Every Wish That We Put Into Motion.... (comments welcome!)

[Herding_Cats]

Toppolinos for breakfast in September. Do I need to fake-book a room so I have a longer stay so I can book it 60+something or is this something I should be able to get AT 60 days or 60+1? I feel like this one is hard to get.

Also, does anyone know how sought-after the pony rides at the campground are? As in....do we need to show up early, or is it pretty chill and we can show up whenever

 

[RuntheMouse]

Toppolinos for breakfast in September. Do I need to fake-book a room so I have a longer stay so I can book it 60+something or is this something I should be able to get AT 60 days or 60+1? I feel like this one is hard to get.

Our window was this week and I only looked late in the morning (no must haves) and Topolino’s was available each day from 60 +3 on so you might have decent odds if you are online first thing.

 

[nancipants]

Also, does anyone know how sought-after the pony rides at the campground are? As in....do we need to show up early, or is it pretty chill and we can show up whenever

I’ve only done it twice but both times we just showed up and rode within 15 minutes. If there is a wait, you can just look at the horses. It’s so fun, my son loved it. Even wore the helmet without protest despite NEVER wanting anything on his head.

 

[Herding_Cats]

Training:
Tomorrow I start my 10 weeks of Higdon HM Novice 1 plan. It also looks like my work schedule is going to stabilize (I've had 1 day off in the last 11 days and my arms/shoulders are looking forward to a break since I have Tuesday off.) I'm excited to be back on a "plan" and do the running, not just be excited about MAKING or HAVING a plan. Subtle difference.

 

[Herding_Cats]

Played around with cadence today, and while I think I may be doing it "wrong" I definitely noticed a HUGE difference in speed when adding a 3rd cadence in today. I've also been trying to work on my form a little bit so I'm less shuffle-y and have more knee drive/heel kick iykwim. If I'm ever going to get faster, some of this stuff is going to have to get tweaked.

("Wrong" in that I see articles and such talking about working on cadence with more SPM while maintaining the same pace, but since I already take rather small steps with my "normal" cadence, I just focus on meeting the higher cadence without putting in more effort.)

Back when I started looking into dealing with some more of the nuts and bolts of running, I came across the discussion about 180spm and compared it to my cadence at the time. I was in the 150s, so quite slow with my feet. Last year I worked a LOT with a playlist that helped me go from the 150s to 160-165 during my easy runs. And that's pretty much my default now when I run, even when its with one of the kids, DH, or while listening to a podcast. Then I added in a "HM pace" playlist that was 170spm. And that helped me be quicker per mile without much of a difference in how things felt. And I could even shorten my run interval for my run/walk and still hit "easy" pace. WIN!

Today I made a new playlist that is 178-182spm. The difference between 164 and 170 was almost unnoticeable. The difference from one 164 to 180 is big. It's a lot. I have to think about getting my feet up and down quicker, and it does feel a little bit harder. My HR was higher, but this last mile is also the hilliest portion of my run, and it didn't feel significantly harder physically....more of a mental challenge with turnover.


So today. Playing with cadence. 30/30 intervals the whole time. Mile 1 was my well-used 164ish playlist and came in at a very predictable 13:43. Changed playlists during the walking interval. Mile 2 with the 170 playlist (half of this mile was on a dirt road, but it's in good shape currently) 13:23. Changed playlists during the walking interval. Mile 3 with my new 180ish playlist. 12:19? 10 more steps per minute, and I'm OVER A MINUTE FASTER? I feel like this might be something worth working in to a run every week, just not sure how long/often.

 

[nancipants]

Are your playlists on Spotify? Would you mind sharing them?

 

[The Expert]

Okay now you are inspiring me to do this when I start my training soon!

 

[Herding_Cats]

Week One Complete!

This was a pretty successful week, especially considering that we were in our last week of baseball (which included an all-day tournament.) I'm looking forward to the next 2 weeks of "down time" before XC and soccer practices start. But also, where in the heck did summer go????

Anyhow. Training.

