Training Plan for 2015

I started to get serious about training again 2 months after the Penang Bridge Marathon last Nov.  After the run, I was just running 10~15km a week and skipping run whenever I don't feel like running.

Anyway, I started to be more serious in training again.  By more serious, I meant planning out my running schedule, trying to plan my run to avoid crash with other commitment, look into running mileage per week, look at running intensity, etc.

Following is my guideline to plan out my training plan for 1st half of the year:-

1.  For each run, the min running time is 30 mins.  This is translating to around 5km for my speed.
2.  Add in Tempo Run to my training.  From various articles that I read, my Tempo Run pace should be around 5:20~5:30min/km or heart rate of more than 170bpm.  For a start, I will alternating between Tempo Run and Long Run each week and hope eventually, I can run Tempo Run during weekday and Long Run at weekend.  For the whole last year, I was focusing in increasing my running mileage and mostly run at easy pace.  My target was to improve my monthly mileage to 70~80km consistently at the end of next year.  For now, I hope to keep at least 60km for my monthly mileage while adding Tempo Run training in.
3.  Run Strides at the end of my run every now and then.  My definition of strides is following this article from Strength Running.  I will just start with once per week and eventually increase to run strides at the end of everey easy run.
4. Lastly, my recovery week will be once every 3 weeks.

The planning above will only give me around 2.5 hours of running per week while the doctor suggested me to exercise at least 5 hours a week.  In order to make it 5 hours a week, I will have to run for 5 days a week so that I still can mange my long run.

I will see how it goes at the end of the 1st half of this year to decide my 2nd half training plan

My new Heart Rate Training Zone

After having the heart rate monitoring device for 2 years, I finally found my max heart rate.  This is because I only wear the heart rate monitoring device during actual race recently.  From recent race monitoring, my max heart rate can go as high as 196 bpm instead of 188 that I initially determined before.  Also, from various testing, my resting heart rate is now 65 bpm instead of close to 80 bpm when I initially started running.

With this discovery, the following training zones are now revised.

Easy Run (recovery zone)
Pace: One to two minutes slower than marathon pace
% Max heart rate: 65 to 78% [127~153 bpm]
Perceived Effort: 3 to 4/easy
Talk Test: Complete conversation
Training Run (aerobic zone)
Pace: Marathon pace or slightly slower
% Max heart rate: 80 to 89% [157~175 bpm]
Perceived Effort: 5 to 6/moderate
Talk Test: Full sentences
Tempo Run (threshold zone)
Pace: 20 to 30 seconds slower than 5-K pace
% Max heart rate: 88 to 92% [171~180 bpm]
Perceived Effort: 7 to 8/hard
Talk Test: A few words at a time
Intervals (VO2 max zone)
Pace: Mile to 5-K pace or faster
% Max heart rate: 95 to 100% [186~196 bpm]
Perceived Effort: 9/very hard
Talk Test: Can't...talk...must...run...

I have changed the max heart rate percentage to follow Jack Daniels' definition.  Also, I didn't use resting heart rate for the above calculation this time.

Just by looking at the number, I think haven't been training in Tempo Run zone all the time (although I though that I was training in that zone) not to mention about the Interval zone.  As for my easy run, I am running kind of too hard to make the heart rate falls into the Training Zone.  In conclusion, if following the heart rate training zone, I have been training mostly in Training Zone almost all the time so far!

Concluding 2014 (4th year of running)

Looking back the whole 2014, it seems to be a very fulfilling year!  For one, I wasn't being forced to stop running for weeks due to injury.  I experienced some pain at the bottom of my foot, which I just rest for a few days to maybe a week and I was back in running again.  This is a good sign.
With this, I managed to log more than 80km per month for 9 months consecutively until the APBIM.  Although I didn't train for speed this year, with the increase of mileage, I was able to improve my race time to be less than 6min/km for all the races (shorter than HM) that I joined through the year.  Even with HM in APBIM, I was running at the pace of 5:51min/km and "officially" enter the sub-2 category for HM (although I still think that the race course is 1km shorter)!

