Nothing really super interesting about the plans for next week, the goal is to put in about 30 miles.
Mon - 5 miles
Tue - 6 miles
Wed - cross training on bike
Thu - 6 miles
Fri - 5 miles
Sat - 8 miles
That should give me the desired distance plus at least one bike ride, there might be a couple more as well. It's proabably a good idea to get in some cross training during these early stages to avoid injury from too much repetetive stress too quickly.
Sunday, June 29, 2008
Results - Week 1
My first week has already come to a close. I need to come up with a better way to post results. Right now I keep all the information in an excel document but I can't quite figure out a way to transfer it over, or to even make tables in general... so I'll just list it for now.
I'll go ahead round up and say 22 miles for this week. The pace was pretty slow for most of the runs but that's OK as it's the first week of base building. Pace will become more of a concern when the 8 week core training period begins. Until then I'm content with going through the motions and getting my body used to running consistently.
Day Distance Description Time Pace
--------------------------------------------
Mon -- -- -- --
Tue 5.0 hills 40:00 8:00
Wed -- -- -- --
Thu 5.1 flat 38:55 7:37
Fri 5.2 flat 37:13 7:09
Sat 6.56 flat 53:20 8:07
--------------------------------------------
Tot 21.86 2:49:28 7:45
I'll go ahead round up and say 22 miles for this week. The pace was pretty slow for most of the runs but that's OK as it's the first week of base building. Pace will become more of a concern when the 8 week core training period begins. Until then I'm content with going through the motions and getting my body used to running consistently.
Saturday, June 28, 2008
Tools of the Trade
In the good ol' days people would just throw on a pair of techni-colored running shoes and run until it hurt, then keep running some more. Movies such as "Chariots of Fire" and "Prefontaine" are always good for inspiration. But the world today is different, full of gizmos and gadgets to help optimize every facet of our lives. And running hasn't escaped this trend.
Introducing the Garmin 405 GPS and heart rate monitor. Yeah, I'm a little bit of a technoholic and when I saw that this device could map out my runs, track my heart rate and output everything in a cool little graph for analysis I just couldn't resist.
I was very impressed when trying it out for the first time on my run today. It gave me that chart above detailing pace, heart rate, and even an elevation profile (it was a pretty flat run). It also allows you to plot out your run on Google Earth and the accuracy is pretty amazing, I can see all the way down to where I crossed streets. Which means I can post maps of some my favorite runs, at least the ones that don't give step by step directions ot my house...
The image at the top gives a pretty good picture of the shape I'm in right now and we can use this to judge improvements in the future. I averaged an 8:07 over 6.6 miles which comes out to about 1/4 of the 26.2 miles in a marathon. As can be seen from my heart-rate, it wasn't necessarily the easiest run for me either. Those two dips in the heart rate line show where I stopped to tie my shoe for the first one and where I stopped to stretch at the halfway point for the second. In order to get a C on my previous grading scale I'm going to need to average better than 7:15 per mile for four times as long. Clearly there's a lot of work to do over the next 14 weeks.
The 14 Week Program
After installing the countdown clock I've come to the realization that I actually only have 14 weeks to prepare. The plan remains the same with the exception that a week comes off of both the base and core catagories. I'm actually a little apprehensive about this but it is what it is...
Friday, June 27, 2008
The 16 Week Program
Plenty of books and magazines out there detail preparing for a marathon based on a 16 week schedule. However, the times I'm shooting for require a fairly high level of fitness and and most of those programs assume either a consistent past of base training or that the participant is not overly worried about how long it takes to finish. Both of these are false in my case so I am putting together a condensed training schedule. Note that this is not generally recommended and carries a higher risk of injury. But that's a risk I'm willing to take, and I plan to minimize the chances of injury by...
1) Taking the time to warm-up, stretch, cool-down and stretch again
2) Paying careful attention to how I feel and backing off as soon as something doesn't feel like the normal aches and pains expected.
3) Getting plenty of sleep.
4) Eating well.
5) Getting massages every week for the first 2 months ;)
Note that there isn't anything revolutionary in here; the time frame is simply adjusted for my particular schedule. If you want to learn more about training strategies I suggest going to Runners World(http://www.runnersworld.com/) and searching for "Ed Eyestone". He was one of America's greatest runners and currently writes a column there and is also the Cross Country coach at BYU. My only claim to running prowess is one day after running with him he told me I was "flying". I cling to that moment like only a barnacle can.
OK, with that in mind here's the plan for the next 16 weeks...
