RA Coaching Forum

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31 weeks to push the envelope and see where it takes me. (Read 261 times)


Future running partner.

    Earlier this year I came up with a rough plan for how I am going to train for 31 weeks. I started this plan on March 18th. I am still entering the plan into RA and some of it will change as I see what kind of progress I am making and see what my weaknesses are.

    Overall goal:

    Train smart and as close to my physical limits as I possibly can without going over. Rather than set an ultimate goal for myself for the end of this period, I am going to let the training make the decision of what that goal will be. The most important thing is that I am going to focus on is the satisfaction of the incremental progress that occurs as the training takes affect and not obsess or stress about the end result. I have found that this mental approach has given me the best results in the past even though it was involuntary.  My program will be done in the following phases.

     

    Base Phase: 

    An 8 week build up from 25 to 50mpw (next week will be the 8th week and a 50 mile week), followed by  4 weeks at 50 miles consisting of a 15 mile long run, a 10 mile progression run,  10 mile easy run, three 5 mile easy runs with striders, and one day off,  per week.  I am taking a slightly different approach to this phase in terms of pacing. The last time I reached mileage this high, I significantly lowered my pace in order to get my mileage up without injury and I would use my heart rate to help me limit my pace so that I would try not to go over 146 heart rate (my max heart rate is around 200). I found I became very efficient at running this pace but didn’t see much improvement in overall speed, after about 4 or 5 months of this. This time I am aiming to find a sweet spot of effort where I see the most gain in aerobic speed without over stressing my system or going too anaerobic. I am relying on my breathing and my HR to determine this. At tempo efforts my HR normally gets to about 180. In the beginning of the build-up I did some experimenting. I set my Garmin to alarm if my HR went above 170. During those runs in the final miles I would reach this limit and see what my breath was doing. At 170 I felt that I was breathing too hard (I couldn’t say complete phrases without taking breaths in between). I then tried setting the limit to 168 and found this to still be too hard for the same reason. At 166 I seemed to be able to maintain steady breathing of about 1 breath every 5 steps and could carry a conversation. So from here on out I would try to do all my steady easy runs finishing at an effort/heart rate of no greater than 166. Pace wise, initially, this was about 8:15 to 8:45 pace, but has since increased to as low as 7:35/mile at the end of a shorter run or about 7:50/mile at the end of a long run.

     

    Speedwork:

    The next three phases will see a slight drop in mileage. Which will consist of a Long run still of 15 miles, a primary quality workout 8 miles max which will be the focus of the particular phase and a secondary quality workout 6 to 10 miles which will either maintain fitness of a previous phase or ease the transition into the next phase. Three recovery runs of 5 miles will occur the day after each long run or quality run. Every 4th or 5th week may be a recovery week where mileage may drop into the high 30’s or low 40’s. This will depend much on scheduled family vacations or how I may be feeling. During each phase will be 1 or 2 5k races. Looking at the schedule for summer there isn’t any races in the area around here that differ from that.

     

    Speed/Power Phase:  3 to 5 weeks

    Preparation for this phase will be striders done during the base phase and some runs on hillier routes. The primary quality run (5 to 8 miles) will consist of hills, track repetitions or a combination of the two with some fast downhill running. Some hill repeats may include plyometrics going up hills. There is a workout I like to use that came from a Ron Daws book called “Running Your Best” that I think was based on a similar workout by Lydiard (I may be wrong about that; it’s been a while since I read that book). That incorporates all of this into one workout. The following day would be a 5 mile recovery run where heart rate will stay below 150. A second quality run will either be a progression run or a marathon paced run. The progression run will help transition into the next phase because if will finish with a quarter mile finish at around mile race pace.

     

    Aerobic Capacity Phase:  3 to 5 weeks

    Here the primary workout is a series of interval workouts based on info from Jack Daniels Running Formula.  Intervals will be hard efforts of 95% of max that are no longer than 5 minutes with active recoveries equal to or less then in duration then the hard intervals examples would be anything from 400 hard:200 recovery to 1200 hard: 600 recovery.  1200 meters is about as far as I can go within 5 minutes without going into full blown race mode. The point of this is to push the heart muscle close to its limits for as long as possible in order to strengthen its ability to pump blood/oxygen to the muscles more efficiently. The secondary quality run of this phase is could be anything from track repetitions to maintain speed, a marathon pace run to maintain muscular aerobic conditioning, or a progression run with emphasis at finishing paces near tempo pace as a transition to the next phase.

