My Journey to 50 miles (2nd attempt)... (comments welcome)

[disneygpa]

I have found for myself that the largest part of my running is the mental training. It is a daily practice that should not be underestimated.

I think that's what made me wonder whether this was mental. All through last years Dopey training I didn't walk. Not one time. But the training for the 5k has been intense. A lot more runs at my 5k pace and it's a demanding pace for me! I really need to be more aware of how I'm feeling and decide whether it is a physical or mental block getting in my way.

 

[disneygpa]

DW and I are in for the Princess challenge... if it happens... if not, we will have a nice relaxing 10 days in the FL sunshine! Either way, plans are set.

Next thing we need is a plan. I'll be reaching out to everyone's favorite Coach after I get back from visiting my family in MO next week.

I think Donna has decided to try a run/walk plan. She doesn't think she can run the whole half. I think she could, but she lacks confidence and training.

Going to need a plan that I can do with her, but something that I can also use to improve my fitness level. Might be complicated and convoluted!

Last night was 3m @EA. I struggled with keeping my EA pace slow enough during the first mile. Not horribly, but not great either. I really enjoy the easy runs.
Took some time last night to enjoy the spring weather we had. Lots of flowers in bloom, sunshine, bunnies, etc.

 

[DopeyBadger]

Going to need a plan that I can do with her, but something that I can also use to improve my fitness level. Might be complicated and convoluted!

I've done it twice before in the past. A "couples" plan while trying to take into consideration two different sets of data. It's all about trying to find where the overlap between the two runners exists and how I can manipulate the paces in manner to make one's recovery another's speed day. That type of thing. It's doable, but not easy.

 

[disneygpa]

After a very long exhausting day at work on Sunday, which included 50 flights of stairs, I decided to skip my 2 mile EB run, knowing that I was going to try and get up early this morning to get my 5k "race" in.

Alarm went off at 0300, at which time I looked at the weather on my phone. 48 and clear. Perfect for a PR attempt! Checked out what the forecast was for today, 72 and sunny this afternoon.... HMMMMM... decisions decisions. Sleep another hour and run in the sun? OR get up and get after it. I chose to get up and go! Went in and got my stretching done. Feeling pretty good physically! But mentally I'm really questioning my abilities.

I had programmed my Garmin for a 1 mile WU. After 10 min or so, I was feeling pretty good and warm. Double tap on the screen and I'm off like a heard of turtles! First mile - 8:54.7, not too bad. Just a smidge slow. Just past 1 mile, I decide to walk a few. Roughly 30 sec walk and I'm back to running. Second mile, 8:57, crap... that's getting slower! Just past 2 miles, another 40 sec walk dang it... . Third mile, 8:52.7, last .11 @8:38 pace.

Slow jog home.... time for reflection.

So I missed my goal by 7.7 sec.



But I also ran a PR of 27:39.7!!



Obviously, walking cost me overall. Seemed like I needed it at the time. 100% sure this is a mental issue for me.

I really feel like I can't get a good rhythm going with my breathing. I'm breathing pretty hard during these paces which I'm not really used to. Most of my easy and long runs, I don't even worry about breathing because it doesn't really become an issue.

Also, I wonder how a real race might have been different. At 0345, there's no crowds, no other runners, no cheering. Just me inside my brain and darkness.

This was a VERY short condensed training plan. I needed a goal and reached out to Billy for help. The training plan was fun! Challenging and only 5 weeks long. I think that if I'd stretched this out to say maybe an 8 week plan, I might have been able to accomplish the goal. I'm confident that with more training I can probably shave those 7.7 seconds off and complete the run without walking.

What's next? Wednesday, I'll do 3 miles at EA, then Thursday I fly off to St. Louis for a week to visit my family and hopefully see some old friends. Plan while in MO is to probably run every other day for 3 miles at EA and maybe throw in an EB run at some point. Then upon return, I think it's going to be time to get a plan for DW and myself to get her through Princess weekend!! AND maybe somehow shave those 7.7 seconds off for another 5k PR attempt.

Wrapping this up. I feel great about the PR!! But, I'm a little bummed about those 7.7 seconds and the walking.... Going to try and focus on all the good that came from this plan! I'm still alive, I feel great! It was awesome to have a goal to shoot for again!! As always thanks for the HELP Billy @DopeyBadger !!

 

[DopeyBadger]

In my opinion, I'd say you did great. I can certainly understand the disappointment of missing my arbitrary projection by 7.7 seconds. But that's easily explained away by a myriad of factors. What was your 5k PR prior to this? I find it fascinating that you had 70 seconds of walking in the middle of the 5k and still PR'd right about what we anticipated. Also, no way to say you would have actually outperformed the 27:39 had you not taken the walking breaks. You could have easily faded much much harder.

 

[disneygpa]

In my opinion, I'd say you did great. I can certainly understand the disappointment of missing my arbitrary projection by 7.7 seconds. But that's easily explained away by a myriad of factors. What was your 5k PR prior to this? I find it fascinating that you had 70 seconds of walking in the middle of the 5k and still PR'd right about what we anticipated. Also, no way to say you would have actually outperformed the 27:39 had you not taken the walking breaks. You could have easily faded much much harder.

