Week Nine of Half Marathon Training

Alright, you just got an easy week, time to get back to endurance training.

Week Nine program:

Sunday, Friday - off
Monday, 5 mile Easy Run (under 70% HRM)
Tuesday, Thursday - 4 miles easy (under 70% HRM)
Wednesday - 7 miles Tempo (80-88% HRM) This you will do by warming up one mile under 70% MHR, then alternate between 2 minutes under 70% HRM and 10 minutes 80-88%, then again between 2 minutes under 70% HRM and 10 minutes 80-88%of your HRM, etc., to a distance of 6.5 miles and then a half mile cool down.
Saturday - 12 miles (under 70% first 8 miles, 70-80% last two miles)

You have now built up to 10 minutes for a Tempo Workout.

Getting Your Long Run “Groove” On

Have you ever had a long run that you had to do over the weekend and you weren't sure how it was going to? You tepidly go into it thinking "Boy, I hope I can get that 12-14 miler in…", but you have enough experience to know it might be a struggle? But within the first hour of your run, you realize "Hey, this might be my day..." and end up doing more than you planned?

I had such a day last Saturday. I had a 14 miler planned, but with work, being out the night before at a Fantasy Baseball Draft, I didn't know what to expect. But I followed my pre-long run breakfast, drinks, and morning constitutional ritual hoping that it would be enough to get me through. But, as I described above, within the first hour, I was feeling like Blue Steel. I felt like Forrest Gump, like I could run forever.

But from years' experience, I knew I could harm myself from over-doing it. As I've probably mentioned a million times before, patience is one of those skills you have to learn in running or the probability of injury spikes up. So at mile 9, one and a half hours into my long run, I started to work with the rational side of my brain to decide, just how much farer I should go beyond the 14 miles planned. I knew I could go double the distance I had at that point. I was averaging a 10 minute mile with the 30 second walking breaks I was talking to re-fuel. A quick calculation told me that was 3 hours which would give me 18 miles. The longest long run I had up until that one was 12-13 miles at a little over 2 hours. So I rationalized that I would do something less than the 18 miles with the last half mile walking. 17 seemed safe based on that since jumping from 13 to 16.5 is another 35 minutes of running, not an earth shaking difference but not an easy slide either. So I followed my gut and everything worked. Felt like I could've done more but at the same time didn't want to blow the training to that point by over doing it.

That's the hard thing with long runs, you never know what you're going to get. But I can tell you one thing I did at the end of the run. Wrote down everything I had done that morning, the day before, two days before. As I mentioned before, keeping a running diary is important for making those small advancements in your running program. We each have our own formula that works for us. Sure, you can get advice on the big things that you should do (or shouldn't do) the day before running a Half Marathon or Full Marathon. Yet it is the little things that you do, that are unique to you that will help you perform at the top of your game. PowerBar or toast? Coffee or Coke? How much water the day before? Stretches or no stretches before you go out the door? GU every 45 minutes, 30 minutes, or forget the GU, use Gatorade instead of water?

We are all an experiment of one. What works for you, doesn't necessarily work for everyone. But once you find that formula, use it until you have a bad run and tweak it until it starts working again.

Recovery time for a Tempo workout

Are you doing your Tempo workout too hard, too easy, or just right? There's a simple way to find out, the two minute test.

As you progress in the distance or time that you run your tempo intervals, you will need to walk or jog between the intervals. Each week as you lengthen the distance from .5 mile to .75 mile to one mile lengths and beyond, the time that it takes you to recover should be the same.

Utta Pippig's coach followed the rule that the runner's heart rate should get down to below 60% of MHR before getting into the next internal or repeat. It's a good rule. But you need to also add to that equation the time it takes you to reach that level. Hence, my two minute rest rule.

It should not take you more than two minutes to get your heart rate below 60% of MHR. If it does, you are working too hard, either by running too fast, running too long [distance or time] or not slowing down enough between the intervals. If when doing the tempo runs [in the 80-89% of MHR range] you can't seem to reach approximately 60% of your MHR after two minutes of walking, change slow your speed or reduce your distance. A tempo run isn't supposed to be a speed workout. It's supposed to teach your body to maintain a pacing speed, not a quarter mile speed.

If you find that in your recovery time, your MHR drops from 80-89% of MHR to less than 60% in less than a minute, chance are you aren't running it fast enough or long enough. So, in this case, increase either to reach the more than one minute recovery time.

Either too fast or too slow is not the way to go. Like Little Red Riding Hood, you want a speed and distance that's just right. ;->

Training for a Half Marathon and a Marathon….at the same time.

Received a question that I'm sure a lot of runners get to sometime in their running careers. If I'm training for a Half Marathon and an excellent opportunity comes up to run a marathon within a couple of months after the Half Marathon race, what should I so to change my training to do both?

