BamaDC's Mentor Group v3.0 - CLOSED (Page 13)

I do this.  My brain is either "on" something or not.  Right now I'm on running.  I can't force myself to get on the trainer and I can hardly find the pool.  As soon as Mercedes is over my "on" will certainly change.

Screw it - I'm gonna post a time at Mercedes.  Right now everything else will wait until after that.

That about sums it up.  Same here.

Nothing wrong with that!  I bet it gives you more motivation. 

My husband is doing more running than I am right now, so he's probably going to be faster than me once I up my running mileage. 

 
I"m lucky that I have a larger TV since I can't be right in front of it.   I use rollers it's better for me to have them on the kitchen floor instead of carpet and there is a perfect spot for me so I have a wall on one side and the dishwasher on the other in case I need balence.   the only drawback is that it's an old tv 12+yrs, so if you are at an angle it's not the best picture.  I keep waiting for it to stop working so I can get a new one 

The long run vs. the short runs...

I'm noticing something in my runs and thought I'd get some input.

I'm using the FIRST (Furman Institute...) training plans for the half marathon coming up in Feb. It has 1 speed, 1 tempo, and 1 long run per week. Nothing fancy, just business.

I can hit the speed and tempo runs pretty well. See this week's logs. Tues - nailed it. Today - nailed it. I feel great on these and usually finish knowing I could give it "a little more", so I'm not totally wiped.

However, the long runs on the weekends (10+) seem like torture. I fall apart. I feel great going into mile 7-8, and then things just start falling apart. I get tired, sore, ready to be done, hot, cold, too fast, too slow, whatever, and it just sucks the life out of me. Case in point - last Sat's 14mi. It just about killed me (I did start too fast).

What's the secret?
What gets YOU through the long run?
Where's your cutoff for "i can do that tomorrow no problem vs. i need to psyche myself up for that distance"?

I'm working on it though...

Heck, I have a 108" screen directly in front of me on the trainer and I *still* can't force myself to get down there right now.  Hoping to get down there tonight as tomorrow is an off (i.e. swim) day.

The secret is to start at 100 mile weeks and drop down to the 25-35 that we are doing.  Then it is pretty easy.

Getting through a long run?  Music.  Breaking up the run into segments or loops or something - "just 3 segments left" instead of the 8 miles left seems to help me.

My cutoff right now for "no problem" is 8 miles.  No sweat.  10 miles I wouldn't choke at and could do.  12 miles?  Ugh - that is a long a$$ run.

My wife's guilt trips get me going!  Seriously, I break the run up in segments, 3rd or 4ths and will look to neg split the segments.  I'll also take a break if I need to, sometimes the run is just not there and that helps.  If I have been running with music a lot, I'll skip the music.  Same for time of day, I have better runs with evening runs vs AM runs.

Is this your first time doing FIRST (3x/week) training? I haven't tried it yet and not sure I could as my lower legs don't like too much stress from speed/tempo runs, but the time off seems like it would be beneficial.

I can't stand running loops.  It's too easy for me to cut out early.  If I do one or two long loops or an out and back I'm mentally committed to making it back.  I agree that 14 miles is a long damn run.  I've gotten lazy recently so I'm hoping that 8 miles is still "easy" (we'll find out this weekend).  Last summer and fall I got to the point that 10 miles was really easy by doing 8-10 miles every weekend and never trying to do more than that.  After a while I felt like I could go out and knock out 10 miles then get on with the rest of the day and feel fresh again the next day.  I remember reading or hearing that you're only as fit as the workouts you can recover from.  If you're trying to build fitness (ie doing longer runs each week) you're going to feel beat up.  I just don't see any way around it.

Do you stretch after your workouts?  I've found that that helps me recover better sometimes.  I also read (in Racing Weight) that eating protein after particularly hard workouts can help you recover.  The idea is that your body needs to repair itself and if you don't provide something to do so your body will take it from somewhere which can slow recover.  Or at least that's what the book said.

Second time with FIRST. I used it for a 10k a year or so ago and liked it, so I'm using it now for the upcoming half marathon (hoping to still race it).

I like it. The time off lets me heal up and I usually feel fresh and good.

I need to move to the BHAM area!

Pace Booty!  Fast Chicks are awesome! 

Yes my wife knows that this process goes on while I race.

I'm awful about stretching.  I should do it more, but it just never gets into my head to do it.  After a long run I will try to drink some cold milk (=protein) and I am now a huge believer in ice baths.  Or at least baths as cold as my coldest tap water.  I suffer through 10 minutes of that and my muscle soreness goes *way* down the next day compared to not doing anything. 



Believe it or not projectors and screens are quite inexpensive these days.  Football rules on the screen.  No way the cooling in that room could keep up with three guys huffing away on a trainer, though.  It would get mighty hot mighty quick.

OK, so we drink beer and watch the game instead!

This sounds much better... 

Anyway, stretching always helps.  My legs feel better the more I stretch.  Especially given my hamstring issues, I need to incorporate much more of it, but I don't seem to take the time to do it.

I finally bought Don Fink's Be Iron Fit book.  It's really nothing earth shattering from what  you read on BT, but it does stress time management and training by time.  I guess I should start scheduling everythng on my calendar, including the streching, strength and recovery times.

Sand, do you just use cold tap water?  or do you actually add ice?  Hard to always have ice on hand for the ice bath.

I'm not SANDS, but I use cold tap water. I'm too cheap to fix my ice maker so the cold tap water works. Occasionally, I'll stop by the gas station and buy a bag of ice, but that's not often...

The just opened up a new sprint near me.  It's the weekend before an OLY that I'm already signed up for.  What do you think?  Will this be a good tune or or screw me up for my race the following weekend?

I think it will be a good tune up?

I'm following a thread about it in the MD forum.  There is a mixture of opinions on the course.  I'll let you know how things pan out and if I sign up.

What are the distances?

I hope to race every weekend this August.

Edited by BamaDC 2011-01-21 11:14 AM

So what happened to this group doing the cycling program? Am I the only one doing it? Gotta tell ya, its kicking my , but it is GOOD. I test again next week, and I know I'm gonna see a nice increase in CP through the 1st 4 weeks.

Another topic for you fish (Sands) I've finally founf the pool again, and I'm working on improving my catch and pull. This means i have to stop pushing down from my shoulder, and keep my elbows high. I know I'm doing it, I see almost every swimmer at the pool doing it. It's very common. I'm making the corrections, but I've slowed down dramatically. For lack of a better analogy, it feels like I'm in the small chainring spinning down a hill. Does this make since? Any suggestions? I know this will make me a better swimmer in the long run, but it's like I'm reconstructing my stroke.

So you've gone to a high elbow, yet you feel like you're going slower?

Check your head position. You could be cheating looking more forward, laxing your pull. You won't get the power b/c most of it's going downwards and not backwards.

If that doesn't work, ask me about the tennis ball and that'll fix it!

One more thing, any way you can get us a video?