Road Racing and Training Thread - Week Ending 11/10

Kilt: Its because I am crazy enough to do a 50 miler. Things will...should calm down some after that haha. Thanks!

nerp: Wow sounds like a tough stage race. Was stage 3 on sunday?

Muebele: Ive heard those boot camp classes kick your butt. and it sounds like they arent lying haha. thats a lot of 200s! and thanks.

Portland: I have had a few different things. Lately I have been trying to have the same breakfast for long hard runs and workouts. 2 powerbar performance PB bars (3-3.5 hrs before), 1 package of shot blocks (2hrs before), and or 1 scoop of sports drink mix. I was told I need about 60g carbs/hr before the race.

Stone Cutter - Nice week! Pretty short recovery on the threshold.

Cmm268 - Nice race!!!

King - Nice cutdown on your tempo.

Ramanujan - Interesting Thursday workout, but I like it!

GarbageDisposal - Good call on the taper.

Xenon - Nice volume! It's wonderful feeling to adjust to the mileage.

Printer - Nice week. Solid long run as well.

RunnersFix - Great long run! And 5xmi. Looking solid as always! And I actually have no taper plan set yet. I'm still trying to figure out what to do haha.

Diesel - Smart call on backing off. Better to rest now and reap the benefits later.

Perkunas - nice tempo on Tuesday!

Slartzio - Nice weeks! Very consistent.

Logan - Great job on the miles! Yeah I typically run on the road or grass. I have an XC course at the park I run at with a nice 1200 loop so it makes for some easy workouts. I don't really aim for hitting too sepcific of times like I would on a track, just judge by effort.

Reed - Nice week man. Very solid all around.

NJ - Dissapointing about the race, but great week!

Flying Kilt - sheesh some great volume for those two workouts!!

Portland - Nice cutdown on Monday! Some solid runs with work commitments!

Qrkid - Nice cutdown on your tempo.

NP1112 - Nice 5k bp! And that sucks about the wind but still very solid!

Nerp - Wow that sounds like an awesome race series! Very interesting to read.

Muebele - Good to hear about the ankle, maybe the calf pain is stemming from that?

DW- If I didn't run I would love to play hockey. I got into watching it a few years ago and it's my favorite to watch now.

Np1112: thank you! I'll pick up some power bars and shot blocks and experiment. I take GU's all the time and during long runs/races. I just need something more substantial prior to the marathon that will stay with me for a bit.

nerp: Wow sounds like a tough stage race. Was stage 3 on sunday?

Yes, Stage 3 was Sunday morning. It was a tough morning before the race started, and it only got harder from there.

Portland: I like the powerbar performance because they only have 1g of fiber and 44g of carbs/bar. Do you have a set gel intake interval for the marathon? My best luck was roughly every 5-6 miles depending on where your aid stations are. I recently met with a sports dietitian and was told i pretty much just need to eat and drink more haha

Diesel-I don't know a single runner who enjoys foam rolling, stretching, etc. I have to miserably force myself to do it and even then dont do it nearly as much as I should.

Slartzio- 2 solid weeks especially those mile sets this week. Any reason why you do standing versus walking/jogging? Definitely no money prize, otherwise much faster people would have come out to run.

Logan Decker-Gotta feel awesome to see that improvement in 4 weeks and still feel fresh a few days later with extra pop!

GarbageDisposal-I'm giving serious thought to a January marathon with a full 12 week cycle for Boston. I definitely think I would benefit from shorter training cycles versus very long drawn out ones now that I have 2 years of running under my belt. I didn't hear anyone talking about San Antonio but didn't talk to that many people:)

NJ Truth-Sorro to hear about the course being long on Sunday. Good luck next weekend, you definitely have the volume and numbers for a sub 15. I assume there are many around you that dont require a lot of travel?

Flying Kilt-I'm curious, what is your goal for the marathon with the times your running? That Saturday workout is fantastic.

Portland-16 hour workday sounds miserable. I think sub 2:45 is more than realistic if you can dial down your paces like you did during Monday's run. What's the longest marathon paced workout you've done?

qrkid-nice tempo run Friday.

np1112-Awesome work in the half marathon Saturday. I like that you can rip off a 1:17 in the middle of a 90+ mile week after the weeks you've been putting in AND follow it by 23 miles. very impressive.

nerp-Never apologize for being wordy, I think all of us enjoy reading race reports and the experiences. Congrats on the big W!

