July 2017 Running Challenge

Well... I am officially past goose egg for the month. 2.5 on the treadmill. Part of the logic on the treadmill was its 9million degrees outside, and I am not used to that... but the gym was like 8.5million - so I was a mess by the end, even though it was only 2.5 miles of run walk intervals. Not to mention under current restrictions, I've been lifting a lot and yesterday was leg day, and didn't have the appropriate umm supportive clothing that I would normally use for running packed with me for work this week. Yeah, was overall a mess....

So far, nothing hurts worse than it did when I started. We will see how swollen or ouchy things get as time goes on. And decide what steps I want to pursue depending on those results.

But, I ran!!

ctlaws44 wrote: »

KatieJane83 wrote: »

ctlaws44 wrote: »

KatieJane83 wrote: »

Thanks @ctlaws44 ! It does feel really great. I think my favorite part is how I just feel like a stronger runner. Even when I'm tired and beat, I don't really worry anymore about not being able to finish whatever distance I've set out to accomplish, because I've gained so much confidence in having the strength to gut it out. Best of luck to you on your marathon training! It's pretty cool that we're starting it in the same week!

Yes, to know you have reserve and a "cruise gear" to keep going is a great feeling! Thanks! I'm doing the marathon with a running buddy of mine who's done dozens of marathons and he's nonchalant about the training plan. This will be my first marathon so I'm a little nervous. He'll just register for a destination marathon last minute and finish them with decent times. Yes, that's good we're starting at the same time. I'm going to follow you on Strava so I can feel better that I'm following somewhat of a plan.

Nice!

Ha, yeah, must be nice to just be able to sign up for marathons willy nilly, lol. Are you guys following any kind of plan, or just winging it? My plan is kinda intense, so hopefully I can keep up with it!

K, good luck with your plan. I'm sure if you follow it pretty good, you'll feel ready. I'm trying to follow a plan my buddy gave me but it just lists distances on days. Later in the plan it just says "Speed Day 5.0 miles". What do I do with that Patches O'Houlihan?!? After reading a lot of this thread, I feel like there should be different kinds of runs like Tempo and Interval. I'm going to get out to a track and do some speed work like I see you and the others do.

@ctlaws44 -

"Speed Day 5.0 miles" assumes that you know what you're doing in the way of speed work, and that it adds up to 5 miles. It might be a 5 mile tempo run, it might be a warm up, some intervals, and a cool down. Chances are the plan you're seeing is a summary of notes, and a coach using it would come up with something specific for those 5 miles based on where he sees his trainees needing the work.

Many plans just list distances on days. When I first saw the plan I'm now using, it confused me because it doesn't. Instead, it lists the quality workouts, weekly target mileages, and which days are "easy." How I get the miles to add up to the targets by week is up to me. I do end up with distances by day, but that's because I need to plan the week out before I start in order to get it right.

There are a lot of marathon training plans. Some of them are just bad plans, but the ones that make sense should be understood in the context of what they're trying to accomplish. Training someone who has never run a marathon to get up to the distance and finish the race is a different task than training someone to run the fastest marathon he physically can run.

For the goal of just being able to finish, IMO the most important things are: Learning to run slow enough. Long runs, training to go the distance and time on feet. Learning to run slow enough. Base mileage, running enough miles to build a body that won't fall apart in a marathon. Learning to run slow enough. And maybe some tempo runs to build stamina. But mostly, learning to run slow enough and training to keep going long enough are most important.

As I train for my fifth marathon start line, I'm still working on learning to run slow enough.

The speed work has its place, but is more important if the goal is to run the marathon faster. I've found the long tempo intervals to be more useful than the shorter, faster intervals; but there is room for disagreement or even for different workouts being most valuable to different runners. And my opinion may be colored by the fact that I don't particularly like hard, fast intervals. That having been said, the theory my coach espouses goes like this:

Early in the marathon training cycle, we do a lot of reps at R pace, which is about your mile race pace. The point of doing this is to develop good running economy and good form, with the aspiration that this will carry through for the rest of the training cycle.

