Road Racing and Training Thread - Week Ending 11-4-18

Great discussion. Pappy you’re right, not much to add but I will say that checking your splits during an easy run or heck even during a race may boost your confidence until it doesn’t. That’s my biggest problem with this way of thinking. The watch can make you question your fitness as much as it can celebrate it. You may hit a rough patch that itself may have been caused by some overzealous accounting. Once you get it inside your head that a 6:25 mile means you’re in pretty good shape (because it’s been happening on its own and it feels great) you’ll be more inclined to project that type of pace or fitness onto workouts because we want to feel like we are progressing along.

Am I still talking to too hot or are medium hot, ice hot, and icy hot new people? Yeah I was referencing the part I put in italics about additional useful information makes for better decisions more than the confidence boost thing. I considered leaving that part out because I can see how it can go either way for confidence if you're a nervous type, but figured I should be complete when sourcing.

icy hot wrote:

You may hit a rough patch that itself may have been caused by some overzealous accounting.

The nice part about having the watch to look at is you can go back and check to see if some overzealous accounting occurred with out your realizing it and maybe try. Again, the more information you have, the better decisions you can make.

icy hot wrote:

Once you get it inside your head that a 6:25 mile means you’re in pretty good shape (because it’s been happening on its own and it feels great) you’ll be more inclined to project that type of pace or fitness onto workouts because we want to feel like we are progressing along.

I'm not sure why I would use easy pace on its own to set workout paces. That seems like a silly decision. If I have workout paces I can use those to determine my workout pace goals, not my easy pace. Then if I am hitting the times and my easy paces start dropping even though I feel the same effort, it's one indication (that can be combined with others...like the workout paces themselves) that I can work harder on workout days, not easy days, and not by projecting my workout pace from the VDOT numbers for my "new easy pace". Making the workout harder could be lowering rest intervals or lengthening intervals or changing the pace. Then after the change, I monitor how my recovery goes using the watch. If they start to get harder relative to how I think it should feel at that pace, I can go back and ease off the change again and go from their. I learned something. If your confidence is very strongly tied to never taking a step back then sure, I think that's a personality difference that lends itself towards a tracking-free approach, but that doesn't mean either one is for everyone.

Going back to RRR's comments: I think he might be thinking back a little bit the Outside article GoFaMiAnHo posted a few weeks back about elite cyclists effort level rankings being in line with the watch and the power meter (and heart rate monitor?). In that study you were pointing out that the cyclists could pick an effort level that lined up with what the computers said. So the conclusion was a person is as good at judging their effort as the data. But from my point of view they are probably "knowing how fast you are running when running by feel." Those cyclists have been riding a bike as a full time job for years, with a watch and a power meter all the time. I can guess my mile time on most efforts reasonably well and I only do this a few hours a week. Of course they can hit a trend line. I bet they could give you (within the same margin of error) a guess as to what their power meter read instead of a 1-20 scale, too. The interesting question for me would be how well a bunch of internet hobby cyclists without a coach to guide them or prior bike computer experience can rate their efforts.

It sounds like the persona formerly known as too hot is projecting a lot of his own issues and his inability to work well using a watch. Not sure if he has ever even used a GPS watch though.

Pro tip- splits and watch data are invaluable tools that can be used to enhance and strengthen one’s sense of running by feel. If you are a head case with all of too hot’s emotional hang ups, then it might not work for you.

Obviously it works for successful runners like Meb and virtually every competitive modern marathoner.

I will say this, if your psyche is so delicate that seeing a 7:40 instead of a 7:30 is going to leave you dispirited enough to impact your confidence in a meaningful way, you probably don't have the right mental make up for this sport in the first place.

That's not to say that we need to measure every mile and analyze it. Some people just plain old don't care, and that's fine too.

Collecting and analyzing the data is part of the enjoyment for me. Although I rarely have a set "goal pace" in mind during a training run, it's fun to see the numbers and the progress toward broader long-term goals.

Meanwhile, OR is right on pace at 10K!

Anthem Richmond Marathon: OUTSIDE RUNNER - 10K in 38:21. Pace 6:11. Est: 2:41:46. ETA: 10:28 AM. Powered by Xact.

Yes! I saw this I was gonna post. Figure he would not mind at all since he shared the bib number. I’m awaiting the patented neggy split!!

Woke up to a balmy 16 degrees here. Sudden DROP.

Smoove wrote:

I will say this, if your psyche is so delicate that seeing a 7:40 instead of a 7:30 is going to leave you dispirited enough to impact your confidence in a meaningful way, you probably don't have the right mental make up for this sport in the first place.

That's not to say that we need to measure every mile and analyze it. Some people just plain old don't care, and that's fine too.

Addendum A

If, while racing watchless and with no time goal in mind, you happen to see clocks at the mile markers... look away IMMEDIATELY.

Earplugs or headphones are also recommended in case anyone tries to sabotage your race by shouting out splits.

Smoove - I'd say you (the general 2nd person you) don't have the right mental make up for this sport based on how YOU (specifically you) approach the sport.

I could see too hot's approach still being fun and full of surprises if that is the sort of thing you enjoy instead.

Go OR Go.

1:21 low at the HM mat. OR is moving!

OR halfway in 1:21:04

2:04:41 at 20 miles

Looks like OR is past 20M at 2:03:48 or 6:11 pace

whoops

Taking a page out of smooves book of stubborn stupidity trying to go out that fast.

Effort and pace can be two completely different things. It’s not the same in a training environment versus a racing environment and it is dependent on the amount of time you spend at a given effort level. If you run a 6:59 mile for example and keep it even pace-wise...the speed may be constant but it gets progressively harder to maintain that speed.

Somebody in this group thinks it bothers me when you register my name. I will keep posting under different names because what matters is the message not the messenger. Meanwhile you can have fun registering different accounts.

Gordon Tremeshko wrote:

You don't go into a race with any sort of time goal or expectation. Instead you try to figure out what effort you can maintain over a given distance and use that to pace yourself, never thinking "I'm going out at x:xx pace" not even a little bit.

Is this some kind of sarcasm ??

Our boy is deep in the hurt locker right now. Even if he slows to 6:30, he would be right around 2:45 flat, which would be a great race and big PR. I mean, the entire conversation is different from the one we were having about his marathons 2 years ago.

Pretzel Man wrote:

Gordon Tremeshko wrote:

You don't go into a race with any sort of time goal or expectation. Instead you try to figure out what effort you can maintain over a given distance and use that to pace yourself, never thinking "I'm going out at x:xx pace" not even a little bit.

Is this some kind of sarcasm ??

No...that wasn't my intent. It also is not my opinion on the subject. That was my attempt to provide RRR an example of why "running by feel" doesn't mean you have to "know what a specific pace feels like." My understanding of too hot's approach is that you have no predetermined expectation for what race pace will be. You only know what racing should feel like at mile 1, mile 2, mile 3, etc.

I suppose I could have kept my mouth shut and let too hot answer, but since he took counterpoints with other things I said and let this stand under the umbrella of "good discussion" I believe he agrees?