The Running Thread

[bennyboysvuk]

I've just committed to running once a week again now that my youngest is that bit older.

Last week I did my first run in months and was feeling a bit unhappy about my pace, but then noticed that I was doing 7:39 per mile for 3.6 miles, which I wasn't too unhappy about at all. It felt great to be back running again.

My goal is to get from a 44m 10k to under 40m (and ultimately in the 37s). I've just started reading Julian Goater's book 'The Art Of Running Faster' after bumping into him on a training ground near where I live and it seems to go against a lot of the stuff I've heard in the past, however I'll throw myself into it and see what happens.

A few things I've been thinking about a lot are running on my forefoot, increasing my cadence, reducing my stride, keeping my hips straight and ensuring my arms are perpendicular to my body rather than going across it. If I can throw all that together and be supple and fluid in my movement I'll be very happy.

[BrabusMog]

bennyboysvuk said:

I've just committed to running once a week again now that my youngest is that bit older.

Last week I did my first run in months and was feeling a bit unhappy about my pace, but then noticed that I was doing 7:39 per mile for 3.6 miles, which I wasn't too unhappy about at all. It felt great to be back running again.

My goal is to get from a 44m 10k to under 40m (and ultimately in the 37s). I've just started reading Julian Goater's book 'The Art Of Running Faster' after bumping into him on a training ground near where I live and it seems to go against a lot of the stuff I've heard in the past, however I'll throw myself into it and see what happens.

A few things I've been thinking about a lot are running on my forefoot, increasing my cadence, reducing my stride, keeping my hips straight and ensuring my arms are perpendicular to my body rather than going across it. If I can throw all that together and be supple and fluid in my movement I'll be very happy.

That's pretty much my aim, I haven't run for a while due to injury but managed to post a just under 46mins 10k on Saturday. Going out after work tonight knowing I'll be able to shave time off that as I was running at less than 100% on Saturday but I don't want to push it too much, too early.

[MC Bodge]

BrabusMog said:

That's pretty much my aim, I haven't run for a while due to injury but managed to post a just under 46mins 10k on Saturday..... I don't want to push it too much, too early.

No, don't push it too early!

Me too. My aim is to do a 40min 10k this year and then improve on that next year.

I too have been reading "The art of running faster" and have been trying to implement what it says. I agree with what I have read so far and have been trying to increase the intensity/purpose of my runs and my step-rate.


I've deliberately not done a flat out 10K in training.

[BrabusMog]

Ok, so I went from this on Saturday



to this, this evening



So 2 minutes 8 seconds quicker, I'm very happy with that. I've ordered this book you're all talking about, I don't take running seriously enough but I want to see just how quick I can go. I'm going to do a bit of interval training tomorrow and on either Wednesday or Thursday I'll be going to my local track to run a nice, smooth, no legging it through traffic lights and up energy sapping inclines 10k! I want to keep the pace the same for the next two or three runs and then I'll try to increase my pace to average 4mins10secs a km.

Edited by BrabusMog on Monday 11th August 18:24

[MC Bodge]

You must be a bit of a natural whippet if you can do that with almost no training

[MC Bodge]

My calf muscle tightness/soreness has got quite bad now. I'm hoping for it to ease over night having been released by my rollering yesterday and massage this morning. (Edit: It seems to be going in the right direction)

It does seem that almost every part of the calf in each leg has been strained at least once over the past 20months.....

Edited by MC Bodge on Monday 11th August 21:46

[E65Ross]

lepetitoeuf said:

Brabus; they're quick times you're running there - but beware of racing your training, it's a good way to pick up an injury.

I went to the dodgy local track and ran 6 x 800m intervals, whilst jumping puddles. It felt quick and I ran successively faster splits, although was nearly ready to puke at the end of the last one .

This. If you want a good 10k (or any distance) pb my advice, from a good amount of experience, would be to do a race. Get a target in mind based on that. Go away and do some high quality sessions for 6-8 weeks or even most of the season, take it easy for a week leading up to a race..... Smash it.

Racing or trying to pb regularly like that isn't the way to do it. I know people who race parkrun every week and they wonder why they stop getting PBs.

[BrabusMog]

E65Ross said:

lepetitoeuf said:

Brabus; they're quick times you're running there - but beware of racing your training, it's a good way to pick up an injury.

I went to the dodgy local track and ran 6 x 800m intervals, whilst jumping puddles. It felt quick and I ran successively faster splits, although was nearly ready to puke at the end of the last one .

