The back is pretty much recovered at this point, so I'm building my mileage back carefully to try and get my fitness to the level it needs to be. My heart rate is working it's way back into the range it was before the injuries, but it's still got a good ways to go. Naturally, between the time off and the reduced mileage during recovery I've lost some fitness, so it's just a matter of fighting to get it back ;)
If I'm going to use Pfitzinger's 12 week program, I'm going to need to start at the beginning of next week and I'm not sure that's realistic. I should have no problem doing the mileage itself, however due to the lost fitness my speed isn't where it should be. The Triathlon events are really my focus this year, so part of me is debating whether to simply drop the attempt to do another marathon this spring and simply focus on them. The objective of doing the marathon was to get my time down to 3:20, so if I can't do that then there really isn't a lot of point in putting in all of that training.
It would be easy enough to register for the half marathon rather than the full, as beating my PB in that distance wouldn't be hard and it would likely be better preparation for the half Ironman distance (if I choose to go down that route). Further, as I'd be entering the Triathlon season with fresh legs (rather than having to take a few weeks to recover from the Marathon), it may be beneficial to those races.
Either way, I'll have to see how things go this week and make a call based on that. The 12-week program is pretty aggressive, and between it and base training for the other two sports I don't want to risk re-injuring anything else at this point. I'm a bit concerned about overtraining at this juncture, as trying to squeeze in both a full-fledged marathon program and the other two sports is a lot of volume. Even looking at full ironman training programs, they prescribe doing a lot less running mileage than I've been doing in my base period (never mind the peaks).
Week 6 Totals:
Running: 37.9km (23.5mi)
Walking: 2.0km (1.2mi)
Cycling: 75.0km (46.6mi)
Swimming: 7.2km (4.5mi)
Total: 122.1km (75.9mi)
Year to Date:
Running: 200.9km (124.8mi)
Walking: 22.2km (13.8mi)
Cycling: 85.0km (52.8mi)
Swimming: 26.2km (16.3mi)
Total: 334.3km (207.7mi)
I'm still going to be playing it by ear this week to rebuild back to normal levels. Cycling has progressed well so far, and despite a long time off I don't appear to have lost too much fitness on that side. With the Olympics on television, it's been psychologically easier to do the rides as there's something on television pretty much any time of day. I'm planning on progressively increasing distance over the week, and taking full advantage of that ;)
PS I'm currently trying to find a decent formal training program for building up to the half iron distances, so if anyone has any suggestions on that front I'd be quite appreciative! Pfitzinger's program has been a big help with my running, but I've been doing the cycling and swimming on an ad-hoc basis up until now and figure that I should be adding some structure into those sports as well.
Showing posts with label pfitzinger. Show all posts
Showing posts with label pfitzinger. Show all posts
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
Monday, August 3, 2009
Week 32: Review
The weather reports this week were pretty bad, however the actual weather worked out quite well so when I did get a chance to get out things generally went pretty well. Unfortunately, my schedule this week has been a bit mixed up as the family is taking a couple of weeks off work for some summer vacation stuff, which makes fitting in all of my training sessions quite difficult.
The threat of rain on Monday scared me off of attempting the ride scheduled for that day, which in retrospect was foolish as the grey skies didn't really materialize into anything. Given the weather, however, I did elect to head out to the pool a day early to make sure that that wasn't missed. We were out all day Tuesday, which meant that I had to pull a double on Wednesday to fit in both a 10 miler and a 4mi recovery run. As such, I didn't really have any time to go out on the bike on that day either.
We again went out on Thursday, so I pushed my 11 mile run and 2.7K swim back to Friday again making it impossible to fit in a cycling session. As we were planning on heading out on Saturday, and I had missed the tempo bit of my 10 miler earlier in the week, I elected to do both 5 miles at tempo pace and four of the eight scheduled 100m intervals during Friday's session. After a 2.2K warmup, I did the 5 mile tempo segment finishing the last mile or so on a local track. I then did a slow lap to cool down, and proceeded to do the intervals at that point (running on the straights, recovering on the corners). I then did the remaining ~5K at a slow pace to catch my breath and get home. It was a pretty grueling session to say the least, but it got most of what I needed to do in.
