You must be swift as the coursing river (as long as it's the Lazy River) - comments welcome

[avondale]

This looks like a good plan! Very detailed and thoughtful. I'm sure you'll be able to make small adjustments as needed if you run into any issues.

 

[azrivest]

And a cut-back/long run workout week seems like a good time for the Michigan, which I have done several times since Billy first put it in my plan last spring (that's 2 mile WU + (1 mile @ 10KP + 1 mile @ HMP + 0.75 mile @ 10KP + 1 mile @ HMP + 0.5 mile @ 5KP + 1 mile @ HMP + 0.25 mile @ 5KP) w/ 2.5 min easy between reps + 2 mile CD). It looks harder than it is, especially at this point when I should be getting into a groove halfway through the plan.

Look at you on a cut-back week!

Isn't the Michigan supposed to be one of the hardest run workouts you can do? Or am I confusing it with something else?

 

[DopeyBadger]

That Oct 12th workout is beastly. Otherwise, it looks fun to me!

 

[WillRunForPizza]

Isn't the Michigan supposed to be one of the hardest run workouts you can do? Or am I confusing it with something else?

I wouldn't do it in like week 3. But with 2.5 minutes of rest between reps, it's actually not that difficult. It's hard more because of the duration than because of the intensity.

That Oct 12th workout is beastly. Otherwise, it looks fun to me!

Well, it is supposed to be pretty hard I was thinking it would be comparable to a workout I've done in the past (60 min @ MP+30s + 60 min @ MP-30s), but with a little less volume and therefore less likely to result in injury. Do you think it's still too much?

 

[DopeyBadger]

Well, it is supposed to be pretty hard I was thinking it would be comparable to a workout I've done in the past (60 min @ MP+30s + 60 min @ MP-30s), but with a little less volume and therefore less likely to result in injury. Do you think it's still too much?

So that's something like 3 miles WU + 4 miles 8:42 pace + 4 miles 8:12 pace + 3 miles 7:42 pace + 2 mile CD. Long run pace is around 9:00 min/mile or slower. So the first 11 miles are at WU + faster than LR + MP, which is certainly doable. But then to add a 22.5 min faster than HMP for miles 11-14 will definitely be a challenge. Certainly not impossible. Definitely a very high level effort. I'd probably say to do one or the either, or cut down on the HM time. Like:

3 miles + 8 miles 8:42 + 3 miles 7:42 + 2 mile

or

3 miles + 4 miles 8:42 + 7 miles 8:12 + 2 mile

Both are still hard, but not nearly as hard as originally proposed.

Is what you have better than 7.5 miles MP + 8 miles HMP? Unequivocally yes. A 7.5 mile MP + 8 miles HMP is pushing WAY past a normal training run. I usually cap HMP to about 60 min in a workout. So to see 60 min of HMP isn't crazy, but it coming after 60 min of MP is intense if not downright scary. Definitely a very high level workout that would need a respectable amount of recovery afterwards. Like 3-5 days before the next hard workout at least. I'd say you're getting close to a race level effort on this one.

 

[WillRunForPizza]

So that's something like 3 miles WU + 4 miles 8:42 pace + 4 miles 8:12 pace + 3 miles 7:42 pace + 2 mile CD. Long run pace is around 9:00 min/mile or slower. So the first 11 miles are at WU + faster than LR + MP, which is certainly doable. But then to add a 22.5 min faster than HMP for miles 11-14 will definitely be a challenge. Certainly not impossible. Definitely a very high level effort. I'd probably say to do one or the either, or cut down on the HM time. Like:

3 miles + 8 miles 8:42 + 3 miles 7:42 + 2 mile

or

3 miles + 4 miles 8:42 + 7 miles 8:12 + 2 mile

Both are still hard, but not nearly as hard as originally proposed.

Okay, that makes sense. I'm leaning towards keeping the HM section, because I'd rather finish faster than MP, but I'm just going to flag it for now and reevaluate it once I see how my training is going.

