Grinding it Out
For some reason, the miles seem to be getting to me this week. I guess you could call it the dog days of summer, even though summer hasn't officially started yet. Grinding out 100 mile weeks without any real validation that what you're doing is actually working is kind of tough and the monotony of it can sometimes get to you. That's where I'm right now. However, I've dealt with this in the past and usually the way to get through it is to just continue to pile on the miles.
It seems that every week is a battle in itself. On Monday, the realization comes to me that last weeks mileage doesn't mean anything anymore and it's time to start over. By Wednesday, I'm usually sitting on a decent two days of running, but the hard work is still ahead with a tempo run and long run combo on the horizon. By the weekend, if all goes according to plan, the hardest of the work for the week is behind me and I can kind of coast to 100 miles. And then it's Monday again. Like I said…it's a grind.
I'm not sure that I've mentioned it on here before, but the plan right now is to maintain these 100 weeks through July with a few tempo runs mixed in. Then, come August, I'm going to switch over to the program that I used for my spring marathon, which is extremely heavy on speedwork. While I'd like to keep my mileage in the 100/week range, the goal really is to nail the workouts, so if I have to drop the mileage a little during those 2 months prior to Chicago, I will. My friend Dave is going to do the program with me and he has made a few modifications to it, most notably to incorporate some more tempo runs and marathon paced work into the 10 week program. Looking at the program, I'm fairly confident that if I can come into August with a nice base, the speed will take care of itself.
So Monday was a 12 mile run somewhere in the 6:30 - 6:40 range. I'm sure the mileage is correct, but I didn't have my watch with me, so I'm not sure of the exact pace. It really took me a long time to get loose during the run, and I didn't really feel comfortable until about half-way through it. Finally once I turned around, things started to click and I felt good. On Tuesday it was more of the same. I was just extremely dead during my morning run. Finally after about 8 miles, I stopped at a nice grassy field and did 10 strides. I'm trying to focus on doing strides more, as I can really tell that I am losing a lot of the speed that I was able to gain over the winter. I wish I could say the strides felt great, but they didn't. It felt like it was the first time I've run fast in, well, ever. The good news is that after I finished the strides the rest of the run felt much better. Maybe I loosened something up with the strides. Later in the day I did 6 miles at a nice and easy pace.
Today I decided to revisit the tempo run that I kind of blew up on last week. I got my new Garmin in the mail yesterday so I was ready. I decided to wear the heart rate monitor just to get some idea of what my heart was up to on these runs. I've never worn a heart rate monitor before so I had no idea what to expect. I think the numbers look OK, but without having a real accurate idea of what my Max HR is I guess I can't draw too many conclusions from the data. Anyway, the run went much better than last week with an average pace of 5:41 and a average HR of 168 for the 8 mile tempo portion of the run. The mile paces went like this:
Pace - HR
5:45 - 158
5:51 - 162
5:34 - 166
5:38 - 168
5:38 - 169
5:47 - 172
5:36 - 173
5:41 - 174
Any HR experts out there that can tell me if that kind of drifting upwards is normal? It doesn't seem to drastic to this untrained eye.
posted by Greg @ 1:47 PM
9 comments
9 Comments:
Heart rate always drifts up like that. I gain about 9-12 beats per minute during the first hour easy or tempo pace.
Mystery Coach had a nice post on Mike's blog about this last week.
It's applicable to your workout here. For comparison, take a look at some of my tempo runs (marathon pace minus ten seconds). The most recent one has about a six BPM spread, where I'm still recovering from the marathon, but you'll notice the others have pretty consistent HR numbers at consistent paces.
One thing that can really cause the HR to stack is heat. Was it pretty warm and/or humid when you did the tempo?
You're doing great with the mileage. Grind or not, very impressive commitment!
The heat was the first thing I thought about when I read your post, but even keeping that in mind it seems those last three miles had you working pretty hard. I guess the first thing I would ask is what are you trying to accomplish with these tempo runs?
I imagine you're going with the Daniels' philosophy of running towards the top of your aerobic zone in an effort to bump up the ceiling of maximum steady state. If this is the case, I'd be a bit surprised if you're not going into the red and working above your steady state once you get into the 170's. This is just a guess based on your age and marathon-half marathon times.
I liked this article by Greg McMillan about tempo runs and how to approach them according to what phase of training you're in.
I'm in no position to give advice here, but if you're still feeling like you're dragging at 100MPW in another few weeks, it might be worth either shortening the run at this pace to 4-5 miles, or keeping the distance the same but backing off on the pace to see if it helps you get your mojo back.
I agree with Eric that you're doing a great job with the miles, especially during the summer.
Why couldn't I just get a "Yeah, that looks perfect. Keep up the great work."
Anyway, my conclusion is, I think I'll just stop wearing the HR monitor. Ignorance is bliss.
Seriously...Thanks for the input.
We heckle out of love.
For what it's worth, I'm not a big fan of the HR monitor either, but I'm trying to put up with it once every two weeks or so.
You can get a pat on the back from anybody, but if you want useful answers, I guess you're stuck with us. =)
For my part, the HR monitor has its place, and I have found it to be an instrumental part of my training. I could train without it, but I wouldn't want to. Cheers!
Back in the day's i use to cycle race [ 10 years] and followed the training programs of CHRIS BOARDMAN's trainer PETER KEEN I use to use a H>R>M> all the time.
when i got into running I came to the conclusion that the H.R.M. was taking away from my sense of fun of running and stopping me listening to what my body was telling me.Like the others said in running heat can play a big part in raising your heart rate.You have been getting great results without a HRM,and my advise would be not to worry too much about the numbers flashing on your watch, your body is a far better judge of effort!
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It is normal for HR to drift whilst running a tempo run, so that part is right, but I am surprised as to how high your HR actually was. Of course, men and women have different ranges, but it seems a bit high to me. This website might lend some interest - go to the coachly wisdom tab: www.coachbenson.com.
PS that was me - just adding something.
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