Julie Drury 2020 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 [Click to Watch Video]
Your Races
- Boston Marathon (2020-09-14) #26.2Boston_20
Your Notes
Last official race was Berlin 2019 where I ran a 3h43min (ish) marathon. Had a solid training plan going in, but developed a left foot plantar stress fracture. Took a LONG time to heal and I got out of routine and focus for fitness.
Have run sporadically since, but not in a training loop. No races since Berlin - before I was 2-3 marathons/half marathons a season.
Current fitness needs a serious rebuild for both endurance and speed - though they do come back quickly when I stay focussed and committed.
Previous ranges for completion of 10k, half marathon and marathon:
- 10k 50min-60 min
- half marathon 1:45 - 2 hours
- marathon 3h45 - 4h06Currently running 3 times a week - approximately 6-8k - longest runs are around 12-14k.
- Pace on runs range between 6min/km to 5:15min/km
- Have done some pick ups/fartlek runs in an effort to start to pick up pace.
Current Training
- Currently doing crossfit workouts 2-3x/week
- Core work 2-3x/week
- Irregular with stretching.
Have found challenges w right hip, low back and tension in both calves - calves get tight with increase in speed.
Have solid running form/technique. Practice a 180step/min pace and off set breathing technique.
Note: A Race is Boston 2020, currently scheduled for September 2020 (not April as indicated in selection box below).
Covid19 will affect other selected races (e.g. Ottawa Race Weekend) and potential travel to races.
I plan on running trail runs this summer as well as into Fall 2020. Experience trail runner and have completed several races ranging from 20k -50k with one podium finish.
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 April 8, 2020
- On 4/6/2020 Load the -- Durability for Runners 2 (8 months out) -- 4 weeks to end on 5/3/2020
- On 5/4/2020 Load the -- Durability for Runners 3 (7 months out) -- 4 weeks to end on 5/31/2020
- **Transition Early**
- On 5/25/2020 Load the -- Marathon [Balanced], 16 Weeks to end on 9/13/2020
- On 9/14/2020 Load the -- Post Marathon / Half Marathon Plan (2wks) to end on 9/27/2020
Training Plan Support in Your First Month
You can connect with @matt limbert as needed in your first month to get dialed in with your training plans and data. You can set up a call with him online here: https://calendly.com/new-member-phone-call/1 and he'll be on this thread shortly!
Your Homework
Tell Me Your Season Goals
- What will make you consider this season a success?
- What's your biggest limiter right now?
** The Athlete Roadmap Videos & Start Learning **
Join Coach Patrick for a walkthrough of the Endurance Nation Athlete experience to learn more about how our system works to help you achieve your personal best. You'll want to watch the Phase One Structure videos -- there are four -- to get completely up to speed!
Every month we hold live events as part of our commitment to make you just as smart as you are fit. Feel free to visit our Coach Lesson page and our Office Hours page to find the next opportunity to connect with Coach Patrick and your Teammates.
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)
- Training Plan 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 or Power, etc? - You can post those into the General Discussion Forum and set the title or tags for that topic. Race questions to the Racing Forum, etc. 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
Julie, Welcome! Super cool have you with us. I'm here help you get setup and organized. I can explain your workout structure, show you where to find our race execution guidance, and how to connect with the rest of the team. I'm here to walk you through all of it.
Let me know what you are interested in, and I'll point you in the right direction. Our goal is to not only make you fitter, but smarter, and offer you the help and experience of our entire team to put together a race you race be proud of!
If any questions you have getting started - chat with me here or schedule a call with me here: https://calendly.com/new-member-phone-call/1
A few thoughts on getting setup and organized
First off, think of this as an opportunity to get fitter, smarter, and share your experience with the rest of the team. Coach Patrick has designed a Race Roadmap to Boston for you. The progression of workouts will get you fitter and prepare you physically to race but, getting smarter about training and race execution is what sets Endurance Nation apart from other programs. Here you have access to Coach Patrick (11x Kona qualifier, multiple Boston Marathon qualifier), a library of his Coach Lessons, and the experience of hundreds of other athletes across all age groups - willing to share their advice and what has worked (or not) for them.
Here are a few things to do:
#1 Subscribe to your Coach Thread.
Subscribe to your Coach Thread and get an email when we respond. Your Coach Thread is the best way to get a hold of us. It documents all of your training questions, its always here for your reference.
How to subscribe video:
Post a comment below or give me an emoji 👍️ and I will respond via email.
Once we know you are all set here. We can start to talk about the rest of your training!
I'll post a series of notes here to help you get started. You can also tell me what you are immediately interested in and I will point you in the right direction.