Base Building (Weeks 1-4): Just get used to running consistently. Don't worry too much about the pace but try to up mileage by 15-20% per week. Starting off around 20-25 miles the first week by week four I should be up around 35-40 miles per week. One long run per week starting at 7 miles and moving up to 10-12 miles by the forth week.
Core Training (Weeks 5-13): During this period the focus will move to getting more quality into the workouts while still increasing mileage. There will be three major workouts a week with three easier recovery runs. The three workout will be as follows...
1) Long Run - Build endurance by increasing these runs until they gets to at least 20 miles.
2) Interval Workout - Train VO2 max by running repeats of between 600-1600 meters.
3) Tempo Run - Increase lactic threshold with a hard continuous run of 30-45 minutes.
Tapering (Weeks 14-16): At this point I will start decreasing the mileage to allow my body to recover from the last 9 weeks of punishment. I still might keep an interval workout or two in here.
Run St. George Marathon
Well, that's about it. I'll give a more detailed plan for each week as it comes.
1) Taking the time to warm-up, stretch, cool-down and stretch again
2) Paying careful attention to how I feel and backing off as soon as something doesn't feel like the normal aches and pains expected.
3) Getting plenty of sleep.
4) Eating well.
5) Getting massages every week for the first 2 months ;)
Note that there isn't anything revolutionary in here; the time frame is simply adjusted for my particular schedule. If you want to learn more about training strategies I suggest going to Runners World(http://www.runnersworld.com/) and searching for "Ed Eyestone". He was one of America's greatest runners and currently writes a column there and is also the Cross Country coach at BYU. My only claim to running prowess is one day after running with him he told me I was "flying". I cling to that moment like only a barnacle can.
OK, with that in mind here's the plan for the next 16 weeks...
Base Building (Weeks 1-4): Just get used to running consistently. Don't worry too much about the pace but try to up mileage by 15-20% per week. Starting off around 20-25 miles the first week by week four I should be up around 35-40 miles per week. One long run per week starting at 7 miles and moving up to 10-12 miles by the forth week.
Core Training (Weeks 5-13): During this period the focus will move to getting more quality into the workouts while still increasing mileage. There will be three major workouts a week with three easier recovery runs. The three workout will be as follows...
1) Long Run - Build endurance by increasing these runs until they gets to at least 20 miles.
2) Interval Workout - Train VO2 max by running repeats of between 600-1600 meters.
3) Tempo Run - Increase lactic threshold with a hard continuous run of 30-45 minutes.
Tapering (Weeks 14-16): At this point I will start decreasing the mileage to allow my body to recover from the last 9 weeks of punishment. I still might keep an interval workout or two in here.
Run St. George Marathon
Well, that's about it. I'll give a more detailed plan for each week as it comes.
Better late than never
I always told myself if I ever ran a marathon I would do it with the intention of getting into the best shape of my life and placing as high as possible. I probably should have started training for the St. George Marathon a little earlier if I was going to make good on that promise. But this makes for a good experiment: can someone who's as out of shape as I am get decent results with only 16 weeks to prepare? I should clarify what I consider decent as that is highly subjective.
Here's my personal grading scale:
F - Did not finish
D - finish > 3:10:00
C - finish < 3:10:00
B - finish < 3:00:00
A - finish < 2:50:00
With only 16 weeks to train and this being my first attempt at a marathon I would probably be pretty happy with a C as that would qualify for the Boston Marathon. That being said, I wouldn't have put the A category there if I didn't think it was possible, and that's the goal for which I will be training.
The purpose of this blog is simply to document the training process and results of the marathon. I hope to post a plan for the coming week and results for the previous week every Sunday, as well as other random thoughts at various times. Ideally I will also have a couple of 10k races and a half marathon before St. George rolls around, but I haven't really looked into what's available so we'll see how that goes...
OK, next post I will give a meta-view of what my training will look like for the next 16 weeks.
Here's my personal grading scale:
F - Did not finish
D - finish > 3:10:00
C - finish < 3:10:00
B - finish < 3:00:00
A - finish < 2:50:00
With only 16 weeks to train and this being my first attempt at a marathon I would probably be pretty happy with a C as that would qualify for the Boston Marathon. That being said, I wouldn't have put the A category there if I didn't think it was possible, and that's the goal for which I will be training.
The purpose of this blog is simply to document the training process and results of the marathon. I hope to post a plan for the coming week and results for the previous week every Sunday, as well as other random thoughts at various times. Ideally I will also have a couple of 10k races and a half marathon before St. George rolls around, but I haven't really looked into what's available so we'll see how that goes...
OK, next post I will give a meta-view of what my training will look like for the next 16 weeks.
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