Tiki tiki tiki tiki tiki run (comments welcome)

[Cabius]

2022-12-15 Mid-Week Update
This has been a fantastic week so far (knock on wood). My conditioning feels great, and despite the heavy training load, I don't feel sore or tired at all. To the contrary -- after a 6-mile run, a few hours later I start to feel restless and want to run again.

This is my peak week, so it's coming at the right time. But Taper is going to be rough...


I've switched out all of my Interval and Tempo runs for M Tempo runs, so I can get a feel for my ideal-conditions goal pace.

Over the last two weeks, my average HR for these runs was 160, 154, 155, and 149 -- about 69% to 76% of my HRR, lower/middle of Zone 3. The runs have felt light and easy.

At this point, I'm very confident that (a) I can run at that pace (in decent weather) for an extended period, and (b) I can probably run for 26.2 miles.

Whether I can do both of those at the same time ... I'll find out in just over three weeks!

My final and longest LR will be a 16-miler this Sunday. 3 hours is as long as I want to go in training to avoid injury risk. Capping off 4 weeks of heavy mileage, I think it'll do the trick in terms of training for the last 16 miles. I'll do the last 3 miles at M tempo, to get a bit more juice out of the workout and to test my endurance.

Then I'll start to taper (pray for my nerves) and put together a final pacing-and-nutrition plan for race day!

 

[Baloo in MI]

At this point, I'm very confident that (a) I can run at that pace (in decent weather) for an extended period, and (b) I can probably run for 26.2 miles.

Whether I can do both of those at the same time ... I'll find out in just over three weeks!

I totally hear that! I can run at pace and I can run 26.2, but putting them together and adding Florida weather... We shall see. But, your training looks really solid - you got this!

 

[Cabius]

2022-12-18 End-of-week Summary
This week I completed 50.9 miles against my plan of 50.0 across six runs.


This was my peak week in terms of time and mileage, including my longest planned run at 16 miles. It went tremendously!

Long Run Recap
For my 16-mile long run, I did 13 miles at easy pace (planned 11:40/mi; actual 11:30/mi) and the last 3 miles at M Tempo (planned 10:40/mi; actual 10:20/mi). I sprinted the last 0.5 miles at a GAP of 8:22/mi -- less than my 400m pace, but fairly all-out over that distance given that I'd already run 16 miles. I mostly wanted to see how much I had left in the tank.

I didn't carb load the day prior (though I did test-run that a few months ago). I took Maurten 320 and a caffeine bullet shortly before starting, and had additional fuel (waffle, egel, and gu) at miles 4, 8, and 12 (and additional caffeine at mile 12 as well). I carried 1.5L water in my backpack, as well as 500mL of Liquid IV, though it was cold enough that I only drank half of each. (I did have to stop for a quick pee break at miles 5 and 8.) This will be the basis of my marathon fuel plan, though I'll add carb-loading beforehand, and will be prepared to supplement with more electrolytes if the temps threaten to exceed ~70.

Chart: Reasonably consistent splits, with plenty of energy to pick up the pace late in the race.


Chart: HR was steady in the mid-140s for most of the first 13, and the upper-middle 150s for the last 3 at fast-than-M tempo


I really felt like I could have gone another 10 miles at the 10:20/mi pace. While I was hungry and sleepy all day, my legs feel fresh, with little or no soreness. (My hips did feel tight towards the end, so I'll work on stretching those out over the next few weeks.)

Overall, I feel very confident that I can sustain an effort in the 10:40-11:10 range over 26.2 miles if the weather is decent.

Fitness/Power Tracking

My fitness continues to differentiate itself from my September trendline, even accounting for colder weather. It's also been much more consistent over the past few weeks, whereas earlier efforts were a bit more scattershot. In ideal conditions a 10:40/mi pace should land me in the 150-160bpm range, or less than 75% of my HRR. Even accounting for some measure of cardiac drift, that's sustainable as long as the weather is decent.

Fitness/Power Chart - No T&D Adjustment


Fitness/Power Chart - With T&D Adjustment


Taper & Final Planning

With just under 3 weeks until race day, I'll be doing a 70% / 50% / 25% taper, using this week's 50-mile peak as baseline. That'll be a combination of reducing both running days and mileage each week. Given how much time I lost in Oct/Nov, I really ramped up hard and fast over the past 4 or 5 weeks, and want to make sure that I take the time to recover and rest up appropriately.



I'll be working on an aggressive, moderate, and conservative pacing plan over the next few weeks for ideal/moderate/terrible weather conditions. I really need to be disciplined about not coming in too hot -- I'd rather start at 11:00/mi and finish at 10:20/mi than start at 10:20 and find myself flaming out toward the end. And while I don't plan to stop for lots of photo ops, I will probably take a Castle photo and a couple of quick character pics near the end of the course. Since my goal is sub-5 (11:14/mi, assuming a sloppy 26.7 traversed distance), and I've been training for 10:40/mi, I should have some wiggle room to work with...

