The Running Thread

[InertialTooth45]

A very gentle 6.6 mile for me last night at about 10 min / mile pace. Still not really recovered from the great eastern run last weekend. Will do another gentle run tomorrow then try for something a bit more intense at the end of the week. Doing Hell Run on the 3rd which is a 10 mile extreme cross country run. Anyone else on here doing that?

[Locke]

Steady 5.21 miles for me at bang on 7 min/mile pace this morning. Legs are still aching from the fell race I did Saturday, feel like I've been doing heavy squats, not the usual ache I get from running on the the roads.

[anonymous-user]

a boardman said:

My first marathon is next Sunday, just need to sort out a diet plan for carb loading for the last 3 days,

Be careful! My Personal Worst marathon was on a scientific carb loading/gel marathon (felt like a Michelin man in the start line..). PB was when I just turned up. & ran (drank water only on the way around, 3.04)..

[esuuv]

Cybertronian said:

Superb finishing time. Which colour wave were you in - orange I assume? Did you have much congestion from overtaking folks who were clearly in the wrong colour wave? I was forever overtaking people in the white wave, even after the halfway point and well up until the end.

I had an orange number - but my girlfriend and sister and some others were running - they were all in white so I moved back and started with them - I think after the first few miles I spent a lot of time running across the gap from white to catching the slower orange wave so it was pretty quiet - i did think it was narrow in places for that number of people running......

[honest_delboy]

Some crazy times on this thread, i can't even dream of running 6min miles. Currently coming in at 10min miles but want to get some improvement before reading HM. I've run 4 HM's in the past but never got below 2hrs (best 2:01:30). Despite the obvious answer (just run faster), what can i do to get quicker?

Lunges, stretching, speedplay, sprinting, is it just a combination of all of these and more commitment/will power or is there something easy i'm missing? Is there anything you did that you felt made a big difference to your speed?

Obviously i'm not going to beat Mo Farah but a 10% increase would be nice..

37yrs 12st regular gym goer (not shaven headed or company dir though)

[ewenm]

Probably just more running will give you the biggest increase in performance. What is your weekly running schedule like at the moment?

[E38Ross]

good session for me this morning/afternoon.

No double days this week scheduled due to GSR Sunday and day off work today meant i could do it when i liked.

After warm up (2 miles, drills, strides etc) it was 3.2 miles at LT which i did at 5:50/mile which felt OK-ish....a little tired from the weekend still perhaps as i've not rested since?

then 4mins off followed by 1km at 5k pace (did it in 3:19) then 5mins gentle jog followed by 2x200m at 1500m pace off 30secs rest (i did 34secs then 31secs)

so on the whole i'm pretty pleased with that. now tapering for GSR hoping i'll be fresh for then!

[944fan]

honest_delboy said:

Some crazy times on this thread, i can't even dream of running 6min miles. Currently coming in at 10min miles but want to get some improvement before reading HM. I've run 4 HM's in the past but never got below 2hrs (best 2:01:30). Despite the obvious answer (just run faster), what can i do to get quicker?

Lunges, stretching, speedplay, sprinting, is it just a combination of all of these and more commitment/will power or is there something easy i'm missing? Is there anything you did that you felt made a big difference to your speed?

Obviously i'm not going to beat Mo Farah but a 10% increase would be nice..

37yrs 12st regular gym goer (not shaven headed or company dir though)

Company directorships only add about 5 sec/mile.

Are you following a structured plan? I know some people hate them but there are loads out there. Look on running.about.com, coolrunning.com, runners world etc. I am using the Intermediate 10K plan from about.com.

I am at a similar pace to you but half way through the 8 week plan I knocked 1:22 off my 5K PB.

[IroningMan]

honest_delboy said:

Some crazy times on this thread, i can't even dream of running 6min miles. Currently coming in at 10min miles but want to get some improvement before reading HM. I've run 4 HM's in the past but never got below 2hrs (best 2:01:30). Despite the obvious answer (just run faster), what can i do to get quicker?

Lunges, stretching, speedplay, sprinting, is it just a combination of all of these and more commitment/will power or is there something easy i'm missing? Is there anything you did that you felt made a big difference to your speed?

Obviously i'm not going to beat Mo Farah but a 10% increase would be nice..

