The Murphy's Law Training Cycle?

As you may have noticed, it has been quite a while since I've posted here. That is because the marathon training for the Space Coast Marathon has been a bit of a trainwreck and depressed me a bit making me not want to bother with writing. In fact, I never even wrote about signing up for the Space Coast Marathon which will be held in Florida this coming weekend. With the race coming up, I figured I should provide an update on how things went and what my expectations are for the marathon.

First I suppose I'll touch on the good, which was not a whole lot. As you may recall, I was planning two sort of big changes for this training cycle - use of Daniels' Running Formula to construct the workouts and then the use of a 10-day training cycle as opposed to the more typical 7-day cycle. I was only able to stick with my planned workouts for an initial three week period and then briefly for another two week period. That was probably not enough to really judge it, but I thought for the time I used it the trainings were quite effective. For the initial three week period, I was ramping up and felt like I was building the base just as expected. The improvements continued during the next short period. I found the paces and distances were pushing me but were not so far out of reach as to be a disincentive. Bottom line is I'll probably continue to use the Daniels' Running Formula theories and methods to construct my training plans.

A glitch in the Matrix? No, just a new training plan

On the heels of my 10K summer adventure, it is time to start up a new marathon training plan. This will be #4 for me. More about the specific race I plan to run will be forthcoming. For now though, I have 12 weeks to train and prepare. As I look back over the results of my training and races this past year, I think one bit of knowledge I gained was that I was pushing myself too hard. For runners, that tends to reveal itself in the form of injuries like the soleus strain I've been recovering from after pushing for too much speed for the 10K.

As I started looking ahead to this new marathon cycle and in light of this knowledge about where I am physically, one of the decisions I made was to try a 10-day schedule instead of the normal 7-day (i.e. weekly) training plan. From my research, 10-day schedules can be effective because there is not such a push to cram so many different types of runs into a single week. The 10-day plans are also better for older runners who can no longer push as hard as younger runners. And yes, I am an older runner along with recovering from years of being overweight and out of shape.

My 10K Summer Adventure

Earlier this summer I undertook a slightly different challenge from the cycle of marathons I've been doing for the past year - a 10K race. It has been close to a year and a half since I last ran a 10K. The Growler Gallop in Greensboro was the chosen event and that was held this past weekend. Read on for my report on how the race went and perhaps more importantly, how the training went and what I learned.

Trail running for something different

Haha - as you may be able to tell, it has been a while since I've posted. I'm expecting several new posts in the next couple weeks, so I figured I better go on and get this one out of the way to try to maintain some semblance of chronological order.

This particular post has to do with something I tried about three weeks ago - trail running. I normally run on streets, so hitting a trail was definitely something different for me. Since I was out of town and in the mountains for a day, figured I would give that a try rather than hitting the streets of Cullowhee and Western Carolina University. Luckily, I found a running/biking trail had been developed right next to where my girls were participating in a soccer camp, so off I went while they worked on their game.

New Gear: Saucony Triumph ISO 2

New Long Run Lemon Saucony Triumph ISO 2

Just a quick, short entry to note that I am running in some new shoes. As I started to get into my current 10K training plan, I happened to notice one night after finishing a run that the mid-sole on the pair of Mizunos I was wearing were showing where they shouldn't be. I checked all four pairs of Mizunos that I have in my rotation and discovered that all of the Mizuno Wave Enigmas had suffered a similar fate due to the outsole wearing out in the heel area. Only the Wave Riders (the newest of the batch) were still ok, though they are showing significant wear. So, time for some new shoes.

Have A Heart (Rate Zone)

Thought I would write up a quick post on a bit of research/self-education I did this past week. This is not anything new in the world of running and there are plenty of websites out there explaining all of this. But it was new to me and if it was new to me, maybe it will be new to someone else. The topic was all about learning how to determine and set a custom heart rate zone for my training runs.

New Year, New Challenge

Coming off a batch of three marathons in a six month period, I think it is time for a bit of a break from the marathon distance. Especially in light of the problems I had with the last one. Even without those challenges though, switching things up and training/running a different distance would be a good idea for me based on all the research I've been doing. This will give me a chance to work on some different muscles and demands on my body. Which in turn, should help when I do return to marathon training for a late year marathon (actual event still to be determined). After searching around, I've decided to try the Growler Gallop Gibbs 10K in late August.

To make things really interesting, I have set a goal of running the 10K in 45 minutes. That translates to an average pace of 7:14 per mile, which I'm really not even sure I can make that for a single mile. My best time for a 10K unofficially is 50:02 or 8:03 per mile. I did that during a speedwork training run for the last marathon I did. The last official time for a 10K is 01:10:20 when I ran one back in March 2016. That was really my first running event on this health journey I am on.