It's Not the Years, It's the Mileage - birthday marathon training journal

[Herding_Cats]

Yeah, you won't have me slowing you down!

oh please. says the person who purposely makes character and lengthy bathroom stops to wait for me to catch up.

 

[The Expert]

oh please. says the person who purposely makes character and lengthy bathroom stops to wait for me to catch up.

Yeah... "purposely"

 

[avondale]

Always fun to squeeze in a race when you travel!

 

[nancipants]

Garmin Run Coach Week 3 of 7

Technically I started this plan on February 28, but the plan is calling this Week 3, so here I am.

Plan Overview:
Build: February 28 - March 13
Peak: March 14-April 3
Taper: April 4-12
Target Event Day: April 13. I'm planning to just do this around my neighborhood unless I find a local race.

My goal for this plan is 1:10. It all depends on the weather, but I will adjust for T+D as needed and aim for whatever that pace may be.

I'm not sure what I think about this plan yet. I'm using heart rate instead of pace as workout goal for this plan, because I have a really hard time pushing myself above Zone 3. However, when it gives me a "Base" workout, it gives me an estimated distance of 3 miles in 30 minutes. Um, Garmin, I told you my average pace. You KNOW my average pace and associated heart rates. If I could cover 3 miles in 30 minutes, I would not be doing this plan. So TBD on how I care for this plan. If it works, I'll do another one prior to by POT attempt this summer. If not, I'll start researching other plans online.

I won't recap my base runs, only to say that my overall pace has been getting faster, hooray! I've also been running more on the treadmill, mostly because it's easier for me to run continuously. Outside I'm still doing intervals.

I've done two workouts so far, Tempo and Threshold.

March 5, Tempo: Did on the treadmill. 10 minute warm up, 3 x 9 minutes at 150 bpm with 3 minutes rest, 10 minute cool down. Since I was on the treadmill, I'm not sure what the paces were.

March 12, Threshold: 10 minute warm up, 3 X 7 minutes at 157 bpm with 2 minutes rest, 10 minute cool down. My execution score for this was very low because my heart rate was not high enough. But my paces were decent, so I'll have to push myself more next time. I swear, once my heartrate gets to 155 I feel like I'm going to throw up. I know that I won't, and I don't have a problem breathing, but it's a mental block. I think it comes from mostly doing run/walk and never really letting my heart rate get high, even when I'm running faster. Hence trying to run more continuously on the treadmill.

Anyway, interval 1 was .66 miles or 10:40 pace. I did 1 min/30 sections run/walk.
Interval 2 was .64 miles or 10:52 pace. I did :40/:30 run/walk.
Interval 3 was .64 miles or 10:59 pace. I did :30/:30 run/walk.

Next time, I'm going to start with :45/:30 and see how that works.

I have also kept up with strength training. I do lower body on Mondays, core on Wednesdays, and upper body on Fridays. It's not super intense but I've kept up with it for a few weeks and average between 20-30 minutes per session. The only way I force myself to do this is before bed while watching TV. This better make me faster because I am not a fan of strength training, LOL.

My current Garmin race predictor says 1:06:56. I think this is a generous estimate, but it keeps trending downward, which is all I care about!

There is a 10k this weekend in Winter Park, and I'm SO tempted to try it, because YOLO. But the temperatures are trending up in the morning, and it would be in the mid-upper 60s during the race, which isn't ideal to push myself. But I might go anyway. I'll have to decide tomorrow.



Upcoming Races:

July - 10k POT attempt in Everett, Washington (if I don't get 1:08, I'll try again in the fall)
September - Margaritaville 5k (may upgrade to the 10k depending on what the course looks like)
December - Orlando Half Marathon (it was a great training race for the marathon and I'd love to try for another PR)
January 2026 - Disney 5k and Marathon (can I call this the Happy challenge, too?)

 

[avondale]

My execution score for this was very low because my heart rate was not high enough.

Are you using a wrist-based heart rate monitor? They are often quite slow to react to changes in HR. It can take several minutes or more for the HR that the watch detects to get up to what your HR actually is. I think this depends a bit on the person (maybe their circulation?) and the conditions (when it's cold, your wrist HR might never get up there; although you don't live where it gets cold).

