Forums >Racing>2018 3:20 (and beyond)
Recovery Phenom
Here is my week (replies on previous page):
I was mega sore after the 20 x 200m workout and I didn't think that 15 at marathon pace would be possible, but miraculously I did it. I was shooting for a marathon pace of 7:24, but I ended up running an average 7:21 and I felt like I could have gone another mile or two at that pace. New weekly mileage PR for me. Previous highest was 73.5 a few weeks back. Here's a more in-depth recap on my blog.
Weekly SummaryMonday, Mar 12, 2018 thru Sunday, Mar 18, 2018
26.2 x 31 (3:15:34 PR)
13.1 x 35 (1:30:58 PR)
Author of the book Boston Bound
Elizabeth: Nice week! That's a great MP long run. It seems like you're recovering really well from your workouts.
Matt: Congrats on Tobacco Road! 3:20 seems good to me, especially after being sick.
Arvind: Scarlet fever seems pretty serious - I'm sure it's just going to take some time for your speed to come back.
Commander: Congrats to DD.
Hello everyone else!
I ran the Shamrock 8k this morning. Good news: PR, since I hadn't ever run an 8k before! And no rain! And I won my age group!
Bad news: I ran the same pace today that I ran last year in the 15k on a much easier course! Ooops! Last year I was at the peak of marathon training though. So now I know how far I have to go (far). I ran a 36:17, I think -- I felt comfortable and controlled for most of it, except for a stretch from mile 3 to 4 where we had a pretty strong headwind. My last mile was my fastest, so that was good. Overall, although I'm not thrilled with my time it does give me a baseline to start training for a June half, and I was happy to be out there again. It's a fun race -- they have a 5k, 8k, 15k, and a half, and it's the race that kicks of racing season in Portland. Tons of people run it (There were 4500 in the 8k alone, and the 15k is usually the biggest race), and there are usually a few pros that come out. Alan Webb's wife won the 15k for women, Sage Canaday for the men. The 15k and the half are really tough - 4 miles uphill -- but the 5k and 8k are pretty flat. My legs feel pretty good now, so I think I was maybe a little more cautious than I needed to be, but that's ok -- like I said, I needed a baseline and now I have it. I have 11 or 12 weeks until the half -- does anyone have a good half marathon training plan? I think I've only trained specifically for a half once, and I just kind of made it up as I went along.
pie man
Struggled, but fought off the DNF demons at the Tobacco Road Marathon this morning.Half split at 1:32:23Finished with 3:20:11AKA - I went out too fast.If you BQ, you get a bonus shirt.Also, marathons are stupid.
Hey, positive split buddy! 1:34/3:17. Surprisingly my fastest time since 2014.
i do think I'm going to lose some toenails. I went with the Vazees that I've been using as my flats. I think I've done up to a half in them (or a 12+ day in them anyway). But they didn't irritate my weird blister that I've been fighting since last week so I went with it. I don't think there will be any residual problems--sometimes I can feel the PF twinge after wearing them, but pretty ok on that front.
Went out around 1:35 like I planned. There as a 1:35 half pace group but they were close a minute under. I knew they were but at some point I caught up and I figured it was about the same to run 3 or 4 seconds faster but tucked in to the group. They were dropping people pretty consistently at that pace too. The wind was at out back for this whole section so I think there were some faster miles. Didn't feel like I was too crazy at this point. Felt the wind all the way at the bottom of the beach section, but just briefly. The next 3ish were along a road and then a U turn and finally it was he wind. But my pace had drifted up at the point. I flipped away from pace to overall time when it went from 7:11 to 7:13 pretty quickly. I didn't think anything good was going to come from it.
i was feeling pretty drained and focus turned to just finishing. A handful of folks were passing me but not as many as I expected. I took a third gu around 21 and weaved through the weird base section south of town (the base section in the first half was a simple loop). The wind was probably affecting me, but not 3 or 4 minutes affected and I'm more anchored than most other folks out there (although one guy who look less in shape than I passed me somewhere between 24 and the end on the way to a 3:15 or 3;16). 3:15 pacer passed me in the last mile as well, he was all alone. I figured he probably had 25 or 30 people with him at the start. I was hopping to come in there so I could at least say I had a BQ, even if I had no chance with the time. But by then I was 100% focused on not walking. And that was very good because two steps over the line my glute sorta seized up and I was barley able to walk. But I was done so I didn't really care so much then.
