lol sorry but maybe not the best idea, the point of the 17 is to be out there for the whole 17 because that's when your body is making the most marathon-specific gains. And anyway if you really race the 5k then you're prob not going to want to be doing a long run later that day.

I just looked at one of the higdon schedules--do you have a half-marathon race the sunday before? Heh, welcome to the world of trying to fit race days into training plans...it's a huge pain to shuffle stuff around but you'll figure out a solution. If you are racing the half, then my vote would be to take it easy the following saturday by not doing the tempo, then race your 5k on sunday, then do the 17 mile run like on tuesday or something, then do the 18 mile run long run the next tuesday, and then get back on the sunday schedules with the 13 miler the following week.

you're doing so well now, just be aware of the totally normal tendency to overdo it, it's really easy when you're feeling awesome. Racing the half-marathon should feel like a huge effort, that's a key workout. But you can't then also do your longest long run so far (17 miles) and then another 5K race all in the next week, it's almost definitely too much.

Another option would be to scrap the august 12th 5K, to just race the half-marathon hard and then to do the 17 miler according to plan, and then if you want to do a 5K later, to swap it for a tempo or a long run on week 14, the week they have you dial your long run back to 12.

Or if the 5K doesn't work out but you want to do a speed workout at VO2 pace instead of tempo pace, then it would be easy to come up with something to swap for some tempo in the next two months. Piece of cake.

PS just going by what you've posted I'll bet your tempo pace is ~7:30. Good job so far.

Well... if simply getting 17 in one shot is the priority... I will probably need to do some shuffling, as you said. I know the long runs are all about just being out there for a really long time, burning fat and getting used to the distance, but I figured one week mixing it up wouldn't hurt me. However, I trust your opinion so I will figure out a way to get that 17-miler in.

I am planning on "racing" the half marathon the week before, although it'll just be by myself -- not paying for/traveling to an official race.

And skipping the 5k is pretty much out of the question. I want to see what I can do. Pretty sure I can smash 21:52 which is the best I've run since I started running again. Also I have a couple friends running it, one of whom is also doing the Portland Marathon and is pretty much on the same training track I am. I beat him in the last 5k we ran, but he also just did a half marathon last weekend in 1:49 which is pretty impressive to me at this point. (Side note: He's a different guy than the 1:58 half miler... his best PR is 16:20 5k, also about 17 years ago).

sounds good, and in that case I'd probably go with the 17 & 18 mile tuesday long run plan, but the biggest factor will be just how you feel that week, and honestly if you scrap the 17 miler completely it wouldn't be a huge deal.

It's gonna be hard to totally push yourself in the half-marathon time trial, but again, not a huge deal. Should be interesting to compare your half time with your 5k time to see if they mesh with each other on the charts.

This is a great log. Good luck in your half, I was thinking about running one at the end of September. This will be a big jump for me, but I am confident that I can build up to it in the next two months.

I ran a 20K in college (12.4 miles) in 1:17 something, but I am not nearly in the same shape now as I was then (that was 7 or 8 years ago). Do you have a time goal for the half? I think you are definitely in shape to run under 1:45. I will be aiming for around the same time come my half.

Ugh, nearly a 2,000 calorie dinner tonight. Good thing I run so much.

knight, I am going to shoot for slightly faster than my friend in the half marathon. We'll see if I can maintain that pace for 13.1

Easy 4 miles on Thursday (9:15 pace).

Rest Friday.

Today I did something that more closely resembled a "tempo run" than what I've been doing. Started with 2 miles easy (9:29, 9:12) then picked it up to a fast pace... a bit slower than 5k pace but maybe faster than 10k pace (7:21, 7:15), then slowed back down to finish with 9:14, 9:23, 9:28.

Felt good overall. It was a nice change of pace to run "hard" for a bit.

Bad idea. After the 5K you wont be able to run a quality 8-10 that night. What I done before is to run 14 miles into the start of the race. Plan to arrive just as the race starts and run the race.

That would be fine if I didn't care about running a fast time for the 5k, which I do.

Gonna reschedule the 17-miler by a day or two.

