Running Notes by HJL

3/12/2006 through 3/18/2006 totals: 38.43 miles, longest 8.47 miles
Year to date: 372.91 miles.
Ran a set of T intervals this week to see how faster paces are feeling at the moment. 3 sets of 5 minutes @ 7:30 pace with 5 minutes at 10:00 recovery pace. I’m constantly feeling a little out of breath at the higher paces, like I’m not quite getting a full lungful of air. On the other hand, I’m not going totally anaerobic at 7:30 pace either, the HR flattens out in the mid-160s even though it feels crummy, and I seem to be recovering OK in between.

3/5/2006 through 3/11/2006 totals: 42.12 miles, longest 9.21 miles.
Year to date: 334.48 miles.

Ran high aerobic / T-pace (currently 8:00/mile) for 60 minutes, which was most of the long run. HR starting around 150 and ending in the mid 160’s after an hour. Today I did a set of pace intervals, alternating 5 minute periods of 7:30 pace and 10:00 pace. HR at mid 160’s during 7:30 pace, and around 130-140 during 10:00 recovery segments.

Things seem to be slowly improving. I still feel like I’m not getting enough air, especially at higher levels of effort. Last week’s 8:00 pace run was fairly uncomfortable, but I could see from the heart rate monitor that I wasn’t going anaerobic. Today’s pace interval workout felt pretty similar, although the intent is to go slightly anaerobic. I’m feeling generally sluggish but getting faster.

2/26/2006 through 3/4/2006 totals: 41.08 miles, longest 12.21 miles
Year to date: 292.36 miles.

Ran another set of hill intervals at the same incline but slightly faster pace (9:30) last Sunday. This was also the longest run so far on this training cycle.

Logged another long run with hill intervals today, increasing the pace from 10:00 to 9:30 but staying with the 5% incline. The faster pace appears to have resulted in a 5-8 point increase in HR during the steady state portion of the run, ending up at around 145 compared with around 139. This is the longest run on this cycle

One of the reasons I like using the heart rate monitor and data recorder is to get a quantitative view of how training is going. The hill interval portion of the graph is more interesting to look at. Part of what I’m after at the moment is to get a better sense of what my current LT (lactate threshold) pace is.

One of the objectives for longer interval training is to improve the body’s ability to function in the presence of lactate. The higher level of effort raises the body’s energy demand beyond what can be generated through primarily aerobic metabolism, and the anaerobic systems become more important. The body’s aerobic energy systems are much more efficient than the anaerobic systems, but have a limited rate of energy release. Training for endurance sports, such as marathons or triathlons, focus on developing the body’s cardiovascular system to increase its aerobic capacity, and also on increasing the lactate threshold, which allows sustained physical effort at a higher, partially anaerobic level.

During incline or pace intervals, you’re moving the body’s energy production in and out of mostly aerobic and mostly anaerobic modes. It is important to select levels of effort that allow recovery to an aerobic effort and also pushes into the anerobic range, but without requiring one to stop. If you simply continued at an anaerobic level of effort, you’d have to stop fairly soon, but an interval workout allows you to spend more time training at a useful level of effort. The first few intervals typically feel easier than the last ones, but the goal is to find the level of effort is difficult but can be maintained. I usually try to do at least 3 repetitions.

The adaptation we’re after is an improvement in the body’s ability to buffer lactic acid. This increases the sustainable level of energy output for longer distances. If you spend too much time too anaerobic during an endurance event, you typically exhaust the readily available glycogen (”hitting the wall”, “bonking”) which is unpleasant and dramatically reduces the energy available to skeletal muscles. The LT pace corresponds to a level of effort that is faster than comfortable, can be sustained for an extended period of time (an hour or more), and if exceeded, would quickly require that you slow down to recover from O2 debt.

Part of my current planning challenge for this year’s Big Sur Marathon is that my physiological performance is very different (worse) than where it’s been over the past few years, so I don’t have a good sense of what my sustainable paces actually are. I also don’t have a clear sense of the root cause, other than some test data showing that my breathing is slightly off.

Based on today’s data, it also looks like I can hold 9:30 pace without any problems for two hours. The HR graph isn’t trending up, either, so I may already be able to manage 9:00 pace for two hours, especially if I’m not starting off with hills.

On this training cycle, so far I’m not having any sore muscles. All of my training issues (other than not breathing well) have been with mental fatigue and elevated HR. At my current level of O2 intake, I don’t think I’m pushing the muscles very hard. We’ll see what happens with longer runs and faster paces. Although allergy season is starting, I think the medication is helping more than the allergies are hurting.

2/19/2006 through 2/25/2006 totals: 41.49 miles, longest 10.65 miles
Year to date: 251.28 miles.

Started off the week with the first set of hill intervals for the year. Also logged a longer midweek run of 8.64 miles.

I still feel sluggish compared with last year’s training, but can also tell that I’m making progress from a few weeks ago. The hill intervals went pretty well. I may try some T pace intervals this week. Not quite sure what pace that is at the moment, though. If I assume my easy pace is 10:00, it falls between VDOT 38 and VDOT 40 on the Daniels training intensity table, and suggests a T pace in the vicinity of 8:30 to 8:00 for distances between 1200m and one mile.