Monday: 3mi 2mi easy. My legs were pretty tired from work, and I didn't manage to get out the door until 8pm, so I switched with Tuesday's run. Avg pace 13:40

Tuesday: 2mi 3mi easy. Day off from work for both myself and DS2 (who is the babysitter when I'm working) so this was a mid-afternoon run. This is the day I played around with pacing and cadence, while keeping my intervals the same (30/30 at this point.) Mile 1 was 13:43, mile 2 was 13:23, and mile 3 was 12:19. This was a fun run.

Wednesday: 3mi So technically I DID do 3mi. I went with all the kids to summer running. Took the bob stroller for DD, which the kids loaded up for me. But when we got there I realized that one of the back tires was a bit soft. Not horrible, but enough that it was going to make things more challenging than what a normal stroller run already brings. There's a bike repair station at the trail building, so I took it over there to pump the tire back up. Except the air chuck was too big to fit between the spokes easily. And all of my fiddling just succeeded in letting more air out of the tire. Boo. I ended up walking 2 mi (in about 40min) with the stroller....we stopped to eat black caps and mulberries along the trail, and DD probably ran 3/4 of a mile. DS1 was already done with his run when I got back to the park we start at, so I asked him to watch DD while I went and ran a mile. Pace for that was 12:28.

Thursday: rest day
Friday: cross training I worked, so time on feet. Right?
Saturday: 4mi All day baseball tournament, so I swapped this with Sunday.

Sunday: rest 4mi. Squeezed this in before I had to pick DS2 up from work. My legs were dead. And then I had to hurry at the end so I wasn't late. 13:19, 13:25, 13:18, and then 11:53 (which was my 180 playlist again.)

This morning I am having a little bit of shin achiness. Not sure if that's a use-thing, early shin splints, or just me standing more on the tile at work and less on the anti-fatigue mat.

In tangential news, I looked through my garmin app this morning at my shoes, and I didn't have as many pairs of 1080s squirreled away as I thought I did. I currently have 2 pairs with nearly 240mi on them, and then 2 other pairs with <30mi. But one pair never really felt good last year when I wore them. So I'm either going to have to get more serious about hunting down a few more of this model (and paying more than I want) or I'll be needing to figure out a new shoe sooner than anticipated.

 

[Herding_Cats]

Time for my mini i-just-looked-ahead freak out:

I'm gathering schedules for the kids' sports this fall and making color-coded calendar pages just for their games/meets. Nothing for their practices. We have to be somewhere (and most of the time, 2 somewheres) 5 nights a week (sometimes 6!), starting in the end of August, for all of September, and most of October. And the best part? That's when my mileage is at its highest for my lead-in plan (4-5hrs/week plus cross training) and when I transition to Dopey training.


I have lots of time to figure out a plan for this, but it's looking daunting at the moment.

Is fewer, but longer runs an adequate adjustment to make on weeks that are just bonkers?

 

[GollyGadget]

Time for my mini i-just-looked-ahead freak out:

I'm gathering schedules for the kids' sports this fall and making color-coded calendar pages just for their games/meets. Nothing for their practices. We have to be somewhere (and most of the time, 2 somewheres) 5 nights a week (sometimes 6!), starting in the end of August, for all of September, and most of October. And the best part? That's when my mileage is at its highest for my lead-in plan (4-5hrs/week plus cross training) and when I transition to Dopey training.


I have lots of time to figure out a plan for this, but it's looking daunting at the moment.

Is fewer, but longer runs an adequate adjustment to make on weeks that are just bonkers?

Fewer longer runs is a fine adjustment if that’s what you need to do. Ideally, follow the plan, but if that’s just not possible find something that works. Just be careful that those longer runs aren’t so long that you can’t recover from them.

 

[GollyGadget]

Also, I get that you’re a planner and like to look ahead but don’t scare yourself. I find it much better to take things week by week. Those later training runs can look impossible early in the plan.

