Mountain Run Half Marathon Prep

This Sunday, I shall find out whether my recently adopted training method of long mountain trail runs has adequately prepared me for a faster flat half marathon.

Exhibit A:

On October 20th, I did a lovely 12 mile out-and-back run on the Pacific Crest Trail where 2540’ of elevation gain rewards you with views like these:

Exhibit B:

On the 27th I ran up a local mountain aptly nicknamed “The Beast” then continued on to a fire station at the top of a different peak before turning around, for a total of 15 miles with 2879 feet of elevation gain:

In contrast, Sunday will involve running the first half of this:

The day after my 12 mile mountain run, we did a 5 mile hike with a friend with a a mere 1100’ of elevation gain. Just to make sure I totally killed my legs.

The other runs:

Week of the 22nd

Wednesday AM: Crappy 5 miles of speed work on a hotel treadmill while out of town for work again.
Thursday PM: Running club’s Halloween run, 5.72 miles. I skipped on the costume but did wear orange and black. Pace started at a comfortable 9:47, but crept into the 8s and there was even a 7:36 mile. Avg pace: 8:39.
Saturday AM: 15 Mountain Miles (above).

Week of the 29th

Tuesday PM: Short speed work at the track. 6x[400m, 200Rest] in 1:41-1:47,  for a total of 3.65 miles.
Friday AM: It didn’t even happen yet, but I’m predicting the future… 3-4 miles at goal race pace.

And what’s goal race pace?

Well. I don’t know for sure. I haven’t run any real races in a few months but my unofficial-5k-at-the-end-of-a-5-mile-run in 23:54 and my 10 mi tempo run at a 8:30 pace from a few weeks ago point to an equivalent performance of a 1:51ish half marathon. 

That sounds kind of scary and my taper crazies lead me to strongly doubt that kind of speed.  So here’s a range, based on my beloved Run Less Run Faster book:

Equivalent 5k Performance	HM time	HM pace
23:50	1:50:33	8:26
24:00	1:51:13	8:29
24:10	1:52:05	8:33
24:20	1:52:44	8:36
24:30	1:53:37	8:40

Really, my last half marathon in June was a 1:57:13 (8:57 pace) so I will be happy to run anything faster than that.  8:30 or 8:40 make for easy math along the way (17 min/2 miles or 26 min/3 miles). But I could make another one of these pace cheat sheets like I did for Philly last November:

Thanks to Kristy for this brilliant idea. 

Last fall I used my lofty goal of 2:07, which Kristy and Kara said I was capable of (but I was skeptical); then I ran a 2:06:48.  So maybe this Sunday’s pace chart should be geared toward the faster end of my goal again.

Other items to consider:

Daylight Savings! And it’s the good one, where you get 1 extra hour of sleep tossing and turning and waking up at 1am and 2am and 2am (<—DST bonus) and 3am and 4am… in a panic worried that I overslept my alarm.

Warm. Today was comfortable with a high temperature around 70. But no worries, it will warm up again for this weekend.  And because of Daylight Savings, the start time at New-7am will be the Old-8am; so I’ll be running until Old-10am, which will probably easily get into the mid 70s.  At least there is no rain in the forecast; last year it poured.

Is there a “home field advantage” in running? I have run parts of the race course fairly regularly since moving here in February.  Previously my halfs have been new territory.  Either I’ll be able to tell myself “you’ve run this section before, you’ve got this!” or I may poke my eyes out on some of the more familiar sections.

One of said “more familiar” sections:

Now pretend you are standing on this path and I am running toward you. 
That will be me at mile 7 or 8. I can’t tell because that stretch kinda looks the same.

Here’s hoping for something in the low to mid 1:50s…

PS, Good luck to anyone running in NYC this weekend!

Almost a Serious Runner

According to the June 2012 issue of Runner’s World, my new 5k PR puts me a mere 12 seconds away from marking me as a “serious” runner.