I actually don't think it is that bad of an idea to run 8-10 after the 5k, but it has to be close to the end of the race, 15-30 mins after would probably be best. Here is why, This is your first race in a while, that is exciting and your adrenaline will be flowing. After the race the adrenaline, excitement, and hormonal release will be at very high levels, especially if it is a good race. You might be surprised about how much you can handle after the race. It is also a good thing to train the body to run longer when TIRED since that is what a marathon becomes, whoever can keep pace when already tired.

Another great thing about it is you are basically freerolling it. If you aren't feeling up to it, just reschedule by a few days. Also it can feel pretty badass when you see the guys you finished with already going home, but you still have 7 miles to go on the day. These kind of unorthodox hard workouts can be very motivating in a time when the constant hard work can feel like a grind.

I could see that being good but we're doing brunch with the other friends (who are also running the 5k) immediately afterward.

Just finished 14 miles. I made a strong effort to start slow and finish strong. Here's what I did for splits. Bear in mind that the first half is overall slightly downhill and the second half is slightly uphill. Total elevation gain/loss according to my GPS is about 1000 feet.

10:07
9:29
9:40
10:02
10:24
10:08
10:21
10:14
10:11
10:18
9:18
9:16
9:17
9:33

Total 14 miles in 2:18:58



It was a pretty challenging run, mostly because my feet started hurting around 8 miles and they pretty much ached the rest of the way. At about 5.3 miles I started getting an upset stomach but it resolved itself after half a mile or so.

Not bad for a day when I woke up at 5:30

hey man nice job on the run, that looks way better. Hope it felt ok to finish strong instead of steadily slowing down. When you eventually run this marathon you're probably going to be shooting for relatively even splits (or on that course maybe even negative splitting) so this is all in preparation for that.

imo this is the kind of random bs that most people's bodies just seem to sort out as they do more long runs. The first six weeks that I started serious long runs my hands would swell up and start flaking off in chunks. And then it just stopped happening, beats me.

Update after finishing this week's runs.

Tuesday: 4.08 @ 9:05
Wednesday: 7 @ 9:13
Thursday: 4.1 @ 9:02

On Tuesday I jogged to the track and then did one mile at ~85% effort. Clocked 6:23 by hand, but my GPS later claimed that I had a 6:04 somewhere in there. Hmm. It was by no means a race effort, but it was challenging -- mostly because it was really ****ing hot out and I hadn't fully digested my lunch.

Other than that one little indulgence, all the other mileage was at a more or less steady pace with a few minor "surges." I just wrapped the Thursday run a few hours ago and my legs feel awesome.

Tomorrow is a rest day and then I have 7 on Saturday and 15 on Sunday. I may not make the 7 a tempo run in the interest of saving a little extra for the 15... but we'll see. Also I think I have a plan worked out for fitting in the 5k, the half marathon race and the 17 in the coming 2 weeks... but I'll post about that later.

Oh yeah, I'm still tracking food to the best of my ability. I seem to usually eat about 3k calories a day no matter how many miles I've run. So it either results in a medium/big deficit or a medium surplus (on rest days). I think I'm losing a tiny bit of weight, so that's a good sign. It still bounces around a bit but I've been under 175 for several days in a row, including 173.8 yesterday and 173 flat today.

How do you track your food intake? I've used weight watchers in the past, and I lost a bunch of weight really quickly, but I didn't think it was wise to continue to use it while training. I need to somehow be better about tracking my calories and whatnot, but I don't even know where to start with this. I am currently at 187 pounds, but I would like to be down under 175 by the end of the year, and under 160 eventually. I run enough to do it, I just don't eat right.

I'm using the livestrong "myplate" website that El D linked in YTF's thread. We do a ton of cooking from scratch so it's hard to know exactly how many calories are in some of the things we eat, but I've been able to find reasonably close approximations. And when in doubt, I'm pretty sure I've been erring on the side of overestimating.

when I first saw the Higdon, the thing that jumped out as conspicuously weird was how he arranged the two quality days (the tempo and the long run) so they were always back-to-back on the saturday and the sunday. Experienced runners sometimes set it up like that, but when they do it's usually because they're doing 3+ quality workouts a week, and/or because when they do quality workouts on consecutive days it can help them to not overdo it on either day which then reduces the chance of overtraining.

