February 2017 Running Challenge

+6.7 cold, icy miles = 33.6 miles total.
Today is a strength training day at the gym (no running).

2/1 6.3r 4.4w
2/2 5.2r 5.3w
2/3 0.0r 7.25w
2/4 7.0r 0.5w
2/5 4.2r 0.0w
2/6 5.1r 4.6w
2/7 5.05r 4.4w
2/8 10.0r 0.5w
2/9 0.0r 7.3w
2/10 5.2r 6.1w
2/11 7.5r 0.5w
2/12 4.65r 0.0w
2/13 7.1r 4.0w
2/14 6.3r 5.0w
2/15 5.2r 3.2w
Total so far = 78.8r + 57.35w = 136.15 miles

Medication update: My heart rate has gone down a little bit since I first started taking the Mirtazapine. My RHR s now back in the upper 40s. So that's a good thing.

Looking to have another 30+ mile week running this week. I've got tonight and Saturday still to run, and I'm hoping to average about 7 miles for each run.

@MobyCarp, @orphia, @juliet3455, @7lenny7, @Stoshew71 Thank you so much for all your helpful advice! I didn't expect to get so much help from people who are such successful and amazing long distance runners! I really admire what you do! Most runners that I talk to just tell me that it is either something that you like or you don't or that I just need to push through the pain to find the joy. But your advice really gives me hope and motivation that I will find a run style that I might actually enjoy! I am going to start looking for some fun run trails to try out this weekend! Thank you again!

I got an 8k this Saturday. Hoping for a 36 min or better finish. We'll see.

I was looking at my training plan, and from here on out, starting with Saturday's 15 mile, about 1/3 of my long runs will be automatic distance PR's. only real caveat will be if I get near the end and have to add 2 weeks in since I started early to give some wiggle room. Will have to have a back up plan figured out if that's the case.

Thanks @tdbernrd

February Running Totals (miles)
2/1 – 7.00 easy
2/2 – 2.63 easy shakedown run
2/3 – travel day, didn't get a run in
2/4 – 7.99 warm up on road + 8K cross country
2/5 – travel day, didn't get a run in
2/6 – travel day
2/7 – 9.26 warm up, speed work, cool down
2/8 – 7.02 group run
2/9 – 12.03 MP intervals
2/10 – rest day
2/11 – 18.63 paced run + solo miles
2/12 – 11.48 easy 90 minutes
2/13 – rest day
2/14 – 12.25 warm up, speed work, cool down
2/15 – 6.62 group run
2/16 – 10.05 easy with hills

February total to date – 104.96

Nominal Challenge Goal – 225 miles
Real Goals: Survive travel to and from Bend. Train well toward Boston. Avoid injury.

Today's notes – Today's notes are dedicated to @MNLittleFinn, as an example of adjusting the marathon training plan to fit circumstances.

Today's assigned workout was 2 miles easy; 2-4 x (1600 at T with 1 min. recovery); 8 x (200 at I with 200 recovery); 3 miles easy. The "2-4" is given to allow the trainee to decide on how much work to do based on his or her level of conditioning and current base mileage. My original plan was to do 2 of the 1600s, then see how I felt before deciding whether to do a 3rd and in no case attempt 4 intervals. For 2 of the 1600s, I estimated the workout would add up to a little over 9 miles.

I didn't do that workout.

This time of year, the club hold practice at Gordon Field House on RIT campus. There is a nice indoor 200m track there, and it becomes a discipline of running 200m in the target time to hold pace. But sometimes Gordon Field House is closed to us for a college event, and we shift to the upper track. The upper track isn't as nice. There are only 3 lanes. There is a rail on the inside lane that is easy to bump when rounding tight corners. It's an old track, and the surface is harder than a standard track. The curves are banked. It's okay for running easy or short workouts in a small group, but it's a pain for long workouts in a crowd of people running at different paces, with the inevitable clumps of walkers to dodge.

Tuesday I noted the sign on the door advising us that Gordon Field House would be closed for a ticketed event this evening. The rather long workout would move to the upper track. I thought about how to modify it for running on the road; I could do 2-4 x 1 mile at T instead of 1600m, close enough. The Garmin isn't accurate enough to break down to a 200m interval, so I'd have to either go by time, find something marked at that approximate distance, or omit the 8 x 200 at I. I didn't come to any firm conclusions about how to modify that part of the workout for the road.

