Road Racing and Training Thread Week ending Dec 2 2018 (CIM edition)

Still Improving wrote:

I can't believe I did it! In more ways than one. Final time of 2:57:06 avg pace 6:46. I'm surprised I managed to hang on as well as I did in the final 10k. I hemorrhaged a little time, but it wasn't too bad. Race report to come later. I'm tired and hungry.

Congratulations!!!

SLO—How did you know!?...”destiny for greatness in the 5k,” right?

I PRed! Ran under 17:30. Old PR was 17:39 (hilly). It was, indeed, a big race. At least 1,200 turned out. I heard that it is the biggest 5k in WV. The basic details...

17:26

7th overall

1st Master

Used a longer warm-up (thanks, stat) of 2.25 miles. I felt great the whole way. Calf was a bit tight in the warm-up, but okay in the race. I still had something left at the end, and could have dug a bit deeper. Crossed the line feeling great. What an excellent event—huge crowd support the whole way. A nice negative split...

5:46, 5:42, 5:27.8, 36.73 (.12 @ 5:06 pace to finish).

I thank all of you for the encouragement, and look forward to your feedback. It was one of the better days of my life. Wife and two little ones at the finish line.

BIG congrats to SI on the 2:57. I knew you could do it!

going faster miles an hour wrote:

Still Improving wrote:

I can't believe I did it! In more ways than one. Final time of 2:57:06 avg pace 6:46. I'm surprised I managed to hang on as well as I did in the final 10k. I hemorrhaged a little time, but it wasn't too bad. Race report to come later. I'm tired and hungry.

Congratulations!!!

+1. Atta boy SI. Your username ain't no lie. Sub 3 crew continues to come through.

35 6ft 150 or so.

Tough week for RRR. Traveling for work and worked a trade show. No running. No biking. No exercise of any kind. First all zero week since Jan 2016 when I started running. If I am right on my diagnosis of my leg (fibula stress reaction/fracture) then most likely out of Houston as well. R3 without running is a shell of a man... makes waking up barely even tolerable.

Felt sorry for myself all week (but at least faded the sickness which turned into a respiratory infection imo) so now it’s time to cross train in earnest and quit being a little Whiney B*tch.

Good Luck all. Great race SI. You as well OR. 5ks can be fun.

I did 57 miles, nothing to write home about.

Did a fartlek/speed session on Wednesday at a park and witnessed by some 5000 or 6000 geese. 10 min threshold, 2 min recovery; 4 min at 8K race effort but progressing with each rep; and 3X 35-40 sec sprints. And Saturday was pure speed after a longer warm up, 1100, 500, at mile pace--30 sec recovery, so real short--and then 2X 200 sprints.

I hate geese. They are a-holes.

Great job Still Improving!

Some comments while I have the time...

Still Improving: Congratulations again on a really terrific performance - look forward to reading the report after you have a chance to recover and enjoy the moment!

Gordon: Nice rebuilding week. This is a great time to start investing some effort in the strides and drills – I think the hill strides/sprints are particularly valuable (and need to get back to doing more of them myself).

Slo: Back in the game indeed, and hardly missing a beat, it seems like.

Sam: Making the podium in a 100k just a couple weeks out from running a PR in the marathon is nothing to sneeze at.

TDR: Your training just seems to keep getting gradually stronger. Really a terrific turnaround for you. Keep it rolling.

PutoMiudo: Sorry to hear the race didn’t go quite as well as you hoped, but it sounds like you’re handling it in a really positive way. You’ll get there, and when you do, the struggles along the way will just make it that much sweeter.

Allen: Solid mileage. Hope the back and knee ease off on you a bit. I know that the knee in particular is kind of chronic deal that you just kind of deal with the best you can, but make sure you’re getting the recovery you need. One of the tricky things about doing a lot of training all in the moderate range is that the grind can kind of sneak up on you.

pewow: Hope you’re feeling better. Running with faster people on their easy days is a nice way of getting in some uptempo mileage.

KidB: Another really nice week of training for you. Once you recover from the marathon, you’re going to blow that 5k PR out of the water.

JtA: Hope your daughter is doing better. Our daughter made a couple of trips to the ER with asthma when she was younger, and it definitely takes a lot out of you. As far as the 10k goes, I would second what Jeremy said: a PR is a PR, and it seems like you’ve come pretty far in a pretty short period of time, in spite of dealing with some challenging circumstances. Feel good about that, and recognize that you are in a place where you can probably continue to improve just by being as consistent as you can with your running, without worrying about the details too much. If you can let your running be a release from stress, rather than something that adds to it, it will probably be better for you and your running.

