carry your phone with you if you don’t have a watch. strava can track the distance and pace/time to give you an accurate estimate of what you time would be in the half. regardless, if your doing sub 7:00 min/mi pace, you’ll be fine in the race.
Hope everyone’s the running is going well 
A cheeky 10k for me this morning 3 weeks out from my half marathon and a nice PB* run. Officially my time was 35:57 but I had the course slightly short so carried on running until my Garmin hit the 10k mark in 36:32. I haven’t really raced any shorter races for some time and my previous best was 36:58 back in 2012 so it was a good run on what was a pretty windy morning. 
I’ve had a decent running block since January averaging 71k per week for the last seven weeks with a decent variety of sessions. Another couple of big weeks of running before a taper week and the HM.
Congratulations on that killer PR! My intermediate challenge I had set for a few weeks may not happen. I was supposed to do this with a buddy of mine, but he is getting ready for Boston so will be doing a marathon based speed session that weekend, so two hard tempo runs just isn’t in the books. Then after that there are too many races coming up to really put the full attempt in. Maybe next weekend if I’m feeling good, I’ll make the solo attempt.
Otherwise, running is going well, my ez runs have now changed quite a bit since adding in the VO2 work. Another reason for running by time is I’ve always noticed that when I start getting fitter and running the same distance in shorter time, I eventually plateau since that distance is now easier. Mileage is slowly increasing as paces are increasing. Have a tempo session as part of the plan next Thursday so that will be the real test of where I’m currently at.
I signed up to do a full OLY tri as a warm up race, figured I’m fit enough to handle the stress and it was only $10 more, plus my wife got us to go somewhere the next weekend with some friends, so I figured that it would be a better c race to go ahead and put in a bit more time at race pace if I’m going to be taking the next weekend easier than planned. Hoping to get a 40 minute run as part of that race. It is pretty flat, 2 loop out and back. Sub 40 is the real goal… so as long as my time is 39:xx and lower. That’s happening the day before Easter, so 1 month away.
I used to think this until I turned my long runs into adventures, voyages of discovery…ok, I may be over egging it a bit, but sometimes I’ve really had my eyes opened. Running home from work - 13.1 miles or 21km as it happens - really changed my worldview. Gone was the crush on the train, suddenly areas I knew only as linked by tube(metro) I understood above ground, I saw how many people actually walked home from the city, and ran through new areas and places I hadn’t been in years, since my childhood. It was quite emotional actually.
That was a few years ago, but even now I’m looking for new routes for 2-3hr runs - hence my getting lost in the lanes and fields in the pitch black the other night 
I totally agree with the idea of adventure long runs. Even if you’ve lived in the same place all your life, you can still find new places to explore.
I’m into looking for new shrines and temples on my long runs here in Japan. Say goodbye to long run monotony! A good podcast works wonders as well.
I found in my years of road running training that the longer runs were both an opportunity to explore places I’d never been to, even in my neighborhood, and also a time to just let my mind wander off - something you can’t do on a bike, you’d run off the road if you did. The mental benefits of these runs is difficult to describe, but easy to recognize.
Agree w/ the mind wandering. There are runs where I swear I have no idea how I got from point a to point b as I have no memory whatsoever of it. My Fenix, however, confirms that I maintained my pace so all was good in the end.
My mind wanders wherever I’m running. I get some of my best thinking done during that time!
I kind of fall into both camps regarding this. When I’m in the build to a race I like the familiarity of routine routes and runs. It’s easy to add loops or extend in some ways to increase mileage, or know that the progression will come from the same run as the previous week but with strides or a faster finish for example. It takes the thought out of what needs to be done.
Outside those periods I love to find new routes and places to run. I’ve lived in the same place for 20 years now and can still find new paths or runs that I haven’t done before which I always find surprising. I guess for me that is a sort of differentiation between ‘running’ and ‘training’ which take up different parts of the season.
That’s a fair point. On long runs where I’m looking to maintain a specific pace I prefer my tried and tested routes. Long easy runs are the time for my adventures!
I have been following the SSBHV plans since January, and as such haven’t run much even for pleasure. However, this week I was supposed to begin my build but due to some shipping wait times with parts I will probably not be able to ride until Thursday or Friday.
This just so happens to coincide with the warming weather in New England. Combined with having just watched the NCAA T&F Indoors I am really missing the track, and running.
I’m wondering if anyone has any suggestions as to some workouts I could do this week to slow significant general fitness loss? I will probably work in a long run or two, and am looking for some higher intensity workouts I could spike up for.
