My fall racing goals....and a change to the path to get there

GOALS:

So here I am, 29 June 2010, 109 days from Marathon Morning and I have not chosen a marathon time goal as of yet. I was waiting to see how my training developed and where I felt I’d be. It was never to be a game-day decision, but I wanted to really get a feel for my workouts and my fitness. Also, I want to place any goal a little out of my reach. Just enough to get me out of bed on those early Sunday mornings; enough to push me through the first few reps of a speed workout; enough to keep me honest on effort based workouts. As a result my time goal for RnR Philadelphia was also in limbo. Per my coach’s recommendation, I’ll just run this race as a GMP workout. I’m hoping to push GMP in the early miles and race the end at a full effort. And with no further ado…

For Baltimore, my goal is to run with an overall average pace of 8:30 min/mile; for a net time of 3:42.30. With the training that I have upcoming and the challenge of this specific course, I believe this goal to be reasonable and attainable, but not overly easy. I still reserve the right to edit this time over the next 108 days! As my training progresses or regresses, this time will surely change. However, this is my start point. This goal finishing time will be the litmus test that I will use to judge my workouts. I won’t be changing my paces until my fitness shows the change is needed; we train against current ability, not perceived ability. The Baltimore course profile shows significant up hills early and pretty good down hills toward the end. But is rolling throughout.

 

As my ‘Cherry Marathon’ I want to enjoy the course and experience as much as possible; I also want to run a good race though. If I was just looking for a way to go sightseeing around Baltimore, I’d drive the 45 minutes and skip the 4 months of training, hundreds of running miles, and inability to not talk about running to anyone that will listen.

That brings me to RnR Philadelphia. With it being four weeks out from Baltimore, I don’t get to race it as I normally would to fully test my fitness. The race will be a hybrid of a Goal Marathon Effort Run and a Speedy Tempo Session; I hope. Ideally, I’d run the first 10 miles at Goal Marathon Effort then drop down to HM or even 10k pace for the last 5k. So if I’m saying 8:30 for the first 10 miles, that will put me around 1:25:00 at the 10 mile point. Finishing between HM-10k pace would bring the last 5k or so around 7:49 for 24:20. All together that would put me on a perfect race day goal for Philly being at or right under 1:50:00. Philly is a fairly flat course with several former national and world records having been set on it.

The new road ahead:

Not much has changed in my training since my last blog. I emailed my coach about increasing my weekly mileage, and she agreed. As a result, I will have slightly more volume, mainly because I responded well to the intensity that we had been working on. The beginnings of that was my 5-miler this morning (as opposed to the 4 miles I had scheduled previously). Coach Nicole answered my question swiftly and without any reservations to my request. I am gaining more and more respect and trust for her with every passing workout. Online coaches are hit and miss, I really lucked out with mine. No complaints.

Upcoming workouts:

Tuesday, 29 June

5 miles easy

Wednesday, 30 June

9 miles moderate with 4 x (1mile @ HM Effort followed by 400m @ 5k effort)

Thursday, 1 July

Rest (or 3-4 recovery miles)

Friday, 2 July

3-4 miles easy

Saturday, 2 July

16 miles moderate with 4 x Strides, 10 x Sprints, then 5 x 200m, 3 miles at LT-HM Effort, finish with 5 x 200m

Sunday, 2 July

3 recovery miles

You have to believe that you can achieve it and then work your ass off to get there.

~ Jaymee Marty

My first LSD (Long, Slow, Distance run), nope this isn’t a good thing…

This would be a good thing and a great accomplishment as a beginning runner training for my first road race. However, neither am I a beginning runner nor am I training for my first road race. But, those things aside, this could be commendable if I was actually going for a slow run. In fact, most training plans call for Long Run’s to be done at/around your Easy Pace,  but my Training Plan calls for all of my Long Runs to have quality (faster, pre-determined speed) runs in them. Happily, I didn’t have any problem with the quality of today’s training run.

When I started running this morning, I took a glance at my watch, and saw a ‘10’ in the minute-per-mile block, I was pretty shocked. I started to think that today’s run might actually be a waste. The ‘non-quality’ portions of today’s run should have been run at either a moderate or easy pace (9:20-9:25/9:40-9:45) but I could not get the times below that dreaded 10min/mile for the first few miles. Odd. I figured if I couldn’t run easy at 9:xx how could I do sprints and strides? But my uphill strides came through really well. Odd; why would running fast be really easy but running slow be hard? So, I continued with the workout and began the section for flying sprints. Again, spot on! The running felt relatively easy. Oh well, I kinda gave up thinking about it. After all, I’ve still got some Marathon Effort coming up.

