Re: Redemption: 2013 Hamilton Road2Hope Marathon

Nick Morris Sat Sep 28, 2013 12:19 pm

09.28.13 -

7 miles...Easy weekend started this morning with a 7 mile run. The combination of a pretty strong headwind and being a little tired meant that the run should be fun. I took it pretty easy and it seemed like I was just plodding allow. I ended up running 7.30 miles at a pedestrian 7:32 pace. 12 miles tomorrow and then it's on... Enjoy your Saturday Smile

Michael Enright Sat Sep 28, 2013 5:45 pm

Nick Morris wrote:09.28.13 -

7 miles...Easy weekend started this morning with a 7 mile run. The combination of a pretty strong headwind and being a little tired meant that the run should be fun. I took it pretty easy and it seemed like I was just plodding allow. I ended up running 7.30 miles at a pedestrian 7:32 pace. 12 miles tomorrow and then it's on... Enjoy your Saturday

By definition, it's a pedestrian pace! Very Happy

Michele "1L" Keane Sat Sep 28, 2013 8:56 pm

Michael Enright wrote:
Nick Morris wrote:09.28.13 -

7 miles...Easy weekend started this morning with a 7 mile run. The combination of a pretty strong headwind and being a little tired meant that the run should be fun. I took it pretty easy and it seemed like I was just plodding allow. I ended up running 7.30 miles at a pedestrian 7:32 pace. 12 miles tomorrow and then it's on... Enjoy your Saturday
By definition, it's a pedestrian pace!

+1

Nick Morris Sun Sep 29, 2013 11:51 am

Michele \"1L" Keane wrote:
Michael Enright wrote:
Nick Morris wrote:09.28.13 -

7 miles...Easy weekend started this morning with a 7 mile run. The combination of a pretty strong headwind and being a little tired meant that the run should be fun. I took it pretty easy and it seemed like I was just plodding allow. I ended up running 7.30 miles at a pedestrian 7:32 pace. 12 miles tomorrow and then it's on... Enjoy your Saturday
By definition, it's a pedestrian pace!
+1

+1

Nick Morris Sun Sep 29, 2013 11:59 am

09.29.13 -

12 miles...A crisp, foggy autumn morning as I set out for my run. Once again, I took it pretty easy, as I know what lies ahead of me. There were a lot of runners, walkers, and cyclists out this morning taking advantage of the morning, too. I got the miles in all 12.38 of them. Average pace...7:40 with an average heart rate of 138. It looks like I am recovered from last Sunday's race. I will start off next week with a nice recovery run and then it's time for some decent midweek mileage.

Michael Enright Sun Sep 29, 2013 5:50 pm

Nothing like a nice 12 miler on a good day to get the juices flowing! Sounds like you are all ready to rumble.

Michele "1L" Keane Sun Sep 29, 2013 7:32 pm

Michael Enright wrote:Nothing like a nice 12 miler on a good day to get the juices flowing! Sounds like you are all ready to rumble.

+1

Nick Morris Mon Sep 30, 2013 9:22 am

Michele \"1L" Keane wrote:
Michael Enright wrote:Nothing like a nice 12 miler on a good day to get the juices flowing! Sounds like you are all ready to rumble.
+1

Thanks Michael and Michele!! I am ready to hit my peak weeks hard.

Michele "1L" Keane Mon Sep 30, 2013 11:01 am

Nick Morris wrote:
Michele \"1L" Keane wrote:
Michael Enright wrote:Nothing like a nice 12 miler on a good day to get the juices flowing! Sounds like you are all ready to rumble.
+1
Thanks Michael and Michele!! I am ready to hit my peak weeks hard.

What kind of mileage does your schedule call for for the next two weeks? I am hoping to bring my mileage up since I feel good, but I'm reluctant to go overboard. I am scheduled to run a half this weekend, but rather than race, I think I'm going to do a long run on Saturday and use the half on Sunday as a MP run - warming up for the first three miles, settling into pace until 10, and then running a hard 5K.

