Sunday, November 25, 2012


WEEKLY SUMMARY (November 18-24): 40 miles (92% easy and 8% 5k paces)
  Sunday: off
  Monday: 6.2 miles at 7:26/mi.
  Tuesday: off
  Wednesday: 5.2 miles at 7:25/mi.
  Thursday: 3 easy, 5k race in 18:44, 2.5 easy (8.6 miles total)
  Friday: 7 miles at 7:34/mi.
  Saturday: 13 miles at 7:28/mi.

I did indeed dig myself into a bit of a hole last week. After taking Sunday off this week, I still felt pretty bad on Monday and wasn't up to doing a tempo run. Then I woke up on Tuesday clearly fighting off a cold and didn't want to get out of bed, let alone run. On Wednesday I felt better but out of shape when running, and I kept things short because of the race on Thursday, which turned out ok. My mile splits from the race tell the story: 5:59, 5:47, and 6:06. I started out fast, maybe in the 5:30's, because I haven't run a 5k in months and got somewhat carried away by the masses who sprint for about half a mile and then jog the rest of the way. I too slowed down early once my body absorbed the fact that I wasn't going to stop very soon, as I had done in the only short intervals I've run at that sort of pace anytime recently (last week). But after I passed the first mile marker in 5:59, it became apparent that I had slowed down too conservatively and could hold a faster pace comfortably enough. This was something new. I don't think I've ever sped up or run that fast (5:47) in the second mile of a 5k. My strength from marathon training seems already to have translated a bit into endurance at higher speeds. But soon I was reminded that when I slow down in a 5k, it's almost always because of stomach discomfort. That once familiar sour ache revisited me in the third mile and prevented me from running under 6:00 pace. I couldn't even manage a finishing kick. But that was nothing new and doesn't worry me. The second mile, on the other hand, was an encouraging sign that I'm in a different place than before I switched to marathon-mode early this past summer, despite my setback earlier in the week. Perhaps I can hold 6:00 pace for longer without setting off my stomach by trying to run faster? Maybe I'll test that hypothesis in next weekend's 10k race. But back to summarizing this past week: on Friday I was somewhat stiff, especially in the hip flexors, which have been tightening up on me a lot lately, perhaps because I kicked my easy pace up a notch. But on Saturday I managed to get through my planned medium-long run in spite of very windy and suddenly colder weather. Next week I want, above all, to avoid taking days off and to keep steadily putting in some miles. I won't do a medium-long run because I want to do two workouts before next weekend's 10k: a short repetition workout with a few 400's at a faster pace than I've yet managed (ideally in the 5:20's), and 4 x 1 mile tempo intervals - with two easy days between these workouts (to avoid falling back into the hole I dug last week). So I might run about 50 miles total next week. 

Saturday, November 17, 2012


WEEKLY SUMMARY (November 11-17): 53 miles (89.5% E, 5.5% T, 3% I, and 2% R paces)
  Sunday: 6 miles at 7:20/mi.
  Monday: 2.5 E, 4 x (400m R at 84=5:41/mi. + 400m E), 2.5 E (7 miles total)
  Tuesday: 7 miles at 7:25/mi.
  Wednesday: 2.5 E, 3 x 1 mile T at 6:18/mi. (1 min.), 1.5 E (7 miles total)
  Thursday: 7 miles at 7:24/mi.
  Friday: 2.5 E, 3 x (800m I at 2:51=5:47/mi. + 400m E), 2.5 E (7 miles total)
  Saturday: 12 miles at 7:23/mi.

Let me finally explain these abbreviations, which I take from Daniels' Running Formula. "E" means easy/long pace (which I sometimes write as "E/L"). Descending to faster paces in order: I also sometimes use "M" for marathon race pace, though not this week. "T" means lactate threshold or tempo pace. "I" means VO2 max interval pace, which is around 5k race pace and is used in intervals from 800-1600m, 1200m being my preferred distance for workouts at this pace. "R" means repetition pace, which is supposed to be faster still (Daniels says about 6 seconds per 400m faster than I pace), and which I use mainly in 400m intervals. This week I use "R" loosely for the best pace I could muster at this stage for 400m intervals, even though it's barely faster than my I pace for some 800's a few days later. Finally, when I write something like (1 min.) at the end of my description of some sort of intervals, as I do for Wednesday this week, that means I rest (i.e., stand around) for 1 min. between those intervals. When I don't write that, then I run the intervals continuously without stopping. So on Monday and Friday this week, I didn't stop running between intervals but used the 400m easy jog to recover between the hard intervals. "E" is thus used loosely too. I tend to jog those "easy" recovery laps around 8:15-8:45/mi. pace. My cool down after a workout, which I also mark "E," is not that much slower than my standard easy pace but is still a little bit slower: in the range of 7:30-8:00 these days, depending on how worn out I am. I usually do the warm up miles before a workout in the same pace range that I run the first 2-3 miles of a standard easy run, though before a race my warm up tends to be a bit slower.