This. If you want a good 10k (or any distance) pb my advice, from a good amount of experience, would be to do a race. Get a target in mind based on that. Go away and do some high quality sessions for 6-8 weeks or even most of the season, take it easy for a week leading up to a race..... Smash it.

Racing or trying to pb regularly like that isn't the way to do it. I know people who race parkrun every week and they wonder why they stop getting PBs.

Thanks for the input guys. I have run sub 37 mins in the past but it was when I used to train with someone and they created the regime etc, so I'm a bit lost doing it on my own. What would you class as a high quality session? And how many times a week would you say is ok to run 10k? I was thinking 3? My plan for the next few longer runs was to just maintain what I ran there as I still had some gas in the tank (I think) and then maybe middle of next week try and shave some more time each km off.

Edited by BrabusMog on Monday 11th August 21:50

[E65Ross]

BrabusMog said:

Thanks for the input guys. I have run sub 37 mins in the past but it was when I used to train with someone and they created the regime etc, so I'm a bit lost doing it on my own. What would you class as a high quality session? And how many times a week would you say is ok to run 10k? I was thinking 3?

To specifically run a 10k with the aim of trying to get a good time? I'd say once every 6-8 weeks, not 3x/week.

How many times per week can you train? 37mins is good going, my pb is a little under 35 and I hope to get back to that soon if my health issues resolve.

A tough session might be something like 1.5 miles at lactate threshold pace (e.g. if you are doing 43mins for 10k you're looking at around 7-7:10/mile, 3mins rest, 3x1mile at 10k pace off 60secs recovery, 3mins rest, 3x1k at 5k pace off 60secs rest, 3mins rest, 2-4x200m off 30secs at 1500m pace.

My coach comes up with some hard sessions!!

Nothing major for me tomorrow, did some light LT/speed today so getting up early before work for a steady 5 miles or so.

Heading to North Wales this weekend so my Sunday long run is going to be very, erm, hilly!!!

[BrabusMog]

Ok, thanks for that - was planning going to a local track this week so I'll try and give that a bash.

[trooperiziz]

Can any of you who know what you are doing, give me a small bit of advice.

If you have been following the thread, you would know I have only very recently started running properly, and have just done a sub 35m 5k. My next goal is sub 30m.

Considering i'm so new to running, i'm assuming that the specific training plans out there aren't really that useful, as I still haven't actually managed to do a 5k in one go without a small walk at some point
My plan is to just keep doing the parkruns until I can run them each week in one go and it starts to feel less of a challenge to just complete them, and then actually start looking at training properly with some interval work, threshold runs etc... I'll also do a couple of runs round the block during the week too, so it will be 3 runs a week currently, including the parkrun. My run round the block is moderately hilly 3k which I can do without stopping in 21m at the moment, so I plan to try and push the pace up for that run as much as possible, and just try and finish the weekly 5k without worrying too much about the speed of that for now.

Does that sound reasonable? Am I right in thinking I just need to get some basic miles under my feet to start with due to how new this all is, regardless of any real training schedule?

One additional thing, I would just like to say that the tone of this thread is really appreciated, regardless of how slow people are, it's good to see advice and support being handed out in equal measure. I did a bit of googling before asking the question above, and saw threads like these http://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?thread=... which is just horrendous to read!

[RizzoTheRat]

trooperiziz said:

One additional thing, I would just like to say that the tone of this thread is really appreciated, regardless of how slow people are, it's good to see advice and support being handed out in equal measure. I did a bit of googling before asking the question above, and saw threads like these http://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?thread=... which is just horrendous to read!

What a bunch of aholes, I'm with you in that one of the best things I've found since starting running is how supportive other much faster runners are.

I've got nowhere near the experience of many on here but hopefully this is relevant as I was where you are not that long ago.

The biggest thing for me at the stage your at was just getting out there and doing some miles. The big boost for me was when I first reached the point where I could run 5k without stopping, this was actually slower than I could do intervals but from there the pace picked up quickly. I also started to increase the distance a bit, which makes the 5k seem easier. Now I try to run 3 times a week, 5k parkrun and then a 5k and one slightly longer (6 or 7k) in the week. I also entered a 10k series and my times fell from 67 minutes on the first one to 61 two months later which I'm really pleased about, again knowing I can do the longer distance gives me a lot more confidence on the shorter distance.

For me the limiting factor tends to be mental rather than physical, ie I give up to easily when it hurts. The knowledge I can do the longer distances really helps, but I really can't stress enough the importance (for me, YMMV) of running with other people. I'll push myself a lot harder running with others, races help with that, but I've also made loads of friends through Parkrun that I run with, and joined a local running club that a lot of them belong to which has got me in doing a few other races too.