Is what you have better than 7.5 miles MP + 8 miles HMP? Unequivocally yes. A 7.5 mile MP + 8 miles HMP is pushing WAY past a normal training run. I usually cap HMP to about 60 min in a workout. So to see 60 min of HMP isn't crazy, but it coming after 60 min of MP is intense if not downright scary. Definitely a very high level workout that would need a respectable amount of recovery afterwards. Like 3-5 days before the next hard workout at least. I'd say you're getting close to a race level effort on this one.

I will say I did not make that one up! It is from the Run Like a Pro plan. However, considering it again given what I know about running now, I think maybe it would have been better constructed as 60 min @ MP+1 min + 60 min @ MP. (The actual workout is steady - which he defines as 2-hour race pace - plus a minute for the first half and just steady for the second half. But it's adapted from an NAZ Elite workout, and their MP is much closer to 2-hour race pace than mine is.)

On reflection, I think the only thing that saved that workout from blowing up completely when I did it before is that my training paces underrepresented my actual fitness level. And last time I got injured two days later, so...yeah. That's why I didn't plan to do it again!

 

[DopeyBadger]

I will say I did not make that one up! It is from the Run Like a Pro plan. However, considering it again given what I know about running now, I think maybe it would have been better constructed as 60 min @ MP+1 min + 60 min @ MP. (The actual workout is steady - which he defines as 2-hour race pace - plus a minute for the first half and just steady for the second half. But it's adapted from an NAZ Elite workout, and their MP is much closer to 2-hour race pace than mine is.)

Ahh, see now that makes a little more sense. Instead of:

7.5 miles MP + 8 miles HMP

It would instead be something like:

6.5 miles Easy B (9:12 m/m) + 7.5 miles at 25km (15.5 miles) pace (7:57 m/m)

Still a very challenging workout, but now the first half of the workout is mostly a WU, and the second half is hitting close to that 60 min limit on HMP yet slightly slower.

 

[WillRunForPizza]

Ahh, see now that makes a little more sense. Instead of:

7.5 miles MP + 8 miles HMP

It would instead be something like:

6.5 miles Easy B (9:12 m/m) + 7.5 miles at 25km (15.5 miles) pace (7:57 m/m)

Still a very challenging workout, but now the first half of the workout is mostly a WU, and the second half is hitting close to that 60 min limit on HMP yet slightly slower.

It is possible that I have previously overrun this workout. In any case, probably best not to do it again.

 

[WillRunForPizza]

July 1 - 7, 2024
In which I got distracted by my marathon training plan and forgot to recap my last week of freedom

• M: 5.5 miles easy/hill sprints + lower body strength/plyo
• T: 4.5 miles easy
• W: upper body strength/cardio
• T: 6 miles easy-ish/strides + core
• F: 5.75 miles easy + lower body strength/HIIT/Pilates
• S: 10 miles easy

After a sweltering second half of June, July got off to a lovely start - T+D around 120 on Monday. I enjoyed a lovely tailwind on the way out, which then slowed me by 20-30 seconds/mile once I turned around. At least it kept me cool on the way back! Tuesday was little warmer and a little humider, but still pretty nice for July. My legs ached a bit from the strength workout, but nothing significant.

Sadly, by Thursday it got hot again I went out to run my 6-mile loop on Friday, but I had to take a detour because part of it was under construction and I ended up with a little less. I was afraid the air quality would be in the trash after the Fourth, but it actually wasn't bad.

On Saturday it was REALLY gross out. T+D maybe 160? And zero clouds. I need to work on getting out the door more quickly. I didn't feel too bad, but the last couple of miles are in the sun and mostly uphill, and my HR just would not drop below 160 even when I slowed way down. I walked up the steep hill and it was still like 158

Totals
Running: 5h 22m, 32.14 miles
Strength/mobility: 1h 59m
Total: 7h 21m

And there goes my free time...

 

[WillRunForPizza]

July 8 - 14, 2024
Marathon training week 1 of 16 | 105 days until MCM
In which, surprise, I am bad at hills and pacing


Week 1 schedule

Monday
Easy/strides: 5 miles (10:02), avg. HR 154, max 179, 83% Z1-2, T+D~155
core

iT's HoOoOoT.

