January 2019 Monthly Running Challenge
Replies
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@martaindale I don't plan routes through Strava, but if it's anything like Garmin, then you may find the issue is with routing. Sometimes when I click on the map to create the next waypoint, the route will double back on itself as it backtracks a trail to get to a road for instance, and if I don't catch it, I end up with added distance that I'm not actually going to run. One way to check this is to switch on the mile markers, and eyeball the route to make sure that the mile markers look somewhat evenly placed. If one or more looks short, the route has probably doubled back over itself.6
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@martaindale Do you have auto pause turned on? I don't use Strava but have heard others say that it tends to pause sometimes when it shouldn't.0
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Wait, what, do we actually have another Australian in here after all these years?
(I'm 25 pages behind!!!)
Jan 01 – 10.8 km inc parkrun 29:23
Jan 05 – 05.0 km parkrun 29:08
Upcoming:
Jan 06 – Surf to Surf 10 km
Jan Goal:
Ease out of my downtime and run a HM, or a 30 km would be nice (Last HM was Dec 2, last 30ish was 11 Nov).
@Orphia you sure do 😀. One older female introverted slow turtle runner from the Barossa Valley at your service!6 -
1.1.19: 10.5 @ 9:31/M (10.5) Long Run
1.3.19: 4.5 @ 8:39/M (15) Pace Run
1.4.19: 5.0 @ 9:18/M (20) Easy Run
Goal is: 112.5 miles and a 5.5M run in 46:45 (8:30 Pace).
Flew an 11 hour flight last night so my run today was only on 3 hours of interrupted sleep. The gym felt like it was 100 degrees so my Easy Run was not really that easy. I’ve been also running a calorie deficit to drop some weight and I’m feeling that in my Pace Runs. I don’t think it’s an over training issue but an under fueling issue which I assume will go away once I come out of a deficit. And I have a lot going on personally right now so I’m nauseas a lot and anxious.
I did however figure out that I need to tighten my FitBit when running to get a more accurate heart rate. It has been registering over 200bpm at times and when I tighten it, it’s reading closer to 160-170 which is probably more accurate.
I am looking forward to tomorrow’s scheduled rest day.7 -
0105-10.4k total-15.9k, goal-100k
Great day for a run. It was -4C (24F), cloudy and dry. First double digit run in a while. Felt good enough to pick up the pace from 5-8km.
Ever since I started training with a coach to fix my form, I've become conscious of changes happening when I'm running. At first, it was a strong feeling that it did not feel much more tiring to go fast than to go slow. Recently during tempo runs, it feels like I'm constantly pushing against the upward threshold of my cardio fitness, if that makes any sense.
A year or so ago, a guest coach at our run club told me, if you can fix your form, you could probably break 4 hours easily. Hmmm.
Upcoming races:
04.15 Beijing International Running Festival (HM) (registration not open yet)
05.13 Beijing Tongzhou Half Marathon (registration not open yet)7 -
PastorVincent wrote: »If you want to ACCURATELY know your heart zones, you will need a lab and like $100 or $200 dollars, something like that. There are sports medicine places that will give you a full workup, including VOMax and so on. I am skeptical at the use case, but if I wanted to know accurately I would do that.
The fat calories I couldn't give two kittens about (unless I'm trying to reduce body fat percentage), but the carb calories is extremely useful for endurance events. If you know approximately how many carb calories you expect to burn per hour, you can then figure out theoretically how long you should be able to maintain a given level of effort before burning through 2000 carb calories (and start hitting "the wall"). To me, that's valuable info to have for setting realistic expectations for a marathon or beyond.
@garygse I agree with what you're saying, and I'm an avid HR watcher, but let me present a different perspective.
When I ran my marathon I spent quite some time figuring out energy expenditures, and how much would come from glycogen and how much from fat, then using my estimated pace and burn and all that I figured how how much carb calories I needed during my run.
It was only afterwards, while planning ahead for my first 50k that I realized I had no need to calculate all that. I know through training that I can put down 300 carb calories per hour. If I do that during a marathon, I'm replacing glycogen at the highest rate possible anyway.
