Road Racing and Training Thread - Week Ending 10/17/21

Tyler_Runs_Lifts: Lots of positive splits in Chicago this year. You're not alone. It's a tough thing for competitive runners with a goal in mind to suddenly "run by feel." Rubs ya the wrong way (chafing pun intended). Still a great cycle and not a bad day, all things considered.

RRR: In that case: No beer on Wednesday. And you're on track for another strong week

Mrs Stone - Sorry to hear about the hernia flare up. That’s not optimal timing at all but I’m impressed with the quick return!

Runrincerepeat- What are you thinking for your 5k? I’m loving your layout of races for the fall and winter

HHWorm - those progression runs look really strong. Your training is really showing.

Blah - your 10k race sounds like it took a ton out of you! But congrats on the gold! I’m hoping you can recover well with some fun walks and make it back

Notarobot - sounds like poor race management with direction. Either way, you still raced and got in a tempo workout? I’m still lost by that. I’ve helped work with race and timing companies for runs and am always annoyed by athletes getting redirected to wrong turns. . .

Not sure yet. I don’t feel very strong at the shorter distances but will see what coach thinks I can do in the build up for Boston. I feel stronger in the longer distances so I think after another cycle for Boston (while doing some shorter stuff leading up to it) I want to tackle a road 50 miler.

Tyler - reading your post and race reports, you gave it your best and it just wasn’t the day. You also had a lot of hardship in the build in your state with weather if I remember. Don’t let it get you down, you’re really fit and an even stronger athlete and man. You’ll be ready for the next one

I’m really not sure on 5k time. I figure like 17:4x would be a good outcome … my longer endurance feels good. Short fast stuff feels great. But T pace doesn’t feel so good so… who knows

The Stone Cutter wrote:

Male, 43, 5’11”, 190 lbs

PRs: 16:43 (2019) 1:17:24 (2019), 2:47:00 (2018)

Goals: Lose weight, regain fitness

Next Goal Race: Boston 2023

Next Race: TBD

Week of 10/11 to 10/17

M - 4 (9:52)

T - 4 (8:45)

W - 4 (8:51)

Th - 5 (8:43)

F - 5 (9:07)

Sa - 5 (9:06)

Su - 7 (8:39)

Weekly Total: 34 miles

2021 YTD: 1,417 miles

Hope everyone else had a great week.

I put this in the wrong RR/T thread but here it is. Thanks to The Stone Cutter and others for doing this.

TheStoneCutter--I hope your wife recovers from her hernia. My mother has one and it's painful. She will crush NYC!

runrincerepeat--you will nail your race. I like your racing and training plan progression. The rust-buster 5k should be a good data check.

highhoppingworm--that's a good base with 66 miles and your 14-miler looks solid. I've learned a lot about building base and training workouts from these threads.

Sub 6:00--Go for PIT! There's also Flying Pig in Cinci later this month. Detroit has a nice marathon, I've heard.

Blahbleheh--good base and GREAT 10k!

Marathon As A Teaching Tool

As noted by others here, I went out too fast (1:33) and came home in 1:46 to finish 3:20:01. Still a modest PR. Would have been nice to run 3:19:59 (2 seconds faster).

I'm actually now ok about what happened and found some positives:

1) I ran a 1:33 half and could have gone even faster had I just ran the 13.1 (1:31-1:32). I already know where I need to improve; it's a simple tweak.

2) I know to stick to my original plan next time.

3) Looking at my splits on Strava, I was able to hold 7:05 pace through 18 (2:07:24), 7:09 pace through 20 (2:23:11) and 7:13 pace through 24 (2:46:39). The only truly bad miles were 8:49, 9:00, 9:03 for miles 24, 25 and 26. So I have some fitness still in me.

Already signed up for the 2/6 Dublin 26.2-mile loop marathon a few minutes from my apartment. Taking a few days off from running just to be absolutely safe I recover properly.

Forgot to add:

CoachJeffROC--I'm motivated by your encouragement this season. LRC has good people on it!

AverageForFun--you will nail that road 50k and kill Boston. I'm interested to see how they'll turn the race production around that soon for the normal Patriots Day race.

Out of curiosity... whatever happened to that age-graded thing we used to keep here? I kinda enjoyed that motivation. Maybe some others are interested too. If anyone would like to see the return of the weekly "age-graded" PR tally, I'd be willing to take on the record-keeping duties. let me know.

Coach Jeff ROC wrote:

Out of curiosity... whatever happened to that age-graded thing we used to keep here? I kinda enjoyed that motivation. Maybe some others are interested too. If anyone would like to see the return of the weekly "age-graded" PR tally, I'd be willing to take on the record-keeping duties. let me know.

