Taper vs. One Last Long Run

heybales wrote: »

autumnblade75 wrote: »

edited to add:
I'm impressed with myself for keeping it down to the level that I ran in training. I know that means I probably ran all my long runs too fast. I'm impressed with how even my pacing was. I never could have done that a year ago. I attribute it to spending all that time working on my cadence. And that got easy when I started editing all the music in my playlist to the same tempo.

Good job on HR, usually studies show by perceived effort that people go faster off-treadmill than on, with normal increase in HR and that means carb-burning as energy source increase too.
Which I'd wager is a major reason why so many hit the wall - excitement at the start with faster pace than intended being other reason.

That cadence aspect is so true, especially as getting tired and usually sloppy with form, usually at really the wrong time to do so.

What did you find that allows getting the tempo out of a song? I have a Windows program that samples the MP3's then writes it into the file tagging field for it. Sadly I have no player I use normally that reads or sorts by that field, so I have to make playlists to use just those songs.
I was surprised how few are in the right range of stuff I liked.

Thank you, about the HR. It would seem strange not to be impressed by the evenness of it, and the fact that it was so well-matched with what I had done in training. I have gone out much too quickly in other races, so I do recognize how easy that can be.

I use MixMeister BPM Analyzer to find the tempo, then Audacity to change it. Some things sound really strange at 170 BPM - Ministry's Just One Fix is probably the goofiest one that still works. Some songs have tempo changes that really confuse the Analyzer, and just don't work out in practice. I had to dump Kid Rock's American Badass for that. And a lot of 80's Hair Metal seems to be offbeat - Like, the verse of the song is sung on the beat, but the drummer is working the spaces between beats? That's really hit or miss. Motorhead's Ace of Spades does that, too. I don't want to drop it, but it makes it harder to run to.

stealthq wrote: »

autumnblade75 wrote: »

stealthq wrote: »

autumnblade75 wrote: »

MeanderingMammal wrote: »

autumnblade75 wrote: »

Or am I still missing some other point that you're trying to make? Please use small words. I'm not getting it.

You're fixated on your plan having not included a 26.2mi distance. The vast majority of plans top out at 20 miles and people successfully use them to prepare for marathons.

Meanwhile:

• The plan you chose wasn't appropriate to your ambition; a four hour plan with a five hour target is significantly different
• You didn't follow your plan, either pace or distance. I'll assume that as you were winging the plan you probably didn't do the runs in their intended sequence either.
• Your feeding plan was inadequate - This is a purely planning issue, rather than rehearsal. I take in about 200 cals per hour when I'm running long, on the basis that I'm burning c600 per hour. The only rehearsal I do is using the nutrition on a run to ensure I don't have an adverse reaction.
• You went out too fast - You ran faster than you had done in training, you recognised that and just went with it. If you'd slowed to your planned pace it's likely you would have completed as intended.

There are lots of lessons in there for you to learn from, or you could just continue to insist that you're a special snowflake and just winging your own plan that'll take you to 26.2mi in advance of your race is the way ahead.

With respect to using an Ultra plan, noting that the plan linked to above relates to a 50miler, paces are significantly different. My road marathon pace is 9:30/mi, my trail marathon pace is 10:30/mi, my planned 12 hour pace is 12:30-13/mi in the early stages and I'm fully anticipating that dropping to 15-16/mi later in the race.

Thank you for your input. Now I understand that you are of the belief that the training plan is the gospel. I have no desire to argue with you about that. I simply do not feel the same. As an exercise in data collection, I may decide to make a better attempt at plan selection and follow more closely.

You may hold the opinion that my fueling problem was due to poor planning. I will continue to maintain that a practice run would have highlighted the necessity of better planning quite nicely. Sometimes, I need to learn the hard way. I recognize this.

I did not run faster than I did in training. I made a note of how much my treadmill lies and carried on. To the level of my training. At which point I ran out of gas. We could argue all day about why that was, but I ran what I trained.

If you're already expecting to have to drop the pace by 2 minutes per mile in your 50 mile race, does that mean that you intend to go out too fast?

I suspect that you actually did run faster. I've seen several posts by runners who typically run on a treadmill switching to road running, and all of them complained that running at what was supposedly their pace on the treadmill seemed way too slow. Running at what they felt was their normal pace tired them out more quickly.

Conversely, I've tried to run on a treadmill after road running, and my treadmill pace is quite a bit slower than my road running pace.

There was a study done that showed the same phenomenon happens with other runners: ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22357398. Hardly conclusive evidence, of course, but it does indicate that you were not likely running at the same pace you were on the treadmill, no matter what it felt like to you.

That doesn't seem to be the same direction as I'm describing. When I run outdoors, trying to go nice and slow so that I can finish the 18 mile run, or this past Sunday, racing a marathon, 10:15 - 10:30 is what my GPS reports. If I tried to do 10:30 on my treadmill for 20 miles, I would fail. It is too fast.

Whatever anyone believes about how fast I was running - if I were truly running even 10 seconds faster per mile than I had in training, I am doubly impressed that I accomplished such even splits for the first 20 miles.

This is probably pointless since it's been so long, but the direction matches exactly. From your previous post:

autumnblade75 wrote: »

4:55:15

I was right where I expected to be, regardless of how much walking I did in the last hour and twenty minutes. My treadmill is not well-calibrated, and I have no true idea of my "easy" pace. I impressed myself with those first 20 miles, though. By effort, it felt like what I'd been doing on the treadmill, which the machine insists are 11 minute miles. GPS called them 10:15's.

Going only by how much effort you felt you were using, you were running slower on the treadmill than on the road. That's the same as the study indicates. Same as my own experience.

