Road Racing and Training Thread- Week Ending April 23, 2017

Nice race, team 1. Coming back and putting in a good performance is always very satisfying.

Gordon: nice job with the 13.1 at 7:04. Things are going in a good direction for you.

Nice race, team 1! Saw it on Strava this morning. Those are some impressive splits for a trail half.

slo-twitch - Really nice progression run. Bummer about the Friday workout. I know the feeling, for sure. Trust in your body, though, you've been putting in a lot of great work.

Darko - My lord, would I love to have some wheels like yours. I don't even know how to evaluate all those fast times. That Tuesday workout looks killer.

r2d - Do you have some standard 10 and 14 mile routes you do? Seeing those numbers a lot :-) Love the volume you're getting. Excited for the Cactus to Cloudcrofty 50k. Ping me on strava -- not sure your handle.

rrr - still great mileage. Still SMH about your Sunday adventures... And you should know by know about that sprint-to-avoid-the-rain... If it didn't happen on strava... of course, the good news is you could do it anytime you wanted, if you wanted to :-)

outsiderunner - your choice! it sounds like you could bag a 10K PR without tapering, or take the marathon and still do well. I think your Saturday run shows you are in pretty decent shape for that.

runn3rgirl - I'd take your 17:06 any day as well. hopefully you kick that cold -- summer colds can be the worst!

gordon - Cool data on the HR pace improvement. You're really ratcheting up the aerobic fitness. Keep up the good work!

Thanks all for the kudos on the half! r2d, I'm a downhill specialist, you can see it on the flybys (and by my balance of uphill/downhill strava CRs :-).

team 1 wrote:r2d - Do you have some standard 10 and 14 mile routes you do? Seeing those numbers a lot :-) Love the volume you're getting. Excited for the Cactus to Cloudcrofty 50k. Ping me on strava -- not sure your handle.

The 10-milers are generally one of two "out the door" canal routes. The 14-miler is the road climb up to the T.V. towers and back at South Mountain.

I haven't been running trails recently, which I miss, but there's something to be said for convenience and consistency.

I'm pretty excited for the 50K as well. Think I have a good shot at a podium spot. My only concern is that it's got over 20 miles at almost 9K feet (after a 7K foot climb) and I haven't really done any training at altitude recently. It's gonna hurt.

Hi all,

30y male

PBs: 10k 34:36, 5k 16:22

Goal: Stay healthy

M - weights

T - 13k w/ 20x400m w/ 1' rest (alternating slightly downhill & uphill), times: 1:22/26/22/26/22/24/22/24/22/21/20/23/22/24/24/24/20/24/20/17 - all run on dirt road

W - weights

T - am 9k, pm 3.5k + weights

F - 6k

S - 16k w/ 10km Austrian National Road Championships; Time: 35:50

S - 3h bike ride

Workout on Tuesday felt really good.

Race on Saturday was great. I've been injured for over 6 months and back training since February and ended up not too far off of my best times. Conditions were tough as it was very windy and pouring rain. Add to that kilometers 8 & 9 are uphill.

Philip

Boring week for this guy. Tapering for the Lusaka Half Marathon this Saturday. Body was pretty beat up from the three back2back2back days at the end of last week so volume was lower than I had planned but I did have a great workout on Thursday.

M - Shocked by how tired I am from last week's last 3 days. Slept in and ran a very easy 4 miles in the afternoon. 29:16.

T - AM 10.4 miles 1:17:00, PM 2.7 mi 20min, 13 total

W - AM 12 1:23, PM 5 mi 36min, Total: 17mi

T - AM 5mi 38min, PM WU+20x400m on 2:30 goes+CD, Total: 15

Last hard workout before the half marathon. Didn't feel great, but got the work in. On the last rep a guy jumped in with around 220m to go and I wasn't able to let him show me up so I dug pretty deep to out lean him and was washed after that 61.

Splits: 71,68,70,69,68,68,67,68,68,69,67,67,67,67,69,68,65,67,61

F - 6mi 51:15, fried again today. Jogged easy and took the afternoon off after broozing the top of my foot I guess by lacing my flats too tight yesterday during the track session.

S - AM 12mi 1:25, PM 4mi 29min, Total: 16

S - Rest day. Had to force this day off. I was 10 miles behind fir the week due to trying to get the body to recover. Really wanted to go an easy 10, but thought about it and decided not to change things up after 10 successful weeks of training. I've taken a day off every week, usually Sunday this entire training block and have felt great and avoided injury, no reason to change it now. One 70 mile week isn't going to kill my marathon prep. Week Total: 70mi.

Slo - not sure about the canova style blocks. I haven't found much about his training so I'm not super familiar with it, though I'm interested in learning more as his athletes tend to run very well.

BirdWatcher502 - Congrats to a most probably very wise decision! Good luck for the half next week

slo-twitch - still a good training week. Looks like a tough one on Tuesday.

Darko - very impressive week. Looks like you are on a good way to 1500m success

run2death - how can you run so fast on a TM? When I use a TM, I have to go 20sec/k slower to be at the same perceived effort as outside

Runrincerepeat - That sunday would have killed me for the rest of the week. How can you go 11 after so many beers?

outsiderunner - very fast pace for all your runs, do you have a reason for that?

Gordon Tremeshko - trust the process. Looking good so far. Don't overdo the mileage!

