Tag: Hal Higdon

Marathon Mike

Marathon Mondays Week 3: Thursday is basically Monday

Posted on by Mogs

Though my commitment to putting out this blog series every Monday has already fallen to the wayside, I am still committed to getting it out weekly. As we all know by now, I would never deign to make an excuse, but if I did I would perhaps put the blame on Florida’s beaches. A man can’t be expected to sit inside and write a weekly blog series that nobody reads when faced with such adversity as trying to stay awake in a lounge chair staring at the ocean. So if you want me to get these out on time, perhaps you should try and contribute to pollution so the beach is too gross for me to relax on. Ball is in your court.

Taking a look at last week, the real challenge was the 30 min tempo run. I posted the workout last blog, but it’s worth repeating that I broke the 30 min tempo into two 15 minute blocks spaced out by a 10 minute recovery. I think I needed to do this because I was moving during the first 15 minutes of the workout, and without that 10 minute recovery I wouldn’t have been able to get moving again for the second round. This was obviously the hardest run of the week, I think the whole run totaled around 8 miles but damn it felt good to get moving like that.

The rest of the week was pretty standard until I got to Florida. Saturday I did my long run of 6 miles, and since I slept in by the time I got started it was a solid 85 degrees and brutally hot. The last 2 miles of that run I literally felt like Mosses wandering the dessert for 40 years. I am sure he would agree our struggle was similar. For the 3-miler on Sunday, me and the ol’ ball-and-chain actually found a local 5k to take our talents too. Race review is hopefully coming tomorrow.

Lets take a look at this week. Since it is already Thursday half my runs are already done, but for the sake of this blog I am just going to power through it. This week starts the increase of the light runs, instead of two 3 mile runs to round out the week, the Tuesday runs are now going to increase every week. This shouldn’t really prove to be an issue, though in a few weeks it might be time to start slowing down all my other physical activities. The workout this week is the same interval/5k pace quarter-mile repeats from Week 1, though every time I do this workout it adds an extra one. Spoiler alert for next week’s blog, it sucked. Either way the workout is posted below. No long run this week, instead I am supposed to race a 5k. I am trying to look for a local one, but if not I will I guess make my own. For the sake of content and my own boredom, I hope I find one.

That about wraps up this week. Having gone from 75 degrees and sunny to 25 degrees and miserable I gotta say I really prefer the the sunny. Ooooo well. Have a good week everybody.

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Marathon Mike

The Return of Marathon Mondays

Posted on by Mogs

The time for running with no purpose has sadly come to it’s conclusion, as I am pleased to announce the return of the illustrious Marathon Mondays blog series.

With that horrific introduction out of the way let’s talk about what has to happen to hit some goals. The race is the 2020 United Airlines NYC Half, which unless you have poor reading skills or simply glossed over the name of the race, is a half marathon. Once again this may be obvious, but it takes place in the lovely shit hole of New York.

This time I have some goals beyond simply finishing the race. The low end goal is to simply set a new PR, which for me would be under a 1:49. If I don’t hit that goal then its probably time to pick a new activity, because that would mean in the year and some odd days since I ran that, I will have gotten worse. The middle goal is to hit under 1:45, which is what I will be training for. The reach goal is a 1:42.

In order to hit that middle goal I have to average exactly an 8 minute mile for the entire race. While that is definitely a plausible goal for me, it is not something I can just do with no preparation. So in the most roundabout way, that brings us to a new training plan.

The race is on March 15th, and instead of doing a 16 week plan like I did for the marathon, I decided to do a 12 week plan. Part of that was to not have to finish the marathon and immediately start on a new plan, the other part was that I needed to build back up to race shape. I am trying the Hal Higdon Intermediate 2 Half Marathon Training Plan which is a less intense training plan in terms of mileage and workouts then the marathon plan I followed, if you converted that plan for the half distance. That was a mouthful.

My idea behind using a less rigorous training plan is to focus on getting more quality runs in, instead of just simply building up mileage. I don’t really need to build up mileage, so I wanted to focus on speed. With the added rest this plan accounts for I think I will be able to really push it on most of the runs and concentrate on keeping that pace under an 8:00. Hopefully I won’t be too gassed to run hard like I was for the marathon. Since I am probably going to spend a majority of the summer running, I figured with the extra time not running this winter I can indulge in some of my other hobbies. Also it is fucking cold out man I don’t want to be out there like I was all summer.

So without further ado here is the plan!

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