[trooperiziz]

RizzoTheRat said:

What a bunch of aholes, I'm with you in that one of the best things I've found since starting running is how supportive other much faster runners are.

I've got nowhere near the experience of many on here but hopefully this is relevant as I was where you are not that long ago.

The biggest thing for me at the stage your at was just getting out there and doing some miles. The big boost for me was when I first reached the point where I could run 5k without stopping, this was actually slower than I could do intervals but from there the pace picked up quickly. I also started to increase the distance a bit, which makes the 5k seem easier. Now I try to run 3 times a week, 5k parkrun and then a 5k and one slightly longer (6 or 7k) in the week. I also entered a 10k series and my times fell from 67 minutes on the first one to 61 two months later which I'm really pleased about, again knowing I can do the longer distance gives me a lot more confidence on the shorter distance.

For me the limiting factor tends to be mental rather than physical, ie I give up to easily when it hurts. The knowledge I can do the longer distances really helps, but I really can't stress enough the importance (for me, YMMV) of running with other people. I'll push myself a lot harder running with others, races help with that, but I've also made loads of friends through Parkrun that I run with, and joined a local running club that a lot of them belong to which has got me in doing a few other races too.

Sounds very similar!

I'm not stopping on the 5k run for any physical reason, it's purely mental, so hopefully I can break that barrier in the next couple of weeks.
Essentially, I've led a pretty sedentary life for the past 20 years, so I just don't know how to deal with feeling of prolonged exercise

[trooperiziz]

lepetitoeuf said:

Do you think that trying to run 5K outside of the timed environment of a parkrun might help? For instance, instead of the parkrun one week, go off on a 5K run from home - leave the stopwatch at home - and try that?

I'd like to keep doing the parkrun every week, so I wouldn't replace that, but I could easily double up one of my 3k runs in the week to 6k, as that is just an extra lap.

[RizzoTheRat]

trooperiziz said:

Essentially, I've led a pretty sedentary life for the past 20 years, so I just don't know how to deal with feeling of prolonged exercise

Same here At uni I was doing a couple of hours of Jui Jitsu 2-3 times a week, swimming twice a week, and cycling 5-10 miles every day. That all seemed to tail off over the years, but it's funny how many of my old school friends have taken up running as we've all turned 40.

While that forum you linked to was a bit rude about it they do have a point on weight. Since I started running last year I've lost 7-8lbs and it must make a difference. I've just started using MyFitnessPal to track what I'm eating as I could do with losing a bit more and it seems I eat about the right amount to maintain my weight, with the extra calories burned by running causing the weight loss. So there's another incentive for running as I reckon 5km burns about 2 big slices of chocolate cake or 3 pints of beer

[MC Bodge]

RizzoTheRat said:

The biggest thing for me at the stage your at was just getting out there and doing some miles.

Yes. When I first started running, as a supplement to rugby, I set an alarm to remind me to go out, rain or shine. The first few months were hardest. I've enjoyed it since, injury permitting.

RizzoTheRat said:

For me the limiting factor tends to be mental rather than physical, ie I give up to easily when it hurts.

There is a difference between "discomfort" and "pain" that could lead to injury. People differ in their tolerance. Gritting your teeth can make a difference. Some don't like a bit of rain!

The other obvious thing for new runners to think about is body weight, within reason.

[trooperiziz]

I'm 5'11 and fluctuate around 12st. I could lose a few pounds for sure, but my weight isn't the defining factor in my running, I don't think

[MC Bodge]

trooperiziz said:

I'm 5'11 and fluctuate around 12st. I could lose a few pounds for sure, but my weight isn't the defining factor in my running, I don't think

You are lighter than I am.

Grit your teeth more and move your legs faster

[RizzoTheRat]

MC Bodge said:

There is a difference between "discomfort" and "pain" that could lead to injury. People differ in their tolerance. Gritting your teeth can make a difference. Some don't like a bit of rain!

Agreed, I'm talking about getting a bit of stitch or when my legs get tired though I have had a bit of ITB related knee trouble that did cause me to stop for good reason but my osteo/physio/sociopath sorted that out with his flaying spatula, which hurt a damn site more than running did

[trooperiziz]

RizzoTheRat said:

So there's another incentive for running as I reckon 5km burns about 2 big slices of chocolate cake or 3 pints of beer

I have some bad news for you, a 5k run will burn off around 350 calories on average. A pint of beer is around 250 calories on average.