Training got a little derailed here recently with holiday events and work schedule. Plus, I tweaked my knee running last week when I stepped on an ice chunk - nothing serious but it was hurting running down hills. Anyway, I've switched out my shoe inserts and am working on some stretching and strengthening. I ran an hour today and its feeling pretty good. I have a buddy who just broke his ankle doing the same thing so I'm going to be more smart about running on icy roads :)
@David Buhl Thanks for the update! Glad your knee is feeling better. Broken ankle! Man that totally stinks! Running in the cold and snow is like bonus training - you get 3x the mental toughness points. I try to avoid the treadmill at all costs too, but too much ice is where I draw the line. Good work getting a run in yesterday. Talk to you soon! Happy New running year!
I’ve come down with influenza and have had fevers, etc. these last couple of days. I haven’t run since Sunday, and with inconsistent running over the holidays, I’m not sure how to proceed once I’m feeling better. Do I keep following the running out season plan? Also, I’ve been missing the bike - would it be bad to do an out season plan that has more bike workouts?
David, Great to hear from you. Sorry to hear you are sick. Gah! Fever is serious business. That is really stressful for your body. Once you feel normal again - start with an easy rides (<1 hour, all Z1). Thing of it as a Post-Race recovery week. You need to give your body that extra time. Being sick like that really stress all your immune systems and cortisol. Once you feel normal, give yourself a week to 10 days to resume your standard training load. I know you are thinking, "Man you are killing me." But the rest will do more for you than and workout. The bike is good for those days because you can get a bit of activity without the weight bearing loads and additional stress.
We can switch to another plan with a bit more biking, but it has less running. You will transition to the the Balanced Marathon plan around 1 Mar. That has a least one day of biking built into it. The current plan has a cross-training day on Saturday built into it already. How about you bike as the cross-training workout? If you take the week to 10 days for fully recover, that will put you at about 18-20 Jan. So, you only have a few weeks left in the current plan before your start the Balanced Marathon plan. You can bike during recovery days and bike on your cross-training days until you start the next phase of your Season Roadmap.
Nice job working through all the phases of Run Durability BTW. I know you missed a few days - but I can tell by looking at your calendar that you have been really disciplined and diligent overall. You have a good thing going. Take the rest. Ease back into it. Use the bike as the bridge back to running.
I was just going to check in and wanted to run some things by you:
First, little change of plans in the race year. My friends and I have talked about doing a fall marathon in addition to the one in June; effectively taking a year off from triathlons. The one I'm targeting is the Twin Cities Marathon in early October. I guess then I'd need to rearrange my training plan for after June?
Second, the friends I'm doing my June marathon with are using the 16 wk run focused plan vs the balanced plan. I'd like to be on similar schedules as them but is that plan too intense? My legs feel good and nothing is tweaky coming out of the run durability phase. I know this contradicts my last post since I prefer cycling and won't get any with this plan. Spring & summer are looking kind of busy so I'm not sure how much quality saddle time I'll have anyway.
Third, if I do take a season for marathon focus, am I shooting myself in the foot for next year if I want to get back into half IM distance races? Will I loose too much bike fitness?
@David Buhl Thanks for your patience. I needed a little extra time to go back and review your season progression and data.
A fall marathon sounds great! Twin Cities - let's knock it out! We set you up with another Season Roadmap to peak for 6 Oct. Shoot us a note during your Post Grandma's recovery weeks - we can get the debrief from your race and your training, then apply those lessons to your next roadmap. Too easy!
Run focused vs. Balanced Plan + training with friends. We can switch you no problem. Having a training partner is fun. It's nice to be on the same schedule and share the work. The other side of the story is that sometimes we do some work that is not in our best interests but we do it anyway because we want to keep the training partners. There is a balance there, ya know. Is that plan too intense? Well, it has 10-15 more miles a week. The mid-week bike is replaced by a 5-8 mile run and the weekend bike is replaced by another run that is a bit longer around 8 miles or bit longer once or twice. Those runs progress across the training block.
