Forums >Racing>2024 Advanced Training and Racing Thread (still competitive jerks)
Mother of Cats
Ditto mt79 on “comparison is the thief of joy.” But also darkwave “and the soul of competition.” Though I do think there’s a difference between comparing oneself to someone with equal circumstances or oneself versus someone who got dealt a different hand in life.
Confession - there's a tiny bit of me that gets really pissed off when a 2:2x male marathoner in his 20s pulls away from me.
Everyone's gotta running blog; I'm the only one with a POOL-RUNNING blog.
And...if you want a running Instagram where all the pictures are of cats, I've got you covered.
Hot Weather Complainer
Dorothea - Yep, possibly even 2 litres given the weather. The sore spot is gone and never actually came back after it peaked at 27.5km.
Good to see you working your way back after illness. Hope that achilles comes right too.
Marby - Good to see you back. I really hope 2024 is a better year for you and you get a real crack at a fast marathon.
5km: 18:34 11/23 │ 10km: 39:10 8/23 │ HM: 1:26:48 9/23 │ M: 3:29:54 6/24
2024 Races:
Motorway Half Marathon February 25, 2024 1:29:55
Christchurch Half-Marathon April 21, 2024 1:27:34
Selwyn Marathon June 2, 2024 DNF
Wellington Marathon June 23, 2024 3:29:54
Foster Park Run July 20, 2024 19:02
Dunedin Half Marathon September 15, 2024
Timaru Ten October 26, 2024
Mark - That's a cool race. The finish time is kind of unimportant. It's definitely mentally taxing to run on harsh terrain. I used to attack downhills more or less out of control in my teenage years. Now I'm afraid to walk around my kitchen in the dark. Can barely traverse my living room without taking a spill.
flavio - Just keep plugging along and consistency will win out.
Josh - Feel better!
mmerkle - Years ago I was out in Arlington with some roommates and we were talking to women at a rooftop bar and one of them asked what my roommate did for a living and he said, "I'm an analyst." And she said, "What kind of analyst?" Our other roommate jumped in and said "an over-analyst". Regarding hills, I'm beginning to think you are an over-analyst
SteveChCh - Good week. No reason to get so dehydrated. Just makes recovery worse!
dktrotter - Glad you are on the mend!
Like mmerkle, I had a boring week. That's ok, boring weeks are better than injury weeks. Last week was kind of a hard one and I was feeling beat up, so I took it easy this week. No hard workouts, no weights, one little plyometric session. I did try my first sub-threshold interval training on Tuesday. It's kind of hard to sort through various web sites and determine based on my recent 5k effort what exactly sub-threshold should be for various intervals. Anyway I did 3x2k, shooting for 4:43/km and ended up more like 4:50+ due to my attention kind of drifting and dodging landscapers and huge puddles.
I was not sure how my week would work out. The temps warmed up slightly from last weekend, but then we got rain. The temps would stay just slightly above or below freezing, so things got pretty icy for a few days. I almost fell on my ass just walking out the front door. A couple runs I managed to move to later in the day, which helped—for a bit less ice, and more light to see it. But mostly I just had to keep it slow and cautious. For my Wed planned workout, I was prepared to bail—the sidewalks were pretty bad for my warmup run to the track, but fortunately the track itself was not slippery at all. So I got a decent workout in, and in the end put together another solid mileage week.
Dave
Get healthy, people!
Mark - strong work on the race, you’re a braver man than me. Some of my running friends indulge in that kind of craziness, but they haven’t sucked me in yet. Mike - good luck with the IT band. I have no advice, but I know that one’s a chronic frustration for many runners. Congrats on the Ravens win this weekend; I’m excited about the Lions. My hometown team is the Bears, but I also lived in Detroit for a long time. Lions fans have endured so many years of hardship; even if the networks are making you sick of hearing about it, they could really use a taste of success. Steve - ugh, that long run sounds pretty brutal, nice work toughing it out. Hard runs in the heat are the worst. I try to avoid them at all costs. Unless in a race and I have no choice. I’m spoiled to live in a climate where I usually don’t have to deal with it..
