Road Racing and Training Thread - Week Ending 5/12

Hi Friends,

Another great week for me, and it seems like a great week for you all as well :). Sorry for the few with injury woes. I hope you can figure it out.

Slartizo, try some barefoot running on the grass. do a normal length run and let us know if you have the same pain.

xenon- I went from a 1100 GRE to a 1350 in about 3 months of prep. What worked for me was to go slow, relax, and focus more on the questions I knew I should be getting right vs. going crazy trying to learn that one insane math problem that looks like a different language. secondly, read a lot. vocab helps a ton. Kaplan book worked for me, I didn't do a class. If you can work an hour a night for a few months you'll do well.

5.91 7:33 last mile 654, cake

0

7.9 7:19 last mile 634, also cake

6.83 9:19 painfully slow with a female friend

0 frisbee!

7.75 8:09 legs felt rubbery, 8 strides at end

10.2 7:26 felt great, every mile faster as legs loosened

Totals 38.59/7:54

I have a question I hope someone can help me with.

Ive been reading a lot about slowing pace down and upping mileage(practically a mantra on this site). However, I feel exhausted(imagine feeling sugar depleted) and have rubbery legs over 8:15 pace.

Based on my fitness this appears to be an ideal easy run pace, yet I feel much better running 8 min pace at first and cutting it down to 630s at the very end(basically all of my runs). Does this happen to others? I think the body burns more fat at slow speeds. Could it be perhaps that I'm not very efficient at burning fat,and in fact I should work at this effort more often?

Thanks so much!

Best.

2013 New Goal- Break 1:18 @ the Philly Rock and Roll Half Marathon

Mon- Ran 12 miles (7:25/mile)

Tues- Ran 8.5 miles (6:56/mile)

Wed- Off

Thurs- Ran 8 miles (6:48/mile)

Fri- Ran 4 miles (about 7:30/mile?)

Sat-Ran .5 mile warmup. Ran MD Half Marathon in 1:25:12, course was hilly, .25 miles long (at least) and it was 68 degree with 90% humidity. I'm a big guy and sweat a lot so I had to slow down due to cramping in the final few miles. 9th place overall.

Sun- Ran 9 miles (7:25/mile)

55.5 miles total

Great job everyone, keep up the good work!!

So many good racing performances from this group so far, keep them coming!

CMM268- Looking good just putting in the miles right now. Hope the achilles is feeling better too.

Gmuze- Looks like your training is going consistently well too. Keep up the good work.

VF Runner- Good luck this weekend!

Pikachua- Very impressive week.

DCrunner0910- Congrats on finding a solid training group to run with. Nice of them to initiate you with that 400s session too :)

Xenoscreams- Nice recovery week. Hope you are relaxing and recharging for the upcoming training cycle.

NP1112- You have an amazing ability to just string together one quality week after another. Congrats on the official 5K PR, but one of these days you should just do the last 3 miles of one of your building runs on a certified course and run that extra 0.1mi and I bet you would come away with another PR just as easily.

Numbersguy- Glad to see you enjoyed your time off. Hindsight is 20/20, but I wish I took 2 weeks off too, I think I would be in a much better position now if I had.

Slartzio- Sorry to hear about the shin pain, hope it's nothing to serious and goes away with some easy days.

Ghola- Welcome back. Also I think your "current shape - 17:30"is a little conservative considering that session of 800s you knocked out.

StevenJ- Sorry to hear about not getting into that Swarthmore race. Look around in the area though, I thought there are a lot of last chance meets going on this past weekend and maybe upcoming week/weekend as well. Hopefully you find something if you are still up for it.

Edgemont Dave- Good luck this weekend as well. Go get ém!

Grizz- Your training has really turned the corner the past few weeks. Looking forward to seeing how your race this weekend goes. Good luck!

Printer- Sorry to hear about your calf issues. Hopefully it's just a minor/freak thing that went away on it's on.

Renewed marathoner- I have heard (and experienced) the phenomenon you are describing where running at a slow pace is more taxing than a faster pace for some reason. I think it's just because your body isn't used to it and maybe your running mechanics are slightly different at that speed. (and presumably using muscles you are not as used to using).

