Forums >Racing>2020 Marathon Training and relevant COVID 19 discussion echo chamber
Problem Child
JMac Are you running your easy runs easy? How is this any different than CIM where you ran all summer long without injury and finished CIM feeling great and now you're starting to get injured? Are you pushing too hard for workouts, not letting the body recover fully, and just going for more miles because more miles will get you the moose mug? I see your easy runs went from a 9:00 pace for a few days back to 8s. Just like CIM. Do you need newer shoes or insoles, or have you tried doing the dw approach for slow running to try and let it recover? When you said calf I actually thought it might just be a soreness from getting stronger.
Many of us aren't sure what the hell point you are trying to make and no matter how we guess, it always seems to be something else. Which usually means a person is doing it on purpose.
VDOT 53.37
5k18:xx | Marathon 2:55:22
RIP Milkman
Thank you everyone! The only thing after these responses I'm still struggling with is how one determines whether they can run through it or shut it down. What do you guys do?
Kram - that's what my PTT was like, but this is higher up. Pretty sure it's shin splints the more I read, which I didn't know actually impacted experience runners. The calf raises are a good idea, will have to add those. Hope your recovery continues!
Nimmals - feel like I can't afford 2 weeks off this deep in a cycle, so if that's the case, I'm going to try a few more runs to see if it gets better or worse. If it gets worse, will definitely shut down. I've been using this thing for massage, will this do the same trick as your thing: https://www.padousa.com/purewave-cm7-body-facial-massager/. I've never heard of these patches! Also I'm a fan of heat, seems to help me a lot more.
Mikkey - It looks like PTT is the gift that keeps on giving! I'll look into shockwave, I've heard a lot of grea tthings.
Brew - absolutely nothing has changed: in fact, I may be doing less quality now than last cycle. I think it's just one of those random things that popped up. Only thing I can say is I got a little lax with strengthening my calves, which may lead to this.
Best of luck this weekend to DW and Keen! I expect a pair of 2:5Xs out of you two, with a final number of 4:XX from Keen because he decided to walk the last 8K and drink some beers on the course to celebrate his BQ
5K: 16:37 (11/20) | 10K: 34:49 (10/19) | HM: 1:14:57 (5/22) | FM: 2:36:31 (12/19)
Last week, I noticed some pain right along my shin bone in the same leg, inside calf, but much higher up (my PTT was bothering me right next to my ankle, where this issue is a good 6 inches higher).
I wonder if it's your PT (posterior tibialis) muscle? If you hook your fingers in immediately behind the inside of your shin (about 2/3 up from your foot) and dig... is that the area?
The inner compartment of the calf (deep to gastroc and soleus) is tucked in behind the tibia and contains some small muscles that control your foot and toe flexion. During healthy foot strike, you land on the outside of the foot and then roll inwards a bit (normal pronation) and the arch flattens. The PT muscle+tendon control this motion with an eccentric (lengthening) contraction to allow for a smooth landing.
Since you're close to your race, I'd try to nurse it along... If it get's severe, though, shut it down (even if a DNF) and give it a good long rest then rehab.
If any of this seems on-the-mark for you, I have some personal experience from a couple years ago...
Jmac: For me, whether to run through it or shut things down would be determined the progression of pain over time. If it seemed to get worse from day to day, I would shut things down, or at the very least, reduce things to the key workouts (or whatever caused the least amount of pain), and find a substitute for the rest. If the pain was consistent -- meaning that the level of pain didn't worsen and it didn't result in a gait change that might cause other injuries -- I would probably continue as planned. This is not a recommendation of what I think you should do, just knowing me, what I would end up doing.
Mother of Cats
Post tib was my thought also - Jmac - that doesn't stop at your ankle - it originates at the back of your lower leg, under the soleus.
Other muscles running along that same track include the muscles that flex your toes. Is it bothered if you move your toes but do not invert your foot? If so, could be one of those, but my bet is on post tib.
[again, I have no formal training or knowledge, just a lot of injuries]
As for whether to run through it, the questions for me are always a) is it distorting my stride and b) how is it trending. My practice is to cut back running as much as I need to get the trend going the right way (i.e. improving).
I'll also note that the two weeks of training that you get by pushing through this are for naught if you don't get to run your race.
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.
And...I pretty much said what Rovatti and OMR said. So there you go.
JMac Sick burn on Keen's upcoming 50k. I'd put $5 on him not finding that finish line with how full his stomach will be with beer and the vomiting after his 2:5x will bring back BAD memories he'll just stop.
Keen Good luck. I downloaded the app and so did everyone else so we're watching at my parent's house. I'll look for you. Nothing you can do about the weather at this point. It is go time. Time to "answer the question" of "how badly do I want to meet brew in Boston?" If you're fast enough you'll be a corral ahead of me.
dwave Same to you. It's go time. GO GET THAT PR!
I forgot to wish weather good luck! He's got a great shot at a PR in the half this weekend and sub 75
Thanks for the injury advice everyone. I am taking the path of "if it gets worse from here, I will stop." I think it's at that point. Today's run was a tiny bit better but it's SO weak. Gotta focus on strengthening.
Good luck DW, Keen, Weather and anyone else racing this weekend!
My picks for the trials:
1. Sisson
2. Kipyego
3. Desi
1. Rupp
2. Ward
3. Abdi
JMac - My philosophy is that if the pain stays the same/gets better with running, then keep running, though any point tenderness/pain on bone I'll go get checked out for. Perhaps I'm more conservative than most on that and it may have cost me a PR last fall at CIM.
