Road Racing and Training Thread, Week Ending 3/17/2019

too hot 3 wrote:

The Stone Cutter wrote:

I am goal-oriented. I do want to achieve certain times.

Times that involve watches, clocks, and paces. Not efforts.

.

This is the statement that I felt was insinuating that those who run watchless are not goal-oriented or as intent on achieving certain times as you are.

Times do involve efforts.

Making a statement about myself has nothing to do with others. It is a statement about myself.

I am primarily time/goal oriented.

Others are primarily effort/goal oriented.

Neither precludes or excludes wanting to run as fast as possible.

Allen1959 wrote:

The Stone Cutter wrote:

It just depends on the type of runner you are.

outsiderunner hasn't weighed in on this for a while. Coach, what do you think? During his years of running daily progression runs, was he checking splits, or only afterwards? Would it be less stressful for him to run the entire marathon by feel? Or more stressful not to have the assurance of being "on pace?"

Maybe it comes down to how specific will his time goal might be?

I advise all of my athletes with a race strategy on the night before the race. It is up to the athlete to decide what to follow.

I do always recommend racing how you practice, and practice how you plan to race.

Because the best way to predict the future is to write it.

OR and I have had some great talks about the story he will write in several weeks. I’ll let his running and writing speak for itself.

The Stone Cutter wrote:

I am primarily time/goal oriented.

Others are primarily effort/goal oriented.

See, I don’t think you are fully appreciating the value of effort. The “others” in this context are just as oriented towards time. The difference lies in the path you take to get there.

too hot 3 wrote:

The Stone Cutter wrote:

I am primarily time/goal oriented.

Others are primarily effort/goal oriented.

See, I don’t think you are fully appreciating the value of effort. The “others” in this context are just as oriented towards time. The difference lies in the path you take to get there.

We're having' fun now!

Great conversation about a topic near and dear.

Getting in my homework late this week...

Stone: Congratulations on the 5k! That must be both gratifying in itself and encouraging looking forward to the half.

RRR: Hope the hip is better than it was at the beginning of the week.

Sub 6: Impressive week, and sounds like a useful “training race” to prepare for Boston.

TDR: Looking very strong. The back-to-back mid-week mid-long runs are great for endurance. With the wisdom teeth, people’s experience can vary a lot, but it’s not necessarily that big of a deal. I think I missed maybe a week of running? (This was back in high school.)

Lebanon: Solid week, and very funny about the access road. Hope the remaining mush melts soon.

GT: Good to hear the foot turned out to be just a temporary glitch. Lots of little things that can get tweaked out down there.

Puddles: Strong performance on what sounds like a challenging course. Love the straightforwardness of your training and it’s clearly working well for you.

Viking: Hope the hamstring is on the mend. Possibly tendinitis if it’s lower down in that back of the knee area?

Axolotl: Had to look that up – funny name! Congratulations on the massive PR! And it sounds like you’re looking good to take it down further in the near future. About the easy/recovery runs: I hear what you’re saying, and have trouble not getting antsy sometimes myself. If you’re running with a team, and it sounds like you are, you might try to do some of those runs with people who are somewhat slower than yourself. Company can help to pass the time and keep you in that easier zone.

Coyote: Congratulations on the victory, and go get ‘em at the big meet coming up! And thank you for the explanation about the pickups – sounds like a good tool and something I may mix into my own repertoire.

jotquill: Man, you have been on some kind of run! It’s awesome to see someone be bold with their training and have it pay off in such a big way.

darkwave: A gritty performance in the face of adversity. Thank you for your comments on running by feel in this week’s thread – I found them very insightful and clarifying for me personally.

jewbacca: Looking strong with those workouts. Have a good run in the 10k this weekend.

VFRunner: Sorry to hear about the employment situation. Hope you’re able to sit on that changeup and give it a good rip.

Still Improving: Congratulations on hitting eighty for the week – that’s a nice mark to hit and will definitely get some strength into your legs for Boston. (And smart to cut back on workouts with the mileage boost.)

Urban Diesel: Congratulations on a terrific race and hope you have a great run in Poland! From a training perspective, I find it interesting to see you keeping the mileage pretty high at this stage in the game.

Coach Jeff: Hope you’re over that cold (and not onto another one…). Good to hear you turned that corner with your training – you’re on track to be super fit for Boston.

th3bt: Good to see you back and getting back into things.

RGM: Hope you’re over the illness. Have a good run in the 8k tomorrow!

cocoon: Steadily building up strength. One thing I would observe is that with the kind of work you’ve been doing (the long repeats, the high-end-aerobic long runs), doing a little more and a little more eventually gets you to a place where it becomes a LOT harder and more demanding on your body. When you start to get to that point, and it sounds like you may be, it may be wise to take a longer recovery between workouts or emphasize only one workout a week and back off on the other one (which may come to the same thing).

