Platypus' Beginners Guide to Running

wallofsound said:
Am sure this has come up before, but what are people's recommendations for running watches. Mainly want to track pace / distance. Not having to have my phone on me whilst on a run for music etc. is preferable but not essential. Quick googling seems like the TomTom cardio + music might fit the bill, any thoughts? The cheaper the better as I've not been into running long. Thanks.
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After procrastinating for ages mainly due to the size of the thing I finally took the plunge during the Christmas break And bought myself a Garmin Fenix 3hr Sapphire. I absolutely love it, so much I bought my wife one too to replace her frankly laughable and garbage Fitbit , I wear it for every occasion and activity, the size isn't an issue even on smaller wrists due to how comfy it is once on...although the fenix doesn't hold music on the device to prob won't be of much interest to you.

Among the group I train with most have either Garmin or TomTom devices, a couple have had Fitbit but they honesty have zero life expectancy and are always replaced (once out of warranty) with one of the former brand of devices.
 
At that price (380) the apple watch series 2 is very similar. I know it doesn't have all features and is not a dedicated fitness watch, but it does a lot that the Garmin doesn't. Any view on this at all?
 
wallofsound said:
Am sure this has come up before, but what are people's recommendations for running watches. Mainly want to track pace / distance. Not having to have my phone on me whilst on a run for music etc. is preferable but not essential. Quick googling seems like the TomTom cardio + music might fit the bill, any thoughts? The cheaper the better as I've not been into running long. Thanks.
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I currently use a Garmin 935XT, these things are selling crazy cheap right now. Paid about $200 USD for mine last year. It works great as a run watch but also good for cycling, swimming and triathlons (it is a triathlon watch). It has enough 'smart' features for me, so i get a buzz when there is a phone call which is good when I have my phone in silence and not in my pocket.

Before that I used a Garmin 610. Nice size, touch screen worked well, did everything I wanted running wise. Only reason I upgraded was the wife wanted a runnign watch so i got an excuse to upgrade and since I swim and cycle a little the 935 made sense.
 
To cut back to running, I'm enjoying the freedom of being able to run without "having" to...went out Sunday morning for a very pleasant 5 miles, then out again Monday for 8.

Good to be back at bootcamp though, first session since Marathon was on Saturday morning, then again last night. Great to be working the muscles I've hardly used in the last six months or so.

I've got my first OCR (Tough Mudder) coming up next month, I'm really looking forward to that.
Have any of you done an OCR?
 
wallofsound said:
Am sure this has come up before, but what are people's recommendations for running watches. Mainly want to track pace / distance. Not having to have my phone on me whilst on a run for music etc. is preferable but not essential. Quick googling seems like the TomTom cardio + music might fit the bill, any thoughts? The cheaper the better as I've not been into running long. Thanks.
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I have the Spark music ( Spark = runner 2), which I got from the TomTom website for about £55 a while ago, they regularly have big discounts. The GPS is very good, keep the quick GPS up to date and it will find satellite in less than 10 seconds every time. The music side is clunky but there are guides online to make it easier. The App has been recently replaced and is a very competent addition to what can be a basic watch, you can upload direct to Strava or whatever you fancy. You can choose what stats to see while running, 3 at a time, I choose distance / pace/ average pace.

For a cheap option I think it is brilliant. https://www.tomtom.com/en_gb/search/?q=spark
 
 
I went for my first ever run/jog yesterday. It was a horrible experience and a brutal slap of reality of how unfit I am. I only managed to do 1.5 miles in about 15 minutes before calling it quits, apparently my average pace was 10m35s a mile.

Not going to beat myself up too much hopefully next time I'll try and make it to 20 minutes. Any tips? I feel my breathing is sporadic and I don't control it enough.
 
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Since Brighton Marathon, I've been hitting Bootcamp hard (as planned) and dropped running to just Parkrun and one Hilly 10miler a week.

I have got my first OCR (a 12 miler) in two weeks, I'm Secretly finding the prospect of that a whole lot more daunting than running a Marathon :eek:
 
JunglistE said:
I went for my first ever run/jog yesterday. It was a horrible experience and a brutal slap of reality of how unfit I am. I only managed to do 1.5 miles in about 15 minutes before calling it quits, apparently my average pace was 10m35s a mile.

