Glenn Training Log – 10 Weeks Out

August 25th – August 31st – 10 Weeks to go

7 Runs

78.5 miles

1 Workout, 1 longish kinda run (over 120 minutes)

Monday – 8.1 miles. About 8:40 pace. Ran in the afternoon. It was hot and gross out. Lindsey had her 20 week appt in the morning. Recovery from the 20 the day prior. Turded around in the woods at IMA a bit. It’d be sweet if they had about 1,000 acres instead of a 100.

Tuesday – 11.2 miles. Still gross out. General aerobic easy effort. 7:25 pace. I always see the same people in the morning…especially three fast ass girls. I should start running with them.

Wednesday – 15 miles. The staple of the Pftiz approach to marathon training. I used today as a easy effort into a cutdown workout over the last six miles. Still gross out. Moved from 7:00 to 6:05 over the last 6. Happy with the effort. Good workout.

Thursday – Recovery. 8.4 miles. 8:12 pace. I don’t really remember this run.

Friday – Easy day. General aerobic session again. 12.6 miles. Around 7:40 pace. I’ve been playing around a lot with heart rate training recently and wanted to do a max heart rate check. I’ve been pretty dialed in on what heart rate means what effort but I thought it would be fun to test it out. I finished the run in Crown Hill to try and test the heart rate. The test was going to be 3 hill reps with the first @ 90% and the last two at 100% effort with the theory being by the end of the 2nd and the 3rd rep your heart rate should be maxed out. So we live in Indianapolis which isn’t exactly the mecca of hill running so finding an ideal hill with a climb of 2-3 minutes is difficult but Crown Hill worked.

1st rep – HR 175

2nd rep – HR 181

3rd rep – HR 181

4th rep for fun – HR 181

Based on this I would say my max heart rate comes in at 181 or so… maybe a beat or two higher since the hill wasn’t long enough to get the full 2-3 minutes. I ran out of hill at about 100 seconds. So what does mean? It gives me another tool to use while training…something besides pace and perceived effort to help govern the training. I especially like it for the hard days and the recovery days. Pace can be deceiving but your heart rate lets you know real quick where you stand.

Here are my estimated zones:

Pretty much what I thought my zones were but it was fun to do the test. I’ll probably do it again in 6 weeks to see if they change. As the fitness improves, your max HR comes down.

Saturday- I had to take a day trip to Chicago to get a couch we bought from my sister so no morning run…just a recovery run with some barefoot strides in the grass when I got home. 8 miles at 9:00 miles. Marshall was in tow for this one. He usually did the strides with me.

Sunday – This was supposed to strength workout with marathon pace work and I wasn’t really feeling it so when Scott texted me Saturday night that he and some friends were running for 2 hours in Eagle Creek I was easily persuaded to do that instead. Looking at my schedule, I can move the strength workout to the 1 of the coming two weekends. It shouldn’t be a problem.

In terms of the actual run, we ran mostly in Eagle Creek West and got in about 15.3 miles in 2:15. Fun trails and good hills on the west side of the park. Two of the guys that I met up with were doing 4 hours each…um no thanks. I’m sure meeting up with Scott and I was a welcome distraction from slugging out 4 hours alone.

Oh and Sunday was Lindsey’s birthday! After the run, we went out for a late lunch at the HopCat and slothed around and enjoyed the Labor Day holiday.

Overall, a solid week of training. Looking forward to racing the Hendricks County Half next weekend and possibly Knobstone Trail Half as I get ready for Monumental.