This week I did the right sorts of workouts but didn't take enough easy days between them, and as a result I'm a bit tight and worn down now. Monday's workout felt good. I didn't look at my watch during the hard intervals but concentrated on getting the right form and feeling. I also didn't decide in advance how many 400's to do but stopped after my pace lagged on the fourth one. Even though I wasn't running all that fast and didn't do many intervals, I was tired afterwards and should have begun taking two easy days between workouts at that point. Instead, I was back out doing tempo intervals on Wednesday, which was a windy day. I prefer not to do tempo runs on the track and often (including on Wednesday) do these tempo intervals on the same asphalt trail that I do most of my easy runs on, because I can run a full mile (with a couple turns) in one direction, then turn around and run back. When it's windy, running one direction is typically much harder than running the opposite direction, since the wind usually comes from the north (or, sometimes at warmer times of year, the south) and this trail runs north-south. It's also slightly uphill running north, so a strong wind from the north makes running that direction particularly tough. Anyway, I felt good enough but stopped after 3 intervals in order to avoid running uphill into the wind again. I'm glad I did, because on Thursday I woke up feeling tight. Even though I still felt tight on Friday, I went ahead and did another workout that day, thinking again that these workouts aren't hard enough to warrant two days of rest. The tightness in my muscles wasn't a problem during Friday's workout. I was able to do a few 800's at a respectable 5k race pace, but my huffing and puffing showed that my oxygen transport system hasn't been taxed at that level for some time. Saturday's run was nothing special: just a slightly longer easy run. But afterwards my muscles felt alarmingly tired. I'm prepared to take a day off tomorrow (Sunday) if necessary, something I've been hoping to avoid except in emergencies. In any case, it's now clear that I need two easy days between workouts and that I should have been doing that this week. If I haven't dug myself into too deep a hole, then my plan for this coming week is to do tempo intervals (4 x 1 mile) on Monday, and then a 5k race on Thursday (Thanksgiving), with easy runs every other day, including a medium-long run of 13 miles on Saturday. I hadn't originally been planning to do this 5k race but decided last week that I'm far enough along to benefit from doing it in place of an interval workout. I did the race last year and want to support the cause anyway, so I may as well show up and run instead of running around a track by myself. I don't expect to run a fast time but figure that I could benefit from absorbing the shock of a 5k race (for the first time in nearly 5 months) and from using the thrill of the race environment to help me try to hold whatever pace I'm dumb enough to start out with. If nothing else, it'll be a useful demonstration of how much more work I need to do to get into 5k shape, as well as a good initial workout attempting to hold some sort of fast pace for longer than I have been trying to do. 

Saturday, November 10, 2012


WEEKLY SUMMARY (November 4-10): 48 miles (94% E, 4% T, and 2% I paces)
  Sunday: 6 miles at 7:28/mi.
  Monday: 7.2 miles at 7:24/mi.
  Tuesday: 6 miles at 7:26/mi.
  Wednesday: 2 E, 2 x 1 mile T @ 6:26/mi. avg., 1.2 E (5.2 miles total)
  Thursday: 6 miles at 7:36/mi.
  Friday: 2.7 E, 2 x (800m I @ 3:01 avg. + 400m E), 2.7 E (6.9 miles total)
  Saturday: 10.7 miles at 7:18/mi.