     

    Tempo Phase:  3 to 5 weeks

    In this phase the primary quality workout will be some form of tempo run. Either Tempo intervals or a Tempo run in itself. Since I will be focusing on running 5k’s since it will be early to midsummer, the tempo runs will be likely at or slightly above LT pace and in durations of 20 to 30 minutes. The second quality run will likely be track repetitions, hills or a marathon paced run for maintaining the fitness developed from the other three phases.

     

    Taper Week to Target a Final 5k Race:

    Here I will cut back one week to rest up for one final 5k race to set a new PR. There will be only one quality session this week which will be a short workout of 100/100 repeats.

     

    Half Marathon Training Phase:  8 weeks

    The mileage here will go back up to 50 again to start out. The Long runs will be 15 miles; there will be two 10 mile runs, and three 5 mile easy runs with striders, in the first week of this phase. Here the primary quality run and Long run will combine to running at tempo pace or HM race pace during intervals of my long run either by doing a fast-finish long run or doing long intervals of up to 3 miles at a time with short recoveries in between.  The secondary quality run will be a tempo run but at LT pace or slightly lower. After the first week of this phase, each week I will be adding 1 additional 5 mile pm run, at lunch time, at steady/easy effort until 1 of two things happen, I either start to break down or I reach 80mpw without over training. At this point I will maintain this mileage for the remainder of this phase.

     

    Two Week Taper:

    The targeted half marathon is for early November. Two weeks prior I will taper back. Long runs will be normal long runs the primary workout will be a tempo or race pace run and also have a secondary run of short track repetitions (100/100) for speed.

    Contingency: There is a strong likelihood that an injury or sickness may cause a delay in training of up to a few weeks, if this is the case then I will move my target HM race up 2 to 4 weeks to occur in late November or early December. Also one of the difficult challenges is that most of my runs will have to be completed before 7am in the morning. Given that I have a son who is going on 3 it will be difficult to get consistent sleep every night and still have quality time with my DW in the evening. Also a Vegas Trip is planned for early June, which I know will be a cut back week, but even so it could be difficult to get in any running so compromises will likely be made or possibly a major cutback in mileage for that week.

     

    That’s it. I’ve left room for adjustments based on how I handle different aspects of training and how I am progressing. Also in RA I have specific days for each workout, this is subject to change, I may not do my long runs or quality runs the same day every week, but they will get done and I will reach the mileage goal. Posting on here will help me stay accountable, focused and objective when it comes to reading myself.


    Future running partner.

      Here is where I am at so far.

       

      I am starting week 8, which is the final week of the program. In my logs I started week one at 25 miles, then went to 28, 32, 33, 37, 35, and 47.

       

      I haven't been put in very high mileage over the last year, maybe 15 to 25 mpw. I lost my Garmin last year in a fire and started just using a smartphone app to gps my runs. Since I had to manually record my runs, I haven't been very good at keeping up with logging into running ahead. until I bought a new Garmin about 6 weeks ago. So my logs don't show what I have done over the last year very well.

       

      I was finding it difficult to fit time in to train last summer and to get into a routine. So I decided to cut back a lot on weekly mileage and just go fast. I started trying to finish all my runs at 8:00/mile pace, and try to work my way up from that. I found this to be a bit much as I felt like I was running close to tempo at this speed, and as I the runs got longer, about 5 or 6 miles, I was just wearing down and not enjoying myself.

       

      In march I decided to rededicate myself to going back to what I know has worked well for me and what seemed to have worked well for others on this forum.

       

      When I started the first couple of weeks at 25 and 28 miles were not very difficult. I decided to set a target pace of around 8:45 or less, and as I said above ultimately set a heart rate limit of 166, in order to stay mostly aerobic, base on how I was breathing. During the first couple of weeks my pace would avg in the 8:30s and my hr would average around 160. In the second couple of weeks When I started running 7, 8 and 9 mile runs, I started getting really sore and my pace slowed down, avg hr still around 160 but avg. pace dropped into the 8:40's. Without taking a break the soreness went away and on the 5th week at 37 miles, I felt really strong all of a sudden. With my avg hr still around 160 my avg pace dropped into the 8:20's and I was even finishing some of my runs at under 7:50/mi with my hr staying below 160. This appeared to be a sudden jump in fitness. The last 2 weeks I have felt a little tight and slight soreness and I notice my pace for that same effort has dropped again a little but not a whole lot. On week 6 which was scheduled to be a 41 mile week, I started it off well for the first 4 days but then the last 3 days I was ought of town visiting family and found it difficult to find time to do anything longer then 45 minutes, so I relaxed a little the last 3 days of that week and made it a recovery week.

