Did a baby run with my 6 year old today.  She ran 1.5 miles straight and I am proud of her.  I've read so much about how some of the East African runners built aerobic bases just running too and from school each day a good 3-6 miles each way.  They had built superior bases early on which is something American runners don't do and probably couldn't comprehend.  We had a great time for some great Father Daughter time and ran comfortably so she could tell me about her day.  It feels good to have knowledge early on that I didn't have.  Tomorrow I do #1 of a back to back and in So Cal it is heating up so I'm not going to expect too much.

30 mins Pilates + 10 mins Plyo.

 

Comments:  Legs felt good this morning, not tired although calves were sore.  Tonight I am doing a baby run with my 6 year old and the older two are doing another Maf run for an hour instead of going to track practice and doing anaerobic repeats over and over again.  All the pieces are in place and I'm feeling too about the process even though I am slow at the moment.  I am running an hour and 1/2 back to back days pain free.  That alone is is something to be grateful for!

90 min run at 134 bpm.

 

Mile 1: 14:57

Mile 2:  15:08

Mile 3:  16:45

Mile 4:  17:28

Mile 5:  17:09

Mile .5:  17:32

 

Comments:  Reset time.  This is a clear case of TMTS.  Stride rate started out over 150/min and ended up at under 100/min.  It was kind of hot today but my calves and legs are dead tired.  In fact my calves and even my arms were sore yesterday and this morning when I got up.  I think what I will do is to ditch any workouts for 48 hours and start up again with an every other day schedule.  I don't think I am ready for back to back running days at this point.  Admittedly the calorie burn was a big reason that I have been pushing for more time on my feet, but my body is clearly breaking down so I need to just be more patient.  Thoughts?

I think the stride rate report is interesting.  Do you reach forward with your foot or do you plant it directly below you when in the jog phase?  I believe that you are applying more stress with each gait cycle, if that is the case.  I used to have a slower turnover on my gait cycle and started focusing on landing my foot below my center of gravity so it is mostly below or behind me at all times but not in front.  When I did that my cadence picked up quite a bit as did my efficiency (I was able to run faster with less effort).  I started bounding less and now stay more or less even to the ground.  I just checked this morning's run and my average cadence was 174 spm and that was running well below MAF.

Today:

Time:  1:29:07

Distance:  10.25 miles

Pace:  8:42

Heart Rate:  137 (MAF minus 9)

On a side note, I just signed up for a marathon on June 11.

30 mins yoga, 30 mins pilates.

Comments:  Calves are still sore, so are feet.  I think I'll extend my recovery through Sunday just doing yoga and pilates only.  Beginning Monday I'll do only 3 runs per week with a rest day in-between each one.  So rather than 6-7.5 hours per week I'll drop it down to 4.5 hours and eliminate the back to backs for the time being.  I'm not sure what I was thinking about training 6-7.5 hours in the first place.  I've never done that in my life lol.

In other news, I've been reading a new book from one of the best  youth distance running coaches in the country.  He thinks that kids under the age of 12 shouldn't do ANY aerobic development at all, just running a lot of miles comfortable to develop their aerobic engine.  He refers to aerobic training as "putting money in the bank" and anaerobic training as "taking money out of the bank."  Every race, speed work, repeats, all take away from money from one's aerobic bank.  After the age of 12 he does want them to do anaerobic workouts but only 10% of the total training time.  As you accumulate money in the bank you get to spend that money later, ie "races."  So during our season we have about 8 meets total and I've always been strict that we attend every meet.  This coach recommends that the kids treat some of the early meets as tempo runs and to not race at all, same with cross country to keep as much money in the bank to be spent when they want to peak at the end of the season or in the championship meets.  My kids have been doing WAAAYYY too much racing and it is really an eye opener.  I had them skip a hard repeat workout Tuesday and took them running instead.  They each did 5 miles at Maf or below using their Fitbits to warn them if they were out of their zone.  They had a good time but their feet hurt a bit.  Feet hurting on a longer run to me is an indicator of lower aerobic development.  This weekend we are also eliminating the 400m and 800m and just doing some fun 100m races as to not take more money out of their bank.  My goal is to have them run a lot more aerobically to counteract the racing and speed work that their coach is so fond of.  Sorry for the rant, I am just really geeking out on the process of aerobic develop done the right way.