Anyway. I heard a podcast recently about breathing through your nose while running, and then @avondale mentioned it in her training journal too, so I thought, why not? I tried it on my run and it was not as hard as I was expecting. It took a little getting used to, but it wasn't a problem to keep up throughout the run, other than when I was doing strides.

Tuesday
Workout: 2.3 miles easy + 8 x 1 min uphill + 2.2 mile CD, T+D~158
Lower body strength


Workout analysis (GAP)

Yeah. That didn't go particularly well.

It was, again, hot, humid, and mostly sunny. I did fine keeping my warm-up easy, but I ran the first hill rep way too fast, and it was all downhill from there. (Metaphorically. Literally it was quite a lot uphill from there, which was kind of the problem.) I don't really trust the distance/GAP on these, but the GAP on the first interval was around 5:30, and if that's even in the range of being correct, that was way faster than I had any business running when I had seven more reps.

By rep #4, I felt like I should have been on #6. My legs were dying. I started walking back down the hill rather than jogging after rep #5, and I cut rep #7 in half because I just couldn't even. I pulled it together to do the whole minute for #8, but wow that was not fun. I really compounded my struggle by not bringing water with me. ("It's only 8 x 1 min!" I said to myself. "That's short; I don't need water" )

I really couldn't tell you anything that happened in the podcast I was listening to because I was too busy dying (except that it was about heat adaptation, which is sort of morbidly appropriate). But I did notice a couple out at the same time who were doing shorter reps on the same hill. They took turns staying with the stroller and doing their reps, which seemed like a smart way for both of them to get in a hill workout. We kind of nodded whenever we passed each other to acknowledge our shared misery

So anyway, great start to my marathon training workouts. Let's hope they get better from here.

My legs were still tired when I was doing my strength training in the afternoon, so I did the weighted versions of the jumping exercises.

Wednesday
Easy: 5 miles (10:07), avg. HR 145, max 165, 96% Z1-2, T+D~155

After Tuesday's hills and strength, I was glad to have a day that was just easy.

Thursday
Medium-long: 8.6 miles (9:59), avg. HR 150, max 162, 99% Z1-2, T+D~140
Core

It was actually nice out! By which I mean the temp was in the 70s and the dew point was in the 60s instead of 80s and 70s, respectively. Pretty good run.

Friday
Easy/strides: 5 miles (9:55), avg. HR 146, max 172, 94% Z1-2, T+D~145
Upper body strength

Our respite from hell's front porch continued! Everything went fine.

Saturday
Long: 14 miles (10:10), avg. HR 151, max 176, 93% Z1-2, T+D~150

It got humid again, but at least it was cloudy. It even rained for a few miles early on. I was sad when it stopped.

I started off feeling kind of blah, but after a couple of miles I got into a groove, and miles 2 through about 8.5 flew by. Then I started to get tired, even though I was running downhill. By about mile 10 or 11, my legs were definitely feeling it. I don't think I slowed down particularly, but I was ready to be done even though I was not done. But eventually, I got home (with only one incidence of some...jerk...driving straight through the crosswalk as I was in it ).

In the afternoon YouTube suggested the Hardrock 100 live stream to me, and I put that on in the background for a while. It's wild to think about. I cannot imagine running 100 miles in one go. Like, I just ran 14% of that and it was pretty flat, but it felt hard and I needed a nap afterwards.

Sunday
Yoga

Today I started 2024's 30 days of yoga! It was pretty easy and relaxing. I like 30 days of yoga

Totals
Running: 7h 33m, 44.07 miles
Strength/mobility: 2h 1m
Total: 9h 35m


Weekly training log

Training in the heat is kind of exhausting. I took several naps this week.

Coming up

Week 2 schedule

I am already making modifications; given the heat, I decided to spread out my threshold work more over the long run. It's still about the same amount overall, but there's more breaks.

 

[avondale]

I tried it on my run and it was not as hard as I was expecting. It took a little getting used to, but it wasn't a problem to keep up throughout the run, other than when I was doing strides.

Yeah, that was pretty much my experience. I guess it's a good way to keep yourself honest about staying in the "easy" effort range. I've tried the alternative of holding a conversation with myself, and that just doesn't work.

