Adarq.org

aren't you more likely to get shipped off to fight a war that my stupid bellicose-ass country wades into and australia supports reflexively? than to have to defend australia from some external threat, i mean.

i'm also tempted, whenever i leave this country and am back in a place with basketball courts. wonder how much i've lost. presumably a lot.

i <3 saucony kinvara, fwiw. if you can get 'em down there they're great. best running shoes i've worn. 4mm drop.

But it doesn't shift the dissonance. If i'm at low miles (because athletic background) b/c im slow then it would make sense to progress my speed,  no? And yet of the the various variables that's one you're being told to go backwards in.

Literally all of my objections amount to this, is it ok to do a 40 minute run where you're only getting 5km of distance covered? how does this help make me a faster runner? also if you look at basketball studies, the average HR for a player over the entire match (including dead periods) is 160-180bpm. So would it make sense to do more training closer to that range than say 140. I know what the argument is for long slow running (if you accept it and even if i did) it runs into a wall cos weekly mileage wud be so low to not offer much benefit to faster runs. tbh i can see how it 'could work' if you were sufficiently fast then going submax you can still get a decent amount of km done

the answer to the question i bolded is, "yes, if that is a moderately challenging effort for you." low intensity steady state cardio is a tick or two above walking; you should be able to have a conversation with someone but not without having to catch your breath once in a while. if you're really overweight or have emphysema, then maybe walking is the quickest you can do, in which case covering 3 km in 40 minutes is ok. building aerobic capacity makes you faster for sports by, among other things, improving your body's ability to recover from bursts of effort. that was what i noticed during my ultimate game last spring: i wasn't necessarily any faster at max speed, but i could reach max speed -- and change direction quickly -- more times over the course of multiple points. that made a big difference in my capacity on the field.

i think you're making a mistake that a lot of people do, myself included, which is assuming too direct a correlation between two different data points. you think "basketball is played at 160-180 bpm, jogging gets me to 140 bpm, therefore maybe jogging isn't an optimal way to train for basketball." but jogging and basketball are different activities, and jogging can absolutely help build physical capacities that improve your ability to do specific training for and to play basketball. it's GPP. same as squatting: there isn't a 1:1 relationship between squatting and basketball ability, to claim one would be silly. but getting a bigger squat has carryover into speed and jumping and boxing people out. jogging has carryover into not getting winded as easily during gameplay.

they're only dissonant if you have an unrealistic time table and targets. slower is good, at first, when your body is just getting used to running, getting in the habit and feel of it. i spend months in 2017 running much too hard and too short for my fitness level. even elite runners spend most of their time running at "slow" paces, although as adarq pointed out what's slow for them might be very fast for you and me. but they point is they are (1) freaks and (2) the product of years of patient training.

more mileage is good but that is relative to where you're starting. 100 miles a week is extremely high.

you probably can't run under 20:00 for 5k without getting up over 50 km/week, or never running longer than the target distance. but given where you're starting from, you'd probably benefit a lot from far less than that. and, much like squatting, the benefits may not show up overnight, but they do show up eventually. last spring, i played ultimate for the first time since the previous fall when i hurt my shoulder. in the interim i'd been running 25-40 km/week, no speed work or anything, and doing no other exercise to speak of. at the end of the second or third point i was startled to realize that i wasn't winded. i was, in fact, in much better aerobic shape than i'd been a few months earlier. take that for what it's worth.

oooh.. some ultra stats.

https://ultrarunning.com/featured/ultrarunning-magazine-all-time-lists/

50 miles in under 5h etc.. damn!

the 24-hour world best is fucked up. translates to 4:46/7:40 pace; assuming the guy took some breaks then his average moving pace was faster than that. for 24 hours.

happy new year, y'all. ran a few times over the break, couple of progression runs on the treadmill and a couple of street runs in my parents' neighborhood. some long walks as well. and some random push ups and pull ups here and there. nothing too serious. i like progression runs, they're a good way to use the treadmill when running outside isn't possible.

arrived home at around 4 AM, slept until 9:30 and came into work. jet lag/tiredness hasn't hit yet but i'm bracing for it. will try to get a run in tonight, even if it's like 3-4k, just to get warm and stretch. 24-hour transit=stiff body.

easily one of the great moments in adarq.org history. and, i told you so. 

 

ETA: a 3:30 marathon in the course of doing 42 miles is just incredible.