Forums >Racing>2018 Sub-3. No rules. Run.
I hit my 22 mile long run yesterday without issue to cap off the biggest week of my schedule, 90 miles. This included a 7 mile LAT which went well too, so I'm feeling confident with 5 weeks to go. Next weekend my schedule calls for a race so I'll be going after a PR in a local 10k.
SubDood - nice job on the MP. 14 miles is tough, especially in the heat and humidity. For the endurolytes not sure if you'll get any benefit taking them before the run. I've found them useful taking them during the run, whenever I feel a little tinge/cramp in my legs.
BGS - It's worth experimenting with getting in some calories and electrolytes in addition to water on the long runs, especially if you are struggling with cramping, lightheadedness, or just generally running out of energy.
Subdood: Great job on the 14 at MP! Hope you enjoyed a well-earned nap.
sling: Great ob on your 14 at MP as well! I agree with Mikkey re the treadmill; I did some Q long runs on it last winter that I could not have matched on the road, even flat roads. But it is still a great way to get in quality if Mother Nature is not cooperating. Although it doesn't have all the constant variations in elevation and terrain that outdoor running does, I feel like you can really push things aerobically very hard on the mill, because the surface and grade, etc are constant.
Weather: Great week last week and the T pace is very impressive. I was reminded again that a 10k for you would be very interesting (but in cool conditions!). Maybe when you make a trip up north see if you can find one.
madison: Congrats on the huge week and hitting the 7 mile LAT; that is blazing fast.
My week: I was planning to do a half today but the weather forecast was awful for it: 80+ degrees and a dew point of 73-ish, which is not racing weather for me. Pretty annoying as the day before the weather was quite nice in the morning. Now we are in for about 5 days of very hot humid weather. Anyway, I did a long run with some quality in it yesterday since I did not have to taper for a race. I may try to get in a longer time trial at some point in the next couple weeks to get an idea of my fitness.
Weekly SummaryMonday, Aug 27, 2018 thru Sunday, Sep 02, 2018
2:52:16 (2018)
Madison: Another huge week. Really looking good with 5 weeks to go!
Sling and Subdood: Great job on the 14 @MP. Those are some big workouts to hit.
JT: Sounds about similar to my weather, but I agree not ideal for running any kind of 1/2. Very solid qulaity LR in there on Sunday! As for my T pace, I would say if being honest with myself it is probably mid 5:50's with this heat so these recent efforts might be a bit too fast overall.
My week: One of my bigger summer weeks all things considered and far and away about the most quality I would probably attempt during the FL summer with 3 fairly hard efforts combined with getting in 85 miles for the week. Melbourne tied their all time record (high) low temperature only getting down to 83 degrees overnight Friday morning so decided to do that workout as a progression instead of a steady diet of T repeats. About to enter Daniels Phase 3 half training for my planned late fall race, but have a cut back/recovery coming up this week. Still hoping for about 70'ish miles.
Weekly Summary Monday, Aug 27, 2018 thru Sunday, Sep 02, 2018
1mile: 4:46 (12/20) | 5K: 15:57 (3/21) | 10K: 33:40 (4/20) | 15K 51:43 (4/21) | HM: 1:15:03 (12/20) | FM: 2:40:30 (1/20)
Impressive stuff. Subdood and Sling you guys seem to be crushing the MP runs. I'm jealous!
Madison 90 miles with that speed has to be a huge confidence booster.
JTReeves another really strong week with a huge LR with 8 fast.
Weatherboy that week is really impressive also. I don't know how you do it in those conditions. I was in FL the last few days and when I went out for my LR Sunday morning, at 5am it was 79 degrees with a dew point of 75 and light rain. Tough conditions.
Here is my week. Skipped another LT day. Increasingly feeling like it's not going to be in the cards this time.