Tall Dark Roast did that ... he when vanish mode even before covid ...

I think the issue was we didn't have dates for the races that the age grade was based off of, but we did have a 1 year cut off so as time wore on we couldn't remove outdated results.

- RS

hhw - that is a tough time to find a marathon, houston in January would be better if you have enough time to train between then and now

AverageForFun/darkwave - congrats on the marathons

RRR - I think at least 5 of my club mates are going down to Houston, its on my to-do list. The wife is having some hamstring issues so if she ditches Philly we may set our eyes on it.

Stone - glad to hear you will be around, It will not be like RnR'19. I'll catch you at some point. Any idea if I could pick up packet for a friend (and the wife) or are they serious about you can only pickup your own? I'm guessing you have more experience with philly races than I.

Tyler - sounds pretty rough, nicejob somewhat keeping it together till the finish

Tyler - That's a bummer man. But look at how you placed relative to the field! I wonder if we focus too much on time and not enough on "racing" if that makes sense. By "we", I mean a vast majority of us. To add my personal experience to this, I used to have a goal of breaking 3 hours in the marathon. I was sooooo locked into my watch and hitting mile splits that I think I was ignoring my "internal meters". Needless to say, I never came close until one race I just decided to run by feel. The first time I did that, I ran 2:52. MASSIVE PR at the time. I learned on that day that I simply race and train better if I totally ignore my watch and just make little adjustments based on what my body is telling me. I do collect all kinds of data like Stryd power, heart rate monitor, etc but it's for post run analysis only. Granted, I know that a big goal for a lot of runners is to break 2:30 or 2:40 or whatever. And if you don't know if you are on pace, how can you know if you are on target to reach said goal? Maybe if we modified our goals to something like "place in the Top 100" or something and just race like animals by feel, maybe we'd hit that time goal as a result? Who knows?

I did find it interesting how you converted your wind adjusted pace to sub 17 minutes on one of the windy splits. That's great work deciphering what went wrong!

Coach Jeff - I dont think anyone minds helping someone hold themselves accountable to their drinking goals.

runrincerepeat wrote:

Coach Jeff ROC wrote:

Out of curiosity... whatever happened to that age-graded thing we used to keep here? I kinda enjoyed that motivation. Maybe some others are interested too. If anyone would like to see the return of the weekly "age-graded" PR tally, I'd be willing to take on the record-keeping duties. let me know.

Tall Dark Roast did that ... he when vanish mode even before covid ...

quote from some book I read about age grading

"Everyone was competitive with his fellows to a certain extent; being bested in a weekly summary by one's threadmates did not portent well for the time when one went out to take on the rest of the world. But Sub6 was trying to bring the younger runners along with resorting to humbling weekly Age Graded comparisons. Sub6 was stronger than they were; Sub6 wanted them to know it, but not to dwell on it."

While I'm thinking about it, I thought I'd share the training of another runner I met a few weeks ago at a local marathon. I found this pretty unique so I thought it might be worth sharing. Keep in mind that not a lot of fast runners come out to run South Dakota marathons, especially considering they are mostly at high elevation (5000-6000 ft), are hilly and mostly on gravel/dirt. This pretty much means the course records are relatively soft. Anyway, the course record at this race was 2:42 and this guy ran 2:40. Naturally, I had to snoop on his training on Strava to see what he does.

Every single day is the same. He starts between 2:30 and 3:30 AM and runs for 80-90+ minutes a day on the treadmill. Then, he rides on the exercise bike for 60 minutes. That's it... I can't tell what his efforts are because he's not wearing a footpod so the distance/pace on the treadmill is wildly and hilariously off. But it's clear that the time duration is 80-90+. It looks like at least since the beginning of the summer that his Long Runs are marathon races. He's raced 6 marathons in that time span and they appear to be the only outdoor running that he does.... Crazy!! His 2:40 time was the slowest of the 6 with the fastest being a marathon in 2:27 over that timespan.

Just thought you guys might find that interesting.

2.5 hours of Cardio a day will get a person in shape .. Most of the things we worry about .. workouts, intervals etc are probably only 10% of the equation.

BHViking wrote:

... I never came close until one race I just decided to run by feel. The first time I did that, I ran 2:52. MASSIVE PR at the time. I learned on that day that I simply race and train better if I totally ignore my watch and just make little adjustments based on what my body is telling me.

Excellent point. I've learned, and re-learned that lesson a few times over the years. I was clueless my first marathon, and set 3:30 as a goal. I maintained perfect 8-minute-miles through half-way, then decided to stop checking my watch, and just run what intuitively seemed right. Second half: 6:50 per mile.