My 'average speed' runs if I'm well rested are around 9:30. On a treadmill it's more like 10:00+ if I go by how I feel. I am capable of running a < 8:00 mile on the road. On a treadmill, I'd be shooting off of the back of the machine if I tried to go that fast.

The study gives some hand-waving explanations like the road is more stable than the treadmill, etc, so therefore you can go faster. But, they also mention that cadence/turnover is faster on the treadmill at the same speed. I don't know about anyone else, but my HR is really affected by my cadence. I can run faster with a lower heart rate (i.e. less effort) if my cadence is slower.

I'm pretty sick of arguing how fast I was going. My cadence is definitely the same either way, as it's governed by my modded music.

Before my husband bought me a treadmill so that I'd stop dragging him to the gym, I always tried to use the same treadmill at the gym. They aren't all calibrated the same. That one seemed to match my outdoor pace the best. The one right next to it felt "easier" by about 45 seconds per mile. The one my husband bought felt harder from day one, but I didn't get to compare it directly to the gym's treadmill. I can definitely feel a difference if I try to bump the pace up or down by another 45 seconds per mile. I run most of my runs on the mill, so I think of my pace in terms of what it says on the screen. It's always nice to go outside and see how much faster the GPS calls it.

Since I'm short and my cadence is 170 bpm and I'm not really going all that fast, I don't have to shorten my stride to run on the treadmill comfortably. Sorry for all you long-legged guys who don't have that luxury. I'm sure that makes a difference.

Another factor is that the treadmill at it's 0 incline is still slightly uphill. I have played around with chocking the back end up with my aerobics step (but that gives me a downhill) and adding incline to get to a flat surface. I hadn't thought to compare running at "marathon pace" on that and seeing what it says. I'll have to give it a shot.

Comparable heart rate and steady for 3+ hours similar to training says "identical actual effort" to me, rather than "perceived effort" so I'm pretty happy with all aspects of the first 20 miles of my marathon. I also looked at a marathon pace prediction chart that said my performance in my last 5k didn't make a 4:30 marathon too crazy of a proposition. (My most recent race, tho, was an 8k, and if you put the numbers in the 5M box, 4:45 was more likely.) So, I'm really thinking this wasn't as much a pacing as a fueling issue. And I still think a full-length training run would have highlighted that for me, with time to make corrections.

I found a training plan that calls running the full distance in training "common-sense" which is more in line with my own philosophies. It should come in handy for next year's marathon, since there aren't any Fall marathons near me that I'd like to run. It isn't for any particular prescribed finish time, either, so there will be fewer undesirable modifications available to me, should I decide to not follow exactly. I'm already looking forward to it.

Edited for spelling mistakes.

heybales wrote: »

autumnblade75 wrote: »

heybales wrote: »

autumnblade75 wrote: »

edited to add:
I'm impressed with myself for keeping it down to the level that I ran in training. I know that means I probably ran all my long runs too fast. I'm impressed with how even my pacing was. I never could have done that a year ago. I attribute it to spending all that time working on my cadence. And that got easy when I started editing all the music in my playlist to the same tempo.

Good job on HR, usually studies show by perceived effort that people go faster off-treadmill than on, with normal increase in HR and that means carb-burning as energy source increase too.
Which I'd wager is a major reason why so many hit the wall - excitement at the start with faster pace than intended being other reason.

That cadence aspect is so true, especially as getting tired and usually sloppy with form, usually at really the wrong time to do so.

What did you find that allows getting the tempo out of a song? I have a Windows program that samples the MP3's then writes it into the file tagging field for it. Sadly I have no player I use normally that reads or sorts by that field, so I have to make playlists to use just those songs.
I was surprised how few are in the right range of stuff I liked.

Thank you, about the HR. It would seem strange not to be impressed by the evenness of it, and the fact that it was so well-matched with what I had done in training. I have gone out much too quickly in other races, so I do recognize how easy that can be.

I use MixMeister BPM Analyzer to find the tempo, then Audacity to change it. Some things sound really strange at 170 BPM - Ministry's Just One Fix is probably the goofiest one that still works. Some songs have tempo changes that really confuse the Analyzer, and just don't work out in practice. I had to dump Kid Rock's American Badass for that. And a lot of 80's Hair Metal seems to be offbeat - Like, the verse of the song is sung on the beat, but the drummer is working the spaces between beats? That's really hit or miss. Motorhead's Ace of Spades does that, too. I don't want to drop it, but it makes it harder to run to.

I use that MixMeister too, I have older version (noticed an update that removed some features) that writes the file tag.

I hadn't thought about tweaking some song speeds that were close to get them to 88-92. That would increase the amount of songs which would be great for treadmill. Barring them sounding too distorted.

As opposed to @stealthq - I found that around 180 turn-over to provide best efficiency at most speeds, slower purposeful jogging, to fast pace interval sprints.
I do tend to slow it down when tired, and may hold to almost same pace, but HR and form and tired muscles all suffer more then. But I think I'm going to revisit the form aspect when jogging slower, if longer strides slower cadence doesn't help keep form better.

I think that's where treadmill comes in great, even if not a pace that can translate to road, but at least the other stuff that can - if you can duplicate it.

I'm still working towards 180 bpm. In the beginning, it did seem more draining to run with quicker turnover, but it seems to come much more naturally, now. I did start at around 125-130, so it's a bit of improvement. I use Zombies, Run! (story segments interrupt the music) and it's like singing along with the radio when you go through a tunnel - so satisfying to match right back up with the song on the other side.

Are longer strides and slower cadence supposed to conserve form? I hadn't heard that.