Beats me why Higdon set it up like that, maybe it was a nod to his audience (that skews beginner/intermediate) who is more willing to do stuff over the weekend? It's no big deal, but most people/coaches would have set it up so that if your long run was on a sunday then your tempo would get slotted for a wednesday or thursday.

Only mentioning because 1) you should absolutely trust your body and if you ever think that doing both a tempo and a long run seems like a little much, then it's probably ok to back off. Or alternatively to try something else, like taking it easy on saturday but then adding a tempo component to the long run. So yeah, when in doubt err on the easy side, but that said, 2) both the tempo and the long run are really important for your marathon. Most people think it's all about the long run, and I agree that for people brand new to endurance running, the most important workout of the week is figuring out how to manage the mileage of the long run so that it doesn't turn into a death march. But you're not really a beginner, you have natural speed and you are always tempted to use it, and imo you'll get TONS of benefit in the marathon from taking your tempo runs seriously and improving your tempo pace and comfort level.

One idea for tomorrow would be to try out the simpler tempo workout that we talked about last week. So, just start your seven mile run at your normal easy pace, hold it there for like twenty minutes or so, like a warmup. Then run for twenty minutes at a tempo pace, which for now we'll just describe as "comfortably hard." While you're running, keep trying to find the balance between the "comfortable" and the "hard," it's in there somewhere. Do not be a hero and run so fast that you're having to concentrate super intensely to hold the pace--it's gonna be tempting, especially in the first few minutes. But ok, fine, having said that, I'll be mildly surprised if your actual tempo pace is above 8/mile. You'll know more about this pace after the half and the 5K, but for now just shoot for "comfortably hard."

And then hold it at "comfortably hard" for twenty minutes. That's it. Take your pulse after the tempo is over, maybe walk for a minute if you feel like it, and then finish off the rest of the seven miles at your regular easy pace. You shouldn't feel completely wiped out after the tempo section, if you'e wiped out then you ran it too fast.

The Higdon plan is working great overall so imo you should mostly just stick with it, but the above is closer to an actual tempo run than what you've been doing and it's not really a risk, so if it seems easier (as in, "hey, it's just a regular easy run + twenty minutes of comfortably hard, no big deal") then it's worth a shot some week.

About the tempo/long run back to back days. I can see positives and negatives to this plan.
Positives:
1.) Your long run will be run on somewhat fatigued legs and this will be good practice and is specific to marathon.(many elite marathoners.. sub 2:10 guys, will do two long tempo runs in the same day to train the body on little glycogen)
2.) You should be able to recover fairly well from a tempo run. The purpose is to train the body to clear lactate, so there shouldn't be much accumulation of lactate which would result in the heavy legs the next day.
3.) It will keep you from going too fast on your tempo the day before. ( it is much better to go 5 sec. too slow than 5 sec. too fast per mile during a tempo.)

Negatives:
1.) Long runs are very important to marathon training. If you are struggling too much it might cause you to cut it short which isn't the idea.
2.) If you go into the long run fresh you could feel strong the last few miles and turn that into a tempo effort, which is marathon specific and a very fun confidence booster. Lots of runners think running the last few miles of a long run fast is their favorite run.

I would probably try to nail my first few long runs until I "got it down" before I went into them with a level of fatigue. The long run itself is going to be a stimulus to your body, I would add another stimulus (running it fatigued) later.

As for the tempo run Empire is pretty spot on. If you can say more than a couple words than your going to slow. Doing a separate warm-up is something you should also try. 1-2 miles easy and some active stretches/drills for a few mins. I find I feel much better stopping after the warm-up instead of going right into the tempo. If your worried about mileage just increase the cool down, The 1-2 miles shouldn't effect your continuous 7 miles. The best advice I can give you for a tempo run is to find a "rhythm." Once you catch the right rhythm you will feel the tempo pace and be able to nail it every time. Also it is better to start of slow than the other way around.

Weekend update.

