Forums >Racing>2018 Sub-3. No rules. Run.
RIP Milkman
Thanks to JT and Mikkey. 37:09 official time. Was very happy given the heat and weird course which had a lot of turns. I feel like it's exactly what I needed going into marathon training to give me a bit of mental boost. I'm so far behind where I was last year, but if I had my training right, I should end up at the same YTD mileage as I had at last NYC, which means the 18 weeks leading into the race will be a higher average. I plan on going with Daniels 2Q again, except this time I'll try to do the full 18 weeks vs the abbreviated plan I did last year.
JT - You are putting up some serious mileage right now! Are you following any plan, or just going with your own plan? Also, what sort of mileage are you looking to do over the next 18 weeks? If you're already at 70, I expect big things from you.
Mikkey - Ah the ole 45 miles on 3 days. I feel like last year you did something absurd like 60+ miles on 4 days of running. I've actually been doing 6 days a week lately and it's wearing on me. I have no idea how people run 7 days a week. I like 5 days a week much more, for some reason that extra day of rest both mentally and physically helps me a lot.
Dood - I hear you on the heat acclimating. It's been a cool June and the last few days have been rough with the heat. It'll come for all of us though. Nothing better than those quality days in 80+ temps and 70+ dew points.
Swim - Are you on Strava? I don't think I follow you right now. And this thread is not dying! June is just by far the worst time of the year for posting. It'll pick up in July and start getting much heavier in August.
Me - Here's my week, nothing special. The next 2 weeks before I start Daniels will involve picking up my mileage to around 55. Once again, I am the slacker in mileage on this board, you guys put me to shame.
Weekly SummaryMonday, Jun 11, 2018 thru Sunday, Jun 17, 2018
5K: 16:37 (11/20) | 10K: 34:49 (10/19) | HM: 1:14:57 (5/22) | FM: 2:36:31 (12/19)
JT: Thanks, but 5:40 was probably a bit fast (certainly given the weather) for a true tempo effort, but certainly pleased these still seem to be signifcantly faster than where I was at a year ago with these. For you a solid week of what looks like marathon training Big nice LR as well! For me - most weeks I enjoy running all 7 days, but at least one of them has to be a down day where I'm only running 4-6 for the day after getting a good night of sleep.
Mikkey: Wow 45 miles on 3 days!
Dood: Feel like I have close to year round heat training from living and training in FL, but it never gets easy and I can certainly tell you it is hard to nail a workout of race anywhere near your potential in the humidity. Don't worry too much.
Swim: Another solid week. Certainly hope this thread doesn't die out
JMAC: Congrats on the 10K PR!! Looks like you closed well in the final 2 miles. Good luck in your next buildup. 2Q plan should fit you right.
Me: Another summer week of 70+ miles with a fairly decent interval workout on our local bridge on Wednesday where I ran 4 repeats at about 1200 meters (1 climb & 1 decent) in length with 3 of them being in the low 4:0x range. Have a local 5K up and over (and back) a similar bridge on the 4th of July so feel that was pretty good training. Thinking I'll do that again this week. Then on Friday ran a work/military related fun run that I turned into a 20 minute tempo(ish). With the heat was probably somehwere between 10 and 5K effort for the last mile or so, but still felt pretty good overall.
Weekly Summary Monday, Jun 11, 2018 thru Sunday, Jun 17, 2018
1mile: 4:46 (12/20) | 5K: 15:57 (3/21) | 10K: 33:40 (4/20) | 15K 51:43 (4/21) | HM: 1:15:03 (12/20) | FM: 2:40:30 (1/20)
Swim - hell of a week, not sure what to pick out, perhaps the > 10mile easy runs as well sub 8 minute mileing. nice
JMac - nice PR, good to get it down nice and close to the minute mark so you'll have it next time.
JT - good wednesday session and LR
Weather - good miles considering only MLR
my week
5x5mins on tuesday
10k race on Thursday evening
13 miles of trails on Sunday
New PB on Thursday, 34:48. Pretty tough conditions with wind and pissing rain in the first half but I had a young Spanish guy on my tail who kept me pushing, probably owe him the result. 6th
Was a toss-up whether I was going to run this race or another local one on the Friday night (opted for this and Portugal v Spain in the pub on Friday). I only mention this because at the Friday race the guy who won the 3k I did recently turned up and dropped a 28:31 on a mixed park pavement and road course. Madness!
