I ran the Brookings Half Marathon on Saturday. Between six and fourteen days* prior to the race, I didn't train at all, so I wasn't as prepared as I would have liked. Even so, it was a good day and a good run. The weather was as good as it gets: almost no wind, and just the temperature I like. It was in the low 40s F at the start, and by the finish it was still cool.
As expected, I had a much easier time than last year, when I was forced by injury to take nearly a month off. In this year's race, I ran at about 12 seconds per km faster than my typical training pace. Had I not interrupted my training for travel, I expect I'd have gone only a little faster. Of my five half marathons, this one's pace was right in the middle.
I briefly considered wearing my Merrell Road Gloves, but in the end decided I needed a little more shoe than that and wore my Brooks Green Silence. I've liked those shoes from the start, and Saturday didn't change my opinion. I think if they had a little less drop from heel to forefoot, I'd like them even more, but I can't complain too much -- they performed very well.
Race director Dr. Matt Bien and his team did their usual exemplary work of putting on an event. I can't think of a single thing to complain about. Thanks to all of the volunteers -- you were great as usual.
* I was travelling with my family on vacation, and also to accompany my son's First Lego League robotics team to the World Invitational Open tournament. It was a ton of fun; maybe I'll write about it.
Showing posts with label half marathon. Show all posts
Showing posts with label half marathon. Show all posts
Monday, May 14, 2012
Saturday, February 18, 2012
Trying a new training regimen
I'm training for the local half marathon again. Like last year (before I was interrupted), I started using Runner's World's SmartCoach. Unlike last year, however, I wasn't really enjoying the plan. This is no fault of SmartCoach -- I still recommend that anybody looking for a plan should give it a look. The problem was the parameters that I plugged in were so terrible that it gave me a training schedule that just didn't fit what I was looking for.
The way it works is you put in a recent race time, your current weekly mileage, and how hard you'd like to train. I didn't really have any recent race times. I put in last year's half marathon, which I had run on three weeks of training after nearly a month off. Needless to say, it was slow, even for me. Also, my weekly mileage at that time was puny.
So SmartCoach had me running only three times a week for the first eight weeks, and four times for the remaining ten weeks. This was reasonable for a plodder with my recent training and speed.
I had two major problems with this schedule. First, I'm more enthusiastic about running now than I have been for a long time, and so I really wanted to run more than 24 times in eight weeks. The second thing is my assessment of what I need in order to improve on last year's fiasco in the half: I need to weigh less. Yes, I need the miles on the road, some speed work, all of that, but mostly I need to shrink my big belly. It's been my experience that the best way for me to do that, by far, is to exercise every day.
So after about five weeks of the SmartCoach schedule, I was really ready for a change.
Meanwhile, I started reading Kyle Kranz's blog. It's good. Read it. Coincidentally, he's the first guy I ever saw running in Vibram FiveFingers. It was in the Jack 15 a few years ago. I saw him just ahead of me early in the race, and I was so interested that I rushed up to him and pestered him with questions. Little did I know then that he didn't just run the 15 mile race that day; he ran several miles prior to make it a 26.2-mile day. These days he's running ultra-marathons.
Anyway, one of his posts mentions heart-rate-based training. Kyle doesn't really give much detail in that particular post, but the two pages he links go into the nitty-gritty. I don't remember exactly when, but some years ago I had read that second link. Along with a lot of training theory, it tells the story of a former runner who started up again, and the methods his friend & coach (the writer) suggested to him.
I won't go into much detail here, but it boils down to running exclusively at a low heart rate for several weeks before moving on to anything faster. The idea is to turn oneself into an efficient aerobic machine.
So about a week ago, I started running every day, at an easy pace. I have a Life Fitness T3-5 treadmill that is very good for this kind of thing. I tell it my target heart rate, initial speed, and how long I want to run, and it adjusts the incline and speed to keep my heart near that target.
Typically it gives me about three minutes before making any adjustments. Invariably, my heart rate at that point is well below the target, so it raises the incline. It gradually increases the incline until I've reached the target heart rate. From then on, it raises and lowers the incline as required. If I'm at zero incline, and my heart rate is too high, it will decrease the speed. It never increases the speed, even back to the starting speed -- once it's slowed down, it stays there or goes even slower if need be.
I picked an initial speed based on what SmartCoach had as my easy pace. So far, after a week, I haven't had to slow down to maintain my heart rate. I figured I'd give it a week at this pace, to see how I adjusted to running every day.
