Yikes! We’ve Done it Again!
Well, I’ve been looking at my calendar over the last few days, and it looks like our six in six challenge has turned into a three in five challenge. Confused? I’ll explain.
My training partner Little G and I decided, rather suddenly, to run a third half marathon in the fall. Our third race happened to be scheduled quite soon after the two we were already scheduled to run, so we ended up running three half marathons in quick succession: October 31, November 13, and December 4. For those of you keeping score at home, that was three half marathons in five weeks.
As you know, we then decided to go ahead and sign up for three more halfs in the next three months. We figured, after doing the first three so close together, doing another three, spaced further apart, would be a piece of cake.
You know where this is headed, don’t you?
They are not spaced further apart.
In fact, the next three races we are scheduled to run are exactly five weeks apart again. That’s right, go take out your calendars and count. I’ll wait.
ING Miami Half Marathon, Sunday, January 29
Fort Lauderdale A1A Half Marathon, Sunday, February 19
Gasparilla Distance Classic Half Marathon, Sunday, March 4
How did we manage to do that? We ran the first three, then took almost two months off–seven weeks–and now we’re back on this crazy schedule where balancing training and racing becomes a difficult game of managing our fuel and sleep, our hydration and miles, our stretching and our speedwork. Especially when, this time around, that last half marathon isn’t just a half, but two days of racing.
I hope this doesn’t sound like a complaint, because I’m certainly well aware of how blessed I am to be able to do this, in every sense. That the Boss supports me, and that we have the financial ability to do it, and that I’m physically able to complete the races themselves.
I just find it . . . amusing, that the scheduling worked out this way again . . .
Robotic
This week, I was scheduled to do bridge repeats again as my speedwork. But the bridge is lonely when I have to do it alone, and my training partner was out of town, and to add to my lack of desire to do it alone, Monday was one of those windy, difficult days. Though facing ten bridge repeats alone would have been tough alone on a clear, sunny day, it was really difficult to do it on a dark, dreary, windy day. I decided to substitute a different workout.
To add to my general lack of desire to face a tough speed workout, I’d run the day before, which is unusual for me. As a matter of spiritual discipline and family scheduling, I generally take Sunday as a total rest day. This is partly why Mondays is my speedwork day; it’s helpful to do a difficult workout after a day of resting your legs. But this week, the Boss invited me to run with him on Sunday morning after church, and that’s not an invitation I was willing to turn down, because it’s not something I get to do often. The pace was very easygoing, and we didn’t go far–just three miles–but the fact that we ran at all wa a total deviation from my normal weekly routine.
I knew it, too–as soon as I set out for my pre-speedwork warm-up I knew that my legs were way more tired than they should have been before I even started the real work.
Like I said, I’d already decided against the bridge. Instead, I decided I’d run 6×1-mile with quarter-mile recoveries, with a 1-mile warm-up and cooldown. I’d set out from home toward my “speedwork alley,” a street near our house where I’ve mapped out about a 1¼-mile stretch to do all my repeats. I warmed up, then got to work.
That first interval was painful, though fast: 7:34. I was reminded that mile repeats are some of the toughest work because they require a fairly hard pace, sustained over a longish distance. When I did intervals last week, I did a two-mile repeat at 8:15 pace, and that was really easy. Even though the interval was long, because the pace was one I could so easily maintain, it felt really doable. On that day, the 7:45 pace was one I only had to maintain for a half-mile.
But, on Monday, I had to sustain it for a whole mile. Six times.
Like I said, I went out too fast, but I knew right away that I’d never nail down that pace for every repeat. After that, I knew I’d better settle down into a pace I could more easily carry for the rest of the workout. I’ll confess that I thought about quitting. As I ran through intervals 2 and 3, I felt very clumsy and flat-footed. Now, this is unusual for me. Though I’m not fast, I generally pride myself on an easy running stride, especially when I’m running speedwork. But on this day, I felt like I could hear my footfalls, CLUNK CLUNK CLUNK, hitting the pavement with big awkward thuds. I tried to alter my stride and land more on my forefoot, but my legs were really tired. I groaned inwardly and blamed the Sunday miles with the Boss. Intervals 2 and 3 came in at 7:49 and 7:51, short of the 7:45 goal.
As I faced down #4–halfway done, though I thought about just finishing here, telling myself there was no shame in doing 4 mile repeats. Though I’d followed the Olympic trials marathon on Twitter and Runnersworld.com on Saturday, I’d only gotten to see it on television that day, and the images of the best American runners were fresh in my mind. In the past, Kara Goucher’s clean, beautiful stride has been an inspiration to me as I seek to run with that kind of grace. But as I did my repeats Monday, I wasn’t thinking of Kara Goucher’s long legs. I was thinking of Desiree Davila. She ran on Saturday with an almost robotic, automatic motion. As Garmie beeped at me and told me to start pushing again for repeat #4, I told myself to channel that kind of robotic, unthinking running automation. Don’t think about it. Just run. I told myself not to think about the effort it would take, or the challenge of the breathing, or even my thudding footfalls, but to just endure for the mile–to settle into the pace I was running and enjoy it.
