February 2017 Running Challenge

2/1: 2.2 miles walk, 6.3 miles bike
2/2: Rest/PT
2/3: 45 mins elliptical
2/4: 10 miles bike
2/5: 67 mins elliptical
2/6: 9 miles bike
2/7: 40 mins elliptical
2/8: Rest
2/9: 1.4 miles walk, 30 mins elliptical
2/10: PT, 9.8 miles bike
2/11: 1.9 miles walk/jog
2/12: Rest
2/13: 5.5 miles bike, 1.4 miles walk/jog
2/14: 60 mins elliptical
2/15: PT, 10 miles bike
2/16: Rest
2/17: 2.6 miles run/walk
2/18: 3.1 miles hike/walk
2/19: 2.5 miles run/walk
2/20: 10 miles bike
2/21: 2.8 miles run/walk
2/22: PT, 9.7 miles bike

TOTAL: 16/22 workout days

Regular light bike routine after my physical therapy appointment today. For the most part, the appointment went well and I'm progressing more with the various exercises. As I mentioned yesterday, I wasn't sure how things were going to be left going forward in regards to returning to running and continuing PT. So, I have a gait analysis set up for next week with someone else who specializes in that and that person will be able to go over my running symmetry (or lack thereof) and recommend some things to work on. I won't see my regular PT until 2 weeks after that and in the meantime, he wants me to work on those things and just stick to 5 minute intervals. I wasn't really expecting to hear that as each week I have been increasing running intervals, but I understand his reasoning. He wants to see how the gait analysis goes and have me work on the things the gait analysis physical therapist gives me before I start increasing my mileage too much. He said we'll start talking in terms of miles after that. I am registered for a 6.9 mile leg of a marathon relay in April (Illinois Marathon), which he thinks is a good target. I'll continue to see him, though less frequently, through the race and we'll go from there. At first I was a little disappointed at not being able to increase my intervals after 5 minutes for awhile, but I'm reminding myself that I did just start returning to running a week and a half ago and he also gave me some room for improving my runs while still sticking to the prescribed interval time (decreasing rest/walk time, increasing number of intervals within reason, etc.).

MNLittleFinn wrote: »

MobyCarp wrote: »

Suppose you don't get injured, life doesn't blow up on you, and the plan goes perfectly as written. I know, not a high probability, but what if it happens? I'd say take the last 2 weeks before your taper and repeat them, then do the taper as per your plan. That way, you're maintaining the pre-taper fitness level, you have the taper exactly where you need it, and the 2 extra weeks stay in the bank until you don't need to bank them any more.

Thanks. That's the kind of advice I was looking for. Simple easy to follow and just right for what I need.

I just looked at the plan and those 2 weeks both have 18 mile runs, so.... It would put decent time between my two 20 mile runs and the race, like 6 weeks....so maybe "if all goes according to plan" (ha ha, like that will happen) sneak another 20 miler in there if I'm still healthy? The only difference in mileage between the 18 mile LR weeks and the 20 mile LR weeks is the 2 miles of the LR, so it wouldn't change much.

On the theory that your plan doesn't have a 20 miler in the last 4 weeks for a reason, I'd put the last 20 miler on the week before you start repeating, then repeat with 18 milers. Probably not a huge impact either way, but you said you don't want to wing it.

Edit to add: Posts at the same time. @7lenny7 has a better conceived adjustment.

Date     Miles      MTD
------   -----    -------
Feb 01     6.5T       6.5
Feb 02     4.7T      11.2
Feb 04     5.6       16.8
Feb 05     6.5       23.3
Feb 06     5.1       28.4
Feb 09     5.6       34.0
Feb 11     6.8T      40.8
Feb 12     6.8T      47.6
Feb 13     4.6T      52.2
Feb 18    11.3       63.5
Feb 19     6.2       69.7
Feb 20     5.1       74.8
Feb 22     6.9       81.7

7lenny7 wrote: »

@MNLittleFinn I don't know how your last few weeks look, nor am I an experienced marathoner, but here's my suggestion.

