Pumped Up Kicks

If you’re one of those people who thinks that I don’t post enough to be getting free stuff to review then you might want to go ahead and skip this post.

You see, the kind people at Saucony decided that I’m exactly the kind of person that should be testing and writing about their new Saucony 8mm drop shoes. I was as surprised as you are, probably more so because the last time they sent me shoes I went out of my way to call them ugly (the shoes not the people at Saucony).

When I took my new Saucony Guide 5s out of the box it was love at first sight. Unlike the last pair of Saucony shoes these are not uglier than a batman villain nor do they look like part of Boy Wonder’s costume. How running shoes look is important to me because I’m a very superficial person. I can afford to be superficial about my shoes because I’ve run in so many different types and brands of shoes and have almost never had any problems (*cough*Mizuno sucks!*cough*).

However, since I know that some of you like to pretend that you don’t judge a book by its cover let me tell you about Saucony’s new line of 8mm drop shoes. The line includes the Guide 5, the Triumph 9 and the Hurricane 14, together they form the Justice League; fighting crime wherever it exists. These shoes all have an 8mm heel-to-toe drop as opposed to the more typical 12mm. Basic math eludes me, but my assistant tells me that’s a difference of 4mm or, to put it in perspective, the size of my tiny, banker heart. According to Saucony this difference “puts the runner in a more balanced, comfortable and powerful position without reducing cushioning or stability. Also, runners can more easily adjust their stride to a midfoot strike, aligning the lower body to absorb impact.”

I’ve never been a fan of messing with your stride and foot strike unless you’re seeing frequent overuse injuries, but if you are going to start adjusting your foot strike it’s best to make small, incremental changes. These shoes would be a good starting point for someone who was looking to gradually change their foot strike or make the switch to barefoot running.

The shoes are really comfortable to run in and to sit around and watch football in – they’re a double threat! They’re lighter than my other shoes at 10.2 oz (yes I weighed them). They don’t feel like they’re altering my stride as radically as the Saucony Hattoris did and they’ve made me roughly 25% faster! (Blatant lie!)

Many thanks to Saucony for the free shoes. Your move, Pearl Izumi.

For more on the geometry of these new Saucony shoes check out this video on YouTube.

Heart Not Included

A while back I was offered a free heart rate monitor by Caitlin who works for Adidas in the hopes that I would review the product here at Half-Fast. In the interest of full disclosure I should mention that Caitlin also sent me a free iPod Touch and washes my car every other weekend. (Only one of those is true.)

The Adidas miCoach Connect heart rate monitor syncs with the miCoach app which is available for your iPhone, iPod Touch, Android device and even your antiquated Blackberry. Setup is quick and easy and there’s even a 12 minute assessment workout that you go through so that the miCoach can figure out your various heart rate zones and paces. That’s how it works in theory, but when I was done with my assessment it told me that it could not figure out my paces because they all looked like the same slow pace. I tried the assessment again making sure to start out nice and slow and it worked better the second time. Who’d have thought that I don’t put much distinction between a level 5 effort and a level 10 effort? Those are both out of 100, right?

Here’s some pros and cons:

Pros

• The App is free and so is the miCoach account that you create when you sign up.
• Workouts are automatically uploaded to you online account when you finish.
• I can analyze the crap out of my runs even more now.
• Easy to use.
• It provides a real time review of my effort level.
• It tells me when I can slow down.

Cons

• It sometimes tells me to speed up, this does not elicit a positive reaction.
• You have to wear that thing around your chest, though it does allow me to predictably say “I’ve got something I’ve got to get off my chest,” every time I get home. Yes, every time. My wife can vouch for that.

That’s about it. It really is one of my favorite running apps, even when I don’t use the heart rate monitor.

These shoes don’t need no alibi!

