(Road Racing and) Time Trialing and Training Thread - Week Ending 6/21/20

wurdle wrote:

What pace would you consider your stepping stones at for a benchmark?

I did my first stepping stone workout today. 4x3mi. 1 moderate, 1 fast end of easy tempo, 1 threshold (i was slow by up to 5s/mi). It was tough but with cool weather and flat course I feel like that was a good start.

M43, 5'10

Somehow gashed my ankle open and it kept rubbing on whatever shoes I wore (even walking). So I took a few days off. The rest of the week was comfortably snappy.

Mon -- Camping / Rest

Tues -- 9.1 Miles @ 6:48

Wed -- 7.3 Miles @ 6:38

Thurs - REST (cut on ankle)

Fri -- REST (cut on ankle)

Sat -- 20 Mile Long Run @ 6:50

Sun -- 10.8 Miles @ 7:34

Weekly Totals

Miles: 47.2 Miles

Duration: 5:29

Stryd Running Stress Score: 389

Tweaked a calf last Saturday and felt better Tuesday so went for an easy jog, and it tightened right back up. Shut it down as far as running went for the remainder of the week, wasn't away from home until Sunday so I didn't have any real cross training options other than bodyweight stuff. Made it work.

M, 22, 5'8/162

M - Pushups/Core

T - 7 EZ, went poorly, back to square 1

W - 45min very intense bodyweight workout

TH - 45min intense BW workout

F - 30min BW

S - 30min BW

S - 90min MTB, lots of climbing, ~26mi

Plan is to build back some bike mileage and get into the gym and address some nagging issues in my bike and hips, probably going to lean heavily on the MTB & CX bikes for some hilly off-road outdoor mileage and use my road bike on the trainer for some quality workouts 1-2x/week. With nothing on the horizon I could probably use some time off my feet and actually work on building the foundation so I don't have a continuous boom/bust with mileage/injury.

Bodyweight workouts were 100-200 burpees/300+ pushups/300+ squats and jump squats in various intervals. Sore!

Geez. This thread is rife w calf injuries all of a sudden

I am by no means an expert on the “stepping stones” workout. But, I believe the prescribed paces for that workout are MP+40, MP +10, and MP-20. After my first set, I knew 550 was all the faster I was going to be going, so I adjusted mine to MP-10 for the fastest mile.

Given recent races, my prescribe MP via VDOT is right around 6:00. Though that seems laughable to me that I could actually ever accomplish 6:00 as a real MP.

The Stone Cutter wrote:

The main difference now is that I don’t fixate so much on pace as the driving guide of training, rather effort. As such, I would also say that I am more conservative in the types of workouts I implement and prescribe, favoring consistency over high quality.

...

But now more than ever, I think it is always important to listen to your body, to let your effort dictate the training not the pace. Because effort you can get right everyday. Pace can be hard to get right a lot of the times due to variances in conditions (weather, sleep, stress, life, etc.). So that if you are always fighting to hit target paces and not relaxing to feel and hit target effort, you become a runner who trains to fight himself, not a runner who trains to build himself.

Hey Stone,

I tend to agree with you in principle about effort vs pace, but I'm wondering if you are overstating this part: Because effort you can get right everyday.

As you know, I train a lot with the HRM which (maybe, debatably...) gives a somewhat accurate (or at least consistent) measurement of effort. I'm gonna claim that at my oppressive summertime temperatures, a run at the same HR feels a lot more uncomfortable than it would in cooler weather. Now, I know that "comfortability" and "effort" are not exactly the same thing, but it sure would be easy for me to feel like I am working harder than I actually am. And don't some runners suffer from "feeling great" all the time and, therefore, potentially, not reining in the horses when it might be beneficial to do so?

Male, 26, 6’4”, 145 lbs

PRs: 4:54 mi to 2:47:14 M (2018)

Goal: 7/11, 5k TT ?

Total - 0

Rolled my ankle on Monday while at work, was pretty painful. Swelling was mostly down by friday but still some swelling and discoloration on the top of my foot. As of Sa/Su I can walk normal but with pain. Not sure when to try to run on it.

- RS

RS... that stinks man. It always seems that you string together some great weeks, build the mileage back up, and there is some unforseen setback that has nothing to do with running, but stops you from doing it. Stomach, work ankle roll, etc. Bad luck. Hope it heals quickly and we see you back out on the track soon.

RunnerSam wrote:

Male, 26, 6’4”, 145 lbs

PRs: 4:54 mi to 2:47:14 M (2018)

Goal: 7/11, 5k TT ?

Total - 0

Rolled my ankle on Monday while at work, was pretty painful. Swelling was mostly down by friday but still some swelling and discoloration on the top of my foot. As of Sa/Su I can walk normal but with pain. Not sure when to try to run on it.

- RS

I've rolled my ankle badly severaly times - my experience is that it takes about 4-5 weeks to be able to run on it. I rushed it once and it lingered for 3 months.

Interesting - I always thought they were more or less done at MP, MP +30, MP+60 as a standard workout.

highhoppingworm wrote:

Felt some discomfort in my calf on that last rep right around .75 miles and stupidly kept running thinking I could finish the workout which was otherwise going great. Right around a mile I felt/heard a loud popping sound in my lower calf/Achilles area and was basically stopped on my tracks. Hobbled home 3-4 miles looking like Frankenstein. Was really afraid the entire walk that I did something to my Achilles but by the time I got home was pretty sure it was a lower calf issue. For those that remember this is the same Calf that hobbled me in December of last year for a month or so (with a couple of false starts).

worm - how are you doing now? Any guesses as to why this calf is giving you problems and how you can prevent it in the future?

