Describe Your Running Today, Part II

A very tough 3hr mountain bike ride with Greg M. a former 2.20ish marathoner. I used to beat him on the bike but no longer, way to strong for me now.

The ride was from the Hume Highway straight up to the top of Mt Hickey, a 16 km climb. Back down to King Parrot Creek and then back 10km up Mt Hickey from the other side.

All up 2h20m of rugged climbing, getting my arse kicked all the way.

Good to know you are still about Driske.

Go TPCB!!!

fellow DYRTers,

a sincere thank you.

Tomorrow it is on.

Me, my buddy Marco and two other runners, will start out under the Colosseum with Richard Whitehead, a fine gentleman from Manchester of who was born without legs 32 years ago, and who tomorrow will try to break three hours.

Last year in Rome he ran 3:39. Then it was a 3:14 in Beirut. In light of this data it made sense to agree to being an escort for his second Rome Marathon. Then, in Bath recently he did a 1:19 half.

As i've said on other occasions: "well, there it is."

It will be very much an honor for all of us to run with Richard and help him reach his dream to run sub three.

He wants to start at 6:40 per mile which is on the fast side for Marco and myself. But it is his call.

The plan is to stick with him as long as we can, and in any event, cut the finish line. If something good for me comes out i'll be satisfied. In anycase, i'll be testing a new vibram design.

For a spontaneous, fun-loving guy who likes to run without shoes following his "sensations", this will be quite a challenge. And believe it or not, I apply my "handle" philisophy to myself, much more than some would argue i apply it at large as way to experience life and get to know people.

Tomorrow by lunchtime we shall know what will have happended. I feel good. And nervous.

Best regards.

PS.

today: kids athletics. Awesome to be back after missing one saturday. Used my brand-new, handmade (by another instructor) agility ladder which the kids loved.

Then, as some of you suggested, i belted two 400s with a walk round the track in between.

Thank You All.

TPCB,

Best of luck tomorrow! I look forward to hearing how it goes, and it sounds like you are prepared. No need to be nervous, you have the preparation down!

tpcb, giver!

The Comox Valley Half Marathon is in our town tomorrow. I wonder if Jon Brown will show up again.

And thanks for the email, "good people". :) Off to the track.....

Best of luck, tpcb. It sounds like you will have all the motivation you need with you. The DYRT family will be supporting you 100%. I'm looking forward to your race report.

LOLOLOLOLOL wrote:

LIAR. And you take more potshots.

Well deal with me now orJUST SHUT UP WITH THE CHEAP SHOTS AND LIES.

Home comp for 'rd' and work comp

for all your other trolls? I been here long enough liar.

And fyi it was a good discussion from one way and

a bunch of lies and bs from your way.

If all we ever do here is dyrt with

none supplemental diversion then what is the point.

What ARE you talking about? Try the decaf.

9/3 double today, felt a little bit flat. Took it nice and slow for the 20 miler tomorrow.

Skuj wrote:

Hahaha....only the 4th was was anywhere near 4:14, and 85sec 400m pace is a looooong way from 65sec 400m pace. But, 4:14 is the fastest "4 digit" surge so far, and a bit of a shock to the system.

Hey Skuj I'm curious; how fast would you tell your group to do that 4x1200 and what would the rest periods be? Tnx. (And just ignore Running Dogg, ok?)

Today I did 20min grass jog + (4x100m + 60m + 200m) on the track in spikes + 10min grass jog in spikes.

This was the first time since last year, and more significantly, since recovering somewhat from pf, that I dared try spikes.

The 100m were gentle accelerations, and the first one felt absolutely alien and awful "What am I doing?" But the second one felt much better. And so on, and so on....my foot didn't hurt, but I could feel the tightness, from months of bandaid-supports, being freed and loosened finally.

I decided to try 60m "at pace"....10.01sec felt fine.

So then I tried 200m at 800m goal pace.....33.92sec felt a bit awkward and ugly, but not bad.

The 10min grass jog, in spikes, was great. it was like a long overdue manipulation that my foot needs. Things were much looser.....

.....but was this a crazy thing to try? Will I regret this?

I'll aim for 300m next Saturday.

