Competitive Jerks Racing and Training - 2023 (Read 574 times)

Darkwave - I read your RR - a good read and informative as usual. One information stood out: You are wearing toe spacers? While running a race? A marathon? I'd worry the whole three hours and twenty minutes about chafing and developping blisters!

mmerk - wanted to chime in to say that I had pretty bad heart palpitations back in 2017 or 2018. I was pretty freaked out too, so I went to see a cardiologist. I wanted to make sure that I wasn't going to keel over in a marathon because of it. He ended up running some tests, made me wear a holter, etc. It turned everything was normal. Ultimately, it took a year or so, but they eventually just went away. They popped back up sometime in 2021 for a few weeks, but went away again.

Long story short, and as others have reiterated, Google is often your enemy in these cases. I think Google is great for minor issues to help you realize you can do XYZ or take X medicine instead of spending time/money on a doctor, but once you get into things that could be nothing or serious (e.g. a recurring headache could be nothing or cancer), it's better to just go to a doctor. For someone your age and health, it usually is nothing and the peace of mind is worth it.

Merkle that's great news on your health and your academic success! I bet that news will put some extra bounce in your stride.

Merkle- danke for the compliment.  It really was jarring to go from a vibe of "let's screw around with stuff and see what happens" to a vibe of "I must be extremely careful so that I don't screw up anything."

And congrats on all the good news (except for the cancellation).

As for the museum itself, I'm happy to take anyone to it as my guest if we're ever in Chicago at the same time.

Joshwolf - yes, part of my dystonia is that my big toes often try to curl down and under my other toes, especially when I'm trying to run fast.  So I wear a spacer on each foot between the big and second toes to limit that.  I've done all of my training in this set up, including my long runs, so I wasn't worried about a blister.

Fishy- I definitely recommend Chicago, and I think others would as well.   Well organized (the whole age group championships thing was a rare exception) with a great course and easy logistics.  Of the world majors, I've done Boston and Chicago, and I much prefer Chicago.

Welcome mt79!

 

WRT to trying to win two marathon majors with a global medal in the 1500 in the same year sandwiched between the two?  

I don't know of anyone who has explicitly tried that; however, there might be some people who did, and we just never heard about it, because they didn't make it very far (one first has to qualify for the world championships or Olympics in the 1500 and be named to their country's team in order to try this). 

Mo Farah had a lot of depth - racing from the 1500 to the half-marathon well simultaneously.  But of course many people have questions about how he achieved and maintained his performances as well.

A few points that are consistent with the implausibility of simultaneously excelling at the world class level at both the middle distances and the marathon:

•  Des Linden would sometimes drop down to the 3000 when focusing on the marathon.  She would run good times but nothing anywhere near as competitive as she was in the marathon (clumsy phrasing but hopefully the point comes across.
• Lauren Fleshman was a 1500 to 5000 specialist who tried the NYC Marathon and claimed at the time that doing a marathon training cycle would only help her for the 5000.  She underperformed at NYC compared to her shorter times and didn't reap the benefits she had hoped for when returning to the shorter distances.
• At the 5th Avenue Mile, you'll sometimes see some professional runners who are currently focusing on the 5000/10000 or longer jump into the mile.  They're in the middle to back of the professional pack.

Des Linden was never at the same level at shorter distances as she was at the marathon. I can't find any results for her outdoors at less than 5,000m once she turned professional and her 5,000m PB is 15:08.

Lauren Fleshman's marathon attempt seemed more an experiment to see if the additional base would help at 5,000m than as a serious attempt to run a world class marathon.
Speculation on my part, but I suspect non-miler specialists run the 5th Avenue Mile more for the experience and benefit of their sponsors.

The closest I know of an elite doing this successfully was Zatopek at the 1952 Helsinki Olympics with gold medals and Olympic records at 5,000m, 10,000m, and the marathon, but that omits the 1500m from consideration.

George Young ran both the 3,000m steeplechase (bronze medal) and the marathon (16th) at the 1968 Mexico City Olympics, but the altitude was a significant factor in the marathon, so it's not as valid a comparison.

 

Des Linden was never at the same level at shorter distances as she was at the marathon. I can't find any results for her outdoors at less than 5,000m once she turned professional and her 5,000m PB is 15:08.

Lauren Fleshman's marathon attempt seemed more an experiment to see if the additional base would help at 5,000m than as a serious attempt to run a world class marathon.
Speculation on my part, but I suspect non-miler specialists run the 5th Avenue Mile more for the experience and benefit of their sponsors.

The closest I know of an elite doing this successfully was Zatopek at the 1952 Helsinki Olympics with gold medals and Olympic records at 5,000m, 10,000m, and the marathon, but that omits the 1500m from consideration.

George Young ran both the 3,000m steeplechase (bronze medal) and the marathon (16th) at the 1968 Mexico City Olympics, but the altitude was a significant factor in the marathon, so it's not as valid a comparison.

I suspect pretty much all professionals run 5th Avenue for their sponsors, and because it's a fun trip.  Due to the timing, it's not ever going to be a goal race for anyone.

I also think that looking back to the 1950s and 60s for counter examples is going too far back. My sense is that the depth in the sport then is nowhere near what it was today, and that the analysis should be limited to the past 50 years.  Maybe even the past 30 years.

We can both try to dig up examples and counter-examples, and I think we're both going to flail a bit at it, because there's not much data on this sort of thing that is easily accessible.

I do think that a lack of examples of athletes trying to be not just world class but world leaders at both the 1500 and the marathon simultaneously (until very recently) doesn't disprove my point.   We could see someone win medals at the same Olympics in both the heavyweight deadlift and the marathon, and I'd say "wow....that's odd to the point of being suspicious" and someone could say "has anyone else tried to do both simultaneously" with the implied statement that perhaps this combo is totally doable, it's just that nobody's ever tried.  And my response would be that nobody's ever tried because the body types and the training for the two different sports are so different as to be incompatible.

There's not quite as much of a gap between the 1500 and the marathon, but the training is very different, especially when trying to be not just good but at the very top of the world, which requires optimizing stuff to get every incremental benefit you can.  And into this you should to also factor the need for recovery from the marathons.  Someone being at the very top in both distances simultaneously is just really eyebrow-raising.  Especially when you add in the ability to recovery very quickly from very hard events.

 

need2tri - your HR is crazy high! But a good reminder how different people can be. I know one runner who I swear is part reptile, his active HR is so low (he averaged 158bpm during a 10k race).

 

Today I learned that I'm a reptile 😂😂😂 my 10k PR averaged 160bpm, but that was likely due to the warmer weather that day and the big climbs.

My HM PR has an average of 153bpm -> https://www.strava.com/activities/4982338326

And my 5k PR has an average of 145bpm with a peak around 164 -> https://www.strava.com/activities/8662162786

me - I found out a few things.

1 - The Valencia course has an annoying climb around km 32-35 (mile 20-22).

2 - The temperatures on race day are expected to reach 18-20c (65/68F) around 11:40 when I would hope to be crossing the finish line. That would make things really ugly.

So here's the plan:

1 - Start my long runs later, around 8:30 am. I've got to get used to the idea of running hard when the weather is becoming unpleasantly hot.

2 - Try to run my long runs a little faster. I'm currently running them at easy pace in the 5 to 5:20 per k range. I'm gonna try to bring it more in the 4:40 to 5 range (sub 8 minute mile for the metrically challenged).