I don't really trust the distance/GAP on these

Eh... getting up to a minute, especially when you'll cover a pretty good distance at your pace, it's probably not far off. The uncertainties should be getting distinctly less than your traveled distance and time.

This next thing probably depends on the watch you have...my Garmin recently had an update. One of the changes was that on my hill repeat intervals (7 x 20 sec with 20 sec recovery in between), the voice actually gives the distance of the interval when it's completed. (Previously there was no voice-over.) Perhaps because my intervals are so short (both in time and distance), the voice reports the distance in meters, which is actually sort of fascinating. So far my longest interval has been 63 m, but some have been as short as 49 m. Clearly there is going to be uncertainty in this, but now I can see very obviously why my paces for these intervals are so hugely different.

But the stats that I get for the run when I'm done are just the average pace for each interval, which I feel is much less clearly informative in this case.

Anyway, if you have the option of getting an actual distance for your intervals rather than a pace, you might find it helpful. In principle, you can use your target pace and time to figure out what your distance should be if you're running at the right speed. If you care about it that much!

 

[WillRunForPizza]

Eh... getting up to a minute, especially when you'll cover a pretty good distance at your pace, it's probably not far off. The uncertainties should be getting distinctly less than your traveled distance and time.

This next thing probably depends on the watch you have...my Garmin recently had an update. One of the changes was that on my hill repeat intervals (7 x 20 sec with 20 sec recovery in between), the voice actually gives the distance of the interval when it's completed. (Previously there was no voice-over.) Perhaps because my intervals are so short (both in time and distance), the voice reports the distance in meters, which is actually sort of fascinating. So far my longest interval has been 63 m, but some have been as short as 49 m. Clearly there is going to be uncertainty in this, but now I can see very obviously why my paces for these intervals are so hugely different.

But the stats that I get for the run when I'm done are just the average pace for each interval, which I feel is much less clearly informative in this case.

Anyway, if you have the option of getting an actual distance for your intervals rather than a pace, you might find it helpful. In principle, you can use your target pace and time to figure out what your distance should be if you're running at the right speed. If you care about it that much!

My watch does give me the distance of each rep (in miles if it's more than a tenth - I think these ranged from like 0.10-0.12 miles), but since I'm running up the same hill over and over, I can see where the change in distance on my watch from rep to rep doesn't correspond with the difference between where I got to last time and where I got to this time. I do think it gets better as the intervals get longer, so a minute is okay where 30 seconds is barely even worth glancing at, but even a minute is still not great.

The other part I don't entirely trust is Strava's calculation of the GAP (my watch doesn't do this). So even if my actual pace is accurate, it doesn't necessarily tell me how hard I'm working. But hitting a particular pace isn't the point of this workout, so it's more a matter of curiosity than anything else.

 

[azrivest]

Anyway. I heard a podcast recently about breathing through your nose while running, and then @avondale mentioned it in her training journal too, so I thought, why not? I tried it on my run and it was not as hard as I was expecting. It took a little getting used to, but it wasn't a problem to keep up throughout the run, other than when I was doing strides.

I do that when I want to force myself stay in zone 2. I had read that you can't go over "easy" range when breathing through your nose, compared to huffing through your mouth.

Workout: 2.3 miles easy + 8 x 1 min uphill + 2.2 mile CD, T+D~158

I have more or less the same workout on my plan this Thursday. What were your RI like? Did you plan anything specific time-wise or was it "jog back down the hill as recovery"?

 

[WillRunForPizza]

I do that when I want to force myself stay in zone 2. I had read that you can't go over "easy" range when breathing through your nose, compared to huffing through your mouth.

I will say that I can keep breathing through my nose when I'm doing strides, so not sure about that. It's more challenging but still doable, and doing strides in these conditions means my HR just doesn't get below 165 ever again in the run and can get into the mid-170s when I'm actually going faster (and now that I've adjusted my zones, Z2 goes up to about 160).

I have more or less the same workout on my plan this Thursday. What were your RI like? Did you plan anything specific time-wise or was it "jog back down the hill as recovery"?