Somehow someone at Saucony thought it would be a good idea to send me a pair of their Saucony Hattori shoes to review. I guess they thought this would be a good marketing opportunity. They must have missed the fact that I post about as frequently as a bear poops during hibernation and the fact that most of my posts are riddled with sarcasm and scat humor, or maybe they’re just into that kind of thing. Since I’m not one to turn down a free pair of shoes, I agreed.

I missed the part of the e-mail where they told me that these were minimalist shoes and also the part where they told me that the shoes were hideous. I used to have a pair of water shoes that I wore to the beach when I was a kid that looked just like these and every time I see pictures of myself wearing them I cringe. As you can see from the picture the shoes don’t have laces they use Velcro to attach themselves to your feet. That would be really cool if I needed to get them on quickly for an emergency, like if my boat was sinking over a rocky seabed but even then I’d probably still look around to see if I could borrow a pair of my wife’s shoes first. (Full disclosure: I do not own a boat.)

I’m probably not a great test subject for these kind of shoes because I really like my running shoes to correct my over-pronation. I like the motion control, the stability and the heel cushioning that my current shoes provide and I like to feel the reverberations crash up my leg as my heel strikes the pavement first. It just feels right. I guess I’m not much of a minimalist. In fact I’d go so far as to say that I’m a maximalist; it’s the American way! I want a bigger house, a faster car, more money and bigger shoes that do more for me. More is always better! (Notable exceptions: bikinis and cavities.)

Nevertheless, I wanted to give Saucony a fair shake and try the shoes because despite the tone of this post I really do like Saucony. Naturally, before running in minimalist shoes for the first time I wanted to take some precautions so I made sure to go run when I thought the fewest amount of people would be around to see me in these disastrously ugly shoes. I also took my dog with me so that anyone that did see me would look at the cute dog and not notice my ugly, ugly shoes. Initially I felt like I was coming down hard on my heel but that went away after only a quarter mile. I went 4 miles and felt fairly confident that I hadn’t changed my stride too drastically but for the next couple of days my calves were screaming so I had obviously been compensating.

While I’m not a fan of the shoes or of minimalist running in general I am a fan of strengthening my calves so I’ll probably continue to take short sporadic runs in the Saucony Hattori shoes, but mostly after dark when no one’s around to see me.

If you’re looking for a good review of these shoes by someone who is actually a minimalist you should check out http://minimalistrunningshoes.org/saucony-hattori-shoe-review.

Product Review: Belkin Sports Armband for iPhone

I know what you’re thinking: “How does a guy who is only averaging six posts a month keep getting free stuff to review?” It’s quite simple really. I may not write a lot but I write good. It’s about quality over quantity. No? Not buying it? Yeah, me either but I really don’t have any other explanation as to why I continue to get free stuff. You don’t question the gravy train, you just keep riding it until you’re plump with so many free products and shoes and assorted schwag that you begin to sweat them from your very pores.

A number of weeks ago I was contacted by a wonderful individual named Natalie who was offering to send me the Belkin DualFit Sports Armband (for iPhone). I could immediately tell from the e-mail that Natalie was a wonderful person when she said that she wanted to give me a product to review. That’s pretty much all it takes for me to think that you’re a wonderful person, which explains why I think so little of so many of you dear readers. Anyway, Natalie sent me the Armband and I tested it out.

Here are my findings:
It works! It holds my iPhone securely on my arm, but not so securely as to be uncomfortable. The plastic screen allows me to use my iPhone without taking the phone out of the Armband, this is important for those times I want to skip a song in my playlist or catch up on some e-mail correspondence during my runs. It even has a hole in the bottom of the armband so that I can charge or sync the phone without taking it out of the armband. I have no idea why I’d want to do that, but it’s good to know that I can. The only downside to the Belkin DualFit Sports Armband that I could find was that it was such a tight fit that I had to take my iPhone out of its protective case to put it in the armband. What if I drop it in between the case and the armband? I would be doomed! Other than that though, the armband was great and I suppose it has to be a tight fit so that the iPhone doesn’t slip out easily while you’re running. In conclusion, (cheesy endorsement coming...) I suggest that you all head on over to MobileFun for all of your iPhone accessories and for whatever else they sell there, I’m sure it’s all good.

