(Road Racing and) Time Trialing and Training Thread - Week Ending 5/31/20

Interesting thoughts, BHViking.

Average pace for my runs hasn't gotten too much faster because of couple of reasons - one, I was definitely running more moderate effort on all days in the past. Two, this week I have made a significant effort to slow down on my runs other than the faster repeat portions.

Definitely agree that I feel bouncier. Not sure if it is the easier intervals or the more number of strides that I have done over the past two weeks.

Had a harder time hitting the times on the 1K repeats without getting too close to LT. If I followed the author's suggestion of 90-95% of LTHR, I was hitting closer to marathon pace. 200's and 400's were okay for me.

I also did a breakdown of the mileage just to see the amount of faster running. These are approximate numbers, and the breakup would have been different if I had done a full quota of 5 intervals for the week.

800/Mile: 1.5 miles + a few strides

10k/5K/3K: 4.5 miles

HMP - MP: 5 miles

Easy aerobic: 54 miles

One of the options to combine steady running and easy interval method could be to follow his plan with 3 intervals a week and fill up the other days with lots of steady running, I guess.

Interesting breakdown!

I didn't pareto the pacing on the weeks that I did this but I suspect the total volume of fast running is much higher than a typical week of steady running (for me anyway).

You mention average pace. By doing the easy interval method my average pace was WAY lower than normal. But that includes the short walk breaks that Klass recommends during recovery. Also my recovery interval jogging was always around a 9 minute mile (all by feel). Warm ups and cooldowns were also roughly 9 minute mile pace, likely because I was so focused on the fast portions that I didn't care about the recovery pace.

You mention heart rate as well. I know that Klass mentioned using HR or a Stryd Power Meter to help pace uneven terrain and/or windy conditions. The Stryd is really great for this but I have to question using HR. For me, my 1000's would range anywhere from 3:40 to 4:10 depending on hills and wind, running entirely by feel. It would typically take about half of the interval before my HR would stabilize! This is obviously a problem if trying to use HR to "pace" an interval, but the Stryd gives instant feedback and you can pace it right from the first few steps. I have a Stryd but preferred to run by feel and look at the data afterwards.

I love your suggestion to follow the workout schedule of 3 workouts a week and just fill in the rest of the days with steady running. I don't know about you, but I think given my current fitness that I'm better served integrating the 200's since my top end is by far my greatest weakness. Plus I have a sweet hill right next to my house that takes a good 30-40 seconds to climb at a strong effort at an average incline of about 7%. :)

Week 1 of my slight training break in the books.

I got about 30 miles in on 5 days. 3 easy days. Quality days were my Tuesday workout that triggered it, I cut short from 8x800 to 5, and yesterday I did 7 surges of 40-45ish seconds in length that started around 10K pace with the bulk at 3k pace or so. I'll probably get up to 40-45 miles in this week with a LR, and two not too taxing workouts. Aerobic run at sub-threshold ~ 6:15 instead of the usual 6:00-6:05, and then later some fast 300s with good rest maybe.

Excited I should have access to a track soon, and my legs are already feeling better than they were.

smoove: I'm reading Jack Daniels' "Daniels Running Formula" and this week an old post you wrote about success with Daniels popped up (thanks to Coach JS).

https://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?thread=8245221&page=3

You have an awesome 12 week HM workout plan in there, thank you for sharing that. The whole thing is mucked up a bit from Coach JS pumping himself up (and pretending to be other people but using the same odd punctuation spacing) but you have good stuff in there regardless

Stone: hope you get back to normal soon!

worm: you've had a great last 10 weeks! also - enjoy the downtime and good luck on the new gig!

Rhodium: great week, great effort on the TT. Keep up the good work!

sub6 - very solid week. Looking forward to seeing your 7/4 TT

rrr - great quality workouts there, very nice

brakz - nice week! Those half-mile repeats at your 2 mi race pace ish look tough!

Mrs Stone - always consistently solid

coffee dad - Good luck on your build-up to 7/4 (and the Phoneix area heat)!

rucker - that's a big week! nice. Impressive o working 5a-8p and still getting in a 90' run.

Tyler - You are super fit. Glad you have a prognosis and can heal up and cycle/crosstrain, and I think 2020 still has a lot in store for you come autumn.

darkwave - solid week as always. Treadmill miles, good for you! I can't mentally handle much treadmill. It's awesome you can, the treadmill is a useful tool.

GNR: dude 4:26, that's gotta feel great to go so fast.

pewow: great 10k TT!

ramunajan: get it! great job!

workingharder: baller week and awesome long run in the heat. What marathon pace are you targeting for the fall?

cocoon - looks like a fun week, Saturday looked tough. Nice work!

Rex - happy birthday! great week

Seppo - good for you listening to your body.

Coyote - wow nice 10k and mile TT!

Sam - 71 mi down week, not too shabby :)

Lanc - you keep having great weeks! keep it up

hardXCguy - nice week, are you training for anything in particular?

BHViking - whoah nice downhill 10 miler! How did your legs feel afterward?

birdbeard: how did the 12x4 with extra rest feel? Were the later reps easier?

