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Afternoon all.
Hope you all had good Christmas and New Year breaks. I've not ran a yard since 22nd December, I have however been on holiday to Vietnam which was excellent.
Congratulations Pete!
I will belatedly do my end of year review now instead of doing some actual work.
Helloooooooooo, is there room for one more on here!!! I have lurked on here over the years and would like to get training tips and general running views to try and get some pb's.
Currently training for Alloa Half Marathon late march and would love to get under 1.40.XX. My current weekly schedule is:
9mls Monday 4/5mls tempo run avg (7.40-7.50 testing this out tonight)
8mls Wednesday easy pace 8.45m/m-9.10m/m
8mls Thursday club session, intervals, hills, reps
14mls Saturday long run 8.45m/m-9.10m/m
PB's are
10km 43.19 2016
half marathon 1.38.59 2015
I haven't had a pb in over 3 years on both 10k and half marathon, my main issue over the years has been stopping within 2-3miles of the race beginning, it has been so frustrating over the past 3 years that I haven't finished a race without stopping. I have stared doing the tempos on a Monday to try and get the feeling of pushing yourself to see if this will help. Not done much speed work through Xmas though but covered the same mileage approx. 38mls per week. I am looking to add a Tuesday run of 4mls in as a recovery run from this week. Any advice and chat would be appreciated.
Ta
Kevin
2018 - Total distance
1350ish
2018 races
39 Races - 1x 800m (track), 1 x road mile (ARC licence), 1 x dream mile (wind assisted), 1 x 5K (ARC licence), 3 x danger 5K in Auckland, 19 parkruns, 1 x 5 miler, 3 x 10k, 3 x mixed length summer league races (between 5 and 6 miles), 2 x HM and 1 marathon. Plus cross country and fell races inc the inter-county fell champs. Any probably some other stuff that I've forgotten about.
2018 Achievements
PB's for the road mile, road 5K, parkrun and 10K.
Team bronze at the county cross country champs.
Representing Notts at the inter-county fell champs.
Personal Highlights
Getting a county vest was definitely a personal highlight even if the race itself was savagely difficult.
Personal Lowlights
Antwerp marathon. After a solid block of training I felt like I was in PB shape with PB's at 5K and 10K in the build up. However, the weather had other ideas and running a good marathon in 25 degree heat wasn't going to happen. I survived and managed a decent enough time all things considered but it wiped me out for a few weeks afterwards and I felt more unfit after that than I did before starting marathon training.
Poster of the year
Muddy/DT
Thread performance
DT's sub 3. Thoroughly deserved following the dedicated training.
Thread moment
Not seeing Richard at the parkrun.
2019 Aims and Targets
1. Not get injured.
2. Beat the train.
3.Not get my spring marathon ruined by the weather at Rotterdam.
One to watch
David and lit.
Hi Tommy, Vietnam sounds good. What made you choose Rotterdam?
Hi Kevin, training looks reasonable. I am intrigued by this stopping thing. What brings it on in terms of what you are feeling? What happens after it, particularly say if it is a half?
Muddy, on paper it looked like an awful session, however I had perfect conditions around the racecourse and felt good so it wasn't bad. It was easier than some of the continuous 8 mile tempo's I have done at around 6.30 pace, at least mentally as I was always not too far from a rest.
Bit of a sharpener today with 10 x 2 mins at hmp/10kp off 90 secs.
Richard used to have something similarly where he would just suddenly feel he need to stop and he did.
You probably need to do something to break the cycle if it is only races like setting off slower than your target pace and speed up as race goes on when you are nearer to finish and the mental horizon of the finishing line is closer?
First run in 2 weeks last night, felt like hard work. But then I think I'm still abit jet lagged and I have a stupid cold which I can't seem to shift. Hopefully a track session later will sort it out.
Kevin - as DT said, what's making you have to stop?
A few thoughts ... the volume (weekly mileage) is good and the number of runs seems adequate. Long runs could maybe be a touch faster or include some challenging bits.
What's your perception of what happens in a race ? Do you go off at a target pace ? Or do you go with the herd ? Do you use any external feedback to regulate your effort/pace (e.g. watch/heart rate monitor) ? What sort of race distances are we talking about where this happens ?
Do you feel like you are slogging through your training weeks ? Or cruising through them ?
Tommy - Sounds like a decent holiday. That race the train in August in North Wales has been one I've not been able to schedule but have always wanted to do.
DT - Fair enough - seemed a bit challenging too close to race day to me.
DT/Tommy seems to be only in races.
