Forums >Racing>2024 The Waltons: Racing & Training Thread
Mark awesome week. Your workouts are always amazing. Good luck leading into next week.
Watson I might bite the bullet in May for my birthday and get the takumi sens 10. They look fantastic. My old Takumi sens 6 I think, are so outdated now compared to the high stack modern shoes.
I've been using the Vaporfly for workouts and they feel great. I think the high stack shoes actually have good resilience with so much foam
My wife and I see Sam Tanner alot on our evening walks. He now lives about 800m from me.
My week. I finally did a longish run today 20kms.
Some good workouts this week. 3 x 2 km yesterday with the last 2 kms at 3.50 km pace with a tailwind and bouncy shoes
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 "
JamesD
Mark - Good luck in the half. I’m always surprised at how short a turnaround most on the board have between races. For the last two years, I’ve done well having my fall racing schedule consist of a rustbuster 5K, a goal 5K four weeks later, and a goal half six or seven weeks after that. Gives me time to recover from the 5Ks and get some good training in before the next races. Because of travel this spring, I may have a 5K in early May two weeks before a half and am undecided whether to have a rustbuster 5K two weeks before the early May one.
Enjoyed watching the US marathon Olympic Trials, even if the surprise women’s winner looked dangerously thin to me. Darkwave, sorry your teammate couldn’t run because of injury; she seems to have really improved in the last couple of years..
Sun - 8 miles very slow TM (96:25PM) + 0:40 walk breaks/6 mins
Mon - 8.6 miles in park PM @ 8:21
Tues - 80 minutes pool running
Weds - 10.1 miles in park midday @ ~8:35
Thurs - 7.5 miles very slow TM (90:25PM) + 0:40 walk breaks/6 mins
Fri - 6.8 miles in park PM incl. strides, 0.25 @ 6:24
Sat - 90 minutes pool running
Total - 41 miles
YTD - 41.1 mpw
Post-1987 PRs: Half 1:30:14 (2019); 10K 39:35 (2019); 5K 19:12 (2017); Mile 5:37.3 (2020)
'24 Goals: consistency, age-graded PRs, half < 1:32
Mark Yep the Whittakers one. He also got me a bag of Matakana coffee if you've had that.
Half Crazy K The Ravens weren't playing like they had been. It was frustrating to watch. I wish they ran the ball more. I didn't appreciate Kelce and Mahomes disrespecting Justin Tucker pre game either. Needless to say go 49ers.
piwikiwi That's a fair amount of tempo work. Looks like your training picked up a bit. Is there anything you're getting ready for? Or have the waves been boring lol.
My Week
I'm happy with this week. My leg speed and VO2 max seem to be improving. The long run wasn't bad. Tried a Maruten gel for the first time. They're pretty weird, but didn't upset my stomach. I'm curious how this 10k is going to go next week. Not getting my hopes up too much.
mmerkle - heh I drove through Matakana on the way to Omaha HM back in Dec. It is like an hour from my place. The Maurten gels are an odd texture but you get used to them. I've actually kind of reverted back to GU now, at least for summer races, since a lot of them have added sodium also. Good luck for the 10k.
James - ideally I'd race maybe every 2-3 months, but I signed up for the HM series which has races in Oct and Dec (the spacing on those is fine), but then also Feb, Mar, Apr which is much closer than I'd like for HM races. Most of the appeal of the series was also doing the kids races with my daughter. It just means you have to be sensible about which races you target as you can't empty the tank at all of them. I have about a minute to try and make up on the guy leading the series, so I'll need to figure out where the best place to try and do that is.
Piwi - I always find 2km repeats a fun distance, nice job.
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: Runway5 / National 5k Champs, 16:22, National Masters AG Champ!
Up next: Still working on that...
"CONSISTENCY IS KING"
Waltons ThreadLord
Upcoming Races
02/10 Darkwave By George 5K
02/10 Frederick - Super Satuday 10 Miler
02/11 MarkyMark - Coatesville Half Marathon
5k 23:48.45 (3/22); 4M 31:26 (2/22); 5M 38:55 (11/23); 10k 49:24 (10/22); 10M 1:29:33 (2/24); Half 1:48:32 (10/22); Marathon 4:29:58 (11/23)Upcoming race(s): Jersey Shore Half, 9/29; Halloween Half, 10/26
Hot Weather Complainer
James - I'm a big fan of Molly, was gutted she couldn't run. It's a brutal selection process, I kind of think the bronze medal winner from the last Olympics should get some leeway to get herself ready for later in the year rather than have to peak twice in a year. But the team looks very strong so it may just be the best athletes made it either way.
piwi - Definitely bite the bullet. I'm also intrigued about which race you may be lining up.
me - A slow build into the week. I didn't recover from the big run last Saturday in terms of soreness until Friday and energy until about Wednesday. We removed the strides from Tuesday and changed Wednesday from a lactate threshold session to an easy day. Saturday was the first cool day for a while and I really enjoyed it. My progression run was great fun, with my HR staying mid range for the zone 3 block, and only started touching the top of the zone 4 range in the last couple of minutes of that block. If the weather had been hot I would have had to really roll back the pace to manage that, and even then, my HR can go off piste in the hot conditions regardless.