Let's get after it! 👊
Talk you you soon,
Matt
Matt, using a different browser, so now have access to EN Forum.
Sent you reply email to recent coach email. Not sure if you saw it.
3 things:
My Garmin is not working right now and I expect I won't have it back for 7-10 days. This will affect how I can report (and set) my paces and run distances accurately.
I didn't see my workouts until this week on Surge. Can we reset or back up to start this week - or what do you suggest? (Did my scheduled April 12th run today fyi).
I really would like to have my workouts and paces in kilometres. Ive never used miles (being Canadian). I'm a long time runner and I have a really good feel for my km paces and distance. It's not comfortable for me to use miles.
Lastly. I'm a pretty low maintenance on the coaching side of things. I'm looking for a solid program, good feedback, and something that will get me faster/fit. I'm finding the inundation of information a little overwhelming and the many many emails that I don't have time to read. Is it possible to just keep it a little more simple and focussed on the program and what I really need to attend to.
Thanks so much - happy to discuss. Just want to get started.
Julie
@Julie Drury Nice! Way to preserver! 👊 We want to get it sorted soon! In the meantime, please use your new browser.
RE: Garmin. For now, lets keep it simple. Running by feel and effort is fine. You can estimate the kilometers too. It could be freeing to run without your Garmin. 😂 I recently replaced mine. It was great for a few days then I could not wait to get mine back!
RE: Week reset. I restarted your workouts to start next week. It will be a 2 week block, followed by a 4 week block.
RE: Miles vs. Kms You can definitely change the distances to kms. Upper right corner. Click on Settings. Edit. You can change imperial to Kms.
RE: Low maintenance is cool. The training progression will definitely get you fit, and the best way to work the feedback is drop us a update on a regular basis. For some folks that is once a week, every other week or once a month. It works well for you and us. It helps you think through what is going well and what you need to improve on.
RE: Inundation with information. Sorry. We can simplify it to whatever you need. 😀 We'll get into a groove. There are lots of options to connect you with the team, coaches, and resources - so your feedback so far has been awesome. For now we can keep it simple, we want you subscribed to this thread, consistently getting in workouts, and how you want to engage with us.
BTW. Did you subscribe with the little red star thing I talked about in the video?
Thanks Matt
I subscribed to the red star and the red 'box'.
I am still seeing workouts in miles. I went to settings and checked metric, but nothing has changed. (Was 'settings' under my profile the correct place to make the change?)
Heading out for my run now
Julie
@Julie Drury Awesome!!! 😀 I'll get back to you on the km vs miles stuff in the work descriptions.
@Julie Drury I modified all the workouts up to 15 June for kms. You should be good for a while. It takes a bit of manual editting right now. I hope I didn't miss any. 😂 I'm going to look into a more automated process to get after the rest.
Thanks Matt.
Can you point me where to look to better understand what you mean by Total Run Pace. I think it's a pace that is midpoint between Zone1 and Zone 2, or slightly slower than planned marathon pace - but I'm not sure.
Also looking to better understand strides. From what I can find it's about cadence of 90rpm, but i run that cadence typically. So do I just run a good cadence for strides but run faster?
Thanks,
Julie
Also I am putting comments into my completed workouts Monday and today. Is there something else I should be doing?
I'll have more data/info once I have my Garmin back.
@Julie Drury
RE: TRP You got it. 😃In 2015, Endurance Nation implemented a new Run Durability element to the training plans. This was after the realization that most triathletes suffered from run-related injuries by running too fast on the easy aerobic days that build durability through frequency and consistency. You will see elements of this across all Training Plans with the TRP (Total Run Pace) zone -- the mid-point of Zones 1 and 2.
Here is a link to all the workout lingo
RE: Workout Comments. Yours look good. The little tags for how you felt and effort level - are great tools. You can look across a week or month of training for trends. Key here is to be honest (nobody feels great everyday! 😁)
#3 Consider downloading the Final Surge App
Final Surge | Mobile Apps
https://www.finalsurge.com/apps
This makes it way easier to add comments about how you felt, ate, weather, and paces etc. Those are all super helpful to you as you track your progress, prepare and plan your for your race.
We definitely want to see those hours, miles, and heart beats - but we also want to know how you felt, mood, how mentally easy or hard the workout was, what you ate and drank on those long runs (helps dial in your fueling and hydration for long races), what went good (as a reminder) and what you want to work on next time. These comments are for you. Just a quick not goes a long way.
To make comments, select the activity and click on the "pencil" icon to tap "how I felt" or "perceived effort." You can add a few notes about what you ate/drank, how you felt mentally, the weather or any aches etc. Those comments are really handy when you are comparing workouts, tailoring your own training, evaluating progress and planning for your race. It also makes it easy to look at and plan for your upcoming workouts.
