3:20 Marathoners ... New and Improved for (the rest of) 2017 (Read 372 times)

does anyone else have to keep re-logging in, despite checking the "remember me" box? post eaten

sumgong: ugh ugh. the excuses are just getting more creative, aren't they?

speaking of kenyans and excuses, mary keitany apparently had a "surprise" the day before the marathon and her coach/agent/somebody answered that basically it was her first time getting that [female] surprise in 3 months and that really affected her performance and her body wasn't responding well in the race. this may be a better conversation for the females in the room, but a) i think that is a bogus excuse, b) maybe the bigger issue here is not that oh-no she had to run a race during that time of the month, but that it was her first in three months? sheesh. obviously lots of runners at the top of the sport deal with amenorrhea, but it seems (at least in the US and UK) that it nowadays refers to a problem that needs to be solving and not merely a (health-depleting) byproduct of running at a high level, but from what her coach (a dude) said it sounds like the problem was that she got it. sigh.

sunday was magical. teammates and i woke up bright and early, situated ourselves with the TV on and tracking apps loaded with teammates and friends. watching shalane's face at mile 23 ... will not soon forget that. and she never looked back. i can only dream of late-race strength like that. and then the 8 of us went for an inspired jog in the park.

pj- that's a lot of running! and hard running! nice work.

fly- awesome work with the prep, and even better when execution delivers the result you worked for and deserve. big congrats!

jim- nice job at XC! looks like the weather was better this year

eliz- gah, that is so tough, and we've all had those days. extra kudos for seeing it through even though the finish line held no numerical rewards. hope you're recovering well!

pesto- you make parenting sound sooo appealing! :P (TBH i am not sold on the concept.)

brew- ha. NOT my boi. per irunfar, running TNF50 in a couple weeks. that's in november now. and the course involves road and a finish line in SF now. very weird

i haven't been too vocal recently, sorry! will work on that. training is going pretty well- doing some of my best track workouts ever. i've had i think two confidence-blow long-run-workout-fails, so i've been feeling a little lukewarm. they both have "explanations" so i should probably just get over it, but the land past mile 18 in the marathon is still what i worry about most in general, so it's hard.
-i did a half a few weekends ago (10/22 maybe?) and ran 1:32:high. that included a 30second bathroom stop (a first for me ) and a generally very stressful morning (got to the race 5min before the gun). a lot of unideal things about the day itself, also within a very hard training week, also a last minute race decision (this one replaced the half that jim did up north), and my first race since June. i've run three 1:32s in the past year, and I really thought I was fitter than that now.
-the other was a run i asked you guys about in the spring and i nailed back then. it's (5@MP+1@LT)x2, no rest, and enough warmup and cooldown miles to make it like 20mi total. i had a big pack of teammates to do it with, but i started to fall off halfway through the first LT mile. I finished it out in a pace more like HMP, then I did 3 more at slightly-slower-than-MP and called it. this is a super hard workout which apparently our 2:36 gal often curtails bc it is too hard. so maybe i should get over it? also, i crushed this workout in the spring but then Botswana crushed me, so it's probably good to make that call. just hard for a type A person.

anyway, that's my pity party for the day. last week was my biggest volume of the cycle so far, and maybe will remain that way:

=68mi

RLK - It's good to hear that you've been nailing those track workouts. Excellent volume as well. No issues with persistent log in here.

Yesterday I talked to a running buddy who is running the half in Tulsa in a couple weeks. He had a hip issue a while back as well, so we might stick together a bit during the race since neither of us will be going all-out. It would be fun to have someone of pretty similar speed to run with/race against.

Well after my hiatus from RunnersWorld (RunNickRun) - thought I'd make the switch - a bit of offseason for me this summer - so wasn't very active in running or questions or concerns....  A little background if anyone cares:

I trained very hard for my second marathon, ran Gmas in June in Duluth, had high goals... previous 4:03 at TwinCities....  ended up adjusting goals in the last month or two of training.   Such a moving target fitness can be (especially for newer distances).   Ran 3:22 much better than any of my hopes at the start/middle of training!  (was thinking 3:45-40 would have been awesome!)

I love running, love the stress relief, love the challenge, love the test of will...love to fly fast down a path in the woods on my own in the dark of morning... !  I have recently taken up biking more seriously (many 50-100mi+ rides this summer... capped off with a 9hr 145miler) that took a lot of my running time away this summer.   However holding aerobic and tempo effort for 4-7hrs at a time... great way to build a strong Marathon engine!    Still held in the 15-35mpw range running - made for some big weeks (10-14hr weeks).   Tried to just alternate high mileage run weeks and bike weeks.   Hard to focus on both though with a wife/kid/work - can't imagine being a TRI guy.... smh.   5am running sure helped!   Plus a lot of my long Rides were at 5-6am starts on Saturdays!

Already registered for Grandmas in June'18 (targeting the 3:15 pacer....EEK).... hope to another Full in the fall as well (TCM likely).  I'll be turning 37 in Dec - so have my hopes on a BQ for when I qual as a 40yr old....  back of my mind hoping I could do it sooner...  :-/  I can dream.

Only races this summer/fall were two 5k's.... first was 20:03 a few weeks after my Marathon (not much speed work).   2nd was Halloween weekend I managed a 19:29, which blew my own mind .... if you would have told me I'd run 3.1miles at 6:16/mi just a year ago... LOL   Figured it was a good idea to do some speed work and such before the Minnesota Winter kicks into full snow...and quality speed work goes out the window a bit.

