Road Racing & Training Thread: May 2024

Male, 56, 5'7, 141 lbs
Short term: May/June get the volume back up over 8 hours per week
Next Race: Panasonic Run the City (12.5k) September 8
Longer term: Get back to VDOT 50 for a December marathon PR
Current Level: VDOT 48

Well it’s “base phase,” so you pretty much know what I was up to. The goal was to get 6.5 hours of work, and I checked that box, with most of the work high Zone 1 and low zone 2. No workouts, but this week I did a lot of reading.

Inside a Marathon by Ben Rosario and Scott Fauble: This book was written in 2018 while Faubs was training for NY and then Boston (2019). Scott’s juvenile sense of humor notwithstanding, pretty entertaining and a nice look at how bad you can feel during training but recover during the taper to crush on race day.

Running with Lydiard by Lydiard and Gilmour: Definitely a “base phase” book! So basically Arty is telling me to run easy, but at the top end of easy rather than “wicked easy.” The two opening chapters hammer this point and in conjunction with…

Modifying the Norwegian approach to lower mileage thread here on LRC: …I’m enamored with the concept of maximizing training load or training impulse (TRIMP) while staying in easy base-building mode. I’m still in the first dozen pages, but the idea is proposed by a cyclist who was trying to maximize the effect of the training time he had to use. Not talking about HIIT; it’s all aerobic, but as much high aerobic as you can handle. It sounds like Lydiard. So by monitoring something like TRIMP (basically time * HR), you’re trying to maximize the TRIMP while staying aerobic.

It sounds like a good way to structure (monitor?) a base phase. For example, maybe I stay at 6.5 hours for 2-3 weeks, adding more time in Zone 2… monitoring the weekly TRIMP number as it rises over two or three weeks. Then take an easy Zone 1 week to bump the time up to 7 hours… then build the 7 hour TRIMP by adding Zone 2 time… and so on.

Using/monitoring TRIMP adds the “effort” dimension to increasing mileage in a base-building/mileage-building phase. Anyway, thanks for letting me think out loud.

Be good, everybody.

[emphasis added]

IMHO, the ability to bury oneself during training and then bounce back for a solid race is contingent on a # of things. Older runners will find this more challenging than younger runners. And of course it's easier to do something like this when you're not balancing training with a demanding job.

Female, 50, 5'4", 105
Lifetime/Masters PRs 5:25/18:51/38:56/1:02:28/1:24:08/2:57:42
Recent best times: 5K in 21:08, 10 miles in 1:10:19, half-marathon in 1:33:20, Marathon in 3:20:29
Upcoming races: BAA 10K, Twin Cities Marathon
40 miles running; 15 "miles" pool-running.
M: 9 "miles' of pool-running.
T: 9 miles, including a track workout of 2x800, 1600, 800, 2x200 in 3:24, 3:24, 6:48, 3:18, 48, and 48. Recoveries of 2:4x-2:5x after the 800s and 5:30 after the 1600; full recovery for the 200s. Followed with leg strengthwork.
W: 9 miles very easy (9:22) and upper body weights/core.
Th: 6 miles very easy on trails (10:13) and streaming pilates.
F: 9 miles on the track including a 6400m tempo in 28:21 (7:16/7:10/7:01/6:54) followed by leg strengthwork.
Sa: 7 miles very easy (9:20) plus drills/strides, followed by streaming pilates.
Su: 6 "miles" pool-running.

Not too much of note here - just track workouts on Tuesday and Friday. I turned 50 this week, so I intentionally kept the weekend light on training so I could focus more on social stuff.

Yay new age group.

(also - failed to convert for this post - I usually count 10 minutes of pool-running as a "mile" so those were bouts of 90 and 60 minutes of pool-running, for a grand total of 2:30 of pool-running this week.)

Male, 30, 6'4", 150 lbs
Races: 5/19 Olympic Tri, 6/1 5 Miler, 7/7 - 2.4mi swim, 11/24 Philly Marathon
5/6/24 - 5/12/24

Mn - 8 @ 7:55s (70ft/mi trails) + Strength Work
Tu - 8x400 with 400 rec + WU/WD = 8.5
Wd - AM: 4000 yd Swim, PM: Gravel Cycle 26mi
Th - 8 @ 7:50s
Fr - AM: 4000 yd Swim, PM: 8.25 @ 7:15s
Sa - Gravel Cycle 40mi
Su - 14.25 @ 7:40s

Total Run - 47 mi, Ride - 66 mi, Swim - 8,000yd, Time - 12:58:32
Tu - 76.5 76.9 77.3 77.8 76.9 76.8 76.1 75.9 with 400s rest in 2:15-2:30
Notes - Just about where I want to be, need to add in some strides/strength work and 1-2 extra short runs. Ride on Saturday was late morning and involved a lot of travel and not many calories so didn't run at night.

DW: Happy New Age Group Day! The BAA 10k is in June, right? Summer races 🥵

RunnerSam: That tri training is way above my pay grade. Glad to hear you're where you want to be.

Coach Jeff - A lot of reading indeed, the Fauble book looks like a fun read. I haven't heard of the TRIMP so maybe ill look into it.

Not bona fide tri training as the bike is lacking but I want to focus more on running. The cycling is a lot of fun but the main goal is to spend time with the Mrs and gain some power for the (running) mile.

Darkwave - welcome to the new AG, the workouts look like they went well.

