Brian and the Tri Tarts Group - Full (Page 6)

Hi All

It sounds like we are all well on our way to planning '08.  I finally cemented my really important races, but still am leaving room for some changes if my swimming progresses.

Kim, glad to see you are excited about getting back in the pool.  It is my favorite thing to do these days, although probably the most frustrating at times.  Here is to both of us kickin' some bootie during the OWS next year.

I have Christmas at our house today so am off until tomorrow.

Suzy

jenado - 2007-12-21 1:34 PM thanks for the input brian. in the end my longest days are 1 3-hour bike, 1 2.5 hour run, and a couple of hour and a half swims. i may take that run back down to 2 hours or even less, we'll see how my running progresses. also i have my once weekly 'day off' scheduled with a recovery run, and if i just take those out and just do nothing it will drop the volume a bit and might be better for a novice anyway. my short workouts build up to about 1 hour, but i don't think that's so bad considering that 10-15 minutes of that will be warmup and cooldown. i think i'll just go with what i've got, minus those recovery runs, and just watch how the ole' body feels. what do you think about scheduling a 5k and/or a duathlon, and having that be all? i'd really like NYC to be my first tri

Sounds good.  You really have a lot of time to build smartly; gradual increases with every 4th week as a recovery week.   I'd say definitely do the duathlon, as you'll get to set up a transition.  There's probably one the the spring you could do far enough in adavance of NYC.  A 5k would also be great, perhaps even a 10k?!  Sometimes the best path to a BHAG (big, harry-a$$ goal) is to have some smaller ones along the way.

mmmmm, I discovered the joys of a later evening run.  Problem is it kept me awake. 

Hope that changes after I get used to the timing of it

Kristen

What distance race are you training for?  and do you have a goal pace?

In my exprience, tempo runs work the best in increasing your LT and allowing you to run long distances at or close to race pace.  If you are worried about maintaining that pace for 4, 5 or 6 miles at a time, start slower and build to the goal pace. My log for yesterday shows how I do it.  If you slow down for a period of time or choose to do cruise intervals (e.g. 1m with :30 seconds recovery) it does not work your system in the same way.  I would save intervals for closer to the race day which teaches your legs to be fast and it makes it seem like your race pace is easy in comparison.

Just my two cents.

Suzy

I am not sure if you are familiar with McMillan Running, but this coach has a pace recommendation based on a prior race.  I put your time of 1 hour into the 10K and it came back with this:

http://www.mcmillanrunning.com/cgi-bin/calculations.pl

If you buy into it, it looks like you are already about at your goal pace of 2:15.

Given this is your first half marathon, I agree that speedwork may not be for you (Tempo runs are a form of speed work).  You may benefit more from developing your aerobic base which is what staying in Z1/Z2 will do for you. Or you could start with 1m cruise intervals with a recovery period to get used to the process and as you get closer to your race, insert Tempo runs of 3-5m at or slightly below goal pace. 

When I first started racing, I really never even thought of getting faster.  I know that sounds nuts, but I was more concerned about covering the distance and not dying (just like you).

Suzy

Suzy,

I'm going to look at that stuff.  I'm planning on a half mary mid April and just printed out a plan from Runners World (same one Kristen is talking about) It has me doing about 65 miles next month. I signed up for another challenge next month--this time to run and set the goal to make the distance this plan has set out.  OUCH--I thought I would die with the 50 miles I did in October's run challenge.

I don't think a lot about pace when I run--unless I'm racing and then I look at the time clock wherever one is up on the course to see that I'm keeping a fairly steady pace.  I know the first half mile or so is usually rough for me but that once I get my breathing settled down I'm good to get into a zone and enjoy the run.

I hope that once I get the hang of training with a plan I won't have to think so much about it.  Training is my therapy after a stinky day at work and there's just too many days I want to zone out and forget the garbage that has rolled my way so if I have to think it will become more work than therapy and ruin the fun...

Zipp

I would not put a lot of pressure on yourself related to time if that is not important to you at the moment.  You can become a good runner by putting in the miles and staying healthy (both physically and mentally).  Like I said, when I first started, I did not think much about time either.  The one interesting thing I have also noted is triathletes seem to spend a lot less time running and more time biking.  That may be generalizing a bit, but that is the way a lot of logs look to me.  Wonder if it is because people don't like the sport as much or think they can walk if they need to on the run. Kind of interesting.

When thinking about time, I am in a similar boat for the triathlons.  I would like to run for tim and tri for fun.  Being so focused on time sometimes takes the joy out of the sport.  It is one of the reasons I am moving into multisport.

I have to ask, what do you do for a living?  based on your log, I am guessing you would rather be doing something else or at least somewhere else?  Hang in there.

Suzy

I'm an ERRN...some days I enjoy what I do but lately I really hate it.  Seems the focus in health care is getting more and more volume--not taking care of what we have but getting the bigger piece of the "market share" and I think it's sucky to look at PEOPLE as a market share. 

My logs have a lot more bike time in the past month than they've had on average since I started last year.  Just now getting more bike toys and starting to think of it as something I need to work on rather than live through.

  I started running about 2 years ago after a stinko day at work. Was so mad after that shift that I went to the gym at 8 PM when I got home and decided to run on my way to the cardio stuff and I had never been a runner to that point--even on the HS track team I was a shot putter-so I started running after that as a way to burn my frustrations and tris just sort of happened due to a morbid curiosity with the sport. (something like looking at the scene of an accident you KNOW will be ugly but you just have to look)

I began working with my swim coach a year ago.  My dad taught me enough to keep me from drowning when I was a kid.  The coach had to basically take me from a step above dog paddle to where I am now.  It was my weakest sport, still not a stron OWS person but I'm working on it.  I'm hoping that the SPINeRVALS will help me build skill /comfort on the bike this winter and the extra running races this year will just help me improve there as well.