Be sure to click on the links in this post so that wonderful Natalie thinks that giving me a free Belkin Armband was worth it, because if she doesn’t then I won’t keep getting free stuff to review and then how will I make you all jealous of me if I don’t have free stuff to review? Answer: With my dashing good looks and devilish charm, that’s how... but I’d still like the free stuff to go along with it.

Back to FIRST

As I prepare for the Bolder Boulder 10k on Memorial Day I am finally getting back on an official training plan. I’m going to be using the FIRST plan and will be doing some of the P90X workouts on my cross training days. You may remember that I had been doing P90X as part of my off season regimen. Or maybe you don’t remember since I notice that none of you have even bothered to ask how it went. Maybe that’s because you can tell how ripped I am just by reading the words that I type onto this blog, you can tell how quick and strong my fingers were when they typed these sentences and realized that obviously P90X had worked and obviously there was no need to ask how it was going because I’m so obviously ripped. Obviously. Or maybe it doesn’t seem like it’s been 90 days yet, but that’s only because the post where I originally mentioned P90X is still on the front page of this blog. Go ahead and look, I’ll wait while you scroll all the way down to the bottom of the page (no, I won’t actually wait, that would be silly not to mention a logistical nightmare). Or maybe you haven’t asked because you just don’t care about me like I care about you - by the way I care about you based on your worth to me, which Google AdSense tells me is roughly $0.06 per page view, which is why I haven’t asked YOU how YOUR training has been going.

Regardless of the fact that you haven’t asked I’m going to give you my thoughts on P90X (although you kind of tacitly asked by coming here unsolicited). P90X is a tough and challenging workout and you definitely see results with this program, but I prefer to focus on the negatives (it’s what makes me who I am) so here are some of the problems with the P90X program:

I am a free man.
It doesn’t make you do the workouts. I still have to choose to work out, which is kind of a problem for me because it turns out that I’m not very good at choosing to spend an hour sweating to a home workout DVD. What I really need is for someone to take me captive and actually force me to work out on a daily basis.

I figured out what the 90 means.
I started out doing pretty well. You may remember that I had intended to mix running in with the P90X workouts and initially I was successful with this. If you don’t remember that then you can scroll all the way back down and read the post again while I pretend that I’m waiting for you. So I was adding two runs a week to the six P90X workouts which was a shock to the system for someone who was used to running three or four times a week and doing little else. Eight workouts a week means no rest days even if you subscribe to Paul McCartney math. Anyway, there was no way I was going to survive eight workouts a week for 90 days. 90 days? This program is three full months? What kind of sick masochist came up with this?

I outsmart P90X.
I pretty quickly figured out which workouts were considered ‘strength training’ and which ones were ‘cardio.’ (Note to anyone considering the P90X program: the CardioX DVD is cardio.) This created a situation where I was able to rationalize (because I’m so smart) which workouts could be replaced by running which also happens to be a form of cardio. Pretty soon I had the P90X schedule down to three or four workouts a week because I was also running, only I wasn’t running. You see, I kind of stopped running on account of all the time I was putting in on the six P90X workouts, but I had (cleverly) pared down the P90X schedule to make room for the running which then turned out to be superfluous. I don’t expect you all to understand this because it takes a special kind of circular logic that only I possess, but just trust me when I tell you that it’s brilliant, bordering on genius.