I got got decent sleep. I was still coughing a lot, but I only seemed to be awake every hour or so. And I actually overslept a tad (maybe a first) and had to hustle up to the start. Luckily the corals were wide open and I even snuck into 1 where I was supposed to be in 2. Which was strange since the 1:35 pacer was in coral 1? Didn't seem to effect me during the race, but I could have been tired from the whole week (didn't get much sleep every night, maybe 5 hours Max). Ate fine, took as many gus as I ever have. I think 3:10 but the absolute max of what I can do at the moment and just enough went south where I couldn't pull it off. On to the next thing.
11:11 3,000 (recent)
Matt: nice work on the Marathon!. I got a laugh out of “Also, marathons are stupid” How were the conditions? How’d you feel that morning, were you still fighting the cold? We had one guy from our training group shooting for BQ at 3:05. He ran 3:06:01.
RLK: I’m envious of your international exploratory running!
Ilana: glad you’re getting back into the swing of running again. How’s it feeling?
Elizabeth: the hip is weird. Essentially no pain with the motions of running, but impact is a B*$#h. You should be sore after those 200s in that week!! How are feeling with the current training load?
Oregon: nice job on the AG win and the new PR! You're 100% on your 8k AG wins!
PJ: nice racing! Is that a BQ for you?
“Enjoyed” a long pool workout this afternoon. It was just good to get the HR up for an extended period. According to the DW Pool Running Conversion Chart I did 10 “miles” of pool running and 1000m swim. I split the run up to preserve sanity. Pool running was in the deep end, no impact. DW: I have so many pool running questions for you?!? Let me know when you're ready for them.
Workout looked like this: 40:00 pool run, 800m lap swim, 40:00 pool run, 200m freestyle sprint (no breaks between segments)
Total time was 1:42:00.
Tried some elliptical afterwards. Hip pain was a lot less than running, but present enough to know I’m not ready for elliptical runs. I’ll try out the bike tomorrow and see how that goes.
I had the pleasure of having a 15 minute conversation with a 7 year old boy about how he could swim faster than me because he was beating me while I was pool running. We also discussed breath holding, Xbox, and how you're not supposed to hang on the lane rope. It was a fun way to pass the time, haha.
Road Mile: 5:19 (2017), 5k: 17:09 (2021), 10k: 35:54 (2021), HM: 1:21:55 (2020), M: 2:53:18 (2021)
Matt - Sounds kind of rough with a 15+ minute positive split.
PJ - Those seconds early on in the race can come back to bite you. Do you think it affected you negatively?
Elisabeth - Nice week for sure. That's some very solid mileage right there.
Oregon - Congrats on the PR!
Ace - That's some nice pool time!
I ended up with a good week and got the answer I needed on my run today. It was a bit windy so it was more variable conditions than Wednesday, but my HR stayed where I wanted it to and the 8 miles at goal m-pace felt nice and easy. At my race 2 years ago my average HR hit 161 on mile 8, today it was 155 at the last mile. Average pace was 7:42 for those 8 miles, which is probably good for somewhere close to 3:23 in my race if I can keep the pace up.
<tfoot> </tfoot>
5k: 20:32 (1/17) | HM: 1:34:37 (2/18) | FM: 3:31:37 (3/18)
Getting back into it
Conditions were near perfect: 44F and overcast at the start. There was some wind, but it was only felt as a headwind for about .5 mile in mile 2 and .5 mile in mile 24. It was a crosswind the rest of the time, but rarely felt due to being in trees. I was still coughing and blowing my nose some before the race, but once I got going I don't think it was a factor.
Yep, from about mile 17 on was a suck fest for me. I went out too fast for my current fitness and paid the price. I wanted to drop down to a walk or super slow jog, but somehow kept going as best I could. I would try to latch on to folks passing me, but that was usually short lived. My quads got tight and painful and I had to block that out. The last 4 miles was a struggle to maintain a low 9 minute pace. I was hoping be just under 9 for those as I knew a sub 3:20 was going to be tight.
Here's my splits in the training log if anyone is interested.
Ace - nah, needed 3:15 which means 3:11 low. I was probably under through 20 and then not.
champ - it did a little, but i think it was progress overall. Plus 3:10 was the goal of everything went right and it didn't quite.
Matt - my slowest 2 looked to be 8:45 ish. The 3:15 pacer blew by me and I thought 'I should try to stay with him' for all of three seconds.