At my peak 5 years ago when in got my marathon PR at Boston, I was TRIMPing at well over 3000 per month for month after month, and even broke 4000 once. Last year, I only broke 2000 for 6 out of 12 months and never 3000. 5 years ago, I wasn't even looking at that as a metric... I wasn't training with it, but I guess I was recording it. I can really see how much more training stress I was putting on myself to get after my goals, and I can also see how I haven't been so diligent recently.

It's not a roadmap back to my peak, but it's a compass direction at least.

Male, 56, 5'7, 141 lbs
Short term: May-August 🥵 get the volume back up over 8 hours per week
Next Race: Panasonic Run the City (12.5k) September 8
Longer term: Get back to VDOT 50 for a December marathon PR
Current Level: VDOT 48

This week was my third “build” week in a row.
Time: 6:06—>6:36—>6:47
Distance: 60km—>67km—>71km
Training Impulse (TRIMP) 565—>585—>634

Mon: low 45 min
Tue: high 45 min
Wed: low 90 minutes
Thu: Off
Fri: high 70 minutes
Sat: low 70 minutes
Sun: high 90 min

So far in this base phase, I’ve basically been using two gears: low easy and high easy, but staying below marathon HR and well below LTHR. I’m just doing this by feel (but my watch tases me if I leave easy HR); if I feel a little good, I’ll run a little fast. When I get back, I can see if I spent more time in low easy or in high easy. If I spent more than 50% of the run in high easy, I go out on the next run “planning” for low easy. If I ran low easy, then I’ll go out with permission to run high easy if I feel it (but don’t need to force it). Longer runs almost always end up high easy because of cardiac drift in the heat. But it mostly ends up an every other day rhythm (check out that long Norwegian thread…) If I feel too tired to run on a given day, I’ve messed up.

I call my plan Lydiard for Old Guys With Wearables. Rolls off the tongue, don’t it? Yeah, grindin’ the ole’ “LOG Dub’ W.”

This week I’m gonna try to hold TRIMP steady, but add 30 minutes of running time.

Stay 🥶, stay 😎.

Male, 30, 6'4", 150 lbs
Races: 6/1 5 Miler, 7/7 - 2.4mi swim, 11/24 Philly Marathon
5/13/24 - 5/19/24

Mn - AM: 4200 yd swim, PM: 10.5 @ 7:10s
Tu - 4.25 @ 8:15s
Wd - 6.25 @ 8:55s (trails, hills)
Th - AM: 4200 yd Swim, PM: hard 13.25mi Ride into a 5k in 18:15 + WU/WD = 7
Fr - AM: 16 mi Ride Commute, PM: 16 mi Ride Commute (Bike to work day)
Sa - 3.5 with 4 strides
Su - Olympic Tri in 2:22:00 via 23:50 (1750-1850yd) swim, 1:16:53 (23mi or ~18mpw) ride and 35:36 (5.95 mi or ~6 flat pace) run

Total Run - 38.5 mi, Ride - 68 mi, Swim - 10250 yd, Time - 11:39:37
Comments - Weird week with big days and really easy days
Th - Did a classic local gravel/trail loop on the gravel bike which included a difficult ~600ft climb (~1.7mi) and I pushed really hard on the flat sections. Had half an hour to WU then did a 5k in 18:15 which I was happy with.
Su - Signed up for this 10 days prior with 4 weeks of nonrunning training. Managed to have the 7th quickest swim and the fastest run, the ride was 113th quickest. Got 22nd place, I was a little quicker on the run/swim than expected and a little slower on the bike, but I did have a flatting front tire throughout.

Congrats on the tri! Pretty impressive👍.

Male, 56, 5'7, 141 lbs
Short term: May-August 🥵 get the volume back up over 8 hours per week
Next Race: Panasonic Run the City (12.5k) September 8
Longer term: Get back to VDOT 50 for a December marathon PR
Current Level: VDOT 48

This base-building phase feels more purposeful than any that I’ve done in the past. Maybe in my mind base-building has just been a synonym for “no workouts.” Now, paying attention to things like chronic training load (CTL), I can quantify an accumulation of “base.”

Held steady this week at just about 7 hours and just about the same level of training impulse. Going back and comparing to where I was at my peak CTL 5 years ago, I’m at about 60% based on a rolling 42-day window. I’d like to get that up to 75-80% (without workouts… everything below threshold) and hold steady until I’m ready to start formal marathon training (end of August).

After 10 days straight of low easy/high easy, I’m taking a rest day Monday, and then back at it.

Coach Jeff and I holding down the fort

Male, 30, 6'4", 150 lbs
Races: 6/1 5 Miler, 7/7 - 2.4mi swim, 11/24 Philly Marathon
5/20/24 - 5/26/24

Mn - Off + 15min Str Work
Tu - 5k Tempo in 18:32 + 4 Strides + WU/WD = 8.75
Wd - 24mi Ride
Th - AM: 4000 yd Swim, PM: 10 @ 7:15s
Fr - 4 @ 7:30s
Sa - AM: 50mi Ride, PM: 5 @ 9:10s & Short (725yd) OW Swim
Su - 12 @ 7:05s

Total Run - 40 mi, Ride - 74.75 mi, Swim - 4725 yd, Time - 11:14:48
Comments - Tu Tempo felt easy even though it was a hot night, travel reduced friday's training. I took off Monday to let my poor feet heal after racing the Olympic tri without socks and bleeding everywhere.