Platypus' Beginners Guide to Running

6.4 miles today at 8:04/mi, was a little higher than I wanted at 157bpm but felt great and relaxed. Will start using the chest strap again as there were times it read 175 but I felt fine. Main point is I'm seeing the time come down along with a *mostly* right HR zone.

Good effort there DP, impressive 6 mile pace.
 
Itchytrigg said:
6.4 miles today at 8:04/mi, was a little higher than I wanted at 157bpm but felt great and relaxed. Will start using the chest strap again as there were times it read 175 but I felt fine. Main point is I'm seeing the time come down along with a *mostly* right HR zone.

Good effort there DP, impressive 6 mile pace.
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Running at the prescribed heart rates is really hard and soemthign I constantly have to fight, it is so much easier to run fast than slow! I can run at 8:00 pace and it feel fine and easy with a HR of about 153, and I can do 22miles like that. Over 10-12miles it feels easy and relaxing. But that is too fast for an easy pace where most of my running should be. Getting my HR to 145 requires a pace of 8:20-8:45 but to do that I constantly have to check my running watch, but in doing that there is no fade in the slightest over 12miles.

Today's run was 11.5miles 1:36:13 8:19/mi 450ft, HR 149
It was too fast though, I should have run about 8:30 and got a 145 HR. It all felt easy and it often felt stupid going up hills keeping my HR in check but I know if I just relaxed and ran without thinking I would clock up about 7:55 mile at 154HR. That in itself may not be a huge deal but tomorrow I want to do an interval work out and want fresh legs. My legs are reasonable but I think if I slowed down just a little today then tomorrow would be that much faster.


Temperature is also an important factor. Summer arrived and it was already near 20*C when I got out and I finished at about 23*C. Not too humid but I am sure that raised my heart rate as the same run a few weeks back was done 10s/mile faster at 145 vs 149 HR.



It was fun to get some fast miles done yesterday, and they went faster than expected which is a good sign. I might break 40:00 minutes at my 10k next month if I was to taper properly but I am more focused on the marathon. Plus I just don't know how to race such short distances, I try to keep my runs to 10 miles now! I might run to the start line actually as a warm up since I always run the first miles slow it would be weird jumping out at the start gun!
 
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Moved house and been ill, so first run last night from our new house. Gone from pavements and street lights to single track country lanes and pitch black. Alpkit Arc head torch was ideal, couple of Aldi LED armbands and a reflective running vest. Was enjoyable to run in proper darkness, though I'd imagine it's easy to get spooked if out on your own.
 
#Chri5# said:
Moved house and been ill, so first run last night from our new house. Gone from pavements and street lights to single track country lanes and pitch black. Alpkit Arc head torch was ideal, couple of Aldi LED armbands and a reflective running vest. Was enjoyable to run in proper darkness, though I'd imagine it's easy to get spooked if out on your own.
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Can't imagine running in darkness, but around here I would still be doing road running and would get hit by a car. Dangerous enough in the day time!
 
Got in a hard interval session: 8x860 with 430m recoveries. laps varied from 3:25 to 3:17 which wasn't bad but they all felt pretty horrible, not fully recovered from my Lactate threshold run form Monday probably but I had to squeeze this session due to my schedule over the week. Despite feeling horrible i was happy with the times.

I then did some Marathon Pace running to get the run to 13+ miles as a time trial. This was harder and slower than expected , it was very hot which didn't help, but overall a solid run
total stats are 13.5mi 1:40:29 7:24/mi, 420ft, HR 167

Out of that I had a half marathon time of about 1:37 which is not bad!


Anyway, easy running for the next 5 days, maybe just swimming tommorow
 
7.5 miles last night 8:11/mi, heart rate higher than wanted again but started off well with 150 for first 2 miles, then was sitting around 155-160. Ran mile 6 at 6:46 181bpm, then last 1.5 miles back to 8:40/mi, couldn't quite get the heart rate back under 165 though.

Even though higher than wanted, still feeling much more relaxed and comfortable during these runs than before. Just had my Reading 1/2 pack arrive, 3 weeks to go!
 
Wednesdays Intervals have screwed me I think.
Woke up yesterday stiff with a sore hip flexor so went swimming. I felt way better by the afternoon and wanted to get a run in knowing my weekend I probably can't run much at all. It was very hot, nearly 30*C and windy, hip flexor was sore and legs very fatigued so I did an easy run. i was going to stop at 5m but felt a bit better at the end. and did this:
8.9mi 1:15:56 8:32/mi HR 149

This morning I wanted to do another 20-22m run but after the first mile things began to hurt. Sometimes if you run slowly you recover after a few miles, I did yesterday, so I kept going. I kind of did recover but not fully. Stupidly I decided to push on slowly. it got mentally tough at the end (already 26*C at 10am didnt help) but the hip flexor wasn't too bad at this point, just a general fatigue knowing my muscles were spent from the intervals. The problem is now I can barely walk and my hip flexor causes stabbing pain.

