Road Racing and Training Thread - Week ending 10/20/13

cmm268- Looks like you're recovering pretty well from your marathon. It can be tough sometimes but your week looks good. Hope the marathon training you did last cycle will help with the strength this training cycle.

Goal Race: USA Champs. Half Marathon

M: 10 miles/ 5xmile with 3 minutes active rest at 4:47 avg pace (4:55, 4:51, 4:47, 4:43, 4:40). Hilly route.

T: 9 miles/ recovery run at 7:14/ weights

W: 9 miles/ recovery run at 7:34/ strides

T: 10 miles/ 4 mile tempo at 5:02 avg pace (5:01, 4:59, 5:02, 5:05). Hilly route.

F: 9 miles/ recovery run at 7:48 pace/ weights

S: 9 miles/ recovery run at 7:33 pace/ strides

S: 15 miles/ long run at 6:31 pace, progressed last 3 miles at 5:45 pace.

Total: 71

Things are changing up a little in my training now. I was told that it's time to take the next step in training (workout paces mainly) to reach my overall goals. So, my paces have picked up slightly. I'm a little nervous on how it will play out but I'm going to trust it. The mile repeats and tempo were on this loop in my neighborhood thats about .9 around. The first half mile basically builds up and the second half declines with some flat parts. Overall, it was a good week. Hope everyone else's training is going great!

Hey good job you two.

I had an up and down week.

M- 20@ 7:50. -felt awesome and last 13.1 were @ 140

T-yoga, massaging

W- same

Th- 5@824- right calf incredibly tight and painful. Dunno where it came from because I had no pain b4.limping rest of day so did lots of massaging and whatnot. Also biked 12 mi

Fri- massaging, warm compress, etc

Sat- same

Sun- half race 1:36:52. Felt really slow . Calf wasn't too bad actually but I think this weird week made me tight.

Calf is healing fine, if I had to guess I was too cold thurs and pulled a muscle right at the start of my run. Nothing major thankfully, should be healed in a few days.

One more month to marathon. I'm going to reevaluate my pace after I see how the next two weeks go. Its very strange bc Mondays workout was the best I've ever done by far and I didn't go all out. And my marathon pr is 3:14 so I don't think today's half is a good indicator of my fitness (i hope :))

Hope you all had a good week!

M - 4/5 double

T - 5/ PM: 2x800 w/200m jog,2x1600 w/400m jog,4x400 w/400m jog,4x200 w/200m jog

W - 6/6 double

R - 4/ 7.5 fartlek

F - 4/6 double

S - 8/3 double

S - 5/6 double + hill sprints

Total: 84

Tuesday - 3mi w/u. 2x800: 2:29, 2:26, 2x1600: 5:01, 5:01, 4x400: 74,71,71,68, 4x200: 33,34,33,31. 3mi c/d. Pretty decent workout. 800s and 1600s on grass, 400s and 200s on the track.

Thursday - 15 minutes warm up, 7.5 miles of 1-2-3-2-1 minutes on fartlek with 1 minute rest. Averaged 5:30 pace and felt great.

Looks like everyone had good weeks so far! I'll have comments later today. Here's to another great week everyone!

hey everyone!

goal race: 10k jan/feb? sub 37?

m - kickboxing class w/girlfriend, did it for fun but was a good strength workout

t - 6 (8:02)

w - 9 (7:23) 6x1 400m hills, couldn't pace myself and did everything too fast, almost dead at the end of every repeats and STILL going out too fast ahah

t - 7 (8:44) Recovery

f - 5 (7:47)

s - 8 (7:44)

s - 12 4.5 (7:40) + 4 Moderate (6:48) + 3.5 (7:15)

tot 47

hope everyone had a great week!

Cmm: very nice post marathon pr week. I wish i could be dedicated to core and foam rolling like you. I told myself i would make and start a 10-15 min stretch,core, body weight routine this next week. How long is the p90x2 yoga?

Runnerfix: solid workouts. Why are you nervous about picking up the workout paces?

