Sept 15-Oct 15 "Daniel's Running Formula" Book Club (Page 13)

Originally posted by dtoce

Originally posted by Asalzwed

My upcoming two weeks have an interesting racing schedule:

Next Saturday Oct 12 I have a 6K XR race (high priority)

Sunday Oct 13 will be a 10K (totally just for fun, low priority)

Following Saturday Oct 19 6K XC (high priority)

What I have done is built up my base, keeping two quality days, peaking this week, and then plan to pull back (maybe 20%?)  for the next two weeks for the races. Depending on how I feel, I will ramp back up following my last race.

 

It's too late to change anything now but I am curious what you guys think.

I think you're pretty fast and very talented! (the schedule looks fine to me, but taper tweaking needs to be very individualized, as does how many Q sessions you can handle---you youngsters can handle 2 or 3 per week, and old fellas like me get one or two-max; The books say the best 'supercompensation takes 1-2 weeks minimum, so a 20% taper with the last hard session, your 6K race, 2 weeks prior, sounds good...I think there was a section on racing and using race efforts as Q workouts, but I'm at work and don't have the book with me...my patients would probably not be too keen on that ) Good luck at your races.

WHy thank you, sir.

Yeah, I am ballparking the 20% reduction, too. I'm just going to see how it goes. Sort of considering next week as the trial and then tweak/repeat the second week.

I'll let you all know how it goes. You know, for reference in case any of you decide to do a crazy multi-week/multi-race schedule. 

I had a pretty crazy month of racing in May during tri season:

May 18 - Memphis in May Sprint 1/4 mile swim, 12 mile road bike, 3 mile run

May 19 - Memphis in May Olympic

May 25 - Soak up the Sun super sprint - 200m swim, 8 mile bike, 2 mile run

June 1 - Heatwave Classic - 1/2mile swim, 40k bike, 10k run

I kind of prioritized the weekends like you did.  My training block heading into May next year will be much harder.  It takes a lot to get through that much racing.

That's pretty intense! But you are planning on doing it again??

My full schedule is:

Oh yeah! It was a blast!  That, and I love racing too much.

That looks like a lot of fun racing too.  Hope you got a sponsorship with Endurox

OK, gang, a couple of things I thought I'd comment on as I sit here with ice on my leg and anti-inflammatories on board trying to get caught up on my JD. 

pg 94 JD is talking about form and cadence and says "Imagine that you're running over a field of raw eggs and you dont want to break any of them--run over the ground, not into it. Try to get the feeling that your legs are part of a wheel that just rolls along, not two pogo sticks that bounce along."  Love this.  Super helpful imagery.  I know the wheels rolling along feeling, but I also know I'm not always in that zone on my runs--sort of like when you're swimming and you realize your stroke is short and choppy and inefficient--I know that happens sometimes when I'm running, or I notice it when I'm struggling on a run.  Anyway,  I'm going to try to use the idea of running over the ground rather than into it to see if this can help break that feeling when it creeps up.

pg 116 Another thing I though was cool was his discussion of breathing rhythms.  This isn't something I've ever paid attention to. He suggests that all easy runs should be at least a 3:3. That if it's not a #:3, it's not easy. "You might prefer a 2:2 on an easy run, but you should be able to go 3:3, if necessary, if for no other reason than to prove it's an easy run." This will be a really good feedback loop to help me keep it easy.  

Lazy Sunday reading :)

BY 20 MINUTES?!?!

Oh, Steve, that is AWESOME!

Congratulations

Wow, awesome!  Congratulations.

w00t!!!!  Awesome job, Steve.

RE:  running on eggshells.  I also love that imagery.  During my "long" run on Saturday I was starting to get a little sluggish and I just thought "light feet" and that broke the downward spiral.  I have a REALLY hard time swallowing the 90 strides per minute...it's been a struggle for me to get up to the high 70s until my pace really picks up.  Even in an all-out 5K kick I'm not above 90.  I mean, I am 6'3" and all legs but I've pretty much bagged the whole focus on cadence.

RE:  breathing patterns...like you I've never given it much thought, other than "I need to breathe more because I'm getting tired."  I do know I have basically two breathing "gears", but I never counted strides or anything.

