Getting back up to speed

Last Wednesday, I did my first interval session since a long time – must have been more than half a year or so.

 Photo of a Roadrunner by Nick Chill from flickr

It was not an all out session as I did the run with my cousin Kai who decided to try to run his first half marathon at the end of October and asked me for some advice.

He had run the Stadtlauf in Bad Oldesloe a few weeks ago, so I had a recent 10k time to work with. He had run about 48 minutes for a pretty accurate course, so I looked up the corresponding half marathon (about 1:50) and marathon times (about 4 hours). Of course, these times would require a good, proper training for the events to be realistic. As this would be his first half marathon, it may be a bit aggressive, but he already indicated that he would be happy with a time of under 2 hours which should be totally realistic if he does some solid training the next few weeks.

As his biggest problem is pace control (he ran a bit too fast for the first loop in Bad Oldesloe), I’ve put together a session for him to teach some pace control.

We did a 13k run that included 3 time 3k (with some easy running in between). Each of these 3k blocks would consist of 1k at marathon pace (about 5:40/k), 1k at half marathon pace (5:10 to 5:15/k) and 1k at 10k pace (about 4:50 or a bit faster). In addition to be fairly long, if the paces are too quick, you will notice in the last repeat. Of course, this session is almost impossible to do without a GPS, but my Garmin 405 made it easy to hit the proper paces.

For my own goals, these paces are about one step too low (i.e. the marathon pace would be my long run pace, his halfmarathon pace would be my marathon pace and the 10k pace would be my half marathon pace). Still, this would be the longest run for me since my IM, and also (apart from the 10k race) the first quicker session for ages.

Everything went really well. It was a bit rainy during the day but when we ran we even had a bit of sunshine. It was warm enough to run in shorts, but a stiff wind required a long sleeve. When we started, we still managed to talk a bit, but only exchanged some grunts during the intervals. With some adjustments by the Garmin, we hit the paces almost perfectly. The second 10k section was quite hard, but that was mainly due to it being uphill and into a strong headwind. We even managed to run the last 10k in 4:38 without going all out.

We were both really happy with the session. Kai has a much better understanding of what his half marathon pace feels like, and I didn’t have a problem hitting the paces and still having enough air to offer him some encouragement. I guess we’ll do this session again, and maybe also share a longer run before the half marathon.

I’ve also lined up some races for the rest of the year. While my main goal remains to loose some weight, I’m registered for the Alstertal half marathon, Lübeck Citylauf and the Lübeck Half marathon – all races I managed to do last year (and also write some short blog posts about it). If all goes well, I’ll try to run a fast Adventslauf in Ratzeburg – a race I couldn’t do last year because I hurt my knee. Hopefully, my preparation will work better this year!

Building confidence with some better training sessions

After my not-so-good race in Hannover, I’ve tried to do some confidence building sessions. So far, it has worked fine.

(Picture found on Deadra’s blog.)

The best session I have done in a long time was last weekend’s long brick session. As per Mitch’s suggestion, I did some pretty long sessions around my half-IM in Hannover – the week before I did a 3 hour run, and for the week after he suggested a long brick. As I am a bit time constrained, the instruction was to run for about 90 minutes after a bike ride – as long as my time allows.

I was still a bit tired and spent after the Hannover race and I knew that my work week was going to be a bit hectic as well. So I capped my bike ride at 2 hours. I went a bit easier than IM intensity, but I still had some very solid sections in there. The weather was a bit cold so I had arm and leg warmers on and made sure I was eating and drinking enough. It’s funny how a 2 hour ride seems to be quite solid at the start of the season, but goes over in a flash when you’re almost ready for a race. Also, my mind was already on the run. I was hoping for a much better run than in my half-IM where every step was hard work.

After a quick change of clothes, the first steps of the run felt strange as usual, but I quickly loosened up, had a good “bio-break” and really felt okay. I wasn’t hot at all (in fact, I had even put on a long shirt), I was able to eat and drink as planned and just felt great. My HR quickly got down to where I wanted it (under 125 beats per minute), and it even took some effort not to slow down and have the HR drop further. Time flew by, and I was feeling great the whole way. I didn’t manage to run for 90 minutes – my pace was so quick that I had run the planned course after 1h26m. In Hannover, I wasn’t able to run any quicker than a 6 min/k pace even when working hard, now I was running around 5:20/k without any effort at all.

