ILX running running thread

Got it. I’m not starting from scratch. I have a good foundation of being able to push myself hard over ~10 mile runs recently but I don’t pay much attention to pace and zero attention to heart rate. I now need to get myself up to what I assume is a dramatically higher cardio capacity for a long race (at altitudes around 10-12k ft). I feel like it’s doable but not sure how to plan getting to that point.

Great post nick

thx nick and all for advices, very appreciated.

my experience at altitude is that your pace for any perceived level of exertion drops as i climb over 6k. at first slowly. but over tree level (11.5k here) for me, aerobic power/pace really starts to reduce. Of course, on a bike i can have a meter, and see my sustainable wattage is down like 20%. For running or nordic, i just try to guess at pace and stuff- i dont find my hr is that reliable up there?

the big difference going hard up ~actually~ high (not 6-10k, i mean 11k+) ime is that for short hard efforts, which are anaerobic, any matches you have stored _are still there_. i’m not a physio, but i a think this would correspond to w’ for people who look at that kinda stuff.

I’ve never read anyone talk about a aerobic efforts at high alt, but for me the effect is that if you wanna have a short vo2max burst (didnt runners call those fartleks or?) you can do that, but when those matches are gone, you really really come down hard back to your altitude-reduced aerobic limits until you can recover a bit. roadies call this sensation “blowing up” and these moments when above 12k are really really mean.

So my advice above treeline is to be carefuller with bursts- like if you have to call “track” and pass someone, don’t do anything more than you need to get by, restabilize, the work on dropping the person behind you later. so easy to go way into the red without knowing, and you feel fine and super fast during the first 1.5 minutes.

yeah seems like w running at altitude u feel fine then —hit the wall—

i have observed this w friends visiting me where i live at altitude

if i could undo the “actually” emphasis up there i would, it comes across really poorly, sorry.

what i am aiming at there is that all my general “rules” for efforts seem to work ok up to 11-12k, and for me after that, it’s really easy to go a bit overboard on efforts by accident

anyone have any experience of or recommendations of calf sleeves?

been out for 8 weeks now with an achilles injury and thinking i might get myself a pair for added protection/peace of mind when i start back

never used them, they look a bit sweaty tbh

don't know if you've been doing any achilles strengthening, but i absolutely swear by doing that thing where you stand on one leg with your toes on a step and then sort of lower and raise your heel up and down. that has always sorted me out in the past but then i've only suffered mildly with it

i'm pretty much out of the game at the moment too btw, got some recurrent hip/groin thing where i have alternating pain in the IT band and also in the spot where i had an abdominal hernia operation 12 years ago. it's driving me nuts - i can feel fine beforehand, but then a mile or two into a run and there it is again. i don't know if it's hip instability or weak hamstrings or what, but i just want to run properly again one day please :(

yeah, saw a physio and she gave me some exercises to do, one of which are calf raises on a step. will probably keep them up when i'm back running

hope yours sorts itself out. it is a bugger not being able to run but imagine it would be 100 times worse if it was summer

i've not really stopped running tbh, just struggled every time i've gone out. have had a few weeks off but resting has made absolutely no difference afaict. at the moment i'm putting up with being crap, being in pain, and not really able to commit to any races for the forseeable future

My running is so irregular due to weather, circumstances, and the fact i just don’t like it much. i need a serious psyche rev-up session, or a guilt trip, in order to get inspiration. As my weight has gone up like 7 lbs since quitting bikes, my running pace just keeps slowing, even tho i’m running more.

I’ve been trying to work in rollerski sessions 2x per week plus maybe a day of ski on snow. The rollerski game is so much hellacious precarity that i feel an adrenaline rush just booting up. I’ve got rather good at sharpening my pole ferrules, which is essential and requires diamond files.

Studies suggest 50% of xc power is upper body, which def puts me in the slowest quintile for sure.

First run in almost 3 months yesterday post achilles injury.

Two miles at a very gentle pace and my average HR was almost 20 bpm higher than when I run 19 minute parkruns.

