Tag Archives: Hal Higdon

Jan 10 2022
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Marathon, Running, Training

Checking In 1/10/2022

Two weeks into marathon training, after 5 days of running each week, and after two of the 4 longest runs I’ve taken in the last year, I actually don’t feel particularly sore, or particularly tired.

I certainly do feel somewhat tired and a bit sore after running 11 miles yesterday. But I don’t feel the same sort of wrecked I used to feel after most long runs in the past. If today wasn’t a planned rest day from running, I could certainly go run several miles today and could likely run again tomorrow.

This is despite getting poor sleep last night (the first true bout of insomnia I’ve had in a long while, not getting to bed until shortly before midnight). I actually feel alright mentally, energy wise, and chances are good I can go to the gym for tonight’s planned strength session.

I’m doing several things differently and I imagine they’re helping.

  • Going by feel, I pulled almost completely back on all strength and cross training. Previously I’d been hitting the gym every weeknight and working out for over an hour, plus some weekends. Last week I took multiple nights off, and the extra break from training probably helped my energy for the longer weekend runs.
  • Form wise, I’ve gotten way more consistent with two things that have helped my running efficiency: I’m focusing weight through the forefoot on steps (though the whole foot does contact the ground as normal), and am focused more on landing and pushing back in lieu of any effort or strain to reach forward. According to Garmin/Stryd/Runalyze, my pace and effort were remarkably consistent mile over mile at the end of yesterday’s long run.
  • I’m now actively keeping my effort on midweek runs as calm and easy as possible. I’ve avoided the hillier routes on workweek runs, and found a route for weekend runs that has much less elevation shifting and more flat sections. Most of my prior running was along rolling hills, and I imagine that was taking a toll at a time in training where I need to build endurance first before I challenge myself with these tougher elevation shifts.
  • Though I’ve always generally tried to stay in an aerobic zone, I’m now actively keeping my heart rate below 80% of max as much as I can. At the end of long runs there’s not too much you can do, but I keep it as low as possible as long as possible while making sure to stay efficient.
  • I keep my running power (per Stryd) between 80-85% of critical power, not as demanding as race pace but also not too easy. Runalyze metrics have shown me that runs that are too easy sap my VO2max over time, and experience has shown me that going easier than 80-85%CP doesn’t feel markedly better in the present or the future than just making sure I give that 80-85%CP effort. Since this is a relative metric, my pace does change on uphill or downhill inclines accordingly.
  • The above two items put together means I don’t focus much on pace. The only time during any easy run that I think about pace is when my Garmin watch goes off at the end of each mile, showing me the duration of that mile. But I don’t pay it much mind beyond the general idea of whatever pace it shows me.
  • If I can get an easy midweek run done on my lunch break, I do it. But generally I try to do these runs before or after work. I just walk on work breaks.
  • I’ve cut cross training down to just one spin bike or elliptical session on Mondays after work.
  • After a lot of experimentation, I do two strength sessions each week on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and follow each one with my yoga session.

The biggest surprise as I’ve ramped up mileage is how not-beat-up I feel after each week. The back to back runs on the weekend I figured would kick me around, but I’ve finished the long run feeling tired but mobile, and today I feel a bit sore but okay. Even feeling tired, I’m not sure how much of that is last night’s unusually short sleep. I feel like I could run today if I needed to (but today is a rest day).

So far, so good. I’m sticking with the plan, and it’s working.

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Dec 26 2021
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Marathon, Running, Training

Pete Pfitzinger’s Advanced Marathoning, and the nuts and bolts of Hal Higdon’s Marathon plans

I luckily picked up and am now reading a copy of Pete Pfitzinger’s Advanced Marathoning this week at a substantial now-or-never discount (the book usually costs a relatively steep $27.95+tax). Even though I’m nowhere near the fitness to do one of his high volume maniacal marathon training plans, the book itself is more about the finer points of marathon training in general, and is still quite useful.

He goes into detail about the effect of hard workouts and Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness (DOMS) on quality workouts during marathon training. Obviously, you want to avoid going into speed/tempo workouts (especially long workouts) still sore or tired from the last hard workout.

He made an interesting point in agreement with Jack T. Daniels about how back to back hard workouts can take advantage of DOMS typically not setting in until 2 days after a hard workout. The idea is that (presuming you have the legs to do back to back hard workouts) you do the 2nd hard session the day after, and the soreness will not yet have set in.

