Heart Rate Training - a Simple Solution to a Faster Marathon

I’m a believer in heart rate training.  I first decided to go that route after reading about Pricilla Welsh, who at the age of 39 represented the U.K. in the first women’s marathon at Los Angeles in 1984.  While she did not win, she ran a remarkable race and became an inspiration to women athletes.  Being 50, I was interested to learn about her training methods.  They were simple.  She generally ran 3 hard days per week.  2 days at 80% HR (I use heart rate reserve calculations) and one day at 70% HR for 2 ½ hours.  The other day were recovery runs.  She says 10 weeks or this and your pace will improve substantially.

How well does this work?  At the time I had a recent 3:13 PR at St. George and would run a 20 miler at about 8:10/mile and a 13 miler closer to 8:00/mile.  Those times dropped to 7:35/mile and 7:02/mile, respectively.

Meanwhile, if you are looking for something to try that seems to work well particularly for older runners, this might be the ticket.  Give it about 5-6 weeks before you start seeing big improvements.

Last Thursday I began a new round of heart rate training.  I will let you know how it goes.  If you try it out, let me know how it goes for you.

 

 

NYC Marathon Runner Race Discount

NYC Marathon Full Recover Act, a discounted marathon on Sunday, Nov. 11th.

Bummer, yes.  Our pain is felt by everyone.  I spoke with Steve Looney this afternoon about it and he wanted to help.  While he can’t get you any refunds, he is willing to give an exclusive discount to the Fort Worth Marathon to anyone who had been registered for NYC.   

The race is next Sunday, November 11, 2012.    

·         You are already in shape and ready to run

·         The race is local (James, let me know if you need a place)

·         A flat, pretty fast course without all those pesky crowds

·         A killer post party

·         The discounted fee is just $80

http://fortworthmarathon.org/

I am doing it.  The weather seems good (at least no hurricanes).  To get the rate, you need to stop by his office to register (no-online) and bring your NYC registration book to get the rate.

5358 West Vickery Boulevard
Fort Worth, Texas 76107
817-731-MASO (6276)

Another Good VDOT Calculator - Chicago 19 Weeks Away

Ran a 3 mile race this morning.  The last 3 Wednesday nights I had 5k’s at 7:00pm.  VDOT according to those runs were  48-49.  This morning it was warm, but not hot.  3 miles at 19:07 yielded a VDOT of 50.29 and the following training paces:

Type		mile	1600m	1200m	1000	800	400	200
Easy/Long	E/L	8:29	8:26		5:17		2:07
Marathon	M	7:14	7:12		4:30		1:48
Threshold	T	6:49	6:47		4:14		1:42
Interval	I	6:16	6:14	4:41	3:54	3:07	1:34
Repetition	R					2:55	1:27	43

So, these will be my training paces for the next 6 weeks.  This good VDOT Calculator is worth checking out. What I like is that I can put any race into it.  3 miles is common, but not that common.  It worked here.

Marathon Training Program - Developing You Own

The Chicago Marathon is 20 weeks away and I have not even put my schedule together.  It will be coming in a post, but my training program is not your training program.  What I will share with you is the approach I am taking this year.  Maybe it can work for you.  My Fall marathon last year was St. George and I came away cramping and limping to a PR 3:13.  I am looking for 3:10 at Chicago, but my conditioning is not there.  I will have an uphill battle.

I am a big believer in a few training methods and principles.  First is Jack Daniels Training Formula.   At the core of his method is determining proper training paces for running your various workouts using his VDOT tables.  These use your current best race times to determine proper paces.  I really like this Jack Daniels VDOT Calculator.  I am using it now based on my last slow 5k  under Texas heat conditions to set my paces for training runs since they will all be run in the heat.  With this tool you can easily calculate your own training paces.

Now that you know your paces, what runs do you need to do and how often.  That kind of depends upon the run you are doing.  A few key principles:

·         Schedule hard and easy days.  This is critical.  Resting is important.  Then when you have an easy day, force yourself to run at the pace indicated from the calculator based on your current VDOT.  Also, cut your miles back. 8 easy miles is not easy unless you do 80 miles per week.  3 – 6 miles are plenty depending upon your current mileage.