Consider this. What part of the schedule are you trying to match up? If you are trying to sync up the weekend workouts - drop the weekend bike and pickup the run with your friends. Keep the mid-week bike. It will give your legs a bit of a load bearing break but maintain fitness with biking. Almost the same cost in workout time. Think of it as a bit of injury prevention insurance as "hybrid" plan. You could give that modification a try for 3-4 weeks and see how your body responds to the additional mileage. That approach will let us know if you could handle a run only marathon build for the fall and it will keep the weekend workout time shorter in anticipation of your busy spring and summer. So, it doesn't necessarily need to be a binary one or the other. You could combine them on your own a bit. See how it goes. What do you think?
Short answer. You You are not shooting yourself in the foot. After Twin Cities - we can use the bike focused OutSeason work to re-build your bike fitness with plenty of time. 12 week of OutSeason + 6 week Bike Focused Block + 2 week Swim Camp + 12 week race specific HIM block you would be ready for a mid-summer HIM. Yes, those first few weeks will be tough on the bike. Although, I expect that you will feel confident in with your run and combined with the reduced volume of the OutSeason, you will run with less cost to your overall training and plenty of energy to invest in the bike. I also expect you will mostly likely will be looking forward to a break from all the running and happy to back on the bike just for variety.
That sounds good. I'll plan on the balance plan with substituted weekend runs if my legs feel good.
I was thinking that my running might be stronger with extra runs vs bikes but I wasn't sure. In the end though, I'd rather be healthy at the starting line! My tendency is to get nicked up when I just run. I was really surprised how well my legs felt during run durability. Its was hard to gauge my exact pace zones between road running vs treadmill, but I felt pretty good during speed sessions. I think in the past I did too many easy days hard and hard days too long.
I'm a bit off of my training schedule. Between Covid stuff at work, races being potentially postponed/cancelled, and kids at home because of school cancelation, I've been missing and rearranging training days. I can come up with lots of excuses ... I just need to regain my focus!
I do need your thoughts:
4 years ago, I ran a 10 mile race and averaged a 6:52 pace and felt like I would have been a little faster if there wasn't snow and ice on the ground. At the the time, I was running a little more consistently and was about 5+ pounds lighter. Weekly mileage was a tad more. Now I'm running about a minute and a half/mile slower for the same effort and heart rate (maybe slightly lower HR). I know there are a ton of factors that contribute to this decline (sleep, stress, nutrition, age, etc), but do you have any recommendations on where to prioritize my efforts to get some of this back? Do I focus on leg strengthening? Running economy/form? Body composition? With Grandma's Marathon potentially being up in the air (they sent out a letter indicating there's a potential for postponing), do I change anything up in my plan? Or do I just need to get better at following my plan and be patient :) Also, I don't have any medical issues like anemia, etc.
@David Buhl Thanks for the note. Comparing you vs you 4 years ago is always tough for all the factors that you indicate (sleep, stress, nutrition, age, body composition, consistency, frequency, intensity). I think your biggest improvements will come from consistency and body composition. You need to do something everyday. We might need to adjust the schedule. We should talk about how we can make the workouts fit into your schedule better. You routinely nail those weekend runs and you were getting a short run in on Friday - could we make that a short bike instead? The cross training options worked well in the fall, and those 1 hour bikes are great for low intensity aerobic work. Those plus a couple tweaks to your nutrition - going after the easy targets and making those a habit so those missing extra calories each day add up. That's totally doable. We just started this Balanced Marathon in early March. Let's tweak it to something that you can nail everyday. That everyday consistency, plus some small nutrition tweaks over a month can make some legit difference. Coach Patrick has a body composition view that can walk you through how to look for those things. http://members.endurancenation.us/Resources/Courses/Nutrition.aspx
Let's find some tweaks that you can fit in your schedule and will enjoy. Then we can compare you vs. you 30-45 days ago and judge yourself on workout consistency, body composition, and nutrition execution. What do you think?