One common example he cites is how college athletes will run a race on Saturday, and then do their long run on Sunday. Or how during a race week they will do their speed and tempo workouts back to back early in the week, like Tuesday and Wednesday, to allow for 2+ easy days before a Saturday race. In fact, if you own Daniels Running Formula, you’ll see that some of his sub-marathon plans book back to back quality workouts during some phases of training.

This immediately reminded me of Hal Higdon‘s Intermediate Marathon plans, where he has you run back to back pace and long runs on the weekends, plus back-to-back-to-back short/medium easy runs during the week. I suddenly realized, however unintentionally, that Pfitzinger was explaining in detail why Higdon’s Intermediate schedule was such an effective plan.

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Nov 23 2021
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Marathon, Running, Training

Hal Higdon’s Marathon 3 training plan: Who’s It Good For?

You’ll notice I’ve never written a What’s It Good For feature on the somewhat famous Hal Higdon marathon training plans.

Part of that is they’re by and large recognized as a reliable starter-plan for runners unfamiliar with serious training for a race, or just seeking a straight-forward training plan. It’s often one of the first plans most aspiring runners find and turn to when they want to train for a race. It’s a more old school, traditional approach to run training, fairly straight forward and reliable.

So the audience for these plans is pretty clear. Why write a whole What’s It Good For piece on Higdon’s plans when many reading have already (most likely) gone to and possibly followed his plans before reading? There’s little confusion about whether or not these plans work for someone, and someone reading is typically looking for a different approach.

Now, that said, I’ve come back to Higdon’s work time and again. His writing helped me get back into running years ago and helped me build my ability to run for distance. In fact, for all the What’s It Good Fors I’ve written, if someone on the street asked me for advice on running regularly or doing races for the first time, I’d most likely send them to Hal’s website as a starting point. His basic advice and plans consistently work.

So while figuring out my intended training for the 2022 Vancouver Marathon, I also looked up Hal’s old marathon plans. Incidentally, I wanted more intel on how he’d schedule strength training (because obviously I want to continue strength training through Van training), and his incumbent marathon plans didn’t specifically discuss strength training.

I ran a search to see if I could find reference thereto on his website, and it led me to a plan of his I hadn’t found before: Marathon 3. This is a newer hybrid plan for recreational “gap” runners: Not quite a traditional intermediate marathoner, not really a novice.

The Marathon 3 program fits conveniently between Novice 2 and Intermediate 1, but its main feature (and appeal) is that it offers only three days of running and an extra dose of cross training for those of us who need a bit more rest between our running workouts.

– Hal Higdon.

That said, I think more advanced runners may find value in the plan as well, especially if they’ve been burned out or injured on higher volume plans.

Marathon 3 (which I’ll also call M-3) looks decidedly different in schedule-pattern from Higdon’s other plans, which traditionally follow a 3 and 2 weekly cycle: Three early week workouts, rest, then a two workout block of a moderate effort run followed immediately by the long run and a rest/cross day. This one has no scheduled back to back runs.

So you know what? I think Higdon’s Marathon 3 is not only different enough from his other training plans to warrant a write-up, but the fact that it was a bit out of digital sight and I had to find it by accident tells me it’s worth linking and showing to readers.

Plus, you’ll get some insight into my thoughts on Higdon’s principles, and when/how they work well.

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Sep 13 2018
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Running, Training

The home run trot: How learning to run easy finally got me into serious running

When I got into running years ago in Seattle (and this was a couple years before I got more serious about it), I did some research on training since I wanted to do more than just go out, run and see what happened. At the time, all of my running was either of the “chase after that bus that’s about to take off” variety, of playing pickup sports with friends.

I had (what I didn’t yet know was called) anaerobic speed, but I had little aerobic endurance. Growing up presumably with asthma, I grew up thinking I just didn’t have the lung capacity of others and thus I probably just wasn’t built to run too far (attempt to run track be damned).

However, having not had anything resembling an asthma attack in decades, and having proven since then that I could run a few city blocks without stopping, I had an intuitive suspicion that I could run a couple miles without stopping. And though I couldn’t really run more than a few blocks without doing so at the time, I felt I could find a way to bridge the gap.

