keeping up with the lead pack? serious question

Too many hard tempos, intervals, and races will do anyone in eventually.

Sorry...Speaker of Hard Truths is correct!!!

Lies have speed, Truth has endurance!

I'm from Jersey wrote:

Helpful advice giver wrote:

Probably lives in Jersey

Half the CEOs, fund managers and managing directors/partners who work in NYC live in New Jersey you fool.

How many sockpuppets have you used in this thread D!? Every time YOU post, a flurry of supporting "posters" immediately pop up. When you stop posting, suddenly, there is no interest in your thread. How come?

formerD1 wrote:

BLAH BLAH BLAH.

Commuting at 3 AM?

Didn't think this would take off to 100+ but is there an agreement near the end?

completenoob wrote:

Didn't think this would take off to 100+ but is there an agreement near the end?

Just that FormerD1 is a blowhard and posts under various usernames in support of himself.

certain it's the case wrote:

New Contract wrote:

And then you have the patient post collegiate developers criticizing you while they finally get close to that 1:20 half Marathon.

Has been versus never was and never will.

You mean people like you?

Yes, I am a has been.

At this point, I have to assume the whole string was an exercise in trolling, which I considered early on. If not, I am having trouble understanding how you could ever have read the responses and be uncertain about the conclusion reached in response to your original question.

this is one of the core questions I have about running - when and how hard to push in training...when to work inside your known limits and when to push against them.

There's no single answer...I can certainly see the benefit to young improving runners to chase faster guys in training and racing.

It strikes me as an American question...go with the science and the reason or just admit that greater than half of running is mental and set an expectation of 'no limits.'

What Would Prefontaine Do?

I will admit that there are races in which I think I left some time or places on the table because I looked up at the guys around me and thought that I should not be running with them and rather than dropping them, I kind of mentally deferred to them. It is a tough balancing act.

I try to accomplish finding that balance by listening to my body as much as I can. I like to try to run at least one of my long training intervals by feel rather than by watch. I also tend to implement an informal rule of not allowing myself to slow down over the course of my intervals sessions so that if I run my first mile repeat at 4:55 when I believe I am in 5:03 per mile shape, I commit to 4:55s for the remainder of my workout (both as penance for messing up the initial interval and in an effort to see if my fitness has improved more quickly than I had anticipated). I also try to race on a fairly regular basis so that I can test my fitness and drop my workout times if the other things mentioned above have not already dropped them. Unfortunately, the frequent racing approach doesn't always work for me because I often end up in no man's land during local races, in which case I focus on feel and effort, but that rarely results in me popping a big race running solo.

At the end of the day, like I said, it is a balancing act. I carry that balancing act out by way of experience and knowing my body and listening to the cues I am being given.

I think less experienced runners tend to think "well, I only kept up with the lead guys for the first 1200 of the first mile interval, but next time maybe I will make it the whole mile, and then the time after that I will make it part way through the second interval." I think this is wrong headed thinking. When the disparity is that big, you end up losing out on the physiological benefit of the workout (even the later slower intervals won't add much because you are so worn out from the first interval's effort) and you have lost a week of opportunity to improve, meaning you are falling even further behind the guys you are trying to keep up with.

New Contract wrote:

certain it's the case wrote:

You mean people like you?

Yes, I am a has been.

No, you're a never were never will be. Keep chasing those age group championships though.

Being a "completenoob" I posted to find some answers. Was thinking there'd be some kind of agreement across the board. I drew my own conclusion from this thread. I get it, there's no yes or no answer. It's conditional and the conditions depend on other variables. Thanks for the time everyone.

Who said Im in EST? Ever hear of airplanes?

What is a blowhard?

Nice lie wrote:

New Contract wrote:

Yes, I am a has been.

No, you're a never were never will be. Keep chasing those age group championships though.

I'll worry about that when I can't win the overall title. You worry about "training at your current level", OK?

Pre would run all of his training at an all out sprint, run the race like a fool and end up 4th in the Olympics.

No Limit Training.

New Contract wrote:

Nice lie wrote:

No, you're a never were never will be. Keep chasing those age group championships though.

I'll worry about that when I can't win the overall title. You worry about "training at your current level", OK?

The overall title of what, the local corporate 5k? Please stop embarrassing yourself. You never ran impressive times in your life, you're no faster than the never-weres you're talking about. At least formerD1 was somewhat fast.

Nice lie wrote:

The overall title of what, the local corporate 5k? Please stop embarrassing yourself. You never ran impressive times in your life, you're no faster than the never-weres you're talking about. At least formerD1 was somewhat fast.

Thanks!

I won my state 800m final and had a really good chance of winning nationals with my time (my year was pretty slow, no kids below 1:50) but was injured :( I should've run through the stress fracture instead of taking the time off to recover for fall XC.

FormerD1: Take it easy, Champ. Why don't you sit this next one out, stop talking for a while.