Mmmm Bop
Impressive stuff. Subdood and Sling you guys seem to be crushing the MP runs. I'm jealous! Madison 90 miles with that speed has to be a huge confidence booster. JTReeves another really strong week with a huge LR with 8 fast. Weatherboy that week is really impressive also. I don't know how you do it in those conditions. I was in FL the last few days and when I went out for my LR Sunday morning, at 5am it was 79 degrees with a dew point of 75 and light rain. Tough conditions. Here is my week. Skipped another LT day. Increasingly feeling like it's not going to be in the cards this time. Weekly Summary Day Miles Pace Mon 7.1 8:17 Tue 10.1 7:53 Wed 15.1 7:55 Thu 7.5 8:13 Fri 7.1 7:35 Sat 8.1 7:56 Sun 22.1 7:37 77.1 7:52
Looking at your last couple of weeks the pace of every run has been similar and there’s nothing that I’d call recovery pace. I like the volume but the easy runs need to be slower so that you can handle the LT days. 👍
5k - 17:53 (4/19) 10k - 37:53 (11/18) Half - 1:23:18 (4/19) Full - 2:50:43 (4/19)
RIP Milkman
Me - Nothing to report, garbage week on vacation. Only hit 20 miles. Will go back for 70 this week.
Madison - Big week, congrats.
JT - this is the summer of humidity that will never end, although this weekend looks perfect for getting in a good quality day!
Weather - Another big week for you. Good luck in phase III, he really beats you up in it.
BGS/Mikkey - I do find that my paces vary a lot depending on how I feel, but sometimes recovery pace can be just 15 seconds slower than an Easy day. Other times, it's about 60 seconds slower. I will say though that if you're constantly feeling run down, which seems to be the case, running slower can help. That, or a 50% cut back week. Marathon training is a fine balance between pushing yourself to your limits and running yourself into the ground. Often I've felt closer to running myself into the ground this cycle, but my recovery weeks have reset myself and I feel much better now. I think you need the same BGS.
5K: 16:37 (11/20) | 10K: 34:49 (10/19) | HM: 1:14:57 (5/22) | FM: 2:36:31 (12/19)
My 14 miles @MP? Fake news. Today was 5x600, and I did the interval part of my run on the treadmill since it is over 90F out and the speed is definitely off. I'd normally run them at 10.3ish, and today I had to run them around 11.8. I'm waiting on another replacement part for the upper and then hopefully can reset the speed somehow. I really hope I wasn't running my "marathon pace run" at something approaching 8 minute miles. . So kudos to Subdood for getting it done.
Weather- killer week!
Bigguyskinny- I'm with Mikkey. You are putting in some serious mileage at fast paces. I forget where you are at, is it hot there? It's quite hot these days in Philly, and most of my runs are probably over 8 minute pace.
5k- 18:55 (2018) 10K- 39:04 (2017) Marathon- 3:00:10 (2018)
Thanks guys. I try to keep my easy days (Mon, Thu, Sat) between 8:00-8:30 but they often end up closer to the 8:00 side of that range. I suppose I need to slow them down a bit more. I'm definitely feeling run down lately.
Sling I'm in Georgia so yes it is definitely on the warm side.
Thanks JMac (and others). Don't think I will be following the Phase III plan to the book since it involves back to back Q days (I's followed by T runs the next day). Thinking that might be a recipe for burnout or even potential injury? I think I feel best when I run about 2 Q days per week, or sometimes 3Q, but spaced out a day or two in between.
I have to say, I've done his Phase III, and it's actually not nearly as bad as it sounds to do back to back workouts. I found it not nearly as demanding has his 2Q because he doesn't throw in absurd mileage in along with the Q work. You're just supposed to do 1-2 E to warm up and 1-2E to cool down. That's much better than having to do T work after running 12 miles of other work.
How's everyones weekend running going?
I'm 4 weeks out from Steamtown, so I did a 10K to try and gauge my fitness. I was hoping for a PR and 38x, and I thought my track workouts suggested it was possible.
It was a disappointing outcome, as I finished in 40:26. However the more I analyze things, the better I feel about it. There were 3 different distance races going on, and they kept us waiting like 25 minutes in the rain at the start. It was raining all morning, but stopped right before the race started...however even at 65 degrees it still felt quite steamy and uncomfortable to me the whole time.
The course itself was really hilly too. And because there were 3 different races with staggered starts and lots of outs and backs and 180 degree cones, I felt like I was rarely able to run the tangents I wanted. Then 1/2 of the last mile was run on wet tall grass in a field! Lining up I was really excited about winning a race for the first time, as I sized up my competition and it looked good. I built up a nice lead almost immediately. However for some unknown reason, they decided to start the race 5 minutes early, and right as we were starting, a guy came flying back toward the start from his warmup. I was praying he was in the 5K starting right after us. However about a minute into the race he started registering on my rear view mirror, and then he blew by me quickly after that and took first place by 2 minutes. 3rd place guy was 4 minutes back, and he's also running Steamtown, so it was nice chatting a bit with him after the race.
