The mid-week medium long run (Read 2996 times)

cg  - I was a night owl all the way.  Mornings became the routine because they had to be.  I hope you have a basement or a garage for the TM.  I have one thinking they would save my icy day runs, only to realize that I can not use it when anyone is trying to sleep.  There are no basements here.  

About doubles... When I jumped up to the 18/85+ plan I ran my doubles during lunch at work. Since most of the doubles are 4-6 miles, you should be able to complete them in a lunch hour.

I have found the mid-week long run has helped get better at longer distances. But it does suck royally. Early morning 15 milers mid-week usually mean getting up @ 5am. In the middle of winter this sucks... Pfitz doesn't always go easy-MLR-easy. A lot of times the day before the MLR you are running either an LT run or a vo2max intervals. So the MLR is a semi-long run on Tired legs also.

Even for me I run the 15 milers in ~1:55-1:57. I start off really slow then by mile 9-10 I'll be at MP + 15% and by the end MP+10%.... Maybe a goal should be that your average pace for the run should be MP+15%...

These might be the toughest runs in the Pfitz plans, since they aren't your weekend long runs, but are long enough to be "annoying". Plus they are mid-week, so you usually have to get up early if you are a morning runner. Plus half of them usually come after a tough LT/vo2Max run...

In the beginning of the high mileage plans you usually have two of these a week.... Especially the 18 week plans, you'll be doing 14-12, 15-13, 15-14 Wed then Fri.... Fun, fun, fun, but it works...

 

This makes sense, but would feel incredibly slow to me in the first 8 miles.  Yikes.  I have the book.  I need to actually read it. heh.

 

If your first and only marathon was 3:47, then perhaps you'd use a plan like this to prepare for a much faster goal.

I think the slower you are the less useful formulas such as MP + x % are.  That's not a knock, it's just simple math.

I wouldn't worry too much about the exact pace and what percent of your MP it is.  And really do people actually do the math and figure out what MP+10% and MP+20% is?  I usually just run by effort.  And so I'd just take the 12 miler and do:

4 mi easy

4 mi medium

4 mi tempo-ish.

...whatever that turns into.

Training, it turns out, is not a laser-guided, surgical strike.  It's a blunt instrument.

Training, it turns out, is not a laser-guided, surgical strike.  It's a blunt instrument.

 

This is a good mental picture for me.  When I'm feeling crappy I'm telling myself to do more of what makes me feel crappy so that I will eventually feel even crappier.  I doesn't matter whether it's tempo, or easy, or hills, or intervals or whatever.  Then I'm imagining that somewhere at the end of all the crappiness there will be 3 hours and 20 minutes of the worst crap of all followed by a day or two of bliss.  Then repeat, only with worse crappiness so that the 3 hours and 20 minutes becomes a few minutes less. 

 

Writing all that down really makes me wonder what the hell I am doing. 

 

This is a good mental picture for me.  When I'm feeling crappy I'm telling myself to do more of what makes me feel crappy so that I will eventually feel even crappier.  I doesn't matter whether it's tempo, or easy, or hills, or intervals or whatever.  Then I'm imagining that somewhere at the end of all the crappiness there will be 3 hours and 20 minutes of the worst crap of all followed by a day or two of bliss.  Then repeat, only with worse crappiness so that the 3 hours and 20 minutes becomes a few minutes less. 

 

Writing all that down really makes me wonder what the hell I am doing. 

 

What in the hell are you talking about?

 

My brain is a blunt instrument.

 

Heh. If you're feeling crappy all the time, you're doing it wrong.

 it is also my experience that "normal" people bore me. 

 

Heh.