Road Racing and Training Thread - Week Ending 2/10/19

Jeremy R wrote:

too hot 3 wrote:

Respectfully disagree on this one

Sorry Stone, I agree with toohot on this one. FT guys recover much faster standing around vs jogging

It’s okay, you are not disagreeing with me. I am simply sharing what I have heard, meaning the opinion of those who have studied such things. My own personal experience, as I stated, is that there is quite a mixed bag from both slow twitch runners and fast twitch runners that I know who prefer the opposite of what I have heard.

Jeremy R wrote:

too hot 3 wrote:

Respectfully disagree on this one

Sorry Stone, I agree with toohot on this one. FT guys recover much faster standing around vs jogging

Maybe I am a fast twitch guy after all.

Smoove wrote:

Maybe I am a fast twitch guy after all.

I have suspected this...with your long stride...though your lower cadence would seem to work against that.

Smoove-I've always thought you were too. Very explosive; lots of power from your form.

I think part of the reason you get those cramps at the end of the marathon is just that your FT muscles are just SHOT. Similar to me, I recruit them so much to maintain a pace that at the longer races they just fail. I've only been running almost 3 years so they haven't been as conditioned... those are at least my theories...

Comments from this week..

Stone Cutter: Solid set of workouts. I am going to try one of those alternating pace tempos one of these days.

GT: Nice speedwork session and great progression MLR at the end of the week also.

Coach Jeff ROC: Congrats on hitting 100 miles for the week! That was a tough long run with 20K @ MP HR effort. Strong work!

Smoove: Conservative therapy is always the best if this is possible. Best wishes for a continued recovery to full health.

Pappy: This is the first time I have heard of an adaptive motion trainer. I have never seen it in any of my gyms. Is this a good way to cross train through an injury?

HHH Runner: Congrats on a solid finish to your XC race (always better to be passing rather than getting passed by other runners at the end of a race) and good luck with Nationals.

Sub-6:00: Really impressive 20 mile long run especially factoring the wind.

Jot quill: Really happy to hear you have fully recovered from your Achilles scare (I am dealing with a hamstring scare right now myself..) 120 miles is impressive! Great job!

RunninReed: Nice fast 4 mile tempo on the track

Outsiderunner: Congratulations on the mileage PR. I’ve always imagined given how strong of a runner that you are that you had gone over 100 miles in a week.

PutoMiudo: Congrats on a strong finish in your XC race!

Darkwave: Solid week of training. Do you think that pool running would be a good idea for me given my pulled hamstring injury?

DietBacon: Did you change your CV pace based on your 10K race result? Nice carb depletion long run there.

VF Runner: Welcome back to the thread.

Puddles: Really nice 8 mile MP tempo there.

BHViking: Nice HR based effort tempo run there. Did you go to a lab to get your maximal HR calculated?

LancRunner: Thanks for the tip about the tart cherry juice on sale at Costco. I drink a glass everyday for muscle recovery purposes.

Urban Diesel: Congrats on running some very fast times for your first set of masters track races.

James the Amateur: Solid 2x2 tempo workout.. You will definitely get to being able to run straight 4 mile HMP tempos with a little more training.

Jewbacca: Congratulations on a solid 2nd place in the marathon! Nice race…

Still improving: Nice workouts for the week. What does TLT stand for by the way?

Jeremy R: Nice 400 in 62 seconds! Flying…

IceisNotfun: Nice workouts with the set of mile repeats and the steady long run.

Cocoon: Solid pace for your 20 mile long run.

Eobard Thawne: Interesting 7x1 cruise intervals workout with progressively shorter recovery periods.. I have never seen that workout.

Old dog/old tricks: It’s OK to take a rest day once in a while… still a solid week of training.

GFMAH: Thanks for the encouragement. My right hamstrings are feeling better 2 days after the injury so I am going to do a trial of slow jogging to see how they feel. I took yesterday off and rode a stationary bike for 40 minutes.

RunnerSam wrote:

I will resume on the stationary bike this coming week. Successfully entered the Normal BMI range at 18.5 (6'4" 152) after basically not running since November which is pretty cool.

