Platypus' Beginners Guide to Running

ci_newman said:
So how far has everyone managed to run this year?

I've only clocked up 440km all year, but 2022 saw a return to running for me after a complete break in 2020 - 2021 due to injury.

Hoping to join another half in 2023, so hopefully an increase in my mileage to come :)
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1369 miles for me. A record year but quite disappointing given how the year started and fell short of my initial goal of 1500.

Not too confident of 2023 as still carrying this same injury which is really annoying me. Did 8 miles on Monday and the increase up to that has caused me issues.

Have to be careful. Have my first 100 miler at the start of July so need to build up volume whilst not going mental and not recovering.

Pretty sure I’ll sack off the Spain run. We’re in the process of spending 3 months over there in March which *may* coincide with the event so I might drop to the marathon. If it doesn’t I’ll just withdraw I think.
 
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Dis86 said:
Anyone able to recommend some good online running shoe shops?
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Pete Bland in the lakes would be great.

Otherwise I can get you a 50% discount at runners need.

Guess it depends what you mean by good. With then being online theyre much of a muchness with Sportshoes probably having the best/cheapest selection.

Ideally though you want to try them on. I’m sure there’s a great place in the north east where you’re from. I’ll try remember them.
 
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Well worth it. A great selection.

To answer life’s biggest mystery. Is it better to run drunk or run hungover.

The answer is hungover. Just went for a mile at midnight after 2 bottles of red wine, some beers and a negroni cocktail.

Felt bloody awful but my virtual running club promised a special prize for anyone clocking up at 12:01 run.

Not sure hill reps were the ideal choice though!
 
1341 miles for me last year with a few hundred more from riding on Zwift. I just about did enough to get my 300km in December trophy.

Didn't get to Parkrun on the 24th but got to one on Xmas day and also today. As I've been plodding on most of my runs, I'm very happy to have got a very short 22 on Xmas day and a short 21 today. It did help that I was trying to keep up with a much younger and leaner work colleague!

Speaking of hangovers, Way (way!) back in my youth, I remember riding quite well in a cyclocross race while being hungover.

Still need to find something to enter this year!
 
Sounds like a very similar distance to me. That december trophy is impressive though. Mine was the opposite in that the year was hugely front loaded.

For a second i thought you meant short 22 and 21 mile runs. Was thinking they don't sound short! Clearly the xmas booze is still affecting my brain :(
 
With the way I run in the sun, I think my running year is always going to be "book ended".

Sorry, that's my old cycling TT speak confusing things! :o Which is odd as I hated them and hardly ever rode them myself. Worse than a Parkrun!
 
Yeah, mine was mainly Jan-March due to training for an Ultra and i was pretty good at getting 10-20 mile runs in each weekend. Then things went downhill, although had a couple 30-50 mile runs throughout the rest of the year which kept the later month averages high.

Confirmation i'm off to Spain in March for 3 months, the travel is going to coincide with the Spanish Ultra so that's likely to be cancelled. My wife doesn't see it as being important enough to arrange our plan to move around it! Probably for the best given my lack of running. I might see if i can arrive in Spain the day before and try and just do the marathon variant.
 
I think I am somewhere in your camp. I did quite a bit up to March and then almost nothing since then. Hoping to get back to it this year though.
 
I had a crap running year last year but was fairly consistent if nothing else, but didn't even start to nail any goals for getting faster. Illness wrote off my December too, missed the Ribble Valley 10k for the second year running for the same reason which is frustrating.

Bit disillusioned with running at the moment, I hoped to PB a marathon and 10k last year and did worse, only LL50 was a success. It doesn't help that my family don't really allow me time to do anything at the weekends because apparently everything revolves around me.

I'm only booked onto LL100 and Manchester Marathon this year. LL100 being the focus but I would love to find a marathon PB by April, if that's even possible by just running on a ~1hr dinner break only. Only advantage I have is I can smash out 900ft of elevation in under an hour where I a so that keeps the effort going.
 
That's tough @Dup, i'm lucky in that my wife is fairly understanding. Especially last year when i'd be out for 6-7hr runs twice a month at weekends! I guess it helps with me not having young kids. So as long as i get out at 6am and i'm home around 4-5pm then she's not too annoyed as long as it's not too often.
I'd like to try and nail morning runs. If i could find the motivation to get up twice a week for a 2hr run before work i'd be happy. Spain might help, as i'll likely stick to UK times, which means working 9:30-5:30. That gives a bit more time early on to get a run in.