Renewed: make sure to take care of that calf but dont overdo it. Strong 20miler. And like you said that half isnt showing your true fitness with that long run same week

Force: i like that tuesday session. Great times

Slartzio: nice week. Pacing is hard to get down on hills. You just want to get them done haha. I almost thought you ran 3x on sun until i re read it haha.

Goal: lookout mountain 50 miler

Tune up: full or 50k 11/23 or 24

Mon: 10 + 4.5

Tues: 5 + 6

Wed: 9 + 10(6BP)

Thurs: 12

Fri: 6 + 6

Sat: 24.5

Sun: 17

Total: 110

Wed: 6mi building pace in 34:45. 604 to 536. Hard but one of my better 6 milers i think.

Sat: long run in the cold wet rain. Practiced wearing my pack, drinking lots of fluid, and taking gels. Ended up feeling better towards the end

Sun: planned 16. paced a friend to 10@655 and surprisingly felt really good. I think the big base is finally showing.

Might try for just one long run of 28 next weekend. Then go for some shorter faster long runs in the weeks after that.

Goal: lookout mountain 50 miler

Tune up: full or 50k 11/23 or 24

Mon: 10 + 4.5

Tues: 5 + 6

Wed: 9 + 10(6BP)

Thurs: 12

Fri: 6 + 6

Sat: 24.5

Sun: 17

Total: 110

Wed: 6mi building pace in 34:45. 604 to 536. Hard but one of my better 6 milers i think.

Sat: long run in the cold wet rain. Practiced wearing my pack, drinking lots of fluid, and taking gels. Ended up feeling better towards the end

Sun: planned 16. paced a friend to 10@655 and surprisingly felt really good. I think the big base is finally showing.

Might try for just one long run of 28 next weekend. Then go for some shorter faster long runs in the weeks after that.

XC meets (6K): 10/12, 10/19, 11/3, 11/23, 12/14

Goals: Outrun times from last year, try to get onto A team for nationals, get in good shape for next road racing season

This was my fourth week of XC and my second meet. I attacked the beginning of the week and then backed off again.

Monday: 8.5 miles at 8:07 pace. Felt a lot better than the day before, but still recovering. Inside quad kept cramping up, felt almost like a strain, had me very scared. Core after.

Tuesday: 6 at 8:05. Still recovering. Inner quad hurt again and I felt a little nauseous. No strides since I was still nervous I might have had a minor strain.

Wednesday AM: 5 at 8:05. Easy. Still tired. Sticked my quad this time, didn't hurt much. Strength after (time constraints).

Wednesday PM: Practice, 7.25 total with 4 x 1 mile surging from the back every 2:00 or so with 2:00 rest. Supposed to be 6:12-6:14ish. Ran 6:13 / 6:05 / 6:12 / 6:15. I was tired to begin with. We got carried away on the second one and it took a lot out of me. Then my stomach got really sick, and (real talk) I had to poop sooooooooo badly during the last one that I was in serious pain hahaha. Massage after!

Thursday: Off, REALLY needed this, still hadn't fully recovered by Wednesday.

Friday: 3 at 7:45 to shake-out with some pickups at the end. I was still really tired.

Saturday: Emerald City Open. XC 6K. Ran 24:43 on upper lower woodland, which is pretty much constantly up and down with no flats (aka my biggest weakness). OK with it, but not happy, more after.

Sunday: 10 at 7:39 pace or so. Kind of a guess. Felt surprisingly good, which means that it was the strength immediately after the meet last week that killed me. Lesson learned.

Yeah so the meet. I don't know. I wasn't 100% there. I mean, I ran really hard, but I felt out of it, both mentally and physically. It could have gone a lot worse, but it also could have gone a lot better. I placed pretty badly which makes it more difficult to make the A team, but it's best 3 out of 4 so I'll do whatever I can to drop this one. On the bright side, it was 25 seconds faster than last year on the same course, so I am still improving.

I am revisiting that course in two weeks, so I'm going to use that as fuel. I have a baseline, I ran a 24:43 on a day that was OK but not so hot. So assuming similar conditions, I should be able to attack that time again two weeks from now and bring it down.

