Road Racing and Training Thread-week ending 2/19

I ran in NB's Minimus line for years, but have recently switched to Mizuno's Wave Ekiden. 5mm drop and ~5 ounces. I find them to be a good sockless shoe as well.

I have the wave hitogamis as my distance racer. How do you like the Ekiden? thinking about that shoe for when I focus on the 5k this fall. I am a mizuno guy all the way.. trainer I use the sayanora or the hitogami.

Smoove - great tempo with the winds. I had a hurricane wind day this week as well and it sucked the life out of me.

Run2Death - good week and good luck on Saturday. See you out there. Don't fall!

CM - Solid week

Runrince - Looks like some good sessions this week

Slo - dang, you are just hammering now.

Runnergrl - solid. Keep us posted on that 5k!

M - am 3, pm 3

T - am 5.5. hilly, pm 6.5

W - am 3, pm 14 as 3WU, 8xmile w/ 90"jog, 3CD. Miles = 6:07, 07, 07, 08, 07, 09, 05, 01.

T - am 3, pm 9 hilly

F - am 4, pm 10 brisk (avg = 6:30 - monstrous head wind)

S - 11 hilly trail w/ ~1300' climbing

S - am 6, pm 12 brisk (avg 6:35)

Total 90

Another pretty solid week. Miles on Wednesday ended up being much easier than I thought they'd be. Finished up feeling like I could knock out another 6 without any issue. Friday's aerobic was a bit more of a struggle but only because I had a monstrous headwind 3 miles in and got hung up on a pace number which resulted in probably running a bit too hard into the wind for 8 miles. Sunday's 12 was absolutely effortless and I found a lot of confidence in that run moving into the final 8 weeks.

Slight planned down week this week and hopping into a 13.1 Saturday to give a go at running GMP through the entire thing.

working- Great week Great Volume! Were the milers on Wed on the track or road?

Run2Death- def would get a good taper/peak before the race.. Your fitness sure isnt going to go anywhere.

Glad to see that this thread just keeps getting bigger every week. Its a positive thread on this site which is always needed.

They were road miles. I debated going to the track but I have a hard time mentally wrapping my head around miles on the track. I have a nice 1.5 mile uninterrupted stretch of pavement that I head out to for mile reps.

I do too! Road miles are so much easier mentally.

Yea I would work something neutral with a lower drop in gradually. I would focus a lot on ankle mobility and stretching out your calfs when switching to a lower drop shoe. Inflexible ankles put a lot of stress on your lower leg and this is exacerbated by lower drop shoes. I also suffered from PF until I started stretching my calves more religiously post-runs.

I've actually been dealing with a left hamstring issue for months as well. Hamstrings are very slow to heal and sometimes stretching actually makes things worse. I would encourage you to find a ART guy or physio that can work out whatever kinks you have in the muscle. I can also say for a fact that my hamstring issues were a result of my hamstring overcompensating for an already injured hip flexor. It's always something in the hips!

there is a huge office building close to my house and the edge of the parking lot and the road behind it etc is exactly a mile. On weekends its dead and I can just focus on running the tangent

im baaaack

yes! i solved this issue but it took me doing the follosing. focus on 180 steps per minute. youre probably in the high 150 low 160 range. youll feel like youre stutter stepping but thats ok. have your foot land beloa your center of gravity. also. get thin toe shoes so that you cant plod. you want ones thatll let you feel hard objexts on the road. itll hurt at first but itll make your feet tougher and more importantly lighter on your feet.

never wear thick heeled shoes again. that can exclude dress shoes occasions of course. whenever possible be barefoot. be cognizant of your foot planting right under your center of gravity.