       

      I am starting my first 50 mile week, since about 3 years ago, with a long run of 15 this week. I was going to try and do it this morning but the wife had a bad night of sleep so I stayed in and woke up with my son so she could sleep in some this morning. So I will do another 5er at lunch today and do the 15 tomorrow. My butt still feels a little tight but that's it. It also felt good to get a little extra sleep the last couple of mornings. I think the way I am feeling is after another couple of weeks I should see another big jump in fitness.


      Future running partner.

        I ended up taking yesterday off but it was probably good that I did. Was planning on running on my lunch break yesterday but the wife invited me out to lunch. It was good to spend time with the family and it also allowed me to be more rested for my long run today of 15 miles. I was nervous about this one because I haven't been this far in about 3 years. I started out feeling stronger and more loose then I usually do. First mile was about 8:50 when it's usually 9:30. On about mile 5 I started hitting my 166 limit but my pace was already getting into the low 8's. I was feeling really good at this point and just kept the same rhythm. Miles 11 through 14 I still felt strong, I had a hard time slowing down to get my heart rate below 166. The slower miles where mostly up hill and the faster miles was mostly downhill. I didn't really start to feel very fatigued until I started on mile 15, but I just kept going knowing I only had about 8 minutes of running left. Overall I am really happy with this run today. My heart rate drifted a little high. My pace was surprisingly fast 8:06 since most of my runs lately have been in the 8:20's. I was actually not too far off pace from the HM I ran last year when I clocked a 1:42:24 and I wasn't running nearly as hard as that. Today felt like Marathon pace. I little harder then I would normally want to go for a long run but I don't feel that beat up either. My legs are on the tired side today but not so much where I should feel back to normal within a couple of days.


        Future running partner.

          This past week was good and bad. On the negative I was way off my mileage goal. Thursday and Friday I wasn't able to do any running. Family emergencies halted that. However Saturday I ran my best 10 miler so far, granted I was well rested from the previous 2 days. The following table shows 4 runs over the last month along the same general route, comparing pace, hr and the ratio of the two. Saturday was significantly better.

           

          <colgroup><col width="80" /> <col span="4" width="64" /> <col width="93" /> <col width="64" /> <col width="89" /> <col width="85" /> <col width="102" /> <col width="79" /> <col width="298" /> </colgroup>
          Date Minute Seconds Avg Pace Avg HR Weather Distance Mi Distance: m Speed/AHR
          4/16/2012 76 17 8:29 160 na 9 14481 1.18644855
          4/23/2012 91 54 8:22 159 43 rain 11.01 17715.09 1.21235757
          4/25/2012 75 26 8:23 161 43 Cloudy 9 14481 1.19236544
          5/12/2012 81 30.48 8:09 158 50 Cloudy 9.99 16073.91 1.24814261

           

          This week I plan to get to 50. I may do a progression run on one of my 10 milers. I feel a little sore today but barely.


          Future running partner.

            Today was one of my slowest runs since being on my current plan. They humidity was near 100% and Temp about 67. I also think I overloaded on pasta last night. My long run today felt very long.

             

            I was supposed to do my long run earlier this week. Family life has made this difficult. Yesterday we were worried my son had a concussion in the morning so I couldn't run then and had to settle for a 5 miler at the gym on my lunch break from work. I also forgot my hrm and had to run on feel. Tread mills at this gym are about 30 s per mile off (slower then garmin) and effort is off to, even with the incline set to 1%. I finished with a .15 mile stride set for 10mph on the tm this equates to about a 5:20 pace on my garmin with the footpod.


            Future running partner.

              First week at 50 mpw in at least 3 years. Not exactly the best way to get there this week. I wasn't able to complete any of the longer runs until Wednesday, which means that I have covered 40 miles in the last 4 days of the week, a little heavy and risky on the end. Alas I feel good today even after today's 12 miler. I was originally going to do 10 yesterday and 10 today. But fell right back to sleep yesterday morning after my alarm went off. So I managed to squeeze in a fast 8 miles on my lunch break yesterday. I was going to make it a progression run, but my pace picked up faster and ealier then I had planned so the run turned into a tempo run. I started with a slow first mile as I usually do but after that my miles went from 8:14 down to 6:50. I ended up setting an unofficial 10k pr on my training run of 47 flat. My previous best in an actual race was about 48:50. After yesterdays hard run I thought I would feel tired for today's run but I didn't and ran a pretty impressive run today of 12 miles in under 1:40, with my hr avg at about 157. Pace over heart rate wasn't far off last weeks 10 miler which I ran after 2 days off, feeling more rested.