<caption>Weekly Grid</caption>
5km: 18:34 11/23 │ 10km: 39:10 8/23 │ HM: 1:26:48 9/23 │ M: 3:29:54 6/24
2024 Races:
Motorway Half Marathon February 25, 2024 1:29:55
Christchurch Half-Marathon April 21, 2024 1:27:34
Selwyn Marathon June 2, 2024 DNF
Wellington Marathon June 23, 2024 3:29:54
Foster Park Run July 20, 2024 19:02
Dunedin Half Marathon September 15, 2024
Timaru Ten October 26, 2024
My wife and I see Sam Tanner a lot on our evening walks. He now lives about 800m from me.
We are all looking forward to the (slightly stalkery) 800m-rep workout from your house to his
50+ age-group PBs: Half Perish 1:24:24 (June '23 Road Race) - 10km 37:52 (2022 Local Road Champs) - Track 5km 18:49 (Aug '22) - Perish Run 3:17:42
2024 Goals: Road/Track 10km Sub 38:00 - 5km Sub 18:30
Hash I'm definitely a bit of a fan boy. Embarrassing for my wife
Merkle awesome longrun you did there.
I'm doing easy day hard day all week where the easy is really slow and the hard days are not too fast.
I did over reach this weekend with the 2km intervals been too fast on Saturday followed by my first longrun for a while on Sunday. Back to crawling jog today
I'm still managing my weeks with surfing and kayakfishing so it is tricky to have time for everything.
Eyeing up a 10k in May. I've only 5 weeks of ok training so far.
Steve that cooler weather made such a difference. Back to hot again now.
Looking at the We run the night event at the Mount in May. 10k at this stage. It's dead flat.
I feel sorry for her, but with only one good result in the last 2-1/2 years (2nd American at Chicago '23, a minute behind Sisson), I don't know that she would've been in the top 3 even if healthy. I've seen people argue that we should give spots to the top two finishers in the Trials race and select the third by other means, but Nike has so much influence over USATF that I'd be skeptical that any USATF committee would pick the best or most deserving person, and I'm not sure how you could devise objective criteria.
Mother of Cats
Yeah - it was a tough week. I think we all know how it feels to train for a goal race and then not be able to start it. It's pretty rough. Now make that goal race the Olympic trials and add the fact that you have a realistic shot of making the team, and....it sucks.
I should clarify - Susanna is technically not my teammate anymore, because she swapped coaches about 2 years ago. But we're still in regular touch and sometimes pool-run together. So she's my pool-running teammate
I'm sad to say, I don't see the winner of that race making it to the Olympics. I hope I'm wrong on that. But if I was the fourth place finisher, I'd definitely get fit and ready to go to Paris if the opportunity arose.
[will try to catch up on more shout-outs later]
***
56 miles and 3 hours of pool-running
M: 90 minutes pool-running and streaming yogaT: 10 miles, including a track workout of 2000, 1200, 2x800, 2x400 in 9:21, 5:20, 3:28, 3:27, 1:40, 1:42 (recoveries of 5:38 after the 2000, 3:0x-3:3x after the 1200 and 800s, and 91 between the 400s), followed with leg strengthwork.W: Upperbody strength/core and 10 miles very easy home (9:26) followed by drills and 2 stridesTh: 90 minutes pool-running in morning, streaming pilates in evening.F: 10.5 miles, including a track workout of 2x3200 in 14:26 (7:15/7:11) and 14:13 (7:11/7:02) with 4:40 recovery between, and then 2x400 in 1:41 and 1:40 (full recovery). Followed with leg strengthwork.Sa: 10 miles very easy on towpath (9:23) and streaming yoga.Su: 15.5 miles progressive, split as the first 5 miles averaging 9:27 pace, the next 6 miles averaging 8:48 pace, and then the next 4 miles averaging 7:49 pace, plus a half-mile cooldown. Followed with leg strengthwork. Foam rolling at night.
Trying to get back into it. I'm out of shape, which has an obvious solution. I'm also having to re-learn how to run faster than easy pace, which is not surprising. Basically one aspect of the Parkinsons that is really annoying is that you lose motor automaticity. Which is a fancy way of saying that my running is not something I can just do without thinking too much about it - I have to think through each phase of my running stride. Think of it as the difference between an automatic car with cruise control and an older car with stick shift.
