Liz Rogers Official Coach Thread
Here's your personal Coach Thread, as promised. This is where you'll return to post all your "coach" questions as responses; I'll see them and reply. This first post is here to guide you through your first year on EN, so you can always come back here.
As you'll see in this forum, I handle all manner of edits and changes. So post away, know that I reply here usually M/W/F each week.
Power User Tip: Click the Star icon by the Title of this thread to subscribe, and you'll get email updates when I do reply.
Coach Notes
Your Races
- 3/29/20 Philadelphia Love Run Half Marathon
- 5/3/20 Broad Street 10 miler
- 7/19/20 New Jersey State Triathlon
Season Outline
These are your recommended training plans, including the date you should start each one (sometimes you won't complete a full plan but transition to another one). You can change your plans on Final Surge by clicking on Training Plans / My Plans. Learn more about each plan on the Training Plan Central Page.
>> Last updated by Coach on November 19, 2019
- On 11/4/2019 Load the -- Durability for Runners 1 (9 months out) -- 4 weeks to end on 12/1/2019
- On 12/2/2019 Load the -- OutSeason for Runners Plan, 14wks to end on 3/8/2020
- On 3/9/2020 Load the -- Half Marathon 12 weeks to end on 3/29/2020
- On 3/30/2020 Load the -- 10k Plan, 12 wks to end on 5/3/2020
- On 5/4/2020 Load the -- Short Course, 20wks to end on 7/19/2020
- On 7/20/2020 Load the -- Post Half Iron Transition Plan, All Levels (2wks) to end on 8/2/2020
Your Notes
One olympic and one half marathon last year. Still recovering from my shoulder strain (in that it feels mostly better but I am out of what I consider to be decent swim shape).
My race plan is very tentative - I want to do a spring half but am not sure if my asthma can handle to cold in March so I'm running outside more this fall to see how cold I can go. Broad Street is a lottery so TBD. I'd rather do a tri later in the season but New Jersey State seems like the best option I've found so far.run durability 1
Your Homework
Tell Me Your Season Goals
• What will make you consider this season a success?
• What's your biggest limiter right now?
Contact Points
As part of your journey to becoming a Self Coached Triathlete inside TeamEN, we are prepared to give you excellent support for your first 90 days. Our goal is to transition you from live, in-person support to using our digital resources and the Team to help you continue your progress as you execute your Three Year Plan.
These are all the key points in your first year where we must talk. Please remember to include your phone number.
• Welcome Call in Week One (set it up here)
• Coach Call in Week Two to talk about your season (set it up here)
• End of Trial Call -- We review your experience & Unlock Year One / Race Execution for you (set it up here)
• End of Season Call -- We review your year & Strategize for your End of Year Gap and Year Two (TBD in this Coach Thread)
Questions
• Coach Questions - Right here in this thread. Always reply to this same thread, it keeps a record for us as we evolve together!
• General Questions - Simple stuff can go to the General Discussion forum for the Team to answer. For example, Best Bike? How to improve run cadence? How to flip turn?
• Need Help? - Please check the EN Help Site first!
• Admin Questions - Billing or orders or whatnot? Use the red chat button at the bottom of the Members Site (not forums) or email us here.
• Specific Questions about a Race, etc? - You can post those to the Race Forum, for example. Not sure where to post? Put it in the General Discussion forum and we will sort it out. Whatever you do, PLEASE ask your questions!!
For short or last minute questions, we recommend you use the Red Chat Icon on the main Members website.
We have also organized a complete chart of the best ways to contact us online here.
Your First Month on the Team
You have quite a few things to do when you start up. There are instructions on the top of the website, but you can review them under Resources / Trial Member Welcome.
Your First Year Inside Endurance Nation
This will be unlocked after your trial expires.
Looking forward to working with you this year,
~ Coach P
Comments
Sounds good, thanks! I am already making changes to the plan, but minimal - I'm going to do the DC Rock & Roll half marathon with a friend on 3/28 instead of the Love Run. Same weekend so just a relocation to hopefully a warmer course.
going to stay the same. If there’s some terrain changes or something else
we should be aware of, just let me know!
I started the outseason plan this week and was just looking at future workouts - should I be Level 1 or 2? I've been consistently training for short-course tri's for years, but obviously running is not my strength and I'm in the OS Running plan so not sure how to handle it. I'm coming off of run durability since mid October.
you can bump up to level 2!
Question on heart rate zones - I have always had a pretty high heart rate running, for the most part the lowest I can keep it down without doing a lot of walking is around 155/mid Zone 3. My TRP is 130-140bpm. I paid more attention on my long run on Sunday and my heart rate was in the mid 150s in the first five minutes, I slowed down to almost 12 min mile pace at one point and my heart rate stayed up. Should I be walking or something to keep my heart rate in the zones better on workouts that call for lower zones? I don't know if my priority should be heart rate zones or consistency in running.
those higher numbers on your tests, and your zones should correspondingly
be higher as well.
When you created your heart rate training zones, did you enter the right
number from your test to get a number? Theoretically, if we are using your
personal information then running at a percentage of that heart rate while
running at an easier pace should still work out.
Generally speaking, I’m looking for consistency in your runs. As long as
your proceedings are some shows that you are running easy, I’m happy to use
that as a guideline for now. It’s only when your effort in these runs it
starts to impact future workouts that I get concerned, and that’s usually a
function of the temperature in the summertime than right now in the winter.
~ Coach P
Thank you! I used my avg. heart rate from a 5K run test as my threshold and used the Endurance Nation option in Final Surge to calculate it. I moved last week's run test to this morning because of my schedule and ended with a lower heart rate than the original test back in June (164 today v. 171 in June). I had to jump off the tread for GI reasons after mile 1 so I think I'm going to keep the older threshold HR for now since there was a dip in HR when I got back on. I'll keep focusing on lower heart rate while running easy and see what happens.
the last hour, especially if the test is being done indoors. It can take a
long time for your heart rate to ramp up on a treadmill, and that could be
part of the problem. Onwards!
I’m getting ready to load the half marathon plan to get some visibility to the next few weeks and have a couple questions - should I be doing the beginner or the beginner balanced plan? Second, I know I’m probably slower than most on here so want to make sure I’m getting enough distance in my long runs so that I’m ready for the race. I did 10 miles today in 1:53 which was a little longer than the 1:45 on the plan. Should I lengthen any of these later long runs to get to 11 or 12 miles? Thanks!
@Liz Rogers - thanks for reaching out, and sorry for the delay in getting back to you. The differential between one hour and 45 minutes and one hour and 53 minutes is pretty minimal. You do not need to run any longer than 10 miles to be ready for a half marathon, we use intensity to prepare you for the physical rigors of the race. The long runs are meant to be exercises in steady pacing and excellent fueling as needed.
I would like to see a little more cross training from you on the bike, so if the balanced half marathon plan will help you do that then I am OK with that choice. You have built a very good level of run volume and consistency, you should be proud of that.
Moving forward across the cross of your season we have to not only incorporate other disciplines but make sure that your run health stays in a good place. The alternative to that plan is just adding some cycling in on your own as a counterpoint to the running you’re doing.
For example, you could easily add an aerobic bike to either Monday or Friday, and another one as a warmup before your long weekend run. I would be happy to model those out for you if that’s helpful. Let me know.
~ Patrick