James: way to get some miles in even with school. keep it up!

thoughtsleader: glad your down week helped freshen up the legs! good for you

--------------

M33 - 6’0 145lbs

2020 - 2mi TT 11:22 (Apr), HM TT 1:27:27 (Mar)

2019 - 5k 18:35 (Nov), HM 1:29:21 (Oct)

Total: 60 mi. Mostly easy with 20' @ 6:20, 6' @ 5:40, 3' @ 5:20 and some strides

M: 8.9mi with intervals

- 6x(1' @ 2mile pace, 1' jog)

- 6x(30" @ 1mile pace, 60" jog)

T: 3.3 - had to cut short due to bad weather (30 min later, small tornado < 1 mi away)

W: 8.1 with 8x20” strides

R: 9.8 (75’) with threshold work

- 5x (4' @ 6:18, 1' jog)

F: 8 recovery

S: 13 long run

U: 9 recovery

Excellent point about going by heart rate. I will be doing this workout on an absolutely flat course. My HR would be at the bottom end of zone 3 at the start of the repeat, and get to around 95% of LTHR by the middle and then hold steady till the end.

I am definitely enjoying the 200s. After running 31 secs for an all-out 200 couple of weeks back and 35 secs for 10x200 this week, I am re-thinking if my weakness is top-end speed or speed endurance. Don't think I can break 2:30 or 5:30 for the mile right now.

Hey imagebearer!

Target is 6:50...just looking to run under 3 this time around, provided the race happens. I'd like to get back to Boston if possible next year and I think a 10 minute cushion will do that. PR for me would be under 2:50 (ran 2:50 at Boston a few years ago in the 85 degree heat) but after a year off for a cerebral aneurysm I'm not quite in shape to chase new PRs yet. Next year will hopefully see me chasing some 2:30s if I can keep things healthy and consistent.

Working harder - cerebral aneurysm, that sounds scary. I'm glad you are back to running! I'll be watching your progress and look forward to seeing you get to those PRs!

Hopefully a early fall marathon. Shooting for sub 2:20.

Smoove... I really like the plan linked to by imagebearer. I am honestly thinking of just taking it as is and starting it in July.

Would this plan be appropriate for someone running 70-80 miles a week? Also, your definition of tempo pace I assume is Daniels T pace correct? Anything you would change in retrospect?

HHW - I bike everywhere I go for transportation so... even in a long lay off I think that helps maintain a modicum of fitness so that when I come back it’s not just alllllll gone. And we shall see what the mile TT brings but I have a feeling it’s

“Insert Mr T Pain GIF”

cocoon wrote:

Excellent point about going by heart rate. I will be doing this workout on an absolutely flat course. My HR would be at the bottom end of zone 3 at the start of the repeat, and get to around 95% of LTHR by the middle and then hold steady till the end.

I am definitely enjoying the 200s. After running 31 secs for an all-out 200 couple of weeks back and 35 secs for 10x200 this week, I am re-thinking if my weakness is top-end speed or speed endurance. Don't think I can break 2:30 or 5:30 for the mile right now.

Dang, 35's on the 200's? That's wayyyy up there on the charts in the book. My interpretation that they are supposed to be "fast but easy". He strongly recommends running by feel but the charts are just a general guideline to make sure it's fast enough but also easy enough depending on current, approximate 10K capability.

For me, the suggested range for 200 is 36-40 seconds. When I run them by feel on a flat, I'm usually 41-42. Having said that, I can probably do the 15x200 in that 36-40 second range but that would feel hard which defeats the whole philosophy of this method. 41-42 just feels right to me right now. It feels very fast. It feels like perfect running form. And it feels easy. At 40, it starts to feel stressful. I suspect if I did this regularly, that would change though! :)

BHViking wrote:

Dang, 35's on the 200's? That's wayyyy up there on the charts in the book. My interpretation that they are supposed to be "fast but easy". He strongly recommends running by feel but the charts are just a general guideline to make sure it's fast enough but also easy enough depending on current, approximate 10K capability.

For me, the suggested range for 200 is 36-40 seconds. When I run them by feel on a flat, I'm usually 41-42. Having said that, I can probably do the 15x200 in that 36-40 second range but that would feel hard which defeats the whole philosophy of this method. 41-42 just feels right to me right now. It feels very fast. It feels like perfect running form. And it feels easy. At 40, it starts to feel stressful. I suspect if I did this regularly, that would change though! :)

Sorry, should have made my post clearer. For the regular in-week 15 x 200, I ran 43 - 45 ish seconds. Ran this on gravel and it felt right as 'easy intervals'.

The 35 sec 200's were done as part of a 'mixed anaerobic workout' for the weekend. I am kinda following the plan on page 107 of the book. Just trying to get ready for the mile on July 4th.

Tyler/HHW - Parking lot 400s probably won’t be too bad. It’s a big, open lot, so the idea was to be able to run straight and avoid the GPS problems that go along with curves, but thinking about it there’s an access road I can use that’ll probably work better. As for soccer fields, that reminds me of an old workout in college where we’d sprint diagonally across the field then jog along the end line. I should do that soon.

darkwave - I’d have to imagine your trails have been pretty busy. I’ve always thought the Custis is a lot of fun with all the little rollers, but won’t make the trip until things are more normal, whenever that might be.

