July (2016) Running Challenge

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  • FrankieandSpots
    FrankieandSpots Posts: 446 Member
    July 2nd - 8.5km (6:37 min/km... 162bpm)
    July 3rd - 3km (5:23min/km...180bpm)

    July 4th - .5km (actually 5x110m sprint, then walk back: fastest 3:11pace, slowest 3:25pace)
    July 6th - 4.5km (6:38min/km... 160bpm)
    July 7th - 8.5km (6:40 pace, 172bpm) Back at my hometown - along the ridge rd (Hilly)


    25/100km

    So much for keeping my HR down... first 4km had lots of uphills and I was wet and starting to get cold by the time I got to the flat and downhill bits; so I sped up a bit to keep warm (winter here).
  • Net1968
    Net1968 Posts: 47 Member
    @net1968 great pictures
    @kimlight2 congrats on the PR distance!!

    Thank you
  • Orphia
    Orphia Posts: 7,097 Member
    @lporter229 - Thanks, that was very insightful and helpful.

    Agreed!

    I'm only taking in part of the VO2 / LT discussion, as it's all a bit complex for my newbie brain. (Started running in September 2015 aged 48.)

    At present, I'm just trying to run 80% of my runs at easy pace, with my heartrate in the cardio zone (Fitbit) or endurance zone (Strava), around 140 bpm (RHR about 50).

    2 July – 5 km parkrun alongside my niece
    3 July – 10 km
    5 July – 10 km
    7 July – 10 km

    July Goal: 150 km (93 miles)
    Total: 35 km

    Both today's run and Tuesday's were 10km at an average of 6:37/km. Consistent, yeah!
  • sara_bear84
    sara_bear84 Posts: 65 Member
    7th July - 5km and another 30 seconds off my time! This challenge is really helping me push myself that bit further!


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    Races this year
    9th April - Spring Wolf Run
    12th June - Summer Wolf Run
    4th September - Autumn Wolf Run
    6th November - Winter Wolf Run

  • kristinegift
    kristinegift Posts: 2,406 Member
    7/1: Rest/moving day
    7/2: 8 miles
    7/3: 3 miles
    7/4: 5.8 miles
    7/5: 8 miles
    7/6: 5 miles
    7/7: 5.2 miles (am); group run tonight

    Another hot and humid one. Met with my Thursday tempo buddy at 6 am, and it was already 73F and 90% humidity, which is just crap for running if you ask me! Because I was sick until Monday/Tuesday and am still clearing my lungs, we didn't even plan to try to run fast, just went at a conversational pace which was nice, because with it being so hot/humid I doubt I could have run all that much faster anyway.

    Group run tonight and if it's not raining, it will be very hot (high 80s/low 90s) and likely very humid still. Not really looking forward to it; though a bunch of us are going to grab dinner/cold beverages afterward, and I AM looking forward to that! :) Just hoping that the weather breaks (unlikely) and that I feel good (more likely) for my race on Saturday!

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    Upcoming Races:
    7/9: Belmar 5 miler (Belmar, NJ)
    9/11: Lehigh Valley Via Marathon (Allentown, PA)
    11/20: Philadelphia Marathon (Philly, PA)


  • WhatMeRunning
    WhatMeRunning Posts: 3,538 Member
    edited July 2016
    For those following the VO2Max discussion, here is what I am taking from the book so far.

    1. There is clear evidence from "gold standard" longitudinal studies on aging athletes that a reduction in your "hard effort workouts" as you age (getting rid of the hard intervals) results in a significant drop in aerobic capacity decade over decade, while continuing to incorporate these results in much less pronounced drops in aerobic capacity decade over decade. A recurring saying comes up in the book "use it or lose it".
    2. People who exercise or keep running in their later years who only do LSD runs for their hard workouts will still be better off than anyone sedentary (duh) but are nowhere near as capable as they can be.

    There is still more to go, I am through Part 1 which talks about the science and the studies showing what happens as people age, and how various athletes are affected based on their lifestyles. I am into Part 2 which is getting into the meat of the concepts of what you can do to reduce and in some cases even reverse some of the effects aging has on your athletic ability. Part 3 gets into how to incorporate those concepts into training.

