Run the Reagan half marathon race report

Saturday 2/18/12 I ran my first stand alone half marathon. The course was the Ronald Reagan Parkway that runs from Snellville to Duluth, GA. It is a limited access highway with 5 on ramps. The road is closed to all traffic for the race. The day ended up being perfect for the event. The temperature was about 48 degrees, slightly overcast with a wind of less than 4 mph. Event started and 9 and was chip timed.

The start went smoothly, it took me 9 seconds to get to the start mat. The initial 2 miles were slightly downhill. The rest of the course rolls continuously with very little flat ground, but most of the grades are moderate. Since the course was an out and back the last 2 miles were uphill. I wanted to go out at a moderate pace of 8:30 and see what happens at 6 miles. Well all that went out the window. The start was downhill and I ended up at just about 7:55 pace for those 2 miles. After that the grades kicked in. At 6 miles I am at about 8:18 a mile for the first 6 miles. The run back took about the same time. I finished in 1:49.01 for a 8:18 pace for the entire race.

I must say that I was very pleased with the result. I was able to kick a little at the end, but at the finish line I definitely felt that I was done. A good effort and a good result for me. I am going to use this race to formulate my run strategy for my tri events this year. I feel that I should be able to run within 30 seconds a mile of that pace for events that aren’t flat. For Augusta I would expect to get close to that time since it is totally flat.

LSD month 7 new max distance

Last month I told you about the new Hoka Bondi shoes. They are the ticket for me. I have been able to further increase my mileage. I hit 160 miles in January. My last long run of the month was 15 miles.  I never would have believed that I could run this distance in a month. By running at LSD paces I have had no recovery or injury issues.

I hope to see improvement in my race times. I have entered the “Run the Reagan” half marathon on 2/18/2012 in Snellville, GA. The course is not flat and I do not know what time to expect. According to the Daniels Running tables I should be able run at a 8:15 pace. Personally I think that is too aggressive because I am allergic to hills.  My plan is to try and hold 8:45 for the first 6 miles and then if my heart rate isn’t sky high take the heart rate to 156-157 bpm. The last 2.5 miles are on an uphill grade so wish me luck.

I found a very interesting series of posts on running on another blog site. The first post is at http://chuckiev.blogspot.com/2007/08/hadds-approach-to-distance-running-part.html . I suggest that you give it a read

Computrainer Erg Files & Trainer Road

I have noticed that the single largest search that leads people to this blog is “Computrainer”. Very often it is about erg files. I could write about creating your erg files but I have discovered a much neater solution. There is a website called http://www.trainerroad.com. You can become a suscriber for $10 a month. You download the program to your computer. They have Mac  & PC versions. When you login to the program it hooks to the web and you can access all of the rides and plans that are on the website.

Today I joined and proceeded to ride the 20 minute FTP test ride. The program controlled & read info from my computrainer. The On screen graphics were much better than the coaching software from Computrainer. We established my FTP or threshold through this ride. Now I can use to 6 week advanced plan to improve my power. It knows my threshold and will use that to set up my resistance in the various rides. This is much better & way simpler than doing myself in the Computrainer software.

All of my results are stored on the website and I was able to download todays ride to my computer to import into Apollo Raceday which is the program I use to track  analyze all of my Tri workouts. The initial version of the software did not capture the heart rate or speed however the update corrected that and now it captures all of the info. The workout download can be imported into Golden Cheetah or training peaks.

LSD – 6 months & New Hoka Bondi shoes

December became the 6th month in a row of over 100 miles. I hit 134. The last 3 have been 128, 131, 134. In late December I bought a pair of Hoka Bondi running shoes ( I call them my clown shoes). I was having trouble extending my long run much past 10 miles. The week I went over 11 miles my legs did not recover well and the training for the following days were impaired. My legs felt beat up.

The Hokas are like magic for me. 1 week after purchase I ran 12.2 miles and had no recovery issues. The general fatigue and joint soreness I had are markedly decreased. It is Magic, OK maybe just good technology. The shoe is bulkier due to the use of a higher volume of a lower density foam in the shoe. The net effect is greater cushioning and impact absorption. Kind of like the way carbon bikes absorb road buzz. Probably not much of an issue for the young strong runners, bit a god send for a 57 year old.

 

The shoes are neutral and very light despite their bulky appearance.

LSD – Long slow distance running update

November was my 5th month in a row of running 100 or more miles in a month. November was my largest monthly volume at 130 miles. I have to say that the training method is working. My average training pace has been steadily decreasing on the same effort level. When I started this the long run training pace was around 10:0-10:30. Currently the same level of effort is yielding a pace a minute per mile faster. I think that I will go ahead and enter a 1/2 marathon in March. The only times I have run that distance for time have been in a 1/2 ironman. I think it would be good for me to know what my open time would be. Then I should be better able to estimate my time in a 1/2 iron tri distance.

I have been increasing my long runs over the months. I started at 8 miles and 1 week ago did 11.5 miles. I backed it down to 10 this weekend. Last week I had a hard time hitting all my training runs, so I think I was over reaching. I need to sit on a distance for a couple of runs before moving up the distance. I hope to get to 13  mile training runs prior to the 1/2 marathon. If i get to the point that I am running 13 miles at a relaxed 9:30 pace then I should be able to acyually race the 1/2 marathon, not just survive it. Keeping my fingers crossed.

3 months of Long Slow Distance 5K results

July, August and September were 100+ miles per month of running. In July I ran a 5K in 25:40. I recently ran the Autism 5K in Lawrenceville after this period of long slow running. No speedwork of any kind. The result was a 23:04. An improvement of 2:36. I was pretty surprised my self.

