Come Take a Walk With Me

[bryangoodrich]

Since nobody has started up a new running thread, I figured I'll take some initiative. Be forewarned, my mind is focused on my eventual goal of running the California International Marathon (CIM). Kudos to those that can figure out when I last ran that marathon! It's a great run and a great goal. For those of you that travel, you should definitely give it a try. If you're serious about your running, it's a qualifier for the Boston marathon. Could you imagine a group of us with TS CIM shirts? That would be neat haha

Anyway, back to business!

My goal is to run the 26.2 miles the first weekend of December (week 49). It is currently week 12 of this year, and I can run about 2 miles, having too many set backs, laziness, and weight gain. Thus, in 37 weeks I need to gain 24 miles to my run. That's 0.65 mile increase each week.

miles <- function(now) {now + seq(37)*((26.2 - now) / 37)}
miles(2)
#  [1]  2.654054  3.308108  3.962162  4.616216  5.270270  5.924324  6.578378
#  [8]  7.232432  7.886486  8.540541  9.194595  9.848649 10.502703 11.156757
# [15] 11.810811 12.464865 13.118919 13.772973 14.427027 15.081081 15.735135
# [22] 16.389189 17.043243 17.697297 18.351351 19.005405 19.659459 20.313514
# [29] 20.967568 21.621622 22.275676 22.929730 23.583784 24.237838 24.891892
# [36] 25.545946 26.200000

That's my weekly lineup to December!

As a personal trainer, I know that you need to set achievable quantifiable goals that can be measured along the way. So I am not starting this thread as "several months from now ..."

Instead, I'm saying let's aim for the end of May (end-of-school). That's about 2.5 months worth of training. For me, according to my schedule, I should be committing 16 miles (good lord ...). Assuming I'm not a failure, that's about 200 miles between now and then (good lord!!). I'm speculating set backs and at least two other people not being failures with me. So, how does this target sound?

500 miles by June 1st

By past sessions, the format is as follows. You post your addition to the community pool of miles by stating the previous total you're documenting plus your miles you've added and the new total. Below that put your personal total (PT) however you want (raw total or previous total plus addition). Any other information is your own.

[bryangoodrich]

0 + 2 = 2 miles

PT: 2 miles

[Dason]

Count me in. I'll go ahead and count the run I had today. I'm not sure if I'll get a run in tomorrow - hopefully... but I'll be doing a lot of driving and might be wiped by the end of the day.

2 + 3 = 5 miles

PT: 3 miles.

[bryangoodrich]

I erred in my calculation above. I thought it was oddly ginormous that I should have done 200 miles by Summer. The problem is that I looked at the absolute week instead of the relative week (absolute - 12 weeks we're starting at now). That's a whole 12 extra weeks I was totaling! Still, 500 is a good goal if we pool our resources. Now, while my average of 0.65 miles added each week is a bit large (at least for the first 2 months), it is recommended instead that you grow your mileage about 10% each week. I wrote a quick R script to do that for me, too. See below for details

Spoiler:

miles <- function(x, weeks = 37, growth = 0.1) {
  # x is your starting mileage
  # weeks are how many to competition
  # growth is the rate at which you want to increase each week
  foo <- vector('numeric', weeks+1)
  foo[1] <- x
  for (t in seq(weeks)) 
    foo[t+1] <- foo[t] * (growth+1)
  return(foo)
}

Not my best coding, but it works. (Probably should have done some sort of compound growth function). My training schedule should be something like this.

 [1]  2.000000  2.200000  2.420000  2.662000  2.928200  3.221020  3.543122
 [8]  3.897434  4.287178  4.715895  5.187485  5.706233  6.276857  6.904542
[15]  7.594997  8.354496  9.189946 10.108941 11.119835 12.231818 13.455000
[22] 14.800500 16.280550 17.908605 19.699465 21.669412 23.836353 26.219988
[29] 28.841987 31.726186 34.898805 38.388685 42.227553 46.450309 51.095340
[36] 56.204874 61.825361 68.007897

Of course, that's insane that I'll keep progressing indefinitely like that. Instead, I can find out how much I need to increase my mileage each week to finish at 26.2 miles. It turns out it's about 7.20 percent

 [1]  2.000000  2.144000  2.298368  2.463850  2.641248  2.831418  3.035280
 [8]  3.253820  3.488095  3.739238  4.008463  4.297072  4.606461  4.938126
[15]  5.293672  5.674816  6.083403  6.521408  6.990949  7.494297  8.033887
[22]  8.612327  9.232414  9.897148 10.609743 11.373644 12.192546 13.070410
[29] 14.011479 15.020306 16.101768 17.261095 18.503894 19.836174 21.264379
[36] 22.795414 24.436684 26.196125

At this rate, in about 10 weeks I should be nearing 4 miles on my run. Compare that to the 10 percent increase wanting me to do an additional mile or my 0.65 mile increase average having me at 8.5! On this schedule, the increase is gentle and it'll have me ready for the marathon come December.