Upcoming; 14th Sep Scottish veterans XC trials, 289th Sep Great Scottish Run 1/2, 12th October TAMA half marathon, 27th October Leeds Abbey dash 10k
Mikkey: Nice set of runs last week. Are you taking a new approach to training now, with fewer runs per week but longer, or is this just you getting back into it?
Subdood: I only asked about the pace of your long run out of curiosity; everyone is different and some people prefer to do the LRs a bit quick. Whatever works for you. I hear you on the heat/humidity. I'm not sure how much weight I lost but after this morning's run I was able to wring out my shirt and get a disgusting amount of sweat pouring out.
JMac: Great job again on the 10k and nice week. BTW, I am not following any prescribed plan. The typical week would be a hard T-or-faster type workout on Wednesday, a hilly run on Friday, LR on Sunday, and Monday off (I find if I try to run 7 days a week it bites me eventually in the form of fatigue). Other days will usually be an easy 10. Mileage will probably stay in the 70-75 range for most of the cycle, unless I start doubling, but my previous experimenting with that has also lead to burnout/fatigue.
Weather: Solid week and nice hill reps. Are you still gunning for sub 17 5k?
Finbad: That's a super 10k result, congrats. There sure are a lot of fast runners in your area!
2:52:16 (2018)
Mmmm Bop
I’m just getting back into it, but I’ve always been into longer runs...NYC training I averaged 89mpw for 16 weeks all on singles. There’s a 10k/half/ full marathon in September which has caught my eye and only a couple of hours drive away - Goodwood Grand Prix (8 laps for the marathon) but I’m not sure if I can do that date yet. That might get me motivated to run everyday again. 🙂
SubDood - I know you’re following the Pfitz plan, but 17 with 8 at MP on week 2/18 seems a bit much to me. Was the MP at your 6:52 goal pace or your marathon HR range? I think progression LRs would be a better bet early on in a cycle...imo.
JMac - You’re doing great on 5 days running per week. 👍
Weatherboy - So consistent and I’m sure you’ll be running more PRs this year.
Finbad - Massive achievement going Sub 35...racing regularly is obviously working well for you. (I think it’s called race into shape!)
5k - 17:53 (4/19) 10k - 37:53 (11/18) Half - 1:23:18 (4/19) Full - 2:50:43 (4/19)
Mikkey - That sounds like a really cool idea for a race, and I guess after running 100+ laps for a marathon, 8 is nothing right?
JT - I'm starting to up my easy days to 10 as well. I feel like that's the perfect easy run distance for the marathon. I try to limit my easy runs to 8 miles when I'm doing halfs or less. Do you plan on including marathon pace work, and if so, how?
Fin - Your races have crazy competition, I can't believe how good everyone is.
Weather - What's your planned race this fall? Sorry if I missed it. With Cinnamon gone, we have no owner of the thread!
JMac: 10 miles is my favorite distance (in case you hadn't noticed ), partly because I have a nice out and back route that happens to be 5 miles out, and partly because I read a few years ago that 80 min is an optimal time for a run in terms of benefits; see this article: https://www.runnersworld.com/advanced/a20793342/single-session-workouts-for-marathoners/
10 miles gets me to 80-85 min at my usual easy pace so works well in that regard. As far as marathon pace work, I still haven't figured out what's the best way to do that for me. I find that if I put big segments (say 10 miles) at MP in my long run, it takes a lot out of me for the next week or more. But MP miles in the LR seems to be such a staple of most marathoner's training that I hesitate to omit it completely. So I may do some of those, but perhaps more with the MP broken up into smaller segments like 2 x 4 mi. I may also do a block of MP once in a while for my Wednesday hard session. I'm going to pay close attention to any building fatigue and keeping my easy runs really easy this cycle.
Good article and makes total sense. Also allows me to be lazy and just do a bunch of 10 mile runs rather than limiting it to 60 minutes but having to run more sessions per week. Seems like you, me, and Mikkey are in the camp of run more miles in a session than breaking them up into more days/doubling.
