Road Racing and Training Thread - Week Ending 1/9/22

So I use a Runn Sensor on my treadmll, and I've double checked its accuracy by doing the standard treadmill calibration (measure belt, count revolutions for a set time, do math.

I can tell you that my Runn Sensor matches my treadmill's reported speed, and that both are accurate. And I can also tell you that I run about 20-30 seconds slower on the treadmill for the same effort/HR as compared to the track.

I suspect that part of it is that I'm running in 65-75 degrees F on the treadmill (albeit with a fan) and part of it is that my gait is a bit altered on the treadmill.

I think I would rather jog through a minefield than run on a treadmill.. so I just refuse to run on the mill.. kudos to those that can do it!

Allen - Taper .. keep decent volume with a tuesday workout (3 Mile tempo or 3xmile T) something like

Mon 4/4

tues 9 w Q

wed 6 or 7 (or another 4/4 double so I dont get twitchy)

thur 5 to 6 w strides

Friday off or post flight shakout jog

Sat - 4 w some hard short strides

Sun - Race

Cutting to much volume and I get twitchy and feel bad mentally which makes me feel bad physically.

Decent week for me. Work is getting extremely busy, so just looking to get in what I can. Happy with the volume, would have liked more quality. Had a decent long run planned for the weekend, but we got hit with about 8” of now Thursday and roads/bike paths were still not clear enough to run fast and was too cold to be out for long on the weekend, so just bagged it for shorter efforts. That being said, if I can keep mileage in the 50s until work calms down I’ll be in a great spot, so not complaining.

M: 8 EZ

T: 8 EZ

W: 8 EZ

Th: 8 total, with 3 by mile on, mile off. 6:14 average for the fast miles. Got this in early before the snow started but was bitterly cold out.

F: 8 EZ

Sa: 8 EZ

Su: 6 EZ

Total: 54 miles

RRR: Looks like a perfect balance. Good luck and enjoy the race!

Re: treadmills. Limited experience here, but always logged it as time, never distance, so display accuracy didn't mean much to me.

Meanwhile, for outdoor running I am obsessed with miles, i.e. define a "long run" as 18+ miles, never in terms of time duration. I'm lost when discussions reference 2 hours or 3 hours or whatever, especially as I don't set time goals for those efforts.

Long = 18-23 miles. The marathon DISTANCE doesn't change!

OR - Wishing you a speedy recovery and hope the rest of the family is all right.

RRR - Good luck in Houston!

Treadmills - I used to run on them in my office gym pretty frequently before we went to WFH in March 2020 (and the gym isn’t coming back, sadly). Always felt like I could hit tempos/intervals a good 10+ seconds per mile faster than the track at the same perceived effort, but having a bunch of fans going was always really key. Warm, stagnant air on the treadmill is just awful.

Allen1959 wrote:

RRR: Looks like a perfect balance. Good luck and enjoy the race!

Re: treadmills. Limited experience here, but always logged it as time, never distance, so display accuracy didn't mean much to me.

Meanwhile, for outdoor running I am obsessed with miles, i.e. define a "long run" as 18+ miles, never in terms of time duration. I'm lost when discussions reference 2 hours or 3 hours or whatever, especially as I don't set time goals for those efforts.

Long = 18-23 miles. The marathon DISTANCE doesn't change!

To clear things up on why I follow time duration, it's because your body knows time duration and effort very well. For example, if you run 5 minutes hard, that is very different than running 7 minutes hard. I don't think anyone who does hard workouts would dispute that (that extra 2 minutes can feel like an eternity). If you tell 2 runners of different abilities to go run a hard mile, Runner A might cover it in 5 minutes and the Runner B might cover it in 7. I assure you, Runner B suffers more in that workout given both efforts are honest and equal. But was your intent for Runner B to suffer that much more? Runner B ran 33% longer (in time duration).

Also, HILLS... All miles are not created equally. Not even close. If most of your mile is uphill, it's obviously going to take longer at the same effort. Total stress on "that equal effort mile" is increased simply from it taking longer.

Generally speaking the "long run" is relative to experience in my opinion. I don't think too many people would argue that a 2 hour run is not a long run but I'm sure there are people out there that would say it's not.

BHViking wrote:

To clear things up on why I follow time duration, it's because your body knows time duration and effort very well. For example, if you run 5 minutes hard, that is very different than running 7 minutes hard. I don't think anyone who does hard workouts would dispute that (that extra 2 minutes can feel like an eternity). If you tell 2 runners of different abilities to go run a hard mile, Runner A might cover it in 5 minutes and the Runner B might cover it in 7. I assure you, Runner B suffers more in that workout given both efforts are honest and equal. But was your intent for Runner B to suffer that much more? Runner B ran 33% longer (in time duration).

Yup - this is why my faster workouts (tempos and intervals) are now time based on the treadmill rather than distance based. I program the time intervals into my Garmin and adjust the speed of the treadmill to get the desired HR/perceived effort for that duration.