On Saturday I naturally ended up missing my scheduled 7 miler with speedwork, but with an 18 miler the next morning there really was no way to make that up so I let it go. I did manage to get half of the intervals in on Friday, and combined with the tempo run it likely had enough of an effect. I did, however, manage to get a bit of open water swimming in while the family was cooling off at the beach. I wasn't able to get out as far as I would have liked (not wanting to get mowed down by boats and/or jetskiis), and I have no idea how much distance I covered, but other than having some trouble going in a straight line it was actually pretty good. I didn't have a wetsuit, however other than a few small pockets of cold the water temperatures were quite comfortable (~23C), so it wasn't too much of a problem.
Sunday's 18 miler went as scheduled, and other than having to refill my bottles a couple of times to fight off the humidity it went quite well. I tried to focus on slowing myself and had thought that I'd done so quite well during the run, however looking back at the telemetry I still averaged a 5:05/km pace over the duration which is much faster than I should be going (Pfitzinger suggests doing these runs 10-20% slower than targetted race pace, which would correspond to 5:13-5:42/km). I'll have to continue working on that, however slowing things down when your body wants to go faster is a lot harder than it would seem ;)
Weekly Totals:
Running: 70.2km (43.6mi)
Walking: 2.5km (1.6mi)
Cycling: 16.5km (10.3mi)
Swimming: 5.8km (3.6mi)
Total: 95.0km (59.0mi)
Year to Date:
Running: 1,720.8km (1,069.3mi)
Walking: 190.5km (118.4mi)
Cycling: 2,686.1km (1,669.1mi)
Swimming: 20.4km (12.7mi)
Total: 4,617.8km (2,869.4mi)
While the cycling mileage was pretty pitfull this week, that's a bit misleading as the cycling group scheduled our ride for this morning rather than last Saturday. As such, we did a little over 100K today which likely should be accounted for in last week's schedule (as we're still planning on meeting up next Saturday for another long ride). Either way, this upcoming week will likely be pretty heavy on the mileage side so it will likely make up for last week.
As we're still on vacation, next week is likely to see some disruptions as well, however I'll just have to work around them as I did last week. With my first 20 miler of this training cycle coming up on Sunday, however, I'll have to be a little more diligent to fit things in where I can. I will likely miss a few of the shorter rides to make room, however right now running (due to the marathon) and swimming (building a base) are a higher priority at this juncture. As such, the following is a rough plan for the week but it's likely to see some significant changes ;)
Upcoming Week:
Mon 100K Group Ride
Tue 7mi (11.3K) Recovery w/6x100m, 2.7K Swim
Wed 30K Ride, 12mi (19.3K) GA
Thurs 50K Ride, 2.7K Swim
Fri 10mi (16.1K) GA w/6mi (9.7K) LT
Sat 100K Group Ride, 5mi Recovery
Sun 20mi (32.2K) LSD
The threat of rain on Monday scared me off of attempting the ride scheduled for that day, which in retrospect was foolish as the grey skies didn't really materialize into anything. Given the weather, however, I did elect to head out to the pool a day early to make sure that that wasn't missed. We were out all day Tuesday, which meant that I had to pull a double on Wednesday to fit in both a 10 miler and a 4mi recovery run. As such, I didn't really have any time to go out on the bike on that day either.
We again went out on Thursday, so I pushed my 11 mile run and 2.7K swim back to Friday again making it impossible to fit in a cycling session. As we were planning on heading out on Saturday, and I had missed the tempo bit of my 10 miler earlier in the week, I elected to do both 5 miles at tempo pace and four of the eight scheduled 100m intervals during Friday's session. After a 2.2K warmup, I did the 5 mile tempo segment finishing the last mile or so on a local track. I then did a slow lap to cool down, and proceeded to do the intervals at that point (running on the straights, recovering on the corners). I then did the remaining ~5K at a slow pace to catch my breath and get home. It was a pretty grueling session to say the least, but it got most of what I needed to do in.