Dorothea - if it’s not one thing, it’s another! Glad the COVID’s better, but good luck with the knee—hope the PT helps. MT79 - nice job on the workout. That pace seems close enough for me, especially if you’re just guessing. Sometimes if I question how well a workout went, I do the exact same one the next week to see if I can improve on it.
Ash
Mark – The Goat sounds brutal, congrats on not dying.
Flavio – I hope the day off does the trick.
Merkle – Is the ITB only kicking in after 80 min and changing location not a slight improvement from last week?
Steve – Thanks. Positive that you had that quad awareness without it cramping, in tough conditions.
Dorothea – Hope the half at mara and down week get the knee and achilles ready for ‘real’ training.
Mt79 – 3x2k at that pace sounds like a good one to get reacquainted with intervals.
Dave – You’re making those solid mileage weeks a habit. I gather your heartrate data is nonsense.
Fishy – Hope you get in better weather before treadmill and gym seduce you.
Date
Name
mi
km
Duration
Avg/mi
Avg/km
Elevation Gain
Jan-16
Evening Run
13.73
22.09
2:03:57
9:02
5:37
1014
Jan-17
3.5
5.63
0:29:22
8:23
5:13
151
Jan-19
Morning Run
6.92
11.13
1:02:59
9:06
5:40
420
Jan-20
Parkrun 22:02
7.43
11.96
1:03:26
8:32
5:18
253
Jan-21
Afternoon Run
15.93
25.64
2:31:54
9:32
5:55
1083
This week
48
76
7:11:38
2921
Last 4 Weeks
40
65
6:13
2650
I ran longer on Tue PM as I hadn’t run since Sun AM. I had the opportunity to do parkrun, probably the last one for a while because of kids' sport starting back up soon. Legs weren’t feeling great and I didn’t feel the need to go full gas again after doing that only 3 weeks ago, so I had nearly talked myself out doing so before the start. Then got to the start and went hard… for nearly a full kay before easing off a bit, to about 10k effort, and 400m surge to finish.
Next: Ballarat, April 28, Pacing 3:50
Best: 5k 19:46 (Parkrun, 2016), 10k 40:37 (Track, 2022), Half 1:26:41 (2016), Full 3:00:23 (2021)
Ha, well I have no idea. I’ve never used a HRM, and never had any idea what my HR is or should be. But then I got a new watch a couple months ago with a built-in wrist HRM. So it’s recording something, but I never look at the numbers. I don’t know whether they’re accurate, and if they were, I wouldn’t know what they mean anyway.
Are we there, yet?
Mark: I've tried a couple trail races like that before I started having vertigo/balance issues, Challenging and fun, but they really beat me up, especially the one at altitude.
Another tough week, again because of the weather, mostly very low wind chills (single digit F, minus double digit C)
Ran quality workouts when I could run
M: 3.3 miles easy run-walk, snow covered oaths made footing slipperyT: Rest, tried running but was sliding all over the place
W: Rest, dangerously low wind chillsT: 7.1 miles. 2 mile warm up, 8 x (300m, 300m jog-walk recovery) run-walk 2 mile cool down; laps in parking lot since path still snowyF: Rest, dangerously low wind chillsS: 1.1 miles, wind and cold too much so turned around earlyS: 6.5 miles run-walk
Weekly total: 18.0 miles / 29.0 km
Thursday and Sunday very encouraging. This week will be much warmer, 50s F / teens C, along with rain. Rain I can handle.
03/09 - Livingston Oval Ultra 6-Hour, 22.88 miles
05/11 - D3 50K, 9:11:09 06/17 - 6 Days in the Dome 12-Hour, 35.82 miles 10/12 - Hainesport 12-Hour
...
Marby- It may be too late....I actually enjoyed my treadmill 8 this morning! After the run Saturday I did 20 minutes of rowing. Now if I can only get a weight routine down I may get in shape
Changing speed is the key for me to enjoy the "mill". I know I'm going to to watching the miles anyway so it just seems easier to run really fast and watch as I near the recovery then during recovery I actually don't mind that it seems longer.... A few years ago I trained through a winter from hell and did a couple of 16-18 milers on the mill and it was ROUGH...