Maybe this question seems timely because that happened to me in the last two weeks. After finding out that I [and my family in Team Beaver] did not get chosen in Garry Bjorklund's Half Marathon [Grandma's Half Marathon] lottery, I decided to run the Full Marathon. Okay, that's a heck of a change I know, but Duluth, Minnesota does put on a great show and Grandma's Marathon is on Top 25 Marathons on a number of lists.

Since I was already training for Get-In-Gear's Half Marathon on April 30^th, I figured it was a good base anyway. Those of you following my Half Marathon program for it, know that we are putting in a number of ten mile plus runs leading up to the actual Half Marathon race.

FIRST, a disclaimer: From doing past Half Marathon and full Marathon training, here's my hard warning. These are two different race efforts with two different training plans. I would not encourage any of you that are training for your first half Marathon to attempt this for your first marathon. All others read on.

I'm a believer that you pick a race distance and train for it. So just because I'm running Grandma's, I'm not going to change my weekly [Mon-Fri] runs. What I change is the long runs. For example, my longest run before I signed up for Grandma's was two hours. So for the long run I had planned two weeks later, I add 20 minutes, the next one two weeks later another 20 minutes, and so on. That way I don't screw up my speed for the Half Marathon in April while building a base for the marathon in June. It just so happens that April 30^th I was scheduled for a 17-18 miler. So I will do the Half Marathon hard and recover with a very, very slow jog/walk. If it ends up being just 15-16 instead of the 17, I'm not worried about it. The Half Marathon fast is equal to a 15-16 miler slow or easy.

Hope this helps you plan appropriately. If you need any help in creating your own running plan in this area, you all know you can contact me at marathonmadman@gmail.com for additional questions.

Surviving Week One of Half Marathon Training

Hopefully if you are reading this, you've completed your Saturday Long Run and are looking forward to a day off tomorrow.

The long run usually is the one run that gets runners to a point of realizing that not only can they complete the Half Marathon Planned in the future but also run it for a predicted time. You probably noticed that your last two miles, in which I had you step up the pace a bit, gave you a sense of whether you are an endurance runner or a speed runner. If you felt like you could've gone faster, keep that thought, as later long runs in the coming week are going to test it. If you felt like you couldn't set it up, that was your body telling you that you may not be built for endurance. Don't let that bother you, all runners have good and bad long runs. This program will get you over the bad ones.

So now to next week's program. I'm not going to give you day-by-day instructions like I did this past week. Hopefully you can just go back over the past blog entries for any refresher information that you need. But here's the mileage plan for the coming days:

Sunday, Friday - off
Monday, Tuesday, Thursday - 4 miles easy (under 70% HRM)
Wednesday - 5 miles Speed (90-100% HRM) This you will do by warming up one mile under 70% MHR, then alternate between ¼ mile 90-100% of your MHR and ¼ mile walking or slight jog 7 times, and then a half mile cool down.
Saturday - 9 miles (under 70% first 7 miles, 70-80% last two miles)

You may be already noticing some changes in you first week. For any of you that have been over-training, some extra energy. You might actually feel by the end of the week that you wonder if you are going fast enough because you only do a Tempo/Speed once a week. Believe me, this is enough to get you where you need to be. As I written about in the past, Half Marathoners only need 5%, at the most 10%, of their total running distance with speed exceeding an Easy run speed. Runners do have a problem with this concept as a lot of them believe "More is Better". But again, my advice is that you show up to the starting line uninjured and ready to give it your best effort.

Getting Ready for a Spring Half Marathon

I'm already registered for a spring Half Marathon and want to give my readers a great running plan in case any of you are planning to run one in the next months. The plan I'll lay out will cover a 12 week period. This plan is tied to Heart Rate Running, so if you need a refresher on how to determine your heart rate percentages, please read over my earlier articles.

This is a very simple plan. Each Sunday, starting tomorrow, I will give you that week's plan. The week I'm setting is from Sunday through Saturday. This doesn't have to be those days, you can adjust accordingly, but follow the basic tenets of the plan if you want to use it successfully.

There are five running days a week. Saturday is the long run. Wednesday is reserved for either a Tempo Run or Speed Workout. You will note that about every 3rd or 4th week, I back off of mileage for the week as well as each day's mileage. That is to help you recover for the training stresses that your body will be going through.

Before I send out next week's plan tomorrow, I ask that you find the following heart rate ranges for all three workouts - Easy/everyday and Long Runs (less than 70% HRM), Tempo (80-88% of HRM) and Speed ( 90-100% HRM). Remember, the HRM (Heart Rate Max) is the following formula = (Max Heart Rate - Resting Heart Rate (difference) x percent + Resting Heart Rate.

Just a quick example to help you. My heart rate max is 185 beats per minute. My resting heart rate is 55. So the difference is 130 beats per minute. So my everyday rate would be 146, determined by 130 x 70% = 91 plus 55 = 146. For Tempo, it ends up being between 159-169 and Speed 172-185.

