I just registered for the Derby Marathon. There’s no going back now unless I want to waste $60.
The Kentucky Derby Marathon doesn’t have a very long history. This will only be the marathon’s sixth year, but the Mini-Marathon has been run every year since 1974. Check out the history of the event here.
Time: 40min
Distance: 4.27mi
Pace: 9:22 min/mi
I ran a pretty hilly course, and attacked my biggest hill ever toward the end. I swear this was at least a 50% slope, and by the top my legs were burning like I had been doing squats. I really love hills though. I get a really strong feeling of accomplishment after getting to the top.
Time: 30min
Distance: 3.16mi
Pace: 9:31 min/mi
I actually ran this yesterday. I am just a little behind in my posting. Today is a day off, and my calves are very happy about that. They were pretty tight yesterday after Sunday’s long run.
Time: 65min
Distance: 7mi
Pace: 9:18min/mi
It was a great run.
Time: 30min Tempo
Distance: 3.43mi
Pace: 8:44min/mi
My plan was to run 5min slowly, pick up the pace to my lactate-threshold (about 170bpm) for 20min, and finish with 5 slow minutes. All of my planning went out the window when I actually hit the bricks. As soon as I started the fast portion, I checked my pace and I was running around 8min/mi which is considerably faster than my planned upper 8min pace. Regardless, I kept running at that pace for 10min until I checked my pulse. It took a few seconds to get my pulse and when I did, it came out at 130bpm, much slower than the 170bpm needed for lactate-threshold. So I decided to work on moving my feet as quickly as I could for the remainder of the 20min fast run and not worry to much about my pulse. As planned I finished off with 5 slow minutes.
I’m not exactly sure why my pulse measured at 130bpm. I know I was running much faster than normal and breathing much harder as well. So my heart rate must have recovered to 130bpm during the time it took to find my pulse. This definitely makes it difficult to use my pulse as a metric for anything. I’m either going to have to get faster at finding it or find another method altogether.
Other than that hiccup, the tempo run went well. I enjoyed the fast portion as it was a nice break from the usual pace. Also, I recorded my fastest mile yet at 8:08min. Next week, I’ll try the tempo run thing again, but this time I’ll worry less about my pulse rate.
Time: 30min
Distance: 3.20mi
Pace: 9:25min/mi
I just got my run in before the rain started this afternoon. In fact, I was just finishing stretching in front of the house when it started sprinkling. I took it kind of slow today because yesterday was a long run and Wednesday is speed work.
Last night I did a bit of research into what exactly speed work entails. Tempo runs are the most effective speed training for a marathon. A tempo run is a 20minute run at the lactate-threshold. The lactate-threshold is the point where your body can just get rid of the lactic acid being produced by aerobic exercise, and this works out to about 85%-95% of your maximum heart rate. Running Times has a great article on this that I suggest anyone considering doing tempo runs read.
I did some experiments on myself today. My resting heart rate (measured before getting out of bed) is about 55bpm. From this and my age, 85% of my maximum heart rate is 170pbm. During today’s 30min run at 9:25 pace, I measured my heart rate about every 10 minutes and got 120bpm, 126bpm, and 132bpm. From this I’m going to try to run my tempo pace at about 8:50 - 9:00 min/mi. Of course I’ll check my heart rate too to see if this works out correctly. I’ll talk more about this after the tempo run on Wednesday. I hope the weather holds out.
Time: 50min
Distance: 5.45mi
Pace: 9:11min/mi
Weight: 204lb
Today’s run was AWESOME!!! I tried something new today — controlling my pace. Previously, I would just run at the same perceived effort level the entire run. That way, I would run very fast at the beginning, but I would tire quickly and run slower the rest of the way. Problem is, at the end I would be crashing, and consequently I would run very slowly. Today, on the other hand, I worked hard to run slowly at the beginning, and it was hard to do because I felt like I was nearly walking. Then I slowly ramped up the pace. So at the end, I had a lot left and could run my fastest mile. It was glorious! I wish I had tried this before.
I want to thank Coach Andrea for opening my eyes to this. I don’t remember her exactly telling me to do it, but I though about some of our previous conversations and decided to try pace control. (She had probably decide I needed pace control a long time ago.) Thanks Andrea, I’m glad I have someone to talk about this stuff with.
Time: 35min
Distance: 3.64mi
Pace: 9:36
It was a good run today — hilly course and beautiful weather. It’s so nice to run outside in Northern California. I’m so luck that I rarely have to run on a tread mill. I’m not sure I could stay motivated on one.
Back at it on Sunday with a 50min run.
Running recovery time is a difficult thing for many runners, including myself, to get their heads around. Your lungs and heart may feel great after a long run, but that doesn’t tell the whole story of how your body feels. You put a lot of stress on your bones, joints, etc when running. Well, you might say (as I like to say): We came from cave men, and think what they put their bodies through. The appropriate retort is: What was their life span again? Right!
Coach Jay over at the Nike Inside Running Blog discusses this very issue, and lends some great insight on the issue:
… by adding 10 minutes a day you’re not giving your bones, ligaments, tendons and muscles time to adapt to the stress of running, even though your cardiovascular system can handle that workload. Also, all training philosophies regarding endurance sports have some sort of oscillation between hard, medium and easy days; your program was rigidly fixed on the same amount of running everyday and that rigidity didn’t give your body a chance to adapt to the training. This is such a simple concept, yet accepting the fact that the workout itself IS NOT where the body makes an adaptation but rather the body makes an adaptation during the rest/recovery/regeneration phase following a workout…
I have certainly experienced this before, but I don’t think it is a problem with my marathon training regiment, as it was designed with this in mind. I will remember it the next time I think I should drastically up my distance or time, though. Leave your experiences in the comments.
Time: 30min
Distance: 3.31mi
Pace: 9min, 3sec
I did not enjoy my run very much today. I worked through my regular time (11am) and didn’t get it in until about 4:30. I hadn’t had any snacks during the afternoon, and I ran out of energy at just about the time a head wind started picking up. My pace wasn’t too bad, but I came home feeling like crap! I still find it amazing that I can tell when my available calories are low. I’m a robust man, and you would think that my robustness would translate into better energy buffering. New runners should definitely keep this in mind. If I hadn’t know what was happening, I would have been very discouraged.
Exercising low on calories isn’t even a good way to lose weight. Your metabolism slows down because it’s afraid that the low cal condition is a sign of things to come. Then you don’t get the good afterburn, where you metabolism remains elevated for a while afterward.