-Sam

BikerSam... errr RunnerSam...

I mean, that's a bright side right? You almost crack the super welterweight weight class. (think it's 154). With your reach, you'd be formidable in the ring (just don't get hit, runners don't take hits well).

Good to see you still around, and get better soon. In all seriousness, I hope all scans are clear and some rest, stretch, ice, etc. is prescribed rather than a boot or worse. I was thinking of hitting some track workouts in the spring with you crazy guys, heal up and get out there.

Thanks all on the comments and well wishes for the achilles!

Bruin, hope the hamstring rebounds quick and that the doctor has a favorable diagnosis as well. No experience with hamstrings :(. 3 weeks is still a long time recovery and stay spry and you've done most of the heavy lifting in training already, you've got this! Hitting GMP in training can be deceivingly disheartening, but from my experience in a solid race you'll crush GMP even if it wasn't hit in workouts.

I'll add one thing as far as injury, and maybe others can chime in too, as I'm nowhere near an expert. Sometimes I question how much injury-recovery activity is beneficial vs. just minimal to no activity. For example, last year with my achilles issue, I immediately jumped on stretches, compression, icing, elevation, everything I could think of and it dragged on for weeks. This time around, for the most part I didn't deviate at all from my usual training routine except for little to no running. At most, the only extra I did for a few days was massage around my calves/shins for a few minutes while watching TV, nothing professional just by hand because it felt nice. And here, I was back on my feet a lot faster. Obviously there's way too many variables at play here to make any real calls, but I have some kind of a theory:

Active injury recovery methods are useful for preparing an injury to continue training, but if training completely stops, it might be better to just have as passive of a injury recovery as possible. IDK, there was some post in a thread here that put it as "picking at a scab," and that kind of got me thinking about this theory.

Anyone else have a more educated stance on this? Would love to hear more

Appreciate all the replies regarding the "rest" question. Of all of the varieties, I think the only one I have never used is the standing around variety... though the longer the workout lasts or the more difficult the conditions, the more I trend in that direction.

As for my post-100 week: it's supposed to be a 1.0 week, but I had already decided to cut it to anything from .8 to .9 (as gofamianho suggested) so I could take a day off. I took that day yesterday, also my off day from work, and then I went to bed early, slept 10 hours, and woke up yawning and groggy! Q2 after another cup of coffee or two..

Bruin: I really like it. Precor 835 is what I believe they have where I go. It is kind of like an elliptical, a stair stepper and an arc trainer depending on how you chose to move on it. I have runners knee bad and have had no issues on it so far. I've been trying to keep my hips right on it and work my glutes and hamstrings more. Could easily lean forward a little and work the quads. Tonight I did 60 minutes with my HR at 145-150 where I was opening up my stride 30 or so inches. Finished off with 15 minutes at 130 bpm and a stride length of maybe 18 inches. It is kind of nice being able to change stride length on the fly. Sorry to hear about your hamstring. It stinks this close to the goal race. hopefully, it heals fast.

GFMH: I swam there last year but it dried out my skin way too much.

Pappy wrote:

GFMH: I swam there last year but it dried out my skin way too much.

Yeah, there is that, especially in the winter. Good to hear you're finding things that work for you in any case.

I've been thinking about doing some swimming myself but the scheduling is a little tricky (and my swimming is more like drowning horizontally anyway). Will be cross-training with the snow shovel for a while today it looks like.

Bruin: Good to hear the hamstring is showing signs of improvement. Take care of it and try not to get too antsy. Like jotquill said, the bulk of the training is already done, so the main thing now is to get healthy enough to use it.

Bruin1996 wrote:

Eobard Thawne: Interesting 7x1 cruise intervals workout with progressively shorter recovery periods.. I have never seen that workout.

2.14 Marathon guy who used to coach me was a big fan of these types of workout's. Find them great for mimicking racing conditions (rep effort getting progressively harder without pace fluctuating) Also find it allows you to get a bit more volume in the session without working too hard later on.

