Training For the New Balance Bronx 10 Mile: Anatomy of a Plan
There was some interest expressed here in why I was trying to create my own plan for this race and what creating my own plan entailed, and between that interest and some things in this plan that I want to share with others in case they find them helpful, I wanted to spend some time talking about the plan, how it came to be, and what it includes.
This is going to be a long one with no picture (but yes a few charts), so I hope it's not too boring.
How I Got Started With Making My Own Plans(/Why Make My Own Plan Now)
Something that most people don't know about me is that I trained for a 5K way back in 2011. I registered for a free virtual 5K (maybe that's where my addiction to free virtual races came from) and used the beginner run/walk plan created for the race to train. I mostly completed that plan, ran the virtual race (and struggled throughout, for various reasons) ... and then didn't run again for several years.
Fast forward to July 2014. When I started preparing for my first actual in-person 5K (Princess Frozen 5K 2015), I felt like the 5K plan I had used previously progressed too fast, so since I had more time than the plan needed, I just made my own modified plan. This was that plan:
From that first race until January of this year, I always made my own plans. Sometimes I based them on existing plans (my plan for my second half was Galloway with a few extra weekday miles thrown in), but it was always something I made. After completing the Fred Lebow Half Marathon in January, it was time to move on to my training for the United Airlines NYC Half … but I wasn’t in love with the plan I had made. I wanted to try something new. There were only 7 weeks until race day, but
@DopeyBadger was willing to give a custom plan a try, so we set something up super quick and I got started on a totally new way of training.
I had great success on that plan, but it was hard for me to give up control of my run schedule, so for my next race, I came up with a compromise - I created my own plan, but did it based on the principles I had learned from working with Billy. Since then, we’ve basically alternated between plans Billy makes and plans that I make and run past him for comments/input. This plan is one I made and ran past him – he suggested some changes, I replied with a different suggestion, and we settled on a plan that I’m optimistic will get me to my goal.
Now that we know how I got started making my own plans, it's time to talk about...
Goals For This Plan/Designing The Plan
My last plan was a little bit of a mess. Part of it was just life stuff, but some of it was also that I had just let Billy make a plan based on what he thought was best and didn't really add much input about what I thought would be best for me - and as someone who had been creating my own plans for several years, I had some sense of what worked for me, and I should have known that I would not be successful unless I took a more active role in the plan-making. With that in mind and based on some of the thoughts I had during my last plan, there were a few things I knew I wanted for this plan:
- If I was going to even consider a continuous running goal, I needed to put a greater emphasis on continuous running. Last plan we had one continuous run most weeks, the most I was scheduled to run continuously at once was 5 miles, and only one run at a continuous tempo pace (which was fine, since I didn’t have a time goal for that race). For this plan, I wanted to throw in more continuous running – both at easy pace and at tempo paces. The amount of continuous running on the last plan was probably fine from a physical standpoint, but mentally, it didn't give me enough confidence in my ability to run the race continuously.
- Include a 10 mile run. I’m one of those people who really feels a need to go close to or over the race distance (which is why marathon will be interesting … but that’s something I can wait a few weeks to worry about). With this race being a major goal for me, I knew I wanted to get in at least one 10-mile run, possibly two … and I was hoping to throw a decent amount of continuous running into those runs.
When it came time to start writing a plan, I started off by writing up my longer long runs. Based on some schedule-related discussions with Coach a few months ago, I knew that my peak week would be the week ending September 9th. So I started with that run and worked my way backwards. Turns out I was only going to have two of the longer long runs – but I was fine with that. This is what I came up with:
I divided my longest runs into intervals and continuous – the first one was going to be 2 mi intervals + 6 mi continuous + 2 mi intervals, and the second one would be 1.5 mi intervals + 7 mi continuous + 1.5 mi intervals.
Once I had my longer runs planned out, it was time to make the rest of the plan. First, I needed to think about my schedule and what ground rules I wanted to set out for the plan. Here's the schedule I set up for myself:
- Sundays: Max 2-2.25 hours (because I often have family stuff to do on the weekends and I can't be out longer than that ... but since Coach doesn't really go over 2 hours for a half marathon (or 10 mile, I guess) plan, this wasn't an issue)
- Mondays: No Mondays. Mondays are when I recover from the weekend – this was a big one for me. When we started the last plan, I thought it was interesting that I had some Monday runs. But I’m usually somewhat busy on the weekends, and it turned out I hated those Monday runs and had trouble getting out of bed for them.
