Beginners and Beyond

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Critique Me? (Read 131 times)


Trail Monster

    I've decided that I want to be faster (since going longer than 100 miles would just be crazy!). So I picked an advanced 10k plan and I want to alter it to keep my mileage up but keep the speed workouts the same. I plan to tackle it in September after my 50 miler. So tonight I decided to try the first speed workout of the plan. It is intervals at 10k pace (which I used McMillan to settle on a 49:40 10k or 8:00 pace for now). I logged the results (used my Garmin and ran on a limestone path so it's not perfect) and now I could use some feedback on what to do better next time. I know I got a little excited on the 400m (1/4 mile) repeats because I was almost done and therefore was slow on the last one. My log should be public and any feedback is welcome! Thanks!

    2013 races:

    3/17 Shamrock Marathon

    4/20 North Coast 24 Hour

    7/27 Burning RIver 100M

    8/24 Baker 50M

    10/5 Oil Creek (distance to be determined)

     

    My Blog

     

    Brands I Heart:

    FitFluential

    INKnBURN

    Altra Zero Drop

    Docket_Rocket


      I really don't see an issue with the intervals you posted. Yes, the last one was slower but it was only 8:03, and you posted your temperature as being 85F (if I remember correctly). I think, apart from the one where you went a couple of seconds too fast, that you did well.

      Damaris

       

      As part of the 2024 London Marathon, I am fundraising for VICTA, a charity that helps blind and visually impaired children. My mentor while in law school, Jim K (a blind attorney), has been a huge inspiration and an example of courage and perseverance. Please consider donating.

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      No more marathons

        You do realize, of course, that you are not yet recovered from that insane distance a few weeks ago?

        Anything you do now is not indicative of what you will be doing in another month.  Give it a little more time.

        Boston 2014 - a 33 year journey

        Lordy,  I hope there are tapes. 

        He's a leaker!

        LRB


          That was actually too easy for you lol, you basically killed it.

           

          Next time though, post the workout in the comment section for lazy people like me.  ; )

           

          Looks like it was 2 X 1200, 2 X 800, and 4 X 400, although each distance was actually a tad longer than meters.  As it is, you are off to a great start!


          Trail Monster

            Docket - You are correct. It was hot and humid today! Ick!

             

            bluesky - I really feel okay. My 5k over the weekend was only 44 seconds off my PR despite being underground and on gravel with a large incline to start. I imagine I will be able to smash my PR by the end of the season if I learn to incorporate speed work now.

             

            LRB - you are correct. 2 x 1200, 2 x 800, 4 x 400 with 1 minute recovery for every 400m of interval. I ended up walking the recoveries but I figured it was because I couldn't release body heat with today's weather. Should I aim for maybe 7:55 goal pace next week? This wasn't easy by any means but, as BlueSky pointed out, I'm probably not 100% and the weather was rough. So I guess I'm still at a loss as to how to set my interval paces. LOL.

             

            thanks for the input y'all! Wink

            2013 races:

            3/17 Shamrock Marathon

            4/20 North Coast 24 Hour

            7/27 Burning RIver 100M

            8/24 Baker 50M

            10/5 Oil Creek (distance to be determined)

             

            My Blog

             

            Brands I Heart:

            FitFluential

            INKnBURN

            Altra Zero Drop

            LRB


              Actually, you can keep the pace where it is until you can jog the recoveries without walking before making a change.

               

              Good to hear it was tough, that is what training is all about; gettin' dat ass kicked.  Royally.  ; )

              Love the Half


                My recommendation is longer recoveries.  I realize that you'll find lots of sources advocating half time recoveries but I think that only works for really good, really young runners.  I sure as hell can't survive a workout with recoveries that short (although I suppose I could with a pace as slow as 10K pace rather than 5K pace).  Obviously, as always, YMMV.  Here is what I have done like forever and it works really well for me.

                 

                If what I am doing is VO2max intervals, and those are done at roughly 5K pace, I'll take half distance recoveries.  That ends up working out to roughly 3/4 time recoveries.  Bear in mind that these are jogs rather than walks or rests.  I'll do my intervals at roughly a 6:00 pace and my recovery jogs at roughly a 10:00 pace.

                 

                My other question is "why 10K pace?"  That's too slow to really work on your VO2max as you need about 5K pace for that.  OTOH, it's faster than lactate threshold and there is too much recovery for a lactate threshold workout anyway.  Doing 10K pace workouts as a 10K approaches makes a lot of sense but I'm not sure I get the rationale for 10K pace work early in a training program other than just getting used to faster running.