And to @PastorVincent point, there is not always a direct correlation between HR and perceived effort. Perceived effort for a given pace, or HR, can change due to sickness, fatigue, and even temperature. For a long run I'll usually go with perceived effort (conversational pace) with HR as a check, but for tempo runs and races I want my HR data. Yes, HR is reactive so it's not going to help for sprints, hill repeats or intervals but it's a great for runs of even somewhat consistent effort such as tempo runs, long runs and any race from 5k on up. There are many ways to skin that cat.
You certainly don't need to track HR data to run but it sure is a great tool if one wants to use it.Today was my tempo run. Had a goal of 800m x 4 at 9:30 pace.
@runsonespresso aren't tempo runs done at a consist pace throughout the run? 800m x 4 to me looks like intervals.6 -
Ha @7lenny7!
Ias I read your post after I posted mine you reminded me about how much heat can impact your HR (mine is much higher when it is hot out) and I have used it successfully in races where I have not looked at pace but run to keep my HR in a specific range for xx miles and then allowed it to go higher as I headed for the last few miles into the finish.4 -
Ha @7lenny7!
Ias I read your post after I posted mine you reminded me about how much heat can impact your HR (mine is much higher when it is hot out) and I have used it successfully in races where I have not looked at pace but run to keep my HR in a specific range for xx miles and then allowed it to go higher as I headed for the last few miles into the finish.
@shanaber that's exactly what I do. When I was a new runner none of the HR data meant much to me but over time I was able to understand what I was looking at and how my HR reacted to different paces and conditions. I now know what HR to target for different races. 172 for a 5k, 162 to 165 for an HM, 145 or under for a 50k. If I were to race these distances more often I probably wouldn't need to rely on HR data as much but it works very well for me.
Your advice to track HR now to look for trends later is spot on.3 -
January Goal: Do more than last month
1/1 1.25
1/2 2.20
1/3 rest
1/4 carb loading dinner ....with @elise4270 and Eric! (and the rest of our team which will run the Hilo to Volcano Ultra Relay tomorrow to remember Dennis (@keeprunningfatboy).....which is the name of our team: Keep Running Fat Boy! (I promise pics tomorrow.....)
Total: 3.45
Upcoming races:
January 4, 2019 Hilo to Volcano Ultra 50k Relay. In memory of @keeprunningfatboy
Ticker is my goal for 2019 and progress to date:
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January Goal: Do more than last month
1/1 1.25
1/2 2.20
1/3 rest
1/4 carb loading dinner ....with @elise4270 and Eric! (and the rest of our team which will run the Hilo to Volcano Ultra Relay tomorrow to remember Dennis (@keeprunningfatboy).....which is the name of our team: Keep Running Fat Boy! (I promise pics tomorrow.....)
Total: 3.45
Upcoming races:
January 4, 2019 Hilo to Volcano Ultra 50k Relay. In memory of @keeprunningfatboy
Ticker is my goal for 2018 and (obviously deficient) progress to date:
Dinner was great! Poor Eric is struggling, He needs a rest. Ill have him caffeinated and there bright and early for his leg, er legs' leg?! We got a hotel cookie on top of that amazing homemade butter pecan ice cream.
Loved the group! They are all such awesome folks!
ETA i like @HonuNui better than the rest of yall now. She had awesome eats and hospitality! Hahaha!
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Wait, what, do we actually have another Australian in here after all these years?
(I'm 25 pages behind!!!)
Jan 01 – 10.8 km inc parkrun 29:23
Jan 05 – 05.0 km parkrun 29:08
Upcoming:
Jan 06 – Surf to Surf 10 km
Jan Goal:
Ease out of my downtime and run a HM, or a 30 km would be nice (Last HM was Dec 2, last 30ish was 11 Nov).
@orphia you are no longer outnumbered by us (2) kiwis! Let the trans tasman battle commence!8 -
I just realised I didn't update today!
I did Parkrun this morning, and walked to the start line, about 1.5k. So jogged 1k as a warmup. Then did the 5k, very nice run. I came 4/17 in my age group and 19th woman of 122!! And came 114/284 runners so I'm pretty stoked with those results! Not bad for a slightly overweight chick! Shows physique isn't everything! Lol.
Then, because today was day one of the Greatest Virtual Run (a NZ virtual running group that do monthly challenges) January challenge, I did a 100m sprint (it's a set of running challenges loosely based on a decathlon). I did it in 22 seconds! No challenge to Mr Bolt but not bad lol.
