For anyone who is interested, I ran a PR at the Phily Half Marathon this weekend while "winning" my age group (there was a guy my age who was 8 minutes faster, but they don't douple dip awards). I ran 1:15:35 (5:45/mile) which was not only the best I'd run at that distance, but was faster than my 10 mile PR as well. Granted, the times don't match up to my college 5K and 8K times, but what the heck, I'll still take it.
What makes this PR extra special for me is that 7 months ago I was 20lbs over weight and struggled to run a single mile in 9 minutes. Don't know if anyone remembers, but I got a really bad case of Plantar Fascitis last year that had me walking on a cane for 2 months, followed by 4 more months of a sedentary life. Even water jogging caused my feet large amounts of pain. So in 7 months I managed to go from possibly the worst shape in my life to a PR.
What did I do right this time? Or what have I always done wrong in the past? For starters, I enlisted the help of Desert Dude (a super smart running coach) to keep an eye on my training. In his own words, " am [my] own worst enemy." Despite the advice I tend to give others, my ego tends to get in my way and I constantly shift from attempting monster track workouts, monster tempo runs, or monster mileage. No matter what kind of shape I'm in, I always see myself as a college senior. I still believe I can get there some day, but I need to relearn how to crawl before I can walk. I think in much the same way as Lance's cancer changed his perspective on his training, my injury changed my perspective on my running (no intentions to belittle Lance's serious life threatening disease). Gasping in pain after a 9 minute mile is a good way to teach me that I simply can't run 80 miles a week.
Before I go into what I think I did right, I'd like to write a bit about what I've done wrong in the past. I think my largest mistake in the last 5 years was a winter where I *really* wanted to run well that spring so I thought 70 miles a week was in order. The problem was I had only been running 30 miles a week. In two weeks time I was at 70. Two weeks later I had a hamstring injury that kept me from running for 6 months. 2 years later I got it in my head that lots of LT (threshold/tempo) training was the answer. Yes, it is very important. The problem was that I simply added two intense LT workouts on top of what was already a challenging level of training for me. As if the 4 mile and 8 mile tempo run every week wasn't enough, I placed another one in the middle of my long run. Like someone with a bad gambling habit, I think a disaster was inevitable. My last big mistake lead to my case of PF last year. After a summer of tri training I wanted to hit some big running goals that fall. I rushed myself right into heavy track intervals without having a solid base of running under my feet. I hammered away at these intervals while my mileage suffered, only to run no faster than I did off of simple easy base training earlier that summer. Oh....and did I mention the PF that had me on a cane for two months? Guess how good my running was then?
For those who may be bored of my rambling, I guess now would be a good time to simply post my training log from the last 7 months.
All numbers are in miles. The table is color coded to show the long runs, the races, and the workouts.
You'll notice in my first 7 weeks of training I was running less often but doing longer runs. I never recommend this to anyone, but my ego had a hard time handling the idea that I should be running only 20-25 minutes every day. Desert Dude talked me into it and, though it was hard simply running dow the street and turning around, I think it paid off in the long run.
Probably the most important thing I did was keeping my progression at no more than 10% a week. As you can imagine, last April and June I felt like I was never going to get any good. But, if you look at Sept-Nov, and more importantly, my race results, I did get there eventualy. Its really amazing when looking at the big picture that 10% a week will get you into some pretty heavy training in no time at all.
The very basic elements of this plan was to keep my long run at 25% of total mileage (until I got close to the race, then I cheated a little toward a longer run), and run one tempo run a week until 6 weeks out where I'd add a second, slightly faster workout each week. Notice I alos gave myself a little time to build my mileage before adding any workouts. There was no sense in doing workouts when I wasn't even in shape to run 3 hours a week.
Oh....very important, none of my non-workout runs were faster than the high end of zone 2, or no faster than 5K race pace +1:30 (some days were as slow as 5K pace +2:30).
I simply followed Daniel's Formula for my tempo runs doing a mix of 20-30 minute tempos (1 hour race pace or 10 mile race pace in my case), 30-50 minute tempos (10 mile race pace +10 to 20s), and 50-60 minute tempos (10 mile race pace +20 to 30s).
The 4 faster workouts were simply two interval workouts @10K race pace and two faster change of pace workouts with small amounts of 5K and sub 5K paced running.
I didn't really do any speed as very little is needed for a half marathon, but I did do 3-6 striders at the ends of my runs 2-4 days a week. BTW, I out kicked a guy who said he was "known to have a good kick." I believe it as we both finished 8 seconds ahead of a teenager who was with us with 100m to go.
I did very few hills. I probably should have done more.
I'd also like to add that I would normaly want to do more of that second weekly workout, but as I've said in the past, every workout comes with a tradeoff. I just felt that given my lack of base up to this point that it was more important to maintain the consitent mileage than to add in more faster workouts.
A final note about the plan; I was feeling some nagging pains around September 28th. I decided to stop adding volume and to focus more on getting to the starting line healthy. The dropped runs later in the prgram were more about my life schedule and the fact that I was not attempting to tack on any extra mileage. The short week near the end was due to a weekend backpacking trip. A weekend off never hurts as long as they don'thappen too often.
Anyway, I'd be happy to answer any questions but I'd also welcome some comments if anyone thinks that a different approach would have been better. Though I do have some experience, I think what's most important is opening a dialogue about training and, if anything, this is a concrete example that we can use to compare.
