That's funny DW, but I guess that makes sense if you're running a slower pace. For marathon runs, 90 minutes is really no man's land for me. I am either running 60ish minute recovery runs, 1:15-1:20 easy runs, 2ish hour runs with quality, or 2:30-2:45 long runs.

Oh man, running slower makes 90 minutes feel even longer!!  I swear, when I run with people who have an easy pace that is naturally slower than mine, it feels worse to me than if I run my own natural pace.  Obviously there's a point where too fast is simply too fast for a long run, but I think there are definitely very individual "sweet spots" for pace, and when you work outside of those, either too fast or too slow, it wreaks havoc.

Haha!  I love the wildlife chronicles......

 

 

 

Weekly for period: From: 06/29/2020 To 07/05/2020

Date	Name	Distance in mi	Duration	Avg Pace per mi	Elevation Gain in ft
06/29/2020	2 armadillos & 1 crane	11.35	01:39:33	08:46	502
06/30/2020	4x 3 min I	12.25	01:35:33	07:48	640
07/01/2020	A slight departure from my usual routes. No wildlife this way.	11.40	01:36:03	08:26	512
07/02/2020	3 rabbits & 1 owl	11.25	01:35:20	08:28	364
07/03/2020	5x 1k CV/CP, 1 min recovery	13.16	01:39:18	07:33	502
07/04/2020	8 cottontails, 2 hawks, 1 jackrabbit, 1 rain shower, & an aquatic nope rope	17.15	02:25:17	08:28	801
07/05/2020	After an effort of this magnitude I think I need a slice of recovery key lime pie	3.65	00:30:13	08:17	207

Total distance: 80.22mi

Man!  I forgot how active you guys are in here!  I can't keep up!  Nice to see so much running, racing, and generally being uninjured.  I've also been pretty consistent, though much lower mileage than most of you.  I hit a recent high of 37 miles last week - I feel like I always get injured once I go to 40+.  My running club just started track work-outs last week, so I went to a group work-out this morning.  400/200 x 5.  Felt good, but probably went too fast due to being with others.  Gotta be careful of that - it's probably that contributing to my injuries more than just sheer mileage.

Marco - it might take a while to fully recover.  Make sure you don't regress, are you certain you're fully over the virus?

Flavio - I think 5:40 is pretty good considering your last four months.

Sanders and Gough Cross Country 8km RR

https://www.strava.com/activities/3743730257

35:17, roughly 10th of 25

This is a small cross-country event involving five of the smaller running clubs in my region.  Attendance this year was smaller than usual, due to being in the middle of the school holidays.

During the week, I’d noticed that I’d lost a couple of spikes out of my cross-country shoes.  So in the morning I went to the local sports store, and luckily they had spikes to buy.  Quite a bit sharper than the originals that I had with New Balance, so I got home and replaced all of them.

My girls were also racing, 9 year old in U12 at 12:20pm for 1.2km, 12 years old in U14 for 2km at 12:40pm, and I was at 2:10pm.

My 9 year old race pretty well, and came 16th out of 24 (boys and girls).

My 12 year old came 20th out of 22, her heel injury is playing up again, which we had to manage last year with football/soccer and running.

Last year the men 60+, women and men 18-59 all started together.  With it being three 2km laps, except the mens which was four laps.

This year, the women and men 60+ had an earlier race of 2km lap and then 4km.

So this years race felt really small, just the men 18-59 of around 25.  Each race has a team winner with last year being the best five from each team, but with this years turn out I have no idea how they did that.  Although it was pretty obvious that my club would win given the overall caliber of the field was not great.  Thomas was definitely going to win, with Bryan second, and most likely Josh and Michael third and fourth (maybe vice versa) – all from my club.  Of course there was a small chance that someone I didn’t recognize would be a lot faster than I realized.

My aim was originally 36:00 (4:30/km).  After my warm-up I downgraded to 37:20 (4:40/km).

My warm up was ok, the course was fairly quick for cross country.  With the exception of the third km which was mainly at the bottom of the stop bank, and was very wet and muddy.  In my aim adjustment down, I took this km too much into effect.

We start, I want to run really slow the first one km at 5:00.

I felt I was running really slow, the first km is a combination of grass field, over a gate which is under the train bridge, and dirt trail.  This would be the fastest part of the course.  Over that first km I overtake 3-4 runners.

First km down at 4:31 on my watch (4:30 on Strava).

I feel pretty good, and realize that I’m probably good for this pace for the race.

The second km is on dirt trail and goes under the road bridge until the turn around which it then goes onto the grass by the stop bank.  I go through this second km in 4:25.  Harder work than the first km, as this is definitely a slower km course wise.

The third km is the hardest of the course as most is on wet, muddy grass, I do this in 4:27.

I’m gaining on Phillip from my club, and possibly a couple of others.

The fourth km is on good surface, solid grass, dirt track and little bit of concrete.  But it does have a couple of very small “hills” being up and down the stop bank three times. 

I go through lap one at 17:41.  My watch has 4km soon after at 4:24 for that km.

I’m thinking the course is a little short.  Although at the very end I had 7.99km, most others have 8.0x km, so I think the course was measured correctly.

So 17:41 equates to 35:22 which is much better than my aim.  And I’m feeling tired, but have no fading feeling, so I probably have the pacing right.

The fifth km (as the first) is the quickest on the course.  I push this though at 4:19.  About that point I go past Phillip (he’s fading pretty bad). 

During the sixth km (starts on trail, then goes on to muddy, wet grass) I realize I’m catching Stephen.  I don’t think I’ve ever beat Stephen.  Stephen trains very little and is in his fifties.  He must have been quite quick many moons ago.

6th km in 4:23 – I’m starting to hurt a little now.

The 7th km I pass Stephen.  This is a hard km due to the muddy, wet grass for most of it.  Hitting the dirt trail near the end of that km is a relief.  If this was a time trial, I would have bailed now, I don’t know how some of you have PR’d on time trials.

7th km in 4:28.

Last km to go. I’m worried that Stephen will kick with a few hundred metres to go and beat me.  So this is my primary motivation.  

The last 0.99km (Strava) has me going through in 4:24.  I kicked the last 200m so I must have been fractionally slower earlier.

I finished in 35:17, so second lap in 17:36, a 5s negative split.

Take homes:

• I need to consciously start “slow” in my races.  I’m almost always starting quicker than I realize.
• My hamstring is pretty good now.  It’s been a little tight post race, but nothing to get too worried about.
• I’m in better shape than I realized.  So hopefully good training the second half of this year will result in a few good races.

Marco, I've been reading stories of people for whom covid is lingering for 10 weeks and not going away. I hope you get better

Flavio - Great time trial and some easy improvement just by better pacing if you decide to run another one.

Watson -- Great report. I'm curious why you think you need to start slow, when you ran your first KM faster than you intended and basically ran even splits the whole way.

Keen nice week. That must be the biggest week on here for a while. I would say I was pretty much all out in my 5k but could have evened up the splits a little better 

Kimba I sometimes do my long run on a sunday with the B group and pace is supposed to be 4.45 /km and they always run faster. I go early and run a couple of slow warmups 1st. I find a big fitness jump for me at 50 mpw + but you need to be able to cope with that workload.

Flavio that's fast for a fatty  especially the first 800 nice job.

Watson nice report. Good to hear your kids getting involved. I guess with spikes on you wouldn't want much concrete at all to run on .

Sounds like this race has given you more confidence and belief like my 5k.

Marco my lower legs were sore alot for 4 weeks after my calf recovered. Then they adjusted and are fine now.

Hopefully you will feel better soon.