                Short term goal: 17:59 5K

                Mid term goal:  2:54:59 marathon

                Long term goal: To say I've been a runner half my life.  (I started running at age 45).


                Trail Monster

                  I want to introduce speed work that compliments the endurance I've built in the past year. I want to keep my miles up without killing myself with quality. I figure its a balance of introducing speed work and quality while maintaining my mileage or almost maintaining It. I plan to focus on the 10k plan for 6-8 weeks and then reevaluate. Maybe I will decide I want to go to a half plan or maybe I will go shorter and faster with a 5k plan. The mileage and pacing of the 10k plan just looked close enough to what I've been doing that it wouldn't be a huge shock.

                  2013 races:

                  3/17 Shamrock Marathon

                  4/20 North Coast 24 Hour

                  7/27 Burning RIver 100M

                  8/24 Baker 50M

                  10/5 Oil Creek (distance to be determined)

                   

                  My Blog

                   

                  Brands I Heart:

                  FitFluential

                  INKnBURN

                  Altra Zero Drop

                  LRB


                    The mileage and pacing of the 10k plan just looked close enough to what I've been doing that it wouldn't be a huge shock.

                     

                    That is valid.  I jumped into 5k training but it was at the beginning of the season, so there is a big difference there.

                     

                    Training at tempo/10k pace will definitely pay dividends no doubt.  You can always adjust as you proceed.

                    MadisonMandy


                    Refurbished Hip

                      You do realize, of course, that you are not yet recovered from that insane distance a few weeks ago?

                      Anything you do now is not indicative of what you will be doing in another month.  Give it a little more time.

                       

                      This.  Really.  Even if you feel okay.  You're still not recovered.

                      Running is dumb.

                      wcrunner2


                      Are we there, yet?

                        I want to introduce speed work that compliments the endurance I've built in the past year. I want to keep my miles up without killing myself with quality. I figure its a balance of introducing speed work and quality while maintaining my mileage or almost maintaining It.

                        +1

                         

                        With the training and racing you've been doing, this is a good way to transition to speed work.

                         2024 Races:

                              03/09 - Livingston Oval Ultra 6-Hour, 22.88 miles

                              05/11 - D3 50K
                              05/25 - What the Duck 12-Hour

                              06/17 - 6 Days in the Dome 12-Hour.

                         

                         

                             

                        happylily


                          Sara, looking at your log, it seems that you have run an average of 200 miles the last two months, less before that. Are you planning on staying at 200 miles per month, or will you be increasing? At 200, you should be able to incorporate speedwork without it affecting your endurance. LTH is right, 5k intervals will serve you better. The 10k pace, or 8:00 pace, should be used for short tempo runs, like two miles. Or go 15k/HM pace for 4 to 7 miles. You have enough running in you, now, that you could pick up a marathon plan and start that, even though your plan isn't to run a marathon. It will provide you with endurance workouts, and also two weekly speed workouts, such as strides and tempo and/or 5k intervals. You're quite able to do that and that will make you run faster, but without you losing your endurance. Of course, this is just my opinion, I know nothing about training for ultras.

                          PRs: Boston Marathon, 3:27, April 15th 2013

                                  Cornwall Half-Marathon, 1:35, April 27th 2013

                          18 marathons, 18 BQs since 2010


                          Trail Monster

                            I'm not going to maintain that high of mileage. Half of my mileage in July was my 100. I work full time and I have a 3 and 8 year old. I have felt guilty every day for the last 3 months because I am off running 20+ miles every weekend and trying to cram in 10 miles between dinner and bed time. I'm done with that for awhile. I want to incorporate speed work, maintain mileage that leaves room for the rest of my life, and improve at shorter distances for now.

                             

                            And my PR 5k was only 7:52 pace so everyone can quit acting like I'm short changing myself by running 8:00 pace. I'm slow. It's okay. I will improve with time and I will add more interval workouts. This was one I found and wanted to try. It looked doable but not easy and I was correct. All it was was a test to see how I handled intervals. It's not like doing a six week 10k plan ever prevents me from doing anything else.

                            2013 races:

                            3/17 Shamrock Marathon

                            4/20 North Coast 24 Hour

                            7/27 Burning RIver 100M

                            8/24 Baker 50M

                            10/5 Oil Creek (distance to be determined)

                             

                            My Blog

                             

                            Brands I Heart:

                            FitFluential

                            INKnBURN

                            Altra Zero Drop

                            happylily


                              I'm not going to maintain that high of mileage. Half of my mileage in July was my 100. I work full time and I have a 3 and 8 year old. I have felt guilty every day for the last 3 months because I am off running 20+ miles every weekend and trying to cram in 10 miles between dinner and bed time. I'm done with that for awhile. I want to incorporate speed work, maintain mileage that leaves room for the rest of my life, and improve at shorter distances for now.