"They hay is in the barn" as they say, and I can't wait to head down to FL in just over 2 weeks!

 

[GollyGadget]

Congrats on making it through your last long run!

In my mind, we’re all part of some exclusive “we’re only running 16 miles because that’s far enough” club. Obviously not a real thing, but it’s reassuring to see so many others also topping out at 16 and not 20+.

 

[Cabius]

Taper & Final Planning

With just under 3 weeks until race day, I'll be doing a 70% / 50% / 25% taper, using this week's 50-mile peak as baseline. That'll be a combination of reducing both running days and mileage each week. Given how much time I lost in Oct/Nov, I really ramped up hard and fast over the past 4 or 5 weeks, and want to make sure that I take the time to recover and rest up appropriately.

View attachment 726270

@DopeyBadger Most resources I've read online suggest a drawdown like the one I've outline above, going to 70% and 50% of peak mileage during the first two weeks of the taper.

Is that generally in-line with what you recommend, or is more/less rest useful?

Edit: For reference, here is my current taper plan, which adds one rest day and reduces per-run mileage over the next two weeks:

 

[DopeyBadger]

The research I've read about the taper program most people respond to is this:

-Keep the same number of running days and same routine as best you can. So if you normally run Tues through Sunday, you should try and stick with Tues through Sunday throughout the taper. Don't drop from 6 days to 4 days. And don't changing up the days of the week.

-Maintain intensity in workouts as frequently as you normally do, but at a lesser volume. So if you normally do 2 hard mid-week runs, you continue to do 2 hard mid-week runs up to race day. But instead of 10 miles of hard, you would do lesser and lesser hard volume. So 10, then 6, then 3. Or something to that effect.

-Reduce overall volume from 100% in peak week, to 80-95% peak in taper week 1, to 65-80% peak in taper week 2, to 40-60% peak (not including the marathon itself) in race week. So if you peak at 50 miles, you would be advised to do 40-47.5 miles in taper week 1, 32.5-40 miles in taper week 2, and 20-30 miles in race week not including the marathon itself.

So volume wise, your planned taper is probably too aggressive in dropping. It goes to 35 miles to 24 miles to 13 miles. That's probably 5 miles under, 8.5 miles under, and 7 miles under each of the minimum suggested volumes.

The above suggestions are based on ideal tapering, but sometimes destination races aren't ideal tapering scenarios. I've taken 3 days off before running Dopey (might have done that for 2018) and still did well. Taper has an effect, but I think the overall effect is more minimal than something like the totality of training or the weather.

 

[Cabius]

The research I've read about the taper program most people respond to is this:

-Keep the same number of running days and same routine as best you can. So if you normally run Tues through Sunday, you should try and stick with Tues through Sunday throughout the taper. Don't drop from 6 days to 4 days. And don't changing up the days of the week.

-Maintain intensity in workouts as frequently as you normally do, but at a lesser volume. So if you normally do 2 hard mid-week runs, you continue to do 2 hard mid-week runs up to race day. But instead of 10 miles of hard, you would do lesser and lesser hard volume. So 10, then 6, then 3. Or something to that effect.

-Reduce overall volume from 100% in peak week, to 80-95% peak in taper week 1, to 65-80% peak in taper week 2, to 40-60% peak (not including the marathon itself) in race week. So if you peak at 50 miles, you would be advised to do 40-47.5 miles in taper week 1, 32.5-40 miles in taper week 2, and 20-30 miles in race week not including the marathon itself.

So volume wise, your planned taper is probably too aggressive in dropping. It goes to 35 miles to 24 miles to 13 miles. That's probably 5 miles under, 8.5 miles under, and 7 miles under each of the minimum suggested volumes.

The above suggestions are based on ideal tapering, but sometimes destination races aren't ideal tapering scenarios. I've taken 3 days off before running Dopey (might have done that for 2018) and still did well. Taper has an effect, but I think the overall effect is more minimal than something like the totality of training or the weather.

Thanks! I really haven't had any sense of how to evaluate the relative risks of under- versus over-tapering. Last year I didn't run at all for the four weeks leading up for MW, due to injury.

Something like this would be closer to what you're recommending for the next couple of weeks -- still on the lower end of the range, but not quite so abrupt.



I really will be pretty limited for the week of the race, as I'll be at WDW with my wife, parents, and kiddos for the purple dates, but we'll see what I can do.

 

[DopeyBadger]

Seems reasonable to me.

Under tapered (you do too much running) usually leaves you feeling sharp at the start but you lack the endurance late in the race.
Over tapered (you don't do enough running) usually leaves you feeling sluggish at the start, and you may or may not see a lack of endurance late in the race.

