Mick - I forgot to say: you have a great memory! A few years back I was asking about backpacks. I ultimately decided I didn't need one: I would just bring all my clothes back at the end of the week. It's a bit of a pain, but way less painful than having to carry clothes every run. I just run home with my phone, keys, credit card, and work ID for the next day.

Has anyone used the Garmin Running Dynamics Pod before? It measures vertical oscillation, ground contact time, balance, etc. When my legs get tight and achy after a week of hard runs, my left side always gets tighter than the right and I am thinking this may help me identify a balance issue. I am also working on pushing off with my toes a little more in my stride and the data may be beneficial to make sure I am not making any extreme changes. Anyway, I am going to order it and I will test it out.

 

The Lord commander uses Stryd. You may want to hold off on purchasing this one until you can see which of them is better for what you need?

 

Thanks mate, I was also looking at this "Rudy Project Tralyx", those look awesome.

I need it to protect my eyes, apparently these old eyes can't handle dust and pollution particles anymore.

But I need it to be photo-chromatic so I can also use it when it's dark (the lens become clear when there's no sunlight).

I've had a pair of these for years and love them. I got the darker lenses (something to black instead of to "laser black" or whatever they call it.

 

The Lord commander uses Stryd. You may want to hold off on purchasing this one until you can see which of them is better for what you need?

For this I'd say the Garmin pod would be better since it collects/shows metrics more individually per leg rather than a more aggregated whole.

 

Can you explain this? I haven't heard of this 2a vs 2b thing before. Also, I'm thinking about this more in terms of runners like us, not necessarily people training for shorter races (let's say 3K or less), so I'm curious around the benefits there. Definitely understand doing repeats at much faster paces when you're training for shorter races.

JMac, first off, no, never had Chipotle. I think it was just getting into fashion when I was in high school in the 2000s, and then I had a few years without occasion to eat out, and then was abroad, so it just never happened. But I've been persuaded that it's worth a try. Likely soon. Also took out an açaí bowl for breakfast before the long run-workout tomorrow, so let's see if you're right about them, Flavio :-)

RE: 100 strides. Funnily enough, I missed these on the plan yesterday (Thursday). I was supposed to do a 10k steady and 6 x 100s afterwards, and I hadn't checked my log before going out and forgot. Upon writing my coach, she said it's okay, do a double and add 5k in the evening, doing the strides then, but I got home at 10pm last night and while I'm committed to training, I guess I'm not that committed. She said it would be good for tackling the speed I'm doing tomorrow (15 miles, 9 at hme), and I can see how that could be, but also not quite. Everyone's theories about being able to draw on those fibers/form, makes sense though.

IN terms of other things I'm not sure about, I am about 4 weeks away from the marathon, and 9 weeks away from the 40-miler. I don't know yet whether the marathon will be a PR attempt or just a training run, but assuming it's a PR attempt, I may never get a chance to practice a 50k (unless I did it between the marathon and the ultra- don't know if that's a good idea?). I was thinking about doing 50k next weekend, the 28th, which is when I have a 20-miler planned anyway and a 15k the day before that. My coach thinks the 15k + 20-miler is sufficient prep for both the marathon and the ultra. She cited this study too, which I'm not quite sure what to make of: Outside article . I think it's worth doing the 50k and having an easy day before and after. What do you all think?

Mick, I asked a commuter question earlier this month, also about backpacks, but I would not consider doing a workout with the pack on. I don't think a pack is too bad for an easy run, but you're asking your body to do things in a workout that you physically can't do because of a changed form due to the backpack... I don't think that sounds like a good idea. I also read the jostling around that happens on the back can't be good for the laptop. Maybe it depends on the model, though.

A parachute on the other hand... that seems kind of cool, but only for explosive, shorter distances. I can't see taking turns with the parachute going well. I think it's more for straightaways.

Steve, glad the surgery went well! I'm near-sighted and have contacts, a cheap pair of sport sunglasses, a pair of coke-bottle round transitive glasses (they change from clear to dark in sunlight), and normal glasses. I'll wear either contacts + sunnies or the transitive glasses on a run, but avoid getting too much sweat on the transitives. The surgery sounds really cool. It would be nice to not have to worry about the contacts drying out halfway through the day or remembering to put them in at 5am in the morning before a long run!

mmerkle, that foot thing is very strange! But it sounds more superficial than a bone or tendon issue? Is it gone by now?