It's not a huge hill, so I have to go all the way back to the bottom to do the next rep, and that's my recovery. It started out jogging back down and turned into walking about halfway through

 

[avondale]

The other part I don't entirely trust is Strava's calculation of the GAP (my watch doesn't do this). So even if my actual pace is accurate, it doesn't necessarily tell me how hard I'm working. But hitting a particular pace isn't the point of this workout, so it's more a matter of curiosity than anything else.

Excellent point on that. Presumably in order to calculate the GAP, Strava (or Garmin, for me) has to have some idea of the gradient of the hill. I assume it gets that from looking at a short period of time before and after each instant. But then that means that when you start turning around and going back downhill after the rep, and then turning around to uphill at the start of a rep, it's going to be confused. I've definitely seen that in my intervals, so I don't at all pay attention to the GAP for intervals.

 

[WillRunForPizza]

July 15 - 21, 2024
Marathon training week 2 of 16 | 98 days until MCM
In which summer is hot


Week 2 schedule

Monday
Easy/strides: 5 miles (10:06), avg. HR 153, max 178, 81% Z1-2, T+D~155
Core

The problem with doing strides in the summer is that your HR never really comes back down. At least mine doesn't. To be fair, usually I am also running uphill at the same time. So that 19% >Z2 is just the last mile when I was doing strides.

Tuesday
Workout: 2 mile WU/strides + 1/2/3/4/3/2/1 min on/2 min RI + 2 mile CD
Total: 7.27 miles, 1:11:54, avg. HR 164, max 194, T+D~160
Lower body strength



Strava workout analysis and lap chart

God, it's hot.

Anyway. I didn't have specific pace goals for this workout (because I feel like my goal for the first couple of workouts of any training plan is just to remind my body what workouts feel like). But I figured I'd be somewhere around (from shortest to longest) mile pace, 5K pace, 10K pace, HM pace. Only what I ended up with was more like 800m pace, 3K pace, 5K/10K pace, HM pace. It didn't kill me, but boy was I tired afterwards. (I blame this mostly on the heat, though.) Strength training after that was rough

Wednesday
Easy: 5.1 miles (10:33), avg. HR 142, max 161, 99% Z1-2, T+D~155

My legs were tired. My first mile was very sluggish, but after that I was mostly okay.

Thursday
Medium-long: 9 miles (9:56), avg. HR 150, max 168, 93% Z1-2, T+D~148
Upper body strength

The weather was cooler and cloudy if still pretty humid. With a breeze, it almost felt cool. It was nice to get a break from the heat. The higher-effort portions were mostly from hills, and when somebody just drove through the crosswalk right in front of me AGAIN

I did find an unexpected benefit of breathing through your nose: when a bug flies into your mouth, it bounces off instead of going inside!

I got my days mixed up and did upper body instead of core - whoops. It's not a big deal, though.

Friday
Easy/strides: 5 miles (9:54), avg. HR 149, max 171, 91% Z1-2, T+D~140
Core

The dew point dropped 10 degrees between Thursday's run and Friday's, which was fantastic. And nobody tried to murder me with their car this time

Saturday
Long: 5 miles easy + 3 x (4 min @ LTP/1 min RI/4 min @ LTP/1 mile easy) + 3.3 miles easy
Total: 15 miles, avg. HR 160, max 190, T+D~145-150



Strava workout analysis and lap chart

It was still cooler and cloudy, but the humidity was back up. My clothes were absolutely soaked by about halfway through - I kept checking to make sure my reservoir wasn't leaking, but no, that was just sweat dripping from my shorts onto my legs with each step I finished all of my liter of Skratch and close to 1.5 liters of water by the time I got home.

I was glad I adjusted the workout - I think I temporarily forgot that you can't just stick a normal workout in the middle of a 15-mile run and expect it all to be fine. But this version wasn't an issue. I was a bit slower on the first interval as I tried to get a feel for the pace, and I'm not sure what happened on the last interval, but the other reps were pretty good if you look at the GAP (my route had a bunch of little rolling hills).

Overall I would say the run went pretty well. I was definitely tired afterwards but felt okay during, although I will say having to stop at every freaking light in the last mile was not my favorite.

