The Middle Ground

1102410251027102910301077

Comments

  • An all around prepared sprinter is a very much prepared sprinter - so partially the volume doesn't change with accentuation - as you're truly focusing on a degree of weariness with the session.
  • Andrew_DAndrew_D ✭✭✭
    Hi DT, JGav, Alehouse and others,

    I can see that this thread has now gone into mothballs, but I thought I'd pop by to say hello and see how you're all doing?

    As you know, I had injury issues all of last summer and a newborn arrive at the end of the summer, so running really took a back seat for many months.

    I've only really got back into it over the past couple of months, working my way back to a reasonable level of base fitness, but still well off proper running fitness.

    With no races possible for at least another few months, and cricket also indefinitely postponed, I can use the rest of the summer to lay down some better base fitness and then start to bring some sessions back in after a few more weeks.

    Hope you're all fit and healthy, and continuing to enjoy running as a way to avoid the crazy situation we all find ourselves in!
  • Andrew_DAndrew_D ✭✭✭
    PS - it had been so long since I last logged in the RW seemed to cancel my account, so I had to re register with a slightly different username.
  • alehousealehouse ✭✭✭
    Morning AD! Good to see you! Was going to ask DT the other day if we should resurrect this thread! In fact that brought me to think if you were running at all, particularly given the lack of cricket. And trust the little ones are ok. Stick around!

    Am on about day 233 of the current streak having built up from around a km a day in October following fracturing my sacrum in July. Have managed 50k each of the last to weeks and I, like yourself, am trying to build a decent base in the absence of any races or parkruns. Everything is very slow, although not as slow as it was 7 or 8 weeks ago. Plan to do nothing fast apart from the odd fartlek: too much injury risk when it is unnecessary given the no race situation. 

    Wonder how JGav is, and others. No doubt DT will pop in to discuss sacrum injuries!
    Progress is rarely a straight line. There are always bumps in the road, but you can make the choice to keep looking ahead.
  • Andrew_DAndrew_D ✭✭✭
    Yes, I remember your injury - it was probably just before I had a lay off from posting on here. Glad to hear that you've been able to make progress back to running - it sounds like a particularly painful one. Very sensible to avoid faster sessions for the moment.

    What do those in the know think is a likely timeframe for a return to allowing parkruns or races to return? I suppose the problem is that you could stagger the start to avoid a big scrum building up, but inevitably people will spend large parts of the race within 2 metres of competitors and that can't be avoided without making a farce of the race. Will be interesting to see.

    I'm only up to 15 miles a week so far, but hoping to get to 20 by the end of June. Slow and steady increases in weekly mileage so far.
  • alehousealehouse ✭✭✭
    edited June 2020
    Slow and steady is the way to go in terms of increasing mile, AD. No rush, particularly at present. 
    Chris Jones, CEO of England Athletics, was saying that there is a possibility of some competition "by the back end of September". Personally I think it may well be longer. parkruns are a particularly difficult one as you could easily get a thousand people turn up out of the blue...or just a handful!
    Progress is rarely a straight line. There are always bumps in the road, but you can make the choice to keep looking ahead.
  • DT19DT19 ✭✭✭

    Hi Andrew, good to hear from you. Yes, there certainly isn't a rush to anything right now.

    I think parkrun will be the hardest thing to manage a return of as you can't ultimately stop people turning up and there will be a huge pent up demand. Smaller limited field races, where it can be controlled are more likely first of all.

    As for me, after a summer of holidays and over indulgence I got into a big few months of training starting with a 10m pb in November. Then things properly kicked off in January taking 44s off my 10k pb, the February, on a very windy day taking 1.24 off my half pb, followed in march with a pretty tough 20m race at sub mp taking nearly 2mins off my 20m pb. Then days later I succumbed to an injury.


    Could barely walk for 2 weeks and just slowly returning to some running now. Had an mri scan last week I have too have a stress fracture in my sacrum.

    I should be at the outer end of it now though as it's been a good 12 weeks, though it still is sore to hop on my left leg. In a sense this whole lockdown thing has been a blessing as it has stopped me watching race after race and missing out and trying to rush my return.

    The risk of pushing harder and harder is that something will give in the end.

  • Andrew_DAndrew_D ✭✭✭
    Hi DT - sounds like you had a really good run of it (pardon the pun) over the winter! You must have been eyeing a good pb at London (if you were doing it? I can't remember), so in a strange way the race being postponed must have definitely made you feel less down about the injury, as you've alluded to above.

    Do you think in the long term that having a few weeks of enforced rest and slowly building up again might do you a favour, rather than if you'd have ploughed on with a heavy training load?

    Has it been easy for you to work from home during lockdown? Luckily my firm provided us all with new laptops and had a new IT system installed in September, so actually working from home has been fine. Hate to think how difficult it would have been in the past! Its also made me think seriously about working from home a few days a week even once we're all back into the office.

