Quest to Beat My Friend in a May Mile Race

this sounds great; I hope you film it and post your triumph for all to see. Given that your friend is already confident he can crush 6:00, not having (if I read it right) started running regularly, I think one advantage you can gain is tactical -- he may well go out too hard, and if you stick to a realistic pace, you'll be poised to pass him in a demoralizing way with maybe 600 to go and cruise to victory.

But obviously the main thing is the training -- your plan looks good to me. Just two notes: (a) if you've really been doing mainly gym work, you might need some shorter runs at first. looks like nothing under 6 miles, and with long run already at 10-15. I might see that as an aspirational week toward which you spend some time building. Getting to the start line healthy obviously important. (b) i know the 4 X 1 mile was just an example, but I'd definitely want to work in some short intervals like 400 repeats at realistic (not goal necessarily) mile pace.

Good luck!

Cheers! Thanks for the feedback. Yeah, my tactical plan would be to just run a steady pace as I don't think he'll train as structured as me, so I'll really know my pacing and can get close to my true max speed. Great advice re; starting a little slower. My thoughts were that I'll go into each run with the intention of that distance and then once I start to feel too much soreness, tightness or niggles I'll stop early. Basically listen to my body. Figure the first couple weeks will be lower mileage as I get the hang of it. Also, I've always done runs in the past almost exclusively at a fast tempo pace (so for example, will go out for a 5k at 22mins if my race pace is 21 mins). I figure at a much slower pace I can handle a little more mileage ramping up quicker. I just bought a new Garmin watch, so I could have the GPS and HR data. It seems to me that the HR data is a bit delayed compared to an HR strap, but the overall average HR is probably pretty good. I did a run the other day to test my "zone 2" 140-150 HR and 6 miles took me 70 minutes in that zone which felt very slow so it will be quite interesting to see if this "running slow" and more mileage plan will help me race faster!

So, why not lay off the weight training until the race (or do crazy light weights with high reps)? You'll put the muscle back on afterwards...easy to do.

I like your approach. With your speed you should be good to go. It occurs to me that some repeat 8x800s ×2 wk would support your strength. Jog 400 between as rest.

You might be a fast twitch athlete but you would not be "All" fast twitch.

Nevertheless, training your type 2 fibers aerobically becomes the key to your success.

Tuesday / Thursday - Do the run before the weight training...trust me

Wednesday / Friday - 5-8 miles

Saturday - I like the intervals / Break the tempo up like 1.5 miles @ tempo / 3 minute jog / 1.5 miles tempo

On Sunday - Build to 12 miles / no more for you. Alternate 10 one week / 12 the next so that you can do them quicker

On Tuesday Slowly add shorter intervals like 1x400 / 1x200. build this up until you are doing something like 4x400 / 2x200. Shorter rest early on / longer rest later.

- Add short hills somewhere... they don't need to be aerobic...just 5-6 second efforts with 2-3 minute rest

- Add 100 meter strides on Friday @ 800 pace

Thanks Otter,

That's why I wanted to try something I've never done before and rather than all hard runs, all the time, focus on primarily slower and longer zone 2 type running. I probably am way overdeveloped in one area and super underdeveloped aerobically (although I am old now so probably underdeveloped in both haha).

I'm going to take your advice and:

- run before lifts

- make my runs a little shorter

- when I do a harder tempo break it up with the 3 min slower jogs

- incorporate shorter intervals & hills

Two thoughts: 1. Do the same training you did 8 years ago. It's already proven to get the result you want. 2. Your two goals are at odds with each other.

FriendGoingDown wrote:

... About 8 years ago, I trained for about 3 months to see how fast I could run a mile and ended up running 5:20 on a track. ...

My Goals

- Retain my muscle

- Run under 5:30 mile

Appreciate your feedback. My thoughts: 1 - I don't think it will get me the result I want as I was 32 then, and I am 40 now, so I have to train smarter, and I don't recover as well. I think the training I did back then was half-baked. 2 - I mentioned this in my first post. I would rather lose 10-20s but retain my muscle. I don't think they are at odds with each other, as I think I can retain muscle and also break 5:30. They would be at odds with each other though if my goals were: "run as fast as possible in a mile" "retain my muscle".

Bullet the Blue Sky wrote:

Two thoughts:

1. Do the same training you did 8 years ago. It's already proven to get the result you want.

2. Your two goals are at odds with each other.

1. I would start with a similar type of training and make adjustments when you figure out where your weaknesses are. If you're doing workouts you've done before, you know what it takes and how it feels. That's a really good position to be in when trying to regain fitness. 2. 10-20 lbs is significant. Unless you're carrying a lot of extra fat, then I would think it's going to be a challenge to maintain muscle mass. If it's all fat, you can probably get lean without sacrificing much. I'm not a nutritionist, though, so I'll defer to someone with more experience on that subject. A common rule of thumb is 2 secs, per pound, per mile.