@David Buhl Here is a Coach Lesson when Coach Patrick goes over the benefits of consistency and frequency of short sessions & manageable training load:
Great insight - thanks! I can be better with my consistency and I think the current training schedule is doable with my weekly schedule. It's motivating to be reminded of the importance of consistency and should help me get myself out of bed in the morning. I've erred on the side of rest but probably a little too much. Also, I'll keep working on those nutrition changes ... Checking in again in 30-45 days sounds like a good plan.
@David Buhl - I got your chat note about pivoting now that June 26.2 is off the books but Twin Cities is still a go. I know you just moved from the OS plan into the Marathon plan on 3/16, so on some level we aren't "too far" along that we can't turn back. Here is what I am recommending for you:
On 4/6/2020 Load Durability for Runners 3 -- 4 weeks to end on 5/3/2020 [ 4 weeks ]
On 5/4/2020 Load the INT Run Focus Block to end on 6/14/2020 [ 6 weeks ]
On 6/15/2020 Load the 2019 Marathon [Balanced], 16 Weeks to end on 10/4/2020 [ 16 weeks ]
On 10/5/2020 Load the Post Marathon / Half Marathon Plan (2wks) to end on 10/18/2020 [ 2 weeks ]
I think this transition will help you regain the run frequency we want, dial back the volume and allow you to inject some "mid Season speed" in there before we begin ramping up again. If you are down with it, you can load the plans or we can ask @matt limbert For some help.
@David Buhl Thanks for filling out our checkin survey! 😀 Nice work on your 5k last week. You were really pushing it the entire time! You mentioned a running injury and refocus goals. We're interested to hear what you aret thinking about. I see you switched up to the Century Ride training block. Do you have a route in mind?
Thanks for the follow up. I did switch up my training plan but to be honest, I'm not really sure what I'm doing. Over the last month, I've managed to irritate my hip flexor/upper quad which seems to be getting more sore after each run. With so much uncertainty with fall races and my worsening hip pain, I was going to take some time off from running and instead bike since it doesn't seem to bother my hip. With all area gyms closed, swimming is out - plus its my least favorite discipline.
Without a specific race to train for (really don't think TC marathon will happen this fall) and feeling a bit nicked up, would it make sense to use this season as a time to reset long term goals? I guess without that race carrot out there, I'm having a hard time staying motivated.
@David Buhl Thanks for the update. It is good to hear from you. Century plan is a great idea considering where you are at with the hip flexor and your love of swimming 😂. The century plan will help you keep your overall fitness, it will certainly improve your endurance on the bike and I bet you could plan a pretty epic ride as a interm goal. By the time you finish the century training block, there might be more clarity on the event and race situation. The century training can act as a fitness bridge for you. To help you think through your long term strategery - Coach Patrick has this blog post and this video. Check those out and let us know what you come up with. Happy to talk specifics anytime.
Thanks for the recommendations and advice - I'll check out the post & video. It's nice to get out on the bike now that it's getting warmer here in Minnesota. Plus, it makes social distancing a little easier than the crowded running paths! Good luck with your training as well.
I'm a bit late on checking in but was hoping to review my fitness. All of my main races cancelled for the season and I'm looking to the 2021 season. I'm finding if I don't have some sort of long term goal or event to focus on, my training becomes a bit aimless and I lose discipline. I've taken some time off from running and was just focusing on cycling for the last couple of months; both for a physical and mental break. No swimming since gyms were closed.
Anyway, I'd like to plan for a half IM next June and am not sure how to set up for the next year. Specifically, not sure how to build up my running without getting injured and still hold on to some bike fitness.