This was my first time ever racing two weeks in a row and I knew it would be difficult, but I didn't know how difficult. I think I took it way too hard Sunday through Wednesday. Next time I will try backing off more between meets. I was still fatigued by the end of the week (woke up sore Saturday). I was lucky about my IT band, although I've been working very hard on hip strength and flexibility. My inner quad was a weird scare, and my PF has been consistently mildly annoying but never any worse when I take care of it.

I'm still disproportionately weak at XC compared to other people I can keep up with or beat on the roads and track, and I think I really need to work on hills. I emailed my coach about this and I'll see what kind of feedback he gives.

In awesome news, I decided to get more involved with my club. Looking into the communications committee which should be fun and right up my alley.

Houston Half-Marathon (USA half champs???)

Week 7 of 20 - 80 miles (465 for cycle)

Monday - 8 easy am / 6 easy pm

Tuesday - 10 moderate

Wednesday - 10 am (tempo workout), 4 easy pm

Thursday - 8.5 easy am, 5 easy pm

Friday - 9.5 easy am

Saturday - 4.5 easy am

Sunday - 14.5+ (1.5 w/u, Duke City half marathon, 2 min cooldown)

Huge week in my comeback for multiple reasons. As some of you may have noticed the goal race title changed this week. Many of you who have been here for the last year or so know that qualifying (or begging my way in lol) for this year's USA half marathon champs was one of the highlights of my post-collegiate running and that I was extremely excited when I got in an even more disappointed when I got hurt right after Boston. I started the race and had to drop out early, and ever since then I have made it a goal to qualify again. For awhile it seemed like I let myself go too much in June/July and wouldn't get in shape in time, and the thought of running a qualifying time seemed silly recently when I am running 5:45-6:00 pace for 2mi-5k races... Then this week seems started coming together and a glimmer of hope has come back...

Wednesday - given that I ran 18+ in a 5k last week, shooting for 6min miles seem a little crazy, but nonetheless I wanted to run a tempo workout before I readjusted my goal for this weekend. Workout - 2mi warmup, 3mi tempo, 800 jog, 1.5mi tempo, 2mi cooldown. I came through the first mile in 5:50 and tried to let up effortwise, but the pace stayed the same. Ran 17:28 and felt surprisingly good, came through the mile in 5:51 in my 1.5 and closed in 2:45 for 8:36 in that segment. Left the track shaking my head, thinking 5:50 pace was too ambitious but 6:00 was doable.

Duke City Half Marathon Race Report

Goal was to run 6min miles and then pick it up at the turnaround if I can. This was a decent sized race with no corral assignments so I noticed a bunch of old women with fanny packs right in the front (wtf) and a few people pushed their way in front of me right before the gun. I spent about the first half mile weaving in and out of the crowd but settled into a pack shortly before we hit the first mile. There were 6-7 of us but I notice that two other runners are hardly breathing at all, and surely enough by 2.5-3 miles it was just the 3 of us. I asked one guy what he wanted to run, and he basically had the same plan as me. (Run 6-flats til 6.5 and then pick it up). We are weaving in and out of marathoners that started half an hour earlier, but the tempo is steady and felt just about right. I felt I had another gear left but it was definitely harder than marathon effort.

First 6 miles - 5:57, 5:57, 5:56, 5:56, 5:56, 5.57

Right before the turnaround my buddy for the last few miles starts picking it up and the pace is just a bit too hot for me so I tell him "go get 'me" and let him go. For the next few miles I try to keep him in sight, and even thigh. We are running into other runners on the out-and-back we are having surprisingly little trouble with people getting in our way. I feel like I am running just a bit too fast but I keep on telling myself "keep him in sight for another mile, then I can back off"

Miles 7-10 - 5:52, 5:46, 5:47, 5:42

With 5k to go I noticed the gap between us has gotten smaller, I am redlining hard at this point but thought if I can latch back on we can push each other the last couple of miles, shortly before 11 miles I pull alongside him and just muttered "alright man, 2 more miles, let's go".