This is where we're hoping to live, i worked out a route of around 12 miles and 2500ft ascent. Should be excellent practice for my longish runs :D
4YFFn5v.png
 
It doesn't help that my family don't really allow me time to do anything at the weekends because apparently everything revolves around me.
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I think that probably applies to a load of people. I know that is one of the reasons I can't do loads at weekends. My kids are 15 & 11, so I have a few more years before they all don't want to know me any more :-)
 
Ian_Eb said:
I think that probably applies to a load of people. I know that is one of the reasons I can't do loads at weekends. My kids are 15 & 11, so I have a few more years before they all don't want to know me any more :-)
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Surprised they're not already there :D
 
Martynt74 said:
That's tough @Dup, i'm lucky in that my wife is fairly understanding. Especially last year when i'd be out for 6-7hr runs twice a month at weekends! I guess it helps with me not having young kids. So as long as i get out at 6am and i'm home around 4-5pm then she's not too annoyed as long as it's not too often.
I'd like to try and nail morning runs. If i could find the motivation to get up twice a week for a 2hr run before work i'd be happy. Spain might help, as i'll likely stick to UK times, which means working 9:30-5:30. That gives a bit more time early on to get a run in.

This is where we're hoping to live, i worked out a route of around 12 miles and 2500ft ascent. Should be excellent practice for my longish runs :D
4YFFn5v.png
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Just a couple big runs a month would be enough for me. I'm working on just sticking a pin on the calendar and setting expectations for family stuff and my own time. She's just not one for parenting on her own. It's not a huge deal, I can run and do the events I want, I just want to be fitter and faster as fast is something I;ve never been. I have no idea how to train beyond just running through. Huge books and plans over face me. There should be a single A4 cheatsheet for running goals and how to train for them. I've spent 6/7 years winging it and been lucky.

That'd be a great training route. I think the Spanish heat would be too much for me, a run in July here is too tough. Although I'll never forget the Turkish guy running the LL50 in '21 who suggested 32C in humid Britain was worse than 40C back home.


Ian_Eb said:
I think that probably applies to a load of people. I know that is one of the reasons I can't do loads at weekends. My kids are 15 & 11, so I have a few more years before they all don't want to know me any more :)
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Yeah, you're right. I'm just having a whinge :D Got a 17 year old girl and 4 & 1 year old boys so they do require a lot of attention, but even a couple days a year feels like a huge ask. It's just bad planning an expectations on our part, which feels harder than running a marathon :D If I manage to finish and do a decent job of LL100 this year I'll likely tone down my distance running as it feels like a lot of pressure vs shorter training and events.
 
Dup said:
Just a couple big runs a month would be enough for me. I'm working on just sticking a pin on the calendar and setting expectations for family stuff and my own time. She's just not one for parenting on her own. It's not a huge deal, I can run and do the events I want, I just want to be fitter and faster as fast is something I;ve never been. I have no idea how to train beyond just running through. Huge books and plans over face me. There should be a single A4 cheatsheet for running goals and how to train for them. I've spent 6/7 years winging it and been lucky.

That'd be a great training route. I think the Spanish heat would be too much for me, a run in July here is too tough. Although I'll never forget the Turkish guy running the LL50 in '21 who suggested 32C in humid Britain was worse than 40C back home.



Yeah, you're right. I'm just having a whinge :D Got a 17 year old girl and 4 & 1 year old boys so they do require a lot of attention, but even a couple days a year feels like a huge ask. It's just bad planning an expectations on our part, which feels harder than running a marathon :D If I manage to finish and do a decent job of LL100 this year I'll likely tone down my distance running as it feels like a lot of pressure vs shorter training and events.
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To be fair, the fact you can attempt the 50/100 without much training is pretty incredible. My fitness falls apart with no long runs. As proven in some of my recent longer ones out of the blue. No way i could jump from doing 10 > 50 with a credible time.

Agree on the temperature/humidity. I've ran in 30C heat in Spain and whilst not easy, was nowhere near as bad as 30C in the UK. Hoping it accumlates me well and with some tough training whilst i'm over there and hopefully eating well i'll be in great shape for the 100 miler at the start of July.

That's if this stupid foot issue ever goes :(
 
ci_newman said:
So how far has everyone managed to run this year?

I've only clocked up 440km all year, but 2022 saw a return to running for me after a complete break in 2020 - 2021 due to injury.

Hoping to join another half in 2023, so hopefully an increase in my mileage to come :)
Click to expand...

I managed just over 1000km with around 25,000m ascent, but that was about half the distance I did the year before. Had way too many weeks and even months where I didn't run at all.

What's everyone's targets for this year?

For me I'm aiming for:

Good Year
- 1500km with around 40,000m ascent
- No weeks with zero distance

Great Year
- 2000km with over 50,000m ascent
- No weeks below 30k
- Bag some runs over 50km and 50 miles
 
Some good goals there. I like the minimum weekly distance aims.

For me i'm going to repeat my 2022 goals. 1500 miles and 150,000ft ascent, so fairly similar to you @div0. I was well on track for 10 months of the year so hopefully can avoid injury stopping me too much. The other big one for me is dropping off big time after a long event and then not doing enough medium distance stuff. Too many times in 2022 i'd do an Ultra, but then only do 4-5 mile runs for the next month. Really want to say at least a 10 mile run within 2 weeks of an "event"
 
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