I had previously dabbled with the classic Couch to 5K program, and could see the logic in the stop and go approach. But I wasn’t too fond of it, I still had a hard time running more than a few blocks without stopping, and so I went looking for perhaps something a little more directly applicable.

I stumbled upon the training pages of Hal Higdon, and (though his basic 5K program doesn’t include this language anymore, the 8K program does) I was drawn to his 8-week Novice 5K program. It included these simple instructions:

Run: Put one foot in front of the other and run. It sounds pretty simple, and it is. Don’t worry about how fast you run; just cover the distance–or approximately the distance suggested. Ideally, you should be able to run at a pace that allows you to converse comfortably while you do so. This isn’t always easy for beginners, so don’t push too hard or too fast.

I had a revelation. In race walking there are very specific rules for what constitutes a walk versus a run, how your feet must leave and strike the ground and so on. I realized I could follow those rules in reverse. It didn’t matter how slow I was going. As long as the way my feet moved technically constituted a run, I was technically running.

Most people intuitively believe that to run your legs must extend a certain length, you must expend a certain amount of effort, to be a true run. I felt the same way, and like most I ran with more of a bounding, lunging cadence as my regular motion. But what if I stepped as lightly, as quickly and as easily as possible in what could be defined as a run?

I gave it a shot. One evening in Seattle’s hilly Queen Anne I stepped to the end of the block, having mapped out a 1.5 mile route that matched the distance Higdon recommended in the Novice 5K plan’s first workout, and like the instructions said put one foot in front of the other.

My plan was to go as far as I could before I needed to stop. I was to go no faster than I comfortably could, to step forward no farther than I comfortably could. I didn’t stop at all until I reached the end of my 1.5 mile loop.

I was thrilled. I, having never been able to comfortably run a mile in my life, just ran 1.5 miles without needing to stop for the first time ever. I never even felt all that distressed. I didn’t have a stop watch at the time, and I’m sure the time was very slow. But that didn’t matter at all.

Part 2 is a long story short: From there I just went out every other evening and ran the prescribed workouts the exact same way. I never had to stop before the end of the workout in any of them, and by the last week I was finishing 2.5-3.0 milers in as much time as it originally took me to finish that first 1.5 mile run.

I had no goal race in mind or anything. The only final goal I had was to run 3 miles without stopping. And at the end I did.

And then… I just stopped. Thing is, I was practicing theatre at the time, and around that time (welcome) projects and classes (which involved clown and theatre movement, both very physically demanding practices) began competing more heavily for my time and energy. So running took a back seat. It wasn’t until years later, as I began detaching from the arts scene in Seattle, that I began running more. And once I got to Chicago my running practice really… uh… picked up the pace.

All this is to say that the magic key that allowed me to break through from “fast guy who can’t run far at all” to “experienced runner who can go and go and go” was to shorten up my stride to something easier and consistently attainable.

In fact, I’d say the crux of most developing runners’ struggles can be tied to the continued belief that a regular run must utilize this aggressive, lunging stride people consider a running step, in order to count as a run. I see most runners out on their “easy” runs pushing hard, still struggling to carry on conversations and breathe at the same time, even though they should be running easy enough to converse normally.

What runners do is of course their business as long as they don’t physically impede on anyone else’s. But I say if most runners shortened up their stride until running didn’t require more than a slightly deeper breathing rhythm than usual, they’d probably:

  • Avoid most injuries
  • Be able to run a lot farther and a lot more often than they currently can
  • Ironically might in the long run be able to run faster.

Despite my current typically plodding 11ish minute mile pace on easy runs, and despite approaching age 40, I’m still breaking PRs and it’s become more and more comfortable to run interval paces that even a year ago I struggled to hit. While I certainly could run a few miles in a 9-10 minute per mile pace instead, I’d also get a lot more tired a lot more quickly, and it’d limit my ability to run on subsequent days.

Why do that if it’s not necessary?

If I could provide a physical example of what this easy running style should feel or look like, the one example I come back to is a baseball player trotting around the bases after a home run. That’s what it feels like, and I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s what it looks like when I do it.

So, if you find yourself struggling to run too far, if you keep getting hurt or always feel too burned out to run more than 2-3 times a week, or anything similar… shortening up your stride and doing your run as this sort of “home run trot” might be worth a shot. It certainly worked for me, to say the least. It’s probably the biggest contributing factor to my growth and development into what I can do today.

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