Train Me

Swim Bike Run wrote:

SlowAFRunnrMom wrote:

Registration for the Disney January Marathon is tomorrow. Of course Honey wants to run but I'm not sure if she'll be in the middle of an indoor season or if coaches would be okay with running a marathon between cross/outdoor. What's your take?

Eh. Different sport than running but former D1 athlete.

My coaches would be *MORE* than angry if I did something like this, but then again I was on scholarship in a revenue producing sport at a D1 school.

That came off not sounding how I meant. Didn't mean to put non-rev sports down.

I played football on a top 25 team at D1 in a P5 conference. Our coaches didn't let us do anything outside of football, let alone train for a marathon. We had four weeks off all year, spring break commencement through May 31st.

Likewise, our CC team would be there for "optional" workouts starting mid June and T&F stayed as long as they were in NCAAs.

College athletics is nothing like high school. A friend of mine played at Hopkins and they said it was a similar situation.

Also, in high school, you're used to being the best, fastest, strongest etc as you're one of the few going on to the next level. When you get to campus, now you're one of the weakest with zero experience. It takes some by surprise to realize they are no longer the best.

No worries. I wasn't insulted at all. I figured it probably wouldn't be okay... just wanted to hear someone say it!

So, the kiddo and I decided to give each other an extra 3 months for our bet/goals. I'm probably not going to accomplish it anyway but I'm not giving up.

She's antsy for a time trial. Not me though, I'm feeling sluggish as ever. The 3 months started June 1 but I took a fall on that day. Had a freaking golf ball sized lump on my forehead and a 2inx8in bruise across my right hip. The next 2 wks my head and hip hurt with every bouncy step. I only managed to keep my mile streak alive.

This week I've gotten almost 30 miles. All slow and easy (except another fall I took running and my knee took the brunt). I think I'm not lifting that right foot as high because that hip starts aching and feels weaker than usual. So, a tiny lip in the concrete took me down.

My current plan is 33 miles this week. 10% increase per week for the foreseeable future. No speedwork this week. Will add that back the week after. My weight bounced around a lot during quarantine but I'm currently back where I was in March. So, I've got a little over 10 weeks.

We found 2 track meets. The first is July 1st, the second is July 25/26. I'm not currently sure what her training plan is... if she plans to have a down week or just work through them. She 'hopefully' leaves for college on August 17th.

DumbAFRunnrMom wrote:

You only have yourself to blame. You and your ilk chose not to wear masks and properly social distance are the reason your daughter doesn't get a proper graduation. Wear a fuckin mask

Being forced to wear a breathing restrictor is causing many more deaths than a virus, and there is absolutely no good reason to do it. You are the idiot.

SlowAFRunnrMom wrote:

I think I'm not lifting that right foot as high because that hip starts aching and feels weaker than usual. So, a tiny lip in the concrete took me down.

Those lips in the sidewalk are dangerous. A few years ago my foot caught on something in the middle of a run and I went flying forward. Thinking I just tripped on my foot, I made sure I was okay and then kept going.

One year later I tripped again in exactly the same place, went flying forward - which is quite scary when running on concrete - and had a hard fall but managed to come out of it with minor scrapes and nothing serious thank goodness. This time I got up and walked back to see what happened, and there was a nearly 2 inch high lip sticking up that I'd never noticed before, even though I ran that course every day.

The next day I took a wax marker to mark all the lips in the sidewalk, then called and noted their approximate location to the city. They were very good about coming out and grinding them down. From that time on I was always very conscious of even the slightest little obstacles.

So, first real week of running in a while!

6/14-6/20

Sunday-1 mile @ 9:00

Monday-4.1 miles @ 9:38 pace

Tuesday-4 miles @ 9:47 pace

Wednesday-4.1 @ 9:51 pace

Thursday-5.6 @ 10:16 pace

Friday-4.5 @ 10:25 (the day I fell)

Saturday- 5.8 @ 9:40 pace. (This was actually 4 loops around the neighborhood with recoveries between and that's why the pace was better)

So, that's it. Not quite 30 miles but close. This is the highest mileage week I've had since the last week of January. I just wanted to get my mileage back up over 10 mpw lol and not worry about pace at all.

Weight is 146 lbs.

SlowAFRunnrMom wrote:

So, first real week of running in a while!

6/14-6/20

Sunday-1 mile @ 9:00

Monday-4.1 miles @ 9:38 pace

Tuesday-4 miles @ 9:47 pace

Wednesday-4.1 @ 9:51 pace

Thursday-5.6 @ 10:16 pace

Friday-4.5 @ 10:25 (the day I fell)

Saturday- 5.8 @ 9:40 pace. (This was actually 4 loops around the neighborhood with recoveries between and that's why the pace was better)

So, that's it. Not quite 30 miles but close. This is the highest mileage week I've had since the last week of January. I just wanted to get my mileage back up over 10 mpw lol and not worry about pace at all.

Weight is 146 lbs.

