Road Racing and Training Week Ending 1-6-2019

statfanatic wrote:

Pretty much this. The only thing I incorporate not addressed here is a 90 second to 2 minute pickup at a good effort at the end of my 2 mile jog. That's something I like, but I wouldn't necessarily recommend for everyone. I respond well to it but I wouldn't be surprised if someone else didn't. I do pretty much the same thing no matter the distance, although if/when I race a marathon I'll probably do a bit less.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E6ejOPp1vjM

1.) Show-off

2.) Looks like I tagged/asked the right person. Ha.

Well played.

Bdubs wrote:

Thanks guys.

The pain is on the outside of my knee and extends to the back.

Maybe IT band? Depends what you mean by "outside" and "to the back." Pain over the patella or pain behind the knee isn't likely IT band. I set mine off once by stepping funny. Most likely it was stiff and ready to go, and my misstep just gave it the excuse.

If it's IT band, racing will piss it off but won't cause permanent harm.

Agreed with Smoove here. JD tempos never felt "comfortably easy"

BDubs- NOOOOOO

Also- Vaporfly release tomorrow. I'm not sure if I'm gonna pick them up. $250 for a pair of sneakers. I know they're fast, but it feels like I still have a lot of gain to make without them.. I might just get the Streak 6's (again, because the first time I didn't like them but now I'm running in higher drop shoes) since they are dropping in price with the Streak 7s out.

Jeremy - I've found just about every Nike to be pretty narrow through the midfoot and you've mentioned having pretty wide/flat feet. To that end, have you tried the New Balance 1400 before? I ask because I know one of the color options is available in a 2E. Of course it's the color that doesn't look to be on sale at RW right now, but still...might be worth a consideration if you haven't tried the 1400 before.

Jeremy R wrote:

Also- Vaporfly release tomorrow. I'm not sure if I'm gonna pick them up. $250 for a pair of sneakers. I know they're fast, but it feels like I still have a lot of gain to make without them.. I might just get the Streak 6's (again, because the first time I didn't like them but now I'm running in higher drop shoes) since they are dropping in price with the Streak 7s out.

I probably wouldn't be in pain if I got the pair of Streak 6's I ordered rather than the Streak 4 LTs for that marathon. Beginning to think its a stress fracture since I've had pain for 7 days (minor, worse in the morning). Buddy of mine got the nike zoom flys for 30$ at a nike outlet store not to long ago, they are a proper (not crazy price) substitute for the vapor.

-RS

Sorry to hear about the knee, Bdubs. Hang in there.

Cocoon: You've gotten some really good answers from other people, stat and Smoove especially. If you look on the "Success with Daniels" thread, Smoove talks about some of the form cues that he uses to home in on different levels of effort. Whether or not the specific cues that he talks about work for you, the way he talks about them may help you think about the feel of different workouts.

Personally, I've never found it particularly helpful to approach workouts in terms of "running at x distance race pace." And the idea of running at one hour race pace is one that I find particularly confusing, partly because the number of times I've run a one hour race is exactly zero. So, it doesn't make that much sense for me to try and understand something I do pretty frequently (run some variety of tempo run) in terms of something I do never.

What I have found is that tempo-type efforts tend to go much better for me if I let myself build to the desired level of effort, rather than trying to hit it from the word go. That's the key for me, really.

I did a mile in the Vapors this morning to get a feel for them ( I mean .. just in case) and man my feet do seem to slap the ground w them. But they plush and fast.. just a wierd feeling.

Some comments (sorry if I'm not able to shout out to everyone) and a mini year-in-review

TDR: Thanks for keeping that leaderboard!

Slo: race day is nearly here. Weather is looking like it'll be perfect. Here's hoping you feel 100% that morning!

RRR: That lifting looks fun. As soon as I recover from this marathon I think I will focus on that a little more too.

Coach Jeff: Enjoying see your training runs on Strava! I see sub 3 pace (at M) in your future. Hopefully soon! To respond to your comment about tapering: I'm finally backing off both mileage and intensity for the 2 weeks leading up to the race. Trying to stay in routine, but pretty much not enjoying the taper at the moment.

Stone: I have been taking that Larry Friedman quote to heart ever since I saw you share it a few weeks back. In fact, this whole thread has given me a brighter outlook on the possibility of reaching "out of reach" PRs in the future.

Bdubs: congrats on that 5k! ridiculous time! There's something motivating about when a teammate gives you a little nudge to go a little faster. Looking good for Houston.

JamesCorden: Solid week! I'll have to try training in a Wal-Mart parking lot sometime.

Jot: Sorry to hear about the down week last week but glad your ribs are feeling better now.

Jewbacca: Smart backing off on Saturday. Just a few days away from the starting line.

RunnersFix: Enjoying seeing your runs on Strava and battling your distance in a few club leaderboards (though your pace obliterates mine :)).