- Tuesdays - Thursdays: Max 45-50 minutes/day
- Fridays: No running except in extenuating circumstances
- Saturdays: No running. I take my day of rest very seriously, y'all. (Also, I don't use any sort of electronics, and if you run without GPS tracking it, did you really run?)
- There was also a list of days that I couldn’t run because of various religious holidays and observances, so I threw those into the plan spreadsheet right away so that I didn’t accidentally plan a run on a day that I couldn’t run (I’ve done it before…)
Once I had the days I could run (and how long I could run for) set out, I needed to set some general rules for the plan:
- One “hard” run per week – on the last plan I found that the weeks that had two hard runs were the weeks I was less excited about
- 45 minute max … except for maybe 1-2 hour-long runs if necessary for balance
- Some intervals (including tempo intervals), but more emphasis on continuous, with at least one continuous pace run per week.
Once I had my rules set out, it was time to “fill in the blanks.” I knew there would be two types of weeks in the plan - short long run weeks and long long run weeks. Short long runs would be 3 runs, including a 7 mile long run on Sundays, and long long run weeks would be four run weeks with the long runs listed above. Once I had the long runs planned, I knew I needed to run at least that many miles during the week, so I figured out how many miles I wanted to run each day and filled that in on the calendar, making sure that the weekday runs always added up to a longer distance than the Sunday run.
All that was left was to decide between intervals and easy continuous for the easy runs.
For short long run weeks, which make up the bulk of my training, I knew that I wanted the Sunday long run to be at my slowest pace, which is Easy/LR intervals, which left one of the weekday runs as a "hard" run (either 10K pace or HM Tempo) and the other one as an easy continuous run.. Generally the EC run is on Tuesday and tempo is Thursday, but that does change depending on my schedule. This coming week is the first of my short long run weeks (this past week, while technically on the plan, was a recovery week) - here's what it looks like:
I have my tempo run on Tuesday this week because I was already planning to do barre3 on Thursday, and I don't like to pair that with a tempo run, but other than that, this is basically what most of the weeks on my plan look like.
Long long run weeks, of which there are only two on this plan, consist of 4 runs – Sunday long run including some hard continuous segment, and 3 easy weekday runs, pace TBD on the morning of. I realized that one of the things I didn’t like about the old plan was that I had no flexibility in what run I was doing on a particular day – so I decided that for weeks when I have three easy runs, I would do one EC, one Easy/LR intervals, and the third as whatever I was in the mood for – and I’d decide morning of which one I wanted to do.
Coach's Input/Adjustments
I sent the plan off to Billy, and for the most part he liked it. He did offer one suggestion – shortening my two 10-milers to 8 miles and 9 miles so that there wasn’t such a huge jump in mileage between the weeks before and the long long run weeks. I wanted to keep at least one 10-mile long run, so the compromise I offered was taking a mile off one of the mid-week runs each of those weeks, then shortening the first 10 miler to 9 miles and keeping the second one 10 miles. This was a little riskier than Billy’s idea, but it still works, so that’s what we’re going with.
Coach also suggested adding strides to my EC runs to break up the monotony a bit. Strides are a small burst of slowly increasing, steady, and then slowly decreasing speed done at the end of a continuous run. I’ve never done strides before (they’re not really necessary in a run/walk plan because you get that sensation from the run/walk transitions) and I’m not sure how I’m going to feel about them, but I am going to give them a try on my next EC run and see how they feel. If I like them, I'll keep them. If not, no strides for Sarah (for now at least).
A Little Bit More About The Long Runs
I posted the schedule of long long runs I created above. I even explained the continuous vs. interval. But I wanted to take a little bit of time to explain where that idea of mixed intervals/continuous came from.
One thing I learned from my last plan was that with a continuous running goal, I needed to keep increasing the amount of time that I spent running continuously to feel comfortable. I also knew that I didn’t necessarily want to do that all at the harder continuous pace. For one thing, I wasn’t quite sure that I was ready to do 6 or 7 miles at a tempo continuous pace quite yet. Also, I knew that increasing the hard part of the workout meant increasing my weekday easy running to balance it out … and I didn’t really want to do that either. So I thought back to last plan when I had a continuous tempo run. I woke up that morning not feeling like I had tempo in me, so I went out planning to do a slower continuous pace – and ended up sandwiching 1 mile of the continuous tempo pace between two miles of the slower continuous pace, which worked really well for me. With that in mind, I decided that for my long runs, I would “ease” in and out of the faster continuous pace by bookending it with a slower continuous pace.
