Road Racing and Training Thread - Week Ending 11/24

stonecutter gotta love the beer mile training. Only 1 I ever did I made the mistake of going with guiness and not the lightest colored water one I could find.

Ramanujan Take care of that achilles mate. The pickups in the middle of a run are not normal for me. I am actually trying something new and getting a bit of advice/guidance from someone and so I am just following hi straining.

Force Rock that 10k on Thursday. Win a pie or something.

Jossman screw all the marathons. I iwsh I could get to travel that much.

Logan Nice job on the 5+K. Good to hear you are feeling better.

Runnersfix if you have not already made up your mind about the Turkey trot. I say go for it. Get back to why we all started out in running b/c it is fun. Racing is fun, just go bust one on the day and enjoy.

Xenon rocking the training and rocking the racing. Nice!

CMM Impressive that you still ran about every day with all that travel.

DCrunner take care of those calves now. Once you have a problem down there it is hard to ever be free from it.

Kilt LOL 3 runs and you volume is higher than mine.

Printer Solid week right there. Are you going to wait till after Kiawah to start getting in some bike time?

NJTruth man those are 3 solid looking workouts.

NP1112The track stuff felt decent. very short and not many repeats so not to stressful. Man you definately have logged the miles for Lookout. I just saw my buddy actually won a 50k on those trails back in October. Should find out if he is crazy enough to go 50mi

Garbage Thanks. This faster stuff, especially at this point is new for me. Hopefully it helps when I get closer to my goal HM. Nice post race week. Look forward to your buildup for next year.

Njtruth: Yeah, that 3x2m wasn't to bad. I'm usually 9:40ish avg just wasn't ready with such little time. I'm thinking my goal for Houston is 1:04-05. I'm just gonna hold 5:00 pace and try to pick it up at the end if I'm feeling good. For me with 5k training, if I attempted it, I would drop my mileage to around 70-80 and shorten my interval workouts. Since I'm more of a strength runner I would do as much speed as possible. Less focus on tempo and long runs because of it. Also, there would be much focus in the weight room. My 5k PRs bssically all come from half training. Never really attempted the 5k stuff. Everyone is different. But what was weird is that when I was training for xc in college my 5k was only 15:29 on the track, I then switched up to half training and increased my mileage a lot to prepare for a winter race. Did a 5k tune up and crushed my PR. 15:01 on the roads. So, different stuff works for different people. My current 5k is 14:50 and half is 1:06 if you were curious. Hope this helps.

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Comments!

The Stone Cutter: Good luck at the beer mile!

Forcerunner: Nice week and good luck in the 10K :)

jossman: Welcome to the thread!

RunnersFix: Turkey Trots are fun, I'd just be careful if you always race really hard. I can't let myself do one this year with my schedule because I have no self-control when I race and it would mess with my goals.

erik: nice week but mostly thanks for fixing double quotes, omfg

dcrunner0910: Thanks! Hope you can manage to get and stay healthy.

Portland: Very nice Sunday run.

printer: Nice week and glad things are coming together. Thank you :)

Flying Kilt: Thanks!

cmm268: Thank you!

NP1112: Wow, huge week with a huge run. And posting from work on LetsRun? Who does that? (I am right now).

Muebele: Thanks a ton!

TheGarbageDisposal: Thank you. Enjoy the Turkey Trot!

nerp: Feel better!

Ramanujan: Thanks! I want to use Kara Goucher's time (21:09) as a comparison point, but I know she was out of shape, haha.

NJ truth: I'll be there Thursday through Sunday! If you find me outside of LetsRun (which is really easy to do) and shoot me a message, we can talk about meeting IRL.

qrkid: Thanks!

So I somehow wrenched my back a good number and haven't been able to run the last two days. Has anyone in the history of Beer Miles ever DNS? Haha, seeing the massage therapist tomorrow - hopefully she straightens me out in time for Thursday.

Some more comments:

NJ truth - another banging week and I am really digging that acceleration run. That's what I call cranking it up! Good luck on the next 5K - you're there, man.