Outsiderunner runs too fast every day and then skips doing any actual workouts, says he "trains like people that race faster than him" because he compares "easy" pace times (note that nearly everyone on this thread doesn't even report easy pace run times...which should give him an indication of how important running your easy runs at a specified fast pace is), embraces being a "dead zone runner" and then claims his 10k, half marathon, and marathon PRs are all soft. It's kind of his thing.

Seems like a nice guy tho.

I can always have some beer and go for a run.. had a family size tater tot from sonic to go with it. I just like to run and drink beer! also 5 miles of the 16 was at a verrry slow pace with friends

runrincerepeat wrote:

I can always have some beer and go for a run.. had a family size tater tot from sonic to go with it. I just like to run and drink beer! also 5 miles of the 16 was at a verrry slow pace with friends

Miller lite is mostly water anyway? I guess?

just catching up but looking like some solid weeks and races.

Not much going on here, still recovering from Boston. Quads are still pretty shot, had my first run back on Friday for a Earth Day running event at work, then 8 miles "easy" on Saturday that had my legs screaming. Lots of beers lately though, and will probably get in some easy running this week and hope to start building back up next week if the legs feel ready to go

Interesting question, Philip. The short answer is: if it is good enough for Bill Rodgers, it is good enough for me. My training is not all that different from that of a typical 1970s runner. I mention BR as I have been looking at his training logs lately, and see lots and lots of mileage at, what would be considered today, fairly aggressive paces. Likewise, there was less structure to his running than that of today's typical pro. He was obviously "in tune" with his body, and knew what his body needed and what it could take.

I have tried a Daniel-ish type of approach, and was miserable doing it. As I mention above, it was like being in prison. I am 48 years old, and I took up running late in life, and I do it because I enjoy the feeling it gives me. I totally understand where people such as David S.P. are coming from, and to them I can only say that if they are happy using a more modern, structured apporach, then by all means do it.

I can also say this...having given myself completely to this open-ended approach, I have just attained my highest mileage (in fewer runs, too), had one of my better long runs, and am feeling great. I will see where this base block goes and where it takes me, and most of all I want to continiue to feel good and be in good health. I have no soreness, no lingering fatigue, and, mostly importantly, no mental fatigue or uneasiness.

I know that I will never have any success in running if I am unhappy in my training.

Gotta go run in the rain now...

All the best...

Gordon- exactly

Learning and smoove - I want to see some training weeks like

Mon - killed Boston

Tue - 6 beers am 6 beers pm

Wed tempo 2x4 beers w 30 mins rest

Saturday - long slow beeers... 18 in 14 hours

etc

outsiderunner wrote:

Interesting question, Philip. The short answer is: if it is good enough for Bill Rodgers, it is good enough for me. My training is not all that different from that of a typical 1970s runner. I mention BR as I have been looking at his training logs lately, and see lots and lots of mileage at, what would be considered today, fairly aggressive paces. Likewise, there was less structure to his running than that of today's typical pro. He was obviously "in tune" with his body, and knew what his body needed and what it could take.

This is fascinating to me, because when I look at Bill Rodger's log, it includes like 85-90% mileage at "easy pace" that isn't specified because it doesn't matter how slow those runs are, with some very specific much harder workouts that do matter. Not 99% of mileage at moderate pace, where he is diligent to report out pace on every easy run. I guess we see what we want to see?

I'm sorry I keep dropping in on Outsiderunner here, but I do have one more question...you're considering going for a 10k PR in 2 weeks and you'll have to "taper soon" you say...how many miles in the last month have you run at or faster than your goal pace? 4? How do you expect to improve on something you aren't practicing?

It's fine to not follow a super structured plan, I know it's not for everyone, but I would strongly suggest some focus, or some specificity, or some expectation of what you are trying to accomplish with all your work.

Someone mentioned this either earlier in this thread or on last week's thread.

I have really come to view Outsiderunner as purely a runner, and not someone who is training to race. If I were not looking to get faster or hit a goal race time, I would probably run a lot like he does. The real disconnect for some of us comes from the fact that he still wants to do well in races - and not just do well, but come somewhere close to his limits, to which the approach he takes is not at all conducive.

hantph96 wrote:run2death - how can you run so fast on a TM? When I use a TM, I have to go 20sec/k slower to be at the same perceived effort as outside.

Hmmmm... I'm kinda the opposite. I generally run faster on the TM even with a 1% incline. I find the TM keeps me pretty focused because the pace is set. I tend to drift off when left to my own devices on daily runs.

I will say, my gym has really good ventilation/air circulation with high ceilings. I've run a couple of times with my friend at his $10 a month club and it was stuffy AF. I was miserable.

Smoove wrote:

Someone mentioned this either earlier in this thread or on last week's thread.

I have really come to view Outsiderunner as purely a runner, and not someone who is training to race. If I were not looking to get faster or hit a goal race time, I would probably run a lot like he does. The real disconnect for some of us comes from the fact that he still wants to do well in races - and not just do well, but come somewhere close to his limits, to which the approach he takes is not at all conducive.

Yeah. Probably time for me to let it go. I've more than said all I can.

runrincerepeat wrote:

Gordon- exactly

Learning and smoove - I want to see some training weeks like

Mon - killed Boston

Tue - 6 beers am 6 beers pm

Wed tempo 2x4 beers w 30 mins rest

Saturday - long slow beeers... 18 in 14 hours

etc

Sunday- Hungover... haha! Gah, could you imagine that many beers a day? I would be beyond hammered.