                               

                              And my PR 5k was only 7:52 pace so everyone can quit acting like I'm short changing myself by running 8:00 pace. I'm slow. It's okay. I will improve with time and I will add more interval workouts. This was one I found and wanted to try. It looked doable but not easy and I was correct. All it was was a test to see how I handled intervals. It's not like doing a six week 10k plan ever prevents me from doing anything else.

                               

                              I'm sorry, Sara. I misunderstood your opening post. When you said this: "So I picked an advanced 10k plan and I want to alter it to keep my mileage up but keep the speed workouts the same." I thought you meant you were going to keep running 200 miles per month and that you were worried that combining it with the speedwork, it would be difficult. I simply did not read well. I apologize. I completely understand that you have a busy schedule and have to make priorities. I wasn't implying anything at all. I just wanted to say that someone of your experience should have no trouble running 200 miles per month while doing speedwork. You are strong. I was trying to reassure you.

                               

                              Also, an 8:00 pace for a 10k isn't slow! Did someone say that? I think I made mention of your pace only because you said you picked it as a 10k pace on McMillan and used that pace for your intervals. I'm used to intervals that are done at 5k pace. That's all. I had no idea that your 5k pace was almost the same. I didn't want to imply that it was a slow pace in itself. Actually, I know nothing about 10k plans, I shouldn't have commented at all. I'm sorry.

                              PRs: Boston Marathon, 3:27, April 15th 2013

                                      Cornwall Half-Marathon, 1:35, April 27th 2013

                              18 marathons, 18 BQs since 2010

                              Love the Half


                                Here's my take for what it's worth.

                                 

                                If you want to work on your speed, then you need to work on your speed.  That means starting with a lot of shorter, faster stuff.  I'm talking about Daniels' "R" workouts that are short (anywhere from 45 seconds to 2 1/2 minutes so 200-600 meters for most of us) but fast (like mile race pace) with full distance recovery jogs.  These are perfect if you are cutting back your mileage because, unlike VO2max intervals where you might do 4-5 miles worth of fast work, you'll only do about 2 miles of fast work with these.

                                 

                                Let's assume your 5K PR was a true all out 5K.  Plugging that time into a VDOT calculator yields VO2max workouts of 1:54 for 400's, 2:51 for 600's, 3:48 for 800's and 4:48 for 1,000's.  You wouldn't do VO2max intervals longer than 1,000 meters because you can't do 1,200 in under 5 minutes.  However, the "R" workouts are significantly faster.  Those are 53 seconds for 200 meters, 1:48 for 400 meters and 2:41 for 600 meters.  (That's a bit outside the 2 1/2 minute window but it's close enough).  A typical "R" workout would look something like 8 x 400 with 400 recoveries or 2 sets of 4 x 200 with 200 recoveries + 2 x 400 with 400 recoveries.

                                 

                                Once you have spent a few weeks focused on those fast "R" workouts that I can promise really do help develop your speed, then you move to longer workouts.  Basically you have two phases.  The first involves 4-6 weeks of an "R" workout every week alternating with a tempo run one week and a VO2max workout the next and also alternating with a long run one week and a fartlek workout the next.  The next phase is quite difficult with both a VO2max and tempo workout every week with alternating long run one week and "R" workout the next.  In other words, you have three quality days each week.

                                 

                                If you think you'd struggle with that volume of quality, and quite honestly, I can't handle it for long, then remember that the "R" workout is the most important in the first phase while the VO2max and tempo workouts are most important in the next phase.  My whole point here is that you state your objective is to work on your speed but you are doing 10K specific workouts and that seems incompatible to me.  10K race pace is relatively slow.  If you really want to develop your speed, you need to be doing some much faster stuff.

                                 

                                Don't get me wrong.  Will doing a bunch of 10K specific workouts improve your speed if you haven't been doing speed work?  Absolutely.  However, it won't improve your speed as much as a program that takes you from doing some very fast mile paced running transitioning into some very hard VO2max 5K paced running and possibly finishing with some 10K specific workouts.  In other words, I think you'll improve by doing what you are doing but I think you can improve more if you do some much faster work.

                                Short term goal: 17:59 5K

                                Mid term goal:  2:54:59 marathon

                                Long term goal: To say I've been a runner half my life.  (I started running at age 45).

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