15 mile run - 6/14

I finally got out to do the 15 mile run, and get back on track with the marathon training. There are quite a few things that are worthy of mention from this run, so bear with me.

I decided that I'd do my 6 mile loop 2x, followed by my 3 mile loop afterwards. The reason for this (as opposed to the original 7.5 mile out and back I had been tossing around in my head about a month ago before the back injury) was that it would give me an opportunity to drop off one water bottle after about an hour and pick up the next. It would also give me an opportunity to abort the run if need be. Afterall, this is over a month since my last long run of 13 miles - and although things have been progressing well with the back, I still wanted to leave myself an out.

So when I first started out, I was a bit stiff. It wasn't long after waking up (when I'm usually a bit tight anyway) that I started off. I'm not sure whether I was still a little stiff from Thursdays tempo run, or from the short bike ride yesterday - but I'm guessing it was a combination of both. I stretched a bit after the first mile, and before too long, things had loosened up and I was on my way.

For these long runs, I've been following the run-walk strategy. I cannot definitively say that it results in a better time - as I have little to compare against. However, it definately makes things easier mentally. Since the point of these long runs is to improve aerobic capacity and NOT time, it becomes a way to force myself to slow down and keep from getting into and potentially staying in an aerobic exercise state. So in following the run-walk method, I basically stopped running at each mile marker, walked for 1 minute, and then started running again. So each mile essentially became a 1 minute walk plus the run time. There were a few exceptions - mile 1, mile 7 and mile 13 - as they had no 1 minute walk break beforehand.

The laps listed below are broken up into mile segments. For those grouped with a walk break, the total time for the entire mile segment is the combination of the walk plus the run (so, generally between 10-11 minutes/mile pace):

Mile 1 - 8:51, avg HR 142

Walk/stretch break - 1:00, end HR 115
Mile 2 - 9:12, avg HR 156

Walk break - 1:01, end HR 129
Mile 3 - 8:48, avg HR 151

Walk break - 1:00, end HR 120
Mile 4 - 9:59, avg HR 152

Walk break - 1:00, end HR 128
Mile 5 - 9:16, avg HR 151

Walk break - 1:00, end HR 125
Mile 6 - 9:19, avg HR 153

Walk/stretch break - 8:45, end HR 106

Mile 7 - 9:39, avg HR 143

Walk break - 1:00, end HR 129
Mile 8 - 8:41, avg HR 154

Walk break - 1:00, end HR 128
Mile 9 - 8:33, avg HR 153

Walk break - 1:00, end HR 127
Mile 10 - 9:45, avg HR 153

Walk break - 1:00, end HR 138
Mile 11 - 9:14, avg HR 152

Walk break - 1:02, end HR 124
Mile 12 - 9:00, avg HR 155

Walk/stretch break - 9:15, end HR 109

Mile 13 - 9:21, avg HR 150

Walk break - 1:00, end HR 133
Mile 14 - 9:38, avg HR 159

Walk break - 1:00, end HR 130
Mile 15 - 9:32, avg HR 158

Total Distance: 15 miles
Total Time: 2:49:05
Avg HR: 148

So there are a couple patterns I see looking at the above mile segments. First, since the 6 mile loop was done twice, it gives an opportunity to compare mile segments to see how performance differed from the first loop to the second. Since the HR information is available, it gives the ability to look not only at time, but also the true exertion level. In looking at this data, it is interesting that aside from the first mile, in every case the second time around the loop actually had a lower time than the first time around! The HR was very similar for each mile - plus/minus 2-3 bpm. Such a narrow range of HR difference, and the fact that the times were virtually identical tells me that I was maintaining effort in an exercise zone sustainable for that period of time (in this case, happens to be the aerobic zone). Another indication of maintaining in the aerobic zone was that the end HR after the one minute walk breaks were generally in the high 120's or low 130's - which I know from previous experience that this is when my body is 'rested up'. A look back at my last interval workout shows that after a hard effort interval - even after a full minute my HR was only able to get down to the 140's. In today's case, I was below 140 often within about 35-40 seconds.

Another pattern visible is that the mile segments that took more time (such as mile 3-4, and 9-10) did so on the same mile segments for both runs. In the case of these particular segments, there is a bit more uphill to overcome.

Finally, we start to see towards the end that the times get a bit longer, especially mile 14 and 15. In addition, the HR gets higher, starting to get into the low 160's (although the average stayed below 160). I started feeling more and more stiffness starting around mile 11, but my mile 14 and mile 15, my legs and hips were just about calling it a day. The fact that times got longer and HR increased tells me that at that point, my bodies ability to maintain the aerobic zone was coming to an end.

Last fall, I had noticed that after around an hour and twenty minutes of running, my hips would start to tighten up. Not anything debilitating - but it was a wall, of sorts - even if it wasn't too difficult to run through. My body was telling me something - that it had gone beyond its current level of comfortably fitness and was pushing back the boundaries of what it was capable of. Today, having started feeling this soreness around mile 11, this translated to about an hour and fifty minutes - an improvement of about 30 minutes. I think there are two major factors as to why this boundary got pushed back so far - one is simply conditioning, but I think the bigger factor is the walk breaks. By allowing my body to have a minute every now and again to rest up a bit, efficiently flush away metabolism byproducts such as lactic acid by drastically lowering production of them for a brief period of time, as well as any other variables that I'm not aware of - I can definately see why the run-walk method can translate to faster times. Each segment may be slightly slower - but the ability to maintain a consistent and predictable pace through a long distance run can definately trump the wall that so many people hit - where they start off an event like a marathon at 9 minute miles, but by the time they reach the 18-19 mile mark, they have gradually slowed down to 12 minute miles (for example)