First, you want to keep those 2 weeks available to "cash in" as long as possible, as @MobyCarp suggests. Instead of repeating the last two weeks before the taper, however, consider inserting two cut-back weeks. Instead of this:

• Week 16 - Big Miles
• Week 17 - Big Miles
• Week 18 - Big Miles
• Week 19 - Taper
• Week 20 - Taper to race

consider this:

• Week 16 - Big Miles
• Inserted Week - Cutback week by 10 to 15 percent
• Week 17 - Big Miles
• Inserted Week - Cutback week by 10 to 15 percent
• Week 18 - Big Miles
• Week 19 - Taper
• Week 20 - Taper to race

Doing this, you are not going to lose a bit of fitness and you'll allow your body a better chance to recover from all the hard miles you've been putting in. I think you'll reap a greater reward by the extra recovery than you would from the extra miles, and at a lower risk. For my ultra training I have every other week as a cutback week, other than some exceptions for scheduling reasons.

If nothing else, ask your coach.

Now That I've looked at how that would make my training plan look. Here's what it would look like, mileagewise with your suggestion (I made up mileage for the inserted weeks

Week 16- 52 miles 20 mile long run
Inserted week (17) 45 miles (15 mile long run)
Week 17 (18) 50 miles (18 mile long run)
Inserted week (19) 45 miles (16 mile long run)
Week 18 (20) 50 miles (18 mile long run)
Taper week 27 miles (9 mile LR)
Taper week 38 including 26.2 marathon

How does that look?

Thanks @7lenny7 I was actually thinking about that. It would bring my total number of 20 milers up to 3 (week 15 is a 20 mile also, all weeks except cutbacks are pairs of the same thing), but it would also mean, if I get that far without having to change things, I could make week 15 another 18 miler and just have my 2 20 milers in weeks 16 and (18)...I'm too much of a numbers geek...Having fun thinking about the possibilities.

OSUbuckeye906 wrote: »

I hope everyone who is sick with all the sinus/cold/respiratory/flu crud feels better soon! We've had a lot of illness going around work and I'm trying my best to avoid it.

lporter229 wrote: »

@Elise4270- Did you say MFP MRC destination race??? I'm in! Can you imagine everyone here showing up for a race together? That would be awesome. And if it's Hawaii, then hell yeah!

@lporter229 @Elise4270 Hawaii would be so fun! I watched a documentary on Netflix recently called Fat to Fit (if I'm remembering correctly). It's about an online weight loss group whose members started running to aid their weight loss. They're from all over the US and they decided to meet up and run a Ragnar race as a team. Most of them lost 50-100 pounds or even more and the documentary touches a little bit on each of their running and weight loss journeys. Pretty neat watch!

That really would be great! I'd love to go!

88.52% of goal

01-Feb: 3.18 miles
02-Feb: 9.32 miles
03-Feb: 8.75 miles
04-Feb: 7.00 miles
05-Feb: <Life Day>
06-Feb: 7.01 miles
07-Feb: 10.43 miles
08-Feb: 3.35 miles
09-Feb: 6.90 miles
10-Feb: 6.94 miles
11-Feb: 13.03 miles - Sweetheart 12K - 7.2m - 2/AG
12-Feb: <Life Day>
13-Feb: 13.44 miles
14-Feb: 9.42 miles
15-Feb: 3.11 miles
16-Feb: 9.40 miles
17-Feb: 6.47 miles
18-Feb: 12.51 miles - Al Toll 15K - 9.33 - 2/AG
19-Feb: <Life Day>
20-Feb: 6.90 miles
21-Feb: 9.28 miles
22-Feb: 3.16 miles
23-Feb:
24-Feb:
25-Feb: - Race Day!
26-Feb: <Life Day>
27-Feb:
28-Feb:



Upcoming Races:
25-Feb: Cantrell 5K, WR (*)
04-Mar: Albany/Snickers HM, Albany
11-Mar: Peach Road Race 10.5K, Byron (*)
18-Mar: Cherry Blossom Road Race 10K, Macon (*)
01-Apr: Run 2 End Alzheimers 5K, 10.5K, Bonaire (*)
22-Apr: Taylor County Race for Literacy 5K, Reynolds (*)
29-Apr: Running for Ronald 10K/15K, Macon (*)
06-May: All About Animals 10.2K, Macon (*)
13-May: Battle of Byron 5K, Byron (*)
20-May: Georgia Jugfest 5K, Knoxville (*)
27-May: Edge Fitness 5K, Bonaire (*)
04-Jul: Peachtree Road Race 10K, Atlanta

7lenny7 wrote: »

@MNLittleFinn I don't know how your last few weeks look, nor am I an experienced marathoner, but here's my suggestion.