@David Buhl Thanks for checking in! Good to hear from you. We can get you on track for a HIM in June. We looked at your mileage and duration in the past 6 months and you have done really well in the past with 20-30 miles a week - generally sitting around 25'ish miles and 4 ish hours, with 4x runs spread across the week. That is a perfect volume to get you ready for the half. If you did something like that all fall, and then did the OutSeason, building the bike while maintaining the run, that would really set you up well for your race specificity block. With that kind of aerobic base and durabilty we would be able to increase the length of your long run, crank up some intervals. We can finish out this cycling block and then start with a easy ramp of run re-entry into back to back run durability blocks that would put you in your sweet spot of 25 ish miles and 4 hours of running spread across 4 runs a week, leading into an OutSeason. What do you think?
Sounds great. Thanks for analyzing my training and the recommendations. I know I've switched up my training goals quite a bit over the last 6 months and have frequently tweaked my plans. It must make it challenging from a coaching standpoint :) Ironically, I'm typically someone who follows a training plan to a fault, believe it or not. Anyway, I'm excited to get back on into a routine - even if it is for a race next year! Just let me know what plans to plug into Final Surge. Thanks again!
@David Buhl - overall you are making progress. As far as we are concerned, the engagement matters more than execution of workouts. This has been a trying to work out here for everyone, and you are right on track. @matt limbert has already loaded in the Bike plan for you and that's what we want to follow for the short term (aka the bike workouts). You don't need to do a test, you can simply use your estimated Threshold power or ask for help.
Keep us posted, we can check back in at the end of September to see how things are going with regards to making macro changes. Unless, of course, do you want to change things again! 🤣
Comments
Thanksgiving was good! Hope yours was good as well. I'll keep my eyes open for the workout update - thanks! And thanks for the clementine tip 👍️
BTW: Thanks for the plan video. That was exactly what I was looking for!
👍️
@David Buhl How is it going in St. Cloud these days?
Happy Holidays !
Training got a little derailed here recently with holiday events and work schedule. Plus, I tweaked my knee running last week when I stepped on an ice chunk - nothing serious but it was hurting running down hills. Anyway, I've switched out my shoe inserts and am working on some stretching and strengthening. I ran an hour today and its feeling pretty good. I have a buddy who just broke his ankle doing the same thing so I'm going to be more smart about running on icy roads :)
Thanks for the check in!
@David Buhl Thanks for the update! Glad your knee is feeling better. Broken ankle! Man that totally stinks! Running in the cold and snow is like bonus training - you get 3x the mental toughness points. I try to avoid the treadmill at all costs too, but too much ice is where I draw the line. Good work getting a run in yesterday. Talk to you soon! Happy New running year!
Hi Matt,
I need a little guidance:
I’ve come down with influenza and have had fevers, etc. these last couple of days. I haven’t run since Sunday, and with inconsistent running over the holidays, I’m not sure how to proceed once I’m feeling better. Do I keep following the running out season plan? Also, I’ve been missing the bike - would it be bad to do an out season plan that has more bike workouts?
Thanks for the recommendations.
@David Buhl
David, Great to hear from you. Sorry to hear you are sick. Gah! Fever is serious business. That is really stressful for your body. Once you feel normal again - start with an easy rides (<1 hour, all Z1). Thing of it as a Post-Race recovery week. You need to give your body that extra time. Being sick like that really stress all your immune systems and cortisol. Once you feel normal, give yourself a week to 10 days to resume your standard training load. I know you are thinking, "Man you are killing me." But the rest will do more for you than and workout. The bike is good for those days because you can get a bit of activity without the weight bearing loads and additional stress.
We can switch to another plan with a bit more biking, but it has less running. You will transition to the the Balanced Marathon plan around 1 Mar. That has a least one day of biking built into it. The current plan has a cross-training day on Saturday built into it already. How about you bike as the cross-training workout? If you take the week to 10 days for fully recover, that will put you at about 18-20 Jan. So, you only have a few weeks left in the current plan before your start the Balanced Marathon plan. You can bike during recovery days and bike on your cross-training days until you start the next phase of your Season Roadmap.
