If there is one good thing about running yourself into the ground and forcing yourself to take time off, it is that you are free to evaluate your past training and see where you can improve upon it. That is what I really began doing yesterday. I knew my training wasn't great in the fall. I'm at a point where almost anything I do will improve my times, until that point where I go over the edge anyway.
I have been improving and improving, but I've really been running with no set plan. I tried to put one together in the summer, but it just didn't work out. I found myself just running with whatever I felt like doing. In the end, I ended up peaking at 60 miles a week, which is what my initial plan had called for anyway. I did some harder running, but it was mostly just in the form of weekly 1/2 mile repeats and then on to mile repeats. Even with no true path to improvement, I was able to run a 1:34:29 half marathon and miss my PR by about 1 minute and 20 seconds.
For weeks, I had been running with sore quads. A hard week last week and it finally began to catch up to me. The sorenss no longer went away after a mile and my speeds began to drop. Suddenly, the running was just hard work and it was too much. It was time to rest.
It is easy to point at going from no mileage to 60 miles in a week in just over 6 months as the culprit. That is only part of it though. A big issue was combining those high miles with too much hard running. Early on in my half marathon cycle, I was running hard twice a week. That was just too much too soon.
The runs that really started killing me were some Monday Fartlek runs. The problem is that I made them too long and too fast, too soon. I was doing about 8 total miles in these runs. While it is good to vary pace and distance within the fast segments of these runs, I was varying them too much. One interval would be a 7 minute pace for half a mile. The next would be almost an all out sprint at a 5:20 pace for a tenth of a mile or so. That was too much on the extremes of the speed and endurance ends of the spectrum. It is fine to work on both ends, but it has to be done in separate workouts.
These runs didn't seem to bother me while I was running them, but after I stopped I could really feel it. I couldn't believe I had run that hard. They took a big toll and I couldn't recover enough for my Wednesday repeat segments. I need more than one day of rest in between hard sessions, especially when I run as hard as I did during these. I plan to have at least two days of easy running between hard days in the spring.
I cut fartleks out when I realized that they were causing problems, but by then it was too late. A lot damage had already been done. The intervals that I ran weren't done properly either. When I began, I was doing 1/2 mile repeats at my goal pace of 7 minutes per mile with 1/4 mile of active recovery. Then, I jumped to mile repeats at the same pace with the same amount of recovery. If I was going to make the leap in distance, I needed to add to my recovery time or back off the pace to like 7:10 or 7:15 per mile initially and then bring it down to goal pace. I actually knew this, but I had so little trouble with the 1/2 mile repeats that I thought I could kind of cheat and just jump up.
The other problem with my hard workouts is that I didn't do enough variety. I did almost no hill sprints or hill repeats. I only did a tempo run late in the training process. That should be a weekly staple in the middle of my training block. I know I should do some weekly hill sprints after easy runs to build up strength and help prevent injuries. I got lazy though and I did have trouble finding a hill to my liking that is close enough to my house to do these. I also did no strides or drills to improve form. All that will be added to the program.
Another thing that was a real eye opener was my longest long run of the fall. I ran 18 miles a few weeks before my half marathon. I ran the first 10K with Flo and it wasn't overly difficult, but it was definitely too fast for an 18 mile run. After that, I ran the rest with Sarah. My easy run days have been around 8:20 pace and Sarah and I ran nice and slow at around 8:40 per mile or so. That made the run feel so much easier and more comfortable. I wasn't beat up at all afterward.
My problem is that I want to get faster partly by running with faster people. The best chance to run with others is during the BCR outings on Saturdays, which also happens to be my long run days. A lot of highly competitive runners run their long run with a hard segment at the end. That's what I was trying to do, by going with Flo or Mertz. That is fine and dandy if you already have the endurance base of the long runs to work with. I was still building up those long runs though. I was trying to both increase my endurance and run hard at the same time. I have to do one or the other. If I want to run harder segments at the end of a long run, then I need to back off my total distance. Say my longest run was 18 miles and then I want to add a hard segment of 6 miles, then I need to drop the total mileage of that run down to something like 14 miles. I need to be smarter with these long runs.
