canglim52
Mouseketeer
- Joined
- Sep 9, 2016
That picture finishing the Marathon is great!! What a perfect example of marathon emotion
To Infinity and Beyond - Becoming a Better DopeyBadger (Comments Welcome)
- Thread starter DopeyBadger
- Start date
wdwjoe13
Mouseketeer
- Joined
- May 14, 2012
Congrats on some great results @DopeyBadger ! It was great meeting you and the family at Be Our Guest. I hope G is feeling better. Oh, and Steph is a champ for being able to handle the sickness. Kudos to her!
DopeyBadger
Imagathoner
- Joined
- Oct 15, 2015
2018 Winter/Spring Training Cycle - Jack Daniels Half Marathon Training
It's time for something new, again. During the Spring of 2017, I pivoted from my normal routine. For years, I had followed the pattern of Spring Marathon, Fall Marathon, Dopey, repeat. After my October 2016 Marathon, I decided I needed to try a new stimulus to see if I could continue to push my abilities to the max. So I decided to forgo a Spring 2017 Marathon and instead focus on 5k/10k speed work. I went with the Jack Daniels 10k training plan from his book: The Running Formula (3rd Edition). It worked. Quite well in fact. I moved my 5k PR from 21:02 (set in Jan 2017) to 19:30 (unofficially) in about 12 weeks. That training cycle allowed me to learn all sorts of new running paces that have been invaluable. I moved from Daniels 10k into Marathon training and had my first sub-3 attempt. As a first attempt, it was good, but wasn't where I needed to be. So as I moved to and through the 2018 Dopey training, the question loomed where would I go next in Spring 2019. The original plan was to get back into half marathon racing. I hadn't raced a half marathon (non-challenge) since December 2015 and I was eager to see how that distance would go now. But after the non-BQ marathon, would I go for another BQ or choose to continue on the path I had originally set out. I decided that I wanted to pursue that half marathon goal and that's where I'm going to go with this. So, logically I decided to reach back into my Daniels book and see his thoughts on half marathon training.
How to decide my pacing
As is always my first step, I need to decide what my current fitness level is. Best way to determine current fitness is to evaluate recent race performances.
Disney 5k - 20:06
Disney 10k - 39:54
Disney HM - 1:30:35
Disney Marathon - 3:15:59
I don't necessarily feel any of these four are a perfect match for my current fitness level. I feel as if the 5k was skewed by side stitches and the 10k was a decent race but because of the large race scenario it was more difficult to run the tangents and hit 3.1/6.2 closely. I feel the half marathon and marathon are likely slightly skewed by the existence of the proceeding races.
If I'm being honest, then I'm going to go with my gut instinct. My gut tells me my long run pace is around a 7:25 min/mile. My easy is around a 7:45-8:15. My M Tempo around a 6:45-6:55 and my HM Tempo around a 6:35-6:45. There were times I was running those Daniels T paces in 2018 Dopey training (6:31) and felt like that could be reasonable as HM Tempo. So. I'm trusting my gut on this one.
I also needed to evaluate these paces for Jack Daniels specific workouts. My VDOT per Daniels would be 54.2 based on my guess at easy and long run pacing. All of this put together gives me the following training cycle paces:
This feels reasonable. I mean it's insane, but reasonable. It also meshes well with how the first run back went around a 8:50-9:00 min/mile as a pure recovery type effort.
Everything looks to be in line. Easy around 7:45-8:15 min/mile, LR around 7:25, and M Tempo around 6:48 all match well to my last cycles "effort" based pacing. Then the new paces of "T" (Lactate Threshold), "I" (Interval Pacing based on duration), and "R" (Repetition).
WAIT, WHAT?!?!!?!
IS THAT A 5!!! in front of a number. 
This is going to be interesting... Thankfully the "R" paces are kept to 200m or 400m and no longer. That's 44 seconds for the 200m and 88 seconds for the 400m.
That's what I wrote last year at least. First time seeing a "5" for a training pace. Well that was 44-88 seconds then. Now, it's 5:53 pace for as much as 5 minutes! Time will tell on the reality of that pacing.
The Timing of the Training Plan
This plan is different than most any other plan I've done before. In the past, there was an "A" race and then the training plan will build to it. I'd choose a marathon and work backwards. Or in the case of last Spring (Daniels 10k training) I just wrote the training plan first and then found some races that fit at the end.
But this time, I've got three races in mind that I want to do:
1) March 17th - Shamrock Shuffle 10k - In Madison. Super hilly. Temps will be phenomenal. Chance of snow.
2) April 7th - Parkinson's HM - In Cottage Grove (home). 227 ft elevation (so not flat, but not bad at all). Temps will likely be phenomenal. Small chance of snow.
3) June 17th - Hot2Trot HM - In Cottage Grove (home). Course unknown. Temps will be bad (super hot).
The biggest issue with this plan was deciding how to go about setting it up. The Daniels HM plan is in 4 phases: Build, Repetition (Mile), Intervals (3k), and Race. The plan should be 4 weeks at each minimum. I've got 12 total weeks (including this week) from now and April 7th. There are 22 weeks from now until June 17th HM. So that would be 4+6+6+6 if it were one plan. Since the April 7th race has far superior conditions to the June 17th HM, then I really want to be primed for a good race. But this 12 week plan would be really short. So the question comes down to - do I do two smaller plans or one bigger plan that has the April HM kind of just in the middle? I mean at the end of the day, this is all meant to be a setup for the Chicago Marathon training in the Summer/Fall.
I decided to split the difference. Make a smaller HM plan to get from now until April 7th which isn't necessarily ideal for performance but should have me in a better racing condition then one long training plan. Then after a short reprieve post the first HM, pick back up in the middle of the plan and focus towards the second HM. So one short 12 week plan with 2+3+3+4 in phases. Since the plan's mileage/duration is lower than what I've done in the past I'm comfortable with having a short build-up. Then, the second part will be 1+0+6+3 into the 2nd HM.