Reg Fields- Solid race considering the conditions. Your training is looking really solid lately.

I don't have time to read and comment everyone right now, so I'll do that tomorrow. This was me last week:

Sunday: 17.5k easy. Donated blood on previous Saturday, so I was expecting to feel week here. I did.

Monday: Attempted mile repeats. Turns out this is a terrible idea two days after a blood donation. Knocked out one in 5:20. Started on my second, and quit after 600m when it felt like my heart was on the verge of bursting. Since it was the first day of nice hot weather here this year (30 degrees Celsius), turned it into a laughably slow 15k trot up and down some hills and trails.

Tuesday: 13.5k easy (AM), 12.5k easy (PM)

Wednesday: 13.5k easy (AM), 13.5k easy (PM)

I felt marginally stronger for each run over these two days, which was really fun. Still not back to full strength, but it's interesting to see experience the return of your hemoglobin.

Thursday: 14.5k easy.

Friday: Speed ladder! The first track workout of the season, and an experiment with a new style. The idea was to go 400-800-1600-3200-1600-800-400, with everything until the two miler at race pace and everything after faster. Went 400 in 1:19, 800 in 2:43, 1600 in 5:32, 3200 in 11:12, 1600 in 5:13, 800 in 2:32, 400 in 1:11 with one or two laps of recovery in between. There were two immovable hurdles on the back stretch of the track that added about 10m to each lap, so those times are all slightly slow, but it was a fun, fun workout, and I'm excited to go back to that track. Totaled 13.2k with warmup and cooldown.

Saturday: 26k easy. This was my first run over 20k in about five months. Couldn't believe how wiped out I felt afterwards -- 26 is peanuts compared to what I did for long runs last summer in marathon training. Though I felt fatigued, it seems to have dissipated. Went out for 17k again this Sunday and felt great -- but I suppose that's for next week's thread.

Total: 139.2km. Feel pretty good about the week overall. Plan is to keep adding volume at a pace that feels healthy until I hit peak around July, then slowly reduce while adding more speed, then run my guts out at a 10k in late September or early October and see how fast I can go.

My next race is a podunk community league 10k on May 26th. It's a roadrace that is almost totally flat, so it should lend itself to fast times.

Have a great week of training and racing, everyone!

@renewed marathoner yes, I will. I've never tried running barefoot and I think this is the time I'll give it a shot. I have access to a football field so I'll try that on Tuesday.

@cmm268 that could be an idea. thanks

Goal: 32:00 10k

Goal race: 2nd week of August

Monday: 6

Tuesday: AM 6 + PM 2wu/wd 8x.5 mile w/.25 mile jog = 16

Wednesday: Rest

Thursday: 10

Friday: 6

Saturday: rest

Sunday: rest

Total: 38

Major set back for me. Week started off well, got in a good work out on Tuesday, splits were 2:39 2:39 2:36 2:35 2:33 2:32 2:31 2:29. Went on a vacation in Florida Wednesday through Sunday. It was like mid 90s and brutally humid. I pushed through a couple of painful runs Thursday and Friday, but I just couldn't handle the heat. I well, I think my body was due an easy week anyways...

Chicago: sub 230

TBD: others before then

60 last week with a day off and a day of 4.

Saturday ran 4 then drove 6 hours to delaware.

ran the half by myself, 1st-3rd place were 5-7 minutes ahead of me. ran mostly by myself until i started hitting marathoners/relay runners. steady effort without straining. showered and drove back to mother's day dinner.

cmm268 - Good building week, and thanks for starting off this week's thread!

Gmuze - No worries, hangover runs make you appreciate the 'non-hangover' runs that much more!

VF Runner - Regardless of where the 2:43 came from, you got faster as the workout went on...always a success! I'm interested to see how things go for you in Pocono. The closest I've done two marathons was 3 months apart, and I was only 40 seconds off my PR in the 2nd one.

Pikachu - Love that Friday workout! Way to crank out those 200's after setting your body in cruise control at 5:10 pace!

dcrunner - 18x400 is a pretty big session, so bravo for nailing the pace. And I didn't mention it last week, but congrats on the 10k!

xenonscreams - No doubt a speed phase will help you out in the future. I'm just jealous you have those kind of options over the summer!

