Week 2 - Marathon Training
Impatience is the enemy when it comes to a 25-week training regimen. The advice to counteract such impatience is the reminder that this is, as they say, a marathon not a sprint.
It is only Week 2, but more than a few training schedules have been blown up with early efforts that cover more mileage than necessary or are run faster than necessary. At this stage, the body still feels very good, so the impulse to run faster and farther than planned is strong.
I got caught up in that trap this week.
Week 2 - Training Record
Monday - 8.2 mi Long Run
Tuesday - 7.6 mi w/ 30 min Steady State
Wednesday - 5.2 mi Recovery Run
Thursday - 6.1 mi w/ 10 x Hill Sprints
Friday - Off
Saturday - 6.5 mi Easy
Sunday - 5.6 mi Easy
Total Mileage - 39.2 mi
It started with my long run, which was on Monday. I covered 8.2 miles—admittedly, not much of a “long” run compared to what I’ll be doing in a few weeks—but what felt like an easy effort was closer to aerobic threshold than I would have liked. If it happens once in a week, that’s fine, but my easy runs at the end of this week were both faster than necessary. My wife and I went on a weekend adventure to Leavenworth, WA—a little Bavarian oasis with great running trails, wine tasting rooms, and brew pubs. Both Saturday and Sunday were below freezing when I stepped out of the condo, and I suppose a rush to get back into warm temps pushed me to run a faster effort (7:56 and 8:03 respectively) than planned. It is a common mistake for me to run an easy workout too fast, but I have made it a priority in this training schedule to be more mindful of my paces.
Workouts for the week were promising. Tuesday was a Steady State run. I have not dialed up this workout very often in my running experience, although I understand its purpose. The Steady State—slower than the more common Tempo Run—is between tempo and easy pace. Early efforts with this workout should be in the range of 20 to 30 minutes before building up to 60 minutes (and even 90 minutes as part of a long run). It could be considered half-marathon race pace, or (if ambitious) marathon goal pace. McMillan Running has given me the target of 7:15-7:35 based on my 3200m time trial from three weeks ago. Unsure of what that might feel like, I warmed up for 18 minutes and decided I would start at 7:30 and try to get as far as I could through a 30-minute run.
The result was better than expected. First mile was an easy 7:20. It proved an appropriate pace because the second mile was 7:18. I scrapped the 7:30 pace expectation and figured with a little increase in effort I could drop my pace down to the lowest end of my time target. Mile three was 7:15 and mile four was 7:11. A final minute (actually 56 seconds) remained to meet my goal of 30 minutes, so I kicked it in with a confident effort. Workout Results: 4.13 miles @ 7:16 pace.
I would like this to be my race pace when I run a half-marathon in March. I have two halfies on the schedule this winter—the Geoduck Gallop in Olympia on February 2, and the St. Patty’s Day Half-Marathon in Tacoma on March 16. The race in Tacoma has a big hill, but a 7:15 pace is possible by then. If so, I’ll be slated to run it just under 1:35:00—good enough for a personal best. Meanwhile, I’ll run this workout again in Week 5 or 6, but extend the effort to five miles or forty minutes. We will be able to chart any progress by then.
Week 3 - Training Plan
Monday - Easy Run
Tuesday - Progression Run by Feel
Wednesday - Recovery Run
Thursday - Turkey Trot 5k
Friday - Recovery Run
Saturday - Long Run
Sunday - Off
Target - 38-40 miles
Thursday was hill work – 2 x (5 x 35-40 second hill sprints) with 3 minute recovery between sets. I don’t like hill work—and I never have. Yes, I know, short hill work is necessary to iron out a more efficient running form and build speed. Long hill workout are pure misery (and will be part of my training in January). But the gains obtained from a hill workout are worth the temporary suffering.
Opinions vary on whether one should have sprint repeats consist of distance measures or time completion. Is it better to run sets of 4 x 150m or 4 x 30 seconds? Honestly, there is not much difference. However, I prefer the timed sprints because it is less frustrating than hammering a measured distance. I want to focus on the effort, the feel of working myself to a point of fatigue, regardless of how much I slow down. With time completions, I feel less anxious about the training session as the workout progresses and the speed performance drops. The purpose at this stage of the training is to get the work in—adaptations will take place. I will keep track of the improvements by how many repeats I complete in future workouts rather than how fast I complete them. Running two sets of 5 x 35-40 second hill sprints was another good benchmark. As much as I dislike hill repeats, they will be part of training regimen every other week. (I say the same thing about broccoli being part of my diet regimen, but I’ve never let a branch of it touch my tongue since I was eight.)
Week 3 includes Thanksgiving, and my tradition is to run a 5k race on the morning of the holiday rather than watch the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. Always a good choice. While I’m not in 5k race condition, the race will be another good benchmark for winter training, and I’ll follow it up with two more 5k races on the schedule by mid-January. My plan is to run the first mile at 7:00 and try to get faster from there. The 4 x Mile repeats that I ran in Week 1 should be a decent indicator of how well I can sustain the 5k effort. While the repeats were broken up by 90 seconds of recovery, they also had 30% more total volume than a 5k.
Running hard workouts is not just important to build physical adaptations, but also build confidence about realistic expectations. It’s early, but the confidence is there. I’ll need to monitor this confidence through the coming weeks, measuring my trust in the certainty of performance.