Thursday, April 2, 2009

Thursday 1:23

am) 51:00 run. Absolutely gorgeous morning! Blazing sunshine on nearly a foot of new snow.
pm) 32:00 easy jogging. I will (hopefully) be on the track tomorrow if any of them are dry. I feel awesome.

My mind was very relaxed today and for the first time in a very long while I was at ease with what I was doing. My new "guide" has given me peace and I'm no longer questioning the path to take.
Matt Fitzgerald posted about our body's ability to recognize a mile. I have always tried to base my coaching on time because what I have learned is that 1 mile to me is not 1 mile to a beginner. But 10:00 to me is 10:00 to a beginner. It's the "equalizer" if you will. The schedule I am going to follow for the rest of this year is based on time only with the key hard sessions based more on distance and time. It is important when you have a goal time in a race to know some paces.
So I looked back at my log books and have gotten a rough average for the time it has taken me to run various weekly mileages when I was not living at higher altitude.
80 = 9:00- 10:00 hours
90 = 10:00- 11:00
100 = 11:00-12:00
110 = 12:30-13:30
120 = 13:30-14:30
130 = 14:30-15:30
140 = 16:00-17:00

In an effort to not over think things (as much), I hope this helps. Doing this should help ease my anxiety over running so much slower in the high altitude and the brutal terrain. If Matt is correct- then wouldn't a 11:00-12:00 week be somewhat equivalent to a 100 mile week for me? Of course I am now over thinking it. I thought this would help me to think less but I think that thinking so much about trying not to think is over thinking. Don't you think?

7 comments:

GZ said...

generally I try to get 9-11 hours. I track miles but in the summer as I do more hills, I need to track time more. Simply, when I run for two hours but only have 7 miles to show for it I can still feel some accomplishment in the two hours (in the log). Head games.

Lucho said...

This "debate", if you will, over equivalencies might be easier with a HR monitor which can help to show effort a little better. It isn't absolute but it is one more data point. I know that an easy 1:00 up here is much harder than 9 miles in Boulder on the flats. But I wonder if they equal the same or similar in terms of fitness gains? They have to...

Brett said...

Many talented people like GZ and Matt Carpenter focus a lot more on time on their feet rather than distance covered. Albeit for sometimes different reasons - doing a lot of incline work, being at altitude, etc.

I think your thinking here is correct. Eventually you will be able to compare distances now to distances 6 months ago, etc...but not yet as you are in an entirely different environment (incline and altitude both) than you were last year.

GZ said...

Yeah - great topic ...

... so, in terms of "hills" the topic of equivalency was discussed on the PPMB ... there appears to be a concept of METS that can be used for equivalence... as is stated in that thread - HR is another good standard: http://georgezack.blogspot.com/2009/03/mets-info.html

Altitude ... a different variable, and as you have noted, not clearly explored as much. There appears to be some concept of "responders" and folks that who are not ...

Lucho said...

I think HR may be the better starting point for learning faster, but in the end it will be crucial to dial more in to perceived effort. METS are complicated.. too much math for me. It is fun though to have this new challenge in front of me. I think my new "guide", having trained at 8000ft for a 2:13 marathon, will be a huge help.
Great points.

JK1 said...

Gorgeous Morning? YOUR'RE GORGEOUS!

RUNssel said...

def a good approach your opting for tim.

Sell the heartrate monitor :-)