My plan now is to see how many 100+ mile months that I can string together. I am hopeful that this will be the fix I needed for my run results in triathlons. Maybe next year will be my breakthrough year. The bike has been good. My swim has picked up. Get a decent run and who knows what could happen.

My first 10K

I recently ran my very first stand alone 10K. The event was in Lawrenceville, GA and it was a clear cool morning. I was racing against my son in law (Matthew) who soundly beat me in a 5K in July by 40 seconds. He has missed a little training and I know that I am better at longer distances so I had been talking a little smack at him. When the race started everyone shot off. I knew that I could not afford to burn it up right away so I carefully monitored my pace and tried to stay at 7:30 lots of people shot by. After 1 mile they started getting reeled in. I tried to maintain a good solid pace. Matthew was riding my shoulder, falling back & catching up. He still trailed a 6 miles and I had set a hard enough pace that he was not able to sprint by. I beat him by 2 seconds and went 49:43 for a 8:01 per mile pace. My time was 2nd in my age group and 10th overall. There were only 83 runners for the 10K, most people ran the 5K.

Tugaloo Race report

If you read my prior post you know what my goals were. My swim came in right on. I put my Garmin in my swim cap and interestingly found that I swam 1.1 miles instead of the 0.9 the Olympic distance calls for. I looked at my course and I swam it pretty darn straight. I  dropped 3 minutes off of last years time, that worked out to a 1:35 pace. Transition was good but I ended up giving back 2 minutes on the bike. I expected to have enough left for the run, but I was wrong. I gave back 4 minutes compared to last year. Overall time was good for fourth.

Place  No. Co NAME           Ag S  SWIM    T1    BIKE   T2      RUN     TIME
===== ==== == ==============  == = ===== ===== ======= ===== ========  =======
   1.  141    PECHT          56 M 28:21   1:41 1:12:27 1:20    54:11  2:37:58
   2.  176    HARTNESS       58 M 29:26   1:32 1:19:44 0:42    49:34  2:40:56
   3.  166    BOOTH          59 M 32:52   2:37 1:19:55 1:33    51:02  2:47:58
   4.  198    RAAB           57 M 30:24   2:10 1:17:46 1:49    56:41  2:48:48

You might look at this & say your run fell apart. You would be right but wrong.I know that my run is stronger than last year. So why is my time slower. I believe it is because of my bike. This year I only had one ride over 1 hour. Last year I was routinely doing 60-80 mile rides in 3-4 hours. I believe that I simply did not have the overall strength and had less left to give on the run. Triathlon is a learning experience and I am really looking forwards to next year.

Saving this year? Tugaloo will tell

This year has been somewhat disappointing for me. I spent the winter trying the eEndurance Nation approach to training..shorter higher intensity workouts. I thought it might work. I was unable to actually put this to the test as I had to move and basically lost the months of February & March for training purposes. This resulted in my conditioning falling off a cliff. My early season races were a disaster.

I then started to do LSD (long, slow distance) run training. No sooner started than I went on a group ride and ended up in a vicious wreck. Lost more training time. I have since run over 100 miles in both July, August and will do it again in September. My swim has held up. My concern is that I have not done any riding over 1:15 this year.

Tugaloo is my comparison race. Here are my results the last 3 years, and my hoped for results this year.
Year    Swim    T1      Bike      T2       Run      Total
2008  33:31  3:59   1:15:07   1:56   59:37   2:54:10
2009  32:31  3:50   1:15:41   2:39   54:24   2:49:05
2010  33:07  2:21   1:13:38   2:59   54:30   2:46:35

Hope  29:30 2:21    1:15:00   2:00   52:00   2:40:51

I have worked hard at improving my swim technique and now can hold a 1:45 per 100 for over a mile. If I can swim straight that works out to 28 minutes for the 0.90 swim distance. There is a run to the transition timing mat area so 29:30 would be a good result for me.

I am planning on being conservative on the bike and then let it rip on the run. My hope is to drop to somewhere around 8:00 a mile in the 6 mile run. Last years time reflects a 8:47 pace. I don’t know if I can get there, but that’s what I am shooting for. I did a 4.5 mile run on Monday and ran 1.5 miles of it at what I considered race pace. When I reviewed the Garmin data I was holding a 7:30 pace for the 1.5 miles.

Saturday will let me know how my attempt to rescue this year went. Will keep you posted.

Long Slow Distance for Running

Over the winter I tried running shorter duration higher intensity work outs. When I raced in June and July my run sucked. I decided to embrace LSD (long slow distance). Most all of the runs were at a 10 minute mile pace. My July mileage was 100 miles. Today 8/28 I hit 102 and will go over 115 for this month. My biggest week was 35 miles.

The secret to doing this is to do each run easy so you can run 6 days a week. My typical week would go 3,7,3,7,4,9 for a total of 33 miles. If you use too much intensity you find it difficult to get all of the runs in during a week and consistency is the key. You have to build up your mileage using this sequence (time or distance multiple unit) 1,2,1,2,1,3. I started in July and did not do a 7 mile run until 7/27 and I already had a fair base. The 7 mile run was at a 10:22 pace and 138 bpm. Todays run was 9.13 miles at 9:52 at 139 bpm.

I have made the mistake of trying to add intensity during these 2 months and each time it resulted in my needing to skip a run.For me intensity and 6 day a week running currently appear to be mutually exclusive. The best part of this is the ease and comfortable ability to handle longer (for me) runs. Last week I did a 10 miler, and it was not a problem, although the bike ride the next day did suffer.