Stats, half-marathons & 'Natty Boh'

Not alot to resport since my last post. I have been 'Hadding' away and have not seen much if any improvement in my steady state 80% runs (averaging out just south of 8:00 min/mi). However, this week I managed back to back one hour recovery runs at 74% MHR that exceeded seven miles, with respective average mile splits of 08:26 and 08:27. I am hoping this is a sign of a developing aerobic base and that while my 80% runs have not been getting faster I could maintain their pace for considerably longer.

I also signed up for a half-marathon, the 'Nippy Nor'easter', which takes place on the National Central Railroad trail. It's not a certified course and proceeds are in aid of the 'Back on my feet' charity. The registration fee of $28.50 is hard to beat and my ongoing unemployment means I am especially discriminating in what races I will do! I had planned on the B&A trail half marathon, which receives rave reviews; however, the race filled up quickly and at $50, while not expensive, was more than the 'Nippy'; maybe next year.

My wife received a new digital camera from her parents for Christmas. I took it with me on a run recently and below are some pictures from my usual running route.

 Pagoda at Patterson park, just across the road from our house

A view of Brewer's hill from the Pagoda. The building in the distance is the old National Bohemian brewery and the famous 'Natty Boh' on the roof, a caricature synonymous with 'Balmer'. 

First Mariner bank HQ at Canton and the start of the harbour boardwalk which constitutes the majority of my runs. 

 The Maryland Korean war memorial at Canton waterfront park

Domino sugar factory from the south east, frequently depicted in The Wire television series from the Harbour's opposite side. 

Historic Fell's point. This is a social part of town with lots of pubs and restaurants. Most of the buildings are from the 18th and 19th centuries - old for America I suppose. The building on the left is a now abandoned police station famous for being the police station depicted on the TV series, Homicide: life on the streets.

Hadd update and second 2400 test

I completed my second 2400 test this morning and below is how the results between the first and second compare. 

19 January 2012
1.49m - 13:43(9:12/m) - 136bpm avge
1.49m - 12:30(8:23/m) - 145bpm avge
1.49m - 11:10(7:29/m) - 154bpm avge  
1.49m - 10:07(6:47/m) - 163bpm avge
1.49m - 9:20(6:15/m) - 174bpm avge

2 December 2011
1.49m - 13:37(9:08/m) - 134bpm avge
1.49m - 12:39(8:29/m) - 144bpm avge
1.49m - 11:19(7:35/m) - 156bpm avge
1.49m - 10:23(6:58/m) - 165bpm avge
1.49m - 9:28(6:21/m) - 172bpm avge

A bit disappointed but not surprised. Interestingly and disappointingly the difference between the second and third intervals remains fifty-four seconds min/mi. The fourth interval provides some encouragement, being eleven seconds min/mi faster for two bpms less.

Not sure what to make of it but I will continue for another few weeks on the Hadd approach; I will abandon it if I do not see significant improvement in the pace of my sub LT runs in the next three weeks. Notwithstanding what I do in the future I think there's a benefit to keeping the pace of recovery and long runs below 75% MHR. 

Not rockin' my world

Regular readers of this blog will possibly know I am not keen on the 'Rock n' Roll' marathon concept. Disclaimer: I have never run one and so cannot comment authoritatively; their their prices mean I will never have the opportunity. However, I had always thought they were well organised events for what they were; well the Las Vegas marathon last week was a disaster of epic proportions: CEO and his wife win their age division group with implausible times; mass food poisoning; incorrect medals and people passing out from overcrowding. A news report outlines some of the problems and the Facebook page is alive with recriminations.

Max HR and 2400 test

As Hadd training involves training by HR a max HR test is required before commencing training in earnest. A Hadd HR test involves a fifteen minute warm up, an 800 metre all out effort followed by a two minute rest and a 400 metre all out effort. This test gave me a max HR of 189. Interestingly this is four bpm than the last max HR effort that I did in September.
One of the benefits of Hadd training is the objective biofeedback it provides on each run that over time, I hope, will evidence a trend of increasing pace for the same effort. To help monitor and evaluate progress Hadd prescribes what he calls 2400 assessments every six weeks, with the first at the beginning of training. A 2400 test involves running five intervals of 2400 metres with ninety seconds of complete rest between each interval. Each interval, involves running at a steady HR, increasing by increments of ten bpm. The last and fastest interval should not exceed your potential martathon HR by five bpm; Hadd defines max marathon HR potential as max HR minus 15-20 bpm. It is also crucial that you conduct every 2400 test in similar conditions to prevent prejudicing or doubting the result of successive tests.
On 1 December I completed my first 2400 test and the results were as follows.

