The Middle Ground

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  • Curly45Curly45 ✭✭✭
    Its a bit annoying tbh...there is half an hour between 5 and 5:30 that is always free by the looks of it so going to have to try and make that every time!

    On progress grapghs these are my parkrun times since not long after I started going:

     

    http://i186.photobucket.com/albums/x28/becky_rtw/parkruntimes.png

    So you can see that the general trend is downard, but conditions, courses and fitness all mean that it is far from linear!
      
  • RatzerRatzer ✭✭✭
    The Duckinator wrote (see)
    This is my sport tracks graph of my average weekly pace since I started BT. As you can see, I haven't done much yet..


    TD - pace...  What do you use to tell you when to raise your training paces (over a period like your BT period)?

    Hilly - what is the 'stick'??

  • RatzerRatzer ✭✭✭
    Not so sure I'd splash out that much for the 'stick' given that it would definitely be all my own work to use it.  Couldn't you thread a load of pingpong balls on a skewer?  However, if there were one going free for a trial run before purchase...  I think I'd be like you, Hilly, and it would gather dust until the day after I was injured!
  • parkrunfanparkrunfan ✭✭✭

    Re the track availability thing I dont seem to have any problems with club sessions, school sports days etc...... I wonder if its anything to do with it being 7am? image

    What I have found amusing, this week in particular, is walking through the gym past the rows of ipod zombies on the treadmills when there's a perfectly good empty track swathed in bright sunshine just yards away. Strange people..... image

  • Ratzer wrote (see)

    TD - pace...  What do you use to tell you when to raise your training paces (over a period like your BT period)?

    I'm running base by heart rate, and henceforth intensity. As I get aerobically fitter over time my paces will drop, while maintaining the same heart rate and intensity. I started off doing 8:40/mile roughly, and I'm now down to about 8:25/mile after 8 weeks.

    Good news on the "me being suddenly slow" front - I've discovered the root cause. I normally eat something before I go to bed - weetabix/cornflakes, normally both - and the night before the two days I've been slow - Saturday and Tuesday - I was occupied attending events on the beach so I didn't get a chance to eat. As I run early in the day - about 9, 10am - it appears to be down to a lack of fuel. 

  • RatzerRatzer ✭✭✭
    The Duckinator wrote (see)
    I was occupied attending events on the beach so I didn't get a chance to eat.

    Dare you say more??

    I use HR too for the base period and now still for the base runs.  Now that I'm starting to put in the faster stuff I'm not wearing the HR for those sessions.  It will be interesting to note the impact on easy and recovery paces of the faster sessions - whether the increases I've seen over the base will remain, still rise but maybe more slowly, or even reduce!

  • There you go then image. I'm a total run data analysis freak myself, but sometimes we are our own worst enemy.

    HMP session went well yesterday and had my massage today. Hamstrings and calfs very tight in a few places, but nothing in my ITB (stopped me running properly for 5 months last year), hurray! Feeling all nicely loosened up now, so I think baths rather than showers for the next couple of days, bit of work with the foam roller and maybe it'll give me a few seconds edge on Sunday - which I will be chuffed with if I end up at something like 1:39:56!

    Fingers crossed I don't undo it all with 3+ hours in the car on Sat. That will be after a post parkrun carb loading session with popcorn at the cinema with the kids before we leave though image. Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs - lucky me image

  • Ratzer wrote (see)
    The Duckinator wrote (see)
    I was occupied attending events on the beach so I didn't get a chance to eat.

    Dare you say more??

    I use HR too for the base period and now still for the base runs.  Now that I'm starting to put in the faster stuff I'm not wearing the HR for those sessions.  It will be interesting to note the impact on easy and recovery paces of the faster sessions - whether the increases I've seen over the base will remain, still rise but maybe more slowly, or even reduce!

    It was a beach party image

    While I'm running by HR for now, I won't be for the hard sessions (they'll be all effort based) - but I will be looking at the HR data purely out of interest. The easy aerobic stuff will all be effort and HR based to ensure I don't burn out - I'll run to either 70% or 75% MHR on those days. If I'm feeling unduly fatigued then I'll run to 70% MHR (which is about 9:15/mile pace for me right now) which is almost hard as I'm running so slow. 

    I'm also interested to see how much my easy pace changes when I add the harder stuff in. I have no idea if it'll improve or not. I guess the only way to find out is to do it.

    The one thing my physio has taught me to do is stretch properly. When she massages my quads and hamstrings, if I haven't stretched them it hurts like hell. I swear that woman's a sadist. 

  • Curly45Curly45 ✭✭✭

    Beach party! Wow to be a student again...

    Turned yesterday into a bottle of wine rest day (having a really shitty week at work!) so will be slightly down on mileage this week as cant make it up today as coaching it to Leeds...

    However, on good news got my number for the Penny Lane Striders 10k - number 7 - now that is a good number image

    Which got me wondering if others got the same buzz from a good number allocation that I do?

  • The first time I ever ran a sub 34 10k I had been allocated number 1 (for no other reason than I'd entered very early).  Good vibes...
  • Curly45Curly45 ✭✭✭

    Wow that IS a good number image

    PRF got the dull 103, so not sure how I ended up with 7 (with a purple stripe through it too)...must be some end of number/start of new ones I guess!

  • Curly45 wrote (see)

    Beach party! Wow to be a student again...

    'twas good fun, really cold though.

    I got number 69 in a 10k last year. Given how immature I am sometimes, I giggled at it. 