Saturday - 7 miles "tempo." I went out to the trail, did two miles easy, 20 minutes at a "comfortably hard" pace and then finished easy. Finished with an average 8:37 pace.

Splits

9:11
9:10
8:21
7:42
7:48
9:10
8:54

I think I did something like 2.56 miles in the 20 minutes to give a better sense of the tempo pace since the mile splits don't line up perfectly. Felt good. Could have gone a little harder in the tempo portion but I knew I had 15 today and didn't want to go too hard.

Today - 15 miles. I went up to the Leif Erickson trail, which, if you're a runner, and you have spent any time in Portland, you have run. It's an 11-mile trail up in Forest Park. Hilly with varying surface texture... from gravel to hard rock to dirt, etc. I went 1185 feet up and 1128 feet down over the run today... I guess that doesn't sound like a lot but it feels like the whole trail is pretty much either uphill or downhill.

I've been avoiding this trail for a while now because I wasn't sure how my legs would hold up on a surface I wasn't used to. Also I've been avoiding long hills. Well, today I was tired of running my usual long route so I drove to Leif and gave it a shot.

I started really slow, partially because the first couple miles are almost entirely uphill, but also because I was easing into the surface texture. At about 4 or 5 miles the trail flattens out a bit and I was in a total easy groove. That lasted more or less until the turnaround (at around the 8 mile marker since I was following my GPS... I think the markers are off a bit). After a mile or two back down, the surface kinda started to wear on me. I felt like I wasn't being very light on my feet and the uneven rocks were kinda torture.

At the 5 mile mark on the way down I passed a guy who was just turning around. He caught up to me and passed me as I was really dawdling at that point. It kind of woke me up so I decided to follow him. He was probably going at about a 9:00 pace, but suddenly that felt completely fine since I had something to focus on other than the pain.

I followed him for probably half a mile, and then the surface softened and we hit a nice gradual downhill -- the kind I can just fly down. So I re-passed him and took off. Kept up a strong pace for another mile or two -- the guy was obliterated; I couldn't see him behind me anymore. Whoops. The surface got crappy again and so I slowed down.

With about two miles left, in serious pain, I passed a hot runner girl stretching. Didn't think much of it except I did notice how hot she was. About half a mile later I heard someone coming up behind me and it was her So I did what any married guy would do in that situation; I ran away from her as fast as possible.

But she kept up with me! I was really on the gas at this point... more than a half marathon into my run and giving it my all... but she finally caught me with a little over a mile to go. She pulled up next to me and said, "I'm making you my running partner."

So we kept up a sub 8 minute pace for the last 1.25 miles or so... while talking. Evidently it's easy to forget you're working on your 15th mile over a punishing hilly course when a ridiculously attractive runner girl decides to make you her running partner.

First world handsome running guy problems. Splits:

10:39
9:18
9:58
10:16
10:44
10:10
10:18
10:20
10:08
10:37
10:33
8:51
10:08
9:37
7:08 (.9 miles)

Ended up stopping at 14.9 miles to stretch with RARG for a total time of 2:28:54 (10:00 pace right on the button).

Hmm... upon reviewing the actual GPS map of my run yesterday, it appears my GPS was on crack. So maybe the actual trail markers were accurate and I did more like 15.5 miles.

Wouldn't surprise me, I thought I was going a bit faster overall than my time indicated.

Look at this:

Mini brag: Today's easy 4-miler puts me at 151.16 miles for July.

Been doing a little analysis of my calorie counting to try and get a sense of how accurate my estimates have been.

I've got 27 days of data now. 16 days at a deficit; 11 days at a surplus. According to my best estimate, I'm at a 5,378 calorie deficit total (factoring in calories burnt running) and I've lost right around 2 pounds... so the math seems to be pretty close.

151 isn't too shabby. I had 111 miles for July. I'm hoping to be around 155 for August, if everything goes right.

TEMPO
awesome, this looks way better than what you were doing. 7:45ish pace sounds right for you based on the other paces you'd been posting. 2.5 miles is perfect, whole thing seems perfect, nice work.