Then I ate my weight in sugar. Carb loading for a 10k tomorrow maybe? Been a while (about a month) since my last 10k...
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Catching up with the thread.@almostsuperpowered I like running with headphones but mine tend to freeze. Either that or the cord headphone adaptor on my stupid modern phone is broken (but I don't have problems indoors with it). Or my phone is freezing. It's very frustrating. So last winter I learned to run without music. Now it depends on my mood. Of course I wanted to run with music yesterday and it wouldn't work.
A sub-60 10K sounds like a great goal!
1/1 - run 21.1 km
1/2 - run 6.3 km @track
1/3 - rest
1/4 - run 8.5 km +weights&core
1/5 - run 5.4 km
Yesterday's early morning run was unsuccessful at breaking through the SAD despair; I got home thinking, "where are my endorphins?" and cried for no reason while taking off my shoes. Then I got ready to leave for a work weekend and sat by my light. While I was on the first leg of my trip, the sun came out and made a big difference in my mood. I'm feeling a lot better today. We've got wet snow and I snuck out for a run today before meetings, dodging the snowplows on the sidewalks It's pretty out there!
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Another 1.6 miles today, so that is 2.85/28 miles 😊7
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@7lenny7 You're right, I mistyped. It was intervals.3
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I had my first race of the year today, the QEOP 10km. The purpose of this race was to see exactly where I’m at. I was planning to go all-out and see exactly how far away from my PB I was, but on the way to the race, the negative voices set in - “You already know you’re crap, why race to prove that? Just go home.” I sat in the car for a long time in the car park deciding whether there was any point - “This is just going to be embarrassing, it’s going to hurt, why bother? Go back home, there’s no point in even trying.”
Somehow I got out of the car and walked to the race. I saw the other runners around me and felt a huge sense of imposter syndrome. I don’t know where this has come from all of a sudden, but I suddenly feel like a fraud - “Who am I to try and get GFA? Only real runners do that, you’re barely above average even when you try, what makes you think you can do that?”
Those negative voices are really a nightmare at the moment, so after getting my race number I decided just to run the race at an easy-tempo pace, grab my medal and get home ASAP.
I warmed up a bit and headed to the start line, hiding near the back as that’s as far as my confidence took me. I set my watch when I started the run and then turned off the screen. I chatted to people on the way round, shouted a big thank you to every marshal and generally enjoyed myself at a pace that felt at the top end of easy, not realising what pace I was actually doing. I refused to look at the race clock every time we ran round past the start again and just tried to enjoy myself.
So, what did I do today? I accidentally did something I never thought I would do - I ran an EASY sub-50. I was only 40seconds away from a PB, and yet it didn’t feel hard. This, more than a PB could, told those negative voices to shut up. Six months ago, I still struggled to do this; six months ago, I couldn’t run a sub-50 without a LOT of effort, let alone do it easy after a couple of lazy months.
It turns out that my fitness hasn’t been affected at all, the only thing that’s taken a beating is my mentality. If anything, that rest period has probably done me some good - My body must have needed the downtime.
We really are our own worst enemies aren’t we?
January Running Challenge
2nd - 4 miles
5th - 7 miles (0.8WU + 10km race)
Goal: 11/125 miles
Race Calendar
20th January - Windsor Winter HM
10th March - Grizzly 20mile
7th April - Manchester Marathon22 -
louubelle16 wrote: »It turns out that my fitness hasn’t been affected at all, the only thing that’s taken a beating is my mentality. If anything, that rest period has probably done me some good - My body must have needed the downtime.
We really are our own worst enemies aren’t we?
Yes, we are and we do not lose fitness anywhere near as fast as people fear. I mean many race plans have two and three-week tapers in them and yet I see people all the time that say "I have not run in a week, I am loosing so much ground."
Do not let gaps in training stop you from continuing.
Running is a mental sport as much as (if not more than) a physical one.
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Nice and easy recovery run today. HR was a little bit higher than I'd like (141 average, I'd have liked 136-138), but I'm still all sorts of phlegmy so I'll take it. Lots of other runners out today (even though it was gray and foggy and threatening rain), and all were friendly, doling out waves or good mornings or head nods. Now to run double the miles tomorrow for my long run!
