I don't think I can run 9:00 for 3k

Do you think you will do any races this year on the national level?

What was the injury?

Wejo:

If I was you I would hire Tinman full time for the next 6 months and you will likely win the Olympic 10K.

Flavor Flav

At 28:06, that would be about 4 minutes faster than anyone Tinman has coached.

John Kellogg works fine for wejo already.

I dunno Wejo, I've seen you out and about and you look pretty freaking fast. I guess everything is relative...

I guess I kind of feel the same way about running when i'm getting back into shape. I feel kind of weird about running with other people -- it's embarrassing not being able to keep up on the hard days, and it's easy to screw up track workouts. About a year ago i tried to do some 800's with some other people after having recently started up again, and i ended up running way too hard for the first couple, so instead of doing 7-8 i knew i had screwed up after the first 2 or 3, and only finished 4. I felt like the workout was completely ruined. But I hate running by myself, i guess i use that as incentive to get better.

You should post more often. This is the only useful piece I've information I've read on this message board in months.

Seriously.

who the hell cares anyway?

DP wrote:

You should post more often. This is the only useful piece I've information I've read on this message board in months.

Agreed.

Hey i dont think i can run 9:00 for 3k right now either whats ur point hehe(of course i feel like my 10k pr is a bit slower for some reason).

Your points in the last two paragraphs are excellent though. Its esp true in college where people feel like they have to impress the coach a lot of the time in order to go into the good meets(at least thats how it was for me). Then ur killing urself in the wo and then in the race a lot of times- uhoh.

Even in post college a lot of times in workout groups people get all competitive. I started telling people workouts dont matter! Noone is going to be like oooh u ran 5x1600 in 4:40 thats a great workout. Theyll be like(and ull be like) how did u do in the RACE.

wejo wrote:

This whole concept is one reason I vowed I wouldn't workout with anyone until I got in decent shape. At this point in my training a pace just slightly too fast can do me in as I have no buffering system.

first: wejo, letsrun.com, alone, is enough to get weepy over. (permit the maudlin) -- honestly, the basic information, the forum comments, the one-source news, and the community here, as bizarre as it often is, have a hallowed sweet spot in my left vent. beyond that, though, for never having met you, i really enjoy the attitude, quirkiness, and honesty that you put out here. / that's that.

second: i just deleted way too many paragraphs of background info, etc. hopefully this is to the point. i have a question about the above quote: could you explain what you mean about that "pace just slightly too fast" ... and its relation to the buffering system?

i know you probably get a lot of them, still, "thanks,"

hrm

28.06 is 67-68 p/lap and you can't run 71-72 over 3k.

I think you underestimate your fitness.

Good luck returning to form.

Don't take anything for granted just because wejo has run fast in the past. I saw Mike Stemper run a 16:08 5k on the track at UC Davis last weekend and he looked like he was working fairly hard.

No i'm not. After posting, i went up there just for kicks. I would run a 600 and sit out 400 or 600. That was just enough for me. Felt like I wasn't killing myself. But I can think of nothing worse than having to go 3k at that pace. I couldn't do it, but trying tois the type of "training" i really hate the most because I don't do it.

As for the buffering question, I'm not much into the science. But I think too many people try and force a pace. For example, its not like I haven't been running on a regular basis I have. But no workouts and nothing fast. I remember being in Flagstaff and being a similar situation and a college kid out there for a summer asked what kind of shape I was in. He said, "For sure you could run 30 minutes for 10k". I laughed. That's 4:50 a mile for 6 miles. If I'm in that type of shape, I'm not far off from 28 minute shape, is the way I view things. Basically, you get in shape and then race but you can't fake your fitness and you can get a lot faster want your fitness is there.

But you should focus on how you feel in workouts. That's why often times I like working out by myself (and I really got used to it working out by myself as I've done it probably 95% of the time for the last 8 years) because you can focus on doing what you need to do that day and not forcing some pace. For example I'd do these loops in Arizona. Getting back in shape I might do say 2-3 * 15minutes or 5*1 loop on these loops and the loops would be say maybe 7:20 down to 7 minutes (but also I guarantee that each loop in each set would be the same pace or faster than the one before it and each set would be faster than the one before it, I could do that without looking at a watch 99% of the time, and it was one way I judged the workouts). Gradually the time on the loops would come down. I know i've done close to 4 of them continuous getting down to 6:30 (i did have someone else with me on that day) a loop which is way way faster than doing 5 loops with rest and maybe breaking 7 on the last one. But even when I'd go and run 7:15 on the loops and with rest, I would finish the workout and have the same feeling of "that was a good workout" as when I did the 4 loops continuous much faster. Why? because I was running at the effort i wanted and accomplished what i wanted in the workout even though the pace might be 40 seconds a miler faster than I had run the thing in the past.

When I workout by myself, I almost always say, "that was a good workout" because I am accomplishing what I want. If people were around me and I was getting dropped because i wasn't in shape yet, I might struggle to run with them, fall off in the middle (not get nearly as good as a training effect) and then think "that was horrible. i suck".

This may sound cheesey, but this thread has sort of enlightened me tonight. Far too often I will end up running harder than I should have in workouts, even when I make a point to establish a specific pace before hand. Why I do not know. It has taken me awhile to realize this (along with running too hard on easy days) is why I never feel fresh in races. Looking over my log from the fall of 2003 last night, I saw how ridiculous my training was. I basically hammered every day trying to keep up with guys 2-3 minutes ahead of me over 8k, and consequently my fastest race was my first race of the season. It may take awhile, but I want to try this approach. I'll have to discipline myself greatly since I'm trying to run for a team again and most are much faster than I am. We'll see how it goes.

Thanks for posting this Weldon.

Very nice post, I have recently been re-injured with the same injury I had 6months ago, both from running too hard too soon and on easy days and this post has definatly helped me!

Good general description wejo, of a runner coming to know AND acknowledge their limitations. Too often runners will do workouts to impress themselves or others. Too often runers leave a good race in training. And on just about every team, club or group there is workout hero. In each instance, runners go too fast too soon for their own good.

One of the best things a runner can learn is when and how to push their limitations. Too many runners want fitness now, now w/out the requisite training buildup. Gettin' good takes time...something a smart runner knows and thru trial & error, others become smart.

I don't think I'll EVER be able to run 3K in 9 minutes! : )

Flavor Flav wrote:

Wejo:

If I was you I would hire Tinman full time for the next 6 months and you will likely win the Olympic 10K.

Flavor Flav

This is extremely unlikely to happen. This thread explains why.

wejo, I think you have made some very good points here.