jecht Training Log/Racing Thread-goodbye yellow brick road to Boston 2023 and beyond

I'd seriously consider upping the mileage significantly. Seems like you might have a better chance of hitting your goals if you built up to 80 a week over this winter and held around there for a while.

Jecht what is the race you are doing in 2 mos? You gonna run cap city?

jamb innnnn wrote:

Jecht what is the race you are doing in 2 mos? You gonna run cap city?

Hi Jamb Innn,

It's Warm Up Columbus, 2/6.

How did you get your username? I'm assuming it's a play on jamin haha!

Cap City too, in April. Wedding in June, but then training with MIT or CRC for the summer for Columbus 2022.

Thank you for your honest responses and takes (no sarcasm) about my training blocks, etc.

Kvothe wrote:

I'd seriously consider upping the mileage significantly. Seems like you might have a better chance of hitting your goals if you built up to 80 a week over this winter and held around there for a while.

I'm shooting to get to 65-70 at least, and seeing where I go from there. I was able to hit 64 last summer with no problems. I'd rather err on lower mileage to avoid injury, but I also know 40-45 isn't enough either lol.

I'm actually going to put Boston on hold and just try to break 3:15-3:20. Take some pressure off, get down to decent times, and then try to really nail Boston (3:01 or faster, 4-minute buffer off a 3:05 35-39M). Maybe I can age into a 3:10 for the 40-44M (really 3:06 with buffer) in a few years.

Good luck. I hope it goes well. And I do hope you're pleased with the great improvement you've made this year, even though the race didn't go the way you wanted.

But I still don't know why you seem fixated on "aging into" a BQ.

Keep training well, learn from Pfitz (think you said you were reading AM) and others, and on race day, don't go out 10-20 sec/mi faster than you're trained for. Develop a good plan, stick with the plan, and you'll have a great chance of performing well.

As for getting over a perceived hump at 3:15-3:20. I seem to recall thinking that you were in 3:12-3:15 shape in October (and had a race plan to run just that), but just fell prey to pretty substantial pacing problems due to the overexcitement and magical thinking of race day. Lesson learned, I hope. I wouldn't say that 1:37:45/1:36:45 would've been an ideal split for your race, but I'm very confident that you'd have had little trouble pulling that off, given your training (in spite of going too hard in the LR 3 weeks out). The last ten miles of the race feel vastly different if you haven't burned through nearly all of your glycogen in the first half. Really, you were no worse than 3:15 fit. And given where you were at the start of the year, that's magnificent, so I don't think you should feel at all as though your progress is weak or you're likely to face a plateau soon.

And you've acknowledged other good suggestions above about a steady build of mileage offering the prospect of substantial progress. I think you have a good idea about erring on the side of caution to stay injury-free. Maybe after several months with lots of good 60-70 weeks you'll find that 70-80 would work for you. I believe that can wait.

Strive for consistent attention to sleep, strength, strides, and stretching, too.

Maybe you age into the BQ, maybe you develop into a 3:00 guy first. Maybe you get your BQ at 3:09 then develop into a 3:00 guy at 42. Or whatever. Who knows?

Again, best of luck. I've been really impressed with the improvement you made this year. Keep having fun.

You’re not running enough. Cut out all the trendy workouts and just run. You need the miles. Not the acronym workouts.

jecht wrote:

I'm actually going to put Boston on hold and just try to break 3:15-3:20. Take some pressure off, get down to decent times, and then try to really nail Boston (3:01 or faster, 4-minute buffer off a 3:05 35-39M). Maybe I can age into a 3:10 for the 40-44M (really 3:06 with buffer) in a few years.

Dude forget about the "aging into" thing. Because while the standard gets slower, so do you!

splitter wrote:

jecht wrote:

I'm actually going to put Boston on hold and just try to break 3:15-3:20. Take some pressure off, get down to decent times, and then try to really nail Boston (3:01 or faster, 4-minute buffer off a 3:05 35-39M). Maybe I can age into a 3:10 for the 40-44M (really 3:06 with buffer) in a few years.

Dude forget about the "aging into" thing. Because while the standard gets slower, so do you!

I don't think people get 10 minutes slower from age 39 to 40.

Thank you for the kind words! I originally did this last year just to lose weight. I didn't even know if we'd have a marathon. So I'm still grateful to even run the 3:20:01 with a fully chipped 'thon.

