Tag Archives: Marathon

Free Group Training Runs – Lifetime Fitness

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I get to run every Tuesday and Saturday morning with a training group from the MDRA.  However, if you don’t belong to a training group but are training for a fall marathon you might be interested in the below information from Lifetime Fitness. I received an e-mail from Lifetime Fitness Endurance, I’m guessing that TCM sold my e-mail address to them.

Dear Twin Cities Marathoners,

We hope you are running strong and building your fitness towards the Twin Cities Marathon on Oct. 4, 2009! It’s time for those longer endurance building runs and we’d like to invite you to join members of the Life Time Fitness Run Club for some upcoming long runs in the month of August! This if absolutely FREE!Aug 22 – Eagan LTF, 7 am Start (16 miler, Run Lead is John Schueller. RSVP: jschueller@lifetimefitness.com) *Open to ALL Twin Cities Marathon Runners!

Aug 29 – St. Louis Park LTF,  7 am Start (20 miler, Run Lead is Rebekah Mayer. RSVP: rmayer@lifetimefitness.com) *Open to ALL TCM Runners!

Please visit www.lifetimefitness.com for directions to the run start location. Email your Run Lead with any questions and to RSVP so that we know how many people to expect to run that day.  Please arrive between 6:30-6:45 am as the runs will begin at 7 am sharp.  Each workout will be supported with fluids and food, but we recommend that you come with your own water bottles. After the workout, join fellow runners for 25% off smoothies in the Life Cafe! We hope you can join us and everyone is invited!

On behalf of every endurance athlete and coach on staff at Life Time Fitness, I’d like to wish you the very best of luck with your training and on race day.  And don’t forget to visit our new and improved running website by clicking HERE or visiting http://lifetimefitness.mylt.com/community/running/
Train smart and train safe,
Coach Troy Jacobson
National Director – Endurance Training

LIFE TIME FITNESS, INC.
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Guest Post: Tune-up Races

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Coach Mike Nawrocki with MDRA’s 2009 Fall Marathon Training Class had some good words to say about tune-up racing for the marathon.

You may be asking, what is a tune-up race?  It is a race you run between now and Labor Day weekend to simulate the race day environment of a marathon.  I recommend some of the bigger races with fast fields, because that will be closest to what you will experience when the marathon comes around.

Why do a tune-up race?
a. Fourteen weeks is a long time to train without racing.  A tune-up race helps break your training up into smaller pieces, so this training process won’t feel like such a grind.

b. Practice race day logistics.  Take it from a savvy veteran like me, who famously (infamously?) ran the first mile and a half of the 2006 TC10 with a safety pin in my sock: race day logistics matter.  I lost over a minute fishing that **&%$# safety pin out of my sock and am still bitter every time I see a safety pin (unfortunate, because they are used at every race, making me one bitter guy).  A tune-up race allows you to practice your eating, bathroom, drinking, and gear preparation routine.
c. Practice pacing and running your own race.  Savvy veterans and eager rookies alike need to practice race-day pacing.  Running a tune-up race is a low-stakes way to find out if you are prone to being unwittingly sucked out to a faster start than you intend.  Better to find this out now than at mile two of the Twin Cities Marathon.
d. Help determine your marathon pace vs. Practice your marathon pace.  Don’t know what your marathon pace should be?  Race a ten miler, 15k, or half-marathon.  Consult me or Marty afterwards and we can put the race in the context of your training to help you come up with a goal pace for October 4.  Already know your goal pace?  Go run a half-marathon at that pace.  See if you can hold it without getting sucked into the dynamic of racing harder.

Buyer Beware
a. Tune-up races may not be for everyone.  If you are recovering from, nursing, or managing an injury, a race could very well be too risky in terms of aggravating this injury.  Remember everyone’s second goal for this class: get to the starting line healthy.

b. Racing is essentially a hard workout.  You should contact me or Marty for guidance on how to train the week before and after any tune-up race.

c. No races after Labor Day.  It breaks my heart to not recommend the MDRA City of Lakes 25k to everyone, because I serve on the MDRA board and have MDRA pride.  But it’s just a tad too close to the marathon.  Talk to Marty or me if you are interested in the City of Lakes race and we can decide together if it is a good idea.  If your competitive streak is such that you are prone to racing hard no matter what, City of Lakes or any post-Labor Day race is just too close to the target marathon, as you may put wear and tear on your legs without enough time to fully recover.