Bruin1996 wrote:

BHViking: Nice HR based effort tempo run there. Did you go to a lab to get your maximal HR

Hi Bruin, sorry to hear about your injury. Such a great training cycle going! I really hope it’s a super fast recovery and you can make the race in terrific shape.

To answer your question, I am estimating 196 as max from a recent workout (a little over a month ago?) in which I did hard intervals for 3:30 on and 1:30 rest. I did 7 of them and HR steadily rose on each one until the final one in which I was a steady 194-196 bpm.

Certainly not the best method. Hadd suggested a warmup at the track followed by an all out 800, short standing rest of I think 30 seconds followed by an all out 400. Take the highest number. I’m not sure how much I would trust that test either but I’m guessing it’s close enough to give good zones to work from? If the track EVER clears up here I may try it and share the results.

Interesting approach! I don’t have a low limit set. I didn’t know you could make it not alarm low until you were in the zone. I use a Forerunner 935, I’ll have to look into that. I currently have mine set to alarm high at 148. I found it will occasionally blip over so I get nuisance alerts that I will just ignore. I usually won’t respond unless I get 2 in a row. For example it might alarm at 149, I’ll ignore it and end up with a lap average of 143 or something. The lap averages seem to steadily rise over time at constant pace (slowly) but are jagged. So I wonder if Hadd wanted his runners to strictly respond to those jagged peaks or just make sure their lap averages were down in the zone. For example, if top of zone is 145 bpm, is an average HR for a mile of 145 be within the bounds of the intended workout if there were measurements of 146 and 147? Honestly have no idea and it probably doesn’t matter.

Past my bedtime...

My sense is that you are NOT going for an average HR but ought to be trying to stay close to the target. In other words, 60 minutes divided into 30 minutes at 100 and 30 minutes at 180bpm (HRavg 140) would be different from 30 minutes at 139 and 30 minutes at 141 (same HRavg). So I try to stay within about 5bpm rather than 20bpm or 40bpm. Not suggesting this is right, just that it's what I do. I feel like this interpretation is in the spirit of program.

For the alarm thing... you need to do it in the app or on the computer using Garmin Connect... by setting up a "Workout" (Garmin Connect:Training:Workouts) that you send to the watch. That thing about getting into the zone... Set up the first step using: Select a duration: Heart Rate: and then choose the bottom of the zone you want. Then you can "Select an intensity target": Custom zone: and type in the hi/lo bpms that you're targeting. Name the workout and sync it to the watch. Then, on the watch, go to something like "Training": "My Workouts" and pick it.

I’m way behind on the thread, but congrats on the great racing R3, Outside Runner, Jewbacca, Urban Diesel and anyone I missed.

Huge mileage weeks Sub 6, Coach Jeff and J. Quill.

Outside Runner, you may be thanking Juan post-Boston for pushing you in these buildup races. Didn’t you say there’s an 8k in your series? Maybe that will be the distance that shifts the calculus in your favor. It’s great that you are throwing down these 5ks and bringing up your global level of fitness. Good things ahead.

Bruin- hang in there. You may be able to regroup before the race. You don’t need 100% of your fitness to go sub 2:40

going faster miles an hour wrote:

pewow: I think I ran (and as it happens, won) that hundred furlong race when I was in Madison. Look out for the hills if it’s the same course.

I don't think I'm going to do the 50 furlong although other races will be hilly. I'm planning to do an arb loop 10k first weekend of March and will then probably do a 10k two weeks later that goes over observatory drive twice. Chance the second 10k will get swapped for driving down to Chicago for an 8k, but more likely I'll stay up "north".

Also, belated congrats on your imperial distance win.

After my really good workout last Saturday, I decided to try to run a certified 5K this Saturday... however, I've been suffering from some patellofemoral-pain-syndrome (runner's knee)? The bony part at the top of my tibia hurts, feels like a tendon issue.. So frustrating. took off today.

Just as I was starting to feel good and confident...

slo - Thanks very much, and you are right that I should thank Juan. Regarding the 8k, we had the 5-miler a few weeks ago...a very hilly affair. Happy running to you....