NP1112 - Another big week in the books! Congrats on the 5k PR, and I hope you'll be able to run Grandmas.

Numbersguy - I always love seeing the guys pushing the double jogging stroller! How far have you managed to run with that thing, it's gotta be one of those things reserved for short, easy runs, right?

Slartzio - Sorry to hear about the shin/calf/foot. FWIW, that area is usually my trouble spot, and I've learned over the years that everything is connected down there. It could be a result of tight hamstrings, calves, or whatever. Keep icing, keep stretching, and hopefully you'll be able to manage it.

Ghola - Good to see you posting again! We are all an experiment of one, and I know others have had some success off the "low volume, high quality" approach...I wish you luck!

StevenJ - Awesome Friday workout! I'm a fan of the cutdown and ladder workouts...and you were really moving the last few intervals. When are you racing next?

Edgemont Dave - Good luck at the sub-3 attempt next week...that Tuesday tempo sure looks like you're fit enough to do it!

grizz - Great workouts this week! Without knowing your 12k course at all, I'd say 5:15's are doable with the way you've been running recently. And yeah, 75 with a 60 dewpoint sounds like a nice winter day to me!

printer - You've got a great attitude towards running right now. I'm sure you'd love to nail that BAA 10k, but the main thing is to not set yourself back. I've had runs like your Wednesday run...made it a minute down the road...decided I wasn't up for the run, and walked back home!

SteveinAK - Sorry to hear about the continuing troubles, but it sounds like you've started to turn a corner, and hopefully can get back to regular running sooner rather than later. At least you've been active in this down time, that will absolutely help you when you can run again.

Renewed Marathoner - Efficiency is definitely most people's issue with slowing down runs. It just takes time, IMO. When I was in high school and college, I never ran slower than 6:30 pace, yet if you look at my runs now, I never run faster than 7:00 pace...and am usually slower than 7:30 pace. Eventually, your body will learn to adapt to the slower pace. However, you have to first consider why you want to slow down in the first place. Are you injury prone, or do you just want to up the mileage?

Reg Fields - Good work at the half marathon!

Bonham - Smart move pulling the plug on the Monday workout. You definitely bounced back well with that ladder workout on Friday!

Rushed - LOL, welcome to the Sunshine State! Nice progression of paces on that Tuesday workout.

themack - What was your time in Delaware? 12 hour round trip is a helluva drive!

Goals:

June 2- Covered Bridges Half

Oct 13- Green Mountain Marathon

M- 5

T- 5- laughably bad-

W- 3

Th- AM 6 PM 4

F- 3.5 with 2 x 400 and 4 X 100 strides.

S- 5

Su- Off

total- 31.5

Not a bad week seeing I was sick the whole time. Low point was Tuesday which was when the pinkeye was diagnosed. I am feeling mostly better now though it still occasionally like someone is sitting on my chest. I am a 5k on Thursday which should be a nice test to see where I am at as I have done it the last 2 years. My concern is not having been able to do much in the way of faster work so far. I was going to start the faster work a couple of weeks back when the colds and other issues cropped up.

RENEWED- I have had a similar issue to yours where I tend towards a medium pace instead of an easy pace and have often found an easy pace harder to sustain, especially if I am a period of not-top fitness. Oddly though with being sick the past couple of weeks I have been able to slow down and not have be an issue. I have also been doing these runs in the early morning so I wonder if that transition is helping. I have been focusing this year on trying to take the easy days easy and having mostly easy days as I crawl back from last year's lost months and months of achilles issues. Anyway as my only experience on how to pull it off involves coughing up half a lung and congestion, I will just wish you good luck.

Goal Race: US Half Marathon Champs (06/22)

Goal Time: sub-1:08

I had a decent week, first respectable mileage week in over a month (and nearly double last week's mileage), so my legs were definitely rebelling against me as a result. I also decided to run a 5k in the middle of the week just to see how much work I have to do to reach my sub-1:08 goal...I've got a long way to go.

