#180-formula

If I had to base my blog name on my activities for the past 4 days, my name would be kimpartieslikeacollegekid rather than kimrunsamarathon.

Fortunately, I was back in the game last night for 11 miles through Natchitoches in 3:02:54. That’s still a 16:37 average mile, but it felt awesome. I’d planned to do 5-8 miles but just kept going. My fast food-loving, beer-drinking self needed a positive change.

I jogged 5 miles Monday afternoon in 1:20:something. Sixteen minute miles are a common thing for me with the 180-formula, but I WILL get faster. I will say that running by heart rate makes afternoon miles in the heat less exhausting; power walking can keep my heart rate up for a bit before I need to jog again.

Tuesday, I played in the faculty/staff vs student flag football game. I don’t understand all of the football positions or what they do, so I required heavy coaching. The old people pulled out a victory, though, and it was tons of fun!

Work is crazy lately, and I am looking forward to a good run (maybe two) on Wednesday to soothe my soul.

In preparing for my fall race, I thought I'd run/walk in 10:00/5:00 intervals. It maintains my run to walk ratio that worked for the Zydeco Half Marathon, but I'd only have to run 26 times over the course of the marathon. Plus, I'd have the whole summer to get used to those intervals.

I thought wrong.

A few people I know have switched to the Phil Maffetone "180-Formula" so I decided I'd give it a shot myself. I tried it out last week and liked it, so I've started using aerobic training.

A companion to the 180-Formula is the maximum aerobic fitness, or MAF, test, which is used to measure progress. It should be conducted about once a month, and I planned to do my first one on Saturday as a base...then I got sick and was in bed most of the day. 

I finally felt up to running again today, so I did my first MAF test over five miles. My times were as follows:

Mile 1: 14:43  Mile 2: 15:45 Mile 3: 16:17 Mile 4: 16:39 Mile 5: 16:08

After averaging 13:18 over 13.1 miles at the Zydeco, it's not much fun to run miles at these kinds of paces, but I feel so good. Not only that, but all kinds of people who have followed this process have seen spectacular results. I am excited.