Keen, it's really cool a) that your daughter enjoys running (future running buddy!) and b) that she went on the treadmill on her own to get some miles, and then did doubles. I won't try to influence my kids too much when I have them, but a part of me hopes they're track and cross country stars. :-)

This is for Steve. I couldn’t resist posting it. 

(chiming in after a week of catch-up at work - and thanks for all the nice comments everyone).

Re: sprinting - I think that there is a difference between a) very fast running and b) sprinting - I've trained with a few people over the years who sprinted in high school and then swapped to longer stuff as an adult.  They can actually sprint, and it is completely different from their normal distance running gait.  In swimming terms, if distance running is the breaststroke; sprinting is butterfly.  Two different things, both falling under the broader umbrella of running.

Most of us either ran the middle distances/cross country as kids or started running as adults.  And so we don't sprint.  We don't know how to.  Sprinting is similar to the butterfly stroke in that it's much easier to pick up as a kid.

IME, what we adult distance runners call "sprinting" is actually very fast running.  And doing a bit of that can be really helpful for us - it raises the ceiling of how fast we can run, and also helps refine our running form into the form that works best for us.  So, IMHO, doing a bit of "sprinting" is really helpful for most adult distance runners.

However, if you sprinted as a kid, then you know how to sprint.  And truly sprinting will not help your distance running much because you're practicing a separate and distinct skill with not that much carryover.

As for the original question about the utility of 200m repeats at 800m pace? I honestly don't see anything wrong with those for a marathoner as long as you don't do them to the exclusion of more-marathon specific workouts.  My only concern would be that they would take time or recovery away.

Re: "sprinting" uphill: again, most of us are not truly sprinting.  The nice thing about hill repeats, including short very fast ones, is that they develop power in a very safe way.  They are safer because a) the incline encourages you to use your glutes and b) the incline means that your feet are landing higher than from where they pushed off, which means less impact.   [of course, they also can be very hard on your achilles tendon, so you do want to take care in that regard].  I'm a big fan of uphill work of all sorts for the safety reasons, especially for older runners who might be able to handle more uphill fast running than flat fast running.

Re: distance of strides: honestly, I generally like to keep my strides very unstructured.  I do them on the street in front of my house - no prescribed distance or pace.  Just smoothly accelerate up to a speed that feels really smooth and fast and run - like you are showing off to everyone.   And then when it starts to feel like work, smoothly slow back down to a jog.

/musings

Mikkey LOL

Andy I've heard of it but haven't tried it. Be careful adjusting form. Not saying don't, but anything too drastic could lead to injury. Keep us posted.

DW Interesting input with the running form take on "fast running". How's the recovery? Based on what I'm seeing on Strava you are bouncing back really quickly!

dk Thanks for checking in. It is strange. When I google the issue, I keep stumbling into "stone bruise", as in you stepped on something blunt. I don't recall doing so but apparently it can have a delay so it's possible I did. What's happening now is it's fine when I wake up and throughout the day, fine when I run, then 2-3 hours after I run it flares up again until I wake up the next morning. I've been running on the treadmill with Hokas and two pairs of socks since that's the most padded run I can imagine. Tempted to roll the dice with a track workout today.

I have to laugh at myself here. I recently talked up the treadmill and now I'm stuck running on the treadmill to the point where it's annoying.

I'm not quite sure I have a good input on the 50k. I'm a bit (completely) unexperienced past the marathon. Is the possible takeaway from the study that doubles separated by 4-8 hours and/or back-to-back long days is more effective for bone strength development/maintenance than one longer hard session?

Also, in my opinion skipping strides is like skipping flossing lol. Gotta do em.

 

 

Recovery has been shockingly quick.  Legs feel fine, no soreness.  Heart rate is back down where it should be both when sleeping and when running.  I suspect a lot of this is because I went out conservative hoping to pick it up, and then couldn't because of the neuro issues, so I didn't really stress my body as much as a normal marathon would have.

 

 

That doesn’t really surprise me at all if it wasn’t 100% physical effort. 🤷‍♂️

In 2013 I was a 3:30 pacer at Brighton marathon…and 7 days later I ran a 2:51 at London.