The Annual Running thread – beginners/ultras/whatever

Be careful!

You may feel like your doing well, just please be mindful of the stress on your body.

Fine for intervals, crack on, but during but the low pace must still be where it’s hard to walk and talk at the same time, so essentially keeping the body turning over nicely and warm.
Starting and stopping is where little niggles occur, then you’ll run through them and find a tweak or pain has manifest itself later on.

I’m a huge fan of intervals, very used to pace off/pace on routines and developed strategies to manage it.

Great thread !

I’m enjoying looking at everyone’s runs on Strava – someone did a very impressive 19 minute parkrun yesterday!

Second parkrun yesterday and a 28.50 which I’m pretty happy with! Down from 30.09 last week. The mid lap hill is still brutal though. Trying to motivate myself to go for a spin on the road bike today to loosen up.

Well I should have been running the Gloucester half today 🙁 Good day for it as well, no rain, hardly any wind and not freezing cold. A short muddy walk with the dogs wasn’t quite the same. Ankle is definitely on the mend tho. Just need to be disciplined in recovery and not try to start strengthening it too early.

@WH – good effort that. A minute off in a week!

Signed up to a 55km ultra in October this year, did a half marathon in 2012 and not run much more than 5ks since. Plan to do one ‘long’ run a week, gradually building up distance, plus a shorter run and also stick to my normal cross fit sessions 3-4 times a week.

Will be interesting to see how the mileage increase goes…..

@wallop

I’m using strava on my Apple Watch. In settings you can turn on cues to give you pace alerts. Works well. You get a buzz at each mile interval and it displays your total time and pace for the previous mile. I’ve got some Bluetooth headphones and the cues play through that when I’m wearing them so don’t even have to look at the Watch.

Did the Trigger Fell race yesterday, 24 miles 4300ft ascent from Marsden to Edale. Great route but tired today. Hoping that will kick start my year as not done enough recently.

Saw loads of Spine runners as they set off on their 268 miles of hell. Cheered me up knowing I was half way round my race and they were a LONG LONG way from getting into it.

Here’s the live tracker for the Pennine Spine Race on now..
Live tracker..

Nice work on the Trigger. I like a challenge as much as the next nut, but the Spine is Proper Nuts. Seen the slideshow and that was plenty.

Cheers Alex, was pretty chuffed to be honest. Felt it the next day mind! Yoga tonight should help stretch out the kinks before a hilly run tomorrow night. Enjoying the park runs so focusing on short but hilly midweek runs. Hoping by keeping the mileage down initially I should toughen th legs up and help avoid injury.

Thank you, Blitz!

Marcus from this forum is doing pretty well in The spine race.

Leaders are just unbelievable in what they are doing.

Told wife about it and was told quite clearly I was not allowed to do it. I could say confidently she did not have to worry.

MattOAO, my two cents to aid you:

If you find it difficult to pace by feel then try a hear rate monitor

I found it difficult at first to measure effort, I started using a HRM to understand what was going on with me, I have since got better at measuring effort but still like to have my HR on my watch when running. Helps me correlate how I’m feeling to what my body is doing ie am i tired and running badly or am I feeling great and doing well. I do suggest giving it ago, my first one was just a Lidl HRM with basic watch cost around £10.

Be careful!

You may feel like your doing well, just please be mindful of the stress on your body.

This also, I felt good going into last week, decided to run further than I had before and mix in some hills, got carried away and ran too hard/fast and my calves ached all week! From someone that usually does this, dont get carried away too easily, I think they say dont increase your weekly miles by more than 10%-20%

Hope this helps!

Question for those in the know, today I did my first lunch time treadmill session, I did a 6min warm up before doing 4 x 2min on – 2min off/recovery before a warm down.

I would like to add speed to my running as my aim is for the a sub 20min 5k, are 2mins on and 2mins off too long? should I look at shorter bursts of the same intensity which was roughly 90-95%?

I plan to do this session twice a week (tues and thurs) and will then use the other 2/3 runs I do in the evenings during the week to do long slow runs, trail runs with some hills and then some at pace running between 5k and 10k.

oikeith
Hope this helps!

Yes it does. I’ve decided to just do @4-5k 5 times a week, so what with speed at the moment, just get out and run (maybe just deliberately trying to be out of breath, that is it). I can faff with speed and distance later – at moment I need to lose weight and let my body know this is happening….

Nice run in the snow today!

https://www.strava.com/activities/1359890456

Sounds ok to me oikeith, there are many ways to skin a cat. Assume your 2mins are faster than target race speed. Treadmill is usually easier than on road so don’t be coy about pushing the pace a bit (but work towards something you can complete the final set at). I would also tend to make the recovery shorter than the work, eg 3 on 1 off.

Thanks Cap, I was thinking about trying a pyramid style interval so 1 min on, 1 min recovery, then 2 mins on with 1 min recovery and finally 3 on and then 1 min recovery before warm down and then overtime as I get stronger/fitter/faster increasing this up to maybe 5mins but keeping the 1min recovery.

Am I correct in saying with the interval sessions if I keep doing the same one it will become easier but instead of running at a setting on the treadmill I should always do it at effort and feel?

Am I correct in saying with the interval sessions if I keep doing the same one it will become easier but instead of running at a setting on the treadmill I should always do it at effort and feel?