The Training Plan
So, Dopey (the marathon) ended on 1/7/17. As is my standard plan, I took off from running for one-two weeks. I do this to assist my body in making a full recovery after the marathon. The easiest thing to point to as to why the 14 day period exists is the mitochondria. The mitochondria follow a 14 day life cycle. So 14 days after the marathon, there should be no or 1/14th remaining of the mitochondria from the marathon event itself. Otherwise all of the damaged mitochondria are now gone and have been refreshed. This is just one biophysical thing going on, but just another example as to why I choose to do no running for 10-14 days after a hard marathon effort.
Even after 10-14 days off, I still need time to get my body fully recovered. So, I follow the two weeks off with two weeks of just easy running. I consider these two sections my Recovery Phase. The recovery phase is like a reverse taper. So the easy running should be kept to 30-45 minutes, then build to 60 minutes. The pacing is all kept easy as well. The mileage/duration should be at 30-50% in the first week, then 50-70% in the second week, and then by the third week you can get close to where you were previously. Based on my previous post (How long does it take for me to recover from a marathon?) I except to start feeling normal again around 1/31-2/18. This corresponds to a good timeframe for starting back into it.
Any days marked in orange are Steph work trips. So I need to be cognizant of how much I'm running on those days.
So, starting with the week of 1/29 I begin the Phase 2 of Daniels HM. The focus is on R pace (mile) in short bursts of 200m to 400m. From a timing standpoint, this is roughly 41-82 seconds with recovery of 90-120 seconds.
-The R pace total distance shouldn't exceed 5% of the total mileage in the week. So at 55 miles in 1/29, that means the max R is 2.8 miles.
-The T pace total distance shouldn't exceed 10% of the total mileage in a week. So at 55 miles in 1/29, that means the max T is 5.5 miles.
-The M pace total distance shouldn't exceed 20% of the total mileage in a week. So at 55 miles in 1/29, that means the max M is 11 miles.
-The long run should not exceed 25% of the weekly mileage or 120 minutes.
So with that, I started building the plan with the easy days. My off day is Monday. My easy days are Wednesday, Friday and Saturday. The Wed/Fri days are treated as recovery days and thus are kept at a maximum of 60 minutes. Based on my easy pace, that's 7 miles. Then the Saturday is the moderate easy day. It can flex anywhere from 60-90 minutes and still be considered easy. I like to think of this day as the fatigue booster going into the longer Sunday run.
I like to oscillate my long runs on a week to week basis. So I go with 90 min on the down week and 90+ on the up week. With Daniels cap of 120 min (25%) puts me at 16 miles cap. The 120 min cap makes sense since that's a real aerobic threshold.
After I work backwards with easy and long put in a week, then I go back to the R and T workouts. They are some variation of R repeats at 200 or 400, or just R at 200. And then T paces at either 1 or 2 mile intervals with rest of 1 min per # T miles. Then, I backfill all the empty space with easy mileage to get the R and T workouts up to 60-90 min in total duration.
So the end goal is to have 60 min recovery days, 60-90 min hard workout days, 60-90 min fatigue booster easy day, and a 90-120 min long run.
For Phase 3, the shift focuses from R (mile) pace to I (3k) pace.
-The I pace total distance shouldn't exceed 8% of the total mileage in the week. So at 61 miles in 2/19, that means the max I is 4.9 miles. You also dictate the duration as well using your current fitness 5k pace. So my estimate is a 6:00 min/mile. So 4.9 x 6 means a max duration of I in a single training run of ~30 min.
The plan with I is to do 2-5 minutes of run and then duration run-1 min for rest. So 4 min run has 3 min rest. So 5 min run has 4 min rest. The durations matter. The I pace pushes the VO2max to the absolute max. But that doesn't really start to happen until after 2 min of running at this pace. So 3 min at this pace is really like 1 min of work. 5 min is 3 min of work. It's really really really hard to run at I pace. Last spring I failed nearly every I paced run because it's so hard. Daniels book calls them the single hardest workout in running. So yea, I don't hold much hope for me either. But I'm going to attack it like it's mile 25 of the marathon and the clock is ticking down on the sub-3.
The big shift in this Phase is the back to back hard runs. During Daniels 10k training last spring I shied away from back to back hard. I wasn't ready for it and was scared. This time I'm ready to listen to him and see what happens. To work it in my favor I did a 90 first and then a shorter duration on the second hard. We shall see how it goes.
In addition, the April HM is on a compacted gravel trail. I plan to do at least one long run and one M Tempo run on the compacted gravel trail during Phase 3 to get a feel for the effort/pace difference from road running.
Phase 4 is racing season. I start off right away with the Shamrock Shuffle 10k. Daniels recommends easy down to 30-45 min prior to the race. The last hard workout should be 3-4 days in advance. After the 10k, I take 3 days off or easy. For every 3k racing comes one day of easy/off (so 10k = 3 days). The 4th phase also drops the hard workouts mid-week from 2 to 1. But the workout that remains is really long in duration (near 120 min). Then comes the first HM in April!
After the first HM is a 7 day rest period because 21k of racing. After the rest, go right back into the Phase 3 of the plan with more I. Either 2, 3, 4, or 5 min intervals.
Sill oscillating long runs and trying to include an easier week every so often. During the week of 5/21 we're off to Disney for a few days for my MIL's birthday. So I'm going to plan on not doing any running. To accommodate that, I'll bookend both sides with some tough runs.
The week of 5/28 brings the end of Phase 3 and beginning of Phase 4. And then HM in mid-June!
Goals
-I was just looking at the corral breakdown for Chicago from 2017:
I'm squarely in Corral B right now (1:30:35 HM and 3:14:05 M). The only way to move to Corral A is a sub-1:25. Well my "current fitness" assessment says a 1:25:21 is reasonable (6:31 min/mile). But, I'm not sure I'll be 100% performance ready by April. So, I'm going with break 1:25 would be great, but expect something in the 1:27-1:30 range.
-Shamrock Shuffle - Top 10 finish
-Parkinson's HM - Sub 1:30. Maybe Sub 1:25.
-Inaugural Hot2Trot HM - Win
-Enjoy the half marathon race distance again. Missed you!