That, it turned out, was the key: to think of myself as this simple, running automaton. For the next 3 intervals, I started hitting my pace more consistently: 7:40, 7:44, 7:46. Now, I know it looks like my pace was getting slower, and you might think that’s a bad thing, but from my perspective, that’s not bad–I was aiming for a 7:45 pace, so the last two intervals are the first two where I was actually nailing my goal.
I’m a little disappointed in the late realization of what I’m missing to set my personal best–it’s the short-distance speed. While I’ve worked this season at developing my endurance and my long-distance speed, I’ve failed at developing my 5k legs. Now, it might seem that this wouldn’t matter in long races, but it does–it matters when you need a kick late in a race, for one thing, and it helps develop your heart and lungs for all kinds of running, not just the 3.1-mile races. When I was at my best, I could run this workout–not easily mind you, but with effort–at 7:35 miles. It’s only ten seconds, but it is ten seconds.
In spite of the disappointment, I’m thankful to have this weakness so clearly shown to me. I can’t fix the problem if I don’t know it’s there. So identified, I can set about doing more short-speed specific work.
Breakfast on the Run
Little G and I know that we need to put in miles to get ready for the Michelob Ultra Challenge, which will require us to run 30.5 miles over two days. But the challenge of the weekend isn’t just to run those miles, but the way you’re asked to run them: we run a 15k at 6am Saturday, then come back at 9am to run a very crowded 5k. Then we show up again at 6am Sunday to run a half marathon, and not long after finishing that race, run an 8k. So part of the inherent difficulty in running the races is getting through one event, and cooling down, letting your muscles relax, and then having to get all your stuff together to run again.
With that very much on our minds this week, Little G and I decided that on one of our longest runs of the season, to train the same way we’ll be required to run on race weekend, or in conditions as close as we could simulate in training.
We set out for our run around 6am, planning to cover 18 miles. We were trying to go at about 10-minute pace, or roughly a minute per mile slower than we’ll need to hit during the half marathon on race day. We covered a lot of ground, trying to get in as many miles as possible before heading to the destination we wanted to end up at at the halfway point. It’s probably not the typical breakfast destination for marathoners in training, and we missed our intended arrival, but we ended up at one of our local McDonald’s at the ten-mile mark. We split a coffee and biscuit, tried to sit downwind from everyone since we probably smelled pretty bad, and purposely rested for about twenty minutes before completing the last eight miles of the run.
What this forced us to do, in preparation for race weekend, was to cool our muscles down for some time, before starting to run again. We also had to practice running with food fresh in our stomachs, which we’ll also need to do on race day. As you can see, we’re being very intentional about our training this time around.
On Monday, speedwork day, we eschewed the bridge in favor of intervals. I warmed up with an easy mile, then ran 1 x 2-mile at half-marathon goal pace with a 3-minute recovery, then 2 x 1-mile at 10k pace with a 2-minute recovery, then 2 x 800 meters (a half-mile) at 5k pace with a 2-minute recovery. I finished off with a mile cooldown.
Now, the last time I ran this workout, I targeted an 8:10 pace for my half marathon pace, and worked out the rest of my paces off that pace. But this time, I’m not targeting a personal best, so I figured I could target a much slower pace, and in fact needed to. As I have probably shared before, I’m not very good at knowing my own pace when I run, so part of my goal when I run workouts like this is to train myself so I get to know each pace, especially at an event like the Challenge where I’m running so many different paces.
I had planned to run my first interval at a pace of 9-minute miles, which is what we hope to hit for the half marathon. A steady 9-minute-per-mile pace will get us to the finish line sub-2 for the half, and we’d both be more than happy with that finish at the Ultra. But when I started the workout, it was evident that the planned pace was not ambitious enough. Even running a fairly relaxed pace, the way I’d like to run the half, I was hitting 8:45. I went ahead and finished that 2-mile interval at the 8:45 pace and adjusted the rest of the workout accordingly, targeting 8:15 pace for the 10k-pace intervals and 7:30 pace for the 5k-pace intervals.
The rest of the workout went well, and I hit my targeted paces as intended, which gave me confidence that I’m on target to run the paces I’d like to at Gasparilla. It reminds me, in fact, that I’d be in shape to run much faster than that–that I could probably run a personal best if I trained and gave it my all. But that’s not what this event is what it’s about, and that’s not what my training is preparing me for this season. I’m getting ready to run 30 miles in two days, and that requires a different kind of strength.
