Adarq.org

it's super interesting, pretty much all your running has been pretty gentle but you were able to turn on the jets pretty significantly for the race. pretty impressed with 20:40!

Hah, yeah, this has been something I've been reflecting about since the race. The two pace calculators I've looked at (one based on Jack Daniel's vDot thing: https://runsmartproject.com/calculator/ and the other made by "tinman" of the letsrun forums) both say that given my 5k race time I should have an easy/recovery pace in the high 8mins/mile. But, yeah, as you point out, most of my running has been a lot slower than that. 30-90 seconds slower per mile, in fact.

I think there are a few things at play here. First is that I am trying to be quite cautious to avoid injury as much as possible while building up (a) the skill of running and (b) the specific joint/tendon/stability fitness needed to sustain faster running/more frequent running/more intense "workouts". The second thing that I think is at play in this discrepancy is the subset of running faculties that I have developed well and which I have underdeveloped. I'm pretty strong compared to most runners, since I can definitely still hit a 1.5xBW squat with ease whenever I need to. That strength probably means I can finish well/push proportionately harder when needed. Two more related benefits that I think spending a fair bit of time squatting has reaped me for running are: (1) good resistance to lactate/ability to clear lactate from my legs, since that's more relevant in rep based squatting; and (2) good ability to deal with muscular pain caused by lactic acid buildup, which served me well in the last 500m sprint in the race.

My shitty primary faculties are (a) running economy, which will come with just spending lots of time on my feet over an extended period of months and and (b) aerobic development (ditto). I've never done consistent low-level aerobic work. I think these factors combine to explain why at a shorter distance like the 5k I have the capacity to outperform the times predicted by my "easy running" paces. This also gives me a clear route to improve -- spend an extended time building up that base while not letting my good traits degrade and I should be able to improve pretty rapidly.

Quote from: Joe on January 26, 2018, 10:12:33 am

26-01-18

Morning BW: 71.7kg [that consistency...]

Workout

Jog around, strides, some drills, and more jogging before race, about 1.5mi total

Race - 5k in 20:46.6 [unofficial, according to watch, shall see what the official record says this evening!] 
Splits - 4:15.0, 4:09.2, 4:20.0, 4:12.8, 3:49.6 [watch says the last split was .97km, but the course is licensed as/officially is 5k so I'll take the registry board's word here over my dumb watch]

Jog ~1.5 mi cooldown

Notes

Fuck yes. I was in the B group for people who estimated their finishing time at >22:00. I'd never raced before and my 6:31 mile from a couple of weeks ago led to my 5k time as being an estimated 22:07, so I went with that. Strategy was to just go out at something comfortable between 4:12-24/km [i.e. 21:xx pace]. About 15 people of >200 in the B group went out faster than me, but I'd overtaken about half of them by 1km.

After 2km there were just 5 ahead of me, as far as I could tell [i.e. unless someone was going like <19:30 pace or so]. At 2.5km the guy who had like a 50m lead after 1.5km really dropped off the pace and I snuck past him easily, so there were just two chaps ahead of me. They looked like they were having a hard time. After 2.5km my breathing started to get tougher but I was still fairly comfortable.

My strategy from 2.5km on was just to keep within 10m of the two guys running together who were leading the B group. This was not so tough and at about 3.95km I was within a couple of meters. I had started to breath pretty hard but I thought that with just 1km to go I could push a lot harder, so I blitzed past them. One of them was clearly struggling a lot more than the other. The chap who was doing better of the pair said "fuck, damn" as I passed -- I guess he thought he had the B group in the bag, haha. I pushed pace a little bit here. 4-4.5km pace began around 4:10 and I gradually pushed it to 4:00 flat. Then last minute, when I could see the finish line, I really pushed it. SPM climbed up to 210 and I hit a max pace of 2:44/km, but I probably averaged like 3:15/km or so for the last 45 seconds or so of the race. I wasn't sure where the race actually ended, to be honest. There was a narrow passage made w/ tape that you were funnelled through, and the beginning of it was marked with the 5km sign, so I assume that's where the race finished, but I didn't want to risk it so I kept pushing through to the end of that tunnel, and only hit my watch a couple of strides after it because I was too wiped to attend to that. Will be interesting to see what the official time is.

