Cleveland Marathon Training Week 11: Back to Running

I'm finally back to running now and I decided to change things up a bit.  First off I'm no longer timing my easy days.  I really did not see a point to it and it was making me frustrated because I would feel like I had to hit a certain pace.  Also, track workouts started this week!  This week's workout did not go so well but hopefully the track work will start bringing some faster times.  Here are this weeks runs:

Monday: Rest Day

Tuesday: Track workout - 4x1000m w/ 400m jog recovery.  The first track workout of the season, this was supposed to be 5x1000 but I was not feeling it at all so I shortened it to 4.  Splits were 3:28, 3:31, 3:32 and 3:39.  Yikes.  Getting progressively slower throughout a workout is never a good thing.  Hopefully, things go a little better next week.

Wednesday: 4.8 miles

Thursday: 5.8 miles

Friday: 5.4 miles

Saturday: 7.8 miles

Sunday: Rest Day

Total mileage: 29.1 miles

This week will be my next race: The Love-A-Stray Fur Fun Run 5k in Avon Lake!

The RunSwanson Guide to Training

Ok, so I’ve been terrible about blogging recently (due to injury), but I’m finally back running again now.  I decided to change things up a little and write a post about my philosophy on training.  I've actually been meaning to write this for a while and I realize that it might be a little late as most people are firmly entrenched in their training plans for spring races, but hopefully you can take away something from this post that you can use for future training.

Let me start by saying that this post is all about workouts.  For many runners, a typical week might have 2-3 workouts, 3-4 days of easy miles, and 1-2 days of rest/cross training.  The most important days are workout days.  The purpose of this post is to familiarize you with the kinds of workouts used by distance runners and what each aims to accomplish.  I'll conclude with a few thoughts about incorporating workouts in your training plan.  I've put them into four groups here starting with the highest intensity/lowest volume and going to lowest intensity/highest volume (volume = the distance of the workout, intensity = how fast you are running):

Group 1: Speedwork 

I think this is the most misunderstood type of workout.  What most people call speedwork I would actually put in the next group.  What I consider true speed workouts are very low volume and maximum intensity and are designed to improve your maximum speed.  Examples would be very short sprints (100m or less) or short hill sprints (10-15 sec) with long recoveries.  The purpose is to be able to go full sprint for every rep.  Generally, these types of workouts tend to be ignored by distance runners.  The thought is that you spend little or no time at maximum speed in a race so what’s the point of improving it?  Well, I think that these types of workouts provide an excellent opportunity to correct mechanical deficiencies.  Most people who run lots of miles at a relatively easy pace will eventually develop a reasonably efficient stride for that pace but they look like a mess when they try to sprint.  Focusing on good mechanics when running at maximum velocity will have a trickle down effect that will help improve your form at race pace and in lower intensity workouts.  I won’t get into the details about good form here, but essentially you want to think tall, relaxed, and smooth when you run. 

Now for someone who is not focusing on the 100m dash, you probably do not need to make speedwork your highest priority.  You can simply add 5x 60-100m strides at the beginning and/or end of a workout where you focus on form and gradually accelerate to maximum velocity.  In high school, we used to do these kinds of strides every day after a run.  Short hill sprints are another great way to improve speed, but that kind of session is far more demanding and should be made its own workout.

Group 2: VO2 Max

When most distance runners think of speedwork what they are really thinking about is VO2 max work.  These are usually medium length intervals (400-1600m) run at high intensity (usually around 5k pace) with short rest in between.  Most track workouts (including the ever-popular Yasso 800’s) would fall into this category.  So would most medium length hill workouts (30sec-2min reps) and fartleks.  VO2 max is the maximum amount of oxygen that your body is able to deliver to its tissues.  In these types of workouts you are at an intensity where your body is delivering oxygen as fast as it can.  Subsequently, this leads to improvements in your body’s ability to transport oxygen.

As I stated before, most runners confuse VO2 max with speed.  You will often see runners who excel at marathon and half-marathon distances but struggle with short distances such as 5k.  They usually attribute this to a lack of speed but the real issue is a lack of VO2 max.  They are used to running lower intensities where oxygen demands are lower.  When they run at higher intensities where their muscles demand more oxygen, their body is unable to keep up.  The result is oxygen deficiency which leads to rapid lactic acid build up (lactic acid will be discussed in the next section) which leads to fatigue, which leads to slowing down.

The best way to increase your VO2 max is through moderate length high intensity intervals with short rest.  Popular workouts include 8-12x 400m with 200m jog recovery, 6-8x 800m with 400m jog recovery and 3-4x1600m with 600m jog recovery.  Hill reps of 30sec to 2min would also be great VO2 work, as would fartlek workouts with interval lengths of 1-5min (fartleks are similar to interval workouts except you run for a prescribed time instead of distance, for example 5x 2 min hard, 1 min easy).

