Kelly the Culinarian: Training Tuesday: You're Doing it Wrong

Tuesday, January 21, 2014

Training Tuesday: You're Doing it Wrong

Have you voted for me for the ZOOMA blogger contest? You can do it every day.

Ah, the Internet. Teacher of so many life lessons. Like did you know, I've been training for my spring marathon incorrectly?

I suppose there's no wrong way to train for a marathon (save not training at all), but I have not been following the FIRST training plan protocol as it was intended. The FIRST method, for the uninitiated, is a three-run per week marathon training plan consisting of an interval run, a tempo run and a long run, all of which should be performed at very specific paces. The pace is determined by a recent 10K race. I PRed my 10K time at the Gobbler Hobbler in November and used this as the basis for my training.

Except, I suck at math. As I learned from the generous comments on yesterday's post, I'm supposed to be doing my interval runs at a pace that feels hard enough that one more round would completely exhaust me. And I should be able to do each interval at the same level of effort.

Derp.

I've been doing the intervals on the treadmill at the gym and I usually have to slow down the pace in the later intervals or break it into smaller chunks (like three .10 intervals instead of a single .25-mile interval at the end).

So when Kim suggested the pace should be attainable, I went back and read the instructions for the interval runs. I've been doing my tempos at 8-minute miles and intervals at 7-minute miles. Except according to my 10K pace, I should be doing my intervals at 7:11 and my tempo 8:11 to 8:26.

Woops.

No wonder these things were feeling impossible. I'm not sure if 11 seconds makes a huge difference, but now I know and will adjust accordingly.

What training mistakes have you made?

6 comments:

Kim said...

I am happy we were able to help! I will be curious to hear if those 11 seconds do make a difference. You never know... they might! And it it continues to feel so hard you have to slow it down/break it up, I bet it would be okay to add a few more seconds on!

Kimberly said...

Go, Kim, go! 11 seconds, I think, can make a difference. I did my first tempo in ages today. Since I was on the treadmill, I decided to start at the slower end of the range and bump up every quarter-mile. The difference between 8:27 pace and 8:20 was crazy. It was like going from "this isn't too bad" to "kill me now."

Meghan said...

I know nothing about training plans. Every year, I say I am going to incorporate speedwork, etc - and then I just log miles. Ugh. I need a coach.

Which marathon are you training for???

Maggie W said...

Easing up on the pace probably will make a difference. Today I was doing intervals on a treadmill and I didn't have my HR strap so I was just winging it. A 7:15ish pace felt too hard, but 7:30 was attainable.

KellytheCulinarian said...

It totally made a difference in my morning run today! Thanks, interweb peeps, for helping me out.

I'm training for the circular logic marathon on March 29.

Unknown said...

Ugh I feel even more lost than you with all these paces/tempos/etc. But reading this definitely helps...I think I'm going to really slow down intentionally once I can start running again.