JtA: Solid week. Keep plugging away and piling them up. And good luck with the four-miler today.

Sam: Good to see you back at it.

Lanc: Getting in good work and the speed side looks promising for sub 17.

On a side note: hip has been feeling good enough that I went for an exploratory jog yesterday. Everything seemed pretty ok during and after. On to the next step.

"You don't feel in Beast Mode, it feels you." -Marshawn Lynch

16:34.6 certified 5k this morning.

TDR I'm gonna need a leaderboard update. Also, I'm 32 now.

Thanks to Slo. The man is a wizard.

Too hot, you missed the key word there PRIMARILY. I did not say exclusively, I said primarily. Being primarily effort driven does not necessarily sacrifice the focus on running a fast time. It just means that the driving means is effort.

Being primarily time driven does not necessarily sacrifice the focus of gaging effort. It just means that the driving means is time.

As far as me not fully appreciating the value of effort...

Ha, we both know you are talking to the wrong guy.

I believe you are the one who likes to underestimate on this thread...

Gordon Tremeshko wrote:

"You don't feel in Beast Mode, it feels you." -Marshawn Lynch

16:34.6 certified 5k this morning.

TDR I'm gonna need a leaderboard update. Also, I'm 32 now.

Thanks to Slo. The man is a wizard.

Really happy for you, GT. Great, great run. Time to reset the possible for you...

Awesome race, GT! Beast Mode indeed!

[quote]going faster miles an hour wrote:

cocoon: Steadily building up strength. One thing I would observe is that with the kind of work you’ve been doing (the long repeats, the high-end-aerobic long runs), doing a little more and a little more eventually gets you to a place where it becomes a LOT harder and more demanding on your body. When you start to get to that point, and it sounds like you may be, it may be wise to take a longer recovery between workouts or emphasize only one workout a week and back off on the other one (which may come to the same thing).

[quote]

Thanks for the suggestion, GFMAH. What you stated is probably is the reason for the fatigue. This week until now, everything has been easy running. I have a half marathon tomorrow that I will run on a best effort basis. We will see what time I land on.

GT - Awesome race!! That’s a great time.

Effort vs GPS based running

Great discussion here folks. I am not as experienced a runner as many of you are.

In workouts, I am very much a slave to my watch - do not want the last few repeats or the last few miles of a tempo to suck more than they need to.

In races, I look at the watch a couple of times in the first couple of miles to get the rhythm going. Then for the rest of the miles, barring the last few, just glance down at every mile beep. For the last few miles, it depends on how the race is going. If I am finding it hard to maintain pace, I will look down every 5 minutes or so to see if I am still on pace or not; or how badly I am sucking at that point :). If I am feeling good, I am not looking down at the watch at all, even when it beeps every mile.

In my PR marathon last March, it got hard after 18 miles. I made a pact with myself that I would run just a little bit slower. But then halfway into the 19th mile, I looked down and realized that I was still going at my goal pace, so told myself “let’s get this mile at the goal pace and I will go slower in the next mile”. This cycle repeated for the next 2 miles. After that, told myself that “forget the watch or what your body is telling you. Just run hard and bonk when you bonk.” The bonk never came, and looking at the splits later, I never did slow down. Fastest miles were 26 and the last .2 miles. Negative split that race by about 45 secs.

The Stone Cutter wrote:

Too hot, you missed the key word there PRIMARILY. I did not say exclusively, I said primarily. Being primarily effort driven does not necessarily sacrifice the focus on running a fast time. It just means that the driving means is effort.

Being primarily time driven does not necessarily sacrifice the focus of gaging effort. It just means that the driving means is time.

The word primarily changes nothing. Originally you made a distinction between time and effort orientation which suggests more of a “concern or lack thereof with regards to” and now you are using the term means which I think clarifies the confusion. We are all driven by the same desire but the means to that end can vary. What I don’t want to portray to others is the idea that effort-based runners take a nonchalant attitude towards race outcomes.

Coach Jeff ROC wrote:

We're having' fun now!

Great conversation about a topic near and dear.

Absolutely agreed.

BTW, I'm going to first observe that nothing in my previous comments should be interpreted to mean that I think that someone who approaches this in a different way is weaker or less driven than I am, or cares less about their performance. And, I do NOT infer the above from any comments made by others in this discussion, and have taken no personal offense from anything previously posted.

[Just being clear, perhaps unnecessarily, because sometimes tone isn't obvious on the internet, and I want to ensure that misinterpretations don't derail an excellent discussion that I'm gaining a lot from.]

