Sunday, February 07, 2010

week of 1 February

My graph

Totals: 63.8 Mi, 9:39:29, 9:06/Mi in 9 runs
YTD runs: 52 runs in 38 days
(destroying 365 runs in 2010 pace -- might not be worth tracking)

Sa & Sun on the treadmill because of the snow. Had a bit of a cold since Thursday maybe.

I've been picking up the pace a little. I've been rereading Daniels Running Formula (DRF) and also some advice Nobby gave me on coolrunning. Maybe I run too slow most of the time. (Daniels's "E" pace for 49 VDOT (19:57 5k) is 8:32/miles). My overall pace this week was 9:06 but that was distorted by a 10:19 pace 7 miler in the snow on Monday and other snowy days. I had 4 runs (37 miles) under 9:00 pace. Keeping them at 8 miles (except the long run) doesn't present a problem recovering.

I did my first "long run" in a long time today. It was 2 hours and 13.65 miles. I wouldn't have called that a long run in the past, but it took 2 hours, so definitely long according to Dr. Daniels. Somebody running 6 minute miles would cover 20 miles. My pace was 8:48, but I spent 80% at 7.0 mph (8:34/mile). The overall lower pace was from a gradual buildup from 10:00/mile over the first 20 minutes or so. My HR at 8:34 was 138 at the beginning, mostly at about 143-145 bpm and rose to 150 in the last 10 minutes or so. Not bad. I thought it was interesting that I went from 138 to 145 when playing with the treadmill between 7.0 and 7.1 mph. It's like my economy went to hell when I crossed 8:30 per mile.

I'm getting anxious to do some "quality" and have the reading bug again which is good. My plan is to run a 5k this Sunday, an 8k four weeks later, and a 10-miler 4 weeks after that. I've toyed with the idea of a marathon in May, but I'll see how my hip and the early races go. There are two local marathons on May 2 and both offer a half. The half for one (the preferred one) fills up quickly, so I might need to decide fairly soon. It's a really nice course for the half. The second half of that marathon is an absolute b*tch though.

DRF has a "gold elite" plan among its "fitness plans" (not race specific) that looks kind of interesting. I don't pretend to be elite, but the time (8-10 hours/wk) is about what I'm doing now. It has a 120 minute run on Sundays and a couple of quality sessions a week (nothing crazy though). I could even use the gold "mileage" (time) and the intermediate or introductory workouts. I also have another book I ordered back in November that's finally shipped. It's the Lydiard book Nobby's been pimping on the message boards: "Healthy Intelligent Training: The Proven Principles of Arthur Lydiard" by Keith Livingston.

2 comments:

Mindi said...

Ah, I miss coolrunning.

Greg said...

Yep. I hang around runningahead.com some (and Nobby frequents there), but it's not the same.