Still Improving: sorry to hear about the disappointing 5k. I have noticed recovery times taking a lot longer than they did when I was 18.

Sub6: very solid week. That NYD workout looks ridiculous.

Jeremy: Great looking week and I bet it felt good to hit some faster miles at the end of that long run.

Puto: get better soon!

dark wave: I was under the weather on Tuesday but for different reasons.

HHH: Great splits on that workout. Still remember reading about your motorcycle accident. I too was struggling on Tuesday.

DietBacon: Interesting that Tinman has you going back and forth between 1Ks @ CV and 10x2mins. Why do you think he had you drop back down? Or is it the same volume just split into smaller chunks?

old dog: welcome to the thread. Looks like a great week of base building.

OR: enjoying reading your progress here and on the other thread.

going faster miles an hour wrote: KidB: Looking great for Houston. Seems like there have been a couple of longer runs the last couple of weeks where you’ve run maybe a little further/faster than you intended. I don’t think that was necessarily a bad thing, but probably getting to the stage where you’ll want to rein yourself in a little more.

I'm working hard to do that right now. It's a mental game and I'm still unsure about the race so I tend to use training runs to prove to myself that I can do it. I know that could sabotage the race so I'm trying to be really careful to taper well.

2018 year in review:

total miles: 2815

total races: 6 (including a time trial) 3 halfs, 2 miserable summer 5ks, and a mile time trial.

PRs: Irving half, April: 1:30:21, Dallas half, December: 1:25:23, impromptu mile time trial, July: 5:48.

miserable races: ran 2 5ks (May and June). temps at start were 85 and 99 respectively.

Bdubs - Sorry to hear about the knee. Taking positive action and seeing an ortho and PT should put you in a better state of mind even if it turns out to be something bad.

Cocoon - I’ve always thought the 20 minute tempos were supposed to be less intense than that. Not redlining, shouldn’t be a heroic effort to keep going, but looking forward to it ending. I’ve done them at an effort more like what you’re describing, but usually considered it to have been too fast.

Kid B wrote:

going faster miles an hour wrote: KidB: Looking great for Houston. Seems like there have been a couple of longer runs the last couple of weeks where you’ve run maybe a little further/faster than you intended. I don’t think that was necessarily a bad thing, but probably getting to the stage where you’ll want to rein yourself in a little more.

I'm working hard to do that right now. It's a mental game and I'm still unsure about the race so I tend to use training runs to prove to myself that I can do it. I know that could sabotage the race so I'm trying to be really careful to taper well.

I know the feeling, definitely. But trust your training, you've been running really well, and you're going to be ready to go when the time comes. Just try not to get too antsy in the meantime.

Cocoon...

Most people run threshold runs too hard even if (and perhaps especially if) they are following pace guidelines. It’s a trial and error process, and beginners will struggle, but everyone has to pay their dues. I don’t like these 20 minute threshold runs. They encourage runners to go a little crazy because they are so short. To best learn that comfortably hard feeling I think you should do longer runs at a steady effort which still give you many of the same LT benefits and then transition into more lactate tolerance work towards the end of the cycle (from a Lydiard perspective).

I'll come in here, too, from my perspective. Keep in mind that I'm a Daniels neophyte.

The "1 hour race pace" is somewhat problematic for guys in our state of fitness. For us, it's not as fast as 10 k pace, but not as slow as half-marathon pace, so it's a "race" that a lot of people who race only "traditional distances" simply don't have ANY experience with. And it's a pace that's not particularly close to either end of the 10-half spectrum for guys with our running resume. If we were 55 minute 10k guys, you'd have a good idea... or if we were 68 minute half marathon guys, the same thing... we'd have "landmarks" that were close enough to be readily recognizable.

So if there was any training run where I would NOT put my watch in my pocket, it's probably this one. It's probably the pace that is most difficult to identify because we aren't "calibrated" for that pace (cuz we usually race 10k or 21k).

But I'm not going to suggest a pace or even a HR level to you. If you're trying to follow a Daniels plan in the spirit of Daniels (in my understanding), you should be doing the LEAST amount of work necessary to achieve the desired affect. To my understanding, you probably shouldn't be sore or so tired that you don't feel like running the next day. So, yeah, maybe overcooked it? But...

...what you did was a step in that calibration process. Although you kept the watch in your pocket, I assume you still recorded your data? Go back and take a look. Take notes. Because you can use that data to "landmark" the pace/HR that made you sore and tired. That would seem to be (to me) just a little bit beyond what is necessary. Next time out on a T, I would suggest setting a pace or HR alert on the watch (even if it's in your pocket) to let you know when you're getting into that territory.

FWIW, I probably do my T runs too slowly... so maybe I'm not training optimally... but though I sometimes feel fatigued and occasionally a bit stiff (especially when forced to do a morning E run after an evening Q), I haven't approached sore after 4 weeks on 2Q.