Thanks Mike!

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2009 Marathon Class #1

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The first “class” session of this year’s Fall Marathon Training program focused on three areas

1) Places to run in the Twin Cities Metro

2) Training Philosophy

3) Goal Setting

Where to Run in the Twin Cities Metro?

Of course I’ve written about great places to run, some of which Nathan included in his presentation:

Here are some links to the places he talked about:

Listen to the audio of Nathan’s presentation here. [audio:NathansRunningRoutes.mp3]

Marty and Mike talked about the training philosophy of this year’s class (I guess it varies slightly with each year’s coaches) and what we might expect.  Marty mentions that he isn’t a huge proponent of using lots of fancy terminology or wasting money on expensive tests for things like VO2 Max or Lactic Threshold.  He subscribes to  a more “old school” mentality of getting the miles in and alternating between hard and easy runs.  With a diverse group of athletes in the room, he said that we won’t work much on specific speed workouts but getting the long runs in and doing some hill training.  We are hitting the hills much earlier this year than last and knowing these guys we’ll be doing some long runs on hills as well.  Their goal, as stated later by Mike is to make sure we have fun and cross the finish line.

Feel free to listen to their sometimes humorous discussion here.

[audio:marty&miketrainingphilosophy.mp3]  For some reason I can’t get this to work.  Any suggestions? It is the same exact link as the one above…  You can scroll to the bottom and listen to the full audio – this section begins about 16 minutes in.

Mike continued the evening’s discussion with a talk about goal setting.  He used a simple pyramid diagram to show what the most important goals are.  The three main goals of a training program are to

1) Have fun/good experience in the training program

2) Get to the starting line healthy

3) Finish (this is then split into 3 subcategories)

a) Finish

b) Target Pace – Double your 1/2 marathon time and add 10 minutes (similar to McMillian Calculator)

c) Dream time – This is a stretch goal that you shouldn’t even think about on race day until after the 1/2 way point and really start going for it after 20 miles.

Listen the audio of Mike’s presentation here. [audio:mikegoalsetting.mp3]

You can listen the complete audio (about an hour long from this first session here)  [audio:July7MarathonTalk.mp3]

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Twin Cities Marathon Weekend

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It is still 3 months away but it is never to early to plan for race weekend.  For 11,000 runners the Twin Cities Marathon will be the culmination of many miles of pavement (and dirt) pounded throughout the summer.

The 26.2 mile race begins at 8am on Sunday, October 4th.  Earlier that morning at 7:05am 6,500 runners will take the “shortcut to the capitol” by running the TC 10 Mile.   Registration for this “shortcut” is via a lottery system that is currently open.  Registration for the 10 Mile lottery goes from Monday, July 6 to Wednesday July 15 at 10pm.  1,000 lucky runners of May’s TC 1 Mile event (including me) won a guarenteed entry into the 10 Mile.  I obviously chose not to use it. This is the 11th annual 10 mile race and is again the USA 10 Mile Championship event.

New this year to race weekend is a 10k event.  Held on Saturday, October 3 at 7:30am this will be an out and back along the last 3 miles of the marathon course (starting and finishing at the marathon finish area).  It appears that there is no limit to the number of 10k participants and offers race day entry.  This also is the first event of the 2009 race weekend.

The TC 5k is on Saturday as well  starting at 9am.  It is an out and back course along the last 1.5 miles of the marathon course, finishing at the marathon finish.  It too appears to have no limit to race entries and offers race morning entry.  Both the 10k and 5k events will be run on USATF certified courses and are chip timed.