This means that I won't let my heart rate go over 146 in my easy runs and most of my long run (there is something that I add to the long run different than what you see in other plans but I will share that with you later).

This plan can be used by essentially everyone, beginner, veteran or expert. I can't guarantee your fastest PR (Personal Record) race(no one can), but you will run it at your best potential if you follow this plan. I've used it to run a 2:00 marathon last year when my best Half Marathon to date was a 2:08. So I'm not promising to take 30 minutes off your last Half Marathon, but it could take almost 7% off your last Half Marathon time.

Look for the first week's running plan tomorrow.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Weather Adjusted Running

Received a few questions on the Running in Hot Weather Blog. Since this is a concept that is rather neglected in running books and magazines, I thought best to give it more explanation.

Let's recap with my weather adjusted formula with humidity thrown in: "Pace Per Mile = 1+(Temperature – 60) + (Humidity – 50)% x Planned Pace"

Let's use an example. A runner that wants to run an 8:20 Pace Per mile in 75 degree heat and 75% Humidity would adjust his running time by the following calculation: 1 + ((75-60) + (75-50 x .1))% =1.175 x 500 (Pace in seconds) = 1.175 x 500 = 587.5 Pace Per Mile (or 9:48 MPM).

First, a disclaimer. I am not saying that it's time to pitch your heart rate monitors in the trash bin and replace it with this new adjustment for running. I am still in the camp that believes that HRM (Heart Rate Monitors) are the best technology device to assist runners in the past 20 years. That said I don't believe you should blindly follow any device, as we all have had HRMs that get affected by other wireless devices, battery strength, or syncing issues with the reader of the device.

I offer this Weather Adjustment as another tool in your arsenal for the sole purpose of my running column - - - that is, to keep you running.

If you are new to running, or even if you are a veteran, there are days that you feel like the run is twice as hard as others with no explanation. One reader was astounded at what I wrote with the question: "Are you saying that by running a 10 minute mile run as a training run during on hot, humid day during the summer, I can still realize a sub 1:45 hour Half Marathon in the fall?" That's exactly what I'm saying.

Let's break down what I'm getting at. I ran in 75 degree heat with 75% Humidity yesterday morning. When I looked at what I had to do for a training run, it was a 9 minute, 25 second pace per mile. Following my weather adjusted calculation; I set my training monitor to pace me at 11:04 pace per mile. Now, granted, the first mile this seemed almost turtle like, but by mile 5-6, I was feeling it, and my HRM was given me a reading like I was doing a 9:25 MPM.

So, why don't the running books push this concept more? For the life of me, I don't know why. Again, we are all an experiment of one, but I think everyone can benefit from this knowledge and use it in their training. Most running books have a section, maybe a chapter on it, but it's usually limited to giving you the warning not to run in that type of weather. Its good advice, but some runners that live in the south or in high humid areas don't have that option.

Remember that when you take on training for a time goal for a race, the recommended pacing time goals you are given are for certain ideal conditions. No coach worth his or her salt would ever expect their runner to do the same 8:20 pace per mile in 55 or 85 degree heat. By using the Weather Adjustment, you can still feel you have put in the same level of effort as running the 8:20 pace per mile as in perfect indoor conditions.

This adjustment becomes very apparent when the fall weather starts to go south. When you find the temperature drops below 60 degrees and/or humidity dropping to 50%, the 8:20 pace will still be challenging, but at least not unbearable. You will be glad that you didn't give up on your dream of running a sub 8 minute mile in the Half Marathon just because of the hot weather training runs that you had to do during the summer months.

The Spirit of The Marathon

Watched The Spirit of the Marathon over the weekend and was impressed. It's a film biography on a number of runners that prepared and ran the 2005 Chicago Marathon. The theme that the director followed was to give us a glimpse of how the favorites as well as the 6 hour plus runners prepared for the 26.2 miles.

I believe that the director (Jon Dunham) having run marathon gave him insight into the toll of what marathon training does to all runners of the marathon. After a quick introduction of all the runners that he's spotlighting, he walks us through the first long runs and the time and dedication that each of the runners go through. He follows each of these runners from the training through each of the miles of the marathon. It's a great insight that gives aspiring runners that are thinking of running the marathon, a video diary of what training will be expected to prepare for the marathon.

If I had any criticism of the film at all, it was the little bits and pieces of insight that we got of some of running greats. Their contributions about marathoning were insightful but left me wanting more. I mean how often do you get to tap the minds of Amby Burfoot, Dick Beardsley, Grete Waitz, Frank Shorter, Bill Rodgers, etc.? Of course, I can appreciate that Dunham wanted to focus on all runner's viewpoints equally, but I think he could have accomplished it with more interviews with these greats and still gave us this story.

If you have any interest in running a marathon, or want to remember what it's like to train for one, I highly recommend this film. Overall, I would give it 4 out of 5 stars for a running movie.