For example, here’s what I have saved in my calendar as the description for the first long long run of the plan:
- 1.5 mi Warm Up - 60 sec @ 11:36 / 30 sec @ 16:00 (Avg: 12:46) (This is my Easy/LR Interval pace)
- 1 mi LR C - 11:36 min/mi
- 4 mi HM C - 10:23 min/mi
- 1 mi LR C - 11:36 min/mi
- 1.5 mi Cool Down - 60 sec @ 11:36 / 30 sec @ 16:00 (Avg: 12:46)
I’m starting off with a mile and a half of intervals, then easing into the continuous with a mile of the slower continuous pace, picking up the tempo to do 4 miles of the continuous tempo pace, then easing back to another mile of the slower continuous pace before ending with a 1.5 mile interval cool down. I figured this would allow me to get in a good amount of continuous running while not wearing myself out with too much continuous tempo. The focus of the long long runs on this plan was really to get in a nice amount of continuous running without completely burning myself out.
Taking A Peek at Peek Week
This week is actually a higher percentage of hard than I normally do – normally I try to keep it below 20% - but this seemed like the best way to get in the continuous tempo miles that I wanted and not increase my distance too much. I have three rest days right after that run, so I think that will help me recover from the slightly increased intensity of the week.
Originally I had a 5-mile easy run this week (for a total mileage of 22 miles), but that would have meant too high of an increase in mileage between weeks, so I shortened it to 4 miles. Which is actually better, because a 5 mile easy run would have been at least an hour, and I was not looking forward to that. I think the 4/3/4 easy run schedule should be very manageable for me, even during what may end up being a very busy week.
In terms of the long run ... I think the long run this week will be a good barometer of my “run continuous” goal. If I can get through this run with no problems, then I should be golden for continuous running at the race. If I do struggle with this run, especially the continuous parts, I have to sit down and think what caused that struggle. If it’s something like external factors (bad weather, course issues, etc), then I’m probably still in good shape for the race. But if I ran in good conditions and still struggled, then I may have to evaluate whether I would be better off using intervals for the race. But hopefully all will go well and I won’t have to make that decision.
Non-Running Factors
Cross Training
I’ve always tried to incorporate cross training into my plans, but generally failed. Now that I’ve started with barre3, I finally feel like I’m in a good place with cross training. The goal for this plan is two sessions of cross training per week (with the exception of some weeks when I just don’t have time for two).
Current plan is to do barre3 for both those sessions. But I don’t know if there’s something else out there I want to try. Barre3 is the first cross training I tried, and I don’t know if maybe because I’ve been focused on that I’m missing out on something else I might love. I really don’t know if I should stick with what I know works or try something new once a week (and still do the barre3 once I week) just to mix things up. I have to think about it.
Nutrition
A few months back, I posted that I wanted to be down 7lbs by the time this race rolled around. As of Friday, I am up 5lbs from where I was then. I don’t think I’m going to make it to where I wanted to be for this race, but I do need to get my weight under control. And that means being a lot more careful about what I eat.
Some things I need to think about:
- Chocolate is a treat, not a necessity. I love chocolate, and I will never give it up, but I need to remember that it’s a treat, not something I eat after breakfast, then between snacks, and between meals, and when I’m bored … etc. If I want chocolate right after breakfast, then I’m probably not eating good breakfasts. I need to find something to do when I’m bored instead of eating chocolate. Basically, I need to remember that while I can have chocolate sometimes, I shouldn’t be eating all the chocolate all the time. Even though I did make really good chocolate purchases last week.
- Meal plan and stick to it. This is a challenge because I never know what we will have around the house. But I need to start planning healthy meals and sticking to them, and then just having some backup ideas for when we don’t have what I want in the house.
- Stop noshing after dinner. This is such a big thing for me. There’s no reason for me to eat after dinner. But when I’m bored or I happen to wander downstairs … snacks abound. That needs to stop.
Challenges to Success
Holidays. September is a big month for holidays for my religion, and that means a lot of days when all I do is eat, sleep, and pray. Plus one day where I work, pray, and don't eat, and one day where I just pray. I don't have any runs scheduled for holidays, but I do have runs scheduled for days before and after holidays. My holidays are all considered PTO, but I'll probably still be working a few extra hours around then, which means a little less time for running. So I have to make sure that I don't sacrifice my running and cross training time just because I'm busy at work.
Stress. If there's one thing I know about myself, it's that I don't deal with stress well. There's always going to be some stress going on in my life, and I need to learn to not let it take over or everything in my life will become more of a struggle, including my running. I really need to work on managing my stress and learning when to just let things go.
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So ... that's the plan. Or at least some info on it. I think it came out pretty well, and I'm excited to see how it goes.
Also ... I know most of this was super unclear, so if you have any questions, ask away!