Nick Morris Mon Sep 30, 2013 1:27 pm

Michele \"1L" Keane wrote:
Nick Morris wrote:
Michele \"1L" Keane wrote:
Michael Enright wrote:Nothing like a nice 12 miler on a good day to get the juices flowing! Sounds like you are all ready to rumble.
+1
Thanks Michael and Michele!! I am ready to hit my peak weeks hard.
What kind of mileage does your schedule call for for the next two weeks? I am hoping to bring my mileage up since I feel good, but I'm reluctant to go overboard. I am scheduled to run a half this weekend, but rather than race, I think I'm going to do a long run on Saturday and use the half on Sunday as a MP run - warming up for the first three miles, settling into pace until 10, and then running a hard 5K.

I have 70 scheduled for this week and 76 scheduled for next week before a three week taper. It will be my second and third time over the 70 mile mark this cycle. I have also put in weeks of 62, 65, and 68.

Nick Morris Mon Sep 30, 2013 8:22 pm

09.30.13 -

4 miles recovery...A nice little 4 mile recovery run to start the week out. Ah the recovery run...Why do you seem so difficult to run? I have always found it difficult to run slow. In fact, I almost think that a 20 mile run is easier than a 4 mile recovery run. I have found, though, that if I am running a recovery run with a friend that it is easier to slow the pace. Although, tonight I was able to throttle it down. I completed 4.27 miles at an 8:12 pace.

Gobbles Tue Oct 01, 2013 9:55 am

Nick Morris wrote:09.30.13 -

4 miles recovery...A nice little 4 mile recovery run to start the week out. Ah the recovery run...Why do you seem so difficult to run? I have always found it difficult to run slow. In fact, I almost think that a 20 mile run is easier than a 4 mile recovery run. I have found, though, that if I am running a recovery run with a friend that it is easier to slow the pace. Although, tonight I was able to throttle it down. I completed 4.27 miles at an 8:12 pace.

It's all a big picture thing right? The easy runs keep your legs moving and add to your total weekly mileage and calorie burn, but you don't have motivation to run them. Your mind doesn't associate this training with the marathon like it does workouts and long runs. At least that is why I always feel that my easier runs seem more like death marches. I'll have a hard time keep my pace below 8:30 for 6, but the next day, I can run 13.1 miles in a workout/race at sub-6:10 without difficulty.

Basically I thinks it is purely mental, but haven't found a solution.

The taper is nearing!

Schuey Tue Oct 01, 2013 12:50 pm

Nick Morris wrote:09.30.13 -

4 miles recovery...A nice little 4 mile recovery run to start the week out. Ah the recovery run...Why do you seem so difficult to run? I have always found it difficult to run slow. In fact, I almost think that a 20 mile run is easier than a 4 mile recovery run. I have found, though, that if I am running a recovery run with a friend that it is easier to slow the pace. Although, tonight I was able to throttle it down. I completed 4.27 miles at an 8:12 pace.

Well for most runners they have the thought that when running as long as it is faster (or as fast) and harder than the previous day is great. This is the way our brains work. For you and again most runners find the thought of running slow to be counterproductive to accomplishing your goals. Again like yourself most will find that how slow you may need to run to complete a recovery run and yep that for the most part can feel painfully slow!

The bottom line is that we as runners for the most part find it much easier to go out and run fast and hard and then bang on our chest and stroke our ego's at how fast and long we can run. Our minds can look at these factors and equate them more to reaching our goals for a particular race coming up. Where as with the recovery run we find it much harder to think that running slow will actually help us achieve are running goals.

