This thread shall be THE RUNNING THREAD!!!

[sunvalleylaw]

Well, without having read the Galloway book yet, but with some motivation last night, I went on my normal couple/few mile trail and road route I have been walking, and started adding running to it, maybe run a minute or so, walk a minute or so. I kept the running to mostly the flat or uphill as my back does not like downhill running that much yet. It felt pretty good!, and got my heart rate up faster and more than when I am walking, even briskly, without any running. I have run in the past with a sprinter's or mid-distance runner's style, with higher knees and more arm motion than is truly efficient for distance running. so I tried to run with less effort most of the time, though after I warmed up I tried a few strides here and there of stretching it out with some "form running" with higher knees, more directed arms for fun to notice the difference.

As I get back into running, I will enjoy that style once is a while and in measure, but it felt pretty good just to run along like a distance runner without all that muss and fuss, and extra impact, etc. of my other style. It feels more sustainable. So cool! Maybe I can do some of this again!

 

[Denverdave]

The Galloway method is a great way to ease into running slowly. Makes the transition a lot more tolerable. There is a lady who is part of our Saturday running group who is a long time avid Galloway Method runner. She is in her late 50s (I think) and has run over 200 marathons. Never gets hurt.

 

[irishstu]

I think the best way for you to tell if you're getting faster is to just stick with the tradmill. As Denver Dave said - there's a lot of things that can affect your times on a treadmill but if you're using the same one then at least you get a baseline to see how you're doing.

Got my next obstacle race on Sunday. a 10k through the very pretty and steep streets of Edinburgh's Old Town. It's supposed to be teeming down too which I kind of like the idea of as it'll make it a tougher challenge. 5 of us did it last year, this year it's just little old me

Hmm... I'll check out your video when I'm not at work (blocked here ).

But running through the Old Town? Wowser. I'm going to guess some of that's on cobblestones too. Hope it isn't wet. Still, I'd quite welcome the opportunity to run through there. It's pretty much impossible usually (car/foot traffic).

Wait, when you say "obstacle" do you really mean that? Is some of this up Arthur' Seat?

 

[jbj]

You start on the Royal Mile just outside the Kirk and head down it.

Shoot a left down one of the closes (plenty of steps) and out at the station. You make your way round the back of that, up Jacob's Ladder and through whatever that park is called up towards Arthur's Seat.

You don't go up it itself but there's a really steep climb up to the back end of the Old Town where you make your way back up to the High Street, down through the Cow Gate, round the back fo the Castle and finish running through Princess Gardens.

Obstacles as in stuff you need to climb over, scramble under, carry, power through and so on. Great fun. Shame about all the running you need to do alongside that stuff

This kind of stuff is my bag just now. I'm already waiting for next year's Tough Mudder to open for registration and I spanked a 20 miler down South in May. My next new running challenge is the Berlin marathon if I make it through the lottery but that's really just so I can say I've done a marathon - I much prefer stuff like this where being a skelf isn't an advantage when competing.

 

[2manband]

Did another 4 miler yesterday - I still haven't timed myself but I can tell that I'm running faster and with less effort now that I've been taking it more seriously for the last few weeks. I've gotten pretty comfortable with my pace on the 4 milers, so I'm gonna start doing 5's next week.

I'm thinking about doing a 10K in the spring. I'm pretty confident that I could go out and finish a 10K tomorrow, but I want to be competitive (at least in my age group - I realize I'm probably never going to win any overall medals). I figure that if I run hard 4x per week in the 5-6 mile range through the fall and winter, that should get me there.

On a side note - I was a regular cigarette smoker up until about 3 years ago, but even after "quitting" I would still indulge in 2 or 3 per week if I was, say, having a drink with a smoker friend. A few weeks ago, when I decided to get serious about running again, I swore that off 100% as I thought it was probably slowing me down (in addition to being generally bad for my health). Seems I was right - I've been able to pick up speed faster than ever before.