Yeah I remember reading about 80+min runs being more beneficial for marathoning. I do longer runs because that’s what I enjoy doing. I don’t like speedwork....which probably explains why I’m crap at 5ks. 😀
I was actually wondering about this, what is the general standard at races near everyone? I live in a relatively big city (by UK standards) and we have quite a few decent running clubs around so I assumed that was what kept the standard up. Mikkey, this must be similar near you? Or is it a structural thing where lots of the decent young runners in the US are running at College so not doing local races?
In Brighton the 10k results (top 10) would normally be between 30/32min. In the smaller towns in the surrounding area 33min could win it and sub 36 would most likely be in the top 10. Otoh, the standard at Parkruns isn’t great...I’m usually in the top 10 even with 300+ runners and I’ve never broken 18min. We have 3 local running clubs with some decent runners in all of them.
Thanks Mikkey, that lines up pretty well with the races around here.
Here are some stats from the 10K I just ran:
Finishers: 11,444
Winning Men's time: 30:11
Winning Women's time: 33:23
People under 40 minutes: 304 (2.7% of participants)
Certainly the best 10K runners are in college, no question about that. But we get some decent showings in NYC. Obviously, the races with prize money bring out pros. The UAE 10K is probably the biggest one. The guy who won this year set the American open roads 10K record.
The 5k in my hometown has an interesting history. In the mid-late 2000's there were a lot of super fast runners, mostly Kenyans or Ethiopians, who ran it. You can see from the course records that they were running insanely fast. I'm not sure if there was way more prize money back then or what, but after 2008 it has been won in a much slower time (usually around 15:00-15:30). I wish I had been into running back in those days; would have been great to see those kind of times being run!
COURSE RECORDS
Men
Women
Mikkey: The Pfitz 18/85 plan might be a bit much for me. The 17 miles with 8 at MP at the end of week 2 is a lot, I agree. I tried to keep up 6:52 pace (rather than run by HR), but it just wasn’t happening. Just 2 days later, the plan called for an LT workout, 10 miles with 5 at LT (between 15K and HMP). I struggled with this as well, and managed to do 3.24 mi at ~6:35 pace before giving up and finishing the 10 miles at a comfortable pace. I looked at the next plan down, the 18/70 plan, and there is a similar 16 mi LR with 8 at MP at the end of week 2, but the LT workout is 5 days later, and it’s 9 mi with 4 at LT pace. The next LR/MP workout is 3 weeks after the last one in both plans, which seems more appropriate from a timing perspective. So I may switch to the 18/70 and add a few miles here and there to get to an average of about 75 mpw. Progression runs might be a good modification of some of the early MP workouts in this plan. Does anyone else here use the Pfitz plans? It’s my first time following it.
JMac: Congrats on the 10K PR! I’ve always done single sessions in past training cycles. The plan I’m following this cycle has quite a few doubles. However, the scheduled doubles are mainly easy/recovery runs, e.g., 6 mi a.m./4 mi p.m. at a recovery pace. What I may do is skip the second run on those days, or do something really easy (ride bike with son, walk dog, walk at work, etc.) in the afternoons.
JTReeves: The 80-minute mark from that article seems about right to me. I’ve also seen 90 minutes referred to as a threshold of sorts for obtaining significant training benefits. Since today was an easy recovery day for me, I walk/jogged for 82 minutes, covering 6.5 miles. My plan called for a 6-mile jog, but I figured I should get in at least 80 minutes since I was going to be close anyways.
Finbad: Re: fast races/racers: We had a “local” (Minneapolis, MN) 5k a few weeks ago (fewer than 500 runners). It’s a USATF event, and it brings out some really fast runners in the area. There were 7 men under 15:00, and the top woman was 16:13. Two years ago, the top woman ran 15:54!! My 19:00 (gun time) was only good enough for 14th place in the 50-59 age group; 17:02 was the winning time in the 50-59 AG. There is a 1-mile race in mid-July that also brings out some fast old guys. There were 5 guys under 5:00 in the 50-59 AG last year. But in most races I run, I have at least a shot at an AG placement. BTW – Really fast 10K; congrats!
I have a hilly 25K Trail race in two weeks. I will do a mini-taper for it and hope to PR. It’s my favorite race. In 2015, I had my best race experience ever at this race. My “Notes” entry in my workout log is voluminous from that day, but it’s a pretty good story, IMHO:
2015 Afton Trail Run 25K