I was pretty pleased with the strategy. I'm pretty sure I won the B group because there was no one who was clearly in it ahead of me, though I'm not sure. If someone did beat me from the B group then they were seriously sandbagging hard, haha, but I guess I did too in the end, oops. But yeah, I had no concrete idea of what I could hit here beyond "probably 22:00 or so" so I was pretty pleased. I guess that I am probably already in shape to run a bit faster than this, given how much I evidently had left to push with on that last split. I mean if the last km is like 25 seconds faster than the average of the previous 4km then optimal pacing probably saves me some time, but w/e that was the first race. Sick.

Edit: apparently I maintained a sub 4:5x mile pace for the last 25 seconds or so of the race. Decent going after ~4.85k of racing.

Official result has me at 20:40, awesome.

 

Nice work mate. How did you recover from the run after pushing yourself like that?

Lay on the floor for like a 20 seconds panting, got up and started walking home and after 5 minutes started jogging, haha, nothing too special.

26-01-18

Morning BW: 71.7kg [that consistency...]

Workout

Jog around, strides, some drills, and more jogging before race, about 1.5mi total

Race - 5k in 20:46.6 [unofficial, according to watch, shall see what the official record says this evening!] 
Splits - 4:15.0, 4:09.2, 4:20.0, 4:12.8, 3:49.6 [watch says the last split was .97km, but the course is licensed as/officially is 5k so I'll take the registry board's word here over my dumb watch]

Jog ~1.5 mi cooldown

Notes

Fuck yes. I was in the B group for people who estimated their finishing time at >22:00. I'd never raced before and my 6:31 mile from a couple of weeks ago led to my 5k time as being an estimated 22:07, so I went with that. Strategy was to just go out at something comfortable between 4:12-24/km [i.e. 21:xx pace]. About 15 people of >200 in the B group went out faster than me, but I'd overtaken about half of them by 1km.

After 2km there were just 5 ahead of me, as far as I could tell [i.e. unless someone was going like <19:30 pace or so]. At 2.5km the guy who had like a 50m lead after 1.5km really dropped off the pace and I snuck past him easily, so there were just two chaps ahead of me. They looked like they were having a hard time. After 2.5km my breathing started to get tougher but I was still fairly comfortable.

My strategy from 2.5km on was just to keep within 10m of the two guys running together who were leading the B group. This was not so tough and at about 3.95km I was within a couple of meters. I had started to breath pretty hard but I thought that with just 1km to go I could push a lot harder, so I blitzed past them. One of them was clearly struggling a lot more than the other. The chap who was doing better of the pair said "fuck, damn" as I passed -- I guess he thought he had the B group in the bag, haha. I pushed pace a little bit here. 4-4.5km pace began around 4:10 and I gradually pushed it to 4:00 flat. Then last minute, when I could see the finish line, I really pushed it. SPM climbed up to 210 and I hit a max pace of 2:44/km, but I probably averaged like 3:15/km or so for the last 45 seconds or so of the race. I wasn't sure where the race actually ended, to be honest. There was a narrow passage made w/ tape that you were funnelled through, and the beginning of it was marked with the 5km sign, so I assume that's where the race finished, but I didn't want to risk it so I kept pushing through to the end of that tunnel, and only hit my watch a couple of strides after it because I was too wiped to attend to that. Will be interesting to see what the official time is.

