Road Racing and Training Thread Week Ending 7-8-18

Wow Jeff, look at the definition on that beast. So, you live on an island? No escape routes? I hope you live underground or else I'm with Smoove on this one.

Tall dark roast wrote:

Leaderboard (last 12 months)

For the last 12 months I've got 84.2% for the Houston Half (1:10:19).

angryjohnny wrote:

Allen1959 wrote:

I don't know ... I didn't realize it back in the '60s when I first watched that show, but take another look at Mrs. Howell ...

You’ve clearly been on the 50+ thread too long. She age grades well though.

Agreed.

2017:

Lovey- Room temperature for 20 years.

Ginger:

Mary Anne:

thread/

jewbacca wrote:

Wow Jeff, look at the definition on that beast. So, you live on an island? No escape routes? I hope you live underground or else I'm with Smoove on this one.

Nah. I'm in Taipei which is shielded from the ocean by mountains. My flat is above historic flood levels, and even at that on the 5th floor. My concerns are the discomfort of extended power outage because I live on the very edge of the city... often the first to lose services and the last to be restored. We'll be fine. If it gets howling, I'll post some shaky cellphone video to keep it real for y'all.

This is the last week of my racing season: track 1mi on Thursday & road 5k on Saturday

TDR - Awesome progression run.

RRR - Way to keep at it with cross training. Are you doing some lower body lifting now or still just upper body?

GT - Nice 1ks

SI - Enjoy the heat training

R4F - Be careful now or we might have a triathlete on our hands, haha. Although nobody seems to mind me posting about skiing in the winter

sub6 - Consistent week

Coach Jeff - I think you'll see dividends from this summer come fall

OR - congrats again on the win

Stone - nice week back in the swing of things

Smoove - congrats on the master's win

Allen - very smart 10k. I'd honestly prefer races cut back on awards ceremonies, they take so long for all the age groups and needing to thanks the sponsors, etc. My biggest pet peeve though is having age groups for 18-35. If you're in the open category and get beat out by teenagers or masters athletes for the overall you don't deserve an award.

stat - great week with two really strong workouts. Bummer about no competition.

Jeremy - Congrats on the 5k. Excited to see what you do this fall

jewbacca - great week. looking forward to following your houston training

Sam - Bummer about the 5mile, has to be tough after being in the heat all monday and tuesday

AJ - Awesome TT and now I have a time goal for saturday

James - I'd agree with Allen not to try and redo the miles you missed this week. Just focus on hitting your training these upcoming weeks

Coach Jeff ROC wrote:

This is right around my 1 year anniversary of thread lurking.

At the time my marathon PR pace was 5:00/km. I was 49 years old. At age 32 I had vowed to qualify for Boston... Hadn't sniffed it yet. I need to run a 4:44/km marathon...get my BQ with a little to spare. I had no confidence. But I started reading this thread and you guys were so matter-of-fact about what was possible. You guys re-calibrated my opinion of what is possible.

I think that psychological component is huge. Seeing and believing what might be possible.

I took 13 years off from racing, with sporadic fitness training (4-mile run once a week was typical). In 2016 I was reminded that for years I had in mind running Boston in 2017. I had run it in 1983 and 2000, and thought returning every 17 years would be cool. Like the cicada.

So I looked up the qualifying standard for a 57-year-old. It seemed challenging, but doable. 8-minute miles. Started running TWICE a week instead of only once, and immediately adding a 12-mile long run.

I rediscovered LRC and posted my training on the 50+ thread. Caught a little flack for having my long run be 80 percent of my weekly mileage, but got mostly positive feedback. And I saw what fellow geezers were able to do. Maybe something faster than 8-minute miles wasn't outlandish!

Running just twice a week, I ran 3:25 for a solid BQ. But back when I checked the qualifying standards, I should have checked the qualifying window. I was too late for 2017. Aargh. It used to be that the entire previous calendar year was good for qualifying.

But, inspired by the marathon result, and encouraged by the 50+ thread, I started a serious program, and saw rapid improvement. I had to repeatedly re-set my expectations -- ever faster.

Looking at marathon race results, I saw that 3:15 would usually place in M55. So that became my goal. But within just a few months, my shorter race times were already translating to 3:10, then close to 3:00.

I was drawn to this thread because there were a few folks here with some similar goals and training paces. And a few others chasing times I had trained for in my 40s, so it is easy for me to relate. And a few were running my 20-something paces.

A great "training group" here, even if all my actual runs are solo.