Group 3: Lactate Threshold

           

This group is basically your tempo runs, workouts where you run at a moderately fast pace (usually somewhere between 10k and marathon pace) for a fairly long time (usually between 20min and 1hr).  Simply defined, lactate threshold is the pace at which your body is in essentially a “lactate neutral” state.  Basically, you are getting rid of lactic acid at the same rate you are producing it.  Lactic acid is a product of anaerobic respiration, which is when your body burns fuel without oxygen.  Lactic acid builds up in the muscle tissue and gives you the fatigued or sore feeling.  Your body is able to get rid of lactic acid but it can only do it so fast.  That is where lactate threshold workouts come in.  In this type of workout you run just fast enough that your body is able to remove the lactic acid as quickly as it is being produced.  Essentially, you are training your body to get good at removing lactic acid.  As your body gets better at removing lactic acid you will be able to run faster without having lactic acid buildup.  This is critical for longer races where lactic acid buildup can wreck your pace. 

The most common type of lactate threshold workout is the tempo run.  To start, run at a pace that you feel you could maintain for no more than one hour (this is probably somewhere between 10k and half marathon pace) and run at this pace for 20 minutes.  Gradually, work up the distance of the run as you progress.  Remember that a tempo run is not a time trial.  You are not racing!  If the pace starts getting too easy you can increase it but the focus should be on maintaining the pace for longer, not making it faster.  If you make it too fast you will be going above lactate threshold and you will wipe yourself out.

Group 4: Long Run

The staple of many a marathon plan, there is a lot of debate on exactly how long a long run should be.  I’ve heard that it should never be more than 25% of weekly mileage but I’ve also seen plans where the long run is as much as 40% of weekly mileage.  One thing is for certain though, it should be longer than your normal run (obviously) and you should build it up slowly.  The pace should not be too fast, conversational pace is fine.    The long run is also not specific to just marathoners.  I believe that even 5k’ers can benefit from a long run between 10 and 15 miles.  Perhaps the biggest benefit of the long run is the mental toughness gained from being able to run for a long time.  This is critical in preparing for a marathon where you will be running for several hours.

There are also workouts that are sort of in between different groups.  For instance 200m repeats might be between groups one and two depending on how much rest you have.  Some people do runs called progression runs which are essentially long runs where you gradually get faster throughout the run, usually starting at easy pace and then progressing to marathon or even half marathon pace.  These would be an example of a workout between groups three and four.  Workouts that combine groups two and three are usually among the most challenging.  Just look up The Michigan or the 30-40 workout (beware: these workouts are brutal) for some examples.

           

A good training plan for an experienced runner might touch on all four groups during peak weeks.  Beginning runners would probably do best with either a VO2 max workout or lactate threshold workout each week but not both.  That being said, I’ll leave you with a few things to think about when planning your workouts:

1. Think about your strengths and weaknesses as a runner, do you excel at long distances or shorter distances?  Tailor your workouts to work on your weaknesses and you’ll be a better overall runner.  If you try a new workout and it completely kicks your butt then you're probably on the right track.

2. What race are you training for?  If you have a specific goal race then you should try to simulate your race in your workouts whenever possible.  Training for a marathon?  Consider doing tempo runs at a little faster than marathon goal pace, or maybe a long run where you throw in a few miles at marathon goal pace.  How about a 5k?  Maybe do some track intervals at 5k goal pace.  Start with 400’s and then as you get comfortable with the pace you can increase the length of the intervals and/or shorten the rest.

3. This might be the most important one: be confident and believe in what you are doing.  After running on a team for 6 years in high school and middle school I can honestly say that one of the biggest factors that influences how a runner improves is the attitude they take toward their training.  The people who believe that what they are doing is going to help them and get excited for their training are the ones who see huge improvement, but the ones that just go through the motions, not so much.  If you have confidence in your training you will run times that you might not have believed were possible.

…And one last thing: have fun with it!  Your training is yours to do with as you please. Maybe it’s the scientist in me but one of my favorite parts of running is trying out new workouts and experimenting to find out what works and what doesn’t.  So don’t be afraid to try something new; it might be just the thing you need to achieve a breakthrough in your race and get a PR.

If you have any thoughts on training feel free to leave a comment!

Happy Running!

Cleveland Marathon Training Weeks 8-10: Intermission

I have been very busy with grad school lately so I've been behind on my training posts.  Here is a quick recap of the last three weeks:

Week 8:

Monday: Hill workout - 5x 1 mile hill circuit.  1.5 mile warmup and cool down for 7 miles total.