I need to do a better job with my training in the spring, that is for sure. I'm looking to try to break 3 hours for the marathon. That is going to require a good plan. I have read a lot of different books on training. One of my favorite has always been "Run Faster" by elite coach Brad Hudson. Even though I've read it a few times, I felt like I really needed to go back and reread it. That is what I began doing yesterday. It was a big help. I absorbed a lot more and I took a ton of notes that will be helpful in putting together my spring marathon training plan.
I have a much clearer picture of where to start off now and what to add into the mix or reduce as I go along. I was telling people that I have a fairly good idea of all the different types of workouts and what they do. I just don't really know how to put it all together (in what quantities and doses). That's what I've been trying to learn. It is kind of like having all the ingredients necessary to make dinner, but not having the recipe to see how they mix together to make a finished meal.
At the moment, I am going to take off from running until next Thursday's 9 mile race. I will stick to cycling for an hour or so a day to keep some of my fitness. The big thing is that I will also take time off after the race too. I didn't do that after the half marathon and I wasn't able to recover adequately. I will not run until the beginning of December. When I come back, I'm also not going to jump right into 6 days of running a week. I'm going to start with just 3 days a week and add a day every week for the next couple weeks. I won't be too far removed from 50 mile weeks, so if all goes well, I'll jump back into that range in a little over a month.
Regardless, I am just going to listen to my body. If that is too fast, I'll back off and readjust. I'd like to peak at an 80 week in April, but if that doesn't happen, it is no big deal. I need to get to the marathon healthy. I'm trying to strengthened my quads and my core during this down time and I hope that will help. Hopefully when I add hill sprints, my legs will get stronger too. When I begin coming back, I won't do anything fast and I gradually work those type of workouts back into the mix. I'll also try to get on some softer surfaces. I've ignored trails too much lately. I'd like to get at least 1 trail run in per week in the spring.
I still want to run with faster people. Flo was telling me that she does tempo runs on Fridays and then follows that up with her Saturday long runs. I was just reading "The Hansons Marathon Method" by the elite coaches, the Hanson Brothers. They subscribe to the same principal. Their theory is to run your easy long run after a hard run to get your body used to the fatigue of a marathon. The only problem I have with that is that they only recommend the long runs to max out at 16 miles. I'm just not comfortable with that.
I'm going to try running hard with Flo on Fridays and then doing my long runs on Saturdays. To do that though, I'll need my Saturday long runs to be at a super slow and easy pace, like Sarah and I did a few weeks back. I can't run with Flo on Saturdays too, at least not until my fitness gets closer to her level. If this back to back proves too difficult, then I'll change it up. Maybe I'll move my long runs to Sundays. I don't the know. The problem with that is that I really like running long runs with a group. It makes them seem to fly by so much quicker. I want to do both long runs and hard workouts with a group. Such a dilemma.
Another issue that I'm still not sure about is whether I'm better from an endurance or a speed standpoint. My times seem to project out pretty equally among all the distances. I always considered myself to have better endurance, but now I'm not so sure. I fell apart at the end of the half marathon and I've always done that at the marathon distance. I also had a much, much easier time with 1/2 mile repeats than I did with mile repeats. Of course there is a difference there, but there was also a big difference in my performance in both workouts. I almost never missed my goal for the 1/2 mile repeats, but I was lucky to hit those goals 50% of the time for the mile repeats. My legs certainly went away before my lungs did in the half marathon. That could just be because they were too beat up. I'm not sure, but I'm starting to think I'm better at the speed aspect than the endurance one.
I get as excited or more excited figuring out these training concepts as I do actually running. I guess that probably means that I should work on getting into coaching at some point. I really enjoy putting together training plans too. It is a fun process that I'm still working on getting better and better at. Now, I just have to figure out how to stop being so stubborn and begin making changes on the fly and really listen to my body.
I can't wait to get back to running, but I can also say this time off has been a real eye opener. I look forward to fully putting my spring training plan together over the next week and I hope I can execute it well to reach my goals in May. I feel like I have a much clearer picture now of where I'm going.
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