The one thing I won't due is risk my ability to race my Chicago marathon BQ attempt well with this training cycle. I am fully prepared to scrap this entire training cycle if things don't feel right. I'm not a speed runner and thus I'm not sure how my body will tolerate these paces (again a 5:xx for 5 minutes??!??!??!?
). I had a really hard time last year with the I pacing. So if things don't feel right, or if I'm not hitting the paces as scheduled, or if I find myself consistently fading on these runs, then I'll shut it down and move back to my speciality of endurance training.
Also, it's winter in Wisconsin. Which means there very likely could be snow or ice on any of these training days. My policy will be any speed/M tempo day with adverse road conditions will be moved to an easy day when I see fit. Again it does me no good to attempt to run a speed interval session through a couple inches of snow/ice. It just won't work and it's to high an injury risk.
Alright, that's all I got. Hope you enjoyed reading how I came up with my Spring 2018 training cycle!
It's time for something new, again. During the Spring of 2017, I pivoted from my normal routine. For years, I had followed the pattern of Spring Marathon, Fall Marathon, Dopey, repeat. After my October 2016 Marathon, I decided I needed to try a new stimulus to see if I could continue to push my abilities to the max. So I decided to forgo a Spring 2017 Marathon and instead focus on 5k/10k speed work. I went with the Jack Daniels 10k training plan from his book: The Running Formula (3rd Edition). It worked. Quite well in fact. I moved my 5k PR from 21:02 (set in Jan 2017) to 19:30 (unofficially) in about 12 weeks. That training cycle allowed me to learn all sorts of new running paces that have been invaluable. I moved from Daniels 10k into Marathon training and had my first sub-3 attempt. As a first attempt, it was good, but wasn't where I needed to be. So as I moved to and through the 2018 Dopey training, the question loomed where would I go next in Spring 2019. The original plan was to get back into half marathon racing. I hadn't raced a half marathon (non-challenge) since December 2015 and I was eager to see how that distance would go now. But after the non-BQ marathon, would I go for another BQ or choose to continue on the path I had originally set out. I decided that I wanted to pursue that half marathon goal and that's where I'm going to go with this. So, logically I decided to reach back into my Daniels book and see his thoughts on half marathon training.
How to decide my pacing
As is always my first step, I need to decide what my current fitness level is. Best way to determine current fitness is to evaluate recent race performances.
Disney 5k - 20:06
Disney 10k - 39:54
Disney HM - 1:30:35
Disney Marathon - 3:15:59
I don't necessarily feel any of these four are a perfect match for my current fitness level. I feel as if the 5k was skewed by side stitches and the 10k was a decent race but because of the large race scenario it was more difficult to run the tangents and hit 3.1/6.2 closely. I feel the half marathon and marathon are likely slightly skewed by the existence of the proceeding races.
If I'm being honest, then I'm going to go with my gut instinct. My gut tells me my long run pace is around a 7:25 min/mile. My easy is around a 7:45-8:15. My M Tempo around a 6:45-6:55 and my HM Tempo around a 6:35-6:45. There were times I was running those Daniels T paces in 2018 Dopey training (6:31) and felt like that could be reasonable as HM Tempo. So. I'm trusting my gut on this one.
I also needed to evaluate these paces for Jack Daniels specific workouts. My VDOT per Daniels would be 54.2 based on my guess at easy and long run pacing. All of this put together gives me the following training cycle paces:
This feels reasonable. I mean it's insane, but reasonable. It also meshes well with how the first run back went around a 8:50-9:00 min/mile as a pure recovery type effort.
Everything looks to be in line. Easy around 7:45-8:15 min/mile, LR around 7:25, and M Tempo around 6:48 all match well to my last cycles "effort" based pacing. Then the new paces of "T" (Lactate Threshold), "I" (Interval Pacing based on duration), and "R" (Repetition).
WAIT, WHAT?!?!!?!
IS THAT A 5!!! in front of a number. This is going to be interesting... Thankfully the "R" paces are kept to 200m or 400m and no longer. That's 44 seconds for the 200m and 88 seconds for the 400m.That's what I wrote last year at least. First time seeing a "5" for a training pace. Well that was 44-88 seconds then. Now, it's 5:53 pace for as much as 5 minutes! Time will tell on the reality of that pacing.
The Timing of the Training Plan
This plan is different than most any other plan I've done before. In the past, there was an "A" race and then the training plan will build to it. I'd choose a marathon and work backwards. Or in the case of last Spring (Daniels 10k training) I just wrote the training plan first and then found some races that fit at the end.
But this time, I've got three races in mind that I want to do:
1) March 17th - Shamrock Shuffle 10k - In Madison. Super hilly. Temps will be phenomenal. Chance of snow.
2) April 7th - Parkinson's HM - In Cottage Grove (home). 227 ft elevation (so not flat, but not bad at all). Temps will likely be phenomenal. Small chance of snow.
3) June 17th - Hot2Trot HM - In Cottage Grove (home). Course unknown. Temps will be bad (super hot).
The biggest issue with this plan was deciding how to go about setting it up. The Daniels HM plan is in 4 phases: Build, Repetition (Mile), Intervals (3k), and Race. The plan should be 4 weeks at each minimum. I've got 12 total weeks (including this week) from now and April 7th. There are 22 weeks from now until June 17th HM. So that would be 4+6+6+6 if it were one plan. Since the April 7th race has far superior conditions to the June 17th HM, then I really want to be primed for a good race. But this 12 week plan would be really short. So the question comes down to - do I do two smaller plans or one bigger plan that has the April HM kind of just in the middle? I mean at the end of the day, this is all meant to be a setup for the Chicago Marathon training in the Summer/Fall.
I decided to split the difference. Make a smaller HM plan to get from now until April 7th which isn't necessarily ideal for performance but should have me in a better racing condition then one long training plan. Then after a short reprieve post the first HM, pick back up in the middle of the plan and focus towards the second HM. So one short 12 week plan with 2+3+3+4 in phases. Since the plan's mileage/duration is lower than what I've done in the past I'm comfortable with having a short build-up. Then, the second part will be 1+0+6+3 into the 2nd HM.