  • parkrunfanparkrunfan ✭✭✭
    I finished in the 69 position in the Pennine 10K last year..... its not often you can claim to have done that in public!
  • HillyHilly ✭✭✭

    Lol PRF.

    I had no.1 for the Longleat 10k.  Was a bit embarrassed though as everyone kept looking at me and I thought they expected me to be really fast, which I wasn't!

  • Talking of numbers - I think race organisers should automatically provide a free entry for any past male and female winners of their race.  Nice gesture and provides continuity and tradition.  Discuss.
  • Curly45Curly45 ✭✭✭
    Hmmm interesting thought - my argument is not becuase if you taken money out of the race one year by winning the prize then you can put back in next year with your fees image
  • parkrunfanparkrunfan ✭✭✭
    I say  yes - in fact I see that parkrun have already adopted the practise.... all past winners get free entry! image
  • RatzerRatzer ✭✭✭

    In the spirit of sharing, the previous year's winners should not be allowed to compete at all!  image  But of course they should attend to present the prizes.

    I'm definitely of the opinion that free entry should be (quietly) provided to the last finishers in each section, providing them with a goal for the next year, and with that possibly a prize offered for most improvement?

  • MoraghanMoraghan ✭✭✭

    These days you're more likely to get a free entry the following year for wearing the daftest costume.

    "We don't care about the fast guy coming back, but that inflatable penis was brilliant"

  • parkrunfanparkrunfan ✭✭✭

    Ratzer,

    The Spencer Arms Series in Barnsley has a large element of its point scoring based on improvement.

    Its probably hard to believe but there are actually scoundrels who manipulate such things to their advantage! image

  • Yup I once knew of a guy who looked a lot like me who ran a series of 2 second pbs on that race...
  • parkrunfanparkrunfan ✭✭✭
    Moraghan wrote (see)

    These days you're more likely to get a free entry the following year for wearing the daftest costume.

    "We don't care about the fast guy coming back, but that inflatable penis was brilliant"

    Now that would be a stiff one to swallow..........
  • HillyHilly ✭✭✭

    If not a free entry, they should at least get an invite to enter the race before it opens to the majority, especially as so many races fill up fast these days.

  • parkrunfanparkrunfan ✭✭✭
    Barnsley Runner wrote (see)
    Yup I once knew of a guy who looked a lot like me who ran a series of 2 second pbs on that race...
    Classy Bubka-ing there, BR! image
  • parkrunfan wrote (see)
    Moraghan wrote (see)

    These days you're more likely to get a free entry the following year for wearing the daftest costume.

    "We don't care about the fast guy coming back, but that inflatable penis was brilliant"

    Now that would be a stiff one to swallow..........
    parkrunfan wrote (see)
    Moraghan wrote (see)

    These days you're more likely to get a free entry the following year for wearing the daftest costume.

    "We don't care about the fast guy coming back, but that inflatable penis was brilliant"

    Now that would be a stiff one to swallow..........
    The organiser would have to have some balls to say that...
  • Curly45Curly45 ✭✭✭

    Okay silly people - who's demob happy its Friday then image

    I really really really want to put this on the Q&A, but am too much of a wuss so will start my own debate here on run/walk/run:

    "Personally I can't see that asking someone with untrained muscles and poor capillary network development to do the equivalent of an interval session is EVER a good idea. What does Nicki think on the subject?"

    Discuss...

  • parkrunfanparkrunfan ✭✭✭

    Indeed!

    And not to mention the psychological effect of stopping to walk every time things get a little uncomfortable, that must be well ingrained by the time a race is tackled. Not good!

    Far better to run very, very slowly for as far as is comfortable and then walking the rest of the way with no restarting. Building up the running distance before having to walk is the way to progress and develop the muscles in a risk averse way.

    All that stopping and restarting on muscles/tendons that must be tightening like a vice in between has got to be causing some sort of tearing............

    I wonder how runners ever got started before run/walk/run was invented? image

  • At least week's 10k, there was a quite chunky guy in front of me by about 200 metres about halfway.  He then stopped dead at a water station and walked through it.  `Yup blown up' I thought.  However he rejoined the race, tucking in with the people who had caught him up.  He stopped again at 4m and did the same and then when I caught him at 5 and a bit miles he stopped dead again.  He started again after letting me get a small lead and then chased me to the finish, me holding him off by 4 secs.  Had he run all the way he could have beaten me comfortably. 

    Very odd tactics I thought.  I remember him doing something similar in a 10k a couple of years ago.

    So a 35 min 10k runner on a run / walk there.

  • With the disclaimer that "for me, in my opinion" - It's bad enough on a training run and getting stuck at junctions and traffic lights, etc. I absolutely hate the stop/start (especially on a 20 miler!). I find it so much harder than to just keep going. I have been known to run up a street to find a gap in the traffic, then back down if I need to. I don't jog on the spot though image

    I've done a lot of races and I will not walk. It's my own personal thing. I'd rather slow right down (and have done) than walk. There has only been one occassion where I had to run/walk (Loch Ness marathon) - that was through injury and I knew before the start it would likely end up that way. Unfortunately, it ended up being from half way, but I still finished in 4.11 so I wasn't devastated. Of course I didn't time my walk bits to co-incide with going up hill. Nope. Definitely not. image

    I got number 1 once, embarrasingly for my own club 10k. What's worse is that my number didn't arrive, so on they day they just turned over another number and put 1 on the back with a marker pen. I kept my t-shirt on until 10s before the race.

    Hilly - you are fast! I am not. I definitely felt eyes on me.

    I keep all of my numbers (image) and I've noted that 6 features a lot in mine. Maybe it is my lucky number!

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