16 km

I did my 1^st ever 10 mile (16 km) run today. I did it at an average pace of 6:01/km, which is a bit faster than I’d planned. My legs are pretty tired, but nothing feels too bad right now. It was actually a bit harder than I expected, the last couple of km felt really long.

Today’s run is definitely the longest I’ve ever run, both in time and distance. Before starting to train for the half marathon, my longest run involved getting lost in the Swiss countryside. I’m not sure exactly how far that one was, but it took 1:15 and at the time I figured about 14 km. Also, on my long Swiss run, I didn’t run the whole time, since I wasn’t exactly sure how long it would be.

Orthotics

To conclude easy week, I did a 7 km run today. I decided to try running without my orthotics, to see how it felt. I'm still not sure. It felt pretty good, but like there was just a bit of extra tension on my achilles. The upside was having less weight in my shoes felt great. I was running about 15s/mile faster at the same heart rate. I'd love to be able to run the race without the orthotics. But I probably won't - I'll try it only if I'm able to do a couple more runs without them with no problems.

I loved my music choice today, Radiohead In Rainbows. Just the right length and beat for an easy 7 k.

Long Run Schedule

When I first put my program together, I was considering two options for the last pre-race push to longer distance. I was leaning towards sticking with Smartcoach, but also looking at Galloway’s training plans.

Smartcoach sticks to the 4 week blocks, with the longest long run of each right before the recovery week, but all 3 long runs within the block are close to the same length. So, my long runs would be 9, 9, and 10 miles over the next 3 weeks, followed by an easy week. Then they would be 10, 11, and 11 miles, followed by an easy week before the race.

Galloway has a different approach, alternating each week between the long run and a short run during the 8 wks prior to race day. The Galloway schedule goes (in miles) 9.5, 4, 11, 4, 12.5, 4, 14, 5, race. I like that this would get me to 3 runs over 10 miles, plus the alternating long weeks should decrease the chance of injury.

I'm kicking around thoughts of combining these two programs, with the alternating long runs from Galloway, and the 4^th week being all easy runs from SC. If I use the Galloway approach, I’ll drop the distance of the long runs a bit, since I’m planning on my longest being in the 18-20 km range.

I was playing around last night with my handy excel schedule maker, and here’s what my schedule looks like if I use the alternating weeks (click to expand).

Easy

I took a different approach to today’s 6km easy run. Since this is my easy week, I focused more on my heart rate. I wanted to keep it under 140 for the entire run. This went pretty well, I didn’t manage to keep it under 140 the whole time, but did keep it there most of the time. This helped keep my pace closer to where I want it than focusing on my pace has.

Easy Week

The training program I've been following is based loosely on the Runners World SmartCoach. I adapted it to replace its speed work with runs that are more beneficial for a half marathon training program, but kept its weekly long run progression, and approximate weekly mileage.

SmartCoach divides the training into 4 week sections, with the 4th week of each section being an easy week - lower mileage and all runs at the easy pace. This was one of the things I really liked about SmartCoach. This week is one of my easy weeks.

I ran a bit over 34 km last week, and on Friday I felt like I didn't need the down week - but my 7 km run yesterday reminded me of why the recovery week is necessary. I didn't really have the energy that I've had during my long runs. I also did a bit of a hard kick at the end, but really wasn't able to sustain it as long as I thought I would. So into the easy week I go.

Tempo

Today was one of those days where there were lots of reasons not to run. Somebody dropped a 1:00 mtg on my calendar. I was feeling off today. My right achilles has been just a touch sore for the last day. Then someone dropped an 11:00 on the calendar, and someone else asked me in mid conversation if I had a headache, since I didn't look good. So, I started thinking maybe I shouldn't run...

BUT, I decided to give it a shot, and maybe just do a short easy run today, instead of the planned tempo run, and do the tempo run tomorrow. So I asked to get the 11:00 rescheduled. About a month ago I had a day where my achilles was a bit sore, and I decided that I was going to have to see how it responded to running, since there's no other way I'll ever get to the half (or other unspoken larger goals).

The 1st couple km were ok, so I decided to do the 5 km tempo part at the slow end of my tempo pace. Really, this was me not wanting to run tomorrow as much as anything. The problem with this plan is that I have a hard time running at the slow end of my tempo pace, I wound up right in the middle (5:18/km). It was a bit more work than normal. I cut it right at 8km, as The Plan says. I did find myself thinking about tossing on another km, till I realized that if I did, I wouldn't have time for lunch.

There were a few times on the run today when my achilles had just a bit of an ache, but they passed quickly.