M: am - 8 easy (7:42) / pm - 4 easy (7:44)

Tu: 7 total w/ mile, 1:50 rest, 2x800m w/ 1:50 rest (4:57, 2:23, 2:23)

W: am - 10 easy (7:34) / pm - 4 easy (7:50)

Th: am - 8 easy w/ random fartlek (6:53) / pm - 4 easy (7:39)

F: 6 easy (7:40)

Sa: 9 total w/ 5k race (1st OA - 15:43)

Su: 14 easy (7:09)

Weekly Total - 74 miles

YTD - 1,326 miles

Don't ask me about the Tuesday session. I just wanted something to wake up the legs, and this one HURT. As far as the 5k on Saturday...well, I ran like an idiot. I took the first mile out in 4:45, which is fine if I'm in shape to run a PR (but I'm not), I then proceeded to run the next 2 miles in 5:10 each, and I was struggling just to do that. Had I gone out in 5:00, I likely could've held that pace, but I can be stubborn like that. Pleased with the win, but the time was not what I was expecting. Oh well, I've got less than 6 weeks to get myself in the best shape of my life. Possible? Yes. Likely? I guess we'll find out.

Raced this week - took it fairly easy to prepare. Was also sick with a cold almost the whole week.

Monday -

6 miles @ 7:40 per mile

Tuesday -

2 mile warm up

4 x 800 @ 5k race pace on roads (2:52, 2:57, 2:53, 2:56) with 1/4 mile recoveries @ around 7:30 pace

2 mile cooldown - 7 total

Wed -

7 miles @ 7:46

Thurs-

5 miles @ 7:39

Fri -

4 miles on course @ 7:46

Sat -

5k race (chicago race to wrigley) in in 17:53 - Felt really crappy and struggled for the first mile, still went out too fast. Nice day however, partially cloudy and cool. Course was mostly flat and easy, minus one very tight hairpin late in the 3rd mile that I think greatly contributed to my slow 3rd mile - I took the turn too tight and slowed more than I would have liked to, and unfortunately it took me about 100-200 meters to get back up to speed at the fatigue level I had at that point. Luckily it didn't kill my time that much, and I was very happy with the kick I was able to pull out at the end. Splits were 5:34, 5:48, 6:08, and 23 seconds for the last .10 of a mile. Goal was sub18, so I am overall happy with the results, although my pacing was less than ideal.

Sun -

Attempted 10 miles easy, ended up being at around 7:21/mile.

Overall mileage this week - 45 miles.

Hi pablo,

Thank you for your response. I've been feeling great actually. I'm ~30-40mpw and will be 60ish in about 2-3 months. I will maintain that till November marathon.

I guess I was just curious because there are many schools of thought about training. But I guess in the end, I feel really good at this pace and I am hitting the miles I want to right now. So, maybe I'll just roll with it :). If my legs get spent as my mileage creeps towards 60, then I'll have to slow it down and focus on why I feel like jello at the slower paces.

Cheers

Ok, time for a break from answering electronic communications at work by posting an electronic communication in conjunction with my hobby.

CMM268- Nice week. How do you plan on doing the transition from base to doing workouts and stuff? How long will you just run easy miles?

VF Runner- I'm interested in hearing more about the RD side of things. Good luck in the Poconos!

Pikachu- Ton of quality this week, nice work.

DCrunner- sounds like you've been seduced by the upstart group as well. In Boston, this would be a major scandal (I kid). Nice workout, too!

Xenonscreams- Good luck with those track races. The track is so much fun, I think you're really going to enjoy them. The mile is its own special kind of pain, much different than the grinding pain of a longer road race. On the plus side, there isn't really the possibility for "bad patches." It's fast, it hurts, it hurts WORSE, then it's over. 10min later you're more or less recovered. Sometimes I miss my days as an 800/mile guy...

NP112- Nice race and congrats on the PR! Well done on following it up with a good long run, too. I think those long runs on tired legs are money in the bank.

StevenJ- I totally sympathize on the pollen. It's just flat out awful. That's a really good interval workout, though. What are your racing goals for the summer?

Lunchtime! I'll grab anyone I missed after.