FriendGoingDown wrote:

Appreciate your feedback. My thoughts:

1 - I don't think it will get me the result I want as I was 32 then, and I am 40 now, so I have to train smarter, and I don't recover as well. I think the training I did back then was half-baked.

2 - I mentioned this in my first post. I would rather lose 10-20s but retain my muscle. I don't think they are at odds with each other, as I think I can retain muscle and also break 5:30. They would be at odds with each other though if my goals were: "run as fast as possible in a mile" "retain my muscle".

Bullet the Blue Sky wrote:

Two thoughts:

1. Do the same training you did 8 years ago. It's already proven to get the result you want.

2. Your two goals are at odds with each other.

40 isn't old.

As promised, my weekly update:

Week 1 (Jan 17 - 23)

18.5 total miles (+3 miles rowing)

3 gym workouts (1 pull, 1 legs, 1 small bodyweight)

Tuesday:

10k in 69mins. Avg HR was 155. Peak HR was 172. Ascent was 61meters.

Started the run at about 10min miles & HR shot up to 170 after only 8 minutes or so. Next few miles was just coaxing it back down to 150 or so. This particular route is an out and back where the first half is flat and next half is pretty hilly. My goal for these “zone 2” runs would be to keep my HR around 145 for most of the run (didn’t do that here) and have an avg HR of around 140 (as the first little bit always takes a while to ramp up my HR).

Thursday:

20 min row warmup. 134 avg. HR. Peak HR 156.

4 pull lifts

20 min treadmill (1.5 miles). 151 avg. HR. Peak HR 161.

Another poster had said make sure to do the run before lifts. I see why now. I basically had to slow this down to a walk to get my HR below 150. I warmed up with a row just to save my legs a little and warm up my upper body while still getting a bit of zone 2 aerobic.

Friday:

5 miles @ 55mins. Avg HR 155. Max HR 171.

Saturday:

4x400m @ 85s w/ 1 min rest.

4 leg lifts in gym

My first non zone 2 workout. My aim was to do 90s 400s off 2 min rest but the first one felt so easy at 85s that I decided to go faster and shorter rest. Lo and behold, I was crushed by the 4th rep - almost puked. So this is a good sample of a max effort for me and the type of shape I’m in.

Sunday:

5 miles in 53min. Avg HR 145. Max HR 167.

2x bodyweight circuit (10 pullups, 10 dips, 10 abs, 10 chinups, 10 pushups)

So I was pretty darn sore after the gym legs day and fast session so thought this would be worse than my Friday 5 miles but turns out it was better. Took a much longer time for my HR to get over 140 and my avg. Was 10 bpm less with a 2-min faster end time. This was more indicative of what I want to do for the zone 2 runs (avg. HR closer to 140)

A couple notes/questions:

- I’m using a Garmin vivoactive 4 for HR. I realize a heart rate strap is better, but for my level of training I think this is OK. I know a heart rate strap would likely allow me to respond to real time HR better, but my goal is just to get the avg to 140.

- I’m using a very loose calculation of 220 - 40(age) to get 180 for max HR and then taking off ~ 40 to get a loose zone 2 goal. I don’t know how to find my actual max HR - the highest max HR I’ve seen on my garmin is 184, so maybe this is ballpark?

-This week I was probably 20 miles or so off my goal, but I’m taking the advice of posters and ramping up slowly. By the time of the contest I am hoping to hit 40-50miles a week (and then obviously taper down in the week leading up). Also missed a full day completely (I am hoping for 6 workouts a week) as I had a course I was taking and forgot about.

14 Weeks to go!

A couple more questions for the benevolent Letsrun community:

1 - Pacing: My goal is to hit HR of ~145 for my aerobic runs (which are most of the runs) to improve my MAF which is obviously my biggest weakness going into the race.

Is it better to hold an average pace for the entire run even if your HR is way up and down OR make real time adjustments to your pace as per your HR feedback?

Right now, I am kind of doing a hybrid. Due to my horrible MAF, V02 & having primarily fast twitch fibres, I tend to start off runs faster (around 10 min miles) which still takes a while to get up to 145HR (sometimes more than 2 miles) whereas I'm ending runs as slow as 12:30 miles to keep under 150HR. To exacerbate this, 1/2 the course I run is quite hilly, so I'm running up hills very slow (say 12-13min mile pace) and down hills faster (9min mile pace etc.) to keep in the 140-150 range.

2 - Surface: I've been doing all my runs on concrete. Just wondering if I should be mixing up surface (once a week I go to the track, but that's it). Generally the body holds up well, but my knees are usually my weak point - which I'm not sure if concrete is helping to strengthen or hurting.

3 - Rowing & Other Cardio : I'm falling pretty short of my mileage goals. Which I think is fine as I want to be careful in the build up. The reason for this as I will stop a run short if a) my body is starting to get too sore / tight (typically hip flexor tightness and knee joints but sometimes lower limb if it's a long run) or b) I am having to run absurdly slow to stay below 150HR (like 14 min miles or worse - essentially a walk). I take that as feedback that my body needs a rest.