January runs:
(12/31: NYE 4 mile race )
1/1: 8.2 trail miles
1/2: Rest day
1/3: 5 miles
1/4: 6.8 miles
1/5: 6 miles
January total miles: 26
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2019 Races
March 24: Caesar Rodney Half Marathon (Goal: PR)
April 7: Cherry Blossom 10 Miler (Goal: Sub-75)
April 28: New Jersey Marathon (Goal: BQ)
July 6: Finger Lake Fifties 50k (Goal: Finish)
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PastorVincent wrote: »If you want to ACCURATELY know your heart zones, you will need a lab and like $100 or $200 dollars, something like that. There are sports medicine places that will give you a full workup, including VOMax and so on. I am skeptical at the use case, but if I wanted to know accurately I would do that.
The fat calories I couldn't give two kittens about (unless I'm trying to reduce body fat percentage), but the carb calories is extremely useful for endurance events. If you know approximately how many carb calories you expect to burn per hour, you can then figure out theoretically how long you should be able to maintain a given level of effort before burning through 2000 carb calories (and start hitting "the wall"). To me, that's valuable info to have for setting realistic expectations for a marathon or beyond.
@garygse I agree with what you're saying, and I'm an avid HR watcher, but let me present a different perspective.
When I ran my marathon I spent quite some time figuring out energy expenditures, and how much would come from glycogen and how much from fat, then using my estimated pace and burn and all that I figured how how much carb calories I needed during my run.
It was only afterwards, while planning ahead for my first 50k that I realized I had no need to calculate all that. I know through training that I can put down 300 carb calories per hour. If I do that during a marathon, I'm replacing glycogen at the highest rate possible anyway.
And to @PastorVincent point, there is not always a direct correlation between HR and perceived effort. Perceived effort for a given pace, or HR, can change due to sickness, fatigue, and even temperature. For a long run I'll usually go with perceived effort (conversational pace) with HR as a check, but for tempo runs and races I want my HR data. Yes, HR is reactive so it's not going to help for sprints, hill repeats or intervals but it's a great for runs of even somewhat consistent effort such as tempo runs, long runs and any race from 5k on up. There are many ways to skin that cat.
You certainly don't need to track HR data to run but it sure is a great tool if one wants to use it.
There is a big difference in using HR while training (where this convo started) and using HR to evaluate training. If you account for all the variables (heat, sickness, and so on) HR can help you judge a work out post work out. It may even help you detect a heart issue. BUT HR is a reactive measure of what is going on and lags behind what you are actually doing. (See Matt Fitzgerald's 80/20 book for details)
So to be clear: Use heart rate monitor to record your HR data knowing it is best use is post run when you are evaluating your condition and plan. Or at least that is how I see it, but as I have said, I am not a doctor, just a random dude with a keyboard.3 -
1/1 – 0
1/2 – 4
1/3 – 0
1/4 – 4
8 of 60 miles
@juliet3455 thank you very much for your post. We have had the conversation where I explained everything you wrote, I know she just freaked out. Teenagers!
Thanks for the welcome back. I realized I didn’t update my run yesterday, I thought I did duh. I plan to run later today, it’s 34 now and it will be 55 later, so I’ll wait. Best of all the SUN is out!
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1/1 = 10 miles & FB Strong Day 1
1/2 = FB Strong Day 2
1/3 = 3 miles and FB Strong Day 3
1/4 = 18 miles
1/5 = FB Strong day 4
Status update: My everything hurts this morning. I think I need a rest day tomorrow. I don’t think my body is going to give me another option but - rest day.
January goal miles = 75 / Miles to date = 31
Upcoming Races:
1/26/19 = Miami Tropical 5K
1/27/19 = Miami Marathon
3/10/19 = ZOOMA half
4/6/19 = Wanderlust half
5/4/19 = Wisconsin Marathon (mittens challenge part 1)
5/5/19 = Kalamazoo Marathon (mittens challenge part 2)
Run the Year 2019. GO Team B! 1,550 yearly miles pledged. Join us : https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10710465/2019-run-the-year-group#latest11 -
Date :::: Miles :::: Cumulative
01/01/19 :::: 4.0 :::: 4.0
01/02/19 :::: 5.3 :::: 9.3
01/03/19 :::: 0.0 :::: 9.3
01/04/19 :::: 3.6 :::: 12.9
01/05/19 :::: 10.4 :::: 23.3
Back at the same park again for the third week in a row for long run this morning, which means a long climb up a big hill. Man, I'm tired of that hill. Coming down is a nice relief though and then we stayed flat around the lakes for the rest of it. First double digit run in months.