    4 miles planned for later today. I'm now managing similar easy paces to last year (pre injuries etc) but haven't even thought about pushing any faster paces yet. These would be well down on what they were this time last year!
  • DT19DT19 ✭✭✭
    edited June 2020

    Yes, i'd have been in the mix for sub 2.55, however as it happened, the weather on the day in question may have scuppered all that anyway as it was a warm day.

    The hardest part re working from home has been having to school the kids as well.

    Most of our fee earners already had laptops and those that didn't are likely to be in the pack of people furloughed. I think my place will now see that wfh can actually work and will be more open to the idea going forwards. It's nice not having to be up and out early doors.

    As for whether the down time will do me good, I suspect we ned to look at that question in 6 months. The risk for me now is that the journey to full fitness may lead to other injuries. It is never usually a straight path back to where you came from sadly.

    The one plus from the injury diagnosis is that when someone (usually my wife) asks me to do something I don't really fancy I can now play the broken back card, and it isn't merely a metaphorical broken back, but literally a broken back.

  • alehousealehouse ✭✭✭
    edited June 2020
    Progress is rarely a straight line. There are always bumps in the road, but you can make the choice to keep looking ahead.

    AD: progressive consistent consistency remains the key! I hope! Since  mid March, and conveniently coinciding with the lockdown my weeks have gone (in kilometres) 27.8, 30, 31, 33, 34, 36, 39, 40, 43, 46, 50, 50 whilst the "long" runs over the last couple of months have gone 8.1, 8.3, 9.1, 10.5, 10.6, 11.2, 12.1, 13. Each week I have also done an "MLR" of 65-75% of the long run: no shorter and certainly no longer! Note that the weekly total doesn't usually increase by more than 10%.

    I have also being stretching most days based on gentle Pilates work (sent by my physio without prompting: suspect she has no-one to see so will be whilst she is normally snowed under!).  
    Progress is rarely a straight line. There are always bumps in the road, but you can make the choice to keep looking ahead.
  • Andrew_DAndrew_D ✭✭✭
    Just finished a nice 5 miles in the drizzle around the fields, to round off my best week’s mileage since ......... the first week of April 2019!
  • alehousealehouse ✭✭✭
    Well done AD! Now back it up with something similar next week!
    Progress is rarely a straight line. There are always bumps in the road, but you can make the choice to keep looking ahead.
  • Andrew_DAndrew_D ✭✭✭
    Thanks Alehouse - followed up with a good week this week too, with slightly more mileage (17 miles vs 16). Not ripping up trees, but slow and steady improvement.
  • alehousealehouse ✭✭✭
    Well done AD! Exactly what is needed! Same again!


    Progress is rarely a straight line. There are always bumps in the road, but you can make the choice to keep looking ahead.
  • DT19DT19 ✭✭✭
    My back seems to have improved significantly this week having pulled the running for last 2 weeks. I can now fully load the left leg with weight and hop and not feel a thing.

    Ive been hammering the turbo trainer since start of June getting some really high intensity stuff in. Another week of that and I'll start building running back up. Hopefully the bike fitness work will help me out. 
  • Andrew_DAndrew_D ✭✭✭
    That's promising news DT!

    Looking to increase weekly mileage again to 18 this week. Mid term, I want to get a few weeks consistently in at around 20mpw and then start building in some sessions. After a good few months where I really never felt like running, I am just enjoying having the running bug back, even if it may well be some time before I can contemplate getting back into pb shape.
  • Andrew_DAndrew_D ✭✭✭
    How’s the back now DT? Are you back running from this week?

    After a large Father’s Day meal this afternoon (takeaway from local pub) my long run today got pushed to this evening once the kids were in bed (easy to do at this time of year), very pleasant before the heatwave later this week. 18 miles for the week, so building up slowly still. 
  • DT19DT19 ✭✭✭
    I got out on the turbo at 9am before our fathers day, day out in the Cotswolds. 

    Been  getting some great training in on it so hopefully that'll help me recover my fitness. 

    I did the hop test tonight, 2 x 10 single hops. Much better than 3 weeks ago, no ache or pain which suggests I'm good. Will start running thursday i think as that gives me a clear 3 weeks of no running.

    15 weeks to London, 19 to New York. Plenty of time! 
  • alehousealehouse ✭✭✭
    Glad you are both progressing well! Just don't rush things!

    Was supposed to have been a big week last week and started off well with 15k on the Monday, which was the longest run for a long while; pushed a couple of km reps on Wednesday but unfortunately it all went wrong the next day when I took an almighty tumble. Managed to gash one knee and bruise both. Left ankle and hip weren't great either, so it has just been short easy (or not) running since then. Still feeling one knee in particular so today's long run has been binned. These things happen!
    Progress is rarely a straight line. There are always bumps in the road, but you can make the choice to keep looking ahead.
  • JGavJGav ✭✭✭
    alehouse said:

    Wonder how JGav is, and others. No doubt DT will pop in to discuss sacrum injuries!
    You called?

    I've mostly given up on this forum because of the neglect from the owners and incessant spam.