Thanks Billy! I hadn't really thought about it that way.

My best recorded 5k prior to this was 29:32 on 5-18-19. Though I think I had a training run somewhere between then and now that was in the 28min range. But I can't seem to find it on my Garmin.

Is there some way I can share the Garmin data? I wouldn't mind you taking a look at it!

EDIT: I tried to email it. Hope that is ok and it works.

 

[DopeyBadger]

My best recorded 5k prior to this was 29:32 on 5-18-19. Though I think I had a training run somewhere between then and now that was in the 28min range. But I can't seem to find it on my Garmin.

Suffice to say you improved by at least 7% in the last year. I'd take that. In the first three years of me running, I only shaved off 4-10% on my 10k, HM, and M PRs. Although once I started training better, I took another 4-10% off in 18 months. So I'd say that's a solid result!

Is there some way I can share the Garmin data? I wouldn't mind you taking a look at it!

EDIT: I tried to email it. Hope that is ok and it works.

Nothing sticks out as overly unique. Looks like a well run 5k.

 

[disneygpa]

Suffice to say you improved by at least 7% in the last year. I'd take that. In the first three years of me running, I only shaved off 4-10% on my 10k, HM, and M PRs. Although once I started training better, I took another 4-10% off in 18 months. So I'd say that's a solid result!



Nothing sticks out as overly unique. Looks like a well run 5k.

Thanks for looking at it!!

I think it's safe to say that your training plans have been significantly responsible for my improvements! Tons of credit to you!!

 

[col1]

That was a good effort and well done on the PR. I always find running straight after I get up from bed is much harder than later in the day, I understand your frustration regards walking, I decided to run without any walk breaks on Monday and to be honest there was no difference in overall time, I guess I am at the stage where I get as much benefit overall from taking the walk breaks and keeping running pace higher than running all the way but fading hard in last mile, it is a tricky balance I always struggle with.

Notwithstanding you got a good PR and a couple of things to experiment with going forward, well done......

You get extra points for getting up at 3am to run that is a significant level of commitment

 

[disneygpa]

Wow! Nearly 2 weeks and no update. Shameful!

Just got back from visiting my family for the first time in a couple years. It was nice and relaxing. Spent 3 days "camping" - I put it in quotes because really it was fishing and drinking beer. Whatever you want to call it, it was a good time! Spent time with my Mom. It's really hard to see her getting older. She doesn't drive anymore (which is good for everyone) but it also means she doesn't get out much. I took her to visit my Dad and Sisters grave sites. Always emotional for her. Took some really long drives which she really enjoyed! Kudos to Avis. I got an upgrade to a premium car. Mom was digging the comfort! Decided that it would be best to not try and visit old friends because of the whole covid thing. All in all a nice relaxing trip!

Probably the biggest downside to the trip was the lack of running. I only ran once while I was back there. 3 miles @ EA. I was pretty lazy really.

Yesterday afternoon DW and I went for a run/walk. I'm seeing how she likes the run/walk method. So far so good. We'll go do it again tomorrow evening. Trying to iron out what interval she wants to try. Last night we did 2 min run, 1 min walk. Seems like that might have been a little aggressive for her, so tomorrow we are going to try 1 min run, 90 sec walk. We'll do that this week and then next week try 1 min/1 min. Then we'll try to build up from there.

I'm just happy to have her out there with me right now!

Hope everyone had a happy and safe 4th!

 

[col1]

Sounds like an awesome trip , some times you just need to relax

It sounds like you have got right back into it in any case.

That is great you and your DW are able to run together, my DW has mentioned it a few times but is too worried what others may think I mention it from time to time but not ready yet, hope one day we will run together , enjoy the quality time

 

[disneygpa]

Wow, when I don't have a plan, I'm not really good at updating this.

Since the last update, I've done 7 runs. 3 solo and 4 with Donna. She's doing GREAT!

This week we changed her intervals from 60sec/90sec to 90sec/90sec. Yesterday was the first day of the 90/90 and she was tired but finished all 12 intervals.

With a 5 min WU and CD, she's starting to get really close to 3 miles. I suspect on a cooler day, she might be able to get there. It was HOT yesterday!! At least for our neck of the woods.



Hoping to get on my laptop at home and get a training plan started tonight!! I really seem to do better with instructions!!

Been crazy busy at work lately. Seems like we've had a rash of odd failures. Things we don't see very often. Transformer got wet and shorted out, loose connections causing faults, damage to circuit breakers.... weird stuff. Plus all the normal stuff, lights, motors, pumps.... and of course we are losing people and they aren't giving me replacements so things don't get finished in a timely manner. All this adds up to stress for me. Good thing the running helps to deal with that stuff!!

 

[disneygpa]

Super excited about this update.

Reached out to our board famous coach and got a new training plan!