Tuesday: 4.8 miles (8:27 pace)

Wednesday: Rest Day

Thursday: 12.88 miles (7:46 pace)

Friday: 6.81 miles (8:16 pace)

Saturday: Rest Day

Sunday: Tempo Run - 5x 1.09 mile loop = 5.45 miles.  My goal is still to run 6:30 per loop (5:58 pace).  Splits were 6:54, 7:01, 7:16, 6:55, 6:50.  Total distance with warmup and cooldown was 7.49 miles.  It was cold, snowy and windy so the times were slow.  Nonetheless, I got in 5+ miles of hard running and actually managed to pick up the pace a little on the last two loops, so overall it was ok.

Total mileage: 40 miles


Week 9:

Monday: 6.81 miles (7:52 pace)

Tuesday: 4.8 miles (8:27 pace)

Wednesday: Rest Day

Thursday: 7.84 miles (8:16 pace)

Friday: Rest Day

Saturday: 12.88 miles (7:23 pace)

Sunday: Tempo Run - 3x 1.09 mile loop = 3.27 miles.  My goal is still to run 6:30 per loop (5:58 pace).  Splits were 6:28, 14:05 for the last two (forget to hit "split" after the second one).  Total distance with warmup and cooldown was 5.31 miles.  Was supposed to be longer but my legs were pretty shot after the previous day's long run so I decided not to push it.

Total mileage: 32.8 miles


Week 10:

Monday: Rest Day

Tuesday: 4.8 miles (no pace, didn't bother to time it)

Wednesday: Rest Day

Thursday: 4.22 miles, did a small fartlek (4x 1 min hard with 2-3 min rest in between) to get the legs ready for Saturday's race

Friday: Rest Day

Saturday: St. Malachi 5 Miler my time was 28:09.  Total distance with warmup and cooldown was about 8 miles

Sunday: Rest Day

Total mileage: 17 miles

For the past few weeks I had been having some pain in my tibias (both of them) that I fear might be the beginnings of a stress fracture.  I made it a goal for this year to be more cautious about injuries so I'm going to play it safe with this one and take several weeks off from running.  I still plan to run the marathon.  Hopefully everything will be better in a few weeks and I'll be able to resume training.

St. Malachi Run

The second race in the Hermes Race Series, the St. Malachi Run is a 5 mile race which starts at St. Malachi's Church on Detroit Rd. and goes through downtown Cleveland.  It's one of Hermes biggest events and in addition to being in the Road Race Series it's also part of the RunOhio Grand Prix, so it brings in a lot of top runners from the area.  This was the first time I had run this race and I had been forewarned that the course was very tough, with the second half being largely up hill.

The weather on Saturday was far from ideal and was reminiscent of many early season track meets here in Cleveland where you have to deal with snow, sleet, rain, wind and cold.  After we parked and made our way to the race headquarters we were pleasantly surprised to find that there was no line for the bathrooms (well done Hermes!).  Actually, the weather may have had something to do with that as the turnout was probably lower than expected.  Anyway, after bathrooms and a short warmup it was time to shed the sweat clothes and head to the start line.

The course started by making two quick turns and then it was up hill as we headed over the Detroit-Superior bridge.  Knowing that this would be a tough course I took it easy as we crested the hill and came down the other side.  I was basically just cruising for the first mile.  In the second mile I picked up the pace a little and started picking off other runners.  We worked our way through downtown and then down the W. 3rd hill and around Browns Stadium, then continued past the Science Center and the Rock Hall until we reached the turnaround in front of Burke Lakefront Airport.  This the road there was covered in about an inch of slush which kinda sucked.  Oh well.  By then my feet were totally soaked anyway.

The second half of the course was basically retracing our steps back to the beginning.  This meant going back up the W. 3rd hill and then back across the bridge, which is basically one big hill. I was feeling strong though and passed two more people as we came up W 3rd.  At this point I was running alone for the rest of the race.  The next group of people were probably about 30 seconds ahead.  As we went back across the bridge I really tried to push to make up some ground with the hope that I could let my stride out on the downhill side and use my speed to close the gap and maybe pick up one more place before the finish. It didn't happen though.  I finished with a time of 28:09 (PR!), 21st overall and 8th in my age group.  Overall, I was very happy with my time.  It beat my old PR by 25 seconds on a tougher course in tougher weather.

Unfortunately, I wasn't in any of the pictures that Hermes took :(

Who else braved the elements and ran Malachi?

Cleveland Marathon Training Week 7: The Flu

The night before Chili Bowl I was already starting to not feel well, and although I felt ok for the race, I progressively got worse throughout the weekend and on Sunday night I had a fever of 102.3.  It was the Flu.     This meant no running on Monday, Tuesday, or Wednesday.  When I came back however, I felt pretty good and Saturday's tempo run was probably my best workout of this training cycle so far.