·         If you are training for a marathon, getting your Threshold Pace as close to your VOMax pace is key.  Your Threshold Pace (TPace) is the pace when lactate is flowing out from your muscles about as fast as it is being created.  You 15K or half marathon pace is approximates this.  You expand your threshold by doing extended runs at TPace.  I ran my first TPace run for Chicago today.  I started with 3 miles at my TPACE and will tack on .5 miles until I get to 9 miles many weeks from now.  Target getting to 1 hour at TPace before your taper.  To me, threshold pace runs are the key reaching marathon pace goals.  I usually do this run the day before my long run.

·         You need speed and economy.  The track will bring this to you.  1-2 workouts per week depending on your conditioning and need for recovery.  I have trouble doing track workouts on my own.  Thankfully, my friend Randy leads a track workout every Monday morning at TCU’s track (it’s free by the way – 5:30am).  On Wednesdays, while I am in Austin, I try to make Run-Tex’s workouts at Brushy Creek (also free @6:00pm).  Both are a combination of track intervals and/or hill work.  The goal is the same.  Reach VOMax (90%+ HR = Maximum utilization of Oxygen) with as much time in that range as possible to raise your VOMax.  You can substitute a 5K or 10K for a VOMax day.

·         The long run and Marathon Pace (MPace).  You have to get used to the distance and the pace.  1 day per week, I run long (usually 16 miles or more).  This should start at your slow end of your easy pace (about 20% slower than goal marathon pace – from the calculator above) and end at the fast end of your easy pace (10% slower than MPace).  The negative split should make you feel good, but only if you really start our slow. 
There is an adage about long runs.   They call them LSD (Long Slow Distance).  It trains you to run long and slow.  To combat this risk, I do two things.  On a normal long run, I add stride outs to the last few miles.  This is a slow pick-up to 70% or so of my top speed for 20-30 seconds and back down.  6 – 12 or these spaced at least a quarter mile apart will do the trick.  Alternatively, every few weeks I will work in increasing miles at MPace toward the end.  This does two things: It says, I am not going to just run slow.  And it trains me to run at MPace getting me ready for the day.

So, there you have it.  2-3 hard days plus your long run.  Just remember to make your 3-4 easy days really easy and do it all at your own personal paces based on your own current level of conditioning.

Let me know what you think.  Blair

 

 

St. George Marathon Report

I reported back to a couple of folks, so pardon me if I repeat myself.  I loved this course.  There’s a good reason for St. George to be a favorite of my good buddy Jeff and so many across the U.S.   This year, they expanded the field to 7,200 (up about 600), but they had more than 10,000 in the lottery (and all the locals get in automatically).  It was a PR for me, and I was thankful for that.

This is one well organized race.  It’s also a pretty reasonably priced top marathon.  A night in Vegas, Expo Day, Run, and back home that night.  You could make a big trip out of it.   The expo was fairly standard, easy to navigate with decent sessions. They had the pasta dinner there at the Convention Center (I stayed at the Hilton Garden Inn next door).  If I did it with a group, I would book a big condo on FRBO.  Nothing is that far away in St. George.

Busses headed up the mountain at 4:00am for the 6:45am start.  There, at the top, was hot chocolate, Starbucks, and about 8o bonfires.  They take bags down for you, ready when you get down.  I went up with Ron, my roommate, for the marathon.  Lots of super friendly folks hanging around the fires to get warm.

The race was not just a bunch of downhill running as I had planned for.  While, on average, it drops about 100 ft. per mile (nearly 2,600 ft in total), it also goes up more than 600 ft.  So, on average, it is a 2% grade down.  There were points where the road signs indicated a 6% and 8% downhill grade and, of course then a few big hills to climb.:

After listening to speakers, my strategy was to go out relatively slowly (compared to my goal pace) for the first 14 miles and then run a big negative split.  Right strategy I think. 