I ran just 30 minutes every day until today, when I ran 60 minutes. Still no slowdown at an hour, and indeed the treadmill even had me at a non-zero incline for most of the run. By the end I felt that in another 15 minutes or so I would have had to slow down a bit. I think this means I'm not too far under my best speed for this low heart rate.
So my plan is to slightly increase the speed starting tomorrow, and to stay at the same heart rate. Each time I can maintain the initial speed for the entire run three days in a row, I'll speed up 0.1 km/hr. I'll also run more than 30 minutes most days.
I'm very curious to see how this goes. I've always been a pretty slow runner, but this is slow even for me. If it works, I should be steadily speeding up. I'll try to post my findings in the coming weeks. I'll also say a bit about how I chose my target heart rate.
The way it works is you put in a recent race time, your current weekly mileage, and how hard you'd like to train. I didn't really have any recent race times. I put in last year's half marathon, which I had run on three weeks of training after nearly a month off. Needless to say, it was slow, even for me. Also, my weekly mileage at that time was puny.
So SmartCoach had me running only three times a week for the first eight weeks, and four times for the remaining ten weeks. This was reasonable for a plodder with my recent training and speed.
I had two major problems with this schedule. First, I'm more enthusiastic about running now than I have been for a long time, and so I really wanted to run more than 24 times in eight weeks. The second thing is my assessment of what I need in order to improve on last year's fiasco in the half: I need to weigh less. Yes, I need the miles on the road, some speed work, all of that, but mostly I need to shrink my big belly. It's been my experience that the best way for me to do that, by far, is to exercise every day.
So after about five weeks of the SmartCoach schedule, I was really ready for a change.
Meanwhile, I started reading Kyle Kranz's blog. It's good. Read it. Coincidentally, he's the first guy I ever saw running in Vibram FiveFingers. It was in the Jack 15 a few years ago. I saw him just ahead of me early in the race, and I was so interested that I rushed up to him and pestered him with questions. Little did I know then that he didn't just run the 15 mile race that day; he ran several miles prior to make it a 26.2-mile day. These days he's running ultra-marathons.
Anyway, one of his posts mentions heart-rate-based training. Kyle doesn't really give much detail in that particular post, but the two pages he links go into the nitty-gritty. I don't remember exactly when, but some years ago I had read that second link. Along with a lot of training theory, it tells the story of a former runner who started up again, and the methods his friend & coach (the writer) suggested to him.
I won't go into much detail here, but it boils down to running exclusively at a low heart rate for several weeks before moving on to anything faster. The idea is to turn oneself into an efficient aerobic machine.
So about a week ago, I started running every day, at an easy pace. I have a Life Fitness T3-5 treadmill that is very good for this kind of thing. I tell it my target heart rate, initial speed, and how long I want to run, and it adjusts the incline and speed to keep my heart near that target.
Typically it gives me about three minutes before making any adjustments. Invariably, my heart rate at that point is well below the target, so it raises the incline. It gradually increases the incline until I've reached the target heart rate. From then on, it raises and lowers the incline as required. If I'm at zero incline, and my heart rate is too high, it will decrease the speed. It never increases the speed, even back to the starting speed -- once it's slowed down, it stays there or goes even slower if need be.
I picked an initial speed based on what SmartCoach had as my easy pace. So far, after a week, I haven't had to slow down to maintain my heart rate. I figured I'd give it a week at this pace, to see how I adjusted to running every day.
I ran just 30 minutes every day until today, when I ran 60 minutes. Still no slowdown at an hour, and indeed the treadmill even had me at a non-zero incline for most of the run. By the end I felt that in another 15 minutes or so I would have had to slow down a bit. I think this means I'm not too far under my best speed for this low heart rate.
So my plan is to slightly increase the speed starting tomorrow, and to stay at the same heart rate. Each time I can maintain the initial speed for the entire run three days in a row, I'll speed up 0.1 km/hr. I'll also run more than 30 minutes most days.
I'm very curious to see how this goes. I've always been a pretty slow runner, but this is slow even for me. If it works, I should be steadily speeding up. I'll try to post my findings in the coming weeks. I'll also say a bit about how I chose my target heart rate.
