Forums >Racing>Competitive Jerks Racing and Training - 2023
Dave jinxed me with bad back talk as mine has seized up mainly due to lots of surfing and removing carpet and underlay from my house as well as shifting furniture.
Yikes. Sorry to hear it. When my back seizes up, it’s usually from doing nothing—just a random tiny movement sets it off. But all those things sound like good triggers if you were to pick some. After about a week off, I ran 5 miles Thursday & Friday. My back was still pretty stiff, but not really painful. Today I met up with the running group and busted loose for a whopping 10.5 miles. The back held up fairly well; the last few miles got a bit tough only because I’m out of shape now. Maybe didn’t help that I ended up with a group running 20-30 sec/mile faster than I’d normally be doing on my own. Anyway, fingers crossed that I can start ramping back up.
Dave
Hot Weather Complainer
Pretty solid week for me as I head into the taper. Possibly bigger than it looks with the hill run on Saturday and bike on Monday. I'll be honest - I was very concerned this time last week that my calf was bad and the race wasn't happening.
Not sure about Strava's elevation estimate for the long run - Garmin says 600 metres (1968 feet). Strava also has 1km with over 200 metres climbing which is also incorrect.
5km: 18:34 11/23 │ 10km: 39:10 8/23 │ HM: 1:26:48 9/23 │ M: 3:34:49 6/23
2024 Races:
Motorway Half Marathon February 25, 2024 1:29:55
Christchurch Half-Marathon April 21, 2024
Selwyn Marathon June 2, 2024
Dunedin Half Marathon September 15, 2024
Intl. correspondent
Me and my wife were celebrating our 17th anniversary on Friday so we decided to get away for the weekend. Bordeaux was the first choice but I had a conflicting meeting timewise on Friday, so we chose Toulouse.
I can say it's a wonderful little gem and the food is superb as it's often the case in France.
That led to a lot of walking while sight seeing so today I was VERY tired during my long run. So tired that I had a brain fart and finished the activity when I stopped at a cross roads, then had to start a new one from there on.
My back seized up as well. Once I got to the hotel I couldn't take my socks off.
So I used that stretch that Piwi taught me to place your feet on the bed and bed a little at the waist, and that unlocked it, after some unnerving cracking sound.
PRs: 1500 4:54.1 2019 - 5K 17:53 2023 - 10K 37:55 2023 - HM 1:21:59 2021
Up next: some 800m race (or time trials) / Also place in the top 20% in a trail race
Tool to generate Strava weekly
Flavio congratulations to you and your wife she must be a patient woman
Looks like the bad backs are catching. Glad that stretch helped.
Dave yeah fairly standard for us old guys to get injured doing nothing . I pulled a muscle putting my socks on once but I guess that was doing something 😅
55+ PBs 5k 18:36 June 3rd TT
" If you don't use it you lose it, but if you use it, it wears out.
Somewhere in between is about right "
Piwi - glad to hear your back came right. Hoping I don't catch that.
Steve - good stuff (and I agree that elevation doesn't look quite right). I never had enough patience for the stationary bike.
Flavio - not a bad thing having a choice of French locations for your anniversary, congrats.
Me - so that trail race yesterday was pretty fun. Really hard, and a totally different style of running, but fun and some amazing views from the tops of the hills. I'm sore in all sorts of different places to usual today. It's given me a new level of respect for trail running. Road running you can just dial in the rhythm and away you go but out on the trails you've got to watch every step. There was the usual technical stuff but also with all the rain we've had, a lot of the surfaces were very greasy and basically like ice. I slipped about 2km in and even the experienced trail runners had a mishap or two. A good chunk of the course was on mountain bike tracks as well so you couldn't really crank it too hard on the downhills because there were frequent corners... I almost ended up in the bush on more than a few occasions. I ended up coming third on the long course which was not bad considering I felt massively out of my depth. So yeah, it was slow, challenging, painful, and surprisingly good fun.
