Road Racing & Training Thread - Week Ending 5/21

Decent session last night starting to work on getting the legs to turnover. I was undecided on doing an interval session or a rep session but was limited on time so just went with reps.

1.5up, 2(200,200,400,200) with equal jog recoveries. 200s @37, 400s @78, .5 down

Felt good to run fast-ish again.

Slo- no Chicago for me this year. Running a 100 miler over Labor Day so probably won't target another race until December/January and then back to Boston.

question to the knowledgables ... is there such as too high of a cadence when running? I was looking at my garmin data last night and on most runs mine is averaging over 190 strikes

runrincerepeat wrote:

question to the knowledgables ... is there such as too high of a cadence when running? I was looking at my garmin data last night and on most runs mine is averaging over 190 strikes

Yeah, anything over 200 and you have to stop drinking beer.

In truth, I doubt it. Most people strive for higher cadence because there have been some anecdotes about optimal cadence. There's also the argument that lower cadence means over-striding and more force per landing. I know my cadence was ~160 and I worked on it and got it up to ~175 but I've noticed when I speed up my cadence does as well (so my stride distance may remain constaint). Others accelerate by increasing their stride length. Look up "cadence bekele sihine" or "cadence farah rupp" for some interesting examples. "cadence walmsley" is an interesting counter-example.

Gordon Tremeshko wrote:

Jeremy R wrote:

Yup, I don't have any lingering knee or shin pain, but my Achilles do flare up once in a while with the low drop shoes (I'm guessing). Stress seems to just get transferred.

Just to confirm...you were having knee and shin pain and then switched to lower drop and the achilles flare up instead? Or something else helped with the shin pain?

Let me clarify that, when I was in hs I used to have a lot of shin pain (but that's also over 15 years ago now...

I guess what I meant was that since I started seriously running again (a little over a year ago) I haven't had much knee and zero shin pain.

I do have the achilles flare up once in a while and I'm attributing that to the low drop shoes

New revelation...as a right handed golfer, that shin and ankle is the leading edge of my swing...and I've never played golf while running 50-60mpw before this spring...and I'm a pretty big hitter...which means I'm torquing my lower left leg pretty good on follow through. It never hurts while golfing, but the pain started a couple days after the 2nd week of golf.

Anyone else think my overuse injury could be from overworking an already fatigued muscle with my golf swing, or am I grasping at straws? That would be embarrassing...

runrincerepeat wrote:

question to the knowledgables ... is there such as too high of a cadence when running? I was looking at my garmin data last night and on most runs mine is averaging over 190 strikes

Not from my reading. low is bad, but high is fine. My easy running is usually 175-184

Recovery pace (>8:00) seems to be the only time I sometimes hit under 170.

Sprinting I can be 240+ with a stride length of around 7.2 ft! with my short little legs, that's not too bad!

slo-twitch wrote:

Pewow- I need to start hammering some of those bursts of speed like you. I'm always impressed how well you can run off of not a ton of mileage.

I ran all of my PRs off of ~30 mpw in high school and when I've tried to run ~60 mpw in the intervening years I've just gotten hurt and didn't seem to get in better shape than when running lower mileage.

As of now, I'm just trying to get back to something more like my training when I ran my PRs. Unfortunately I didn't keep a training log back then though.

Gordon Tremeshko wrote:

New revelation...as a right handed golfer, that shin and ankle is the leading edge of my swing...and I've never played golf while running 50-60mpw before this spring...and I'm a pretty big hitter...which means I'm torquing my lower left leg pretty good on follow through. It never hurts while golfing, but the pain started a couple days after the 2nd week of golf.

Anyone else think my overuse injury could be from overworking an already fatigued muscle with my golf swing, or am I grasping at straws? That would be embarrassing...

It doesn't seem out of the question. You're the most familiar with where the stresses are on your body wrt to your golf swing. If you have a 10mm drop, too, it seems like collusion...

pewow wrote:

slo-twitch wrote:

Pewow- I need to start hammering some of those bursts of speed like you. I'm always impressed how well you can run off of not a ton of mileage.

I ran all of my PRs off of ~30 mpw in high school and when I've tried to run ~60 mpw in the intervening years I've just gotten hurt and didn't seem to get in better shape than when running lower mileage.

As of now, I'm just trying to get back to something more like my training when I ran my PRs. Unfortunately I didn't keep a training log back then though.

ditto. I seem to only really get faster when I'm hammering multiple times a week. And I can't seem to get above 60 without injuries knocking me back...

Slo - thanks for the feedback on the Brooklyn Half course. Faster sounds good. I gather it is flatter?

Foot feels a lot better today.. was able to run 3x in a row this week .. just ready to get full bore and hammer some miles! 7-715 pace feels like a walk in the park so the aerobic is there I reckon.

Who is racing this weekend?!

I may try to sneak in a parkrun 5k just to get a sense of my fitness. Had a pretty decent workout tonight after a rough day yesterday, so I'm kind of curious about where I am.

Hammer it! I don't have a race until June 15. A 2miler. I'm interested in seeing what I can run w zero speed work

Smoove wrote:

I may try to sneak in a parkrun 5k just to get a sense of my fitness. Had a pretty decent workout tonight after a rough day yesterday, so I'm kind of curious about where I am.

Which one are you doing Smoove?

There is a free community based 5k every Saturday over in Clermont. Google parkrun. Basically, you print out a scan code and show up and it's all only semi-formal. You are supposed to volunteer for every few that you run. Still, there are enough athletes over in Clermont between the NTC and the pro trio guys that you can usually find someone to run hard with.

Smoove wrote:

There is a free community based 5k every Saturday over in Clermont. Google parkrun. Basically, you print out a scan code and show up and it's all only semi-formal. You are supposed to volunteer for every few that you run. Still, there are enough athletes over in Clermont between the NTC and the pro trio guys that you can usually find someone to run hard with.

Dang that's nice!! I wish we had something like that around here...a person could workout on Tuesday and race every Saturday and get into some serious shape

Finally it's race week!

Friday - masters road mile, goal 4:55, 1st

Saturday - road 5K, goal 16:55, 1st master

Both start 6pm, temps forecast 92 F and 8% humidity

Team 1 wrote:

Finally it's race week!

Friday - masters road mile, goal 4:55, 1st

Saturday - road 5K, goal 16:55, 1st master

Both start 6pm, temps forecast 92 F and 8% humidity

We need full race recaps Friday and Saturday nights! Good luck ... slay it.

Team1- Good Luck!!!!! Give it HELLLLLLLLLL