Getting Some Advice from the Expert

Having a coach would be a great thing. Runners with coaches always have someone to consult when issues like illness, injury or just plain "what do I do now?" come up. I don't have a coach, and with the looming move and likely rent increase, I don't think I'll be able to afford one for quite a while.

Luckily, because I'm following the FIRST Run Less, Run Faster program, I don't often have questions the book doesn't answer. But over the weeks of this training cycle, a couple have cropped up. So I did what any good former newspaper woman would do, and I emailed the source directly. Bill Pierce is one of the co-authors of Run Less, Run Faster. He wrote back to my email within two hours of my sending it.

Here were my questions (in italics) followed by his answers:

Q1. I plan to follow the running workouts to the letter that week, but it's unclear to me whether I should continue x-training the week before the half-marathon (or for that matter the marathon when it comes). Do I just rest on what are normally xt days or keep x-training? My x-training workout of choice is a twice-weekly spinning class. Over the summer, it will probably be rowing and outdoor cycling.

A1. The week of your race you can make XT days rest days or you can do 20-30 minutes of easy spinning once or twice. (After our emails, I found out that my spin class may not be happening the week before my race anyway, because it's spring break around here. So there should be no temptation to overdo whatever I end up doing instead.)

Q2. I will have about nine weeks between the Boulder Half and the start of the 16-week marathon training program detailed in your book. What would be the best thing to do with that time? I don't want to lose any endurance or speed. Would it be OK to train for a race? Another thought I had was to ramp up the long runs to get a jump-start on that piece of it. But honestly I'm not sure what to do with those two months.

A2. Increasing the long runs so that you are comfortable doing 15 mile runs would be good. Also, go ahead and do a speed workout but not necessarily one of the track repeats. Go to our website and click on Tuesday workouts for something different. Don't worry about a target time, just do the workouts at about 90-95% intensity. Also, keep the tempo run of 5-6 miles and make it a good effort without focusing on a target pace.

He went on to say that he has run the Top of Utah Marathon and that it's a good course, especially for someone who is used to altitude.

I'm excited about this and feel less at sea now that I have a plan for the nine weeks before marathon training starts. The other thing I plan to do is use that time to really focus on my nutrition and weight. Stay tuned for more on how I plan to go about this!

Thanks for the help, Bill, in case you're reading this!

New Race, New Pace

"The Road goes ever on and on,
Down from the door where it began.
Now far ahead the Road has gone
And I must follow if I can."
--from The Lord of the Rings

It's now been a week since the Colder Boulder. In addition to continuing to bask a little bit in my happiness at the result, I and my family celebrated Dec. 8, a great day because it was our twins' 4th birthday. We also visited with my dad and his wife who drove out for the occasion from Missouri. With all of the eating out and birthday cake, I completely fell off the good food bandwagon, but will climb back on tomorrow, knowing I have a visit with Martha on Thursday morning and a lot of running work ahead that being lighter will make easier.

I have also shifted into half-marathon training mode, my eye on March 27 and the Boulder Spring Half. I ran easy on Tuesday, kept up the two days of aerobic cross training mandated by the FIRST program (I'll do a post on cross-training later) and on Thursday resumed full-on running with a tempo workout (tempo runs include a warm-up mile or so, a series of back-to-back miles at a semi-hard pace, and finally an easy cool-down). And yesterday I ran 10 miles for the first time in three weeks.

My training paces have all increased. The FIRST program, unlike some where you choose a race pace you're shooting for and then base training paces on that, uses your *last* race to determine proper paces to train. My prior training paces were based on October's Boulder Half-Marathon. Now, thanks to the Colder Boulder, I have a whole new set of (faster) speeds to hit in my runs. Here's how it breaks down (all times per-mile):

*1-mile intervals: Formerly 8:22s, now (gulp) 7:37s (I will do intervals of other lengths, but that's sort of the signature one)
*Tempo pace: Formerly 8:55 or 9:10, now 8:09 or 8:24 (my tempo run on Thursday was 3 miles at 8:09, and it felt hard but do-able--yay!!)
*Long run pace: Formerly 9:25, now 9:03 or 9:13 (depending on the distance and how far into the program I am)

The half-marathon race pace my 5K time predicts: 8:43, or a 1:54:16 (given faithful adherence to my training program). I'm excited about this, as it's right in line with my next goal of beating 2 hours in the half by as wide a margin as I can. (As a side note, my 5K also predicts a 3:57:17 marathon--not good enough for Boston, but *much* better than the 4:19 predicted by my last half. So I have definitely gotten closer! Hopefully March's half will bring me closer still.)

I've been formulating a few ideas not spelled out in the plan that should also help. I'm going to try to do as many of the long runs as possible *on* the half-marathon course itself. It's the same course out by the Boulder Reservoir where I ran my disappointing October half, and so I think getting to know every hill and dip of its gravelly length will give me an edge.

I'm also planning to do a race in February (the 10-mile Snowman Stampede) in lieu of another lonely long run, just to keep it interesting. As with the Turkey Trot, this won't be for speed but rather as a pacing exercise (and I'll try not to let it freak me out as I did with the Turkey Trot--repeat after me: "This is not my target race").

Of course a lot of this will depend on staying healthy. My kids both have a cold now, and though Dan and I have so far avoided this one, I know there's one out there with my name on it and that when it hits I *must* deal with it properly so as not to derail my progress. I've noticed my bedtime creeping later again, too, and I need to get back to 9:30 p.m. lights out at the latest.

So with my work cut out for me, let my Road's next stage begin!