I've never run that far out on Mt Vernon Trail, so towards the end I learned that I was supposed to go left when I went straight, as I ended up in a random neighborhood probably somewhere in Alexandria. It was fine, though; I just turned around a little early and ran a bit extra around the block when I got back to make up for it.

Semi-related thoughts
I was listening to a podcast the other day and they were talking about having workouts that add up to 45-60 minutes total of lactate threshold work. I thought, "Hey, you're not supposed to do that" because I built my workout guide mostly from Daniels Running Formula, and he says you should cap threshold work at 20 minutes if it's a single block or 30 minutes total if you're doing intervals.

He does also say you could run multiple 20-minute blocks in one workout, so maybe he's the one who's contradictory. (Well, definitely, but I originally thought the multiple 20-minute blocks was just for really fast people.) But then I thought about it more, and maybe it's actually not an issue? If you're training for a 5K or 10K, you're probably going to run close to if not more than the race distance at race pace in some workouts, right? So why couldn't you also do 60 minutes (the equivalent maximum, ish) at threshold? I mean, you wouldn't do that for a half or full marathon, but that's mostly because the volume would probably be too high. But unless you're really fast, 45-60 minutes at threshold is going to be well under 13 miles.

So in theory, should I think about doing like 6-8 x 1 mile (totaling ~45-60 min) at threshold with say 2 min recovery? Add in a warm-up and cool-down and that's maybe 10-12 miles total, which is a lot but not completely unreasonable. (It does sound really hard, though.)
I'm certainly not doing it in this training block, but it's interesting to think about.

Some days I feel like I still know nothing about running. It's good that I write my own training plans

Sunday
Yoga

My legs were pretty tired.

Totals
Running: 7h 44m, 46.58 miles
Strength/mobility: 2h 5m
Total: 9h 49m


Weekly training log

Have you noticed that training in a heat wave is just exhausting? That's been my conclusion for the week. At least the 10-day forecast has us with just normal summer stickiness rather than living in Satan's armpit like the last couple of weeks.

Coming up

Week 3 schedule

I don't normally like to hit the same systems in back to back workouts, but in this case I think it works out okay. Saturday was more about inserting some faster paces into my long run, and it gave me a little refresher on what threshold feels like, since I won't be able to rely on pace for the hill intervals on Tuesday. Hopefully I don't mess it up too much!

AND...it's almost time for the Olympics!!! Everyone please proceed to "dun" to themselves the Olympic theme music which will be playing constantly for two weeks starting Friday

 

[avondale]

I was listening to a podcast the other day and they were talking about having workouts that add up to 45-60 minutes total of lactate threshold work. I thought, "Hey, you're not supposed to do that" because I built my workout guide mostly from Daniels Running Formula, and he says you should cap threshold work at 20 minutes if it's a single block or 30 minutes total if you're doing intervals.

He does also say you could run multiple 20-minute blocks in one workout, so maybe he's the one who's contradictory. (Well, definitely, but I originally thought the multiple 20-minute blocks was just for really fast people.) But then I thought about it more, and maybe it's actually not an issue? If you're training for a 5K or 10K, you're probably going to run close to if not more than the race distance at race pace in some workouts, right? So why couldn't you also do 60 minutes (the equivalent maximum, ish) at threshold? I mean, you wouldn't do that for a half or full marathon, but that's mostly because the volume would probably be too high. But unless you're really fast, 45-60 minutes at threshold is going to be well under 13 miles.

In the "Training for the Uphill Athlete" book that I referenced in my posts, the authors say to find your LT by doing a 30- to 60-min run that's essentially at LT. They suggest that the range is simply dependent on your fitness: if you're not as fit, especially in endurance, then go for 30 min, but if you're an experienced endurance runner, go for 60 min. (Presumably you can also go in between.) The idea with the "test" is to not fade in effort.

So perhaps one of the authors you're reading is making some kind of assumption about their audience's experience? Or maybe there's some other thing that he usually builds into his plan that would combine with the LT work to be "too much"?

I'd also think you probably wouldn't want to start your training program with workouts that add up right to the 60 min, but build to it.

