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Member Since:

Jan 15, 2018

Gender:

Female

Goal Type:

Other

Personal:

Attended Japanese high school and finished in March 2020. Was very lucky to be able to be a member of a very good team of runners at my high school, even though I was injured most of the time and was not able to be much of a contributor. Am currently doing an Engineering internship at a large manufacturer of Automotive transmissions, etc. It is really exciting. In spring of 2021, if COVID-19 has subsided, I am planning to serve an LDS mission, after which I plan to go to college and study Engineering.

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Last week I set the goal to run 75 miles, and ended up actually running 80 miles.

At the first part of the week I was feeling a lot of muscles stiffness around Tuesday, but by Thursday most of that began to disappear.  Even though I was able to reach my goal, I have decided that at my current level of fitness, a distance of about 50 miles a week is probably more realistic.

The reason for setting this goal, was just to see if I still had it in me to do that much mileage.  Accomplishing the goal has given me a lot of confidence, however, I am not convinced that putting in so much mileage is actually the best way to train.  I have decided to list what I consider to be some of the advantages and disadvantages.

Advantages:

1. Pace is slower and easy, so there seems to be less impact and shock on the body.  Maybe this helps in less injury.

2. During afternoon runs, my body was tired and forced itself to relax and run in the most economic way.  Learning that relaxed and economic form of running may help even when running faster during shorter distances.

3. Putting in the long distance has given me running confidence and I feel like I can do anything, from short sprints to a marathon.

4. Lost over 1 kg during the week.

Disadvantages:

1. Runs are at a pace slower than race pace, so I don't know whether or not the body is being trained to go faster, or just becoming capable of going a slower pace.  I was afraid of doing anything too fast, because I though it would prevent me from running as long as I wanted. 

2. Running mornings and afternoons takes up a lot of time.  I had to sacrifice spending time with my boyfriend and other friends.  Had a couple of disagreements with my boyfriend about it.

3. The extra distance caused me to be sleepy and tired all the time, even though I was getting the same amount of sleep at night.

There are probably more advantages and disadvantages than these, but these are the ones that came to mind.

In my training, I will go back to maybe 50 miles a week. and gradually increase the mileage from there.  I will do a couple of harder workouts during the week to keep my body accustomed to go at race pace.  I will also add some faster shorter strides and the like to try and develop a faster turn over.  By gradually increasing the distance at no more than 10% each week or every 2 weeks, I think I will be able to train my body to handle faster running even when I begin to do more mileage.  I will also try to listen to my body, so as not to risk getting injured. And most important, I must find a way to be able to make sure I don't neglect my boyfriend, friends and family.

 

Comments
From Nora Jo on Sat, Jun 01, 2019 at 18:29:19 from 73.102.192.105

Pros and cons is a beneficial strategy. It appears that you have a well-thought out plan. Boyfriend, friends, family, and health are all legit reasons!

From Sarah! on Sat, Jun 01, 2019 at 20:14:44 from 174.208.5.60

Welcome back, Eva! It’s great to see you blogging again, I’ve been thinking about you. Great job on hitting 80 miles! That’s a lot for one week. I love how well you’ve thought out your training.

I have had some experience with both approaches of training and I think both are great and work well. I love how you’ve listed the positives and negatives. I think your plan is awesome and will definitely help you to get where you want to be while still balancing the other parts of your life.

Higher mileage at a fast pace can definitely make you stronger. I’d recommend to be careful not to overtrain or do too much too soon though. It can cause a burn out or injury. So I’d say listen to your body and if you feel you can handle increasing mileage the next week, do it. But don’t be afraid to back off a little at times when if you feel like it would help.

Everyone is built different and some people can handle going higher miles at a fast pace while others can’t. My coach individualizes training so that we can do what is best for us. Some of my teammates past/present can handle going 14-16 miles a day at a faster pace while others who hold school records in shorter events cannot. My coach has said with some athletes the difficult part is finding that sweet spot where the mileage is just right for the intensity we train at.

But I love the higher intensity, less mileage approach :) I feel it’s made me stronger and more mentally tough than when I was doing the other approach in high school. I like your plan and I hope it works well for you, and I hope that you can find your own “sweet spot” :)

From Eugene on Sat, Jun 01, 2019 at 21:44:34 from 73.58.34.45

great way to look at pros and cons eva. I totally agree with Sarah, running is different for everyone. however, as someone who’s always been higher mileage i can tell you from experience that it’s a lot easier to increase mileage if you sacrifice workouts for a couple of weeks. your body will become acclimated after 2 or 3 weeks and it’ll feel normal, but it takes a lot out of your legs like a workout would, which is why it’s hard to increase mileage quickly and do workouts - it’s like twice the workouts. so obviously your body has trouble handling it. the approach of increasing gradually while doing workouts works as well though, i’m just personally more fond of the former method as someone who loves running as much as possible - id rather just do 200 miles a week if it would give me crazy 5k fitness(and if my body could handle it!)

like Nora said, it’s important to save time for your relationships, a lot of people would say that’s the most important thing you can have in life.

From Eva Splaine on Sun, Jun 02, 2019 at 15:07:20 from 108.61.201.170

Thanks everyone!!!

Its great to be back posting on the blog, and I really appreciate everyone's comments. Everyone helping each other out is what I like most about the FRB.

From Eugene on Sun, Jun 02, 2019 at 19:08:06 from 73.58.34.45

Just noticed what you said about being tired. When you run more you need more sleep for your body to recover.

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