First, you want to keep those 2 weeks available to "cash in" as long as possible, as @MobyCarp suggests. Instead of repeating the last two weeks before the taper, however, consider inserting two cut-back weeks. Instead of this:


consider this:

• Week 16 - Big Miles
• Inserted Week - Cutback week by 10 to 15 percent
• Week 17 - Big Miles
• Inserted Week - Cutback week by 10 to 15 percent
• Week 18 - Big Miles
• Week 19 - Taper
• Week 20 - Taper to race

Doing this, you are not going to lose a bit of fitness and you'll allow your body a better chance to recover from all the hard miles you've been putting in. I think you'll reap a greater reward by the extra recovery than you would from the extra miles, and at a lower risk. For my ultra training I have every other week as a cutback week, other than some exceptions for scheduling reasons.

If nothing else, ask your coach.

This is what plan called for but it was a bigger cut. Mine was:
20
12
20
12
20
Taper
Taper
Race

Since I ended up having some knee issues, those cutback weeks really helped me. The 3rd 20 miler was awesome!

I'll know on Sunday if it worked or not.

2/1/17----7.2miles
2/2/17----7.8miles
2/3/17----7.7miles
2/4/17----8.7miles
2/5/17----5.1miles
2/6/17----6.5miles
2/7/17----9.1miles
2/8/17----6.75miles
2/9/17----7.8miles
2/10/17----5.3miles
2/11/17----10.2miles
2/12/17----6.5miles
2/13/17----7.3miles
2/14/17----7.6miles
2/15/17----7.5miles
2/16/17----6.4miles
2/17/17----6.9miles
2/18/17----6.1miles
2/19/17----5miles
2/20/17----10.7miles
2/21/17----7.2miles
2/22/17----6.6miles

new goal 200miles for Feb...these logs are walking/running combined.

dkabambe wrote: »

@Orphia 10miles is actually 16.1km so that's a strange distance - they could have built the pub 300m closer
I've only ever run 10miles in long slow training runs, but you can use the Daniel's formula to scale up your 10K time to get a time for 16.4km as follows:

Race Time = ((Race Dist / Reference Dist) ^ 1.06 ) * Reference Time
i.e. 16.4km Time = ((16.4/10)^1.06) * 10K Time
So, 16.4km Time = 1.69 * 10K Time

I find if you run those sorts of distances regularly it scales up well, but if not it can tend to think you'll run quicker. For example it scales quite well between my 1mile, 5K and 10K times but at HM or longer it gives me a time faster than I can currently run probably because I'm not used to those distances yet.

Thanks, very much, @dkabambe ! I appreciate you taking the time to write that out. My maths is failing me. What does ^ mean?

Thanks also, @karllundy @ritzvin and @RespectTheKitty

We had to estimate our times, and I think I've set myself a pretty difficult goal of 1:45:00

Orphia wrote: »

dkabambe wrote: »

@Orphia 10miles is actually 16.1km so that's a strange distance - they could have built the pub 300m closer
I've only ever run 10miles in long slow training runs, but you can use the Daniel's formula to scale up your 10K time to get a time for 16.4km as follows:

Race Time = ((Race Dist / Reference Dist) ^ 1.06 ) * Reference Time
i.e. 16.4km Time = ((16.4/10)^1.06) * 10K Time
So, 16.4km Time = 1.69 * 10K Time

I find if you run those sorts of distances regularly it scales up well, but if not it can tend to think you'll run quicker. For example it scales quite well between my 1mile, 5K and 10K times but at HM or longer it gives me a time faster than I can currently run probably because I'm not used to those distances yet.

Thanks, very much, @dkabambe ! I appreciate you taking the time to write that out. My maths is failing me. What does ^ mean?

