Ernesto's group - CLOSED (Page 37)

I'm in between jobs - in a good way - so I have more time to train.  Ran 2.5 miles yesterday pushing my daughter in our Bob stroller.  Met a friend this morning a rode outside for the first time since the last year - nice 2 hr ride and a relaxed tempo.  Felt stronger on the hills than I remember.  Regardless, it was great to be outside.

I plan on running on Sat and Sun - maybe 6 and then 8 - easy pace.  I hope to get up before it gets too hot to do both runs.

Next week I plan to get back into the pool.

Workout hard. Recover HARDER! Eat. Sleep. Relax. I am seriously undercharged on weekdays so looking forward to it. 

Btw, I watched the two-beat kick video. Looks easy but I found it quite difficult to execute. What do you think of 4-beat kick (small kicks; not hard)? Too much energy being expended?

Have fun at the race with your kids!

Jackie - Don;t know the status on your bike purchase but you better post pictures when it happens. 

OK, finally back home.  No lasik.  Considering a different option recommended by surgeon, but after tri season.  Packing and pitching.  Movers come on Wed.  I'll be thinking of you Jen!

Got back in the lake tonight.  Hamstring feels better.  Going on a long ride tomorrow at 6:30 AM.  Sunday is a run day.  I'll see how hammy feels for sure then.

Since I'm not doing eye surgery, the bike is back near the top of the list Aki.  I promise I'll post pics.

Happy Independence Day everyone!

As a fellow father with 5 kids (although mine are older - 7, 10, 11, 13 and 14) I understand the need to take the baby out of mom's hands.  I used to joke that the first words I would hear from my wife when coming from work were "Here" as she handed me the baby.   

I wasn't racing when we had stroller age children.  (Heck, I wasn't even exercising, to be honest, so I'm extremely impressed with your ability to do IM's with small children).   But I can't imagine racing with a stroller.  I can imagine getting my miles in with a stroller, but I don't understand actually signing up for a race.   I guess I would think that since my time is going to be shot given the stroller, why not simply skip the race and go for a run with the stroller instead?  Do you compare your times against other times when you pushed a stroller?

Chris,

Has anyone ever told you that you are hilarious?  I have laughed out loud several times after reading some of your posts!  And right now, surrounded by boxes and papers, I need to laugh.

No, I don't compare it to "real" races. I go at a very demanding pace (pushing a stroller slows you down a lot when the terrain is not pancake flat), so what I look for is a good tempo workout. At the same time, I'm exposing my kids to racing so they see it as natural. The reason I do it in a race and not on my own is that I'm not disciplined enough to go hard past a mile, but the race environment makes me keep a decent pace. I was able to pass some of this on, my oldest boy (17) has already done triathlons and du's and even though he hates the bike, he's done pretty well. He loves to run though and he can beat me in short distances. My 13 yr old daughter is a runner too, she's up to three miles right now every two days.

Today, it was by far the toughest running race in a while. 10K with 4.8mi off road (I had no idea), undulated, loose pebbles, with the wrong shoes for the terrain, pushing a stroller, hungover and on 5 1/2 hrs of sleep. I really like to put myself in tough spots, huh? hehe. Oh well, it was slow but I got a good workout in the bag and one more story to tell...

Hungover?  What page is that in the yellow book? 

Great ride today.  Good to be healthy again. Quick (for me) 30 miler and done before 9 AM!  Then, of course, there was a second breakfast.

I get it now.   And I'm impressed you are able to get your kids involved too.  Mine think my wife and I are just nuts.  

Ok.  Finished my three week Maffetone reboot today.  89 running miles of trying to stay at or under 132 bpm.  Tomorrow starts next phase.   As I wrote before, I'm mostly training for an October 2 marathon, but will still run a sprint tri on August 27, and probably run a 5k or 10k or two before then as well.    Here's my basic training schedule for the marathon.

Wednesdays:  Off or bike or swim.  No run.

Mondays, Fridays, and Saturdays:  Just do the miles.  I plan on doing MAF training on these days. No higher than 132 bpm.

Sundays:  Long run.  At Marathon pace + 90 seconds.  Alternates between short long run (say 10 miles) and long, long run (15 or 16 miles).    This may cause my heart rate to exceed 132 bpm, but if so, I would assume by not that much.  

Thursdays:  Tempo run.  At Marathon pace.  Works up pretty quickly to 10 miles.    Definitely will cause heart rate to exceed 132 bmp. 

Tuesdays: Next five weeks.  Speed work.  3 miles total of intervals at 5k pace.  1/2 mile warmup.  1/2 distance of interval slow jog in between intervals.   Total 5 miles.  Definitely will cause heart rate to exceed 132 bmp. 

