Road Racing and Training Thread - Week Ending 6/22

Yes, I do see the mile splits come down in to the high range of normal. I guess it just takes me longer to get into a groove. Maybe once I add more distance to the morning run I will get back to a better average pace.

TheGarbageDisposal - Congrats on the PR, always nice when hard work pays off.

Southporter - Nice wednesday workout. I like the 600's.

The Stone Cutter - Great job with the cutdown and smart to hold yourself back.

jwil - I wouldn't recommend doing downhill repeats as that is just too much injury risk. Just try to run hilly routes often to prepare yourself for the hilly course.

Lakerunner - Good tempo, especially with the middle mile, that is where I always let the pace lag on my tempos.

xenonscreams - Good luck with your 5,000. I think you will PR, you are running much better workouts than I was when I first ran 18:40 for 5k.

Bonham - Nice volume this week, Good tempo on tuesday and even better that you recovered well from it.

KBXC - Consistency is the key to logging summer miles and you seem to have it down.

Netwerk Error - Solid hilly 5 miler and good luck with the half next weekend.

cmm268 - Really good tempo intervals Friday.

Nop200 - Have fun training in the mountains

Souper - Quick pace on most of your runs. Hope you enjoy Pfitz.

emlda - Good tempo having to deal with calf cramping.

reed - Good volume week to get back into it. Is the race a 5k?

Once and Future - You really toughed it out for the Sunday long run. Most of us would have called it quits.

tadpole - Nice job, just keep steadily increasing,

sps - I have noticed that I am often dehydrated if I run first thing in the morning so that could be your problem. Easy way to check is just to look at your color to see if it is pale.

Ghola - Solid tempo, are you going to do a normal two week taper or will you shorten the taper because of the shortened cycle?

Kierran - Congrats on the BQ. That is a big one to get out of the way.

swift23r - Cool to win two races in the same day. More than a fair trade off for letting your 80+ streak slip.

renewed marathoner -Nice week easing back into things.

My two cents on Pfitz for Lakerunner and Jwil:

I'm only four weeks into my first run with Pfitz, but I must say I've felt pretty good so far. The hard days are hard, the easy days are easy, and everything seems to balance out.

I've also found the volume increases very manageable. I ran 120k the week before I started pretty comfortably, and since then it's been 133k, 139, and 141. I think I'll be around 145 or 150 this week.

So I'm sure it's possible to overtrain on these plans, but so far I do not feel like that is happening.

(I'm doing the 105mpw/18 week plan, FWIW)

I feel that I am a perpetual state of dehydration :) despite drinking 2-3 liters of liquid a day. Mornings are particularly bad.

I have to agree, I feel good so far with the Pfitz plan after a few weeks in.

The plan is much different than what I am used to; I was doing a ton of 5-8 mile runs, now those have been substituted for fewer runs but at a distance of 9-14. I'm hoping this translates to strong marathon finishing.

I have already felt the difference-legs feel like they are getting stronger.

105 MPW is a lot of damn miles, nice work.

For what its worth, I'm on week 4 of the 18/70-85 plan and am liking the plan. It's tough but manageable. Less speed work than I'm used to, but more longer distance runs. I found that the mid-week medium long run took some getting used to, both mentally and physically, but I feel like I am starting to adjust - did a 14 miler today and finished feeling strong and controlled.

I've also found that it is important to take the recovery days very easy - this week, I've decided to do the 6 milers without a watch and to just do them as easy as I want.

Hey guys, thanks for the support, but the race was not good. I felt very fit going into it but things just didn't work out.

I was trying to run about 18:30. I went out at 5:52 (with Hardloper leading, actually) and felt pretty good, just a little more mucusy than usual, which I figured was because of the high pollen count. At that point I was positive I was going to run a PR. I fell off a bit and hit the second mile at 6:00, and at that point I felt tired, but not too terrible. I started to feel really bad toward the end of that mile, but it was the third mile where I really suffered: I became exhausted, dizzy, and everything around me went blurry. I struggled to run even in a straight line.

As soon as I finished (19:10-19:15, so you do the math on that last mile) I had what I assume to be an asthma attack. I could breathe in a little, but I could hardly breathe out at all, and every time someone asked me if something was wrong, I couldn't get out a sentence to respond to them. I was really dizzy and felt like I was going to faint. It went away after about half an hour. It was scary. It has happened to me a few times this year (one of them was a miserable workout I had to abandon) so I'm going to see an asthma/allergy specialist and my doctor prescribed me an inhaler in the meantime.

I don't know how you can get asthma at the age of 23, but whatever. My mom got it when she was in her 50s so I guess it's possible.

I'll try to comment on stuff tomorrow.