In the next phase, we do a lot of longer intervals at I pace, which is about your 5K race pace. It's faster than lactic threshold pace, and the point is to increase your VO2 Max and your lactic threshold.

Later in the training cycle, we do a lot of much longer intervals at T pace, about lactic threshold. The point of this is to build endurance. Sometimes the long intervals at T are designed to exhaust you so you can train running on tired legs later in the workout, without actually beating yourself up by running a full marathon distance. Example: There are variations of a standard workout that appears several times in my plan, run 1-3 miles easy, 2 x (4 miles at MP, 1 mile at T), 1-2 miles easy. When it's the full 15 mile workout (3 miles easy to start, 2 miles easy at the end), being able to sustain T pace at mile 13 is a great confidence builder. Then it's hard to run those last 2 miles easy on tired legs.

Official doctrine is that there isn't any particular physical benefit of training at marathon pace. We train at MP to get used to it, so it becomes a natural pace to fall into on race day.

Having said all this, the plan I'm following is most definitely designed to train for the fastest marathon possible. It asks for some significant running mileage. It has speed work days where the warm up, speed work, and cool down routinely add up to more than 10 miles. It has some continual run workouts that are 13 to 16 miles long, but don't count as the long run of the week. It is an elite plan, and part of my task is to recognize when I'm not as elite as the plan and need to tone it down a bit. It's also not the only way to train for a marathon.

The beginner training program I pace for peaks out at 43 miles per week, which is less than what I started with. It has tempo or speed work once a week, typically 3-4 miles worth. It tapers down to a "long run" of only 6 miles the week before race day. It looks incredibly light weight to me. And people who use this program run full marathons.

Probably most recreational marathon runners will be following plans at a difficulty level somewhere between the plan I'm using and the beginner plan I pace for. Training harder can give a bigger benefit; but only up to a point. The art of picking and using a plan includes recognizing when to back off to avoid overtraining. Picking a plan that is a good fit for your own level of fitness reduces the amount of adjustment you'll need to do during the training cycle, but won't totally eliminate adjustments. It will be rare to get through a training cycle without having to adjust the plan for things that happen between the start of training and race day.

7/3: 2.1
7/4: 1.6
7/5: 2.2
7/6: 0.8
7/7: 0.0
7/8: 2.4
7/9: 0.0
7/10: 0.5
7/10: 5.5
7/11: 0.8
7/12: 2.0
7/13: 1.0
7/14: 3.7
7/15: 0.0
7/16: 2.2
7/17: 7.9
7/18: 4.0
7/19:
7/20:
7/21:
7/22:
7/23:
7/24:
7/25:
7/26:
7/27:
7/28:
7/29:
7/30:
7/31:

Total: 35.57 / 50

Oh my gosh, I think I might actually make my goal you guys!! I totally didn't think I would earlier this month I did kick some butt on Monday though, if I do say so myself, even got a blister!!!

6 mile foundation run this morning. Stayed in the zone. Average pace 9:45 made for a good slow run. I was able to keep the heart rate in check even when running uphill. I did my strength training last night after missing it for three days. There is always more leg discomfort when I skip more than a day. It usually goes away if I'm better about doing the work on a more routine basis. Looking forward to my hill workout tomorrow where I get to let it out an run fast.

Today was a nice easy recovery run, and so I decided to take the time to test out a little experiment. Normally, I try to run tangents and take the shortest lines possible, but this time, I thought I'd try the exact opposite just to see what kind of extra distance would be added. It was actually quite difficult to constantly keep this in mind, as I naturally wanted to drift back to the shortest running line, but in the end, I managed 13.80 miles. Normally, that run is 13.55.

So there you have it folks...I added an entire quarter mile to a run just by being sloppy with my lines; remember that when you're next shooting for that PR!

05 - 13.56
06 - 9.72
07 - 22.03
10 - 13.55
11 - 9.76
12 - 13.11
13 - 9.57
17 - 13.56
18 - 9.88
19 - 13.80

Total: 128.54 / 250 miles