I’m feeling quite a bit better. Feel a bit uncoordinated but no pain at this point. Debating starting the calf heart attack protocol tomorrow and going out for some walk jogging every other day for a week vs. giving it another week with just some gentle cross training.

As to why this calf has been problematic I don’t really have a good idea. The only thing I can think of is that it is the inside leg on a track and both injuries followed proportionally more track work.

I don’t really have any great ideas about how to prevent a future occurrence other than more consistent heel drops w/ some weight as well as glute and hammy exercises.

I'm sure there are different ways to prescribe this workout. I was looking at it from a "high end aerobic capacity" workout. AJ definitely uses this workout... see his comments here...https://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?thread=9935415&page=1 For the lazy, here is what he said...

angryjohnny wrote:

I got it from slo, who got it from Nate Jenkins, who we think got it from Canova. GT and I believe stone have tried it too. It’s basically 12 miles of continuous alternations around marathon pace.

So you start out with 1 mile at an uptempo easy pace, 1 mile a little slower than marathon pace, then 1 mile close to tempo pace. Repeat 4 times without stopping or until you die.

Slo specified my paces as 6:45/6:15/5:45, which is like MP+40/ MP+10/MP-20. If it’s indeed a Canova workout then I suspect the paces are specified as something like: 1.2xMP, 1.03xMP, .95MP.

The "4 times or until you die" portion of that post rang true to me after midway through the 4th set. Still, pretty happy with the result, though I felt pretty off the entire next day (yesterday).

Hey Coach, great to hear from you. Glad to see you back at it and hanging in there despite some truly oppressive weather conditions on your side of the world.

I think I see the point you are trying to get at regarding HR and comfortability, but I am not sure that really applies to my general statement. I REALLY do think you can get effort right every day, whereas I can promise you that nobody can get pace right every day.

Let’s say I head out the door for an out and back “easy” 8 miler. I’ve run the route many times and therefore do not require a watch to measure distance. I have no idea of my pace, and oppressive weather conditions may make the entire run feel uncomfortable, but I keep the effort in the right zone of easy because I know what that feels like. I know what that stride feels like, I know what that breathing feels like, and I know how that “talk test” works.

But if I went out on that same run and married myself to some predetermined heart rate or some predetermined pace, there’s a great chance that I may overexert myself on a day where the effort is supposed to be easy.

And that is all I mean when I say that you can always get the effort right. Especially during marathon training, with some cumulative fatigue built-in, it may turn out to be a really slow shuffle on certain days. Whereas on other mornings where you get some extra sleep, keep a healthy diet, and get glorious weather, that same level of effort may have you running even faster than what you “normally” deem to be an easy pace or a certain heart rate level.

But I would still contend that the effort was right in those prime conditions just as it was in the oppressive conditions.

Interesting article on a study around marathon pace. Just more data and how it could be used to determine marathon pace...

https://www.outsideonline.com/2414931/critical-speed-marathon-prediction-study

Hey Lanc,

As soon as I opened this and saw that curve I thought it was Stryd for a second. They use the exact same concept only they call it Critical Power which factors in hills and wind/air resistance.

I haven't been able to put this into practice yet but I know there are a lot of people doing pretty well with the concept. They claim its because they paced it properly from the beginning but it could also be increased fitness that led to the PR's in the first place.

Anyway, I really like your breakdown of running by feel vs pace vs HR. In recent months, I've been refusing to look at my watch during the run. It's actually quite fun to see what my average pace, HR and "Power" ended up being at the end. Sometimes, I'm shocked by how fast the pace is and sometimes how slow. But I've mentally conditioned myself to accept ANY pace result. What I do is I'll keep asking myself "Does this feel too hot or too cold?" and make an adjustment. Ultimately, I'm searching for the "My God this feels unbelievable!" feeling. Once I hit that, I conclude that the run is success no matter what the data says.

Interestingly enough, when I do look at the data afterwards, my first mile is always at least half a minute slower than the others and there is a slight speed up as I go. Nothing quite like a OR Flyer but more of a steady run with a very slight increase. My HR seems to be very very low for the first 10 minutes or so but then settles in and seems to follow my speed increase linearly. The exception would be the Long Run. My HR skyrockets around 1:50. I think this tells me that I need more long runs over 2 hours to build fatigue resistance beyond 1:50.

I hope running doesnt become super gear centric like cycling .... it takes so much away from the sport imo

runrincerepeat wrote:

I hope running doesnt become super gear centric like cycling .... it takes so much away from the sport imo

Yeah RRR, I think this idea was taken from cycling. The reason I started running was because it feels so freeing. Too many targets while running can sure make it feel less "freeing".

I like having my data but not if it's going to take the joy out of the run. That's why I'm trying to save the data for post run analysis only. :)

+1 to this. It has been extremely freeing for me to have the watch on the clock page, and cancel the autolap. I am truly able to run by feel on my easy days.

Post-run, the analysis has shown very similar to what BHViking says - 1st mile at about 30 secs /mile slower than the average pace, 2nd at very close to average pace for the run and then a very slight progression. From a HR perspective, I tend to land at 144 - 145 HRAvg for most of the easy runs.

Now, the challenge is to go completely by feel on the workout days too. Haven't mastered that fully. Tend to peek into the pace for longer workouts.