Those are my everyday running paces and about the same mileage, but I can probably run sub-6:00 mile any day of the week I also run speed and hills). Just sayin' your easy pace may not be easy enough. THE most common mistake.

Nice running! Keep it going.

YMMV wrote:

Those are my everyday running paces and about the same mileage, but I can probably run sub-6:00 mile any day of the week I also run speed and hills). Just sayin' your easy pace may not be easy enough. THE most common mistake.

On the treadmill, I can force myself to run slower but out in the wild my feet just go 10 pace-ish. And that's constantly reminding myself not to go too fast.

Stop saying this. Tens of thousands of construction workers, miners, doctors, nurses, and countless other jobs wear surgical masks, N95 masks, or full on respirators for entire shifts (and have been doing so for decades) and no one gets sick, injuried, or dies from it. It's just inane!

dunes runner wrote:

Being forced to wear a breathing restrictor is causing many more deaths than a virus, and there is absolutely no good reason to do it. You are the idiot.

It would probably help (especially for the mile training) to do a couple of faster harder days and really just shuffle out the easy days at 11-12 min pace. I had to get a heart rate monitor to reign in my pace, and it was tough to run that slow, but it was well worth it.

BTW I also had some bad falls a few years ago but that went away when I slowed down. Running just a little too fast puts you in a tunnel vision focus mode, perfect for catching a toe.

What heart rate am I supposed to be? My avg is mid 150s most days. Highest 179.

SlowAFRunnrMom wrote:

What heart rate am I supposed to be? My avg is mid 150s most days. Highest 179.

Varies a bit depending on age. One conservative formula is 180-age. Most of my easy miles are around 140. 150s is getting near tempo effort for me, too fast for being easy. 160+ is definitely tempo. 170 is interval training at mile pace.

I have read all 27 pages of your journey and my admiration for you is immense. Including your kids in this journal is marvelous and inspirational and illuminates what a terrific mother you are. It appears you have great and talented kids and I hope they appreciate how truly lucky they are!

Keep up your striving!

Being a long-time coach, I feel 'Honey's' best distance is the mile given her PR. I can see her breaking 5:00 with. proper coaching. Running at Hopkins will bring her close I bet

Admiration Society wrote:

I have read all 27 pages of your journey and my admiration for you is immense. Including your kids in this journal is marvelous and inspirational and illuminates what a terrific mother you are. It appears you have great and talented kids and I hope they appreciate how truly lucky they are!

Keep up your striving!

Being a long-time coach, I feel 'Honey's' best distance is the mile given her PR. I can see her breaking 5:00 with. proper coaching. Running at Hopkins will bring her close I bet

Thanks so much! I am pretty darn proud of my kiddos. My youngest just started pole vaulting practice. She wanted to give it a try.

I used to think that this thread was interesting, but I gave up on it a while ago. To be fair though, I don't think that I gave up on it before OP gave up on it.

I would love to see a real three-month effort toward the goal of a 6:30 mile. Do a time trial now so that you know what your current fitness level is. Then eventually you'll need to do some 400m and 800m interval workouts at mile pace. Maybe this is a "you can't get there from here" situation, but if you ended up running a 6:59 mile at the end of three months, wouldn't you be pretty excited about that?

(You force yourself to run way too many miles for your current fitness and that's probably the primary cause of most of the injuries that you complain about. You should be able to get to your goal while running much fewer miles if you are running quality efforts according to your current fitness and being consistent. It doesn't do you any good to slog through 4 miles per day, 6 days in a row at a slow pace that still leaves you fatigued by the end of the week. You would see much better improvement if you ran 3 miles per day every other day but you kept the pace just a little faster.)

I plan on starting back on some intervals/repeats or whatever next week. These 2 weeks I was just trying to get my mileage back up.

I honestly feel like I haven't had nearly as many injuries as other runners I talk to on Facebook, etc. I have had little niggles, but mostly it was that one achilles injury. ALL of my other injuries have been from car accidents, falls, or sprains that had 0 to do with running. Although, it's been a long 2 years.... I might be forgetting something.

I ran a 7 minute mile last summer. I might could break 8 right now if I really wanted to but what good would it do? I don't have a whole lot of time to mess around and tbh I'm kind of afraid to try and run fast right now and end up injured. I wanted to just trust the process and give it a try or 2 right at the end.

I would argue that it’s somewhat important to know what your current fitness level is currently and that the only real way to do that is to test it. If the best mile that you could run right now is 8:00, that would be good to know. If it’s 7:40, that represents a big difference in your current fitness and what paces you would choose for training.

I would also argue that you don’t need to get your mileage up. The last example week that I see here is almost 30 miles. That’s plenty of miles to get someone’s mile time from 8:00 to 6:30. What you’re missing is quality. If you needed to reduce your total volume in order to do more quality running, then I bet you would improve more quickly than you have before.

Trusting the process only works if there is a process to trust. What is the process that you’re planning to trust?

I’d love to read that you ran a 6:29 (or 6:59) mile 3 months from now, but if I were to bet on it then I would bet that you don’t follow through with a plan for three months.