5K 18:36 (2023), 10K 39:40 (2022), 1/2 1:24:37 (2023), full 2:58:36 (2015)
WC - Have you ever figured out what those balance/vertigo issues were?I sometimes have some very slight balance issue where I'm walking in the kitchen and I'll step earlier or later than I should.I never fall, but it's annoying. It's like my brain gets distracted and forgets to command the legs, but once I realize the mistake I can quickly correct.It started about 3 years ago, it happens very randomly and currently, thankfully, seldomly enough, but I'd like to know what it is.I do have some mild level of Tourettes so I guess that could be part of it.
It's inner ear related. I don't fully understand the medical jargon, but basically crystals in my inner ear get displaced and they affect my sense of balance. Coupled with being on a blood thinner, I've taken a very conservative approach in avoiding anything that might be conducive to tripping and falling, hence avoiding snowy or icy running surfaces and technical trails.
My week. I was happy to get in what I did. Hopefully the lack of a long run doesn't bite me in the ass in April. I just couldn't bring myself to do a long run on the snow/ice covered sidewalks yesterday.
Overweight per CDC BMI
Fishy - looks like you had a nice run through my old stomping grounds in Knoxville. I went for several runs around campus this past summer while my son was at baseball camp. I couldn't believe how many miles/hills I walked going in between classes. No wonder I gained 20 lbs the summer after I graduated because my diet was used to me walking 5-8 miles per day.
We had 5 inches of snow shut down Memphis all last week and the schools are closed again today for 6 consecutive days (8 if you count the weekend). No plows or salt trucks for the neighborhoods so the snow would get compacted and more frozen every night. No treadmill for me so one morning, I started running laps of zig-zag patterns through my kitchen and living room just to get good cardio for an hour while lifting weights. I drilled a hole in the ice on my pool and the ice was 4 inches thick from so many fridged days in a row. I was able to get my son to run to the mail box in his underwear for $5 while the temp was 4F.
Memphis / 38 male
5k - 20:39 / 10k - 43:48 / Half - 1:34:47 / Full - 3:38:10
mmerkle - ITB is a really niggly one. One of those things where there's a limited amount you can actually do for it, other than hope. Might be worth getting it checked out, albeit if it's moved that's not actually a bad thing. And I think Marby was wise to note that if it only kicked in after 80 min, might be less of an issue than it was.
Steve - 4 litres?! Damn. Sounds hot too. Good job ticking that one off, I'd chalk that up as a big confidence builder.
Fishy - thanks! I'm never gonna be a great trail runner but there is something to be said for pushing yourself outside your comfort zone and trying something different.
Dorothea - hilariously, the race winner was a 23yo guy and he beat his dad, who has won the event like 6 times (dad came 2nd). I guess young legs and less of a self-preservation instinct helped lol. Hope you get that knee sorted.
mt79 - yeah I'd take boring over injured 10 times out of 10. I wouldn't second-guess too much on the pace, if you get the effort level right then the pace is what it is.
Dave - bummer on the ice, but nice job getting a good week in despite that.
Marby - haha yeah kids sport kills those Saturday morning events like parkrun huh? I've been doing a few with my daughter lately but that will be all over once hockey season starts.
Fishy - refer above comment to Dave lol. Every time I wish I lived somewhere colder, someone says something about ice and I think "yeah nah maybe that's not such a great thing after all".
wcrunner - my dad had the same inner ear / balance issue. Got so bad at one point he was bedridden for a few weeks. Going on planes still sets it off for him, just with the lower air pressure.
Andy - would love to see the Strava map of your living room laps lol.
3,000m: 9:07.7 (Nov-21) | 5,000m: 15:39 (Dec-19) | 10,000m: 32:34 (Mar-20)
10km: 33:15 (Sep-19) | HM: 1:09:41 (May-21)* | FM: 2:41:41 (Oct-20)
* Net downhill course
Last race: Runway5 / National 5k Champs, 16:22, National Masters AG Champ!
Up next: Still working on that...
"CONSISTENCY IS KING"
During the COVID shutdowns, some guy ran 26.2 miles around his (tiny) apartment. The Strava map on that one was going around for a while.