I have practiced chugging while breathing hard a couple times and I am now consistently down in the :30-:35 range. If I can chug the first one in :15-:20 seconds and run steady 85s, I might get myself down into the 7:30s. Lots of ifs there, though, not the least of which is my back. :)

NP1112 - pretty sure that's the first time I have seen a "minutes" fartlek and a 38 mile training run in the same week. You never fail to amaze, man. :)

Muebele - no worries, dude. We've all been there before. What's cool is you are now keeping yourself accountable with a target weight and a "race rules" restriction. I think that's awesome.

Pretty crazy about the dude walking across the country! Then again, I am thinking about guzzling 4 beers and running as fast as the puke will stay down, haha.

sauconysean - welcome, that's some crazy amounts of moderate running you do. Have you met Reg Fields before? :)

jossman - I was just joshing you - where I come from HMP means "half marathon pace" and I was wondering how you managed 16.2mi HMP! :)

qrkid - I like the progression of the AT tempo.

nerp - I am a big fan of hill running in early base phase - I like the mix you threw in there.

Perkunas - congrats on meeting your 10k goal, but man, you gotta be more excited about it next time! :)

TheGarbageDisposal - I feel you on easing into weeks like that. Glad to hear that you've flushed all the junk out of your system in time for the next race. Good luck on Thursday!

i've attempted two beer miles, and DNFed both times. i simply don't like beer at all, so just getting it down is the issue, not the speed or the running.

no more beer mile attempts for me until i can actually get down some beers. beer pong doesnt count apparently when you play with cheapo college beer

was this thread missing for any of you yesterday? I dug around but couldnt find it, then today it reappears.

my week:

M 7.5 easy

T 11 w/8x(3min hard, 2min off) went really well, felt like doing 2-4x more at faster pace. about 5:15/mi for the harder parts, 5:50 avg for 40 minutes/7mi

W off

Th 8 easy

F 6.5 with 5x60/60 easy

Sa 4 easy

Su 14 w/ 6.1mi xc race in 34:24, 40th? (PAUSATF champs)

total 51 @7:02/mi

my race went pretty well. went out too hard in 5:15, should've done like 5:25-5:30. first finisher from my club, which was my main goal. i got beat by 4 masters men which kind of blows but whatever. the course was awesome for an xc race.

next race is thursday, 10k turkey trot in sacramento, shooting for 33ish. might be more conservative and just shoot for 5:25 for the first half, then see what i have left.

Flying Klit, Stone cutter, cmm268, Garbage Disposal, Ramaunjuan, np1112 thanks for the input guys, I'll try 3x2mi and see how I feel.

Finally have some time to post a few comments

The Stone Cutter - have fun with the beer mile and try not to puke

Ramanujan - solid workout Monday with an active recovery, I have a hard time hitting reps at the right pace if I don't have a passive recovery of just walking or standing around

Forcerunner - good luck with your race tomorrow

Jossman - welcome to the thread

Runnersfix - I think racing the turkey trot would be fine and then taking it easy before the next buildup, that's kind of what I ended up doing last week with this week being a buildup.

Xenonscreams - congrats on the race, keep that PF in check and good luck with your next race

dcrunner0910 - does your calf bug you at all on the bike? Hopefully you don't get forced into cross training and can get in some consistent pain free runs soon.

Flying kilt - that's some solid mileage for 3 days of running. Good luck in the HM and I think that it's fair to consider this week an early taper. The race I'm doing in January will be an indoor 5k at my uni, will be my first 5k on the track so should hopefully blow my cross country 5k PR out of the water. Depending on whether or not I peak out in February I'll consider trying to find some open races for outdoor track, that might be fun to try.

NJ truth - do you usually do 3 workouts a week? that seems like quite the workload. Good luck with your 5k tomorrow

NP1112 - The biggest hills in my area are 400m long, can't imagine trying to do 800 repeats uphill. That long run is something else too

I hope you are straightened up and good to go for your beer mile Stone Cutter, looking forward to seeing your race report the most!