How is that possible? Well, here are some ideas:

• The bike before the run was quite easy compared to Hannover.
• I wasn’t overheated, so everything just clicked: HR, eating, drinking, being relaxed, pace.
• I was better rested than before the race – I had made sure to get some extra sleep during the week to recover from the race.

For my IM in Frankfurt, this means that I have to make sure that I start the race well rested and have to manage to complete the bike race within myself – not too hard, and certainly avoid getting hot. This includes bike intensity, but also measures such as making sure to put on sun screen so I don’t get another sunburn, drink a little more than in Hannover (so I start peeing before the half-way mark) and relax a bit on the last bike section before T2.

I also hope that it’s not going to be too hot in Frankfurt – but as I don’t have any influence on that it’s better to come up with a good plan if it ends up being hot. But at least I know now that I can have a decent run in Frankfurt if I manage to execute smartly. At least I can influence that …

Long Run around Ratzeburger See

One of the standard races in the winter in the 26k run around the Ratzeburger See (a large lake adjacent to the town of Ratzeburg), usually held on the first Sunday in December. I’ve posted about this race in the past [include link]. This winter, I was training to do the race, but then got an injury and had to pull out of the race. One thing that has been on my list since then was to do the run as a long training run. I finally got around to do it!

After loading my FuelBelt with drink, food and my iPhone (for music and a camera), I did the short 25 min drive from my home to a parking lot at the North tip of the lake. (The race starts in Ratzeburg at the South tip, but it was easier to do the run from the North.) Here’s a Google Earth screenshot:

After a short jog through the forest, I reached the lake near a little marina:

On the Eastern side, the dirt trail runs pretty close to the lake, usually in a nice shade from some bushes. Even though it had rained a bit in the last days, the trail was not too muddy and great to run on.

After about 9k the trail moves a bit away from the lake and into some hillier  terrain:

For the race, this is the last harder section – you had better saved some power for this! But on my run, I had just warmed up and was able to cruise them quite comfortably.

After 13k, you come to the old town of Ratzeburg that is sitting on a little dam between two lakes. After the short section through the town, there are some beautiful views on the lake and the dome:

The eastern side of the lake was almost completely part of East Germany. Before 1989, it was impossible to run around the lake (in fact the race was started as a celebration of the border opening up). By now, you have to know where the border was to spot the location of the fences – pretty scary stuff back then. It never fails to be thankful for the peaceful events that took place in 1989 that allowed Germany to re-unify. Even if it’s tricky to pick the exact location of the borderline, you can still tell that you are in East Germany – the whole are is much more rural, and the villages just have a different feel to it, even though a lot of old houses have been beautifully rebuilt.

Also, the eastern side of the lake is much hillier. Probably because of that the trail moves at times away from the lake but you are always running in almost no traffic except for the occasional biker or walker.

I was going through my water and my ShotBlocks (have I mentioned that I hate gels?), and was making good progress. I was taking an occasional walk break on some steeper hills, but my legs felt okay.

After 27k and almost exactly 2h30 of running, I was back at the parking place where I left my car:

I was very happy with this run. It was very beautiful (the pictures can’t really capture it), and my legs felt good all the way. Now if only the race feels that good …

First Key Bike Session

As preparation for my Ironman races, I like to do the following key session:

• Easy warm up for about 30 minutes, then
• 3*50k at increasing effort:
  - first one slightly easier than IM effort
  - second one at IM effort
  - third one slightly faster than IM effort
• then another easy 30 minutes back home
• and a little transition run

Between the hard parts there is just a short break to pee and load up on nutrition. I usually bring a little backpack so I don’t have to carry everything with me – everything should be as close to racing as possible, so taking all the stuff that’s needed for such a long session would be quite bulky.

