training

About this far.

Before:

After:

Update: Now with content!

I've been mulling over what I learned or observed during this ride, especially since I'm thinking about a double century soon, possibly from home to Wausau, WI in one shot.

• Breakfast. Eat a bigger breakfast. The usual race-day oatmeal prep (steel-cut oats with maple syrup, banana, almonds, etc.) would probably last a lot longer than the spruced-up greek yogurt I had for this ride.
• Chews. When I was flagging, the only thing that really picked me up again was Shot Bloks or those gummi fruit slice things. And I found that I was craving those the most. Carry more of this junk.
• Regular breaks with stretching. I split the ride into 10-20 mile chunks, which worked fine, but I really need to force myself to stop when I'm planning to stop. And stretching needs to happen at each break, because holy wah was I tight after that ride.
• Spare socks, gloves. If it rains, the only wet things that truly bother me are socks and gloves. Easy enough to carry a dry pair of each.
• Diversion. There were boring stretches. Sometimes I just can't bring myself to look at nature and think "ooh pretty" or sing along with the same song that's been in my head the entire day. A bluetooth speaker might be worthwhile for listening to a podcast or the news along the way.
• GPS. No GPS I own has a battery that lasts longer than 8 hours or so. There will be recharging involved, unfortunately. This means either carrying a battery pack or finding a place to plug in during my breaks.
• Boot. I sliced my tire right at the end and had the first flat in recent memory, which would have sucked halfway through the ride. I had paper money for use as an emergency boot, but splurging for an actual tire boot wouldn't be a bad idea.
• Chain lube. I used the last of the little sample tubes of chain lube after it stopped raining, so it was definitely worth having along.

Since it seems to be going well so far, I'll share the training plan I'm using for Cellcom Green Bay Half Marathon in May. It's the Runner's World Break 1:45 half marathon plan, which I found on their site as a PDF (but they now charge $30). Contact me if you want a copy.

It's a 10-week plan that assumes a base of about 30 miles per week. I filled in two weeks at the beginning as a ramp-up, and have been enjoying the plan so far. It's aggressive (for me) in both pace and mileage, and I'm optimistic that it'll put me in a place to meet my 1:45 goal. Here's the plan with some adjustments for my own schedule.

• Runningchunk's 2015 Cellcom Training Plan on RunningAhead

With Cellcom coming right up, I've been working on a training plan that will take me through Canal Run in July to Marquette Marathon in September, with some of the other stuff I'm doing in the meantime (a bike tour and a couple of bike races). Here's what I have now, based on something between Higdon's Intermediate 2 and Advanced 1 marathon plans.

• Runningchunk's 2015 Marathon Training Plan on RunningAhead

Four weeks after Marquette Marathon is Twin Cities Marathon. So do I just stop running and eat cheetos in between? Higdon has a nice plan for not doing that.

• Runningchunk's 2015 Between Marathons Training Plan on RunningAhead

See you out there!

I guess I've been mulling this over in my head for quite a while, but now that I'm well into training for the Cellcom Green Bay Half Marathon with a specific time in mind, I should go ahead and write that down somewhere. (In a secret place. This blog.)

2014 Cellcom: 1:53:03

2015 Cellcom: 1:45:00

Training is going well so far, and if I can keep from serious injury, I think I'm on target to hit 1:45, which is an 8:00 minute/mile pace.

Thinking forward to fall full marathons, I'm really just guessing at target times.

2014 Twin Cities: 4:19:24

2015 Marquette Marathon: 3:45:00

I'd like to do both Marquette Marathon (September) and Twin Cities Marathon (October), though that does seem a little ambitious. Beyond that, the only other running races on my calendar for sure are the Canal Run in July, and of course the Fifth Annual runningchunk.com 5K in September-ish.

See you out there.

Charts! Graphs!

Having been officially called out in Nancy's latest blog, here's an update on all things runningchunk.

Nancy, Amy, and I are in the midst of what we're calling the team /var/run Training Plan of Doom (TPoD). It's essentially Hal Higdon's Advanced Half Marathon plan for Nancy, the same thing but with a bit less running and a lot more biking for me, and I think something similar to that for Amy. Zoe is on the OMG YOU HAVE TO TAKE ME RUNNING plan as usual. Anyway, occasional goofy group runs continue and are usually documented on Instagram.

This weekend's run was a 5K at 5K race pace. One of my goals for the year (see, just look at that blog draft over there where I totally talk about goals) is a sub-25-minute 5K. When I first started thinking about it I was shooting for the September-October-November-probably 2014 runningchunk.com 5K so I could totally smoke those schmoes, but somehow I felt like going for it on Sunday.

I made it, just, and it hurt. Seriously, this was hard. I usually whine about any run where I've done over 85% effort, but this was 100%. After I could see straight again, I plugged my 5K time into every half marathon race time predictor I could find (even though predicting 13.1 miles based on 3.11 miles is pretty darn bogus), and I'm feeling hopeful about a sub-2-hour half in Green Bay. Wood being knocked on for sure.

Now I'm sorta broken and for sure exhausted and the weather's bad again. But I'll be back out there tomorrow, chasing goals, chasing that feeling of accomplishment, and for sure chasing the dog.

Also, you gotta know when to hold 'em; know when to fold 'em. Et cetera.

So, team run:

Somehow I didn't think about hydration or nutrition for a 9-mile run. I quite possibly was confusing running with cycling. At any rate, I didn't cramp up or pass out, though I'm told I sweated a lot. Hey, you try being a big lumbering dude sometime.

Anyway, it was lots of fun to run with a group, and I think we're going to try to run and/or bike a couple of times a month. If we can manage to keep the group runs going through winter, that will help a lot for any spring race training.

INSTATWITTERS

Dun dun duuuunnnn...

I wonder if I remember how to run. Time to find out.

It's been, like, a long time since I've gone for a run. Nancy said something about 5 miles of hill training and I figured WHAT COULD GO WRONG.

We took off right after I got home, sweaty from racing some dude up Cole's Creek Rd on my bike commute home (unbeknownst to him). I should have been drinking more water throughout the day, but I somehow did not die as we ran up and down the hills of Superior Rd. Heck of a climb for an after-work jog though.

Oh, while I'm at it here, I did visit the orthopedist back on the 28th. No x-ray snapshot to share with you this time, but the doctor said that there's definitely bone filling in the fracture gaps, which is great news as it proves that it's healing as it should. Or in his terms, there's "radiological evidence of bone regeneration".

So I don't have to come see him again unless something unusual happens or my shoulder starts hurting. The plate can come out a year from my surgery if all goes well (and I end up wanting it out) but until then I'm SECRET TITANIUM MAN.