Pewow - Upper Body on the weights and have been doing body weight stuff to strengthen up the core/hips/legs. I dont have a legit gym so no way to do squats etc. Think how rocky worked out on rocky 4. II have some weights and also use some big buckets of sand etc Its effective

runrincerepeat wrote:

Pewow - Upper Body on the weights and have been doing body weight stuff to strengthen up the core/hips/legs. I dont have a legit gym so no way to do squats etc. Think how rocky worked out on rocky 4. II have some weights and also use some big buckets of sand etc Its effective

Tons of stuff you can do with dumbbells for the legs: goblet squats, lunges, deadlifts, high pulls, jerks, snatch, etc. The sand buckets should be great too, be creative. I like the bodyweight stuff too. I use a bodyweight circuit in my warm ups and to end my strength sessions

Also, no need for a rack or squat stands to squat. (

)

Lastly, shamelessly sharing the 3 seconds of race footage I found. I'm in second place looking stiff as a board and leaning back, we are going downhill so maybe that why I look so crappy.

pewow wrote:

I'd honestly prefer races cut back on awards ceremonies, they take so long for all the age groups and needing to thanks the sponsors, etc. My biggest pet peeve though is having age groups for 18-35. If you're in the open category and get beat out by teenagers or masters athletes for the overall you don't deserve an award.

Having been out of touch with the local racing scene for 15 years, I appreciate the opportunity to see and meet my Age-group competitors. There seems to be a whole new cast of characters. And without the formal recognition, I have no idea who they are. Otherwise they are just names on the results list.

But, yeah, with 5-year groups, it takes forever. In the old days, there was Under 18, Open, and Masters. In a big race, the awards sometimes went deeper than three. Something similar would work today -- Top 3 under 18, Top 10 18-39, top 3 40-49, etc.

And give me merchandise instead of a goofy trophy. I won a nice running cap at a half marathon in 2003, and still wear it in training and races. The embroidered logo has been advertising their race for 15 years. And I also appreciate a nicely engraved wine glass I won, and a couple coffee mugs ...

TDR - Your 2 mile doubling continues to fascinate me. Do runs of that length in the summer lead to double showering, or you just roll with it? RRR - How long does a 21 mile hilly single speed ride take? I'm guessing you're over (or at least close to) 10 hours of cardio last week? In response to your plan to see what just a month of biking does to your 5k fitness, I think you might have answered it yourself...

While it may be a great cardio boost, it ignores all the neuromuscular coordination/timing/specificity associated with running fast. I think biking can be great for running support, but not replacement.

SI - Good job getting in decent volume when you could be relaxing with beach Coronas. Sorry, also no help on the foot numbness.

R4F - Sounds promising on the injury front! Next step is to figure out what's causing the calf inflammation/tightness.

Sub 6 - Will all that travel settle down soon or are you a perpetual traveler? Sounds like you need a staycation.

Coach J - Stay safe, and happy anniversary with the group. The November half is the next "goal" race? Do you know when you plan to start a specific phase?

OR - Congrats again on the win. Always a good feeling to see that year-over-year improvement.

Smoove - Nice week. I'm sure you miss your ellipitcal. Is your finger still all cut and bandaged up?

Allen - Like I said before, smart running on the 4th even if you had to let the other guy win. Is the achilles thing a long term issue you're deal with? I excavated and installed a ~250sqft paver patio last week and now I'm wondering how much of your slow slow easy days and long warm ups have to do with the manual labor you've mentioned rather than age. I swear after Tuesday it took at least 3-4 miles for any run to smooth out for me the rest of the week. I'm still checking an occasional split on the track but the feel is starting to return so I'm having fewer check-ins. I think any pace adjustments within splits end up subconscious rather than intentional within a rep.

Stat - your paces continue to be totally unrelatable to me. Keep up the good work. Does that mean you got your CPA last week or you had to work towards it last week?

Pewow - outstanding. awesome job executing for both races. Wonder how much all those double and triple track meets helped make this race custom made for you. How much time, and what did you do between races?

JR - Good week and good race for the conditions. Out of curiousity, roughly what pace do you seem to be hitting for regeneration?

JB - heckuva southern (?) week. I feel like you've been saying you need to get back into the swing of things, and then boom...a 90 mile week. maybe I wasn't paying close enough attention the last couple week, but that looks pretty monster right there.

Sam - I'm usually pro-on-the-slower-side for easy runs, but that assumes that I'm doing that in order to hit increasing volume or hit specific workouts. If you're already comfortable with your volume and workouts and don't want to increase those maybe consider turning the screws on an aerobic day or two every week and see how it feels? Don't need to wholesale speed up all of them at once?