I think a lot of triathletes focus on the bike because you cover so much time and distance during the race on the wheels.  If you look at IM coverage they talk a lot about the race being won/lost by the person with better bike skills coming off fresher for the run.  Definitely not won by a swim but a bad swim can make it darn hard to bounce back.

Judi

Suzy has A LOT more experience here than me.  I'd have to echo what she's saying.  Definitely focus should be more on run frequency/consistency without sweating the speed work.  You're first year should have almost no speedwork per se.  Great idea from Suzy to build into the tempo run.   For example if the RW plan calls for 1mi warm-up (let's say that's 11:15), 3mi at say 9:45, then 1mi cooldown; adjust to something like this:

• 1mi at 11:15
• 1mi at 10:45
• 1mi at 10:15
• 1mi at 9:45
• 1mi slowing to 11:15 by the end.

Brian

50 to 65 miles is definitely more than a 10% jump.  See if you can build to it like this:

• week one:    13mi (3,3,3,4)
• week two:    15mi (3,4,3,5)
• week three:  17mi (3,5,3,6)
• week four:    20mi (3,6,4,7)

Notice the pattern of short,long,short,long and gradual build-up of longer weekend run.  Also, make sure "week 5" is a recovery week doing 13-14 miles, perhaps something like this:

• week five:   14mi (3,4,3,4)

Since your aggressively building volume, all of these runs should be at an EZ pace.  Definitely NO SPEEDWORK.  Perhaps spend some time in upper Z2 (the middle half) of each 2nd weekly run.  Thus the pattern of short EZ, medium Z2, short EZ, long EZ.  By the end of the month, you can push this 2nd run into the "tempo" pace, but keep all other runs easy.  Building volume and intensity at the same time is a recipe for disaster.  Besides, most gains really come from that consistent build of run frequency and volume.

HAPPY HOLIDAYS!!!

Just a note on running.  I try to make the first and last mile of EVERY RUN nice and easy (9:00 to 10:00 for me).  My neighbors probably think I'm a shuffler, cause that's what they see when I'm coming and going.

I got injured myself on the one run that I didn't take this approach.  It was a group run from the running store where we all went out at 8:00/mi pace - which really isn't too bad for me.  However, it also was just a few days after a 20mi run and I didn't warm up at all.   I ended up straining my hip flexor which is still bothering me today.  I broke a couple other rules that week too.

1. all ez runs after 18-20 milers ( I did intervals on Tuesday and the fast run Wednesday after the 20-miler on Sunday)
2. hard, ez, hard, ez pattern ( I did hard, hard, hard)...

Brian,

Thanks for the input, I was stressing when I saw the plan last night.  Either way, it's a good thing I like to run

I have a question.  My friend returned the training book and this plan is a 12 week plan for half mary based on minutes. It still has some fartlek runs, tempo runs, and such built into the plan.  Which plan is better (RW or time focused) based on both what is in my logs and my preference to not have to think too much about training?

week 1 in this plan is 191 min split (35 easy, 60 easy, another day with a 10 min warm up and 3x10 tempo followed by 3 min recovery and 10 min cool down, a fourth day 40 min easy run)

week 2 has 227 min, week 3 -225 min, week 4- 145 min similar in the set up as week one but with different amounts of time.

By the way, I'm sure I can have Dee change my goal to minutes for January's challenge if that would be a wiser move for me.

Thanks,

Judi

Hi Judi

I will let Brian be the guru on this one for sure, but I do have a question. What do you figure your longest run would be leading into the half under the time based plan?  The reason I ask is you want to make sure you can cover the distance come race day. Do you think you will get in a couple 10m long runs? 

Suzy

Follow whichever one requires the least thinking...

Just pick the one that seems most compatible with your fitness/time/training needs.   If you need to convert from minutes to miles just divide the minutes by 9.3 (you averaged 9:19/mi in 2007 to date).

Most triathletes seem to like minutes.  I, on the other hand pretty much set my training by distance (meters swum, miles run and rode), while recording the minutes to keep track of my total training "volume."

I echo Suzy's comments on getting a couple 10+ mile runs in, but probably don't need to have any one longer than 12 miles.

One thing I noticed about my Runner's World plan is that there is no taper.  It has the week before my race at the highest mileage (33).  I WILL be tapering, with about a 25% drop in run mileage and in overall training volume.  Here is my modified (to include taper and add the swimming and biking) RW program:

Sounds good.  Perhaps make an effort to keep it real EZ (Z1) whenever you extend the length of your long run - when you PR for longest continuous runs.  For example, if you've never run more than 7 miles in your life and the plan calls for 8, make sure you take it real easy on that run.

Thanks Brian and Suzy!

  I'll probably do a mixture of both towards the end but start off with the minutes based.  It looks like the longest run on that plan is 90 min which should be close to 10 miles.  I'm thinking I'll do the first month of taining on the minutes plan and plot out how long I'm actually running with the route tracker. If I stick with that plan I'lldo the irst month twice and turn it into a 16 week plan

Judi

enders_shadow - 2007-12-26 10:34 AM I noticed the RW plan only goes to 10 miles and also I realized about the taper thing, Brian...since I can currently run anywhere between 8-10 as my long run, I was thinking of adjusting the plan a bit... Week Plan Do Instead 1 6 6 2 6 7 3 7 8 4 3 3-5 5 7 9 6 8 10 7 8 11 8 4 3-5 9 9 10-12 10 9 12 11 10 4-6 12 race Does that adjustment make sense? I already know I can run 10 - I'd like to take it to 12 in my training. Thanks for the advice...I will stop obsessing about this sometime soon.

I think that makes sense.