"it is widely assumed that the purpose of recovery runs—which we may define as relatively short, slow runs undertaken within a day after a harder run—is to facilitate recovery from preceding hard training. You hear coaches talk about how recovery runs increase blood flow to the legs, clearing away lactic acid, and so forth. The truth is that lactic acid levels return to normal within an hour after even the most brutal workouts. Nor does lactic acid cause muscle fatigue in the first place. Nor is there any evidence that the sort of light activity that a recovery run entails promotes muscle tissue repair, glycogen replenishment, or any other physiological response that actually is relevant to muscle recovery.
In short, recovery runs do not enhance recovery. The real benefit of recovery runs is that they allow you to find the optimal balance between the two factors that have the greatest effect on your fitness and performance: training stress and running volume. Here’s how:
Training stress is what your body experiences in workouts that test the present limits of your running fitness. You can be fairly sure a workout has delivered a training stress when it leaves you severely fatigued or completely exhausted. The two basic categories of workouts that deliver a training stress are high-intensity runs (intervals, tempo runs, hill repeats) and long runs. A training program whose objective is to prepare you for a peak race performance must feature plenty of “key workouts” that challenge your body’s capacity to resist the various causes of high-intensity fatigue (muscular acidosis, etc.) and long-duration fatigue (muscle tissue damage, etc). By exposing your body to fatigue and exhaustion, key workouts stimulate adaptations that enable you to resist fatigue better the next time.
Running volume, on the other hand, has a positive effect on running fitness and performance even in the absence of exhaustive key workouts. In other words, the more running you do (within the limit of what your body can handle before breaking down), the fitter you become, even if you never do any workouts that are especially taxing. The reason is that increases in running economy are very closely correlated with increases in running mileage. Research by Tim Noakes, M.D., and others suggests that while improvement in other performance-related factors such as VO₂max ceases before a runner achieves his or her volume limit, running economy continues to improve as running mileage increases, all the way to the limit. For example, if the highest running volume your body can handle is 50 miles per week, you are all but certain to achieve greater running economy at 50 miles per week than at 40 miles per week, even though your VO₂max may stop increasing at 40 miles.
You see, running is a bit like juggling. It is a motor skill that requires communication between your brain and your muscles. A great juggler has developed highly refined communication between his brain and muscles during the act of jugging, which enables him to juggle three plates with one hand while blindfolded. A well-trained runner has developed super-efficient communication between her brain and muscles during the act of running, allowing her to run at a high sustained speed with a remarkably low rate of energy expenditure. Sure, the improvements that a runner makes in neuromuscular coordination are less visible than those made by a juggler, but they are no less real.
For both the juggler and the runner, it is time spent simply practicing the relevant action that improves communication between the brain and the muscles. It’s not a matter of testing physiological limits, but of developing a skill through repetition. Thus, the juggler who juggles an hour a day will improve faster than the juggler who juggles five minutes a day, even if the former practices in a dozen separate five-minute sessions and therefore never gets tired. And the same is true for the runner.
Now, training stress—especially key workouts inflicting high-intensity fatigue—and running volume sort of work at cross-purposes. If you go for a bona fide training stress in every workout, you won’t be able to do a huge total amount of running before breaking down. By the same token, if you want to achieve the maximum volume of running, you have to keep the pace slow and avoid single long runs in favor of multiple short runs. But then you won’t get those big fitness boosts that only exhaustive runs can deliver. In other words, you can’t maximize training stress and running volume simultaneously. For the best results, you need to find the optimal balance between these two factors, and that’s where recovery runs come in.
By sprinkling your training regimen with relatively short, easy runs, you can achieve a higher total running volume than you could if you always ran hard. Yet because recovery runs are gentle enough not to create a need for additional recovery, they allow you to perform at a high level in your key workouts and therefore get the most out of them.
I believe that recovery runs also yield improvements in running economy by challenging the neuromuscular system to perform in a pre-fatigued state. Key workouts themselves deliver a training stress that stimulates positive fitness adaptations by forcing a runner to perform beyond the point of initial fatigue. As the motor units that are used preferentially when you run begin to fatigue, other motor units that are less often called upon must be recruited to take up the slack so the athlete can keep running. In general, “slow-twitch” muscle fibers are recruited first and then “fast-twitch” fibers become increasingly active as the slow-twitch fibers wear out. By encountering this challenge, your neuromuscular system is able to find new efficiencies that enable you to run more economically.
Recovery runs, I believe, achieve a similar effect in a slightly different way. In a key workout you experience fatigued running by starting fresh and running hard or far. In a recovery run you start fatigued from your last key workout and therefore experience a healthy dose of fatigued running without having to run hard or far. For this reason, although recovery runs are often referred to as “easy runs”, if they’re planned and executed properly they usually don’t feel very easy. Speaking from personal experience, while my recovery runs are the shortest and slowest runs I do, I still feel rather miserable in many of them because I am already fatigued when I start them. This miserable feeling is, I think, indicative of the fact that the run is accomplishing some real, productive work that will enhance my fitness perhaps almost as much as the key workout that preceded it. Viewed in this way, recovery runs become essentially a way of squeezing more out of your key workouts"

