Road Racing and Traininf Thread Week Ending 3-10-19

LancRunner wrote:

RunGuy - What are your goals for the 8k, and the 5k in April... just curious if you have some times your gunning for.

Lanc - I'm thinking 31:30 for the 8k and 18:30 target for the 5k. I have 5 weeks between the 8k and 5k and hope to pick-up some fitness in that time. Aiming for sub-1:25:00 half in May.

BHV - It's funny you ask. Veridesk's recently made their first appearance in my office #1. We can order at a discounted rate. The reason I didn't jump all over it is I spend a good deal of time in meetings away from my desk and 2-3 days at an another office without the Veridesk option. Still might be worth it thought.

RunGuy: That may be the direction I need to head in the long term. Already I can tell that eating a huge pile of starch hits me differently now than years ago. Better get it together before it does start sticking.

My coach and slo must share notes or something. 3x1k+400 last night. Catch the full dets this weekend.

pewow wrote:

My coach and slo must share notes or something. 3x1k+400 last night. Catch the full dets this weekend.

pewow wrote:

Stone - Great TT, maybe change that big midweek workout to a medium one and save it for the 5k?

And you must be a mind reader with your advice this week. My 7-8 mile alternating tempo on Tuesday became a 5.5 mile tempo by default because that was as long as I could hold the alternating paces. Feeling much better today, though. And feeling much better about my chances this Saturday.

Interested to see what you put up for the 1k/400m workout...

I hear you, man. My body had no problems converting pizza and carbs to fuel at 23 as long as I was moving. No longer the case at 33.

Darkwave - good luck at Shamrock this weekend! Great course. Did the half in 2015. The post race Yuenling was a nice treat.

Stone - good luck in Saturdays 5k! A lot of quality lately should yield a strong result

Sub 6 - have fun in the 4 miler! I like the distance. Weird/difficult course, not so much.

NYC Half - good luck to you this weekend!

Coach J - my unsolicited advice is to target 6:50 pace. I was 24.8 miles into my last race before realizing sub-3 was a reality. My thought is go for it. A 2:59 is a lot more exciting than a 3:0X.

RunGuy Midwest wrote:

Coach J - my unsolicited advice is to target 6:50 pace. I was 24.8 miles into my last race before realizing sub-3 was a reality. My thought is go for it. A 2:59 is a lot more exciting than a 3:0X.

Thanks for the unsolicited advice. I agree with the sentiment but I'm not yet committed to the execution. Not that it's gonna take much to convince me. I feel that I can go for it, fail, and still PR. Oh, the hubris...

By the way, I've been on that diet for about two years now. Shattered every PR I've ever had. No carbs except for veggies. I enjoy sweet potatoes prior to races, though, and gels during (call it praying in the foxhole).

Hello everyone!

Just got back from Japan.. sorry for the (very) late post about my Tokyo Marathon but I have really just been enjoying my vacation with my wife. I am just going to post a race recap.

The week of the marathon

M: Track 2 WU@6:23, 3x1@5K/10K/5K, 400 Rec(5:12, 5:27, 5:10), CD 1@7:10

T: Easy Road/Trail 6.3@7:19

W: Track Tempo 1 WU@6:55, 5@5:47, 1 CD@7:51

F: Shakeout 4.3@7:23

Sat: Tokyo Marathon Friendship Run (with wife) 2.1@11:42

I got to Japan on Friday morning after a redeye flight from US, checked into the hotel and then went to the Tokyo Marathon Expo. There is very tight security at the expo and you have to have your face photo taken and matched to a wristband that you have to wear until the marathon is over. I picked up some ASICS and Tokyo Marathon gear and then headed back to the hotel to rest. I did a shakeout run at a park nearby my hotel. I woke up Saturday and did the Friendship fun run with my wife and then went to check out the starting line for the marathon before meeting up with a friend for a final carb loading meal.

I took the train in the start line at Shinjuku in the morning and met up with another friend from another branch of my running club as we waited to start in the B corral. (He ended up doing great at the race with a 2:44 PR after running a 2:48 at both NYC and Boston last year, apparently he says he does relatively better in cold weather races).