Maybe in another month or two I’ll attempt to shave off 3 seconds per mile and make the leap from hobby jogger to serious runner.

With my new 5k time comes new training paces…

My November HM time of 2:06:48 gave me an equivalent 5k time of 27:20 in RLRF, so I was using that for my training paces the past few months.  I had noted recently that my long run pace seems to have shifted to around a 9:40 pace, and 10:00 has become my easy full-sentence conversational pace, and I guess my new 5k time confirms it.

	Old	New
400m	2:02	1:51
800m	4:08	3:47
1200m	6:18	5:46
1600m	8:32	7:50
Short Tempo	9:05	8:23
Mid Tempo	9:20	8:38
Long Tempo	9:35	8:53
HMP	9:49	9:01
HMP + 20	10:09	9:21
HMP + 30	10:19	9:31
Easy	10:40	9:58

Some of these new paces sound kinda tough.  By the way, a 25:11 (25:10) 5k predicts a 1:56:39 half marathon. Gulp.

I know Run Less Run Faster suggests you do a 5k along the way to gauge progress and adjust training paces if necessary.  I need to go back and re-read parts of the book, but I think my 5k time predicts a 1:56:39 half based on my current fitness…not if I were to just begin the training now.

I was going to share something funny I came across about having curly hair, but I changed my mind because it turns out my hair wasn’t curly at all today.  It was above 90 with minimal humidity.  When allowed to air dry, as usual, this is what my hair looked like.  The natural curl appears to have fallen out– wtf?  And yes, this is pretty straight for my hair as there are no ringlets.

Maybe I need to take advantage of the low humidity and dust off my hair straightener again to finish the job. I kind of gave up on straightening my hair when it took me an hour and a half and in high northeast humidity, it would start to curl up again mid-day.

Maintaining

Here's my physical activity since the Hot Chocolate 15k.

Monday 12/5: 1 hour boot camp, 1.44 mile run, 9:43 average pace
Tuesday 12/6: 45 minutes of spinning
Thursday 12/8: 3.11 mile run: 9:22, 9:07, 9:11 paces.
Friday 12/9: 2+ mile dog walk
Saturday 12/10: 3.87 mile easy run
Sunday 12/11: 2+ mile dog walk + 3.93 mile easy run


Sadly my Monday night Boot Camp ended last week with the end of the semester.  So this week's Monday instead involved shopping for my work Secret Santa, grocery shopping, cooking dinner, having a beer, then remembering to do some weight & core stuff on the living room floor:

I did:
2x30 second plank/hover
3x10 (chest) pushups on toes
2x8 up-up-down-down planks (move between straight arms and forearms)
2x25 regular crunches
2x15 per side: oblique crunches isolating one side at a time (half bicycle)

With a 5lb weight in each hand:
2x12 lateral raise
2x12 bicep curl
2x12 overhead tricep extension
2x12 rear fly

I felt it in my chest, shoulders, and abs a little bit Tuesday morning so while it's not at all like my hour long boot camp, it wasn't a waste.

 - - - - -

If you are friends with me on Daily Mile or follow on twitter, perhaps you saw my whining about my sore foot.  I think, if it's possible, that I bruised part of my foot from cinching my laces so tightly around the feet that I could no longer feel before the start of the Hot Chocolate 15k.  1 week and 2 days later, my foot is feeling better.  It never appeared swollen or bruised, and did not hurt on impact, but the snug fitting base of the shoe laces on top of that spot on my foot was not so comfortable.

After extensive online "research" trying to relieve my fears of a stress fracture or something else similarly terrible, I came across a website suggesting buying foam circles meant for calluses and sticking it on the spot on your foot where the laces rubbed.

This looks ridiculous, but I did it.  I found a package of 6 store brand foam circles for less than $2.

Then to be sure, I also re-laced that shoe, skipping the eyelet right above the uncomfortable spot.  I found an article about this on Runner's World.  They suggest putting lipstick on your foot to determine which eyelet to skip, but I already knew which one was the issue.