Jeremy: Nice solid week. Alternations at 5k pace sound pretty intense. Hope the Achilles is improving, and that your travel for work goes smoothly.

Urban D: Some nice workouts there. What event(s) do you think you might be targeting for indoors?

OR: Congratulations on the 5k PR, Masters win, and overall top ten! Progressive pacing FTW!

RRR: Hope you’re wrong about the diagnosis – lot of things can get glitchy down in that area – but either way, you’ve gotten some real good races out of this training cycle, and we know that you’ll come back and come back stronger.

Coyote: Getting sharp for that 8k! When I was in high school, our home cross-country meets started and finished across a big field that was seasonally inhabited by a sizable flock of Canada geese. Unless you got out off the front, which I never did, you would end up running through a green haze of kicked-up goose dung. On rainy days I remember washing the stuff out of my ears.

Smoove wrote:

I hate geese. They are a-holes.

I tend to agree. Way too many here.

M 23

PRs: 4:21, 15:44

Goals:

Short term: Indoor: 4:16 mile, break my soft 3k PR (8:58) sub-15 outdoor

Long term sub-4

Next race: Mile on December 8

Goal race: Mile at Terrier Classic on January 26

Training at 6-7,000 feet

Monday: Rest

Tuesday: 8 miles at 7:47 +5x15 second strides

Wednesday: 3.2 warm up, track session 2x200, 6x400, 2x200. Rests around 50/1:50. 8:56 total for 3,200 of work. Averaged 67.5 for the 400s. 30.high last 200 into a slight wind. 2.3 cool down

Thursday: 8 miles at 7:37

Friday: 2.6 warm up, farlek 8x2 min/1min. Covered 4.12 miles in 24:00 (5:50 average, 5:59 down to 5:35.) 4x8 second sprints. 2 mile cool down

Saturday: 6 miles at 7:27

Sunday: 12.1 miles at 7:19

Total: 51 miles

Great week for me. Funny how awful I felt on the two of the recovery days (Tuesday and Thursday) and how strong I felt when it counted (Wednesday, Friday, and Sunday.)

I'm in pretty similar shape as I was last year when I opened up in 4:27 at BU. My race on the 8th will be on a much slower track here at altitude. The NCAA conversion would be 10 seconds, but I'm not sure how much I buy that. I think I will be able to "feel" what a good performance is. No matter what happens on Saturday, I have two bigger races at BU the following two weekends, which will be a better barometer of my fitness. I hope to come close to my PR December 22nd.

Great job at CIM everybody!

Fantastic run! Seriously impressive time for your age group as well. Gotta agree with GT, the sub-3 crew has been straight fire this year.

Nice little PR there, OR.

Kudos to the weekend’s other racers, too.

RRR - Hang in there, man. I know it sucks.

Modest week for me. Ran 26.5 miles in 3 runs last week. I got back from my Arizona Thanksgiving trip on Tuesday and immediately came down with some kind of sickness that had me down and out for several days. The silver lining is that my back feels 100% now, probably mostly due to the forced time off. I did get a nice 10 miler in today.

Onward and upward.

Hope everybody else had a great week.

I forgot to hit the quote post button. The congratulations, obviously, were meant for Still Improving.

Good morning, y'all. My Monday morning coffee ritual...

First a shout out to STILL IMPROVING!!! I nearly spilled my coffee when I saw that!!!! I am so psyched for you!!!!

And OR: If you get a chance, send me a google map link to the fountain of youth you seem to have found. Absolutely fabulous!

Gordon: Combat the marathoner's shuffle! I was watching some training clips from Kenyans and noticing their beautiful strides one day last week. The very next day I tried incorporating some drills too! I have a sneaking suspicion it is too late for me, but I every 3 weeks or so I get diligent again... So many little things to pay attention too... diet... core work...

slo-twitch: That's an interesting looking Wednesday tempo. I always assumed a 4 mile tempo would ideally be a steady state... maybe you do it all the time and I'm just noticing it now...

RunnerSam: Not what you were looking for... I know what that feels like. Give it a few days before you get too hard on yourself about the mental battle. Maybe the conditions were enough to account for the 38 minutes? Maybe you were just up against a couple of guys who were poised for a great day? Maybe it was mental. Just don't jump to conclusions! Hope you're feeling good today. I know after slippery trail races, I have all kinds of little aches and pains throughout my body from the violent attempts at keeping and balancing, and not always succeeding!