The gripping hand is, I had a twinge in my right calf after Tuesday's hard speed work. It was still there yesterday, and I didn't get a good stretch in after yesterday's group run. So it was still there this morning. I don't know if it's just some normal calf tightness, or the beginning warning signs of possible Achilles tendinitis in the formerly healthier leg, or a random ache caused by my trick right foot that isn't important, or a random ache caused by my trick right foot that I need to do something about.

One of the listed causes of Achilles tendinitis is running too much, too hard with turns always the same direction. Sounds a lot like Tuesday's workout. And I recalled Coach saying we should have about 6% of our weekly mileage at I pace. This week I will run 62 miles. 4 of them were at I pace on Tuesday. That's a little over 6% already, and today's assignment would add another mile.

I decided the better part of valor was to substitute an easy run for today's assigned workout. I picked 10 miles because it approximates the length of the assigned workout, and 10 miles today will let me have a rest day tomorrow before running 22 miles on Saturday to come out to the target 62 miles for the week. That, and I have a standard 10 mile route from my house that I enjoy, with hills that are good training for Boston.

So I set out to run in the heat of the day at 2:30. 25º F (-4º C) with an alleged 15 mph WNW wind. Except by the time I got to the stretch of 2 miles headed south, it was a SW wind almost in my face. Then it shifted to be more of a W wind for the 2.5 mile stretch headed west. Near the end of that stretch, I noticed that the wind had shifted to have a northerly component. Shades of the old "uphill, into the north wind, both ways" line!

Fortunately, the northerly component stayed pretty minor. As I headed north, it was much more of a cross wind, and noticeable mostly at the top of the hills. That made mile 8 less challenging than I would have expected; topographically, mile 8 is the most challenging terrain on this route. The last two miles would have been quite relaxing, except I was beginning to experience some intestinal distress. I ended up running the last 2 miles more at MP than easy, mostly as a form of the classic rest room sprint.

Final stats came out to 10.05 miles in 1:18:01, for an average pace of 7:46 and the fastest pace on the last 2 miles. It kind of surprised me to see the first 8 mile splits hanging out in the fast end of my easy range; when I was running into that wind, it felt like I was running on tired legs. I made sure to do some good stretches and my cone touches afterward, and as I write this the twinge in my right calf is better than it was this morning. It will be easy to honor the rest day tomorrow, because I'm pretty solidly scheduled with non-running stuff.

At this point I think substituting an easy run for the quality workout was exactly the thing I needed to do. I just needed to get through a couple marathon training cycles to have the experience and confidence to do something like this proactively, instead of waiting till I make the calf worse then thinking I *should have* backed off.

Great Trite Truth of the day: There are no medals for a training run.

2017 races:
January 1, 2017 Freezeroo #2 (Resolution Run 7.5 mile) (Mendon, NY) Finished in 50:45
January 7, 2017 Winter Warrior Half Marathon (Gates, NY) Finished in 1:32:40
January 14, 2017 Freezeroo #3 (Pineway Ponds Park 5 mile) (Spencerport, NY) Finished in 33:42
January 28, 2017 Freezeroo #4 (Hearnish 5 mile) (Victor, NY) short course, finished 4.88 miles in 32:50
February 4, 2017 USATF Cross Country National Championship Masters 8K (Bend, OR) Finished in 35:39, team won the 60+ Men's cross country championship
February 11, 2017 Freezeroo #5 (Valentines Run "In Memory of Tom Brannon" 8 Mile) (Greece, NY) sat out due to training schedule
February 25, 2017 Freezeroo #6 (White House Challenge 4.4 mile) (Webster, NY)
March 11, 2017 Johnny's Runnin' of the Green 5 mile (Rochester, NY)
March 18, 2017 USATF Masters 8K Championship (Virginia Beach, VA)
April 17, 2017 Boston Marathon (Hopkinton, MA)

@MobyCarp great write up and thanks for tagging me. It was nice jumping right to that post and reading about modifying workouts.