Going to take me some time to get my fitness back but it felt so good to actually be running again

congrats! road back always is a challenge

Is it a chronic inflammation or some kinda traumatic/tear thing?

No expertise, but the physio tape on my subluxed cuboid solved my foot issues so quickly and easily i could not believe it. If I had known about this 10 years ago I could have completed two extra events and not limped the last 15k of a marathon.

I now blieve that physio tape can cure cofefe-19 and maybe other infirmities.

Not sure to be honest - it's definitely getting better just a slooooow process.

Had a few people mention Kinesiology Tape so will probably check it out although no idea how/where to put it on

welcome back gp! baby steps at first, but ime your body will remember what it's supposed to do sooner rather than later and you'll be flying again in a couple of weeks

London marathon postponed

The right thing to do. Boston marathon too

Definitely. Doing parkrun tomorrow but imagine it could be the last one for quite a while

cancelling marathons is good. you can still go running, though, and probably should

Everyone could just do the marathon on strava instead, why not

i went on a glorious little four mile jaunt up a wood-chipped trail yesterday. spring is here *sigh*

i know there are other far more important things to worry about but...

From a listener: No running in Spain from today. Police stopping individual runners out in the countryside this morning. Only warnings in our part of the world today, but as from tomorrow it will be 100 euros (up to 600,000 euros!) and possibly a year in jail. We're housebound!

— Ian Corless (@Talkultra) March 15, 2020

wtf running not gonna hurt anyone

looking forward to sneaking out for night runs already

Yeah, that's crazy.

I know 3 people who were supposed to be doing Bath half yesterday and all pulled out and did a local solo half marathon instead

UK Athletics have suspended all activities and advised clubs against holding training sessions, due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

— Sky Sports News (@SkySportsNews) March 17, 2020

i went running yesterday, found a trail just a few blocks from my house, it was good

going in about an hour, planning on doing a little crying

Not unexpected

🚨 All parkrun events in the UK have been suspended with immediate effect due to the ongoing COVID-19 (Coronavirus) situation

All events will be cancelled until at least the end of March

You can read more here
👉🏾https://t.co/OkmVtZAgKW

🔄 Please share

🌳 #loveparkrun pic.twitter.com/zGL2FnbXgW

— parkrun UK (@parkrunUK) March 18, 2020

from graun liveblog:

Belgium becomes the latest country to go into lockdown, with citizens asked to stay at home and limit contact to their closest family, writes Jennifer Rankin.

(...)

Going out for a walk or a run, or riding a bike is allowed, “even encouraged” the authorities say, as long as people observe a distance of one and a half metres from anyone who is not a member of their household.

think my back is going to be toast v soon because of the crappy chair i have at home. whole country is going to be panic-buying lumbar support by next week, mark my words

five months ago I ran that 5k and now, in consultations with a sports physician guy because I'm not the youngest pea in the pod, I am training up for longer distances with the goal of a marathon next year. ran an hour yesterday, my first long run since the world went kind of nuts over the last couple weeks, and maaaaaaan it felt good, wished I could just run and run and run.

my man!

prospect park is absolutely packed right now; I took to the dirt paths so I wasn't jogging in a crowd. everybody is out!

five months ago I ran that 5k and now, in consultations with a sports physician guy because I'm not the youngest pea in the pod, I am training up for longer distances with the goal of a marathon next year. ran an hour yesterday, my first long run since the world went kind of nuts over the last couple weeks, and maaaaaaan it felt good, wished I could just run and run and run.

the air here has never been cleaner, which is nice

i am lurking and conspiring to steal all y'alls good running vibes. mostly beer tho also some double poling have added enough mass to make running noticeably more choreful. keep saying nice thinks about running pls pls.

Hunt3r I can't even tell you how much I love it. It has changed my life, and has improved my life in so many ways. As people here I think know, when the world is normal, I make my living on the road. Running every other day on the road has taken me from "crazy most of the time when I'm at work" to "as healthy as I've ever been mentally/emotionally while at work." It's just a fuckin miracle and I can't recommend it strongly enough. I did quit drinking beer though, my beer intake was not compatible with my goals and I have to be an all-or-nothing guy, I've had like three beers in the past two years which is the name of my new country song.

