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?

Sunday Summit- A Little Lost

Finally.

After 11 days off (stupid flu!!!) I finally got out there and did something! I also made it to work on Thursday and Friday. Wowza, Thursday was rough, I was exhausted. No lie, I got through the day with a lot of Diet Coke. But anyways, on to Sunday.

With the 25k 7 days away, eek, Sunday was my last day to get in a trail run/hike. Plus I needed to test run my race day gear. Because of the narrowness on the trails and the chance for ticks, I am wearing clothing that is a little more form-fitting than usual. I also had a new hydration vest I needed to test. The first one didn’t work out so well. It didn’t fit right with water in the bladder and just didn’t feel like it was made well. I replaced it with a new one a few weeks back but hadn’t been able to test it yet. This one doesn’t have a bladder but has 2 water bottles in the front. I stashed snacks in the back pocket and filled the bottles. Success! Well, except I haven’t figured out how to easily access my phone. But I’ll work on that. 🙂

With me being sick and my mom being slightly hurt, we have readjusted our general time goal for the 25K. Sunday, the plan was to head out to the race course and hike part of the last out and back. According to the course map, that section is 8.4 miles. We had troubles finding the right trail head but we were near another one that my mom had hiked before and really wanted to again. The sign said it was 3 miles and it looked to be all fire road. Fine by me, 6 easy miles was probably all I was up for anyways.

It was freakishly warm! High 70’s and I was burning up! Being a fire road, the trail was easy but I was still coughing a bit. The trail ends near a worn down, beat up, old barn. It was equal parts creepy and cool. So of course we had to take a few pictures right? When we headed back, we passed a tiny, almost hidden single track trail head. My mother insisted she had hiked it before so we should do it too. Holy mother of incline. We gained 700 ft over the next 1/2 mile. Once we finally made it to the top, we found a picnic table. We took a break and ate a few snacks. And enjoyed the view. 🙂 We headed back down another way, hoping it was shorter way back. Ha!

Since we weren’t positive what mountain we were on, I pulled up a park map on my phone. It didn’t really help. Or maybe I just don’t know how to read it. Eventually we found our way down to a trail intersection. According to the map, the right trail led to a dead-end and the left trail was the backside of Hazard peak. We went left which meant we then had another climb in front of us. My mom’s knee was just starting to hurt and we coming up on 6 miles and we weren’t even at the top of the mountain. Our pace had slowed but we mad it to the top once again and enjoyed more views. There were some mountain bikers at the top discussing trails and I overheard one say that the trail we had not chosen led to another fire road. Really?! That would have been so much easier! Where were they when we could have used directions? Then it was time to head back towards the parking lot, down the front side of Hazard Peak. So at least we were able to check out the race course from that direction. Down hill it’s not too bad, but I am wondering what the uphill will feel like after 8 miles. Guess I’ll find out next weekend! We finally made it back to the parking lot- 9.65 miles later. We survived, haha! Even with getting a little turned around, going farther than planned,and getting a little sunburned, it was a good hike. I don’t think I would have hiked that far without getting turned around but some coughing attacks aside, it was great to get outside and do something again. Plus it was a good practice run for next weekend. It gave us a general idea of what kind of time to expect. Sunday’s hike was just that a hike and we covered 9.65 miles with 1400 ft gained and maintained a 17:00 pace. Next week the race will add some speed on the downhills but a little slowness when we climb Valencia Peak, but that’s only 1.5 towards the beginning, so fingers crossed? Sunday’s route took us from fire road to single track, packed dirt to loose shale and then loose sand. The surroundings changed from scrub brush to trees then to a Eucalyptus grove. The sun was shining and sometimes we could hear the ocean. I’d call it a pretty good day!

How was your weekend?

Ever got lost in the woods? (yes, I wasn’t in the woods but still) 🙂

And Still…

I have a new-found dislike for pajamas. And really that’s just sad. I mean pajamas are so warm and cozy and comfy, what could you possibly dislike about them? Even with all that, I am so over them. I miss wearing real clothes, I miss wearing running clothes. Ugh.

In case the above whining wasn’t enough, I am still sick. I only lasted 3 hours at work on Monday before heading home. I didn’t make it in at all on Tuesday or Wednesday. That’s not to say I didn’t try. I made an attempt to get up and ready for work at the usual time. It usually resulted in a text conversation with my boss before going back to sleep for a few hours. Then an actual phone call to work before more sleep. Ugh. But tomorrow I will be back at work, no more listening to the Harry Potter movies with my eyes closed. Hopefully I will look less like a creature. Otherwise I will be missing the sit down desk where I used to be able to hide myself. 🙂

So this is just a short whiny update- I miss running. I miss being too much of Slacker to want to run. Now I just want to run. Oh and I have spent way too much time on the internet these days. There are some odd things out there.