I may add another mile of running tonight, but my legs are sore from starting out again, and I'll probably do more biking (probably after I run) for the cardio benefit.

edit: Here's the compound growth function that's better to use:

miles <- function(c, r, t, n = 1) {c * (1 + r/n)^{n * t}}
miles(2, 0.072, 0:37, 1)  # returns the same thing as my other function

Anyone know how to set something like "miles(2, x, 37, 1)" and solve for x such that it returns 26.2? That way, one can easily figure out the growth rate required to be marathon ready? One could technically wrap this in another function of "26.2 - miles(...)" and solve for when it's 0 I guess. I'm not used to R's optimization function(s).

EDIT2: I found uniroot is a quick way to make such a solver for a function 'f' equal to {26.2 - miles(...)} with appropriate parameters passed.

[bryangoodrich]

Ugh. My legs are sore from Saturday. Can feel my knee is weak. Will have to pay close attention to it. Am taking Aleve and fish oil (has anti-inflammatory properties) when I get home. Need to keep flexible, too, especially in my calves. They have a tendency to put unnecessary tension through the rest of my lower body (and back).

5 + 1 = 6 miles

PT: 3 miles

[bryangoodrich]

Oh, the feeling of beating yourself down regularly. How I haven't missed you ...

6 + 1.5 = 7.5 miles

PT: 4.5 miles

[bryangoodrich]

OMG. That circuit was insane. Everything 12 reps, for three 5-sets (supersets): DB chest fly, hammer curls, incline DB chest press, pile squat (hold top of DB between legs), incline DB shoulder lift (sort of just lift shoulders off pad; it works interior trap muscles). Got a little run in, though. It was tough on me, too. My body just needs to get conditioned at this point to handle the load (read 'my fat ***').

BTW, I recommend checking out the JEFIT training app (for android at least). You can check out my stats at the same username over there. I'll have some killer work outs (mostly circuits; good for muscular endurance and weight loss) you can view, and my current exercise routines include a list (the 'any time' ones) of some of the exercises from their exercise repository that I think are good to include. They each focus on a muscle area. My circuits basically pull from a bunch of those, but concentrate on one area for the routine (e.g., today's chest circuit included heavier weight for the DB chest fly and incline DB press, but still did a light squat, arm curls, and a shoulder workout).

7.5 + 1.5 = 9 miles

PT: 6 miles

[Dason]

9 + 3 = 12 miles

PT: 6 miles

[bryangoodrich]

Halfnormal? Trinker? Why am I not seeing what your legs have accomplished here?!

12 + 2.25 = 14.25 miles

PT: 8.25 miles

[Jake]

First run of the season... it was kind of a combination run/walk/hike, but my best guess is that it was probably roughly equivalent to a 3 mile run. I'll be more precise in the future

14.25 + 3 = 17.25 miles

PT: 3 miles

[Dason]

17.25 + 3.75 = 21 miles

PT: 6 + 3.75 = 9.75 miles

[vinux]

I ran 4 Km today. Like Jake it was mix of run and walk. I am rounding my score as 2 miles

km2miles <- function(km){ return(km*0.621371192) }
#km2miles(4)

21 + 2 = 23 miles

PT: 0 + 2 = 2 miles

[bryangoodrich]

This is a little late (ran on Thursday; may run tonight if I'm not feeling destroyed still like I was yesterday)

23 + 1 = 24 miles

PT: 9.25 miles

[bryangoodrich]

Ugh. My workouts have gone downhill since last week. I need to ease into these circuits a bit more slowly. Some are pretty comprehensive, and it's just taxing. I end up cutting out either a set, reducing the reps/weight, or skipping entire segments altogether! I'll build into them, though. Something to look forward to! I did get a little run in before my Core Circuit. My abs will hurt for another week now! (probably not)

24 + 1.25 = 25.25 miles

PT: 10.50 miles

[vinux]

Today I was over ambitious thought of running 3 miles, but ended up by running only one mile. I felt very tired. It seems running stamina is a quadratic function in days. I hope I can run more in coming days. By the way this is a holy week for us. Yesterday was palm Sunday and this Thursday onwards 4 days I will not be running.

25.25 + 1 = 26.25 miles

PT: 2+1=3 miles