April 2017 Running Challenge

3.2 tonight brings me to 71.6/100

I am actually being calmed down greatly to read how many of you are not meeting that long run=30% of total thing. Someone passed on that advice to me earlier this month when I solicited for half marathon advice. And I thought I was doing pretty good on mileage for the week, until I did the math earlier today and discovered I would need 10-15 more miles this week for that math to work out. And well, that frankly is not going to be possible. But, it is making me think through an actual plan for future weeks. So, maybe that will help.

BeeerRunner wrote: »

It's been super busy at work so I haven't been commenting much. I was at least reading until today, so now I'm really behind.

@Elise4270 OMG!! I found the perfect race that we have to do together. It's not until December, but it's called the POOP Race!!! Yes...POOP Race. It stands for Protect Our Oklahoma Parks. It's in Norman, OK at Lake Thunderbird State Park. Here's the website: https://pooptrailrun.org/

Get this...awards will be realistic scat models!! Female Masters will most likely be Cougar Scat!! Lol! I'm going to try my best to win that!! Lol!!

I hope you're in because this sounds so awesome!

Omg!!!!! That sounds great!!! Maybe I'll have some speed back and we both can go home with prized cat scats!!

I'm putting it on my calendar!!!

Elise4270 wrote: »

BeeerRunner wrote: »

It's been super busy at work so I haven't been commenting much. I was at least reading until today, so now I'm really behind.

@Elise4270 OMG!! I found the perfect race that we have to do together. It's not until December, but it's called the POOP Race!!! Yes...POOP Race. It stands for Protect Our Oklahoma Parks. It's in Norman, OK at Lake Thunderbird State Park. Here's the website: https://pooptrailrun.org/

Get this...awards will be realistic scat models!! Female Masters will most likely be Cougar Scat!! Lol! I'm going to try my best to win that!! Lol!!

I hope you're in because this sounds so awesome!

Omg!!!!! That sounds great!!! Maybe I'll have some speed back and we both can go home with prized cat scats!!

I'm putting it on my calendar!!!

@Elise4270 Yay!! I'll add it to my calendar too!! There's 2.5, 5.5, and 13.1 mile options. Hoping hubby and the kiddo will come along to do the 2.5 mile option. I want to try the HM. My son doesn't think fake Scat awards sound totally awesome. Not sure who he takes after!! Lol

April 1- 42.2
April 2- 7.6
April 3- 14
April 4- 13.4
April 5- Off
April 6- 10
April 7- 15.8
April 8- Sick baby, so much crying (only like 5% me)
April 9- 9.5
April 10- 15.5
April 11- 11.1
April 12- 7.3
April 13- Off
April 14- 15.7
April 15- 19.1
April 16- 7.4
April 17- 15.2
April 18- 19.1
April 19- Off
April 20- 15

237.9 km/300 km

4/1- 15.23
4/2- 3.14
4/3- 7.07
4/4- 3.69
4/5- 9
3/6- REST
4/7- 5.12
4/8- 17.58
4/9- 4.05
4/10- 7.13
4/11- 3.79
4/12- 9
4/13- REST
4/14- 17
4/15- 5.11
4/16- 4.06
4/17- 5.71
4/18- REST
4/19- 7.14
4/20- REST
4/21- 3.69

Total: 127.51

Monthly Goal: Stay "healthy" and get in good marathon training
Nominal Mileage goal: 191 miles.

Today's notes: Got up at 0414 and was running by 0425. Got my 3 easy miles done in 29:31 for an average pace of 9:42 and average HR of 150. It really was a nice, easy, run. Did my 4 strides right after, legs feeling a little sluggish, but strides are more about helping with form than just going fast, so that's OK.

2017 Races
6/16- William A Irvin 5k
6/17- Grandma's Marathon (Full!)
8/19- Rampage at the Ridge 5k OCR
9/23- Ely Marathon (full)
10/21 Wild Duluth 50k<- yeah, I'm crazy enough to go for it
11/23- TBD 5k Turkey Trot

@Orphia I'm not familiar with how Strava does this at all, but it looks to me like it is just correcting a previous over-estimation. Not that your fitness has gone down, but that the previous estimate was just too high.

@Orphia - I still haven't made much sense out of Strava's data yet so I have pretty much been sticking with my Sport Tracks data since it works for me and I'm already familiar with it. Strava has been telling me I should be so fatigued I should have broken both legs and died. I disagree 10000%. But I would say there are 3 main things that will cause this, not sure if any of these 3 help solve your mystery:

1. Your fitness has reached a plateau on your current schedule. Your fitness will remain relatively flattish or even go down unless you increase your training load to get it moving upwards to new levels. If you look at first of my Sport Tracks data snapshots below (the top one), you will see the section that is solid colored are the runs I have done, and the future scheduled ones to the right of that. On the gentle upward slopes the last 4 weeks were my 4 mile easy runs. Over the last week where you see the data trending flat is the same 4 mile easy run. The last two of these actually trend downward by 2 points meaning they are more "recovery" runs than training runs at this point indicating I could probably do more. If I did a solid week of easy 4 mile runs right now my fitness would actually go down. I'm not sure if this fits your schedule or not, but if you have been running similar distances (or farther) for a long enough period of time, then they will no longer challenge your fitness and your fitness may even decline some.