Nice job working through all the phases of Run Durability BTW. I know you missed a few days - but I can tell by looking at your calendar that you have been really disciplined and diligent overall. You have a good thing going. Take the rest. Ease back into it. Use the bike as the bridge back to running.
How does that sound?
Sound good. I have a tendency to rush back and probably push too much, too soon. I’ll follow your return to training advice. 👍🏻
Also, I’m good with the run program too. I’m just always looking for a reason to bike over running on a treadmill 😉
Thanks for your advice.
Anytime. Happy to help. Rest up!
Hey there Matt,
Hope you're doing well.
I was just going to check in and wanted to run some things by you:
First, little change of plans in the race year. My friends and I have talked about doing a fall marathon in addition to the one in June; effectively taking a year off from triathlons. The one I'm targeting is the Twin Cities Marathon in early October. I guess then I'd need to rearrange my training plan for after June?
Second, the friends I'm doing my June marathon with are using the 16 wk run focused plan vs the balanced plan. I'd like to be on similar schedules as them but is that plan too intense? My legs feel good and nothing is tweaky coming out of the run durability phase. I know this contradicts my last post since I prefer cycling and won't get any with this plan. Spring & summer are looking kind of busy so I'm not sure how much quality saddle time I'll have anyway.
Third, if I do take a season for marathon focus, am I shooting myself in the foot for next year if I want to get back into half IM distance races? Will I loose too much bike fitness?
Thanks!
@David Buhl Thanks for your patience. I needed a little extra time to go back and review your season progression and data.
A fall marathon sounds great! Twin Cities - let's knock it out! We set you up with another Season Roadmap to peak for 6 Oct. Shoot us a note during your Post Grandma's recovery weeks - we can get the debrief from your race and your training, then apply those lessons to your next roadmap. Too easy!
Run focused vs. Balanced Plan + training with friends. We can switch you no problem. Having a training partner is fun. It's nice to be on the same schedule and share the work. The other side of the story is that sometimes we do some work that is not in our best interests but we do it anyway because we want to keep the training partners. There is a balance there, ya know. Is that plan too intense? Well, it has 10-15 more miles a week. The mid-week bike is replaced by a 5-8 mile run and the weekend bike is replaced by another run that is a bit longer around 8 miles or bit longer once or twice. Those runs progress across the training block.
Consider this. What part of the schedule are you trying to match up? If you are trying to sync up the weekend workouts - drop the weekend bike and pickup the run with your friends. Keep the mid-week bike. It will give your legs a bit of a load bearing break but maintain fitness with biking. Almost the same cost in workout time. Think of it as a bit of injury prevention insurance as "hybrid" plan. You could give that modification a try for 3-4 weeks and see how your body responds to the additional mileage. That approach will let us know if you could handle a run only marathon build for the fall and it will keep the weekend workout time shorter in anticipation of your busy spring and summer. So, it doesn't necessarily need to be a binary one or the other. You could combine them on your own a bit. See how it goes. What do you think?
Short answer. You You are not shooting yourself in the foot. After Twin Cities - we can use the bike focused OutSeason work to re-build your bike fitness with plenty of time. 12 week of OutSeason + 6 week Bike Focused Block + 2 week Swim Camp + 12 week race specific HIM block you would be ready for a mid-summer HIM. Yes, those first few weeks will be tough on the bike. Although, I expect that you will feel confident in with your run and combined with the reduced volume of the OutSeason, you will run with less cost to your overall training and plenty of energy to invest in the bike. I also expect you will mostly likely will be looking forward to a break from all the running and happy to back on the bike just for variety.
How does that sound? Let me know what you think.
That sounds good. I'll plan on the balance plan with substituted weekend runs if my legs feel good.