"There are no absolute rules governing the appropriate duration and pace of recovery runs. A recovery run can be as long and fast as you want, provided it does not affect your performance in your next scheduled key workout (which is not particularly long or fast, in most cases). Indeed, because the purpose of recovery runs is to maximize running volume without sacrificing training stress, your recovery runs should generally be as long as you can make them short of affecting your next key workout. A little experimentation is needed to find the recovery run formula that works best for each individual runner.
Don’t be too proud to run very slowly in your recovery runs, as Kenya’s runners are famous for doing. Even very slow running counts as practice of the running stride that will yield improvements in your running economy, and running very slowly allows you to run longer (i.e. maximize volume) without sabotaging your next key workout."

Nick Morris Tue Oct 01, 2013 1:21 pm

Gobbles wrote:
Nick Morris wrote:09.30.13 -

4 miles recovery...A nice little 4 mile recovery run to start the week out. Ah the recovery run...Why do you seem so difficult to run? I have always found it difficult to run slow. In fact, I almost think that a 20 mile run is easier than a 4 mile recovery run. I have found, though, that if I am running a recovery run with a friend that it is easier to slow the pace. Although, tonight I was able to throttle it down. I completed 4.27 miles at an 8:12 pace.
It's all a big picture thing right? The easy runs keep your legs moving and add to your total weekly mileage and calorie burn, but you don't have motivation to run them. Your mind doesn't associate this training with the marathon like it does workouts and long runs. At least that is why I always feel that my easier runs seem more like death marches. I'll have a hard time keep my pace below 8:30 for 6, but the next day, I can run 13.1 miles in a workout/race at sub-6:10 without difficulty.

Basically I thinks it is purely mental, but haven't found a solution.

The taper is nearing!

Yes, it is definitely a mental thing. Especially when I am programmed to run and my fitness level is high.

Nick Morris Tue Oct 01, 2013 1:26 pm

Schuey wrote:Well for most runners they have the thought that when running as long as it is faster (or as fast) and harder than the previous day is great. This is the way our brains work. For you and again most runners find the thought of running slow to be counterproductive to accomplishing your goals. Again like yourself most will find that how slow you may need to run to complete a recovery run and yep that for the most part can feel painfully slow!

I don't think that the recovery run is counterproductive to accomplishing my goals. In fact, I do think that they are an important part of the training cycle. It is just the mental toughness to run slower when my fitness level is high is the greatest challenge. I will continue to battle this demon, but do know that I need to do them to be successful.

Thanks for the information Schuey. It was very educational, as I did not think of the recovery run from that perspective!!

Nick Morris Tue Oct 01, 2013 8:29 pm

10.01.13 -

9 miles...Holy crap, it's October already!! Where did the time go??? It seems as if summer doesn't want to quite let go of its grip quite yet. 80 degrees this evening as I set out for my run. The only difference is that there was no humidity and a cool breeze blowing. Pretty decent run on a pretty gorgeous evening. I completed 9.33 miles at a 7:35 pace. I have a feeling that I will be finishing tomorrow's run in the dark, as I have 13 scheduled for after work. I'll have to make sure to remember to take my reflective gear and lights.