A question was asked about 4x1200m for our group: Generally, to the experienced runners, I would recommend, If they are feeling great, goal 5000m pace for the year, which would presumeably be a little faster than present 5000m pace. Some will push the envelope and get near 3000m pace anyway. I always suggest "conservative" targets, knowing that most runners need to be reigned in. We take longish rests. 4min+ in this session. I'm a believer of "the Moorcroft method". 4800m total is a little short for us, we have a big race tomorrow. last week it was 6x1000m on 8min. Thanks for asking. :)

Took a quite pleasant jaunt in the mid-40 minute range today. Imagined I was running along with tpcb during his race. I'm afraid my virtual partner gave me more support than I could offer him. Hopefully all went well and we will hear from him soon.

Skuj, I enjoyed your last post. I know some here, including myself, consider you to be arrogant and pompous at times. But to see that you have embraced some of the ideas espoused by the coach in his earlier posts (re: 4x1200) suggests that there is hope for you yet. We can all learn from each other. Certainly that is the among the founding principles of this great thread.

Keep up the good work, all!

Speaking of learning from each other, and being obliged to doing things ass-backwards.

With this hare/rabbiting my buddy Marco and I were doing for Richard Whitehead (actually from Nottingham not Manchester as previously stated) we easily underestimated crusing anywhere between 3:51/km - 4:11/km (6:12/mile - 6:43/mile) for the first 15Km. Garmin says we were projected 2h54m! It was a little chilly with a taught head wind out. Not ideal but definitely bearable.

That was way too fast. Way, way too fast. Especially because only the first kilometer was run in 4:11.

So by the 16th Km my left calf started to stiffen and i could not slow down to adjust-pace and try my on-the-run tweaking i sometimes resort to in longer races.

Within a few more hundred meters i decided to stop: i greeted Whitehead "goodbye and goodluck" and i evaluated my own situation. One guy on a bike stopped and thought i had a cramp and insisted on flexing my foot to no avail. Anyway, in some pain, i decided to keep going, with my right leg bearing most of the weight while tweaking my left. By the half (in about 1h40), i worked it to a rhythm and managed a grinding yet tolerable sub 4h finish. I loathe DNFs. The sightseeing in the eternal city was worth it as usual, even for a native like me.

Whitehead ran very fast: 2h56.45. A super performance. He runs with his prothesis going in circular motion which was quite a process to witness right up close. He had on other rabbit going with him till the 38th km (Andrea, who did one heck of a job by the way!) and then dropped him too at about 38km. Andrea was sort of a last minute choice who wanted to run 2h40 for himself. Rabbitting wore him out quite a bit and at the end he said he had given his all (came in at approx 2h57.30.)

The new vibrams did great. They held out fine and my feet are in wonderful shape. This became particularly apparent when i was greatly favoring my right-leg to give my left a break. In that sense, finishing was - personally - a huge success. Not warming up enough and being geared to go gestalt into race pace will not be repeated. It is really not my style and difficult to adjust to. Ideally I would have started at 4:25/km, progressing to a negative split ending with 4:11/km pace.

At the outset, i was feeling great. The training was there. The taper was done. I felt charged. After the first km (at 4:11 and hence sub 3 projected) i was dreaming: "heck if this is the pace, there's a real chance of going near 3H!" Then it got faster and faster and reality took over.

Still i would say a positive experience overall. Next marathon will have to be in greater tune with my own goals.

Thanks All for the support.

Running Dogg wrote:

Skuj, I enjoyed your last post. I know some here, including myself, consider you to be arrogant and pompous at times. But to see that you have embraced some of the ideas espoused by the coach in his earlier posts (re: 4x1200) suggests that there is hope for you yet.

Hilarious, considering you were the 'coach' and you were totally pwned by Skuj. Fool.

Skuj wrote:

I'm a believer of "the Moorcroft method".

Please elaborate. Tnks.

tpcb, it sounds like it was tough, but you deserve congratulations for your toughness and perseverance in completing the race. I know a lesser man (me!) would likely not have been willing to continue. I'm sure all of us at DYRT wish you the best in your recovery and preparations for the next one.

a day off followed by 43' on the roads (mostly) and trails (a little)....no problems during the run.....a little stiffness in the upper Achilles this morning, but it didn't last long....not sure whether to run today or take it off....we'll see....great job, tpcb....take your time getting back....those calf issues can linger, as I have learned....