Anyway what is making me feel better about my results, is checking out the athlinks results of the fastest runners from the 3 races. Everybody really suffered out there, and most people's results were way off their normal pace. Crunching the numbers as best as I can with the limited data, it looks like the conditions/hills cost me somewhere between 15-25 seconds per mile. So I think I still have a good shot at going under 3hrs.
slingrunner -- good job on the 10K in tough conditions. 2nd overall is nice.
madisonrunner -- good job on the 10K today in nearly perfect conditions. 1st overall is nice.
me -- I ran a 10K time trial on a paved trail around a lake and through trees, only saw a handful of other people. Conditions were nearly perfect and the trail had a few gentle hills. 3 deer scampered out of my way right at the start. First mile felt completely unsustainable -- 6:30 pace. But the pace improved and the effort level stabilized through about 5 miles. Mile 6 was hard, but still not a full race effort. Avg pace was 6:24, which is a slight improvement over my last time trial 2 weeks ago (6:29 avg pace). 1st overall, sorta.
BGS -- I agree with Mikkey and others that have suggested slowing down on easy days. My recovery pace has been ~10:00 pace and even slower throughout most of this training cycle. I committed to running them this easily early on in the cycle due to an injury I sustained the last time I tried to run high weekly mileage (80+ weeks). And I feel able to run harder on days like today because of the focus on recovery days. That said, your 22-miler at 7:37 avg pace at the end of a 77-mile week is impressive.
JT -- I napped and enjoyed it, sitting in front of the TV on a Sunday afternoon. Looking forward to the same tomorrow afternoon after an 18-miler (another weekend of back-to-back hard days), although I will not be pushing the pace at all.
JMac -- I think you are in NYC? I'll be in the area for work this week, which will make it a challenge to get all my runs in. I may stick to the hotel treadmill for a VO2 workout scheduled during my trip.
weather -- consistently impressive. great stuff!
MTA my week:
DAY
6 am
4 pm
6.1 am,
4.8 pm
8.1
VO2: 5 x 600m @5K pace (on treadmill)
14
7
7.1
Aerobic, w/ 6x strides, 8:39 avg pace
6
6.1
9.4
10K Time Trial,
6:24 avg pace
74.0 mi
One more tough week before tapering begins.
Agree with others that have mentioned making easy runs slow. I run mine about 2 minutes/mile slower than goal marathon pace.
I had another week where i followed my plan exactly. 82 miles including a 10k race yesterday and 18 this morning. For the race I soloed to a PR by 4 seconds, so was happy with that. Next week includes a VO2 max workout (6x1000) and is my last big week of mileage before starting to ramp down and taper.
Sling - Great job on the 10k and I’d agree that you’ve still got a good shot at Sub3. 👍
Subdood - Very impressive time trial and a great week overall!
Madison - Congrats on the win!
JMac - You do complain a lot about the weather, but things are starting to come together for you now....if you ran a Sub 2:50 at NYC that would be mega impressive on that course!
Me - The Strava folk know what I’ve been doing. The non Strava folk can check my RA log. Running has been ok but non running stuff not so good. Ran a 19:01 Parkrun yesterday which confirms that I’m still crap at 5k races! I ran the same Parkrun in 18:38 the week before my 2:51 at London in 2016, so I’m thinking I can go Sub 3 next Sunday if the weather is ok. Will probably start at 6:45 pace and see how that feels.
Thanks for the suggestions to slow down the easy days. Subdood I would think it would take some effort to hold the pace at 10. That said you seem to be nailing the faster runs and I am not. I'm going to make a conscious effort to slow down my easy days starting this week. I'm also planning to change up my diet/hydration plan.
My week-I still am struggling with the faster runs. Today was 18 with 12 at ~6:50. I hit the paces but needed a few water stops. I am totally worn out now, having beer on the couch. I struggle with faster paces. Maybe I need to abandon marathons and stick to ultras. Hope everyone else had good weeks.