The idea of this session (inspired by some of Gordo’s suggestions) is to dial in your IM effort. If you manage to do the third one faster than IM effort and still be able to have a decent T-Run, you should be fine. But if you go out too hard or not eat/drink enough, you’ll notice it pretty soon.

I usually try to get two of these sessions in when preparing for an IM, but often something comes up (bad weather, scheduling conflicts, etc.) and I usually manage to make just one in preparing for an IM. Even with our new puppy, I cleared two days on my calendar for solely doing these sessions. When I get the sessions done, it builds a lot of confidence, and even if you notice that your pacing was too quick, at least you’ll learn a lot.

First Loop

I was shooting for 140/150/160w of average power, trying to ride pretty even (goal VI well under 1.1). HR should be 110/115/120 or so. I hoped that would result in average speeds of 28/29/30 km/h. Once I got going after my big breakfast (1000cal as I would on race morning!), I felt really good. I was going pretty relaxed, eating and drinking a lot, but still going pretty quick.

Here are the numbers:

• average power 140w
• normalized power 152w
• VI 1.08
• HR 113
• average speed 29.1 km/h

Apart from HR, this was going really well, and I hoped to build on that – but I started to get a bit anxious at going over 30 km/h for the last loop. But whatever, a quick reloading, then it was on to

Second Loop

I was continuing to eat, but it wasn’t that hot, so I wasn’t really thirsty, but I still had to stop for a quick pee in the middle of the loop. Managed to lift the effort, but got more anxious about the third loop – it was going to be hard!!

The numbers look really great, right where I wanted them to be:

• average power 151w
• normalized power 161w
• VI 1.07
• HR 120
• average speed 30.1 km/h

Everything was going well, and I had the “proper nervousness” for the third loop.

But when I got back to where I left my backpack, some “friendly neighbor” had decided that a lone backpack in the forest was suspicious and tried to “save” it. Bummer – nothing more to eat and drink (plus some spare clothes were gone). All I had left was one clif bar and nothing to drink .. what to do?

Third Loop

So I rode five minutes back to a village where I had seen some kids playing near a house. I asked them for some water, so at least I had one full bottle and one bar for the third loop. Ready to give it a shot!

I tried to go even harder than on the second loop, and managed to pick up the effort a bit. But it felt pretty strained, and after half the loop was done, I felt that my strength was gone. I tried to keep up the effort, but it was obvious that my power numbers were dropping rapidly.

Here are the numbers (full loop and numbers for the two halves):

• average power 140w  (155/125)
• normalized power 156w (169/141)
• VI 1.12 (1.09/1.13)
• HR 120 (123/118)
• average speed 29.5 km/h (28.8/30.3 – second half is a lot more down)

It’s pretty obvious from the numbers that I was coming a bit apart on the second half. I was debating weather to do the t-run. I decided to cut the loop a bit short and stopped at a gas station 3k before the “official” end of the loop for an emergency refueling with a Coke and some chocolate.

T-Run

After that I cycled home pretty mellow, but was feeling good enough to go on my t-run. A quick change of clothes in our garage, grab my fuel-belt and then go for a run. I was feeling okay considering how bad in shape I was just 15 minutes ago. The 20 minute run was uneventful which was all I could hope for at this point. I even felt good enough to pick up the pace a bit after the initial 2k of easy, and didn’t have any problems.

Assessment

I really learned a lot during this session:

• I was coming apart on the third loop. It had something to do with my lack of proper nutrition, and think I now have a pretty good understanding of what I need for the race. It comes down to about 300 cal per hour in bars, drink and some “real” food.
• While some part of slowing down can be explained by nutrition (or lack thereof), the pace/effort was still a bit too quick for my current fitness level. I might be able to get in shape for that by the time my IM comes around, so it would be good to complete a second session of this type and see if I have improved a bit by then.
• When I take the time and scale down the effort, I can bounce back from a calorie deficit and get back to feeling decent. This was an important confidence builder, as I will have some low points during my race. If I want to reach my goal of “running the run”, I will have to get through these bad patches better than I managed in previous years. I just need some confidence and a bit of patience.

I hope to do another one of these key sessions in addition to my “normal” training. It is on my calendar for May 24th. I’ll keep you posted how I progress until then!