Running, Week #3
Feb. 28th, 2011 11:28 amIt's time for your weekly edition of How To Train For A Half Marathon With Only Three Runs Per Week.
Week #3 of Sev's Half-Marathon Training Plan:
My weekly mileage is over the half marathon distance. Hooray! (It's actually 14.63 miles if I count all my warm-ups and cooldowns, but I don't really want to do that.)
This week's runs went really well. When I did my recovery run, my heart rate didn't go over 166 bpm and actually averaged around 156, which is my goal with the easy recovery runs. It's nice to see my heart rate finally start to stay down on easy runs, since that's the point of an easy run (gaining max fitness at lower HR levels). I managed to stick to an 11-min mile for my long run and it felt really good.
One thing I need to work on is my cadence. I've read that it's more efficient to take shorter strides, because you waste less of your energy bringing your foot in front of your center of balance (which breaks momentum). When I did my easy recovery run this week, I worked on keeping my cadence at around 85 (~170 spm). I'm not sure if that was what helped the run feel so easy or not, but it's probably a good thing to work on. My average cadence for long runs is only 79 (~160 spm).
I wish my lungs didn't hate the cold so much.
Week #3 of Sev's Half-Marathon Training Plan:
Tempo Run | Long Run | Easy Recovery Run | total |
4 mi | 6.6 mi | 3.3 mi | 13.9 mi |
warmup, 4x (5 min tempo, 1.5 min easy), cooldown | ~70 min running, slow pace (~11min/mi) | medium pace (~10min/mi) | |
Crosstraining: yoga (1 day) and weight training (1 day) |
My weekly mileage is over the half marathon distance. Hooray! (It's actually 14.63 miles if I count all my warm-ups and cooldowns, but I don't really want to do that.)
This week's runs went really well. When I did my recovery run, my heart rate didn't go over 166 bpm and actually averaged around 156, which is my goal with the easy recovery runs. It's nice to see my heart rate finally start to stay down on easy runs, since that's the point of an easy run (gaining max fitness at lower HR levels). I managed to stick to an 11-min mile for my long run and it felt really good.
One thing I need to work on is my cadence. I've read that it's more efficient to take shorter strides, because you waste less of your energy bringing your foot in front of your center of balance (which breaks momentum). When I did my easy recovery run this week, I worked on keeping my cadence at around 85 (~170 spm). I'm not sure if that was what helped the run feel so easy or not, but it's probably a good thing to work on. My average cadence for long runs is only 79 (~160 spm).
I wish my lungs didn't hate the cold so much.
First of all: This week I ran 12.76 miles. I actually ran about 13.5, total, because I did a couple laps of jogging while calibrating my Garmin FR60 plus calibration was off for my longest run, but 12.76 is the official number and that's what I'll report for now.
On Friday I had what I think is the worst run I have had all year. The sun was out and I was out of lab early; that's enough to make a girl forget she's carrying around a friendly disability for which COLD and EXERCISE are her two main triggers. Sun! In Akron! No lab! No wonder I went crazy. It is still February, and it was nowhere near warm enough to run, for two reasons:
I got back to my car - somehow - and cried for about 5 minutes because it felt like I was breathing knives, not air. Good times. I'm not even going to share this run here, although you can find it by clicking around my Garmin site.
I ended up pulling 4.85 miles out of it, though. The tracker says 4.6mi but I had calibrated the footpod entirely wrong prior to the run. DID YOU KNOW? The difference between the inner and outer lane on a track is pretty substantial. I knew there was a difference - obviously; it's math - but I did not realize the difference was so significant. It is. I thought it was a couple meters or so -- try 50. LOL.
Today I went back and recalibrated the footpod to the high school track - the INNER lane - jogged, did it again, repeated, until I was SURE the calibration was as correct as the track was. Then I somehow pulled this run out of my ass:
3.3 miles at a <9:50 pace with my heart rate hovering around 165 and never over 170? And my lungs not feeling like death afterwards? I almost am afraid I calibrated the footpod incorrectly, but it was a freaking track and I repeated it. I am such an engineer. I WANT MY DATA TO MATCH LOLZ. Turns out - after some research on my part - treadmills aren't that accurate. Which makes me feel a lot better about all the times last year I felt like I was going faster or slower for like no particular reason.
So, successful training week overall. Maybe I didn't get my long run where I wanted it to be, but I, uh, reconfirmed some of my weaknesses to myself (cold; running outdoors; shitty terrain) and I kept my total miles close to where they should be. I'll do a longer run this week and make up for it. Tuesday's tempo run was good, too, so I'm progressing overall. Just made a mistake this week. Oh well.
On Friday I had what I think is the worst run I have had all year. The sun was out and I was out of lab early; that's enough to make a girl forget she's carrying around a friendly disability for which COLD and EXERCISE are her two main triggers. Sun! In Akron! No lab! No wonder I went crazy. It is still February, and it was nowhere near warm enough to run, for two reasons:
- The trail I wanted to run alternated between 3-inch-deep mud and sheet ice.
- At about 3.3 miles I had a whopper of an asthma attack. This is probably because the first mile and a half of the run was me trying frantically to keep my balance on ICE and MUD and SLUSH before I gave up and went to road; my heart rate was way too high and once it spikes it doesn't come down. The rest of the run was as agonizing as you can possibly think.
I got back to my car - somehow - and cried for about 5 minutes because it felt like I was breathing knives, not air. Good times. I'm not even going to share this run here, although you can find it by clicking around my Garmin site.
I ended up pulling 4.85 miles out of it, though. The tracker says 4.6mi but I had calibrated the footpod entirely wrong prior to the run. DID YOU KNOW? The difference between the inner and outer lane on a track is pretty substantial. I knew there was a difference - obviously; it's math - but I did not realize the difference was so significant. It is. I thought it was a couple meters or so -- try 50. LOL.
Today I went back and recalibrated the footpod to the high school track - the INNER lane - jogged, did it again, repeated, until I was SURE the calibration was as correct as the track was. Then I somehow pulled this run out of my ass:
3.3 miles at a <9:50 pace with my heart rate hovering around 165 and never over 170? And my lungs not feeling like death afterwards? I almost am afraid I calibrated the footpod incorrectly, but it was a freaking track and I repeated it. I am such an engineer. I WANT MY DATA TO MATCH LOLZ. Turns out - after some research on my part - treadmills aren't that accurate. Which makes me feel a lot better about all the times last year I felt like I was going faster or slower for like no particular reason.
So, successful training week overall. Maybe I didn't get my long run where I wanted it to be, but I, uh, reconfirmed some of my weaknesses to myself (cold; running outdoors; shitty terrain) and I kept my total miles close to where they should be. I'll do a longer run this week and make up for it. Tuesday's tempo run was good, too, so I'm progressing overall. Just made a mistake this week. Oh well.
( On Running A Lot, Honoring Your Body, Donuts, and Why BMI Is Bullshit: A Workout Manifesto, Possibly The First Of Many Long Rambles Unless I am Mass Defriended )
To be continued, as thoughts appear.
[EDIT] As a precursor to a post I'll write later, I'll just throw this out there: think about girls who look like Tifa, or like Tifa would look like in real life: ass-kicking muscles. Strong thighs, big shoulders. I could totally get into that. Who picked "skinny" as the default connotation for "healthy"???
To be continued, as thoughts appear.
[EDIT] As a precursor to a post I'll write later, I'll just throw this out there: think about girls who look like Tifa, or like Tifa would look like in real life: ass-kicking muscles. Strong thighs, big shoulders. I could totally get into that. Who picked "skinny" as the default connotation for "healthy"???