The Training Plan
So, Dopey (the marathon) ended on 1/7/17. As is my standard plan, I took off from running for one-two weeks. I do this to assist my body in making a full recovery after the marathon. The easiest thing to point to as to why the 14 day period exists is the mitochondria. The mitochondria follow a 14 day life cycle. So 14 days after the marathon, there should be no or 1/14th remaining of the mitochondria from the marathon event itself. Otherwise all of the damaged mitochondria are now gone and have been refreshed. This is just one biophysical thing going on, but just another example as to why I choose to do no running for 10-14 days after a hard marathon effort.
Even after 10-14 days off, I still need time to get my body fully recovered. So, I follow the two weeks off with two weeks of just easy running. I consider these two sections my Recovery Phase. The recovery phase is like a reverse taper. So the easy running should be kept to 30-45 minutes, then build to 60 minutes. The pacing is all kept easy as well. The mileage/duration should be at 30-50% in the first week, then 50-70% in the second week, and then by the third week you can get close to where you were previously. Based on my previous post (How long does it take for me to recover from a marathon?) I except to start feeling normal again around 1/31-2/18. This corresponds to a good timeframe for starting back into it.
Any days marked in orange are Steph work trips. So I need to be cognizant of how much I'm running on those days.
So, starting with the week of 1/29 I begin the Phase 2 of Daniels HM. The focus is on R pace (mile) in short bursts of 200m to 400m. From a timing standpoint, this is roughly 41-82 seconds with recovery of 90-120 seconds.
-The R pace total distance shouldn't exceed 5% of the total mileage in the week. So at 55 miles in 1/29, that means the max R is 2.8 miles.
-The T pace total distance shouldn't exceed 10% of the total mileage in a week. So at 55 miles in 1/29, that means the max T is 5.5 miles.
-The M pace total distance shouldn't exceed 20% of the total mileage in a week. So at 55 miles in 1/29, that means the max M is 11 miles.
-The long run should not exceed 25% of the weekly mileage or 120 minutes.
So with that, I started building the plan with the easy days. My off day is Monday. My easy days are Wednesday, Friday and Saturday. The Wed/Fri days are treated as recovery days and thus are kept at a maximum of 60 minutes. Based on my easy pace, that's 7 miles. Then the Saturday is the moderate easy day. It can flex anywhere from 60-90 minutes and still be considered easy. I like to think of this day as the fatigue booster going into the longer Sunday run.
I like to oscillate my long runs on a week to week basis. So I go with 90 min on the down week and 90+ on the up week. With Daniels cap of 120 min (25%) puts me at 16 miles cap. The 120 min cap makes sense since that's a real aerobic threshold.
After I work backwards with easy and long put in a week, then I go back to the R and T workouts. They are some variation of R repeats at 200 or 400, or just R at 200. And then T paces at either 1 or 2 mile intervals with rest of 1 min per # T miles. Then, I backfill all the empty space with easy mileage to get the R and T workouts up to 60-90 min in total duration.
So the end goal is to have 60 min recovery days, 60-90 min hard workout days, 60-90 min fatigue booster easy day, and a 90-120 min long run.
For Phase 3, the shift focuses from R (mile) pace to I (3k) pace.
-The I pace total distance shouldn't exceed 8% of the total mileage in the week. So at 61 miles in 2/19, that means the max I is 4.9 miles. You also dictate the duration as well using your current fitness 5k pace. So my estimate is a 6:00 min/mile. So 4.9 x 6 means a max duration of I in a single training run of ~30 min.
The plan with I is to do 2-5 minutes of run and then duration run-1 min for rest. So 4 min run has 3 min rest. So 5 min run has 4 min rest. The durations matter. The I pace pushes the VO2max to the absolute max. But that doesn't really start to happen until after 2 min of running at this pace. So 3 min at this pace is really like 1 min of work. 5 min is 3 min of work. It's really really really hard to run at I pace. Last spring I failed nearly every I paced run because it's so hard. Daniels book calls them the single hardest workout in running. So yea, I don't hold much hope for me either. But I'm going to attack it like it's mile 25 of the marathon and the clock is ticking down on the sub-3.
The big shift in this Phase is the back to back hard runs. During Daniels 10k training last spring I shied away from back to back hard. I wasn't ready for it and was scared. This time I'm ready to listen to him and see what happens. To work it in my favor I did a 90 first and then a shorter duration on the second hard. We shall see how it goes.
In addition, the April HM is on a compacted gravel trail. I plan to do at least one long run and one M Tempo run on the compacted gravel trail during Phase 3 to get a feel for the effort/pace difference from road running.
Phase 4 is racing season. I start off right away with the Shamrock Shuffle 10k. Daniels recommends easy down to 30-45 min prior to the race. The last hard workout should be 3-4 days in advance. After the 10k, I take 3 days off or easy. For every 3k racing comes one day of easy/off (so 10k = 3 days). The 4th phase also drops the hard workouts mid-week from 2 to 1. But the workout that remains is really long in duration (near 120 min). Then comes the first HM in April!
After the first HM is a 7 day rest period because 21k of racing. After the rest, go right back into the Phase 3 of the plan with more I. Either 2, 3, 4, or 5 min intervals.
Sill oscillating long runs and trying to include an easier week every so often. During the week of 5/21 we're off to Disney for a few days for my MIL's birthday. So I'm going to plan on not doing any running. To accommodate that, I'll bookend both sides with some tough runs.
The week of 5/28 brings the end of Phase 3 and beginning of Phase 4. And then HM in mid-June!
Goals
-I was just looking at the corral breakdown for Chicago from 2017:
I'm squarely in Corral B right now (1:30:35 HM and 3:14:05 M). The only way to move to Corral A is a sub-1:25. Well my "current fitness" assessment says a 1:25:21 is reasonable (6:31 min/mile). But, I'm not sure I'll be 100% performance ready by April. So, I'm going with break 1:25 would be great, but expect something in the 1:27-1:30 range.