My gps
https://www.strava.com/activities/1459663138
Ace - nah, needed 3:15 which means 3:11 low. I was probably under through 20 and then not. champ - it did a little, but i think it was progress overall. Plus 3:10 was the goal of everything went right and it didn't quite. Matt - my slowest 2 looked to be 8:45 ish. The 3:15 pacer blew by me and I thought 'I should try to stay with him' for all of three seconds. My gps https://www.strava.com/activities/1459663138
Still a good run PJ. Those late miles are almost always a struggle for me. I think I've only had 2 marathons where I didn't have a significant fade like this.
Quick update and I promise I'll be back with shoutouts and report! I managed to come in first female in the half this weekend. It was a small race and my Garmin has an elapsed time of 1:34:45 with 12.96 miles. It was a short course, so good thing this isn't a PR, since as a friend said, it'd be a waste to get a PR on a short course! My total running time on my Garmin is about 10 seconds less because I stupidly stopped it instinctively while asking a volunteer wtf to do when I came across a spot under a bridge with what looked to be about 5" of standing water with no dry spots. We ended up running on the wall around it, so my gymnastics background definitely helped there. Nothing awesome and the headwind on the 6.5 miles back on the out and back course seemed to really trigger my asthma. But all in all I think it was a good thing to do and see *kind of* what kind of shape I'm in.
PRs: HM: 1:32:59 (2015); FM: 3:18:36 (2017)
Cobra Commander Keen
Katia - Good job on the race!
Ace - When will you get the MRI results?
Sorry for the drive by; long replies are tough from my phone. I'll put in some proper comments once I can get on a computer again.
So glad my cutback week is over! All my easy runs were fast for the HR, which was nice, but also made it seem like I wasn't doing so much. MP felt oddly doable during my LR - not that I could have kept it up for a full race at this point, but I think I had several more miles at that effort in me.
Back to proper training this week!
Monday, Mar 12, 2018 thru Sunday, Mar 18, 2018
5k: 17:58 11/22 │ 10k: 37:55 9/21 │ HM: 1:23:22 4/22 │ M: 2:56:05 12/22
Upcoming Races:
OKC Memorial 5k - April 27
Bun Run 5k - May 4
Speed Surplus
Congrats on AG wins for Katia and oregonrw!
Congrats to pepperjack and matt on completing marathons in the ballpark of 3:20!
Good luck on your MRI (today, right?) Ace.
I ran the St. Pat's 5k on Saturday and finished in 19:49, which was good for 66/3,411 and 3/160 in my age group (first race as a Master!) However, it was the slowest 5k I've run in ~4 years and I didn't pace or execute well. Still, my streak of 19x 5ks lives on!
In order, going back to 2014...
19:49 - solo time trial on track
19:18 - Green lake gobble with Max
19:15 - all comers track
19:14 - Green lake gobble
19:46 - Mill Creek puddle run
19:17 - St. Pat's
19:03 - all comers track
19:37 - Fremont Oktoberfest
19:20 - St. Pat's
19:49 - St. Pat's
Holy cow, that's 10 in a row! Brew gave me the finger on Strava - definitely deserved - for downplaying the time, but I really was hoping for a little better. Also, I really want to break 19 at some point soon.
Race report: It's a big race (3,000+ people) and it starts with a downhill, so it is worth getting to the front and going out reasonably hard to avoid being trampled and/or boxed in. However, I definitely took this too far in the first 800 meters or so, as I ran the first mile in 6:15 and that was after slowing considerably. At probably 1200 meters my legs were feeling a bit dead and I got the sense that I hadn't warmed up enough.
The second mile has a minor hill that goes on for a while, and I really just lost focus there. I was starting to develop a side stitch and I mentally slacked off up the hill. When I hit the turnaround I picked up the pace back down the hill, but my split was something disastrous like 6:50. That didn't help with the focus, as I knew it would be tough to break 20, and I wouldn't be anywhere close to a PR.
Of course, I wasn't expecting a PR, but maybe 19:30 or 19:20 best case, as that's what I ran last year without an optimal build up. Still, I chugged through the last mile (and one last steep hill) and closed reasonably well.
I think with a better warmup and more focus, those times are within reach at my current fitness (also on a pancake flat course). So overall, it's reasonably encouraging. Even 19:49 is enough speed for the 3:10 I'm after at Tunnel, so I just need to build my mileage. (I failed to get my long run in this week as we spent all day Sunday trying to buy a used Minivan...)
