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Confessions of signing up for 2 winter events

Wilddaizy73Wilddaizy73
in General Training Discussions

I must confess....

I signed up for a trail run that is a little more than a half marathon for 16 Feb. I signed up first because I love this particular run and second I wanted to see if I could better my time from last year. I also signed up for an easy half marathon 16 Mar because I have always wanted to do this particular run, and my schedule has never allowed me to. BUT then the e-mail came out from the EN coaches about your Epic winter race....couldn't have arrived in my box at a better time. Now I am re-thinking the trail run 16 Feb in order to make the best possible gains from this outseason. I am keeping the March run though as pure training. 

Since, I don't want to hear what others NOT using EN think, they would say, "just go run", I want to hear from those of you that have been doing the EN program for awhile...am I a nut? Do I go ahead and go, or do I just let the race money go in as a donation for trails? Thoughts?

Mandy

Comments

  • kimmydctkimmydct
    I think generally the coaches are OK with doing half-marathons.

    You didn't say what training plan you are on but I'll assume an OS of some kind? That might have an impact. You don't want any training you would be doing for this race to compromise your bike WKOs.

    When in doubt, throw the question to Rich in the Macro thread.
  • William JenksWilliam Jenks
    A half marathon doesn't have to be a major run, depending on what it is for you. If you look at the weekend run guidance, you'll see that the Sunday run guidance says to take that run up to about 90 minutes if you want to and can. OK, so most people can't run a half marathon quite that quickly, especially if they aren't racing, but the point is that a 1:45 run (for example) isn't ridiculously out of line... you can rearrange your week such that it's manageable. But if it's a 2:15 run, that's another matter because it'll put a bigger hurt on you. It's all a matter of how quickly you can recover.

    When I "race" a half marathon, it takes me until the next weekend to recover...I wouldn't want to do that twice in the middle of my OS. Once would be a smaller issue, particularly if it were a bucket list thing, which it sounds like your March one is.
  • Robert SaboRobert Sabo
    After just telling someone on the dash that I wouldn't reccommend the Boston Marathon on her schedule, I feel the two Half marathon should be very doable and actually a good complement to your OS. Also agreeing with the proviso's mentioned by Mr Jenks.
  • Paul HoughPaul Hough
    I don't think this qualifies as EPIC in the sense RnP were talking about and should not crush your motivation for downstream work. I would follow the OS up to a few days before the race, recover a few days then get right back to the OS.
  • MattAaronsonMattAaronson
    I'm with William on this. Last year I did a half-marathon as an "A-" race on March 16. It was a Saturday race, I didn't taper, did the race, flew back to Chicago, then woke up Sunday morning and did my OS weekend ride. Then on Monday I woke up and felt like I was hit by a truck. It took me some time to revocer, about a week and a half. I don't think the race was a mistake, but it sure did take a lot out of me and resulted in my missing a handful of downstream workouts while I recovered.
  • Coach RichCoach Rich

    Half marathons are a pretty much always a great training and racing event:

    • Encourages you to create a consistent 1:20-40 long run --> VERY valuable weekly training event that allows you to more easily transition to half or full Ironman training and racing. 
    • Legit (painful) enough to create accountability, so you stick with it. 

    My audience for my blog post here is more the Goofy/Micky/Pluto/Dumbo Challenge and ToS types, not to mention winter marathons, etc. 

    Around May or June you'll see comments on the interwebs / social media about people who are burnt out, wondering why they aren't fast, etc. In our experience, this is often a function of people over reaching on the Epic-ometer in the winter. 

  • David HowardDavid Howard
    Soooooo.....what your saying. ...is.... I probably shouldn't run the Febapple 50 mile trail race on the 22nd considering I haven't run longer than 13 since the Philadelphia marathon in December. .?.... image ok.......
  • Wilddaizy73Wilddaizy73
    Great information from everyone!!

    I do plan to go all out on either of the races....they are more for enjoyment :-)

    Hmmm....David- the 50 miler may not be the best idea, but I've been wrong before! LOL
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