40 yo male, goal:

40 yo male, goal: 8:30 Old Pueblo 50 mile on March 4, second goal: 1:25 Trail half marathon April 23

M - 5

T - 11

W - 9 (3 mile tempo: 5:55/6:13/5:58)

T - 6

F - 5

S - 15

S - 7

Week: 59

Two weeks from my first ultra. A little nervous for a few reasons. The workouts have been a little harder and slower than I expected. For example, the 3-mile tempo was really tough, and a slower pace than the 24:00 4-mile tempo I'd run 4 weeks ago. That echoes a slower workout I had last week. I'm guessing some of that is due to switching workouts to mid-day (and it's been in the 80s) to get used to running during the day, which I'll have to do during the race, and maybe some of it is that I've been fighting a cold. I've missed some time from knee injury (I had a 17-mile week and a couple others with aborted long runs). Not much left to do except finish out my training and go into the race healthy.

It would be nice to get a confidence booster workout in before the race. Current workout mileage layout looks like:

wk 1: off-8-6-6*-6-10-7

wk 0: off-6-6-4-3-50 (race)

This Thursday I have optionally 15-18 minutes of some type of speed work. Any recommendations?

An 8:30 at OP would be a monstrous first ultra, friend. Good luck!

I WOULD NOT worried about a slow tempo run for a 50-miler and I'd rather do some hill repeats on Thursday. They'd be more beneficially than any kind of tempo run or speed work. I have a hill repeat that I love doing a couple of weeks out from a trail ultra. A great workout and helps me get my downhill footwork dialed in.

I definitely wouldn't be too worried about that tempo time. Like you said, it was HOT last week, especially if you were running mid day. I felt the same thing through the week only to go out Sunday when it was in the mid 50s and feel completely fluid and great. Twenty to thirty degrees is a huge swing in temps that is going to slow you down.

Fartleks are always good!

Examples;

10x1minhard/1easy

15-30-45-60--75-90-1:45-2:00-1:45-90-75-60-45-30-15 (helps develop speed)

1 2 3 4 5 4 3 2 1

5x3min hard

hi all, might take me a little bit to get familiar with the posters on here again

my short term goal is to just get as much consistency as I can, and possibly run Boston this year with a goal time of 2:50. I put in huge block (for me) last year and overtrained so I'm just trying to keep things more casual and go with the flow this year after moving to a new city and joining a running group as well. I'm not really writing any workouts or have a training plan but I've recently established a routine that might work for me for the time being. I'm not even sure how many weeks out we are from Boston and I haven't fully committed to it yet but I'm training with the mindset that I'll run it. Anyways, here was my week last week:

M - 10mi easy

Tu - 14mi with slight easy progression (windy)

W - 12mi including 5mi progression (5:59, 5:54, 5:49, 5:46, 5:43)

Th - 9.3mi easy

F - 9.3mi easy (first weekday morning run in a looooooong time)

Sa - 18.8mi moderate long run. First 8 @ ~90%MP, next 8 @ MP HR, then easy to finish. 8 miles averaged to about 6:17 I believe.

Su - 9.4mi easy

Awesome progressive run!

runrincerepeat wrote:

I have the wave hitogamis as my distance racer. How do you like the Ekiden? thinking about that shoe for when I focus on the 5k this fall. I am a mizuno guy all the way.. trainer I use the sayanora or the hitogami.

I love them. Nice, wide toebox. Super light, even by minimalist standards (~5 ounces). Also, fairly durable for a road shoe.

Well, it may be time to revise my Boston goals. Looks like the BAA has invited several really good age groups to the race to make the masters division more competitive than in past years. While in recent years, 2:32 flat would have taken 2nd place in my age group (45-49), my 2:30 high is actually the 5th qualifying seed in the 45-49 age group (2 guys at 2:21 and 2 at 2:29). And given that the other 4 guys were invited to run by the BAA, I would assume that they are coming to race, and not just guys who qualified and then let their fitness wane.

So it seems that I am back to my original goal of top 5 in my age group, with an upside goal of top 3. A little disappointing to have to downgrade my goal even as I am getting fitter, but better to get my head around the idea now than to (hopefully, if I have a good day) run a 2:32:00 and then hear that I ended up 5th when I was expecting to hear 2nd or 3rd.

Just make top 5 your B goal. Boston can typically have hot weather so with you living in Florida you may have a pretty big advantage over some of those guys.