5:27 / 18:49 / 40:32 / 88:12 / 3:12
Jogger
Congrats on AG wins for Katia and oregonrw! Congrats to pepperjack and matt on completing marathons in the ballpark of 3:20! Good luck on your MRI (today, right?) Ace. I ran the St. Pat's 5k on Saturday and finished in 19:49, which was good for 66/3,411 and 3/160 in my age group (first race as a Master!) However, it was the slowest 5k I've run in ~4 years and I didn't pace or execute well. Still, my streak of 19x 5ks lives on! In order, going back to 2014... 19:49 - solo time trial on track 19:18 - Green lake gobble with Max 19:15 - all comers track 19:14 - Green lake gobble 19:46 - Mill Creek puddle run 19:17 - St. Pat's 19:03 - all comers track 19:37 - Fremont Oktoberfest 19:20 - St. Pat's 19:49 - St. Pat's Holy cow, that's 10 in a row! Brew gave me the finger on Strava - definitely deserved - for downplaying the time, but I really was hoping for a little better. Also, I really want to break 19 at some point soon. Race report: It's a big race (3,000+ people) and it starts with a downhill, so it is worth getting to the front and going out reasonably hard to avoid being trampled and/or boxed in. However, I definitely took this too far in the first 800 meters or so, as I ran the first mile in 6:15 and that was after slowing considerably. At probably 1200 meters my legs were feeling a bit dead and I got the sense that I hadn't warmed up enough. The second mile has a minor hill that goes on for a while, and I really just lost focus there. I was starting to develop a side stitch and I mentally slacked off up the hill. When I hit the turnaround I picked up the pace back down the hill, but my split was something disastrous like 6:50. That didn't help with the focus, as I knew it would be tough to break 20, and I wouldn't be anywhere close to a PR. Of course, I wasn't expecting a PR, but maybe 19:30 or 19:20 best case, as that's what I ran last year without an optimal build up. Still, I chugged through the last mile (and one last steep hill) and closed reasonably well. I think with a better warmup and more focus, those times are within reach at my current fitness (also on a pancake flat course). So overall, it's reasonably encouraging. Even 19:49 is enough speed for the 3:10 I'm after at Tunnel, so I just need to build my mileage. (I failed to get my long run in this week as we spent all day Sunday trying to buy a used Minivan...)
Another 19 : xx cursed runner here. I can relate. Did I tell you about that one time I ran 19:01?
Mile 5:24 3k 11:01 5k 19:01 10k 38:34 hm 1:26:57 fm 3:02:33
Or that one time I ran 19:17 back to back...
Pace Prophet
Matt - it's the age-old story! At least you know exactly what you did wrong...
PJ - sympathies to you as well, though yours doesn't look quite so painful.
Katia - congratulations again, and are you getting the plaque exchanged?
Clever - aw, bummer on not executing or pacing well. 5k is a hard race to get perfect. Congrats on the 3rd AG, though!
Elizabeth - ooh, nice mpw pr.
Oregon - congrats on your PR by default, and I know exactly how demoralizing it is to have the same pace in a shorter race. I'm a fan of building your own program using the principles in Brad Hudson's book Run Faster. I like to build up pretty quickly to my goal mpw and hold it there, while working on extending tempos and getting in some long lactate clearance workouts.
Rune - My spreadsheet suggests 3:25-3:30, but a lot depends on how your overall mileage has been, and how fit you feel compared to your previous marathon. Things that would suggest a time toward the faster end: higher overall mileage for the past 6 months (not just in your program), being older than ~45 or so, a 5k slower than 20:35. If you're dead-set on 3:23 that's not out of the question, but given your comment about lower mileage than you liked I would tend to be more conservative than that.
We got some snow yesterday but not much - it's all melted here in town now. We were thinking of going skiing today but decided to hold off until Friday, as another storm's coming in on Thursday. I will do an afternoon run instead.
Thanks Ilana! I certainly feel a lot more fit than 2 years ago. That marathon was run on less than 30 miles a week for 12 weeks (basically starting January 2016), and virtually no easy miles, although I had more runs past 15 miles that year than this. Mileage before that was about 300 total miles in 2015, most of it from August and out. I just turned 45 so I guess that doesn't help much . 3:25 is my real goal, I think I can do 3:23 based on training etc, but who knows. For me everything seems to be pointing towards that I should be able to handle the distance better than last time, but whether I will or not will be revealed on Sunday . Appreciate the advice!