I was pretty pleased with the strategy. I'm pretty sure I won the B group because there was no one who was clearly in it ahead of me, though I'm not sure. If someone did beat me from the B group then they were seriously sandbagging hard, haha, but I guess I did too in the end, oops. But yeah, I had no concrete idea of what I could hit here beyond "probably 22:00 or so" so I was pretty pleased. I guess that I am probably already in shape to run a bit faster than this, given how much I evidently had left to push with on that last split. I mean if the last km is like 25 seconds faster than the average of the previous 4km then optimal pacing probably saves me some time, but w/e that was the first race. Sick.

Edit: apparently I maintained a sub 4:5x mile pace for the last 25 seconds or so of the race. Decent going after ~4.85k of racing.

Official result has me at 20:40, awesome.

24-01-18

Morning BW: 71.7kg

Workout

Run - 6.69mi in 1:02:33 [paces: 8:41*, 9:58, 9:23, 9:15, 9:42, 9:57, 8:05]

*Looking at the Strava map it looks like it fucked up and added a squiggle where the wasn't one to this first split, probably adding like ~150m or so to the run, meaning that first split was likely somewhere in the 9:3X and the run as a whole closer to 6.60mi.

Notes

Upper body still sore so shan't lift today. Probably means I won't have a proper lift until Monday as I don't think hitting the gym tomorrow would be overly sensible, and I'm pretty busy through the weekend. Will think about getting some chins and pushups, etc., done at home.

Run was solid. SPM was at 178 without much effort to maintain. Not going to try to push it up again, at least for a while, as the new cadence is requiring some adaptation, esp from my hamstrings.

It was hella windy today, too, like 20mph.

Pushed that last split for the experience of running hard on tired legs.

Tomorrow and Saturday will be basically total rest days, except for possible calisthenics. Sunday I'm going on a like 10 mile walk with friends, so probably won't need to run, but might have the urge in the morning anyway.

23-01-18

Morning BW: 71.6kg

Workout

Stationary bike -- 45 mins -- kept BPM low 130s and RPM low 90s [which I realise is same pace as a 180s SPM when running, nice]

Notes

Moderately sore all over. Might go to gym for an easy stationary bike session to get some blood flowing. Sleep is improving again.

Nice easy "ride", quads felt it for first 10-15 mins, but once the juices were flowing it all felt better.

man low-7's is a *run* for me. lot of work to do to catch up to where you're at. i'm avoiding joining strava because i spend enough time on social media as it is, so i'm just chasing your training instead.

 

yeah, adarq just dropped pretty much a casual 1:40 half on a "light" run, that's good shit for anyone.

in case anyone didn't know, i've been working from home the last few years.. my boss got an office ~30 min away, so decided to come in and work here today.

kinda fun.

lmfao!

wtf lol, this is one of the strangest things i've read. some great reversal in the force of nature is involved here.

21-01-18

Morning BW: 71.3kg [!!!]

Workout

Run - 2 mi moderate [9:06, 9:11], drills + strides [5x100 w/ jog recovery, about 5min/mi pace], 3 mi easy [10:50, 10:07, 9:41]

Just over 6 miles in total...sick

Notes

Slept from 5am to 9am, fuuuuck that. Was sleepy from like 9.30pm but could not get to sleep. Hopefully sleep resets a bit this week. Went for this run immediately on waking without eating. Was almost freezing temperature and a mix of rain/slush/snow the whole time. I need better gloves, because typing this right now is very hard.

Wore my Flyknits for this run. Like them a lot. Feel light on my feet, esp compared to the clunky things I'd been wearing otherwise.

Wearing more minimal shoes and running in the rain gave me a chance to work on stride rate. Only cue I used here was to just think about having quick ground contacts. Seemed to work! Watch says I had Avg SPM of 178 in the first two miles, then hitting ~225 during the strides, then 174, 176 and 186 for last three miles.

I think my wrist HR monitor was stride locked for this run b/c the efforts were not in line w/ the BPM readouts. I could recite a whole sonnet without much issue and it was telling me 175, lol. I think this happens when I just put on the watch right before running rather than wearing it around for a while and letting it get used to me again.