This time of year (late winter-ish) historically becomes the start of race training season for me. For countless years, I’ve run most of my races in the spring or early summer so February or March is when all the planning and the initial stages of training begin.
Every year I have mixed feelings at this time because I’ve generally been running less and lifting more and don’t like the idea of the reverse. Also, as much as I’ve been an all-weather runner for over a decade and haven’t run on a treadmill in any real capacity since my kids were pre-school ages, I am less and less interested in winter running (more the conditions than the actual temperature). I have my home gym and I can lift in warm, music-playing, sports-bra-wearing, putting-away-dishes-between-sets, peace.
But on the other hand, I do love structure and routine. A race training program is my jam and I like all the moving parts: Planning the duration, making the program, putting up a new plan on the cork board, knowing what my exercise week looks like for the next few months, etc. Over the winter (“off season”) I am a lot more loosely structured. I lift 3-4 days a week and run around 3. Lately, that has looked a lot more like lift 4-5 days and run zero…
I like getting stronger! I like watching the weights and volume go up and feeling muscular. But, in the reverse, I do like feeling more and more fit, as race season goes on, and running gets easier and faster. Its a trade off. I hate losing my hard won #gainz in the gym but its a cycle I’ve done year in and year out for a couple decades (since I started racing a few times a year).
This year I plan do do something that I haven’t ever really done before. I plan to really focus on the running for 12 solid weeks and really go for my PR in the Half Marathon. If you don’t know, PR is “personal record” (sometimes also known as PB: Personal Best). The majority of us who participate in road races will never win. Never even come close to winning actually. Generally speaking, you’re likely out there as one of thousands and even being in the upper 1/3 is cool. I did place second in my age group for a 10k a few years back, but that was actually because it was a small race; and I was technically 3rd; but the woman who came in 2nd got disqualified for wearing headphones…I was also wearing headphones but they apparently did not notice.
Because I love to weight lift and hate losing my strength, I have always done the very inefficient training plan of continuing to lift 2-3 days per week and race train 3-4 days per week (generally 3). Yes, even while training for a Marathon, I tend to run 3-4 days per week and still lift 2-3. It’s not efficient or smart and my exercise background knows full well that chasing two rabbits means catching neither, but I ignore these principles and try to “maintain” my strength while progressing my running.
Ideally, one would pick a lane. Not that you can’t strength train and run, but if you’re trying to excel, you really need to prioritize the one or the other. (Then, there is the catch that I love biking above all else, and I try to limit that until I’m done racing and that is a real challenge because I’d rather bike than do nearly anything!)
So, as I am approaching 45 years old and have only signed up for two Half Marathons this year, I have revisited my desire for a PR and to finally see if I can beat my fastest Half Marathon time. My races are in May and June and the first one will be the “goal race”. Then afterwards, I have the summer to ride and hike and not be pulled in different fitness directions. (Also, my partner will ride and hike with me, so that is desirable too).
I don’t really know how many Half Marathons I’ve run, but more than 20 (not to mention that when you’re Marathon training, you eventually are running at least a Half every weekend). My fastest Half Marathon is 1:52:14 in 2013. I’ve had 1:52 something a few more times (last being in 2017), but I’ve been lightly chasing 1:50 for years. I say lightly because I haven’t really tried, only kinda-sorta intended it. I haven’t specifically trained to beat 1:52 since 2017 and mostly, I get somewhere around 2 hours. My most recent Half (last fall) was 1:57:25 and that was the best I could have done that day (went great!) and 9 weeks after a full Marathon, so I was in pretty decent shape.
In an effort to not keep doing the same thing and expecting different results, I plan to train for this May Half Marathon in a way I haven’t done before. I plan to run 5 days per week and strength train only one day. I plan to try and run my slow runs slower and do the work on speed and tempo days. I need to try and not lift heavy on strength days; but focus on maintenance only, and as a means to help my running, not build my strength. Hard! I keep telling myself that its 12 weeks; I can lift heavy later. If I want to get faster and actually see my race time improve, I need to actually train like I want to do that!
So I have decided to offer up this series as a look into this process and eventually what the end result will be. I do believe I can get faster, even though I’m 6 years older than the last time I ran that fast. I do believe that actually putting in the work will get me where I want to be, even if I already morn the loss of deadlifting my body weight and bench pressing closer and closer to 100#’s. I have never run 5 days a week before! In 25 years of running, the most I’ve ever run is 4 days per week (generally its always 3) because of weightlifting and fear of injury. But how do I expect to cross that 1:52 barrier training the same way that has only ever brought me to 1:52? Possible, for sure. Plausible; probably not. I need to train differently and see what I can do!
Currently I have not run in 3 weeks. Icy. Brutally cold. But mostly; Gym time! I’ve been lifting. So next week officially kicks off my 12 week program to the May 7th Vancouver Half Marathon (my favourite!) Last year I ran that race as part of Marathon training and got 2:04:18; treating it like a training run and not really pushing until the last few km (I just had to race those last few km!) Today I’ll head out for an easy 45 mins (even if I’d prefer to never run less than 10k) because I need to get my legs back and ready to train and not push it (just because you can, doesn’t mean you should.) I can do this! I want to do this…
I also have a loose goal of 3 Marathons in the next 5 years so that I can have run 10 Marathons by 50 years old; but we’ll see…Lets break the 1:50 Half first.
Periscopecake 