At any rate, I bet you were in the range you wanted but the wrist monitor hadn't caught up yet. I also train by HR as my "effort level" and I think that can be very good. But you have to start recognizing the "perceived exertion" signs of when you're in particular effort ranges: how fast are you breathing? how are your muscles burning? etc. That can help when the HR monitor can't keep up.

 

[WillRunForPizza]

Definitely agree with everything @avondale said. Having both a pace and a HR range in mind can be helpful for gauging effort, because you'll see the pace before you see the corresponding HR.

I am not entirely sure how run/walk would affect this, however, since your HR/effort would drop during the walk intervals. So it might take some experimentation.

 

[avondale]

I am not entirely sure how run/walk would affect this, however, since your HR/effort would drop during the walk intervals. So it might take some experimentation.

Good point! Obviously your HR will increase during the running intervals and decrease during the walking intervals, but that probably means your watch will have even more trouble "keeping up".

 

[nancipants]

Me: We really need to save money.

Crowned Athletics: How about your favorite sports bras in some pastel colors?

 

[Herding_Cats]

Me: We really need to save money.

Crowned Athletics: How about your favorite sports bras in some pastel colors?

 

[The Expert]

Me: We really need to save money.

Crowned Athletics: How about your favorite sports bras in some pastel colors?

Not a pastel girl, even if that green is giving Tink vibes.

 

[nancipants]

Related to my previous complaints about this Garmin plan, I posted this on Instagram today. In what world does this make sense?

 

[accm]

Related to my previous complaints about this Garmin plan, I posted this on Instagram today. In what world does this make sense?

I've never done one of Garmin's plans, and this is telling me I should probably keep it that way. Maybe Garmin is just bad at math, so wanted something easy to calculate - 1 minute = .1 miles

 

[WillRunForPizza]

Related to my previous complaints about this Garmin plan, I posted this on Instagram today. In what world does this make sense?

View attachment 949497

I gotta say, between your experience and @GollyGadget's, I have some questions about Garmin's plans...

 

[nancipants]

I don't mind the workouts themselves, and have been doing them according to effort, but the estimated paces does not make sense considering my average easy pace and my goal pace.

It's frustrating because I would love to just use what came with the watch rather than pay for something extra, like Runna, and all the other plans I've found online aren't really geared for slower/interval runners.

Which is why I will most likely stick to Billy going forward.

 

[GollyGadget]

Related to my previous complaints about this Garmin plan, I posted this on Instagram today. In what world does this make sense?

View attachment 949497

I’m guessing if you switched to pace that it would show something totally absurd for the Run segment. Something in your data is making garmin think that you are faster which makes me realize that I have no idea how garmin decides on pace. I think it uses their calculated v02max and lactate threshold which will really depend on getting good heart rate data.

A couple of things to try:

• Snug, not tight: The watch should fit snugly against your skin, moving with your skin when you move your wrist.
  
  
• Position: Wear the watch above the wrist bone, closer to your forearm, to ensure good sensor contact.
• Clean and dry: Ensure the sensor area on the back of the watch and your wrist are clean and dry before wearing the watch.
  

No promises that this makes your garmin any better. I know lots of folks don’t recommend the wrist based hr sensors. However, mine has always been “good enough” except when I wear it too loose.

 

[Herding_Cats]

Which is why I will most likely stick to Billy going forward.

This is the way.

 

[WillRunForPizza]

I’m guessing if you switched to pace that it would show something totally absurd for the Run segment. Something in your data is making garmin think that you are faster which makes me realize that I have no idea how garmin decides on pace. I think it uses their calculated v02max and lactate threshold which will really depend on getting good heart rate data.

A couple of things to try:

• Snug, not tight: The watch should fit snugly against your skin, moving with your skin when you move your wrist.
  
  
• Position: Wear the watch above the wrist bone, closer to your forearm, to ensure good sensor contact.
• Clean and dry: Ensure the sensor area on the back of the watch and your wrist are clean and dry before wearing the watch.

No promises that this makes your garmin any better. I know lots of folks don’t recommend the wrist based hr sensors. However, mine has always been “good enough” except when I wear it too loose.

Having recently switched from using my watch for HR to a Coros armband, I would say the watch is okay sometimes and bad other times.

