Run The Long Road Coaching

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Borrowed Time?

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1/6/11

30 min yoga

I did it again.  Yoga On Demand.  This will not become a habit.  I can come up with numerous excuses why I didn’t go to a class tonight but it all boils down to I didn’t feel like it.  At least I did a more challenging practice.  My arms were shaking and I’m going to feel it tomorrow.  So so sad.   Moving on…

My title for this post sounds a little bleak, huh?  I’ll explain…

I’ve been running for almost 10 years now and have not been injured (knock on wood).  I swear.  Sure I’ve had minor knee tweaks and twinges, but nothing that a little ice and 2 rest days couldn’t cure.  I also don’t stretch after running, work on my core, cross-train, or strength train (do as I say, not as I do :)).  I don’t want this to come across as bragging because I’m not.  As a coach, I’m ashamed I don’t do these things.  I just never have and that became a bad habit.

That being said, I am very conservative with my training (maybe too conservative).  I watch my weekly mileage to ensure I’m not increasing it too fast.  I also listen to my body; any twinges are immediately iced and, if needed, a rest/easy day is taken.  Maybe these things have been my safety net so far.  But I can’t shake the feeling that maybe I’m on borrowed time.  The NJ Marathon will technically be my 3rd marathon in a year.  I realize I’m asking a lot from my body, especially since I keep increasing the intensity of my training with each race.  I’m terrified of injury so decided to take preventative steps this time around.  And that’s where yoga comes in.  Yoga has it all – stretching, core work, and strength training.  So it’s worth it to me to decrease my running to 4 days/week this training cycle to allow for 2 days of yoga.  I think (hope) the payoff will be great.  Now if I could just get my butt to an actual yoga studio…

Does anyone know what time it is tonight?  T-SHIRT TIME!  Yes folks the Jersey Shore is back on tonight.  Love it or hate it, you just can’t not watch!

 

 

Easy Run, Yoga, and Random Stuff

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1/4/11

6 miles

57:23

9:33 avg pace

A nice easy run today to shake out my legs from yesterday’s speed work.  I had good intentions of waking up and going to a yoga class this morning but Hawk decided it was play time at 4:45AM and it took me awhile to fall back asleep.  So when the alarm did go off, sleep won over yoga.  This is lame but after my run I did one of those 20-minutes yoga sessions you find on On Demand.  I think it was called “Zen in Your Den”.  Hysterical.  It was super easy but just want I wanted…a nice easy stretch.  My right hamstring has been a little tight and I think it’s causing me to shorten my stride a bit.  Some yoga is just what my hamstring needed.

Onto some random stuff…

Total mileage for 2010 = 1,528!  So I almost ran to FL and back.

Matt and I exchange ornaments for Christmas each year.  This may be one of my favorites…

I think she looks like me with the exception of the hair.  My hair never looks that nice when I run.  It’s more like this…

MCM - 2007. Worst pic ever. I have no idea what is going on with my hair. Humidity, wind? I don't know.

Reality Check

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1/3/11

Speed work – 5 miles

I know my speed (or lack of) is holding me back.  I need to get faster so I can bring my goal marathon pace (GMP) down to a 8:45 min/mile (your GMP should be relatively comfortable since you need to sustain it for 26.2 miles).

Here’s what plan called for:  3×1-mile repeats (at 7:21 pace) with a 1 min RI (rest interval) in between.  I went to bed dreading this workout and woke up thinking “just get it done”.  I wasn’t too sure how I would handle the 7:21 pace.  It seems my body dislikes going faster than 7:45 min/mile!  And I new the 1 min RI was extremely unlikely to happen.

I did this run on my treadmill since it was really cold this morning.  My first mile repeat was at 7:24 pace and it was tough.  I walked for a few minutes before beginning the second one (and probably let my heart rate get somewhat back to normal but oh well).  Second mile repeat was at 7:35 pace followed by more walking.  Third mile repeat began at 7:35 pace and ended up at 7:41 pace for the last quarter mile.  Of course, I warmed-up for 15 minutes and cooled-down for 10 minutes too.

This was a tough one.  What a way to begin training!  I certainly used adaptive training here 🙂

I wanted to mention this yesterday but forgot…my husband, Matt, is also running the NJ Marathon!  Misery loves company.  This will be his second marathon (he ran MCM back in 2006).  I’m excited and surprised he’s running another marathon.  After MCM, he said never again.  It was something that we wanted to do once.  But I guess he couldn’t stay away.

His training is a little unorthodox.  For his first marathon, he basically did all his long runs and neglected to run any short runs.  He finished in 5:04 which I think is amazing considering his lack of preparation!  I’m really envious of his natural athletic ability.  He won’t run for a year and then enter a 10-mile race and run 10:00 min/miles with no problem.  For the NJ Marathon, I have him using Bart Yasso’s “newbies” plan.  He only has to run 4 days per week and yes, I will make sure he does his short runs!