    So, to clarify since I have made some heads spin (unintentional):

    I was only asking first of all because my own head was spinning and I was curious if anyone here had any insights into this sort of thing, or even better any experience with it.

    There is no reason anyone should rethink their goals or strategies unless they feel they should. That said, anyone who is approaching the magical 50+ ages where people really take notice and change their lifestyles due to aging performance decline (a fair portion of it self-imposed it seems) would be well served to at least have knowledge of this information. That way they can decide on their own if they wish to leverage this information for their own health and in which way.

    For me personally I was keenly interested because I spent basically all of last year doing easy effort running to build up as much mileage as possible for my aspirations to run a bunch of half marathons in the spring and some full marathons in the fall. From what I have now learned while I clearly gained health benefits and aerobic endurance, by not exercising my aerobic capacity I left it free and clear to decline similarly to if I had been sedentary and did not activate that. I would not have really thought that before now. So I am healthier, and better off than had I been sedentary, but I could have done better. That's the whole deal right there. The thing that got me into running was to be healthier going into older ages since I had neglected so much of that in my younger years. So for me this gives me sights of the targets I can set to be as healthy as I can decade over decade. It will probably take me more time still to get as healthy as I can for my current age, but at least when I get there I can reduce the decline year after year that aging will have so I maintain myself the best I can manage.

    As for what might drive someone to maintain their aerobic capacity? I'm not sure I can answer that, and maybe further in the book I can offer some ideas. I suspect it is purely subjective. One thing is certain though, you will lose less performance and be even fitter if you maintain your aerobic capacity as you age. If you can not for any reason the next best thing is to exercise at or near lactate threshold for your hard workouts. If that is also unreasonable for whatever reason then you are still better off doing only easy and LSD runs than simply stopping altogether (duh). The real question seems to be; What is the reason you can't do the higher level workouts, and is it a legitimate reason or an excuse? If it is an excuse, should you let that excuse be your limiter?

    I'll try and stop spamming this thread further about it until I finish it, but am happy to answer any questions. Honestly, I think anyone approaching 50 or wondering how they can reach that age as strong as possible would be well served to read this book: Joe Friel's "Fast After 50". Or at least browse his blog as it has a lot of the info in this book. Apparently the book sprung out of his blog posts due to his approaching 70th birthday that were his own insights into newer research on aging for athletes since a book he wrote in the 90's about it as well. So a lot of the concepts and study references are on the blog.
  • Stoshew71
    Stoshew71 Posts: 6,553 Member
    edited July 2016
    Date Miles today. Miles for July
    7/1 3.1 miles - 3.1
    7/2 14 miles - 17.1
    7/3 REST DAY
    7/4 9 miles - 26.1
    7/5 9 miles - 35.1
    7/5 6.2 miles - 41.3
    7/6 6.2 miles - 47.5
    7/7 8.25 miles - 55.75

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    Upcoming races:
    UAH 8K - 3/6 <<< 34:33 3 in AG
    Oak Barrel HM - 4/2 <<<< 1:38:00 3 in AG
    Bridge Street HM - 4/10 <<< 1:36:33 3 in AG
    PEO-AVN Team Day 5K - 5/4 <<< 19:10 (2.9 mi) 1 in AG 5 OA
    Cotton Row Run 10K - 5/30 << 44:57 PR
    Firecracker Chase 10.2 miler 6/25 << 1:20:22 1 in AG & 15 OA
    Rocket City Marathon - 12/10

    This morning's run just seemed so aweful, I have to admit. The break in the weather last week was short lived and it's back to the hot and humid. Barely pushed out 8.25. There's a pub run tonight that I am planning on attending. Actually, it's at the local Fleet Feet this week and they are bringing over a keg from Blue Pants Brewery (I believe that is how it works). While I am there, I may just claim my gift card that I won for getting 1st in my AG at my race from 2 weekends ago. I am not even sure how much it is for. Most likely between $15-25.
  • gkingbr
    gkingbr Posts: 292 Member
    7/1 – 6.2
    7/2 – 5.5
    7/3 – 4.12
    7/4 – 6.6
    7/5 - 8.82
    7/6 - 8.85