-Shamrock Shuffle - Top 10 finish
-Parkinson's HM - Sub 1:30. Maybe Sub 1:25.
-Inaugural Hot2Trot HM - Win
-Enjoy the half marathon race distance again. Missed you!
The one thing I won't due is risk my ability to race my Chicago marathon BQ attempt well with this training cycle. I am fully prepared to scrap this entire training cycle if things don't feel right. I'm not a speed runner and thus I'm not sure how my body will tolerate these paces (again a 5:xx for 5 minutes??!??!??!?
). I had a really hard time last year with the I pacing. So if things don't feel right, or if I'm not hitting the paces as scheduled, or if I find myself consistently fading on these runs, then I'll shut it down and move back to my speciality of endurance training.Also, it's winter in Wisconsin. Which means there very likely could be snow or ice on any of these training days. My policy will be any speed/M tempo day with adverse road conditions will be moved to an easy day when I see fit. Again it does me no good to attempt to run a speed interval session through a couple inches of snow/ice. It just won't work and it's to high an injury risk.
Alright, that's all I got. Hope you enjoyed reading how I came up with my Spring 2018 training cycle!
Last edited:
DopeyBadger
Imagathoner
- Joined
- Oct 15, 2015
It was a pleasure meeting you as well! Thanks for stopping by. G's definitely better now and Steph truly is the champ of the house!
TeeterTots
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Sep 9, 2014
I can’t wrap my head around how scientific running is! Even with a background in medicine I can’t even go to that level of thinking...so, I’m glad you write the plan and I just have to (try to) follow it!
DopeyBadger
Imagathoner
- Joined
- Oct 15, 2015
I can’t wrap my head around how scientific running is! Even with a background in medicine I can’t even go to that level of thinking...so, I’m glad you write the plan and I just have to (try to) follow it!
Running can be simple and running can be complex! I'm happy to help take the complex side of it so I can help make it simpler on the other side.
Hey. Very well thought out plan. I will have to re read it again. A bit overwhelming . That T pace looks like fun. Instead of going with your guts on the current fitness level, do you think it would be more accurate to run a 5k time trial and use that to set the training paces?2017 Winter/Spring Training Cycle - Jack Daniels Half Marathon Training
It's time for something new, again. During the Spring of 2017, I pivoted from my normal routine. For years, I had followed the pattern of Spring Marathon, Fall Marathon, Dopey, repeat. After my October 2016 Marathon, I decided I needed to try a new stimulus to see if I could continue to push my abilities to the max. So I decided to forgo a Spring 2017 Marathon and instead focus on 5k/10k speed work. I went with the Jack Daniels 10k training plan from his book: The Running Formula (3rd Edition). It worked. Quite well in fact. I moved my 5k PR from 21:02 (set in Jan 2017) to 19:30 (unofficially) in about 12 weeks. That training cycle allowed me to learn all sorts of new running paces that have been invaluable. I moved from Daniels 10k into Marathon training and had my first sub-3 attempt. As a first attempt, it was good, but wasn't where I needed to be. So as I moved to and through the 2018 Dopey training, the question loomed where would I go next in Spring 2019. The original plan was to get back into half marathon racing. I hadn't raced a half marathon (non-challenge) since December 2015 and I was eager to see how that distance would go now. But after the non-BQ marathon, would I go for another BQ or choose to continue on the path I had originally set out. I decided that I wanted to pursue that half marathon goal and that's where I'm going to go with this. So, logically I decided to reach back into my Daniels book and see his thoughts on half marathon training.
How to decide my pacing
As is always my first step, I need to decide what my current fitness level is. Best way to determine current fitness is to evaluate recent race performances.
Disney 5k - 20:06
Disney 10k - 39:54
Disney HM - 1:30:35
Disney Marathon - 3:15:59
I don't necessarily feel any of these four are a perfect match for my current fitness level. I feel as if the 5k was skewed by side stitches and the 10k was a decent race but because of the large race scenario it was more difficult to run the tangents and hit 3.1/6.2 closely. I feel the half marathon and marathon are likely slightly skewed by the existence of the proceeding races.
If I'm being honest, then I'm going to go with my gut instinct. My gut tells me my long run pace is around a 7:25 min/mile. My easy is around a 7:45-8:15. My M Tempo around a 6:45-6:55 and my HM Tempo around a 6:35-6:45. There were times I was running those Daniels T paces in 2018 Dopey training (6:31) and felt like that could be reasonable as HM Tempo. So. I'm trusting my gut on this one.
I also needed to evaluate these paces for Jack Daniels specific workouts. My VDOT per Daniels would be 54.2 based on my guess at easy and long run pacing. All of this put together gives me the following training cycle paces:
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This feels reasonable. I mean it's insane, but reasonable. It also meshes well with how the first run back went around a 8:50-9:00 min/mile as a pure recovery type effort.
Everything looks to be in line. Easy around 7:45-8:15 min/mile, LR around 7:25, and M Tempo around 6:48 all match well to my last cycles "effort" based pacing. Then the new paces of "T" (Lactate Threshold), "I" (Interval Pacing based on duration), and "R" (Repetition).
WAIT, WHAT?!?!!?!
That's what I wrote last year at least. First time seeing a "5" for a training pace. Well that was 44-88 seconds then. Now, it's 5:53 pace for as much as 5 minutes! Time will tell on the reality of that pacing.
The Timing of the Training Plan
This plan is different than most any other plan I've done before. In the past, there was an "A" race and then the training plan will build to it. I'd choose a marathon and work backwards. Or in the case of last Spring (Daniels 10k training) I just wrote the training plan first and then found some races that fit at the end.
But this time, I've got three races in mind that I want to do:
1) March 17th - Shamrock Shuffle 10k - In Madison. Super hilly. Temps will be phenomenal. Chance of snow.
2) April 7th - Parkinson's HM - In Cottage Grove (home). 227 ft elevation (so not flat, but not bad at all). Temps will likely be phenomenal. Small chance of snow.
3) June 17th - Hot2Trot HM - In Cottage Grove (home). Course unknown. Temps will be bad (super hot).
