Everyone is different, and a case study isn't experimental
science, but a case study can still be valuable. I've decided to open myself up to throw out a
relatively hard "experiment" that I am trying to pull off.
Long story short: My A-race for the first half of the summer
was the KS 70.3 which was June 9.
Because my son qualified for Boston for next year, I decided to run a
marathon to try to qualify as well, so (I hope) we can both go in the
spring. I just think that would be very
cool. It puts a lump in my summer plans
for this year, but this is a game about having fun, and I think running Boston
with my son would be FUN. After
examining the calendar, and talking to my local Every-State-Marathon-Guy, I
settled on Grandma's marathon in Duluth, MN June 22...one day short of two
weeks after the HIM. So this
blog/experiment is about seeing if one can have a good HIM and a good marathon.
I've been planning this for a while. I've consulted with Patrick and a few other
folks I trust (notably Matt Aaronson), and I modified my HIM build up so that I
was doing marathon-length runs on Thursdays.
To "pay" for that and preserve my legs, my Saturday bike rides
were exercises in VERY long segments at around 0.85 IF. I actually put up bikes with bigger TSS than
I did in previous years in the same amount of time using the standard FTP/etc 3
hour rides...but I didn't do the FTP work those days. I resolved to live with the FTP that I had
already and just work hard to stretch how well I could go in the 0.80-0.85 race
specific zone.
I had a good HIM race.
In fact, it was my best time by 10 min on the course in four tries. I won't reiterate here, but I will give the
link to the race report below. Suffice
it to say that I ran hard, but in the last 10 min of the race, instead of
trying to squeeze out the last 10-20 sec that I might have been able to, I just
kept running hard and steady. I didn't
see anyone within a reasonable range to try to beat. This was a concession to
not putting myself in quite as big a recovery hole.
http://members.endurancenation.us/F...fault.aspx
I have consulted again with Patrick about advice on what to
do for the two weeks. I have to keep up some aerobic activity, but I have to
recover my legs. (Can
"recover" be a transitive verb like that?) He laid out a great looking plan. I can't execute it exactly due to limitations
of when various facilities are available to me, but I'm trying to hold to its
spirit. Below is the day by day
description of how things are going. I
will update this, rather than ad additional posts each day.
June 10, Monday
I'm sore and stiff.
Duh. Stretched and self massaged,
but took the day completely off. Found
myself avoiding goign up and down stairs more than usual, but I'm not in
terrible shape.
June 11, Tuesday
I really felt the need for some active recovery, and a swim
was very convenient to pull off in the early morning at the local outdoor LCM
pool. I swam easy, did some snorkel/buoy pulling, and just a little bit of
"work" with some 50s at the end.
My normal SCY workout pace averages around 95 sec/100, so the LCM should
be in the neighborhood of 105 sec, i.e., 1:45/hundred. I was obviously slower than that, except for
300 with paddles and the 50s. I spent 45
min in the pool and 20 minutes stretching and massaging right after. I was still pretty sore all day, but felt a
TON better after the swim than I had before it.
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/327210640
June 12, Wednesday
I was less sore today, but still could feel it in certain
key places. As per Patrick's suggestion,
I did some water running in the late afternoon.
This was the first time I had tried it and I felt like a dork wearing
that big blue thing and going into the deep end of the pool. Obviously, the
Garmin doesn't know what to make of this, so I don't have a reasonable link to
post. I did a short swim warmup and then
went over to try this new activity. I
"ran" for about 35-40 min, total of about 55 min at the pool. (SCY indoor) This felt ok, and it felt good
to get the "running breath", which is different than swimming.
When I got out of the pool, I felt a lot more tired in the
legs than I expected, and in fact, just more tired than I expected. I hoped I had not made a mistake in doing
this a day or two too soon.
Thursday, June 13.
In the morning, on arising, I felt really ok. I concluded that I am still tiring easily,
but that the physical work of the water running was fine. My muscle soreness isn't completely gone, but
it's very much attenuated. Afternoon
water running or bike riding isn't going to fit into my day today because of
family obligation, so I went for a workout at the LCM pool. Today I felt good enough to actually do a
semi-workout, and not JUST swim to get the blood circulating. It was still low intensity, but I felt like I
was actually swimming with a little purpose.
