all of the scientific & specialist medical community now endorse ‘drink to thirst’ in place of drink to programme.

Pretty sure it’s not yet 100% agreed – I certainly agree it’s a perfectly reasonable strategy for daily life, shorter races, and longer races in cool conditions, but I’m not convinced it works for extreme conditions. I’m no medical researcher, but this paper seems to agree with me that the evidence for “drink to thirst” breaks down when you go beyond a certain point:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5790864/#:~:text=Drinking%20to%20Thirst%3A%20The%20Use,desired%20%5B8%2C%209%5D.

That said, I definitely 100% agree that hyponatraemia is a far more serious risk than dehydration, and as a race organiser / medical director I can see why you’d err on the side of caution. While I don’t plan on changing my race strategy as it works for me, I certainly plan to be more cautious in offering advice to others.

First run after covid, not awful but not far off. Slowest 5k I’ve run in a very long time…

Mogrim: you have my respect.

My cousin is running through his COVID infection, he’s not one to take advice from snowflakes like me but hope he doesn’t bring long or severe covid on himself

Mogrim: you have my respect.

lol that sounds like a mafia threat 😀

Anyway went for a run this evening, must have been about 32-33 when I headed out, and it was pretty grim. Under an hour so didn’t take any water with me, but probably should have done. Certainly had enough thirst to want to drink!

Can you help me with this dilemma? There’s a local running group that I’d like to run with, they do around 5miles in a session. However I find the pace very slow despite being a relative newby to this. My natural gait gives me a time of about 21.30 for a 5k (I have done 18.11 full gas). Slower than this I feel like I’m running on the spot so kinda bounce along with the others. Feels like it’s putting extra strain on my calves.
I see it as I have two options: find a way to run slow and enjoy their company, which I’d like to do, or run on my own, which I also enjoy but can do anytime. I tend to run further than 5 miles when on my own too, with less stop starting which is nice.
Is there a technique to running slower than feels natural?

Get in touch and see if there is any appetite for a faster group. You may find others who want to run at your pace.

Our running club has 3 or 4 groups.

I don’t think this is an option. I was with the fastest group.
They meet up in a very convenient spot for me and are there twice a week without fail. Would be good to be a part of.

I’m a big advocate of running clubs but what you describe @rollindoughnut
would really frustrate me.
What you could do is do your fast runs solo and enjoy a slow, chatty run with the club. You can run slower than your natural pace with some practise, and slow runs are a very good thing.
I guess you do have a 3rd option which is work out if anyone else feels the same as you and set up a faster group. Certainly at my clubs, the groups evolve in pace depending on who is there and how strong they’re feeling.

I struggle to run slow – relative to my normal pace. But I’ve been persevering and it’s feeling a bit better. I would fall in to the habit of trying to run too quick on every run.

Can you run 5 miles before meeting up then do another 5 with them at their pace?

Anyone got any thoughts on my injury dilemma / advice given by the physio at my GPs?

I started with a knee issue back in May (pain on the inside of my knee, flaring up as twinges all around the joint, discomfort after but not whilst running etc). My private physio looked at it and didn’t think it was IT band related as I had too much flexibility/movement and suggested that it might even be arthritis (which seemed odd as it did start very suddenly but panicked me due to family history of it).

Last week I contacted the GP as I wanted a second opinion but they just had their physio see me (rather than a GP) and he suggested there was nothing underlying that suggested a serious injury and suggested I should actually start running on it again to stress the meniscus as ‘it is a very resilient thing and can be stressed lots to build it up’. It really feels counter-intuitive to run when I get greater discomfort afterwards! Thoughts please (and I hope this ramble makes sense)!!!

I used to be terrible at running slowly, felt like I was barely moving and would actually feel more tired after a slow run than a relatively brisk one.  However, I have learned to embrace the dawdle, and most of my miles are now accumulated slowly, with a distinct demarcation between slow and fast, and my race times have improved considerably.  Treat a slow run as active recovery, and enjoy the company.

My ultra nutrition strategy is a bit different from what has been discussed above, but perhaps my overall race goals are slightly different too.  For the South Downs Way 100 mile last month I had zero solid food, just 5 liters of McMaurten (my own proprietary Maurten-alike mix at a fraction of the price, hopefully almost as effective) and 2 Calippos.  No gels either, and was perhaps a little down on calories based on what my stomach could have taken (~30g carbs/hour), but no GI distress either.  This was a big contrast to what happened at the Thames Path where I aimed at 80g carbs/hour which I managed for the first half before the stomach emptied itself and then refused to take anything more… Also didn’t lose 10% body mass through dehydration either, which I’ll take as a win, which incidentally I also did 🙂

This week however I’ve been enjoying some nice warm weather for running – 40° in northern France was lovely, although a bit nicer in the shade than the sun.  Managed a total screw-up on Wednesday though – had a 5000m track race in the evening, ran 6km to warm up to venue 1, discovered I should have been at venue 2, 10km away, with 25 minutes to get there 🙁  Bailed on the race to ran 8km to venue 3 to support some mile racing instead…

went for my first run in four years last Sat, 7k with 200m of elevation.

feel just about able to walk down stairs again today, shows you are never too old to be dumb.