 

[Denverdave]

Did another 4 miler yesterday - I still haven't timed myself but I can tell that I'm running faster and with less effort now that I've been taking it more seriously for the last few weeks. I've gotten pretty comfortable with my pace on the 4 milers, so I'm gonna start doing 5's next week.

I'm thinking about doing a 10K in the spring. I'm pretty confident that I could go out and finish a 10K tomorrow, but I want to be competitive (at least in my age group - I realize I'm probably never going to win any overall medals). I figure that if I run hard 4x per week in the 5-6 mile range through the fall and winter, that should get me there.

On a side note - I was a regular cigarette smoker up until about 3 years ago, but even after "quitting" I would still indulge in 2 or 3 per week if I was, say, having a drink with a smoker friend. A few weeks ago, when I decided to get serious about running again, I swore that off 100% as I thought it was probably slowing me down (in addition to being generally bad for my health). Seems I was right - I've been able to pick up speed faster than ever before.

To help out with the 10K thing.....as you are building up to race day start to throw in some long, slow runs. Maybe one per week at about 8 - 10 miles, and don't worry about the pace at all except to not push it at all. That will really help out - especially in the lat mile of the race. I do my long runs at no faster than 9:30 per mile. I am considering doing my first marathon next spring. Still not sure about doing that distance....that is a LOT of training time. 20 mile training runs.

 

[2manband]

To help out with the 10K thing.....as you are building up to race day start to throw in some long, slow runs. Maybe one per week at about 8 - 10 miles, and don't worry about the pace at all except to not push it at all. That will really help out - especially in the lat mile of the race. I do my long runs at no faster than 9:30 per mile. I am considering doing my first marathon next spring. Still not sure about doing that distance....that is a LOT of training time. 20 mile training runs.

Will do - that should be good for the spring, when I'll be wanting to get out and do some longer runs anyway.

 

[jbj]

So I did my 10k obstacle race yesterday after getting in from Saturday's gig at 4am and waking at 8 to head through for it.

My official time is 5 minutes slower than last year but I'm chalking that up to the amount of zumba mum gangs and running clubs clogging up the obstacles. I was aiming to do it in under an hour (last year I did 1:10 and I'm considerably fitter cardio wise this year) but was held up for several minutes within the first coupla hundred yards in a bottle neck into a close.

- Lot's of parts of the course where you were slowed down to a walk because of people who couldn't hack it. Particularly on a 200+ step set of stairs that I made it up without stopping last year and a muddy uphill stretch which is a place to slow the pace and catch your breath but not shuffle along as if you're on a death march.

And that's before you start talking about getting stuck behind these folk on the actual obstacles themselves.

I might sound bitter and I am happy to see folk get involved in stuff like this and fitness in general but these things do take a fair amount of training - doing a zumba or salsa class isn't going to cut it and if anything, being a good runner is only going to mean you're really not suited for most of the obstacles that require a fair bit of core and upper body strength.

Apart from that the organisation was piss poor - no changing facilities for a start!!! and this is from a well established national company that does dozens of large events per year and this particular format in 5 or 6 cities... Next year I'm just going to rock up to the start pen without paying because I feel like every time I enter one of their events they squeeze as much out of you as possible whilst giving as little as possible back - they did manage to find plenty of space for merch, food and bar tents whilst we wandered around looking for somewhere to change and dry in private.

It's a shame because I had a really good race but it's been tarnished somewhere and although it's hard to say if I'd have made my 1 hour target without the bottle necks - I do think they added at least 10 minutes to my time.

Will hopefully find out by the end of the week if I've made the Berlin marathon lottery :d

 

[Denverdave]

I've been in a few races where the organization sucked and it is no fun. good luck getting into Berlin!

 

[jbj]

For £50-60 I'd expect at least a gazebo with sides to get changed in. Bearing in mind this is in the middle of Edinburgh City Centre and you get very wet and fairly dirty - you can't send a couple of thousand racers away to the train, bus or their cars in that state. I ended up going into a pub's toilets to get changed.