I did a 300 warmup and then a set of 10 x 100 as 50 fairly
hard/50 easy. Those were coming in at
around 1:40 pace, which was pretty surprising!
Followed that up with 500 easy snorkel swimming. The snorkel swimming is not something I am
especially good at, but it does let me work the whole body more. That was
pretty slow, in part because I am very bad about when water gets into the
snorkel and I have to stop or blow it out.
I'm just not good at it. The last
thing I did was a set of 50s in mixed strokes...sort of an alternating IM
order, though I finished up with a pretty ugly 50 fly. It was a good way to end
though. Let me feel like I had worked
without being really physically exhausted in the long run.
Getting out of the pool, just like the day before, I though
to myself that I was more tired than I should be for just swimming 2600 M, but
I felt fine otherwise. No worries about
it having been too much from a muscular standpoint. By the time I got to work, I was feeling
pretty normal.
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/327210664
In the evening, I took the kids out to their first Time
Trial bike race. I brought my bike to
ride easy with them to make sure they were ok during warmup. Rode maybe 20 min. No problem, but it was clear I wasn't 100%
June 14, Friday
Legs are still tired, but not sore any more. I can still feel it going up and down stairs,
but I'm fully functional. :-)
I went water running again today, this time for an hour,
including a 5 min swim warmup. I still mostly used the buoy, but did about 20
minutes in spurts without it. I was (unsurprisingly) stronger, and the legs
didn't feel so wiped when I got out.
Still kind of wondering how they will react to the 2-2.5 easy ride
Patrick has on tap for tomorrow.
Saturday, June 15
I haven't been so nervous to take a crazy easy bike ride in
a long time. Fortunately, it turned out
just fine. I felt very good, and kept
the power very modest. I went out for 42
miles...just turning around at a convenient place. IF 0.62, TSS 85. Interestingly, there WAS a warmup effect. The power in the second half was in general
higher than the first half (though I coasted all I wanted to).
The ride left my legs more tired than it normally would, but
nothing crazy. http://connect.garmin.com/activity/328302547
Sunday, June 16
I took the day off entirely and played Sherpa to my twins
who did a local sprint race. Great
fun. I REALLY wanted to be getting onto
the bike when they were, but I managed.
:-)
Monday, June 17
It's time to start planning race week. Ya think?
The race is Saturday, not Sunday, so that moves things
around just a bit. I'll take the last
two days off the feet, so here's the plan.
I'm trying to take care not to taper so hard down to nothing that I lose
too much aerobic fitness, since I obviously tapered for the HIM.
- Monday short swim and short run with some short fast intervals. Classic "taper" run, but also just waking the legs up again.
- Tuesday: hour swim and steady easy run as I feel, 45-60 min.
- Wednesday: short swim and ~5 mi run with some strides
- Thursday: swim
- Friday off
- Saturday race.
The Monday morning swim was short (1800 LCM), but went very
well. I got across the pool routinely in
26-27 (right) strokes, and 25 when going harder or thinking about it. Last year, it was more like 30-31 and 28 when
focusing. The swim club uses some of
the lanes during the time that I do my LCM swimming (which is why I go then...kids). The coach walked over to me after I was done
and told me I looked good today and he really noticed the difference from last
week. That was nice. http://connect.garmin.com/activity/329256829
The Monday evening run was made especially short by
life. I hate feeling rushed, but it is
what it is. I also accidentally turned
my Garmin off instead of on just as I took off, so the distance is short by
maybe 0.3-0.4 mile. But that's
trivia. Basically, I ran about 3.5 miles
with 4 intervals that were in the range of 0.2-0.35 miles. The run did not feel elegant, but all the
parts were working. Average pace was
~7:20, and the pickups were a little faster than my formal threshold pace of
around 6:30. (I didn't bother with
hitting the lap button. Shoot me.) The good news was that the second half felt
better than the first; it was hot, but that actually felt pretty good...got
that good run sweat up in a shorter period.