              Future running partner.

                So since last post I ended up taking Sunday off. Then doing my Long run on Monday, and a shorter easy/recovery run yesterday. Well Sunday wasn’t exactly a complete rest day. I did some yard work and some of it was heavier with me digging up crab grass in the yard, by kicking it out of the ground. I should have just used a shovel but it was something id I did spur of the moment as I was cutting the grass. When it came time for my long run on Monday I was feeling a little sore. I started my long run today with the mindset that I wasn’t going to push as hard as the last couple of long runs, and I didn’t. I didn’t hit my 166 limit regularly until about mile 11. The run was slower than the last two 15 milers. It was a little warmer and humid then the first week but not as bad as last week. I was also a little tired, so my avg. pace was only 8:45 with an avg. HR of 159. At least the run didn’t feel as bad as last weeks. After I logged this run, my summary on RA said I had run 60 miles in the last 7 days, including the day off on Sunday, so I should have been tired and sore. I was also probably sore from the Friday tempo run. This was even more evident yesterday when I did a 5 miler. I slept in the morning because I felt I needed more rest. At lunch I went out for my 5, granted it was warm (79F, 66DP) my avg. pace was like 9:02 with an avg. HR of 158. This is very slow compared to all my runs so far in this build up. So today, I was planning on running a 10 miler, but I think I am going to take it a little easier and just do another 5 to try and get more rested. I can still do my two 10 milers tomorrow and Saturday and do a 5 miler Friday to get the 50 in for this week. Hopefully I will start to feel less tired by the end of the week and have another big jump in fitness again as I adapt to the heavier work I have been doing.


                Future running partner.

                  A bit of a weird week. I think the warmer weather and high humidity had the biggest factor this week. I also tried a "Ripped in 30" video with the wife on Tuesday the evening after a shorter 5 miler and the day after a 15 mile long run. I felt pretty sore the next day and I had a hard time fitting in my run that day. I ended up sleeping in that morning and I had a doctor's appointment at lunch time, hence only logging 45 of the scheduled 50 miles this week.  Avg pace/hr was definitely lower this week. Even today which was a 10 mile MP run wasn't much faster then some of my earlier 10 mile easy runs. I have also lost some weight over the last month. Where when I started this program I was at 163ish. Now I am down to 158, so I could be adjusting to that. I am going to try and run a 5k next Saturday. Its going to be a busy week so we'll see. I plan on going easy 5 tomorrow, long Monday easy 5 Tuesday, easy 10 Wednesday, recovery 5 Thursday, 3 recovery Friday then the 5k on Saturday with a 2 mile warmup and cooldown. The following week I am going to be in Vegas so it will be a cutback week probably cutting my runs to maybe just 4 or 5 days and maybe just doing an hour for each run.


                  Future running partner.

                    I may be running a 5k race tomorrow if I can fit one in, I have a busy weekend coming up. Earlier this week was rough. I was starting to lose motivation in the mornings and it felt like possible early onset of over-training. My resting hr which is usually around 45 -47 was up a little earlier this week to around 49. Monday was Memorial day and I wanted to be able to relax with the family so instead of doing my long run, I went to the gym and did a 5 mile recovery effort run (avg HR < 150) on the treadmill. Tuesday I had to do my long run if I was going to fit a race in this weekend. I woke up and it was 71F, 71DP outside, YUK! I couldn't get motivated to run outside even though I will probably have to deal with worse conditions later this summer. I did do 15 on the treadmill and used the speed to regulate my effort and pace. The good thing was this was the second easiest 15er this year in terms of feel. Afterward my hips were feeling sore. This is usually a sign of needing new shoes, I checked the soles on my current Triumph 7's and sure enough the outside heel has worn through. For the rest of the week I wore my recently retired Ride 4's. Even though they have less cushioning overall,  the heels aren't worn down as bad, so they felt better. At this point I had decided to start making my shorter runs after my long runs and progression runs more of a recovery effort (avg hr < 150) instead of the typical easy effort I have been using (avg hr <= 160) So Wednesday was another recovery 5 miler. Thursday I was supposed to wake up and do 10, but again I had a hard time motivating myself. My hips were also still sore. I allowed myself some extra rest and by lunch time Thursday I was feeling better. I went out for a 5 miler in the sun Thursday afternoon without a shirt or the HR monitor (trying to get some tan). It was 86F but the DP was only 60 so it actually still felt nice. I was surprised to see I averaged nearly 8 minutes/mile for the run when i was finished. The recoveries and the extra sleep must have helped. This morning I recalibrated my Garmin and took another recovery run of 5 miles on the track, in the hopes that I will be well rested for the race tomorrow.. I am going to try and do enough of a warmup and cool-down to finish off the day at 10 miles. My goal for tomorrow is to try and just set a new PR. Its currently 21:57, but I haven't raced a 5k in a few years. If I don't get it that's ok, I am running this with almost no speed work other than a tempo run, strides and a progression run.


