Road Racing/Training Thread week ending 2-11

I would conservatively race the half and slide the down week back.

The 5k sounds like a great course simulator. I'd warm up do the race at mp and extend the cool down.

thanks sir- at this point im hopelessly addicted to it despite the major time drain from training. I should probably be faster with this mileage, but I've never had a lot of speed. anyway, I think I relate to maybe some of where you are at right now (although I'm sure I never ran times as fast as your prs)...I had taken about a 13 year hiatus and a few years ago decided to start doing some running again to try to hit some PRs before getting too old (im 35 now). after several months of running I remember still not being able to tempo 4 miles at 7:00 pace. and then months later still not being able to break 19 in a 5k. you have a huge advantage that you didn't put on weight during time off. that was a tough one for me.

Cggordon2730 wrote:

Your killing it slow twitch!

slo-twitch wrote:

Runrince- sorry the race didn't go as planned. I would be very careful with groin injury. having experienced one myself, that is one of those injuries that can put you out for six weeks with no running.

Smoove- hammering in the 4 miler. btw i think the cramps last week were heat related. at least that's been my experience.

Cg- that is cool that the fitness is improving. keep it up. i personally need a race on the calendar to motivate me to do any training

Run2Death- so are you running Phoenix Half? please taper my friend...you are definitely in shape

Yeah you are doing awesome slo! How long ago you start back up? Hopefully I am where you are at in a couple years

Year for me. I was at 200 and so out of shape so when I stress about pace or a race I think dude it's been a year and Went from not running to 155 and doing good chill. After this half the watch is coming off for 4 months and I am just going to have fun and run as much as I can and jump in a race or a trail race here and there and build that base.

It's all about that base base base

My approach would be to use the half as a marathon pace run. The mp runs are always really tough for me, so I tend to do them on my low mileage weeks (Daniels has it set up that way too).

I'd probably race the 15k as a good fitness test to establish what might be realistic for Boston. In fact, I'm racing a 15k the second weekend of March and using it for that purpose. I feel like the 15k is easier to recover from because of the shorter distance compared to the half, but still long enough to be a test of fitness that relates enough to the marathon to be meaningful.

RE: Racing half marathon & when to take the down week

One option is to have your down week not fall on a calendar week.

2 days easy going into the half marathon, half marathon, and then 4 days easy after the half marathon.

This might be better than taking a down week before or after the half.

Thanks Smoove and Pewow.

Smoove - That's interesting to note about the MP 13.1 and how Daniels recommends them on lower volume weeks. It's been a while since I've read Daniels and I was thinking the exact opposite. I'll plan on keeping the down week in place and running MP for the 13.1 at the end of it. With regard to the 15k, I'll move forward with racing it to help establish a realistic Boston goal.

Thanks slow twitch. I am encouraged by your experience. Adjusting to the workplace is a big factor as well . Kind of like a competing priorities thing.

You made me nervous, so I double checked. For Training Plan A from the 2nd Edition of his book, he calls for 3 mp runs, done on weeks where you hit .8, .7 and .7 of your peak mileage.

Is it wrong that I keep Daniels' book on the credenza right next to my computer at my office?

Ha! Sounds like a handy place to keep it.

I tried something similar a couple years ago in prep for Chicago marathon and it's the only time I've worked in a MP run like this before. I ran another marathon about 5 weeks out in which I went GMP for the first 13 and then cruised the last 13 at around 85-90% GMP. The pace felt pretty fluid and reasonable the first 13 and 5 weeks later at Chicago I went about 7 minutes faster for a PR. I faded in the last 4 of Chicago fairly decent (went out a bit too much under GMP but had a group to run with so went for it) otherwise I'm thinking I probably could have ran a couple minutes faster.

What kind of effort should this thing feel like? If it's a struggle to hold 13.1 at GMP next weekend I don't want to beat myself up too much if that's to be expected. Similarly, if it comes easy should I be looking to adjust to something faster?

Chicago 2015?