Achievement for 2014:-

1. Joined 9 races throughout the year.  Too many, I think.  I will have to cut it down.
2. Completed all the races with less than 6 min/km pace with best pace for 10km at 5:18min/km.
3. Started to join out of town race: the NTCRC Run and Taiping Run.
4. Surprisingly achieving sub-2 in my APBIM HM race.
5. Managed to log more than 80km per month for 9 months throughout the year.
6. Achieving more than 17km for long run starting July.  One in July, One in August and 3 in Sep before going back to One in Oct due to races.  I think at this point, I can only handle more than 17km long run every 2 weeks (instead of every week).
7. Managed to find my "max" heart rate due to the fact that I started to wear heart beat monitoring during race.  My max heart rate recorded was 196 bpm (instead of 188 bpm that I tested it out myself).  The new max heart rate was recorded during the Taiping Run almost at the top of uphill run.  So, I have to re-define my heart rate training zone again!
8. Bought myself a footpod and be able to monitor my recent running cadence of 174 to 180 per min.

Overall, the high mileage training was accomplished with well-plan training plan "almost" throughout a the whole year.  Thus, I will continue to work on the training plan in the coming year.


My plan for 2015:-

1. Work on the speed.  Focus on quality of training without increasing my time spend on running.
2. Targeting to have 2 hour long run every other week (and hopefully make it to every week).
3. Increase my weekday mileage to at least 5km per run or at least 30 mins.
4. Join less races.  Only focus on HM locally, or charity race, or out-of-town good race.  Something like 5~6 races should be good enough.

However, for some reasons, the motivation of running is lower recently.  I do not know the reason, which might be due to stress at work!  I hope I can overcome this in a few months time once I come out with training plan again!

Taiping Run 2014

This is the furthest run that I joined since I started running, around 90km away from my house.  So, I stayed overnight at my hometown, which is 50km away from Taiping, and it took me 45 mins to drive to the starting line.  In terms of traveling time, it is about the same as I drive to Rock to Rock Run from my house.

Also, this is the race that joined while I have not fully recovered from flue, which I had 2 weeks ago.

Because of flue (and raining in the afternoon that prevented me from running), I haven't been running consistently.  My weekly mileage was around 5~10km for the last 2~3 weeks since Penang Bridge Half Marathon in mid of Nov.  So, for this run, my plan was to run slowly and not to have high target for finishing time.  But... I know myself that I might be pushing myself too hard during the run.  So, I had to constantly remind myself to listen to my body during the run.

Before the race, I checked out the route to know that there were 2 hills for the 12km route in the 1st 4~5km.  I knew that I had to conserve energy for the hills and for the rest of the route.

As usual, I started in the middle of the crowd.  So, as expected, I can only walk at the beginning.  However, since not that many participants (several hundreds I guess), I managed to run slowly just a few steps after the starting line.

Running at slow pace (I didn't even check my watch), I was able to handle the 1st hill without problem.  However, at almost the peak of the 2nd hill, I decided to slow down by walking.  With this, not too hard for me to handle the two hills.

After the hills, I just ran at conservative pace.  At certain points when I felt that I ran too fast, I actually had to slow down.  When I checked my watch occasionally, I noticed that I was running at pace of 5:50min/km, which I think was a bit fast.  Anyway, since I felt that I could still handle it, I just kept going.

Probably around 10km, I really felt tired and I slowed down a bit.  However, I picked up the pace again when close to the finish line.

Surprisingly, I finished the run with just slightly over 70 mins (70 mins and 13 seconds to be exact).  My target before the run was to finish around 80mins due to the 2 hills and flue.  So, at least, with this finishing time, I think my stamina haven't been dropping too much.  Most importantly, I don't feel any serious pain whatsoever on my legs after the run.

Well, this is the last race for this year.  Overall, my running time improves from previous year.  However, I joined too many race (total to 9) this year.  I will need to cut it down next year!

A good concluding run for the year to me!