Muebele-sorry to hear about the sleep issue. My sister said the same thing about her twins not adjusting to the time adjustment and now getting up at 5am so it sounds common with little kids. Solid week for you with work every day, especially with your little sleep.

Portland- I'll preface this by saying each individual is unique and you have to find what works for you. After "refining" my approach I am now in the all carbs with minimal protein 3 days before the marathon. I eat Rock Bottom soft pretzels with 2 beers the night before (you read that correctly) and then the morning of a plain white bagel with peanut butter 3 hours before the start. I switch from wheat to white as well in this 3 day period and avoid all dairy. Turkey and chicken is the only meat I eat because I know my stomach can handle it. I eat sport beans 15 minutes prior and then use Roctanes during the race.

Stonecutter Pretty solid week and cool that you are helping out a bud.

Cmm Wow 2 super solid marathons in such a short time frame. Hope you got to enjoy Savannah a little after the race.

Ramanujan Like others have said, interesting workout on Thur. Nice week. You keep this going the sub 16 will be no problem next year.

TheGarbageDisposa hope the longer taper gets you in tip top form for the half. Good luck.

Printer wow nice week. Keep that going and you will have a solid showing at Kiawah. Will also be a good start to building for Raleigh 70.3

Runnersfix 3 solid efforts during the week. Wish I could go there, but these old bones have me going the other way.

Logan Decker Congrats with the string of solid efforts including this weeks 1600's. Look slike the training effects are kicking in.

Reed I look forward to following your training. Your goals seem to be in line with mine. Difference mine are a little further down the road.

Flying Kilt I would love to go sub 73 in the half mid March, but as of now I am not sure if that is reality or not. What is your goal for Woodlands? You seem to be rolling along already, with 4 months to go.

NP1112 Man. Impressive. Those huge weekends of your are crazy, but you just keep churning them out.

Tough to keep up with this crowd, love that the thread seems to be picking up steam again:

Diesel - chugging along. Keep at it.

perkunas - congrats on the long run, that's a big step for you. Love the doggie runs - how I miss my bullmastiff.

Ramanujan - sounds like a doozy the way you did it. I am thinking of modifying it slightly to 5x5 sets of (1:00 each at 7:30/7:00/6:30/6:00/5:30), which averages out to roughly 25:00@6:30/mi (~MP for me).

Slartzio - nice job on both of those mile repeat workouts - looks like you are taking a page out of NJ truth's book. :)

As a posted a couple weeks ago, I am not sure yet what my plans will be for the spring. Plan A is a marathon if I can keep the mileage up. Plan B is 5k-10mi races if I can't.

Logan Decker - I ran almost that identical 4x1600 workout with the same rest two weeks before running 17:24. Two weeks after than I ran 17:08. Keep it up and you'll be scaring 17:00 in December.

I agree with you regarding the 6-day thing. I typically run 13 out of 14 days alternating 6-day and 7-day weeks, which works well for me. That day off is usually a blessing when it comes, though!

reed - looking good. Can't wait to hear about tomorrow's barn-burner!

NJ truth - it took you two tries at the HM to get it right. I strongly believe if you choose to race this Saturday you will have a MUCH more positive outcome. Maybe just do one sharpening workout this week to go in fully fresh?

Flying Kilt - that Tues/Wed/Sat trio was beautiful! Can't imagine why you took a rest day on Sunday. :)

Portland - whether we like them or not, those weeks happen. But, dude, your bookend days (Monday, Sunday) were plain awesome! That's exactly the kind of stuff you want to see for sub-2:45 marathon training.

As for pre-race eating rituals, I say practice eating as much as you comfortably can. Try a few different things and find one that works. Personally, I eat a TON before a marathon - in the 3-4 hours prior to the race, I eat a banana, a Peanut Butter Crunch Clifbar, an English muffin with peanut butter, and 32 oz of Gatorade. I take my first Gu 15 minutes before the gun and then every 30-40 minutes thereafter. My personal philosophy is, if you can comfortably consume the calories, why not?

qrkid - nothing wrong with that type of building week when your goal race is in March.

np1112 - haha, the adventures continue. For the record, I have not run a 17:15 5K, a 1:17:21 half, or done a 23 mile training run this year. You did them all in one week! Love that you showed those wussies what racing is all about. :)

nerp - god bless you on those trails, man! I would have been done after Stage 1! :)

Muebele - for the most part I am on the 4:45/5:15am or 7:45/8:15pm running schedule for the same reasons. It took me awhile but I think I am finally getting acclimated.