 

[2manband]

My official time is 5 minutes slower than last year but I'm chalking that up to the amount of zumba mum gangs and running clubs clogging up the obstacles. I was aiming to do it in under an hour (last year I did 1:10 and I'm considerably fitter cardio wise this year) but was held up for several minutes within the first coupla hundred yards in a bottle neck into a close.

- Lot's of parts of the course where you were slowed down to a walk because of people who couldn't hack it. Particularly on a 200+ step set of stairs that I made it up without stopping last year and a muddy uphill stretch which is a place to slow the pace and catch your breath but not shuffle along as if you're on a death march.

It's always tricky deciding where to line up before the race. I like to start toward the front, but not at the very front. Maybe 25% of the way back through the pack.

I've made the mistake before of starting too far back, only to have bunch of zumba moms impede my progress.

 

[jbj]

With this I really don't think starting position would have mattered (there were dozens of waves so the packs you set off in were quite small and I was maybe 15 feet from the start line when I kicked off and it was still a nightmare making my way through. If I'd known they would get bunched up going into the first close I'd have saved a few minutes but from the rest of the time it was pretty much a stream of folk clogging up the course.

One thing I was conscious of was that I took over ALOT more people than overtook me whereas last year I probably got taken over more so I know I was running at a decent lick.

 

[2manband]

With this I really don't think starting position would have mattered (there were dozens of waves so the packs you set off in were quite small and I was maybe 15 feet from the start line when I kicked off and it was still a nightmare making my way through. If I'd known they would get bunched up going into the first close I'd have saved a few minutes but from the rest of the time it was pretty much a stream of folk clogging up the course.

One thing I was conscious of was that I took over ALOT more people than overtook me whereas last year I probably got taken over more so I know I was running at a decent lick.

Hmmm....I've never run a race that started in waves. Did they encourage the faster folks to go in the first waves, or was it just a free for all?

In other news - I clicked off a nice 5.4 miler yesterday. I should be up to running 10k's regularly in another week or two. About 2 months from now would be perfect for me to do a 10k race, but everything's pretty well winding down this time of year. I'm hoping that I can keep the motivation up and keep hitting it hard through the winter, and race a 10k in the spring. But it gets awfully hard to find time to run when it's dark before work, and dark after work.

Fjooking winter. :-\

 

[jbj]

Nah. The minimum wage hi-viz gang they'd hired to man the start line were too busy on their phones to notice me jumping the barrier to enter the wrong wave never mind use some common sense to organise the order of folk leaving the wave.

 

[Denverdave]

At about half of the races I run they ask the slower runners to line up in the back. Repeatedly. And they ignore it. You have people lining up in the first couple of rows who sprint out the first 1/4 mile and are slowly jogging and/or walking by the 1/2 mile mark making everyone else weave around them. It especially pisses me off when they start walking three and four abreast and taking up about 90% of the width, making it hard to go around them. I'm in a race this weekend that has a LOT of kids running and they all like to start way up front . Last year I ended up running about 3.25 miles on a 3.1 mile course (5K) just due to all the weaving in the first mile.

 

[Denverdave]

Well - this weekend I will be running my 'anniversary' 5k. In 2009 I came away from a physical with elevated cholesterol levels so I decided to get off my butt and start exercising. I had done nothing for years and really had not run much since high school. I started walking around a small lake by our house (1.4 miles around). Then I decided to enter this 5K race because it benefited our kids school district. I ran/walked it the first year with literally no training. The next year I had done a bit of running/walking and was in a bit better shape. Every year I have bettered my previous years time - even though I get older and at my age that does begin to effect your times. I don't think this year I will top last years 5K time since this summer has not been a good one for running for me. The trail running group I run with switched their runs to a day I cannot make it to, and #1 daughters stuff wiped out being able to do the speed workouts with a group on Wednesday evenings. It has been very frustrating for me. Anyways - here are my times from the past four races.