My Coach wanted me to do 30-45 minutes worth of Marathon Effort running. She took special note to make sure that I knew to run on effort not pace. Cool. For training, she defines “Marathon Effort” as: “moderate hard but comfortable, breathing is labored but able to continue pace for an hour or more in training” (not to be confused with tempo runs). I figured I’d start out around 9:00 min/mile and adjust for the feeling of what I could hold for this length of running. Let’s back up a bit. How much of this was I gonna do? 30 minutes or 45 minutes, some undetermined distance (because I'm a rebel)? It worked out that I was ready for this part of the workout right before the 10 mile mark. I decided to run through until either 13 miles or 30 minutes, which ever came last. I managed to get in a little over 4 miles with an average of ~8:54 min/mile. BTW, the 13 miles came last. I finished the workout thinking that I could have (maybe even wanted) to put in more miles. That is the right way to leave a workout…I think???

Upcoming workouts:

Monday, 28 June

3 miles easy

Tuesday, 29 June

4 miles easy

Wednesday, 30 June

8 miles moderate with 4 x (1mile @ HM Effort followed by 400m @ 5k effort)

Thursday, 1 July

Rest (or 2-3 recovery miles)

Friday, 2 July

3 miles easy

Saturday, 2 July

16 miles moderate with 4 x Strides, 10 x Sprints, then 5 x 200m, 3 miles at LT-HM Effort, finish with 5 x 200m

Sunday, 2 July

2-3 recovery miles

"Man imposes his own limitations, don't set any"

~Anthony Bailey

Mulligan; Re-do, Make-up…This workout went very well….

Today was my first quality workout since my horrid run on Monday. While this run may have been 10 miles shorter (well actually 6 miles shorter), I needed to hit it re build my confidence. The planned workout called for a total of 6 miles with a ladder of 7,6,5,4,3,2,1 minute runs, with active recovery for half the distance of previous interval. Simple right? Damn right! The workout should be run at 10k pace (8:10-8:15) but because I’m pigheaded and because of my crappy run on Monday, I decided to make each interval beat that time. And so I did, the splits for the run were 8:10, 8:07, 8:10, 8:14, 8:03, 8:06, 6:25 (Max HR Test).

In the thought of even-pacing and training, this workout sucked. I beat my goal on each interval, but that was all I did right! However, this workout was even more effective than you could think. Why? Simple; because I completed it. Not only that, but I did really well running the paces on a warm desert day. I gained back the confidence I lost on Monday. Also, I played with the paces a little. The first two sets I went out hard and just held on through the full time. The next three I ran steady through the time. The last one I started out slowly and blasted the end of the run. I tested my system on this short run and built some well-needed validation that my training is paying off and that my coach knows what she is doing.

One of the odd things about this run is that I hadn’t prepped like I planned on. I tried to get to sleep early last night, but I didn’t. I did drink a little better, but not as much as I wanted. I had crackers by my bedside, but I didn’t eat them. I need to work on these little things continuously in order to improve. I’m well satisfied with my performance and I look forward to more of it.

“He who is not courageous enough to take risks will accomplish nothing in life”

~Muhammad Ali

My first actual bad workout.

I think that I actually mean my first bad workout ever. Even while in training for the RnR Chicago last year I never had to actually stop a workout short of the goal mileage. I could usually adjust pace and be ok. Even with some of the hard workouts in the Hall HM Training Plan, I was able to complete each workout.

Today I was not so lucky. Today’s (actually yesterday’s) schedule called for 16 miles with a 30 minute Progression Run and some Hill Sprints. I was able to get in all of the ‘quality’ work, but my wheels fell off as I was finishing the workout mileage. I made it to a little over 12 miles when I stopped for the day. I had drunk 2 liters (about 67.5 ounces) of water during the run. I meant to check the weather after the run but it slipped my mind; although at 1200 pm it was 111 degrees. Yes, that is One Hundred and Eleven degrees. Damn! Also, I seemed to be very tired this morning after the run. I escaped to my room to rest after lunch and ended up sleeping for about 3 hours, oops.

