In Full Effect!

That's right, training is on! Just getting started in my third week of the 'Hanson's Marathon Method' advanced Training program and although it's been a bit of a rollercoaster ride so far, I feel like I am starting to settle in. Let me explain; The first week of the program isn't even a full week. It's a low mileage week of easy running with no workouts. Unfortunately for me, my timing was bad and that first week was also Thanksgiving week. I spent that week in Beaver Creek, CO, so I got to do the miles on a treadmill at almost 10,000ft elevation. While I was there I must have caught a cold too because heading into the second week I had developed a pretty bad sore throat. After a 6-mile easy effort on Monday night, I already had to change up 'the plan' and took two days completely off. By Thursday I was starting to feel a little better though and decided to give my first track workout a go.

The dumbed-down way the Hanson's plan works is through the 'overload principle', "The idea that regular exposure to a specific exercise will enhance certain physiological functions and therefore induce a training response." Their 18-week program is made up of 9-weeks of Speed Training followed by 7 weeks of Strength Training and a 2-week Taper. Each week is comprised of what they have dubbed Something of Substance (SOS) Workouts (Speed, Strength, Tempo and/or Long runs) as well as Easy Mileage. In the first stage, Speed Training, SOS workouts begin in the second week with one speed workout and no tempo run that week. The workout for this week was 12 x 400m at a pace that you can identify in their tables, based on recent race times, race goal times, etc.

Much like in the Jack Daniels program, there still leaves one void that has gone unaddressed and is likely a stumbling point for anyone who, like me, is actually doing their training at altitude. Each program addresses the benefits of training at altitude, but NOONE has yet addressed how to adjust your training paces if you are training at say, 5200-5300ft and planning to run a target time that will take place at sea-level. The Hansons Marathon Method just started a Facebook page, which will be moderated by one of the authors of the book, Luke Humphrey, so I hope to ask him there and get a response later. For now, since my goal race time is about 2:37:30 and the only paces given with splits in the book are 2:35 and 2:40, I have simply decided to follow the paces for 2:40 and hope that if I can hit those, I can run at least my target time when at sea-level. The only problem is... that's still DAMN hard for me at this elevation!

Back to last week... the workout was to be 12x400m on 1:20 (5:20 mile pace) w/400m jog recovery. As a funny sidenote, Mr. Humphrey mentions that either as truth, or rumor, it has been said that the Hanson's runners used to have to do pushups for every second that they were off of their goal-interval. I decided to do this too. :)

12x 400m (1:20 goal pace)

1 - 1:20, 1:22, 1:22, 1:20

2 - 1:18, 1:19, 1:20, 1:22

3 - 1:20, 1:22, 1:21, 1:20

12 pushups total

Given the still lingering sickness, I was pleased with this effort, but a little shocked at how tough that pace was to hold. These workouts will keep getting longer until I reach 3 x 1600m at the same pace in weeks 7 and 9. Hopefully my body will adapt and I can swing it. 

The rest of the week wrapped up without any surprises and I finished week 2 out with 36 miles of running in 5 days of running.