 

[Herding_Cats]

Also, I get that you’re a planner and like to look ahead but don’t scare yourself. I find it much better to take things week by week. Those later training runs can look impossible early in the plan.

For sure!!! I try to not look past the week I'm in when it comes to training so I don't psych myself out about double digit long runs when it's still early days. I'm just trying to make sure I don't get caught off-guard in about a month when it all starts rolling and running doesn't become the victim of everyone else's schedule. My "extra" stuff is usually the first thing to go when things get busy, and running is a very easy thing to drop to make room on the docket.

I'll add on top that we are also STILL (since April!) waiting to hear back about DD starting pre-school, and which program she would be in. And trying to figure out if it will be feasible for me to work during the school days or if I need to work on getting certified to referee basketball so I can do that in the evening and on weekends for winter sports.


This would be so much easier if DS1 hadn't decided to dual-sport this fall with soccer and XC.

 

[GollyGadget]

For sure!!! I try to not look past the week I'm in when it comes to training so I don't psych myself out about double digit long runs when it's still early days. I'm just trying to make sure I don't get caught off-guard in about a month when it all starts rolling and running doesn't become the victim of everyone else's schedule. My "extra" stuff is usually the first thing to go when things get busy, and running is a very easy thing to drop to make room on the docket.

I'll add on top that we are also STILL (since April!) waiting to hear back about DD starting pre-school, and which program she would be in. And trying to figure out if it will be feasible for me to work during the school days or if I need to work on getting certified to referee basketball so I can do that in the evening and on weekends for winter sports.


This would be so much easier if DS1 hadn't decided to dual-sport this fall with soccer and XC.

With a schedule like yours, I totally get why you’re looking ahead. Just try not to overwhelm yourself beforehand.

Worrying is like paying interest on a debt you don’t owe

 

[JAMIESMITH]

I get it, but also don't know how you do it. My two kids have one extracurricular each and that's hard enough for me to manage.

 

[michigandergirl]

Are you a morning runner? If not, you might want to consider becoming one. The only way I was ever able to get training in when I had schedules like yours was to get up at 4:30am to get my runs in. I found I had to get up before anyone else woke up, otherwise things would come up throughout the day and derail my efforts. Yeah, it sucks to get up that early, but starting my day knowing I got my workouts in first thing makes the rest of the day less stressful.

 

[Herding_Cats]

Are you a morning runner? If not, you might want to consider becoming one. The only way I was ever able to get training in when I had schedules like yours was to get up at 4:30am to get my runs in. I found I had to get up before anyone else woke up, otherwise things would come up throughout the day and derail my efforts. Yeah, it sucks to get up that early, but starting my day knowing I got my workouts in first thing makes the rest of the day less stressful.

I’m soooooo not a morning runner. I actually ran at 9pm with ds2 this week (finished up at around 10pm) and it was great. But if I become a nighttime runner I will basically never see DH. It’s extra hard because DD still gets up when I get up, so I would have to finish my runs before DH goes to work in the morning.

 

[Herding_Cats]

Question for @DopeyBadger

I'm slowing considering using my plan from when I ran Sleeping Bear (#529) for Dopey, with a couple of tweaks since I'm not planning on running a 5k or a half during the plan. For most of the runs, there's no difference in how I would do things to accommodate using intervals. But for some of the workouts I'm wondering how/if I would need to change things. As an example, 1mi WU, 7min EA+7min EB+7min LR+7min M+7min HM+7min T (with a 45sec RI between changes), 1mi CD. Would I just need to adjust my intervals, or is that a situation where I would maybe run all of those since I get a dedicated recovery period, or would I tweak my intervals for each of the paces (30/30, 40/30, etc), OR would I just pick a good middle of the road interval and make the run portion appropriately slow so I could hit the goal pace?

Last year's plan was completely straightforward, but I think I'd like to get back to adding in some speedwork to break things up a little and plan 529 was nice from what I remember.