I have to admit, I can't get away from distance entirely, which is why my runs are ultimately measured in miles.

BHV: I was pretty much just saying I'm an oddball and inconsistent in my approach. In the gym, I go by time and effort; on the roads I religiously track distance and pace.

Regarding repeats, out of habit, I still think in terms of a set distance at a particular pace. Like 3 x 1-mile at 5K race pace. Or 3 x 2-mile at 15K race pace. As race pace has slowed drastically in my old age, I'll likely need to recalculate my approach. Ha!

Regarding long runs, even when 6:06/mile was marathon pace, my long runs were more like 8:00 pace. Really just semantics, but for me, I wouldn't have considered 2 hours at that pace (16 miles) as a "long run."

Currently, a 2-hour run is ONLY 10 MILES! Yikes, I can't quite get myself to call that a "Long Run." Particularly when my goal race is still 26.2 miles. :(

Thanks for the well wishes .. im excited anyways .. this is starting my 6th year as a runner .. and this will be my FIRST "big city" race i am going to make it to healthy.

Allen - Yeah, the pace definitely plays a role in the "long run". I get you.

One piece of advice that I picked up somewhere (maybe it was a John Kellogg or someone like that?) was to do a few long runs at, near or over expected Long Duration. So, someone in about 3 hour long run shape should do a few long runs at least at that duration or near it. Which makes sense because running that long shouldn't feel TOO foreign :).

BHViking wrote:

One piece of advice that I picked up somewhere (maybe it was a John Kellogg or someone like that?) was to do a few long runs at, near or over expected Long Duration.

Yeah, some poo-poo it, but many do indeed advocate the "time on feet" approach. Including me -- for at least one long run.

20-mile runs approach it (courtesy of my easy long-run paces), but my marathon schedules always include a single 23-mile training run to equal or exceed race-day time duration. Maybe 5 weeks out, allowing recovery time, one more long run, and a taper.

M33, 5'10 160

PBs: 2:56:53 M (2019 Baystate)

Recent Race: 18:48 5K Turkey Troy

Goal Race: 2022 Boston

M: 6.3 E @10:02 w/ fiancee in Central Park

TU: 6.8 ft. 3x8' with 90" rest, aim was HM pace and that yielded 6:13, 6:16 and 6:18 on Central Park roads (rolling hills).

W: 5.9 @8:51 R in Central Park (Recovery, felt labored)

TH: Rest (Woke up with a scratchy throat and a lot of fatigue, figured it was a sign I needed a day off with about 15 days since my last one, and not adhering to my day off every 10-12 days thing)

FR: 7 ft. hill workout (7x 300m up Harlem Hill at HM, :30 rest, 7x 300m down same hill, 1:30 between sets, did same workout with one less set on a much steeper hill in New Hampshire, i ran faster and it was way easier on a gentler incline ~ 5:40ish avg on the ups, 6:05 ish on the downs, i felt completely healthy after the rest day thankfully)

SAT: 6.1 @ 9:53 R with fiancee

SUN: 12.3 @ 7:45 moderate long run, it was supposed to be rainy so i wore some older shoes, the rain actually wasn't really there but I did East River and Randall's Island where it was extremely windy. Felt Friday a bit (and the 3 hard efforts over 7 days prior) and was working hard, so I declined to add an M pace push at the end in this one.

TOTALS: 44 miles.

4th straight week over 40 miles (week before that was 38). Have a vacation starting Friday so hoping to do as much as I can within reason. Mid-week workout this week will be long intervals. I think my base is solid, and my speed is definitely good. I'd like to feel more comfortable in tempo workouts and between 5:50-6:30 pace , which has generally been a nice formula for me to make M pace feel like a breeze on race day/long runs.

Allen1959 wrote:

20-mile runs approach it (courtesy of my easy long-run paces), but my marathon schedules always include a single 23-mile training run to equal or exceed race-day time duration. Maybe 5 weeks out, allowing recovery time, one more long run, and a taper.

I really like the idea of the 23 mile run around race time duration. I'm guessing your recovery time for that was a few days? Sounds solid!

I bought a treadmill a few years ago and I noticed immediately that paces felt like I was FLYING and it was a lot harder than either the treadmill at work that I had been using or outside. So I did the thing where you measure the belt, count revolutions, do the math etc. My treadmill was faster at all settings than what the setting claimed. It wasn't linear. At slower paces it was a lot more off than at faster, but it was always off. In the range of paces I typically run, it was anywhere from 10-20 sec faster. I wasn't running on the treadmill when I did this, so there is probably a little error from that, and it's been several years so it's also possible that calibration has changed some, but it still feels considerably harder and my HR is always higher at any given pace than similar outdoors (even taking into account the temperature). When accounting for the run, I just figure whatever mileage the treadmill says is at least what I did, but while working out, I run according to effort.