Today I ran a set of hill intervals on the treadmill. I like running intervals on the treadmill since everything is completely repeatable and doesn’t depend on my ability to manage pace and effort. The data from the heart rate monitor is also relatively interesting to look at afterwards.

This is the first set of intervals I’ve run on this training cycle. I find it psychologically helpful to complete at least 2 miles of 5% incline (today I did 3 miles) on a hill day, as this roughly corresponds to the ascent at Hurricane Point, the longest hill on the Big Sur Marathon course.

I normally run my intervals for 5 minute duration, rather than by distance. For hill interval days, I pick an “easy” pace and only change the incline between 0% and something between 5% and 8%. Whether it’s hill intervals or pace intervals, I normally try to keep a fixed level of effort for each rep. A 5% incline seemed to work out ok today. Unfortunately, at the moment, my “easy” pace is around 10:00 instead of 9:00 or 8:30. Today that put my HR at around 135-140, while the last couple of hill intervals ended up close to 170.

I’m still baffled by my elevated HR compared with log data from past years, but at least I’m continuing to make progress on this training cycle.

2/5/2006 through 2/18/2006 totals: 36.22 miles, longest 11.64 miles.
Year to date: 209.79 miles.

Started taking allergy meds this week. I’m continuing to feel tired and sluggish most of the time, and am performing well below my logged data from the past couple of years.

On the positive side, I’m making steady progress against this year’s starting measurements, and slogged through an 11+ mile, 2 hour run this week, a new high for the current training cycle.

I had been planning for an hour on the treadmill but kept going (was watching Ben Bernanke presenting to Congress, which went on and on). It’s good to know I’m easily able to run in this range at the moment, but my paces are still really slow right now, 9:00-10:00 most of the time, and I’m never reaching a point where I feel like I’m warmed up and running well, even on these longer workouts.

2/5/2006 through 2/11/2006 totals: 28.45 miles, longest 6.24 miles. Year to date: 173.57 miles.

Been trying out the Hurricane 7’s this week, and have been generally happy with them so far. Running has been so-so. I’m still feeling sluggish and am not feeling any signs of improvement, but just keep plugging away for now.

I’ve tried them out on a couple of short (3-5) mile runs, and I think they’ll work out as replacements for the Hurricane 5’s I’ve been running in. The fit is similar, and the main difference I’ve noticed is that the Hurricane 7’s feel slightly cushier than the Hurricane 5’s. They don’t seem to be squishy or heavy by comparison, though.

Went to MetroSports today for their 1-day, 20% off sale to pick up replacements for my current shoes. The place was packed — apparently runners aren’t as focused on the Super Bowl and related festivities as much as some. I ended up with a pair of Saucony Hurricane 7’s and ASICS GT-2110’s.

I’ve been running in Hurricane 5’s and GT-2100s for a while. The Hurricane 5’s have worked well for me and I didn’t like the feel of the Hurricane 6 (too narrow or something) when I tried them on a couple of years ago, so I didn’t go with the update back then. Fortunately, the older shoes are still available on the internet (Road Runner Sports, etc), even though they’re sort of discontinued.

The Hurricane 7 has been out for a while and is about to be replaced with the Hurricane 8, so the 7’s are already being discounted. I’m not too concerned with getting the latest and greatest version of the shoe, but I’m not sure how long the 5’s will continue to be available. The 7’s seem to fit better than the 6’s, so I’m giving them a try. I’d like to find a current production version that works for me.

The GT-2110 is nearly indistinguishable from the GT-2100. Trying it on at the store, I can’t really tell the difference, so it appears to be essentially the same shoe.

The Hurricane 5’s were the shoes I selected when I first started running a few years ago. I wanted something with adequate support and cushioning to help avoid injury as I increased mileage. At the time I was 30+ pounds heavier and had much worse running mechanics, so I wanted fairly robust shoes. As my running has improved, I’ve gotten lighter and my mechanics have become more efficient and I don’t land as hard, so the shoes have lasted longer.

I started running in the GT-2100’s about a year ago, to see if a slightly lighter shoe would work for my improved running form. I like them, but have found that I start getting achy joints if I run exclusively with them after more than a couple hundred miles of wear.

Since starting running, I now own the most shoes I have ever had in my entire life. I typically get something like 300-500 miles out of each pair, after which they’re only used cautiously for shorter runs or retired for use for daily walking around. I ran one pair of Hurricane 5’s up to around 700 miles, but I think that precipitated a minor injury so I didn’t try it again. Shoes are cheap compared with medical treatment.

I find it a little strange to have so many pairs of running shoes which appear to be in good shape but which are too worn out for me to run in safely. I’ve been experimenting with aftermarket insoles such as SofSole and SuperFeet, but they’re a little heavy. They do seem to extend the useful life of the shoes once the midsoles are starting to wear out, though.

At the moment I’m still evaluating how things are going, but assuming things stay on track for Big Sur, I’d probably like to run in shoes with more than 100 and less than 200 miles on them. Last year I ran in the GT-2100’s, the year before in the Hurricane 5’s. Lighter is better, except I may end up going a lot slower this year if I can’t breathe very well, in which case having more support under my feet for the longer duration would be a good thing.