My race splits:

Miles 1-5: 6:35, 6:13, 6:02, 5:58, 6:00

Miles 6-10: 6:04, 5:48, 6:12, 6:12, 6:07,

Miles 11-15: 6:02, 6:07, 6:14, 6:14, 6:20

Miles 16-20: 6:14, 6:10, 6:22, 6:25, 6:29

Miles 21-25: 6:39, 6:50, 7:13, 7:20, 7:23,

Miles 25-finish: 8:03, 8:24

The weather was a bit chilly in the 40's with some winds and some rain during the race which I feel negatively impacted my race. I was stuck in Corral B behind a lot of runners so had a slow first mile as a result while I tried to maneuver around other runners. I was not able to get up to full speed until around my 3rd mile. I felt pretty strong initially before there was significant rain or headwinds so I was still entertaining the idea of going for a sub-2:40 or PR. However, as the race wore on, my right hamstrings began to tighten up probably due to a combination of the (cold, windy, and wet) weather, going out too fast, and my recent hamstring injury. I think I could have continued to tried to run at a pretty fast pace but I was afraid I would pull a hamstring like what happened to me on that long run 3 weeks prior so I started to gradually slow down. I did not want to risk completely blowing up in this marathon as I really wanted to continue my streak of sub-3 World Marathon Major races. I basically fell apart in the last 10K leading to a big positive split which is exactly the opposite of my experience at NYC last November. This still ended up being my 2nd fastest marathon ever (12 seconds faster than 2017 Chicago and 2 minutes faster than 2018 Boston) but still felt disappointing as I felt I was in shape to challenge for a PR. Overall, in a strange way, I still feel OK with my performance though because of the recent injury.

Looking back at this marathon, I think that the recent hamstring injury definitely contributed to my poor performance but I was just happy to be able to run this marathon with a decent time given how bad the injury seemed when it occurred. Also, thinking back to what many of you have said, I think I need to train more outside as compared to the treadmill as these are road races I am running. I also do not do well in cold, windy, wet conditions so therefore I need to do more of my training outside when there is rain or wind (there is wind here but not much rain or cold).

I really enjoyed my vacation in Japan after the race visiting a lot of places and eating lots of Japanese food and sweets and basically have done no running since. I did a slow 3.1 mile jog at 12-ish pace with my wife around the Tokyo Imperial Palace on my last day in Japan. I plan to get back into training with some easy running this week as I do have a local half marathon in about 7 weeks. I plan to transition into training for shorter races for now as I have no marathons planned at this time for the rest of the year.

Coach Jeff ROC wrote:

RunGuy Midwest wrote:

Coach J - my unsolicited advice is to target 6:50 pace. I was 24.8 miles into my last race before realizing sub-3 was a reality. My thought is go for it. A 2:59 is a lot more exciting than a 3:0X.

Thanks for the unsolicited advice. I agree with the sentiment but I'm not yet committed to the execution. Not that it's gonna take much to convince me. I feel that I can go for it, fail, and still PR. Oh, the hubris...

By the way, I've been on that diet for about two years now. Shattered every PR I've ever had. No carbs except for veggies. I enjoy sweet potatoes prior to races, though, and gels during (call it praying in the foxhole).

If fat is so effective as fuel why the gels, instead of packets of butter!

Guy Broman wrote:

Question for the marathoners and other high mileage folks: what do you do about food? I am interested in adding a few more miles, but fear I may soon begin eating butter directly out of the refrigerator. Perhaps just a self-control issue?

Question for doublers: Is there an optimum amount of down time between two easy-ish runs? As much time as possible?

Finally getting around to this while I half-watch a webex panel discussion.

Food: Beyond the composition of the diet, two key things I’ve found when doing a lot of mileage is to not underestimate how many calories you need and to proactively eat good, nutritious food before you get very hungry. When I try to make it about willpower, I either get run down or crack and start ravening on cookies or whatever. RRR’s thing about 10 pieces of fruit is a good approach. I don’t go that far, but I’ve had two bananas and a pear, and will have another banana before I leave work. You’re not going to get fat from too many apples.

Doubles: Two rules I picked up in college were that each run should be at least 30 minutes and to keep at least 5 hours between runs. The intuition was that 30 minutes is needed to give an aerobic benefit, or maybe it was HGH stimulation, and that you need some time to allow your recovery response to take its course.

Lately I’ve had a lot of 4-4.5 hour gaps, which isn’t ideal, but is often the easiest way to do it.

runrincerepeat wrote:

If fat is so effective as fuel why the gels, instead of packets of butter!

You ever try to pry one of those things open? Hard enough at the Waffle House, never mind at my wicked fast goal marathon pace!