Anyhoo, as too hot noted, I see focusing on my best effort as the best and most efficient way to accomplish my best time for that day. It's not that I don't care about my time, but rather I've learned that not focusing on time results in my fastest times. Just like relaxing when I'm kicking results in a faster kick than straining. Just like running my easy days super easy results in faster gains than pushing every run.

Two years ago, I had a breakthrough half-marathon. I hoped to break 88 minutes in that race (my PR at the time was 1:28:28). But it was an awful day - winds of 20+mph, 40 degrees, rain. Because of the course, we'd have a significant headwind going out, and a tailwind for the last few miles.

Per my standard, I went out with the goal of simply running my best, and measuring out my effort so that I emptied the tank completely. The result was a major PR of 1:26:34 - a full minute faster than I hoped to run.

My splits were....7:02/7:10/7:00/6:45/6:31/6:48/6:32/6:20/6:24/6:20/6:25/6:20/6:16.

I can assure you that if I was looking at splits early on and saw the 7+ minute miles, I would have given up and assumed there was no way I could PR. And had I seen the later splits, I would have gotten extremely concerned that I was about to blow up, and would have pulled back.

But because I was oblivious to both, and intent on simply running my best, I pulled out a major PR on an awful day.

But again, I am someone who tends to have a negative response to splits; other personalities that tend to respond positively, as noted above, may benefit.

I do want to note that one of the many advantages of running by pure feel is that I never have to guess. At how to adjust for humidity, hills, or headwind. At what my fitness is and how fast I should go out. When I do a tune-up race, I don't need it in order to figure out how to pace my goal race - the tune-up is simply to practice racing.

Also, Stone noted earlier that some days his mind is not in sync with his body, and on those days it's better to have the watch to override (if I understood your point correctly).

For myself, in situations like that, I would very much prefer NOT to override. Running my best requires that I nourish and grow my mental and physical fitness, and be careful not to overtrain either. If my mind is just not feeling it on that day due to life stresses, that's a good day to pull back a bit, in the same way I would if my legs were feeling not quite recovered.

GT - I am REALLY happy for you. Yes, time to reset what is possible. Great things to come, for sure. Enjoy this.

Great run, GT!

Of course my watch froze on my long (easy) run today. :)

Great run GT. Do you have your whole training schedule anywhere that you can share so it is easier to see your progress in aggregate?

darkwave - you are a class runner and a class conversationalist. Thanks for your continued, valued contributions to the thread.

The Stone Cutter wrote:

darkwave - you are a class runner and a class conversationalist. Thanks for your continued, valued contributions to the thread.

Agreed. Thank you darkwave.

First off congrats on a job well done GT!

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I know that things have moved on to other topics, but I now have some time to chime in with my thoughts and experiences with doing the 'I' pace workouts. I go into these workout with some level of trepidation and it doesn't have anything to do with execution or hitting a prescribed pace or time for the interval. I just run the interval hard and if it comes out anywhere from 5k to CV pace then I am content with the execution. It is the recovery from these faster efforts that gets me. It takes me an extended time to recover from one of these workouts. I guess I am more of a slow twitch runner than a fast twitch. Being an older masters runner is probably a factor too. As an example I did a 5x1k this past Wednesday. Today I moved my LR/workout to tomorrow due to the windy weather. I did go for an easy run today and once I got started I realized that I still need more recovery time from that 5x1k and that if I would have tried that workout today it probably would have been compromised and a disappointment.

This sort of leads into the topic of VDOT numbers in training. I'd say that your VDOT during training is going to vary from day to day depending on a number of factors including your current fitness and accumulated fatigue. Almost none of my workout paces serve as a prediction of my performance on race day. The exception to that might be my last workout in the taper. These days I just go at all of my workouts by effort and paces are what they are for that day. I guess my most recent race result does line up with my current training because I did not do any sort of taper for that race which is a rarity for me.

The only thing I have to say about the GPS watch/running watchless discussion is that I have no problem with not being a slave to the watch, but it can help me at times. I don't monitor the pace on my watch and it is never set to that screen. The exception to this was the few times that I used it in a race to keep myself from going out too fast in the beginning of a race. I do generally look at the mile splits as they come up, but that is more or less providing feedback after the fact on how the current level of effort aligns for that day. To each their own I guess. I do like having the data recorded by the watch for post race analysis.

On the watch thing, I think I’m similar to Smoove, I use it but don’t let it rule my races. At my best distances, probably 10K to half marathon, I’ll have a pretty good idea of what I’m capable of and will use the watch to help me rein in the pace and effort in the early going. If I go purely be effort I’d probably go out fast and then hang on the 2nd half. I like to control my pace and gauge competition in the first couple miles. After that I run more by feel. It doesn’t have to be one or the other.

Oh and greetings from .pl