Marathon Training – Weeks 3 & 4

So I am not doing so well with keeping the blog updated on a consistent weekly basis!  But my training has been consistent so far!  I had a Facebook discussion last week about Newtons and forefoot running.  Was told that forefoot running was great for short distances and sprinting but would kill the calves over long distances.  I beg to differ; but that’s just me.  How about you?  I am convinced that, among other things, forefoot (not on your toes) running preserves your knees and hips, promotes proper economy not opposing physical braking (straight-leg heel-striking), and provides extra return energy from the muscular system.  Shorter faster strides are less taxing on your complete system and not only enable you to run a faster pace at a given output of energy, but they enable you to recover more quickly at well.  Sure, forefoot running hurts the calves as you transition from the popular heel-strike running, but they adapt quickly and are well-suited for the workout.  I’d like to hear from others out there if you care to comment.  Now about my training in review….

Here are my days of training for weeks 3 and 4.

Marathon Training Week 3 – Aug 10 thru Aug 16

Planned: 20 miles  Actual 26.76 miles

• Monday – Easy 4.45 miles includes 3x 10sec hill sprint
• Tuesday – Base 6.13 miles
• Wednesday – Rest
• Thursday – 6.12 miles includes 3x 10sec hill sprint
• Friday – Rest
• Saturday – Progression run 10.05 miles, with last 10-15 minutes more intense than rest of run.
• Sunday – Rest

Marathon Training Week 4 – Aug 17 thru Aug 23

Planned: 28 miles  Actual 27.48 miles

• Monday – Hill Sprints –  5.37 miles includes 4x 10sec hill sprints.
• Tuesday –  Rest
• Wednesday – Fartlek Run –  6.34 miles includes 6 x 30sec fast bursts.
• Thursday – Hill Sprints – 5.35 miles includes 4x 10sec hill sprints
• Friday – Rest
• Saturday – 10.43 miles – This was supposed to be a progression run.  However, after having done P90X leg workouts Friday afternoon, my legs were wasted for today’s run.  I managed to hobble back in very slowly.  It turned out to be a good effort, more like LSD and nowhere near progression.  That’s okay however; I didn’t waste the day.  I did get in some miles.
• Sunday – Rest

Carpe Viam!

Barry

Marathon Training – The First 2 Weeks

Wow – how time flies as you’re having fun.  As previously noted in my last blog, I’ve been a little slack to post my weekly training progress as I originally intended to do. So this will be my catch-up blog! It will summarize the first two weeks of my training for the Dallas White Rock Marathon and will bring us up-to-date.

Before I get into the summary, I believe this is a good time to mention the origin of my training plan. I’ve read several books on running, that’s the geek in me! Since I am ‘self-coached’ I figured the next best thing to having a personal coach is to read books authored by professional runners and/or running coaches and incorporate their ‘coaching’ into my training.  That said, I highly recommend Brain Training for Runners by Matt Fitzgerald and Run Faster from the 5k to the Marathon by Brad Hudson. It is this second book from which I have taken and modified a training plan. If you are familiar with Brad Hudson then you know he is hill work. Since I live in a hilly part of Texas, his methodology works well with my training. Yes! Hill sprints and long hill repeats are part of his adaptive training approach and provide good aerobic and strength training as well as adaptive training to improve the mechanics.  Both books are great reads.

Okay, here’s the first two weeks in summary.

Marathon Training Week 1 – July 27 thru Aug 2

Planned: 20 miles  Actual 13.31 miles

• Monday – Easy 3.18 miles includes 1x 8sec hill sprint
• Tuesday – Base 6.21 miles
• Wednesday – Rest
• Thursday – 3.92 miles includes 1x 8sec hill sprint
• Friday – Rest
• Saturday – Planned 8 miles; Storms and family illness prevented me from running this planned run
• Sunday – Rest

Marathon Training Week 2 – Aug 3 thru Aug 9

Planned: 23 miles  Actual 24.03 miles

• Monday – Easy 4.33 miles includes 2x 10sec hill sprints
• Tuesday – Base 6.13 miles
• Wednesday – Rest
• Thursday – 6.12 miles includes 2x 10sec hill sprints
• Friday – Rest
• Saturday – 9.18 miles Progression Run – LSD w/last 10 minutes at moderate pace uphill
• Sunday – Rest

This week has been good and strong.  I’ll provide more detail on this week’s training in my next blog.

Carpe Viam!

Barry

White Rock Marathon Training

According to an earlier blog, I am supposed to be aiming for ‘consistency’! Well, I am making consistent progress in my training program, however I have failed to consistently update this blog with my progress.  Actually, I have failed to update this blog with anything!  I really hope to do better!

I am already three weeks into my training program for the 2009 Dallas White Rock Marathon and things are progressing nicely.  My legs are feeling stronger, my aerobic capacity is improving as is my pace.

I’ve added a strength exercise program to my training – Tony Horton’s P90X.  My younger daughter and I started this last week and were side-tracked with a couple things that prevented us from completing the entire week, so we counted that week as a ‘preview’ week!  We are in full swing this week.  P90X is so all-inclusive that I expect that it will add further aerobic conditioning as well as core and leg strength.  I expect to be able to drop 15-20 pounds over the course of the 90-day program.  All this should pay great dividends come race day in Dallas!

And since I blogged last, I have purchased and started running with a Camelbak hydration system.  Yeah I know, that’s an added 5+ pounds of weight to carry, but the temps here in Texas have been extreme – 100+ for the daytime highs.  Even my morning runs before 7:00 have started in the mid- to upper-70s with sweltering humidity.  So hydration is a necessity and the 20 ounce belt pack just wasn’t lasting the duration of my runs.