I disagree with the nutrition plan.
A nutrition plan? Are you kidding me? I have to be careful about what I eat too? I thought that this workout was X-treme? If it’s so extreme why do I have to watch what I eat? Why can’t someone come up with a workout so extreme that I don’t have to watch what I eat? If the fire is hot enough anything will burn, even Big Macs.*

For the most part I liked the P90X program, which is why I’m incorporating some of the workouts into my training. Time (i.e. race results) will tell whether it has helped me or not. For a better review of P90X you can visit The Great Fitness Experiment because Charlotte is not smart enough to realize that you don’t have to do all of the workouts every week and so she did them all and in a completely unrelated turn of fortune managed to achieve better results than I did. Plus Charlotte always manages to get fantastic images for her posts and her P90X review is no different, I don’t want to ruin it for you but it does feature MacGyver.

*Quote stolen from that one famous book about a runner.

Ask and Ye Shall Receive

Well, maybe ye shan’t but that’s because ye have such little faith (and such small readerships). I however, asked for some YakTrax a few months ago in this post and now I have a pair. Technically I don’t think I asked for a pair of YakTrax in that post, as much as I cursed YakTrax for not sending me a free pair but what’s important is that someone at YakTrax read that post and sent me a free pair! You may catch more flies with honey but you get more free swag with vinegar, and really, who wants to catch flies?

I actually received the YakTrax a month ago but we haven’t had enough snow for me to try them out. You East Coasters are so lucky! I was getting pretty sick of all the sunshine and 60 - 70 degree temperatures so this past weekend I went in search of some snow and I found some up at Grand Lake, CO (elev. 8,500 feet). I pulled on my free Pearl Izumi shoes and my free YakTrax and headed out for my run on a frigid 50 degree morning. The skies were clear, the air was fresh and my feet had more traction than a congressional bill laced with a congressional pay raise.

I was pretty cautious at first, not wanting to put too much confidence in my new YakTrax and end up on my delicate tushie. However after a half mile I had completely forgotten that I was running on snow and ice. I raced up hills on my toes and I barreled down them at full speed without even the slightest hint of slippage. Usually when I run on snow and ice I have to run with a shorter, more careful stride, but that’s simply not the case when you’re wearing a free pair of YakTrax. (I obviously don’t know how it is when you wear a pair of YakTrax that you’ve paid money for but I assume it would be similar.) People out walking their dogs gazed on in wonder at the sure-footed runner with the magnificent stride, I was a thing of beauty.

I didn’t ever notice the snow building up on the YakTrax, which I had suspected might be a problem so they must have used some NASA space technology to prevent that from happening. I had also thought that I might be able to feel the coils beneath my feet when I ran, but that was not an issue either. All in all I am very impressed with the stability provided by the YakTrax. Really the only downside is that I can no longer use “it was pretty slippery out there” as an excuse for a slow run, I guess I’m going to have to stick with the old “it was at an elevation of 8,500 feet” and the trusty “I didn’t really fuel properly” and then there’s always the reliable “it was too windy” that I can fall back on. One thing I don’t need someone to give me for free is excuses, I’ve got plenty of those to go around.

Tech4o Running Watch

What’s the first thing that comes to mind when someone says running watch? For me, I always think “if your watch is running you’d better go catch it,” but that’s just because I’m a comedic genius with a hilarious internal monologue. I’m going to go out on a limb and say that some of you duller folks think of the Garmin Forerunner series when you think of a running watch. Congratulations, your assimilation into the Garmin way of life is now complete, you’ve been brainwashed.

Back in October I had mentioned that I would be reviewing the Tech4o Men’s Accelerator Trail Runner watch and I’m finally getting around to posting my findings. The watch is basically a pedometer and like all pedometers it needs to know the length of your stride to be as accurate as possible. It took a couple of easy laps at the track to determine my length (stride length that is, minds out of the gutter) and I calibrated the watch. The first test was to run a few more easy laps and check the distance; it was pretty exact, reading 0.248 miles after one lap. The next test would be to run some intervals at a faster pace, and unfortunately the watch was not as accurate at the faster pace. Perhaps I’m too fast for my own good. It gave me a single lap reading of 0.20 miles at the faster pace, a miscalculation of almost 20%.

