It's More than Running – Boston Marathon Training Week 4

Here is a list of what’s important from The San Francisco Marathon…good advice here.

1. A good (and flexible) plan. The challenge about generic training plans is that each of us is unique. We each have different challenges and we each respond to stimuli in different ways. I’m thankful that I’ve found a coach who guides me well. Of course a generic plan is better than no plan, but I’d advise you to keep if flexible when life intervenes.
2. Strength work. Strength training is necessary for at least two reasons: injury prevention and performance improvement. There are lots of good resources out there for putting together your own plan. Two books that I recommend are: “Build Your Running Body” by Pete Magill, and “Anatomy for Runners” by Jay Dicharry (he also recently published “Running Rewired”, I have it but haven’t read it yet).
3. Recovery work. Rest is important. Sleep is important. Working out the kinks in our muscles is important. And sometimes these all go together, so that when you can’t sleep because your muscles are aching, better than a pill is some relaxing time with the foam roller and some gentle stretching. The above referenced books also have good suggestions here. Personally I count yoga, and some mobility exercises as recovery work too.
4. Healthy Diet. I wrote more about this last week but one cannot emphasize too often the importance of healthy eating. I don’t think one can emphasize enough that fad diets are unhealthy diets. The best advice I’ve read (or heard) is to eat good food and not too much of it. If you want to read about this, try Matt Fitzgerald’s “Racing Weight” or “The Endurance Diet.

I’m happy to report that I’ve done a pretty good job in all these areas this week. What about you? Where do you struggle? What would you add?
Here’s my training log for the past week:

Nancy Switzler

Workouts: 1/7/2018 – 1/13/2018

Sunday, January 7, 2018 Rest Day

Strength & Mobility- Hip prehab plus

Three sets each: Bridges (3 types); clamshells w/band (3 types); pushups; gentle stretch and roll

Completed: 20:00

Wednesday, January 10, 2018

5:43 PMRun – Lactate Threshold

2.5 Mile Threshold Run

Planned: 7 mi

2.5 Miles Easy
2.5 Miles @ Threshold Pace
2 Miles Easy

Completed Easy Run: 2.5 mi ~ 25:44 (10:16 min/mi)

Completed Threshold Pace: 2.5 mi ~ 21:30 (8:35 min/mi)

Interestingly my watch recorded my heart rate as 170 for the last mile of my run. This is near max for me and there is no way my actual heart rate was this high. If it were I would not have been able to complete the run. I have a new watch with wrist based monitoring. I remember that part way through the run my heart rate seemed a bit low…so I tried to tighen the wristband while running. I must have loosened it instead. Dumb. My advice is to not worry about this date while actually running! 

Completed Easy: 2.01 mi ~ 20:34 (10:15 min/mi)

Strength & Mobility – Hip prehab short

Post track workout relaxation: 1 set bridges (3 types) and clamshells with band (3 types) followed by stretching and foam rolling.

Completed: 20:00

Thursday, January 11, 2018

Strength & Mobility – Core & Strength Level 2

2 Sets of the following sequence with ~ 30-60 seconds rest between each exercise.
2 Sets of the following sequence with ~ 30-60 seconds rest between each exercise.
15 squats; 20 sec. plank; 10 push ups; 20 Crunches; 10 lunges on each leg; 20 sec. plank; 10 calf drops on each leg; 20 Sit-Ups

Completed: 20:00

I also lead an hour long gentle stretch and prayer class at my church on Thursdays. I count it as recovery work.

Walk – Completed: 5.5 mi ~ 1:53:15 (20:36 min/mi)

This walk (actually a hike) was not assigned by my coach. I was actually checking out a trail for a hike I will be leading for church on the 20th

Friday, January 12, 2018

8:29 AM5 Miles Easy – Planned: 5 mi

Completed: 5.06 mi ~ 1:00:54 (12:01 min/mi)

Workout Comments:

I did a trail run of the previous day’s hike…because I got lost the day before and so needed to learn more about the trail. It was a nice trail run. I’m thinking this might be a good run to repeat as strength work. The hills were challenging but not so much so that I had to walk…well, just a couple times. 😊

I got in some nice hill work during yesterday’s 14 mile long run. The first hill did not seem as steep as the elevation profile shows.

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Saturday, January 13, 2018

7:35 AM14 Mile Long Run – Planned: 14 mi

Nice & Easy

Completed: 14.01 mi ~ 2:28:34 (10:36 min/mi)

Workout Comments:div><

I felt pretty good, but my legs were more fatigued than usually…probably because of the hilly trail run the day before.< em>Interesting tidbit. Ever since my watch erroneously said my heart rate was 170 for part of my workout at track, the daily training status has been “maintaining.” Prior to this it was “improving.” It seems as if my watch thinks I’m overtraining because after this morning’s run it now says, “unproductive.” Maybe it was the combination of the high heart rate on Wednesday and running hills. Hopefully it will be happy after tomorrow’s rest day.

Totals

Completed Cross Training: 1:00:00< strong>Completed Walk: 6.04 mi ~ 2:03:53< strong>Planned Run: 32.00 mi // Completed Run: 32.09 mi ~ 5:38:42< strong>Completed Strength & Mobility: 1:24:00

Happy Training…13 weeks until race day!