And if I could quit my day job, I would pace a race every weekend. It gives me tons of gratification helping other runners achieve their goals. :)

The Stone Cutter wrote:

And if I could quit my day job, I would pace a race every weekend. It gives me tons of gratification helping other runners achieve their goals. :)

100% agree Stone Cutter. I paced my buddy to a BQ in May and it was a very rewarding experience and almost better than anything I've had as personal running accomplishment. Out of curiosity have you or anyone in this thread ever done pacer work with the sign in a large race? To me that seems like a lot of pressure to run dead even splits with people you dont know. I'm kind of giving it a thought though.

CMM268: awesome race! I can't remember. How fast did you run for a 1/2 marathon and Chicago prior to this one? What did you come through 1/2 in? I'd love to hit 2:42... Just doing research on how brave I want to be in mine! Lol

Stone Cutter: that sounds really solid! just make sure to take that gear 5-gear 1 transition seriously, i used to turn it into a jog, but that's not the right way heh. good luck with it!

Portland wrote:

CMM268: awesome race! I can't remember. How fast did you run for a 1/2 marathon and Chicago prior to this one? What did you come through 1/2 in? I'd love to hit 2:42... Just doing research on how brave I want to be in mine! Lol

I split Chicago and Savannah in 1:19 and change. Unfortunately I do not run negative splits but tend to "hang on" in the 2nd half of races. I didnt have a good race in Philly since it was the first time I ran in several weeks due to an injury (ran 1:21 I think).

My advice would be to find people who are running about where you want to be and stick with them as long as you feel comfortable. Stick to your hydration and gel plan even if you feel great and think you don't need them--force yourself to drink early in race.

@Flying Kilt wow, impressive week, especially the 20 miler and the tempo back to back!

@Portland Great long run

@np1112 ahaha 10k in 4 weeks, the day after your 50 miler!

@cmm268 I do standing because I had some tightening in my hamstring lately and it was always catching up by the end of the session. I feel that if I recover standing I give a chance to my legs to relax a little bit more, but I keep my rest short (in this case 2 min for vo2max vs 3 min w jogging).

@TheStoneCutter Yup, and this is the great thing about this thread. I don't have the memory to keep in mind the weekly progressions of everyone, but I do try to learn the individual philosophy behind it. Everyone has a slightly different approach to training, that is a result of years of trials and errors and is really cool to be able to "steal" some concepts and apply them to our own training.

Next race: Saturday 8K CC Championships

Last week: 39 miles. Notables . . .

Tues: 12 x 250 meter hill repeats @ hard effort

Sun: 5 mile comfortable tempo on hills/trails (6:30 avg)

So the upcoming 8K - a little concerned about the distance. Raced it plenty in college, but that was then. All that I had raced since starting back is 5k or less. Went 6K (20:18) a couple weeks ago and it really sucked ba!!s, but I suppose I could've toughed out another 1-2K relatively close to that pace. This course on Saturday will be slower for sure though - relatively flat but will likely be run on wet grass. Any advice from those who know my times/training is appreciated. Would like to roll here as this is the big one for team/individual honors and even a little $. Thanks in advance and a good week to all. Cheers.

Runnersfix- Thanks for sharing your workout and thoughts on the long/progression runs. I was just thinking the other day about how to properly balance my training for my half-marathon and marathon goal races this winter, and I think that workout will probably kill two birds with one stone. I'll obviously still have to get in some 10K/HM work for the HM and some marathon-pace runs for the marathon, but those long progression runs will most likely start showing up in my weekly reports as well. Hope you don't mind me borrowing that workout. :)

Reed- Nice week man and I really like the Friday workout where you start off strong and then hold tempo effort. I have seen you do that workout for the past few weeks now but I am just starting to relate to it as I have been running my tempo workouts like an idiot and going out hard and hanging on so I can definitely relate to how much it can hurt.

NJ Truth- You're not making excuses, but there's just no way 15:3x is indicative of your 5K fitness when you are running sub-16s in the beginning of tempo workouts. I expect to see 14:xx in your report next week!

Flying Kilt- Love that you are still so intense about your training, definitely shows a lot of fire that one bad workout may bother you that much. For what it's worth, you sure as hell bounced back with a very strong week and two solid sessions. You got a half coming up within the next month or so right? Or was it January?

