Panda Ramblings, Race Eating

[swim-mom]

Hey, sorry to hear about the neck issues. Glad to see you aout and about. No need to be confused about training plans. There are as many perfect plans as there are runners. We are all an experiment of one. In other words, what works for me will not necessarily work well for you.

As background, the two plans referenced will both get you to the line; healthy and capable of reaching 13.1 and able to smile for the finish photo. If you were not coming off this surgery I would without doubt say at 35 running four days a weeks will help with speed and endurance getting you to the line. However, I would caution that you are still healing to some extent and will be for quite a while. If you were to walk into my studio we would discuss 3 run options until you demonstrated a third weekday run would work well for you. As a general rule of thumb I would take a day or two off of running as a runner matures or is coming off injury. It is a fine line that will take you being honest with yourself as you get into training.

I would say that you are more than capable of running a sub 2-hour half on a three day training plan if you run each run with a purpose. I would run a tough hill workout one of the weekday runs and a speed or shorter hill interval workout the other, reserving the weekend runs for you long slow endurance running. We would also hit cardio crosstraining on three other days – anything that keeps you away from the jarring motion of running.

At your current level of fitness (and it WILL improve) you are looking at a 2:45 – 3:00 half. Not bad by any sense of imagination. As a benchmark to run a 2:30 half you should be able to race about a 32:30 5k. Again a purposed training plan where you are working on strength and speed during the week can drop this 5 minutes off the 5k.

Have fun in your training and let me know if you have questions.

Thanks Charles - My dr is amazing and fully knew prior to my surgery and even after that I had this goal (since I had signed up in May-LOL). I have been doing my elipital since 1 month post-op and running/walking since 2 months post-op. Tomorrow is the milestone I have been waiting for 4 months - which means I dont have to limit myself to only 3 days a week and I can start any training plan for the 1/2.

What I have to be careful doing is weights, due to my neck muscles still being week. Which is why I will be relying alot on my elip for my "cross training".

I think I may start the Bingham 1/2 run plan since it is a 14 week program, and see how I do for the first 2 weeks, if all goes well - I may hop over to the Halgdon program for the rest of the 12 week plan --- not sure if that is best, but I figure it would give me a gauge for what I may or maynot need

Being in southern NJ, there are no hills - I have extended "bumps" in the road but no major hills to run . I guess I will have to figure something out.

Do you know of any books speficially designed for eating, when training for a 1/2 or a full --- the do and don't kind?

Again, thank you for time and help!

 

[cewait]

Thanks Charles - My dr is amazing and fully knew prior to my surgery and even after that I had this goal (since I had signed up in May-LOL). I have been doing my elipital since 1 month post-op and running/walking since 2 months post-op. Tomorrow is the milestone I have been waiting for 4 months - which means I dont have to limit myself to only 3 days a week and I can start any training plan for the 1/2.

What I have to be careful doing is weights, due to my neck muscles still being week. Which is why I will be relying alot on my elip for my "cross training".

I think I may start the Bingham 1/2 run plan since it is a 14 week program, and see how I do for the first 2 weeks, if all goes well - I may hop over to the Halgdon program for the rest of the 12 week plan --- not sure if that is best, but I figure it would give me a gauge for what I may or maynot need

Being in southern NJ, there are no hills - I have extended "bumps" in the road but no major hills to run . I guess I will have to figure something out.

Do you know of any books speficially designed for eating, when training for a 1/2 or a full --- the do and don't kind?

Again, thank you for time and help!

Sounds like you have a good plan in mind.

If you have access to a gym you have hills. The treadmill has a mostly forgotten set of buttons that control the elevation of the mill. I am in Houston and it is so flat that we have to create drainage canals to carry water off the plain. I regularly run a set of workouts that will make real hills seem insignificant.

I have a few athletic 'diet' books but I think the first place I would send you is to the Gatorade Institute website. They have lots of nuggets of info that is written for the most casual reader (as well as some pretty heady stuff). http://www.gssiweb.com/

 

[swim-mom]

Sounds like you have a good plan in mind.

If you have access to a gym you have hills. The treadmill has a mostly forgotten set of buttons that control the elevation of the mill. I am in Houston and it is so flat that we have to create drainage canals to carry water off the plain. I regularly run a set of workouts that will make real hills seem insignificant.

I have a few athletic 'diet' books but I think the first place I would send you is to the Gatorade Institute website. They have lots of nuggets of info that is written for the most casual reader (as well as some pretty heady stuff). http://www.gssiweb.com/

Thank you! I will look at the site, after I get caught up on grading my college midterms Teaching sometimes, has a way of creating mounds of work that sometimes get forgotten! Time to play catch up

thanks again!