Turboferret. How should I change my stride when running slower than my natural easy pace. Shorten my stride length or reduce my cadence? The former has me jogging along on my toes like I’m running on the spot as much as moving forward. The latter would be awfully thuddy I suspect.

Lad came past me this morning at decent clip. I accelerated up to his speed and felt such joy at finally opening up my stride after a long few weeks of taking it very gently after covid. Need people like this to run with really.

@rollindoughnut my cadence doesn’t change much regardless of my pace, unless it’s balls-out in a race, it’s generally between 190-200, so shorten the stride to stay light on your feet.  If you observe the cadence of runners at a parkrun for example, you will generally notice that the slower runners have a much lower cadence, and a lot look like they’re over-striding, while in a race you will see the guys up front will generally all be close to in-synch.

I think turboferrets version of a slow run is probably very different to the majority of the rest of us 😉

@jam-bo not necessarily, my slow pace is about 8-9 minute miles.  I used to average about 7 minute miles for everything through a week, but it’s now much slower and I’ve got quicker!

I think turboferrets version of a slow run is probably very different to the majority of the rest of us

my slow pace is about 8-9 minute miles.

Yep 🙂

Bear in mind that the majority of the terrain around my way is pretty flat and well-groomed, I would be running slower in the hills and on rugged surfaces

I work in Parkruns as I’m belligerently avoiding recording data on my training runs.
Using an online calculator I see that 8min miles = 25min Parkrun. That’s definitely within my easy running zone and how I run pretty well all the time. After 15 years of bike racing I know the power of easy!

@pieface. I ran through the tail end of my covid but only when I was sure I felt absolutely fine and was feeling no effects of covid. Alone of course.

My slowish pace is similar to Turboferret even though I am much older (57) and my faster days were many years ago. I mention that as I obviously can’t race as fast but I still find around 9 min pace quite slow (more accurately I seem to be around 8:45-9:15 when I don’t pay attention and check my run later) I also used to run much quicker and in the 80s many of us ran much quicker on our steady/easy runs. On reflection it was much to quick for me but suited the much faster runners in the group who could knock out mile after mile at 6 min pace in between hard sessions.
I wouldn’t worry about how fast you are running easy runs at. More important that they are easy for you and not matching someone else’s easy pace. Having said all that I am a bit ambivalent about doing much slow running. All running is tiring and potentially injurious. If you are tired I would suggest not running at all or cross training. Not convinced very slow running contributes to faster running. I accept it is enjoyable..

Chatting with a few people, I don’t think this group will work for me. It’s not got the flow I’m looking for.
Did the local parkrun today. It’s been a while. It’s a good event as there are always around 500 runners with the front group around 17-17.30min.
I started slowly as it was my first proper effort since beginning of June (effing covid!) chatting as I ran, then gradually ramped it up to a faster pace. Love how these things make you run harder than you’d choose to normally, taking you out of your comfort zone.
Was very enjoyable passing lots of people and I snuck in just under 20mins.
Really loving the journey into becoming a proper runner. I’ve been bike focused for so long that this feels fresh and new.

Not convinced very slow running contributes to faster running. I accept it is enjoyable..

It’s been well established for decades that slow running builds the aerobic systems that generate the vast majority of your power at all speeds below the shortest sprints.

Not convinced very slow running contributes to faster running. I accept it is enjoyable..

Loads of research suggests it is.
Ideally training is polarised. So your easy sessions are very slow and easy meaning you’re recovered to be able to do your hard sessions properly.
It’s really easy to do “grey miles” which are to fast for recovery but not fast enough to get real benefit.
My race pace is under 7 minute miles (how much under depends on the distance) but a lot of my training runs are at 9’s.

It’s been well established for decades that slow running builds the aerobic systems that generate the vast majority of your power at all speeds below the shortest sprints.