Not going to beat myself up too much hopefully next time I'll try and make it to 20 minutes. Any tips? I feel my breathing is sporadic and I don't control it enough.
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I'm pretty much in the same boat as you, pretty much zero fitness. I started running mid-February and rather than just going out and immediately running, I'm using an app on my phone that gets me to walk for a minute, then run for 30 seconds, then walk for a minute, then run 30 seconds again ... and repeat for half an hour, with a five-minute warm-up and warm-down at either end. Over the weeks, the size of the walk segments decreases, with the opposite true for the run segments.

I found this hard, but manageable and therefore less discouraging - in my case I noticed an immediate difference when I got on the scales. Even through the walk segments, your heart rate remains raised. I always used to get a stitch doing cross-countries at school, so I pay special attention to my breathing when I'm out and try to make each breath in last 2-3 strides and likewise breathing out - all I can say is it seems to work for me, as I never get a stitch now.

Okay, confession time - due to holidays and some extremely busy days at work, I haven't been running since mid-March, which I'm pretty disgusted with myself about. That will all change next week, although I'm prepared for the fact that any progress I had made up until now will have been lost.

The way I see it, any activity is better than sitting on your arse doing nothing, so I'm happy starting off small - I fully accept that I'm unfit, so if it takes me a year to work up to a 3k, I'm happy with that. Don't up the ante until you're ready and listen to what your body tells you - if something hurts, ease off or stop. I haven't injured myself - YET - but I have been guilty of getting carried away with myself and pushing too hard, too soon. As the old saying goes "It's a marathon, not a sprint ..."
 
Last Sunday I raced the New Jersey Marathon. Unfortunately I had a bad experience but overall did OK.

Training had gone great this cycle and it showed with massively improved race times including a 1:22 half marathon on a hilly course that netted me 3rd place podium finish, and only 9 seconds form the AG winner. I nailed most of the work outs, did a lot of Long runs (in part due to training for a 50 mile ultramarthon), my 800m repeat times were 9-11 seconds faster than last cycle, MP long runs were 15 seconds a mile faster with lower HR, Lactate Threshold simiallrly faster. However in the last 2 weeks while tapering I got a bad cold that had some flu-like symptoms with a fever. This went but left a nasty cough which I still have. My HR while doing easy runs was now all over the place. A few day before the race I took my wife out to dinner to thank her for her support. Unfortunately I must have got food poisoning. The next day I went out for a short shakeout run, my HR was crazy high for the pace. At mile 3 my stomach cramped, and a few minutes later I pretty much **** myself! After that incident I felt better with no more diarrhea. I drove up to New Jersey the next day feeling OK, but woke the next morning with some more diarrhea. and made repeated pit-stops. An hour before the start it had all cleared up and I hydrated myself and in general was feeling really good. I decided to stick with my pace plan which was already quite conservative (around a 2:55 pace with hopes of a decent negative split).

Ever-thing went fine until about mile 12. I started at 6:50 pace and slowly went down to 6:42 and then after a few miles 6:37 was just as easy, HR low, energy good, stomach good. the miles ticked by. I was a little windy but didn't bother me, helped col me down at little as it was around 18*C. Hit mile 12 exactly as intended. Then out of of no where stomach cramps returned,, i slowed down, and they faded. but they returned 0.5 miels later, I then got a calf cramp, I then felt sick. Water was being digest and was sloshign about, at one point I had some reflux and was running with a mouthful of vomit as I passed some spectators. Generally, i just suffered for the next 14 miles.

Felt like giving up several time but remembered that once you quit you will always find reasons to quit in the future. So I persevered and pushed on just hoping for the finish. Near the end someone shouted that if I want sub-3 I will have to give it everything. I was super surpsied and had stopped looking at my watch by this point. I tried to run as fast as I can but my legs kept cramping and I felt really sick.

I fell over the finish line in a heap but had made it in 2:59:51! I got my sub 3 by some miracle not at all how I intended. A small PR but a great lesson in never giving up however much it sucks.

legs totally seized at the finish, had to get checked out by medical. Got to a toilette and exploded again. By some miracle that never happened while running. An hour later though and I felt great, legs loosened up and I had stacks of enegry like I have never had before after a marathon. normally I want to crawl into a ball and sleep all afternoon. But since I couldn't hit my goal pace for most of the run it felt more like a regular long run. A few days later and I am back out doing a couple of recovery miels feeling great, excpet I'm still making emergency toilet visits. Doctors appointment tomorrow.
 
