Some people just like to do things. I’m too structured for that kind of Daoist approach to life (though I definitely recognize its merits). So when I do something, I need to have goals, see how what I’m doing fits in the basic story about reaching those goals, and I need to be able to measure how I’m progressing. Yeah, that makes me a bit obsessive or type-a (I tend to think of it as “focused”) but I’ve learned over the years to stop fighting it, accept my nature, and just go with the flow - which in a perverse way is somewhat Daoist on its own.
One significant “doing” in my life - for the last three years anyway - has been running. Since I’m obsessive (er…focused), I tend to not just run, but instead my running is always a part of some training plan or other and so I think of each run as progressing towards whatever goal I’m chasing at that moment. First it was “couch to 5k” goals, then it was 5k races, then a 10k, then a miles per week goal, and so on. Of course, at some point the goals got harder - I planned for two half marathons in 2019, both with timed goals (sub-2 finish for both, and I eventually succeeded on the second try with a 1:47 finish) and a marathon in 2020, itself with a timed goal (sub-4, succeeded with a 3:59).
The 2020 marathon plan was a “Plan B” goal. My original plan was to time qualify for the New York Marathon, which in my age bracket meant a 1:36 half finish time. I’m from NYC, and live now in Missouri, and I wanted my first marathon to be a 26 mile run through my hometown. So my goal had significance in terms of meaning, and not just in terms of running. The plan came apart. After running the the Little Rock Half in 1:47, I should have taken more time for recovery, but I unwisely did not; in addition, I ended up running a 50-mile running week two weeks later.
What price did I pay for this stupidity? I developed a stress fracture and was out for two months. Given the time I needed to take off my half-marathon time, there was no realistic way to restart the NYC plan with only 4 months to train post recovery. Speed work is rough, and I knew I’d just end up injured again. So, instead I planned for the full marathon in Springfield instead, which was an easier (and safer) post-injury goal that I could slowly ramp up into in terms of efforts and intensity. I made my time, but it wasn’t as meaningful as running through my hometown would have been (though the NYC marathon was cancelled due to COVID anyway).
The good news is that I’m obviously fully healed, and the marathon is finished, time goal crushed and all. Which means that I’m ready now to take on that NYC project again - which I’ve now dubbed “Project 96” (refers to the minutes needed to finish, or a 1:36 finish). I’m happy to say that this time I’ve learned some lessons. The most important is that at 54, training hard but not smart is the path back to injury. Looking back I can see that in the past I trained myself to endure a lot of pain and discomfort - I simply pushed my legs and body to the physical limit on an almost constant basis. I was always exhausted, always sore, and always on the cusp of injury. Since a 1:36 finish is fast (a 7:32 pace), training for it means a lot of hammering on 54 year old legs, on muscle, and on bone. So, I knew that in taking this task on I needed to change my training approach.
In another post, I’ll cover the training method I’ve chosen to try out - called the Zone Method (training by heart rate, basically). In short, Project 96 has three phases. Each has a different “sub-goal” and is designed to slowly, and patiently, take me one step closer to my main goal. The three stages are:
Phase 1: Building the Aerobic Engine - Base Training (3 months)
Phase 2: The 1:45 Finish (3 months)
Phase 3: The 1:36 Finish (4 months)
Although all three phases use Zone training, Phase 1 really focuses it, using this method to build my aerobic base (see other post on Zone Method) and to also get used to regular weekly totals of 40 - 45 miles. Phase 2 continues the zone method but builds on that base, aiming to slowly and comfortably get threshold running pace to 8 minutes a mile and a 1:45 half marathon (I don’t have this race picked out yet - have to work around COVID). Phase 3 continues the same approach, but aims to get threshold running pace down to 7:30, which is what I need to run the race in to qualify for NYC 2022. My qualifier race is the Bass Pro Cohick Half Marathon, here in Springfield, Missouri. It’s not an exciting race, but it is a good race to use as a qualify because it’s fairly flat - only 178 feet in total elevation for the whole course. The race is in early November 2021, so I have 10 months to do this (which is the entirety of the training plan).
So here’s the writing plan: here at Brief Habits I’ll make weekly updates on this long Project 96 journey. I like to track and analyze data, so you’ll see a lot of that, and which may or may not appeal to running and/or data geeks. Hopefully, as I move along, we’ll all learn a lot not just about whether Zone training works, but also about running in general, and I’m sure also a lot about running philosophy and psychology along the way. Because if there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that endurance running is not just a grueling physical journey, but it’s also a challenging mental and philosophical one as well.
So with that…away we go!