Ok, this Lydiard based program Andrew’s got me on rocks. This is my 9th day of running in a row and, other than the natural fatigue I had after yesterday’s long run, and the soreness I had this morning, I feel great.
And get this: My resting heart rate (RHR) went from 50 to 43 in one week. In the past, I’ve seen my RHR go as low as 39 but, that’s been after two or three months of training.
It must be the balancing of easy versus hard runs.
This is what my sidebar welcome message has said for roughly the past 18 months or so:
Welcome to the home of Mark, The Running Blogfather. I’m a thirty-something dad, husband & marathon runner attempting to overcome injury & re-engineer my running form.
It’s changed. Take a look. 
Strange title huh?
One of the things Andrew speaks about (and does) is monitoring of mood. The idea being that a refreshed state of mind says something about the training being within the realm of what the body can handle. In other words, the body can heal itself adequately between sessions of running.
One thing I know from the past is that when I was doing lots of speedwork, I was crabby. Really crabby.
Lydiard is all about alternating between “easy” and “hard” runs so the body can handle the high mileage demanded by the program.
I’ve been at this eight days including today’s long run, and I must say that although I was tremendously fatigued today, my mood all week has been excellent. I’ve felt refreshed. In fact, I’ve commented several times to my better half (Lori) how good I’ve been feeling running every day.
Here’s to hoping the good feelings continue.
First long run in two years.
First morning run in two years.
First time I think I’ve ever run 8 days in a row.
All those firsts really added up. I stuggled greatly this morning. Details:
- sluggish
- heavy legs
- I really had to focus during the last 20 minutes. It got very difficult.
- 30 seconds shy of two hours
- Assuming google maps is accurate, I ran a 10:05 min/mile pace. That’s really slow for me, however…
- heart rate was very low averaging 149. My max on these runs is supposed to be 155.
- 11.8 miles distance
The good news is it can only get better!
I’m a little nervous about tomorrow (Monday) morning’s long run. My last long run was at the Royal Victoria Marathon almost exactly two years ago and the longest I’ve run since is 90 minutes.
It feels odd being slightly nervous about tomorrow since a) It’s only 30 more minutes, b) The 90 minute runs I’ve done were run faster than I will tomorrow, and c) I remember a time when a two hour long run was just a run around the block.
That aside, I am confident it’ll go ok. It’s just … new again.
In case you’re wondering, all my weekly long runs will happen on Mondays. More on that later…
Nope. Not doing any of this barefooted. I’ll be wearing my trusty (if not overly colorful Puma H-Streets). The truth is, I’ve given up on barefoot running and probably not for the reason most people would suspect.
I spent a good deal of last May through August/September running in my bare feet. Towards the end, I had a setback which I believe was a bit of a stress fracture. The stress fracture was not solely (pun?) a result of running barefooted. It was a result of me doing something stupid while running barefooted.
That said, even with that injury, I was really happy to run without shoes and I would continue if it weren’t for the winter season. Most barefoot runners in the US simply have no idea what a winter really is (sorry, it’s true). They talk about running through the winter but, from what I know, their coldest winter days are probably not even as cold as our warmest.
Where I live, we have very typical winter temperatures ranging from -4 to -22 Fahrenheit. In other words, it’s pretty much impossible to run barefoot in the winter.
With the spring melt off, I’m looking at least five months off from running barefoot. Five months is a long time. A long time to lose the conditioning/toughening up of ones soles.
And I’m not willing to start over every year.
Besides, I couldn’t be happier with my form, and the strength in my feet right now.
Capiche?
That’s enough for tonight. I’ll share more tomorrow.
What do you think?
After a two year layoff from the big show, I’m ready to jump back in. I’ve started marathon training!
A lot went into this decision but, in the end, all I can say is I really missed pushing myself toward the goal marathons represent and finally feel ready to commit to it again.
I’ve some things to say about the thinking behind this decision and how I’ll approach the training but, for now I’ll just say I’m in and looking forward to the challenging times ahead.
What’s new in your world?
Venturing into the land of Lydiard, I issued a call for help. That call was answered in spades by Andrew over at Downeast Running.
Inspired with a ton of things in Andrew’s comments, I ventured out today wearing “Gretchen” (my Polar 625x) with one goal – to keep my heart rate under 80% (if I understood Andrew correctly, this is optimum marathon pace heart rate).
Note: My max heart rate, which I tested about 4 years ago with some totally balls-out running is 200 beats per minute — eighty percent of that is 160.
I was in for a surprise. Keeping under 160 was extremely difficult. I felt like I was practically crawling.
Stats:
Distance: 6.68 miles
Time: 64 minutes
Pace: 9:35 minutes/mile or 5:57 minutes per kilometer
What I Learned: I have a lot of work to do … YAY!
————
Edit: Terrific news. If you look in the comments, you’ll see clarification from Andrew for the 80% heart rate I was after. The result is that the heart rate I should be after is actually 170 — a heart rate that’s achieved with a pace I feel very comfortable with for long runs.
