Training analysis and Trail Festival 1/2 Marathon

On Saturday 6/2/18, I ran a trail half-marathon as past of the Tejas Trail Running Festival.  I had no business running any kind of race, but it was free since I’d won it the previous year, so, meh... I ran it.  Most of the fun in attending the festival is hanging out with the trail running community and swimming at Krause Springs anyway.

Krause Springs


Kids Run


Our Favorite Hammock


Julie participating in a panel of experts 

As far as my Half, it took 2:00; it’s a tough course in the heat but my full marathon last year on the same course took about 3:50, so, notsogood this year..  I still have obviously not gotten back into real training since Boston.  Actually, this was my longest run since Boston.

But this made me put an analytical eye on my training.  Part of what I get paid for in my day job is analytics, so I did some quick analysis on myself.  To me there are 5 major drivers of success in distance running:

1. Mileage
2. Mileage
3. Mileage
4. Speed/workouts
5. Mileage

So what about my mileage?  For someone like me who has been at this sport for 8-9 years already, race performances are all about “What Have You Done For Me Lately?”.  If you haven’t done much in the past 3 months (standard training block), you’re gonna suck.  So here is a rolling 13-week average of my mileage history.

Bottoming Out

It’s no wonder I did not run well this weekend, as I’m pretty close to 3.5-year lows in mileage.  But this doesn’t tell the whole story - it’s not like you can take 9 months completely off, then run hard for 3 months and have a great race.  You probably also need to look at a longer stretch, say 1 year, to get the full picture.  So here’s my rolling 52-week picture:

Not the worst situation ever 

Although I’m down pretty low, I’ve definitely been worse off than my last 52 weeks of running have been.  So I could still turn it around - I ran 45 miles this past week (slowly but surely getting back into running) so I can possibly catch the current 49.9 average, make this the bottom, and start reversing the trend this month.

I’ll report back in 3 months and we’ll see what direction these charts head.  I’m not quite sure myself!

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