Good luck to those racing tomorrow in Turkey trots including GarbageDisposal and NJ Truth

I haven't commented this week. In fact, I may save my comments until next week. But, I wanted to get back inhere and wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving, et al.

Also want to wish everyone a happy Thanksgiving weekend and good luck to my fellow racers tomorrow / this weekend. I echo CMM268's sentiment that I look forward to Stone Cutter's beer mile race report the most!

Well I guess I shouldn't disappoint, then. I saw the massage therapist this morning and feel MUCH better. Not quite 100%, but certainly well enough to race. Now the "holding it down" part...

Any last minute advice from anyone with Beer Mile experience? Eat a regular breakfast? (The race is between 10:30-11:00am.) Should I go with bottles or cans? Do I shoot for even effort, or just "balls to the wall" during the running segment since I get a :30 rest between quarters?

The more I am thinking about this, the more I am wondering what I agreed to, haha...

And yes, best of luck to NJ truth, TheGarbageDisposal, Runnersfix, and any other racers. Happy Thanksgiving all!

The Stone Cutter wrote:

Any last minute advice from anyone with Beer Mile experience? Eat a regular breakfast? (The race is between 10:30-11:00am.) Should I go with bottles or cans? Do I shoot for even effort, or just "balls to the wall" during the running segment since I get a :30 rest between quarters?

balls to the wall is not a good idea. you'll figure that out after a lap or two, but i can save you the trouble. just do the laps around 10k pace. running 5 sec faster for a lap could cost you 10+ seconds of drinking time. be smart

balls to the wall is not a good idea. you'll figure that out after a lap or two, but i can save you the trouble. just do the laps around 10k pace. running 5 sec faster for a lap could cost you 10+ seconds of drinking time. be smart

I think you are dead on with the pace. The two times I have practiced doing two beers and two laps I kind of naturally fell into 8k pace. I am not sure I could continue to drink and therefore run at that same rate. I already lose about :10-15 from Beer 1 to Beer 2 because of breathing - I guess there's no sense in pushing it harder.

One way to find out, haha..

Good luck to everyone racing today! I'll have comments before dinner haha.

How did the beer mile go?

18:11 here for 6th place. Not a great run but nice to drive and run with no expectations. Surprisingly got a $50 gift cert for 1st in my age group to a local Mexican place. One of the best prizes I've ever won:)

Happy Thanksgiving all!

A good day for me this morning. Went out at about 5:50 pace and tried to hold on for the whole thing. Aside from the uphill part of mile 3 I was able to hit my pace. My 29:41 was good enough for 11th overall and 3rd Master. I won a plate and some coffee.

My race:

http://app.strava.com/activities/97505483

Happy Thanksgiving.

Accomplished goal #1: I didn't get sick, haha! Ran 8:32 for 4th place overall - I am not sure how many brave souls actually competed this year, I think it was either 7 or 8. 32 degrees at the gun, 15-25mph winds, and a cinder track full of ice and slop - yikes!

My splits (combined drinking/running) were: 1:40, 2:05, 2:23, 2:24. I knew the first one would be fast since I could guzzle the first beer under :20. I tried to maintain to contact with the leaders (who were far superior beer drinkers, BTW) as much as possible, but I couldn't get out belches good enough after the 3rd and 4th beer to keep it close. I finally got a good belch out mid-way through the fourth lap and probably ran the last 200 in sub-:40.

The 3 guys who beat me were 7:49, 8:02, and 8:12 - which given the weather and track conditions were pretty respectable. Not sure if I will do another one anytime soon but it was fun to be a part of it this year.

cmm268 - nice job on the gift certificate!

Hope everyone else has a great day.

I just received an email from a club member that, after I left the race, it was determined that the first place finisher was DQ'd for spitting out some of his beer...I am now officially on the podium in 3rd place, haha! For some silly reason, I now feel better about the rest of my day. A little tired/dizzy at the moment, but feeling better about the rest of the day. :)

printer - very nice run! You are looking stronger and stronger for a real shot at that marathon PR of yours in a couple weeks!