Skuj wrote:

I'm a believer of "the Moorcroft method".

RD Fan wrote:

Please elaborate. Tnks.

I may be able to help answer that for you. I presume Skuj is referring to Dave Moorcroft, the great runner from GB in the 1970s and 1980s. If so, it would be more accurate to refer to this as the "John Anderson method" as Anderson was Moorcroft's coach and it was he who was responsible for all of Moorcroft's training.

There is an excellent article on Moorcroft and Anderson here:

. Look on pages 6-12.

I want to correct an earlier post of mine where I wrote of my athletes doing 5-6 x 1M with 2/3 rest. I wrote that post from memory which is not always reliable at my age. Fortunately I have my training notes reasonably well organized, so I checked them when I got home. The last time we did a similar workout, it was actually 4-5 x 1M with 3/4 rest. I know there are better established coaches out there who preach a maximum of 6 miles for this type of workout, which may explain why I originally wrote a max of 6 intervals. Also, some of our earlier VO2max workouts at shorter intervals use 2/3 rest, so I guess I thought this one had been, too.

The goal range was 100-102% vVO2max. Though challenging, there were some in the group who were able to do this. Others came close, and still others were not so close.

The overall goal volume for my VO2max workouts is typically 8000 m for my top runners. We'll start with 10 x 800, then 8 x 1K, and work up through the season. We typically do each session twice with the first session getting rest equal to work and the second with 2/3 rest. My less experienced runners will do less than 8K, but their rest ratio is the same. Also, if I have an exceptional runner, she may have a goal of completing 10K worth of intervals.

I hope this clears things up. I apologize for the inaccuracies in my earlier post. Getting old brings with it certain challenges.

JonH wrote:

Skuj wrote:

I'm a believer of "the Moorcroft method".

RD Fan wrote:

Please elaborate. Tnks.

I may be able to help answer that for you. I presume Skuj is referring to Dave Moorcroft, the great runner from GB in the 1970s and 1980s. If so, it would be more accurate to refer to this as the "John Anderson method" as Anderson was Moorcroft's coach and it was he who was responsible for all of Moorcroft's training.

There is an excellent article on Moorcroft and Anderson here:

http://www.britishmilersclub.com/bmcnews/1999spring.pdf

. Look on pages 6-12.

Thanks.

Skuj wrote:

A question was asked about 4x1200m for our group: Generally, to the experienced runners, I would recommend, If they are feeling great, goal 5000m pace for the year, which would presumeably be a little faster than present 5000m pace. Some will push the envelope and get near 3000m pace anyway. I always suggest "conservative" targets, knowing that most runners need to be reigned in. We take longish rests. 4min+ in this session. I'm a believer of "the Moorcroft method". 4800m total is a little short for us, we have a big race tomorrow. last week it was 6x1000m on 8min. Thanks for asking. :)

Thanks for the feedback, Skuj. So for those who get close to 3000m pace, do they still rest for 4 min? And if 4800 m is too short, is it okay to do 5 x 1200 to get to 6000m?

Wow, what a kinder gentler place this has become all of a sudden! :) I feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

tpcb, I'm sorry that things didn't completely go as planned on Sunday, but also, I'm very impressed with your resolve. Recover, then push on!

Yesterday was a loooong day because of our Comox Valley Half Marathon - we (my wife and I) were doing course set up, finish line duties, announcing, registration....it was 5pm when course take down was done, and then of course, there was an "after party"....needless to say, no run yesterday. No run today either - 12hr shift. Looking forward to the next "block" of running starting tomorrow. Looking forward to getting used to spikes, and doing 300, 400m "at pace"...

Someone asked about "the Moorcroft method" that I mentioned, and I was specifically referring to his long rest periods between interval runs. And Coe-Martin also make a case for "very adequate" recovery periods during "aerobic capacity" sessions, so as not to defeat the purpose of the session, and accumulate anaerobic byproducts. So, I preach this to the group when we might take 5min between 1000m runs, and some are feeling guilty because it wasn't 2min instead. It's a big debate, and we have had it at other threads at letsrun.

I believe there were other questions over the last couple of days.....give me some time.

Thanks