Personally I’d run at a setting, and slowly increase the setting each week – add another interval, or up the speed a bit. Going by effort and feel is pretty hard to estimate and a bit too variable for my liking when it comes to speedwork. It also runs the risk of overdoing it if you’re feeling enthusiastic, or underdoing it just because it’s been a long day at work and you can’t be bothered. (other excuses also available)

What mogrim said. Plus, so long as you’re in a reasonable zone there’s no need to be right on the limit every time you do the workout. Pyramid probably a decent idea, I tend to use equal intervals just cos that’s what I’m used to (also easy to program on my garmin).

Personally I’d run at a setting, and slowly increase the setting each week – add another interval, or up the speed a bit. Going by effort and feel is pretty hard to estimate and a bit too variable for my liking when it comes to speedwork. It also runs the risk of overdoing it if you’re feeling enthusiastic, or underdoing it just because it’s been a long day at work and you can’t be bothered. (other excuses also available)

This.

There’s an app called “Running For Weight Loss” which does a program of interval sessions…start the app and a voice tells me warm-up/run/sprint 80%/sprint 100%/walk/jog over a really good 40-50 minute session. I’m normally a bit impatient and usually try to up the intensity too soon but since new year, I’ve been sticking rigidly to the program – 2/3 interval sessions a week – a mate down the road comes out for a 0515 start and we’re back home by 0600ish…nice to have someone to share the suffering of an interval session. 🙂 Then parkrun or something longer at the weekend. Taking the intensity up steadily has been really good for us – as we’d both be wanting to do 100% sprints too soon otherwise.

I subscribe to the premium version of the app – and I can’t remember what the free version does. But you could always subscribe for a month, scroll through the program and get all the info you need which you can then download to a watch that allows interval sessions to be programmed in.

i have some nice uk13 shoes in the classifieds if anyone is interested. I am doing the new forest 10k with my gf this year, it is both of our first ‘event’

So Marcus (if its the right Marcus?) for anyone dot watching the spine is in joint 10th now after overnight leader has dropped out.

Obviously deranged and a bit unhinged but still a long way to go for him.

http://live.thespinerace.com/

So Marcus (if its the right Marcus?) for anyone dot watching the spine is in joint 10th now after overnight leader has dropped out.

First three men have now finished 😯

Did Padside (Nr Thruscross Res) to Appletreewick this morning over the moors, snowy and deep in places. Just over two hours ain’t bad considering the weather..

Did Padside (Nr Thruscross Res) to Appletreewick this morning over the moors, snowy and deep in places. Just over two hours ain’t bad considering the weather..

Thanks for the conditions report – I was thinking of heading out on the CX bike tomorrow in that area but might take the fat bike instead 😀

Perfect conditions in SW Scotland today, I’ll manage a wee 6 or 7k before going a a wander up the local hills.

That’ll take me to 110km for Jan, only 50 to go!

I’ve joined the Strava group, thank you Wallop for setting it up. I’m hoping that it will motivate me to get out a couple of times a week. I need to speed up a bit really, I’m the slowest of the slow things at the moment 😳

Parkrun roll call anyone?

Christ, I’m not sure I’ll ever get used to the hill at the Ashton Court one. 😆

Lloyd Park parkrun this morning. Proper slopfest, the hill midlap was properly exciting getting up and down! I don’t think anyone set a PB today! 31.09 for me which I’m pleasantly surprised by

Local Parkrun is off for a few weeks so did 5k round the canals. Now I know this group should be positive and smiley about how wonderful running is…but it was horrible. 26 minutes which is the slowest 5k I’ve done in 12 months, no drive, Garmin played up, still struggling after giving blood earlier in the week, rain and sleet, just plain horrible. May go on the turbo later and do a bit more as I feel like I got sod all from the run.

DD – the hill is why I haven’t done it yet!

DD – the hill is why I haven’t done it yet!

It’s why I do it…God knows why…it’s bloody horrible…I kinda enjoy the suffer I suppose. Funny one today, passed a guy that had decided to walk about 200 yds from the turn at the top…recognised the “fdx” on his shirt as I was wondering what it stood for. Continued running. Was passed by one or two on way back…but not him. And there he was getting his barcode scanned ahead of me at the end. 😀 Htf did that happen?

There are, I’m sure, people who take short cuts or cut laps (if that’s possible for your route).

Well, it’s an “out and back again” route rather than a lap so yeah, could turn around before the top I suppose. Strange thing to do though. I’ve learned to live with being slow. 🙂

Scoffing a pork pie salad and large coffee in Prologue after a 22k trail run around Thuscross/Fewston/Swinsty reservoirs, conditions are clear but muddy and most of the snows gawn..

Am trying to get back into it, got a duathlon in a few months. Would like to get 5k down to 25mins, PB is 28min.
Doing the local club virtual run challange to run 75k in Jan.

Parkrun roll call anyone?

Did pines this morning went for too fast to start with but did a 29.15. So chuffed with that.

Good work bigdean.

Just had my results through. Managed to get back under 25 mins – at 24.50 so that’s one thing. There are some proper bloody whippets at that race so my 122nd place isn’t too bad I suppose. 6th in my age cat though. 😀 A way to go to get back to my pb but if I manage to shift some kgs, maybe I can get back to near 23 mins again.

I know there are there threads on this but is anyone using the Vivoactive 3 for their running watch? Any good?

Finally signed up to the Strava club. Training has been a bit hit and miss since Christmas but need to get back on it now!!

Rachel

I know there are there threads on this but is anyone using the Vivoactive 3 for their running watch? Any good?

I’ve been using mine when running. I’ve not really hit anything to compare it to but it seems pretty good so far. The HR measurements appear to be pretty accurate as does the GPS tracking when runs are uploaded to Strava.
I’m pretty happy with mine overall.