The Running Thread Vol 2

[Dr Murdoch]

Rich_W said:

Why is a Half mara plan asking you to do 15 mile runs? Especially since you sound like a beginner given you aren't familiar with Interval training. (Does it actually specify intensity for the intervals?)

WRT to "what use will gentle runs be" Well not every run should be hard. Some will be hard, some easy. It's all about the mix of sessions.

egor110 said:

Nope not a beginner (intermediate I would say), been running for 15 years and done various 10k's, half marathons, 27k's and average about 750 miles per year. I'm familiar with interval training, but normally schedules state the distance / pace, in my experience. Hence my confusion with this one.

I always try and exceed the distance before a race,except a marathon.

The gentle runs comment was reference the what appeared to be 3x8 gentle runs, could't see the point. I do understand mixing it up, but normally my long run is my 'gentle run'.

[egor110]

Arse, trainers turned up today and even ordering up a size there too small.

[Dr Murdoch]

Here's another one from Liz Yelling:-

15 min warm up
1 min, two min, three min, four min, five min, four min, three min, two min, one min with 2 min jog in between.
15 cool down

Again, as Ewen has previously confirmed, pace should be fast / hard. But how hard? My long run pace is 8.75-9 min/mile, 10k pace (when fully fit) is approx 8min/mile.

Based on the above, should 7 min/mile be hard enough? I think I would struggle at that pace doing 5 min runs, however I haven't tried it so don't know for sure.

[Dr Murdoch]

Also,
Ive got a forerunner 301, its not picking up my heart rate monitor strap. Can any Garmin strap work with the 301? Or would I have to buy the watch and strap together?

[Rich_W]

Dr Murdoch said:

Based on the above, should 7 min/mile be hard enough? I think I would struggle at that pace doing 5 min runs, however I haven't tried it so don't know for sure.

Don't know till you try. Like many, for years I ran the same speed for everything, just increased my stamina. Only when I "had" to start running faster did I realise that actually, I can go faster

Though I will add that it looks like you're using 2 different training plan sources? Surely better to stick with one?

[ewenm]

The intervals should be at a consistent pace and you shouldn't be able to do one more rep at that pace. So if it's 8 reps, you need to do them fast enough that you couldn't do a 9th at that pace.

Very hard to judge for a beginner to interval sessions though.

[The jiffle king]

So after a very good 8.2 miles on Thursday at 6.49 pace on a hilly course, I turned up to the first Saturday speedwork session at the broken track just outside the small town I live in. The running shop who run the group had brought along Pete who has run a little in the past (1:49 for 800m, 3:49 for 1500m, 14:39 for 5k and 31 mins for 10k), so pretty handy.
He took us through a very good warm up which consisted of 15 minutes of light jogging and then various exercises to get he muscles really warm including strides, heel flicks and a load that I had never done before.
The to the session of 8 x 400 with 2 mins rest. Pete decided to pace a small group at the front and we did 76, 75, 75, 75, 72 (The one which I led and got too excited), 75, 75 and 74. We then did a 12 minute cool down

So how did we vague the speed to run at? Pete asked our 5k target time, work out the pace per mile and then take off some time 10-60 seconds per mie depending upon fitness to make it a true speed session. We went a little quicker than planned as he worked out we needed to do 77 seconds per lap. Not sure if this is the right way to calculate it, but thats what he did and it worked for SWMBO who ran 1:32 per 400 rep.

A trail run tomorrow morning and then 8 miles planned for Monday

[ewenm]

10.x very snowy miles for me in the Grand Day Out Cumbria "trail" race today. Way too technical for me so I was happy to finish 5th and not fall over despite plenty of very close calls. Great day in the sun and snow for a great cause. It was especially entertaining not to know if your foot would sink an inch or foot+ on landing!

Race was won by another of my coach's athletes who is a specialist fell runner, and a great bloke too. Looking forward to more racing with him later in the year.

https://www.strava.com/activities/471605639

[Sarkmeister]

Running going well so far this year. As well as various events (Manchester Marathon, Robin Hood Marathon) I'm aiming to hit 1000 miles in a year after doing 800ish last year. Already around 35km ahead of schedule according to Strava.

Also, Strava has been pestering me to buy new trainers recently. I've done 1300km in my current pair, so they are probably right. Therefore I've just bought the new season version of my existing trainers (Brooks Adrenaline GTS).

Bring on the long run in the snow tomorrow....

[wiggy001]

So my TomTom Runner 2 Cardio with Music turned up early and I was able to give it a test run over my usual 5k. Here are my very quick pros and cons (considering I've previously been using the Strava app on my iPhone.

Pros:

- It's pretty simple to use and fairly intuitive
- The screen is easy to read whilst running (and I run without my glasses on!). In the config you say what metrics you want to see bottom left and bottom right, which always appear. When running you can push up and down to change the main metric (eg so you can should distance and pace permanently and flick through heart rate, time etc in the main display as you run)
- Despite feeling a little "stiff" when I first tried it, the 4 way button used to navigate the menus works well (even with running gloves on)
- It seems like it has a lot more features that I need right now, but will be useful in the future
- The GPS route/distance seems to be pretty similar to that given by Strava.
- If you have the TomTom phone app running and bluetooth switched on the run will sync with your TomTom account immediately (although it's a little slow to be honest). It then automatically sync'd with my Strava account which I wasn't expecting (I'm not yet sure if that is because the tomtom software was running on my laptop, as I thought you needed to use the PC/Mac app to sync to Strava etc). Anyway, with my setup I had my run on Strava within a few minutes of finishing my run.

Cons:
- When you finish a run (by holding left once to pause then again to finish) you get no summary of the run. If you want to view it on the watch you need to go back in through the menus to find the run
- The TomTom software isn't great. But I don't intend to use it as I use Strava.
- You need to remove the watch from the strap in order to charge it, which doesn't feel like it should be necessary and may, over time, cause the strap to weaken with constant removal.