I ran home from the track at an easy pace, and once again the watch easily fell within the 95% accuracy rate that Tech4o claims on their website. Predictably, the watch is very accurate when running at the pace at which you calibrate it, but woefully inaccurate at a faster pace due to the likely change in your stride length. Here’s a few more pros and cons:

Pros
- Size matters (a great deal according to my junk mail folder) and this watch is nice and compact.
- It can be used as your everyday watch.
- There are several advantages in it being a pedometer and not a GPS system:

• It doesn’t take 5 minutes to start up and find a signal.
• It doesn’t ever lose a signal and can thus be used near tall buildings, under trees or even indoors.
• It even works on the treadmill. (Not sure why you’d need to use it on a treadmill, but there you go.)

- It doesn’t need to be charged after each use, although presumable the battery will die at some point and I’ll have to replace it.

Cons
- Not as accurate as a Garmin.
- Doesn’t track nearly as many stats as a Garmin and doesn’t upload to your computer. This will be a major disappointment for those of you who like to geek out over your splits and elevations and heart rate etc.
- It’s not useful at all if you plan to be running at varying paces.
- It doesn’t display pace, instead it displays your speed in mph so some math is required to convert that to a miles/minute pace (or you could just look up a conversion chart online). However, the speed is listed to 2 decimal places (i.e. 6.24mph) so it can still be an accurate indicator of pace.

Conclusion
While I won’t be doing a whole lot of training runs with this watch I will probably use it when I travel so that I don’t have to worry about bringing the charging dock for my Garmin or worse yet, losing my Garmin. If you’re just looking for a simple watch to give you distance and speed (assuming you’re running at a fairly consistent pace) then the Tech4o line of watches might be right for you. At a list price of $69.99 it’s certainly cheaper than a Garmin.

A New Toy

If you take the time to read the ramblings that I post with my personal running log, then you’ll remember that I recently said I wasn’t interested in receiving cheap products to review on my blog, and encouraged marketers to send me high dollar items. Finally, someone paid attention and sent me a new toy. Many thanks to Greg, who is working with Tech4o (visit them at www.tech4o.com), for sending me the Accelerator Trail Runner watch to review (pictured right).

My understanding is that this watch is a pedometer, using an accelerometer to count your footsteps. I’m reserving judgment on it right now because I want to properly calibrate it and test it before I jump to any conclusions. However, I will say that it is a nice looking watch, by which I mean it is immeasurably smaller and lighter than my Garmin and can be used as an everyday watch. As you are probably well aware by now, I’m all about looking good when I run and while I enjoy the data that my Garmin 205 provides it is a bit of an eyesore. I think it was Kristina who compared it to a circa 1980 Casio calculator watch, a comparison that countless others have probably also made and one that I now think of every time I wear the Garmin. Thanks a lot Kristina!

I’m looking forward to testing the Tech4o watch and will update you all with my findings in the near future. In the meantime please enjoy the following video of my son emulating me dancing to Vanilla Ice while wearing a gorilla suit, or at least while wearing the gorilla head. Young kids are so impressionable when it comes to stuff like this, which is just one of the reasons why I really shouldn’t have been allowed to have kids.

Me and My Izumis do the Illest Things

You may remember (because you’re totally jealous) that I received a free pair of Pearl Izumi SyncroInfinity running shoes a little over a month ago. At the time I posted about how much I liked the look of the shoes and said that I’d save the performance review for a later date. Today is that later date.

So as to not appear like a complete sell-out I’m going to start with the cons:

• The laces are a little shorter than I’d like, but they do have the Pearl Izumi logo on the fluglebinder (+6 word score, -15 cool points) which I always think looks awesome.
• The Pearl Izumi logo on the inside of the shoe has rubbed off on some of my running socks meaning I have to wash them after every run instead of after every 3 or 4.
• The tread on the bottom of the shoe appears to be wearing out a little quicker than I think it should.