On Saturday I naturally ended up missing my scheduled 7 miler with speedwork, but with an 18 miler the next morning there really was no way to make that up so I let it go. I did manage to get half of the intervals in on Friday, and combined with the tempo run it likely had enough of an effect. I did, however, manage to get a bit of open water swimming in while the family was cooling off at the beach. I wasn't able to get out as far as I would have liked (not wanting to get mowed down by boats and/or jetskiis), and I have no idea how much distance I covered, but other than having some trouble going in a straight line it was actually pretty good. I didn't have a wetsuit, however other than a few small pockets of cold the water temperatures were quite comfortable (~23C), so it wasn't too much of a problem.
Sunday's 18 miler went as scheduled, and other than having to refill my bottles a couple of times to fight off the humidity it went quite well. I tried to focus on slowing myself and had thought that I'd done so quite well during the run, however looking back at the telemetry I still averaged a 5:05/km pace over the duration which is much faster than I should be going (Pfitzinger suggests doing these runs 10-20% slower than targetted race pace, which would correspond to 5:13-5:42/km). I'll have to continue working on that, however slowing things down when your body wants to go faster is a lot harder than it would seem ;)
Weekly Totals:
Running: 70.2km (43.6mi)
Walking: 2.5km (1.6mi)
Cycling: 16.5km (10.3mi)
Swimming: 5.8km (3.6mi)
Total: 95.0km (59.0mi)
Year to Date:
Running: 1,720.8km (1,069.3mi)
Walking: 190.5km (118.4mi)
Cycling: 2,686.1km (1,669.1mi)
Swimming: 20.4km (12.7mi)
Total: 4,617.8km (2,869.4mi)
While the cycling mileage was pretty pitfull this week, that's a bit misleading as the cycling group scheduled our ride for this morning rather than last Saturday. As such, we did a little over 100K today which likely should be accounted for in last week's schedule (as we're still planning on meeting up next Saturday for another long ride). Either way, this upcoming week will likely be pretty heavy on the mileage side so it will likely make up for last week.
As we're still on vacation, next week is likely to see some disruptions as well, however I'll just have to work around them as I did last week. With my first 20 miler of this training cycle coming up on Sunday, however, I'll have to be a little more diligent to fit things in where I can. I will likely miss a few of the shorter rides to make room, however right now running (due to the marathon) and swimming (building a base) are a higher priority at this juncture. As such, the following is a rough plan for the week but it's likely to see some significant changes ;)
Upcoming Week:
Mon 100K Group Ride
Tue 7mi (11.3K) Recovery w/6x100m, 2.7K Swim
Wed 30K Ride, 12mi (19.3K) GA
Thurs 50K Ride, 2.7K Swim
Fri 10mi (16.1K) GA w/6mi (9.7K) LT
Sat 100K Group Ride, 5mi Recovery
Sun 20mi (32.2K) LSD
Sunday, March 15, 2009
Week 11: Review
As the knee was substantially better this week, I slowly worked my way back into the normal routine. Except for the race this morning, all of the runs that I did this week were ~5min/km recovery runs over relatively short distances. Yesterday I did an eight miler to test my readiness for today, and it went quite well. As mentioned in previous posts, my heart rate is a little higher than usual, but the perceived effort isn't any worse so that's likely just a matter of my body getting used to the volume again.
As for the injury itself there is still a bit of a twinge periodically, however there hasn't been any pain in several days now so it's on the right course. I've been religiously stretching to keep in on that track, and I even repeat a few of the critical ones a couple times to be 100% certain. This has worked well, as it pretty much eliminates any discomfort for a period after the stretch. Further, the nice clear roads certainly have contributed to my recovery, as not having to jump over snow and ice mean that it's easier to keep my gait clean and reduce unnatural stresses.