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"
Getting old certainly doesn’t help, but I’ve been dealing with back problems since I was in my 20s. I will say that when it flares up like it has now, putting my socks on is literally the hardest thing I do all day.
Steve How is everything else feeling going into the taper? Your fitness seems solid.
Mark That's a spot on comparison of trail racing to road racing. A couple of those hills looked nasty.
This week is my first week back at my summer job (detail / quality control / odd jobs at a collision repair shop) which has me on my feet all day and starts at 8am. According to my Garmin, the days I worked I consistently totaled around 23k steps including the morning run. I find it better to run early in the morning. I hate it lol. I'm getting more used to it but I'm not a fan.
My Week: Time: Miles: Kilos: Pace/mi: Pace/kilo:
5/15: Easy + light leg strength
work 59:02 8 12.9 7:23 4:36
5/16: Easy. First morning
run in a while. Felt like shit. 55:46 7 11.2 7:58 4:58
5/17: Warm up and cool down.
Speed work on track. 3 sets of
2 X 200, 1 X 400 with 400 jogs and
600 jogs respectively
40, 37, 73
34, 35, 71
35, 34, 67 57:44 7.2 11.6 8:01 4:59
5/18: Easy 1:03:35 8 12.9 7:57 4:57
5/19: Jack Daniels I-1
3 sets of
2min hard / 1 min jog,
1min/30sec, 30sec/30sec 45:38 6 9.6 7:37 4:44
some plyos after
5/20: Hilly Shorty Long.
1,624 feet of elevation gain
495 meters for metric folk 1:45:45 13.5 21.7 7:50 4:53
5/21: Off
Totals: 49.7 miles, 80 kilometers, 6:27:30
I know Jack Daniels says your legs should feel "good" after tempo runs, but tempo runs usually leave my legs feeling ground down. Strangely, VO2 max work is what leaves my legs feeling kind of good afterwards. I wonder what that's about?
Steve How is everything else feeling going into the taper? Your fitness seems solid. I know Jack Daniels says your legs should feel "good" after tempo runs, but tempo runs usually leave my legs feeling ground down. Strangely, VO2 max work is what leaves my legs feeling kind of good afterwards. I wonder what that's about?
If I'm quite fresh and have a good/normal day, a tempo feels amazing. VO2 Max always feels really tough, I can't remember ever coming out of it with legs that feel good! It does sound a bit weird, maybe your VO2 Max sessions are too easy or your tempo runs are too hard? Or maybe you're just a speedster.
I feel really good, way more fresh than usual 2 weeks out. Before Melbourne I was over trained, exhausted and getting cramp on long runs, Christchurch I was sick and finishing off the house move. I need to stay healthy but assuming I can do that, signs are looking good to get to the start line in better shape than I have before. Taking nothing for granted though, and my plan is still to run as carefree as possible. As long as I'm sensible with pacing, the cards will have already been dealt so I'll just go with it.
Keen - I've added some races to my sig, can you please add them to the board? For the 5km races, goal is PR (may review this for the first one depending on marathon recovery). 10km goal is 39:59, may also review this post 5km races, and no doubt you'll invoke Dictator Rule 7.1 anyway...
Mother of Cats
Piwi - hope the back gets better.
Dave - it is nice to have you posting something again. I hope this trend continues.
Steve - enjoy the taper (or not). Have you tried Garmin's "Correct Elevation" function?
Flavio - congratulations on the anniversary - I'm glad you were able to enjoy it. And also glad you fixed your back!
Marky_Mark - your description of that race reminds me that we runners have such odd definitions of fun....
So, in one of Greg McMillan's books, he discusses how different runners thrive on different types of workouts. Some people feel great after tempos and lousy after hard VO2Max work (that's me); for others (like you) it's the inverse. McMillan then goes on to make the point that when planning out your schedule, you should note the workouts that you recover more quickly or slowly from and adjust your training schedule accordingly.