All of those are pretty minor details, especially when you take into account the pros:

• They might be the most comfortable shoes that I’ve ever run in. Seriously. You’re probably taking this with a grain of salt since you know that I was given the shoes free, but you shouldn’t. I hope that you all know me well enough to know that I would have loved to write a scathing, sarcasm-riddled rant against Pearl Izumi about how crappy their shoes are, but that’s simply not the case.
• They still look awesome. Did I mention how much I like the way these shoes look?
• Two words: Seamless Upper. I read somewhere that Pearl Izumi’s “seamless upper delivers a superb, friction-free fit,” and it seamed (get it) like something I should mention. Now I’ve never noticed any friction from seams on other shoes, but there definitely isn’t any with the SyncroInfinity.
• SKYDEX® Heel Crash Pad and High Rebound SKYDEX® forefoot propulsion pad. Absolutely NO IDEA what those are but don’t they sound comfortable? They are. Plus anything that gives any kind of “propulsion” has to be a good thing, right?
• No need for iPod. When you lace up a pair of Pearl Izumi SyncroInfinity running shoes the Rocky soundtrack starts playing as if by magic. (OK now I’m totally selling out, and lying too.)

Bonus points awarded in the comments (and street cred revoked) for anyone who can tell me where “fluglebinder” is from. Bonus points forfeited for telling me that it’s actually called an aglet. Just shut up, OK.

A "Serious" Review of the Garmin Forerunner

Among the comments from yesterday’s post were several that I am resisting the urge to focus on. However there was one comment that caught my attention. Amanda, who eats hills for breakfast, asked “but seriously I want to know what you think of [the Garmin]?” Amanda, I am offended by your use of the word seriously. We do not do ANYTHING seriously here at Half-Fast, you should know better. What I can offer you are my real opinions of the Garmin couched in juvenile humor and sarcasm. It’s what I do best.

Last night I strapped on my Garmin Forerunner 205 and headed out for a 5 mile run. What I liked the most about the Garmin is that it let’s other runners know that I’m a serious runner. When I passed people on the trail our eyes would lock for a fleeting second and I could tell that they were thinking “not only is that the prettiest man I’ve ever seen, but he is also clearly a serious runner.” I like the Garmin because it is a status symbol, just like the Starbucks coffee that I take into the office everyday. My Starbucks let’s everyone know that I’m too good for the break room coffee and I’m wealthy enough to do something about it, i.e. pay $5.48 for a grande, non-fat, no-whip, half-caf, extra hot, vanilla latte.

Some of the other features that I liked:

• Auto Pause. Whenever I stopped at a crosswalk the Garmin automatically stopped the timer. It took about 3 - 4 seconds to pause and only 1 - 2 seconds to restart so technically it was stealing a few seconds from me at every stop, but it’s a cool feature nonetheless.
• Auto Lap. I set the Garmin to begin a new lap every mile allowing me to analyze my mile splits at the end of the workout.
• Distance Alerts. It can be set to beep at you every mile (or whatever distance you select).
• Digital Training Partner. I didn’t use this feature but I will, and I’m pretty sure I’ll love it, unless my digital training partner keeps beating me.
• Accuracy. I ran a route that I’ve mapped out many times on various pedometers as well as on Gmaps Pedometer and the Garmin appears to be very accurate.
• Pace. I’ve read complaints elsewhere about the pace being erratic, but it seemed to be pretty much dead on right from the start. Of course I’m in Colorado so I’m a mile closer to the satellites than all of you flatlanders.

Some of the things I disliked:

• I disliked that it made me do stupid things, like running with my wrist near the ground and then leaping into the air and throwing my hand up high just to see if I could get it to register a 9 foot spike in elevation. (Didn’t work by the way.)
• I disliked that it does not have a backlight to illuminate the display which led to me only looking at the Garmin when I ran under a street light. Of course when I got home I discovered that the Garmin DOES have a backlight which is very easy to use, I’m an idiot.
  All in all, there was nothing that I disliked.