I am a 1:07 half guy, so hopefully by September I will be 2:20 marathon shape. Great start!

Imagebearer, I’m glad you found the plan interesting.

HHW, I think this plan would be good for you in that your recent speed training means you are in a fairly similar “point in the training cycle“ position to the woman I was coaching at the time (she is raising kids now, so she’s taking time off of running).

I would suggest the following modifications to the plan for someone running your volume and training at your paces:

- workouts are 5k pace should be at least 3 miles worth of quality, but not more than 8% of your weekly mileage. In your case, I’d probably cap things at 4 miles given the jiggles you’ve had in recent months.

- threshold workouts (really the key to a half as I see it) should be capped at 10% of your weekly volume. So you could bump some of those workouts up some to something like 7 or 8 miles worth of tempo paced intervals.

- yes, tempo is Daniels T pace in these workouts.

All of the above is basic Daniels philosophy. And a Daniels approach is based on the core principle of listening to your body (despite critics who suggest he wants to lock you into a certain specific volume of work at specific paces). So if you’re feeling like 4 miles of go2max work is kicking your tail, drop back down to 3 miles. Maybe instead of doing mile repeats, back down to 1000s or even 800s if you’re feeling beat up.

If you choose to use this approach, feel free to ask me questions. I forgot how to log into my old coaching email account, but I still check this thread semi-regularly.

HHW, thanks bud, yeah definitely felt that last lap, ha! It was fun though, hadn’t raced anything on the track in years! Consistency & Patience; that’s the name of the game.

imagebearer, thanks, used to be much faster but I’ll take 4:20s any day of the week now! Was fun to mix things up.

hardxcguy, solid times, I’ll be targeting 1:07 at Indy and 2:25 at Houston later this year, but for now, back to #summergrind Good luck!

Thanks Smoove. The commentary is much appreciated.

If I was going to drop into this plan come July does spending June working on building up mileage and getting in 2 workouts a week (1 long run/higher end aerobic workout and then switch off between LT and Vo2 max) seem like a reasonable plan?

I wouldn’t touch any vo2max work before starting the plan. The vast majority of adaptation to a particular stimulus can be obtained through 6 weeks of training targeted at that stimulus. That’s why that block of vo2max work has about 6 workouts in it.

So if you do that before hand, you’ll be paying a heavy price in terms of stress on your body for almost no return (since you’ll get almost all of the possible return on that investment via the vo2max work in the training cycle).

I would focus on easy distance, progression runs, and an occasional moderate pace/steady run (faster than easy distance but slower than tempo), and, on days where you want to push it some, hill repeats during June. Hill repeats basically serve the same purpose as 200/400 workouts at mile pace but with less strain on your body. Given you’ve done some speed work in anticipation of your mile time trial, actual 200/400 reps aren’t important, but you can maintain some of the running economy benefits that you derived from that speed work with less stressful hill repeats.

imagebearer wrote:

Lanc - you keep having great weeks! keep it up

Thanks! Still grinding out some training. Honestly, this block of base building and throwing in workouts has been just a blast. It's funny, but quarantine has definitely been a boost to my running. I've been meeting up with someone from my hood to run with 4-5 days a week, putting in some mileage I've never even dreamed of (70-80 miles a week is a TON for me...) and starting to see some serious benefits.

To that end, last night was our typical club track night, and I went over there to get some motivation. Went in thinking it was a good night for a 3K TT as my "workout". Our club is organizing some TTs in July, and I wanted a baseline of fitness to figure out what to gun for in the mile and the 3k or 5k. So 3K TT it was.

Having run 16:29 fairly recently in the 5k, I figured a good goal to shoot for would be around 9:30 for the 3k. I'd never run a 3k (did 3200 in High School, but if you asked me what I ran those in... I wouldn't even come close to remembering) so instant PR.

Anyway, 9:30 3k is about 76 splits through the quarters. Buddy of mine is shooting for about the same, and we plan to try and run it as even as possible, switching off pacing every 400 through the mile, and then see what happens.

Get out really well and go through the first 400 in 77. Follow that up with 75, 77, 76. After the mile, buddy is falling slightly off the pace, so I surge a bit and try and stay on pace. 75. so through 2k in a shade under 6:22 (76.4 avg). I forget to lap the last few 400s because I'm in pain and just pushing to hold pace. It felt awesome. I love that pain. The last 1k I end up at 3:08.7 (75.5 avg/400), so picked it up a shade, to finish at 9:30.6. This was on the track and there was some traffic that I had to pull into lane 2 to pass several times, so I think I'm technically good for 9:29.x, but hey, still ecstatic with the results.

Great to have a baseline to gun for in the coming weeks. Think I'm gonna put my seed time for the mile TT at 4:45 and go for it. Should be fun.

Hope y'all are having good weeks. supposed to be 88 here and humid today... eesh.