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If I run on the treadmill, it just feels more comfortable at a slight incline than the 0% setting.

Funny the way that works out sometimes.

When I trained for my first marathon (in 2013), I followed a plan (26 weeks) that had a minimum of 3 days per week of running. Two days of of short workouts (ramped up to 45 minutes to an hour max), usually Tuesday and Thursday, and then one day of a longer slow run that also gradually ramped up. The plan wasn't designed…

First, your GPS device only needs to "see" three satellites to give your position fix to within about 30 meters. Where the satellites are in the sky and other interferences affect how accurately you are located. You need at least 4 satellites to obtain an estimate of altitude and that is the hardest one to get with any…

I'm in Chapel Hill

Hadn't posted any of these results. City of Oaks Marathon (Raleigh, NC) on November 2, 2014: New PR of 4:41:55. It was cold, dry and windy and I second guessed myself about what I should wear for the conditions. Let my legs get too cold with shorts and my upper body get too warm (light jacket). Was roughly 12 minutes off…

In some ways, I was lucky in this regard. When I began running again (2013), I bought an HRM (a Zephyr Bluetooth). I already had a good aerobic base from all the walking, hiking and backpacking I had been doing since 2010. What got me interested was realizing how slow my sitting heart rate had become compared to when I was…

Congrats on signing up and training for your first half marathon. Rest days are a good day to do core strength training. Viewed as cross training days the one area you probably need to be careful about are the various leg muscles. Note strength of legs do provide benefits but you need to be careful about overstressing and…

As you can see, everyone has their own perspective and experience and it depends on what you can handle. I tended to take in less carbs during a race than I do now. However, I don't train the same way. I often run the long runs (anything over 12 miles) with just water and maybe one or two gels. Sometimes I consume them,…

A small update. The timing system split the difference and rounded the time to 4:34:00, something that is easy for me to remember.

I just went back and checked the posted times. They now say my official chip time was 4:33:58. Okay, I'll take it. Gun time was 4:35:22. The guy I was telling you about came in about 2 minutes in front of me, not 5 like I quoted above. His chip time was a little over 1 minute (1:06) faster than mine. I can now see why he…

Mine is open and I do a pretty good job of including everything. Note that I tend toward a higher carb intake for all the running I've finally fit into my life. It will approach 70% of my calorie intake over the next couple of weekends.

At age 61, I am generally running 6 days per week. The runs are variable (using Fitzgerald 80/20 approach currently). Except for the long weekend runs (which are based upon distance), I run on time and pace/intensity/heart rate. The base building phase was generally one really intense running day per week. Coming through…

My wife has noticed and said something to me about how I smell as well. I told her it was just an old person smell but she says its related to my workouts. She hasn't described it as an ammonia smell, however.

I haven't used them but two of my marathon running neighbors do. They have encouraged me to purchase a pair, but so far this winter, we haven't had as much snow and ice as last year. They will not give you absolute traction on a sheet of ice (according to them) but for a mixed surface of snow and ice, they swear by them.…

This!

What's interesting is that my training schedule was geared to the second one (before I started thinking about running the first one in Hilton Head), and on the taper weekend before the race, I was still scheduled to do 16 miles of a fast finish long run. The other thing about this year compared to last year is the time…

If you want to be entertained while gaining some running insights, read John Bingham's "Marathoning for Mortals." There are portions of it (like his commentary on "taper fever") where just isn't safe to be reading it and drinking something. He has numerous plans in his book for various races and goals. Jeff Galloway's…

Maintenance is a very different mindset, as I've discovered. But, its a lifestyle change to maintain the goal. Going back to running after years of not running is one way to externalize that lifestyle change for myself and others.

Logged 1,152 running miles (outdoors), 3,600 total miles running, walking, hiking, backpacking, treadmill for 2014. No specific mileage goals established yet though the 3,600 total mile goal has been one I've met for several years now even before I started running in 2013.

My goal is really simple...to say that I have done it. I am now signed up for both. And we have family in both places. I ran the Hilton Head course last year (19 miles of it in the cold rain), but with only 170+ marathoners out on the course it was more like a training run than a race because I was out there alone much of…

I ran a half two weeks out from a marathon this past October. But then again, my training scheduled called for a 14 x 1 where the mile pace in each of those 14 miles was about 30 seconds faster than marathon pace. But it is also called for a full 5 minute walk (not jog) between each mile to recover. I opted for the HM at…

Carson points out an important consideration and if you look at some the physiology it makes sense. One of the reasons why people get injured is that they get beyond the capacity of the weakest part of their system. And you really have to read pretty deeply to get this: The cardio-vascular system (heart, lungs and brain)…

I did my all my marathons using run/walk and all my half-marathons. Ran/walked my last half-marathon in 2:01. Should have been less than 2 hours but the jam up at the beginning cost me that two minutes and since the race was a training run for a marathon two weeks after that, I wasn't willing to burn out just to get below…

halfmarathons.net might get you to half marathons in the various provinces. To get down to the 10K or 5K distances might be a bit challenging. Athlinks.com is sometimes useful to find races of all sorts of distances.

Another site I know that has Canadian race is this one: http://www.marathonguide.com/races/races.cfm The US and Canadian ones are displayed in two month blocks.

There is nothing wrong with walking or a planned run/walk approach like John "The Penguin" Bingham or more specifically Jeff Galloway use. I would suggest using the last six weeks of Galloway's half-marathon plan (see http://www.jeffgalloway.com/training/half-marathon-training/ ). To paraphrase Bingham, your first goal…

Other resources Joe Friels blog on heart rate training. His recent post has citations and studies on polarized training (~80% high volume, low effort training, ~20% at high intensity and virtually none in the middle zone where most of us seem to train). Since taking a three week break after my last marathon in early…

I'm going to be the contrarian here. I was 60 years old when I took up running again in 2013. The last time I ran as a matter of routine (for a number of reasons) was 1986. The last race I trained for prior to 2013 was the Great Raleigh Road Race (10K) in 1985. I was running at 6:30-6:45/mile pace. Fast forward to 2013 and…

I have taken up a running program that has me run nearly everyday. Now, to be honest about this, it is a marathon training program. But it has mostly low speed, low intensity running based upon time, not distance. There are days where I run higher intensity runs (like yesterday it was a short speed interval workout where I…