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/329889320
Tuesday, June 18
For today, the plan was to put in some more yards in the
pool and a bit longer run - separated by the day - to try to help stave off the
aerobic fitness fall-off for the last time.
Obviously, all the run work I can do to get faster or stronger was done
a couple weeks ago. The swim was pretty routine, and almost entirely just
moderate effort at the outdoor LCM pool.
300 warmup, 10 x 50 as half-fast-half easy, 500 pull, 500 pull with
paddles, 500 swim with snorkel, and then a few hundreds to finish off with
doing whatever I felt like. :-) What possessed me to swim 50 fly is
unclear. Let me correct that...what
possessed me to swim about 40 fly and then flail for 10 m is unclear. :-)
Anyway, the swim felt good and I didn't get out of the pool feeling
exhausted.
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/329889332
Tuesday evening's run was a real mixed bag. On one hand, the run felt like better form
than Monday's. On the other, the legs
were clearly not ready to race at all. They just felt pretty leaden. To be honest, this was a little
worrying. The run was just an easy 6
miles. http://connect.garmin.com/activity/330174890
Wednesday, June 19
I decided, given the "leaden" bit from Wednesday
to keep things very short. Just a little
stimulus, but trying to keep the "wear" very minimal. Swam 1500 LCM first thing in the
morning. This felt great.
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/330174896
In order to maximize recovery time, I did the run as a short
follow up to the swim, immediately after.
I took an unfamiliar walking/running path through a park and ended up
climbing a bunch of stairs, but whatever.
The run did not feel that great, even though it was only 3+ miles and
very easy. This was not a high point in
the last 10 days; that's for sure. I
spent a good 20 minutes stretching and self-massaging. http://connect.garmin.com/activity/330174902
No more running between today and Saturday. I will be doing lots of
stretching/massaging/etc.
Will do a short swim on Thursday, and then we are good to
go.
Thursday, June 20.
Morning swim at the LCM pool. Just about 1600 as a 500 warmup and around
9 x 100 pretty hard but not killing
myself with plenty of rest in between. Some pull, some swim. Then one as 50
free and 50 fly cuz the guy next to me was a friend who was doing a bunch of
fly with fins. 100 just to bring the
heart rate down from the fly. :-) Again,
I took an extended stretch and leg rubbing before leaving the pool. http://connect.garmin.com/activity/330578821
Odd...this day actually felt like taper. I know I've said the previous days swims felt
good, but this one felt good, and felt short.
Yes, it was short, but it's different that it felt that way... like I
was actually holding back. I took that
as a reassuring feeling. Still, the rest
of the day, every time I walk up the stairs, I'm testing to see if I feel
fatigue in the quads.
Friday, June 21.
Completely off. I
slept in, getting about 9.5 hours sleep.
I'm at work as I write this, and I'm already getting the usual pre-race
jitters. I'm still not sure about the legs, but I think they felt just that
much better going up and down the stairs at home. Recovery or adrenaline is hard to
distinguish.
Saturday, June 22 (race day!)
I will post a race report shortly, but here is the quick and
dirty version, and the important part as it refers to this post..
- I chose an appropriate marathon time target that was slower than I would have been able to train for if I had been doing just marathon training, but all my runs made it feel appropriate. I was able to race and make that time.
- I have run enough marathons to know how/when my legs should start really hurting. My legs started hurting early: early signs at mile 8-9, and definite at 13. I expect that I may have a long recovery because of this exercise.
- Despite the pain, I was able to maintain pace. In fact, I negative-splitted the race. It was hard and it hurt, but I didn't break down like I had done in a couple earlier marathons when that kind of pain started. In previous "bad" marathons, where the early pain came from undertraining and/or too aggressive a pace, I fell off.
My conclusion is I suppose obvious: this is a doable exercise, but requires
care. I think the keys include (a)
getting in some marathon-appropriate runs during the HIM build; (b) executing a
good HIM; (c) selecting an appropriate target marathon time that might be a few
minutes slower than what you could do without the HIM...but I don't think it
has to be more than a few if the other things are done right.
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