Morning!  So busy lately, sorry!  Ran doubles most of the days with 4 and 3 Tuesday, 3 and Orange Theory Wednesday, 8 and 3.5 Thursday, all with Pilates here and there.  I have 11 tonight.

Orange Theory is not MAF HR training, that's for sure.  But such a sweat fest.

1.3 miles with my 6 year old for a recovery run after track meet.

 

12:24/mi.  When you shave 4/min per mile off of your runs after 3 days rest that is a pretty clear indicator that I was doing something wrong.  I think I will start Mon, Wed, and Friday for 1 hour each and then add 10 mins to each run per week until I get back up to 90 mins.

WOW.

What a difference!  It sounds to me like you were overcome with accumulated fatigue.  As I understand it, the MAF test is a good indicator that we are running either too many miles, too many hills or too much of something else "stress, beer, whatever" if the test paces drop.  If I were you, I'd do an MAF test while still feeling fresh.  Then try and stay fresh and run another one before increasing the load again.

Yeah no kidding, way fatigued.  Today I tried something different.  I downloaded a metronome app on my iphone and set it to begin with at 160 and each half mile I increased it to 162, 164, 166, 168, etc.  I didn't want to go straight to 180 immediately since I knew my cadence was off and that I was over striding. It took some getting used to so I am not too concerned about timing but here is what it looked like:

 

Mile 1:  15:59

Mile 2:  15:07

Mile 3:  15:01

 

Now my RunKeeper app measured me at the end still only hitting 155 so either the metronome app is off or Runkeeper just gets an estimate of what it thinks it should be.  Either way, it is a good baseline to figure out what I am doing wrong.  I'll do the same shorter run tomorrow but I'll start at 170 spm and move it slowly up to 180.

I've never tried that before but it's a good idea (assuming the metronome app is accurate).  Will your watch display cadence in real time?  I rarely pay attention to cadence at all personally and I tend to only hit 180 when I'm going at a pretty good clip.  When I do actually pay attention to cadence I've noticed the following:

• 180 spm at a 15 minute mile feels almost like shuffling my feet.
• As my cadence slowly increases, my heart rate tends to slowly go down.  Especially if I'm going up or down a hill.  
• 180 spm makes it almost impossible to heel strike (at least for me), as the only way I can maintain that turnover is to plant my foot quickly which happens to be not very far in front of me, if at all.  

That's a pretty good idea.  It will be almost like dancing then 

I did rolling hills this morning where cadence is pretty important.  I completely forgot to check it during the run but after reading this post I went back to the data and I averaged 179 spm over the 8.21 miles that I ran this morning, including warmup and cooldown.  That is pretty pleasing to see.  But the coolest thing of all to report from this morning is that I never broke into a walk when going up the hills.  One of the hills is a 7.5% grade, there are a few 5+% grade in there and several 3%'s.  The slowest instantaneous pace that I hit was 13:30 on the 7.5er.  All of this comfortably below MAF.  WOOHOO!  

Just downloaded a new app called Spring.  It is designed around cadence set to music.  You select your spm and the style of music you like and it plays back popular music to that specific spm.  I haven't used it but plan to tomorrow so we'll see how it goes.  Running to the tick tock of the metronome was boring and I really missed my music.

179 and no walking, that is truly amazing, sounds like you are having a blast with this training style, congrats!

Ran a short run today again with new Spring App and it was much more fun and I found it easy to maintain my cadence.  I went a straight 175 spm today.  I felt the need to lean a little more forward which is a good thing and it felt normal.  The last 800 I legged it out just to stretch it out, my legs are getting tired of running so slow lol:

Mile 1:  13:04

Mile 2:  12:27

Mile 3:  12:08

Mile .2:   8:57

I ended up averaging 171 spm but this thing isn't accurate so I am using it as a baseline compared to yesterday averaging 144 spm.

That's a pretty good idea.  It will be almost like dancing then 

 

I did rolling hills this morning where cadence is pretty important.  I completely forgot to check it during the run but after reading this post I went back to the data and I averaged 179 spm over the 8.21 miles that I ran this morning, including warmup and cooldown.  That is pretty pleasing to see.  But the coolest thing of all to report from this morning is that I never broke into a walk when going up the hills.  One of the hills is a 7.5% grade, there are a few 5+% grade in there and several 3%'s.  The slowest instantaneous pace that I hit was 13:30 on the 7.5er.  All of this comfortably below MAF.  WOOHOO!