1.49m - 13:37(9:08/m) - 134bpm avge
1.49m - 12:39(8:29/m) - 144bpm avge
1.49m - 11:19(7:35/m) - 156bpm avge
1.49m - 10:23(6:58/m) - 165bpm avge
1.49m - 9:28(6:21/m) - 172bpm avge

The point of reference for these tests is the miles per minute pace rather than the time it takes to complete each interval. Hopefully, every six weeks your pace for each 2400 interval should increase for the same HR. The in pace between each interval are 39, 54, 37, and 36, respectively. Interestingly the gap between the second and third interval is significantly wider than the others; consulting with a number of Hadd acolytes this is quite common and indicates that the runner is indeed inefficient at this aerobic effort and should benefit from Hadd training. If the training is effective the gaps between the second and third interval in particular and all to a lesser degree should narrow and of course the pace should increase for the same HR effort. I suppose I'll find out in six weeks.

Hadd training

This year has proven a tough one, redundancy and apparent long-term unemployment, (unless I accept the increasing plethora of money laundering middleman offers I receive from careerbuilder.com the longer I remain out of work), forced emigration, and two poor marathons. Whatever about everything else I have a definitive plan for getting my running career back on track in 2012. Some years ago a coach began offering advice on letsrun.com. He was very conscious of his privacy and did not want those with whom he shared his ideas to have the ability to individually identify him and let that prejudice their attitude to either him or his training approach - sensible man. This coach referred to himself as John Hadd. Hadd's approach is similar to that of Arthur Lydiard; lots of slow aerobic base building miles. His basic argument is that unless you have developed an excellent aerobic base you will compromise your ability to run at a progressively faster pace that does not cross your lactate threshold; eventually if you continue to ignore the aerobic base and train faster than your aerobic base allows for adaptation to appropriately occur you will experience burn out and an increasing dissonance between your shorter race times and your longer race times. To explain his ideas Hadd used the example of 'Joe', a talented athlete who had not runs for years but who wanted to get back into shape and run a personal best for the marathon. Hadd extols the virtues of slow running to allow the development of Mitochondria in the cells that convert glucose to energy. This aerobic capacity building allows you to run faster at all efforts, even where you might never or rarely run at those efforts. The analogy he uses to explain this approach is that of a toothpaste tube; to get all the paste you need to fully and progressively squeeze upwards. If you squeeze only near the top of the tube you will initially get some paste but the remainder will remain in the tube, no matter how hard you squeeze near the tube's top. Consequently in Hadd training there is little or no running of intervals, tempo runs or even marathon paced running. It's not quite as simple as that but generally a Hadd schedule looks something like this: run everyday for at least an hour, where recovery runs do not exceed 75% of max heart rate; two quality workouts each week, preferably on Tuesday and Friday, building up to ten miles at 80% max heart rate; and a long run on Sunday of between two and three hours at recovery pace. As your aerobic base develops you should slowly see your speed increase for all efforts. With time and when you are comfortable doing ten miles at 80% MHR without any cardiac drift or slowing, you can slowly edge the effort for these runs up towards 90% of MHR, which he reasons is the absolute max of HR that an exceptionally well trained runner could run a marathon. The discussion of this training approach in great detail is archived on the Let's run website. A summary of the web forum is also available. This is a summary of the online thread and so is not the best written piece, being somewhat disjointed and repetitive but is well worth the effort. Hadd's untimely death in September revealed his true identity as John Walsh, a Briton based in Malta and founder of the Malta marathon. He insisted on his anonymity and only those who he worked with as coach, gratis, knew his identity, and as a condition of his coaching services they never revealed knowledge of his true identity until after his death. Appropriately his none de plume of Hadd is Maltese for anonymous. Looking at photographs of him it is hard to imagine that the man who looked like the embodiment of Scottish martial prowess and someone whose image you could imagine on a Victorian recruitment poster for a Scottish or Irish regiment could die so suddenly of a heart condition. I am hoping I might do his legacy some homage by making a success of my running in 2012; success in other areas would be nice too, but alas Mr Hadd cannot help me with that.

