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Peaked too soon? (Read 513 times)

rlemert


    (I will be cross-posting this over at KickRunners.) There are going to be two half-marathons run locally at the end of the month - one on Mar 29 and one on Apr 5. I'm looking at running the later one since it's flat and I'm looking for a specific goal time. Unfortunately I feel like I've peaked early and/or overtrained, and I'm wondiering how people would suggest I train this month to best retain/recover my conditioning. I'm not feeling as fresh as I used to, and I was thinking that my HR is creeping up for a given pace (although that's not evident in the data below). I don't keep my log her so I don't have anything to make public. Here's a summary of my workouts, most recent week first. (Key: miles are listed M-T-W-Th-F-Sa-Su; 'H' indicates hill work - generally steady pace with varying inclines on treadmill; 'I' indicates intervals - generally 1 mile repeats; 'T' indicates some form of tempo or race pace run. Also listed for each week are a typical pace and HR for one of my representative regular runs that week. These are obtained while running on the Y's 16-lap-per-mile indoor track, so while I don't know how accurate it is at least conditions are consistent.) Mar 3 0 - 8 - 5 - x - x - x - x 11:02 142 Feb 25 5H - 4.5 - 6T - 5 - 8 - 0 - 0 10:56 140 (all treadmill - on business travel) Feb 18 5 - 5 - 4 - 0 - 5 - 13.1 - 0 10:49 140 Feb 11 0 - 6.5T - 4.5 - 8 - 4 - 14 - 0 10:39 137 Feb 4 0 - 5T - 0 - 5 - 5.5 - 10.7 - 4(include 5k race) 10:38 143 Jan 28 5T - 4.5 - 6I - 3.5 - 5 - 16 - 0 10:50 135 Jan 21 5H - 4.5 - 6.5T - 3 - 5 - 14 - 0 10:47 135 Jan 14 5T - 4.5 - 0 - 5.5T - 0 - 12 - 0 10:42 138 Jan 7 5 - 4.5 - 6.2 - 3.5 - 5 - 14 10:34 139 Dec 31 5 - 4.5 - 6.5 - 3.5 - 5 - 12 - 0 10:59 139 My current plans leading up to the race are as follows: Mar 3 'hard' week w/ 6-8 today, 4-5 Fri, 16 Sat all at regular pace Mar 10 'easy' week, in part because I have another business trip all week Mar 17 'hard' week w/ another 16 miler on Sat Mar 24 'easy' week Mar 31 taper Any comments or suggestions?
      Although it may be hard to call "not feeling fresh now" = "peaked", the fact that you were running faster a month ago MAY indicate you peaked then and went down hill from there. However, I kinda doubt it. There are a lot of factors come in to play and your heart rate being 3 or 4 beats higher DURING the exercise, to me, is hardly an indication that you are doing badly. Running almost a half a minute per mile slower seems large enough a drop that you may want to look into it but then again, I would consider factors like; how was the footing (here in MN, it gets pretty icy lately); how about your traveling whole week; that sort of thing. Those changes you have mentioned, within the scheme of a month or two, I would not necessarily worry too much about it. Peaking for the half marathon is another matter. We all have ups and downs and some days or even weeks we feel a bit low. Certainly, you don't want that to coincide with your half marathon day/week. The girl I'm coaching and myself sort of hit a bit of a bottom a few weeks ago. We just did one hard workout; we just set the date and set out to do a tough workout regardless (it was 3F that day...). We did 3X1200m with only a minute recovery in between. We didn't run them necessarily FAST but we ran them HARD. That sort of put us on the right track. Winter does play a trick on you sometimes. You need to see if it's mental (could happen) or physical; if it's physical, you need to determine if you're overtrained or just feeling sluggish; other life's stress or whatever. Give it some time.


      SMART Approach

        On your miles, which aren't high, you are doing a very long run and some intensity during week. Might me a bit much. Keep it simplel. Focus on two bigger runs a week that are longer like, 8-10 and 10-13. One run mix in some 1/2 marathon paced reps (not goal pace-current fitness) or longer tempos like 5 miles at 1 min per mile slower than 5K pace). Also do 4 X 200M quick or 6-8x100 fast w/ full recovery. On long run mix in some slow tempo miles or faster finish last 2-3 miles. Do this if only feeling good. If not, run comfortable. These work outs will help you with you big time with your half. Every other training run should be 5-6 miles very comfortable paced, you can throw in some striders if you wish on a couple of them.

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