@Orphia ^ means "to the power of". e.g. ^2 is squared; ^3 is cubed so 5^3 = 5×5×5 = 125
Gets more difficult when not whole numbers after the ^ sign, but just trust that your phone/computer/calculator will know what it means!

dkabambe wrote: »

Orphia wrote: »

dkabambe wrote: »

@Orphia 10miles is actually 16.1km so that's a strange distance - they could have built the pub 300m closer
I've only ever run 10miles in long slow training runs, but you can use the Daniel's formula to scale up your 10K time to get a time for 16.4km as follows:

Race Time = ((Race Dist / Reference Dist) ^ 1.06 ) * Reference Time
i.e. 16.4km Time = ((16.4/10)^1.06) * 10K Time
So, 16.4km Time = 1.69 * 10K Time

I find if you run those sorts of distances regularly it scales up well, but if not it can tend to think you'll run quicker. For example it scales quite well between my 1mile, 5K and 10K times but at HM or longer it gives me a time faster than I can currently run probably because I'm not used to those distances yet.

Thanks, very much, @dkabambe ! I appreciate you taking the time to write that out. My maths is failing me. What does ^ mean?

@Orphia ^ means "to the power of". e.g. ^2 is squared; ^3 is cubed so 5^3 = 5×5×5 = 125
Gets more difficult when not whole numbers after the ^ sign, but just trust that your phone/computer/calculator will know what it means!

Thought so. But my calculator wasn't showing that symbol. Cheers.

Date activity Run dist (mi)
1-Feb Yoga 60 min
2-Feb rest
3-Feb rest
4-Feb run 10
5-Feb rest
6-Feb Yoga 60 min
7-Feb HIIT 40 min
8-Feb Yoga 60 min/ run 7.5
9-Feb rest
10-Feb HIIT 40 min
11-Feb run 12
12-Feb run 6.5
13-Feb Yoga 60 min/ HIIT 40 min
14-Feb rest
15-Feb Yoga 60 min/ run 7.7
16-Feb run 5
17-Feb rest
18-Feb run 5.8
19-Feb run/walk (sick) 5.4
20-Feb sick
21-Feb sick
22-Feb Yoga 60 min/run 7.7
23-Feb
24-Feb
25-Feb
26-Feb
27-Feb
28-Feb
67.6

Goal (miles) 100
left (miles) 32.4

03 - 2.24 miles
04 - 9.30
06 - 11.67
07 - 7.25
08 - 12.43
09 - 7.61
10 - 16.13
11 - 5.60
13 - 13.46
14 - 6.83
15 - 13.40
16 - 6.64
17 - 17.01
19 - 5.63
21 - 10.92
22 - 13.35
23 - 10.93

Total: 170.40 / 200

2/1: 2.2 miles walk, 6.3 miles bike
2/2: Rest/PT
2/3: 45 mins elliptical
2/4: 10 miles bike
2/5: 67 mins elliptical
2/6: 9 miles bike
2/7: 40 mins elliptical
2/8: Rest
2/9: 1.4 miles walk, 30 mins elliptical
2/10: PT, 9.8 miles bike
2/11: 1.9 miles walk/jog
2/12: Rest
2/13: 5.5 miles bike, 1.4 miles walk/jog
2/14: 60 mins elliptical
2/15: PT, 10 miles bike
2/16: Rest
2/17: 2.6 miles run/walk
2/18: 3.1 miles hike/walk
2/19: 2.5 miles run/walk
2/20: 10 miles bike
2/21: 2.8 miles run/walk
2/22: PT, 9.7 miles bike
2/23: 3.2 miles run/walk

TOTAL: 19/22 workout days

First run with 5 minute intervals went well! Warm up walk, 4 x 5 mins run/4 mins walk, cool down walk; 3.2 miles in 39:05. The 5 minute intervals didn't feel any harder than the 4 minutes and I was able to slow down and control my pace a lot better (splits were between 9:40-9:50 pace). I felt some tightness in my left calf/foot at the beginning again but it actually went away as I was able to slow down and control my pace. Tried out some new shoes that arrived yesterday as well (Saucony Guide 9s). My left shoe felt a little loose, but not sure yet if it's too loose and would cause blisters or if it can be adjusted. May need to get another run in them before I decide. Oh, and it was a beautiful morning...56F and sunny!