Monday, April 14, 2014

I'm In!

I'm running Chicago! Got through the lottery!

So my first BQ attempt for the year will be there and if the weather or other factors don't work out I'll run slowly and CIM will be the BQ attempt.

It will be fun to run another 'major'.

As I mentioned, I'm planning to use Hanson's marathon method (advanced schedule) and so to that end I've been racking up slowish miles, moved to 6 days a week of running (when I can), and otherwise trying to get ready to start tough training!

Here's the stats for the last 4 weeks:



Date Miles Pace BPM WHR% Elev+ Elev- YPB
2014-03-10 Mon 17.0 9:56 116.5 57.8 1734.4 1710.2 1.544
2014-03-17 Mon 42.9 9:47 117.7 58.8 3706.2 3677.7 1.561
2014-03-24 Mon 60.4 9:45 118.9 59.7 818.2 820.7 1.533
2014-03-31 Mon 36.5 9:54 116.7 58.0 722.8 728.0 1.532
2014-04-07 Mon 51.2 9:55 116.7 57.9 1887.2 1884.1 1.534
Summary 208.0 9:50 112.8 54.7 8868.9 8820.6 1.539

Ignore the elevation..it's rubbish. Problems with garmin data processing..sigh.   

I have been racking the miles as much as possible ..the 36 mile week was due to time constraints. Sigh. The last week was also difficult  in that regard but managed to squeeze in 51 miles in only 5 days of running. So far, I'm holding up ok.

Lake Merced in the middle of SF!
I have been forcing myself to run more slowly...ignore pace and I'm doing well at that. 

Hansons has you doing very high mileage and the only way you can survive the hard workouts is if you learn to run the other workouts 1 to 2 minutes off marathon pace. ..which is crazy slow.

But what's the point of 'winning the workout' ? I want to nail the race.

I totally get this after doing 60-51 mile weeks!.At first it seemed crazy slow, but after your legs get tired it's quite difficult. 

Teaching your muscles to crank out the miles when they are tired is what I need. It's all about building fatigue resistance. 

On Sunday, for various reasons, I ran 17 miles around Lake Merced in San Francisco. This is the same place I ran the second day of my marathon double and I had a good time there remembering that and also enjoying the sights there..people out and about and walking and running. 

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A funny thing happened to me on one of my runs last week. I was stopping at a light in downtown Palo Alto. A big gangling slightly chunky guy, probably about 40 yrs old, came up to me and said " Pardon me sir, but do you mind me asking how old you are?". 

I said "not at all, I'm 58". He said "No way! OMG!..still running!!?".  The walk light had just turned on so I said "Yup! Of course!" and off I went.

Good for the ego, that.









5 comments:

  1. Yay for Chicago! Nice goal to train for. I love that story with the guy asking your age :)

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  2. Great that you got in :-) And another Major!
    Londons lottery opens on the 22nd April just after midnight GMT. I never seem to get a place but you are the lucky one so probably have a great chance ;-)
    Without even knowing that you were following the Hansons method, I have just bought the book as I'm going for a sub 4 in Barcelona next year...Good luck with your training!

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  3. Congrats on Chi-town - loved that marathon!!
    I'll be hanging on every detail of your training and hope nothing but mucho success with it. On a side note, I'd bump up the longer runs more than 16 miles every 2-3 weeks, though. Just as an "older" (but obviously still good looking :)) runner, I think our bodies need that extra distance in the longer run that younger soles don't need (as Hanson suggests).

    Great job on the training!

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  4. "What's the point in winning the workout"? I like that. I'll have to remind myself of that when I start marathon training - soon.
    Exciting that that you got into Chicago!

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