We take turns surging, but with a mile to go he just said "you go ahead man". Somehow in the crowd of all the 10k runners I pick out a runner in green that was about 2 minutes in front of us a the turnaround. I am hurting a this point and am content with cruising, but my competitiveness take over and I step on the gas with whatever I got left. I pull even with half a mile to go and mumbled some words of encouragement, he in turn said something along the lines of "right on, let's finish it strong", and takes off; apparently he's been jogging for the last few miles because he ended up putting about 20 seconds on me in the last 800.

Last 3 miles - 5:39 - 5:44 - 5:41 - 50 (garmin split for 0.13)

Finish time 76:39 (6th place)

Coming in I thought best case scenario was mid-77s, so this was beyond my expectations by quite a bit. Most calculators converted this to 73:30-74 at sea level. While that's still 4:30-5min away from the qualifying standard of 69 minutes, I still have 4 weeks until the Las Vegas RnR to lose the extra 10-12 lbs I am carrying. (And at 2s/lbs/mi, that might just be in the hunt then). The toughest part will be eating healthy, but at least I have a glimmer of hope now. The qualifying window also closes in mid-December, so I migh just have to chase again in a few weeks if I come close in 4 weeks.

m: no am run, 3 mi wu/cd, 10 x 600m with 200m rest

t: 4 mi (7:15/mi), 4 mi (7:21/mi)

w: 9 mi (7:07/mi), 4 (7:45/mi)

th: 4 mi (7:30/mi), 3 mi wu/cd, 2 x 2 mi with 3 min rest, 1 mile fast at the end

fri: 4 mi (8:20/mi), 4 mi (7:25/mi)

s: 5 mi (7:00/mi)

su: 10 mi (7:37/mi)

monday: felt great about this workout, i started out at about 2:00, going through 400m in 80s every time. the last couple i hit 1:57 for the last two, so i felt really good about how those felt. the slowest one was 2:01.

thursday: i'm really happy with this workout, because i feel like i can tempo at the paces i ran for the 2 mile repeats. i ran 12:01 twice. 90s through every 400m split, i ran it on a track. i felt in control and smooth. the fast mile was 5:38, i feel i could go faster but its still early for me so i 'm not worried.

thoughts?

Oops, just realized that was a really long post; so apologies for all that had to read all that. (And I am typing this on my iPhone so there's a bunch of parts that got autocorrected to crap that didn't make sense.... Sorry again)

Did want to quickly thank you guys for all the support and motivation you have provided during probably one of the more frustrating few months of running (or rather, non-running) that I have experienced in a few years. I am not back yet, but today was a huge step in the right direction.

Hey RR&T thread, thought I'd get back into posting on here. I was posting this summer up to a 50k race at the end of July. About a week after that, I sprained my ankle really badly and damaged my posterior tibial tendon in the process, which forced me to take off the rest of August. Been running about 50 mpw since September.

Goals: Run well at the Mayor's Cup next week, train for outdoor track and some 5k-10k road races, maybe try to run a fast mile this winter.

Past week:

M: Rest, weights

T: 9 easy

W: 8 easy

Th: 8.5 with 5x1 min. hill sprints off 3:00 jog

Fr: 8.5 5x1000 @LT off 200m jog (3:23 avg)

Sa: 4 easy

Su: 14.5 hard long run

Total: 52 miles

ah i forgot my goals!

but in case there are new people:

5k: 15:59

1500m: 4:10

Ramaujan- Your week looks good. It is still early so focusing on being healthy is most important for now. Your Thursday workout I like, keeping it easy then picking it up the last mile. Keep it up.

runnersfix: thanks a lot. i do foam roll and hip strength (jay johnson's myrtl plan) to try and stay strong. any other advice on what to do to stay healthy? may i ask what you're doing for weights? your week intrigues me. what is your goal in the half? you seem to be rolling in those repeats.

Ramanujan wrote:

runnersfix: thanks a lot. i do foam roll and hip strength (jay johnson's myrtl plan) to try and stay strong. any other advice on what to do to stay healthy? may i ask what you're doing for weights? your week intrigues me. what is your goal in the half? you seem to be rolling in those repeats.

