Six weeks of base building following 80/20 rule and I'm getting slower on my training runs

maybemixitup wrote:

I think you should perhaps mix your paces up a bit more, keep running decent (for you mileage), but also make sure the vast majority of your runs are easy enough.

It sounds like you've got a good handle on your HR. Do you know what your max is? Figure that out, or guestimate it (given what you've said I would guess around 185 to 195). Do all your easy runs at 65 to 70% of that. That would put you somewhere in the 130s, again, guessing.

Now just do a few other sessions of faster work. But, don't do them until you've had multiple easy days in between and your body feels fresh and ready to go. This might sometimes be a day or two after one hard session. But sometimes it might take four or five days to recover. That's fine.

The faster sessions

A 20-30 minute tempo. Don't stress over HR or pace on these, just run them comfortably hard.

A fartlek. You can play with the times, but something like 10 x 2 minutes fast/1 minute slow and easy is pretty good. Again, don't worry about exact pace or HR on these, just run fast and controlled. Brisk is a good word for how things should feel.

Hills. Find a hill that is somewhere around :30 to :60 of hard running for you. Do 6 to 10 repeats on that. Full recovery. Again, don't worry about pace. You're after strength and good running form.

None of those workouts should kill you. They should all be very manageable. And getting enough easy days in between, you should feel ready to go and see yourself getting faster. You should also only be doing 1 or 2 of those a week.

MoreMilesMoreFastMoreFun wrote:

I ran a bad marathon in November after following Hal Higdon's Novice 1 program. Was totally unprepared with the 40 mile peak week and the overemphasis on long runs (many weeks included 50% of miles in one weekend run). I could tell I needed more miles and more days of the week running than I was doing. Most training weeks were less than 40 miles a week and I was running four days a week according to the plan.

Training times doing the HHN1 program:

Goal Pace for Marathon: 10:00 (~160 HR)

Tempo Run Pace: 9:00 (~170 HR)

Long Run Pace: 10:45 (~145 HR)

"Junk Mile" Pace: ~10:30 or however I was feeling

I did PR my half marathon time during the marathon at a 9:30/mile pace but burned out around mile 18 and finished with a 5 hour marathon (not even hobby jogger pace FML). Yes I understand I was being a moron going out that fast and plan to rectify that with my 2nd marathon.

I got into Chicago through the lottery system, and I decided to make that my main goal for running in 2019. I've read so much about building a better base that I decided to focus on that for the first part of this year. My goal is to hit 50 miles per week before choosing a marathon plan. I'd like to run 50 miles per week for at least a month just to establish that as my base before anything else.

I started at 30 mpw and have progressed to 42 adding 1-2 miles per week and spreading those miles around my runs. I'm keeping my long runs to 30% of my weekly total.

Except I'm running...slower? I thought more miles were supposed to help you with efficiency and speed?

Here's my training plan for this week:

Monday - 3 mile recovery run (some walking if necessary)

Tuesday - 6 mile run with tempo work

Wednesday - 8 mile "medium-long run"

Thursday - 6 mile easy run

Friday - rest

Saturday - 6 mile pace or easy run (depending on feeling)

Sunday - 12 mile long run

My heart rate is killing me though. Just this morning, I wanted to do an 8 mile long run and keep my heart rate at around 145 but even an 11:30 pace was spiking up to 160. Yesterday my tempo work which is usually at a 9:00 pace was spiking to as high as 185 at a 9:00 pace and I needed to slow to a 10:00 pace to run at 160.

I do run on rolling hills but nothing crazy.

The feeling of slowing down and finding the runs difficult has been going on for about 2.5 weeks now and seems to be getting worse. I sleep about 7 hours a night and eat mostly healthy. I do eat 200-300 calories worth of sweets every day.

Any tips? Is this normal? Am I being a crybaby?