Nick Morris Wed Oct 02, 2013 9:01 pm

10.02.13 -

13 miles...Skipped out of work 20 minutes early to get a head start on my run tonight in hopes of finishing before dark. It probably was a good thing, too, as I forgot to pack my running lights with my gear this morning. The good news is that the 20 minutes actually saved me from needing the lights, as I finished the run with enough light for me to see and bee seen. I kept my run tonight pretty easy, as each mile was somewhere between 7:40 and 7:50. I completed 13.43 miles at a 7:46 pace. I got another 9 miles tomorrow night, so it will interesting to see how my legs react.

Michele "1L" Keane Thu Oct 03, 2013 10:11 am

Good work. Wish we had your weather over here, but it is warm and humid again.

Nick Morris Thu Oct 03, 2013 10:20 am

Michele \"1L" Keane wrote:Good work. Wish we had your weather over here, but it is warm and humid again.

It should be coming your way Smile

Mark B Thu Oct 03, 2013 12:10 pm

Nick Morris wrote:
Michele \"1L" Keane wrote:Good work. Wish we had your weather over here, but it is warm and humid again.
It should be coming your way

If the system that walloped the Pacific Northwest last weekend (and still today) is still holding together, you all ought to be seeing some changes soon as it moves across the continent. Heck, it's 46 degrees and foggy here. Talk about a quick transition from summer to fall. Yipes!

Nick Morris Thu Oct 03, 2013 1:15 pm

Mark B wrote:
Nick Morris wrote:
Michele \"1L" Keane wrote:Good work. Wish we had your weather over here, but it is warm and humid again.
It should be coming your way
If the system that walloped the Pacific Northwest last weekend (and still today) is still holding together, you all ought to be seeing some changes soon as it moves across the continent. Heck, it's 46 degrees and foggy here. Talk about a quick transition from summer to fall. Yipes!

I think that the jet stream is finally pushing that moisture our way. We have a chance for rain showers and storms over the next three days.

Nick Morris Thu Oct 03, 2013 8:23 pm

10.03.13 -

9 miles...My legs felt kind of heavy today at work, and rightfully so, as I had put nearly 50 miles on them the previous 5 days. So, I knew that I was probably in for a fun one this evening. It was extremely humid this evening and I began to instantly sweat as I reached the firs mile. My legs felt a little heavy and I knew that they were a little tired, so I made sure not to give it a full effort tonight. The goal was to just put the work in and that is what I did. I completed 9.33 miles at a very sweaty 7:46 pace. A much sought after off day tomorrow. I am going to enjoy the rest. Smile

Jerry Thu Oct 03, 2013 10:30 pm

Nick Morris wrote:
Schuey wrote:Well for most runners they have the thought that when running as long as it is faster (or as fast) and harder than the previous day is great. This is the way our brains work. For you and again most runners find the thought of running slow to be counterproductive to accomplishing your goals. Again like yourself most will find that how slow you may need to run to complete a recovery run and yep that for the most part can feel painfully slow!

I don't think that the recovery run is counterproductive to accomplishing my goals. In fact, I do think that they are an important part of the training cycle. It is just the mental toughness to run slower when my fitness level is high is the greatest challenge. I will continue to battle this demon, but do know that I need to do them to be successful.

Thanks for the information Schuey. It was very educational, as I did not think of the recovery run from that perspective!!

Eventually you will have to overcome this mental challenge in order to be a better runner, not simply PR. Running slow is not necessarily a need, but rather a skill.

Be a runner with better skill, and mind. PR simply comes as the result. The PR as a pure result of hard work, to make this sports/hobby a pure physical game, I don't feel excitement any more.

Nick Morris Fri Oct 04, 2013 11:40 am

10.04.13 -

Scheduled Off Day...A much deserved and needed off day today after a fun week of training. I am going to kick back and catch up on some DVR tonight. 20 miles tomorrow morning, as I switched my Saturday and Sunday runs around to accommodate a wedding that I have tomorrow afternoon and evening. It is supposed to rain tomorrow, so they might be 20 wet miles Smile

A little over a week until I start my taper...YIKES!!!

Michele "1L" Keane Fri Oct 04, 2013 11:45 am

Good week so far, Nick. Is it warm and humid there like here???

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