The job at this point is to get back on track with the proper schedule, and to try and get my fitness back up to where it was prior to the Around the Bay race in a couple of weeks. As long as things remain on this course I should be okay, but I've yet to try any really long runs as of yet so that is still a test that needs to be done. Regardless, my success this morning has buoyed my confidence and I'm a lot more confident in my ability to run that race as planned ;)
Weekly Totals:
Running: 40.8km (25.4mi)
Walking: 11.5km (7.1mi)
Cycling: 30.0km (18.6mi)
Total: 82.3km (51.1mi)
Year to Date:
Running: 642.4km (399.2mi)
Walking: 135.1km (83.9mi)
Cycling: 785.0km (487.8mi)
Total: 1562.5km (970.9mi)
Starting at this point, I'll be going back to the Pfitzinger plan as published. I'll likely slow down a few of the paces until my heart rate gets back to where it was. That's not necessarily a bad thing, however, as I probably should be doing my long runs at a slower pace than I've been doing anyway ;) The 5K has shown me that I can get back to the higher intensity work, however, which I'll be very happy to return to.
Upcoming Week:
Mon 50K Cycle
Tue 7mi (11.3K) Recovery w/6x100m
Wed 30K Cycle + 11mi (17.7K) LT w/7mi (11.3) @15K pace
Thurs 50K Cycle
Fri 12mi (19.3K) Medium-Long
Sat 5mi (8K) Recovery
Sun 20mi (32.2K) LSD
I didn't end up getting any swimming in last week as the pool schedules didn't really line up with my plans. I also missed my Friday cycling session, as I was out for most of the day at a bike show looking over new products and picking up a few things that I needed. While the injury is getting better at this point, I'd still like to work some swimming in there so I'll keep looking for an opportunity.
The one caveat, however, is that I'm going to need to look into some equipment on that front. At this point, I have no facility to measure my performance in this sport whatsoever. My Polar RS800sd uses a 2.4GHz radio, so it can't communicate with the heart rate strap underwater. Further, neither footpod nor GPS-based systems have any way to monitor speed or distance in the water so I'm not sure how to record that either. With that said, I'm strongly leaning toward picking up a Suunto memory belt so that I can at least get heart rate data for these sessions.
As for the injury itself there is still a bit of a twinge periodically, however there hasn't been any pain in several days now so it's on the right course. I've been religiously stretching to keep in on that track, and I even repeat a few of the critical ones a couple times to be 100% certain. This has worked well, as it pretty much eliminates any discomfort for a period after the stretch. Further, the nice clear roads certainly have contributed to my recovery, as not having to jump over snow and ice mean that it's easier to keep my gait clean and reduce unnatural stresses.
The job at this point is to get back on track with the proper schedule, and to try and get my fitness back up to where it was prior to the Around the Bay race in a couple of weeks. As long as things remain on this course I should be okay, but I've yet to try any really long runs as of yet so that is still a test that needs to be done. Regardless, my success this morning has buoyed my confidence and I'm a lot more confident in my ability to run that race as planned ;)
Weekly Totals:
Running: 40.8km (25.4mi)
Walking: 11.5km (7.1mi)
Cycling: 30.0km (18.6mi)
Total: 82.3km (51.1mi)
Year to Date:
Running: 642.4km (399.2mi)
Walking: 135.1km (83.9mi)
Cycling: 785.0km (487.8mi)
Total: 1562.5km (970.9mi)
Starting at this point, I'll be going back to the Pfitzinger plan as published. I'll likely slow down a few of the paces until my heart rate gets back to where it was. That's not necessarily a bad thing, however, as I probably should be doing my long runs at a slower pace than I've been doing anyway ;) The 5K has shown me that I can get back to the higher intensity work, however, which I'll be very happy to return to.