• As you say, the watch doesn't work if it's too loose. Automatic cadence lock.
• I've also found that my watch doesn't always work well if it's cooler. Like...below 60.
• The armband responds faster, and shows slightly larger peaks and valleys, than the watch.
• The armband is also better at speedwork, where my watch often either wouldn't register a HR or would say something nonsensical (like 150 in the middle of a 5K).

If you're going to run based on HR, then I would get a chest strap or armband. I would definitely recommend the Coros armband - it works really well and I don't even notice I'm wearing it. If you're more focused on pace or RPE and just use HR as a secondary metric, then your watch is probably okay.

 

[avondale]

Related to my previous complaints about this Garmin plan, I posted this on Instagram today. In what world does this make sense?

View attachment 949497

This is not just a Garmin plan thing. If I make a workout with intervals based on time and don't put in a suggested pace for the segments, it makes up something that doesn't make a lot of sense.

My hill repeat HIIT workout (see my training log), which is 13 min easy + 3 x ( 7 x (20 sec hard + 20 sec recovery) + 4 min recovery/walk), and I've done it literally dozens of time. Every time, the total distance is between 2.75 mi and 3 mi. Regardless, Garmin still estimates that I will run 1.9 mi with the workout. So it makes up silly paces for the intervals AND it doesn't "learn" from past executions of the workout.

 

[nancipants]

I am still very much not a fan of this Garmin training plan but I'm sticking it out for the next three weeks since it's just for a time trial and not an actual race. But I'm definitely using something else for a POT attempt. I don't mind the structure of the plan (it's having me do two easy runs, two speed workouts, and one long run per week), but it definitely doesn't understand my paces or effort levels. I was looking at the Nike Run Club app, which classifies runs by effort level, so maybe that will work for me.

I'm feeling very discouraged about my ability to obtain a POT. Today was what Garmin classified as a "Threshold" run, which was one 17 minute interval with a goal heartrate of 158. Garmin gave me a 12 percent execution score, which I guess is better than 0. For the interval, I did a total of 1.51 miles at an overall pace of 11:17. The second half mile was faster than the first, so that was good, but I was hoping to hit at least 11 minute pace. I started with 40 sec/20 sec run/walk intervals, and by the end of the first mile I was very winded. I switched to 30/25 and that was better, and faster. I wish I could hold paces for closer to 60 seconds without needing a walk break, but no matter how many times I try out different intervals, I come back to the conclusion that my body just doesn't work that way.

But even if I'm slightly faster doing 30/30, I still don't know if I'll be fast enough to hit a POT pace, and if I'll be able to keep it up for 10k. Once my heartrate gets into mid zone 3 (which for me is about 150), it's so hard for me to keep going. That's not even hitting zone 4! I keep telling myself that I'm not going to collapse, that I can hit those paces for a short period of time, that I'll get a walk break soon, that my breathing is still focused, but it's so hard to push myself further. And I'm really frustrated because I generally don't care about being slow, and want to enjoy running, but I'm having one of those pity party days when I wish my "easy" pace was what I'm trying to hit in these intervals.

I have been focusing more on strength training. I really like the runner focused workouts I've been doing on Lisa Hart's YouTube channel. ("Like" is a loaded word because I still dislike strength training but I can't deny it's been helping me.) I feel stronger during my runs and most of the niggling leg pains I got during other training plans haven't made themselves known. Yesterday I did a zone 2 base run on the treadmill for 30 minutes without stopping, and ran at 4.5 for about 6 minutes without struggling. So I do feel like my overall fitness is improving. But, yeah. Still not-so-fast. And it's getting hotter now (the T+D was 130 for this morning's run) so I know I'm only going to get slower.

I'm not necessarily looking for any advice, just wallowing in self-pity right now.

 

[jmasgat]

I applaud your doing a plan that uses effort level. I would never be able to make anything like that work. It's too subjective. And HR has always been a joke for me since everything I do is never below 2-3, so it would say I'm doing things "wrong". For me, paces are easier to adjust and gauge progress. And Garmin was fine for that type of plan that I just finished.

I hope you find a better fit plan for your needs. And it's not wallowing.....it's assessing what is working and what is not. Data is good to help you refine in the future.