Basebuilding - Check.... (Read 1267 times)

Right you mentioned the half--that will be good as a big workout when you're peaking for the marathon. Any chance of finding another long race before then? A 30k would be ideal but those are hard to find.

Definitely looking for something, but Active's search function sucks these days. I'll definitely be looking out for it. Thanks Mike. MTA: http://www.indyrunners.org/race-calendar.cfm According to Indy Runners (about an hour east of Indy), my only option is a 15k at the beginning of March. Not a whole lot in the distance category around here.

It may be a little far, but there's a 30k near Pittsburgh at the end of March. www.Justashortrun.net

Yeah I wouldn't travel to Philly for a tune-up race, or even more than an hour or two. Your plan is solid, makers, no worries.

Well, I wasn't planning on going anywhere out of my way. The Sam Costa Half is in Indy and starts about 45 minutes from the house...I've never ran a half and its the only one on a Saturday close by, so I figure why not. And then the marathon start line is 1.2 miles from my college alma mater, and I know almost every guy in the dorm, so I have a place to stay for free there. I'm too cheap to spend bookoos of money. I'm getting married in May...and she'll spend it for me then. Now, if I can just figure out a way to stop the snow so I can do my midweek run today. The roads were clear yesterday, but we've gotten 4 inches in the past 4 hours...not excited about that at all.

This is where the HTFU goes, right? High-stepping through all that powder makes for a great ab & quad workout, don't it?

You're telling me. Did 10 last Tuesday with about 3 inches on the ground. (Btw, it's almost impossible to do marathon pace with pure snow underneath you is what I found out...) Then Wednesday, we had 10 inches on the ground...so I ran three easy miles and went to Tennessee to spend the weekend with my fiance and her parents... I was hoping to escape...but NOOOOOOOOO! Oh well, we'll see what happens today. I feel the need to get dirty looks for exercising so it might be a midweek run.

Thanks Paul. I did mile repeats today. It was quite interesting. We got 10 inches of snow last week and 6 yesterday. Roads were far from clear today, but I wanted to get in a good run, so I headed out. I did a 3.1 mile warm up (couldn't get around the 4-way stop as school cleared - thus the .1) I then did 1 miles in 6:56 with a .28 recovery. I then did another 6:56 miles with about .4 recovery. I was surprised to get the mile in at 6:56 because it was mostly uphill...in the snow (dangit, I sound like my father). The final mile was a bit tougher, but I was lucky and had it perfectly straight and flat. Unfortunately, there's such thing as WHITE ice in the middle of snow and I completely bit it. I landed right on my tailbone and felt jarred. So I stopped and walked for a minute to make sure everything was okay...then I finished the mile in 6:57. I was going to do another, but my hips were hurting and I was unsure if I had really done anything to my body with the fall (by far the most vicious spill I've ever taken while running...it had to look like someone who was drunk and ice skating as I fell), so then I did a 4.2 mile cool down to get in my 11 miles. Overall, it was a really good workout, even with the snow and ice...and I guess the fall. Wish I could have gotten in one more mile though. Thanks for the recommendation mikey, will definitely hit out the full workout minus the spill next week. As for the weekend, got an 18 miler scheduled, so looking to do 12 miles and finish with 6 at marathon pace...and that'll put me over 50 miles in 5 days, meaning my quest for my first 60 mile week is a for sure.

makers, I give you a lot of credit doing mile repeats in weather like that. Personally I've been going with the theory that in this weather I'll just take my lumps and get in the miles--the miles do 90% of the work anyway--and look for warmer days for the real workouts. I know you were probably trying to work around the road conditions to some extent and not wanting to start a mile rep right before a busy intersection etc. but in general I'd like to keep the rest interval short and consistent, say 2 minutes or 90 seconds between reps. You can even start with longer, say 3 minutes, and do the same workout a few times over a course of several weeks and reduce the rest to 2:30, then 2:00, then 1:30 but keep the reps and time the same.