Originally I was really upset that I wasn’t able to finish the workout. I thought I had given up on the training but after the really long nap this afternoon, I realized that my body just wasn’t into it today. Hell it is surprising that I was able to push through as far as I did. All in all, I guess all wasn’t lost. I will start all of my LR’s way earlier from now on as well.

Workouts this week:

Tuesday, 22 June

Rest (or 2-3 recovery miles)

Wednesday, June 16

6 miles moderate with ladder of progressions

Thursday, June 17

Rest (or 2-3 recovery miles)

Friday, June 18

5 miles easy with strides

Saturday, June 19

3 miles easy

Sunday, June 20

13 miles moderate run with uphill strides and then sprints. Full Recovery 30-45 min @ Marathon Effort

"The long run is what puts the tiger in the cat.”

~Bill Squires

 

Relatively speaking ~ Newton’s Third Law of Motion…

As I mentioned before, I had not planned to run a Marathon so early in my running career. However, after the opportunity to deploy to Afghanistan for a year had been presented, it just seemed silly not to use this year to train for my debut Marathon. My grand scheme had been to use the whole year to train; maybe I could even surprise myself and debut with a BQ. Ha, as the title suggest though, things don’t always work out as planned. The opposite reaction here was simply that I didn’t run a lot for my first 4 or 5 months.  I averaged maybe 20-25 miles a week. I wanted to use the Fall, Winter, and Spring to safely move my mileage up above 50 mpw (preferably 60). I wish I had some grand reason (read: excuse) that kept me from my goal, but no, I just didn’t do it. On the positive side, I did manage to keep my fitness going. I spent a little more time than usual building my strength, which will ultimately help me be a better runner and healthier person in general.

There are several big positives about training over here:

I am able to do a year’s worth of training at altitude.

I am able to train relatively free of other interruptions.

I can train at my own speed and do my workouts to my ability without the pressure to over train.

There are no late night parties to keep me up all night.

I am limited to what I can eat and how much of it.

Lastly, I make my own schedule so I am really only responsible to myself; there is no one to blame if I flake on a workout.

On the other hand:

I don’t get many opportunities to race and test my fitness.

Let’s be real Time Trials suck.

I don’t get to come home to my family everyday and I do miss them terribly.

I don’t get the camaraderie of a running group to push through the hard workouts.

Social interactions are almost non-existent. And "There are no late night parties to keep me up all night."

I am not able to eat good food. I am at the mercy of whatever the Dining Facility serves. They don’t have “Large Mocha Lattes with Skim Milk and no Whip Cream” for post Long Run re-fueling

Lastly, I make my own schedule so I am really only responsible to myself; there is no one to blame if I flake on a workout.

All in all, though, I can’t/won’t complain (too much). I do get to live and train like an Elite Road Racer; although at a way slower paces. I do have a good group of co-workers that run and I can talk with about training. One of the Officer’s in my shop is running the Seattle Marathon and another officer is running the HM there. Another runner in the shop is running the Malibu Marathon. In addition, there are a host of other people who run just for fitness or fun. I could have it much worse.

Well I guess we will be able to see how this works all works out on 19 September, at RnR Philly. By then I should only have been back from Afghanistan a few days. I am looking forward to a great race if I’m able to be recovered from the time change and flights.

Workouts this week:

Monday, 21 June

15-16 miles moderate run w/ progression run. Then 8-10 x 1 min @ 3k effort w/1 min jog rests

Tuesday, 22 June

Rest (or 2-3 recovery miles)

Wednesday, June 16

6 miles moderate with ladder of progressions

Thursday, June 17

Rest (or 2-3 recovery miles)

Friday, June 18

5 miles easy with strides

Saturday, June 19

3 miles easy

Sunday, June 20

13 miles moderate run with uphill striders and then sprints. Full Recovery 30-45 min @ Marathon Effort

"Once you're beat mentally, you might was well not even go to the starting line."

~Todd Williams

Last move?

My new digs…

I was finally able to move into my new room. It’s a little messy, as you can surely tell. It is nice to be settled again though. Hopefully this is my last move, until I return to the States; but you just never really know…
I had 16 miles with 30 minutes of progression slated for today, but it turns out I was so comfortable in my bed that I gave myself a Daddy Day gift (of rest).