Portland- Nice week even with balancing your work needs. From the last few weeks it seems like you are capable of going significantly faster than 2:45 as well. If I remember correctly, this is going to be your first one right (or 2nd?) If so I might suggest still going out in about 1:22 and then see if you can slowly bring down the pace the last 6-10 miles. It's one thing to be in shape to run a certain time for a marathon, but more often than not the unfamiliarity with the special kind of pain you experience in the late stages of the race can sometimes blindside you, so I feel it's always better to err on the side of caution.

As for your question: I have gone with 2 pieces of toast with some peanut butter on them about 2-3 hours before my marathon, washed down with some gatorade. (about 10-12 ounces)

qrkid- Solid week and very nice tempo man. Sorry if I asked before but do you have a goal for the half?

Np1112- Lol when we spoke on Saturday afternoon after your half and you said you might still go over 90, I thought you were already at like 70-75 for the week. Definitely had no idea you went out and ran 27.5 in the next 24 hours!

Nerp- Congrats on the win and hell of a report man. Loved reading it!

Muebele- Great to hear the ankle is getting better and you're getting more consistency in your training again.

DW- Nice and interesting mix of training. Welcome

CMM268- Sounds good man. Where are you thinking of running in January?

Ca$hclay- From your recent training it definitely seems like your speed is your ace in the hole. I know most running calculators would tell you that your 8K pace should only be about 5-7s/mi slower than your 5K pace, but I have a feeling you would be more comfortable if you aimed for about 10s/mi slower than your 5K pace for the first 3 miles and then start picking off guys. I considered myself a miler in HS and that would always be my strategy whenever I moved up to a longer distance that I'm not as comfortable with. I find it helps me a lot mentally as well when I start picking off guys late in the race and am able to build a lot of momentum off of it. Good luck!

Garbage and CMM268: this will be my second marathon. I ran cim (same race I'm doing this year) in 2009. I ran 2:49 and went 1:23/1:26. Died a bit the last 5 miles. For that race I literally did 4-5 13 milers. Nothing longer. I ran a 1:17 1/2 marathon a month prior. I was 31 years old. Now I'm 35 with two kids a no sleep!

For this training block I have 9 runs over 15 including 2 20 milers, 1 18, 2 17's, a 4 15milers. And a 1:18:35 1/2 in October were my only goal was 6:00 min pace which felt comfortable. I will do my last long run of 20 this weekend. May even add a mile? I think the long runs have really payed off. I'm feeling strong at the end of my long runs and am not as scared of the distance. I have a feeling that no matter what, I will slow those lasts 4-5 miles so I don't mind "banking" a little time. I actually think I could run about 1:15-1:16 for 1/2 right now but missed out on the opportunity. Like many of you suggested, I'll need to run smart and see what comes that day. From a long time ago I have some fast-ish PRs. So I'm familiar with racing hard. One of my old teammates is trying to talk me into shooting for 2:40!?! He is bat sh*t crazy.

Logan Decker/Everyone- I agree with you, I am getting closer towards doing that. I play soccer for intramurals so I get a bit of sprinting in but it isn't fully applicable. I would like to get my weight down just a bit more before I start doing workouts. My goal races are also outdoor 10k's with the goal of a HM around May or something. I am holding off on developing speed as this is going to be a really slow build up, like a slow cooker or something if that analogy works.

My back story is long and depressing, but involves a lot of poor coaching and ignorance in regard to acknowledging burnout and injuries.

Garbage disposal March 2011 I ran 74:55 off 3 months with training peaking at about 45mpw. This time I should have a solid 5 months and hopefully I will get the miles up to a peak of about 65 - 70mpw. Now I have to factor in 2yrs of father time so that is a consideration. Long story short. I have 72:59 in my head, but as I start to do some workouts I should get a better idea if that is a pipe dream or maybe a possibility.

Portland wrote:

... From a long time ago I have some fast-ish PRs. So I'm familiar with racing hard. One of my old teammates is trying to talk me into shooting for 2:40!?! He is bat sh*t crazy.

I guess I have lurked and posted on this thread long enough to kind of get that vibe from you. (that you probably had some PRs that are indicative of being able to run significantly faster than 2:40). So no, I don't think your buddy is that crazy for suggesting sub-2:40. From some of your workouts I do think you're capable of doing so even off of a 1:21-1:22 first half. One thing I have noticed in your training is that you seem to be able to close your long runs at or below goal marathon pace for the last few miles and seem fairly comfortable doing it. Another is that you seem to run tempo workouts that suggest at least sub-74min HM fitness, so it wouldn't surprise me at all to see you bringing it down to right around sub-6 pace for the last 6-10 miles off of a conservative start.