In the former case (just lower leg body tightness/ too sore / on the brink of injury). I have been hoping on the rower, and plan to hop on the bike to "fill out" mileage at 140-150HR. Will this help my MAF or would it be better just to stretch, rest, core etc. and just give a full rest?

Keep it up!

Thanks!

I was going to add this week's training but didn't have any response or feedback from last time so didn't want to clog the message board with TLDR posts!

All your excess upper body muscle mass is sucking up all your energy.

That's a waste, especially a totally useless waste of energy.

Your legs and all the rest of your body are weak for running. That's why you have a lower heart rate

when you're sitting on your butt and using your body weight/mass to rock back and forth but suck at running.

To strengthen your knees, do exercises from the kneesovertoesguy videos on Youtube.

https://www.youtube.com/c/TheKneesovertoesguy/videos

.

Run by feel, and don't be concerned with your heart rate when running! <-- IMPORTANT ***

Your max is probably way over 200, so going up to 170 is nothing. Go by feel and don't check your heart rate.

Don't measure your heart rate when you're running!!! Run by your pacing and by feel.

Run a mile time trial once a week, and center all your other training around that.

This will help to give you feedback on what you are doing that is working for you and what isn't.

You don't need to do slow 12 milers. Instead of that, run a lot of 2, 3 and 4 mile runs much more often. When I ran the 880, mile and cross country in high school (in the 1960s) I always ran a 2 mile warmup on my own before training every day and this did help quite a bit. I got 3rd at the regional (mile) and 10th in state to a national record, while only running 20 to 25 miles per week at the most.

The closer you run to the pace you're aiming for, the better.

Training any faster than the pace you're aiming for would be counter productive.

You can run much more somewhat slower than your goal pace more productively than by going too fast.

FriendGoingDown wrote:

Is it better to hold an average pace for the entire run even if your HR is way up and down OR make real time adjustments to your pace as per your HR feedback?

Run even pace with slightly negative splits, i.e. getting faster through the runs each day.

Run by pace, and by your perceived exertion. Do not measure your heart rate!!! Ignore it completely.

You should always be able to run negative splits, or else you started too fast. This is very important.

Concrete is fine, as long as it's relatively flat side to side.

Avoid any surfaces that are cantered to one side, as the angle will destroy your knees.

Again, stop measuring your heart rate when you're running!

Focus on improving your PACING, so you can run evenly and run negative splits.

Don't do any other cardio except running and treadmill, maybe elliptical but best is running,

Rowing is completely counter productive to running! No, don't do rowing. Focus on running, period.

Cut way back on the rower for reasons others have mentioned. If you want to do something cardio (nonrunning), then use the stairmaster. It will help with the glute strength and knee lift you need.

I'd suggest 2x/week on the track. One track workout would be the Billat 30-30. You can look it up. Basically, you run 30 seconds at mile race pace (5:30/mile) and then jog at 1/2 that speed for 30 seconds. At first, try two sets of 8x30/30 with 5-7 minutes rest between sets. I'd suggest you do Billats on a track for pacing. Start at the 200m mark. Run 30 seconds at 5:30 mile pace. That's 146 meters. Jog to the next 200m mark (54 meters). You'll be early so wait until your timer beeps at the end of the 30 second jog period and repeat. 54 meters is short for the recovery jog, but starting each rep at a 200m mark on the track makes it easy to keep track of the run part, which is more important. (When I do this, I jog back and forth for those few extra seconds and hit the line just as my beeper beeps.) Once you can handle 2 sets of 8x30/30, gradually move up to 2 sets of 12x30/30. The goal is NOT to do the run part faster (although that will happen). The goal is to build volume at mile race pace. It's possible to do Billats on a treadmill. I don't like it, but you could try.

Billats are great because they train you to run economically at mile race pace. They train you to relax at race pace. They teach you what race pace feels like on a track. Billats build VO2Max as well as tempo runs, but they allow you to accumulate more volume at race pace.

Since this is a race against a person and not the clock, you also need to train your kick. That's another topic for later.

Thanks. A few thoughts: 1 - I realize that the upper body lifting is negatively affecting my running performance - please read my initial post - it addresses this (basically I am OK with losing 10-20 seconds to retain my muscle - I am not a professional runner - I want to have both decent musculature and win this contest) 2 - Love that Youtube video you sent me of knees over toes - makes a lot of sense! Going to try some of those at the gym today. 3 - Hmm, my whole running training philosophy is based on heart rate training (but more specifically zone 2 defined by a maximum blood lactate of 2mmol) so will have to be convinced to jack up all my runs to 170HR. Also, I really doubt my HR is well over 200 - I have never seen it go above 185 no matter how hard or long I go for. You seem to be soundly in the camp of Long Slow Distance is useless. From the literature I've read and from what I know and believe, I would disagree with you here but appreciate your feedback.