Upcoming Week:
Mon 50K Cycle
Tue 7mi (11.3K) Recovery w/6x100m
Wed 30K Cycle + 11mi (17.7K) LT w/7mi (11.3) @15K pace
Thurs 50K Cycle
Fri 12mi (19.3K) Medium-Long
Sat 5mi (8K) Recovery
Sun 20mi (32.2K) LSD
I didn't end up getting any swimming in last week as the pool schedules didn't really line up with my plans. I also missed my Friday cycling session, as I was out for most of the day at a bike show looking over new products and picking up a few things that I needed. While the injury is getting better at this point, I'd still like to work some swimming in there so I'll keep looking for an opportunity.
The one caveat, however, is that I'm going to need to look into some equipment on that front. At this point, I have no facility to measure my performance in this sport whatsoever. My Polar RS800sd uses a 2.4GHz radio, so it can't communicate with the heart rate strap underwater. Further, neither footpod nor GPS-based systems have any way to monitor speed or distance in the water so I'm not sure how to record that either. With that said, I'm strongly leaning toward picking up a Suunto memory belt so that I can at least get heart rate data for these sessions.
Sunday, February 1, 2009
Week 5: Review
The weather this week was pretty brutal, with heavy snowstorms on Wednesday and Thursday that made running quite difficult. On Wednesday, we ended up cutting the 5mi recovery run a bit short (5.7km/3.5mi) as the 6' of slush we were pushing through made it somewhat pointless to keep going. Accumulation was fortunately not as bad on Thursday, however it was snowing heavily while I was doing my 10 miler which made the session somewhat unpleasant.
Fortunately, this weekend has been much better. Yesterday was a little cold, but other than that the roads were mostly clear and the snow didn't come until the late afternoon so it was a non-factor. As such, I increased my distance from the planned 4 miler to a 10km in order to make up for the lost mileage on Wednesday. The mixture of the nicer weather combined with the clear roads made this a much more pleasant run than I've had for a while.
Further, the weather today was as close to perfect as it gets around here. A nice warm 6C, little to no wind and sunny skies let me keep most of my winter gear at home and run in much more comfortable clothing than normal for this time of year. After running for a couple of months now wrapped up in winter clothing, it was certainly refreshing to be free of the toque, mittens and neck warmer ;)
Unfortunately, while the roads were in near perfect conditions many of the sidewalks weren't. While this isn't an issue on my shorter runs, as I can generally just switch to the road when necessary, with the longer runs I need to use some 80km/h arterial roadways that make it dangerous to leave the sidewalks. As such, portions of this run were much harder than usual (ie the choppy portions of the cadence/pace plots below), and in some parts I had no choice but to go out on the road if I wanted to keep running. Either way, once I got around the obstacles it worked out to be quite a nice day for a run, and plodding through the snow makes for good strength training ;)
With respect to my other sports, I managed to get most of my walking in this week, as well as all but one cycling session. Hopefully things will slow down a bit next week, and I'll be able to pick up the slack on this part of my training ;)
One other upside this week is that my copy of Pfitzinger/Douglas' Advanced Marathoning 2nd edition finally showed up. For the last few weeks I've been using a copy of the first edition borrowed from the library, so there will be some minor changes in my schedule as the new book makes a few tweaks in the plan. The books are mostly the same, with a few minor differences (eg expanded supplementary training section, small tweaks to the schedules and the addition of an 85 mile/week program) but I figured with the update coming out it made more sense to get a copy of the new one.
Weekly Totals:
Running: 68.8km (43mi)
Walking: 32km (20mi)
Cycling: 80km (50mi)
Total: 181.8km (113mi)
Year to Date:
Running: 330.7km (205.5mi)
Walking: 117.4km (72.9mi)
Cycling: 415.0km (257.9mi)
Total: 863.1km (536.3mi)
For the upcoming week, I'll be adding my first long run with a section at race pace. That is likely going to be a good challenge to see how well I've progressed over the last few weeks, although there will likely be some learning involved. The one thing I will have to do, however, is find a better route for that run as plowing through snow will be a much larger problem when higher speeds are necessary.
