No Karnievel tricks but put down 11.2!
Fellow blogger Duncan Larkin likes to call Dean Karnazes' feats "Karnievel tricks". It's kind of funny; however, unless the person that left an anonymous post on this blog calling Karnazes a "cheeseball" is somebody like Clear Lake's Mark Henderson - an accomplished ultrarunner - then, in my mind, until they do something similar, they have no right to be throwing around names.
Where am I going with this as it relates to me? Basically on a semi-long run this morning here in Vancouver, British Columbia, my right IT band started to hurt and while I knew that I was less than 2 miles from the apartment, I stopped -- after 11.197 miles -- and walked it in. Basically, I had done too much as it is.
So 10.65 + 11.2 = 21.85 miles for the week. (I was hoping to do some last night and more this evening; however, I might have done too much and a little damage today.)
I really wasn't trying to get all of the miles back at once to get to 25; however, I felt pretty good running this morning in cool temperatures -- enough for me to run in a long sleeved technical shirt.
I won't go into details of the route (you can look at it here), but I covered it in 1:59:17 -- a pace of 10:39 that included some nice steady inclines. Therefore, I'm happy with it even though I didn't get to my goal of 12.345 miles, which is where I stop at the 7-11 and replenish.
I will say this though: the part of Vancouver that I ran through before I turned back north on Granville, which is the major artery from the airport to downtown, was very, very peaceful as 98% of the people where still in bed between 6:30 and 7:15 a.m.
One other things that I realized this week is that I am logging 2.5 miles worth of walking a day to and from work; therefore, since I was here working 5 days (Monday through Saturday minus Thursday), that means that I have an extra 12.5 miles in (although not with the same amount of stress on the legs).
Here's what the 1:59:17 for 11.197 miles means? It isn't good enough to hit the 4:30 goal now; however, it gives me a target. If I maintained the pace, it means that I would have covered a half in 2:19:30. A 10% slide on the back half translates to a 4:52:57 marathon and a 20% slide (crash and burn) means a 5:06:54 marathon.
If I were to slide 10% in the back half, what would I have to do in the front half to get a 4:30 marathon? 2:08:35! Now the encouraging thing is that I've done a 2:09:58 half -- my PR!
When I ran the Freescale Austin Marathon in February, I was at 2:16:14 through the front half and finished in a PR of 4:47:32. A 10% slide translates to 4:46:05 - so I wasn't far off. While the desire is to negative split or be closer to it than the slide that I mention, I know what my history is to date. These types of runs give me some numbers to work with.
The one thing that is different between the Austin Marathon and today's run is that 1.) the Austin course was flat (today's wasn't) and 2.) I hit every single water stop - almost 17-18 - and had nothing today. Therefore, I have a lot of work to do but I can logically see the light of a 4:30 marathon at the end of the tunnel.
I would welcome some different views and thoughts to the numbers presented above (given my background to date).
Where am I going with this as it relates to me? Basically on a semi-long run this morning here in Vancouver, British Columbia, my right IT band started to hurt and while I knew that I was less than 2 miles from the apartment, I stopped -- after 11.197 miles -- and walked it in. Basically, I had done too much as it is.
So 10.65 + 11.2 = 21.85 miles for the week. (I was hoping to do some last night and more this evening; however, I might have done too much and a little damage today.)
I really wasn't trying to get all of the miles back at once to get to 25; however, I felt pretty good running this morning in cool temperatures -- enough for me to run in a long sleeved technical shirt.
I won't go into details of the route (you can look at it here), but I covered it in 1:59:17 -- a pace of 10:39 that included some nice steady inclines. Therefore, I'm happy with it even though I didn't get to my goal of 12.345 miles, which is where I stop at the 7-11 and replenish.
I will say this though: the part of Vancouver that I ran through before I turned back north on Granville, which is the major artery from the airport to downtown, was very, very peaceful as 98% of the people where still in bed between 6:30 and 7:15 a.m.
One other things that I realized this week is that I am logging 2.5 miles worth of walking a day to and from work; therefore, since I was here working 5 days (Monday through Saturday minus Thursday), that means that I have an extra 12.5 miles in (although not with the same amount of stress on the legs).
Here's what the 1:59:17 for 11.197 miles means? It isn't good enough to hit the 4:30 goal now; however, it gives me a target. If I maintained the pace, it means that I would have covered a half in 2:19:30. A 10% slide on the back half translates to a 4:52:57 marathon and a 20% slide (crash and burn) means a 5:06:54 marathon.
If I were to slide 10% in the back half, what would I have to do in the front half to get a 4:30 marathon? 2:08:35! Now the encouraging thing is that I've done a 2:09:58 half -- my PR!
When I ran the Freescale Austin Marathon in February, I was at 2:16:14 through the front half and finished in a PR of 4:47:32. A 10% slide translates to 4:46:05 - so I wasn't far off. While the desire is to negative split or be closer to it than the slide that I mention, I know what my history is to date. These types of runs give me some numbers to work with.