This turned out to be a fine recovery/transition week - much better than it would have been had I run the second half of the marathon faster. I just ran by feel for the first few days of the week, and I felt pretty good after a week of mostly rest. I ended up running around 10 seconds/mile faster than my typical easy pace before the marathon, but that's to be expected with rest, shorter runs, and no workouts. On Wednesday and Friday I did baby workouts to ease into just a smattering of faster running. It was quite windy both days (as well as Thursday), which added to the unpleasantness of trying to start running faster just a week and a half after a marathon. But it went well enough and I successfully erred on the side of caution. Then the weather changed on Saturday: the wind disappeared and it was much warmer.  I felt great extending the sort of easy run from earlier in the week a bit further. It looks like I ran a notch faster on Saturday, but in a way I didn't. On most easy-paced runs I start out slower and gradually speed up over 3-5 miles as I loosen up (without increasing effort). On a 6-7 mile run, that leaves me with only a couple miles at the faster end of my easy range. But on a slightly longer run like Saturday's, most of the run ends up being at the faster end of that range. This time I was pushing a little more than I normally do on an easy run during the last few miles, because I have a shorter easy run planned for Sunday. Next week I plan to continue with smatterings of speed on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, with easy runs in between and another medium-long run on Saturday. I should be able to handle doing speedwork that often while the workouts remain light, though I'll have to space them out more when I can handle tougher workouts. On Monday I plan to continue bringing the pace down with some even shorter intervals (or repetitions in Daniels-speak). Friday's 800's at 6:00/mi. pace felt about the way I want 5:20/mi. pace to feel in a month, but I'm not ready to run that fast yet. On Monday I'll do some 400's in maybe the 5:40's. Then Wednesday and Friday will be the same sort of thing as this past week, but with a couple more intervals depending on how I feel: mile repeats at tempo pace on Wednesday (6:20 this time), and 800's on Friday around (or, this time, just under) 6:00 pace. At least that's my thinking now, which I'll adjust if it feels like too much too soon. I'm not much concerned about overall volume. It'll probably drift upwards into the mid-50's next week as the workouts become a little less brief, and I might bump the easy runs up to 7 miles and the medium-long run up to 12 - again, if it feels right. All of this is aimed at getting fast for some December races, the first of which is a 10k in three weeks. My current 10k PR is 37:48, which is 6:04 pace, on a fast course. I should be capable of getting into faster 10k shape now, but three weeks is a bit soon, and the race is not on a fast course as far as I know (not having done it before). For now I'll target challenging my PR, but really that'll be my warm-up race before I expect to be in better form for the races one and three weeks later. I'm strong right now from marathon training, so it's just a matter of doing the right speed workouts to translate that strength into speed that I can maintain for the relevant distance. But working up gradually to the point where I can do those workouts is the tricky part. It's also one of the parts of running I like best, though: the beginning of a training cycle, when the most rapid changes occur from shifting your focus from one kind of training to another. In general, I get a kick out of planning and executing a series of workouts that enable me, on a target date I specify, to do something (in this case, to run a certain distance around a certain pace) that I could not have come close to doing just a short time earlier. It's even more gratifying to make longer-term comparisons (e.g., I just ran a marathon at a faster pace than I could run a 5k three years ago...and was disappointed), which is why taking down my PR at a given distance is always among my goals. Anyway, next week should be another kind of transition toward doing the sort of workouts the following week from which I'll be able to get an idea of the 10k pace I'll be up to on Dec. 2.

Saturday, November 3, 2012

POST-MCM PLANS:

A week after the MCM, I'm still bummed but not very banged up. I took a few days off, then ran 4-5 miles very easy for a couple days and took another day (Saturday) off. I feel ready to ease back into the swing of things this coming week. My mind is recovering less quickly than my body, though. As I said at the end of my last post, I don't know whether I can wait until next Fall for another shot at the marathon. So I registered for the Rock 'n Roll USA Marathon in DC on March 16, 2013, which is the current instantiation of what used to be the National Marathon (which I ran in 2011). My original plan had been to focus on speed at shorter distances this coming Spring, as I did last Spring, and then to shift toward longer distances in the Summer on the way to another Fall marathon. But it's not just a desire to run another marathon sooner that has me second-guessing that plan. It's also a desire to train in a more balanced way. Part of what I called marathon malaise a while back is a dissatisfaction with doing primarily one main kind of training all the time. So why shift from one imbalanced training regime to another one that is imbalanced in the opposite direction? I'm putting this too strongly - there are actually good reasons for so-called periodization in training. In my case, last Spring I made significant gains by focusing primarily on speed for the first time. And my underuse of tempo runs prior to late this summer gave me good reason to base my Fall marathon training around them, and that too was a significant step forward for me. But now it's time to integrate all of these elements into a balanced routine. Since I haven't done speedwork for months now, I'll need to focus disproportionately on that for a while in order to get back into it (carefully). That (along with shorter tempos) will be my focus for the next couple months, and I've registered for some shorter races in December as near-term goals. But once I get some speed back online, my plan now is to reduce the speedwork in January to one element in a more balanced routine that gives equal weight to endurance training - i.e., long runs, marathon-pace runs, longer tempos, and higher overall volume. Those endurance elements, starting in January, will build over 12 weeks or so toward the RnR USA Marathon, while the speed-oriented elements (shorter repetitions or hill repeats, longer VO2 max intervals, and ordinary tempo runs or tempo intervals) follow their own trajectory. This will be my first serious attempt at non-periodized training - I've never tried to do all those things at once. It will probably take a fair amount of trial and error before I hit on a way of integrating all those elements that works for me, if I ever do. But I'd like my priority to be trying to make that work, rather than just preparing for some specific race, whether it's the marathon in March or some other race. I plan on racing a lot over the Winter and Spring anyway, because I love and miss it. So there's no reason to overemphasize any particular race.