Upcoming Week:
Mon 50K Cycle
Tue 9mi (14.5K) w/5mi (8km) at LT
Wed 30K Cycle + 5mi (8K) Recovery
Thurs 10mi (16.1K) Steady
Fri 50K Cycle
Sat 5mi (8K) Recovery
Sun 16mi (25.8K) LSD w/10mi (16.1km) at Marathon Pace
As the prices for the races that I'm looking at go up this month, I'm in the process of registering for them now. I registered for Around the Bay a few weeks back, and added the Achilles 5K last night. I'll probably be officially registering for the Mississauga Marathon in the next couple days as well, as it's price goes up and having that one locked in will likely help to motivate my training that much more. I'm still flirting with a few other options, as well as trying to work out what I want to do after this training cycle.
Fortunately, this weekend has been much better. Yesterday was a little cold, but other than that the roads were mostly clear and the snow didn't come until the late afternoon so it was a non-factor. As such, I increased my distance from the planned 4 miler to a 10km in order to make up for the lost mileage on Wednesday. The mixture of the nicer weather combined with the clear roads made this a much more pleasant run than I've had for a while.
Further, the weather today was as close to perfect as it gets around here. A nice warm 6C, little to no wind and sunny skies let me keep most of my winter gear at home and run in much more comfortable clothing than normal for this time of year. After running for a couple of months now wrapped up in winter clothing, it was certainly refreshing to be free of the toque, mittens and neck warmer ;)
Unfortunately, while the roads were in near perfect conditions many of the sidewalks weren't. While this isn't an issue on my shorter runs, as I can generally just switch to the road when necessary, with the longer runs I need to use some 80km/h arterial roadways that make it dangerous to leave the sidewalks. As such, portions of this run were much harder than usual (ie the choppy portions of the cadence/pace plots below), and in some parts I had no choice but to go out on the road if I wanted to keep running. Either way, once I got around the obstacles it worked out to be quite a nice day for a run, and plodding through the snow makes for good strength training ;)
With respect to my other sports, I managed to get most of my walking in this week, as well as all but one cycling session. Hopefully things will slow down a bit next week, and I'll be able to pick up the slack on this part of my training ;)One other upside this week is that my copy of Pfitzinger/Douglas' Advanced Marathoning 2nd edition finally showed up. For the last few weeks I've been using a copy of the first edition borrowed from the library, so there will be some minor changes in my schedule as the new book makes a few tweaks in the plan. The books are mostly the same, with a few minor differences (eg expanded supplementary training section, small tweaks to the schedules and the addition of an 85 mile/week program) but I figured with the update coming out it made more sense to get a copy of the new one.
Weekly Totals:
Running: 68.8km (43mi)
Walking: 32km (20mi)
Cycling: 80km (50mi)
Total: 181.8km (113mi)
Year to Date:
Running: 330.7km (205.5mi)
Walking: 117.4km (72.9mi)
Cycling: 415.0km (257.9mi)
Total: 863.1km (536.3mi)
For the upcoming week, I'll be adding my first long run with a section at race pace. That is likely going to be a good challenge to see how well I've progressed over the last few weeks, although there will likely be some learning involved. The one thing I will have to do, however, is find a better route for that run as plowing through snow will be a much larger problem when higher speeds are necessary.
Upcoming Week:
Mon 50K Cycle
Tue 9mi (14.5K) w/5mi (8km) at LT
Wed 30K Cycle + 5mi (8K) Recovery
Thurs 10mi (16.1K) Steady
Fri 50K Cycle
Sat 5mi (8K) Recovery
Sun 16mi (25.8K) LSD w/10mi (16.1km) at Marathon Pace
As the prices for the races that I'm looking at go up this month, I'm in the process of registering for them now. I registered for Around the Bay a few weeks back, and added the Achilles 5K last night. I'll probably be officially registering for the Mississauga Marathon in the next couple days as well, as it's price goes up and having that one locked in will likely help to motivate my training that much more. I'm still flirting with a few other options, as well as trying to work out what I want to do after this training cycle.
