This is the third time I’ve run this race, but I’m fairly sure I’ve never documented the approach, partly because last year was one of few failures I will claim – I ran the race a week after a major back strain.
Training Differences From Last Year
Last year, I used a modified version of the Hal Higdon Intermediate-2 Plan. That plan calls for five running days and a day of cross-training that I never actually did.
This year, I used a lesser-modified version of the Hal Higdon Advanced Plan. This plan calls for six running days each week.
In both cases, most of my modifications involve moving runs around because I do my long runs on Friday – it is more acceptable to my family to not be gone running for a few hours on Saturday mornings (however, a half hour before everyone wakes up is doable!)
There are three major differences I saw between the two plans: speedwork, distance, and hill repeats.
Speedwork Differences
There is a lot more speedwork in the advanced plan. Because of the aforementioned family schedule, I was running intervals on Monday, a tempo run on Wednesday, sometimes a half-marathon pace run on Thursday, and sometimes a 3/1 long run on Friday. There were times I had three speedwork days in a row. The 2017 plan had two speedwork days a week, but no 3/1 runs and one of them, at times, were HM pace runs.
Distance Differences
Expectedly, the advanced plan has more distance to it. Part of this comes with going from a 5 day/week plan to a 6 day/week, part of it comes from the additional speedwork, and part comes from having some runs based on time instead of distance. The charts below show the distances – both goal and actual. While the 2018 plan is consistently higher, it has a 5k race week in week 3, which reduces the distance, and week #9 (a 15k race week) pulls back more in the 2018 plan. Otherwise 2018 is more distance. The total distance of the plans was 354 miles in 2017, and 393 miles in 2018, so almost a 40 mile difference over the 12 week plan.
Hill Repeats
Early in the advanced plan, there are some days of hill repeats instead of speed intervals. I honestly think those hill repeats made for a very good Hudepohl 14k this year, where I ran all miles under 8:00 per mile for the entire race.
This was my downtown Cincinnati hill for hill repeats 
This was my Clermont County hill for hill repeats. 
This was one in Clermont County I did once. It was HARSH.
This Year
The first improvement about this year is that I will likely not be suffering from a back strain (I’m typing this on Thursday, and the likelihood of straining my back is there, but minimal).
The plan I tend to go into long races is hydration around every 2 miles, and energy gel 15 minutes before and every 45 minutes throughout (it’s the same plan on the back of a Gu). Gatorade has a little less of the essential nutrients than Gu…
| Gu | Gatorade | |
|---|---|---|
| Cal | 100 | 80 |
| Carbs | 22g | 20g |
| Na | 60mg | 90mg |
| K | 40mg | 35mg |
I’ve been training with both Gatorade Endurance Gels and Gatorade Endurance, and I’m obviously going to stick with that. The plan’s going to stay with a gel at -15 and +45. If I haven’t hit 10 miles by +90 I’ll take another there, but I’ll likely be in mile 11 or 12 by 90 minutes in. My first half split in the Flying Pig Marathon was 1:49, and I had half a marathon to go in hot conditions (I was being conservative).
Weather might be somewhat of a factor this year, but it’s not heat. Florence, KY tends to trend higher than downtown, but the low is forecast to be in the mid-20s.
The keys to the race are:
- Maintain effort on the major uphills
- There are ‘memorable’ hills in miles 2, 8, 9, 11, and 12. That’s not to say the rest of the race is flat – it’s not at all – but crushing the hills without burning out is one way to net the best time
- Keep warm before the start
- Even if it’s in the mid-30s at the start, that’s cold to be in. Shame I don’t have an assistant, so I might be doing warm-up drills in the starting grid
- Be ready for a long lonely race
- Unfortunately, crowd support at this race has been limited in the past, and mid-20s temps are not conducive to crowds. I might wear my AfterShokz for this one.
- BONUS FOURTH KEY: Smile for the camera
- Last year, the pictures were free 🙂
