Wednesday, November 15, 2006

EASY TO TALK ABOUT

Emails with friends regarding yesterday’s post led to a few “discoveries.” Some people run this medium-hard effort naturally during their every day runs. Maybe that’s why they’re good.

Also, a friend brought up the fact that, in college, I’d always get injured around 55 mpw. Thinking back, it probably wasn’t because I was running medium-hard/medium-hard efforts during base training. But rather because when I moved to the speed work phase, I ran hard/medium-hard, rather than hard/easy.

Anyway, I’m still not sure if “Mystery Coach” is the author of the article I mentioned. I emailed the author to find out his take on the two interpretations, but I haven’t heard back yet.

I followed through with another medium-hard effort today and felt pretty good during the run. I managed 11 miles, including 9 miles at 7:27 pace.

Right now here’s what I’m thinking my weeks will look like for awhile;

Sunday – 2+ hours
Monday – ass-dragging slow
Tuesday – MP + 20ish (7:10)
Wednesday – MP + 40ish (7:30)
Thursday – ass-dragging slow
Friday – MP + 20ish (7:10)
Saturday – MP + 40ish (7:30)

While that schedule focuses on pace, I’m really more concerned about bumping my mileage. If these paces leave me so tired that I can’t get in my miles, I’ll back off of the pace.

I’m not sure where my mileage will go. I’d like to try to get up to 100 again. However, I’d rather hold 85s for a longer period time, than just run a few 100s. Of course, this is all easy to talk about in mid-November when it’s “warm” and the paths are clear. 6-8 weeks from now it may be a different story.

Quote of the day;

“In the struggling faces of the runners is written a dimension of human experience that cost me dearly, but, at least on marathon day, seems worth the price.” – Jerome Groopman in the New York Times

8 comments:

  1. ditto....I should print that out and try to follow it myself. And I'd like to have the same mileage targets as well, though those numbers sound a little scary right now. My foot is hurting less today so I'm feeling all gung-ho about getting started on it. I think you and I respond similarly to training, so it's interesting to be on basically the same schedule. Are you planning on Grandma's in June? Right now that's probably my first choice for my next marathon.

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  2. How come we're always gung-ho when we're hurting?

    Yeah, I'm tentatively planning on Grandma's. We'd love to have you come back. Maybe I can keep up next time.

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  3. Did you notice that when your week wraps up with back-to-back 'medium-hard' efforts on Friday and Saturday, you'll be looking at a two hour long run?

    Who is the 'mystery author' of the article you keep mentioning?

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  4. So, what goal will motivate you to get in the 100's that you are targeting. Is it a sub 2:45 at Grandma's? I was just reading Andrew's blog and it seems as if you should share schedules. And are you going to Boston?

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  5. Also, where are you getting the MP+20, MP+40 stuff? It's not in the discussion on Mike's site, but it ended up in the part you quoted. Maybe that came from Nobby's article?

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  6. Eric, yeah I noticed that. I may have to rearrange that - maybe go 2 hours on Saturday and easy Sunday. It's just a general outline.

    Nobby wrote the article I mentioned.

    Ryan, I tend to do the training and then see where I'm at before honing in on a specific goal time. Of course 2:55 is still out there. Maybe a good winter would get me to the low 2:50s.

    I can't really see going from 3:00 to 2:45 in the span of 8 months. Maybe if I'd run 3:00 on minimal training, but I put in some solid work to run 3:00.

    No, I'm not going to Boston in '07. Maybe '08 so I can watch the Women's Oly Trials too.

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  7. Eric, MP + 20 and MP + 40 were mentioned in the very last comment of Mike's post;

    "Look at Arthur's original workouts and they had a 3/4 effort 10 miler then a 1/4 effort 20 miler the next day. Before you think that this was hard then easy you have to know that 3/4 effort was about 20 second a mile slower than race pace and 1/4 effort was about 40 seconds slower than race pace, in other words hard and moderately hard."

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  8. I was looking for marathon pace, but I see he wrote race pace.

    It would be a good idea to rearrange that long run not to follow two moderately hard days. I could see you getting injured pretty quickly like that. The impact forces are absorbed directly by the bones when the muscles are fatigued and can't distribute the load. Express elevator to stress fracture.

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