THE LONG RUN
glad it felt good, and sometimes it's healthy to go a little nuts. But you have to pick your spots, and sure, sometimes your spots pick you and you can't help it, but just be careful bc your mileage is still going up and you can't go bonkers on every other long run without eventually paying for it.

Remember that it's better to show up to your first marathon 10% undertrained than 1% overtrained. And yeah, just going by everything you've posted itt, I'm not even a tiny bit worried that you're going to show up 10% undertrained.

THE JOGGER WAR
haha that's good stuff. My best jogger war was in SF. I was towards the end of a tough long run in the park and at the end I was running ~7ish pace. Then out of nowhere across the street I notice this super fit girl bounding past me while pushing a baby stroller.

Nope, not happening. Luckily I had to cross the street anyway, and a few minutes later I passed her back, obviously holding my breath as I went by. I'm probably running 6:30ish now, and I'm trying to gap her because I don't want her to get her jogging confidence back.

Did I mention she was pushing a baby stroller? Right, so a few minutes later I miss the one traffic light in the park and she catches up to me, but she doesn't know a trick of the panhandle there so I gain another twenty yards on her. And that's when I put the hammer down. Six minute pace, 5:45 pace, whatever man, my run is over in a few minutes and I've got to snuff her out.

Except about 90 seconds later she passes me again, she is absolutely bolting by me at sub-5:15 pace and her strides look like she's running on the moon. Then the instant she passes me, she stops and turns another direction.

OK, usually this would be pretty annoying, but I knew it was mostly my fault since I sort of started it, and more importantly, I realized that in the big picture, if I was ever going to get passed while running 5:30 pace at the end of a long run, that it might as well be by some girl pushing a mighty baby stoller.

So I go home and after twenty minutes of dedicated googling I figure out who she is, she's the all-american runner at a nearby college, I mean of course she is.

epilogue: THE VERY NEXT DAY I am back running in the park. And wtf do I hear behind me but the exact same whooshing sound of a supersonic baby stroller. I turn around, yep it's her. We both have a good laugh, we run together for the next twenty minutes, I pretend like I know absolutely nothing about her, and we've been casual friends ever since.

And it really was a crazy coincidence that we saw each other the very next day, that was five years ago and not counting races, it was the last time I ever saw her jogging.

lol awesome. Of course.

Hah, great story.

OK, onto srs biz running stuff.

I am going to adjust Hal Higdon's schedule for the next couple weeks to accomodate my lifestyle. Let me know if this seems reasonable.

Here's what Hal wants this week:

Tuesday (yesterday) - 4
Wed - 5
Thu - 4
Fri - rest
Sat - rest
Sun - race half marathon

And next week

Monday - cross-train
Tuesday - 4
Wednesday - 8
Thursday - 4
Friday - rest
Saturday - 8 tempo
Sunday - 17


Here's what I'm proposing. He cuts mileage quite a bit this week (37 down to 26), obviously a mini taper before the half marathon. But it feels like too few miles to me and I also want to do the HM on Saturday instead of Sunday. In other words, this:

Tuesday (yesterday) - 4 (already did this)
Wed - 7 (already did this)
Thu - 4
Fri - rest
Sat - race half marathon
Sun - 5 recovery

I want to race the half marathon on Saturday instead of Sunday because my sister-in-law is having a big party on Saturday night and I want to be able to drink beer without worrying about a hard run the next morning. I also don't really see the need for two rest days before my half marathon effort. I'm planning on doing tomorrow's 4 at a very relaxed pace, and if I need one more rest day afterward I can just not run Sunday. If anyone thinks this is a terrible plan, please let me know.

As for the following week, here's what I'm thinking:

Monday - cross-train (probably actually just rest)
Tuesday - 5
Wednesday - 8
Thursday - 5
Friday - 8
Saturday - rest
Sunday - 5k race

Again I don't want the mileage to drop off too much so I'm lengthening the runs a bit. Then I want to run Friday and rest Saturday so I can give a good solid effort in the 5k on Sunday.

Then I'm thinking I'll do my 17 miler on Tuesday of the following week (after resting Monday).

Thoughts?

seems fine.