Thanks for listening to me whine, hopefully the next update will have some running in it!

Let me live vicariously through you- how awesome or good was your week?

Who ran? Anyone racing this weekend?

Of Choices and Coughing

I have a great new ab workout- coughing!

Oh, it doesn’t work like that? Well, it should. If you can’t count that than the only thing I have been even slightly productive at since my last is sleeping. And even that hasn’t been done well.

My hope that resting on Thursday would get me through my long runs turned out to be in vain. I was miserable all Thursday night but made my way into work on Friday. I have this thing about calling in sick, I hate it and rarely ever do it. Particularly on a Friday or Monday. That’s a huge no-no for me. But with a 45 min to an hour commute, I really need to get over that. I made it 3 hours before heading home. I proceeded to spend the next 2.5 days alternating between my chair and my bed. It turned into some cold- flu thing and I have had body aches and chills and a pounding headache. I spent a lot of time sleeping and it wasn’t even good sleep. Ugh.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Fallon (@slackerrunner)

Running did not happen at all this weekend. I am hoping that I feel up to a few miles on Tuesday but I know they won’t be easy. The last time I was sick was actually last January and it kicked my ass energy wise for a few weeks. Doing laundry exhausted me today. This has me a little nervous. The 25K is in two weeks and I was already doubting it.

My left leg has been a little achy lately, and my mother has had a bum knee. She is ok going uphill but as we all know, down hills can be evil. And the 25K has a lot of downhill. She did see a doctor about it but he left it up to her. One of the points of the 25K was that we were going to do it together. Now I am concerned that both of us may push too hard when we really shouldn’t. This weekend was supposed to be a 18-20 mile weekend, half road, half trail. I feel unprepared and don’t think I can catch up. Plus there is the fact of Surf City 7 days after the 25K.

I am torn. I feel like backing out would be the smart idea but it feels icky. Between coughing fits and naps today, I went online to look at other races my mother and I could do in the area. We are pretty sparse on trail races but I did find a half marathon on an army base in a month that looks like a better fit. Just not as scenic. So yeah, torn.

Alright, sorry for the downer of a weekend update!

Tell me how awesome your weekend was? What kind of running did you get in?

Thoughts on the race conundrum?

A Sleepy Frog

Happy almost Friday! And the first full week of the year. 🙂

I don’t know what it is but I have been so tired this week. I have slept through my first 3 alarms every day. That’s even with going to bed earlier- since Directv and NBC have been fighting, I haven’t been watching the news or Jimmy Fallon. Last night I actually clocked the first 7 hours of sleep on a work night since I bought my Fitbit. Wow. On Tuesday, I headed to the gym after work for a few miles. I was actually sore after hiking Cerro San Luis but per usual the DOMS didn’t kick in until Tuesday. But that just helped me not push it. Finding a consistent easy is kind of hard. I’ve noticed that it takes almost 2 miles on the treadmill to feel comfortable. Then when I do, I have the problem of running into the front of the machine because I want to run faster. I managed 5 miles around a 10:41-10:54 pace. Once again one of the tvs had North Woods Law on and it made the miles seem less miserable.

When I first arrived at the gym I was surprised to find around 10 treadmills free, I had expected more Resolutioner’s to be there. The ellipticals were full though. Part of me feels bad being irritated that they filll up the gyms in January. I mean at least they are making an attempt right? But when you see a man talking on the phone while on the elliptical and a woman reading with a book right up to her face while walking so slowly, I feel less guilty. Then there were the chatty trio who got on the treadmills to my right. They were so loud! I could hear every word of their conversation over my headphones and I wasn’t willing to blow out my own eardrums and keep turning it up. I said this in a comment to FL Runner Boy but I think a gym should be like a library- necessary conversations only. 🙂 But then again, I am the one who hit the emergency stop 2 miles in- oops. My mind is like, "Let's go to the gym!", but my body is all, "Dude chill, this couch is really comfortable." The plan was for another 4-5 treadmill miles tonight but after changing and starting my drive to the gym I had to admit that i don’t feel so well. It feels like a head cold which I could have run on but I decided that running back to back longer runs this weekend was more important for training than some treadmill miles tonight. My 25K is in less than 3 weeks with Surf City right after. I am trying to think smart here but I feel like a baby. Plus I also didn’t think anyone at the gym would appreciate my excessive coughing or throat clearing. Asthma already puts a frog in my throat but now I feel like his friends have moved in to party. Ugh. So instead I am bundled up in the comfy chair catching up with you guys! Oh maybe I should be productive and go update my Goals and Gear page that I haven’t touched in way too long.

How has your week been?

Have you braved the gym?