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Training trashed; need informed, experienced advice! (Read 1490 times)

RandyP


    I'm entered in the St. Judes  Memphis Marathon NEXT weekend, December 3rd. This will be my second full; I ran Memphis two years ago. I have been training with a Master Coach plan since June. Everything was going great thru late October, then wham bam my plan was trashed. I had the opportunity to go to Haiti to help build housing the first week in November. I knew that was less than a month out from my race and I knew it would be difficult to train while there, but figured one week wouldn't hurt too bad, then I messed up.

     

    FIRST mistake: Due to poor weather and an inconvient schedule, I missed two runs each on two consecutive weekends before the trip. First workouts I had missed in 18 weeks of training. The missed runs put my mileage for those weeks at about 60% of what I had been doing.

     

    SECOND mistake: Ran on Friday morning Nov. 5, the morning I got on the plane to Haiti. Arrived in Haiti to discover that the local people over-seeing our project wouldn't allow me to run at all for security reasons. Seems that there is a kidnapping problem in Haiti and hitting the road alone would be too risky. And laying concrete blocks all day I was pretty much too tired to run anyway. Got back to the states Saturday, Nov 12; 7 days with NO running.

     

    THIRD mistake: After getting home very late on that Saturday, I was too tired and busy to run on Sunday (my normal rest day). Monday called for a easy fartlek and for some stupid reason I decided to skip it and play basketball instead. Two hours of hoops and the next day my glutes were too sore and tight to run and I missed TWO more days of running. When I finally got back on track it was Thursday & I had missed 11 days.

     

    I did the final three runs for that week, the final week of coordination and the plan called for my taper to start. I have just gone ahead and follwed the schedule this week just as if I had done the whole plan. Now I am eight days out from the race and have had sub-par mileage for basically 6 weeks.

     

    So what do I do? I am 54 years old and this chapter of my running life has been going on about 5 years.

     

        A) Go out at my original goal pace (3:59:59 goal) that I was training for, go for broke, and see what happens. (HINT: No way I'm going to try this.)

     

       B) Pick a more conservative goal (like 4:30) and give it a shot.

     

       C) Go for a 26.2 mile LSD training run.

     

       D) Stay home and pick another race. (I checked as soon as I got home to see if I could switch my entry to the half and the answer was no.)

     

    Thanks for your input.

     

       


    A Saucy Wench

      I'd say probably something between A & B (since you've already discarded A) or if A is really important to you then D.  I have no idea what kind of training you were doing (i.e. really well trainied or marginal training)    but if you really were to a point where a sub 4 marathon was possible I dont think you'll have lost a full 30 minutes.  (Now if that was a smoke pipe dream..thats another story). 

       

      You lost a few weeks of sharpening and probably detrained a little.  15 seconds per mile slower than what was reasonable if you had continued training would probably be a good conservative start and then pick it up after 16 if you are feeling good.

      I have become Death, the destroyer of electronic gadgets

       

      "When I got too tired to run anymore I just pretended I wasnt tired and kept running anyway" - dd, age 7


      Feeling the growl again

        if you really were to a point where a sub 4 marathon was possible I dont think you'll have lost a full 30 minutes.  (Now if that was a smoke pipe dream..thats another story). 

         

         

        +1.

        "If you want to be a bad a$s, then do what a bad a$s does.  There's your pep talk for today.  Go Run." -- Slo_Hand

         

        I am spaniel - Crusher of Treadmills

         

        Trent


        Good Bad & The Monkey

          Imistake: Ran on Friday morning Nov. 5, the morning I got on the plane to Haiti. Arrived in Haiti to discover that the local people over-seeing our project wouldn't allow me to run at all for security reasons. Seems that there is a kidnapping problem in Haiti and hitting the road alone would be too risky. And laying concrete blocks all day I was pretty much too tired to run anyway. Got back to the states Saturday, Nov 12; 7 days with NO running.

           

          As an aside, it sounds like your trip to Haiti was not a mistake, but instead was important, selfless and charitable service to an impoverished country.  Bravo!

          Trent


          Good Bad & The Monkey

            Looking at your log, most of your weeks are 30-35 miles at most, running around a 9-11 minute pace.  It would have surprised me if 4:00 (a steady 9:09 pace) was ever in the cards.  You have no recent races to help gauge whether 4 hours was within your horizon, but the last time you ran a half marathon (1 year ago), you popped a 1:59.  Unless you are substantially more fit now, or better acclimated to racing, or have a better race day, again, it would surprise me if you could pull off a 4:00.