I have no idea how it should feel. I have had 6 of these on my calendar for the two marathons that I have run, and I only really nailed two - one with two friends keeping me company for 10 or 11 miles, and the other in a race setting.

Of the other 4, I ran one in a half marathon setting and felt okay for the first half, but the second half felt like a full race effort. The others I either dropped out of after 6 or 10 miles (got out too hard in each case) and another I broke up into blocks of 3-4 miles each with a couple of minutes rest in between.

They always felt impossibly hard and made me think I would never be able to hold pace for the entire 26.2.

yeah, '15.

So it shouldn't come easy. That's good to know!

I'm blaming my significantly slower last 10k of Chicago 2015 on the relatively warm temps.

working harder wrote:

yeah, '15.

So it shouldn't come easy. That's good to know!

i think this really depends on what type of runner you are. I know that for a lot of runners the long marathon pace runs are brutal. For me personally 20-25k at marathon pace is a lot easier to get through than faster interval workouts (even if running the mp solo and not in a race setting).

Same here when i was younger my fave workout was ten miles in slightly under an hour on hilly road, But get me faster and i was toast, fastest 5k I ran when I was doing those workouts was 17:35

Yal do any treadmill miles? Just curious.

I dont, for me if the choices were treadmill and not running.. i wouldnt run

Hi guys, after a few months hiatus, I had started running again and have been running consistently for 18 weeks now. I started really slowly pace wise since I was really out of shape and kept the same mileage (roughly 50 miles a week) for 14 weeks as the paces started to come down. I think I may have finally gotten back into shape and the past 4 weeks actually feel like I've been ready and able to train again, mileage has been 70-70-70-80, and paces and effort have leveled off to "normal" for me in previous build ups. Everything so far has been in singles. I haven't been doing a lot of quality but have been running stronger/steady efforts instead. Have 7 long runs so far at 2hours+ at 90% MP, with a weekly workout the past month at about HMP as well. I'm signed up for a marathon in April and it seems to be coming up quick! I'd like to keep the mileage up now, and maybe build some more in March. I've been running with a group 3 days a week with some pretty good guys so my schedule is kind of at their mercy right now. Pretty much have the following routine going:

Monday - 75mins general aerobic

Tuesday - 90mins, easy first 30 mins solo then 60 mins @ ~90%MP with with the group

Wednesday - workout (ex. 35min alternating 3mins @ MP-10/ 3mins @ MP+10; 30min tempo/threshold, 6xmi progressions).

Thursday - 60min recovery

Friday - 60min recovery

Saturday - long run, 2hrs + @ 90%MP, sometimes including 10k+ @ MP

Sunday - 60min recovery.

I don't know when and where I'm taking down weeks. Last week actually felt like a down week even though there was a mileage bump. I'd like to hold 80mi for another 2 or 3 weeks, then bump it up to around 90 in March. Do you think think this schedule or mileage build up is too much? In all honesty, I overtrained at the tail end of my last training cycle, and I don't want to repeat the same mistakes. I think I know what/when I pushed myself over the edge. I took a day off last week when I felt like my body was telling me to, and I felt refreshed afterwards and resulted in a mileage bump.

Welcome to the thread!

As many have pointed out during my running "career," I'm terrible at tapering. I'm one of these people who worries (a lot) about losing fitness in the last couple of weeks before a race. I actually had a 120 week the week before my first 50-mile race. LOL.

I'm doing the PHX Half on the 25th. How does this look?

This week

Mon: Mile intervals on treadmill at 4 x 5:36 with 1% incline with 1 mile WU and CD (family obligations meant my only real opportunity was to take my youngest with me to the day care at the gym)

Tues: 7.5 on my favorite trail in 59:30 (fell twice)

Wed: 30 minutes hills

Thurs: off

Fri: 6 mile tempo (10 seconds under goal pace) (road)

Saturday: 10-15 - EZ (trail)

Sunday: off

Next week:

Mon: 20 minutes strides at track

Tuesday: 10 - EZ (road)

Wed: off

Thursday: 20 minutes strides at track

Fri: off

Sat: race!

Any recommendations?