Monday, July 14, 2008

Training paces

Notes to self, based on some pondering re: my favorite running book, Daniels' Running Formula.

(Because I am an idiot, I had 36 hours of alarm yelping--making me utterly crazy!--before realizing that it was not in fact the smoke alarm, which is genuinely too high up for me to reach & had me passively waiting for the super's minion, but the carbon monoxide alarm, which I can reach if I stand up on a chair. A blessed silence now reigns. I remain in a daze from sleep deprivation!)

Let us say that current VDOT is 36, aspirational VDOT (which I have been at in recent memory, and will hope to reach by early September) 38.

Paces for VDOT 36: easy pace 11:02, marathon pace 9:33, threshold pace 8:55

Paces for VDOT 38: easy pace 10:35, marathon pace 9:08, threshold pace 8:33

Not sure about max HR - I have been counting it as 190, never have seen higher than 188 on my monitor though (barring haywire super-high non-accurate readings). HR associated with threshold pace described as 88-92% of max HR, which would put it somewhere between 165 and 174. Probably lower end will be better--will see how paces and HR align once I start training properly next week, but am thinking I'll aim for 170.

(I usually have raced half-marathons around 165-66, with last mile and a half going into the low 170s--I am not sure if this is training-specific i.e. movable or more permanent, but I have felt that something physiologically unpleasant [mild to moderate queasiness speaking to sudden rise in lactate levels] happens around 173-74, so these numbers seem to me plausible.)

Schedule to follow. I'm basically looking at a modified version of Hal Higdon's Novice 2 program. Nothing fancy! At Brent's suggestion, I'll switch Tuesday's and Wednesday's runs, and add optional hill sessions on Thursdays where my legs aren't too wiped out. So that Tuesday will be the longest and hardest mid-week run, with a tempo/threshold pace section in the middle; Wednesday as a shorter easy run; and Thursday also short with optional hills. Long runs on Saturdays. Plus cross-training.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Thankfully, though, the chirping is now over!

My kitchen smoke alarm malfunctioned a few weeks ago (although I do have a back-up a few feet away). The trick will be replacing it with one similar in size so the ceiling won't need painting. ;-)