Skinny I think I start to panic and stress a wee bit, that then makes me stop, get going again but then the race has gone.
Muddy I am going at a pace I would expect to maintain but start to fret a bit and just stop. I have a garmin to look over data. I love training but when I hear talk of race day magic/adrenaline its the opposite. I need to understand that the feeling will pass and have done the training and to dig in.
Last night was 9mls and i tried to do some tempo/threshold, unsure what that is but tried to run near a group who maybe slightly better or have improved further than me. 7.40m/m was the plan, 3mls easy then 7.13 FFS slow down, 7.27 slow down I said, 7.37 now your listening, 7.31 you will be crawling soon, 8.17 told you, last mile recovery, aye right you were gubbed anyway....
Only excuse is that my garmin light doesn't work so struggled to get pace times right. I am hoping that these Monday runs will help replicate feelings of race pace as the miles go by.
Getting feed up of the same old story on race day, How did you get on is the usual question after a race we all ask, least you got round they say.
Any thoughts..........................
Hopeful delurking and posting may help me work through this a look at better training.
It's good fun. I did it in 2017 when it was a complete bog and I lost to th etrain by about 3 minutes. My mate who's a similar pace to me did it last year in good conditions and he beat the train by 4 minutes. I need another go at it.
The next most tempting to stop were really hard training sessions where most of the time the only thing that prevented me were that once you've given up on a session once you can do it again.
I believe that you can only run at what your physiology dictates on race day and adrenaline will only work for so long. So I don't really believe in race day magic. If you are kicking off highly adrenalised I can see how you might come down to earth with a bump, particularly if you are over-reaching and discovering discomfort earlier on. I know full well how thinking about outcomes can adrenalise - every time I get my blood pressure measured by a white coated professional, the measurement is much higher than it would be on a home reading. On the outcomes front: believe in your training, you've done the miles and you will not have any trouble completing the race. You need to persuade yourself that the race is not important: there will always be other races you can do. See the race as just part of a bigger picture of you enjoying exercise and in the spirit of curiosity, finding out what you can do. I would suggest to race frequently at short distances every fortnight and get used to the buildup process of arriving on time and preparing - which can be quite stressy. I would also say a good warm up routine helps in taking the edge off race day adrenaline. If you've ran 2.5 miles and done some good strides, you will have got used to a little discomfort. Practice this.
Take your mind off the race too. Have a chat with people around you - genuinely. Ask them about their shoes, if they're feeling up for it, if they've travelled far, if anyone is here supporting them etc. Then when the gun goes off ease into the first 400m - don't think too much about target pace, just use the opportunity to relax and breathe easily and bring the effort up gradually to where you think it should be. Note I say effort, not pace. Back off from discomfort as soon as you feel it, but don't stop. The chances are you'll be starting fairly fast as pace awareness is not that good when you run in a crowd of people.
Race Day Magic - what makes PB dreams come alive....... I believe!
Here's a test for you.
Go and run 10k on your own anywhere near what you just raced one at.
That be dem race day magic for sheezy.
Like a lion?
But you did sign up for it and you'll be absolutely fine as long as you don't do anything stupid.
You and your hazards, Muddy!!
Yes SG, a lion would be an excellent choice of comparison in this situation. It's basically just a big release of noise/pressure so sometimes the noise may sound more like a man being kicked repeatedly during a mugging or something similar.
Set up whatever scenario you like outside of a race, and mirror that race performance then.
If you can't, it's officially magic
I've run with someone who screamed all sorts out to motivate themselves, and I've run with an annoying bastad who insisted on me barking splits out the whole time, but roaring? That's amazing.
DT, the "other" end is by far my greater concern, albeit it pre-race. Bus from my thread has similar issues (well...retching, not the rest of yours
But then I'm sure others can't imagine storming a massive heap out 1min before race
Now I always trained alone so some of that was the running in a group thing but how often in the smaller races have you found yourself running on your own and the pace is still way better than training paces.
At the moment I'm in good shape and probably around half pb shape (5:50 min/mile on the flat) and I ran 5km on the flat at 5:50 pace in my rehearsal run on Sunday (slightly overdressed, long sleeve top, older pair of race shoes) without once looking at my watch. The effort was exactly on half effort. Although it was a Great Run Local event, it was a time-trial - the nearest finisher was at 24 mins - so perhaps we can discount race day magic applying there ? I've looked at my training paces for effort in controlled circumstances like these; I've looked at race pace for effort and the only difference is that I'm sustaining the effort for longer. But I'm not going faster for longer.
If 30s per mile of race day magic is available, I'm racing the half at 5:20 pace !