CrossTraining

I did my crosstraining today. The Schedule has me doing this on Wed or Fri most weeks, but I kind of consider it optional. So it has gotten pushed out of the way by reality for the last few weeks.

I decided to do it today, partly because I felt a bit of a side stitch during last Sunday’s run, and I know the xt workout can help prevent that.

My current cross workout is pretty light:

• 10 minutes rowing (2 km)
• Abs workout
• Chest machines
• One handed curls
• Leg presses

The entire workout only takes about 35 minutes, so there isn’t much excuse not to do it.

New Shoes

I bought a pair of Mizuno Waverider 11's from Runner's Warehouse. Today was my easy run day, scheduled for 5k, so I gave them a try.

The fit is a bit different from my Nike 30-40's, they are a bit looser; they also are noticeably lighter. I was feeling my achilles a bit during the 1st 2k. Not too painful, but I really don't want to even get the least twinge out of it.

At around 2.5 km, just about 100 m past a dead-end turnaround, a colleague passed me heading out. I hate being passed. In this case it was someone who I know is a slightly (?) stronger runner than I, but I decided to see if I could hold off being passed at least for a little while. I've gotten much more conservative in my old age though, I only picked up the pace about 35 seconds per km. I was surprised, the new pace felt great, it really didn't feel like I was outside my easy zone. After I picked up the pace I settled in, and didn't notice my ankles at all. I did need to sprint for about 50 m at one point to get through a traffic light, and the new shoes felt awesome when I was going flat out.

My schedule this week called for 5k today, 8 Thursday, and 3 on Friday. This is the 1st time I've added a 4th run into a week. I tossed an extra 2 km onto today's run in case I decide the Friday run is a bad idea.

14 km

My long run for this week was 14 km. I did it today in a 6:08/km pace.

My left achilles had a bit of a twinge in it this morning, but didn't bother me during the run. I was feeling really sluggish today, but once I got moving it was ok - a Gu around 7 km helped too.

It was very windy, and when I realized the wind was coming down from the north, I scrapped my plan to run south. It seemed like a better idea to have the wind at my back for the 2nd half of the run. So, I ran up into town, and as much as possible tried to stay inside the neighborhoods where the wind wasn't as nasty. Then around the 8 km mark I turned onto a straight shot south. This worked great, I felt awesome running with the wind behind me! My legs felt a bit heavy at the end, but not too bad.

Half Pace

Today's run was intended to be at my (hopeful) half marathon race pace. I called these runs race pace in my original training schedule. After putting that together, I found a workout called a Steady State Run which is pretty much the same thing. The Steady State Run is done at a pace that you could run for 20-30 km in a race situation. In training these are done for between 25 and 75 minutes. For me this pace is between 5:26 and 5:35 min/km.

The total distance was 10 km, with 6 km at the race pace of 5:25. Next time I do one of these I'm going to make sure to slow down to between 5:30 and 5:35. I did this outside at lunchtime. It was cool (around -7 C) and a bit breezy, but the sun was nice and the roads were dry. It took me a while (about 2k) to get used to the pace, but after that it wasn't too bad. It was a hard workout, but I wasn't destroyed afterwards.

More on tempo runs

A friend sent me a question about tempo runs today. She's a first time half marathoner, and her training program called for her to run two tempo intervals of 1600 m.

I suppose this is ok, but I think its overcomplicating things for a first half. As soon as you start putting intervals into your mix, you are forcing yourself to look at your watch a lot more, adjust your pace a lot more, etc. If you plan to really race the distance, then intervals, speed work, and such make sense, but for the casual racer they aren't going to add anything except complication and likelihood of injury.

I think that training for your 1st half you need 3 paces: Your long (or easy) pace. Your tempo pace. Your planned race pace. Part of the training is getting comfortable at these paces, and learning to keep your pace fairly steady. To get comfortable at these paces its important to do some runs at each pace off the treadmill. The tempo pace is the fastest pace of the three I've listed.

For the tempo runs, start with 20 minutes at your tempo pace or a distance that will take you around 20 minutes. Always warm up at least a mile at the slow end of your easy pace first, and cool down at least a km at the same pace at the end. So, if your schedule calls for 5 miles, and the 20 minute tempo portion will cover 2 miles, run 2 miles easy, 2 miles tempo, 1 mile easy. When you are comfortable doing the 20 minute tempo portion, increase to 25 minutes, then 30, 35, and finally 40 minutes.

OK, what pace should you run? The tempo pace should be a pace you can hold for an hour. Great, how do you know, if you're running 20 minutes?