Depends on which part of the curve you want to work on… long(ish) and easy is obvious, then either some 30/30 short intervals (warm up, then 3x8x30s with 30s recovery, 3mins between sets), or longer intervals, like 4 or 5x 1km at 10k pace. Or easier still, just a long run with 5-10 mins slightly faster intervals.
Quick update, the fitness boost from the first 3 weeks of VO2 focus in build is starting to really show up in my run paces. This year I have been doing my endurance runs a lot easier than before, like 74-75% of max HR, so the low end of Zone 2, almost zone 1 by the Seiler article linked above, but I set up my garmin to the Norwegian HR zones of 72-82-92-max.
A few weeks ago, I had to purposefully try to slow down to keep my HR in check, now I am trying to keep up the effort so that I don’t go too low. As I’ve said I think in another thread, if my HR starts dropping during the long run and I’m not increasing the distance, it is then becoming too easy to maintain current fitness. I may get my long run up to 1:45 for a few weeks before the Half in September, but I’m going to keep it at 90 minutes for now.
Pace has gone down about 20-25 seconds per mile at the same HR. Hoping I can get another nice boost of 10-15 s for the same HR by the time the race season comes around. Definitely running faster as an easier effort than I ever have. I used to have an average HR that was about 10 beats higher, and controlling drift at that level was much harder than it is now. Now I’m getting almost no drift in HR.
Hi all,
Yesterday i ran a local 20 mile race, The Ashby 20. The sun decided to come out for me which was brilliant! I managed to do 2:44 hours which i was pleased with and felt much stronger and more comfortable than most other running i have done. I put this down to starting cycling/trainerroad 3 months ago!
I’ve been using HR to ensure my long easy runs don’t drift into zone 3 which i think has helped too!
Good luck with your training!
Nice running
That’s generally my main sign of progress. I tend not to do a great deal of maximal effort running as if negatively effects the rest of my training too much so seeing a lower HR over similar runs seems to be a decent proxy.
Some nice progress there.
Does anybody on here have any warm up and cool down routines they’d recommend?
I usually just just hop right into my run and call my WU the first 10minutes of slow pace. I know id be better off spending a few minutes doing a dynamic warmup but i slack. My brick runs just feel so much smoother than my base runs.
For cool down, I’ve simply been using a YouTube video from Yoga With Adrienne. Gets the job done; but was curious what other people did.
I normally start my run with some banded activation exercises to get things firing but have also been using the 7 minute pre/post run ones from Yoga with Adriene when I need to. There’s a longer runner/cyclist one that I have done when feeling particularly tight.
Almost all my running is easy pace, and time crunched, so I just run easy. If I do need to warm up for a 5 or 10k effort at race pace, I’ll do a 1k loop at RPE2 or walk/run or up to 20 minutes of easy running.
For a race, before the start line I’ll jog a few hundred meters, run perhaps 50m up to tempo race, and alternate until I feel fired up.
15 to 20 minutes easy, easy, easy pace. More like 15 for shorter workouts (15 warmup, 35 work, 10 cool down, longer for longer. A stretch session after the cool down.
This is more or less exactly what I do…
For endurance/easy runs, typically no warm up as it’s fairly easy by design. Harder, or more intense, I’ll do 1-2 miles easy before my main set/workout.
For races, easy job from parking lot to start line. Or a few strides before start.
I came across this thread while searching for suggestions or advice. For me, running is a close second when it comes to my “favorite” sport. It’s downright therapeutic for me. I try to get in at least one run per day if at all possible, and my regular distance is 5 miles at an aerobic pace. I have my pick of trails or flat routes, and switch up my routines pretty regularly. I sometimes run with others at lunch, sometimes early in the morning alone, and sometimes at night with my dog.
Can anyone give me some guidelines on how I should approach (or the potential pitfalls of) taking on a SSHV TR plan while adding in a daily run? To be honest, I have no goals around running except for the Hood to Coast relay later this year (which I’ve done before and doesn’t require a ton of fitness to complete). I race XC and STXC MTB, dabble in some Road, and am pretty serious about CX. I’m 44 years old, mid-pack Cat 3. I’ve raced bikes in some form or other for going on a decade now. I’ve looked at the Triathlon plans but I am not super interested in trying to add that level of complication to my daily runs.
Does anyone else do this? If so, do you do two-a-days as bricks, or…?
Thanks!