Category: Ambassador

A (real) Plan for the Slacker?

I’ve mentioned before that I have serious problems sticking to training plans I’ve found online or in books,etc. They’re all a little too cookie cutter and it’s very rare to find one that has rest days on Fridays. And with my pace being all over the place these days, the pace based plans just make me sad. Then there’s the Slacker in me that just has a knee jerk reaction to being “told” to run. Which is why I created my own plan back in November in my almost free student planner. Which I still kind of love by the way. 🙂

Personalized plans are available from a variety of websites but have you seen the cost? Now if I could promise myself that I would follow it and not rebel like a clueless 4-year-old, the cost wouldn’t be that much. I’ve just never trusted myself to follow through. So I had my plan for the next few months and I was good. Then I got an email. The SLO Marathon partnered with McMillan Running for course specific plans. A limited number of free training plans were offered to the ambassadors. A personalized plan, just for you. The length of your choosing, designed for you. For free. Free? Seriously?!

I was so torn! I mean that is an awesome offer. I use their pace calculator all the time and they have articles and videos filled with training advice. With a limited number of spots, I had to think quickly. I liked my plan but also knew that I will likely need a little (or a lot) of guidance to break 2:00 at SLO. But would a plan stress me out? Also with the 25K this weekend and Surf City next weekend, I didn’t really have the time for a 12 week plan. After all most plans don’t have a 13.1 mile race the first week. 🙂 I checked out the website and saw that they offered an 8 week plan. Hang on, that’s doable. I would have a little time to rest after Surf City and surely I could stick to a plan for 8 weeks right? I finally decided it was too good of an offer to miss out on and jumped on it.

I received the questionnaire email about a week later. Mother of Toledo, it was 6 pages long. It asked my goals, my running habits, my usual schedule. It asked for my best times ever as well as just the best times from the last 12 months. It asked what I wanted out of running after accomplishing my goal and how many miles a week would burn me out. Etc, Etc. There was also a question about any races I may want to run before my goal race. I answered all of the questions as truthfully as I could. I do admit that I left out the 25K part. For some reason I was scared to put that in. 🙂 There was also a section that asked about any planned trips or events that would require schedule changes. I may not have any planned trips but I put Fridays in that section. Fridays usually end up being a longer (open to close) day plus my commute each way on top of that. That combined with the fact that Fridays are usually busier and I take Friday as a rest day 99.9% of the time. I wanted that to reflect in my plan so I made sure to specify that. I submitted my answers and was told it would be 1-2 weeks before I heard back. Even knowing that, I stalked my email everyday. It came on Sunday night.

Woo hoo! Included in the email was their half marathon race guide, their training philosophies, as well as a nutrition guide. Ok, cool but what about the plan? I opened the excel file with trepidation… and then blinked. Wait, what? I paid more attention to the dates and workout before going back and reading the comments, if I had done it in order, I would have been less confused. 🙂

Fallon, thanks for choosing McMillan Running to help you train optimally for your upcoming goal race. As you head into your San Luis Obispo Half Marathon training program, remember that recovery between key workouts is the key. If you simply perform the workouts and get to the race healthy, you give yourself the best chance at success. Consistent, smart training will produce the best results. Run hard, but run smart. Listen to your body to know when to push and when to rest. For each workout in your plan, there is a corresponding training pace listed in the McMillan Running Calculator (www.mcmillanrunning.com). I know you requested 8 weeks of training, but I wanted to give you a full 14 weeks so that you will have some guidelines over the next few weeks to help you transition into half-marathon specific training in the final 2 months before SLO.

14 weeks? That’s a long time but the more I read it, the more I felt like it was doable. Most of the runs are time based as opposed to distance based. I’ve been transitioning to that since December so seeing that built into the plan was kind of awesome. Specific speed work drills are built in, no paces but guidelines that I can follow and actually accomplish (fingers crossed). Surf City 13.1 and Wine Country 13.1 are built into the plan as long training runs. The weeks following those are built as recovery weeks. Hmmm, I think I can do this. I was actually super excited to start. Now, if only I was feeling 100%! I am still coughing up a storm at night so I thought it would be smarter to only run 3x this week. Boo!

Ever follow a McMillan plan? Or use their pace calculator?

Think I can stick to a plan? Or will I slack off?

Who’s racing this weekend?

Sticking to a Plan

I am really trying to stick to my plan. I want to go into 2015 and my spring races without feeling like I have to start from scratch after the holidays. That said, a big part of my plan is flexibility. So when my stomach was a butt head on Saturday, I ran 5 instead of 8. However, I still followed through with my back to back days and did the 6 mile Cerro Alto hike.