Second marathon, a month later, I ran with a friend. Goal time was 3:00. At 12 miles, we were on pace, 6:50 per mile. But I had to stop (and wait) at a port-a-john, and lost 2 minutes. Then I ran hard to catch my buddy. Slowing back to 3-hour pace, it intuitively felt way too slow, so I ran by feel again for a 2:52 .

But a year later I got so caught up in time goals, I carried a card with every cumulative mile split necessary for 2:39 (that is 6:06, 12:12, 18:18, etc -- no "lap button" on my watch). I lined up too far back at the start, and with narrow roads I lost more than a minute the first mile. I panicked and ran a 5:18 third mile to get back on track. But I paid for that at mile 24, I think. Should have left the watch and cheat sheet home! (2:40:30, ugh).

More recently, at age 58, coming off weeks of injury down-time, I had no idea what my time goal should be. So I ran an easy first mile or so, 7:35, then intuitively settled into "marathon pace." My only goal was to age-group place, but I watched my splits to see how it was going. 7:05. 7:05, 7:05 ....

When I caught the 3:10 pace group, I tried running with them, but it just didn't FEEL right. Too slow.

So, like 22-year-old me, I trusted my intuition : 7:05, 7:05 ... With the slow first mile, and a slight fade at 24, final average was 7:09. My intuition was perhaps slightly off (or with no competitive threat from another geezer, maybe just mentally weak near the end?!).

Coach Jeff: "Nice job on the increased volume. Don't count yourself out on the longer runs. Maybe if you "taper" for them?" Jeff, I taper for FOUR-MiLE runs! But seriously, it's the aftermath of long efforts that are tough. Severe pain that affects sleep, work, everything. My plan, though, is to go back to a 9-day cycle, and if I need to resort to ibuprofen once every 9 days after a long run, I will.

Did I mention my son signed me up for the same marathon he's running next May? Memorial Day weekend. Likely HOT. No time goal, will run by feel! 20 mpw will get me to the finish, if I can schedule a few long runs. I ran 3:26 on less mileage four years ago.

drcrusher: Thanks for sharing your marathon. Congrats on the age-group placing! Well done, especially after such a long time since the last.

outsiderunner: I'm afraid to ask ... But is Harrisburg off the table?

Allen1959 - Awesome stories! It sounds like we are very similar in that our "internal sensors" are superior to whatever sensors are built into our watches, HRM's and footpods. Thanks for sharing all of that! If you don't mind, I'm going to share those stories with others who are slaves to the watch and struggling.

BHViking wrote:

If you don't mind, I'm going to share those stories with others who are slaves to the watch and struggling.

Share away. Here's two more. At age 43, I had not broken 3 hours in 20 years. But I had been training consistently for a year, racing 5Ks, and decided to jump into a marathon. I never target "marathon pace" in training (what is that, anyway? goal pace? today's pace?), but I ran a 14-mile loop on the actual marathon course, at 7:05 pace, and was confident of sub-3.

On marathon day, I decided to start at what intuitively felt like 26-mile race pace. First mile: 6:45. Average pace for the entire race: 6:44.

It was 14 years before my next marathon. Only three months, and less than 20 mpw training, so not sure what to expect, especially at age 57. First mile, pre-planned was 8:00. Then I just let my body dictate: Second mile 7:52. Average pace for entire race: 7:52.

Absolutely spent at the end -- could not have run a second faster, yet intuitively dialed in the pace in the second mile.

Allen, thanks for the great stories. When I was training for my first 5k I didn't own a GPS watch. I timed some tempos by running a fixed route and starting a kitchen timer when I left the house. Based on my tempos I thought I could break 24 or even 23 minutes. I ended up running 20:31. Shortly after that I got a watch and have been a slave to it ever since. I just signed up for a low-key 5k this Saturday and after reading your posts I decided I'm going to hide my watch screen and see what happens.

notarobot: Looking forward to hearing how that works out. Your story reminds me of high school days when I would wait for the kitchen clock to hit an even minute, then race out the door.

I've never had a GPS watch -- just a Timex Ironman and accurate training loops with memorized mile marks (a fencepost, a mailbox, a hedgerow, etc.). I do like to collect data, though, and would be reluctant to race or even train without my watch!

During my last marathon, I ran a good portion with a guy who had a GPS watch that he would check literally EVERY FIVE SECONDS. It was driving me bonkers seeing him do that, so I put in a brief surge specifically to be ahead of him. After the race he found me to say thanks for helping with his pacing. Hey, better than a GPS watch!