Back to work tomorrow…ugh.

 

NJ Marathon Training Plan

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1/2/11

7 miles

1:06:58

9:34 avg pace

An easy run today.  It was hard to hold back since it was nice and warm – upper 40s!

Tomorrow I begin training for marathon #8, the NJ Marathon.  This will be a flat course (yeah!) along the shore (no, not that Jersey Shore, but close).  Before I talk about the training plan, let’s discuss goals.  My current marathon PR is 3:58.  I’m shooting for a 3:50 for this marathon.  A recent half marathon time is often a good predictor for your goal marathon time.  I ran 1:49 in September and this predicts a 3:50 marathon finish.  Of course, this is under ideal conditions:  good race day weather, training went well, no injuries, etc.  Everything has to fall into place.  And sometimes, that happens…sometimes, it doesn’t.  So my “A” goal is a 3:50 and my “B” goal is anything under a 3:58.  Go big or go home, right?

Some of you may wonder why I’m not gunning for my BQ time of 3:45.  It’s not realistic for me right now and I don’t want to overtrain and set myself up for failure.  I’m happy making small strides towards my BQ time and I would be thrilled with a 3:50.  That being said, you never know what can happen on race day and sometimes BQs come out of nowhere 🙂

I’m currently reading 2 books:  Brad Hudson’s Run Faster and Bill Pierce, et al’s Run Less Run Faster (FIRST plan).  The best way to describe my training plan is a modified version of the 3:50 plan from FIRST with a little Run Faster mixed in.  For this cycle, I wanted the flexibility to incorporate 2 days of yoga per week into my plan.  The benefits of yoga for runners are tremendous (injury prevention, core and total body strength, and deep stretching).  I’ve wanted to incorporate yoga in the past but it always fell by the wayside since I was so focused on getting my miles in.

With each training plan I always aim to turn up the intensity a bit.  Right now my endurance is much greater than my speed so I need to focus on speed work, as much as I hate it.  There’s a reason why I shy away from 5Ks and 10Ks…I hate running all out!  That’s why the marathon is my favorite distance.  But this speed work is necessary for me to inch closer to my BQ time.

The FIRST plan focuses on “3plus2” – 3 quality runs per week (speed, tempo, and long) with 2 days of cross-training.  The FIRST philosophy is “if you want to run faster, you need to train faster”.  These runs are no cakewalk; they are hard!  But, with only running 3 days per week, you body can adequately recover from these hard runs.

Hudson’s Run Faster focuses on adaptive running.  Basically, look at your training plan as being “penciled in” and adapt accordingly based on how you feel that day.  That means that sometimes hard workouts will be replaced with easy ones and vice versa.  This philosophy saved my butt when I realized I was overtraining during my last cycle.

Now for my modifications…

1.  I can’t imagine only running 3 days per week (even with 2 days of yoga).  I just love it too much.  Also, the weekly mileage for the FIRST plan is a lot less than I’m used to.  So I plan to add 1 easy run per week.  This run can be anywhere from 5 to 10 miles, depending on where I want my weekly mileage to be that week.  I like easy runs (who doesn’t?) and they are a valuable component to any training plan.

2.  Speed work may need to be modified depending on how I feel (remember, adaptive training).  For me, tempo and marathon-paced long runs are the bread and butter of training.  Speed work, although valuable, is taxing on the body and requires more recovery.  I’ll continue to do speed work each week as long as it doesn’t compromise my tempo and long runs.  If I begin to feel dead legs, I’ll swap the speed work for an easy run or another type of run.

3.  What about hill work?  Since the NJ marathon course is flat, I don’t have to worry too much about mimicking the course with each long run (Philly has plenty of flat running).  I don’t want to abandon hill work all together so I plan to choose a hilly course for some of my easy runs.

I have my work cut out for me but I’m excited to train again.  These last 2 1/2 months of “fun runs” have been great but I love a fresh new training schedule 🙂

 

 

2010: Lessons Learned

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Thanks to all of you who subscribed to my blog!  I’m really feelin’ the love 🙂

As I said in my first post, 2010 was a real eye opener for me in terms of training.  I ran 2 marathons, 1 in May and 1 in October, and attended a 2-day coaching certification class in April.  The class was amazing and I was literally hanging on every word.  We spent a 1/2 day learning the physiology behind training or, essentially, why we torture ourselves with speed, tempo, long, easy runs, etc.  Also included were lectures on nutrition, injury prevention/how to deal with injuries, and we spent an entire day examining and making up training schedules.  I was in heaven.  And, as if things weren’t great enough, the class was the Saturday and Sunday before the Boston Marathon.  So naturally Matt and I stayed an extra day to watch the marathon.  Now that’s a good weekend in my book!