2009 - 338
2010 - 27:49
2011 - 23:53
2012 - 22:57
2013 - ??

Actually - this race last year was the last time I broke the 230 mark in a 5K. My fastest 5K time this year was 235 - and that was back in May. My 5k PR is 22:51 back in June 2012. I really don't think there is any way I break even 230 this year. I am actually getting to the point where I prefer to run 10K races vs 5K races. The 5K's are such lung busters.

 

[Denverdave]

Ran the 5K yesterday morning. I was hoping for a better finishing time, but that did not happen. Beautiful weather for the race though. Decent.

BUT - Saturday evening I went to the race website to double check the starting time and looked at the course map. The course is actually 3.15 miles - not a true 5K. That is a small difference - but it means that my time last year (22:57), which was only 6 seconds off my 5K PR, actually was a PR time. Taking my average race pace and subtracting the .05K would have me finish in about 22:35 give or take a few seconds. My PR is 22:51. This year I finished in 23:17 - which would be just below 230 at the 5K length. I won't claim those as official times, but nice to know I did in fact finally nail a better 5K time last year and the one I ran Sunday was another sub 230. I ended up 5th in my age class. Last year I was 4th, but the race was bigger this year and I was a good 30 seconds behind the 4th place guy. 5th is not a bad finish out of 50 runners in my age group.

 

[2manband]

Ran the 5K yesterday morning. I was hoping for a better finishing time, but that did not happen. Beautiful weather for the race though. Decent.

BUT - Saturday evening I went to the race website to double check the starting time and looked at the course map. The course is actually 3.15 miles - not a true 5K. That is a small difference - but it means that my time last year (22:57), which was only 6 seconds off my 5K PR, actually was a PR time. Taking my average race pace and subtracting the .05K would have me finish in about 22:35 give or take a few seconds. My PR is 22:51. This year I finished in 23:17 - which would be just below 230 at the 5K length. I won't claim those as official times, but nice to know I did in fact finally nail a better 5K time last year and the one I ran Sunday was another sub 230. I ended up 5th in my age class. Last year I was 4th, but the race was bigger this year and I was a good 30 seconds behind the 4th place guy. 5th is not a bad finish out of 50 runners in my age group.

Nice work Dave. It's always suprising to me how variable "5K" race courses are.

I don't have much time for a longer run today, but I should be able to get a quick 5k in. I'm gonna take my watch for the first time in a few months to see how I'm doing.

 

[Prages]

Nice. As was mentioned in The Lounge, Mrs. P and I got free last minute registration and amenities for some runs this weekend. We are both way off our game due to lack of training, but free is free.

Saturday was a 26 mile trail run with the option of dropping at mile 8, 18, or 22. We stuck together and mainly just hiked the course for 18 miles. I think it took us about 4 1/2 hours for that.

Sunday was a 15.75 course with the option to drop at 7. We stuck together for 7. Mrs. P dropped there, but I decided to keep going.

Again, it was a trail run that dropped to the bottom of the New River Gorge and then climbed back up in the first 7 miles. We got to mile 7 at 1:52. I did the last 8.75 alone and my total time for 15.75 was 3:20 or something. The second half of that course was mostly paved road though, but it did drop back about 1/3 of the way into the gorge and back to the top.

I was pretty happy that most of my second half miles that were not steep uphills were at 9-10 minute paces.

My legs aren't real happy with me today, though.

Sent from The Restaurant at the End of the Universe.

 

[Denverdave]

Nice work Dave. It's always suprising to me how variable "5K" race courses are.

I don't have much time for a longer run today, but I should be able to get a quick 5k in. I'm gonna take my watch for the first time in a few months to see how I'm doing.

I remember looking at my watch last year and seeing 3.17 miles at the finish - but I attributed that to starting too far back and having to do a lot of weaving do to a large number of runners in this particular race starting way up front - sprinting the first 1/4 - 1/2 mile - then slowing down or walking.