 

[azrivest]

Seems reasonable to me.

Under tapered (you do too much running) usually leaves you feeling sharp at the start but you lack the endurance late in the race.
Over tapered (you don't do enough running) usually leaves you feeling sluggish at the start, and you may or may not see a lack of endurance late in the race.

Didn't know "over-tapered" was a thing. You learn something new every day. Thanks again Coach!

 

[DopeyBadger]

Didn't know "over-tapered" was a thing. You learn something new every day. Thanks again Coach!

Yea if you taper "too much", then you're dropping the training load by too much. If you do that, you shoot right past the peaking zone and end up in the recovery/non-functional zone. So then your body doesn't feel ready to race, but it would if you pick up the volume a touch and in a few days you'd be good. A lot of how we feel can be tied to the training load and whether we're in the optimal zone, neutral zone, peak zone, or recovery zone. Sometimes our training ends up too stagnant, and when we think we're in the optimal zone when we're in the neutral zone instead. The training feels stale when you're there.

 

[Baloo in MI]

Great final week @Cabius! Strong and peaking at the right time! Oh, and I may have just adjusted my Taper plans based on this discussion - so thanks @DopeyBadger as well!

 

[NYC_MW]

Oh, and I may have just adjusted my Taper plans based on this discussion - so thanks @DopeyBadger as well!

Same here! This forum is such a good resource.

 

[kps7795]

Seems reasonable to me.

Under tapered (you do too much running) usually leaves you feeling sharp at the start but you lack the endurance late in the race.
Over tapered (you don't do enough running) usually leaves you feeling sluggish at the start, and you may or may not see a lack of endurance late in the race.

Don't cry for me, but we're going on a German Christmas markets river cruise tomorrow for two weeks. We return on Wednesday and drive up to Disney for Marathon Weekend two days later. So, I'm going to have to try to squeeze my taper runs on a treadmill when I can.

 

[Cabius]

2022-12-25 End-of-Week Summary
This week I completed 34.4 miles against my plan of 40.0 across six five runs.


This week went great overall, including some absolutely FRIGID runs on the 23rd and 24th. I don't really have the best gear for cold weather, but I wore two layers on my legs (tights and long pants) and three layers on top (a t-shirt and two long-sleeved RunDisney shirts), plus my cheap gloves and hat. I definitely felt the cold in my face and wrists -- at one point I realized that I was slurring my speech because my cheek muscles were too cold to move at a normal speed -- but otherwise felt fine. Overall, these runs were all consistent with my recent trends.

I missed my Christmas run day. With little kids, and hosting 20+ people at our home until late in the evening, it was just too much. I probably should've planned this to be a rest day and added more mileage earlier in the week. As it is, I don't think I'll try to make it up this week. (What kills me is that I'll finish the month with 197 miles -- so close to 200!)

Marathon Pacing Plan
I'm also nailing down my pacing ranges for the Marathon!

My plan is to run the first 3 miles at a slightly slower pace before settling into my goal tempo through the first half. I'd like to pick up the pace very slightly in the second half, if I have the energy. (In part, that's what I need to tell myself to force myself to slow down for the first set of miles.) And I want mile 21 (Blizzard Beach parking lot) to be my fastest mile, even if only by a few seconds, because I'm trying to ironically psych myself up for that one.

I've laid that framework out for ranges of temperatures, from ideal (T&D < 100) to scorching (T&D >150).



This is raw moving time, excluding bathroom or photo stops. I assume I'll lose about ~5 minutes in total -- I won't stop for a lot of photos, and never if they will take more than 1 minute, but do want a castle pic. To account for that, I've just tacked onto the total time at the bottom. I've also tacked on an extra half-mile of distance to try and get a realistic sense of how my Strava pace might compare to the course markers.

I feel pretty good about these paces based on the last few months of training data. My conditioning is definitely strong enough, and I think my endurance is there too. My stretch goal is a sub-5 finish time, and I there's enough buffer built in that I feel pretty good about the Ideal or Warm zones. If it's going to be a scorcher, then my new goal is a sub-5:30. =p

By way of comparison: my September half-marathon was Scorching (T+D of 150+). If my time (10:57/mile) translates to an 11:25/mile marathon pace, then here I'm estimating a pace of 11:32/mile (raw time) to 11:57/mile (including stops + extra distance). I think that's reasonably conservative, especially since the first half of the race likely wouldn't be so hot. I'm also in better shape than I was then, especially vis-a-vis endurance.

Cheat Sheet
I'm planning to print and laminate this small cheat sheet. I identified the milestones that I care most about (seeing my family, visiting Blizzard Beach aka THE TOP SIDE OF ASPHALT!), and it spits out a range of times for each one. I set the range from 98% to 103% of my target, so it's weighted a bit on the slower side.