The biggest issue with this plan was deciding how to go about setting it up. The Daniels HM plan is in 4 phases: Build, Repetition (Mile), Intervals (3k), and Race. The plan should be 4 weeks at each minimum. I've got 12 total weeks (including this week) from now and April 7th. There are 22 weeks from now until June 17th HM. So that would be 4+6+6+6 if it were one plan. Since the April 7th race has far superior conditions to the June 17th HM, then I really want to be primed for a good race. But this 12 week plan would be really short. So the question comes down to - do I do two smaller plans or one bigger plan that has the April HM kind of just in the middle? I mean at the end of the day, this is all meant to be a setup for the Chicago Marathon training in the Summer/Fall.
I decided to split the difference. Make a smaller HM plan to get from now until April 7th which isn't necessarily ideal for performance but should have me in a better racing condition then one long training plan. Then after a short reprieve post the first HM, pick back up in the middle of the plan and focus towards the second HM. So one short 12 week plan with 2+3+3+4 in phases. Since the plan's mileage/duration is lower than what I've done in the past I'm comfortable with having a short build-up. Then, the second part will be 1+0+6+3 into the 2nd HM.
The Training Plan
So, Dopey (the marathon) ended on 1/7/17. As is my standard plan, I took off from running for one-two weeks. I do this to assist my body in making a full recovery after the marathon. The easiest thing to point to as to why the 14 day period exists is the mitochondria. The mitochondria follow a 14 day life cycle. So 14 days after the marathon, there should be no or 1/14th remaining of the mitochondria from the marathon event itself. Otherwise all of the damaged mitochondria are now gone and have been refreshed. This is just one biophysical thing going on, but just another example as to why I choose to do no running for 10-14 days after a hard marathon effort.
Even after 10-14 days off, I still need time to get my body fully recovered. So, I follow the two weeks off with two weeks of just easy running. I consider these two sections my Recovery Phase. The recovery phase is like a reverse taper. So the easy running should be kept to 30-45 minutes, then build to 60 minutes. The pacing is all kept easy as well. The mileage/duration should be at 30-50% in the first week, then 50-70% in the second week, and then by the third week you can get close to where you were previously. Based on my previous post (How long does it take for me to recover from a marathon?) I except to start feeling normal again around 1/31-2/18. This corresponds to a good timeframe for starting back into it.
Any days marked in orange are Steph work trips. So I need to be cognizant of how much I'm running on those days.
View attachment 296378
So, starting with the week of 1/29 I begin the Phase 2 of Daniels HM. The focus is on R pace (mile) in short bursts of 200m to 400m. From a timing standpoint, this is roughly 41-82 seconds with recovery of 90-120 seconds.
-The R pace total distance shouldn't exceed 5% of the total mileage in the week. So at 55 miles in 1/29, that means the max R is 2.8 miles.
-The T pace total distance shouldn't exceed 10% of the total mileage in a week. So at 55 miles in 1/29, that means the max T is 5.5 miles.
-The M pace total distance shouldn't exceed 20% of the total mileage in a week. So at 55 miles in 1/29, that means the max M is 11 miles.
-The long run should not exceed 25% of the weekly mileage or 120 minutes.
So with that, I started building the plan with the easy days. My off day is Monday. My easy days are Wednesday, Friday and Saturday. The Wed/Fri days are treated as recovery days and thus are kept at a maximum of 60 minutes. Based on my easy pace, that's 7 miles. Then the Saturday is the moderate easy day. It can flex anywhere from 60-90 minutes and still be considered easy. I like to think of this day as the fatigue booster going into the longer Sunday run.
I like to oscillate my long runs on a week to week basis. So I go with 90 min on the down week and 90+ on the up week. With Daniels cap of 120 min (25%) puts me at 16 miles cap. The 120 min cap makes sense since that's a real aerobic threshold.
After I work backwards with easy and long put in a week, then I go back to the R and T workouts. They are some variation of R repeats at 200 or 400, or just R at 200. And then T paces at either 1 or 2 mile intervals with rest of 1 min per # T miles. Then, I backfill all the empty space with easy mileage to get the R and T workouts up to 60-90 min in total duration.
So the end goal is to have 60 min recovery days, 60-90 min hard workout days, 60-90 min fatigue booster easy day, and a 90-120 min long run.
View attachment 296377
For Phase 3, the shift focuses from R (mile) pace to I (3k) pace.
-The I pace total distance shouldn't exceed 8% of the total mileage in the week. So at 61 miles in 2/19, that means the max I is 4.9 miles. You also dictate the duration as well using your current fitness 5k pace. So my estimate is a 6:00 min/mile. So 4.9 x 6 means a max duration of I in a single training run of ~30 min.
The plan with I is to do 2-5 minutes of run and then duration run-1 min for rest. So 4 min run has 3 min rest. So 5 min run has 4 min rest. The durations matter. The I pace pushes the VO2max to the absolute max. But that doesn't really start to happen until after 2 min of running at this pace. So 3 min at this pace is really like 1 min of work. 5 min is 3 min of work. It's really really really hard to run at I pace. Last spring I failed nearly every I paced run because it's so hard. Daniels book calls them the single hardest workout in running. So yea, I don't hold much hope for me either. But I'm going to attack it like it's mile 25 of the marathon and the clock is ticking down on the sub-3.
The big shift in this Phase is the back to back hard runs. During Daniels 10k training last spring I shied away from back to back hard. I wasn't ready for it and was scared. This time I'm ready to listen to him and see what happens. To work it in my favor I did a 90 first and then a shorter duration on the second hard. We shall see how it goes.
In addition, the April HM is on a compacted gravel trail. I plan to do at least one long run and one M Tempo run on the compacted gravel trail during Phase 3 to get a feel for the effort/pace difference from road running.
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Phase 4 is racing season. I start off right away with the Shamrock Shuffle 10k. Daniels recommends easy down to 30-45 min prior to the race. The last hard workout should be 3-4 days in advance. After the 10k, I take 3 days off or easy. For every 3k racing comes one day of easy/off (so 10k = 3 days). The 4th phase also drops the hard workouts mid-week from 2 to 1. But the workout that remains is really long in duration (near 120 min). Then comes the first HM in April!