Tuesday, I ended up getting a way later start than planned and was only able to get in 5 miles before dusk. However, they felt pretty damn good. They weren’t the speediest but they felt solid. After a pretty great 5, I was eager to get running again on Wednesday. But I was questioning if I should. Vacation is hard, part of me wants to run all the miles but the more sensible part really wanted to stick my schedule and get comfortable with it. I never did find a nearby turkey trot but was planning on doing a couple of miles with my mother. Also, I knew that I would be spending Saturday or Sunday shopping so I started rearranging my running days in my head. I started thinking I could squeeze 6 out of Thanksgiving and then run 8-10 on Friday. With that in mind, I took Wednesday as a rest day since I know my body is not a fan of running 4 days in a row.

Oh such plans. Thanksgiving morning rolled in and I woke with a sore throat and a headache and scratchy eyes. I spent the day half in pajamas and half in running gear under a blanket on the couch. I was cold and it was a balmy 75º in my neck of the woods. My family had a very low key Thanksgiving. We hung out and watched movies- Into the Storm, Lone Survivor, and Heaven is For Real. Interesting choices, right? Luckily, we never really go overboard on Thanksgiving so I didn’t feel too guilty. 🙂 In fact, minor sickness aside, it was a pretty great day.

I don’t do the whole shop at night or at the crack of dawn thing, so I slept in on Friday. I still felt a little off but better than Thursday. After a small lunch and a couple of errands, I headed out for a few miles. 5 miles seem to have become my new go-to. With just trying to complete both races in January before focusing on speed for SLO, there is no speed work built into my plan right now. Plus, my stomach doesn’t really like it these days. So any speed work that happens is just based on how I feel that day. That said, I have been trying to work on a fast finish to most of my runs. Usually by the end of races and runs, I am done, I can never kick it in to the end. I figure my stomach should be able to handle that.

I will say it’s a lot easier on the treadmill. Turn the speed up and just hang on. Out on the road, I have to focus more. All I’m aiming for is a speedy last half mile before cool down. That’s not too long, right? I felt like I pulled it off the last couple of runs. My fast pace alert was vibrating my Garmin on Tuesday’s run but I never actually looked at it. But then it just averaged in with the rest of the mile. Urgh. So even though I was tired today, I used the lap buttons. The last half mile comes right after hill that always kicks my butt. I have never run it. It’s short but steep and just makes me tired. I hit the lap button as soon as I got to the top and started running. Oh,man that was hard. I felt slower than Tuesday, which made sense, and like there was no way I could maintain anything for a half mile. I hit 5 miles, pushed the lap button and stopped the Garmin. It wasn’t until I synced my Garmin with my phone that I figured out why it felt so hard. I did what?!

Holy crap! I realize that it wasn’t even a mile but still sweet! Also not the pace I was looking for, haha! I was aiming for the mid to high 8’s but I’ll take it! Probably couldn’t pull it off again or maintain it for a full mile, but it’s still kind of cool. 🙂

How was your Thanksgiving?

Anyone join the crush of crazy shopping? Any good deals?

Talking about Training

Most of my online feeds are full of training talk these days. I don’t remember reading this much last year. Then again my only goal last November and December was to not take a long break from running like I had in previous years. I was constantly starting over every January. In November 2013 I ran 60 miles and 34 in December, not much but miles above previous years. My first race was always in March so I usually felt like I had time to catch up. Beyond that was always up in the air.

This year is ending a little different. With a 25K the last weekend in January and a half the following weekend I need to get my butt in gear now. Combine that with wanting to finally break 2 at SLO in April, and they seem like pretty large goals for this Slacker. Particularly when you factor in my track record with training plans.

Up until 2014, I trained my own way. For the most part it worked for me. But this year I had goals and goals need plans right? For SLO, I used a Nike+ training plan that was just too much mileage for me. I tried Higdon’s intermediate plan for Rock’n around the Pier in July. It didn’t work out so well. Ventura was an effort in denial regarding my stomach and lungs. Oh and remember this gem? Could I have made it any harder to understand?

I started training 12 weeks out from my 25k. Following Surf City, I aim to take a week off before getting back to training for SLO. That’s 11 weeks. With my stomach still dictating most of my pace and never having run back to back double-digit races, my goal for January is to just finish both races- no real speed or time goals. The plan is simple- run 4 days a week, try to cross train once. The tricky part lies in the weekends- back to back runs of at least 6 miles per day, topping out at 12. Even just typing that made me tired. There’s a reason I call myself a Slacker. 🙂 I would like to throw in a speed workout every other week but that will be up to my lovely stomach.

If I can stick to this, I ~~think~~ hope that I will be starting the year with a solid base. Hopefully that base will make me a stronger runner and I can really focus on speed for SLO. Fingers crossed. As for my plan- looking back I realized that my strongest half of the year was Wine Country in March. Granted, I was also the healthiest then. Barring an asthma issue during miles 5-7, I felt strong and ran 95% of it. Damn stupid hill at mile 12. And I trained my way- it was amazingly head game free- and I want to get back to that.