I was thinking that my running might be stronger with extra runs vs bikes but I wasn't sure. In the end though, I'd rather be healthy at the starting line! My tendency is to get nicked up when I just run. I was really surprised how well my legs felt during run durability. Its was hard to gauge my exact pace zones between road running vs treadmill, but I felt pretty good during speed sessions. I think in the past I did too many easy days hard and hard days too long.
Anyway, thanks for the recommendations.!
@David Buhl Just checking in. How did it go last week?
Hey Matt!
Thanks for checking in!
I'm a bit off of my training schedule. Between Covid stuff at work, races being potentially postponed/cancelled, and kids at home because of school cancelation, I've been missing and rearranging training days. I can come up with lots of excuses ... I just need to regain my focus!
I do need your thoughts:
4 years ago, I ran a 10 mile race and averaged a 6:52 pace and felt like I would have been a little faster if there wasn't snow and ice on the ground. At the the time, I was running a little more consistently and was about 5+ pounds lighter. Weekly mileage was a tad more. Now I'm running about a minute and a half/mile slower for the same effort and heart rate (maybe slightly lower HR). I know there are a ton of factors that contribute to this decline (sleep, stress, nutrition, age, etc), but do you have any recommendations on where to prioritize my efforts to get some of this back? Do I focus on leg strengthening? Running economy/form? Body composition? With Grandma's Marathon potentially being up in the air (they sent out a letter indicating there's a potential for postponing), do I change anything up in my plan? Or do I just need to get better at following my plan and be patient :) Also, I don't have any medical issues like anemia, etc.
Hope you're staying healthy during this pandemic!
@David Buhl Thanks for the note. Comparing you vs you 4 years ago is always tough for all the factors that you indicate (sleep, stress, nutrition, age, body composition, consistency, frequency, intensity). I think your biggest improvements will come from consistency and body composition. You need to do something everyday. We might need to adjust the schedule. We should talk about how we can make the workouts fit into your schedule better. You routinely nail those weekend runs and you were getting a short run in on Friday - could we make that a short bike instead? The cross training options worked well in the fall, and those 1 hour bikes are great for low intensity aerobic work. Those plus a couple tweaks to your nutrition - going after the easy targets and making those a habit so those missing extra calories each day add up. That's totally doable. We just started this Balanced Marathon in early March. Let's tweak it to something that you can nail everyday. That everyday consistency, plus some small nutrition tweaks over a month can make some legit difference. Coach Patrick has a body composition view that can walk you through how to look for those things. http://members.endurancenation.us/Resources/Courses/Nutrition.aspx
Let's find some tweaks that you can fit in your schedule and will enjoy. Then we can compare you vs. you 30-45 days ago and judge yourself on workout consistency, body composition, and nutrition execution. What do you think?
@David Buhl Here is a Coach Lesson when Coach Patrick goes over the benefits of consistency and frequency of short sessions & manageable training load:
http://members.endurancenation.us/Learning/CoachLessons/RunDurabilityCheckIn.aspx
Great insight - thanks! I can be better with my consistency and I think the current training schedule is doable with my weekly schedule. It's motivating to be reminded of the importance of consistency and should help me get myself out of bed in the morning. I've erred on the side of rest but probably a little too much. Also, I'll keep working on those nutrition changes ... Checking in again in 30-45 days sounds like a good plan.
Thanks!
👊
@David Buhl - I got your chat note about pivoting now that June 26.2 is off the books but Twin Cities is still a go. I know you just moved from the OS plan into the Marathon plan on 3/16, so on some level we aren't "too far" along that we can't turn back. Here is what I am recommending for you:
I think this transition will help you regain the run frequency we want, dial back the volume and allow you to inject some "mid Season speed" in there before we begin ramping up again. If you are down with it, you can load the plans or we can ask @matt limbert For some help.
Let me know what you think!
~ Patrick
Thanks to you @Coach Patrick and @matt limbert for all the guidance. This sounds like a good plan - I'll make at the above recommended changes.
Thanks again. Hope you all stay healthy.