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  • DayLi77
    DayLi77 Posts: 655 Member
    7/2....2.01 miles walk/run on treadmill
    7/4....2.7 miles walk/run in park
    7/6....2.5 miles walk/ run on treadmill

    Goal: 35 + 2 for Black Toe Month
    7.21 Done, 29.79 to go
  • Tweaking_Time
    Tweaking_Time Posts: 733 Member
    edited July 2016
    I should have posted this last night but forgot. We had a ton of rain this past few days after weeks of drought, there were literally 100's and 100's of yards of these plants that have popped up next to the running trail.

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  • moxiept
    moxiept Posts: 200 Member
    Moving along...


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  • lporter229
    lporter229 Posts: 4,907 Member
    @ceciliaslater -Woo hoo for you. Glad you are getting back at it!
    @kimlight2 -Congrats on the distance PR...great job!
    @ Skippygirlsmom - That is soo true
    @WhatMeRunning - All of that is great info. I will probably end up buying a copy of that book. In your post you said that you could have been better served this past year by focusing less on LSD miles and incorporating more speed work. I think the opposite is true. I think you served yourself well by working on building that solid foundation because now you are in a prime position to push yourself and really get the most out of that speed work with less risk of injury. That is one of the main points of the 80/20 plan. It's quite important to have that solid foundation because you really need to maximize your effort to get the optimal benefit when training in that upper zone. You can only do this when you have built a solid foundation. Otherwise, even though your effort may seem hard, your performance will not be as solid.
  • mbaker566
    mbaker566 Posts: 11,233 Member
    July
    1-4.6mi with incline between 1-13. slow and steady
    2-nope
    3-nope
    4-nope
    5-hip and foot cramps, nope
    6-flare. jog or yoga tonight. not sure which
    7-4.11mi sprint intervals. it felt good.


    exercise.png



  • lps1dragonfly
    lps1dragonfly Posts: 111 Member
    Ran on the 5th about 2.5 miles with my C25K app. Need to get that run in today! Didn't do any training yesterday so I'm frustrated with myself for that. Got to get and stay on track! My 5K is on Sept 10th!!!
  • skippygirlsmom
    skippygirlsmom Posts: 4,433 Member
    Decided to take a rest day today since I had to be at work at 7:00 and need to cut the lawn(s) tonight. You know I need to post a picture.

    44dy5p5ardbu.jpg

    @juliet3455 thank you for the kind words on Skip. She is with her Coach today and while she was waiting for her at a local high school track she sent me a text.

    S: "Mom I'm waiting for Coach and the entire Columbia football team is here working out"
    K: "that's nice"
    S: "Momma you don't understand they are using the field inside the track"
    K: "well you don't plan to use that part do you"
    S: "Okay listen Linda (from the youtube video) THEY ARE ALL BIG HIGH SCHOOL FOOTBALL GUYS AND THEY WILL BE WATCHING ME PRACTICE".
    K: "and?"
    S: "LINDA!!!"
    S: "oh wait never mind - yeah me"
    K: "LOL I'm sure you'll work really hard today."
    S: "You're a mess mom"

    By the way if you haven't seen this video watch it, I love this kid.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZtH6sDUZlQ

    @elise4270 I have probably asked you this 1,000 times, but what company do you buy your headbands from again?
    @kristinegift hopefully their will be a nice breeze off the ocean on Saturday. Have you been to Belmar? Big party town, my friends and I used to rent a house there on the beach.
    @stoshew71 make sure you turn in your FF card, the card they handed you at the race is only good for 30 days (it is probably for $20, it says in the fine print) I think they are $25 for 1st $20 1st in AG, $15 2nd in AG and $10 3rd in AG. After you turn it in for the gift card those are good for I think 90 days.
  • TattooedDolphinGirl78
    TattooedDolphinGirl78 Posts: 5,214 Member
    edited July 2016
    Just found this thread!!! I'm in with 80 kms for July!