"It's at the borders of pain and suffering that the men are separated from the boys."
          - Emil Zatopek

HTFU...

So, I’m mostly over it. I spent a little time last night lamenting in sorrow and feeling bad for myself, and now I’m mostly good. I think about some of the people that I’ve gained motivation from over the last couple years, Jenny and Paulette specifically. They kept going and going and going. I understand that sickness and death are a part of life. Stuff happens; there is absolutely no way to avoid the inevitability of bad shit! But I have the knowledge of being a Christian, being a son to a Strong Mother and a father to two beautiful and smart little girls and a son who is all I could as for. I can listen to their voices and know that in the end, it will all be ok.

Whether the news that I receive over the next couple weeks is good, bad or indifferent; it will change little to my life. I love my mother completely but I’m secure in our mutual belief in God to make things work out. I do know that she will pass eventually. While I’d like that to be in about another 30 years, that is not my call. J is finally getting the answers (and hopefully the help) that she needs. Even if her diagnosis is grim, at least we will know something.

Point is this; nothing I can do will change the news I’ll receive from either of these two important women in my life. Why sit here, feel bad, and bring people into my depressed state of mind? I won’t. As far as my other little predicament (the tent), screw it. I live where I live. I have lived in much worse places, and I’ve lived in better ones. There are so many more important things to take up my thoughts.

So basically, after last night’s 3 cigars (yes I know how smart that is with a mother who has Lung Cancer), I’ve come to the conclusion that life sucks and it is time to HTFU. Me lying in bed is not gonna make this Marathon in October any easier. My mom and J being sick aren’t gonna keep me out of this Marathon in October. Where I am currently living is not gonna keep me out of this Marathon in October. Fact of the matter is, I’m only hurting myself. If I don’t put in the training, I’ll be that much weaker come Marathon Morning. There is no way to plan for every eventuality in distance running. You can only prepare yourself the best that you can with what you have. I’ve been given something a rare gift. I have the ability to train as much (or as little) as I desire at altitude for one year, before competing in my first Marathon. I am the only one that can mess up this opportunity. So this week I will be running and doing a lot of it. Some slow, some fast. Every mile will have a purpose and every pace change will be appreciated. Time to HTFU and Carry on.

Workouts this week:

Tuesday, June 15

5 miles moderate with strides and some added sprints

Wednesday, June 16

Rest (or 2-3 recovery miles)

Thursday, June 17

7 miles moderate run w/ LT effort and HM effort mixed in. More sprints

Friday, June 18

Rest (or 2-3 recovery miles)

Saturday, June 19

3 miles easy

Sunday, June 20

15-16 miles moderate run w/ progression run. Then 8-10 x 1 min @ 3k effort w/1 min jog rests

 

Life is short... running makes it seem longer.
~Baron Hansen

So that workout sucked…

I don’t know if it is because of the new living quarters, the problems with my –ex or my mom’s medical situation but my workouts have sucked drastically as of late. I went out to put in 10 to 13 miles today and I figured I would run 6, start the speed portion and go from there. If I felt good I’d do the full 13, if not I’d settle with 10 and add 6 more tonight, as opposed to 3 that was scheduled. Ahem, this morning’s workout actually finished with me having run a whopping, mind-boggling 5 miles. I even walked in there a little. I just didn’t have it in me. I can knock out 10 miles without a problem; there should be no reason why I couldn’t even make it halfway. Yesterday was an off day and the day before was only 5 miles easy. So I am pretty confused.

I woke up this morning at 3AM for absolutely no reason. I laid in bed and tossed a little until I finally made it back to sleep and woke up again around 515. This is when I was supposed to get up. I turned off my alarm and tried to get off of my cot and no joy. I just didn’t want to go. I did want to run this morning, I did actually feel good about the workout today; a lot of sprints. I just didn’t want to get out of bed. It’s not like the cot was super comfy. It isn’t. It’s not as if this tent is very homey, far from it. So what gives? I am in Marathon Training and I can’t let bad guys get to me. I like the old Poker Mantra “First, you need to forget your last hand.” But how can I forget a 2/7 off suit, when the following hand is 3/7 off suit? Hmmmm, this is the dilemma. How do I HTFU, if I don’t want to? I know it is just a faze and that it will pass soon enough, but what do I do in the interim?