If you have a Heart Rate Monitor, use the best-runnning Karvonen calculator to figure out your Zone 3 Heart Rate. But you should know your pace. Use the McMillan calculator, or add around 20-25 seconds per mile to your 10 k race pace.

More info on tempo runs is in these links:

Runners World Article

Runner's Resource

Snow

I managed to do all of my long runs outside this year - until today. Two feet of snow fell yesterday and last night, and there was no way I could go out there - or at least run out there.

So off to the treadmill. Today was supposed to be 12 km, but I wound up doing 8 miles (13 km), and increased the treadmill incline to 2% for the last km. Total time on the treadmill was 1 hour 21 minutes. I watched TV for part of it, but wow, its amazing how bad the new Terminator series is. I watched CNN for a bit, but finally just listened to music for the last 20 min. Hopefully thats the longest run I have to to inside.

After the run I spent some time on my new favorite crosstraining: Snow Clearing.

Tempo run

Today's my tempo run day. Strictly speaking, in my schedule Thursday is 'anything faster than long pace' day, but in reality these are planned to be tempo runs. If I'm finding that these aggravate my ankles I'm planning to drop the tempo pace.

There's a lot I like about the Runners World Smart Coach, but from what I've seen it is unrealistic regarding its faster tempo workouts. My personal opinion is that there is no place for speed workouts, hill workouts, or overly long tempo workouts in a first timer’s half marathon training. That opinion is based on the correlation I've observed between me doing these workouts and me getting nagging injuries (100% correlation, if you're wondering). So, when I put my schedule together, I used Smart Coach to determine weekly mileage and long run distance, and then ditched all the speed workouts, and absurdly long tempo runs.

For my tempo runs, I've started with 20 min at tempo pace, with the additional km at the easy pace, around 2/3 before the tempo portion, 1/3 after. I’m now doing 25 min at tempo pace, which is around 3 miles. Today’s run was 8.4 km total, 2 km easy, 5 km at a 5:16/km pace, 1.4 km easy. It was quite slushy/snowy on the roads which made it harder than it should have been. In any event, I'm finding the tempo workout to be the hardest one on my schedule.

I had no idea 3 Days Grace would get me in trouble! I suppose if I mention that the White Stripes ‘Seven Nation Army' got me moving today I risk finding out that it is really about Attila the Hun sacking some pristine village on the Danube, so I guess I won’t mention it.

Easy Day

I really like the McMillan running calculator. The McMillan web page is geared more towards competitive runners than someone trying to complete his 1st half, but the info on their web page about paces and workout types is great. These are my target paces based on my 5k time (24:44).

Today was my 'easy' day, scheduled for 5 k. I've had a hard time keeping to my easy pace, I always seem to drift to slightly faster paces, and then wind up more tired than I should be at the end. Both ankles were sore last night (actually my legs in general were sore), and I was a bit worried that the training might be too much; I was very determined to keep the pace in the right zone today.

The weather looked pretty nice today, about -5 C and sunny. The wind kept it cooler than I expected though. I changed the display on my Garmin to display average pace on the main screen last night, this helped me keep the pace where I wanted it. Everything felt good today, no pain at all. Not sure why, but Pain by Three Days Grace made me feel good today. Anyways, since I was going slower than normal, I had extra energy and wasn't ready to stop at 5. I wound up going 7k, at a 6:12/km pace.

Night Run

Yesterday’s run was quite different than planned. I’d hoped to go out for a 12k in the afternoon, but wasn’t paying enough attention to schedules. As it turned out, I wasn’t able to get out of the house till 6:30. The temperature was at around -5 C as I was starting, and since there had been some melting during the day the shoulders were slick.

My ipod decided to start acting up, about a minute into my run it crashed. Well, I reset it, and it crashed again. For the 1^st 3 km I kept taking off my gloves (brrr) resetting the ipod, holding it while it rebooted, having it crash, deciding I’d run without music tonight, then after a few minutes decide to reset it again, etc. The fact that I had a new playlist I wanted to listen to wasn’t helping my attitude. Anyways, after about the 5^th reset I tried a different playlist and it worked fine.

I ran up into town, traffic was pretty light so it wasn’t too bad running on the road. I came out of town at around 6 km on some backroads towards home, and this part was fantastic. Up until then I hadn’t realized that it was a perfectly clear night. I had about 25 minutes on this stretch, with no streetlights running under the stars. I started hearing a clunking noise next to me at one point, took me a few minutes to realize it was the water in my bottles freezing.

I ran 12.5 km, at a 6:03/km pace. I was a bit concerned about my right Achilles last night, but none of my assorted injuries are too sore today.