SteveinAlaska- Glad to hear you're feeling a little better. The tricky part, as always, is keeping up with the PT stuff once you're running again. Has the weather up there started to defrost a little?

Renewed Marathoner- I think what's going on is that a) you're not doing organized workouts and b) you're not running a ton. Neither of those are criticisms, just observations. Because you never do anything really, really hard, you're never "recovering" from anything, so there's little need for the kind of recovery runs that would dictate a very easy pace. There have been more than a few good runners who trained along those lines and were quite good. I would recommend you try to build up to an hour a day or so (if time and inclination allow). Note too that the runners I've mentioned might run fairly fast, progession-style almost every day also raced fairly frequently so as to keep up their racing speed. IF you wanted to transition to a more "traditional" kind of program, I think you'll find that if you're doing two fairly hard workouts and a long run every week with ~hr long easy runs, the pace will slow down on its own.

themack- Uhh, no time reported? Not on this thread!

pablo (i think) and grizz

80:40

slower than my full pace in october, but im ok with that. looking for one in july (?) for 115

Grizz, you are 100% spot on.

I hope as the time gets closer I'll be able to chat with some of you folks to see what my target marathon pace should be, especially since my training is a bit non-traditional. If I had to race today I would shoot for 3:20. Does that sound about right?

Thanks for your input!

NP1112- Well done, congrats on your PR, you ran a great race straegically IMO.

VF Runner- Nice strong finish on the 800 workout, good luck @ Pocono.

Numbersguy- I'm running the Half up in Philly, perhaps I'll see you there.

Numbers: congrats on your wife losing the weight and signing up for the half. Im sure it helps both of you being motivated and training for the same race. next week going to be easing back into things?

slartzio: hopefully you can figure out the shin pain. Maybe you are trying to change too much at once? and really throwing things off. I dont think minimalism is the answer to things, I would try a more cushioned shoe if things hurt.

ghola: good luck getting back into it with a new style of training. hope it all works well

stevenJ: sucks about the meet but looks like the friday workout went well. They are both locals so probably just out to make some easy money. 200, 100, 50 was the payout. male and female plus 100/50 for masters.

edge dave: great tempo run. good luck with the taper and staying sane haha. I hope this down week will keep me from getting burnt out so early.

grizz: good workouts. i know what you mean with the heat getting to you. summer still hasnt set in here, was 40s/50s this weekend still.

printer: hopefully the leg loosens up soon.

steveinAK: glad the knee is feeling better and you can keep motivated with the cross training. i would have gone crazy by now! Ive thought about that but figure I will just leave my training runs set to what they are and save it all for the race. Things will come together on race day eventually, right?! haha

renewed: i know what you mean on the pacing issue. At work when I have to run on the treadmill it is set at 820s and i might pick it up some but never much go faster than 800. It does feel harder but i just consider those recovery days. A book i have called "advanced marathoning" says running too slow reinforces bad running form.

regfields: great week and then a good half with the hot weather and conditions.

Bonham: nice week and good luck at the 10k

rushed: great workout tuesday and maybe the vacation was a hint you needed some rest. hope you had a good time in FL

bartowski: good luck at the 5k on thursday.

pablo: what do you think a sub 68 effort for 5k is for you? glad youre back into things now

hobbyjogger: Looks like you saved alot for that kick. 23 seconds for the last 0.10?? thats 350 pace!

King hobbyjogger wrote:

and 23 seconds for the last .10 of a mile

Please tell me that's a typo! It's a great race when I get under 30s for that final 0.1 (technically, it's more like 0.107...but I digress).

NP1112 - Hard to say what kind of shape I need to be in for a run at sub-1:08. Before I ran 1:09:28 , I ran a 15:15 5k...however before my PR (1:08:58), I "only" managed a 15:19 5k. I'd wager that I need to get in the low 15's before I consider it possible. However, I'm planning a solo 10k time trial 2 weeks out from the half. If I can't run 5:10 pace (~32:00) for that run, I'll adjust my goal.

No typo, unless the mile markers for the race were incorrect (which is always likely). Hit the garmin lap button exactly at mile 3 and then stopped it exactly as I crossed the finish - can't think of a reason that there would be a timing error, I was surprised by that as well!