Run was reasonable in the end but I might have paid a heavy price.
18.2mi 2:35:10 8:30/mi HR 151, 600ft


Some rest days needed. I hope this doesn't screw up my plans for next week (100miles). Not sure I will bother doing intervals again for this cycle, just too dangerous and the recovery time messes up with training.
 
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Parkrun today. It was a good effort, second best estimated 5k time according to strava. Not really the time I was going for but I guess it's to be expected when you have to rush there on the bike (Scotland's got the right of it, 9:30 is a much better time ;)). Also had a pretty full week. Turbo session and 7k run on Tuesday, 11k run on Thursday, 35k bike ride on Friday and probably an easy 16k tomorrow. I feel like on a good day, with plenty of recovery and better positioning and pacing, I could probably dip below 21 minutes on my current form.

Just getting my racing excuses in :p Probably won't have another crack at it for a while, going away for a couple of weeks and then I'll want to start concentrating on this half in April. Didn't really feel like I was going to throw up today though, skipped breakfast and just had a gel on the way. Seems like the way to go unless you can wake up 2-3 hours beforehand. Also, I've noticed that my inner cyclist breaks out when I'm running around others and I stick behind people as much as possible. Not sure how much of a difference it makes :D
 
DP hope the rest day sees you right again, you're getting a lot of good miles in

Permabanned, I find it helps in a race especially if they're around the pace you want. Then you have some one to chase for the Finnish too!

Nothing since Thursday for me, in London for the weekend so bad 9 miles walking Friday and 13 yesterday. Should hopefully be home for a long run this afternoon and off work tomorrow to for another.
 
some serious mileage going on - on this thread - I struggle to get between 30 and 40 in a week !

glad my runbritain handicap finally back to where it was 2 years ago, in fact my park-run yesterday (only 13 seconds away from my PB) took me just ahead of my best handicap.

I was down to a handicap of 12.8 - in Oct 15 - now back up to 5.6 :)

I was very happy with my park run time yesterday considering most of Feb I was't running because of my burn - thats now just about healed (other than maybe a perma scar) so I'm up to 31 miles this week so far :)
 
8.2 miles, 8:37/mi at 151. I think I cracked my pace based on HR at last!

Only 22 miles for the week but last 3 days also added about 26 from walking so still a little bit of tiredness in the legs. Plan is to hit at least 35 running next week with my long run at about 2 hours.
 
Did the Inverness half marathon today and finished in a chip time of 1:33:03 so quite pleased with that as a new PB and over 11 minutes better than I did in the same race last year. Mildly disappointed that I didn't manage to do under 1:33 when I was so close but this was always just a step towards the marathon rather than a speed goal in itself so it's something to aim for next time. Now I've got to start properly training for the Edinburgh marathon so I can do that distance again...
 
Another rest day, I could walk about the house in discomfort but felt slightly better than yesterday. So I end the week at 63 miles which is OK, lowest since start of year and it was meant to be a recovery week so not too bad. However. I wanted a bug we next wek, hit 100miles, I'll be happy with 10 miles at the end.


Itchy - that looks like a perfect pace-effort for regular runs. You then have easy runs that are ideally slightly slower, but then you can do some faster runs 1-2 times a week. Yiubshiuldbfind over a nodetate disgance that you arent really fatigued and fewl like you could go on and on. Recivery time should be minimal, a bit of food and water and should be rocking to go out again. You should find that as you get fitter that pace-effort gets faster.
 
semi-pro waster said:
Did the Inverness half marathon today and finished in a chip time of 1:33:03 so quite pleased with that as a new PB and over 11 minutes better than I did in the same race last year. Mildly disappointed that I didn't manage to do under 1:33 when I was so close but this was always just a step towards the marathon rather than a speed goal in itself so it's something to aim for next time. Now I've got to start properly training for the Edinburgh marathon so I can do that distance again...
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That's a great time. That is a huge improvement for a half so I wouldnt put your performance down. That's a very fast time.
 
During my run to work today a guy stopped me on the street and asked if I wanted his place in the London Marathon. (I clearly looked the part :D)

I was very tempted by his offer but decided it would probably hinder my Ironman training if I did a full marathon. I feel some regret at passing it up but I think it was the right choice.
 
Shamrock said:
During my run to work today a guy stopped me on the street and asked if I wanted his place in the London Marathon. (I clearly looked the part :D)

I was very tempted by his offer but decided it would probably hinder my Ironman training if I did a full marathon. I feel some regret at passing it up but I think it was the right choice.
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If you ran it slow-ish then it wouldn't be a big deal, the hard part would be constraining yourself to go slow.
 
club efforts tonight - 11 x 600 ms - shattered ! but fun :)

Just downloaded my run and pretty happy - including running to club and back home

8.5 miles average pace 6'55 :)
 
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