TDR: Enjoy that vacation!

Puto: Is the hip OK now? Do you need to take a break?

Allen: Good luck as you start the new cycle, Allen. Your comment about how to adjust the plan to your body's recovery interested me. As I prepare to do 2Q, I had somewhat resolved to respond to recovery issues on the other end of the spectrum, by trying to execute as much work as is recommended and then readjust/rearrange the E days to compensate. Either way, we're gonna be smart about this!

pewow: Hope you're feeling better!

KidB: I'm paying close attention to sub-3 training these days! Looks like you ran about 25% of your mileage at MP or faster. If you are doing this week after week and feeling strong, I'd say your right to be feeling confident!

Arrrr... I need to get moving. I'll be back when I have a chance to take a break later and catch up on the CIM results...

Coach Jeff ROC wrote:

Puto: Is the hip OK now? Do you need to take a break?

Let's see tomorrow. I'm resting on monday and maybe I'll start again on tuesday. 10k this weekend and I still don't know if I shoud run it or not...

Male, 48, 133ish lbs

Goal: Houston Marathon, Sub 2:40

PRs: 16:52, 35:33, 1:18:19, 2:41:36 (all 2016)

Still Improving: Nice job on the sub 3!

Runner Sam: still a nice podium finish

Puto: sorry to hear about the hip pain. Get some well deserved rest before you start up again.

Kid B: Solid week of training for Houston!

James: you might've just been tired for this race. On to the next one!

OR: those are nice looking splits -- great finish!

Had a decent week of training, despite still dealing with pain on the top of my right foot. I am doing the Lydiard lacing, which I think does help. But I think it might be another week or two before I kick this thing.

M: off

Tues: am: 6 easy; pm: 8 on hotel TM with 3 x 1 mile in 5:46, 5:42, 5:39 (easing back into some mile repeats as the foot heals)

Wed: 14 easy in New Orleans

Thurs: 10 easy on hotel treadmill

Fri: 8 easy on home treadmill

Sat: 10 easy on home treadmill (more pouring rain again, and I wimped out)

Sun: 20 miles. Had planned on 10 easy with last 10 at MP. Did first 10 in 7:04 avg, and then could only make it 8 miles at MP of 6:06 pace. Things felt harder today than last week, maybe because it was cold and rainy and I was pretty soaked and cold at the start of the MP section. I then jogged 1/3 of a mile and did another faster mile in 5:58, then jogged to the finish. This run was a bit discouraging, and made me question my goal a little. But I know that it's just one run, and I very well could bounce back just fine next week. My foot was fine during the run, but sore afterwards. As of 7pm, it feels much better now.

I forget who asked last week (Coach Jeff maybe?), but I am trying to cut a few pounds before Houston if I can. I was 130-1/2 when I PR'd at Chicago in 2016. I think I can comfortably lose about five pounds. But I'm running out of time to do it, as Houston is now 7 weeks away. If I do lose it, I will try to do it very gradually, as I'm planning on bumping up my mileage to the 90s and need to make sure I don't skimp on nutrition.

Kind of crazy seeing Brogan Austin winning CIM. Works 9-5 and is Tinman trained. Training is consistent, but unremarkable. Maybe there is something to "keeping the ball rolling"

hotsauced wrote:

Kind of crazy seeing Brogan Austin winning CIM. Works 9-5 and is Tinman trained. Training is consistent, but unremarkable. Maybe there is something to "keeping the ball rolling"

I was just looking at this. The Tinman training is what you said, in a lot of ways "unremarkable"

It's crazy to me that it looks like he never ran more than 5 x 5 mins at threshold in a workout, aside from one long run that had 8 x 1 mile sandwiched in the middle of it.

Interesting to say the least.

More comments tomorrow, but I didn't want the day to pass without a few quick shout-outs to this weekend's racers, especially Still Improving, RunnerSam and outsiderunner.

SI, fantastic running, and I am looking forward to hearing the details. I'm also looking forward to replicating your experience ten months from now ...

OR, congrats on the PR and masters win. That fast closing mile of course says you've got more 5K PRs in the tank. How did the race play out? You must have picked up a few places during that last mile, eh? Also, did you mistype the splits (5:46, 5:42, 5:27.8, 36.73)? Or is my math off in figuring the total time?

RS, it's not the win you sought, but a huge effort, and a podium finish. Congratulations!