Howdy, Stranger!
Categories
The Middle Ground
The materials in this website are in no way intended to replace the professional medical care, advice, diagnosis or treatment of a doctor, qualified personal trainer, therapist, dietitian or nutritionist Runners's World, Part of the Hearst UK well-being network © Copyright 2017
Comments
Some good racing over the weekend.
Solid 10k there Andrew and nice run faster than expected.
Certainly a fair bit to come off over the summer I'd imagine DT. Running on tired legs must be worth a minute possibly more?!
Good mileage WP. Will be looking to book some races once VLM is out of the way so the recommendations/thoughts are appreciated.
Good to see you on here iower...good work with the triathlon and wasn't the weather at the Cardiff half crazy! Good work with the club nights too...as for track work, appreciate it improves your speed but one thing I've learn't changing clubs when moving a few years ago after moving house is how much I don't enjoy or get any buzz from track training (I thought I'd enjoy it beforehand). I feel like the human equivalent to a hamster running around a wheel. Much rather run a session on grass or a roadside/path but appreciate I'm probably in the minority.
The fact I'm pretty slow with top end speed has nothing to do with that view either, honest!
Never mind with the long run Dr Dan...any guilt and fitting in it again will make amends and it's just the one week. Not so sure about Guiness though myself!
Close to 45 miles here last week so start of taper. Will reduce further this week....went out for a 15 miler with an old club/work colleague who has improved massively over the last year due to getting some consistent training in now that his kids are a bit older. We started the run at his new steady pace and I suffered over the last few 4 miles especially running into a strong headwind alongside Portsmouth Harbour. Good for mental strength I guess and the majority of my long runs are never too clever anyway. Also ran a Parkrun which was a disaster on Saturday having ran a tempo on my own recently almost a minute faster. Not too worried about it though as similar happened last year. Happy to have lost a fair bit of weight recently too (10 lbs or so since the end of February). Still unconvinced of sub 3:15 at London though....
WJH - re your tempo session being faster than Saturday's parkrun, it is strange how running can do this - obviously a lot depends on fitness and training but also very much can hinge on how you feel on the day (good example being me running a parkrun in 23.21 a couple of weeks ago and then going through 5k in a 10k race on Sunday in about a minute quicker than this). So I'm glad to hear that it isn't bothering you!
Well done on the weight-loss and on toughing the week out WJH ... the reason you need a taper it to let all that marathon training take effect, so not surprising if you're below par at this point.
Today I paid my penance for Sunday and did 15.1 miles in the pouring rain ... I knew doing it at MP was not realistic but I did manage 6 miles at MP (from 8-14; 7:44/m, 134 bpm average - 78% maxHR). Happy with that, although remembering a little Vaseline would have made the post run a bit more comfortable. I did Thursday's scheduled easy 6 miles yesterday and will to "today's" 10x400m on Thursday, which gets me back on track and should leave me enough time to recover for Sunday's 10 mile race.
Dan - nice catch up, I'd be hesitant to try and cram any missed sessions in but sounds like you're coping with it well enough. What pace are you doing your 400s at?
WJH - cheers, good to be back. Well done with the weight loss - I've shed about 6kg since the new year and my running feels so much better for it. Trust your taper now, I've fallen foul of it before in the run up to a big race. And yes, Cardiff 1/2 weather was ridiculous! Never ran in anything like it, might as well have taken a dip in the sea by the barrage!
Second week of my Tuesday sessions yesterday - hit the local footie pitch for some diagonals. (included a warm up, drills, main set and cool down/stretch). Poor turnout due to traffic but went well. Tried karaoke's (spelling?) on the poor sods in the warm up, most of them got it and no-one fell over which was a result!
Early morning squad swim today (my bed was especially hard to get out of this morning!) and out on the bike this evening. Hopefully the traffic has calmed down by then.
Well done on the 10ks Andrew and DT (imagine what you could do with a taper DT!) and on toughing out the Tri and ending up feeling good Iower!
Nothing to report here. A week's snowboarding over Easter followed by relative visiting meant running and diet went a little awry! Back on track with both now though, with 4x1mile (800m recovery) this morning averaging pretty much spot on my target pace.
iower ... luckily this week had a very rare "easy run" in the schedule, so I should be okay catching up. The 400s are planned at 1:28 with 400m recovery jogs.
chubby - well done on the mile session ... and surviving the snowboarding.
Bike commuting and 1 mile swim today for me.
4 X 1 mile
- good session CB!
Well caught up with the long run Dr Dan - hope the 400s session goes well.
Good weight loss there iower and decent session yesterday despite the turnout. Will you be running any future HRRL races?