Pretty easy first two weeks. Next week steps up.

And how am I tracking my plan? A 90 cent student planner and pens because that is how I roll. 🙂 I’ve bought expensive logs and only used them a month. I tried Daily Mile as a way to track and never followed through. This fits in my purse, doesn’t take up a lot of space and I am hoping will be great incentive to keep it up! What can I say, I like filling in the purple for following through!

Happy weekend!

How do you train? Any suggestions?

What are your plans this weekend?

Call me Crazy

Starting with the smiles-

Never be a naysayer! I said that I didn’t think there was any way that my location would win an award in the Halloween contest at work. I was wrong! We won the “Funniest Location” award. I think it helped that a customer put himself in our chalk outline while the executive was there checking us out. And that wasn’t the only customer who was willing to get down on the floor for a photo opportunity. Turns out the CSI theme was a hit. We get lunch catered in sometime soon as our prize. 🙂

Followed by coming clean-

Hello, my name is Fallon and this is Slacker Runner. Some may have seen the change when I comment on other blogs. Back when I started this blog I was aiming for a little anonymity. So I misspelled my name and blurred my race bibs. Then I got real. I mean, seriously, I was sharing race times, race dates and names of races, etc. Doesn’t take much more than that and there’s my name. Plus it wasn’t even spelled that different. I’ve been meaning to update this for a while but the Slacker in me won for a while. I finally followed through. There a few things I am going to update on the blog in future actually. Fun fact- Falyn came about years ago when I wanted to be a writer and was playing around with pen names. I have a few more stashed away. 🙂

And ending with the crazy-

Last night this happened-Woo hoo! I am stoked. I have wanted to run Surf City for a few years now but always had a reason why the timing wasn’t right. It’s still not right but I’m not going to wait anymore. I am looking forward a fun race. It will also be the biggest race I have run so far- 20,000 runners- that’s a lot of people! This will not be a goal race of 2015, my only goal is to cross the finish line.

Wise Oscar Wilde's words: life is now, stop waiting! — Can always count on pinterest for motivation

Which brings me to why it is still not the best timing. As of right now, I am running a 25K trail race with 3200′ elevation gain the weekend before. Insert sheepish face here!!!! Both of the races will be more like long runs than races. I am both nervous and super excited for them. And yes I understand the insanity of this undertaking. I think. I am currently working on adapting the half marathon training plan that I started yesterday.

Once getting through both of those, I plan to take a week off of running. Then it’s time to train for my goal race for Spring- SLO Marathon Half. Maybe I can break 2:00? I am kind of nervous about having plans like this so early. I rarely plan that far in advance! On the upside, this gives me the perfect incentive to keep working hard through the holidays. Which means I won’t start the new year feeling fluffy and in a training hole. Well, hopefully. 🙂 I have to follow through and get my butt to the treadmill.

Now onto you guys-

Ever sign up for something crazy? Got any training suggestions?

Ever run Surf City? Or SLO? Or back to back race weekends?

No, seriously, training ideas?

Mark Your Calendars

Happy Friday!! I hope everyone had a good day and if not, well tomorrow is Saturday! Go for a run! I survived my day trip yesterday but man it was tiring. If you follow me on Instagram, you may have seen that I was in notary class. It was for my renewal so realistically it should have been easy but sitting in a room for 8 hours sandwiched between 2 2+hour car trips and I was done. The class was only 6 hours and the rest of the time was spent on registering, picture taking, finger printing and listening to the exam proctors drone on. I actually made it through the day on one 20 oz Diet Coke, which was probably not good as I dozed off 4 times. Oops! Now just to wait for the results. Odd note- my seminar was at the Santa Barbara Mission- who knew they had conference halls?

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It’s time to start thinking of what races to run in the beginning of 2015. What are you doing in April? Come run with me!! Well and a couple thousand other people. Last year I was lucky enough to an open call for Ambassador for the SLO Marathon pop up on Facebook. I jumped at it and was lucky enough to be chosen.

Sweet! I met a great group of people and had an amazing weekend. The scenery for the half marathon was awesome and I heard the full was even better. Plus I love SLO which is why I spend many weekends there. 🙂

For 2015, I get to be an Ambassador again, woo hoo! I am so excited. I am also determined. There’s a hill or 2 that I have some unfinished business with. 🙂 I know it’s early but if you’re looking for a great race, come visit!! Plenty of planning time!! 🙂

And now it’s off to bed for me, I heading down to SLO in the morning. 🙂

How was your week?

Ever doze off more than once in the same seminar/ class?

Anyone racing this weekend?