Other family friendly events are scheduled throughout the day on Saturday.  All events offer pre- and race day registration. They include:
  • Diana Pierce Family Mile which starts at 10m and is an out and back course finishing on the marathon finish line.
  • Half Mile which starts at 10:30 am and is an out and back course finishing at the marathon finish line.
  • Diaper Dash starts at 11am. Participants crawl from an inner circle to an outer circle, it seems obvious this is for the littlest of “runners” in the family. It doesn’t sound like this one finishes on the marathon finish line but does take place in the same area.
  • Harry & Shelly’s Mascot Invitational starts at 11:15am and is a race amongst your favorite mascots.  I’m not sure which ones will be there, but I’m sure Brutus the Buckeye won’t be.   Harry and Shelly are the TCM mascots (in case you were wondering).
  • Toddler Trot starts at 11:30 and is a 50 yard dash on the capital lawn.

Race fees start at $7 for the Toddler Trot and Diaper Dash and go up to $100 for the now closed marathon.

Last year I was quite happy to visit the Expo, pickup my number and chip, walk quickly through, purchase a shirt, and head home – less time on the feet the better! Some of my non-runner friends have taken their kids to the family events and had a blast.

If you’ll be here for marathon weekend, what event are you doing?  Me – I’ll be knocking out the 26.2.

[tags] Twin Cities, Marathon, Twin Cities Marathon, 10 Mile, TC 10 Mile [/tags]

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TCM Training Week 2

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Last year I raced the USATF 5000 meter track race at Hamline.  I am glad it wasn’t part of the circuit this year! It also served as Foto Friday.  Over the same weekend last year was a heart-wrenching 3200m for Nicole Cochran of Washington.  You may recall the story, she won the race but was DQ’ed after the fact and then after reviewing some video footage of the  race she was eventually reinstated as the state champion.   From two years ago, I wrote about running at Westwood Park in New Castle, IN.

Last Year’s Mileage

Run: 26.9 Miles
Bike: 67.0 Miles
Swim: 500 Yards

Monday I went to the YWCA for a short weight session and swimming.  I know Higdon’s plan calls for running an easy 3 on Monday, but for now I’m going to keep using it as a cross training session.  Maybe as time goes on I’ll switch to running, but I think right now this is good.  I used his suggested 6 strength exercises (forgetting 2 of them), which are bench press, lunges, curls, overhead triceps, sitting row, and crunches.  I did light weights since it has been a long while!  Then I swam for about 300 yards.  Towards the end I kept getting water in my mouth, so I just stopped.

Tuesday I did a 30 minute tempo run along the Greenway.  Once I got warmed up my foot stopped hurting.  I ran a pretty solid workout getting 4.13 miles in during the 30 minutes (7:17 pace) and easily hitting tempo pace.  It was 46 and overcast so a nice morning to run.  Today was 8th grade graduation promotion at work and I was on my feet running around for most of the day.

I woke up Wednesday with some of the worst pain I’ve had from the Plantar Fasciitis in a long time, so I opted not to run.  I got really discouraged throughout the day and at one point even thought about quiting running altogether.  I waffled between whether I should run Thursday’s pace workout or not and finally came to the point of saying I’m not going to run again for awhile.  I’m tired of my foot always hurting so I’m going to do what I should have done almost 2 months ago – REST.

It is hard knowing that I should be training for the marathon which is now 16 weeks away, but I realized that the chances of me making it through 18 weeks of hard training with a nagging injury are pretty slim.  I managed to get through the half-marathon training program, but it seems silly to keep pushing and injuring my body more and more.  All that being said though, the MDRA offers a fall-marathon training class which starts June 23 (pdf).  So I know I’m not completely dropping the ball – unless I’m still experiencing pain at that point – which I’ll probably just charge right on through if I do.

So a little reassessment mid-stride! I didn’t do any cross-training this week really – just my bike commute – unless you count the Wii Fit.  On Tues, Weds, and Fri and I “played” Yoga, Balance, and Strength games.   This sounds almost ridiculous to say but some of the things are challenging and really have worked my core/stabilizer muscles.  Stop laughing.  You should try it sometime and see.  You can’t really rely on the feedback about your “Wii Fit Age” because it fluctuates so much – one day I was 40 and then the next I was 26.

Weekly Mileage

Run: 4.1 Miles
Bike: 37.5 Miles
Swim: 300 Yards

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