Weekly Training, September 21-27

Sunday: Recovery run; Nice and easy; 3.2 miles; 37:49; 11.81 pace. 7:45 AM, 76 degrees, 96% humidity. Resting HR: 49 bpm; Workout HR: 143 bpm.

Saturday: 14.2 miles. Started @6:45 AM, 71 degrees, 98% humidity. No new record attempt today, just aiming to hold last week's gains by doing last Saturday's new distance a second time. For a little change up, I experimented with Jeff Galloway's Run-Walk approach to long run training. For this experiment, I walked 1 to 2 minutes for every 8 to 10 minutes of running. The idea is that the walk breaks push the fatigue factor further back, allowing for a stronger finish. Today, this approach resulted in a longer total time than last Saturday's 14 miler; 2:49:22, 11.93 pace. However, it seemed like each level of fatigue came about two miles later than the previous run. Last week, I struggled to complete the distance, and this week I felt like I could have gone a couple additional miles. I also think I could reduce the walk times and get the same benefit. Galloway says that the early-mile breaks are more important than later-mile breaks.
Here's a link to an article by Jeff Galloway.

Monday through Friday: Alternating Easy runs and Tempo Runs. As I've read more, I decided to try substituting Tempo Runs for the sprint intervals. The sprint pace came with enough extra shock to aggravate my heel pain. Like most runners, I'll experiment with a lot of methods and settle on what works best for me. Unfortunately, I've mostly learned "what not to do" the hard way; by trying things and quitting whatever hurts. Anyway, the Tempo seems like a good middle ground, harder than long-run and easy-run pace, but not not nearly as intense as all-out sprints. In theory, Tempo sounds good for long-distance training. Seems like there is a lot of confusion out there about what a Tempo Run is. I had to search a little bit to find articles that defined it well.  It's just a run of at least 20 minutes at threshold pace.  The idea is to train just below Lactate Threshold (or Anaerobic Threshold), or at 85 - 90% of max heart rate, which results in pushing the LT/AT farther back.  The training should boost speed, and also help delay onset of "the wall" on longer runs. Pace is easy to determine by using a heart rate monitor.  To determine pace based on time, The McMillan Running Calculator  is a good tool.  The calculator estimates running time for various race distances based on a good, recent race time at another distance.  It also gives pace ranges for different types of workout runs, including Tempo Runs.
Here's a link to a good article on Tempo Runs. 
Here's a link to another Tempo Run article.

Monday: Tempo Run; 3.1 miles; 28:16; 9.12 pace.
Tuesday: Easy Run; 3.1 miles; 30:44; 9.91 pace.
Wednesday: Tempo Run; 3.1 miles; 28:12; 9.10 pace.
Thursday: Easy Run; 3.1 miles; 31:08; 10.03 pace.
Friday: Rest Day.