So...that's just an indication of your personal physiology. Nothing wrong with it, it just is.
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.
42 miles running, 500 yards swimming and 4 hours pool-running.M: 90 minutes pool-running. T: 11 miles, including a track workout of 1600, 1200, 2x800, 2x400, split as 6:43, 5:00, 3:17, 3:14, 93, and 94. Recovery of 5:00 after the 1200, 2:3x after the 1200 and the first 800, and then equal time recoveries after the second 800 and the 400s. Followed with lower body strengthwork and 500 yards recovery swimmingW: 9 miles very easy (9:48) plus drills/hill sprints and upper body weights/core.Th: 3 miles very easy on a very hilly route (10:05), 1 hour pool-running, and streaming yoga. F: 4 miles very easy (9:43). (went out late Thursday night; in rough shape)Sa: 15 miles, including a workout of 2x5 miles at marathon effort, first 5 miles averaging 7:37 and second 5 miles averaging 7:17 (too fast/not marathon effort) with 1 mile float in 8:00 (too fast).Su: 90 minutes pool-running and streaming yoga.
Just two workouts this week - a track workout on Tuesday and then a marathon effort workout embedded into a half-marathon on Saturday. I ended up running the latter half of the Saturday workout too fast - somewhere between marathon and half-marathon effort. I guess that's the primary risk of doing a workout during a race. But...my goals were to run the half-marathon fast enough to snag a NYC Marathon guaranteed entry while not trashing myself the way I would if I raced a half-marathon, and I accomplished both, so we'll call it good.
I usually do that 2x5 as part of a 16-17 mile run. But, I only had time to run 2 miles before going through all the steps to get into my corral, and there was no good place to run after (plus I needed to get back to my hotel to check out), so I just called it good with 15.
darkwave - I'd call that a successful day, well done.
Garmin actually has the elevation about right overall. I do have elevation corrections switched on, but having a closer look, I think it was a GPS issue. At around the 45 minute mark I jump from 125 metres to 260 metres elevation, and my speed drops to 2:30/km. It doesn't really matter I guess, there were no time targets, just "let the hills take care of the workout today". It was very drizzly with low cloud, which may have impacted the GPS. Halfway up the climb I was already in the clouds with low visibility. I've never seen so few people up there.
Steve - I suspect it was GPS. There is a margin of error and if you're running in a hilly area particularly with steep cliffs, a GPS deviation can bounce you between the bottom and the top of the cliff / hill, which will tend to result in spurious elevation gains. The fact your speed also bounced to 2:30/km suggests the GPS briefly wandered off the road, down the hill and back up again. It happens to me occasionally on Tamaki Drive which is dead flat, but adjacent to steep cliffs.
Darkwave - hope you enjoyed the half... races on that scale still blow my mind. Very far cry from my 1000 capacity trail run event. My brother ran that half too.
Mark nice trail race debut especially to get on the podium. While trail races aren't so deep in talent there's always a few specialists.
DW sounds like a fun workout within a race atmosphere. No wonder you had trouble holding yourself back.
Merkle I really enjoy tempos but detest vo2 intervals.
Possibly an age thing as the power required for the vo2 intervals really tires me out for the rest of the day.
Dave yeah same here and putting shoes on and off requires me to sit down as my hamstrings are so tight it just pulls on my lower back if I try standing up and putting them on.
Steve I think I'm probably back to sub 40 10k now and sub 19 5k but I will need to go run one to prove it.
Not sure of availability outside the US, but anyone with Netflix needs to watch American Manhunt: The Boston Marathon Bombing. It’s three 1-hour episodes. I had forgotten a lot of the details and never knew some of them; holy shit what a crazy, intense story.
Dave - yeah I watched that a couple of weeks ago. I would have preferred a bit more focus on the race. The police got a lot of criticism at the time and that doc made it clear they really deserved it