BHViking and RunGuy: Quite a coincidence you brought this up as I was discussing this very thing with the office manager in the hours before you guys posted about Varidesk. I sent him the Varidesk website link, just for informational purposes, cuz he really didn't know such things existed and he was curious about the cost. He did know that I stack a bunch of recycled paper under my laptop and stand at my desk for a couple of periods during almost every day. Later in the day, as I stood and stacked my pile of papers, I caught his eye and said: "Look, I just saved you a thousand bucks!"

Coach Jeff ROC wrote:

runrincerepeat wrote:

If fat is so effective as fuel why the gels, instead of packets of butter!

You ever try to pry one of those things open? Hard enough at the Waffle House, never mind at my wicked fast goal marathon pace!

Ha. I’m sure not many waffle houses in the ROC. My favorite comment was how you only get “carbs from veggies”. Guess all that beer is 0 carbs?!

Stat - Thank you for the excellent advice. Will try not to get ahead of myself. Happy running to you.

runrincerepeat wrote:

Ha. I’m sure not many waffle houses in the ROC. My favorite comment was how you only get “carbs from veggies”. Guess all that beer is 0 carbs?!

Errrr.... ummmm.... at least it's vegetarian?

Catching up...

Coyote - Another good week. Good luck at Shamrock.

NYCHalf - Maybe this is coming a bit late, but I don’t think you should worry about pace groups and should run your own race. That’s a big gap between the two groups. If you’re in about 6:20 shape, one would be too cautious, the other would risk a blow-up. There should be plenty of people to run with in between.

LebanonHills - Welcome to the thread. Nice progression on Saturday.

Darkwave - Good luck this weekend at Shamrock. 83 minutes sounds a bit fast to me, but you seem to be very good at self-assessment. I’ve never run Shamrock, but have heard the course is a lot more forgiving than the course I just ran and you despise, so long as the wind isn’t bad. So maybe if you aim high and it turns out to be too fast you’ll be able to correct if needed.

RunnerSam - Not bad. Hope this week is coming along.

Bruin - It’s definitely an accomplishment to finish Tokyo in a reasonable effort after your injury. When you first posted about it I figured it would be DNS or DNF. Good job.

———————————

Quads are a bit trashed going into tomorrow’s hilly 4 miler. What could go wrong?

Sub 6:00 wrote:

Darkwave - Good luck this weekend at Shamrock. 83 minutes sounds a bit fast to me, but you seem to be very good at self-assessment. I’ve never run Shamrock, but have heard the course is a lot more forgiving than the course I just ran and you despise, so long as the wind isn’t bad. So maybe if you aim high and it turns out to be too fast you’ll be able to correct if needed.

Thanks - I actually agree with you that 83 is optimistic, and I'm probably not quite there yet. I think 84-85 is more realistic - the only reason I still mention the 83 is that I have a history of surprising myself at Shamrock.

I honestly don't think I'm in the same fitness I was when I ran 84:22 at Richmond last fall. But...that's balanced out by the fact that I'm much fresher than I was then, and Shamrock is a faster course. So, who knows.

I race purely by effort, and never look at my watch or clocks on the course when running - anyone who runs a race with me is forbidden from telling me splits or paces. So...there's no worries about me going out too fast chasing an unrealistic goal and having to correct. I'll run the best race I have in me, and find out at the finish line what sort of shape I'm in.

Good luck at 4 Courts - you're a bit masochistic - doing that race a week after RNR.

Coyote - good luck tomorrow! I'll be arriving in the afternoon, so won't have a chance to cheer on the 8K.

Also - good luck to all at the NYC half runners (I believe that's NYCHalf and Jot Quill - hope I'm not excluding anyone)

Bruin - Thanks for your report, and I agree with your observations about training in the conditions that you may have to race in. I also get and appreciate the sentiment about being both bummed by the time and OK with it, given the lead up

Thanks darkwave!

Wishing everyone good luck as well on their races this weekend, let's go give it our best!

What do y’all do when you are on the eve of a race and just not feeling it?! RRR feels like his mojo has been sapped this week from work stressors and niggles etc. ...

Or as Smoove says. DBAP.

runrincerepeat wrote:

What do y’all do when you are on the eve of a race and just not feeling it?! RRR feels like his mojo has been sapped this week from work stressors and niggles etc. ...

Or as Smoove says. DBAP.

Don't worry about it now, just worry about feeling it at the start line! Ease into that mojo like you ease into a nice pace