Building Up
It’s week two of true training for the Michelob Ultra Challenge at the Gasparilla Distance Classic the first weekend in March. When I commented about how much I was looking forward to this race, a good friend remarked, “wasn’t that the race last year where your legs cramped up and your friend pushed you across the finish line in a HoverRound, and then you couldn’t walk for three days afterward?” Yup, that’s the one!
He’s not far off–last year, at this race, my training partner Little G had to talk me through the last race, a five-miler, and we finished together, just over 51 minutes. We are, therefore, committed to training better this year. We want to arrive at the start of that last race with better legs, and finish that last event with more endurance, more energy, and a better finish than 10-minute miles.
Don’t get me wrong: I’m proud of my finish last year. I was coming off an injury that had kept me from running for the last six weeks of 2010, and my first time on the roads was New Year’s Eve. Even after I returned to running, I did so fairly gingerly, and our training was understandably intended to avoid injury and simply get us to finish the event, not to do so with any grand notions of being fast. This time, we have bigger dreams.
Last week, we did six repetitions on the bridge, sprinting up and then taking our time walking down. (Though downhill running is important, it’s the uphill running that builds strength and speed, so we’re mostly worried about that for now.) We were aiming for eight repetitions this time, and will build up slowly each time until we do twelve. At that point we’ll be one month out from race day and will lay off the bridge until race day.
My pace was slower this time around, and my absolute slowest repetition came at #4, which was interesting. Usually my slowest rep is the penultimate one. But there were many things I probably did wrong. We did this workout in the morning, around 7, and I didn’t fuel well the night before or the day of the of run, even though it was late enough that my body probably could have used some food. And workouts like that are difficult in the full light of day, at least for me. The reps were all at full effort, and we completed the eight reps, so I was content.
A cold front–the first of the season–blew through Tuesday night, just in time for my next scheduled easy run Wednesday morning. I couldn’t reschedule it because our workouts are pretty structured right now, so I had to do the best I could at bundling up before I set out into the upper-20s, temperatures we’re not used to seeing here in southeastern Florida. It wasn’t an unpleasant 8 miles for much of me except for my fingers, which remained cold. My little Target gloves, it turns out, weren’t meant to cope with such frigid winds.
I was back on the road today, in much more merciful temperatures, in the low 40s, which felt much more pleasant not only due to the temperature change but also because of the lack of wind. I did an easy six as a prelude to our long run of 18, planned for tomorrow.
Little G and I are knitting our own training plan for this event. Though we’re seeing more of these events where runners can sign up for more than one race over a weekend, there’s a dearth of literature on how to prepare for them, so we’re doing what we feel is best based on what’s worked in the past and what we know about ourselves as runners. Since the event requires that we run on back-to-back days, we’re doing a lot of back-to-back long runs. At the same time we don’t want to ignore speedwork, especially our second year at the event, and of course some of the work needs to be a steady buildup of miles so our legs don’t come crashing down like a house of cards.
Double Long Runs: Last week, we did 5 on Friday and 16 on Saturday. This was a progression since we’d already trained to 18 miles as a build up to the half (this is a correction–I’d earlier said we’d only run to 16, and checking my log I realize that was a mistake, but I’m not going to go back and change it). This week, it’s 6 and 18. We’ll take a cutback week every third week, and take mini tapers for the weeks we’re racing half marathons (Miami and A1A), so we can race them (though we’re reserving the right to run them as part of our doubles if the weather conditions are not conducive to a PR). The last double long run we’ll do is a 10-miler on a Friday and an 18-miler on a Saturday, about three weeks before race weekend (which requires 12.3 miles Saturday, 18.1 Sunday).
Speedwork: We’ll do bridge sprints, like I said, building up the number of repeats until we hit 12. The mileage goes up, of course, each time–doing our 8 this week meant 6 miles, once we added warm-up and cool-down. We’ll take turns between the bridge and interval work. Little G is partial to mile repeats or 800s. I’ll do a workout I call “the crazies”–1 x 2mi @ half marathon pace, 2 x 1mi @ 10k pace, 2 x 800s @ 5k pace. This workout is perfect for the Ultra Challenge because I get to practice all the speeds I’ll need to hit on race weekend. By February, though, we’ll really not be running a lot of structured speedwork, both of us being firm believers in Coach Bob Glover’s advice to lay off it in the month before a race. We’ll do some short tempo runs, and of course we still have the A1A Half two weeks before race day, which will be speedwork enough.
Easy Miles: To separate the hard work and give our legs some rest, we’re doing our speedwork on Mondays, with a recovery day Sunday, the day before. Long runs don’t tax us much since we can both take it pretty easy after the run and are pretty serious about ice baths and eating well post-run. Little G does Pilates and Zumba for cross-training on Tuesdays; I bike. We do one easy run Wednesdays. I’m trying to keep it to a distance of 8 miles, just so my body gets used to that distance being a standard easy run and keep my weekly mileage at 35 miles or so. Thursdays is a day of total rest to get ready for the hard work of the double run Friday and Saturday.