Well, my mom should get a treatment plan on/about Wednesday. So, if that, and my 'J' is what has caused me to lose interest maybe this week will present some answers and some better workouts. If it is my rooming situation, then damn, there is no telling when this will be resolved. Either way, I need to snap out of it and Man up! Some of you that are reading this aren’t Runners and may not really understand why this is a big deal. It’s beyond training and running to achieve a goal months down the line. The Marathon is just the reward for the work that I’ve put in. This while occurrence can be correlated to school/graduation. You work for four years to reach one day that you can walk across the stage and everyone can clap and congratulate you. Well I am training for four months so that I can run across the finish line and receive my medal; as you would stroll across the stage and receive your diploma. Your grades equate to my finishing time. Your decision may be to go on to another level of school or enter the job market; my decisions will be to run another Marathon and finish faster or retire to shorter distances.

With that all in mind, imagine being in your Sophomore year and having some personal difficulties come up. Maybe your homework and study habits slack. You realize that you have two extra years to make up for the loss of focus, but does that make you feel any better about not reading the required assignment for the night? Nope! I want to do all that I can now. I want to excel now and continue to grow. I want to graduate with Honors and be proud of the journey.

Accordingly, I will come to my room tonight, I will lace up my shoes, and I will head for a little redemption through sweat and miles. I have many challenges ahead of me in life and my running (and the time I spend with God) reassures me that I can handle them. If I am unable handle the running, how will I handle the difficulties? I wouldn’t be able to. So I will run on and cover more miles. It is in me; there is no way I can’t keep going.

Learn to run when feeling the pain: then push harder.
~William Sigei

My Unscheduled Rest WEEK…

Well I was looking forward to this week of training. I am steadily building my mileage and this week wasn’t really going to offer any terribly hard workouts with my MLR consisting of 8-10 miles with some strides and some sprints and my LR having 13 miles with 20x45 second runs at 3k pace. My biggest worry for the week was supposed to be not running more than I had planned and having to move from one tent to another. While in the ‘interim’ tent, I knew my running would be thrown off because I would be with new people in a new place. However, I was given something else to think about when I woke up Wednesday morning with news of my mother having throat cancer and my partner having some unknown problem that has gotten her sent to the hospital; I’m not going to name any illness and speak it into fruition. Well both of those things took me for a quick emotional ride. I ran the next two easy days a little faster than I should have; maybe a lot faster than I should have. I started putting in more hours at work to keep my mind busy as well. I was actually able to keep my running schedule intact, save for intensity.

Then came the move, I was told to move “right away,” as my tent was about to come down. Oops, I guess someone forgot to tell me that my time was up(?). Therefore, I took my time and packed everything up somewhat neatly. Then I came back and asked some co-workers to help me move. Have I mentioned how much I hate moving? Now I am living out of boxes and running a little here and there. I have overslept the last two mornings in a row and here in the desert, normal folks don’t run outside past 7AM, and abnormal folks don’t run outside past 8AM. So, you can imagine my thought process when I got up at 730AM drowsy, and de-hydrated. With a late wake-up and inevitable hot weather run, my choices are: run short, run on the Dreadmill, not run at all. So far, I’ve managed option #1 twice and I’m 0-0 on the other two choices. As a result though, I did miss my MLR, settling for a measly five miles. I’m only a little behind on my mileage for the week, but I think I’ll let it past. Besides next week’s training brings the ‘fun’ back…

Upcoming Quality Workouts

Tuesday (15Jun2010): 4-5 mile moderate run including 4x 100m increasing effort strides w/1 min jog rests. Run the first stride @ 5k effort and the last stride @ mile effort. Full recovery then 6-8 x 15 sec sprints w/1-2 min recoveries

Thursday (17Jun2010): 7 mile moderate run including 15 min @ LT effort then without rest run 10 min @ HM effort. 15 min jog recovery then 4 x 75 sec hills @ 3k effort w/90 sec jog rests

and…

Sunday (20Jun2010): 15-16 mile moderate run including 30 min progression run beginning at moderate effort and running the last few minutes @ 10k effort. Full recovery then 8-10 x 1 min @ 3k effort w/1 min jog rests

Note: Got a question on Quality vs. Quantity? Check out this thread on RWOL. Pretty interesting take on weekly/monthly/yearly mileage and then there are those who throw all the numbers to the wind..

"Good things come slow - especially in distance running."

~Bill Dellinger, Legendary Oregon coach