The one thing that is different between the Austin Marathon and today's run is that 1.) the Austin course was flat (today's wasn't) and 2.) I hit every single water stop - almost 17-18 - and had nothing today. Therefore, I have a lot of work to do but I can logically see the light of a 4:30 marathon at the end of the tunnel.
I would welcome some different views and thoughts to the numbers presented above (given my background to date).
posted by WalkSports.com | 1:52 PM
5 Comments:
I may try the 180-age HR method starting in June, although it is likely to be more difficult than running faster! Mark Henderson swears by it. It may help me sustain longer distances. For me, not that I know anything, I'd want to understand my HR and sense of effort on the 12 miler you describe before extrapolating to a goal.
Joe,
Interesting point. Dalton Pulsipher swears my his heart rate monitor as well.
The effort didn't feel strained. I guess what I mean in saying that is that if I was doing a half, I would have been under the 2:19.
And for the record, I've never run with a HR monitor at all. It might be one of those fear of the unknown things.
Jon
Lance,
Thanks for the insight. I think once I get more and more longer runs in the book on a more regular and consistent basis, I'll be able to clue in on what I need to do.
OR .. I can just look at David Dykas' Green Bay Marathon today. 2:10:20 at mile 13 and 4:28:53 finish (or 2:18:33 in the last 13.2).
It was as if he was giving me a text book page to read today.
Speaking of text books... I just have to wonder if increased mileage is going to get you to your goal. You and I both worry about our knees. I have had knee problems in the past, but I found that better running and less wear and tear has been the key to getting me to the finish line in what I would term a "healthy" condition. I only run three times a week. 1 day of speed work; a medium run of 4-6 miles and then a long run on the weekend. What is important for me is not necessarily the miles, but the recovery. I can and have done longer mileage during the week, but I always try to ensure I get my recovery in.
Of course, we are all different and each of us has the method that works best. Regardless of how you do it, I believe you will get there.
Jon, When is the goal race? Houston? Austin?
Remember that an IT band problem is an early warning that your legs are too tight from your glutes to your heels (this comes from an avid non-stretcher with IT band problems). If you don't have a foam roller, get one and start rolling on it -- its the best for IT band problems. Another good solution is The Stick, but you can go too "deep" into the muscle using The Stick so be careful.
OK, that said, remember that on any one day a lot of things can contribute to whether or not your run well or crash and burn. Consequently, any one day of crashing and burning is not indicative of what you will do in a race. True story: this year I crashed and burned 2 weeks before the Boston Marathon in a 10 mile marathon pace run. I ran 5 miles of it and had to quit. We were running it at 6:50 pace to see if I had a shot of breaking 3:00 at Boston. Ultimately, I threw that run out the window and decided it did not -- for whatever reason -- show what my overall training had been and what I was capable of. My Boston results shows that to be true. So don't worry too much about any one work out and whether you ran well or walked, or whether you were tired or whether you were soaring on the wings of eagles.
In order to reach your 4:30 goal I would preach one thing: consistency, consistency, consistency. You need to make sure that you consistently run 90% of your workouts each week and you need to make sure that 90% of your weeks you meet your goal for the week. Ideally you would have 100%, but life happens and you don't make every work out every week. But you do want to be able to say that over time you put together a very consistent pattern of back to back to back to back weeks with good training. You do not want to look back and see a good week, a bad week, a worse week, an excellent week, and then a bad week. It takes a lot of effort to put in good and bad weeks, so it feels like you are training. But in reality if you are following good weeks with bad ones, you are not developing the consistency that will eventually get you across the line in your time goal.
Also, I note that you are appearing to be attempting to run marathon pace during your work outs. Unless your plan specifically calls for a marathon pace run on a particular day, I would not be expending the effort to try to run marathon pace during your training runs. You need to tire yourself out from consistent training, not from a few mp (marathon pace) runs. I tend to follow a "Kenyan Way" type of training plan, in that I don't care how many miles I actually run on a particular day, its more about how long I'm out running. If the plan calls for 6 miles, then I run at least 48 minutes. As you can see, I base all training runs on an average of 8 min miles, which is not my marathon pace. For you, an 11:27 is marathon effort pace. Consequently I would make it my goal to run 12:30 to 13:00 min miles in training.
Finally, I'll share my not-so-secret favorite training run with you. I am a firm believer in the mid-week semi-long run. Most days I run 6 miles to 8 miles, but on Wednesdays I run a longer run that is approximately 90% of my planned weekend long run distance. If I have a 15 miler planned on Sat/Sun, then I run 10-12 on Wednesday. The mid-week semi-long run is a great way to make sure you gain the strength to meet your goals. For more on mid-week long runs, read Pfitzinger & Douglas, Advanced Marathoning.
I hope my ranting and raving helped. I saw your post and wanted to share a few thoughts and now I've written a novel. Oh well, if none of it works for you, then simply hit delete. - Tom
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