Happy to see that evidence specifically. Gathering evidence in this field is challenging. We all respond differently and at different timescales and running tests over long periods can become unrepeatable. There is also an opportunity cost to these tests. I think we have introduced methods of training that are actually sub optimal. Optimal would almost certainly be boring and likely similar to what Zatopek ran in the 40/50’s the popularity of jogging/running has watered down what training should look like and the introduction of the concept of LSD has made running more popular which is a good thing but even Lydiard claimed that his use of longer “slower” distance training was taken out of context.
I think its is more complex than just saying “slow” The concept is different for every runner and changes for each runner as they get fitter/less fit. I dont think many runners analyse their “slow” pace and adapt. If their is evidence then I assume not just any old “slow” will do.
Runners need to train at different speeds/efforts no doubt about that (see Horwills 5 pace system used particularly by Coe to great affect) and its important that runners train slower than their desired race pace but I see a lot of runners running at a pace that is really unlikely to stimulate much positive benefit.
I admit that I am guilty of this and my point about enjoying slow running is important. Absolutely nothing wrong with simply going for a run and obsessing about it making you a faster runner is not for everybody.

Google Stephen Seiler and fill your boots. He didn’t invent the ideas (which I first learnt about some time prior to his work) but has done a lot to popularise and promote them.

And Dr Phill Maffetone surely? I was using his training principles whilst still riding, long before I started running.

They don’t say the things that many people think they say. They make reference to “low intensity” etc which then is translated to “slow” researchers are far more specific than this and what they mean is that you do sometimes large volumes of mileage at a pace that is relative to your anaerobic threshold. This range is individual and pretty specific, also much more challenging than many runners think. I read of Ovett (who often ran around 100mpw) doing twice daily 10 mile runs some at around 50 mins. These are “low intensity” runs for him, a multiple WR holder but not possible for almost anyone else. Even he would not call those runs easy but they made up a large volume of his mileage.

Running at very low speeds in relation to your own anaerobic threshold is not adding much to your fitness (which is absolutely fine) but we shouldn’t extrapolate from very structured research and claim this is what the data points to.

@lunge I agree with you and so does Matt Fitzgerald however even he uses the term “low intensity” the speed of the 80% is relative and the speeds you train at “sound” right to me but would you do your “easy” runs at 11 min miling? I wouldn’t.

Anyway all just my thoughts.

surfer, if you want to pick at details then please be more specific. What pace is too slow (for, say, a 20 min parkrunner, or 25 min if you prefer) and what evidence do you have for this? I mean, I’m sure there’s a point at which it’s getting close to worthless but wonder if (and why) we differ substantively over where that is. I wouldn’t deliberately force my pace down below where I can run with decent form and do agree that “steady” is a better term than “slow” but I just don’t know where you see all these runners who you think are training too slowly….

I dont know what you mean “pick at details”?

In answer to your question I dont know. It depends on a lot of factors and I am not a coach but most people would benefit from a number of different sessions before they really need to worry about steady running. If you are able and only running 2 sessions a week (and assuming you want to get the most out of those 2 sessions) then probably both should be interval sessions in my opinion. I agree with the concept of 80/20 but its irrelevant if you are only training say 90 minutes a week. Those 2 sessions can be very hard and there is plenty of time to fully recover between each.

A keen athlete would want to do more so a 3rd session may be a more challenging road run at near threshold pace. A 4th session may be a longer lower intensity run, only then think about more steady runs after all there is no need to run steady recovery runs if there is nothing to recover from.
When packing more quality sessions in it makes more sense to do them over a 10 day cycle. The 7 day cycle is just convenient because people can meet for long Sunday runs etc. It makes more sense to spread over 10 to get the sessions in and adequate recovery. You may be doing many of your sessions alone though which is not very helpful.

Has anyone used SportsShoes? Just looking at buying some new trainers. Thanks

I’ve ordered stuff from SportsShoes in the past, never any issues, plenty of decent deals generally

Has anyone used SportsShoes?

Yes, all the time, they are great to deal with IME.

Has anyone used SportsShoes?

Yep, had a package arrive from them today (Hoka Rocket X as you asked). No issues at all.

Thanks all. I’ll probably buy a new pair of Scott ultra RC unless someone can convince me I need to scratch a long term hoka/Altra/la sprtiva shaped itch.

It’d be for longish home to peak District terrain ie hardback, stony, grass and mud with tarmac either end.

Gone and entered my first ultra of 35 miles, The Round Ripon Ultra. 10 weeks time, been a bit lazy of late, hence the entry to get some focus, out the door shortly so it’s worked!

Also in the “entered 1st ultra” club- lakes in a day for me. Anyone done it before?

I’m intending to recce at least the first 2/3rds of the route over August/ September, but any other tips would be welcome!

Always lots of SportsShoes discount codes around if you’re a member of a club