Mad Manatees Mentor Group - VERY CLOSED!!! Sorry! (Page 18)

Today was day 2 on the treadmill. I am coming around to the value of using it. It forces pace, and does a good job for pushing with some speed work. Today was speed day, so I broke the 30 minutes into 5 minute segments. Each segment had 3:30 of sub speed and 1:30 of increased effort. I think this may be added to my workouts on a somewhat regular basis. It really pushed my legs out of the comfort zone.

Jo, I'm glad you had a good time with the little ones! I'm considering goals for next year, since my yearly resolution is only to be a better person then last year. I keep trying that one, I'll change when I get it right

I see that some Manatees have begun working on their logs, entering races and such. If you go to mine or Janyne's log, you'll find a Manatee Table, with links to everyone's logs. Feel free to copy it and put it on your log if you'd like. I admit, hers is nicer then mine, so it won't hurt my feelings at all if you take hers There may be other ones floating around as well.

I hope everyone has an outstanding weekend! I'm off to see a movie with my DW.

Good job on getting out there in less then favorable conditions.

Here is the race I want to do on February 9th. I could signup for the 10 or the 20 mile. It looks tough. Help me decide.

http://www.everytrail.com/view_trip.php?trip_id=49534

Sorry the link isn't clickable. I am working on my tablet.

Your running has been *very* consistent the last couple months, but I would not sign up for a 20-mile trail run/hike unless I'd specifically been training for a marathon (and perhaps more specifically, an off-road marathon).

The exception would be if (the link doesn't describe the race itself) I were going to treat it as an all-day fun hike and the race parameters allowed for that.

Swim day today.   When the wellness center opens I will do a minimum of 1000 yards.    Will go further if a feel like it, and I probably will feel like it.

Carpe swim!!!

Asalzwed - 2012-12-29 2:54 PM

Muskrat37 - 2012-12-28 7:03 PM

Asalzwed - 2012-12-28 9:49 AM

TriAya - 2012-12-28 11:29 AM

'Kay, Skrat. Not seeing any identifiable pattern in terms of pace and distance in your running from the last couple months, other than regular runs of between 30min to 1:45ish. (Mostly under an hour)

If I were to rewind back to the last two weeks, look forward and give you advice for taper, it would be this: keep doing what you're doing. In the last week, do slightly less (80%ish) than what you've been doing but all at race pace.

Just as a general note, tapers are very dependent on the individual athlete, training history, goals and particular race. Overall training load (which is intensity and volume) as well as the individual components (intensity and volume) all need to be adjusted, as well as duration of taper.

For triathlon, ideally, you'd actually taper the three sports somewhat differently depending on the factors above for each individual sport.

Thank you Yanti...  I am a #'s guy so you spoke in a language I can understand.  

 

I agree with this. Then I say for your next half (aren't you doing the Sammamish half with me in Feb?) work on your consistency. Get out as often as you can (I know you have a busy schedule) and shake it up with a variety of distances.

Yep - I am, but this race is in March - do you know something I don't know?    If we meet up at race start, you will officially be the first person I have met in real life from BT.  

When you say shake it up with a variety of distances, can you give me an example of what a 35 mile week would look like - including tempo / fartlek / race pace / LSD etc...?  

About 3 weeks ago, I hit my top week ever (34 miles) and want to build from there after my race.  In looking back, I see that I ran 5,13,5,5,5 that week....  The next week I ran 3,5,8,5,8 for a total of 30 miles (I intentionally scaled back a bit.).  Not a lot of variety there.    

I do almost all my runs at approximately the same pace (mostly low 8's, sometimes 8:25ish).  The only thing I want to add is that these runs are all on the same trail, and the trail has rolling hills.  I try to negative split most my runs, and usually do....so when I say that I keep the same pace, I actually work harder up hill than I do down hill.   What I've been doing has helped me drop over 1:00 off my average pace in about a year, but since I don't do speed work (I've never had anyone show me how) - I don't feel I'm reaching my full potential, something I want to do very badly.  I'm happy with where I have come so far, considering I am a self taught runner that couldn't run 1 mile on a treadmill 16 months ago, but I really want to reach my potential.

All advice is greatly appreciated.   

Sorry for my formatting ahead of time. Also, yes, the race is March, my bad Anyway, you and I are in a very similar boat. I've been running about 18 months now and also am in hot pursuit of finding my potential. I can tell you from first had experience that your potential is not hidden away in speedwork. That is just one very small element in a bigger overall scheme. Keep in mind this visual of a pyramid. The bigger the base, the higher the peak. Right now you want to work on building your overall volume and consistency. Mostly easy, sometimes hard. When I say mix up the distances, you could do something like 3 short runs (3-4 miles) 2 medium runs (5-8 miles) and a long run (depends on the distance you are racing but in the 13-16 range depending on the rest of your mileage as I wouldn't suggest your long run being more than 40% of the volume) I also would suggest not worrying much about pace. Focus on effort.

Thanks for the advice... When you say effort, should I be wearing my heart rate monitor more often and trying to stay at a comfortable heart rate? (For me, about 155 bpm is not working that hard and equates to a sub 7:45 - 7:44 pace - 145 is really coasting and equates to an 8:15 - 8:30 pace..race pace for less than a 1/2 marathon is 165 and that was a 7:25 pace)

I usually wear my HRM for races and based on those heart rates and my training run 1/2 mary where I kept it at 155 bpm the entire time and ran a 1:44 1/2 mary - my race plan for tomorrow is to keep my HR at 155 for the 1st half (which has a very slight elevation gain and 3 small(ish) hills..then bump it up a touch to 160 on the way back and if there is anything left in the tank I was going to push it to 165 for the last 3 miles.  

Does that sound like a decent race plan?  I just made it up based on my training runs.  

Felicia, it looks like the 10 would fit well into current training. It does depend on your goals, but I think I'd go for the 10 and push it a bit. You have stated a goal of 50K at some point and your training has been building really well to move towards that in the future. Keep building and you'll find a 20 that fits in a little while from now.

Just got back from my first morning run since March. I dragged myself away from my warm, comfy husband and out of my warm, comfy bed. Though it was sloooow going and seemed like it took forever to warm up, now I feel accomplished