My right foot was 100% comfortable for both of my weekend runs using this little combo.

- - - - -

It's now been just over 3 weeks since the Philadelphia Half marathon and I've definitely been taking it easy.  I think I still need a training plan even for "maintenance" because I don't think I've had enough variety in my runs to be maintaining the fitness I gained leading up to the Philly half.  I really feel like I need some structure to my running again, even though I don't have a set date in mind for my next PR-potential half marathon.  I've got about 15 weeks until the beautiful part-trail/part-road race out in CA at the end of March, if I sign up for it.

The full FIRST/Run Less Run Faster (RLRF) plan runs 18 weeks.  I only ran the last 7 or so weeks of it to prepare for the Philadelphia half.  Since I felt I saw great progress using it for the 7 weeks, I can't wait to see what 18 weeks will do to help my times.

I feel like I followed the plan very closely, missing very few of the target runs anyway.  My adherence to the training will vary more this time around since I've got a 5-6 day cross country drive in my near future (2 months away).

My plan is to start the RLRF half marathon training plan again to at least give me a schedule.  As I figure out which race I'm working toward (and when that race is), I will just adjust where I am in the training plan, even if it means repeating some weeks.

Starting the plan will also give me the kick in the butt I need if I have any hope of getting to my arbitrary mid-year goal of 1000 miles run in the year 2011.  Due to taking it easy for 2 weeks post-half marathon (lazy) and the above mentioned foot issue for the past week (didn't want to push it if I had a real injury), I didn't get in as many miles as I would have liked to. 

As of right now, I need to run another 73.5 miles in the remaining 18 days of the year, which I understand is pushing it.  That's an average of 4 miles per day or 28 miles per week.  I'd like to hit 1000 miles, because I like nice even numbers, but I'm not going to beat myself up if my foot starts to hurt when I do a real long run this weekend.

What do you do for maintenance in between races/events?  
Do you have a plan you like or do you wing it?


What's your yearly mileage looking like for 2011?

Did you have running/fitness goals for the year and did you meet them (or will you in the next 18 days)?

Philly Half Training Check In

Just a quick check in with my training plan...only 16 days until the Philadelphia Half Marathon!  I know we're 5 days into the current week, but I'll save that for a later post.

Training Plan (see full plan here):

	Monday	Tuesday	Wednes	Thurs	Friday	Saturday	Sunday	miles run
9/26-10/2	boot  camp	spin	rest	spin  +abs	rest	3 mi PRO	6 mi hike
10/3-10/9	boot  camp	spin	3 mi	spin  +abs	6 E	rest	10 HMP+20	19
10/10-10/16	boot  camp	rest	3x[1600,  400R]	spin  +abs	5@ MT	rest	13 HMP+30	23
10/17-10/23	boot  camp	spin	10x[400,  400R]	spin  +abs	5@ MT	rest	10 HMP+20	22
10/24-10/30	boot  camp	rest  or easy	3x[2000,  400R]	rest  or easy	2x[1E,2MT],  1 E	rest	14 HMP+30	27

 Actual:

	Monday	Tuesday	Wednes	Thurs	Friday	Saturday	Sunday	miles run
9/26-10/2	boot  camp	spin	rest	spin  +abs	rest	3 mi PRO	6 mi hike
10/3-10/9	boot  camp	rest	3 mi	rest	5 mi run 4 mi bike	30 mi bike	10 HMP+30	18
10/10-10/16	boot  camp	rest	3x[1600,400R]	spin	4.5@ MT	16 mi bike	rest	10.25
10/17-10/23	11.5 HMP	spin	10x[400,  400R]	rest	5@ MT	rest	10.5 HMP+20	35.25
10/24-10/30	boot  camp	easy	3x[2000,400R]	rest	5 easy	rest	14 HMP+15	25.5