It will help me know if I'm egregiously too fast or too slow, as well as give my family some rough expectation of when I'll be at various checkpoints.

 

[Cabius]

In which I start to freak out...

My last two runs (last night and this morning) have gone relatively poorly -- well above the trendline from the past month or so. My Apple-estimated VO2 Max has gone down a bit, too. If race day goes like the last two days have gone, I'll likely need to slow down by ~ 1 minute/mile! (That would still obliterate my injured PR and be astonishingly better than even my non-injured pace goals from last year, so I'd take it, but it's not my ideal scenario.)

With 10 days left until the run, I'm trying to recognize that this is likely just a blip and there's time for things to get back to normal. And like I said, if race day is just one of those days, it'll still be a good run.

These are the factors I'm talking through to reassure myself:

- Christmas was a bit of a dietary bender. I drank (not heavily, but I've almost totally abstained during the past few months of training) and I ate a truly shocking number of caramels. It seems like it should be impossible to gain 5 pounds in two days, but nevertheless: here I am.​

​

- The timing of these runs was poor. One was late last night, and I always perform worse in evening runs. Even waiting a few hours after dinner, beef stew isn't, like, the best running fuel. Then I slept poorly for only a few hours before my tempo run this morning.​

​

- I've been wearing several layers to try an acclimatize, especially keeping a hat on the entire run. (Normally in the 40s, I'll just wear shorts and a single short-sleeve shirt.) That may give me cause for concern about how I'll do in warmer Florida climes.​

​

- My wife and at least one child are sick with a cold. While I have no other symptoms, it's possible my body is fighting that off at some level. There's plenty of time to fully recover before we leave.​

I'll just see how the rest of the week goes, I guess. If for some reason I keep feeling sluggish, I can adjust my pace plans accordingly, but I hope that this transitory and I'm back in form by the end of the week.

 

[SheHulk]

Don't succumb to taper madness! Take a few deep breaths!

 

[DopeyBadger]

- I've been wearing several layers to try an acclimatize, especially keeping a hat on the entire run. (Normally in the 40s, I'll just wear shorts and a single short-sleeve shirt.) That may give me cause for concern about how I'll do in warmer Florida climes.

It’s likely this. You are simulating warmer temps. HR tends to be higher at equal paces just like the T+D chart suggests. So it’s expected that VO2max may fall a touch in a normal taper, but it has a higher chance of falling when doing heat acclimation.

 

[Cabius]

It’s likely this. You are simulating warmer temps. HR tends to be higher at equal paces just like the T+D chart suggests. So it’s expected that VO2max may fall a touch in a normal taper, but it has a higher chance of falling when doing heat acclimation.

Thanks, that's helpful.

This is the part where I really wish I could translate my layering into some temp adjustment. If it's the equivalent of T&D of ~150, then I'm right where I should be: if race day is a scorcher, I'll need to slow down quite a bit, but I already knew that.

Morning temps will be in the 50s and 60s for the next week or so, in which case I'll do less layering anyway and should get ~Floridian results.

More than anything, I guess this is the part where I just trust the work that I've put in, and hope for the best.

 

[HangWithMerida]

Being overdressed for your heat acclimation + alcohol + tired +/- illness. Sounds like you have plenty of reasons to not be operating at peak efficiency. As the saying goes, the hay is in the barn. Enjoy the last bit of your taper and hopefully I’ll meet you at some point over MW in a week!!

 

[Cabius]

... and in which I calm down again.

T+D this morning was a Floridian 64 + 58 so I was able to run without layering for heat acclimation And...

Goal: 136-150 bpm @ 12:00/mile
Act: 141 bpm @ 11:52/mile (11:41 adjusted) - slightly faster by GAP

This is right where I want to be - several ticks below the trendline that I'm using to set my pace targets

Below is my pace/HR chart for the month of December. The last two days' runs are highlighted in red, while todays is in green.


I have a few other runs that are well above or below trend - though the above-trend ones are all from 4 weeks ago when I was just ramping up after illness - but it's a pretty tight grouping overall.

I feel pretty comfortable in the 10:40/mile range (assuming ideal temps). Beyond this trend data, my big test was a few weeks ago when I ran 13 miles @ easy and then 3 miles @ 10:25/mile (faster than marathon pace). My HR for those three miles averaged 157bpm -- very close to this trendline -- which I can absolutely sustain even with some cardiac drift. (For my September half-marathon, my HR average was 170bpm - that was really pushing it.)

So I'll adjust for weather, and I'll start out slow to feel out my body on the day. But I feel more comfortable that my pcae/HR expectations are grounded in reality.

Thanks everybody for your encouragement and for talking me down.