I know a lot of women and men in their 40s and 50s who are much faster than me at 38. There are quite a few 2:45 guys and 3:15 or better women in MIT and CRC and I have no excuse not to be as fast as them at my age.

roller coaster wrote:

I don't think people get 10 minutes slower from age 39 to 40.

On average, no. But you can't be 100% sure it won't happen to you individually. All it takes is one semi-serious bout of middle age illness to derail your marathon plans for a long time, maybe indefinitely. Don't plan on aging into a BQ. If you're fit at 39, don't count on being the top of your new age group at 40. It might happen, and if so, great. But you can't count on it.

Jecht, are you so sure that higher mileage will cause injury, or is it something you just can't commit to right now, due to time constraints?

The reason I ask, is that for years as a very busy sporadic 15-30 mpw runner, I thought "high mileage" (over 60 mpw for me; I realize "high mileage" for pro's is > 120-150 mpw) would either get me injured, didn't make sense due to other time commitments or just wouldn't be worth it. I never could be more than a hair below 4 hrs, even in my early 30's.

Then, two years ago, my schedule opened up quite a bit and I decided to resume running after a 2 year layoff and build up to as many mpw as I could find the time for. That allowed me to drop my marathon time to 3:47 (at 40 mpw) then to 3:13 at 60-65 mpw avg (my first BQ, age 48, on Pfitz 55-70 plan). I surprised myself by not only having no injuries, but finding that the little aches and pains I used to have, actually went down as my body got used to the mileage.

Since I learned my body responds better to mileage than I thought it would, I've built to 80 mpw and am looking forward to see how low I can go (sub 3:00 maybe? with a recent 1:26:0X half? who knows) . No amount of intervals and tempos ever got my times down like just grinding out mileage like I did this past 18 months (still did the Pfitz speed work, but it's only about 5-15% of the total mileage, I think.)

TLDR: It's possible your body might surprise you and respond much better to high mileage than you think.

Part of it is schedule, but part of it is me trying to be cautious. I was fine doing 60-65 mpw at my peak in August, but I also had more time to run at lunch.

Now, with work implementing punch clocks I can't run at lunch (I could sneak in a 6 or 7 at best but on days where I have to run 10-12 as my midweek that'll be a challenge) as well so I'm figuring out my schedule. I am not afraid of doubles either--I did 12-13 miles in doubles a few days a week at some point.

I love running after work but I don't like running when it gets dark super-early, but I will adjust to running early in the morning when it's light out.

Also, what's encouraging me is not just posts from you and others here who are solid at LRC, but that my 1/2 time during Cbus was a 1:33:45 and I wasn't out of breath at all and very relaxed. Came through the 10-mile mark at 69:xx or maybe 70:xx. Had I just trained this summer to run the 1/2 I may have run 1:29!

roller coaster wrote:

splitter wrote:

Dude forget about the "aging into" thing. Because while the standard gets slower, so do you!

I don't think people get 10 minutes slower from age 39 to 40.

But you are not 39.

Feeling strong today. Boss gave me a raise (finally) from 38k to 42k but won't take effect until 2/1/22 due to the pay period change 1/1. That's a 10% increase!

jecht wrote:

Feeling strong today. Boss gave me a raise (finally) from 38k to 42k but won't take effect until 2/1/22 due to the pay period change 1/1. That's a 10% increase!

Congrats on the raise!

GettingFasterDude wrote:

jecht wrote:

Feeling strong today. Boss gave me a raise (finally) from 38k to 42k but won't take effect until 2/1/22 due to the pay period change 1/1. That's a 10% increase!

Congrats on the raise!

Thank you! One of my friends, a former English prof from Kent State, said she wants me to look at joining her company though, 48-55k, even more with stock options and benefits, but I will talk to her on 12/6. I'd be an account manager working to interview/recruit executives at the C-level for aging/nursing homes across the U.S.

The current job is easy and I have tons of free time. 42k is still low-ish but not embarrassingly low like 38k was. I'm not eligible for any raise/upgrade until next Jan. either after my 10/2022 review.

Solid workout today.

1 up, 4 @ steady, 3 @ uptempo. I didn't go out too fast and was able to ladder down consistently. It was a good micro-workout re: marathon speed and maintaining tempo, while not going out too fast.

https://www.strava.com/activities/6334823390