Last week:
Last week, only somewhat faster:
"I want you to pray as if everything depends on it, but I want you to prepare yourself as if everything depends on you."
-- Dick LeBeau
On the road again...
Whew! A cutback week due to being away from home 5 days and I almost fell off the list!
Seriously good mileage in this group last week. Keep it up!
I write. I read. I run. One time, I ran a lot on my 50th birthday.
Paul
Oh, this weather is brutal. I had a short, 6mi progression run on tap today: 3mi easy, then bringing it down 20-30sec/mi for each 0.75mi thereafter. I set out at lunchtime: 96* and 64% humidity = 121* real-feel. Hit my pace targets, but at such a cost! I was a little dizzy, shaky and nauseous for ~30min afterward. Yeehaw.
Good thing tomorrow's a rest day.
Well, good new and bad news for me after yesterday's speed work...
The good news is that according to my Garmin I ran my first mile at a pace of 5:31.
The bad news is that I'm not used to running that fast and on the first lap I felt a pop in the back of my right leg and now I think I have a Grade 1 hamstring strain. That's kind of minor in the world of hamstring injuries but it's the first time I've had anything like that. I don't really have any races scheduled for the next two weeks so I suppose that's good, and I'm going to just try running an easy mile each day to keep my streak going (now at 411 days) until it gets better.
Anybody got some good advice for me? I'm using an ice pack and wearing compression shorts and it's really not swollen... just some pain when I run or walk (or just sit there).
Richard Hefner Past Race Results (Athlinks)
Richard, nice workout. So you are not slowing down as you age but actually getting faster, so no more Age group PR but just straight up PRs will be recognized from now.
Also if I may ask, why did you run so fast? The coach's stated objective was 5K pace -30 sec or 5:50-6:10 pace depending on what you think is you current 5K pace (i.e. your all time PR 19:42 or most recent 20:55). Not questioning your reason for doing that, just curious as to what training stimulus you were going for.
I was just running fast. He said go 30 seconds faster than my 5k pace and I'm thinking I better run fast... that's all.
I didn't think I could run 30 seconds faster than my 5k pace without bustin' a gut, so that's basically what I did, and with everybody else running fast it seemed logical at the time. I know that sounds overly complicated and scientific, but that's how I run.
Anyhoo, in the future on these speed workouts I'm through doing that. I'll just run at a comfortably fast pace. The thing is, I'm not a sprinter anyway and I think that's how I got hurt, taking off really fast from the starting line. Even in races I usually just work my way up on speed over the first mile or so.
Sorry you got hurt Richard, but that's a great mile time. PR perhaps? And of course, Shashi's right. Plugging that into the McMillan Running Calculator puts you at an estimated 19:14 5k.
MTA: no pressure, of course!
I think Richard got it right as remember his brain is wired differently (Shashi, your being too logical). Richard heard the coach say "5k time - 30 sec", so Richard processed this as "his Age Graded 5k time" (as when hears or sees his time, he automatically age grades it). Given the heat yesterday (88 degrees, 70 deg dew pt), his 5:31 mile is right in range for his age-graded 5k pace - 30 seconds.
Richard - if you have a hamstring pull (slight tear), they recommend you don't do any running (or walking) for the first couple of days. If you attempt to run its not going to heal (could get worse). You need to start stretching it (this is usually your guide in terms of figuring out the healing). If you have access to a cell foam roller that would help a lot. Hamstring injuries can be very tricky as they can linger on and on (you see this with professional athletes). Once it heals and you can begin to run. I would do only easy runs for the first week. At that point it would be wise to strengthen it (i.e., hamstring curls, keep stretching/rolling, begin running strides to build strength, and build from there). Good luck.
Lynwood, if you viewed the local news tonite at 11pm that "Harris Y flasher" is all over the news (it was yesterday morning and he was standing naked in the treeline at 6/6:30am along the far end of the trail (abt 30 yds up fr where I was attacked by the hawk).
Rob
Thanks Lynwood and Rob... I should probably mention that I didn't exactly run a 5:31 mile... the pace of my first mile showed up as 5:31 on the Garmin but we were 600 meter runs then with a break in between. No doubt I would have been slower if I had been running a nonstop mile.
Thanks for the math lesson Rob, and the pointers on how to recover. The coach told me pretty much the same thing. I'm planning on not doing any running other than a very easy mile each day to keep my streak going. When I ran my mile yesterday it was painful when I brought my right foot forward (it's my right hamstring). At the end of the mile I actually felt a little loosened up like I could run more but I decided to quit there. If it starts getting worse I'll lay off the 1-mile runs but I don't want to stop my streak for something minor, which I think this is.
So your 5:31 for your first mile is a really a set of 600's (with rest) at 5:31 pace -- so it was not a continuous mile? Was one of the 600's at 5:31 pace and the rest at or was the average of your 600's at 5:31 pace (and I guess did you 2x600m + 1x400m or since a mile or 1609m is not evenly divisible by 600m?)? Inquiring minds will now want a full disclosure in terms of the details of the set you ran? You've left me no option other than to to formerly renounce my congrats to you about your effort (as it relates to running one continuous mile)? I would guess you've left Lynwood no other option other than to have him formally renounce his congrats to you? And for the others in our group, who most probably acknowledged a congrats to you (in their mind) -- you've left them no other option to either un-acknowledge this (in their mind) or to formally do so here.
Be it known that I, CliveF, do hereby formally renounce and henceforth refuse to recognize the validity of all formal renunciations. Said formal renunciation of formal renunciations shall pertain to such formal renunciations whether spoken or unspoken; written or unwritten; thought or unthought; or otherwise.
That's funny. I won't renounce it, Richard's fast no matter the distance.
Rob, I never got a chance to find the flasher news. It would be funny if it happened to be a homeowner out by his fence thinking nobody could see him. Maybe that's a southern guy thing only though.
"Be it known that I, CliveF, do hereby formally renounce and henceforth refuse to recognize the validity of all formal renunciations. Said formal renunciation of formal renunciations shall pertain to such formal renunciations whether spoken or unspoken; written or unwritten; thought or unthought; or otherwise"
Man, a lawyer couldn't have written that any better!
Bahahaha... Renounce away! Lynwood, I appreciate your reluctance to renounce your congratulations. With me living in my own body and running races every week, I'm constantly reminded of how slow I am because there are always a bunch of people in front of me or passing me up, and most of them don't look that fast. I think I do pretty well in the 60+ age group because most of the other guys are even farther back than me, but I'm well aware of my limitations.
Rob, that mile at 5:32 was just running the 600s then turning the watch off at the finish and back on again when we restarted. I'm not sure what speed any of those individual runs were. I just noticed that when I plugged my watch in that's what it said for the first mile. In any case, it was too fast for this old man, especially the jackrabbit starts. In the past I've always done speed work by myself and I gradually build up to a fast speed, and I'll be doing that in the future.
Rob, that mile at 5:32 was just running the 600s then turning the watch off at the finish and back on again when we restarted.
FWIW, you might consider pressing Start at the beginning of the first rep, then just hitting Lap at the end of each subsequent rest interval and rest. There's good information to be mined from the individual reps and recoveries relevant to the athlete, conditioning, and -- by comparison to previous workouts -- response to overall and VO2Max-specific training.
You may not need all that for your own training, but as a certified coach, it's good to get familiar with the data, trends, and so on, letting you more effectively train others. Lots of folks on RA record their intervals like that, too, so you can log-stalk and gain knowledge from their data as well as your own.