In Summary: Mondays are for speedwork, either hills or intervals. Tuesdays we cross train. On Wednesdays, we do an easy run. Thursdays are total rest to get ready, because Fridays and Saturdays we’re doing double runs, building up the distance until we get closer to the 12-18 required by race day.
That’s the plan! I’m hoping writing this down will be helpful.
Up the Hill
We have nine weeks until race day in Tampa Bay. It’s time to get to work. With that in mind, my training partner Little G and I knew it was time to get some hill training in. One of the things we both felt really good about during our half marathons this fall was how strong we felt on the bridges and the late miles, even during hot and windy days. We knew it was because we had put in some very tough workouts, doing repeats on the only hill that exists around here, which is the drawbridge over the intracoastal waterway, about half a mile from the ocean and about twenty minutes from where we live.
We always plan these workouts in the evening. Little G works from 7 to 4, so when we run together we can either run very early in the morning or in the afternoons. The bridge is impossible to run in the dark–there are just too many places to lose your footing. So we do a lot of evening runs, though these are easier in the summer when it’s light out until 9pm. We planned to start at 6 or 6:30, whenever the Boss got home from work, and hope for the best, planning to wear a headlamp if necessary.
It was one of those days . . .
Unfortunately, it started raining around 4 o’clock, ranging from drizzles to pouring rain.
Fortunately, the rain brought cooler temperatures, which we sorely needed.
Unfortunately, the bridge’s metal span is notoriously slick when wet, and neither Little G nor I can afford to slip and fall during a speed workout.
Fortunately, it’s early in the week, and we knew we could reschedule the workout if we needed to.
Unfortunately, it’s a holiday week, so our schedule isn’t really our own, as we both have family commitments we need to attend to in the latter part of the week.
In the end, we decided to go ahead and head eastward, and hope for the best. The satellite map showed that the showers, though heavy, would pass through our area in the immediate future, and we figured we’d check the bridge out. If it was too slick to safely do our sprints, then we figured we’d do an easy run instead, and come back for our hill workout another day.
When we got to the bridge, the rain was still coming down, though not as harshly as it had been earlier. However, it was quite definitely the leading edge of our first cool front of the season, and the air behind it was decidedly cooler. At the beginning of the run, not yet warmed up, facing a brisk wind, wet through, we were very cold indeed. And as we turned toward the bridge, it got worse. But we stubbornly kept heading up, up, up, knowing that race day yields to no one, and training has to get done.
The rain stopped on the way to the bridge, and we found its span wet, but doable. We went over the bridge the first time running easy, testing its girders, and putting in that first mile at about ten-minute pace, getting our legs and arms warmed up. Then we started our sprints up. The workout goal was to do four sprints up the bridge, about a quarter-mile, and then walk down. It’s a tough workout because we absolutely tear ourselves up running up, so the cooldown counts for a lot.
The first two intervals came up short because the drawbridge went up while we were running them, so we couldn’t quite get to the top. After that we were able to get to the top and we were actually a little long on our hill repeat, running a third of a mile instead of a quarter. And gluttons for punishment that we are, we actually decided to run six repeats instead of four, just because we are so close to race day and we were on the bridge, so we decided to just get the workout in while we were there.
I wish my times had been more consistent, but here’s what I ended up with:
- 1:18–6:15 pace (one-fifth of a mile)
- 1:16–7:05 pace (short of one-fifth)
- 1:58–6:25 pace (one-third)
- 4–1:55–6:34 pace (one-third)
- 5–1:57–6:30 pace (one-third)
- 6–2:00–6:40 pace (one-third)
I think it’s interesting that my fastest interval was #4, the one I thought would be last until, walking down on our recovery from that one, we decided to throw down two more–but I’d already expended most of my energy. I had a little bit of a burst on #6 but it wasn’t enough to make up for what I’d already spent on the way up five times. I need to remember that part of the goal of this workout is to nail the pace and get up the bridge in the same amount of time each repeat, but when you change the number of repeats halfway through the workout, that’s near impossible.
Still, I’m happy with my pace. As I stormed up the bridge, I kept remembering how good it felt to be able to pass people on the bridge during that miserable Halloween race–in the dark gale of that race, as I thought I was finished, I still had the legs to power up and over a tall causeway, and it was because I had entertained the bridgetender by going up the bridge endlessly as the sun set, every Tuesday night through July and August.
Rule #5: The harder you work during training, the luckier you’ll get during races. Her’e's to the kind of “luck” that comes from hard work.