-----------------------------Baron Von Speedypants
-----------------------------RunTraining articles here:
http://forum.slowtwitch.com/...runtraining;#1612485
What makes this PR extra special for me is that 7 months ago I was 20lbs over weight and struggled to run a single mile in 9 minutes. Don't know if anyone remembers, but I got a really bad case of Plantar Fascitis last year that had me walking on a cane for 2 months, followed by 4 more months of a sedentary life. Even water jogging caused my feet large amounts of pain. So in 7 months I managed to go from possibly the worst shape in my life to a PR.
What did I do right this time? Or what have I always done wrong in the past? For starters, I enlisted the help of Desert Dude (a super smart running coach) to keep an eye on my training. In his own words, " am [my] own worst enemy." Despite the advice I tend to give others, my ego tends to get in my way and I constantly shift from attempting monster track workouts, monster tempo runs, or monster mileage. No matter what kind of shape I'm in, I always see myself as a college senior. I still believe I can get there some day, but I need to relearn how to crawl before I can walk. I think in much the same way as Lance's cancer changed his perspective on his training, my injury changed my perspective on my running (no intentions to belittle Lance's serious life threatening disease). Gasping in pain after a 9 minute mile is a good way to teach me that I simply can't run 80 miles a week.
Before I go into what I think I did right, I'd like to write a bit about what I've done wrong in the past. I think my largest mistake in the last 5 years was a winter where I *really* wanted to run well that spring so I thought 70 miles a week was in order. The problem was I had only been running 30 miles a week. In two weeks time I was at 70. Two weeks later I had a hamstring injury that kept me from running for 6 months. 2 years later I got it in my head that lots of LT (threshold/tempo) training was the answer. Yes, it is very important. The problem was that I simply added two intense LT workouts on top of what was already a challenging level of training for me. As if the 4 mile and 8 mile tempo run every week wasn't enough, I placed another one in the middle of my long run. Like someone with a bad gambling habit, I think a disaster was inevitable. My last big mistake lead to my case of PF last year. After a summer of tri training I wanted to hit some big running goals that fall. I rushed myself right into heavy track intervals without having a solid base of running under my feet. I hammered away at these intervals while my mileage suffered, only to run no faster than I did off of simple easy base training earlier that summer. Oh....and did I mention the PF that had me on a cane for two months? Guess how good my running was then?
For those who may be bored of my rambling, I guess now would be a good time to simply post my training log from the last 7 months.
All numbers are in miles. The table is color coded to show the long runs, the races, and the workouts.
You'll notice in my first 7 weeks of training I was running less often but doing longer runs. I never recommend this to anyone, but my ego had a hard time handling the idea that I should be running only 20-25 minutes every day. Desert Dude talked me into it and, though it was hard simply running dow the street and turning around, I think it paid off in the long run.
Probably the most important thing I did was keeping my progression at no more than 10% a week. As you can imagine, last April and June I felt like I was never going to get any good. But, if you look at Sept-Nov, and more importantly, my race results, I did get there eventualy. Its really amazing when looking at the big picture that 10% a week will get you into some pretty heavy training in no time at all.
The very basic elements of this plan was to keep my long run at 25% of total mileage (until I got close to the race, then I cheated a little toward a longer run), and run one tempo run a week until 6 weeks out where I'd add a second, slightly faster workout each week. Notice I alos gave myself a little time to build my mileage before adding any workouts. There was no sense in doing workouts when I wasn't even in shape to run 3 hours a week.
Oh....very important, none of my non-workout runs were faster than the high end of zone 2, or no faster than 5K race pace +1:30 (some days were as slow as 5K pace +2:30).
I simply followed Daniel's Formula for my tempo runs doing a mix of 20-30 minute tempos (1 hour race pace or 10 mile race pace in my case), 30-50 minute tempos (10 mile race pace +10 to 20s), and 50-60 minute tempos (10 mile race pace +20 to 30s).
The 4 faster workouts were simply two interval workouts @10K race pace and two faster change of pace workouts with small amounts of 5K and sub 5K paced running.
I didn't really do any speed as very little is needed for a half marathon, but I did do 3-6 striders at the ends of my runs 2-4 days a week. BTW, I out kicked a guy who said he was "known to have a good kick." I believe it as we both finished 8 seconds ahead of a teenager who was with us with 100m to go.
I did very few hills. I probably should have done more.
I'd also like to add that I would normaly want to do more of that second weekly workout, but as I've said in the past, every workout comes with a tradeoff. I just felt that given my lack of base up to this point that it was more important to maintain the consitent mileage than to add in more faster workouts.
A final note about the plan; I was feeling some nagging pains around September 28th. I decided to stop adding volume and to focus more on getting to the starting line healthy. The dropped runs later in the prgram were more about my life schedule and the fact that I was not attempting to tack on any extra mileage. The short week near the end was due to a weekend backpacking trip. A weekend off never hurts as long as they don'thappen too often.
Anyway, I'd be happy to answer any questions but I'd also welcome some comments if anyone thinks that a different approach would have been better. Though I do have some experience, I think what's most important is opening a dialogue about training and, if anything, this is a concrete example that we can use to compare.
-----------------------------Baron Von Speedypants
-----------------------------RunTraining articles here:
http://forum.slowtwitch.com/...runtraining;#1612485