AJ - Also congrats again. You didn't even test the Vaporflies out before running them at Boston? You going to share a picture of your Chicago whiteboard plan?

James - smart to continue on nice easy runs for now and trying to get to 30. I'm with Allen too. If you're building right now just focus on trying to get a little more than last week. Don't need to try to force what you were going to do + 5 miles.

My rides average in the 17-18 mph range on the SS

Allen - It ended up taking them a solid hour to get to awards so I was back in plenty of time haha. Definitely wasn't about to leave that $100 unclaimed.

GT - Working towards the CPA. I've passed 2 tests so far and took a 3rd on Saturday.

Thanks everyone, I do appreciate the feedback

Gordon- my regeneration pace is no faster than SUPER Easy. According to this one thing I read, it is no faster than 60-70% of AnT (~LT) so for me it's slower than 7:40. Most of the runs however, are slower than 8:00 and sometimes even slower than 8:30. It is mostly by feel, but the single test for me, is being able to only breathe through my nose if necessary. If I'm starting to breathe primarily through my mouth, then I'm no longer "Regeneration" and maybe transition towards Easy or even Moderate efforts.

I haven't run this slow on non-workout days in the 2 years I've been running. Yet the outcome has been really good- 5K w/ a TD over 150 and a corresponding 50 min tempo couple days later at 6:14 (target pace was 6:15, JD weather adjustment ~6:23, other calcs stating maybe even as slow as 6:30). So I'm really really taking the hard days hard and easy days easy approach, perhaps now more than ever. IDK if it's really working as I have yet to PR (17:05 in Feb 2018 in FL) but it does feel good at least?

Also, I no longer than a structured 7 day week. I just know I have a couple workouts max a week and the rest either easy or regeneration.

Allen - Thanks very much, my friend. I always enjoy readng your posts, no matter what the subject is. I just love running those brisk double-digits. Without them, I do not know what running would be for me. Perhaps I would not want to run at all.

Yes, there was some special recognition for the win. My friend Jeremy is the RD and he is a very nice guy. A nice awards ceremony, with some hearty applause. We had an 81-year old woman who ran. She looked great—really. She got more applause than I did for the win, and she deserved every bit of it. I agree about tropies vs. merchandise. I got a certificate for a pair of Mizuno shoes (at the local running shop), and have been wearing them since the race. Also got a nice pair of sunglasses and a water bottle. About the tropies...like you, I generally prefer useful merchandise, but I would like one really good looking trophy...just one.

About my weight...I have been noticing that I have been keeping my weight better. Normally at this time of year I am shrinking down to nothing, but I have been keeping the 125 pretty steadily. In fact, I ballooned to 128.0 a few days ago, when I had that day off from running. Perhaps I am sleeping better or something else is going on with me.

Regarding the double-digits...did another such run today, as you describe...11.5 at 6:40 overall...bright sun, but a lot less humid.

All the best to you.

GT: now that you mention it, I did wear the vaporflies once before Boston for 5k on the treadmill. I had forgotten about that.

Here’s my Chicago plan as posted on the whiteboard:

https://imgur.com/gallery/aNHr7Fy

Comments/suggestions always welcome.

AJ - I do not see the 10 pcs of whole fruit per day (or 3lbs of cut whole fruit/berries/grapes/etc) In the plan. I assume you just have it on the back.

outsiderunner wrote:

Regarding the double-digits...did another such run today, as you describe...11.5 at 6:40 overall...bright sun, but a lot less humid.

Very nice. I ran today's workout at noon. 84 degrees, full sun, no shade. But a pleasant breeze and low humidity (60° dew point). VO2max - 3 x 1-mile; 3 x 1/2-mile.

pewow wrote:

AJ - Awesome TT and now I have a time goal for saturday

Thanks. Well done yourself. I’m glad you have something to shoot for, but you’re a 66.6 VDOT. I’m just a lowly 61.7. My 5k PR is a tempo run for you.

Gordon - The right achilles I have been managing for a while (insertional). But the left is new, and a little different from the right. Pretty painful on the morning, and after workouts.

Yeah, the physical labor can be exhausting. But I have been working only part-time. That needs to change immediately, however, as I have exhausted my retirement savings, and cashed out my pension, too, just to cover living expenses. Not a good place to be at age 58. I also tend to give away a lot of my services to save historical architectural ... a lot folks own old homes, but can't afford to maintain them. Unfortunately, that's me now, too!