Harrisburg marathon review

A quick race review of Harrisburg. The race itself was excellent and has enormous PB potential. The volunteers were the best I have encountered anywhere, such that depending on plans for 2012 I would seriously consider volunteering at this race if I am not racing it myself. The course is relatively scenic, especially along the river's edge and the two portions on trail were a welcome change from hard surfaces, but with plenty of traction. The event being less than 1,000 marathon runners is logistically uncomplicated - comparatively, and I love being able to show up twenty minutes before a race to pick up a race number and walk the 200 metres to the start without any fuss or shoving or general air of panic that envelops many race starts. The number pick up is in a heated pavilion adjacent the start and allows you to stay warm minutes before the start. Free coffee was also available for runners and only 25 cents for others. 
The post race bounty is phenomenal; fruit, yogurt, bagels, coffee, and other foodstuffs; only Cologne has come close to this. The medal and tech t-shirt this year were an improvement on what I had seen on the web in previous years and I have already worn the shirt on a slightly chilly day when doing a max HR test this morning. All the above for $60 is excellent value, especially so when you look at the $95 that some half-marathons in Maryland think they can charge. Being unemployed I simply cannot afford that and even were I in employment it would take something really special to get me to shell out that kind of coin, and by special I don't mean the gimmicks that come with 'Rock n' Roll' events; thank goodness for races like Harrisburg. I hope to race this again and significantly improve on my time and do the race and course justice this time.

Harrisburg Marathon 2011

Me about to cross the bridge across the Susquehanna river and towards the finish line.

Harrisburg is the capital of Pennsylvania; it is also one of the largest cities to file for bankruptcy, which it did recently, even making pages of The Economist in a commentary about city finance and the polarisation of US politics. My wife is from the small town of Mechanicsburg which is a few miles west of Harrisburg and so this race was a good way of combining a trip to her parents with a marathon and is only a ninety minute drive from Baltimore. The race has also received consistently excellent reviews from Marthon-guide.com. Since adopting a HR approach to my training and using Pfitzinger and Douglas's HR bands, rather than target paces, my training paces have slowed and I had felt better than I have in a while. I felt I had made good progress. A few weeks before the race I did seventeen miles with the final ten miles at 87% MHR; these miles averaged 06:42, this was considerably better than a similar effort a few weeks before that came out at closer to 07:00 min/mile and for an additional percentage point in effort. I had my doubts that I had the aerobic base to maintain 86/87% MHR for 26.2 but resolved to go out at sub three hour pace see how it felt. The race began at 0830hrs and conditions were perfect and I quickly settled into 06:4x pace. However, by mile eight I knew it was not going to be able to maintain the pace and decided that I would forget about sub three, which I always knew was going to be a big ask and backed off to 07:05 pace for the next few miles. During mile ten I had to duck into a port-a-loo and do both a number one and two; this is something I have never needed to do in a race but I did initially feel better for it. By halfway I was not feeling good and the slower pace that was initially comfortable was now increasingly uncomfortable. As we passed the halfway point we ascended up a short sharp climb and I slowed further. My pace was now in the 07:20s and my legs were turning to concrete. This was frustrating as while I thought a sub three pace might be tough to hold I did not think it was suicidal either and I had sensibly backed off after eight miles. By mile seventeen, as we entered the Harrisburg Area Communinity College campus, many runners were passing me. There was a turnaround at this point and the final nine miles would be a double back on much of the first half of the course and many of the runners passing against me, at least half a mile ahead, were previously in the same group that I ran with in the first eight miles; this was not a confidence booster. By now I was doing the maths to calculate at what pace I would need to avoid a personal worst and would have taken 03:15 without any hesitation. The final six miles were something of a death march and runners were going by me in groups of two or three now. By mile twenty-two I resigned myself to a personal worst. My pace was now north of nine minute milling. At mile twenty-five I was about to walk when I heard the shouts of encouragement from my wife, mother-in-law, and friend visiting from Ireland; this prevented me from walking. I tried to increase the pace but any injection of pace never lasted more than a fifth of a mile. I reached the finish mile in 03:23:22; a bit if a disaster. However, I refuse to be too discouraged and have decided upon a reasonable and informed, I hope, plan to rectify my very poor 2011 racing year. Discussion of that will follow in another post shortly.

Harrisburg marathon 2011 by westley1977 at Garmin Connect - Details