I just stick to what works for everyone on recovery. The basic stuff like 8-9 hours of sleep every night. I'll probably only get less then 8 hours like once a month on average, so barely ever. Stretching as well. I stretch everywhere; at work, making dinner, in shower, etc. I also run my recovery runs at a slower pace then what I should be doing them in. If you're not recovering that's the first thing I would look at. The only thing that I do that could be considered different is after every run I chug a glass of chocolate milk. As for my half in January I have a very high goal of sub 1:05, ran 1:06 in Philly. The reason the paces are faster then normal is cause I'm trying to get used to goal pace which is 4:56-57. I'm still not used to the workout paces but it's getting better. The mileage is still quite low for me but it'll build up to around 115mpw four weeks out.

RunnersFix - Nice interval and tempo workouts on Tues and Thurs. Will your mileage stay around 70 with the increase in pacing or drop a bit? I cant remember what you were at in recent weeks.

renewed marathoner - I wouldnt worry too much about today's half. you had a long run Monday and with the calf were probably a little cautious.

Forcerunner - very solid week as usual!

Slartzio - I struggle with pacing as well and end up starting too fast. It's a tough skill to master. Nice week!

Np112 - First, great week as usual. How many gels do you take during a 50 miler? Do you plan to take in anything like bars or something with more substance? 24.5 in a cold, wet rain doesnt sound appealing. Definitely the type of run you think back to during a race when you want to quit:) P90x2 Yoga is decent--65 minute routine that I feel does a nice job. I hate doing it and my wife has to listen to me b!tch about it all day before doing it but do try to do it once per week because I know it is good for me. Same with the 15-20 min core and foam rolling.

xenonscreams - Great to see the improvement year over year and it sounds like you may have went too hard at the beginning of the week based on your description of being out of it mentally and physically. Attacking your weaknesses like you are doing will definitely make you a stronger runner.

TheGarbageDisposal - I dont know what's more impressive--your race or that you typed your post from an iPhone:) Congrats on the fantastic race today, I enjoyed reading the recap. If my math is correct, you ran a negative split as well here right? Impressive how quickly you have jumped back into the swing of things and posting the times you have. I'll join your weight loss club if you start one--I need to drop 6 in 4 weeks.

Ramanujan - Nice week. I would focus as well on staying healthy and sticking with the 1x interval & tempo theme during the week. If you are finishing these workouts strong and feel you can go faster than I would push them a little harder. I try to do a variant of RunnersFix does--if I see a set of steps, I do shin raises. If I have 15 minutes for TV I grab the stick. I try to use the stick before and after runs. Try to stretch whenever possible. All of it sounds like it should work but always feel like I am on the cusp of my next injury (as I think is common with most folks here)

Ghola - Great to see you back and entering with a nice week. Good luck at the Mayor's Cup next week.

Cmm: i am meeting with a dietician tomorrow to figure out a new daily diet and hopefully get a plan for the race. She is a 2x Trials qualifier (as a master too) with a 2:45 PR i think. Right now i am thinking i will try some solid food early on, put a bunch of everything in my drop bags, and just decide what to eat depending how i feel. Havent trained eating solids and running yet. I was thinking cliff bars cut up, gel bites, and gels. Maybe even some snack size candy bars or candy just because

Some nice weeks posted thus far.

I managed 31 easy miles on 3 days this past week, but I am making a new pact with myself about making time to get the running in. If I can get back to more consistent training, I will start posting regularly again. As the saying goes, if something's important enough to you, you make time. If it's not that important to you, you make excuses.

Speaking of which...

TheGarbageDisposal - Great race report and just a fantastic piece of racing! How you and cmm268 seem to just pull races out of nowhere boggles my mind.

Just follow your own piece of advice you tried giving me several weeks back and which definitely seemed to work for NJ truth this fall - running a half-marathon several weeks before a goal half-marathon usually pays big dividends.

My old high school coach used to love telling our team that you can track all kinds of things in training (heart rate, workout paces, V-dot, etc.) but you just can't measure an athlete's heart/guts/desire. If you want USA Half Champs bad enough, I certainly wouldn't doubt you.