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1-1 Rest
1-2 7k intervals
1-3 7k easy
1-4 Rest
1-5 7k slow
January Total: 21k
January Goal: 100k
Next year when you pop in here claiming your December 2019 mileage, what accomplishments will you have made?
Run at least 4 5k races.
Get under 30:00 and a PR for 5k.
Average at least 135k per month, which would put me over 1,000 miles for the year.
Run the Year Team: Five for Nineteen.
Did 7k at a very slow pace today, as I did not want to run the risk of an illness relapse. Worked out OK.
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I'm counting this morning's walk as my cross training session, as we walked fast. Dogs present interesting challenges in keeping a consistent pace sometimes but they're still my best workout partners. Most of the time our walks are intervals of slow, really slow, stop, walk a decent pace, run... stop! Over and over again. Today we walked a decent pace to warm up, then fast, with only the occasional slow, fast, stop, fast intervals.
We walked 3.25 miles (5.2k) in 53 minutes, smiling the whole way, and singing occasionally just for fun. They flopped on the floor while I went through the Myrtl routine, wrestled a bit and then tried to help me stretch.
What a great start to the day!10 -
@garygse @rheddmobile Thanks for the suggestions. I'll check the autopause and take a look at my route. Maybe it did double back on me.
As my runs get longer I definitely need to figure something out for route planning. Most of my runs are in suburbia and all the roads look alike so it's hard to know what connects where!!3 -
zeesparrow wrote: »I'm counting this morning's walk as my cross training session, as we walked fast. Dogs present interesting challenges in keeping a consistent pace sometimes but they're still my best workout partners. Most of the time our walks are intervals of slow, really slow, stop, walk a decent pace, run... stop! Over and over again. Today we walked a decent pace to warm up, then fast, with only the occasional slow, fast, stop, fast intervals.
We walked 3.25 miles (5.2k) in 53 minutes, smiling the whole way, and singing occasionally just for fun. They flopped on the floor while I went through the Myrtl routine, wrestled a bit and then tried to help me stretch.
What a great start to the day!
🤣🤣 I can relate to this on so many levels, when my dog stops(which happens frequently) I will jog in place, catch my breath and keep going. I found it a great for interval training and when I started out running.3 -
newbie here
Jan 1 : 1.5 =1.5/30 miles, walking 5.6 miles (after run) note: run took 19.13 min
Jan 2: 3.02= 4.52/30 miles, walking 11.13 miles (after run): run took 37.02 min 👍improvment
Jan 3: rest day= 4.52/30 miles, walking 4.11 (after run) I think I pushed myself too hard too fast for a non seasoned new runner the day before. My legs were sore up until last night.
January 4: 1.91= 6.43/30 miles, walking 4.22 (after run): no time improvement8 -
1/1 5.55 miles, 26.44 miles (Total 31.99 miles)
1/2 13.25 miles
1/3 13.46 miles
1/4 13.77 miles, ugh raining
1/5 13.52 miles, 250 days on the run. Had a gout attack last evening, so did not get to run long today.7 -
abowersgirl wrote: »newbie here
Jan 1 : 1.5 =1.5/30 miles, walking 5.6 miles (after run) note: run took 19.13 min
Jan 2: 3.02= 4.52/30 miles, walking 11.13 miles (after run): run took 37.02 min 👍improvment
Jan 3: rest day= 4.52/30 miles, walking 4.11 (after run) I think I pushed myself too hard too fast for a non seasoned new runner the day before. My legs were sore up until last night.
January 4: 1.91= 6.43/30 miles, walking 4.22 (after run): no time improvement
3.02 is almost 5k, which is 3.1, so yes, a lot for a new runner! When you first start out adding mileage, don't worry about going fast. It's okay to be very slow, even slower than your walking pace for some people, as long as you are doing the gait of running. Speed will come naturally later!6
This discussion has been closed.
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