Fantastic!

Always good to see another convert.

And yeah, there's such a positive mental benefit to it as well as the obvious physical ones.

thanks for the personal boost, you do already get motivational plays in my runs already.

as far as your running, i always sorta wonder how y'all manage something like that, man. i cannot imagine that life in _many_ ways. i am really glad you've been able to find it and fit it. much respect.

i wonder if i should resolve to do a trail marathon this fall on a bc trail that i rode/hike-a-biked multiple times last year- it's incredible terrain. http://www.devilonthedivideultra.com/

it might be the only way to make me want to run, but i don't see that level of commitment happening. i'm not a fast rider, but i am just terrible at running relatively, and this affects my enthusiasm, though of course it should not. xp

i saw a guide somewhere say that for a consistent fitness level, each extra pound is about 3secs/mi. that seems about right to nerdy me, i'm about 15 lbs heavier than when i started running regularly, and my mile has declined about 35-45 secs at almost every exertion level.

said it on COVID-19 thread but wow does going out for even a 2-3 mile run reset my brain to normal after a day or two of staying quarantined inside.

welp, I guess I'm one of those clowns who took up hobby jogging during the pandemic. I'd been walking a ton over the winter and had been hoping to do more hiking this spring and summer, but it seemed wiser to avoid crowded trails and start running on the road instead. I'm really not accustomed to mid/long distance running: I was a sprinter in high school and worked out on the treadmill on and off until about ten years ago, but I don't think I'd ever done an uninterrupted 5k in my life until this past April. the newbie gains have been pretty satisfying so far: when I was first starting out I could do a 5k in 25-26 minutes, but I've beaten my personal record every time I've gone for it, and I just managed a 19:55 5k this morning. I think a lot of that comes from figuring out how to pace myself rather than from any dramatic improvement in fitness, and I suspect that I'll find myself plateauing pretty quickly.

I'm really not sure what my goals are, since I'm obviously not going to be racing anytime soon. I basically just run at a moderate pace for 15-20 miles a week with an occasional fast 5k or 10k, and I don't follow a rigid workout plan. I'm still debating whether it's worthwhile at this point to increase my mileage and throw in a weekly speed/interval/fartlek workout (which is probably the only way to get my times down to a competitive range) or whether I should hold off until races resume in 2021 or 2025 or whenever. I messed up my knee pretty badly in high school, and while it hasn't been bothering me lately, I wouldn't want to risk a crippling overuse injury for no reason. plus I don't particularly enjoy sprinting. I'm finding it hard to get out of the mindset of obsessing over stats: charting my improvement is a pretty strong motivator at the moment, but I feel like I'd enjoy myself more in the long run if I could relax a bit more and appreciate running for its own sake rather than as a means to an end

a sub-twenty-minute 5k is impressive!

thanks!

I'm doing a lot more road-and-pavement running these days to avoid crowded trails, and my body does not like it.

I aim for 7.5-8km over 40m, 3 times a week, and I can't be arsed to think about anything else because meditative, borderline subliminal thoughtlessness is exactly what I want from running.

sub 20 min 5k is solid running indeed! my main advice is try and listen to your body as best you can, build up slowly and don't be afraid to take a couple of days out of a training schedule, cos that's so much better than three weeks out because you've overcooked it. long-term consistency is the key

I'm finding it hard to get out of the mindset of obsessing over stats: charting my improvement is a pretty strong motivator at the moment, but I feel like I'd enjoy myself more in the long run if I could relax a bit more and appreciate running for its own sake rather than as a means to an end

you could mix your days up so you have one or two days a week where you focus on performance and see if you beat last weeks time or smash that set of intervals etc, but also have a couple of runs a week where you just bumble along enjoying yourself, chilling out, exploring, taking photos or whatever. run hard days hard, but easy days easy.

(btw i'm terrible at following this advice myself and am permanently on the cusp of falling apart)