally get up to around 70-75 during this phase.

6-10 weeks of base workouts. Continue building mileage up to 85+. Workouts consist of tempos building up to 8-10 miles, fartleks such as 8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1 on, 1 off, 1,2,3,4,5,4,3,2,1,2,3,4,5 on, 1 off, etc. These workouts are all by feel with no pre-determined pace goals. During this phase I'll also start working in the aforementioned speed work on Mondays and Thursdays. This helps me stay in touch with top end speed and primes the systems for the workout the following day.

2-6 weeks of race specific work depending on the length of my 'racing season'. With a longer season I'll have some hybrid weeks in here with a longer tempo or fartlek one day and a track workout the other. This is the first time you'll see me start track workouts again. Obviously the workout depends on the race but I like workouts that mix longer reps with shorter ones early on in this phase followed by more regular race specific repeats towards the end such as repeat 1ks for a 5k or quarters and 300s for a mile. Mileage may drop a touch here.

1-2 week taper period. This consists of short tempos and cruise repeats workouts for the most part. Mileage will drop the last little bit here but not excessively. I don't like to be any lower than 55, although I haven't always been good about that.

So, sorry for the long post but that's my basic structure. Could hash a few things out a bit more but on the off chance anyone made it through all that I didn't want to stretch my luck. Not sure its perfectly in line with any one training philosophy, but I do think it's generally Lydiard with some other guys influencing certain portions.

AJ - you are the first person ever to send me that and joke about it! Fresh.

Alas good thing I am not one of those half A$$ vegetarians. The hobby joggers of the non meat eaters. All in or nothing baby.

A few more comments while I had the chance

RRR - Good week. Nice workout on Wednesday.

Stone - Hope the back gets better soon.

Theodore - Hope the knees get better.

TDR - Another good week. Keep up the consistency and you should see the work pay off for your January race.

Pappy - Hope the trend continues with the knees getting better.

Smoove - Hope the down time helps the PF recover and what Pappy said and heel drops.

GT - Oh wow, like the sub 17 goal.

RGM - Not sure what you are doping for the core and mobility work, but some of that might work to help the glutes. I throw some out for you. Clams, fire hydrants, donkey kicks, and standing/balancing on one leg then touch the ground with one of your hands and then stand up while still balancing on 1 leg.

Allen - Do what you need to do to get the knee better. With no immediate goals there is no need to try train through it. No guilt in those days off. As for the 5k race, yeah nothing like a little competition to help push through the discomfort.

AJ - Interesting alternation combo on Sunday. I'm thinking that the 16mi run on Saturday may have had an impact on on that workout.

OR - Enjoy the taper week and good luck in Richmond.

team1 - Great race report. Congrats on the PR with the asterisk. I'd be afraid I would come out injured running that many downhill miles.

sub 6:00 - That's a fair amount of travel coming up. Maybe the forced rest will help the knee recover.

cocoon - Solid week. At the rate your going you may finish ahead of me at CIM.

jewbacca - Good to hear that your calf is on the mend.

pewow - Congrats on the podium. Sounds like a legit XC race.

WH - Hope you feel better. Tough to race feeling like that. Good job finishing the race under the circumstances. I'm thinking I should get a flu shot...

HHH - Nice week. There is some degree of satisfaction with passing people late in a race

Allen1959 wrote:

Sub 6 - When you hurt your knee and lamented that you would lose a big chunk of training time, I admit to thinking, geez how fragile is this guy? Now, two weeks since banging my knee, I'm sitting here with it STILL throbbing with pain. Karma!

Right? It’s the sort of thing where, if you haven’t really done it before, you think you’re going to lose a day or two tops. Just be careful working back. I underestimated it a couple years ago and wound up with a nasty case of PF pain syndrome (bad case, bruised the back of the knee cap too).

Going to be bad at comments this week. Just went for a touristic jog in Berlin and can see why so many marathon records have been set here. (Flat!)

OR - Best wishes in Richmond this weekend, if I don’t get on here again before then.

Allen and running faster

I like putting the spikes on for XC and luckily haven't had much trouble in the past. Allen the workout approach seemed good on paper, and I've done similar things this year for what I call "C" races, where the goal is to participate and work on certain elements but not to go all out all the way. However, those were in longer races (10 mile and 10K). If I were to do 6K or 5K again, I'd do more of a progression without the easing up.

As for the bighorn sheep, I was running on a canyon road that only has vehicle access to park rangers and work crews and there is no hunting there, so the animals are pretty accustomed to people. It was on the side of the steep hill about 30 m off the trail, and there were 3-4 photographers on the road taking pictures. As I ran by them, it decided to run down to the road to get to the river on the other side. So we kind of converged with me a few steps ahead. For some reason it started to charge me from behind, I half turned around and waved my arms and said, 'hey buddy, easy' and it backed off maybe just a few meters behind!

Coach Jeff, congrats on the PR! We have snakes too, rattlesnakes but they are usually easy to avoid--just don't go on the lower elevation trails when it's warmer than about 70 degrees. A hiker-triathlete did get killed from a bit near here last year. Bites are not uncommon, but that was an extremely rare incident. What kinds of snakes do you have?

Coyote - Thanks for the story on the bighorn encounter - that's pretty wild!

I run into animals fairly frequently in the woods out here, but the only animals that have ever showed any degree of aggressiveness were a groundhog and a momma porcupine. The porcupine was this spring. I was running on a twisty trail through a thicket of mountain laurel. Came around a corner, looked down, and saw the baby ambling down the path ahead of me. Had just enough time to think how cute it was before seeing its momma charging toward me. She was not amused. I exited stage right, (briefly) pursued by porcupine.

Pappy and AJ - Falafel is good. Hill repeats are good. Falafel AFTER hill repeats might have been really good. Falafel before hill repeats? Not recommended.

Pappy wrote:

Do you have any idea how you are going to target that half goal? ... a VO2 block or a block targeting 5k pace but keeping it aerobic at the start might work wonders.

May half-marathon goal is 1:25:00. That's 6:29/mi, 83.14% age grade.

Last month's 15K was 6:33/mi, 81.35% age grade, which VDOT-translates to 6:42/mi, 80.38% for a half marathon.

So, I will need to see a massive improvement in six months. The last couple years, my training was based on a nine-day cycle, with both LT and VO2Max workouts in each micro cycle. No real periodization.

My rough plan now is: Dec-Feb work on adding mileage, core and upper body strength. Mild progression runs, weekly strides. Long run every couple weeks.

March-May, introduce LT-specific workouts. Threshold runs, cruise intervals, alternations. Add 5K-pace repeats late in cycle. Continue weekly strides. Long run (18+ miles) every 9-14 days.

Or, maybe abandon the goal entirely. A routine doctor visit a couple weeks ago resulted in some alarming news. Nothing definitive yet; I need to follow up with a specialist. But after seeing my father and older brother endure horrendous surgeries, and the debilitating aftermaths, all for naught ... I will truly consider letting nature take its course, and just try to maintain quality of life as long as possible. My younger brother, also, suffered through a massive surgery a couple years ago, only to have the cancer reoccur, which he is facing now. Happiness is a choice, though, and he and I choose to enjoy every moment that we can! We haven't scratched the double century bike ride from our summer plans just yet ...