So what gear do you run with?  In an upcoming blog I plan to write about some of my favorite gear and accessories – from the socks and shoes I wear to the gels and fluids I consume.

Until then…

Carpe Viam!

Barry

Forefoot Running

When I first started ‘running’, i.e. jogging, in 2006 I was running in an old pair of Brooks that I bought at the local Academy Sports.  Now don’t get me wrong, Brooks is a great shoe company and make quality running shoes. But that pair of shoes didn’t fit my feet for running and didn’t fit the mechanics of my running gait.  I ended up running my first race – a 10k – in them and then a 5k race a couple months later.

It was later that year that I joined The Fort Worth Running Company’s marathon training program in preparation for The Cowtown Marathon.  Coach Jim Newsom works with newbies (like I was then) on the basics of shoe selection to the fundamentals of training for distance running.  It was Coach Jim that put me in shoes that fit my feet and supported my mechanics.

But I still ended up having shin splints, calf and knee problems throughout my training and even during the race.  After my first marathon was behind me I started my geek pursuit of researching the mechanics of running.  I wanted to optimize my gait and mechanics not only to minimize, and even eliminate, injuries but to possibly help improve my speed with less expense of energy.

I finally found The Pose Method.  Dr. Romanov teaches a forefoot technique that maximizes the running economy and all but completely eliminates heel striking. With a slight lean gravity pulls the body forward into a controlled fall.  The Pose Method teaches the runner to pull and drop the legs with a rapid turnover so as to keep up with the forward motion that gravity is pulling the runner.  It takes lots of practice to perfect The Pose Method.  I was sold on the forefoot striking method, but I wasn’t patient enough to keep up with the details of the required Pose exercises.  A veteran runner and coach told me that the physics of the Pose methodology was sound but he didn’t believe in retraining one’s running mechanics. Huh?

Anyway, one day while reading on the Pose forums I learned about the use of a ‘thumb harness’ to help encourage forefoot running by controlling the distance of the forward swing of the arm during the run.  The science teaches that the foot will strike the ground precisely beneath where the opposite hand is extended in space in front of the body.  If you can control how far in front of the body the hand extends, then you automatically control how far in front of (or beneath) you that your foot will strike the ground.  So, as you might have guessed, I bought the thumb harness from Stride Mechanics. The thumb harness hastened my transition from being an all-out heel striking, forefoot slapping runner to a light, forefoot runner.

So if I no longer need shoes to cushion my heels from heel striking, what kind of shoes do forefoot runners wear?  The shoes I transitioned into were a pair of New Balance flats that had no padding hardly at all.  I ran the 2008 Dallas White Rock marathon in a pair of Saucony Fastwitch.  I’ve since switched to running in Newton’s Neutral Racer.  Newtons shoes ‘encourage’ forefoot running by design.  The heel is somewhat higher than the Saucony or New Balance shoes I previously wore.  But the design of the lugs on the forefoot of the Newtons pretty much keeps the runner off his/her heels and on your forefeet.  I have over 525 miles on my current pair of Newtons and hardly any wear at all on the heels!

If you are tired of injuries and/or want to maximize your running economy then I encourage you to look into forefoot running.  It will take a change in thinking while running, but it is well worth the effort.

Carpe Viam!

Barry

Consistency In Training

Next week I officially start training for the Dallas White Rock Marathon. This will be my fourth marathon – my second running of the Rock!  Prior to running the Rock last year I had heard lots of positive comments about the marathon – the course, the support, the entertainment along the route (it is dubbed as the original Rock-n-Roll marathon), and its many, many cheering fans.  I wasn’t disappointed.  But I wasn’t completely satisfied when it was all said and done either.

It was a VERY windy day and a bit warmer than expected on race day.  Before I reached half-way I was miserable.  The little voice in my head told me often how easy it would be to catch the bus back to the finish line and settle for the DNF (Did Not Finish).  Thankfully I kept up the effort.  I crossed the finished line in a disappointing 4:55:52 – more than 20 minutes slower than my first marathon 10 months earlier!

It would be easy to whine about the wind or the warmer than expected temperatures. But I now realize that the real problem with the end result was attributed to my training leading up to the race, specifically a lack of consistency in my training.

What is consistency?  Here is Webster’s definition.

Consistency – con·sis·ten·cy  \kən-ˈsis-tən(t)-sē\  noun

1 archaic : condition of adhering together : firmness of material substance b: firmness of constitution or character : persistency 2  degree of firmness, density, viscosity, or resistance to movement or separation of constituent particles <boil the juice to the consistency of a thick syrup> 3 agreement or harmony of parts or features to one another or a whole: correspondence; specifically : ability to be asserted together without contradiction b: harmony of conduct or practice with profession <followed her own advice with consistency>

I’ve had plenty of time since that dismal finish to think about what I need to do differently.  Besides tweeking a few things in my training regimen, the primary thing that I need to do is be consistent.  Consistency will not only provide for an “agreement or harmony of parts or features to one another or a whole”, i.e. speed training, strength training, endurance training, etc., but come race day it will also instill a calm assurance of psyche knowing that I can “trust my training” and that the race events will harmonize with the conduct or practice of the previous 20 weeks of consistent training!

That’s my goal!  I look forward to sharing highlights of my training regimen with you over the course of the next few months.  And I also look forward to hearing from you along the way.

Carpe Viam!

Barry