re: Official Running Log/Marathon Training Thread

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If she can find somebody to fornicate with, good on her. Means I don’t have to mess around with her. I ain’t got the drive and she ain’t got the body.

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LULZ! I feel ya, Broham.

My typical week looks like:
M: Rest
Tu: 4-5 Miles Easy (Primarily Zone 2 HR ~10:00/mi pace)
W: 6-7 Miles Speedwork (Zone 3/4, 8:30-9:30/mi pace)
Th: 4-5 Miles Easy (Primarily Zone 2 HR ~10:00/mi pace)
F: Rest
S: Long Run, 12-20 Miles (Zone 2,3,4 HR, 9:00-10:30/mi pace)
Su: 4-6 Miles (This varies depending on how far I ran on Saturday. If I have it in the tank, I go faster).

That's usually what it looks like. My easy runs are easy, I never feel exhausted or really winded. They are slower because I go at 4 am, and I'm still waking up through mile 2. I run into problems when my long run has to go on Sunday and I do a shorter run on Sat.

I only wished I could run twice a day because it's fun and therapeutic.

Thanks, I’ll give that a shot. I’m trying to cross train more on my rest days lately. I’m not sure if that is impacting it but it’s another variable.

30-45 mins on the bike. Definitely not anything crazy.

Not extremely, just under pressure for deadlines, but I'm not that type of person to be stressed about that. I'm the "if it doesn't get done today, we'll get it done tomorrow" guy.

I usually get 6.5-7 hrs/night, maybe less on the weekend so I could work on improving that.

My guess is nutrition as a causal factor. I eat good but not great. My weekly meals consist of a lot of chicken w/white rice, a couple pasta dishes, salads, etc. I know my sugar intake is high (a lot of coffee). I don't eat near as many vegetables as I should. If I'm going to take the next step, I know I need to focus on my diet more.

Unless you are prediabetic or have significant medical issues, I doubt your diet is the culprit either. It wouldn't hurt to experiment with a lower cab intake, however. I'd get some lab work done if you haven't had it done in a while.

I'm willing to bet that little bit of sleep deprivation is catching up with you by the end of the week which would explain why you are struggling a little on Saturday but not Sunday since you probably get more and better sleep Friday and Saturday nights.

No problem. 3n allows me to put the bigger Arkansas races up at my discretion.

I would do one day of speed work and one day of tempo (threshold training).

Your speed work shouldn't be sprinting. You should be doing these at around 85-90% effort. That usually equates to your current 1500 meter, 3K or 5K pace depending on the length of the intervals. For 200s, 1500 meter pace is a good target. Jog and or walk between intervals to recover. This should take 1-3 minutes depending on your fitness. If this is your first time doing interval workouts, you might just want to start with 4 or 6 X 200 and see how long it takes you to recover between intervals or whether you are even able to finish all of the repeats at your target pace.

Hill repeats are a form of speed work that can be beneficial during the early part of a training cycle. They are good for building the strength you will need to perform more difficult speed sessions later in the cycle.

I also do some very short uphill sprints at the end of some of my easy runs each week to develop power and neuromuscular performance and keep my legs fresh without adding any intensity to my week. These hill sprints are enough to stimulate muscle activity but short enough to avoid stressing the cardiovascular system.

To get the most out of your intense training, you should make decisions on which types of workouts to include and when to include them based on your target race distance and your current goals.

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Thanks, I've never done anything more than a conversational pace so I'll have to work on my different paces.

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Have your raced within the past 6 months or so?

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Is tempo training basically starting normal for about 5 minutes then slowly building up faster for about 5 minutes to a peak speed then slowing down for another 5 minutes then back to a 5 minute conversational pace? I've never heard of it before but that's basically the first thing i came across online.

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There are many of types and variations of tempo workouts that have different purposes. Your description would fit in the category. That type of workout could be referred to as "structured fartlek" which are good to do early in training cycles and when you are new to tempo workouts. Something like this would probably be a better starting point for you:

5 minute warmup (easy pace); 4 X 30 seconds at moderate pace (~ current marathon pace) separated by 5 minutes of easy running; 5 minute cool down. From there, you can increase the length of the intervals (by 10 seconds) and/or the number of intervals for a few weeks.

Tempo runs involving longer intervals (5, 10, 20 minutes) are better to build up to. These types of workouts tend to be "lactate threshold" workouts which are very beneficial in the middle to late periods of a training cycle. They are run at higher effort levels than the fartlek example I gave you, so you should build up to them if you are new to this type of training, and if you are training for a race, you don't want to bring these in too early or you can peak too soon or burn yourself out.

Without a race time, it's difficult to predict your training paces. You will have to go by perceived effort to begin which is fine. At some point, you may want to do a test run to figure out your current fitness level and your target paces. You could do this on one of your speed days instead of a track workout.

This is a good test run for figuring out your paces:

Warmup with some jogging and easy running for about 10 minutes, then run as fast as you can for 20 minutes, then cool down. Record your time and distance for that 20 minute section. If you have a GPS watch, it will do that for you. If not, run it on a track or route that you know the distance of and run 2 to 3 miles as fast as you can.

Most importantly, enjoy these workouts. You should never feel completely exhausted at the end of them. You should always feel like you have at least one interval or mile left in the tank. I find them fun. If you find that you dread them, you are probably pushing yourself too hard too fast.