The Waltons aka Advanced Half Marathon Training Thread - 2022 edition (Read 444 times)

Ok here's a jumble of thoughts about last week -> There's probably too much Tri specific stuff in here for which I apologize.

•  Week started with me feeling a little off, HR wasn't up but things just didn't feel right. Mrs. Z had gotten covid the week before so I started testing like crazy (lots of negatives, so I raced).  The big downside is she holed up in our room and I slept on a cot in the living room (not comfortable).
• Tuesday's workout was 3x[600@LT, 1 min rest, 300@5k, 2-3 min rest] -- really really easy. I didn't feel great but my legs did this trivially (as per the design, long long rests, short reps just getting some turnover in.
• I took Wednesday off and just worried.
• Thursday was 3x2 min @ 10k effort on quarter mile jog + 2 x 200m fast but relaxed. This did not feel good. I think I overran the 2 minute segments and just did not feel recovered. 
• Friday was 15 min + strides. ugg. I told myself it was taper madness and the race would be fine. 
• Friday PM we drove 2.5 hours to the race site and my son and I got in the water for our first open water swim of the year. Water temp was 62F and I couldn't stop hyperventilating when I put my face in the water. My chest felt constricted and I told myself the goal is to finish and breast stroke it if need be.
• Saturday I woke up and felt fine. not good, not bad, just fine. I threw out all my plans and told myself to go at a pace where I knew I was racing, but was closer to long tempo effort than any sort of race effort and I knew I needed to eat and drink on the bike. I expected to be out there around 3 hours. 
• I spent about 10 minutes putting on my wetsuit as best I can. Think about a woman putting on stockings where you start at the bottom and pull up a little at a time only I had to do that over my whole body. One item I forgot this year is wetsuit lube which makes putting the suit on easier, but it felt much better than Friday evening. Water temp was 61 so I just went and sat in the water for about 8 minutes to get used to it. I felt no chest constriction and near the end put my face in 3 times!!  It was windy, it looked nothing like Piwi's wave, but I knew it would push me around. 
• I started at the very back of the wave of men 40+, got in the water, swam 10 strokes, sighted seeing that I was off course, swam 10 strokes, realized I was off course again and ended up doing about 70-80% of the 1500m breaststroke. I passed a lot of people with only a couple of the quicker women catching me. The major downside was that after the final turn my right calf absolutely cramped up on me and I had to roll onto my back and do some elementary back stroke to get it to calm down. As soon I took two steps in the shallows both calves cramped and I had to stop and float and pull my feet up into dorsiflexion with my hands. I walked into transition just to avoid aggravating the calves. 28:30 out of the water despite the breast stroke and the cramps. 
• The wind had only picked up to about 19mph on the bike ride which was two loops. The way out into the wind was brutal and the way back was great. I tried to go hard without going lactic and while I succeeded at that I think I have bike fit problems because I got a whole bunch of leg pains in my adductor, groin and upper hamstrings that I have literally never felt before. Note to self: lots of rides with your kids are great family time and good for training the butt to sit in a saddle, they are not good tri training. There's a fit issue and a lack of cycling musculature that I was clearly suffering from.
• The part about the bike that went well was that I consumed 4 gels (2xhuma, 1xhuma w/ caffeine, 1xSiS) over 1h20m and my stomach had no issues with them.
• The run .... was all about survival. Those little muscles that the bike aggravated? I could feel all of them. To make matters worse I got out of transition, ran about 150m and realized I had forgot my belt w/ my bib and had to run back. I tried to just make myself run hard but controlled and the first lap and a half was fine but even with people to chase, the final mile and a half I was just fading. I simply couldn't get my cadence up and when I sprinted at the end, my right leg was locking up and didn't have full ROM. That is certainly a worry going into marathon training 46:59 watch time. The aerobic system didn't feel terribly stressed, the stomach was strong but the legs just didn't have anything more after the riding. 
• Major shout out to my oldest Son (aka the reason I signed up for this). He has been primarily playing tennis with just a side of aerobic activities and he finished, and enjoyed his first Olympic which is about all you can ask for. 

Takeaways:

• I think brick workouts (running after the bike) are overrated, but doing one or two would help
• The goal was to supplement my running with some cycling and swimming. I did great w/ the swimming but I didn't with the cycling. A few workout or rides where I seek out hills would have gone a long long ways.
• Open water swim practice! I need to learn to swim mostly straight in choppy conditions.
• Sometimes all you can do is grind it out, and I did that.
• In running the pace difference going from 5k to 10k or 10k to half is relatively small ... under ideal conditions. The combination of wind, heat (on the run), minimal bike training etc. was something I didn't fully respect! (i.e. I thought 20mph on the bike was a reasonable because I averaged 23 mph the year before at half the distance in perfect conditions). 

