First off I must admit it has been awhile since I posted here. A few small changes resulted in greater demands for my time. Something had to give, and one of those things was this blog. Going forward I will try to be more regular. I might even return to the weekly summary. That review actually helped me to stay focused.
Since September I have been focused on running. As soon as the Honolulu Century Ride was behind me I switched my weekend schedule, doing long runs on Sunday and short but hard FTP bike workouts on Saturday mornings. I prefer it the other way around so that my legs are a bit fresher on Saturday, lower risk of injury, but Saturday afternoon gamelan rehearsals after a long morning run just was not working for me.
A typical marathon training plan has long runs ramping up to 20+ miles a few weeks before the race. The plan I originally devised followed that pattern, but eventually I ran into a problem (pun intended!) I was coming home dead-dog tired, and carrying high fatigue well into the week. The issue is pace. I am slow. Getting better, but still slow. My slow run pace does not get much above 18 min/mi. Several good coaches, including Joe Friel and Bobby McGee, say that training runs longer than three hours are of limited benefit. The musculature is as beat up as it ever should be while the risk of injury goes up significantly. Running beyond three hours means more time to recover, all the more so for us old guys. So, at my 18 pace a three hour run will get me about 10 miles.
One thing I changed was my route. Instead of walking to my starting point at Kahala Aloha gas station I now drive to Kapiolani Park and run over Diamond Head to Wailupe Park and back, which come out to be around 11 miles. Last Sunday I did it in 3:16. Not too bad. Average pace 17:50 and that includes running the hills. Intensity factor was 0.76, a bit higher than I would like but still OK. Average power was 123 watts, normalized power 129, VI 1.05 so good consistency. Average cadence 71, which comes as a surprise because I have been working on getting up to 80. But the cadence distribution bar chart shows I spent 56% of my time at 75-80, and 20% at 70-75. I guess I spend too much time walking at the water breaks. The good news is, when I am running I am close to the cadence I want to be at.
A couple more things before I get to my race plan. I now run with a Stryd power meter. I held out until running power was integrated into Training Peaks and my Garmin 935. Not quite there yet, but good enough to jump in and get started. Very happy with it, highly recommended to anyone already familiar with bike power meters. The other thing is not as profound. I read and follow Matt Fitzgerald's 80/20 Running. His premise is that too many runners spend too much time running fast. He spends a lot of time building a case for slowing down, doing 80% of their runs at a very comfortable pace and just 20% at a hard effort. As much as I want to go faster, I keep reminding myself of his advice and not push on the long run or the easy morning runs. Tuesday mornings are hill repeats, Friday mornings are tempo runs, the rest are all very easy. Turning to the power meter, my easy run effort is 130 watts. Quick note: running watts do not correlate to bike watts, and do not compare usefully between runners. So far it run watts seem to be highly individualistic. The key is to establish your zones and use them to regulate effort.
Which brings us to this Sunday's Val Nolasco half marathon. The key to my plan is to start easy at 130 watts, then beginning at the foot of Diamond Head run hills at 150-160 watts and flat sections 140-150. This is my first race using Stryd, so I will also be watching heart rate and RPE -- how I feel. That cruise power range may be too high, so I will keep 130 as a recovery effort should it become necessary.
You cannot have a race plan without nutrition, and here I have more news. I have started using Infinit sports drink. For the bike my mix includes some protein, same as Hammer Perpetuem, but for the run I leave it out; too hard to digest while running. Both include electrolytes, so I will not carry pills. Infinit works well at high concentrations, like Perpetuem, so I will carry three hours worth in a short water bottle. This requires that I take a mouthful of water before and after a swig of Infinit. I have been doing this for several weeks and it works great.
I really do not know what to expect in terms of finishing time. In 2012 I did it in 3:38. I did not run it in 2013 due to hernia surgery, and for some reason I did not run it in 2014. In 2015 I did 3:39. If I run at the pace I ran last Sunday, ten miles of most of the same course, I should come in at 3:53, so clearly I ran that well below race pace. Based on some short race pace intervals I did last Tuesday I predict 3:36. Why not reach a bit a try for under 3:30?
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