 

[DopeyBadger]

Semi-related thoughts
I was listening to a podcast the other day and they were talking about having workouts that add up to 45-60 minutes total of lactate threshold work. I thought, "Hey, you're not supposed to do that" because I built my workout guide mostly from Daniels Running Formula, and he says you should cap threshold work at 20 minutes if it's a single block or 30 minutes total if you're doing intervals.

He does also say you could run multiple 20-minute blocks in one workout, so maybe he's the one who's contradictory. (Well, definitely, but I originally thought the multiple 20-minute blocks was just for really fast people.) But then I thought about it more, and maybe it's actually not an issue? If you're training for a 5K or 10K, you're probably going to run close to if not more than the race distance at race pace in some workouts, right? So why couldn't you also do 60 minutes (the equivalent maximum, ish) at threshold? I mean, you wouldn't do that for a half or full marathon, but that's mostly because the volume would probably be too high. But unless you're really fast, 45-60 minutes at threshold is going to be well under 13 miles.

So in theory, should I think about doing like 6-8 x 1 mile (totaling ~45-60 min) at threshold with say 2 min recovery? Add in a warm-up and cool-down and that's maybe 10-12 miles total, which is a lot but not completely unreasonable. (It does sound really hard, though.)
I'm certainly not doing it in this training block, but it's interesting to think about.

Some days I feel like I still know nothing about running. It's good that I write my own training plans

I thought the total cap on Daniels LT work was suppose to be 60 min in a single workout? But maybe I'm misremembering. He does have quite a few contradictory statements in the book. Although I usually cap people at 45 min unless they've got a lot of experience. I do know there are inconsistencies though because I vaguely remember a massive LT workout in the book that was well over 60 min total time even for elite level athletes (and this plan wasn't elite by any means).

You can definitely handle 6 x 1 mile. Pretty sure the most I've ever done was a 2 x 20 min (2 x 3 miles). Way harder than 6 x 1 mile because of the consecutive miles. So if you're looking for a more beneficial workout, then you'll probably find something like 3 x 15 min or 2 x 20 min instead of 6 x 7.5 min. That's all to say, you can definitely do it.

 

[WillRunForPizza]

I thought the total cap on Daniels LT work was suppose to be 60 min in a single workout? But maybe I'm misremembering. He does have quite a few contradictory statements in the book. Although I usually cap people at 45 min unless they've got a lot of experience. I do know there are inconsistencies though because I vaguely remember a massive LT workout in the book that was well over 60 min total time even for elite level athletes (and this plan wasn't elite by any means).

I just checked my copy (4th edition), and tbh the threshold section is even more contradictory than I remembered it

First he says a 20-minute block is enough for most runners if you're doing it all at once. He also suggests a 30-minute maximum total for threshold intervals. Then later in the section, he says you could do more than one 20-minute block in a session if you feel like it, but immediately goes back to saying one is enough.

Then, if I look at the examples, they're all 30-36 minutes for people running 41-70 mpw (which is what I'm doing) but get up to 60 minutes for people running 101-120 mpw (which will never be me so I mostly ignored those before):

So if you're looking for a more beneficial workout, then you'll probably find something like 3 x 15 min or 2 x 20 min instead of 6 x 7.5 min. That's all to say, you can definitely do it.

Hmm, good point. I might actually tweak some of my upcoming workouts - I think the most I have is 2 x 14 minutes

 

[DopeyBadger]

I just checked my copy (4th edition), and tbh the threshold section is even more contradictory than I remembered it

First he says a 20-minute block is enough for most runners if you're doing it all at once. He also suggests a 30-minute maximum total for threshold intervals. Then later in the section, he says you could do more than one 20-minute block in a session if you feel like it, but immediately goes back to saying one is enough.

Then, if I look at the examples, they're all 30-36 minutes for people running 41-70 mpw (which is what I'm doing) but get up to 60 minutes for people running 101-120 mpw (which will never be me so I mostly ignored those before):
View attachment 879060


Hmm, good point. I might actually tweak some of my upcoming workouts - I think the most I have is 2 x 14 minutes

Classic Daniels contradictions! He does also say no more than 10% of weekly miles as LT too.