Andrew - it is strange but perhaps not so when I didn't mention I crawled out of bed half hour previous and jogged the mile down there 10 minutes beforehand. I am not a morning runner at the best of times and 5k pace without fuelling either is going to lead to such a 'disaster'! I will look at targeting a Parkrun for a semi-respectable time at some point though.
Cheers all re: taper. Managed an interesting session last night - nothing too taxing but did 1 mile warm up / 1 mile MP / 1m tempo / 1m easy / 1 m tempo / 1 mile MP / 2 mile cool down. MP miles came out at 7:23 and 7:26 although felt very controlled with the tempo miles 6:32 and 6:33. Interesting that the mile tempo efforts were also just about the same speed as the half mile reps last week and the legs feel a little fresher following a rest on Monday too. I've finally decided to target sub 3:15 at London now and will aim to let the crowd pull me through if things do go wrong over the latter stages! Even if it does go pear shaped, I won't be too bothered as a qualifying time is out of reach anyway.
Good luck to all for London and tapering training is in the bag just stay fit and well
I have run 8,6,6 this week so far and race number arrived for a half on Sunday so going to use it as a long run £30 is a lot of money to lose and so near to me it will give me a chance to a see how the ITB/Knee/hip is.If all goes well that means training begins for my next half in June.
Miles makes smiles.
Progression
WJH - nice session and good luck with the 3:15 decision.
Best of luck with the half WP.
7.3 miles with 10 x 400m intervals (400m recoveries). Average was 90s per 400, a bit slower than last time I did 400s a month ago.
WJH nice miles there, do you have a watch with virtual pacer or similar? I attribute most (if not all) my pb's to this feature. It would be very useful during a marathon - stick 7:26 pace in the watch and it'll tell you how far ahead/behind you are in time and distance. I find it much easier to pace against than average pace.
Speedy reps still Dan
30 miles out on the TT bike yesterday, taking advantage of the weather. Planned 9.5 mile run this evening - out and back along one riverbank then join up with the club run along the other side, should be nice!
Well I was short-changed a bit, but still 9.2 miles at 7:50 average, first hilly 4 on my own at 7:35 felt fairly comfortable. Bodes well for the upcoming half ironman (target 8:00/mile)
Nice work iower ... we'll forgive you the dropped 0.3 mi.
Bike commute and 1600m front-crawl for me today. Rest tomorrow and then 10 mile race Sunday. Working away Mon & Tues, so not sure if I can get any training in but at least these last 2 weeks have been really solid.
Hi all,
CB - as noted above, 4x1mile sounds a tough session. What pace was that at?
WJH - good run, hope that taper is continuing to be kind
WP - sounds like you are getting there, any more runs this week? Good luck on Sunday.
Dan - 10x400 sounds like a tough session. Something I should try to work towards I suppose as I rarely do more than about 4 reps at that pace. Good cross-training too.
Iower - triathlon training sounds interesting - probably good to have the variety during the training, but must be tough to fit it all in?
As for me, the legs have taken a few days to recover from Sunday's race - tried some tempo on Wednesday night and only managed 1.5 miles at that pace before I had to downgrade the rest of the run to easy pace. Felt fresher on my run last night though, so hopefully the race will be out of the legs soon enough. Rest tonight and then some interval reps tomorrow.
Hi all.
Good run there iower - how naughty missing out on the last 0.3 miles though!
Sounds like it was a good workout for your forthcoming triathlon. As for the GPS settings, funny you mention that as my brother gave me one of his old Garmin's recently following the strap breaking on mine and average overall pace shows in my display. I never put it onto this setting before and agree it is very useful. I just hope it doesn't show an alarming drop in average pace in the latter stages on the 24th!
Good reps there Dr Dan. Perhaps they were slightly slower having caught up with things a bit after last Sunday? Still sharp though! Good luck with the 10 mile race this weekend.
Good luck as well on Sunday WP and fingers crossed those injuries and niggles are clearing up.
Sounds like you may still have had that race in your legs Andrew...sensible to back off when you did.
Last 'bigger' workout for me yesterday. I sometimes run hard a 5 mile on the treadmill at a gym near to my work. Having done this occasionally over the last year I was very pleased to record my best time over that period by quite a margin...that's pretty much it here now though with any efforts with just a couple of MP miles to tap into that pace and a few very steady runs next week. I am certainly enjoying the taper period although do now have a mild cold which hopefully won't get much worse.
DT - have you been keeping an eye on the weather forecast for a week Sunday? The charts keep showing a northerly airflow and potential for wintry/snow showers. I don't mind it being too cold but would rather any stiff breeze stays well away much like it will for those running the Brighton Marathon this Sunday! Then again, I'd take what's currently showing over 20+ degrees!