What's next?

A sprint tri this Sunday of course! I get to immediately apply some lessons (worked on the bike fit yesterday) and do a shorter and faster race! After that I'll probably take a week off and spend a month rebuilding my base before training for Twin cities Marathon. I'd love to race a 400, 800 and mile during that month just for fun but we'll see how I feel.

p.s. official times don't seem to be published yet but from what I saw at the finish I was 8/15 for men over 40 or exactly 50% ... meh.

Just to add some weather complaining to the thread.

It was 17C (63F) at 6am this morning.  I would expect that in Jan, Feb, even March... but June?!?!  Not fun.

Caitlin hope it's mild for you like most people. We didn't test + until we felt sick so hopefully it's milder for you.

Mark I think we have short memories. June can still throw out some muggy days. I used to run the Mount joggers event each Queens birthday weekend and it was often warm.

Caitlin - Hopefully it's just the standard cold or not even that for you.  But definitely take a cautious approach.

Zebano - Not that I ever was going to but I'm now even more convinced I'll never do a tri.  Great effort and report, hopefully the sprint isn't quite as brutal.

Mark - You should have been at the infamous 2017 ChCh marathon!  The rain level was similar but it was bitterly cold with sleet mixed in and a strong southerly for the last 5km.  This weekend looks reasonably good, albeit cold as you'd expect so hopefully another reminder to the organisers that it should have been happening this weekend...

Shoes - I feel a pang when throwing out PR shoes but that hasn't been an issue for sometime...now I have PRs, and racing shoes it still probably won't happen for a while as they'll be retired to training shoes.

Ugh yeah my quads froze up in that one.

Caitlin - Oh, stink one. Sorry to hear that. When it went through our family, our 12-yr old never got it, I only got it mildly, and Mrs Hash (although not officially married...yet!) felt the worst. I teased her about my body being more robust. She reminded me she gave birth to our children. She won. As usual

Zeb - Great effort, and interesting read. Yeah, Tri is big over here. I think you're all nuts. I'm tired enough after running, let alone adding two more tough activities to that.

Mark/Piwi - My lil sis lives in Auckland (although regularly comes down to see the girls). She's adamant that she'll never return to live in Welly - coz the weather just isn't warm enough. Yeah, but we don't have ants down here. So there. (clutching at straws - would be nice to be a bit warmer, with just sliiiiiiightly less wind)

DW - Keep sharing whatever you feel comfortable sharing. The general topic of sharing things that impact our running reminds me of the old  "What do you do to keep yourself safe when running?" question.

Watson - Seems you're getting back into it. Maybe you'll make it to one of the XC events in the next couple months?

It's a day of sideways heavy rain here in Wellington. I managed to find an hour's gap to run (didn't rain at all), and as soon as I got home the heavy rain came down again. Not overly cold, though - silver linings.

On the 6x1kms...well I only do 5 now too. I think 6 is a better prediction of 5k race pace. My 5ks off 5x1kms are a bit slower than the interval pace. But when I did 6 it was spot on.

That's a great point. I found shortening up the rest to 90 seconds for a predictor workout works fine with 5 reps but I actually use the Aussie Quarters workout I mentioned earlier. If I can hold the recovery pace at about M + 30 seconds or faster then I know I can race the "on" pace for a 5k.

Mark 17F sounds amazing right now!! I have to get out the door by 5:30Am to get that.

Caitlinn, so sorry, I hope you get a mild case. My wife has been fine for 10 days now but is still testing positive which is super aggravating.

Steve  Fair point. I always tell people the best exercise plan is one you can stick to. I happen to enjoy biking and swimming with my family so I'll probably continue to do a few but choose only the sprint distances.

Hash  yeah two guys ran 35 minute 10k the other day at the end of the tri, I imagine training for that is like 20+ hours a week. Simply absurd.

Mark (et al),  what did you guys do with your flats when you got supershoes? I still have two pair sitting on my shelves without enough miles to justify throwing them out.

Flavio  I just took two days totally off thank you very much. Contemplating racing a 5k on the 10th now though.... =0

Lets talk mile predictor workouts, what type of rest on the 8x400 and how does that translate for you? I've found that even with a minute rest it's just a little too easy compared to race day for me. Maybe 10x400 on min rest would work but that just sounds brutal.  I think I'd prefer to try some broken mile type things KM @ race effort, 4 min rest, 600@ race effort, 2 min rest, 400 was one someone told me about once and it sounds terrible.