Overall, and with no other watch to compare to, I am impressed.

Now a quick question. I'm 37 and running 2 or 3 5ks a week at around 5:30-5:50 pace (to give an idea of fitness). My heart rate on this 5k run was around 130 for the first 2.5k then rose to around 180 and stayed between 180 and 197! Whilst at 180 I wasn't maxxed out at all (my pace was steady for the whole 5k). Given the formulas for max heart rate of 220-age, that suggests I have the heart of a 20 year old, which I'm pretty sure I don't.

Any thoughts?

[johnwilliams77]

Thanks for the review wiggy. I am still rather slow here compared to most (only been running 3 months and did couch to 5k). Just wondered, for those of you who run >3 times /week, when did you know or did it feel OK to run one day after the other?

[onedsla]

Dr Murdoch said:

Also,
Ive got a forerunner 301, its not picking up my heart rate monitor strap. Can any Garmin strap work with the 301? Or would I have to buy the watch and strap together?

Try a new battery in the strap?

[Gargamel]

johnwilliams77 said:

Thanks for the review wiggy. I am still rather slow here compared to most (only been running 3 months and did couch to 5k). Just wondered, for those of you who run >3 times /week, when did you know or did it feel OK to run one day after the other?

I have always looked at overall mileage increase through the week.

You should only add around 10% distance per week (though I think speed should also count here)

So If I ran twice a week and did 10 miles. I wouldn't worry about running back to back days, provided I still only ran 10 -11 miles that week.

Too much too soon leads to injury.


11 muddy miles this morning, very tough conditions, snow, rain, sleet, mud - had everything - gotta love winter training.

[Dr Murdoch]

onedsla said:

Try a new battery in the strap?

Yup done that but no joy. Would it make a difference if the heart strap came from another 301?

[Dr Murdoch]

Rich_W said:

Don't know till you try. Like many, for years I ran the same speed for everything, just increased my stamina. Only when I "had" to start running faster did I realise that actually, I can go faster

Though I will add that it looks like you're using 2 different training plan sources? Surely better to stick with one?

Yup, In the book it just gave two examples. I decided to do 4x5min last night, bloody hurt and brought on the lactic acid, so job done! The run home was slow!

Within minutes of getting in my nose started running...........it still hasn't stopped! Bloody cold.

[egor110]

johnwilliams77 said:

Thanks for the review wiggy. I am still rather slow here compared to most (only been running 3 months and did couch to 5k). Just wondered, for those of you who run >3 times /week, when did you know or did it feel OK to run one day after the other?

Why run one day after another ?

I'm training up for a half and the runs are tues/thurs/sun with the option of a small run on a tues instead of cross training.

http://www.halhigdon.com/training/51131/Half-Marat...

[anonymous-user]

I've recently joined Strava. It's quite a good tool but I've discovered a couple of things that I need to be careful about with it:
1) It doesn't monitor your off days like a training diary would-and sometimes these and the reasons behind them are just as important as the runs done
2) Sections are great for tempo runs but the temptation of going for a time when you're on a steady run isn't great!

I'm now doing about 30 miles a week which is nice progression-and getting down towards where my target half marathon pace of 6 min miles used to be on short tempo runs.

Now I just have to start planning some races!

[wiggy001]

johnwilliams77 said:

Thanks for the review wiggy. I am still rather slow here compared to most (only been running 3 months and did couch to 5k). Just wondered, for those of you who run >3 times /week, when did you know or did it feel OK to run one day after the other?

I started running in April. I considered C25K but didn't think I'd be disciplined enough to follow it through so just did my own thing. I've had a few periods of 2/3/4 weeks off due to work/injury. Normally I will do 5k on Monday and Friday at the moment (due to work), previously it's been Monday, thursday, sunday, tuesday etc. ie rarely is there less than 3 days between runs.

However, because I got my shiny new gadget on Friday afternoon (after going for a run on friday morning) I went back out yesterday morning (first time I've run on 2 consecutive days) and I am paying for it a little at the moment - the calves feel pretty sore and my legs feel like I've not long got back from a run rather than it being 30+ hours ago. Won't get a chance to go out again until Friday so hoping that's enough rest time.

I probably wouldn't try for consecutive days and I think the general consensus is that you should avoid doing the same exercise 2 days running. If you want to do something maybe mix it up with something else?

I'm sure others that know what they are talking about could better advise though!

[onedsla]

Dr Murdoch said:

Yup done that but no joy. Would it make a difference if the heart strap came from another 301?

That would work. You may need to re-scan to find it.

[johnwilliams77]

wiggy001 said:

I started running in April. I considered C25K but didn't think I'd be disciplined enough to follow it through so just did my own thing. I've had a few periods of 2/3/4 weeks off due to work/injury. Normally I will do 5k on Monday and Friday at the moment (due to work), previously it's been Monday, thursday, sunday, tuesday etc. ie rarely is there less than 3 days between runs.

However, because I got my shiny new gadget on Friday afternoon (after going for a run on friday morning) I went back out yesterday morning (first time I've run on 2 consecutive days) and I am paying for it a little at the moment - the calves feel pretty sore and my legs feel like I've not long got back from a run rather than it being 30+ hours ago. Won't get a chance to go out again until Friday so hoping that's enough rest time.

I probably wouldn't try for consecutive days and I think the general consensus is that you should avoid doing the same exercise 2 days running. If you want to do something maybe mix it up with something else?

I'm sure others that know what they are talking about could better advise though!

Fair enough, there is no need to run every day unless it was commuting....I do cycle to work most days though but thats only 6miles so is hardly going to kill me (+run 3 x a week)