Dan - forgot about your race this weekend, good luck too!
Good luck on the weekend Dr Dan and Wp.
Good to hear from you, Cb.
Wjh, id forgotten to start weather forecast obsessing. It currently looks reasonable enough butni will give it little credibility until Tuesday.
I did my final longer session on Wednesday of 11 with 8 @ mp. It didn't go well with legs feeling powerless. I suspect like Andrew has reported, I was still recovering from Sundays race. Also id not had control of my dad as such due to work meetings so my nutrition wasn't great.
Sods law, for some time I've had parkrun pencilled in tomorrow. Imaging a rather pleasant spring morning. Current forecast for Brum is 2c and snow and sleet. I really don't feel I've had the rub of the green with race conditions this year with Cardiff half, my 5 miler and my other parkrun attempt all coming in crap conditions.
DT: But that means that race day for London all will go well better that the weather hampered you in training/races rather than the key race
Andrew: I have run all week 8,6,6,6,6,4 so 6 days on the bounce I just hope the 13.1 miles goes as well a little nervous about how the niggle on the ITB/hip/knee but will just go with the flow I am not racing and if I feel the knee will stop but hopefully this will give me confidence to proceed with training.
Dan: Good luck with your race
WJH:I like the different display screen and info on Garmin I am going to play with mine today.I like to know when the sunrises's and calorie burnt along with the usual time,distance,last lap pace,Av lap pace,hr etc etc
Keep safe for the taper WJH and DT
Miles makes smiles.
Progression
Now time to rest!
Oh, and I always run and race using average pace as my main display.
Nice work DT! About time! Actually you will probably smash all your PBs, including today's once you have recovered from next Sunday's little excursion! Take it easy this week!
Day 623 here. Sub 30 pacer at a very muddy parkrun. 29:43, so about right. Each k came in at 5:5x: consistency is the word!
Enjoy tomorrow, WP!
DT: Well done that is fantastic you must be so pleased
I ran my 4 miles and all week my times were faster than normal for a few miles but today it is a course record for me and finally got a 8's it is 2 down and 2 uphill and even the uphill were faster than normal
Alehouse Thanks I will enjoy I am using it to practice running first half slower and finish stronger where as it is usually first half great running to slow down in the second half and just glad to see the finishing line.
Miles makes smiles.
Progression
I also ran my local parkrun today and remembered my barcode for once. Time came in at 19:28 - pretty pleased. I actually felt rubbish on the way round, started too fast and slowed from there.
I've finally realised that I need to start running slower, more often - despite being told as much by you lot when I first posted here. At the moment I tend to go out and run hard - which is fun - but then I end up taking 3 days off to recover. I think if I can master the easy run I might be able to improve some more.
Good job on the training record, WP!
Well done DT a great boost before next week!
Well done on your effort, WP.
Alehouse, yes this week, including today will be about 24 miles, last week was about 35, this week will beno more than 15 plus the race. Well i normally vonvert from 5k to 10k as x2 plus a minute so on that basis 10k and 5 should go. Today was first race since December without having done any big sessions in the previous 7 days.
Good work on the streak and pacing duty.
Well done DT - is it normal to race a week before a marathon though?!
Plenty more pbs to come for you this summer I think.
Did an interval session this afternoon which went quite well. Only 18 miles this week for one reason or another but next week should hopefully be back at 30ish miles.
Lots of guys (and probably girls) at the national road relays today will be doing London next week. Some will have done a short leg of around 3 miles, and others will have done the long leg of something like 5.6. Then for most it is 8 days of gentle running, perhaps with a few strides. Such races (or timed runs!) almost force you into the taper.
MYOX: when I was (much) younger I ran too fast too often, and wish that more of my runs had been at a more conservative pace. I coach a few people and I try not to let one session's running impact on the next day. Most of the running is at conversational pace, with the key to progress being consistency, and in general progressive consistency in that over time runs become longer, or faster, or recoveries are reduced. After 50 years or so in the running game I'm beginning to learn!
I have been involved in the coaching or team managing/advising of three very good marathon runners (slowest 2:20:12): all had been running for over ten years before they hit their best!
Good news DT ... agree with Alehouse - all your PBs will be rewritten this year. and a nice parkrun too MYOX.
I've just had pre-race breakfast and am going back to bed for half an hour. Weather here is perfect for racing.
Yes I forgot about the road relays as well. Plenty of those will be at London. Legs feel really good today, and its a rest day.
Yes, I was thinking of the risk of injury rather than any fatigue from it!