View attachment 296375
After the first HM is a 7 day rest period because 21k of racing. After the rest, go right back into the Phase 3 of the plan with more I. Either 2, 3, 4, or 5 min intervals.
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Sill oscillating long runs and trying to include an easier week every so often. During the week of 5/21 we're off to Disney for a few days for my MIL's birthday. So I'm going to plan on not doing any running. To accommodate that, I'll bookend both sides with some tough runs.
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The week of 5/28 brings the end of Phase 3 and beginning of Phase 4. And then HM in mid-June!
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Goals
-I was just looking at the corral breakdown for Chicago from 2017:
View attachment 296315
I'm squarely in Corral B right now (1:30:35 HM and 3:14:05 M). The only way to move to Corral A is a sub-1:25. Well my "current fitness" assessment says a 1:25:21 is reasonable (6:31 min/mile). But, I'm not sure I'll be 100% performance ready by April. So, I'm going with break 1:25 would be great, but expect something in the 1:27-1:30 range.
-Shamrock Shuffle - Top 10 finish
-Parkinson's HM - Sub 1:30. Maybe Sub 1:25.
-Inaugural Hot2Trot HM - Win
-Enjoy the half marathon race distance again. Missed you!
The one thing I won't due is risk my ability to race my Chicago marathon BQ attempt well with this training cycle. I am fully prepared to scrap this entire training cycle if things don't feel right. I'm not a speed runner and thus I'm not sure how my body will tolerate these paces (again a 5:xx for 5 minutes??!??!??!?
Also, it's winter in Wisconsin. Which means there very likely could be snow or ice on any of these training days. My policy will be any speed/M tempo day with adverse road conditions will be moved to an easy day when I see fit. Again it does me no good to attempt to run a speed interval session through a couple inches of snow/ice. It just won't work and it's to high an injury risk.
Alright, that's all I got. Hope you enjoyed reading how I came up with my Spring 2018 training cycle!
DopeyBadger
Imagathoner
- Joined
- Oct 15, 2015
Thanks!
Absolutely! I was able to do 6:33 this past cycle with many of them right on the 6:28 cut line. So I feel relatively confident in that.
It's certainly a great idea. Two reasons why I am shying away from that for this particular cycle. 1) I don't have very much time between now and the April HM. Based on historical data, I won't be back to normal post-Dopey until the beginning of Feb. So I could choose to train slightly slower until then to be on the safe side. 2) I'm not very good at the 5k/10k distance. I feel like I've yet to unlock how to truly race these correctly. So I always feel like I'll probably be better at the HM/M distance.
I trust my gut because I've spent years training blind to GPS. So it seems odd for me to be so aggressive, but based on what I've done at appropriate effort levels during the tail end of Dopey these paces feel right (well except maybe the I pace).
One thing I thought of is comparing my Dec 2015 HM to my 2016 Dopey HM. They were about 4% different. So my 1:30:35 Dopey HM translates to a 1:26:58 HM. A 1:26:58 HM would have the following paces:
Daniels T = 6:31
Daniels I = 5:58
Daniels R = 5:33 (41 sec and 83 sec)
Comparatively, that's pretty darn close to my proposed pacing. It's also well within the +/- window on most of the pacing. So if I shade towards the slower side of my proposed pacing, I should be near on point. Always wiling to adjust if necessary though. I'll find out real quick whether these paces are appropriate.
Makes sense! I can't wait to follow along! I am trying to access my current fitness level and a great point you said will need some times to fully recover before attempting a time trial.
U are a speedy beast
FredtheDuck
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Mar 2, 2017
I almost laughed when you said you aren't a speed runner, @DopeyBadger. Yes you are. You are a speedy endurance runner. Your recovery pace is faster than my speed pace! Give yourself some credit, you've come super far with this, and you're still chipping away to get to your true potential.
I like the cautious approach you're taking with this plan. Which is not to say that it isn't an aggressive plan - I just like that you're going into it knowing that you may have to dial it back and make adjustments and that you shouldn't feel as if that's either a shortcoming of fitness or planning... just kind of where things are falling with this cycle.
I also wanted to say that I was really glad to read this report from a technical standpoint. You've got some different things going on with my plan this cycle, and reading your plan helped me understand what we're doing a little better. So thanks for taking the time!
I like the cautious approach you're taking with this plan. Which is not to say that it isn't an aggressive plan - I just like that you're going into it knowing that you may have to dial it back and make adjustments and that you shouldn't feel as if that's either a shortcoming of fitness or planning... just kind of where things are falling with this cycle.
I also wanted to say that I was really glad to read this report from a technical standpoint. You've got some different things going on with my plan this cycle, and reading your plan helped me understand what we're doing a little better. So thanks for taking the time!
DopeyBadger
Imagathoner
- Joined
- Oct 15, 2015
Makes sense! I can't wait to follow along! I am trying to access my current fitness level and a great point you said will need some times to fully recover before attempting a time trial.
Thanks! That's exactly what I would have suggested for you. Give yourself at least 42 days after the marathon to be prepared to try for a time trial. You can certainly do one sooner, but it won't be the most accurate current fitness assessment. It takes at least 28 days to fully recover from an "A" level marathon effort and especially one where you see a fade towards the end.
That's certainly not lost on me. I know I'm fast these days. I'm locally good, but not anywhere close to elite. With that being said, my comment is more in a relative sense. Some people are better at 5k/10k than their race equivalent HM/M. I feel as if I'm the opposite. I feel that I'm better at HM and M because of my predisposition to endurance (it certainly hasn't always been that way). So those faster end spectrum paces are extra hard for me because they're just a bit outside my wheel house. The Daniels T or 10k paced training runs in the last cycle, easy. That single 5k paced training run, SUPER hard. But agreed, I'm speedy endurance runner.