@David Buhl 👊
@David Buhl Thanks for filling out our checkin survey! 😀 Nice work on your 5k last week. You were really pushing it the entire time! You mentioned a running injury and refocus goals. We're interested to hear what you aret thinking about. I see you switched up to the Century Ride training block. Do you have a route in mind?
Thanks for the follow up. I did switch up my training plan but to be honest, I'm not really sure what I'm doing. Over the last month, I've managed to irritate my hip flexor/upper quad which seems to be getting more sore after each run. With so much uncertainty with fall races and my worsening hip pain, I was going to take some time off from running and instead bike since it doesn't seem to bother my hip. With all area gyms closed, swimming is out - plus its my least favorite discipline.
Without a specific race to train for (really don't think TC marathon will happen this fall) and feeling a bit nicked up, would it make sense to use this season as a time to reset long term goals? I guess without that race carrot out there, I'm having a hard time staying motivated.
@David Buhl Thanks for the update. It is good to hear from you. Century plan is a great idea considering where you are at with the hip flexor and your love of swimming 😂. The century plan will help you keep your overall fitness, it will certainly improve your endurance on the bike and I bet you could plan a pretty epic ride as a interm goal. By the time you finish the century training block, there might be more clarity on the event and race situation. The century training can act as a fitness bridge for you. To help you think through your long term strategery - Coach Patrick has this blog post and this video. Check those out and let us know what you come up with. Happy to talk specifics anytime.
Thanks for the recommendations and advice - I'll check out the post & video. It's nice to get out on the bike now that it's getting warmer here in Minnesota. Plus, it makes social distancing a little easier than the crowded running paths! Good luck with your training as well.
Hello,
I'm a bit late on checking in but was hoping to review my fitness. All of my main races cancelled for the season and I'm looking to the 2021 season. I'm finding if I don't have some sort of long term goal or event to focus on, my training becomes a bit aimless and I lose discipline. I've taken some time off from running and was just focusing on cycling for the last couple of months; both for a physical and mental break. No swimming since gyms were closed.
Anyway, I'd like to plan for a half IM next June and am not sure how to set up for the next year. Specifically, not sure how to build up my running without getting injured and still hold on to some bike fitness.
Thanks,
Dave
@David Buhl Thanks for checking in! Good to hear from you. We can get you on track for a HIM in June. We looked at your mileage and duration in the past 6 months and you have done really well in the past with 20-30 miles a week - generally sitting around 25'ish miles and 4 ish hours, with 4x runs spread across the week. That is a perfect volume to get you ready for the half. If you did something like that all fall, and then did the OutSeason, building the bike while maintaining the run, that would really set you up well for your race specificity block. With that kind of aerobic base and durabilty we would be able to increase the length of your long run, crank up some intervals. We can finish out this cycling block and then start with a easy ramp of run re-entry into back to back run durability blocks that would put you in your sweet spot of 25 ish miles and 4 hours of running spread across 4 runs a week, leading into an OutSeason. What do you think?
Sounds great. Thanks for analyzing my training and the recommendations. I know I've switched up my training goals quite a bit over the last 6 months and have frequently tweaked my plans. It must make it challenging from a coaching standpoint :) Ironically, I'm typically someone who follows a training plan to a fault, believe it or not. Anyway, I'm excited to get back on into a routine - even if it is for a race next year! Just let me know what plans to plug into Final Surge. Thanks again!
@David Buhl - overall you are making progress. As far as we are concerned, the engagement matters more than execution of workouts. This has been a trying to work out here for everyone, and you are right on track. @matt limbert has already loaded in the Bike plan for you and that's what we want to follow for the short term (aka the bike workouts). You don't need to do a test, you can simply use your estimated Threshold power or ask for help.
Keep us posted, we can check back in at the end of September to see how things are going with regards to making macro changes. Unless, of course, do you want to change things again! 🤣
~ Coach P