37yrs 12st regular gym goer (not shaven headed or company dir though)

Per the answer above there are an awful lot of answers, but fundamentally if you want to run faster then that's what you have to do.

The simplest thing to try is negative splits - up the pace for the final 25% of your training run, and then work on a. upping the pace further and b. bringing forward the point at which you speed up.

[Muzzer79]

honest_delboy said:

Some crazy times on this thread, i can't even dream of running 6min miles. Currently coming in at 10min miles but want to get some improvement before reading HM. I've run 4 HM's in the past but never got below 2hrs (best 2:01:30). Despite the obvious answer (just run faster), what can i do to get quicker?

Lunges, stretching, speedplay, sprinting, is it just a combination of all of these and more commitment/will power or is there something easy i'm missing? Is there anything you did that you felt made a big difference to your speed?

Obviously i'm not going to beat Mo Farah but a 10% increase would be nice..

37yrs 12st regular gym goer (not shaven headed or company dir though)

I'm a 33yrs 13st regular gym goer and I've done 1 HM at 1hr 48.

You need to have a play around with your distances and pace. You clearly have the ability to run a HM, so pacing yourself is absolute key.

Personally, I run laps when running outdoors so pace myself per lap and try to build it down. If you hate laps (a lot do) then divide your run into segments and pace that way.

You also need to look at your training plan to ensure that you're at your peak for the target run. First 10 miles of my HM felt great and I was loving my pace. Final 3-odd miles was difficult but pushed through.

[ewenm]

honest_delboy said:

Some crazy times on this thread, i can't even dream of running 6min miles. Currently coming in at 10min miles but want to get some improvement before reading HM. I've run 4 HM's in the past but never got below 2hrs (best 2:01:30). Despite the obvious answer (just run faster), what can i do to get quicker?

Lunges, stretching, speedplay, sprinting, is it just a combination of all of these and more commitment/will power or is there something easy i'm missing? Is there anything you did that you felt made a big difference to your speed?

Obviously i'm not going to beat Mo Farah but a 10% increase would be nice..

37yrs 12st regular gym goer (not shaven headed or company dir though)

Slightly longer reply:

I'm 36 and 11st, competitive runner for 25 years and have done 67:33 for the half. You get faster by following a structured training plan that combines speed, speed-endurance and endurance:

• Endurance: 75-80% of your weekly mileage should be "steady" or slower. "Steady" means just about able to hold a conversation but not easily chatting. This running is what builds your base fitness.
• Speed: Only 5-10% of your weekly mileage needs to be speedwork. This can be repetitions on the track, hill work, sprints in your local park etc. It's much easier to do this in a group so it is worth finding your local athletics club or RunEngland group to train with. This should be effort at faster than race pace, much shorter overall distance of course.
• Speed-Endurance: This is the tough one - running at or around target race pace for extended periods. Most runners call these Tempo or Threshold pace runs. They are hard work but crucial for improving race pace for distances of 5k upwards. One way to get into doing them is to go along to your local ParkRun (if you have one) on a Saturday morning and do their 5k.

How you structure training is dependent on how many times a week you can run. With that info it is much easier to suggest ideas. The training plans available on sites like Runners World are good too.

[esuuv]

As said above - doing parkrun every week made a massive difference to my pace.

[E38Ross]

ewenm said:

honest_delboy said:

Some crazy times on this thread, i can't even dream of running 6min miles. Currently coming in at 10min miles but want to get some improvement before reading HM. I've run 4 HM's in the past but never got below 2hrs (best 2:01:30). Despite the obvious answer (just run faster), what can i do to get quicker?

Lunges, stretching, speedplay, sprinting, is it just a combination of all of these and more commitment/will power or is there something easy i'm missing? Is there anything you did that you felt made a big difference to your speed?

Obviously i'm not going to beat Mo Farah but a 10% increase would be nice..

37yrs 12st regular gym goer (not shaven headed or company dir though)

Slightly longer reply:

I'm 36 and 11st, competitive runner for 25 years and have done 67:33 for the half. You get faster by following a structured training plan that combines speed, speed-endurance and endurance:

• Endurance: 75-80% of your weekly mileage should be "steady" or slower. "Steady" means just about able to hold a conversation but not easily chatting. This running is what builds your base fitness.
• Speed: Only 5-10% of your weekly mileage needs to be speedwork. This can be repetitions on the track, hill work, sprints in your local park etc. It's much easier to do this in a group so it is worth finding your local athletics club or RunEngland group to train with. This should be effort at faster than race pace, much shorter overall distance of course.
• Speed-Endurance: This is the tough one - running at or around target race pace for extended periods. Most runners call these Tempo or Threshold pace runs. They are hard work but crucial for improving race pace for distances of 5k upwards. One way to get into doing them is to go along to your local ParkRun (if you have one) on a Saturday morning and do their 5k.