The reality is this is just another stepping stone. How my body reacts to the training is crucial. It does me no good to go down the path of Lakefront 2016 again and survive the training and not thrive because of it. So I use those interval % for the run and week as a check to make sure I'm in the right place.
Thanks! I tried to go a bit more technical in this one to show the ins and outs of writing training plans. This plan is certainly different than most of the ones I write, but the aspects of it are similar in nature. For yours, I started with these ideas:
-Write in the "A" race and other associated races.
-Write in the days off.
-Write the long run into the plan oscillating between max allowed duration and 90 min. As weeks progress backwards to beginning of plan start to adjust the 90 min run down.
-First time at 5 days per week. So while the Easy/Hard split goal of 80/20 says she can handle a 3rd hard day, we need to see whether that's appropriate. So start the plan with 2 hard days, then transition into 2/3 alternating.
-We have 17 weeks until race day. This allows for 2 or 3 mini-cycles within the plan. Her goal is a HM. So rule of specificity says start further away from goal pace and work towards it. Since she has yet to do any R, I, or T, then we should start with 5k pacing to see how she reacts. The second mini-cycle should get closer to goal pace, so move to T pacing with HM Tempo. Any weekend HM Tempo run should have a progression proceeding it so as to not stress the muscles the same way in a short span of time.
-Using her pace determine length of easy run using 60 min max duration. Adjust any run down if there is a limit of less than 60.
-Check the 5k pace, T pace and HM Tempo for max duration limits. T pace no more than 40 total min. HM Tempo no more than 60 total min. 5k pace no more than 30 total min. Adjust # of intervals of each to fit inside those windows.
-Now that plan is nearly complete, go back to the long run. What is the % of total weekly mileage? Does it exceed 35%? Can we get it down to 25-30% and still hit a healthy amount of duration for the desired distance? If not, are we ok with this violation?
-Now that the plan is complete, go back and look through for oscillating weekly duration and mileage. Is there a down week at least every 4 weeks that is much less than the others? This down week is the adaptation week as the body is allowed to recover and adapt to the prior training.
-Last step: find all runs over 90 min and mark as nutrition. Find good runs to use as blind training runs.
-Save plan and send out!
KSellers88
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Oct 22, 2015
This is awesome! I love the numbers side of things, but I just don't know enough so I love reading your perspective on training since I know you have studied it so much. I agree with @FredtheDuck though, you definitely are a speed endurance runner. I'm excited to see you crush this training cycle in preparation to get that BQ in Chicago!
DopeyBadger
Imagathoner
- Joined
- Oct 15, 2015
I love the math that's involved. I find it to be like a little game trying to put the pieces together. So while some a good crossword or a good sudoku. I'm sitting their playing my own "developing training plan" game!
I'm excited to race some HMs! They're probably my favorite distance and it's been far too long (2.5 years) since I have run one as a non-challenge event. I'm also excited to see where this training plan puts me for Chicago training. I'm toying with the idea of getting a custom Gaudette (runners connect) training plan to get his feedback on training plan development since he's a Hansons disciple but with a different twist. So I need to have a few good race performances to use as a current fitness assessment for Chicago. We shall see.
SarahDisney
So ... Yeah
- Joined
- Jul 23, 2014
Interesting stuff!
If all goes well, I think the sub-1:25 in April may be possible. You've definitely got a good plan, and assuming the training feels right, I think you'll be in good shape even with the shorter training cycle (but that's just my non-scientific thoughts). Even if you don't get sub-1:25, I think a PR will definitely be in order - based on the training paces you have set out, sub-1:30 should be a breeze!
If all goes well, I think the sub-1:25 in April may be possible. You've definitely got a good plan, and assuming the training feels right, I think you'll be in good shape even with the shorter training cycle (but that's just my non-scientific thoughts). Even if you don't get sub-1:25, I think a PR will definitely be in order - based on the training paces you have set out, sub-1:30 should be a breeze!
michigandergirl
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Mar 28, 2013
Definitely interesting stuff, and I was especially interested to read about marathon recovery. My initial plan was to take two weeks off after Dopey, but only ended up taking off one. I got nervous realizing I have a half in less than 3 weeks, so I figured I better get back at it, but now wondering if I should've taken two weeks? Of course my marathon was not a hard effort and the running I've done this week has been easy and under 45 minutes, so I should be good, right? Just thinking out loud here...
DopeyBadger
Imagathoner
- Joined
- Oct 15, 2015
Thanks!
Thanks for the vote of confidence! I'm excited to see what happens!
Definitely interesting stuff, and I was especially interested to read about marathon recovery. My initial plan was to take two weeks off after Dopey, but only ended up taking off one. I got nervous realizing I have a half in less than 3 weeks, so I figured I better get back at it, but now wondering if I should've taken two weeks? Of course my marathon was not a hard effort and the running I've done this week has been easy and under 45 minutes, so I should be good, right? Just thinking out loud here...
You're fine with only one week off for sure. The two weeks (or day of for every 3k racing) is off OR easy, so no reason to worry. I tend to go 14 days off, but as long as things are kept easy you're safe. I started running again on Wednesday of this week.
jennamfeo
Powered by Pizza
- Joined
- Aug 25, 2017
Seriously, same here. Hahahaha.
Reading your breakdown makes my plan make more sense to me, if that even makes sense. It's like getting a peek in your brain for when you build these plans for everyone. Can't wait to watch you train and race this year! #BQBound
Sailormoon2
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Mar 10, 2015
I love the ralativity of running! Your easy run is not even and a pace I could hold to sprint 400 meters! It is so fascinating in a totally nerdy way to have a glimpse into the pacing structure of a much faster runner.
DopeyBadger
Imagathoner
- Joined
- Oct 15, 2015
Maybe that means I need to write a "How I create a training plan" post. So you can see the inner workings to help make the plan make more sense.
I love the ralativity of running! Your easy run is not even and a pace I could hold to sprint 400 meters! It is so fascinating in a totally nerdy way to have a glimpse into the pacing structure of a much faster runner.
So true. And I can't even sprint for 200m the pace at which Kipchoge and Rupp run the marathon in. Mind = Blown!
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