Shamrock said:
I've entered also but similarly think the chances of getting in are statistically insignificant.

Since Brighton I've done bugger all running, less than 5mi a week. The poor result really killed my motivation for running. :(
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Totally understandable. I spent since Sunday totally peed off and a complete lack of motivation to do anything. i've been eating junk food and cursing.Trying to turn that around just look forward to the my next races. Of course I still had a veyr good outcome, I still can't beleive the time I got, I was expecting 3:10-3:15 at around mile 22 I was in such bad shape.
 
JunglistE said:
I went for my first ever run/jog yesterday. It was a horrible experience and a brutal slap of reality of how unfit I am. I only managed to do 1.5 miles in about 15 minutes before calling it quits, apparently my average pace was 10m35s a mile.

Not going to beat myself up too much hopefully next time I'll try and make it to 20 minutes. Any tips? I feel my breathing is sporadic and I don't control it enough.
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Ignore you breathing, just breath naturally.
Slow everything down, runnign for the most part should be easy and relaxing. 10:35 is a fast pace if you have never run before, especially depending on weight/fitness. Ignore pace, try to run comfortably. you are better off running for longer at a slower pace. In time once you are making progress then you can start to add in some fast running but you never need more than about 10-20% of your weekly distance to be fast/hard to gt all the benefits. And if you don't run slower you wont get all the benefits that slow running provides, whcih are most of the important adaptions. You will find it more enjoyable and less stresfull if you are not worried about time and pace., this way you will avoid getting burned out or dreading heading out the door and instead you should be looking forward to it. You will also greatly reduce your risks of injury. Training slowly helps you race faster, while the inverse is not always true (well small amounts of hard running is great, but there is only so much your body can handle, especially for a begginer).
 
D.P. said:
Totally understandable. I spent since Sunday totally peed off and a complete lack of motivation to do anything. i've been eating junk food and cursing.Trying to turn that around just look forward to the my next races. Of course I still had a veyr good outcome, I still can't beleive the time I got, I was expecting 3:10-3:15 at around mile 22 I was in such bad shape.
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You shouldn't feel too bad, you still got sub-3h!:p

Well done.
 
Well done on the sub 3 hour run D.P., that's a good result even if you weren't feeling great during it. Hope you're feeling properly better soon.

neilw: it's an interesting attempt and comparatively a huge margin to take off the previous best although oddly enough it won't actually be a record in itself due to the in and out pacers so I'm not completely sure how I feel about this attempt. However even bearing in mind the strict control conditions (including almost no journalists or spectators - despite the evidence which says that being cheered on is valuable in terms of improving performance) it might break a big psychological barrier if one of the athletes can go below 2 hours.
 
It obviosuly a huge marketing stunt but at the same time i think it is legitimate. Pacers are used in many racers to help seed fast times. Normally the pacers drop off because they can't keep up obviously. Given the pace the runners will have to go there are veyr few people that could pace them for 20 miles.

The margin really is huge so its unrealistic to expect 2hr broken on an open competition any time soon so Nike do need to control as many variables as possible. If they suceed it will motivate future elites to get close to 2hrs in a marathon.
 
D.P. said:
Ignore you breathing, just breath naturally.
Slow everything down, runnign for the most part should be easy and relaxing. 10:35 is a fast pace if you have never run before, especially depending on weight/fitness. Ignore pace, try to run comfortably. you are better off running for longer at a slower pace. In time once you are making progress then you can start to add in some fast running but you never need more than about 10-20% of your weekly distance to be fast/hard to gt all the benefits. And if you don't run slower you wont get all the benefits that slow running provides, whcih are most of the important adaptions. You will find it more enjoyable and less stresfull if you are not worried about time and pace., this way you will avoid getting burned out or dreading heading out the door and instead you should be looking forward to it. You will also greatly reduce your risks of injury. Training slowly helps you race faster, while the inverse is not always true (well small amounts of hard running is great, but there is only so much your body can handle, especially for a begginer).
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I'm going to try and go a bit slower but go for further this evening. If I can do as close as possible to 2 miles I'll be happy for only my 2nd ever run.

I'm 5'11'' weighing in at about 14.5 stone maybe a bit less. But I am just very sedentary and smoke hence my real bad lack of fitness. Looking to change that though and no time like the present.
 
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