This also means that when I don't do something for a bit, I have to re-teach myself how to do it. And faster running is a slightly different skill from slower running, so that's what I'm trying to relearn right now. (Doing strides helps some, but is not sufficient on its own, since I don't hold a stride for that long).
But....it shouldn't take as long to relearn skills as it does to initially learn them, so hopefully things will improve quickly. Judging from the difference between last week's tempo intervals and this week's, they are already.
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.
I'm getting my miles done, with 40.3 (64.8km) last week. My mental strength isn't there. I had a chance of catching the runner ahead of me at the ParkRun, but I didn't push enough and actually eased up for the last 200m or so. During an easy run I almost came to a full stop without even thinking about it - it just kind of happened, sneaking up and surprising me so that I had to consciously speed back up. To be expected, I guess. I drove part of the course for the 10-mile race I'm running Saturday: a fair amount of hilly terrain along with some long, flat stretches, and a steep, big climb in mile 8. We'll see how it goes. (Oh, and yes, I ran a double on Tuesday because I just felt the need to run in the evening after helping my father out with some stuff.)
ParkRun
I had to smile a bit at this because after 40 years of driving a stick, where I rarely thing about it, I now have an automatic and still find myself reaching for the stick with my right hand and searching for the clutch with my left foot, especially when changing direction (for some reason).
On your point, though, thanks for shedding some light on the impact the Parkinsons has on your running.
3 months til Masters
I'll get to comments tonight.
M: 4.14 @7:32 (some ankle tendon issues)
Tu: 2mile WU/3 miles 17:34/4min/3xmile with 2min jog (5:43/5:40/6:01)/ 1mile CD
This was over hills with the last mile repeat up a long hill. Miles were supposed to be at 5:30 but legs were tired after the threshold which was mostly up hill. I'm going to try to do most of my workouts over hills to prep for NYC in the fall.
W: 8 mile/4mile double
Th: 9.4mile/4.6mile Double
Fri: 2mile Wu/8x200m steep hill sprint/6min/8x300(100jog) All at 59 seconds except the last at 56/2mile CD. Cold and windy out and I could not hit the 55 sec 300m as prescribed
Sat:11.68 easy. All I could get in before watching USA marathon trials. Local runner Dakotah Lindwurm made the team. See her running a lot and have raced her many times (usually me loosing to her).
Sun: 16.6 long run easy over hills
https://www.strava.com/athletes/44477989 if you want to see the details or my log on here is open.
2023 Goals
Marathon Sub 2:37 (CIM) 2:41:18
10k Sub 35:00 (Victory 10k 34:19)
5k Sub 16:00 (Hot Dash 5k in March (16:48), Brian Kraft in May (16:20), Twilight 5000 in July and August (16:20/16:25 Both heat index 102-103F)
Sub 1:16 Half Marathon City of Lakes Half Marathon 1:15:47)
Sub 56:30 in 10 mile (Twin Cities 10 mile, Canceled due to weather, 56:35 as a workout)
2024 Goals
Sub 2:37 Marathon
Sub 1:15 Half
Sub 34 10k
Sub 16 5k: 16:21 BK5k (May)
My week:
Monday-Thursday-nada
Friday am 3 miles pm strength training (dropped weights by almost half)
Saturday 3.6 miles
Sunday 3.3 miles
Each run sucked a little less than the previous one. I was really sore after Friday's run, that's gone down a bit each day. Now dealing with replaconig the windows in the house. Over there weekened we moved everything away from the windows. Now the new windows are in & need time for the caulk to dry. We've been cleaning the areasa that had stuff on them that is too bulky to move on a regular basis (for example, the dumbbell rack with sets of 5-40 lb dumbbells). So much dust. Hoping we can figure out a way to cover the windows in the bedroom tonight or I'm going to be a really unhappy camper.
Fred I have a handbrake foot pedal on the LHS so the danger is hitting that .
Darkwave I'm sure the running will help with the Parkinsons. I enjoy the relationship between Mantz and Young. They are both so polite but I bet there is a competitiveness in there burning away. It looked like Young was in better shape at the end and speculation was that he let Mantz take it as he had a much better payday if he won ? What do you think ?
It's good to see younger athletes taking on the marathon. Most seem to wait until their 30s.
Halfcrazy I feel your pain on the house alterations.
No curtains will be interesting
We did carpet last year and it was musical furniture for a few days, shift everything to this room then to this room. Living on concrete for a couple of weeks too. My wife was roller skating around the house