             

            I pick B or C.

            Slo


              As an aside, it sounds like your trip to Haiti was not a mistake, but instead was important, selfless and charitable service to an impoverished country.  Bravo!

               

              +1

                 

                You lost a few weeks of sharpening and probably detrained a little.  15 seconds per mile slower than what was reasonable if you had continued training would probably be a good conservative start and then pick it up after 16 if you are feeling good.

                    +1

                 

                and +1 on what Trent said:  your trip to Haiti was NOT a mistake

                  There's nothing you can do now in training that will have a meaningful impact on your race potential, so focus on preparation:  food, sleep, etc.  The best race I ever had I was undertrained but well rested.  Do a few miles at 4:00 pace this week and see how it feels.  If it feels like too much, then hook up with the 4:30 pace group for the race. 

                    You could try somewhere between B and C. Run the first half like an easy paced long run. If your legs still feel good in the second half, pick it up and negative split. If not, just LSD the whole way.

                    Current Goals: Run and stuff

                    AmoresPerros


                    Options,Account, Forums

                      You could try somewhere between B and C. Run the first half like an easy paced long run. If your legs still feel good in the second half, pick it up and negative split. If not, just LSD the whole way.

                       

                      Plus it is fun to pass people in the second half.

                      It's a 5k. It hurt like hell...then I tried to pick it up. The end.

                      RandyP


                        Thanks everybody for the feedback. Sorry that it took me so long to check back in; just been too busy this week to reply to all your posts.

                        RandyP


                          Looking at your log, most of your weeks are 30-35 miles at most, running around a 9-11 minute pace.  It would have surprised me if 4:00 (a steady 9:09 pace) was ever in the cards.  You have no recent races to help gauge whether 4 hours was within your horizon, but the last time you ran a half marathon (1 year ago), you popped a 1:59.  Unless you are substantially more fit now, or better acclimated to racing, or have a better race day, again, it would surprise me if you could pull off a 4:00.

                           

                          I pick B or C.

                           

                          Trent, didn't mean to imply that it was mistake to go to Haiti. It was a great trip and what was accomplished was very worthwhile. I'd do it again in a heartbeat, even if it was one month out from a marathon. I just meant that it was a training mistake.

                           

                          I really don't know if the sub-4 was in reach or not, but I believe it was. Are you familiar with Master Run Coach? I followed the plan they gave me with a couple of exceptions right up until things fell apart late October/first week of November. The exceptions were I actually ran more miles than they recommended. My longest run would have been 14-15 miles following their parameters; I stretched it to 18 and had planned a 20-miler on the first weekend that I missed the long run. The other change I made was that I substituted Yasso 800's for a couple of their speed sessions. I maedx out at 8 of the 800's under 4:00 and would have done 10 the week I was Haiti if I had stayed home.  

                           

                          I averaged over 35 miles a week in September which was the heart of the hill portion of the training & the first week of the anerobic phase. And most of the 10+ miles were during the base phase and the long runs; or were warm up or cool down miles. The plan included a substantial amount of sub-race pace running, but much of it was in interval's and mediem distance tempo. Some of those don't show up in the log if you just look at the pace for workout; warm up & cool down brought the ave pace up to above race pace. I was feeling really strong mid to late October. The 12 days I missed were smack in the midle of the coordination phase that included two fast each workouts each week.

                           

                          Since things broke down, we will never know if this training program would have produced a sub-4 for me or not. According to their program at the miles and the paces that I trained, if I had completed the training, I should have been able to go under 3:55.

                          RandyP


                            Again, thanks to everybody for your encouragement. I'm leaving for Memphis in the morning with rested legs and the hopes that it will turn out that B and C are actually the same thing. I'm comtemplating running "naked" (no Garmin) and just running by feel and see what happens. Definitely going to start conservative and listen to my body the second half.

                              Thank you for going to Haiti!

                              Running a marathon cannot compare in importance with what you did there.

                              Well done.

                              PBs since age 60:  5k- 24:36, 10k - 47:17. Half Marathon- 1:42:41.

                                                                  10 miles (unofficial) 1:16:44.

                               

                                So how did it go??

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