How you structure training is dependent on how many times a week you can run. With that info it is much easier to suggest ideas. The training plans available on sites like Runners World are good too.

spot on reply by Ewen and is pretty much what i do. now obviously.....this is a lot more than most will be willing to do, but it gives an idea of the type of mileage i'm doing at what you could try to replicate. The days set below are set by my coach, i can't make them due to work but i fit them in around the week when i can (there are more sessions in the schedule per week but i'm not as fit as the others in the group so only doing 7-8x a week)

Monday - easy 35mins - for me, around 7min/mile which is slower than what would be marathon pace

Tuesday - lactate threshold pace (usually a bit slower than 10k pace...around 10M pace) for me this is around 5:50/mile and is KEY to improving. session may be 4.5 miles constant at LT followed by a short break, then some faster stuff at 5k and/or 1500m pace stuff (to get working harder!)

Wednesday - easy 60-65mins at about 7min/mile

Thursday - easy 30mins morning, easy 45mins evening

Friday - off

Saturday - harder than LT stuff e.g. 4x1 mile off 60secs rest at 10k pace, 3mins rest, 2x1k at 5k pace off 60secs, 5mins rest then 4x200m at 1500m pace off 30secs rest.

Sunday - long steady run - VITAL!!!!! currently 100-120mins for me, usually 7min/mile but sometimes quicker, this sunday was 6:44/mile on a hilly course. just try to gradually increase the mileage and should be between 25% (if doing lots of miles and sessions) and certainly no more than 40-50% of weekly mileage (if only doing 3 sessions/week or so)

as you can see, the "speed" sessions we do in our group (i'm practically the slowest by the way with a 16:58 5km pb which is around 5:27/mile) we start off quick-ish and then get quicker. we NEVER do sessions where it may be 6x1k at 5k pace and that's it. we'd do something like 4x1k at 5k pace then some 3k or 1500m pace stuff (to get used to running faster when you're tiring).

for me, there hasn't been 1 single thing that brought me on the most. doing the speed work is vital but, if i'm honest, the biggest thing is probably pure mileage and training more frequently. i ALWAYS have at least 1 day off per week though.

take a look at this

http://www.runbayou.com/jackd.htm

which can work out (roughly) your pace zones. if you'd like some ideas for sessions then let me know i'll be happy to give you some ideas and what pace you should be doing.

[a boardman]

honest_delboy said:

Some crazy times on this thread, i can't even dream of running 6min miles. Currently coming in at 10min miles but want to get some improvement before reading HM. I've run 4 HM's in the past but never got below 2hrs (best 2:01:30). Despite the obvious answer (just run faster), what can i do to get quicker?

Lunges, stretching, speedplay, sprinting, is it just a combination of all of these and more commitment/will power or is there something easy i'm missing? Is there anything you did that you felt made a big difference to your speed?

Obviously i'm not going to beat Mo Farah but a 10% increase would be nice..

37yrs 12st regular gym goer (not shaven headed or company dir though)

are you running by yourself or with a club.

I was not a great runner before the year started I then signed up for a marathon on Jan 2 having never done a half most I had run before was 6 mile about 4 years ago , did a few runs which where 2 miles runs @ 11min miles, this I thought was too slow and so joined a local running club .

I have since done a sub 2hr hm marathon (this was 20 min quicker than my first half marathon 1 month earlier i set off way too quick and burnt out) I did some tempo runs the other week 4x1 mile at an avg 7:26 with 90 seconds rest 7:10 been the fastest mile. (This was in portugal low 30 deg temp).

My 10k time has come down to 51:20 (hope to get under 50 by end of year I did a 19 mile run the day before this 10k time) and my 5k time is about 23:20 min.

Am I 43.