It’s dark at the start, 6:45am.  By mile 5, there’s plenty of light.  Downhill, but with rolling hills.   The physical beauty was really great.  I mean really quite spectacular.  At mile 7 there is nasty 1 mile climb (~255 ft.) where I slowed down about 60 seconds per mile .  Then, you turn a corner into some of the most compelling vistas on the course.  At mile 10 or 11 you hit a 2 mile uphill stretch.  By mile 14, you are hitting nice even drops and then some nice hills up past 20.  If your legs are still with you (more on that in a minute), you can really cruise much of the rest of the course with just a few rises.

The downhills were fun, until I started to cramp at 17.  By the time I got to 19 I was getting worried.  By 23, I had to slow to over 8 the rest of the way.  Every time I tried to speed up, I was hit with a stabbing cramp in my right calf.  I think people thought I had Tourette’s (sp?) Syndrome and slowed to 8:30’s for 24 & 25.  Not a fun part of the run.

 

Anyhow, it was a great run and I was happy to come away with a PR.  3:13:40 with an average pace of 7:23/mi.

 

Longer Tempos Make for a Stronger Marathon

I’m in the final tuning for the St. George Marathon (in less than 2 weeks).  I have come to learn the importance of tempo runs as part of my marathon training and do them every week except when in a mileage building stage.  A tempo run should be a sustained run at or just below your lactate threshold pace.  This is a pace that you can maintain without lactate building up to the point where you have to slow in a run of up to about 1 hour.  Not sure what that pace is for you?  I feel the best estimate of this pace is your ½ marathon or 15K race pace.  For me this is 6:42 and 6:40, respectively.  However, I find I have to adjust this pace for weather.  Last week was my last long tempo run.  I ran 10 miles with 8 at a heat adjusted tempo pace (adding about 15 seconds to 6:40).  This put me at about 1 hour at tempo pace.

I believe every bit of my training is important for each marathon.  One of the best articles (and most concise) I have read on marathon training was “Optimal Marathon Training Sessions” by Pete Pfitzinger.  Worth a read just on tempo, but he puts these runs in context with VO2 max and standard aerobic runs.

 

St. George Marathon - Downhill Running

Just ran my 23 miler yesterday and last long run before St. George on the 3^rd of October 2009.  Chasing PR’s still.  Theoretically, this should race be a no-brainer, but you still need the stars to align to have a great run.  St. George Utah is a point-to-point downhill race.  While there are several hundred feet of rise, the net is about 2,600 feet of decent in 26 miles and the highest elevation is about 5,000 feet. 

My last marathon with Houston 2009 in 3:15:04.  Good run, but probably could have pushed harder and it was fairly warm day on a nearly totally flat course.  So what can you do to get ready for the downhill pounding to come?

Two suggestions (I did mostly option 1 since I travel a lot and had no time to find the right hills):

1)      Run downhill on a treadmill.  Get a couple of 2x4 blocks cut about 4 in square.  Put these under a treadmill’s back feet.  Use a torpedo or other lever to check the slope by raising the elevation on the treadmill until the deck is level.  On the life-fitness machine I used at the Intercontinental last week, the blocks gave me a 2% slope.  This is about the right grade for St. George on average.  There are 5,280 feet in a mile.  So, a 2% grade would be about a 105 foot change in elevation (grade = rise / run, 2% = x / 5280 or x = 105.6).  You will find yourself running at Tempo Pace (about 15K or ½ marathon pace) without huffing and puffing.  While you may be a little sore in the calf, quad, or glutes, this was a great confidence boost for me and may be for you as well.   Started with 4 miles and worked up to 8 miles.

2)      Find a long hill (quarter to half a mile) at about the same grade as your race, but do hill repeats a bit in reverse.  Run fast, but easy down the hill.  You can check the slope using the formula above and an online mapping tool.  My favorite is the one on the USA Track & Field site (http://www.usatf.org/routes/map/ ), but the one on mapmyrun.com is a bit slicker showing you the grade along the way.

Good Luck with your next downhill run.