I recently got a Stryd pod as a gift but I haven't had a chance to calibrate it yet. Maybe I will make a point of going to the track this weekend to do that because I am sure I will have a lot more treadmill running in the next couple months and if I could get a more accurate measure of what I'm actually doing on it .... it wouldn't mean anything to my body or fitness of course but my data analyzing-junkie brain would prefer it.

I used to hate running on the treadmill but now I don't mind it at all. When I lived in the Midwest I'd run in the dark and cold down to single digits, but I can't make myself do that anymore and my threshold of what's "too cold" is nowhere near single digits anymore anyway. So if it's cold and windy out, or the weather is otherwise inclement, I am happy enough to head to the basement and churn out the miles inside. Unless I'm doing an interval session, I cover up the console so I can't psych myself out (oh god it's only been a mile and a half!?) and I won't look until I'm starting to feel tired, which is always longer than if I can see the console. Then, if I haven't hit my mile target, I keep going until I have -- it's usually a mile or so. A handful of times I've gone over by a little, which is OK -- yay! I'm done. Have some music on and forget how many songs have played, bump the speed up and down to keep it interesting, and next thing I know, I've gotten through my workout.

But I'm still always glad when the daylight lengthens and the temps are a bit warmer because getting outside is more pleasant and I always prefer to do pace work outside because I know what pace I'm running there.

BHViking wrote:I really like the idea of the 23 mile run around race time duration. I'm guessing your recovery time for that was a few days?

Here are the five days following my traditional 23-mile long run (prior to three most recent marathons, at ages 43, 57, 58). For context, I've noted the average MPW for previous six weeks and the actual marathon time.

My recovery ability was MUCH better at 43 than in my late 50s, but that was also the slowest 23-miler of the three. The most recent "23" was only 22.5 miles because I hit the wall hard -- started to hallucinate a bit, and walked the final half mile.

23 miles @ 8:29/mi (3:15)

8 mi progression @ 8:56>6:23

14 mi @ 7:02

7 mi @ 8:24

Off

5 mi w/ 5x600m @ 2:00

45 mpw previous 6 weeks; marathon 5 weeks later, 2:56

----------------------------------------

23 mi @ 8:48/mi (3:22)

Off

Bike 24 mi 18 mph

7 mi progression @ 11:52>6:40

Off

9 mi @ 7:56/mi

Off

20 mpw previous 6 weeks; marathon 4 weeks later, 3:25

----------------------------------------

22.5 mi @ 8:08/mi (3:03)

Bike 20 mi @ 19 mph

5 mi @ 10:12/mi

Off

Off

14 mi w/ 5x800m @ 3:04; bike 18mi 18mph

41 mpw previous 6 weeks; marathon 5 weeks later, 3:07

Allen1959 wrote:... that was also the slowest 23-miler of the three.

Correction: Not the slowest. Much slower at age 57 when I had averaged only 20 mile per week. It had only been a few weeks since I had decided to run a marathon, essentially going from couch to marathon in three months (never running on consecutive days -- a plan I'm replicating this year, hoping for similar results).

I ran a 22 then a 19 a few weeks ago (For some reason I dunno) 3 days apart and was fine. Was at normal E pace. I will credit the Saucony Triumph for being an amazing beast of a shoe that has kept me healthy and doesnt feel like a 11 ouncer trainer... amazing foam

Male, 29, 6', 130 lbs.

PRs: 5K: 15:18 (indoors) (2021), 8K: 25:16 (2021), Half Marathon: 69:38 (2021), Marathon: 2:30:25 (2019)

Upcoming races: NYC Half, Boston Marathon

Goal: NYC Half: PR, Boston Marathon: 2:20 mid/finally break 2:30

M: 10.03 miles @ 6:55 avg over 1,444 ft of elevation

T: 10 miles @ 7:10 avg

W: 10 miles @ 7:20 avg

TH: 6.12 miles @ 8:16 avg

F: 6.50 miles @ 7:33 avg

S: 14.17 miles @ 6:58 avg. 3 up, easy 1 minute pickups at the start of each mile until 10 with a friend, 4 mile progression. (5:55, 5:55, 5:45, 5:27)

Sun: 10 miles @ 7:04 avg

Notes:

Started the week back home in CA. Nice to just stack some miles while on vacation and run some old college routes. Came back thursday to a freezing Ohio. Saturday I jumped into a workout for a guy I am coaching. Pickups were very easy 5:45-5:55 but it definitely made jumping into my progression a bit tougher. It's too cold out here man.

Allen -- Holy crap, you did very well on modest mileage. Looks like absolutely no recovery required at all for the one in your 40's.

Really interesting discussion as I typically look at the long run as my most important day of the week. It's fascinating to see how different approaches effect future performance from individual to individual.

In the long run that you bonked and started hallucinating (holy crap!), do you remember if you were in a fasted state? That's terrifying.