Sunday, January 11, 2009
Week 2: Review
The schedule this week was a little more complicated than expected, which caused me to miss a few of my planned sessions. Naturally, I still managed to perform all of the planned running sessions but my cycling and walking mileage is way down from what was intended. I'll have to focus on getting back into that routine this week, as hopefully things will begin to wind down again soon.
This week also marks the official start to my training for the Mississauga Marathon, using the Pfitzinger-Douglas 18 week/55 mile program. The mileage for the first couple of weeks is a bit lower than I've been doing over the last month or so, meaning that this week was a bit of a step back. With that said, that mileage is spread over fewer runs so most of my individual sessions were longer than I'm used to. Fortunately, everything worked out well this time around so it's just a matter of getting used to the new schedule.
Weather wise, a couple of storms rolled through this week which did make the pathways a bit icy and slowed down some of my runs. Fortunately, I got the speed session in on Tuesday when it wasn't too bad, and the moderation of my pace was likely a good thing as I do have a tendency to do slower sessions a bit faster than I should.
Weekly Totals:
Running: 51.5km (32mi)
Walking: 24km (15mi)
Cycling: 50km (31mi)
Total: 125.5km (78mi)
The weather for the upcoming week looks like it's going to be on the chilly side, but fortunately it doesn't look like there will be too much snow or wind so aside from having to bundle up a little better than usual it shouldn't be too bad. The Pfitzinger schedule calls for about 36 mi this week, although I might throw in an extra recovery session on Wednesday as it's been a while since I've run with the group. As noted above, I'm also going to focus on trying to make sure that I get all of my cycling and walking mileage in this week as I've been slacking off a bit on that lately ;)
Upcoming Week:
Mon 50K Cycle
Tue 8mi (12.9K) w/10x100m
Wed 30K Cycle (4mi Recovery?)
Thurs 10mi (16.1K) Steady
Fri 50K Cycle
Sat 5mi (8K) Recovery
Sun 13mi (20.9K) LSD
Looking ahead, I'm going to have to make a few modifications to the schedule to properly prepare for the Around the Bay race. Primarily, the Pfitzinger program doesn't have any explicit hill repeats, so I'm going to have to work something in to prepare for the hills near the end of this race. I've been working hills into my long runs for a while now, but I'll have to play around with some variations to see what works best on this front. Secondly, I'll likely want to do some tapering prior to the ATB, which may require some small adjustments to the schedule.
This week also marks the official start to my training for the Mississauga Marathon, using the Pfitzinger-Douglas 18 week/55 mile program. The mileage for the first couple of weeks is a bit lower than I've been doing over the last month or so, meaning that this week was a bit of a step back. With that said, that mileage is spread over fewer runs so most of my individual sessions were longer than I'm used to. Fortunately, everything worked out well this time around so it's just a matter of getting used to the new schedule.
Weather wise, a couple of storms rolled through this week which did make the pathways a bit icy and slowed down some of my runs. Fortunately, I got the speed session in on Tuesday when it wasn't too bad, and the moderation of my pace was likely a good thing as I do have a tendency to do slower sessions a bit faster than I should.
Weekly Totals:
Running: 51.5km (32mi)
Walking: 24km (15mi)
Cycling: 50km (31mi)
Total: 125.5km (78mi)
The weather for the upcoming week looks like it's going to be on the chilly side, but fortunately it doesn't look like there will be too much snow or wind so aside from having to bundle up a little better than usual it shouldn't be too bad. The Pfitzinger schedule calls for about 36 mi this week, although I might throw in an extra recovery session on Wednesday as it's been a while since I've run with the group. As noted above, I'm also going to focus on trying to make sure that I get all of my cycling and walking mileage in this week as I've been slacking off a bit on that lately ;)
Upcoming Week:
Mon 50K Cycle
Tue 8mi (12.9K) w/10x100m
Wed 30K Cycle (4mi Recovery?)