For example, most of the long run and interval workouts are progressive from week to week. So, if you note that you felt terrible during the third interval and your pace slowed. When you do the workout again the following week, you can take a quick look at last week and set that mini-goal for this week's workout of getting through that third interval. Just like you can remember the great breakfast that worked so week to power the beginning of your long run. Those little adjustments all add up!
This takes your Final Surge account from just workout data to a full on training log - where you see your progression and become a smarter athlete.
Hi Matt,
Not sure if you are seeing my comments in my workouts, but I am adding comments after each workout. Last week was solid. I am doing my long run today bc of weather yesterday. Should work out fine.
Updates: I have loaded the Final Surge app on my phone and seem to be using that more than anything. I also have my Forerunner 245 back in action, so you'll see more data from my uploads from Garmin to Final Surge.
Qs: I'm not sure I am doing the TRP calculations properly. Right now, I'd like to hit a 5:10-5:15 marathon pace for Boston in September. I am not close to that yet. I have been estimated my TRP to be somewhere between 5:45 and 5:30, but I wonder if that is fast enough/correct. If I go by 'feel' of Zone 1-2, that is what seems right.
I'm also not sure about the long run pacing and couldn't find a description in the workout descriptions. Here is how I understood it. That I should run 40min at zone 1, then increase from 5:40kim/min to 5:20kim/min over 30 minutes 3 min increments? Not sure of the math on that, so I took 5s off every 5 minutes to get to 5:20 pace. Is that correct?
Feeling like I need a lot more guidance on pace/pacing. Maybe we can talk about the foundational paces I am working from and get more specific for the workouts.
Thanks!
Julie
@Julie Drury Nice work with the comments and congratulations getting your watch back! 😀 Yea! We can and should talk more about the foundational paces that you are working from and really dial in the execution and finding a workout pattern that fits your schedule, your recovery, and one that you can repeat all spring and summer.
RE: TRP calcuations. Going by feel is good and it is the right place to start. Let's keep that up. TRP will most likely feel too easy or really easy. That is exactly what we are going for! Those TRP days are supposed to be really easy and enable slower, incremental increases in volume for some strength adaptation. We really want you to be ready for the harder tempo days and the long run days where we vary the pace B-A-A (more on that below). Consistently stringing together week after week of quality tempo and long runs are where the money is at. Those are the workouts that will really change your fitness. We want to focus on improving times and effort on tempo and long runs, along with weekly consistency and we expect the TRP to naturally follow in improvement.
We will get a baseline set for easy (TRP), tempo, and long progression run pacing over the next few weeks. We start the Marathon race preparation block in early June. Over the course of that training block we will get a good feel for your sustained marathon race pace with the long runs. These 6 weeks of Run Durability are really key though. They set up the race specific block. The progression of the long runs during this block are key, because we start with with a 12km run the first week.
Last Saturday was "MS: 70' as 40' Zone 1, then final 30' as @ B-A-A TRP (Below-At-Above Total Run Pace) in 3-minute increments."
This translates into: "The entire run is 70 minutes. The first 40 minutes start at zone 1, then the final 30 minutes broken into 3 minute intervals. The first 3 minute interval would be below TRP = 10 seconds slower per km, followed by the next 3 minute interval at TRP, followed by the next 3 minute interval at Above TRP = 10 seconds faster per km.
The final 30 minutes would be 10x 3 minute intervals based on TRP = 5:35:
5:45, 5:35, 5:25
5:45, 5:35, 5:25
5:45, 5:35, 5:25
5:45
How does that sound? Let me know what you think.
Hi Matt,
Thanks for the additional information about TRP. I feel I am definitely running too fast and will have to adjust my pace for the workouts where I am doing 'strides'. Those have not been easy - really easy runs. Good to know the emphasis for harder (build) runs is on tempo and strength. I will refocus accordingly.
Note: I missed my run earlier this week. I will do hills today and tempo tomorrow (or maybe the other way around - tempo today and hills tomorrow).
Also appreciate the breakdown of B-A-A TRP. I did not do the run that way and ended up just getting faster and faster w pace. The 3 minute increments of Below - At - Above TRP and then repeating that makes a lot more sense. I will adjust for this weekend.
I agree/am fine with the run durability focus now and getting more specific about race pace in June. I still need to be setting a base right now and getting myself back to speed. I have enough experience that I can go by feel and what I know my goals will be.
Julie
@Julie Drury Thanks for the note. Check in anytime! 👊