Wednesday, April 7, 2010

Running the numbers!

One of the joys of being a Garmin owner is the mass of data you accumulate through the year, although it can be a curse as well I suppose. After last Sundays shenanigans I wanted to compare myself to last year when I ran the 50k and PRd for the distance. Here’s a comparison exported into Excel and made to look purty!

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So what’s the analysis? The easy things first,

  • I was over 30 minutes slower running a shorter race which should have been at a faster pace
  • My quick miles last year were not that this year, they’re in yellow!

Now the splits:

  • 17 of the 19 miles were slower this year vs. last year
  • 4 miles where <2 mins of last year’s mile times
  • 11 miles were >2 mins over last year, 2 of which were >3 mins!

Ok let’s look at Heart Rate, green is average, orange is max per mile

  • 9 miles had a higher average HR than last year –11 miles had a higher max HR than last year
  • Those that were lower were also some of the slowest but also had the highest max

I also looked back at my training log for the previous 6 months 9/1/08-4/4/09 (right) vs. 9/1/09 – 4/4/10 (left) it looks like this, cycling on top, running below , :

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Also and what you can’t see here is the recovery, this year I am really feeling things, last year I was running 50k and then running the next day, this year I am your classic next morning marathoner, something akin to an ironing board!

So what are my conclusions…well I am no expert but hmm, well what springs to mind here…base! 157% more base the year before, well it’s no surprise, October November and most of December of last year were a wash due to injury, January and February were spent working through a 10k plan and March was the first month of a marathon plan! So guess what's on my agenda…yep a solid summer of base building, and as much of it on the trails as I can!

I am looking at my fall agenda and building things out around the Eco Marathon and PCTR Pt Mugu races in November, it maybe back to the drawing board but I like to think of it as a clean slate to start from!

6 comments:

  1. I just installed my Garmin Edge 500on my bike last night. You get me all excited now. And I can confirm that a good base is very very important. Good plan!

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  2. Oh Stuart, we really are geeks of a feather :-)

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  3. Hey Stuart, I'm also addicted to my Garmin numbers. It's hard to just look at totals. I think that for ultras, the average length of the long run is important, not just the weekly total. If your going to run 60 miles in a given week, running 6x10mi is not ultra worthy, whereas something like 5x6mi and 1x30mi is a sweet week (although Running World and my wife would disagree!).

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  4. Great way to look at your data and see that you need to build your base before hardcore racing. I've looked at my data and come to similar conclusions...it just takes time to return from injury and build back mileage to get there. You are well on your way and will be throwing down some more PRs at all distances soon. :)

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  5. The fact that I signed up for Garmin Connect made me think that I was doing something big. I am NO WHERE near to having the same level of information that you have.

    Blows my mind!!! :))

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  6. Stuart, look forward to seeing your training plan.

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