Seven weeks after that.  "Strength work".  6 miles total of intervals but at much slower pace (Marathon pace minus 10 seconds).  1 mile warmup with 1/2 distance of interval slow jog in between.  Total 9 miles.   Definitely will cause heart rate to exceed 132 bmp. 

So do you think I will still get the benefits of "run slow to get fast"?  Heart rate will exceed my MAF two and possibly three days a week.

That plan looks awesome, you will not miss out on the base work and will build up the fine tuning as the race approaches. Of course you will exceed 132, and it doesn't matter. Maffetonne never says do not exceed your MAF, he says it has to be done smartly though.

http://www.attackpoint.org/trainingpaces.jsp

This is an incredibly accurate calculator to establish paces for all your runs. Use it and stick to your paces. Don't go over your vDot because it will burn you out. It sounds stupid but slow means slow and fast means fast, 90% of runners don't get it.

Another tool to predict your final marathon time is the Yasso workout (named after Bart Yasso, the creator) you could probably do this three weeks out from your race, in lieu of intervals.

Basically, you do 10X800M with some passive rest in between at threshold pace, then you average your times (for example: 3 minutes 20 seconds average), well, this guy says that will be your marathon finish time, 3 hours 20 minutes. It is pretty darn accurate too.

Also, for your cross training don't do the bike, do the swim instead. It is a whole lot better as a cross training than the bike and it accelerates recovery even better than complete rest.

I'm watching the team time trials on the Tour de France today. These beasts are averaging close to 40mph!

So...I spent my Saturday replacing a ball valve on the backflow preventer for our sprinkler system and then spread about 50 cubic yards or mulch.  With everything going on I didn't get my run in I wanted.  

Sunday got up at 0 dark 30 and ran 10 miles - best long run I've had in a while.  Focused on easy pace and HR stayed in line with it.  Had some nice strength at the end that allowed me to power up a half mile hill.  I felt strong and fresh at the end.  Used the GU electrolyte tabs with GU energy gels during the run and followed with the Strawberry Watermelon GU Recovery Brew.  I'm really liking the electrolyte tabs and the recovery brew...finding that on longer distances using those two keeps my muscles feeling less sore.  Followed that up with spreading about 70 cubic yards of mulch and weeding the back yards flower beds.  Busy weekend.

Other good sites for training paces are: 

http://www.mcmillanrunning.com/mcmillanrunningcalculator.htm and

http://runworks.com/calculator.html

The paces on each site are all in the same ballpark - but lots of useful knowledge on each of the sites.  I hadn't seen the site that Ernesto posted so that was good - more stuff for me to read and assimilate.

Happy July 4th to all!

Yes!! give it a try in Austin. Spend an evening on 6th boozing and then go to Lady Bird Johnson Lake for some intervals. You'll see how fast you get.

Brandon,

Welcome back from vacation land.  Ernesto is going to ask you to update your log.  Do you have a Garmin or some similar animal?  How do you like your Trek?

I look at Ernesto's logs, not necessarily the current workouts, but older ones to see what he did.  Sometimes it helps and sometimes it just generates more questions. 

When he started me with running intervals, he sent me to the track.  He had me warm up either walking or slow jogging for 15 minutes and then run as hard as I could (knowing that I had to do this several times) for half the track and then walk/slow jog for the other half of the track.  He had me do that 4 to 6 times.  I thought it was awful!  But, the next time I did it, it was marginally easier.  Hope that helps a little.

Thanks Ernesto.   And thanks for going over the workouts in the first place!

I did "fail" regarding the intervals in one dimension.  While I hit the times I wanted (6:50 pace for six, 1/2 mile intervals) my plan was to jog the 1/4 mile rests in between.   Instead, I basically walked about the first half of the 1/4 mile and then jogged, because I had to.

When I discovered I didn't have my chest strap in my bag, I thought of putting off my workout until this evening, but thought that risked not doing it all too much.   

(I'm becoming more forgetful.  Here's an example:  My wife and I like to water ski.  I still can't get up on one ski, but it's easy for me at this point to ski on one ski by dropping one.  Well, this weekend, which was the first really nice weekend, we went out for the first time, I dropped a ski and BAM!,  I hit the water hard.  Tried again.  BAM!  Tried again.  This time I didn't drop, but did what those trying to learn to ski on one ski do - I lifted a ski.  Had huge trouble.  Had to put it right back down.  But this made NO SENSE.  This is like riding a bike.  You don't forget how.   Then it dawned on me.  I was dropping the wrong ski.   I'm a right-foot-forward skier and had been dropping the right ski.  So I then dropped the left ski and all was fine.  I'M GOING SENILE.)

Jackie,

I'll be in A-Town tonight if you want to meet for a run around Lady Bird Johnson Lake.