My training's going well. I had a slight down week due to feeding my son's Harry Potter obsession by going to Universal for a few days. This week I'll be back at ~103 miles. I had 2 great workouts this week too - 6x1200m VO2 max at ~5:05 pace (outside in 25 degree weather) and this morning 12 miles MP at ~5:50 pace (outside in 15 degree weather. I'm feeling good to go after a PR at Milwaukee in April.
A couple questions for the group:
1. Anyone care about running streaks? I never have but I had about a 50 day streak prior to going to Universal. Each afternoon my family wanted a short siesta so I went for 4-5 miles each day. The day we flew back we didn't really get home and settled until after 9pm. I went for a ~4 mile run, primarily to keep the streak going. Stupid? I have no grand ambition of keeping it going for a long time.
2. Anyone ever try to improve running form? I'm reading a book by Owen Anderson about form which is pretty interesting. Since December I've focused on trying to improve my form (midfoot landings, high turnover (180-190 steps/minute), spring off the ground, large reversal of swing but small shank angle at touchdown, etc.). I think it has gone well as I feel smoother, especially for MP runs.
Me - pretty solid week as I start to get into some serious training. Few little niggles but nothing major. Thursday's MP workout was a confidence builder, a couple of seconds/km behind goal pace but given humid weather and a workout the day before it was a good start.
M: 6.5km recovery, weight
T: 16km easy
W: 14km w/ short intervals
T: 21.1km with 1 hr @ MP (avg 3:47/km)
F: weights
S: 14km track session (400's, 200's, 800's)
S: 24.6km long run
Total: 96.2km / 59.8 miles
Madison- personally I'm not a great believer in streaks. They work for some folk (I know a guy locally who is up to ~650 days), but I've always found at least 1 day off a week to be very beneficial for giving the legs a bit of recovery.
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: Waterfront HM, 7 Apr, 1:15:48
Up next: Runway5, 4 May
"CONSISTENCY IS KING"
A couple questions for the group 1. Anyone care about running streaks? I never have but I had about a 50 day streak prior to going to Universal. Each afternoon my family wanted a short siesta so I went for 4-5 miles each day. The day we flew back we didn't really get home and settled until after 9pm. I went for a ~4 mile run, primarily to keep the streak going. Stupid? I have no grand ambition of keeping it going for a long time.
A couple questions for the group
My normal schedule when healthy is to run every day, so I end up building some streaks. I don’t really like to call it a streak because that kind of makes it feel like a gimmick. I don’t really care that much about the number, except a bigger one is an indicator that I’ve been able to stay injury-free for a while. So for that reason it does make me feel kind of good when the number builds, and I do have the streak-tracker widget on my RA log. There is a distinct limit because I never run the day (or several) after a marathon, and I generally do two of those a year. My longest is 220 days mainly because I missed a marathon season that year.
Dave
Stotan Disciple
Been a major focus of mine this cycle. I've been watching guys like Julian Wanderers several other elites. Just trying to get it right its really not natural so it begs if you're putting so much into it.. is it really efficient?
Only time will tell but I have been reading, practicing and focusing on it as well.
Thinking should be done first, before training begins.
US Olympic trials: Go Abdi! Great to see him make another team at 43. I was also happy to see Sally Kipyego make the team; she's always been a favorite of mine.
Marky: Solid week again. I am always blown away with your track sessions on strava. Just the average pace is fast, let alone the reps which are insanely fast.
Madison: Your picks were similar to what I thought the outcome would be but there were definitely some surprises. It looked like a tough course. Glad to hear your training is going well.
Regarding form: I know I mentioned it earlier on here (response: crickets chirping...) but Cheptegei's WR 5k in Monaco is an amazing thing to watch. No commentary, just him crushing 2:32-2:34 kms effortlessly.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WAJwlK84UBA
2:52:16 (2018)
My watch often seems to measure long at the track so sometimes the speed and average pace is a bit flattering!! The two 5000m races I've run there have both come up at over 5.3km. The GPS sometimes overshoots on the corners I think.
Well I had something happen to me that has never happened before in all my years of running! Good thing is that I proved to myself that I can run sub 75 in a half, but the bad news is that I actually ran OFF the freaking course after failing to make a proper turn at mile 5.2 today so I ended up running what I will label a 13.5 PR instead
I was alone in second at the time about a minute behind the leader (who had like 3 escorts with him and I had none for whatever reason). I was approaching what was supposed to be the left turn out of the park and the sign was hidden (or I didn't see it) by slower runners just entering same that loop from the northwest. For whatever reason I never saw the leader take the left (he obviously did) and unfortunately the race did not have a volunteer or patrol there properly directing runners when I came through. Third place was a bit back from me so was I solo at the time. They did a good job elsewhere with all the turns though, but for whatever reason missed this one. I ended up running a good 0.3-0.35 longer than I should have. Once I turned around I ran the next 8 miles as should be and several with a great guy that knew what happened and helped get me back on pace. Lets just say that many of the remaining miles were run in quite a bit of anger getting back on track and mentally that was tough especially since I felt like quitting a few times shortly afterwards! I still ended up getting back to 3rd place just to prove to myself that I could run that pace, but at least I will have a good laugh with this when the dust settles Nothing else to do but laugh it off and live to run another day. At the end of each day we are pushing ourselves to whatever level we can achieve anyways!
What sucks is the conditions were about perfect weather wise and I proved the fitness is there with a 1:14:27 HM according to my strava splits so figure at least 10-15 seconds under 75 based on correct course measurement and other runner "correct" distances etc ....
Here is the run and you can see what happened at mile 5.2:
https://www.strava.com/activities/3141786634
Best of luck to those running tomorrow!
1mile: 4:46 (12/20) | 5K: 15:57 (3/21) | 10K: 33:40 (4/20) | 15K 51:43 (4/21) | HM: 1:15:03 (12/20) | FM: 2:40:30 (1/20)