[944fan]

Ross - I have used the McMillan calculator which is roughly the same as the VDOT formula I gather. Out of interest how often do you reset your training paces based on a race performance? I am currently doing a 8 week plan training for a 5 mile race. I did a park run after 4 weeks and reset the paces after that for the next 4 weeks. Is that too often, should it be more like every 8 weeks?

[ewenm]

944fan said:

Ross - I have used the McMillan calculator which is roughly the same as the VDOT formula I gather. Out of interest how often do you reset your training paces based on a race performance? I am currently doing a 8 week plan training for a 5 mile race. I did a park run after 4 weeks and reset the paces after that for the next 4 weeks. Is that too often, should it be more like every 8 weeks?

I base it on my breathing rather than what precise pace I'm doing for mileage runs.
Easy run = can chat to companions
Steady run = can only just hold a conversation with frequent pauses for breathing

Faster than that is where actual pace is relevant IMO. So my threshold/tempo pace I try to work out properly and is based on what my coach refers to as the "1hr pace" - i.e. the pace I'd run at in a race that took 1hr to complete (that may be 10k for some; it may be well over 10 miles for others). You can get even more technical with Lactate Threshold testing in the gym but that isn't really necessary unless you're really serious (note: serious rather than fast necessarily).

On speedwork and short reps pace is determined by experience of how fast I can go and still complete the session with consistent times and without throwing up (until after the last rep ). It does take some experience of getting it wrong though, and I can go 1-2s/400m faster if I'm with/chasing a group than on my own.

[E38Ross]

944fan said:

Ross - I have used the McMillan calculator which is roughly the same as the VDOT formula I gather. Out of interest how often do you reset your training paces based on a race performance? I am currently doing a 8 week plan training for a 5 mile race. I did a park run after 4 weeks and reset the paces after that for the next 4 weeks. Is that too often, should it be more like every 8 weeks?

i'd say if you run a PB then you've improved....if the sessions you're doing are hard sessions they should be based upon what you can do now or what you're next goal is; not what you used to do.

when doing speed work based on previous races (e.g. 5k pace) we have 2 paces; DATE pace (which is the pace of your current 5k pb) or GOAL pace (which is slightly quicker/the pace of your next target).

so in a session we may do some LT work and then either DATE 5k pace (so 5:27/mile for me depending on conditions) or GOAL 5k pace (so a few secs/mile faster). we'd never do 5k pace stuff based on old times if that makes sense.

HOWEVER....if you feel like st you can't run at 5k pace so it does depend on how you feel.

[anonymous-user]

Had a bit of a faster session today, decided to make this week shorter and more intense after the xc last weekend and taking it easier earlier in the week.
Session was 6x split 600's (400m rep, walk 50m then sprint 150m) with 1min recovery (very fast for this stage of the season). Range of 63-67 for the 400's and the 150's were very fast which was good to know after ~2-3 months away from this kind of session, although it means that I'll be doing less fast sessions from now on as I seem to not really need them, at least over the winter.
Only thing is that I was wearing spikes and the combination of spikes+fast session means my calves are already hurting and I could end up with massive DOMS tomorrow, which would be inconvenient considering I'm doing a hill session!

[Locke]

6.2 miles yesterday 4 of which were mile reps with 2 mins recovery, then tonight 10.15 miles at a steadyish pace of avg 7:40/min miles which takes me up to 22 miles so far this week. I'll hopefully do around 35-40 miles this week.

[honest_delboy]

Thanks for all the responses from everyone. I've got alot to take on board and think about, those links were very useful. I'll try and answer most of the Q's above:

I stopped running in spring 2008 but managed to keep up my gym activity 3x per week. Current schedule which has been on/off since the summer.

gym & treadmill (usually 20 mins sometimes more/less)
gym & treadmill (usually 20 mins sometimes more/less)
Kettlebells
4.5 mile run round local lake

Sometime the gym&treadmill sessions get swapped for the 4.5 mile run and vice versa.

I run by myself currently, there is a running group at lunchtimes here at work but they are all ALOT faster than me so i would like to get some more training under my belt before attempting to go out with them.

This looks doable when i get back from the xmas break although i'll need to trim off two weeks to complete it in time for Reading HM. I like the idea of breaking up running with CT activity which means i can still keep up the gym sessions:

http://running.about.com/od/racetraining/a/basicha...

I'll keep a running diary and report back, i'm hoping the diary will focus me more and motivate me if i see improvement.