Thurs 10mi (16.1K) Steady
Fri 50K Cycle
Sat 5mi (8K) Recovery
Sun 13mi (20.9K) LSD
Looking ahead, I'm going to have to make a few modifications to the schedule to properly prepare for the Around the Bay race. Primarily, the Pfitzinger program doesn't have any explicit hill repeats, so I'm going to have to work something in to prepare for the hills near the end of this race. I've been working hills into my long runs for a while now, but I'll have to play around with some variations to see what works best on this front. Secondly, I'll likely want to do some tapering prior to the ATB, which may require some small adjustments to the schedule.
Saturday, January 3, 2009
Week 1: Review
With the holidays rolling down, I was able to get in most of the sessions that were planned so my mileage is back up. The weather this week was a bit unpredictable, and snowcover did slow down a few of my runs, but overall it wasn't too bad. It is obvious that I'm going to need to get some form of ice cleats to deal with the tempo runs during the winter, however, as it has been getting more and more difficult to maintain speed on nasty winter days.
Weekly Totals:
Running: 60km (37.3mi)
Walking: 34km (21.1mi)
Cycling: 125km (77.7mi)
Total: 219km (136.1mi)
I'll be formally starting my training program this week, so my schedule will drop back a little this week (from 37mi to 32mi). Starting on Monday, I will be using the 18 week 55 mile Pfitzinger marathon plan targeting the Mississauga Marathon on May 10th. As this program uses a Monday-Sunday week rather than the Sunday-Saturday scheme I've been using here, I'll be posting a separate review of my long run tomorrow and then begin doing weekly reports with the new weekly structure next Sunday.
The other tricky part with this plan is that it uses imperial measures instead of metric, so I'll have to figure out how to handle that. In the short term, I'll likely stick with metric units and simply create programmed exercises for my Polar with the units manually converted. Longer term, however, I'll have to work on getting myself familiar with imperial measurements when running (ie getting a feel for min/mi vs. min/km).
Upcoming Week:
Sun 21.1K LSD
Mon 50K Cycle
Tue 7mi (11.25K) w/10x100m
Wed (AM/PM) 30K Cycle
Thurs 9mi (14.5K) Steady
Fri 50K Cycle
Sat 4mi (6.5K) Recovery
Sun 12mi (19.25K) LSD
Either way, I'll begin increasing mileage on a weekly basis very soon and will be exploring new ground over the next little while. Up to this point, the longest run that I've ever done has been about 1h48m (21.1km) and over the coming weeks I will be going well beyond that limit. Hopefully my work over the last couple of months has built up a good base to prepare me for this task ;)
Weekly Totals:
Running: 60km (37.3mi)
Walking: 34km (21.1mi)
Cycling: 125km (77.7mi)
Total: 219km (136.1mi)
I'll be formally starting my training program this week, so my schedule will drop back a little this week (from 37mi to 32mi). Starting on Monday, I will be using the 18 week 55 mile Pfitzinger marathon plan targeting the Mississauga Marathon on May 10th. As this program uses a Monday-Sunday week rather than the Sunday-Saturday scheme I've been using here, I'll be posting a separate review of my long run tomorrow and then begin doing weekly reports with the new weekly structure next Sunday.
The other tricky part with this plan is that it uses imperial measures instead of metric, so I'll have to figure out how to handle that. In the short term, I'll likely stick with metric units and simply create programmed exercises for my Polar with the units manually converted. Longer term, however, I'll have to work on getting myself familiar with imperial measurements when running (ie getting a feel for min/mi vs. min/km).
Upcoming Week:
Sun 21.1K LSD
Mon 50K Cycle
Tue 7mi (11.25K) w/10x100m
Wed (AM/PM) 30K Cycle
Thurs 9mi (14.5K) Steady
Fri 50K Cycle
Sat 4mi (6.5K) Recovery
Sun 12mi (19.25K) LSD
Either way, I'll begin increasing mileage on a weekly basis very soon and will be exploring new ground over the next little while. Up to this point, the longest run that I've ever done has been about 1h48m (21.1km) and over the coming weeks I will be going well beyond that limit. Hopefully my work over the last couple of months has built up a good base to prepare me for this task ;)
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