 

[DopeyBadger]

Question for @DopeyBadger

I'm slowing considering using my plan from when I ran Sleeping Bear (#529) for Dopey, with a couple of tweaks since I'm not planning on running a 5k or a half during the plan. For most of the runs, there's no difference in how I would do things to accommodate using intervals. But for some of the workouts I'm wondering how/if I would need to change things. As an example, 1mi WU, 7min EA+7min EB+7min LR+7min M+7min HM+7min T (with a 45sec RI between changes), 1mi CD. Would I just need to adjust my intervals, or is that a situation where I would maybe run all of those since I get a dedicated recovery period, or would I tweak my intervals for each of the paces (30/30, 40/30, etc), OR would I just pick a good middle of the road interval and make the run portion appropriately slow so I could hit the goal pace?

Last year's plan was completely straightforward, but I think I'd like to get back to adding in some speedwork to break things up a little and plan 529 was nice from what I remember.

So comparing these three (529, 559, 615). Make sure to adjust any plan based on current fitness.

529 - 4/5 alternating plan, two week taper, 6.5 peak, 41% LR of weekly at peak, R/T/M Tempo pace focus, 75-90 min max weekday workouts

559 - 5 day plan, three week taper, 6.5 peak, 41% LR of weekly at peak, M Tempo pace focus, 75 min max weekday workouts

615 - 5 day plan, three week taper, 6.75 peak, 43% LR of weekly at peak (uses R/W), HM/M Tempo pace focus, 60 min max weekday workouts

They all peak similarly. They all have a similar %LR at peak. #529 does have more speed work (R and T) but also has weekday workouts in the 75-90 min range. So if that's an unreasonable time commitment for the Fall season, then you'd probably want to dial back the volume of R/T in those workouts. Don't cut the WU/CD to less than 10-15 min to make the workouts shorter. The volume cut should come for the paced work.

My first choice would be for the R, T, and Block workouts to be run as continuous workouts. So if you choose to do 3 x 10 min at T pace, then you do T pace as continuous and not as run/walk. The reason is the workout is no longer a T paced workout if you do run/walk. Instead it would be an over/under at an average pace of T pace. I'd probably develop the workout differently in that case. I think the Block workout would become really complicated if you tried to do it using run/walk at different intervals. So you're best bet is to choose one interval ratio, and then the run would just need to become faster and faster. Which again, might make it more difficult than a standard Block progression using a continuous pace because it becomes an over/under progression.

 

[Herding_Cats]

So comparing these three (529, 559, 615). Make sure to adjust any plan based on current fitness.

529 - 4/5 alternating plan, two week taper, 6.5 peak, 41% LR of weekly at peak, R/T/M Tempo pace focus, 75-90 min max weekday workouts

559 - 5 day plan, three week taper, 6.5 peak, 41% LR of weekly at peak, M Tempo pace focus, 75 min max weekday workouts

615 - 5 day plan, three week taper, 6.75 peak, 43% LR of weekly at peak (uses R/W), HM/M Tempo pace focus, 60 min max weekday workouts

yeah, they all seemed to have about the same time commitment, and I'm really just kind of hoping to be a little bit faster this year and maybe ride Everest or something during the full with complete comfort from a timing standpoint.

They all peak similarly. They all have a similar %LR at peak. #529 does have more speed work (R and T) but also has weekday workouts in the 75-90 min range. So if that's an unreasonable time commitment for the Fall season, then you'd probably want to dial back the volume of R/T in those workouts. Don't cut the WU/CD to less than 10-15 min to make the workouts shorter. The volume cut should come for the paced work.

Good to know. I wouldn't be starting whichever new plan until around Sept 25th, and we are on the down-swing of the craziness at that point with "only" 3-4 games/meets per week for the first 2 weeks of October, and the volume is low enough that I don't feel like it'll be too overwhelming. I'm just kind of mulling it over, and making sure I understand the purpose of things.