                    Future running partner.

                      So its been a while since I posted on here. I went away for 2 weeks in early June. Went to relatives near Pittsburgh, PA the flew out to Vegas for about 5 days then flew back to Pittsburgh for another 4 days and finally made it back. It was difficult to get much running done. It also took me a couple of weeks to get back into the rhythm of training really early in the morning.

                       

                      I am currently on week 4 of hills, and will be starting Aerobic Max phase next week, i am also planning on doing a race a week from Saturday. I'll be attempting to break 20. A couple of weeks ago I think I would would have done it on a X-Country course 5k race but a number of us in the race where misdirected. I was on pace to run about a 20 minute 5k, 6:28 per mile but we also stopped a couple of times for a few seconds to figure out where we to go.


                      BexKix, Bagel Defender

                        This seems to be a nicely periodized, long term training plan.

                         

                        How are things going for you?  How was your target race (or is it still later this month)?

                         

                        I see periodization discussed in triathlon circles, but rarely expanded in the running world beyond a canned plan.


                        Future running partner.

                          Sorry for the late reply. Over the summer I really got off track, family sickness, an injury and a couple race let downs, really sent things out of wack. I ended up restarting a program in October. This time building my target mileage up to about 70 mpw, I also changed things up a bit. November had me focusing on fast Aerobic work with Tempo runs, Cruise Intervals, and High end Aerobic Repetitions, geared toward faster 5k running. I ran a 5k race a few weeks back in 20:17 which a little shy of my sub 20 goal for 2012. It was sort of a last minute decision to run this so it was on a Sunday following a 70 mile week. I was already tired before the race started so I don't think it was my best race. I have had good training up until last week. I'm getting back into training this week slowly since I am nursing a little cold right now (I have yet to upload from the garmin yet). Next week I hope to be back up to above 60 miles again and I focusing on leg strength and speed for the month of december. I also plan on running at least one more 5k to try and break 20. Then in 2013 I plan on running the Myrtle Beach Half in Febuary. So January will see some higher milage again with emphasis on Tempo running geared toward a fast HM.

                           

                          Its good to here from you. I was wondering if this was actually getting read when I was doing over the spring and summer.


                          Future running partner.

                            Getting back on track. This week I'll shoot for 70 miles. Did 10 yesterday at a easy to moderate maybe finishing the last few miles at marathon pace. My HR was in the low 170s at the end and my HR at LT is about 180. It was a little harder of a run then what I was planning. But I was on fresh legs from the two easy weeks in a row and I forgot to set the alert for when my HR gets too high. But It was still a good workout. Probably my fastest 10 mile training run since I was in high school. The plan for this week is likely going to be a long run tomorrow and a repeat 200's on Thursday. I'm going to try and do at least 10 miles every day this week until I get to 70 or close to it, then back off.

                              I scanned through your posts, and it looks like you got through the whole year without getting injured. If that's the case, congratulations and good work! It's amazing what staying healthy and being able to run consistent miles will do for you.


                              Future running partner.

                                I scanned through your posts, and it looks like you got through the whole year without getting injured. If that's the case, congratulations and good work! It's amazing what staying healthy and being able to run consistent miles will do for you.

                                 

                                Your right. No major injuries, just occasional niggles. I had one this past weekend actually. Last weeks training was going really well until Thursday morning, when I noticed some fairly sharp pain on top of my right foot. I ran on it again in the afternoon to see if it was a temporary thing, it felt even worse after that, through out the day and the next morning too. I could see some swelling and bruising on the top of  my foot. Coincidentally, I had already scheduled a doctors 6 month checkup that morning, so I had him look at it while I was there. The X-ray showed know fracture. It may have been just been some tendon strain. I took Friday through Sunday off and iced it some. It seems to feel better now. Although I am a little disappointed in my mileage the last few weeks. It seems like my off weeks have a tendency to come in bunches. Thanksgiving made it tough to make my mileage with family in town. Then I got sick the week after and this past week, my foot. So I'm still looking to get back to where I was and hopefully I haven't lot much fitness with these down weeks.

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