Three Things: Endurance Work

The second area of improvement I'm focusing on this summer, and has been one of my biggest areas of focus for 2018 is endurance work. To run a marathon, it's incredibly important to have a strong endurance base to carry you through hours of running and racing. At the start of 2018 I told Toni that my goal was to not miss a long run this year. If there is a run on my schedule that I'm apt to miss, it's the long run. Easy runs, fun! Speed work, you bet! Group runs, duh! Long run, meh..... that sounds hard. But a podcast I listened to in late 2017/early 2018 said that the best thing you can do to improve your running performance is to have a consistent long run practice. Game on.

Up until March when I had my knee issue, I stuck with that goal, and luckily for me I had the caveat of not skipping a long run "because I didn't want to." I will say with 100% certainty that I didn't want to skip the long runs when my knee was bothering me, but I had to. I did skip one long run while I was in Boston but I blame that on an unplanned night on the town and Jeri not being able to go out and have a good time like she used to be able to in her early 20s. Oops!

During our training cycle we'll have several long-long runs 14-20 miles. Uff da, that's a long way. We also have a lot of longer runs during the week ranging from 6-11 miles. Extra uff da. Anything to make that endurance base stronger to help me reach my marathon goal. PR or bust guys. Shoot, I should stop saying that. I think every time I've been PR or bust, I literally bust something during the race. I TAKE IT BACK. IGNORE EVERYTHING.

Moving on.

Luckily for me, I had a major shift somewhere over the last year and long runs really became fun. It's in large part to my BRF Toni, and the fact that a couple of hours running with her flies by in the blink of an eye. But it's also largely in part to the level of shape I'm in right now. It's been a long time since I've felt this strong and fit physically, and it's no longer an anxiety inducing event to go out and run 10-12 miles on the weekends. I will likely be singing a different tune when we're running 18-20 in the blazing heat in July/August, but what doesn't kill us makes us stronger, just ask Kelly Clarkson.

Long Run Pace

I confess: I used to run my long runs way too fast. I did every long run as hard/fast as I could with the thought process that running that pace during my long run meant I would be capable of running that pace for a race. I did this for several half marathons and even my first marathon (still my best marathon time, but let's ignore that for now).

This past training cycle, my long run pace ranged from 10:30-10:50. There was one magical unicorn long run day where our easy long run pace was 10:18, and one long run with a workout in it (a couple of miles at LT at the end of the run) that had us running right around a 10 minute pace. Yet my pace for the Brookings half marathon was a 9:33. 60-80 seconds per mile faster than my long run paces.

Since I started running distance back in 2005 (uff da, that's forever ago!) I've read a lot of books and articles about endurance training principles. What can I say, I'm a nerd and want to learn whatever I can about what I'm passionate about! One of the principles that resonated most with me is heart rate training, which is essentially training your heart to work more efficiently while you run. By running slower you are able to increase efficiency, so over time, you are capable of running faster without running harder. It's not any fun at ALL to start heart rating training, because you have to slow down. A LOT. To keep your heart rate in the correct zones for the various types of training runs. But once you dedicate some time and effort to it, it's awesome to see the benefits.

I think so many runners would benefit from slowing down their long runs, reaping the heart rate benefits and establishing time on their feet. An occasional faster finish, or a long run with a couple of minutes of pick ups throughout once a month is fine, but when we essentially "race" our long runs, not only are we not getting the endurance benefits from the training run, but we're also causing our legs to have to recover as if they've raced every weekend that we run long. And then we're also asking our legs to run hard and fast during a speed session during the week as well.

I spent a lot of time this winter base building aka a lot of slow mileage. Eight week of dedicated base building before I started a training plan and then an additional 4 weeks of base building within the training program. To say that I was ready to have some workouts when week one million hit, would be an understatement. But I found that the 12 weeks of base building really helped to lower my "easy" pace on runs, without doing anything but keeping my heart rate in the correct zone when I was running. And once our workouts started, I was continually surprised at how I was capable of hitting paces that were so much faster than what I was training at, and my legs were recovering well and quickly from the runs. It's almost... as if it's magic! Or science. Definitely one of the two.

If anyone wants some heart rate training reads, I would suggest either of Pete Pfitzinger's books. I also have an awesome 21 page document that someone sent me forever and ever ago, and it's super insightful and written in a very easy to digest way (despite it's length). I'm a convert, and I think others should be too!

Winter Long Run Options

I've trained through 2.5 winter seasons for marathons in the past--Green Bay in 2010, Fargo in 2011, and Brookings in 2012 (where I decided mid-March that I COULD NOT RUN ANOTHER G.D. LONG RUN IN SNOW AND FREEZING TEMPS, and let the following weekend's weather determine if I was dropping to the half or not. True story. Well that and the hardest semester of grad school smacking me in the face.

During those training cycles, the longest long run I did on the treadmill was 16 miles. I did several 2+ hour long runs. AND I HAVE NO IDEA HOW I WAS CAPABLE OF DOING THAT. One 16 miler I ran through snow halfway to my knee, at a pace two minutes per mile slower than I was typically doing.

This year, we've been lucky in that our precipation levels have been really low. We haven't had a single massive dumping of snow. We've had a lot of snow, but nothing excessive. But this has been the coldest winter in like 40 years. The temps we were seeing in December are what we're used to seeing for about 10 days in the depths of December. There have been days were only 5 minutes outside would leave you with frost bitten extremeties. Uh, nope!

Since I'm training for a few halfs this spring, instead of a full, my mileage is lower, and my training schedule is a lot easier to flip flop around based on weather. Each week I take a look at the weekly forecast to see the nicest day of the week to get my long run in. This week is as follows:

Uh... Brr.

Friday might be ok, but if there's our regular 10-20 mph winds, that 17 will feel pretty frigid, and push our windchills sub-zero pretty darn fast.

Currently my options include:

1. Running my 13 miles outside. (yippee!)
2. Running part outside, and then move in to the treadmill when I'm freezing to death. This would require a wardrobe change prior to the treadmill portion of the run and it may be too convenient to not leave my apartment again....
3. Run 8-9 on the treadmill in the morning (90 minutes is probably my max sanity level on the TM) and then attempt the remaining 4-5 in the evening on the treadmill.
4. Forego the LR for this week, split the long run in to two runs, and turn one of them in to an additional speed work for the week. For now, I'm able to do two hard runs per week with (knock on wood!) injuring myself. Long run, and speed work. If I take out the long run, I could get in two speed sessions.

Last weekend's long run was awesome the first half when the wind was at my back. I had such a sweat worked up that by the time we flipped around to head for home, the wind cut right through my coat and layers and froze me to the bone. Wearing my face mask caused condensation to build up inside, and the wind and cold were so bad the last two miles that the inside fibers of the balaclava froze to my cheek. Ouch. 

Can someone just send my 2010/2011 motivation and speediness back to me? kthx

What option would you choose and why? Am I missing something? Will you just come and keep me company on Friday's outdoor long run so I have something to think of other than being freezing? Without Jenn this past Sunday I probably would've called it quits a few miles in!