I have a follow-up question that relates to Adrienne's taper question.  I'm racing a 5K Saturday that is my A+, want-to-crush-my-PR fall race.  I've been running 5x/week (logs are up to date) plus throwing in some easy cycling and some ST sessions.  I've doing 2 Q workouts per week (a tempo session and either an "I" or "R" session) plus a longish run as well, building to about 18 mpw last week.

Now that the background is out of the way, here's the question:  How do I taper for this?

My thought is easy run Monday, short tempo run Tuesday, a couple of short cruise intervals Wednesday, light jogging Thursday, and then take Friday off (though I might do a short cycling workout to get loose).  Maybe, I dunno...10 miles total?

I know "the hay is in the barn" as far as improvement is concerned, but I want to keep the legs sharp without overdoing it.

Dang I wish I could beat my goal by 20 minutes.  I'd have to take a trip to Boston.

I will be curious to hear how the more experienced runners answer this.  I know there are different schools of thought on tapering...

It really seems l like tapering success is very individual.  What have you tried in the past, and what has worked the best?

Well, I really don't have a frame of reference on this one, because I've never (well, not since high school anyway) 1) focused on a race this short, or 2) tapered for a race this short, say, in the middle of training for something else.  For HMs and sprint tri's where you're talking 90 min to 2 hours of racing I usually back off the volume about 50%, and generally take two days off completely in the taper week, including the day before the race.  But for "just" a 5K...I'm not so sure the big drop in volume is needed.  I guess we'll find out. 

Like Switch said tapering is very individual.  Some like to keep some pretty high intensity with reduced volume, some like to just keep the legs loose with light work.  Some people will feel sluggish if they rest too much.  I think over the long run it is a trial and error thing.

Given your training workload, I'm sure you are very fit for the distance and I would not be worried at all about anything other then making sure any minor muscular training fatigue or stress adaptations have had an opportunity to repair.  I think what you have laid out is reasonable.  The only thing I'd consider changing is maybe rest on Thursday if you feel you need it and do some very light, short running with a few strides on Friday.  Some people (including me)  feel a little sluggish after a full day off. 

Aren't you one of the most experienced runners in here? 

lol ok, thanks for the clarification  You should get a slow clap for that.

Nahhhh, it's just so individual so I hesitate to answer.

Dale gave a lot of good information that you can use as a guide.

For tapering, I have a half marathon weekend that will dictate how the rest of my marathon training is paced.  Seeing that my body reacted so well to the recovery weeks in my plan, I'm trying that out as my taper for this week.  Basically it's similar to my regular training week, just with a lot easier pace (but still some fast stuff) and less volume.

I'll take Friday off though, since the race is Saturday.  

So I'm having some additional reflection on how I've been "doing it wrong" for so many years.

pg 118

A few words of caution regarding how often to repeat identical workouts and monitor progress in a particular type of threshold workout: It's human nature that runners often want to see progress in their workouts and sometimes try to perform a particular workout at faster and faster speeds over the course of a fairly short period of times.  Trying to compete against yourself in this way in inadvisable.;  It doesn't conform to the principle of letting your body react and adjust to the particular type of stress before increasing the amount of stress.  It's better to perform the same workout quite a few times at the same speed, or until race performance indicates that you've reached a higher level.

Haha.  Oh, is that how I should be doing it?  Greeeeeeeeeat.

I just thought it might be important for someone else besides me to have this reiterated, maybe printed off, posted on the mirror in the bathroom, or something...

I think when I was younger I could really get away with it.  Now, getting back into training after kids, I'm realizing things are very different.  I'm going to have to really be patient.  So far I've sucked at that.

If I can get this leg thing under control, I'm going to start training for an early March marathon, looks like Phoenix.  I'm reeeeally trying to take it easy to get this thing licked.  If it's not looking better by the end of October, I'll probably need to full stop the running and put off my marathon attempt until next fall :/

I will be using JD's marathon "A" plan.   I guess I don't exactly understand what kind of weekly mileage I should be aiming for with that, but maybe I've just missed that detail?  I did also find it interesting that he said if you're up to 50mpw, you should start splitting your runs into two a days. pg 258, yep, doin it wrong again:/