One Month Down

Well, I have completed the first month of my marathon training. I am really loving this new training program. I am a data person so it is perfect for me. I'll elaborate more on that part later. It is quite a bit more challenging than the program we used in Pearland Fit last year, but I think I'll hold up just fine.

Like I said last time, all of the runs are done based on heart rate zones. This is a much more accurate way of training than using speed or pace. My coach loads all my workouts into the eNewLeaf program so I can look at them and download them into my Garmin.

Here is one of my interval workouts. All the workouts start with a ten minute warmup and end with a ten minute cooldown. This workout was 1:00 in Zone 1, 1:00 in Zone 2, 1:00 in Zone 3, 1:00 in Zone 4, and another 2:00 in Zone 1. This sequence was repeated 7 times in 40 minutes. My Garmin will beep for five seconds before each time you switch heart rate zones. It will also let you know when you are not in the correct zone. There's no way to cheat without your coach finding out because it records everything.

After the workout, I upload the results from my Garmin back into to eNewLeaf and leave feedback on my run. On eNewLeaf, you can look at all your data from the run. Do you remember when I said I liked data? Well, I'm about to blow your mind with all the data you can see from your run. It provides you with a workout summary, including time, distance, speed, and heart rate. It also has speed and heart rate plotted against time layed over color blocks representing the correct training zones. The workout log shows calories, time in zones, heart rate, and a compliance screen where it grades you against how often you were in the correct zones.

Summary

Calories

Time in Zone

Heart Rate

Compliance

Since we have gone over the ins and outs of how the program works, I guess I'll let you know how it has been working for me. I can actually tell that I am getting faster because I can see that each week my workouts cover a little more distance in the same time periods, one of the benefits of all the data. I'm feeling stronger on my "hard" days than I did when I started four weeks ago. The most miles I ran with Pearland Fit in a week last year was 32. I ran 36 in my first week this year, and I felt great. We never have two hard days together. A hard day is always followed by a easy, or recovery, day on the schedule.

Overall, I think it's shaping up to be a great fall race season, and I'm looking forward to setting some new PR's. Until then, I'm just going to try not to burn up in this heat.

July Mileage = 160.64

Total Program Mileage = 160.64 (Since July 1)

And So It Begins...

I officially kicked off my training for the 2012 Chevron Houston Marathon on July 1. I'm doing heart rate based training this year with Team Elite here in Pearland, TX.

Before I could begin training, I had to head over to see Johnny Shelby at Third Coast Training to get my testing done for VO2 Max, Lactate Threshold, and Resting Metabolic Rate (RMR). The purpose of these tests were to find out what my heart rate zones and metabolic profile were before we got started. I learned a lot throughout the whole process, and Johnny is kind of like an endurance sport mad scientist. He's constantly running calculations on his laptop or iPhone the whole time the tests are going on. I learned my aerobic base is not quite up to par, and that I have not been taking in nearly enough calories to fuel my workouts. It's ridiculous how much I eat now. It's really going to get out of hand in a few months when we start doing longer runs. I may as well take up residence at the kitchen table on those Saturdays.

The workouts look pretty cool. I'm going to be spending three days a week just running in Zone 1 to improve my meager aerobic base. The other two days will be spent doing interval workouts to improve my speed. Johnny said the tests showed I had a lot of untapped speed.

I think it's going to be an exciting fall race season, and I'm looking forward to see what April and Kat have in store for me leading up to the big day on January 15, 2012.