I'm on a real 'offseason' break right now for a minor surgery recovery (elective...) (10days 'no sports') so hope to get back to a short test run this weekend!   So excited....but nervous. 

Look forward to catching up or meeting some new Runners here and learning from others!    My wife (also runner) and I watched a good bit of the NYM - best race I think I have ever watched!  Still hard to believe Flanagan had that much over her competitors in the last few miles!     In the middle of reading the book "Running Science" by Owen Anderson - pretty interesting/good - perfect for my Engineering side of my brain.   Hope to continue slowly ramping up my miles - top my last years miles (running and biking) each month... now until Grandmas... ! :-) 

Well that settles that. I guess I'm going to Chicago next year..

rlk - I have little expertise in the matter of surprises, but have sometimes wondered about it. Yes, the weather was better (not torrential rain). Be careful about attaching too much significance to a single workout...

RLK - that is one heck of a week of training - nice!   That (5+1)x2 'LR workout' doesn't sound very close to anything I have ever tried in training - i'll have to keep that in the book of tricks for the future.  With that hard of a LR, do you find you are able to run a 'workout' of some kind midweek?   Most of my LR's are just easy does it for the most part - but I think I need to start including more MP and LT in the mix as well.   I've always kept my faster or GP stuff as part of my MLR midweek runs (10-14mi). 

JimE - congrats in getting in at Chicago!

SeatleMax:  Awesome job at Moab and one heck of a RR!   Everytime I read an awesome report like that it sure makes me want to get into ultras and ultra-ultra's!  ... I had a blast on my 9hr bike trip - sure would be great to do at least a 8-12hr type RUN!  I love hiking ....love running....seems a great combo!    
Orange?....My Shiba is.....so close enough?  Strava is Orange?  yep  :-)   Bad writing style like an Orange fella we all unfortunately know....got me there also.   lol

Me:   Still no running.... just watching my 'Fitness and Freshness' on Strava plummet even further....  
gonna be so darn FRESH when I get moving again 

Darkwave: Yeah, I was numb for the rest of the weekend. I started to get sad for the first time on my way into work on Monday. Realizing that by this point I had thought I would be basking in my glory, and now it's just back to work as normal. Your first week back looks great. Great Track workout on Tuesday too.

NeedACleverName: Huge congratulations to you! That's amazing! Too bad we didn't see each other out there. Yeah, it's kind of crazy that I ended up BQing with the second half being a death march!

Climber: Thanks for the encouragement. I've now done 22 marathons, and it seems like about 50% go well, and 50% do not! Not the best odds, but I enjoy the training nonetheless. Great job on the 70 mile week.

OMR: Oh I'm relieved to know that someone else gets the inner ear thing! I thought I was totally alone in that. It was like 100% humid out, but at 46 degrees, I'm not going to try and say it was hot. Do you find that it happens when you are still feeling good, and then the crash comes a few miles later?

Arvind: Can you post a picture of what you will be wearing? And maybe a photo of yourself? I will track you in Richmond and I will be cheering at around mile 14.2, and again at mile 23.2. I'll be wearing a zebra coat.

Jim: Thanks for reading the race recap. You are true about living with it for awhile until another one comes. I won't get another chance until Boston. I used to try and run make-up "redemption" races in the same season, but that never went well. I think I need to start the hydration a few days earlier so that the day before the race I'm drinking about 50-60 oz, no more. That's awesome that you were able to pull away from the pack in your XC race. Congrats!

Rovatti: Thank you for the support.

Pepper: I don't mind a boring course, but I am a little concerned about 6 miles being on a packed gravel path. I don't train on that surface and even though it might be fine, I'm on the fence. Still trying to figure out my 2018 fall plans. Nice job on the 60 mile week.

AceHarris: Yeah, the "you want to bonk with me" line perked me up during the race. He's a funny guy! Nice week for you and kudos on keeping up with the injury prevention exercises.

Brewing: Yes, I think your hydration approach is what I need to do. I think I over hydrated for years and finally stopped doing it, but then maybe reverted to it last weekend. I'm a small person so I don't need as much water as all the websites say - as I said above, probably just 50-60 oz the day before is enough. I think I had like 80-90 this past weekend. I get really cold hands too, but usually I heat up a lot in marathons, I never cool down. And since it was pretty warm in the early miles, I figured I would toss them and never look back. Thanks for the compliment on looking younger. My 39th birthday is on Saturday. When I was in my early 30s people at races asked me what college I ran for.

Pesto: Thanks for the support! Sometimes it's just not feasible to get in all the miles. Glad you were able to spend time with your DW for her birthday.

Commander: Yeah, the Avatar pic of me was during a good race! LOL. I think that if you aren't feeling the full then just go for the half. I wear convertible mittens as well, and I put the hand warmers in them. Without that technique, I probably wouldn't be able to run in anything below 40. Thank god for hand warmers!

As for me, I am focused on getting my Achilles tendonitis all healed before returning to running. I am doing the exercises twice a day. I'm not doing any other form of exercise this week, but I plan to start pool running on Sunday. I don't love pool running, but I want to get a few sessions of intervals in so that I can run a strong Turkey Trot. And I am hoping the Achilles will be healed by then, too.

Did anybody notice the elevation algorithm on strava changed/is gone?  I'm getting 400 feet of climb on track workout now, which is a bit much.