I love my new Garmin and I’ve only run with it once. Maybe I’ll post a more complete review after I get more familiar with it, but until then I need everyone’s help with something. My digital training partner needs a name. He needs an identity so that I can motivate myself to beat him and talk trash to him as I run. My wife suggested I call him Chocolate, since I’m Vanilla and that would be opposite. You can’t see it but I’m rolling my eyes and groaning as I type this. My idea (Chump) wasn’t any better. Please tell me that you are all more creative than we are. Your suggestions in the comments.

My New Garmin Forerunner

I’ve never been so excited to try out a new toy in my entire life. I took my Garmin Forerunner 205 out of the box and read the entire manual on Tuesday night and on Wednesday night I was ready to go put it to the test.

The first thing I noticed was how freakin’ huge it was. Look how big it is on my manly wrist? (picture right) I would put it around my ankle but then I’d just look like someone under house arrest or Lindsay Lohan when she had that ankle monitor, and if I looked like Lohan I’d have to spend even more time in front of the mirror, naked.

So I strapped it on and started my run. I decided beforehand that I wasn’t going to keep looking at because a) that’s how faceplants are born and b) I didn’t want to be distracted from my run. After a few minutes though, my curiosity got the best of me and I looked at it to see how it was doing. Nothing. I was disappointed to find it staring blankly back at me. The timer was running but there was no distance displayed, no pace, nothing. I kept running until I had gone a mile, hoping that it would start to pick something up. No luck. It was not registering that I had gone any distance at all.

At that point I was so disappointed and mad that I just got off the treadmill and put it back in the box!

I’ll give it one more chance tomorrow when I run outside and if it still doesn’t work I’ll be shipping it back with a strongly worded letter!

A Review of the FIRST Half Marathon Training Plan

Before I review the FIRST plan let me briefly explain what it is. The focus of the FIRST plan is quality not quantity which loosely translates to more intense runs but less of them, this is also supposed to decrease your risk of injury. Under the FIRST plan you run only 3 times a week - when I heard this I was all over this plan like hair on soap. There are no easy runs, you run one speedwork session, one tempo run and one long run. Where are the easy runs? They’re relaxing on the beach somewhere with a Corona, changing their latitude.

The schedule calls for Tuesday and Wednesday to be your speedwork and tempo runs consecutively... on back-to-back days, and then your long run is either Sat or Sun. I should note that after being too physically exhausted to complete my tempo run the day after my speedwork, I amended my schedule to be Monday, Wednesday, Saturday, instead of Tuesday, Wednesday, Saturday. On the 4 other days of the week the plan calls for 2 to 3 cross training days to maintain fitness.

Results/Review: You've probably all read my Denver Half Marathon race report, so you already know that I achieved my goal using the FIRST plan. I am faster now than I was before I began training and I have run longer than ever before. I also did not get injured during this time, but who can say whether or not that is attributable to the FIRST plan or whether that was just dumb luck. Knowing me, the latter sounds more likely.

Given these results you would think that I would be willing to endorse the program and sing its praises, and you’d be correct. However, I will add that you'd better be mentally tough if you plan on doing the FIRST training. There is some real speed involved in the workouts and I consistently failed to complete all the miles in a workout at the required pace, often having to slow down towards the end. During a couple of the runs I even outright quit and walked home. Hey, I’m not proud of it, but it happened. This frequently created nagging feelings of failure and doubt which are even evident in my goal setting post when I predicted a time of 2:06 for myself.

Prior to running the Denver Half Marathon I was actually prepared to write a bad review of the FIRST plan due to the fact that I felt the runs were too demanding and too unrealistic. However having had some time to reflect on my half marathon and comparing my running in June with my running today, it is painfully obvious that I am faster now than I was then. I am a better runner today, and you simply can’t argue with a plan that helps you accomplish that.

For more, see the FIRST Half Marathon Training Plan at Runner’s World.