RELENTLESS FORWARD COMMOTION
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Why so slow, Batman?

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In case you thought I might have forgotten, I haven’t. In case you might have wondered if among all the chaos and craziness lately that I might have pushed my dream aside temporarily, I haven’t.

142 days until I can register to volunteer for the 2011 Ironman Lake Placid.
315 days until I volunteer for the 2011 Ironman Lake Placid.
316 days until I sign over a year of my life to training.
686 days until I race 2012 Ironman Lake Placid.

I haven’t forgotten.

In fact, I’ve spent a lot of time on my bike lately, trying to get my butt and the saddle better acquainted. So far, the saddle pain I had for the longest time has disappeared. Which means it’s time to up the distance. 112 miles is still a looong ways away!

But what I DID happen to forget was that I have a half marathon coming up just around the corner! The inaugural Myrtle Beach mini half marathon (with this really kick butt, 8 inch long by 4 mm thick huge medal) is 6 5 training Saturdays away. I registered back in February, when the whole snowed-out Myrtle Beach half marathon debacle ended up in a serious discount for registration for the mini marathon. I, of course, took it, and hadn’t thought too much of it since. October always seems so far away, until, well, September rolls around.

So I hopped on runnersworld.com and checked out the “Smart Coach” program. You plug in a recent race time, what distance you are training for, how intense you want to train, and how many weeks you have. Except, I worked my way around the system with various made up “recent race” times until I came to my goal half marathon time. You see, just like that tricky little McMillan running calculator, my 5k times DO NOT compare to my distance races. I’m trying to bridge the gap there, but I’m sorry McMillan and smart coach, while I could knock out a 23 minute 5k tomorrow, a 1:45 half marathon I do not have at the moment. One day, hopefully, 6 weeks, not likely.

So like I said, I fiddled around with the Smart Coach until it gave me what I was looking for…a half marathon somewhere between 1:52 and 1:55. My PR is a 1:59 three years ago. Ran a 2:02 the next year, while taking it easy as I was pregnant with my second son, and a 2:00 flat last year at VA Beach R&R on a hot, miserable day, with GI issues and, oh yeah, I didn’t really train. So needless to say, I feel relatively confident that if I buckle down over the next 6 weeks, a PR could be mine.

But back to the story.
Smart coach tells me that in order to run an 8:30(ish)/mile pace for a half, I have to do my long runs at ….9:58/mile.

Hmm.

I’m not an expert in any of this yet. No, I’m merely a student, who can ramble off various muscular structures you probably never knew you had, explain the Krebs cycle and where that lactic acid really goes to, or spout off some epidemiological statistics on obesity and heart disease. But when it comes to WHY we train the way we do, I don’t have much more than the basic principles of exercise. Is this Bill Bowermans “hard/easy”? I don’t know. I have a lot of learning to do still.

Granted there are tempo runs and there is speed work in this training plan. But a whole minute and a half slower for a long run for a half marathon? Well that just doesn’t quite make sense to me.

But I like Runner’s World. I like Bart Yasso, he seems like a nice guy. I’m sure they have countless experts on board over there, and didn’t just pull this calculator out of a hat. So I wasn’t going to question the “Smart Coach”. Until my long run yesterday.

7 miles. I tried. Really I tried to stay near the 9:58/mile mark. But my legs, when they feel good (Krebs cycle working well!) they just can’t seem to go that slow. I set Garmin to yell at me anytime I picked the pace up faster than a 9:45, and well, it yelled at me a lot. At the end of the run, including the two brief stops at intersections, and once shoe lace re-tie, I came out with a 9:40/mile average.

So this long rambling blog post leads me to ask you… what would you do in this situation? Go faster if you feel fine, or tame the speed for the sake of resting the legs for the speed work/tempo runs?

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  1. Helping a friend research his training plan, I noticed that the long-run paces in Smart Coach fall right in the middle of McMillan’s “easy run” pace ranges.

    I think they just try to keep it simple on smart coach and their “easy run” paces are just an average.

    I’d speed up to 9:40 or even 9:30 if that doesn’t wear you out. My half marathons last year were 1:57 (RnR VB) and 1:53 (Philly, 2 weeks later) and none of my long runs averaged faster than 9:20/mi.

    -ja3

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  2. As a trained RRCA coach, I do think the majority of your runs should be much slower/easier than most of us run. That said…I’d more go with the 1 1/2 minute/mile rule for marathon training, not 1/2 marathon training. Still, there’s nothing wrong with running those easy ones a minute slower than race pace. Trains the body to access fat and also keeps your legs fresh for the speedy days. Hope that helps!

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  3. I’ve alway gone 45 seconds to 1.5 minutes slower with my long runs for marathon training, but I would think a little faster when training for a half. Not sure why it works but it seems to have been used for years and pretty successful. I have seen quite a few newer runners not follow the advice and run their long runs closer to their marathon race pace they wanted to keep; and the funny thing is just about every one of them fell apart at about mile 20-21.

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  5. I would strap on a heart rate monitor and see bow hard you’re really working at 9;40 pace. If its not that hard, then you may need to readjust your goals for the half marathon. You may be faster than you think! That said, the shit tends to hit the fan at 9-10 miles so you may want to go that distance rather than 7 miles before you decide on an ‘easy’ long run pace. There are lots of very valid reasons to go easy on long runs, but ‘easy’ doesn’t have to be 10min pace. ‘easy’ can be 9:40 pace. 🙂

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  7. I have a hard time going slower on long runs, too. I guess just find what works for you. Just like everyone has a different running form and goal. We also like different programs. Some of my firends won’t run hard because it hurts and that’s fine. They are happy being a 9-10 min pace (nothing wrong with that) Some people are more competitive then others. So go with what works for you.

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