    I'm at 13.08 kms so far!

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  • WhatMeRunning
    WhatMeRunning Posts: 3,538 Member
    edited July 2016
    lporter229 wrote: »
    All of that is great info. I will probably end up buying a copy of that book. In your post you said that you could have been better served this past year by focusing less on LSD miles and incorporating more speed work. I think the opposite is true. I think you served yourself well by working on building that solid foundation because now you are in a prime position to push yourself and really get the most out of that speed work with less risk of injury. That is one of the main points of the 80/20 plan. It's quite important to have that solid foundation because you really need to maximize your effort to get the optimal benefit when training in that upper zone. You can only do this when you have built a solid foundation. Otherwise, even though your effort may seem hard, your performance will not be as solid.
    Actually that is what this book is saying too. That probably hasn't come across with the bits of info I have shared though.

    From one angle, this book was written for people who are athletes currently and are familiar with having VO2Max training sessions as part of their training program. It also suggests that people who have not trained regularly with such workouts recently should slowly build up to it, and likewise for beginners to first build an aerobic base and then gradually build in speed starting slowly and only increasing effort safely. However, it may not explain HOW to do that for a beginner (not sure as I am not in the training plans yet). Instead it is simply trying to explain the importance of having this sort of workout in your training routine, and particularly stressing how one should not ignore them or abandon them simply due to feeling older and slower or too frail to do so because that will just make you older and slower and more frail. A self-fulfilling prophecy basically.

    He even mentions 80/20, and even that the 20 percent is broken down and the really hard efforts like VO2Max are a very small portion of that (I think he said around 7% but don't quote me). All that sort of stuff will be made a bit more clear in Part 3 which I am not into yet.

    As for what I said about how I trained last year, I had built some aerobic base before last year when I trained for my first half marathon in 2014. It could have been improved, which I did last year, but ALL of my running last year was easy paced. It was really the only way I was able to build up the mileage to be able to pound out my 3 full marathons I ran last fall. If my focus had been different, I would have had to sacrifice those 3 full marathons, but would have been able to have a greater maximal aerobic capacity by now. So six of one and a half dozen of another basically. :smile: Long term though, my goal is to be as healthy and well rounded as a runner as I can, so going forward I am thinking I will put the "more, bigger, longer" running mindset aside and back down to a comfortable mileage volume where I can do a couple hard sessions per week (LT and VO2Max). That will serve my long term goals. I just need to figure out what my shorter term goals are going to be now, I guess. I could keep on the same track, but I have actually felt very good running these shorter distances at harder efforts, so I need to keep with that, I think.
  • 5512bf
    5512bf Posts: 389 Member
    7/1 - 11.5 - Easy
    7/2 - 5.86 - Recovery
    7/3 - 18.11 - Long Run
    7/4 - 2.0 - Strength Training Warmup
    7/5 - 9.0 - Tempo
    7/6 - 14.07 - Easy
    7/7 - 5.14 - Recovery

    total 65.67 of 289

    When I woke at 5 am it would have been real easy to roll back over and sleep in. My legs have been a tad heavy this week when I get up and this morning was no exception. But I've learned the hardest part of any run is getting your butt out of the door so off to the gym I went. Today was an active recovery day. Did 30 minutes on the elliptical getting warmed up for strength training then headed out for an easy 5 mile recovery jog. Heat and humidity seems to be a common complaint these days and today did not disappoint, 77 degrees and 85% humidity at 7am.

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  • greenolivetree
    greenolivetree Posts: 1,282 Member
    @skippygirlsmom My hubby has watched that Linda video so many times! I wonder what that kid is up to now....still arguing? LOL As far Skip, I'd never nervous too :-p

    @WhatMeRunning I'm not quite 35 yet but interesting info. I've already given consideration into how I want to stay active but I'm sure by the time I'm 50 there will be a whole bunch of new information :-D

    @TattooedDolphinGirl78 Welcome to the group!

    @Tweaking_Time I had to look up your greenery..... I think it's ground ivy. Pretty IMO but apparently people dislike it taking over their lawns.