Adjusting to Adjustments

Five weeks in, I finally feel in sync with my training plan. Making changes to my established marathon plan was difficult in a number of ways, but I’m convinced it will ultimately pay off.

For the last two marathons I’ve run, I followed Matt Fitzgerald’s (Brain Training) Plans. I used his Intermediate Plan for Buffalo, then moved up to the Advanced Plan for Charlotte. Both plans were 24 weeks long, with step back weeks culminating in a race every 4 weeks. Each of these training cycles produced PR’s for me in the 5K, 10K, Half Marathon, and Marathon distances. That’s pretty successful by anyone’s standards. So, why change?

First, in both training cycles, I felt like I peaked too soon. I felt as if I’d peaked 4 weeks too early in the Buffalo Marathon. For Charlotte’s Thunder Road last month, it was even worse. I felt like I had peaked right after my 10K race in October- nearly 2 months before the marathon! Also, my experience in Charlotte suggested that I need either 1) more miles at tempo and marathon pace, or 2) the same amount, but to reduce the amount of speed work I’m doing at the point where I feel the quality of the longer marathon pace workouts slipping.

My new plan is a Brad Hudson hybrid plan. Originally, 12 weeks long, I’ve extended it to 16 weeks by repeating the first 4 weeks. Running Drills have been added and 10 x 100 Striders replace the Mixed Interval sessions. There are other differences, too.

Instead of running easy following a key workout, you run at steady training pace. (The idea being that Tempo and MP runs shouldn’t feel so hard that you need drastic amounts of recovery from a few miles of it).

As the workouts get easier to do, you increase the pace of the recovery effort, not the pace of the MP sections.

As the hard days get harder and longer, you ease back on the pace of your other runs.


So basically, my running week now looks like this:

Sunday - Long Run (Progression, MP, or Steady)
Monday - Rest
Tuesday - Strength Training (a.m.)/ Drills + EZ Run 20-50 min. (p.m.)
Wednesday - Base Run (6-10 mi.)
Thursday - Intervals or Tempo Run (HM pace or M pace)
Friday - Strength Training (a.m.)/ Base Run (6-10 mi.) p.m.+ 10 x 100 Striders
Saturday - EZ Run (walk-run with kids training for the HM)

I may further tweak this Plan and use it for either the next marathon or my attempt at 50K. I would somehow like to re-incorporate (is that even a word?) the 4-week cycles that culminate in a step-down week and race: Running shorter races that you feel you've peaked for is just too much fun to give up.

[ORN: Obligatory Running Note] 6 mile base pace run last night in 57:00 (9:31 pace). I felt especially strong last night. Not so much "strong" as efficient- running faster using less effort. It was very enjoyable. I left the iPod at home, and I noticed how much more I tuned in to my running. I felt like I was making constant small adjustments to pace and body carriage yesterday. (Perhaps the iPod prevents making these constant refinements..?)

Age Is No Longer A Viable Excuse

I still consider myself a youngish person. Unless, that is, I compare myself to current professional athletes. Then, I come off looking rather, well, ancient.

Consider this: Most pro basketball and football players retire in their 30s, most tennis players hang up their racquets in their 20s, and nearly all gymnasts and figure skaters transition into “where-are-they-now?” status shortly after puberty. In all these sports, athletes peak in their mid-twenties and quickly decline thereafter.

Running (and other endurance sports) may be an exception to this.

As cited in "Born To Run", Professor Dennis M. Bramble, a running expert from the University of Utah, poses a question that I find intriguing:

“We monitored the results of the 2004 New York City Marathon and compared finishing times by age. What we found is that starting at age nineteen, runners get faster every year until they hit their peak at twenty-seven. After twenty-seven, they start to decline. So here’s the question—how old are you when you’re back to running the same speed you did at nineteen?”

The answer he came up with is surprising: 64. The decline in performance over forty-five years is so gradual that the sixty-four-year-old crowd can still compete with the nineteen-year-olds.

My own experience substantiates this. Over the weekend I ran a 10K road race here in Asheville, where about 675 people showed up. The majority of the best runners were over the age of 30, with plenty of top finishers in their forties and fifties. The winner- 33 years old. Average age of the Top 10 Finishers- 36. Two of the Top 10 Finishers were over the age of 50, and despite plenty of entrants in their twenties, only two finished in the Top 25.

You may be familiar with a runner by the name of George Sheehan who wrote the bestseller “Running and Being.” Dr. Sheehan, a physician, took up distance running at the age of 45 and went on to great acclaim with his regular submissions to the magazine "Runner’s World". He was also pretty fast. He was the first person over the age of 50 to log a sub-five minute mile (4:47) and competed in countless marathons. He was able to keep up his competitive 10K race pace until he was in his mid-sixties. His key to success?: run, run, run.

This brings me to my point. Your heart, lungs, and muscles are built to sustain amazing stretches of aerobic activity from childhood all the way into old age. The problem is that we allow ourselves to slide into sedentary living somewhere in the third decade. From that point on our muscles fall into disuse and our joints deteriorate under the added weight of fat; our vertebral disks suffer from lack of postural muscle tone; and our heart and lungs reward our physical complacency with poor performance.

Your body was made to move—your heart wants to beat hard, your legs want to burn under the stress of exercise—and if you manage to keep moving throughout your life you will find that your slide into old age will be a far shallower slope.

I plan to keep these thoughts in mind as I drag myself through the Trial of Miles, the Miles of Trials that are my marathon preparation. I may very well post my 5th personal record in the marathon (in as many tries) in April. I plan to beat a few nineteen-year-olds while I’m at it.

Full Circle

My first experience with running was in 7th grade, at a small private school in Arroyo Grande, CA. A small group of kids, including myself, agreed to meet before school a couple of days a week to go running with the Athletics teacher, whose name I only remeber as "Coach Eric".

I remember how nervous I was the very first meeting, how I didn't know if I could run very far, or if I could keep up with the group. I was afraid of looking bad, at being laughed at, at possibly finding out I was no good at running or sports. In hindsight, it took a lot of courage to show up that day.

Two things stand out in my mind about that day. The physical and mental pain that was that morning's run, and the overwhelming joy and enthusiasm of Coach Eric.

As we ran to the nearby park, then across the swinging bridge, down Main Street to the road I knew would return us to school, my lungs and legs burned, sending uninterrupted messages to my brain to STOP! What sweet relief it was to see the school in sight once again, and to know I was going to make it!

What kept me going on that first run was my pride. What made me show up a second time was Coach Eric. He was so damned HAPPY to be out there with us! Laughing, joking, encouraging us. Distracting us with stories and jokes. He genuinely wanted to be there. Somehow, this was FUN for him. It wasn't anything he said or did, because in that moment he could've offered me a million dollars and I still would've been in enough discomfort to seriously turn it down if he would just let me...stop. No, it was simply the example he set. Everything about him said that being super fit was seriously fun. At least that's the connection I made that day. And it seriously intrigued me.

I showed up again and again to those morning runs, even though we had no track or cross country team. I ran with soccer and basketball players, and I was the only girl. Eventually, I transferred to Arroyo Grande High School and went out for Cross Country and Track. Greg DeNike was a great High School coach. I only learned how valuable that experience was later, when I had lesser coaches.

This is what I'm thinking about today as I prepare for the next 13 week season of Boys On The Run at Weaverville Elementary School. 28 years later, I feel so lucky to be able to play the role of "Coach Eric".