Now, I need to run or I won't get a chance to today... this "real job", full-time, ass-in-the-chair between designated hours thing sure makes planning a day...no... planning a week... necessary. I no longer have a spare, random 90 minutes period to just tra-la-la...

I am not a Daniels guy, so I may just be missing something, but the responses to cocoon's question seem to suggest that there are significant differences in the way that people interpret Daniels' classic "twenty minute tempo at one hour race pace." On the one hand, it sounds like Smoove has a pretty aggressive approach, to the point that much of the second half of the tempo would feel like "holding on." On the other hand, Sub 6 seems to be saying that when he runs a tempo that hard, he feels like he is going harder than he should be. (Apologies to either or both of you if I am misunderstanding what you're saying.)

Part of this ambiguity may come from the question of how we interpret "one hour race pace." If you take "one hour race" to mean "maximal one-hour effort on the day you are running, under the conditions you are running in," then the pace that you run for a twenty minute tempo really ought to be something that you could, at least in theory, sustain for another forty minutes. But if you take one hour race to mean "optimal racing performance," as Smoove seems to do, that sets the bar a good deal higher.

Like I said, I'm not a Daniels guy, so I don't have any idea what the "right" answer is, or whether there is one, but it does seem like people have pretty different approaches.

I always thought tempo runs were 15-30 seconds slower than 5k pace depending on the duration. LT runs were 1 hour race pace. I'd guess LT would be 30-45 seconds slower than 5k pace. Not to much difference but at tempo you have the same breathing and stride/form as you would racing a 5k without really driving hard. LT you are just cruising.

Definitely defer to Smoove for interpreting Daniels, and some of the differences in perception might be due to relative preferences between running continuous tempo runs versus cruise intervals.

Just had an odd thought. I’ve never really been big on cruise intervals, but I like 5-6 mile repeats at what I consider to be 10k pace with 400m (2 minutes) rest, and that’s probably pretty close to what some of you are classifying as cruise intervals (judging by your descriptions of T pace).

Anyhow, if I’m trying to hit what I consider to be an LT tempo, I think I’m better off going a little longer (8-10k), which helps force me to hold off (as too hot suggests).

I just love these little vids...

It's all cued up for you... just press play...

https://youtu.be/dxJVtPT6rHo?t=120

RunnerSam, Stat, Smoove, Jeremy, Sub6, too hot, GFMAH, Coach and Pappy for your thoughts.

Smoove - Read through your input on how the form should feel like at various paces in the Success With Daniels thread. Informative stuff. I was definitely waiting for the 20 min tempo to get over. Was running this on a track, so had to continuously focus after 10 laps of the track. Got through 12.75 laps.

Too Hot - Think I do well with the steady state running. Say, I have no issues running for 50 - 60 minutes at Marathon or slightly slower than Marathon effort. It feels like a more natural pace for me.

GFMAH - Thanks for articulating my thoughts better than I ever could about the different approaches to effort levels for the 20 minute tempo.

Coach - Definitely noted the HR and the corresponding paces. My HRMax is 192, I average about 165 for a marathon. This tempo was 6:23 at about 175. I would be much more comfortable by slowing down to 6:30, I believe - which will correspond to about 173 HR. Thanks for the video!!.

15K! It's my new favorite race distance -- ran two of them this past season.

During my 2017 marathon training I raced a 15K in 59:59. One-hour race pace, exactly! Your fitness is just about at the same level, correct? That's VDOT 53.5 ...

For a 20-minute threshold run, I think you really should run at one-hour race pace, and I agree with using a watch to stay on target (plugging a 10K or half-marathon time into the VDOT calculator to determine the pace).

That said, I would generally run my 4- and 5-mile threshold runs (Pfitzinger schedules) at perceived one-hour pace -- no checking splits. Those were longer than 20 minutes, obviously. And always well off my intended pace -- usually about 6:35/mile versus 6:26 actual 1-hr race pace.

Still, I felt those workouts were 100 percent successful.

What's interesting is that I think my approach is fairly accurate with respec to actual pace and with respect to perceived effort when I do T pace for cruise intervals. But there is something about T pace for a continuous stretch of 20 minutes that is very challenging for me. I know my T pace via experience, perceived effort, body cues. But I also have run a fair number of half marathons and a couple of 15ks in recent training cycles. My 15k is 49-50 minutes and my half is 71. Some right in between there is definitely one hour race pace.

3 or 4 x 2 miles or 7 x 1 mile at that pace is far less daunting to me than 20:00 at that pace. Someone else talked about workout stress recently - I feel it very regularly. But the workout that gives me the least emotional stress is 1 mile cruise intervals. The most stressful workouts are 1600s at 5k pace, but the next one up is 20:00 at T pace.