    I'm still going, though running is a bit up and down with a foot injury I started rehab for and then lockdown happened. Cycling on the other hand is a joy and I'm stronger now than I've ever been before!

    Good to hear you're all still knocking about, though I doubt I'll be back on to post here for another 6 months. Come and say hello on TriTalk.co.uk the original owner passed it on and it's had a new lease of life. At least one of the Tri pirates from here has moved over.
  • DT19DT19 ✭✭✭
    j gav, talk bike improvement to me? I've been doing a lot on turbo and getting in good bike shape. 

    im a v45 from January and looking at duathlon. My running would place me pretty high in v45 cat if i can get cycling up. Looking at the GB age group qualifiers. 
  • JGavJGav ✭✭✭
    DT19 said:
    j gav, talk bike improvement to me? I've been doing a lot on turbo and getting in good bike shape. 

    im a v45 from January and looking at duathlon. My running would place me pretty high in v45 cat if i can get cycling up. Looking at the GB age group qualifiers. 

    Bike training in many ways is simpler than running because there's much less chance of injury. Long bikes are much easier on your body than long runs, for olympic du then you don't even need to do more than 90 min rides really. Short, high intensity training is where it's at, your ability to raise your threshold and your ability to ride at or near threshold for longer. I've got most of my fitness from Zwift racing where I went from 220W threshold to closer to 290W. 20min races through to 1 hour where you blitz yourself, fall off the bike yet an hour later feel like you could go again.
  • DT19DT19 ✭✭✭

    jgav, yes it does seem more high end stuff is needed to get better on the bike, but is also much more possible.

    I don't have any posh facilities, just my old road bike connected to a very basic turbo. I have no power in my garage so am pretty limited.

    I've been doing some big sessions on my own and longer rides to 75 mins at present. I'll see how I settle back to running when I get going again soon. The danger is, from experience of seeing others at my sort of age get injured, is that they keep picking up other injuries coming back from a period out and can't get themselves back to where they were and just knock it on the head, hence why things drop off quite a bit as you move into the v45 and v50 cats.

  • JGavJGav ✭✭✭
    DT19 - that's why quite a few switch from pure running to duathlon or triathlon or just pure cycling. The running element is the bit which takes you out. 

    I'm living the life of luxury, I have a Wahoo Kickr and use Zwift a fair bit to race and train on. It helps because I can do a session without needing a babysitter if my wife is out working.
  • DT19DT19 ✭✭✭

    That sounds a pretty decent set up.

    My kids are old enough now that I can pop to the garage and do a session for an hour. Still to young for me to disappear any further afield just yet.

    My mate offered to lend me his wahoo kickr but obviously needs power and my garage is about 100m from my house and as there is a flat above it  we are not allowed a power source in it, which is a shame.

    Started back to running yesterday with  an easy 1m run to get going. 10 mins tomorrow. 

  • Andrew_DAndrew_D ✭✭✭
    Evening all - I’m enjoying the much cooler weather this weekend. Hope it’s the same all week!

    Had a mini cutback in total weekly mileage back to 16, but extended the long run today to 6 for the first time in a year probably.

    Looking to push to 19/20 this week.
  • alehousealehouse ✭✭✭
    All sounds good, AD! Consistent consistency. Good that you are gradually increasing the long run.

    Just below 50 k for the last two weeks, and 52.4 for the week finishing today: highest for a few years. All steady running and building a base. Feel that the pace is gradually increasing. Over the last three months my 20 minute runs turned into 30 and now 40 for a similar effort. Stick at it!
    Progress is rarely a straight line. There are always bumps in the road, but you can make the choice to keep looking ahead.
  • Andrew_DAndrew_D ✭✭✭
    My easy paces/effort levels feel much as they did a year or so ago, but I haven’t pushed anything faster yet so not sure how much I will have lost there (after basically a year of minimal running until April, I’m guessing a lot!).

    I think that after another couple of weeks base building, once I get to 20 miles per week, then I’ll probably do a 5k time trial to see where I’m at and then take my training paces from that accordingly (using Daniels, which serves me well previously).
  • DT19DT19 ✭✭✭
    edited June 2020
    Some decent building, Alehouse.

    Andrew, yes get the mileage to a point and do it for a few weeks then have a go.

    13 mins today, no issue, followed by 75 min on turbo with 4 x 10m at moderate tempo. Yesterday was a right vomit inducer hiit session on turbo. 

    I wont race until i can run a 10m tempo in 65 mins at mp training effort, unless...

    London mara is on.

    The rd relays happen late September and im needed to help complete a vets team. 

    I anticipate it'll take me from now until early August to be firing in a proper schedule and at least November until I'm at the desired point, which is where i was at point of injury. 
  • Andrew_DAndrew_D ✭✭✭
    Just completed 6 miles this evening, to bring me to 20 miles this week (plus the first game of cricket this season yesterday), so I’m having a rest day tomorrow.

    We also moved house just over a week ago, so I’ve been building a lot of flat packs in amongst wfh as well.

    Hope all is well with the rest of you?
Sign In or Register to comment.