This was no easy task for him. The challenge was to come up with a plan that would get DW and I to a 10k simulated "race" (her first 10k ever). Now, I'm sure for Billy, this isn't much of a challenge normally. But, DW is a VERY new runner and is liking the run/walk method... and me, I tolerate the run/walk but would prefer to run. One important aspect of the plan had to accommodate me doing ALL of DW's plan along with getting me to a sub 1 hour 10k. So, as you can imagine Billy had it all put together in like 5 min!! ( I'm exaggerating... I'm sure it was at least 7)

Last night was training run numero uno!

1.5 miles 60/30 @ 13:51/17:00 for both of us and 18 min @ EA of 12:04 for me. It was TOASTY last night! At least for the PNW. Sorry for anyone that runs in real heat. I'm sure you will laugh when I say it was 79. Using the Garmin for the run paces. I know that it's not super accurate over a 60 sec interval, but it's what I got to work with. We ended up at 1.56 miles for the run/walk portion, so I'm thinking the paces were at least close to 13:51/17:00.

My 18 min run covered pretty close to another 1.5 miles and felt really good, even in the heat.

In the past I've included snips of my runs, not sure if I'll continue to do that or not. With all the intervals it might end up being a lot of snips. But for now, here goes....







According to the Garmin paces, we have some work to do getting closer to 13:51. But for a first time out, I think she did pretty dang good.
The most important thing is that DW really likes the plan!
Going to be a little challenging to get some runs in during an upcoming cross country road trip. But we'll do our best!!

Marching toward Princess!!!
Thanks @DopeyBadger

 

[DopeyBadger]

So, as you can imagine Billy had it all put together in like 5 min!! ( I'm exaggerating... I'm sure it was at least 7)

I think it was something like 1.5 hours.

Going to be a little challenging to get some runs in during an upcoming cross country road trip. But we'll do our best!!

Ugh.... now I remember what I was missing. Let me know if you need me to rework anything on it.

 

[disneygpa]

Ugh.... now I remember what I was missing. Let me know if you need me to rework anything on it.

We might have to shuffle a few things around, but we'll do our best to get them in! No worries!!

 

[disneygpa]

Well dang.... Garmin is still down. We've been doing our runs and I think we are doing good! Donna took on one of the steeper hills in town last night and did really well!

Anyone got any inside scoop on the Garmin situation. All I see is speculation about a ransomware attack. great...

I'm kicking around the idea of a 50k.... Thoughts? Has anyone run one? I live very close to the Chuckanut 50k course. I'm thinking about using Princess as a training run with the 50k run being the "A" race in mid-March.

 

[DopeyBadger]

I'm kicking around the idea of a 50k.... Thoughts? Has anyone run one? I live very close to the Chuckanut 50k course. I'm thinking about using Princess as a training run with the 50k run being the "A" race in mid-March.

I'd say it's totally doable. Is it trail or road?

I've never personally run one before but I think @camaker, @Baloo in MI, and @FFigawi come to mind when it comes to running further than a marathon.

 

[disneygpa]

I'd say it's totally doable. Is it trail or road?

I've never personally run one before but I think @camaker, @Baloo in MI, and @FFigawi come to mind when it comes to running further than a marathon.

http://chuckanut50krace.com/
The first and last 10k is mostly flat urban trails. Then it's off roading in between.

I've got a book on loan from my niece written by Krissy Moehl the race director. And the more I browse it, the more I'm intrigued by giving it a shot. She has a training plan in the book.... but I'd probably get one from my favorite plan writer!!

I've watch a handful of videos on it and it looks quite challenging. I've never done any trail running before, so I'll have to incorporate that into the plan. Luckily the trail is 30 min from the house, so I could go up and practice on the race course itself.

Right now it's really just in the festering stage of my brain. Will probably have to decide no later than the first part of October.

Thanks for tagging some folks. Would love to hear about their experiences!!

 

[DopeyBadger]

http://chuckanut50krace.com/
The first and last 10k is mostly flat urban trails. Then it's off roading in between.

I've got a book on loan from my niece written by Krissy Moehl the race director. And the more I browse it, the more I'm intrigued by giving it a shot. She has a training plan in the book.... but I'd probably get one from my favorite plan writer!!

I've watch a handful of videos on it and it looks quite challenging. I've never done any trail running before, so I'll have to incorporate that into the plan. Luckily the trail is 30 min from the house, so I could go up and practice on the race course itself.

Right now it's really just in the festering stage of my brain. Will probably have to decide no later than the first part of October.

Thanks for tagging some folks. Would love to hear about their experiences!!

Forgot to tag @canglim52 as well since he's recently really gotten into long distance trail running.

 

[FFigawi]

http://chuckanut50krace.com/Thanks for tagging some folks. Would love to hear about their experiences!!

The key to running ultras is to be very deliberate with your pacing and your fueling. Even though 50k is only a few miles more than a marathon, the extra time adds up quickly. Go slow, go steady, and continually fuel and hydrate. Having a good training plan helps too. Doing back to back long runs helps too, as they prepare you for running on tired legs. When training for my ultras, I’d run 4-6 hours on Saturday and another 2-4 on Sunday. Since a 50k is a bit shorter than those were, you could probably get away with 18-20 miles on Saturday and 12-14 on Sunday.