Friday, March 25, 2011
Setback
In January, I started formal training for a half marathon. I'm using Runner's World SmartCoach for my training plan. I like it. Compared to my usual haphazard ways, I'm running a little less often, a little slower, and probably about the same mileage. Here's a chart of my running since January:
I started SmartCoach in the middle of the 4th week of the year. I was sick for a few days in the 6th week of the year, but hadn't missed any other workouts until this week. More on that in a bit.
I like the way SmartCoach builds up the training load. It started with just 3 runs a week. It goes in four-week cycles, with 3 weeks of increasing mileage and then it backs off a little the fourth week. It also adds another day per week of training every few cycles, always on the down week. For example, through week 4 of the plan (week 7 of the year on the chart) I built up to 24 km/week on three days a week, then backed off to 20 km, but on 4 days. Similarly, on week 13 I'm scheduled to go to 5 days a week.
My minimalist shoe progress has been pretty good, too. I run my shorter runs almost exclusively in my Vibram FiveFingers, and usually start longer runs in them before switching to Brooks Green Silence. I think my longest run in the FiveFingers has been 7 km.
That's the good news.
On Monday, all of this came to an abrupt halt. I slipped an fell on the stairs down to the basement of our house (yes, I'm graceful. Like a dancer.). My right leg folded under me and I bounced down about three steps on my foot and ankle. I also stretched my quadricep like it's never been stretched before.
As I fell I was certain that I'd done some major damage to my leg, but I found that it wasn't so bad. I could walk right away, though with some pain. I've been icing it and gently stretching, and it's getting better every day. I hope to get back running next week. My training plan calls for a tempo run on Wednesday, which I will probably skip, or at least make it an easy run instead. It's day-to-day at this point, and I'll be very cautious.
SmartCoach apparently has a way to re-schedule the rest of the training based on missed workouts. I'm curious to see what workouts it changes.
I started SmartCoach in the middle of the 4th week of the year. I was sick for a few days in the 6th week of the year, but hadn't missed any other workouts until this week. More on that in a bit.
I like the way SmartCoach builds up the training load. It started with just 3 runs a week. It goes in four-week cycles, with 3 weeks of increasing mileage and then it backs off a little the fourth week. It also adds another day per week of training every few cycles, always on the down week. For example, through week 4 of the plan (week 7 of the year on the chart) I built up to 24 km/week on three days a week, then backed off to 20 km, but on 4 days. Similarly, on week 13 I'm scheduled to go to 5 days a week.
My minimalist shoe progress has been pretty good, too. I run my shorter runs almost exclusively in my Vibram FiveFingers, and usually start longer runs in them before switching to Brooks Green Silence. I think my longest run in the FiveFingers has been 7 km.
That's the good news.
On Monday, all of this came to an abrupt halt. I slipped an fell on the stairs down to the basement of our house (yes, I'm graceful. Like a dancer.). My right leg folded under me and I bounced down about three steps on my foot and ankle. I also stretched my quadricep like it's never been stretched before.
As I fell I was certain that I'd done some major damage to my leg, but I found that it wasn't so bad. I could walk right away, though with some pain. I've been icing it and gently stretching, and it's getting better every day. I hope to get back running next week. My training plan calls for a tempo run on Wednesday, which I will probably skip, or at least make it an easy run instead. It's day-to-day at this point, and I'll be very cautious.
SmartCoach apparently has a way to re-schedule the rest of the training based on missed workouts. I'm curious to see what workouts it changes.
Thursday, January 20, 2011
Half marathon in May
I've begun training for a half Marathon. For the first time in my adult running life, I'll be following a specific training plan. I've chosen SmartCoach from the Runner's World web site. In past years, I've either trained totally haphazardly, or at best I've used the Daniels Running Formula for determining training pace. I didn't actually follow the Daniels plan, though; I might run a tempo run when I felt like it, or do repeats when I thought it might be fun.
For a runner like me (i.e., really slow, and not well-trained), I think it's more important to pick some plan - any plan - and stick to it, rather than trying to pick the perfect plan.
You can find training programs all over the internet. The Brookings Marathon web site lists a number of them.
For a runner like me (i.e., really slow, and not well-trained), I think it's more important to pick some plan - any plan - and stick to it, rather than trying to pick the perfect plan.
You can find training programs all over the internet. The Brookings Marathon web site lists a number of them.
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Registered for a half marathon
But I registered for the half anyway. I'm not sure what changed my mind. It's going to be a big challenge, which is something my running hasn't had for a number of years. I'm excited about it, and more than a little worried.
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