Matt and I near Mile 25

I plan to do some posts in the future about what I learned in class but for now let’s move on to lessons learned…

My May marathon (#6 for me) was the Pocono Run for the Red Marathon.  You can read my review here.  I used Bart Yasso’s training plan from his book My Life on the Run (sidenote:  Bart rocks and every runner should read this book).  For the most part I followed his “seasoned” plan and mixed in a little of the “hard-core” plan.  Looking back, I was running too fast.  My goal marathon pace was 9:00 min/mile and most of my easy and long runs were done at that pace.  A big no-no.  I wasn’t allowing my body to recover from previous runs and get stronger.  I should have slowed down and ran more hills…

I knew the race was hilly (it is the Pocono Mountains).  I read race reviews and talked to people who ran it before and everyone said “some rolling hills with a few big hills at the end”.  OK, so I’ll add a few hill workouts to my training and I’ll be fine.  So that’s what I did.  Come race day the rolling hills got the best of me.  I maintained my 9:00 min/mile pace until Mile 19 when I gave up.  Physically, I was exhausted.  I was not used to maintaining that pace on rolling hills.  Mentally, I gave up.  I wanted to quit.  I have never (ever) wanted to quit in any of my previous marathons.  This is the kiss of death.  Once you let the negative thoughts creep in and take over, you are done.  I was also pissed.  I trained so hard and this was it?  After Mile 19, I took some walk breaks and crossed the finish line in 4:13 (I was training for a sub-4:00).  Boo.  Lessons learned:  mimic the race course during your long runs so your body knows what to expect and step up your mental game!

After the May marathon I had 3 weeks “off” before I started training for my October marathon.  I had never done back-to-back training cycles before and was nervous about getting burnt out.  Marathon #7 was the Steamtown Marathon (review here).  I decided to use Pete Pfitzinger’s 55/18 plan from his book Advanced Marathoning.  The plan was to max out at 55 miles per week (a reasonable number since I maxed out at 50 mpw for marathon #6).  That never happened.  I started to notice some signs of overtraining (exhaustion, constantly running on dead legs, and irritability) and cut back on my mileage.  I think I maxed out at 45 mpw.  After a few weeks of reduced mileage, I felt great and even PR’d in a half marathon (1:49)!  I think the back-to-back training cycles got the best of me.

I also did more tempo runs and more marathon-paced long runs in this cycle.  These 2 runs gave me the confidence I needed to know that I could run a sub-4:00 marathon.  This marathon was also hilly so I mimicked the course with each long run.  As much as I hated all that hill work, it made me so much stronger.  I did no speed work for this marathon, even though the training plan called for it.

During this time I was also coaching a group of runners to train for their first half marathon.  We had group runs 2x/week.  I used these group runs as my easy runs (and I really did take it easy).

The result?  I crossed the finish line in 3:58 and got my sub-4:00!  Lessons learned:  mimic the race course with your long runs (and love hill work), listen to your body and alter your training plan as needed,  tempo runs and marathon-paced long runs help your mental game, and run your easy runs easy.

If you are still reading this you are a trooper.  Now go get yourself some caffeine.  If you are glazed over and bored, I don’t blame you.

Next up…my training plan for the NJ Marathon (please keep the nail biting to a minimum)!

Passer vs. Passee

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12/31/10

10 miles

1:30:49

9:05 avg pace

I wanted to end 2010 with a good run so I decided to do 10 miles at my old goal marathon pace .  Plus, next week I’ll be doing 13 miles at 9:15 pace for my first long run of training so I wanted to ease myself back into things.

Let’s talk about passing people when running.  I rarely pass anyone (always a passee) but today I was the passer.  My passee was a guy in his mid-40s.  I was coming up on him for awhile and knew I would be passing him eventually.  When I passed, I said a friendly “good morning” to which I received no response.  And no, he wasn’t wearing an iPod.  He heard me.  Guess he didn’t care much for being passed by a girl.  This happened to me another time last May during the end of a 15-miler.  Except this time the guy caught up with me and ran the last 2 miles with me.  He was very nice and we talked about marathon training but he kept picking up the pace.  I glanced at my garmin and saw we were doing an 8:00 minute mile.  I told him I need to slow down a bit since this wasn’t exactly my long run pace.  At the end of the run, he confessed that he hates to get passed by anyone (in his head I’m sure he added “especially by girls”).  Why do guys care so much?  Yes, part of me likes to pass people (male or female).  I’m not being malicious; it just happens so infrequently.  And I could care less when people pass me.  I’ve been passed by 70-year-old men and women during marathons!

Check out Susan’s funny re-cap of being a passer.

Happy New Year!