2. You are taking too many days off. While it may not feel like it, you actually lose quite a bit of fitness very quickly on days off. People complain about their first run back after a break as being tough, and when you see this in graph form it becomes apparent why. In the second snapshot below (the bottom one) I removed my planned runs over the next two weeks to compare the data. The first thing to note is that today is a rest day and you can see how much my fitness level dropped just today in both snapshots. In the bottom snapshot you can see how this continues dropping over the next two weeks. After this two weeks my scheduled workouts pick up and you can see the impact they have, and see how the slopes move up to catch up to where I was previously. While it shows my fitness catching back up after the same 2 week period, look at my performance. It is lower and steadily headed down because I had to take on extra fatigue to catch back up. I am far worse off obviously, and headed for injury as you can see my fatigue level steadily climbing at a higher rate than my fitness. That is a bad mix. Taking regular 2-3 days off in your schedule can make it really hard to keep your fitness level and could easily result in an overall drop, and the only way to keep it even is to take on a bunch of fatigue when you do run, which may mean more fitness, but no extra performance. You will perform at a flat level, just run further, and accumulate more fatigue than you should. Even too many 1 day breaks could do the same if too many of your runs are not all that challenging, as those runs just keep your lowered fitness at a level state, and the next day off lowers it again. For example if I did a series of 4 mile easy runs followed by a days rest, I would lose fitness quickly, losing fitness on the 4 mile run days, and then a bunch more on the next rest day. I may feel like I'm doing strong since I'm still running regularly, and probably feel really strong on my 4 mile runs, but that is just my increased performance from the reduced fatigue. Fatigue drops faster than fitness, so when you start sloping downward you feel strong. This is what makes keeping your pace down during a taper period or on race day so hard to do. You are at a new level of performance you are not accustomed to running with. You have a lot more "oomph" than before. Yet despite this added "oomph" my fitness is at an overall lower level and continuing to decline in that example of on/off 4 milers.

3. Your data is wrong. For this you have to compare some of your recent ones to matching runs a couple weeks back. Look for matching HR, pace, etc, and compare the suffer scores. The suffer score is what I believe Strava uses to determine training load which in turn results in fitness gains. While same pace/HR one day may not exactly match the next, it should be close. If things are way off recently, then something is wrong with your data resulting in skewed numbers on your graphs.

Hope this helps and you find an answer. I would find that terribly frustrating to feel I was putting in real effort but seeing data telling me I was losing fitness.

Have been working way too much to even post here, have like 15 pages to catch up on. I did get in 5 on Tuesday and 4 this morning.
45.3 of 60 miles

@BeeerRunner - HA! I totally want to run that!!!
@angmarie28 - Yay for you! Totally exciting!
@MNLittleFinn - I get that wear pattern, too. I think it is because I underpronate / supinate. It doesn't get quite as bad as that far edge for you, but I don't think it is a huge concern. If you are worried about it, hit the running store and ask them.

Everyone, thanks for all the insight regarding a full. Not sure about adding it yet, but strongly considering. It may hinge on my wife's new work schedule and how it impacts our family schedule. But, based on what everyone is saying, I think I could make the training work.

4/1 - 7.7 miles in sunny San Diego
4/2 - Travel day
4/3 - Rest day
4/4 - 5 comfortable miles.
4/5 - 4.4 miles.
4/6 - 5.05 miles.
4/7 - Unplanned rest day.
4/8 - 6.31 super hilly miles.
4/9 - Too many hills :-(
4/10 - 5 miles.
4/11 - 4.93 miles of track/speed work. Then upper body weights.
4/12 - 4.5 miles.
4/13 - 4.9 miles. Some hip soreness that I am going to have to keep an eye on.
4/14 - Unplanned rest day / life day / holiday prep.
4/15 - 9 mile group run. Hip not perfect, but improved.
4/16 - 5 miles. Ugh...too much buffet.
4/17 - Planned rest day.
4/18 - 4 miles of track/speed work. Then upper body weights.
4/19 - 5 miles.
4/20 - 5.1 treadmill miles. Trek class. Humid at the Y today!!
4/21 - 4.20 miles in honor of yesterday's "holiday"

@Orphia - In case it helps I added my Strava "Fitness and Freshness" snapshot to compare against Sport Tracks. The fitness graph pretty closely matches my Sport Tracks graph, and the Fatigue chart is pretty similar too, only grossly overstated in my opinion. What Strava calls "Form" does not quite match up to what is called "Performance" in Sport Tracks though. The only gripe I really have with Strava is the Fatigue as reported. Compared to how I am used to trying to keep my "Fitness" ahead of my "Fatigue", the way Strava lays things out I am always supposedly wiped out from so much "Fatigue". It's just a difference in how they report things, but I am not happy with having to guess how much my fatigue compares to my fitness in Strava whereas in Sport Tracks it is a lot more obvious. It's just a personal preference, and is why as I stated earlier I still rely on Sport Tracks for now as I'm not adapted to the Strava data yet (or too happy with it either, really).

@MNLittleFinn from your shoe picture it looks a lot like mine. I get the wear from when I walk in my running shoes (I tend to scuff my heels). I've never had it give me an issue though because I land in different places depending on if I'm running or walking.

3 miles yesterday, 4 miles today!

MNLittleFinn wrote: »

So, I was pulling out my beloved Brooke glycerin 13s to pack for my saturday run, and noticed this wear pattern on the left shoe. Something to worry about? Mainly thinking where the black is totally worn down on the outside of the heel. Right shoe has similar wear pattern, but it's not as far along.

@MNLittleFinn With a 10mm drop it's hard NOT to have heel wear. The outsole's purpose is to protect the midsole. If you're feet and legs feel find running in those, that's all that matters.

@kgirlhart Kudos for running in that heat!