My first choice would be for the R, T, and Block workouts to be run as continuous workouts. So if you choose to do 3 x 10 min at T pace, then you do T pace as continuous and not as run/walk. The reason is the workout is no longer a T paced workout if you do run/walk. Instead it would be an over/under at an average pace of T pace. I'd probably develop the workout differently in that case. I think the Block workout would become really complicated if you tried to do it using run/walk at different intervals. So you're best bet is to choose one interval ratio, and then the run would just need to become faster and faster. Which again, might make it more difficult than a standard Block progression using a continuous pace because it becomes an over/under progression.

This makes sense, and part of the reason I was asking. I wasn't sure if "just doing the workout" was sufficient no matter the method (continuous or r/w) or if I would start sacrificing the integrity/benefits of the workouts by using r/w.

While I'm sure I *could* run 20min T workouts continuous, I don't know how I'd feel since my brain is already like "OK, you've run for X seconds now, time to walk" when I'm on my current runs. But also, that would be good mental training, right?

 

[Herding_Cats]

Weekly wrap up time since I was up at the crack of dawn to make dining reservations. I feel like I don't actually know what time those open up at for online. I know 7am is for making them via phone, but I was surprised at how little availability there was at 6am today for 61 days out. Need to figure that out before November. ANYHOW. Training. Yes. I did some. The weather was pretty nice this week temperature-wise; mid 70s, and we got some much needed rain (and some areas got so much hail on Saturday it looked like it had snowed!)

Monday: 3mi easy-ish. 13:02 avg pace since I knew my run would take longer than DS2's Ran this at 9pm since DS2 closed at work and then had a 20min tempo run to do after. He asked his coach if he would come run it with him so he wouldn't have to think about the pacing, and pretty much crushed the workout. I discovered I kind of like running when it's not the middle of the afternoon, and it's somewhat dark. Not sure if that means I'll like running early in the morning, but I definitely did like running at almost-night!

Tuesday: cross-training OR 2mi easy. I opted for cross training in the form of 40min on the spin bike. I hate the seat on ours. But my legs were not super happy after a lot of standing on concrete for a couple of days while training someone at work, which puts me off the anti-fatigue mat more often, so no to running.

Wednesday: 3mi easy-ish. Went to summer running with the entire family, so DH ran with me and pushed DD in the stroller (minus the stints where she hops out and runs ahead of us until she decides her legs are tired.) DH is faster than me and it can bother his legs to go at my easy pace, so I try to go a little faster to accommodate him. But I'm in better shape, so he "only" went at 13:12 pace while pushing the stroller. HAHA!

Thursday: rest day

Friday: cross-training More concrete standing meant my legs were pretty cranky after work, so I did some stuff around the yard, we met with an install guy from a different internet provider than just powered up a line that got put in on our road back in January. Guys. I'm going to have real internet. We've been on 10mgbps forEVER, and this is going to be 500. I'm excited.

Saturday: 4mi Had a bridal shower to attend in the morning (that ate up way more time than I was expecting), then had to shuttle DS2 to work. But we DID go pick 22 pounds of blueberries in the afternoon. So yummy. We will probably go back again this weekend or next weekend.

Sunday: off 4mi easy-ish. OK. Now that I look at how I ran basically everything this week, I definitely need to slow down. I have been opting for my 170 playlist over my 165 list, which does make me run a bit faster so that's a factor to consider, but digging into my HR data it looks like low 13 pace plus running in the mid 70s-low 80s at that pace isn't the smartest choice. I ran 1 mile of the 4 with my 180 playlist, and that mile was 12:01 and it was work. Overall avg pace for the run was 13:03 (I slowed down a lot during mile 3 because there was way more traffic than usual plus it was on a dirt road and the dust from those vehicles wasn't great.)

I need to slow down. After last night's run my foot was not happy with me, and then my whole leg started to get really tight. Too many too-fast runs plus work legs isn't a good combo. Also my shoes are creeping up near the 300mi mark, which I'm sure isn't helping. Now the question becomes, how do I accomplish this? Do I shorten the run portion of my interval? Go back to my 165 playlist? I also need to quit switching my long run from Saturday to Sunday since I usually have Saturdays off and wouldn't have to run them on tired legs.