This week's runs:

Monday: Rest Day

Tuesday: Rest Day

Wednesday: Rest Day

Thursday: 6.81 miles (8:22 pace)

Friday: 10.65 miles (8:22 pace, somehow I ran the exact same pace two days in a row)

Saturday: Tempo Run - 5x 1.09 mile loop = 5.45 miles.  My goal is still to run 6:30 per loop (5:58 pace).  Splits were 6:35, 6:29, 6:31, 6:35, 6:25.  Total distance with warmup and cooldown was 7.49 miles.  I felt much more in control for this run than I did the last time.  If it wasn't for a slightly slow first lap, and some laziness on the fourth lap this one would have been perfect.  This was the first workout this cycle that I felt really good about.

Sunday: 5.67 miles (8:55 pace)

Total mileage: 30.6 miles

The plan going forward is to increase mileage into the 40's and do two workouts per week (one hills and one tempo) as well as increase the distance of my long runs.

Happy Running!

Cleveland Marathon Training Week 6: Rest Week

I've decided that this training cycle I'm going to take a rest week on the weeks that I race.  In the past I've had issues with overtraining and injury so this time my hope is that by having rests built into my schedule it will force me to not over do it.  Also, maybe it will make me fresher for races.  On these weeks I have no set mileages, and I don't care how many days I run.  This week I only ran 3 times.

This week's runs:

Monday: 4.8 miles (7:51 pace)

Tuesday: Rest Day

Wednesday: Rest Day

Thursday: Fartlek: 4x 1 min hard with 2-3 minutes rest in between.  Just wanted to get a little bit of fast running in to get my legs ready for the race. Total distance with warmup and cooldown was 4.25 miles.

Friday: Rest Day

Saturday: Chili Bowl Classic 5k my time was 16:45.  Total distance with warmup and cooldown was 6.1 miles

Sunday: Rest Day

Total mileage: 15.2 miles

The plan is to resume building mileage next week.  Hopefully, it will start warming up soon!

Chili Bowl Classic 5k

Yesterday was the Chili Bowl Classic 5k in downtown Cleveland.  It's the first race in the Hermes Road Race Series so I was excited to do well.  Coming in I knew I had several weeks of solid training behind me but I also hadn't done any speedwork so I really had no idea what I could do for 5k.  My goal was just to break 17.  I guess that really says a lot about my training since at this time last year breaking 17 would have been a reach goal and now it's a pretty conservative goal.  Generally speaking, the downtown courses aren't very fast since you usually have to deal with some form of hill, either E. 9th, W. 3rd, or one of the bridges.  

I did my usual 20 min warmup with 4x 30 sec fartlek.  The legs felt pretty good going fast so that gave me some confidence.  The field for this race was pretty competitive.  In fact, the overall winner was actually the Ohio D1 XC champ in 2006.  They rang the bell and we were off.

I'm on the far left in the orange top

The pace went out pretty slow, it seemed like a lot of the other top guys were just feeling each other out and no one really wanted to push the pace.  The course started at the Galleria headed down Lakeside to W. 3rd and then down the W. 3rd hill and the mile mark was behind Browns Stadium.  I ran the first mile in 5:10 and was in 7th place.  The course then continued around the stadium and past the Science Center, at which point their was a hairpin turn.  The course basically just reversed itself from this point.  As I was running back toward the stadium I was scanning the crowd to cheer on people I knew.  Unfortunately, I missed Katie; the crowd was just too thick.  I reached the second mile mark at 10:45.

As we came back up the W. 3rd hill I really tried to push the pace to catch the guys in front of me but I didn't really seem to make up much ground.  When we got to the top of the hill I committed the cardinal sin of racing and looked over my shoulder to see how far back the people behind me were.  I was basically in no man's land at this point, with nobody really within 20 seconds of me in either direction.  I really just wanted to be done.  I counted down the streets as we went back up Lakeside: Ontario, E.6th, E.9th, and finally E. 12th where we made the turn for the finish.  My final time was 16:45, 7th overall and 1st in my age group.

After the race I saw this quote on the back of someone's shirt, "If at the end of the race you still look pretty, you aren't doing it right."

Nobody looks good at the end of a race

Well, I guess I'm at least doing it right.

The awards for the race were little chili bowls which was pretty cool.

Chili Bowls!

They also had free chili after the race but we didn't have time to stay.  Overall, I really liked this race.  It was the first time I ever ran this race, and like all Hermes races it was very well organized.  I also accomplished my goal of breaking 17.  I ran basically the same time as the Reindeer Run, but this was definitely a harder course, so it seems like I'm improving.  Hopefully, none of the six guys in front of me is also doing the race series ;)  I'm looking forward to my next race, the St. Malachi 5 Miler, which is another race series race.  I will probably be aiming for a 5 mile PR there.

Congratulations to everyone who ran on Saturday, and a special shout out to Katie's friend Meredith, who PR'ed and won her age group!

Who else ran Chili Bowl?  Who will be at Malachi?  Anyone else doing the race series?