makers, I give you a lot of credit doing mile repeats in weather like that. Personally I've been going with the theory that in this weather I'll just take my lumps and get in the miles--the miles do 90% of the work anyway--and look for warmer days for the real workouts. I know you were probably trying to work around the road conditions to some extent and not wanting to start a mile rep right before a busy intersection etc. but in general I'd like to keep the rest interval short and consistent, say 2 minutes or 90 seconds between reps. You can even start with longer, say 3 minutes, and do the same workout a few times over a course of several weeks and reduce the rest to 2:30, then 2:00, then 1:30 but keep the reps and time the same.

Thanks mikey. I'll keep that one in mind for next week. Praise God it's supposed to be in the 50's from Saturday on, so the ice/snow should be disappearing. I'll also take the recovery time thing in mind, as I know that it helps to simulate the race like atmosphere when I'm running on fatigued legs - Wednesday was definitely difficult. dg...otherletters.... Yeah. My problem is that I have a hard time running at 9:30+ unless I am running with a group here in town every now and then. But, I heeded the advice of a lot of the bigwigs here on RA and loaded up on miles and did them all easy. I didn't really see whats happening to actually happen so soon, but it's a great encouragement. As for slowing down to keep my HR down and going from there - 1.) I don't know enough about HR to do that and 2.) Like I said, I took the RA Elites advice and made it slow by listening to my body. That was the key. I ran the pace that my body let me run. At the beginning, easy runs were 8:50-9:00 and long runs would be around 9:00-9:20 even. If I did a recovery jog, it'd be at 9:30-9:45 with the group of ultra runners that live in my town who are psycho.... Overall though, the effects of listening to my body has been great. After the workout on Wednesday, my legs were completely fresh by Thursday (my lower back/tailbone from the wipeout is another story). I'm thinking that maybe many people complicate the whole process of building a base by feeling that they must get out and hist x: xx pace or keep their heart rate consistently around xxx bpm. When they begin to focus on those things, they miss the joy of the run. While that can build the base all in the same, it's almost as though in trying to focus on the numbers the entire time, they miss out on everything else and it's so taxing on their mind that psychologically, the run is nothing more than numbers, instead of a relaxing time of training. For me, if I had made it numbers, I think I would have quit a long time ago. But, by getting out the door every day and running x amount of miles, I'd get back and plug in how long I ran and what my HR was, and go on my way. The numbers I recorded were nothing more than the results and didn't dictate how my training went, and in my opinion, that helped my basebuilding be a much more pleasurable experience.

I'm thinking that maybe many people complicate the whole process of building a base by feeling that they must get out and hist x: xx pace or keep their heart rate consistently around xxx bpm. When they begin to focus on those things, they miss the joy of the run. While that can build the base all in the same, it's almost as though in trying to focus on the numbers the entire time, they miss out on everything else and it's so taxing on their mind that psychologically, the run is nothing more than numbers, instead of a relaxing time of training. For me, if I had made it numbers, I think I would have quit a long time ago. But, by getting out the door every day and running x amount of miles, I'd get back and plug in how long I ran and what my HR was, and go on my way. The numbers I recorded were nothing more than the results and didn't dictate how my training went, and in my opinion, that helped my basebuilding be a much more pleasurable experience.

WELL SAID. 2 workouts I like during base: -10 reps of 5 minutes with 1 minute easy, with 15 minutes warmup and cooldown (90 minutes total). Hard parts at about half-marathon to 30k level of effort, but back off if it gets strenuous. It's a long tempo run, and a medium-long run. - ("mono fartlek") 90 sec hard 90 sec easy x 2, 60 sec hard 60 sec easy x 4. 30 sec hard 30 sec easy x 4, 15 sec hard 15 sec easy x 4. This is pretty good at maintaining basic speed, but the volume is low enough that it isn't really taxing. You can do it as part of a longer run, or just with a 10 minute warmup and cooldown which will make it a 40 minute run.