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Those guys are just plain wrong DT
But then I see a guy locally who rampages courses as training runs and ends up doing the actual race a mere 5secs a mile faster! (Same guy who starts every race like it's an 800metre race). I tell him he's either doing the training run too fast, or the race too slow! Who the heck does a half marathon training run just over 1min slower than they'd race one!
He insists he's "recovering" well from such stuff, and maybe he is, as he's more muscled than most runners you've ever seen, and youngish (sub 30), but I suspect his improvements are through higher volume versus the past rather than any real sense.
The summer was the worse, he developed the dreaded pf, yet every other week it was "testing" it in races flat out! At one stage he even described a race as a "pf pb"
I struggle with strava at times , as I find it hard not to make comments the whole time. Some are just in amazement about what people can produce. Like my slower pal who does a 6min miling 5-6miler, but straight from his office door, without a warmup! Sheash.
Would love to know what happened to the young lad.
Although we all laughed at the bravado, and ludicrously unrealistic stuff he came out with, with leading the Reading half for half a mile ahead of Scott Overall (!) - before putting in a 1hr 30 being an absolute highlight, he had some incredible potential.
Mid 16s 5k, mid 27s 5mile, both ahead of my bests, in his first proper year racing! Put a low 1hr 17 half in too, at the end of 2014.
Nothing since 2015. Real shame. He can only be about 25 now, but I dare say that's him gone.
I treasure the epic pic at that Reading half, of me, Samir, Lit, and (although I didn't realise at the time), Mr I (?) and wife (ie the guy who pissed about tampering with security on this site for ages!)
I gave Samir a lift back to the station after the race, so had a good long chat. Probably a bit too long, as 30mins in, i'd somehow driven us back to the actual stadium the race finished at
Heart rate averaged 157 I believe. Don't feel too drained. Now for a trip up to the Cotswolds to see father in law for his birthday.
I'd be interested in following you guys on Strava if only to get an idea on different training schedules etc.
Cheers
David - I hope you continue to improve off this approach. I used to hit sessions far too hard (even within a mostly easy running paradigm) and have awful recovery runs where I was breaking into a cold sweat and feeling like crap. The other thing that can happen is not that you smash every session (and yourself) but you run your easy runs slightly too fast. This one is a little more insidious - you may well be within guidelines, but usually at the top end of those guidelines. That starts to affect you if you do it week in week out. I think this is what Stevie means when he says it’s more acceptable to have variations in your easy running output.
So around 42 miles up for the week for me, with a parkrun this morning. I had a few drinks last night so woke up groggy (after quite a while with no booze, it always seems to zap me) and headed off to my local parkrun. About halfway there I reached for my barcode (usually by my cigarette lighter thing in the car) and realised it wasn’t there. As a result, I didn’t record a time, coming in 5th in 17.17 on my watch, which I stopped a generous amount of time over the line.
The 5 on Friday felt hard but I guess that’s to be expected after 5 days on the spin. 14 today started off in similar fashion but after 10 I felt full of beans and was fairly rattling along at around 8 min mining and feeling fairly comfy.
0-5-0-6.5-3.5-2.5-10 = 28
Coombe 8 today, lovely to see Muddy. It's a fun off-road course with a river to ford, bomb craters to run in and out of and lots of twisty turny bits through woods and around very lumpy fields. Oh, with a series of fences to hurdle as well.
Wasn't sure how to pace it but as I managed 7:30s at last week's xc I thought 8s might be about right. I was also a bit hungover from last night's "boozy bingo" at the pub (shots for a line, bottle of wine for a full house). I started in a fairly conservative fashion and spent the first half running along grinning. Gorgeous, sunny cool weather, not as windy as it often is, perfect.
I basically used my breath to pace it and every time I felt it starting to get ragged I dialled back a bit. Not having done many miles lately I was a bit worried about how I'd feel in the latter miles. I carried on basically picking off a person every few minutes until I realised I was quite close to a cluster of three women. Spent the next few miles dealing with those. Caught the last one coming out of a bomb crater.
Legs were really starting to feel it and breath had gone a bit ragged but with less than two miles to go I thought I could hang on. The route loops back towards home but zigzags all over the shop. On one of the switchbacks I noticed one of the women I'd passed not far behind me so tried to keep pushing on. Finally saw the finish and pushed on to keep her at bay.
Think I finished tenth lady which I'm pleased with, wasn't expecting at all, 7:57 average pace. And I tried really hard! We also picked up the team prize (more wine). But just really, really happy to be racing again.
I crept home in 28th place as I was doing it as an 8m marathon effort (6:55 min/mile pace fans
55m for the week for me.
welcome back, mcf! Looks like you are well back on the rd to good shape.
Good going, Muddy and decent mileage.
Easy 13.1 yesterday afternoon. Ran the first half at 8.10 pace and the 2nd half I picked up to 7.50 pace. Gave me 42 for week so pretty much back into normal training post mara now.
4 at recovery effort this morning and will spin tonight.
5-9-
I'm off to France this weekend so will aim to get a long run in Friday morning, hopefully the weather will be better than it was this morning when some of the headwind had me working at what felt like 5k effort ( efforters ) for 9:00/M (pacers) . Happy to bank a 4.5M ( all exc Pete ) out and 7.24k back ( Pete )
Miserable out. I need to invest in some gloves I think.
5-9-5
Easy 5.5 for me today. Felt good and probably the first run of that distance and effort where my heart rate has averaged around 150 and I've felt quite bouncy all the way through.
0-7.6-5.5
and that one looks disturbingly like me !!
Looks like i won't be getting a long run in this week
5-9-5-6-6.5
0-7.6-5.5-4.7-8.8 = 26.7 so far for the week. Looking forward to a rest tomorrow before a LR on Sunday.
Lot of swing in those reps though - 10secs. Which may be on the road, so fair enough
Actually I just remembered - I did 4 x 1 mile at the peak of summer and those were getting up to half marathon effort too.
Quality session structure aside, I guess I'm still finding my feet (pun not intended) with this running lark. I may wake up tomorrow and not be able to get out of bed. I'll find out on Sunday I guess whether today was too much or not.
I've been cracking on this week. As David suggest above, I did 5 miles at 10kp on Tuesday off 1 minute. It was a tough session!!! Came out 6.13, 6.13, 6.05, 6.19 and 6.10.
8 miles easy Wednesday then 10.5 miles just over my lunch break with 7 at tempo. Came out 6.30mm average for 166 hr. Last weeks 6 came out 6.29 for 168. Felt much more controlled this week.
Easy 6 planned in the morning then I am off down to Cardiff binge drinking for the rugby. Easy 13 planned then on Sunday.
Anyhow well done both for your 5 * 1 mile at 10k pace off minimal recovery. Sounds hard work!